Prymont Growers' Market

The one market I have been wanting to go. Prymont Growers' Market. Finally! after missing out on last month because we overslept. haha. This time Stella and I woke up at 5.30 in the morning and arrived a good 15 minutes before the agreed meeting time. Payback time. :D The growers' market is a market where all the primary producers all gather at Prymont Bay Park on the first Saturday of every month to sell their products. Expect to see gourmet food, fresh flowers and plenty of dogs in the area.

Stella and Soek at 7.30am.

Little tents like these fill up the entire area. You can smell food everywhere! Grilled bacon, fresh coffee, fried sausages...

Our breakfast. Our noses led us there. Egg and bacon roll with chilli jam. $5.

With New Jersey award-winning chocolate milk. $4.

Seok

Stella

Heidi, me.

Spinach in colours I have never seen before.

Fried ravioli. Free samples given out. Freshly made by this man! We were chatting to him and he decided to give us a bunch of the fried ravioli. How nice!

Another egg and bacon roll stall. This dish seems pretty popular here.

He will sharpen your knifes for $5 each.

The flowers. They are so tempting. I almost bought 2 pots of lavender back. I thought for a long time and then, urghh, too heavy.

I don't have the photos here but I bought 2 loads of things. 1 smoked rainbow trout $9 (for dinner), 1 sparkling apple juice $3, 1 danish pastry $3.50, 2 bottles of jams $12.50 and 1 dog bone $3. Plus I have to carry Stella's share home. Waaa.

End.

T2

I don't get it. Why can't I be happy and show people I am happy, that happiness is actually attainable without the need to sacrifice anything? When I have fun, I share. That is what I do. And you guys don't have to feel discomfort or whatsoever, just feel the joy I am having, imagine yourself having this joy and one day, you will have it too. So yeah, I am entitled to have fun all day long. (since making pastries is fun to me too.) :D

Enough of serious stuff. Friday! My favourite day of the week. Movie catching day. Stella and I caught Don't Mess With Zohan with the $7.50 movie vouchers (thank you roneel and naomi!). Adam Sandler has outdone himself in the worst way possible. Mi goodness. The movie itself was crude, obscene and full of mariah carey dittos. Eeeewwww.

For tea, Stella and I went to T2 at Macquarie Shopping Centre, Level 4 I think. It is a chi-chi teahouse cross cafe which is not half bad. The interior is really dark. They used red lights for lighting which I don't like. It confuses the eyes.

The teahouse has a wide variety of teas. Green tea, black tea, red tea, fruit tea, herb tea, you name it. The only tea missing is chinese tea. I guess chinese tea don't go very well with English pastries and cakes huh? I had a Chai milk tea $5.50, Stella, a Russian caravan, cocoa milk tea $6.50. Big glass.

Self-saucing chocolate mud cake. I like this. A scoop of ice-cream this will be perfect!

Oreo cake. Too sweet for me. :/

End.

Hunter Valley

Thursday, 3rd July. I drank 3-in-1 superbrand cereal at 7.30am. Grabbed my big bag of goodies, donned my wind-breaker, poofy jacket and went out of the house. What is wrong with this image? Well, it is a non-school day, therefore it is a general rule to stay in bed until the clock strike at least 9am. Oh yeah, it's Hunter Valley-day today.

Hunter Valley, is a 2 hour drive from Sydney. It is not unlike from Singapore to Malacca, except that Hunter Valley is so so much larger than Malacca. Hence, to make a day trip to Hunter Valley work, we have had to wake up early. Or so we thought. It didn't work out as well as we would like to. Lesson learnt: Be wise and stay for at least a couple of nights. I will tell you why. 1st: The sun sets at 5pm. Driving in the dark, with no street light, in a ulu pandan place is no joke. And do you know how many river-crossing we have to do in order to get to the cheese farm? (we didn't get there anyway. lost our way. haha.) Without light, you're stuck. 2nd: Hunter Valley is big. When I say big, I am not referring to from bukit timah to woodlands. To get from the entrance of Hunter Valley to the olive farm is like from east coast to johore bahru. From the olive farm to the vineyard is just as far. So, now do you think 1 day is enough? We had plenty fun though, and that is enough for me. :D

On the road. Sam was driving, Hong was entertaining/gossiping with him. Heidi and Stella meditated at the back seats. :) These are olive trees. We went to the olive farm first, where I bought 1 caramelised balsamic vinegar, 1 pomegranate balsamic vinegar and 1 sea salt. They have pink sea salt~

Furry cows. I didn't know cows can grow an extra layer of insulation until I saw them. Apparently, they are bred for their meat, not milk because I see no milk farm up here.

Lunch straight after. We went for standard Australian pub fare. Fish and chips, and steak with "period"-looking sauce. (haha, Sam, i just had to say this. It really really look like it. Give it a little more red and it will be spot-on! haha.) Eating with 2 cuisine graduate is -_-. You cannot eat in peace without some comments or critic. I shouldn't say that because I am like that with pastry too. haha.

1 more hour on the road to get to the wines.

Arrow Field Estate. :D Stella and I happily carried 6 bottles of wine (5 port, 1 botrytis). The port we bought were hmmmm. Good stuff! Not overly sweet, full flavoured and all. Port can be kept for as long as 30-40 years to fully develop the flavour. That is why we bought so many.

Whee~

Next stop: Cheese farm. Despite our lengthy search, Hong's stupid wife (aka GPRS) can't tell us the exact address. Plus it was getting dark. Time to head back.

Therefore our last stop was the church of St. Micheal the archangel.

That is him. Reminds me of an Egyptian.

The bell beside the church.

Home sweet home.

End.

Baked cheesecake, chilled cheesecake

I was blog hopping and I read this entry on my brother's blog, in chinese. I was blown. I never never realise he can write. Wow. Maybe he will become a writer one day. (JD, i know your head must be swelling right now. ) He does express himself better on paper though talking to him is such a pain in the ass. (there, i just burst your bubble :) )

Et viola, cheesecakes for my last lesson in basic. It is official that I passed, the whole class passed in fact, and we will be getting our basic patisserie certificate in 6-8 weeks. But knowing the miserable productive capacity of the Adelaide office, Sam concluded that we will only get our papers by the end of 15 weeks. Owells, I can wait.

Cheesecake, oh cheesecake, the ever popular favourite. XY would love those we made today. It puts the cheesecakes we have in Singapore (NYDC, Coffee club, Coffee bean etc.) to shame. The flavour, the lightness, the texture and the appearance are all very well presented in both the baked and the chilled versions. (I like the baked one better though. My tongue likes it better.)

Chef Micheal's creations. Very beautiful, aren't they. These are all chilled cheesecake, presented differently. Baked cheesecake, on the other hand, should not be decorated in any way except when to be plated.

Swiss military in strawberries, haha. I am so over fed with strawberries. We had like 6 punnets of strawberries on the table for the fruit jelly and for deco. I just kept stuffing my face with them. My own creation of an individual sized chilled cheesecake. :D

A trayful of them.

Two large baked cheesecake that my bench partners did. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L tasting. I got to bring one of them home. :DWho ate my cheesecake?! oh, it's Chef Micheal's. haha

End.

Buttercream Gateaux

Here comes the heart-attack cakes! 2kg worth of butter! and I never want to see buttercream again. Urghh, the thought of it irritates my stomach. It also reminds me of the hazelnut mousseline for Paris Brest. Regurgitation is not the best experience.

Anyway, after all the mise en place from yesterday, we made the italian buttercream and tried to assemble at least a decent looking cake. To make a buttercream gateau, you need, 1 genoise sponge, 1 japonaise (optional), lots of buttercream, punch and some chocolate decorations (optional). First, you slice the genoise sponge into 2-4 equal parts, depending on how high your sponge rises. Then, you brush the base layer with punch. Third, slather an even layer of buttercream on it. Repeat these steps until your last layer then you start to even out the rough edges with your palette knife. Chill it till buttercream hardens a little. Followed by another layer of buttercream as the outer (decorative) layer. Decorate with more buttercream and chocolate designs. Done. It may sound easy but getting that nice finish takes years and years of experience. And my chefs can do it like within minutes. I am in awe.

These are some of their designs, traditional to modern 2008 designs.

And this is mine. No chocolate deco for me. :( We were too slow in the kitchen, therefore didn't have time to produce chocolate work. But at least I managed piping. :D I gave one of my buttercream gateau to the cleaning ladies (we each made two). I don't think I can possibly stomach buttercream anymore. It is like eating one tub of sugar and two tubs of butter in one sitting. No wonder chef Karin calls them the heart-attack cakes.