Dad ~ Baker & Chef

Pasta Salmone

2013-03-09T16:21:00.001+08:00

It's actually quite amazing that I've never posted this recipe! This was made a long long time ago - Christmas Eve Dinner 2010 to be exact! I had noted down the recipe as a draft and even uploaded the pictures but never got round to doing the writeup.

Salmon Pasta has always been something I've wanted to try and make. In restaurants, Salmon Pasta is not only rather expensive but they are often stingy with the Salmon. So when making it at home, I made sure I wasn't going to be stingy with anything!

The secret to a good salmon pasta is a flavourful sauce. I think the secret to a good sauce is not just good cream but also a good salmon stock. The best salmon stock is of course one that you make on your own.

This is what I did:

Ingredients
For the Stock
1 Salmon Carcass
1 Onion - quartered
2 cloves garlic - whole
300ml water

For the Sauce
200g smoked Salmon - chopped
1 Onion - chopped
4 cloves garlic - chopped
2 tsps Oregano
1 tsp Basil
200g Portobello Mushrooms - sliced thinly
3 Tomatoes - chopped
200ml Cream
Black Pepper

Method
Make a salmon stock by pouring the water into a medium saucepan. Add in the carcass and onion and garlic. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes till liquid is reduced by half. Remove the salmon skeleton and scrape off the cooked fish from the carcass and set aside. This is still good salmon meat!. Discard the skeleton toghether with the onion and garlic. Skim the top of the stock to remove any scum. Set aside.

Sautee the garlic, onion, oregano and basil till tender. Add in the mushrooms and cook till tender. Add in the tomatoes and cook till tomatoes break up. Add in the cream and mix well till heated thoroughly. Toss in the smoked salmon and salmon meat (from the skeleton earlier). Add in sufficient stock to form a nice thick sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Toss together with your choice of pasta.

I think this is the 3rd version of Salmon Pasta that I've made and obviously the best! The salmon pieces from the skeleton give you some extra salmon and the flakiness of this salmon contrasts nicely with the smoked salmon pieced.

Contrary to what I expected, salmon carcass does not cost too much and was easily available in the supermarket. Or perhaps I was just lucky the day I went! Nonetheles, this pasta is not so difficult to whip up but delivers stunning results.

Now normally I would send this to Presto Pasta Nights but apparently Ruth from Once Upon a Feast has given up hosting PPN. Oh well, all things change but its been a lot of fun joining in with Presto Pasta Nights! Thanks Ruth!

Final Article in NST - Desserts

2013-03-03T16:17:00.001+08:00

This is the final article commissioned by The New Sunday Times. This time I write about Desserts.

It's been a lot of fun writing for the NST and here's hoping everyone had fun reading the articles. Who would have thought when I started this blog that I'd be approached to write for a national newspaper!!

Sausage Rolls

2013-03-02T18:10:00.000+08:00

I've always liked sausage rolls. In my time as a student in Oz, Sausage Rolls were always a keen snack or even a meal. It didn't quite rank in the heights of a good old 'Four n Twenty Aussie Meat Pie' or a 'Burger with the Lot' or even just a simple Rissole but they were good anyway.

The Lovely Wife took a fancy to Sausage Rolls when she was on a short trip to Sydney back in early 2012 - yes, this post is quite late. If I recall correctly, she enjoyed the sausage rolls so much that she had them for every second meal!

I've made sausage rolls before - or actually The Lovely Wife has! That time, we only used sausages but this time, to make it a little more meaty and a little more Aussie, I combined the sausage meat with minced meat.

The other 'problem' that you get in Malaysia is that you cant really find sausages where you can just remove the meat from the casings. Usually the sausages you get here are the processed kind found in supermarkets. The better ones with casings are just too darned expensive and would be a waste to use in sausage rolls.

For this version, I just whizzed some sausages in the food processer till the meat as finely ground and then kneaded together with the minced beef till it was smooth. This is what I did:

Ingredients
Sausage Rolls
6 good quality sausages
300g minced beef
Black Pepper
2 tsp oregano
3 sheets puff pastry
1 egg - beaten

Method
Process the sausages till fine. Mix together with the beef, black pepper and oregano till smooth. Cut each sheet of puff pastry into 3 equal lengths. Roll the meat mixture with your hands to form a long sausage. Place on the cut puff pastry and roll over to form a cylinder. Seal the edges. Repeat with other lenghts of puff pastry. Cut into desired length for the sausage rolls. using a pastry brush, egg wash the tops of the sausage rolls. Bake in a preheated 220C oven for about 20 mins or till nicely puffed up and meat is cooked. Serve with Tomato sauce.

The Sausage Rolls turned out really, really well. I as a little concerned that the meat may not cook enough but there was no problem there. The filling was delicious with the great taste of sausage but with enough meat to provide it firmness and bite.

Just like days of old, I told The Lovely Wife and kids to eat the sausage rolls slathered in lots of tomato sauce. It certainly brought back a lot of memories for me. As for The Lovely Wife, she said that these sausage rolls, although not as good as the ones she had eaten in Sydney, were still tasty. I was just happy to see her happily devouring them. In my mind, I said to myself, "Ah McCain. You've done it again!"

A Princess turns 9 with a Pear and Nut Crumble Cake

2013-02-20T19:50:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 17th February 2013 marked the 9th Birthday of my (not so) little princess. I cant believe how the time has flown and how quickly she has grown up. As per tradition, we woke her up early in the morning and she looked under the bed for her presents.

This year she got a nice stash that included a set of headphones, a Faber Castell paint set, a clay art and craft set and a Litte Miss key-chain. She also got DrawSomething - a game that all of us can play together since she loves boardgames so much.

It being a Sunday, we went for the early Church service and while the kids had Sunday School, we rushed back home so The Lovely Wife could cook lunch. It was going to be a vegetarian lunch since the kids have given up meat for Lent.

The Lovely Wife, with some help from her Mother, cooked up a whole bunch of vegetarian dishes that were really tasty. The menu this year consisted of Vegetable Briyani, Stir Fried Ladies Fingers (Okra) Tomato Chutney, Yoghurt Curry, Tarka Dhall, Baji and Stuffed Taufoo (tauhu sumbat). Very Yummy indeed!

The kids had a lot of fun stuffing the Fried Bean curd with cucumber and turnip and topping it with chilli sauce.

Lunch was really delicious....

I had made the cake the previous night while The Lovely Wife stayed up late, really late, making pastry shells for fruit tarts. The kids had been clamouring for fruit tarts for quite a while and TLW decided she would give them a treat.

Both kids were a tad reluctant to share the tarts with everyone because they wanted it all for themselves! I dont blame them as TLW's fruit tarts are really something special! Still, there was plenty to go around.

For the cake, my princess had actually requested for a "big, big apple crumble" as The Lovely Wife makes a fabulous crumble that we all love. We told her that we could serve Apple Crumble for dessert but wouldn't she still want a birthday cake to cut? I then hit upon the idea of looking for a Crumble Cake and she seemed pleased with this idea. Her only concern was "will it still be like an apple crumble, Dads?"

I convinced her to let me try it out with the promise that if it didn't turn out well, I would make her Brownies instead. That was also my fallback plan in case the cake didn't turn out...

I surfed the web for some interesting recipes and hit upon this Pear and Pecan Crumble Cake recipe from exclusivelyfood.com.au. I didn't have much pecans on hand but had a whole bunch of Almonds so I combined both almonds and pecan and renamed the cake a Pear and Nut Crumble Cake.

This is how the recipe goes.

Ingredients

Crumble
172g (3/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
60g (1/3 cup plus 3 teaspoons) plain flour
65g butter
150g (1 cup, well rounded) pecan nuts

Cake
100g butter(if using unsalted butter, add 1/8 teaspoon fine table salt with the butter)
60g (1/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (1/2 teaspoon natural vanilla essence)
2 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
200g (3/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons) sour cream
100g (2/3 cup) plain flour
112g (2/3 cup + 1 tablespoon) self raising flour
1 x 825g canned sliced pears, drained and diced (this should yield about 475g of pear)

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-forced).

Grease a 23cm diameter (top inside measurement) round springform pan. Line base of pan with non-stick baking paper.

To make the crumble, place the brown sugar, flour and butter in a food processor and process until a crumbly mixture forms. Add the pecans and pulse just until the nuts are roughly chopped. Set aside until required.
Using an electric mixer or electric hand-held beaters, beat butter, brown sugar, caster sugar and vanilla together until pale and creamy. Stop the machine occasionally and use a spatula to scrape down the side and base of the bowl.

Add eggs and beat until well combined. The mixture may look slightly curdled at this stage. Add sour cream and stir until smooth. Combine the plain and self raising flours and sift in half of the flour. Stir gently until almost smooth, then sift in remaining flour and stir just until batter is smooth.

Spread half of the cake batter over the base of the prepared pan
Sprinkle with about one third of the crumble mixture.
Top with a layer of chopped pear.
Spoon remaining batter over pear and carefully spread to cover pear
Sprinkle remaining crumble over batter.

Bake for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Cover the cake with aluminium foil if the topping begins to over-brown. The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean or with moist crumbs (but not gooey batter) attached. The top of the cake should be slightly domed.

Allow cake to cool slightly before removing from pan. Store cooled cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before serving.

When I read the recipe, it kind of threw me as there was half the amount of butter and eggs that normally goes into a butter cake. I figured the addition of Sour Cream would give the cake some extra body. Then while making the cake it again seemed like there wasn't enough batter. This 'fear' was further emphasised when spreading the batter into the pan. However, once the layers of pear and crumble were added in, covered with the remaining batter and then topped of with more crumble it looked like the right height for a cake.

My concern then was how it would bake since there were two layers of batter interspersed with crumble. I really shouldnt have worried as the cake rose beautifully and came out of the pan really nicely as well. The crumble on top of the cake browns really quickly though so you really need to monitor it and cover it with Aluminium Foil once it browns to prevent it from burning.

Once I took the cake out of the overm that's when I was faced with another 'concern'. How would I remove the baking paper from the bottom of the pan??? What I did was to let the cake cool a little in the springform and then removed the springform to let it cool further. Once the cake was almost cool, I replaced the springform ring and then placed a cake board on top of the pan. I overturned it quickly and then removed the base and baking paper. I then placed another cake board on the base of the cake and turned it rightside up. A little of the crumble fell out but other than that there was no issue.

How did it taste? Rather delicious actually and it was really like a crumble dessert with some cake thrown in. The cake was moist and tender, almost like a pudding. Although I served small slices, the cake was quickly devoured and there was only a tiny bit left for us to finish off later at dinner.

The cake wasn't too heavy and it was delicious on its own but even better with a scoop of Vanilla Ice cream. I wasn't able to take a picture with the Vanilla Ice cream since the tub of icecream finished very quickly. Later at night I had a slice of cake with a scoop of chocolate ice cream but I have to say vanilla is definitely the way to go for this cake.

My princess was very happy with her birthday cake and birhtday lunch with the family. All in all another succesful birthday party and I hope I can continue to delight my children with new kinds of birthday cakes
each year!
Happy Birthday Sarah!

Minced Meat in New Sunday Times....

2013-02-17T09:29:00.002+08:00

My Mince Meat curry makes the NST this time. One of my favourite dishes with a great story too!

Lemon Frosted Lemon Cake with a sad snake...

2013-02-16T19:40:00.002+08:00

Every Chinese New Year for the last few years, we have been invited over to Ms Lor Siak Por's for lunch. Ms LSP always provides a lovely spread of food and this year was no exception

As has been the 'tradition' I bake a cake for her and her guests to eat. Except for the first year, when I managed to pipe on a Chinese character on the cake, the last 2 years have seen me trying to feature the Chinese Zodiac animal on the cake.

Trying is the operative word as my Zodiac Animals never seem to turn out well. Two years ago, I attempted a Rabbit Cake but the rabbit turned out looking more like a hamster or maybe a rat. Then, last year, I attempted a Dragon Cake but alas, said dragon turned out looking more like a fancy prawn.

This year, being the year of the snake, I attempted a Snake figure for the cake. Well, it kind of looks like a snake but perhaps a rather sad snake. As my little princess said, I should have just gone for a 'cartoonish' kind of snake in 2D rather than trying to be fancy. My son said that the snake made the otherwise lovely looking cake look scary....

He said I should have taken a picture of the cake first without the snake. I wish I had done that too.

Regardless of my failed attempts at the Zodiac Animals, the cakes seem to always win favour with both Ms Lor Siak Por as well as her guests. This year was no different and the Lemon Frosted Lemon Cake was a huge succes.

The recipe comes from
Joy of Baking website. I like the stuff there as most of the recipes I've tried always turn out well. This was no different and the cake was fairly easy to whip up as was the icing. This is the recipe as per the website.

Ingredients
Lemon Cake Recipe:

1 cup (230 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature
Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin of lemon)
2 cups (260 grams) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice

Lemon Frosting:

1 cup (115 grams) confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
2 - 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Method
Lemon Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter, or spray with a non stick cooking spray, a 9 inch (23 cm) spring form pan and then line the bottom of the pan with parchment or wax paper.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer) beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and pale in color (about 3-4 minutes). Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition (batter will look curdled).

Sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. Add the flour mixture (in three additions) alternately with the lemon juice (in two additions), mixing until you have a smooth batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula. Bake about 40 - 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Do not over bake or the cake will be dry.) Place on a wire rack to cool for about 15 minutes, then gently remove the sides and bottom of the pan.

Lemon Frosting: Place the sifted confectioners sugar in a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice and stir until you have a thick and smooth glaze. Add more lemon juice or powdered sugar, as needed. Pour the frosting over the top of the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Let the frosting dry before covering and storing. This cake will keep for several days in an airtight container.

Makes one - 9 inch (23 cm) cake

I didnt add the flour in 3 additions but dumped it all in at once although I did add the lemon juice in two additions. For the icing, I used slightly more than 2 Tablespoons - basically how much juice I got out of one small lemon.

.

The cake was light and moist and had a nice tart lemony flavour to it but it wasn't really sour. Same goes for the icing as well. The glaze gave it a nice crunch too.

We all had a great time at Ms Lor Siak Por's and it's always a pleasure taking a cake over there as she and her friends always seem to enjoy my cakes. Thanks for a lovely lunch Ms LSP and Happy Chinese New Year!

New Sunday Times again...

2013-02-03T09:24:00.002+08:00

Another article in the New Sunday Times - I think this is article number 5. This time I feature some Chinese Food that The Lovely Wife cooks up. Pity the editors decided to replace occurences of The Lovely Wife with 'my wife'..

Link to Another article in the New Sunday Times

Christmas Dinner 2012 - Slow Roasted Lamb and some other stuff

2012-12-29T20:02:00.001+08:00

As we have done for the last few years we hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our place. This year was a little different though as my In-laws only came after dinner as they wanted to have something on at their own place. No issue as that meant more food for those that did come!

This year was also a bit different in the sense that I had to prepare EVERYTHING on the 24th itself - including the chocolate cakes that I take to my parents house every year for Xmas day itself. We had spend 3 days in Langkawi celebrating my Mom-in-laws 70th birthday and only got back late on the 23rd.

No grocery shopping of any kind had been done either so early on the morning of the 24th, The Lovely Wife and I went down to the local supermarket and purchased a Leg of Lamb. She then dropped me home to start on the cakes while she went to get more groceries. We had decided to try and keep things simple and so went down the route of Roast Lamb. I wanted to roast the lamb with some mushrooms but the only mushrooms The Lovely Wife could get a hold of were these awesomely huge Portobellos so I stuffed some with Minced Beef and sliced the rest to make a Garlic Mushroom dish.

We also bought lots of bread from the local bakery and served it with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar much like they do in Italian restaurants. For the appetiser, my Mom had given us some Proscuitto and we paired that with some Honeydew.

I made some Roasted Potatoes to accompany the lamb as well

while The Lovely Wife decided to make some spicy Couscous.

The lamb was slow roasted with lots of garlic and rosemary on a bed of onions and whole garlic. The soft roasted garlic was then squeezed out and added in with the drippings and thickened with some flour to make a sauce.

I had read on the web that you should cater for about 200-250g per person for a leg of lamb and since there were 10 of us, I decided on a 2kg leg taking into account that my parents dont eat that much. My kids are always counted as adults as far as food goes what with their refined palletes and penchant for good food.
This is what I did:

Ingredients
Roasted Leg Of Lamb
1 2kg Leg of Lamb
2 bulbs whole garlic
8 cloves garlic
2 whole onions - peeled
3 carrots - cut into large pieces
4-5 stalks fresh rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
Method
Preheat Oven to 200C. Make incisions on the lamb leg and stuff with cloves of garlic. Season with salt and black pepper. Place whole garlic, and onion and 2 stalks of rosemary on bottom of roasting pan. Place the lamb on top and drizzle liberally with Olive Oil. Cover with aluminium foil and place in oven. Immediately reduce the temperature to 160C and allow to roast for at least 4 hours. On the 3rd hour, remove the foil and add in the carrots to the juices. Re-cover the pan and continue roasting. Remove from Pan and allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving. While resting, drain the sauce into a pan and add in 2 Tbs flour. Add in the roasted garlic, removed from the skin and cook till gravy is slightly thick.

Roast Potatoes
As for the Roast Potatoes, simply pare the potatoes, cut them into halves and season with some basil, salt and black pepper. Line a baking pan with Aluminium foil and place potatoes inside. Toss in Olive Oil and cover potatos with foil and seal. Place in bottom of oven for about 1.5 - 2 hours while lamb roasts.

The lamb was delightfully tender and juicy and was lightly flavoured and fragrant with rosemary and garlic. The sauce accompanied the lamb very well as most of the flavours were natural. The Lovely Wife made a mint sauce as well and we also served two types of mustard with the lamb.

Although the leg of lamb was rather expensive, the ease in making this dish as well as the number of people it fed comfortably means that this is something that I would really consider doing again when cooking for a large group. The flavours were very simple yet satisfying and everyone really enjoyed this leg of lamb.

There was a little lamb and garlic mushrooms left over which was turned into a lovely pasta for lunch on boxing day.

This was a great Christmas Dinner and the only thing lacking was that there was no 'dedicated' dessert due to the lack of time. I served some of my chocolate cake instead and since everyone was really full from the satisfying lamb, there were no complaints of no special dessert!

Merry Christmas Everyone and a Blessed New Year ahead!

Shaken not Stirred...

2012-12-29T17:24:00.000+08:00

For Christmas this year I got a whole lot of cool gifts from The Lovely Wife and kids. High on the list was a brand spanking new Roasting Pan. Pity it only came out on Christmas Eve as it would have helped immensely with roasting the Leg of Lamb. No matter, coz I used another pan that was given to me for some other occasion.

Another gift I got was this lovely shaker. The kids bought me this so that I could make their favourite Iced Milo. I 'complained' that most of the gifts revolved around things that I would use to Make foodstuff for THEM to eat - so was it a gift for me or for THEM?

The answer - "But Dads, you love making things for us!" Not far from the truth at all and in all seriousness, if it makes them happy then I am happy indeed!

The shaker was really fabulous and it churned out a great Iced Milo. The kids loved it and proclaimed it one of the best Milo I have ever made for them. I've made milo in shakers before but the shaker I have for Milo is a small plastic one that still needs some stirring in another cup. This one allows the milo, hot water, milk and ice to be mixed together. The best Milo is Shaken not Stirred - much like a Bond martini!

Happy New Year Everyone!!

11 Years old today with a Chocolate Awesomeness Cake

2012-11-15T18:23:00.000+08:00

I know its been a while since I updated this blog with any recipes so I suppose it's kind of fitting that this latest update is about my son's 11th Birthday! It was kinda fortunate that his birthday fell on a Public Holiday today so we were able to stay at home with him and also invited the family over for a Birthday Lunch. My parents were away in Melbourne while my brother and his daughters were in Gold Coast so that meant slightly fewer people. Still, there were about 15 odd people invited!

As per the tradition in this household, we woke my son up after hiding his presents under the bed. My little princess had 'camped' on the floor in his room the previous night too!

For his birthday this year, he got a replica Chelsea jersey and also a table football game - Subbuteo - something that Dads had always wanted when he was young as well! It didnt take long for both the kids to test out the game.

The Lovely Wife, together with help from her Mom, did their magic and whipped up the lunch spread. For lunch there was Stewed Pork (Tau Yew Bak) with Man Tau buns;

Fried Prawns, Chicken Curry,

Yoghurt Curry (Mohr Curry) Mixed Vegetables,

Vegetable Accar (Pickles) and Onion Rice.

Quite a fancy little spread if you ask me! My contribution as usual was dessert and the Birthday Cake.

My son had asked for a different cake, something that would be really nice but also chocolatey. He especially liked the Chocolate Truffle Torte that I had made for Christmas last year so I decided to adapt that recipe and make something completely new.

Actually, for this cake, I adapted various different recipes and components that I had made before to assemble this cake. I used the tried and tested Cake Boss Sponge recipe that I have grown to love as the base. I modified my Tiramisu soaking syrup to make it less coffee flavoured. I used the Praline Feulletine component of the Le Kit Kat cake inspired by Michel Richard and adapted the Truffle from the Chocolate Truffle Torte to assemble this cake.

Since the CakeBoss recipe yields two sponge cakes, I used on to make this cake while the other was used to make a Trifle for dessert. The Lovely Wife was extremely pleased as she really loves her trifle.

This is what I did for the cake:

Ingredients
Cake Base
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole milk
55g salted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Coffee Syrup
1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Rum
1/2 Cup Creme Cacao
1 Tbsp Coffee

Feullatine
2/3 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
2 Tbsp Peanut Oil
200g Milk Chocolate
1 1/4 Cups Crushed Corn Flakes

Chocolate Truffle
200g Good Quality Chocolate
200ml whipping cream
1 Tsp Gelatine Powder
40ml honey
40ml water

Method
Sponge Cake
1. Beat eggs in large mixing bowl with electric mixed for 4 minutes. Do not skip this step!
2. Add sugar, and continue beating for another 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and stir on low until just combined.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add to eggs and sugar on low speed until just combined.
4. In a saucepan, heat milk and butter on low heat just until butter is melted. Add to batter, beat just until combined.
5. Pour into two greased and floured (or lined) 8" round cake pans.
6. Bake at 160C for about 40mins until the middle springs back when touched, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let stand in pans for 10 minutes. Then turn out onto wire cooling racks and cool completely.

Hint: Cakes are close to being done when you start to smell them.

Feullatine
Whip peanut butter and vegetable oil on medium speed until combined and light in color, 2-3 minutes. Reduce to low, add the melted chocolate and mix until combined. Stir in the crushed corn flakes. Pour over cake in springform. Spread into an even layer. Chill in fridge until firm.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Stir the gelatine powder and 1 Tbsp water over a pan of simmering water until dissolved. Melt honey in water and add to the gelatine mixture. Pour onto the melted chocolate mixing thoroughly. Mixture will become slightly thick and coarse. If mixture turns lumpy, heat very gently over a pan of simmering water until smooth. Let cool.
Whip the cream till soft peaks form and then fold into the cooled chocolate mixture. Do not overmix. Fill the tin to the top with the truffle mixture and level with a pallete knife. Refrigerate for a few hours, preferable overnight

Assembly
Split one of the sponges into two layers and place first layer in springform. Soak with half the coffee syrup then cover with feullantine. Spread a thin layer of truffle over feullantine and then place second layer of sponge on top and soak with remaining syrup. Cover with truffle and place in fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.
Decorate with whipped cream.

* See notes below for improvements *

The verdict? This cake was A.W.E.S.O.M.E!!! My son really loved it and he said that it was one of the nicest cakes I've ever made. I had a feeling as I was making the cake that it would turn out really well and I was very pleased with it. I would do a few things different though and the improvements would be as follows:
1. Reduce the cofee syrup especially for the bottom layer as the cake kind of stuck to the base. So definitely dont soak the bottom layer as much or even omit the soaking of the bottom layer
2. Perhaps reduce the amount of alcohol. It wasnt overly strong but it still left a bit of a kick and should perhaps be a bit more subtle.
3. Feullantine was a bit hard as I used 'cheap' milk chocolate. Perhaps try to add corn flakes to the truffle mix for a softer layer?

As for the name for this cake, well, the word awesome has become the word du jour in our house of late but it really kind of does this cake justice. As a matter of fact, I was struggling to find a name for this cake but my son decided to call it the Chocolate Awesomeness Cake!

The lunch was enjoyed by all and the Trifle as well as the Cake disappeared rather quickly. Fortunately there was still a little left over for later that night. My little princess made my day when after she had finished lunch, I asked her if she had had enough. Her reply was, "I'm only 50% full because I'm saving for the Trifle and Cake." Now how sweet was that!!

On Saturday, Michael is having some of his friends over for Futsal followed by lunch so he hasn't finished celebrating yet!

So another year older and another succesful birthday for my darling boy. Happy, Happy Birthday Michael!

Second Article in New Sunday Times

2012-09-30T19:44:00.000+08:00

This is the second article from me for The New Sunday Times. The articles focus on Cooking at Home and involving the family.

This is the link for the article: Sunday - Life and Times - FAMILY: Somethings Stewing

The tagline reads:
Dharm Navaratnam, engineer by day and a closet chef at other times, offers more comfort recipes you can try out with the family.

A Closet chef! LOL, I quite like that description!!

Featured in New Sunday Times

2012-09-02T12:17:00.001+08:00

I was commissioned by The New Straits Times to write a few articles on Cooking at Home and focusing on involving the family. The first article appeared today in the New Sunday Times.

This is the link for the article: Sunday - Life and Times - FAMILY: Family affair

Spaghetti ei Gamberi

2012-06-03T11:30:00.001+08:00

You do know that a name for a pasta dish in Italian always sounds better right? Doesn't Pasta Gamberi sound so much better than Prawn Pasta with Roasted Garlic and Mushroom Sauce? I think it does!

So anyway, you'd have figured out that I made a Prawn Pasta in a Roasted Garlic and Mushroom Sauce. The Lovely Wife had bought some prawns from the market and had planned to fry them up as the kids just love fried prawns.

Since I haven't made any new pasta for a while, I decided to make a meal out of the prawns and came up with the quick yet very tasty dish. I had originally planned to just make my aglio olio and then stir fry the prawns and add it in. However, seeing that there were mushrooms available as well, I decided to use mushrooms together with the prawns for a nice mix of earthiness and sea produce!

Mushrooms and prawns by themselves would be nice but there wouldnt be enough of a sauce unless I doused the whole thing in a lot of olive oil. I've always loved the taste of Roasted Garlic especially when it is ground down into a sauce. I contemplated using some cream as well but decided that I would just keep the flavours as natural as possible. So this is what I did:

Ingredients

2 heads of garlic
500g prawns, shelled and deveined
250g Button Mushrooms - quartered
1 large onion - chopped
2 tsps basil
2 tsps oregano
1 tsp Corn Flour
Black Pepper

Method
Cut the end of the head of garlic and place cut side up in a small heatproof bowl. Drizzle with Olive Oil and bake in a 180C oven for about 20 minutes or till garlic is soft. Allow to cool before removing the skin and setting the roasted garlic cloves aside.
Heat a little olive oil and sautee the basil, oregano and black pepper. Add in the onion and cook till onion is soft. Add in the mushrooms and continue cooking till mushrooms release their juices. Process the garlic gloves with about a Tbsp of Olive Oil to get a nice paste. Add in a little water if needed. Pour into the mushroom mixture and mix well. Add in the prawns and simmer till prawns turn a nice pink. If required, add in some water to help cook the prawns. Add in salt to season. Thicken with the Corn Flour mixed in a little water if required. Toss in cooked pasta and serve.

While the sauce was simmering, I called in my princess who has now become one of my 'official taste testers'. She took one sip of the sauce and when her eyes lit up I knew I had hit on a winning sauce. She couldn't wait for lunch to be ready and kept asking when she could eat!

Needless to say, both the kids devoured the pasta and The Lovely Wife agreed that it was very tasty. A few 'snide' comments were passed that I should make new dishes more often too!

I really liked the flavours of this pasta sauce and its the kind of pasta that you can just eat and eat. You can add in some chilli flakes if you want some added zing too.

So once again, another succesful pasta endeavour and as I usually do for all my pasta escapades, I'm submitting this to my dear friend Ruth from Once Upon a Feast who is the brain behind and is also hosting Presto Pasta Nights this week. I haven't submitted anything at PPN for quite a while now so its nice to be back. Hope you all like it - we certainly did!!

Brownie Throwdown - Gary Mehigan

2012-06-01T21:58:00.000+08:00

All of us are big fans of Junior MasterChef Australia so it was no surprise that on a recent quick trip to Sydney on work, The Lovely Wife bought me a copy of Gary Mehigan's cookbook. Over the weekend, I was in the mood to bake something and was rifling through Gary's book. I came across his Brownies and although I have my own tried and tested recipe, I thought why not try his out and see how it compares?
The kids also love watching Bobby Flay's 'throwdown' and so when I suggested that I make the Mehigan Brownie, the kids were game and likened it to a 'throwdown'! Okay, not quite the same as a real throwdown but it would be a fun thing to do. In any case, I really wanted to see how Gary's brownies would turn out.

Looking at the recipe, it uses a lot of chocolate whereas I only use about 100g of chocolate chips. The chocolate also really melts and melds with the brownies whereas in my version the chocolate chips kind of maintain their shape. Maybe its the type of couverture you use.
The pictures in the book also show the brownie as being really dark and almost gooey. Gary even mentions that the brownie should be a little gooey in the centre. The original recipe also calls for peanuts but I used chopped walnuts instead.
This is the recipe as it appears in the book:

Ingredients
250g butter, chopped
515g caster sugar
90g Dutch process cocoa powder plus extra for dusting
5 eggs
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
175g dark couverture chocolate, chopped
75g unsalted peanuts, chopped

Method
preheat a fan forced oven to 160C (I preheated a normal oven to 180C). Grease and line a 24cm x 21cm pan with baking paper. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Place sugar, cocoa powder and butter in a mixing bowl and beat with hand held electric beaters. Whisk in the eggs one at a time. In a separate bowl, sift flour and baking powder together then fold through the cocoa mixture. Mix the chocolate and peanuts togehter and fold them through the batter.
Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked through. (Gary says it can take up to 40 minutes depending on your oven)
The brownie should be soft and gooey in the centre. Leave to cool in the tin a little to firm before slicing. Dust with extra cocoa powder and serve warm or at room temperature with a nice dob of cream or ice cream.

I have to say that the Brownies were rather tasty. It was perhaps a little too rich and a little too gooey for my liking but it was still very delicious. These brownies went better with ice cream rather than on their own. Another thing about these brownies were that you cuouldnt eat too many at one sitting, unlike mine where you just wanted one after another.
The kids enjoyed the Mehigan Brownie too but they too agreed that they preferred mine. I guess the proof of this was that they didnt want to take any of the Mehigan Brownie to school for their snack, preferring instead to just eat it as a dessert with ice cream. As for The Lovely Wife, she liked the Mehigan Brownie as well but also admitted, somewhat begrudgingy, that she preferred mine!

So I guess if this was a real Throwdown, I would win! Regardless, the Mehigan Brownie is really easy to make and will make a stunning dessert anywhere. It made a nice change from making my usual brownie too and gave us a little bit of fun with this 'virtual throwdown' challenge. Sorry Gary, but I think I trumped you this time. Then again, to each their own and I'm sure my family has a little bias in them as well!

Chocolate Chip Cookies - a recipe vs a packet!

2012-03-18T12:05:00.000+08:00

For those of you that follow this blog, you would know that I am not really a biscuit/cookie person. Sure, I love to eat them but I dont often have the patience to make them preferring to bake cakes anytime.

That is not to say that I have never baked cookies/biscuits. I have and I will continue to do so. My two darling kids love chocolate chip cookies and they love the ready-mix Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip cookies. I'm usually very against using ready-mixed anything but somehow the Betty Crocker ones turn out really well and are really very tasty. It's getting harder to find the Betty Crocker premixes here but we had two packets on hand not too long ago when some of Michael's friends came over for a school project.

I decided to whip up the Pre-Mix for them and they all devoured the cookies singing my praises. I started to feel a little guilty especially when one of the more more gregarious kids in the gang, Fahad, sauntered into the kitchen and asked me if the cookies were "made from scratch or did they come out of a packet." I couldn't very well lie, especially when the packet was in full view!

So anyway, I decided I had to redeem myself. I had to know whether I could whip up Choc Chip cookies from scratch that were as good as the ones the Betty Crocker premixed and sold in packets. I surfed the web and found the Betty Crocker recipe for Choc Chip cookies and I proceeded to make it from scratch.

The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup caster sugar and 3/4 cup brown sugar but I went with using brown sugar all the way.

Ingredients
1.5 cups brown sugar
250g butter , softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Method
Heat oven to 190ºF.
Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. I use non-stick paper.
Bake 15-20 minutes or until light brown. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Dharm's Tip: To keep the cookies from spreading out too much, chill the dough in the fridge for a litle while after dropping them on the cookie sheets.

I didnt use any nuts this time but I'm sure the addition of nuts would be just as good if not better!

Baking it for 15 minutes still produces a soft bake cookie that I prefer but The Lovely Wife likes a hard and crisp cookie instead. Regardless of whether it is soft baked or crisp baked, this recipe produces a lovely cookie that you just cant stop eating.

Some of the cookies spread out a bit, especially in the hot weather here, so while one tray baked, I placed the other tray in the fridge. This helped and the cookies didn't spread out so much.

The kids and The Lovely Wife loved the cookies and proclaimed them better than the Betty Crocker premix. Looking at the recipe, it is not at all difficult and takes up about the same time to make as the premix. The best thing about making it from scratch is that you know exactly what is going into the cookie and there is no chance of 'secret' ingredients or preservatives.

The true test came when the kids took some of the cookies to school. According to them, all their friends loved the cookies with one of my daughter's friends proclaiming it "the best choc chip cookie" she has ever eaten. Another of Michael's friends asked him "Does your father have anything to do with Famous Amos?" All lovely compliments but I know these cookies, although remarkable in their own right, are not of the same caliber as Famous Amos and are definitely not the best in the world.

It was nice though to redeem myself not only in my own mind but also in the eyes of my darling kids and The Lovely Wife. So who needs Betty Crocker premixes anymore!

Boozy Cheesy Cherry Cake

2012-03-09T19:35:00.000+08:00

Many weeks ago - in January - one of our good friends, Elison, celebrated her birthday and we invited her over for dinner together with another good friend, Lynn. I've mentioned before that Eli is a great cook who also has very high standards so I'm always a bit nervous when baking a cake for her - especially her birthday cake!

The Lovely Wife suggested that I do something different instead of always going down the route of chocolate. I considered making her my Chocolate Trifle that she adores but then decided to try and dazzle her with something new.

She likes fruity cakes and she likes chocolate as well. She also likes a bit of booze in her desserts so I decided on a Boozy Cheesy Cherry Cake. You get the idea, some cream cheese, some cherries and some booze paired together with a chocolate sponge. I also added in some shaved chocolate for a bit of a crunch.

I used the recipe for a Chocolate Genoise from Le Cordon Bleu Home Collection-Chocolate and this is what I did.

Ingredients
Chocolate Genoise REcipe
4 Eggs
100g Caster Sugar
80g Plain flour
2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
20g Butter, melted

1 Can Black Cherries
5 tsp Cherry Syrup from can
50ml Rum
125g Cream Cheese
400ml Whipping Cream
3 Tbsp Icing Sugar
100g bar of dark chocolate, chopped
Cocoa for dusting
Method
To make the sponge: preheat the oven to 180C. Butter and flour a 8 inch springform pan. Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Put the eggs and sugar into a large heatproof bowl and place over the saucepan making sure it is not touching the water. Using electric beaters, whisk for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is thick and light, has doubled in volume and leaves a trail as it falls from the beaters. The temperature of the mixture should never be hot, only warm. Remove the bowl from the pan of water and continue to beat until cold. Sift the flour and cocoa together and carefully fold into the whisked mixture with a large metal spoon until just combined. Stop folding as soon as flour and cocoa are combined or mixture will lose its volume. Gently but quickly fold in the warm butter. Pour the mixture into the tin and gently smooth the top with the back of the spoon. Bake on the middle shelf of oven for about 25-30 minutes or until springy and shrinking from the sides of the tin. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Clean the cake tin so it is ready to use later.

For cheese mix: Whip cream with icing sugar till stiff. Beat the cheese till soft then combine with the cream till smooth. Set aside.

Once cake is cool, cut into two halves. Place first half into bottom of cake tin. Mix together syrup from tin with rum. Soak the cake with half the rum/syrup mixture. Place a layer of cherries over the cake then cover with a little of the cream mixture. Add on the chopped chocolate and then cover with another thin layer of cream. Cover with the next half of cake and then cover with cream. Dust top of cake with cocoa and arrange some cherries on top.

The cake turned out really well. It was a little bit like a mix between a Black Forest and a Tiramisu but without the coffee flavour. The cheesy cream was lightly flavoured and went very well with the cherries.

The Birthday Girl, Elison gave it the thumbs up as did Lynn as well as the kids and The Lovely Wife. I must say I was rather pleased with how the cake turned out both in terms of looks as well as taste. So one more successful original cake recipe to add to my list!

Salmon with Cream Cheese rollups

2012-03-03T11:00:00.000+08:00

I'm still very late and trying to play catch up! It's a good thing that I haven't been that busy in the kitchen so I don't have a whole lot of backlog as catching up is bad enough as it is!

So, what do you make for an appetiser when you have some smoked salmon in your fridge? I got a package of smoked salmon from my mom. Someone had given it to her and she thought I would put it to better use as well as enjoy it more. The Lovely Wife and the kids enjoyed one package with some Pasta I threw together and then I used the next package for this appetiser when Lynn and Ms Lor Siak Por came over for dinner back in January (Yes, I'm that Late! Late I tell you, Late! )

Ms LSP had heard about the Roast Pork I made for Christmas and 'demanded' that I make her the same. Now Ms LSP makes a wicked Roast Pork herself albeit the Chinese type (Siew Yoke) so I had to make sure that at least the appetiser would be something special. Smoked Salmon is always special in itself but when rolled with cream cheese and dill - ah, even more special!

This appetiser is really easy to do although the rolling can be a little cumbersome. Not that difficult really. This is what I did:

Ingredients
200g Smoked Salmon slices
125g Cream Cheese
75ml Whipping Cream
Two large handfulls Dill
Black Pepper
Capers
Method
Whip Cheese till soft. Add in the whipping cream and continue beating till light and fluffy. Season with dill and black pepper. Spread the salmon with the cheese mix and then roll up. Cut into bit size pieces and place on a plate. Pipe in remaining cheese mixture into the salmon rollups till full. Place a caper on top. Sprinkle with more black pepper and keep in fridge till ready to serve.

Once cut, plated and sprinkled with pepper, the Salmon Rolls actually looked very presentable. They were bite size and very easy to eat and the creamy cheese offset the smoked saltiness of the Salmon.

As I said, a very easy yet delicious dessert and something that tastes as good as it looks!

Almond Choc Chip Chinese New Year Cake

2012-03-01T21:16:00.006+08:00

I'm late
I'm late
For a very important date.
No time to say "Hello, Goodbye".
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

Yes, Late, Late, Late! Chinese New Year has come and gone and I'm only now posting about the cake I made for Ms Lor Siak Porfor Chinese New Year 2012!

Taking a cake over to Ms LSP's for her Chinese New Year parties has become something of a tradition. It's the least we can do since Ms LSP always feeds us with some awesome food! This year, I fell in love with her Abacus Yam dish. The dish is basically yam shaped into abacus like discs and then cooked with minced meat and all sorts of other stuff. I dont know how to make it nor what goes into the dish but is really yummy. You'll have to ask her how it's made but trust me when I say it's delicious.

I always feel I need to make something different to tantalise Ms LSP's taste buds. She is one person that I really enjoy baking for as she is honest and will tell you if the cake doesn't meet up to her expectations. She also doesn't ooh and ahh for the sake of oohing and aahing but will tell you what she really thinks.

So for this year, I decided I would make a Choc Chip Almond cake topped with my usual Chocolate Ganache. This being the year of the dragon I piped out a dragon on top of the cake.

No, I dont have good piping skills, what I did was to make a royal icing and pipe it over a printed out picture of a dragon. Then I carefully moved it over to the cake. Rather clever of me I thought!

For the cake, I flirted with the idea of making a blondie - the vanilla version of a Brownie. What I did was meld the method of a brownie with my butter cake recipe and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients
250g Butter
230g Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
230g Flour
2.5 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Vanilla
100g Choc Chips
100g Almonds (nibs or chopped)

Chocolate Ganache
150g Dark Chocolate
200ml Cream
Sugar to taste

Method
Melt the butter and let cool. Beat in sugar. Add in eggs one at a time till creamy. Sift flour together with baking powder and fold into the mixture. Add in vanilla, nuts and choc chips. Mix well. Spread into a lined baking pan and bake in a preheated 170C oven for about 40 minutes or till done.

For the topping, heat the cream and then pour over the chocolate. Mix well and add sugar to taste. Allow to cool slightly then spread over top and sides of cake.

My kids reckoned that the dragon looked a little bit like a prawn but fortunately Ms LSP and her guests all knew it was a Dragon!

I think the cake turned out pretty well and Ms LSP gave me the thumbs up. Thanks for a great lunch Ms LSP and here's a belated wish to everyone for a Very Happy Chinese New Year! May the year of the Dragon bring you lots of peace, love and prosperity. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Truffle Torte - Christmas 2011

2012-02-25T09:08:00.005+08:00

This post finishes off the Christmas 2011 Meal...

Choosing the dessert for Christmas took quite some time and was a choice between going down the route of a tried and tested or doing something new. As I usually do when deciding on a dessert, I leafed through my numerous cookbooks. My son sat with me as I was rifling through pages and pages when his eyes fell on the Truffle Torte from my Le Cordon Bleu cookbook. "Dads, can you make that for dessert?" he asked as he tapped his finger on the page.

I had often wanted to try out this cake but the amount of chocolate it required coupled with the fact that it required a very thin sponge to be made had always deterred me. Not this time however. I scanned the recipe, smiled up at my boy and promptly declared that this would be dessert for Christmas Eve dinner.

This recipe is interesting in that it calls for a little bit of gelatine and liquid glucose to thicken the chocolate. I decided to substitute Honey for liquid glucose. I also decided that since I was using dark chocolate for the filling, I would use some milk chocolate for the chocolate pieces that would go around the cake. The final modification that I did was to top the cake with caramelised almonds for that extra crunch rather than to dust the top with cocoa as the recipe called for.

The sponge was fairly easy to whip up especially since the eggs are beaten over a pot of simmering water. The eggs fluffed up really nicely and didnt deflate too much once the flour was folded in. The cake was nice and soft and in fact bits of the top stuck to the cooling rack as I left it to cool a tad too long. Next time I should place some non-stick paper over the cooling rack.

This is my modified recipe based on the one from Le Cordon Bleu Home Collection - Chocolate.

Ingredients
2 eggs
2 1/2 Tbsp Caster Sugar
4 Tbsp Plain Flour
1 Tbps Cocoa

30ml rum
330g Good Quality Dark Chocolate
200g bar of milk chocolate
1 tsp gelatine powder
1 Tbsp honey
500ml Whipping Cream

Method
To make the sponge: preheat the oven to 170C. Butter and flour a 8 inch springform pan. Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Put the eggs and sugar into a large heatproof bowl and place over the saucepan making sure it is not touching the water. Using electric beaters, whisk for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is thick and light, has doubled in volume and leaves a trail as it falls from the beaters. The temperature of the mixture should never be hot, only warm. Remove the bowl from the pan of water and continue to beat until cold. Sift the flour and cocoa together and carefully fold into the whisked mixture with a large metal spoon or plastic spatula until just combined. Pour the mixture into the tin and gently smooth the top with the back of the spoon. Bake for about 15 minutes or until springy and shrinking from the sides of the tin. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Clean the cake tin so it is ready to use later.

Trim the top crust from the sponge using a long serrated knife. Cut the cake into a disc no more that 1.5cm thick and to just fit inside the tin. Place on a 8 inch cake card inside the tin or directly on the base of the tin. (I used a cake ring placed over a square cake board). Brush the sponge with the rum.

Put the chocolate into a bowl. Half fill a saucepan with water and bring the the boil. Remove from the heat and place the bowl of chocolate over the pan making sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water. Leave the chocolate to melt slowly, then remove the bowl from the pan. Stir the gelatine powder and 1 Tbsp water over a pan of simmering water until dissolved. Add in the honey and stir well. Pour onto the melted chocolate mixing thoroughly. If mixture turns lumpy, heat very gently over a pan of simmering water until smooth. Let cool.

Whip the cream till soft peaks form and then fold into the cooled chocolate mixture. Do not overmix. Fill the tin to the top with the truffle mixture and level with a pallete knife. Refrigerate for a few hours, preferable overnight.

For the sides, melt the bar of milk chocolate and spread onto a sheet of non-stick paper and spread to a thickness of 2mm. Refrigerate until set then break off large pieces and stick on the side of the torte. Dust the torte with cocoa powder (I used caramelised almonds instead)

So yes, a rather long and tedious recipe but when you actually make it, it really doesn't seem that long nor tedious.

After brushing the cake with rum I used my dessert ring to surround the cake rather than a springform as I wanted the cake to sit on a cake board instead of the springform base. Making the truffle filling was very easy too. As I mentioned, I substituted the Liquid glucose for honey and I'm still wondering why there was a need for gelatine as I am sure the truffle filling would have held up on its own. I think I scrimped a bit on the chocolate for the pieces surrounding the cake as I didnt get a large enough bar! So when I tried sticking the pieces on, they were rather thin and the heat of the kitchen and my hands started to melt the pieces rather quickly.

I think the addition of the caramelised almonds really made a difference as the crunchy, nutty, sweetness complemented the taste of the dark chocolate really well. The truffle filling actually resembled a really thick mousse and it was very chocolatey and flavourful. The thin layer of cake offset the creaminess of the truffle filling and provided a nice change in texture. The cake practcally melts in your mouth and my son came running up to me for seconds even before I had finished serving the rest of the guests! I told him to wait his turn while everone else had a slice first then proceeded to give him a larger piece that he devoured just as quickly!

I was actually a little surprised at how easy this cake is to make especially since it produces such sensational results. My darling boy certainly loved this cake and my little Princess quickly agreed. I would have to agree with them that the cake was really pretty amazing. Definitely something I want to make again and I'm so glad my son spotted this and asked me to make it as I would probably have just left it as one of my 'want to makes' instead of actually making it!

Caramel & Chocolate Double Mousse Cake - A Princess Birthday Cake

2012-02-22T18:00:00.003+08:00

My little princess turned 8 on the 17th of February and both The Lovely Wife and I too the day off. As usual, we woke her up early in the morning and she looked under the bed for her presents. She got quite a stack of pressies that included a 'sew by yourself' Teddy Bear kit, Paint It Magnetic Fridge Tiles, a Lego Mini Figure display box, a small zipper chain that says 'Little Princess', a Lego Mini Figure and a Magic Twisty - a small furry worm like thing that you pull along with a string, also known as a Squirmle. She also got a tiny mini stapler and a set of coloured staples. She likes these kind of things my princess does! We also got her a set of batteries as both she and her brother always run out of batteries for their toy cars and other battery operated toys. I always joke that they'll make me bankrupt from the number of batteries I need to buy!

Like her brother, she has decided she wants dessert cakes for her birthday cake instead of the traditional decorated cakes. She also asked if I could make something new, something that I had never done before and something that would be special. Ah, children these days are so demanding!

Although her birthday fell on a Friday and even though we had taken the day off to celebrate with her, we only held her party on Sunday evening. The reason for this was that her brother, Michael, had to go for a school prefects camp at some place near Morib by the sea. He would be away for two nights and would only be back on Sunday evening. We couldn't very well hold a party for our little princess without Michael could we? So that's why we held the party on Sunday.

Each birthday, for each child, we try and outdo our menu - or at least match the previous year's menu. That simply means that you are always assured of lots of food! This year, we tried to tone it down a little but as usual went slightly overboard.

The menu this year was Barbequed Chicken using the BBQ Ribs recipe, Savoury glutinous rice - otherwise known as Lo Ma Kai, Vegetable Pasties, Spicy Fried Sausages with Anchovies as well as a Guacamole dip with corn chips. I also whipped up a batch of my Brownies which everyone always loves.

For the cake, I made an original Dharm creation. I recently stumbled on to the recipe for a sponge cake from Cakeboss and I had really liked how that turned out. Very spongy and airy and yet fairly dense without holes. This is probably the best sponge cake recipe that I have ever come across and its really quite easy too. I decided I would use a sponge as the base and sandwhich chocolate mousse and caramel mousse in between. Since there were two types of mousse and also double layers of mousse, I decided to call the cake a Chocolate and Caramel Double Mousse Cake!

As I said earlier, the cake itself was quite easy to whip up. The only issue I have with this recipe is that they dont specify the timing. I put it to about 40mins but this would depend a lot on the size of your eggs and well as the pans. This time I baked it in two 9" pans so that I could use my cake ring mould. One of the pans was slightly smaller though so two of the cake layers were smaller. After baking the cakes, I used my cake leveller to cut the cakes into layers but I didn't quite get equal layers as I trimmed the top off the cake too.

The caramel mousse was a first for me but it turned out just as I wanted. Slightly burned flavour of the caramel enhanced with a little dark chocolate to thicken it and then emulsified with cream. The cream was then whipped up to a nice moussey texture.

For the chocolate, I added in a little gelatine to thicken it together with some honey. I usually add egg yolks into my mousse but since I didnt want to have any leftover egg whites, I did it this way instead.

After layering the cake and mousse, I found that I had enough chocolate mousse to cover the sides as well and the mousse seemed to hold enough to swirl round the sides so thats what I did. In total there were 8 layers of cake and mousse!

Ingredients
Cake Base
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup butter (lightly salted)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Caramel Mousse
1/2 cup granulated sugar
50 g salted butter
300ml whipping cream
2oz Dark Chocolate

Chocolate Mousse
300g Whipping Cream
250g Dark Chocolate
1 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp Gelatine
1Tbsp water

Method
Sponge Cake
1. Beat eggs in large mixing bowl with paddle attachment for 4 minutes. Do not skip this step!
2. Add sugar, and continue beating for another 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and stir on low until just combined.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add to eggs and sugar on low speed until just combined.
4. In a saucepan, heat milk and butter on low heat just until butter is melted. Add to batter, beat just until combined.
5. Pour into two greased and floured 8" round cake pans.
6. Bake at 160C for about 40mins until the middle springs back when touched, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let stand in pans for 10 minutes. Then turn out onto wire cooling racks and cool completely.

Hint: Cakes are close to being done when you start to smell them.

Caramel Mousse
Melt sugar to make caramel (either dry method or wet method). Add in butter. Then add in the cream a little at a time. Mixture will splatter. Cook till fully incorporate with the cream. Let cool. Whip cream till stiff.

Chocolate Mousse
Heat cream till almost to the boil. Pour over chocolate and mix well till incorporated. Mix Gelatine with 1 Tbsp Water and hydrate. Place over a bowl of simmering water and dissolve. Add into the cream mixture together with the honey and allow to cool a little. Whip till thick and creamy.

Assembly
Using a cake leveller, cut each cake into two layers. Place the bottom into a ring mould. Cover with half the caramel mousse. Place another layer of cake over the caramel mousse and then place in freezer for a short while to firm up. Spread with half the chocolate mousse then cover with another layer of cake. Repeat so that you have cake - caramel mousse-cake - chocolate mousse - cake - caramel mousse - cake chocolate mousse. Remove cake from ring mould and use remaining mousse to cover sides as well. Chill for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.

Garnish with sliced almonds.

The results were pretty damned astounding! The flavour of the caramel complemented the chocolate really, really well. The cake was soft and light and I think if I were to improve on this, I would soak the cake with either a sugar syrup or maybe some alcohol or even some coffee.

Most of the guests had two helpings as did my Little Princess. She gave the cake a super rating and claimed it as one of my finest. The best review however came from The Lovely Wife. She's normally not a mousse cake kind of gal but she simply Loved this cake! She had the leftovers two nights in a row and each time she kept saying how much she enjoyed the cake. My Darling Boy also gave it a thumbs up and proclaimed it one of his favourites!

Not bad at all for an original Dharm creation and for a first try. As I said, the sponge recipe is really my favourite sponge base and I will now use this most of the time for any recipe requiring a sponge cake.

So, another succesful birthday party and another delicious cake to add to my repertoire!

My little Princess was really happy and whenever she is happy, I am happy!
Happy Birthday my Darling Princess!

Corn Muffins - Christmas 2011

2012-02-15T12:13:00.000+08:00

Although I've made a sweet version of corn muffins before, I wanted this to complement the pork and chicken - kind of like a bread to go with the main meal. It sounded like a good plan and the pictures in my Le Cordon Bleu muffin cookbook looked really good too. I especially liked the fact that the recipe called for lots and lots of corn kernels. I could just imagine biting into soft muffins filled with corn.

Alas, this wasn't to be as I made one error. Not a terribly fatal error but an error nonetheless and an error that caused the muffins to be a little dry and not as delicious as it should have been. The error? Well the recipe called for Self Raising flour and since I didn't have any, I did my usual 'make your own' by adding baking powder to plain flour.

This is the recipe from Le Cordon Bleu Muffins. The original recipe also has a pinch of cayenne pepper but I left that out.

Ingredients
225g Self Raising Flour
150g Cornmeal (polenta)
60g Cheddar (grated)
240g frozen corn kernels
250ml milk
2 eggs
100g butter, melted

Method
Preheat oven 20 210C. Brush a 12 hole muffin pan with melted butter or oil.
Sift flour into a large bowl. Stir in Cornmeal, cheese and corn. Make a well in the centre.
Whisk milk and eggs together and then pour into the well in the dry ingredients together with the butter. Stir with a metal spoon till just combined. Do not overmix as the mixture should be lumpy
Fill muffin pans three quarters full and bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in centre of muffin
Leave muffins in tin for 5 minutes before lifting out to wire rack to cool

In the heat of the kitchen and the rush for time however, I miscalculated the measurements and added in half of what I should have. The result - not a well risen, rather dense and semi dry muffin. It still tasted good although it didn't have the correct texture. Still, it was passable and eatable and my son even asked for one the next morning for breakfast.

I just wonder how delicious the muffins would have been if I didn't screw up...

Crostini - Christmas 2011

2012-02-08T11:41:00.000+08:00

Carrying on with my posts on Christmas Eve dinner 2011....

Whoever said appetisers had to be complicated? I wanted something simple, tasty and easy to make and their is nothing simpler and tasty than crostini.

Crostini, which actually means "little toasts" in Italian is an Italian appetizer consisting of small slices of grilled or toasted bread and toppings. The best thing with crostini is that you can use whatever topping you want.

I had some Mozzarella cheese in the freezer that was nearing its use by date and that was what prompted me to use it for this appetizer. I decided to keep it simple although The Lovely Wife suggested a variety of toppings. I got some nice baquettes from our local bakery and cut it up into slices. Then I fried up some bacon and mushrooms, topped it with mozzarrella cheese and then placed a sliced tomato on top. This was then grilled in the oven till the bread was slightly crisp and the cheese had melted. Simple but very tasty. My parents enjoyed this very much as a starter coupled with some crisp white wine while the kids wanted seconds.

Me? I could eat these all day long.....

Slow Roasted Pork - Christmas 2011

2012-02-06T10:00:00.000+08:00

So this post is really late. We've already finished one month of 2012 and I still haven't updated my Christmas Dinner post - so here goes.

Christmas Eve was held at our place this year and my Parents, my Brother and his two daughters and my Brother in Law, wife and son came over. Mom in law was in Australia with my niece so they couldn't make it while my eldest brother and his wife had another function on. So all in all, including the four of us, I had to make dinner for 12 people.

You've already seen the menu that I put up in my last post but as usual, planning the menu wasn't an easy task. The Lovely Wife and I spent many an hour pondering what to make. I wanted to go with something tried and tested as, after all, there were 12 people to cook for and I couldn't very well afford a disaster.

Funnily enough though, what we finally decided upon included quite a few new dishes - or at least new recipes. First up on the decision tree was Roast Pork. The Lovely Wife and I figured that we wanted something that could stand up on its own as a main meal. Now I've never made Roast Pork in my life before but as they say, there's always a first time for everything.

To complement the Pork and to cater for anyone that may have wanted something else as well as a safeguard in case the pork went awry, I decided to make my Chicken Cacciatore - very delicious and something tried and tested.

So the two main meals were chosen. Mashed Potatoes would go with both the chicken and the pork so the potatoes would be the carbohydrates. The Lovely Wife would make a nice salad and it looked like we were done.

However, I felt that there wasn't enough food to serve. It was Christmas after all! That's when I decided on Crostini and also Corn Muffins. I've made corn muffins before but those were sweetish muffins. I wanted these to be savoury to complement the pork and/or chicken.

Finally, Dessert was chosen and the menu was complete.

So lets start with the Slow Roasted Pork.

As I said before, I've never made Roast Pork before. In deciding how to make the pork, I remembered an episode of Jamie Oliver where he made this Pork Roast with crackling. I did a search on the web and found his recipe for Slow Roasted Pork. The recipe looked just great and I decided I would serve it with my own Applesauce recipe.

The more I looked at the recipe though, the more I got intimidated. I worried that the pork wouldn't be tender or that it would be undercooked. The most intimidating part was not knowing what cut of pork to use. A quick trip to my Pork Butcher quickly solved that.

Now allow me to digress a little. When I was young, and I mean really young, I used to follow Mom to the market in town - the Central Market. In those days, the Central Market was really quite a mess - all wet and smelly. These days, the Central Market has been transformed into an Art and Craft centre and has become a tourist attraction.

So anyway, back in those days, each section of the market had a whole range of different vendors and Mom had her favourites. The Chicken Lady was the second stall on the left in the chicken area while her Vegetable Man was on the third or fourth row of vegetable sellers.

And then there was Jimmy. He was her Pork Man and he was a really friendly chap. Sometimes, Mom would preorder pork from him and send me in to pick up the meat while she waited outside in the car. He would always smile when he saw me and call out in a loud jovial voice "Ah! Teacher's Son!"

Once the Central Market closed down, Jimmy moved to the Taman Tun Market and I have paid him a visit there every once in a while over the years. So that is where I went, one week before Christmas, to make an order for the pork.

Just like days of yore, I waited in line but this time with my son in tow. When I reached the head of the line, I smiled at the bubbly pork seller in front of me. "Jimmy. Remember me?"
His eyes scanned my face and then the face of my son. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he yelled out. "Ah! Teacher's Son! How's your mother? What you want? What you want to make?"

I explained to him that I wanted to do a Roast Pork - western style and that I wanted a loin or shoulder. Jimmy proceeded to explain that the best part would be the shoulder - deboned and tied up as the shoulder had a lot of fat. "When you want it? You want it now?"

I arranged to pick it up from him on Christmas Eve and when I did, it was a lovely cut, just under 2kg and with the skin scored nicely. I was beginning to get really excited about the Roast Pork.

Ingredients
about 2kg shoulder of pork, skin on
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Large onion, halved
2 carrots, peeled and halved lengthways
1 bulb of garlic, skin on, broken into cloves
4-6 fresh bay leaves
600ml water or vegetable stock

Applesauce
4 Granny Smith apples, pared and cubed
2 tbsp brown sugar
1-2 cinnamon stems (or 1-2 tsp cinammon powder)

Method
Preheat your oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7.

Place your pork on a clean work surface, skin-side up. Get yourself a small sharp knife and make scores about a centimetre apart through the skin into the fat, but not so deep that you cut into the meat. If the joint is tied, try not to cut through the string. Rub salt right into all the scores you’ve just made, pulling the skin apart a little if you need to.

Brush any excess salt off the surface then turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Place your pork, skin-side up, in a roasting tray and pop in the preheated oven. Roast for 30 minutes, until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you can see it turning into crackling. At this point, turn the heat down to 170°C/325 F/gas 3, cover the pork snugly with a double layer of tinfoil, pop back in the oven and roast for a further 4 and a half hours.

Take out of the oven, take the foil off, and baste the meat with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully lift the pork up and transfer to a chopping board. Spoon all but a couple of tablespoons of fat out (save it for roast potatoes!).

Add all the veg, garlic and bay leaves to the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork back on top of everything and return to the stove without the foil to roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be meltingly soft and tender.

Carefully move the meat to a serving dish, cover again with tinfoil and leave to rest while you make your gravy. Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the water or stock and place the tray on the hob. Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to scrape up all those lovely sticky tasty bits on the bottom of the tray. When you’ve got a nice, dark gravy, pour it through a sieve into a bowl or gravy boat, using your spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Add a little more salt and pepper if it needs it.

Serve the pork and crackling with your jug of gravy

Applesauce
Combine the apples, sugar, cinammon and 1 cup water in a heavy saucepan.
Cook for 20 minutes until apples are soft. Mash up or process the apples in food processor till smooth. Set aside. Add more sugar or cinnamon as needed.

Now the beauty about this recipe is that there really isn't a whole lot for you to do. You season the underside with salt and pepper and then rub the skin generously with salt before throwing it in the oven. One key factor is to make sure the skin is dried properly after washing and before seasoning.

The pork sits in the oven for an hour on high, high heat. I expected to see the skin crackling at this point but it just kind of dries out and puffs up a little. The heat is then reduced to 170C and the pork covered with foil. The meat is left to slow cook now for around four hours. Then the foil is removed and the pork is basted with its own juices. You throw in some vegetables at this point and place the pork on top of all the veges. It's then returned to the oven without the foil to roast for another hour.

When I took the roast out, it was just amazing. The skin was nice and crackly and almost separated from the meat as the layer of fat underneath the skin was all gooey and melted goodness. I let the meat rest and made a gravy like the recipe said - adding water to the juices and vegetables and then reducing it. The whole kitchen was filled with the lovely aroma of roasted meat.

When I served the pork roast, the meat was very, very tender and fell away with the slightest of prodding. Fabulous, simply fabulous! It went really, really well with mustard and the applesauce that I made and to say that the Roast Pork was a hit would be an understatement. It was simply sensational! The gravy was very tasty as well and not at all overpowering like some gravy can be.

This is definitely something that I would make again especially when there are a lot of mouths to feed. Thankyou Jamie Oliver for this lovely recipe!

Christmas Dinner 2011

2011-12-28T08:21:00.002+08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I haven't had much time to update this blog as the Christmas Season has been rather busy. Christmas Eve Dinner was held at my house and my family together with The Lovely Wife's family came over to celebrate the arrival of Christmas.

This was the menu for the night and more detailed posts on the items soon - I hope!

In the meantime, Have a Blessed New Year!

My Birthday Hamper

2011-12-01T21:03:00.004+08:00

I turned 44 on the 29th November 2011 and this is how I spent the day. Just like we celebrate every birthday in our house, the birthday boy/girl is wished first thing in the morning and given their gifts. The kids each gave me a lovely hand made card and then proferred a bag full of gifts. First up was the 'obligatory' shirt from The Lovely Wife. She always buys me a nice shirt / T-shirt to make me look more hip and happening - usually something a little more expensive than I would otherwise buy! Then came the gifts from the kids that were specially chosen by them. Somehow gifts from the kids seem to revolve around the kitchen but I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that.

First up was this cute flexible cutting board that is shaped like a duck! The tagline says "from board to bowl with one simple fold".....

Next was a pair of kitchen chopsticks or wok chopsticks - very useful indeed! Then came a nifty little gadget. It looks like a small bowl but it has blades in it and it turned out to be a garlic chopper. The reasoning behind this was that "Mummy doesn't need to help Dads chop garlic anymore!"

Finally they gave me a small, sealable glass container that is oven proof. This was explicitly purchased so that I could store the chocolate sauce that I make for them and reheat the sauce in the oven/microwave easily. Rather clever of my kids if you ask me - getting me a present that will benefit them! All the presents were really lovely and will definitely come in handy.

Then it was off to work and the day unfolded rather uneventfully.

We had decided that we would go out for dinner and it was after dinner that The Lovely Wife and kids surprised me yet again.

They had purchased some of my favourite food items and presented it to me in a basket - like a hamper!

The contents of the hamper consisted of "the stuff that Dads likes" - a Jar of Nutella - coz Dads loves his Nutella and bread; A small bar of Dark Chocolate - the best chocolate is dark chocolate; a double packet of Arnotts Chocolate Covered Teddy bears - Dads favourite from his Uni days in Melbourne; a packet of Pepperidge Farm Geneva biscuits - we all love this; a large bottle of Coke - Dads loves his coke and the kids get to drink it too - and finally a bottle of Guinnes - coz Dads enjoys his stout once in a while.

I was very touched by the hamper as it was really made up of a few of my favourite things.

Now to digress a little, but not too much! When I was in Australia, I learnt of a special way to enjoy Arnotts Chocolate Covered Teddy Bear Biscuits. There's a real trick to this so you have to pay attention. First, get a wide mouthed glass or coffee mug and pour in some port. Next, holding the Teddy Bear so that it faces you, bite of a little bit off its LEFT ear and a little bit off its RIGHT foot. Now dip the right foot into the port and suck on the Left ear till you taste some port. What has happened is that the entire teddy bear is now steeped in port. Now you slowly eat the teddy bear infused with port. Delicious!

I did that last night but I used Brandy instead of Port. Why did I use Brandy instead of Port? Simply because I was too lazy to go and fish the port out of the cupboard! It was still delicious although the brandy was probably a tad too strong as opposed to Port.

The Lovely Wife felt a bit sad that she didnt get me a cake but I told her that the hamper was much more special as a lot of thought went into it. The kids also piped up and reminded her that "bought cakes arent as nice as Dads cakes so dont bother!"

I had a very lovely Birthday celebration. Happy Birthday to me!