Supper for the night

I was craving donuts. Yes yes. Instagram and facebooks should be banned at night. I told the hubby about it. 

So he went on the search and came back with this instead. 

Four Leaves chocolate cake. Different shape, different texture. But still satisfiable lol. More expensive too. There isn't any donuts for sale nearby. 

Accidentally giened Latte. Again. Lol. 

Melvados

Saturday afternoon was spent at girlfriend's place, relaxing, eating her homecooked korean ricecakes and pancakes, chit chatting, letting baby bond with the rabbits and eating loads more.

After lunch was cakes then icecream. Ah.. The calories to burn haha.. 

I wish to recommend the cake that we had. It is delicious. I love what I had.

I then did a search online and found more information from their website. The cake we had was the Marble Chocolate Brownie. A 1kg cake pre-cut into 10 pieces at S$27.00

http://www.melvados.com/index.php/buy-online/tray-cakes/marble-brownie.html

For those of you who love cream cheese as much as you love chocolate, this brownie was made for you! With swirls of light cream cheese swirled in brownie batter and topped with chocolate chips and walnuts, this brownie is a promises an intensely rich and delicious flavor.

Girlfriend got it from the woodlands outlet. Thought of going down after our session, but the place was already closed. The next time we are in the neighbourhood, this is a place I wish to go.



Melvados
http://www.melvados.com/

Melvados Joo Chiat
216 Joo Chiat Road #01-11, Singapore 427483
Tel: 64449351
Opening Hours:
Tue-Sun 10:00 am - 8:00 pm,
Closed on Mondays

Melvados Woodlands (Within Foodedge Gourmet's premises)
26 Woodlands Terrace, 
Singapore 738449
Tel:  63394953
Opening hours:
Mon-Fri: 10am - 4.30pm
Sat: 9am - 1pm
Closed on Sundays & Public Holidays

Happy 7th Wedding Anniversary

It's our 7th year wedding anniversary. The traditional wedding date. Like so confusing to have two dates. One ROM one traditional wedding. So it's like 7 years or 7.5 years? Nevertheless, it's still a day to celebrate. 

The hubbs booked us a buffet lunch at the hotel we held our wedding dinner. Some credit cards, like Maybank, offers 1 for 1 promotion. 

We reached about 12, and the carpark was pretty full. We had to go all the way up to level 6. Giddy me. That's another reason I should not learn driving. Lol. Anyway, the restaurant, Square @ Furama was pretty full too. Seems like the others are also there for the promotion. 

The spread, I find is so so. Not really a huge spread. And the crowded restaurant makes me feel alittle giddy. We were lucky we got a table at a corner. Our cosy corner. But the bad thing is that our plates clear slower. Food wise, pretty tasty. Maybe I was't feeling that well at the start, the nicest was the ice cream. Hahah! As by then, alot of the guests left and the cold ice cream cooled my head. 

We then went shopping at Vivocity. Baby missed her nap earlier, hence slept through the entire time until we got back to the car. Then we went to fetch Latte home from his grooming. 

Supper was a Nutella Chocolate Cake, made specially by the hubbs. Such a special gift. I like. Very delicious. Very touched :D 

Happy anniversary my dear.

Hang Out Cafe

Hi everyone! It has been a while since there's any update. I have been busied by the LO. It's really a full time career. I can't seem to find time for anything else. She's a mummy's girl. Nevertheless, I still love her loads. Ok. I digressed. 

Yesterday was our 149 monthniversary. Nothing special, went to his relative's place to pray to the ancestors. While on our way home, I was telling the hubby that I wish get some cakes and coffee.   

So hubby got us to this cafe, Hang Out Cafe in Ang Mo Kio. Sadly there's no decaf coffee on the menu, hence I had a rootbeer while he had Macha Latte and 2 slices of cakes for sharing. A sea salt caramel cake and a caramel cheesecake.

Hang Out Cafe is a pretty small cafe in the outskirts of Ang Mo Kio. It caters to students too, as they have promotions for them and saw a group of youngsters chit chatting while enjoying their desserts. 

Good to try, but we'll move on to some other cafes next. Not my kind of place. Or food. 

Snow Skin Mooncake

It's the Mid Autumn Festival today! Time for lanterns, candles, sparkles, mooncakes and the big, round and bright moon.

Following our traditional baked mooncakes, little sister and I went on to make snow skin mooncakes during the weekends. We decided to make two flavors and we had 51 mooncakes in total at the end of the day. Both of us were spent at the end with serious back ache. Haha..

With the remaining of our colored dough, we combined them and made ONE colorful Doraemon snow skin white lotus mooncake. The effect looks good. I was saying to my sister that we should just make colorful ones next year.

Based on the feedback, I think we were quite successful. Her colleagues love it, and even my father and brother who are usually wet blankets in our baking or creations, said that it's nice. Yippie!

Recipe
(from: http://yinhomemade.blogspot.sg/2013/09/easy-to-make-snow-skin-mooncake.html)

Total time 120 mins

Serves Makes 26 55g Mooncakes

Ingredients

• For the Snow Skin
• 150g roasted glutinous rice flour (Gao Fen)
• 150g icing sugar
• 50g shortening
• Approx 180g cold water
• Food coloring
• For the Moon Cake Filling
• 910g White Lotus paste (bought the readymade from Phoon Huat)

Method

1. Sift the cooked glutinous rice flour and icing sugar in a mixing bowl.
2. Add in shortening to the flour mixture, combine the mixture, add in cold water and knead into dough form. 
3. Add drops of food coloring and knead the dough with your hands so that it comes together to become soft dough.
4. Divide dough, flatten the ball of snow skin and roll out until you get a thin circle. 
5. Place the ball of filling in the center of the dough and seal the filling with the snowskin dough by wrapping around the fillings with your hands.
6. Dust the snow skin ball with cooked glutinous flour
7. Place snow skin ball into mooncake mould and press down on the lever hard so that the moon cake shape is formed and the face plate makes imprint.
8. Press to release and moon cake. Repeat with the remaining dough.
9. Chill before serving.

The mini mooncake are done using the ratio of 20g dough to filling 35g.

Nutella Oreo Brownies

PS. Sorry for the lousy photos. I made these at night and the lighting was bad. 

I was going to a girlfriend's mini housewarming the next day, I had decided to make some desserts since she was cooking. With not alot of ingredients at home, I decided to make Nutella Oreo Brownies.

I had made Nutella Brownies the other time, this time, I added in Oreo cookie.

To be honest, I love it. Nutella Oreo Brownie taste simply delicious. I believe young kids would love this. And maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it would taste even better. The brownie taste nicer when it's freshly out from the oven. It still taste nice over night, but the freshly baked crunchiness and warmth adds points to the taste. 

The oreo cookie that is inside when cut opened. 

Recipe
(From: http://www.butterbaking.com/2012/02/10/oreo-and-nutella-brownie-bites/)

Prep time 20 mins

Cook time 12 mins

Total time 32 mins

Serves Makes 6 brownies

Ingredients:

• 140g Nutella
• 1 eggs
• 5 tbsp plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 6 Oreos

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180 C
• In a medium bowl, mix together the Nutella, eggs, flour and salt.
• Scoop a small tablespoon of the Nutella mixture into each cupcake liner. 
• Top with an Oreo. 
• Divide the remaining Nutella mixture among the 6 liners.
• Bake for 12 minutes. 

Steamed Corn Cake Cups (version 2)

After my first attempt of making Steamed Corn Cake Cups, I had decided to try again, this time with another recipe from http://www.misstamchiak.com/recipe-sweet-corn-cake/. The Corn Cups looks really good in her recipe. I had hoped mine is just as good.

Review

This second version of Steamed Corn Cake Cups definitely taste better. Hmm.. I should try the creamy corn as used in the recipe. I had leftover corn kernels, so I just use it. And the recipe requires 2 eggs, but I realised I only left one in the fridge. OMG. Maybe that's why the Steamed Corn Cake Cups looks so... rough? Oops..

Recipe
(From http://www.misstamchiak.com/recipe-sweet-corn-cake/)

Prep time 15 mins

Cook time 30 mins

Total time 45 mins

Serves Makes 6 steam cakes

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 70g sugar
• 100g corn
• 125g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 40g melted butter

Method:

1. Whip eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. 
2. Add in creamy corn, mix until well-blended.
3. Fold in plain flour and baking powder, mix until well blended. 
4. Add in butter, mix until well-incorporated.
5. Pour the mixture into greased and floured cupcake mould.
6. Steam for 30 minutes.

Traditional Black Sesame Lotus Mooncakes

I was doing some online shopping a few months back, and I thought that, since the next festival is the Mid-Autumn Festival, why not get some mooncake moulds and make some mooncakes?

Here are our mooncakes after resting for about 3 days.

Here is the mould and the changeable designs that I had bought from online. The two character patterns are not really suitable for baked mooncakes as the imprinted design on the mooncake looks faded after baking. The rest are pretty.

Roped in my little sister in for this project and we got most of the ingredients from Phoon Huat.
https://www.finedininglovers.com/recipes/dessert/chinese-food-mooncake-recipe/

Review
It took us quite a long time to complete two batches. Why two? I didn't really want to keep the filling, hence suggested to use finish the fillings. And we were both rookies is wrapping and sealing the fillings in the dough. The dough was quite thin and some parts of the dough keep breaking. Overall it was pretty fun, and VERY oily. The dough was very oily. We were a little disgusted at our oily hands at some point. Haha.. But we were happy with our masterpieces. Looks pretty delicious. Taste not too bad.

The second batch of mooncakes has lots of dough left over. So we made bunnies. Although the initial plan was to make piglets, but the piglets look.... weird.

Recipe
(From https://www.finedininglovers.com/recipes/dessert/chinese-food-mooncake-recipe/)

Prep time 90 mins

Cook time 10 mins

Total time 100 mins

Serves 12 x 50g moon cakes

Ingredients

• For the dough
• 100g All-purpose Flour
• 60g Golden syrup
• 1/2 tsp Alkaline water
• 2 g Vegetable oil
• For the filling
• 420g Black Sesame Lotus seed paste
• For the egg wash
• 1 Egg yolk
• 2 tbsp Egg white

Method

1. Use a large bowl, mix the golden syrup, alkaline water and oil well. Sift in the flour. Use a spatula to combine all ingredients. Don’t over-stir. Knead into a dough. 
2. Cover dough with a film wrap and rest for 40 minutes.
3. Cut into 12 equal portions, each 35 grams. Roll each portion into a ball shape. Set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C. 
5. Prepare the egg wash: whisk the egg yolk with the egg white. Sift through a fine sieve.
6. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Roll each portion into a small ball shape. Cover a dough portion with a plastic film and roll into a thin disc. 
7. Wrap and seal the lotus paste ball with the dough disc. Spray the mooncake mould and place the stuffed mooncake into the mould. Lightly press the mould handle, then remove the mooncake from the mould. Transfer the stuffed mooncake onto a lined baking tray. Repeat this step to finish the remaining dough and lotus paste
8. Bake in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes. 
9. Brush the mooncakes with egg wash. 
10. Continue to bake until the pastry turns golden brown. 
11. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Store in an air-tight container. 
12. The pastry will become soft and shiny in one or two days.

Steamed Corn Cake Cups

After all that baking and feeling sinful, I had decided to try a less sinful way of making cakes. Steamed cakes.

Referencing this recipe, http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/steamed-cake/, I steamed my first batch of Steamed Corn Cake Cups.

Prep time 12 mins

Cook time 8 mins

Total time 20 mins

Serves Makes 4 steam cakes

Ingredients

1. ½ cup (75g) all purpose flour
2. 1 tsp. baking powder
3. 1 egg
4. 2 Tbsp. milk
5. 2 Tbsp. sugar
6. 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
7. ¼ cup corn kernels
8. ¼ cup shredded cheese

Method

1. In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking powder
2. Whisk them about 20 times (This is a shortcut method for sifting).
3. In a small bowl, whisk egg, milk, sugar, and vegetable oil together until combined.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix until smooth.
5. Add corn & cheese and mix until combined.
6. Pour the mixture into the cupcake liners.
7. Place the glass ramekins in steamer and cook covered on medium heat for 8 minutes. They're done when a skewer comes out clean without wet batter.
8. Turn off the heat and remove the ramekins from the pan and let them cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Personally, I don't find it very successful. Hence I'm going to try another recipe for the next round. 

The Steamed Corn Cake Cups came out a little too hard. I guess alot more whisking is required at the egg portion. (Did a search online for the reason why my Steamed Corn Cake Cups are not soft and fluffy enough)

But I do enjoy my first batch of Steamed Corn Cake Cups. They taste pretty nice, just that the recipe needs more adjustments. To try again =D

Paris Baguette Cafe

I had always wanted to try Paris Baguette. The place was one of the to-try, highlighted by misslittlepatches. Paris Baguette is a Korean based bakery which has outlets in countries like China, California, New York, and others. A new addition in the Singapore food industry. The first outlet is in Wisma Atria.

Ying was bored from the home-work-home routine, so we arranged for dinner at Jem, the newest shopping mall in Jurong East. Our original aim was to shop with our birthday gift vouchers from Chyi. But first off, dinner. We were hungry. And I remembered the pretty cafe in Jem, so, we went. Luckily we managed to spot an empty table.

The cafe is located on the 2nd level. From the linkway between the MRT and the mall, turn right, and you will be able to spot the cafe easily.

The queue for the food is long and non-stop. Luckily it was pretty fast. Though I wasn't so lucky, as they were all too busy for me.

The Royal Pudding seems like a must-try. Everyone's raving about it. I wonder is it really that nice. Pretty bottles, and a little pricey too.

Lots of tarts, bread, pastries to choose from.

They have pretty cakes!

Tray for eat-in. Cool eh. But it was a little difficult to hold from the height over the counter. 

Pad Thai Noodle Salad [$8.50] - Ying's main. With everything mixed in, chewy noodles, fresh ingredients with the sweet sour sauce, it's pretty delicious.

Seafood Chowder bread [$6.00] - My main. A little disappointed. The soup is great, with one fresh prawn. But the bread is sooooooo HARD. Difficult to pull apart even using both hands and difficult to chew too. HARD.

Crunch Crunch Choco [$6.50] - I love this. Dessert. Treat from Ying. Chocolate cake with crispy coco balls in between the layers. Decorated with two grapes. Green is yummy, red was yucky sour with seeds. haha..

Strawberry Royal Pudding [$4.50] - Yet to try this. Bought this home for the hubby. Pretty and expensive. haha..

Overall, love the place, love the food. But it's on the pricey side. Would love to go there again and when I feel richer or when I wanna pamper myself. haha...

Paris Baguette Cafe
Jem, 50 Jurong Gateway Road #02-20/21, Singapore 608549
Wisma Atria Shopping Centre, 435 Orchard Road, #02-48/53, Singapore 238877

Rich and Good Cake Shop

I am SO SAD! I intended to buy durian swiss rolls home for my mum and mil. I went at 2.45pm and all the cakes were sold out. The aunty say one hour later. I went back one hour later, all the durian sold out. I'm so sad........ The aunty gave too much buffer time.

On my second trip, only a few flavours were left. I bought one Chocolate and one Mango flavour.

Brought them back to my family. Intended to get durian for my mum and brother and chocolate for my sister and dad. Hopefully mango suits their taste too. I will go earlier to get the durian flavour the next time.

They have tear out namecards on their box. Idea.

Two long swiss rolls. Which would you like to try first?
Mango $7.50  |  Chocolate $6.50

I like the chocolate more. The taste is very rich, very chocolaty. Can easily ask for seconds.
For the mango swiss roll, I personally feel that the mango flavour can be stronger.

On my first trip, I saw two ladies with bags full of cakes. It felt like, it seems to be a good day for swiss rolls. On my second trip, I saw a guy with a big bag full of cakes, and I felt the anxiety that the cakes would be sold out on me for a second time. These are all signs........

By the way, the auntie is the same as always, the stinky face. Haha.. But today mine stinkier. Ok la.. More of sad and sian. Sold out on me twice.. SOBs...

** Photos taken with iPhone5.


Rich and Good Cake Shop
https://www.facebook.com/richandgoodcakeshop/info

24 Kandahar Street Singapore 198887