Belated Valentine's dinner

I tend to avoid doing restaurant reviews in this blog for a couple of reasons. One, there are soooo many others doing that, and they are much better at it than I am. Two, coming here as a student with a student budget & student friends didn't really equal to dining in interesting restaurants, mostly the usual cheap eats, chinatown or budget pasta restaurants where all the students seem to go to. Only now, with a steady income, I started trying new stuff.. plus, all my friends are generally working now, so we start to move pass that budget living and start enjoying life, still nothing too fancy I'm afraid. Something slightly better to satisfy my foodie appetite. Unless, in my case, when the parents come to visit. Or what I like to refer as "my walking ATM machine". Especially when my dad visits, he always love trying new restaurants, and what makes him my favourite is because he always said "let's go eat at some place that you normally can't afford, while i'm here", ahh, those words to me are magic. Extensive research through The Age Good Food Guide always in order before he arrives. He's the reason I ever set foot inside Vue de Monde. Finally, the biggest reason why I'm reluctant to do reviews is because I still feel awkward pulling my camera and snapping away everytime the food arrives at the table. Especially in fancy restaurants!!However, I felt I owe my restaurant knowledge to these blogs that do restaurant reviews. I felt that I should pay my contribution to pass on my experience, eventhough it's only my personal opinion.

Last Friday night, M and I had our belated Valentine's dinner. Not because we were too busy that we put it of almost a month later, we just like to avoid the Valentine's rush. This is how we normally celebrate Valentine's day, a flower for me, and a nice quiet dinner a week after. We always try to look for something new that we never tried before. Well, this would mostly be on my part, he is not fuss about the type of restaurants, as long as it's not gonna cost him and arm and a leg. After much consultation hours in various blogs and my trusty little foodie bible The Age Good Food Guide, I condures up a little list of restaurants I find interesting and worth trying. Amongst them are The Italian, The French Brasserie, Panama Dining Room and Matteo's. The French & Italians are quite pricey, and considering my budget this month, I decided to put it aside. I'm leaning towards Matteo the minute I read their menu and see "Oysters in six ways". My favourite!!




You can imagine my rage when I look at the menu on the day, and that appetizer is none existence!! What a way to ruin my mood! But I was already hypnotize from the ambience of the restaurant. From the outside, it's nothing to be impressed about, Matteo's is located in the middle of residential area in Fitzroy North where it's habitant is more quirky than posh. So to have a sleek decor with warm purple tone throughout is quite a nice surprise. Their food was fantastic too! I read in the book, Matteo's take pride in serving modern Western dishes with a slight Asian edge. Even the bread basket had an asian touch to it. Instead of the usual olive oil dip, there's a sprinkling of what it appears to be some dried wakame with toasted sesame seed. Sprinkle that on top of your butter on a crusty artisan bread and your tongue is happily dancing around in seaweed heaven.



We ordered the fish plate for appetizer served three ways (no photos of this I'm afraid, I was too busy eating). all three of them had a very unique and tasty dressing one is more thai oriented, one Japanese with a definite hit of wasabi, and one is chinese. yum yum yum.. For the main course I ordered the wagyu beef with pea mash and wagyu croquette and M had the sesame glazed Balmain bug tails, seared scallops & veal sweetbreads in a Yakitori sauce, Asian coleslaw with shredded pork & jellyfish (minus the pork of course). He didn't feel like ordering dessert, but being the sweet tooth, I ordered the warm, dark chocolate fondant pudding, coconut milk gelato. I had doubts of the coconut milk gelato, but boy was I mistaken.. It was DELISH! very creamy and light, a perfect compliment for the rich, sultry, gooey chocolatey goodness of the fondant. To wrap things up, M had a glass of latte and he said it was really good coffee. I can only sniff it's aroma since I'm giving up coffee as one of my things to sacrifice during lent.



Matteo's
533 Brunswick St
Fitzroy Ph: (03) 9481 1177

This is why...

This is why I almost missed this month's DB challenge.
This is why I only get 2 hours of sleep last Saturday
This is why I have a huge dent on my savings
This is why I was happy last Saturday..


No... I didn't get married...

These are the two icing sugar figurine I made last Saturday. I found some great baking workshop at the Greensborough cake decorating centre. And this bride and groom workshop, was my first.. I never had any proper training in baking. The thought to become a professional patisserie chef had crossed my mind more than a dozen time. I have been passionate about baking and desserts for as long as I can remembered, but I'm afraid of taking the fun out of it if I become a professional and have to do it everyday, then it will become a routine. Or.. It's plain cowardliness... and.. I don't think I can say goodbye to the hustle and bustle of an office, the 9-5 work, dressing in stilettos and pencil skirts. I know, I'm a freak! So, these workshops and numerous cake, pastry & chocolate one day courses is my way to satisfy my passion in baking.

Since mid last year, I've done around 6 courses related to baking and dessert making. I enjoyed every last bit of them. Looking at the dent on my savings because of it on the other hand, I'm not particularly happy about. Finding these workshops as quicker & relatively cheaper version, makes me very happy.


I don't do a lot of work with icing sugar before. The bow I did for my wreath cake is about the most encounter with icing sugar decoration I have ever had. I did enroll for a cake decoration class that covers all sugar & fondant works, but it is not till April. So with little to no knowledge in working with icing sugar, I went to this workshop. It runs for 2 hours for 2 Saturdays.. and last Saturday was the last one. Even from the first class I felt lost. The minute she mentioned CMC, my mind goes "CM.. whaa?". Turns out that's the stuff that will make your icing to harden. No wonder my bow was slowly deflating even though I left it to dry for almost 2 days. But.. the confusion didn't stop there. I was sooo worried when my groom shows obvious wrinkles when he dries. The teacher said it might have been my kneading.. My favourite one was when she said "You all must know how to make a piping bag out of parchment paper by now?" I guess I can.. If you call making a cone out of baking paper and stapling the two ends together is a piping bag.. Didn't want to be a smart ass, I started shaking my head. She was quite stunned. Haha.. turned out 4 out of 6 of us didn't know how *phew*. Gosh, don't I have a lot to learn.



Though both of them turned out superrr cute, there's a lot of room for improvements. The grooms suit is a definite one with the wrinkles. Her dress is much better, but her boobs.. oh her boobs.. don't get me started on her boobs. Theoretically, putting her boobs so close together when she's naked is ok, but when you actually put the dress on stlightly higher than it should be and forgot to shape her body before the icing dried up, her boobs looked weird. It looked like she squashed her boob with a very bad push up bra!! One more thing, I wished I had taken more time drawing the eyes, the bride has eyes that are located on her cheeks, and the groom.. he looked a little too feminine. Oh hell, I can list ten more things that are not right about them. I'm just being too hard on myself. For a first try, I should be quite happy with myself. Just practice, practice, practice..

P.S: please don't mind the blue hue in my photos.. I was using my friend's camera since I still can't find my charger, and wasn't really sure how to set the WB.. but now I know how *too late like always*.

Valentino cake - DB February 2009 Part deux

As promised, here's the one paired with the champagne sorbetto. I also managed to take some more pictures of the ones with the vanilla ice cream. Had fun playing with all the different ramekins. A good friend of mine gave me a champagne called "Asti" so I made the cork a feature in the photo. Apparently, "Asti" is a type of Italian sweet grape used to make wine and champagne.


My sorbetto turns out pretty white, not the same as the picture in the recipe book. Perhaps it's the type of champagne that I used or I may have whisked it too much. Anyways, it still tasted great, and a perfect pairing for the Valentino cake. Nothing spells Valentine better than champagne, chocolate and strawberries.

P.S: One thing I forgot to mention, I used Lindt Couverture 65% bittersweet chocolate for my Valentino Cake.
Champagne Sorbetto (I got the recipe from an ice cream book by Octopus publishing, it didn't really say who wrote it)

125g sugar
150ml water
150ml champagne
juice of 1/2 lemon

Put sugar and water in a heavy saucepan and cook until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and cool.
Stir champagne and lemon into the sugar syrup. Pour into a shallow container and let freeze. After a few hours, when mixture is starting to freeze in the edges, whisk or process until smooth to break the ice crystal. Put back to the freezer and repeat this step 2 or 3 more times until creamy, smooth and lighter in colour.

Valentino cake - DB February 2009

I finally made it. I almost missed this month's challenge, but last night I finally squeeze it in. I was really excited about this challenge when I first read it on the daring baker's kitchen, but ended up pressed for time to actually get it done before the due date. These two days I have been going back and forth on participating or actually sit this one out. Last night, while watching CSI and waiting my bread to prove, I decided to make the cake.

I made champagne sorbet, but it is still currently sitting in my freezer. I wanted to take some photos with it this morning, but it was really dark & gloomy this morning. I couldn't get enough lighting in my kitchen to take a decent photo. I always avoid using flash, since I don't like the effect it's doing when it comes to food photography. And secondary lighting is just out of the question since I don't have a desk lamp that is bright enough to do the job. My house is very windom limited you see. The only windows are in the bedrooms, and my bed is positioned beside the window, it's very hard to set up a proper table with it on the way. There's finally enough light at around 8am, so I only have around 40-45 mins to spare till I have to rush to work. So, here it is with my leftover vanilla ice cream, I will post more pictures tomorrow morning. hopefully the weather is better.

The cake itself is very nice and very simple to make, not the best one I had I must say. But this month's challenge is very exciting as it opens to endless possibilities. I especially love it as it gives me a chance to experiment with different flavours of ice cream. I like the champagne sorbet better paired with the choc cake. The sourness and freshness of the sorbet balanced the cake perfectly. Whereas the vanilla ice cream tends to add more richness to an already rich dessert. But in winter nights, I wouldn't mind having this cake warm with a big scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. Yumm..

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.

We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Chocolate Valentino

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped ½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter

5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration} 8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C 9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.

Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

For the Vanilla ice cream recipe, you can find it in David Lebovitz's blog here

For making the ice cream without an ice cream maker the David Lebovitz way, you can find detailed step by step instruction here

Please stay tune for the one with champagne sorbet.. Thanks again for the tasty challenge. Looking forward for next month's and hopefully my timing is much much better.

Mango mirror cake

This is my third birthday cake this month. This time is for my all time friend, one of my first friend in Melbourne. We went to college together, took the same subjects in Uni, used to live 10 doors away, sometimes my personal shopper and chauffeur.. our fondness memories together would be sleeping on beanbags in the computer labs during our last weeks of uni.

He has been a sweet tooth, even worst than me at times, so he loveeesss cake. Last year I made him a passionfruit sponge cake, but this year he requested a mango mousse cake. I decided to try strawberry mirror cake and substitute the strawberry for mango.

I first saw this cake from the food blogs I have become addicted to when they did the cake for one of the Daring baker's challenge. The cake itself is quite fiddley to make, but the result is sooo worth it. The bavarian cream is so silky smooth and creamy without being too rich. And it is the perfect pairing for the light sponge cake base. I would say that this sponge cake is becoming one of my favourite as the base for cakes. The shiny gelee on top of the cake gives a sweet touch to the cake, and a perfect canvas for any decorations. I didn't have time to make chocolate decorations, so I decided to use leftover's from the green tea-ramisu. One thing that I found disapointing is how soft the cake is, first I wanted to put half cut mango for decoration, but the weight is squashing the cake, so I opt for slices of mango instead. Perhaps I should use a stronger gelatine next time.

I'm still kicking myself for loosing my camera's battery charger. It was on its final breath when I capture this cake. So the quality is seriously lacking. These two might be the better ones out of the bunch.

Mango Mirror Cake (Adapted from Cakes and Pastries At The Academy by the California Culinary Academy 1993)

3 eggs
3 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
2 TBSP sugar
2/3 cup sifted cake flour
½ cup water
1/3 cups sugar
2 TBSP cointreau or any fruit liqueur

Mango Bavarian Cream
2 ½ TBSP unflavored gelatin
1 ½ cups strained mango puree(around 1 mango)
5 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 ½ cups milk
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 ¾ cups whipping cream

Mango Mirror
1 tsp lemon juice
1 TBSP kirsch
1 TBSP water
1 TBSP unflavored gelatin

Mango Juice

1 mango
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup water

1.Preheat oven to 450F. Butter and flour the sides of an 11-by-17 inch jelly roll pan(rimmed baking sheet). Line bottom of pan with a sheet of parchment paper cut to fit bottom pan exactly.
2.Beat eggs, egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar together in a medium bowl until thick and light. Beat in the vanilla.
3.In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy, ad cream of tartar and beat until whites begin to form peaks. Add the 2 TBSP sugar and beat until the whites hold stiff, glossy peaks(do not over beat).
4.Sift flour over the egg yolk mixture and fold in . Stir in one fourth of the whites. Then carefully fold in the remaining whites.
5.Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake until light brown and springy to touch(7 to 10 minutes). Cool in pan 5 minutes. Run a knife along edge to loosen. Invert cake tin to cut out 8 ¼ inch circles of cake. Wrap the cake layers, separated with waxed paper, and set aside. Cake may be frozen at this point.
6.To make soaking syrup: Combine water and the 1/3 cup sugar in saucepan; bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Cool to room temperature; flavor with liqueur. Set aside or refrigerate in glass jar until ready to use.
7.To assemble cake: Brush sides of 10-inch springform pan lightly with flavorless salad oil or almond oil. Cut out a cardboard circle that is exactly the same size as the bottom inside of the pan; cover cardboard with aluminum foil and fit into bottom of pan. Center one layer of the cake bottom of pan. Brush the cake with some of the soaking syrup to just moisten(not drench) the cake; set aside.
8.Prepare Mango Bavarian Cream. Immediately pour about half of the Bavarian Cream over the first layer of cake in the pan. Set the next layer of cake on top of the cream. Pour remaining Bavarian Cream over cake and smooth top of the cream with spatula. Refrigerate until the cream sets(1 to 2 hours).
9.Prepare the Mango Mirror.
10.To serve: Wrap a hot towel around the outside of springform pan for a few minutes. Run a small sharp knife tip around the edge of the Mango Mirror to separate it form the sides of pan. Mirror will tear when sides are unlatched if it is stuck at ANY point. Slowly unlatch the pan and slide it off the cake. Slice cake in wedges and serve in upright slices.

Prep Work

Mango Bavarian Cream
1.Sprinkle the gelatin over the mango puree in a small bowl and set aside until spongy.
2.Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl’ beat until light. Bring milk to a boil in sauce pan. Pour hot milk into yolk mixture ans stir with a wooden spoon(it doesn’t say so but I would temper the egg mixture first to be safe). Return this mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until your finger leaves a clear trail in sauce when drawn across the back of the spoon.(Do not boil or mixture will curdle.) Immediately remove from heat and stir in softened gelatin mixture. Pour into a stainless steel bowl places over a bowl of ice water. Stir in lemon juice and a few drops of red food coloring. Cool over ice water, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens to the consistency of softly whipped cream.
3.White gelatin mixture is cooling, whip the whipping cream until it holds soft peaks. When the gelatin mixture resembles softly whipped cream, fold the whipped cream into the gelatin mixture.

Mango Mirror
1.Prepare mango juice.
2.Place lemon juice, kirsch, and water in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over this mixture; set aside until spongy and soft.
3.Measure 1 ½ cups mango juice into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer; pour over gelatin mixture and stir to dissolve gelatin. Place bowl over bowl of ice water and stir occasionally until the mixture is syrupy and just beings to thicken(do not let jell); remove from ice water.
4.When mixture is syrupy, pour a 1/16-inch layer over the top of cake. Refrigerate until set.

Mango Juice

Peel and cut mango into 3cm cubes, coarsely chop. Place mangoes in saucepan; crush to start juices flowing. Place over low heat; add sugar and water; simmer slowly 10 minutes. Pour juice and pulp through damp jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander and drain into a bowl for 15 minutes(Do not press down on fruit).

Where can it be?

I'm close to tears. I can't find my camera's battery charger. I've looked everywhere. High and low, left to right, but it just won't reveal itself. I first realized it just before I went on my trip, but during that chaos, I decided just leave it for now and look for it when I'm back. I was soooo sure I left it either in M's house or at my friend's house, coz that's when I last remembered charging my camera.

Now my camera is totally flat. I have already lost the opportunity to take a shot of the cake I made for my friend yesterday. I borrowed M's digital pocket camera, but the result just doesn't compare at all!!

I will definitely need my camera for tomorrow, since it's almost submission time for the Daring Baker's February challenge. Argghhh... only if I wasn't completely broke at the moment, I'd buy a new charger.

A makeover

Okay.. I cheated a little bit.. the last two posts was published not on their respective dates. I had to postpone their publish date coz I'm in the middle of re-vamping this blog.

I finished the background, although it still needs some minor tweaking here and there, and in the progress of making the banner. I usually can whip something very quickly, but it's been crazy at work and the newest distraction from playing cooking mama on my recently purchased Nintendo DS doesn't really helped.

Hope you like my new look, and stay tuned for more.

The day after

I'm feeling very lazy today.. I was suppose to meet the girls for a Sunday brunch at the newly opened gourmet food store Jones the Grocer in Chadstone. But my eyes just refused to be open in this warm Sunday morning. When I texted the girls and only got one reply (which means the others are not up yet), I went back to La la land and continue snoozing. After running around all over Victoria from farmer's market at Caulfield in the morning, sugar modelling course at Greensborough, a movie at South Yarra, and cookie baking all in one Saturday, I just want to recharge my energy this Sunday. Don't ask about M, he sleeps like nobody's business. He can sleep all day if he doesn't have to be somewhere. So I finally got my lazy ass off the bed at around 11am and decided to make some comfort for my rumbling tummy.

I found some of Miss Polip's stale bread in the fridge, and decided to make use of it before something starts to grow on it. I need a sugar hit! So I made Nigella's super brilliant Doughnut French Toast with Quick Strawberry Sauce. The smell of Vanilla surely made my morning =)

I jazzed it up and set up a breakfast in bed thing for M. A nice way to shove M out of bed.

Doughnut French Toast with Quick Strawberry Sauce
Original recipe by Nigella Lawson

Strawberry sauce
1 punnet of strawberries
1/3 cup icing sugar
2 tsp lemon juice

Blend all ingredients together and set aside.

French Toast
1 large egg
1tsp vanilla paste or substitute it with 2 tsp of vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
4 slices of slightly stale bread
a dollop of butter and a bit of olive oil for frying

50g of caster sugar for dredging

mix vanilla, milk and egg until combined. Cut the breads into triangles. Soak the bread in the egg mixture, make sure it is drenched completely. Meanwhile, put the butter and olive oil in a frying pan. The olive oil will prevent the butter from burning. In a medium heat, fry the eggy bread until golden brown on both sides. dredge the bread with the caster sugar and serve with strawberry sauce.

mmmm... Heavenn.. Nigela is truly the queen of comfort food =)

Would you be my Valentine?

A day of love..

I'm never big on Valentine.. I usually tends to avoid having a traditional Valentine's day candlelight dinner. It has been over-commercialized, highly overrated for my taste. Everywhere will be fully booked, restaurants will dictate us with their set menus (what happenned to freedom of choice?) A nice bouquet and hand written card is usually seals the deal for me. One thing about Valentine is the one and only day where I can justify my "demand" of a bouquet of flower from M. I don't know whether it's an Indonesian guys thing or is it just the guys I've been going out with that seemed to have an allergy of buying flowers for their girlfriend. I don't mean to be cliche, but I always loved flowers. I like filling my house with flowers. I always picked up a bouquet or two almost every weekend. After relentless hint dropping, M finally gave up and bought me a lovely bouquet or orange roses.

Only after I became a serious baker that I started giving out Valentine gifts. Heck, it's the best reason to use your heart shaped cookie cutter right? I only made one batch of Dorie Greenspan's butter cookies I love so much. I've always wanted to try making stained glass cookies ever since I fell in love with the cute tea cakes and biscuits made Joycelyn at Kuidaore . Visit her blog for amazing macaroons and detailed icing decorated cookies. Her intricate details will leave you speechless and craving for more.

Stained glass butter cookies
Adated from "Paris Sweets" by Dorie Greenspan

140g unsalted butter, softened
120g sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour

2-3 strawbery or berry flavoured hard candy (I used strawberry flavoured chupa chups), crushed

In a food processor or a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth. Add sugar and blend thoroughly until mixture is smooth and satiny. Add the flour and mix until the dough comes together. Turn the dough out to the work surface and collect it into a ball. Cut it in half and shape them into discs and refrigerate, covered tightly with cling wrap to firm up. It can be refrigerated from 2 hours to overnight. Just put it out at least 10mins before start working.

Preheat oven to 180C. Roll the dough in between two sheets of parchment paper into 4-7mm in thickness. Cut out the cookies using a hear shaped cookie cutter and place it in the baking tray. Using a smaller heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out a small portion of the cookie and fill with crushed candy. Bake for 5-7 minutes until golden. You can bake it the American way, egg wash it and sprinkle with granulated sugar. But I think the candy centers add enough sweetness to the cookies.

Happy Valentine everyone =)