Corn cake

Little corn cakes.

I love this cake! The recipe is given by Cynthia's mum. I like to think this is a very Brazilian cake since it uses primarily corn meal, which is a common Brazilian kitchen product. Anyway, Cynthia made this cake the first time Stella and I went over to her place. Then, I asked her to make it again for one of the class dinner. The third time, I thought I'd just make it myself. That just goes to show how much I like it. :D

This corn cake can be eaten for breakfast, serve in afternoon tea, or even used as a dessert after dinner. Though I have not tried it, I think whipped cream folded through with dessicated coconut (sweetened with molasses sugar) will go nicely with the corn cake. Try it!

Corn meal here refers to superfine corn that resembles flour, not cornflour, nor is it cornstarch. I don't know if Singapore have it but it is worth every effort in finding it. I substituted 1 cup of cornmeal with polenta, a coarser mill of corn for more texture. You can use all cornmeal if you like a really light cake. And I increased the baking powder by 1/4 tablespoon to give additional lift since polenta is really heavy.

Corn cake - makes 1x20cm round tin, 12 mini muffin tins and 2 ramekins. Yeah, it gives alot of corn cake. But don't worry, you'll finish them all. I did. :)
A:
2 cups cornmeal
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup oil (canola)
1 teaspoon salt
B:
5 egg yolks
1 tablespoon baking powder
C:
5 egg whites

Orange Syrup:
Juice of 2 oranges
3 tablespoons of sugar

Combine juice and sugar, bring to boil, then cool slightly before use.

Method:

Prepare tins: oiled and lined. Preheat oven to 190 degree Celcius.

1. Combine (A) in a pot. Cook it on medium heat. Stir constantly to prevent any of the cornmeal from catching on the bottom. Bubbles will start to show when the corn mixture is boiling. Boil until the bubbles have ceased, then remove from heat and cool.

2. While the corn mixture is cooling, whisk the whites to soft peaks.

3. Add (B) to cooled corn mixture, mix well. Make sure corn mixture is at least of blood temperature. Any warmer, the egg yolks may cook. You won't want scrambled eggs in your cake.

4. Go back to the egg whites, continue to whisk them to medium peaks. Immediately, fold the whisked whites through the corn mixture. Do it quickly and gently so that you don't lose much of the aeration.

5. Pour batter into tins and bake for about 45 minutes for the round tins. Smaller tins like the mini muffins, will take lesser time, about 20 minutes. Use the colour and feel of the cake as an indicator. Golden means it is ready. Cake springs back when pressed also means it is cooked.

6. Spoon orange syrup over corn cake while still warm.

Serve.

Does your corn cake look like this??

End.

Chinatown, night market.

I have been very restless of late. I am too comfortable that it is monotonous. Stifling even. I really want to work now. Work, please come in my way.

French class is fun, fun , fun, though four hours is a real drag no matter how engaging it it. I learned more naughty words than I ever did when I was studying in Alliance Francaise in Singapore. And there is this Englishman and a 25 year old lawyer whose sarcastic banter tickles me half to death. J'ai besoin de amore.

This morning, while in the toilet, I somehow twisted my neck in the wrong way. Now I have this nerve riding from my neck down to my shoulders causing pain every time I try to turn my neck. What a stupid stupid thing to happen. In the toilet, no freaking less.

I need new songs. Dear guys, if you have any recommendation, please send them this way. Better still, send the whole mp3 to me. :D Merci!

The experience of squatting by the roadside, shoving piping, hot food into your mouth, wiping dirty, oily, food-stained hands on your jeans, was all accomplished in one night, in Sydney, Chinatown. Funny how being far from home changes your perspective.

Night market at Chinatown! Selling a wide assortment of items. The best of all:is the food! Mamak: Malaysian roti chenai. I miss roti prata!

Stella's satay and my prata.

Next up was Takoyaki. Made by real Japanese. I got Stella to say: Samurai i-totsu, Shogun, i-totsu. Onegai-shimasu, to the cashier. Cashier went huh?? He was the only non-Japanese of the lot I guess.

Yeah!

Yeah, yeah! Nous sommes heureuse.

End.

Ice-creams, Sorbet and Biscuits

I am tired. I have traveled many miles to drop my resume in 7 Patisseries today. It is a mad rush to get all the papers printed and ready. Worse still, the school's printer wouldn't take my mac format. So I had to type it all out today for the second time. Such luck.

Anyway, I am getting into shape. Slowly. I can run 2km without much effort but at a crawling speed. I would fail NAPFA miserably running this slowly. 20mins per 2km. Haha, one wonders how I pass my NAPFA with a Silver, no less. Gosh, I am pathetic. Nonetheless, I am very serious about loosing enough weight and body mass to fit into my Spring clothes. Which is about now, so Aileen, watch out!

This week's lesson on ice-creams and biscuits. Ice-creams have always been something mysterious and exciting for me. Until now. Right now, ice-cream is something that melts and stain your bag like crazy sort of irritating product. We made classic vanilla ice-cream, chocolate ice-cream and raspberry sorbet. For ice-creams, first, you make the anglaise, then you churn it, then viola! You have ice-cream!

I don't quite like our school's ice-cream recipe. I expected a richer and more textured ice-cream, not the sweet, super-smooth, almost commercial-like version. I was not very happy with it. Plus I have a one year supply of them sitting in my freezer. One year supply of not very good ice-cream. ._.

With the ice-creams we made, we wrapped them in sponge layers and meringue discs, and piped Italian meringue over. Then we torch it to give some colour. This we call Norwegienne Omelette. People in Norway eat this for breakfast.

In the Vacherin (meringue) shells, we canele ice-creams to put into the shells and we decorate with whatever that goes with ice-creams.

Also using Vacherin discs, ice-creams are sandwiched in-between and whipped cream is used to mask and decorate the exterior.

Our ice-creams.

My Omelette.

The biscuit (filler) lesson.

End.

Wagaya

Another satisfying, relatively painless (on my wallet) meal. (And it's on the same day as The Little Snail! Ha!)

Later that day, we met Jaa and Sam for dinner. Jaa found this Japanese restaurant online and saw that it has good reviews. So we are here, Wagaya.

The food here is not bad, which quite surprises me. I am not used to good Japanese food in Sydney. The food here actually reminds me of those modern eateries in Japan. This restaurant is super modern. You order through this touch screen panel and your food arrives a few minutes later. It feels alien and awesome at the same time.

A grilled scallop and salmon maki. As with most of such open grilled maki, it has that melt-in-your-mouth quality. I like. The one on your right is a beef tongue stew. I have no comment because I don't usually eat beef tongue.

Unagi chazuke, is by far the best dish, in my opinion, we ordered. heehee, I miss Ochazuke! on your right, is Wagaya signature pizza dish. Which is, I believe, the worst out of all we've ordered. It has mochi on it. Freaking mochi. I have tasted mochi in chawanmushi, mochi in croquette, and they all taste bad. This one too.

Ahh, this is memorable. Salmon sushi roulette. One of this salmon sushi has lots and lots of wasabi in it. Guess what, I ate it. -_-" Right is eel and cheese spring roll. No surprise here, a pretty boring and straight-forward dish.

There, I have spent $20 bucks in all for such a nice meal. A rather good bargain, isn't it? :D

End.

The Little Snail

My first French cuisine in 5 months, and I get to eat it for free! I am delighted ofcourse, and very grateful. :D

Thursday afternoon, Stella and I have a date with Joanne at The Little Snail at Pyrmont, Sydney. Her birthday, her treat. All we have to do is to bring the cake, which is the lovely Opera gateau. Stella and I originally wanted to pay for the meal as a joined birthday treat to Joanne but Joanne insisted that it is her treat so as to thank us for accommodating her at our place. Taiwanese can be very persuasive when they want to. Owells, I gladly accept the offer. :D

The Little Snail, chosen Joanne, recommended by her current host. Which, was very well chosen and recommended. For $32 we get top service and a fantastic 3 course meal that makes it unbelievable that it is only $32. Plus it is fine-dining!

See the contrast between the 2 drinks? See how is one more edible-looking than the other? Lesson learnt here is do not order anything with blue curacao in it. It taste like cough syrup with alcohol.

Cheers!

Entré: A dozen of escargot, done the way most like it. Paté with garlic bread. Smoked salmon with ricotta.

Main: Slow roasted lamb on ratatouille and mash. Cordon bleu chicken and baked potato. Veal in some sort of sauce.

Dessert: Créme caramel. Sticky date pudding.

The Opera gateau, prettied up by the wait staff (with no prompting at my side!). The not-so-nice piping is done by me though, haha.

Happy birthday to Joanne!

Whoo!

Thank you, Joanne, once again for the treat!

End.

Croquembouche, L'Opera gateau

Croquembouche is a traditional French wedding cake that is made of profiteroles filled with pastry cream built on a nougatine or short pastry base. Caramel (France) or chocolate (Italy) is used as a sticking agent.

L'Opera gateau is a moist, dense, layered Frech cake traditionally made from jaconde, coffee buttercream and dark ganache.

This has been a very tense week for me. And for everyone else in the class I guess. Croquembouche and Opera gateau. Two very tricksy, fiddly pieces. And you know what, I didn't even complete building my croquembouche. After all the bleeding preparation of making profiteroles, pastry cream and nougatine base, I gave up at the third ring. Problem was, my caramel was too thin, hence the choux balls cannot stick together properly. I had leaning tower of Pisa at stage three which will actually proceeded to completely lean over if I hadn't had my hand supporting it. Well, time ran out so my teacher said she will assess me based on my choux balls and caramel. Luckily I did those well. So yeah, 35/40. haha.

L'opera gateau, my end-term examination topic. That is the main reason why the whole class is so tense. We cannot afford to do a lousy job since it will be the only practice we get. Chef Andre's not-so-perfect Opera, or so he says. Take a look at my Opera. That is called imperfect.

Opera gateau as plated desserts. I personally prefer the one on your left. So cute!!!

Ahh, the runny Opera. The intermediate layers are all alright. The only fault is I made my glaze too thin, which is a major major fault because it is so obviously obvious. My for-all-to-see glaze can't even hold its shape. haha. On the bright side, it tastes good. :D

End.

Young Alfred

I found these pictures lurking in my camera storage. So yeah, why not, I'll share it with you guys.

After French lesson on Saturday, Stella and I took lunch at Young Alfred cafe inside Circular Quay library. Whenever we visit the library, we always felt compelled to eat at the cafe due to all the nice smells wafting about. So this time, Young Alfred, here we come!

It says bruschetta on the menu, so I naturally assumed it would be the standard version of tomato salsa on toast. This is something different. It has grilled capsicum on sourdough toast, topped with a small piece of white cheese (I don't know what kind of cheese this is. Mozzarella's maybe.) and basil and dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I quite like it though I think the portion size is a little too petite.
Potato and leeks soup. Not exactly as hearty as it should be since they thinned it down by quite abit but very tasty nonetheless. Served with 2 pieces of sourdough toast. I ordered like the cheapest food on the menu to save cost. Sigh... What is the point of coming to a nice cafe and eat something mundane? So normal that you can almost make it yourself....... Well, at least bruchetta was unexpectedly exciting. :D

End.