Staycation at Changi Village Hotel

Merry Christmas!

We had our early christmas celebration at Changi Village Hotel 1 week before Christmas. Took a 3D2N package with Executive suite for about $400nett, so it came with access to the executive lounge, with free flow of drinks and evening cocktails.

The lounge was filled with the Shopaholic Series which I love! I didn't read them cos I have the whole range at home. I love the infinity pool! Blame it on my good friend who came to visit, so I didn't get to use the pool at all.

We stayed on the same level as the executive lounge and had a really cool ocean view from the room. The bathroom was quite unique with the see through glass window. I only realised that we can pull down the window screen for privacy on the 2nd day. :p

Spent 2 hours cycling along changi beach, pass the long stretch of road where you race with the airplanes. It was really fun, but tiring since we haven't been cycling for so long.

Ordered Room service. It was really nice for a rainy afternoon. Yes, it rained really heavily after cycling, luckily we were already back in the hotel.

The last day was spent slacking around in the room, before we checked out.

The overall experience was ok I guess, the Wifi is really weak, even the hotel staffs said so. The air con was really cold, somehow, we off the aircon and slept through the first night. (A good friend said cos it's haunted. :p) I hope to stay at Hotel Quincy the next time, also under the Far East Group.

How was your staycaytion experience?

Tea and Desserts

Recently, 2 good friends and myself celebrated early christmas at Jewels Artisan Chocolate, located at Orchard Central. We ordered a tea set and had fun bitching, enjoyin tea on a saturday weekend and listening to music from the Lush 99.5 studio just beside us.



We exchanged our christmas presents and all of sudden, the servers came and sprang a surprise on me with a birthday song! That was ultimately sweet of them. Of cos, I'm sure my friends must have planned it in advanced.

Left the place feeling real sweet, it's one place that I will go back again. I love the afternoon tea set, had my favourite Earl Grey Tea. Although it wasn't as good as Coffee Bean's but I love the desserts. One more tea place to add to my favourite list.

Steamed D.O.M Chicken

 

My mum, knowing that I was on leave, gave me some 2 Chicken Thighs and 2 Chicken Wings so I could prepare the for dinner. Took me really long to decide what kind of chicken dish until I came across this D.O.M recipe from Noob Cook. It was real easy to prepare and not forgetting that I have this bottle of D.O.M that I was trying to find ways to finish it.

I followed the recipe and forgot about the sesame oil until 45 mins later! -_- However, I must say that, even without the sesame oil, it smelled really nice, so I added sesame oil, hoping it wouldn't be too late. I steamed the chicken for slightly more than 1 hour, and it was really nice, however, it was a tad too sweet, I suspect that I threw in too much wolfberries. The hubby likes it though. :)

I used water for my version as I was lazy to prepare any stock. There's no mushrooms in my chicken too, cos I hate mushrooms. :) As for the ginger, I shredded them, tried my very best to squeeze out this little bit of juice and threw in all the ginger into the dish as well.

So, here's the recipe.
 Ingredients
(Serves 2)
2 large chicken thighs
3 tbsp DOM (D.O.M) Benedictine liquor (法国廊酒)
1 tbsp ginger juice (grate the ginger, take the ginger pulp and squeeze out the juice)
5 tbsp water
1 tbsp wolfberries
10 red dates
1/2 tbsp sesame oil

Directions
1. Place the chicken thighs into a wide and deep plate. Line the bottom of the vessel with sliced mushrooms, reserving some to top the chicken.
2. Add in ginger juice, D.O.M, water/stock, sesame oil, wolfberries and red dates.
3. Cover the vessel with a lid or seal tightly with aluminium foil and cook the chicken on high heat until the water at the steamer is boiling.
4. Lower down the heat and continue to cook for about 40-50 minutes.
5. Add salt to taste if required.

Mummy also gave me some French Beans, so I made French Beans in XO Sauce. :p

Afresh

Ever since I started on my new job, I haven't really been busy. :p
But, because the hubby started his new job, which is at the other end of the island, we tend to go home really late, have dinner outside and weekends are reserved for sleeping in, and cleaning the house.

There's a hiatus in between because my old laptop crashed. I had so much photos inside waiting to be uploaded! It's not going to happen though. :(

That said, it's really disappointing, as I have not touched the oven for 5 months! I hope to be able to do some updates soon. My hands are itching, and the bar of cheese from my cottony cheesecake is still in the fridge. :p
I should really do something these 2 days since I'm going on leave. Time to move my butt! 

Japanese Cotton Soft Cheesecake

This recipe is widely raved on Diane Desserts. Was so tempted to read it after reading Jamie's & Little Teochew's Blog. And since, I'm finally starting work next week, and meeting my ex-colleagues this week, I thought this would be a good ending!

Well, I was also ambitious, instead of baking it in a springform pan, I baked the mixture in a 6-pc muffin pan cos I don't have a pan to do a waterbath with a springform pan. What I did was placed my muffin tray on the baking tray and filled the baking tray with hot boiling water.

I also halved the mixture, and it worked out just nice for 6 large muffins. My only gripe is, it doesn't look cotton soft. In fact, somehow, water seeped into the base of the cake. Which until now, I still do not know why. Other than that, the cake actually taste good! It's slightly more dense than what I saw from the photos, but it does taste light. Since I have another half of the cream cheese left, I think I will do another batch this weekend to see how it turns out.

Japanese Cotton Soft Cheese Cake
 Ingredients:
140g/5 oz. fine granulated sugar
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
50g/2 oz. butter
250g/9 oz. cream cheese
100 ml/3 fluid oz. fresh milk
1 tbsp. lemon juice
60g/2 oz. cake flour /superfine flour
20g/1 oz. cornflour (cornstarch)
1/4 tsp. salt

1. Pre-heat oven at 160 degrees celsius

2. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, the cornflour, egg yolks, lemon juice and mix well.

3. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form.

4. Add the cheese mixture to the egg white mixture and fold well. Fold using a plastic spatula, draw the spatula across the mixture, then fold in the mixture.

5. Lightly grease and flour the bottom and sides of  each muffin hole on the tray parchment.

6. Pour mixture into the muffin hole.

7. Fill the baking tray with water before placing the muffin tray into the oven.

8. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until set and golden brown at 160 degree celsius.

9. When the time's up, open the oven door slightly or hold it with your kitchen towel or wooden spoon so that the cakes does not shrink due to sudden change in temperature. Leave it for about 45 mins to 1 hour

10. Once cool, the cakes will come off easily when you over turn them on the cooling rack.

Enjoy and let me know how it works out for you!

Meringue Cookies

Having wanting to try to make my own meringues for ages. The opportunity came when I made my custard for the fruit tart. I was left with 4 egg whites, hence I googled what I can do with them, and Meringues became my top choice. It was super easy to do, based on the the Meringue Cookies reciple that I followed. My only issue was, I am so bad at piping! I can't control the $2 pipe from Daiso. So my Meringue Cookies ended up shit-like. :p

Nevertheless, they taste so good. A tad too sweet for my liking though, but you need the sugar to make it crispy. The final product, is so crispy, yet it breaks into your mouth like a marshmallow. Yummers!

Meringue Cookie Recipe (Adapted from All Recipes)

Ingredients

4 Egg whites

450g SIS Caster Sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat the oven to 95 degrees C.

2. Line Baking Tray with Aluminium Foil. You can choose to butter and flour a baking sheet as well.

3. In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer. Sprinkle in sugar a little at a time, while continuing to whip at medium speed. 

4. Beat in the vanilla extraxct. 

5. When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny like satin, stop mixing.

6. Transfer the mixture to a large pastry bag. Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet using a large round tip or star tip.

7. Place the meringues in the oven and place a wooden spoon handle in the door to keep it from closing all the way. Bake for 3 hours, or until the meringues are dry, and can easily be removed from the pan. Allow cookies to cool completely before storing in an airtight container at room temperature

 

Mixed Fruit Tart

Last week, I wanted to used up my ready made pie crust that I got from Cold Storage for my Apple Pie before I leave for my short holiday. Decided to try doing mixed fruit tart with Custard filling cos I thought it would be easier. Well, I was so wrong. My first try at the custard tasted so good but looked and felt so wrong. It was totally clumpy. So I tried another recipe. It was ok, but still abit tough. I think I must have stirred them too much or something, cos it doesn't feel like cream at all. :(

On top I didn't drained the syrup from the peaches properly, so it was dripping with syrup. I did coat the pie with chocolate though, but the crust cracked. I think I kinda hit it and broke it when I bought it, cos my apple pie crust cracked too! It was kind of a sad experience for me. But, the tart still taste good. Cos they cracked like crazy, I couldn't take a proper photo of the sliced tart. :(
Anyway, here's the recipe, not much of recipe except for the custard. You can choose any fruit toppings of your choice. 

Mixed Fruit Tart
Ingredients:

Pie Crust Recipe
Ready Made Pie Crust from Cold Storage ( They come in set of 2 pies crusts on Aluminium Foil)
Fruits Toppings: Kiwi, Canned Peaches, Bluberries
8 squares of Lindt Chocolate for coating on crust
20ml of milk

Custard Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking:
300ml Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
3 Large Egg Yolks
50g SIS Caster Sugar
20g All-purpose flour
20g Corn Starch

Pie Crust
1. Baked the ready made crust in the oven for about 15-20 mins at about 175 degree celcius or according to manufacturer's specs.

2. Crust should be slightly brown and left to cool for about 30 mins.

3. Meanwhile, warm up milk in a saucepan and add in the chocolate, keep stirring until it becomes fondue like chocolate. If texture is too hard, add more milk. If texture is too diluted, add more chocolates.

4. Brush the chocolate mixture on the crust covering the base and the sides of the cruse.
At this point, you can choose to remove crust from the aluminium foil and placed the done crust in the fridge. I didn't remove the foil and had problems cutting it. haha

Custard
1. In a medium-sized stainless steel bowl, mix the sugar and egg yolks together with a wooden spoon. (Never let the mixture sit too long or you will get pieces of egg forming.) 

2. Sift the flour and cornstarch (corn flour) together and then add to the egg mixture, mixing until you get a smooth paste.  Set aside.

3. Meanwhile, in a saucepan combine the milk and vanilla essence on medium heat until boiling. (The milk will foam up to the top of pan when done, so watch carefully.) 

4. Remove from heat and add slowly to egg mixture, whisking constantly to prevent curdling. (If you get a few pieces of egg (curdling) in the mixture, pour through a strainer.) 
 
5. Place the egg mixture back into a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until boiling, whisking constantly. 

6. When it boils, whisk mixture constantly for another 30 - 60 seconds until it becomes very thick and it is hard to stir.
 
7. Remove from heat. 

8. Pour into a clean bowl and immediately cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Cool. 

If not using right away refrigerate until needed, up to 3 days. Beat before using to get rid of any lumps that may have formed.

Assembling the Fruit Tart

1. Scoop the custard on to the tart and spread nicely using a spatula.

2. Decorate with fruits.

Some recipe would glaze the finished product with warm apricot glaze, I don't have it, so I didn't use. Just bear in mind that if you leave it in the fridge for too long, it will dry up. 

Enjoy!

Chilling Out with Tea

Since there's only 2 of us, and hubby is at work. I played with wii for a while (my form of exercise. :) before showering and preparing food.

Made myself a pot of Ceylon tea and finished off my butter pound cake.

I'm a sucker for tea, I don't drink coffee, so Tea is my caffein. Today, I had Ceylon tea that was given to me as a gift from a Sri Lankan. Sri Lanka is famous for their Ceylon Tea, it's handpicked and so nice. I remembered my mum used to give me Ceylon Tea when I was young and I didn't even like it. Maybe cos it wasn't my cup of tea back then.

That being said, our favourite tea (yes, hubby is a tea-drinker too, that's why I married him.) is Earl Grey Tea. I didn't dare to try other tea other than old boring English Breakfast Tea. Hubby was the one that intro-ed me to Earl Grey. I love its Bergamot aroma. Also, I love my tea with milk! :)

I have started to looking for cool cafes where I chill out with a nice pot of hot tea and some pies or cakes. Yesterday, we went to Octa Cafe at Parco after watching this Ch 8 show where they intro-ed the cafe. It was kind of disappointing, I was hoping that they serve my tea in nice chinaware. However, they only served it in glass cups. Can't say much about the food cos we ordered a blueberry pie lookalike. Atmosphere was good though, will consider going back with this friend of mine who loves such cafe.

Pardon the photo though, iPhone can't really function as well as a proper camera. :)

Unagi Bento (Japanese Eel)

My hubby requested for Japanese food last night since we still had Sushi Rice. Bought pre-cooked unagi and unagi sauce from cold storage and woke up at 7am to prepare. It was easy cos I had most of the ingredients, managed to get it done in 30 mins.

Unagi Bento:

Ingredients:
Pre-cooked Unagi
1 cup Shokaku No-Wash Sushi Rice (Saves time cos you don't need to wash them!)
2 Tbsp Mizkan Sushi Seasoning
2 Tsp of Raw Sesame Seeds
1 Egg
Small piece Nori (Seaweed)
Dash of Pepper
1 Tsp Soy Sauce
Unagi Sauce

Preparing the Sushi Rice - I love all my Japanese dish with Sushi Rice and loads of Vinegar. :p
This is the one I use.

1. Wash the rice, dispense with all usual sushi rice steps and cook in the rice cooker as per normal. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2. Once the rice is cooked, let it warm in the cooker for about 5 mins.

3. Scoop out the rice, mix with a spoonful of vinegar and mix the rice by sliding the spatula across the rice to prevent the rice from breaking.

4. Leave it too cool.

Preparing the Fried Shredded Egg
 

1. Beat 1 egg with pepper and soy sauce.

2. Heat up the sauce pan with a wee bit of oil.

3. Pour the egg mixture in and turn the pan around to ensure that the mixture covers the base of the pan to get a round fried egg.

4. Leave for about 1 to 2 mins. I like mine brown, so I leave them on longer. Flip the egg with a turner and leave for another 1 to 1 mins.

5. Once it's done, use a pair of tongs, cut the egg into half with a pair of scissors. Take 1 half, cut them into shreds. Continue with the 2nd half.

Preparing the Roasted Sesame Seeds

1. Heat up the pan without oil.

2. Throw in about 2 teaspoons of Raw Seasame Seeds.

3. Flip the pan every minute.

4. Turn off heat once you smell the sesame aroma or when they turn brown.

Preparing the Nori Strips
1. Cut nori into thin strips. Leave aside.

Preparing the Unagi
1. Pre-cooked Unagi are easy to handle. Just pop them into the microwave for about 1 min.
Alternatively, you can pan fry them or bake them.

Lastly, put all the ingredients together!
I happen to have a cute Heart shape mould from Daiso. Pour loads of the Unagi sauce if you like!

Butter Pound Cake

Finally got down to updating my recipes. Now that I'm free at home at least for about 2 more weeks, I wanted to make Butter Pound Cake because:

1. When I tried to make French Apple Pie, I stupidly went to buy self raising flour.

2. I also bought Butter for my Apple Pie.

Turns out that the French Apple Pie I was making requires no flour cos I bought the ready made Pastry Puff from Cold Storage. Neither does it require that much Butter.

So, with Butter and Flour, I thought of Pound Cake.
I even bought a Pound Cake Pan from Daiso except that it was kinda of small, so you may want to split the baking into 2 rounds. I tried to bake everything together, my cake got overflowed. haha.

So, here comes the recipe adapted from Joy Of Baking. I follow a couple of her recipes before, she's good.

So since I already had the self raising flour, I omitted the baking powder. The recipe also called for Vanilla Extract, I substituted it with Vanilla Essence. Important to note: All ingredients need to be at room temperature before your mix them.

Pound Cake Recipe:

3 large eggs room temperature

45ml milk, room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence

150 grams sifted Bake King Self Raising flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

150 grams SIS Castor white sugar

185 grams Golden Churn unsalted butter, room temperature

Pound Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 177 degrees C and place rack in center of oven. 

2. Butter or spray with a non stick vegetable spray, a 9 x 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pan. 

3. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and butter the paper. For me, I just took Reynolds wax paper and pile the mixture on top of the paper. They will sink in to the pan.

4. In a medium bowl lightly combine the eggs, milk, and vanilla essence.

5. In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar) and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds or until blended. 

6. Add the butter and half of the egg mixture. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. 

7. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for about one minute to aerate and develop the cake's structure. 

8. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Gradually add the remaining egg mixture, in 2 additions, beating about 30 seconds after each addition to incorporate the egg and strengthen the cake's structure.

9. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. 

10. Bake for about 55 to 65 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

11. If you find the cake browning too much as it bakes, cover with a piece of lightly buttered aluminum foil after about 30 minutes.

12. Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. 

13. Remove the cake from the pan and cool completely on a lightly buttered wire rack.

14. Can be kepy when well wrapped for several days at room temperature, or about one week when refrigerated, or it can be frozen for two months.

15. Makes one 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf.

This recipe promises a texture that melts in your mouth, dense, moistured, and it's really true. I actually ate it hot out of the oven. Absolutely delicious, so I finished about a quarter of it on my own.

Enjoy!

French Crepes

Always been a fan of crepes since we went to Japan last year. Japan's crepes had all sorts of filling.

When we were in France for our Honeymoon, we had to try crepes. So I had this 'Chocolate' filling (Not nutella because hubby doesnt like nutella) crepe. It was so nice during winter.

I have tried on 1 occasion to recreate the crepe, it tasted the same, but there wasn't this nice smell that filled the kitchen. Reckon it's because I didn't put in vanilla essence, so today, I found a recipe, with vanilla essence.

It works!

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Adapted from Famous French Desserts

Have changed the US measurements to metric and cut down the serving size to 4 so it's easier for me to refer.

Ingredients (for about 4 crepes):
60g Plain Flour from Cold Storage
150ml Whole Milk from Meiji
1 Egg
25g of butter from Lupark
(Cut off 1 25g, divide in 4 portions, and divide 1 of the portion into 2 to get approx 8g)
Note: 8g of melted butter to be mixed in batter, the rest of the butter for cooking crepe
Pinch of Salt
1 tsp Vanilla Extract from Bake King
1 tbsp of Butter at the side

Preparing the batter

1. Sift flour and salt in a bowl.
2. Make a well and pour in eggs. Stir well.
3. Slowly pour in milk while mixing, until small bubbles form on the surface.
4. Mix in Butter.

This is the texture I got.

If it's too thick, add more milk.


Preparing the Crepes:

1. Swipe Butter on folded paper towel, and wipe the pan evenly. Keep paper towel at hand while preparing crepes, in case you want to give it another wipe.
2. Pour in 2 - 3 tbsp. of batter and quickly move pan around, so that batter spreads evenly, covering the whole surface with a thin layer.
3. Let cook for about 1 minute. Then, flip with a metal spatula, and cook other side for about 30 seconds.

Repeat these steps until you are out of batter, stacking cooked crepes on a plate. Yum!

The Tai Tai Speaks!

So I've finally got down to creating this blog.

I'm not a tai tai yet. At least I hope soon. :p

But being a 'newly married and always interested by new amazing things' girl, I have decided to make full use of the kitchen, and the oven and of course to test the limits of my hubby, by WHACKING the kitchen.

This blog, is an attempt to store recipes. And hopefully, I do it consistently. Of course, I would have tried the recipes.

So I hope I do it more consistently than my own blog. :p