Chocolate Almond Butter Cakes

Christmas is coming! In 28 days.

I like Christmas, despite it being a Christian and an overly commercialised event. Simply because it is an excuse to bake and eat, and eat a lot.

I took a huge grocery bag and went to Phoon Huat. People stared as I walked down the aisle muttering to myself: yes, fruit cakes, yes cranberries, yes, almond meal...eew, what the hell is egg yolk powder, yes, butter, yes, cheese, yes, baking cups, yes, hazelnut, walnut, pistachios, yes, yes.. what, you don't accept credit card?

Next, start baking. My first assignment is a birthday cake for Minny. A chocolate birthday cake. Therefore, I started putting together the ingredients. I wanted a buttery fragrant chocolate cake, like a chocolate pound cake, only more fragrant. I was enthusiastic. Who wouldn't be? The new almond meal still sitting in the grocery bag is begging to be used. Like a kid with the new toy, I went straight to "work" in the kitchen.

Halfway through, I got a message from Minny with the invitation details. I stared at my cellphone for a long time. The party was next week. Which meant I made the birthday a week early.

Nevermind. I would still continue with the miniatures that I made with the extra batter. I am going to test drive them for Christmas.

I have this beautiful dark chocolate stashed in my room. 70% Sao tome. I'm going to use it for the whipped cream. I made a 50-50 ganache, added it to the whipping cream. Whipped it to a nice semi-hard peak and pipe it onto the minis. I sprinkled some almond cookie crumbs across. Tadah!

Why are you looking at me like this??

My first wisdom tooth extraction six months ago was a breeze. No pain whatsoever. Not even after the surgery, which includes the drilling, digging and jerking.

Why then does it hurt so much this time? Why does it have to swell?! Pain, I can deal with. But a huge sweet potato for a face?!

I'm listening to Man in the Mirror, by MJ, James Morrison, Wang Lee Hom. I like them all. :D

A love story which had ended.

Mini pumpkin pie

I have ended my three month love story with a certain patisserie. It ended sweetly, tearless, wordless. However in love I may be, I was due for a break up. I was so tired, I was past tired. I was living in a timeless routine. And I got sick of it.

I am grateful, however, to be able to meet the beautiful people whom I worked with. Apart from technical skills, more importantly, I learnt life lessons. To work together, to laugh, to appreciate, to love.

I enjoy the times when we would rush the morning together, relying on the teamwork, the trust we built to deliver beautiful cakes into the display cases in record time. I enjoy Sunday lunches taken together in the kitchen. I love conversations without spoken words, only hand signs, eye contact, head shakes. I love conversation with spoken words, a myriad of broken languages- English, Japanese, Chinese, Hokkien, to form a language that we could all understand. When I receive a rare nod or a praise from my soft-spoken chef, especially when I had worked hard for it, I could be happy for days.

Therefore as a form of closure, during my last week of work, I made Glace's marron pie. My mum's favourite. Slightly modified to a pumpkin pie.

People always have this impression that the marron pie is a muffin/ cupcake. It is not. Other than the shape, I don't see any similarities between the two. Just imagine, a layer of puff pastry base, filled with the most buttery frangipane. In the frangipane, there's a generous bit of baked pumpkin (in my case). Lastly, a crunchy almond crust. Yumm. Plus, I made it mini cupcake size. Gone in two bites. Beautiful thing really.

My food philosophy #1

What is food? What should food be?

Everyday I'm awake, I make breakfast;

everyday I go to work, in a big commercial kitchen;

everytime I read a cookbook, and come across a presentation of a recipe;
I ask myself.

Should food be served in a spotlessly clean glass, eaten with a straw? Should it involve complex equations and high tech machinery? Fanciful, and usually wasteful, decorations? Anyone?

I think food should be like this.

Heartwarming, inviting, to the point.

Bistro One Zero Three

A comfortable place with comfortable food for comfortable company- Bistro One Zero Three.

The first time I was brought to Bistro, it was closed. That was a Tuesday. The second time was a pleasant surprise; both to my tastebuds and eyes. Third was a bit of a difficulty for I lost my way getting there, still food and service was great. The forth and last time, it was closed as I had forgotten it was a Tuesday.

Warm mushroom salad. Mushrooms form the warm part of the salad, which rests on a bed of fresh greens with a lovely sweet balsamic dressing. I like this dish.

For some reason I cannot remember this dish. I think it is fried... umm tofu?

Memory is failing as I write. I think this is osso bucco? haha. And it was not bad I remember... Weiloon had this.

Kurobuta pork neck. Mine. I like it! It's really tender, which surprised me. I had expected it to be tougher. Thick fries, thumbs up. Caramelised onions, two thumbs up!

Crabmeat, salmon tomato-based spaghetti. Grace had it the first time, I went back for it the second time. It is strangely comforting with its slight sweetness and subtle tangyness.

Coffee was disappointing though. I guess I should have gone for the wine instead.