Chocolate Angel

Despite my previous failure with the pandan kaya cake the other time round, I'm proud to announce that I have boldly and sucessfully baked my first ever Angel food cake! And what better to top it with a good dose of chocolate ganache?



Phew, I was so nervous making this cake esp while whipping the egg whites, hoping that they would rise well. And rose well they did! Thanks to Gracio for providing the helpful link, I meticulously followed the instructions on whipping egg whites from baking911 and it all went well. Hohoho Gracio, Angie and Evan sis, I've done you girls proud haven't I? *winkz*



I also followed the Angel food cake and Chocolate ganache recipes from baking911 but I reduced the sugar in the Angel cake and chose a lower fat heavy cream for the chocolate ganache. The Angel cake was good, but still a tad too sweet, so I'm gonna reduce more sugar and add more flour the next time round. I'll also use 4% light whipping cream for the ganache next time round making it a really low fat dessert. The cake was a hit with Qin and her brothers tho, they totally loved it and it was quickly gobbled up.

Recipe:

Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:

7 egg whites
60 grams confectioners' sugar
50 grams sifted cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons cream of tartar
80 grams granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Steps:

1. About 1 hour before baking the batter, place fresh, cold egg whites in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer.

2. Pour the sifted confectioners' sugar, sifted cake flour, and salt into a triple sifter and sift onto a sheet of wax paper.

3. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 175°C.

4. In the bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and increase the speed to medium. Beat until soft peaks form. Continue whipping and gradually add the granulated sugar, until the whites thicken and form soft, droopy white peaks. Add the vanilla in the final moments of whipping.

5. Sprinkle one-quarter of the flour mixture over the whites, and with a rubber spatula, fold into the whites. Repeat this process with the remaining flour mixture, folding in only one-quarter at a time. Gently pour the batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan.

6. Bake until the top is golden and springs back when gently pressed with your fingers, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.

7. Invert the cake pan onto the neck of a bottle or funnel. Cool completely in the pan, 2 to 3 hours.

Chocolate Ganache:

Ingredients:

150 grams 53% cocoa chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream 32%

Steps:

1. Boil whipping cream at low heat till it starts to boil.

2. Remove and pour over chocolate chips and let it sit for 1 minute.

3. Stir with a spoon till thoroughly mixed

4. Place bowl in ice to cool the mixture and whip at medium speed when the mixture cools and stiffens.

Hot stuff

After reviewing Kok Kee's wanton mee at Lavender Food Square, which was totally awesome, we finally found the time to make our way down to one of our favourite wanton mee stalls which we frequent.



This stall called 51 Wanton egg noodles sells quite a variety of noodles and enjoys a bustling business which can be seen from the long queue. I'm not really sure about the opening time but the noodles usually sell out by around 1 - 2pm. So be there early!



Yum yum! This is the $4 plate. Oh, I forgotten to mention that the wanton noodles come in prices of $2.50, $3.50 or $4 and some other noodles served are mushroom and shredded chicken noodles, shrimp dumpling noodles and special noodles which consist of mushrooms, shrimps, shredded chicken and a few other ingredients. When you order the $4 portion, you also get a huge bowl of soup with more wantons.



The selling point of Kok Kee's noodles is it's special sauce, sweet and good. The selling point of this stall's noodles, however, is it's chilli sauce. The chilli sauce is somehow fried differently and differs from other normal wanton mee chilli sauce and it really compliments the base sauce very well. Not really sure how to describe the taste but the chilli is very fragrant and turns the base sauce into a thick, red, spicy, concoction that is simply kick ass!



The char siew is also roasted but lean! No fatty pieces for me uh uh. Coat it with the sauce for best results ;)



The wanton is pretty average but much improved from previously. It's not too bad either. Oh, have I suggested coating it with the sauce?

Please go try the noodles. Definately one of our favourite wanton noodles of all time!

Address:

#01-51

51 Wanton Egg Noodles

The stall is located at the upper food center (there's one on top and another at the bottom) beside Heartland Mall. In case I've left any readers puzzled where Heartland Mall is, it's just opposite Kovan MRT station and is along Tampines Road near Hougang.

(I'll try to get the address soon)


And yeah, some promotion for a Halloween party while we were there :)

Disaster after disaster

For the whole of last week I was craving Bengawan's pandan cake so much (they do have the BEST pandan cake IMO) that I decided to try baking it. Besdies, it's been quite a long time since I've baked anything and pandan cake sounds like a really good choice!

But as you can see, it didn't turn out so well and let me tell you why.

Firstly, everything was going fine until I added caster sugar instead of normal sugar to my egg white mixture! And I was beating at high speed for 40 minutes and the egg whites were still watery! Foamy but still watery, you get what I mean. If anyone wants to train their forearms, try holding an electric mixer on high speed for 40 minutes. I'm telling you, I felt like my arm was shot!

Any one knows what's going on?! Could it be the type of sugar used or any other factors? After 40 minutes, I gave up and just folded the egg whites into the pandan mixture and into the oven it went. I was afriad it wouldn't rise initially. However, it rose so high that a huge crack was formed and fell back when I took a out of the oven after 40 minutes. Once again, help please? Too much baking powder/soda or cream of tartar perhaps?



Next disaster, I left the coconut milk on the tabletop for an hour or two and when I poured it out, it was brownish! Taste test, still not spoilt so I used it. And when I added in my agar gar powder, guess what I saw!



There you go, a brown pandan cake. First time for everything aye?

After slicing off the top of the sponge cake and filling in the jam part, this is what it looked like. You can see that the sponge is a little dense because of the egg whites I think.



Suprisingly, it tasted really good! Not like a pandan cake but more like a kueh rather. The pandan was really fragrant but of course much more improvement is needed. I wonder what's wrong with me. When I bake a bread it becomes a cake and when I bake a cake it becomes a kueh.

Oh well, as long as it's edible and good :)

Recipe: (from Jodelibakery)

Ingredients:

For Pandan Chiffon Cake:

A:
100ml pandan juice (blend 6 pandan leaves with about 125ml water, strain)
4 egg yolks
90g castor sugar
160g all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder, sift with flour
1/2 tsp baking soda, sift with flour
1 tsp pandan essence
50g corn oil

B:
4 egg whites
60g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar


For Filling & Topping:

700g thick coconut milk
180g castor sugar
3 tsp agar-agar powder
1 tsp pandan essence
50ml pandan juice (prepare early together with pandan juice in A)
6 tbsp green bean (Hoen Kwe, green coloured) flour
Desiccated coconut (for topping)

Method:

To prepare pandan chiffon cake:
Add all ingredients in (A) and mix well until the mixture is smooth and consistent.

In a separate clean mixing bowl, whip egg whites and cream of tartar of Ingredients B at medium speed until the egg whites are bubbly. Add sugar and whip at high speed until stiff peaks form.

Fold 1/3 of whipped egg whites into mixture of Step 1. Then, pour this mixture to the remaining egg whites in the other mixing bowl. Fold lightly to combine both mixtures.

Pour this combined mixture into a 9-inch round cake pan. Bake at a preheated over at 170 deg C for 40-45 minutes.
As soon as the cake is removed from oven, quickly invert the pan and let it cool.

When the cake is completely cool, run a knife around the sides of pan to remove the cake. Slice cake into 3 layers.

To prepare filling & topping:

Dissolve green bean flour into the pandan juice. Make sure the flour is fully dissolved and not lumpy.

Add coconut milk, castor sugar, agar-agar powder and pandan essence into a pot. Heat with a low fire. Keep stirring with a whisk while heating.

When milk is just about to boil, turn off the fire. Pour in the green bean flour mixture. Stir well.

Allow this pandan kaya filling to cool down slightly and thicken. Stir (with a whisk) while cooling.

Spread some filling onto the first layer of cake. Top with the second layer of cake. Repeat until you have 3 layers of cake and two layers of filling. Coat the whole cake with the remaining pandan kaya filling.

Sprinkle/lightly press desiccated coconut on top and around sides of cake.

Home cooked Sunday

For nearly the entire of this month, we having been eating out, eating out... and eating out. I'm sick of eating out !!!

Well, actually no. But that's not the point. The point is, eating out costs money. And money, is hard to come by when a certain dumb organization pays you an amount so puny that a garang guni man would snicker at. So much for slavery...

So we decided to stay home and cook today since it's been a long time since I've seriously cooked dinner. Don't get me wrong here, Mr. Yummy dummy ain't no chef, but his dishes... uhm.. still can pass! :)

All these for 10 dollars:

Stir-fried dou miao



I simply boiled the dou miao till its 80% cooked. Next, fry 1-2 tbsp of chopped garlic and add the dou miao in when the garlic start to exude its fragrance. Add in 2 tsp of oyster sauce and 2 tsp of light soya sauce and approx 2 tsp of fish sauce and viola!

Next, I bought this vegetable from the supermarket. I'm not really sure what it's called but I can vaguely recall having it before and I think it's quite common in chinese restaurants.





Sweet and sour chicken



I'm quite proud of this dish because I came up with the recipe myself! No online searching or whatever and it really taste good. Not like your usual sweet and sour chicken of course but it's worth a try :)



1) Marinate chicken pieces (breast or thigh will be fine) with 1 tbsp light soya sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp sugar and 2 tsp corn starch.
2) Stir fry garlic and onions
3) Add in chicken and cook till 60%. Alternatively, you may fry your chicken beforehand if you like it to be more fragrant and slightly crispy.
4) Add in chopped tomatoes and sauce.
5) Let it cook till sauce is reduced to a paste.

This is a simpler version, you can also add in capsicum, chillies, pineapples etc.

Sauce recipe:
2 tbsp maggi chilli sauce
4 tbsp maggi tomato sauce
2 tbsp Sweet n Sour sauce
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp water

Lastly, stir-fry tempeh.



I'm still refining the recipe for the tempeh and I hope I'll be able to cook it well and publish the recipe soon!

I love cooking actually but I never ever seem to get it "right". My mum is such a wonderful cook but I guess I just don't have the chef genes in me Haha!

Btw, Happy Birthday Dad! Hope you had a great day and a wonderful steamboat! One more year older, don't swing so hard on the golf course okay? Haha, to the world's best Dad, Cheers!

Comments please?

Hello dear readers!

I, the Mr. Yummy dummy, am requesting your help or rather, your recommendations.

Qin and I will be celebrating our birthday next month and we are thinking of going to an international buffet. Currently, we are considering Melt at the Oriental.

Therefore, anyone who happens to pop by and has any recommendations for good buffet (any kind)or opinions on Melt at the Oriental please do leave a comment!

Requirements: Below $55 per pax
MUST HAVE A KICK ASS DESSERT SECTION (Very important!)

Good food. Good price.

Any guesses which cafe this wall decor belong to? No prizes for guessing tho :)

Although I'm preeetty sure most of you may already know which cafe I'm talking about.



Yup! It's Miss Clarity Cafe which is often blogged about by thebakerwhocooks for their reasonable prices and good food.

Being around the Bugis area with a growling tummy and a need to try something different, Miss Clarity Cafe came to mind. Of course, it definately helped that their prices are reasonable when our wallets are already running out of cash.

The first thing that caught my eye were the desserts at the front of the cafe. I'm not sure of the names but the chocolatey ones really looked tantalizing. Proceed in and you will be greeted by a table filled with magazines for your reading pleasure.

The interior of the cafe is quite narrow and is decorated with pictures of uhm... just look at the first pic. The menu is also written and designed in a cheerful manner with bubble wordings and bright colours. Being such a small cafe, it's quite suprising that the menu offers such a wide range of food! And not the usual boring spaghetti and sirloin steak mind you. They really do have interesting items which I can't really recall now. Plus, I think their desserts are quite affordable too with a warm apple pie going for $2.50 or an added $1.50 for a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

We initially ordered Oxtail stew, Beef baked rice and Chicken Ballotine but unfortunely, they ran out of Beef Baked Rice so we just went ahead with the remaining two.



This is the first time I'm having Chicken Ballotine and I seriously have no idea what Ballotine means. Any clue, D? :P Well, anyways, it's oven baked (really healthy) chicken thigh stuffed with golden mushrooms and served with baked potatoes. the chicken and sauce are quite well made but what I love about the dish were the baked potatoes. I think they boiled it, baked it and then pan fried it. Umm, yummy.

The Oxtail Stew was not too bad either. Qin said it was good but I felt that it's just average. Btw, you can choose to have it served with either bread, pasta or rice.





Quite a good meal I might say and guess how much the bill came up to?

$17! I think that's pretty cheap for two person eating out. And the food is good too! If you guys decide to drop by, they do have a new menu which features some pretty interesting stuff which you can read on thebaker's blog. Plus, they also have a new website, www.missclaritycafe.com,so feel free to see what they have on their menu.

Address:

Miss Clarity Cafe
5 Purvis Street
Tel: 6339-4803
Open 7am to 11pm

Healthy Brekkie

Bet you've heard of the phrase "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day". Well, it is! A good healthy, hearty breakfast never fails to start your day in a good way and makes you more energetic even. Not mentioning that people who eat breakfasts consume less calories for the rest of the day which in turn results in weight loss! So if you are looking to lose some flab, eat your breakfast *Wink*

My daily breakfast usually consists of cooked oats with honey and the occasional packet of raisins. Last Friday night, however, Qin and I were shopping in Carrefour when we spotted this.



Tortilla wraps! It looked pretty interesting so into the grocery basket it went!

So for the next three days, this was what I had for breakfast. Yup, I didn't know what tortillas were supposed to contained so I just threw in some eggs, spinach, onions, tomatoes and topped it up with some Lingham Chilli Sauce and Dijonnaise mustard.



Ahhh, Dijonnaise mustard, a 50% mix of mayo and Dijon mustard but without the fat. A worthy indulgence.

Today, I also added semi-dried tomatoes which went suprisingly well with the tortilla! Adding some of the slightly sourish yet flavoursome red pieces simply made my breakfast even better.



Unfortunately *tears rolling down cheeks*, after three days of tortillas my skin broke out in rashes. Its got to be the wheat! Darn, now I've to cut back a little...

Granny: Back from Japan!

Yes, dear readers, I'm more than glad to announce that my grandma is back from her trip in Japan and is once again whipping up nice and scrumtious dinners for me! *Huge grin*

Look at what awaited us when we popped by on Thursday!



Oooo, look really good doesn't it. Lets break them down individually shall we?

First and foremost, roast duck which she always buys. Goes great with the chilli she makes!


Next up! Steamed prawns with egg and tomatoes specially for Qin cause grandma knows she love prawns. Therefore, she always cooked an entire plate for her everytime we pop by!


Steamed red snapper with plum and tomatoes and topped with chilli. I love the broth, really yummy and not too salty. I dip it with everything.


Fried fish balls and prawn paste in ngoh hiang skin.


And of course, some mixed vegetables for the veggie boy in me :)


Lastly, Yong Tau Hu soup.



To compliment the food, she made this kick ass chilli which never fails to whet my appetite. It's made from green mangoes, dried shrimps, chilli and sugar. It's sweet-sourish and is really good. I even eat it own it's own!

Other than the food, guess what she brought back from Japan for me?

Hokkaido red beans!



Check out the size of those beans, they're humongous!

After dinner we went to make some red bean paste and glutinous rice balls. It's interesting how her method of making red bean paste differs on what we find on the internet. Firstly, the red beans are soaked overnight and cooked till soft. Next, over a sieve, use hands to mash the red beans while adding water. This will leave you with the skin left behind and a watery red bean solution in the bowl below.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Rather than stirring the solution over low heat like commonly called for, the solution is poured into a cotton sieve and the water squeezed out of it, resulting in dry blocks of red bean.



Next, simply add the same weight of sugar to the blocks (I used approx. 30% lesser) and cook it over medium-low heat whilst stirring constantly till all the sugar melts. You can then add in some oil to improve the texture.




Tada! A good big tub of red bean paste which we made glutinous rice balls with. Oh ya, don't forget to let the red bean paste sit for a few days to let the flavour develop!





Oops! Gotta run now, heading to granny's place for some home-made mee siam. Cya!

Kok Kee Wanton Mee

Wanton mee has always been one of our favourite food and Qin is totally crazy over it. Needless to say, we do have our own favourite stalls which we patronise from time to time and a huge list of wanton mee stalls which we haven't tried because we were always procrastinating!

Besides, I don't really know how to drive to most of the places anyway *grin*.

I still remember sometime back when Qin's dad bought a packet of wanton mee home. Due to the mee being kept in the packet for a long time, it was already "fattened" and softened after soaking up all the sauces. However, it still tasted superbly good! What struck me was how good the sauce was, after being soaked into the noodles and making it so flavourful, something I have never tasted before.

Sadly, we never really had the chance to try it upfront as Qin's dad don't know the actual name of the place and all attempts at describing the place simply left me more confused than ever.

So it was quite a coincidence that thebaker posted a post on Kok Kee Wanton Mee located at Lavender Food Square and Qin recognised it as the one her dad went to!

Bingo!

As mentioned in thebaker's blog, the queue was long because of people ordering multiple packets. The noodles are also quite pricey at $3 with only a small handful of noodles. But, it's definately worth it.


This is the $5 plate after adding extra noodles and cha siew. The clear sauce is a gem in disguise.

Noodles are firstly cooked in hot water and then soaked in cool water and then back to the hot water it goes before finally landing on your plate. I guess the different temperatures make the noodles more springy and not mushy when cooked for too long.

In this case, however, the sauce is the speciality. The usual sauces are mixed into the noodles and then drained out again and a "special" stock; which we spotted having soy beans and ikan bilis, was added. Upon tasting, I could declare that it was the best wanton mee I've ever eaten. The sauce was seriously good with a slight sweetness and a hint of Hsing Tao wine in it.

Total distinction.

The noodles were bouncy and smooth and the wanton was smooth to the bite. The chilli was also good but lets just put it this way; you don't even need chilli for this wanton mee.

Wanton mee lover or not, just try it once and you'll be a fan. I'll definately be going there again and friends of mine, don't worry cause I'll surely bring you there!

Address:
Kok Kee Wanton Mee
Lavender Food Square, #01-06
380 Jalan Besar
Opening hours Noon - 2am, closed every three weeks on Wednesdays and Thursdays

The French Stall

Believe it or not, I have never tried French cuisine before and I think the closest I've ever come to are French fries. So I was pretty excited for the whole of yesterday because Qin was going to treat me to French Cuisine for dinner. And an authentic one at that! My first thoughts of French cuisine were small pieces of food on ridiculously large-sized plates with sauce dribbled sporadically accompanied with sky high bills! But glad to say, the place we visited yesterday serves up authentic French cuisine at a reasonable price with appropriate portions.



The French Stall, located at 544 Seragoon Road, is opened by Mr Xavier Le Henaff and is a cross between a French Restaurant and a French coffeehouse. Before that, Mr Xavier was a chef with a 5-star hotel in Madina with customers including the President and the Prime Minister. Woah, quite impressive huh?

First impression of the place gives me a feeling of a club-house kind of non-air conditioned restaurant with orange lights giving it a comfortable feel. Not bad. The walls were also "decorated" with various publications the French Stall had been featured in including AsiaOne, Elle, 8-days etc. Service was also good and the staff will gladly explain the menu which is written in both English and French.

So lets get down to the food shall we? Qin had the set meal ($14+) which lets you choose from 3 main courses and comes with Soup of the Day and Creme Caramel for dessert but we had it changed to French Onion Soup and Chocolate Souffle. This can be done but at an additional price. We also had Mussels in white wine sauce ($6+) and I ordered Steamed Marinated Salmon with Sun Dried Tomatoes ($18+) since I've been longing to try sun dried tomatoes.

The French Onion Soup was very interesting and its the first time I saw something like that! Two slices of baguette with mozarella cheese were soaked in the soup which was filled with stir-fried onions. The soup tasted great and didn't had an overwhelming onion flavour. The bread, having been soaked with soup, was flavourful and soft with the cheese still being soft and stringy.




I didn't really like the Mussels in White Wine Sauce cause of its strong taste. Qin said they were fresh though.



This was Qin's main course which was Chicken Leg with Rosti and some sauce (I forgot the name). The sauce was a little sourish and went really well with the Rosti which was really really good. Crispy at the bottom and soft at the top and not too greasy. Uhmm... even I who wasn't a potato person kept sneaking in a few mouthfuls. The chicken was too dry though and wasn't that nice.




Finally, my Salmon with Sundried Tomatoes. The salmon didn't really tasted like it had been marinated and tasted quite bland actually but the sun dried tomatoes, being a little sour and quite refreshing, added flavour to it. Eating the tomatoes with the spinach was also suprisingly good!



Ah ha! Dessert! I've read about Chocolate Souffle but never had the chance to try it before. Sad to say, I didn't really like it. The spongy top gives way to a mousse-like center which tasted like cocoa powder to me. Nah, not for me.



All in all, the bill came up to just $50. Not too bad for 2 right? Do pay this place a visit, especially now during Deepavali when you can walk to Little India and visit the various street stalls. Qin even got herself a Henna done :)



Address:
The French Stall
544 Serangoon Road (near Sturdee Road North)