u m a m i

I cooked Ayam Buah Keluak!

Last year I ate out a lot. About 105 outlets visited, it is true, I tabulated the results in an Excel spreadsheet. It is ironic isn't it, that I have no time to study French grammar, but I have time to count how many restaurants and cafes I visited.

I don't think we'll better the record this year. We have no inclination to try out any new trendy places, in fact the more hip it is the more we are sceptical of it. Well, unless they let the dogs in too which is never going to happen in this country. Other than eating out with friends, we find ourselves very happy to stay at home, visit the markets and cook up a storm in the kitchen.

Like last Sunday for instance. When we made Ayam Buah Keluak by referring to the recipe in my favourite Peranakan cookbook "Nonya Flavours: A Complete Guide to Penang Straits Chines Cuisine" by Julie Wong (compiler).

I've always had the impression that Ayam Buah Keluak is very challenging to cook. First, we have to find the buah keluak, the Tekka market is a good source. The hard black nuts need to be soaked overnight, then pried open to extract the black paste within, pounded with salt and sugar, and then repacked into its shell. This step is rather tedious, we had 26 nuts to process after all, but it was not too bad with so many hands helping out.

 

The next hurdle was to prepare the spice paste, or rempah. The recipe called for shallots, belacan, dried chillies, galangal, turmeric, lemongrass, garlic, ginger and candlenuts. All these must be ground till fine- a step that will take forever with conventional food processors but only a few minutes in a Sumeet grinder. Next to the thermal pot and Spar mixer, I love love love my Sumeet.

Next, we readied the assam (tamarind water) and chopped up the chicken. Now we are ready to cook. This part was comparatively easy. The rempah was fried with a few kaffir lime leaves till very fragrant, then chicken was stirred around to coat in the spices before everything got bathed in assam water. The prepared buah keluak went in at this stage and we transferred the whole lot into a sturdy pot to simmer for about 30 minutes. What came out was this:

                           

The buah keluak was extravagantly rich and earthy, and mingled with the spices beautifully to produce an intensely flavoured dish that is better than so many restaurant versions we've eaten. The chicken absorbed the sauce very well and was very tender. Everything in this dish was so good we had to cook another pot of rice to go with it. Still, there was enough leftovers for two more meals, a very good thing as the flavours improve further over the days that followed.

Since I love pineapples so much, I also made the Kerabu Ong Lai from the same book. It is nothing more than chopped pineapples, shallots and chillies dressed with sambal belacan, lime juice, sugar and salt. Very appetizing dish, and action-packed too, what with the sweet juicy pineapples, crunchy shallots, sour lime, hot hot hot chilli padis and of course, the salty and pungent belacan fighting for attention all at the same time.

Wait, there was more. Also from the same book, a very spicy and fragrant Sambal Ikan Bilis. The pictures are self-explanatory: grind spices, fry ikan bilis, fry rempah (similar to ayam buah keluak minus the galangal and candlenuts), combine with ikan bilis, season with lime juice, salt and sugar. This turned out too spicy for our tastes, next time I would do like Mummy which is to add onion rings for a touch of crunch and sweetness.

For some respite from all the spices, we cooked some sauteed spinach and drank soothing pork and sweetcorn soup. All very wholesome and delicious, which explained how after the meal, husband and I had to lie down and nap for two hours before we could get on with the rest of the day's activities.

Asia Grand

Last night I enjoyed a very good dinner at the Asia Grand restaurant with a bunch of friends. I recommended the place because I had eaten a very sumptuous lunch here with office colleagues before Chinese New Year. This visit was equally successful, and I was very pleased that the food remained just as good in terms of taste and value-for-money.

Asia Grand is located within Asia Hotel, site of the once-popular Tsui Hang restaurant. Tsui Hang has since moved to Jurong, and  the space vacated by them is now run by their ex-manager, given a new name and the decor updated to a brighter modern style. Oh, they also hired a most masterful chef, but more of that later.

We ordered the dinner set for eight. At $218 +++ this includes Cold Teochew Roe Crab, Daily Soup (watercress with pork), Stirfried Nai Bai, Sauteed Shrimps, Steamed Pating Fish Teochew Style, Crispy Roast Chicken, Portugese Baked Seafood Rice and dessert. There is a more expensive menu featuring suckling pig and garoupa but we decided on this menu as we had already made up our mind to order Peking Duck which was on promotion at $28 each; it would be rather too much to eat Peking Duck and Suckling Pig in one meal without tipping our already precarious cholesterol to more dangerous levels. Erm, what am I saying, it turned out we ate even more cholesterol than we planned to.....

                            

The first dish to arrive was the cold crabs. The crabs were on the small side but this fact was compensated by the sweetness of the meat and the abundance of creamy yellow roe within.

Next, Peking Duck. It was so good, the skin so crisp, the crepe so tender- we promptly ordered another bird.

                           

The soup and vegetables came next in satisfyingly generous portions. Claypot sauteed prawns sounded very mundane on the menu but what we were served was a medium sized pot filled to the brim with succulent and 'wok hei' prawns. Like the rest of the dishes, this was seasoned with finesse and restraint so as not to overwhelm the natural tastes of the prawns.

I was pleasantly surprised by the pating fish too. Expecting a fatty fish as this is how Singaporeans like their pating, what was served was a leaner, but no less sweet and fine, specimen.

The Crispy Roast Chicken, contrary to its name, is not roasted in an oven, instead it is bathed continuously with very hot oil to achieve a crispy skin. It was excellent, with perfectly crackly skin and juicy meat hinting delicately of chinese rose wine. This restaurant staple can be easy to get wrong, why, only two weeks before I had eaten a rather dry and tasteless version at the newly opened Imperial Treasure in Great World City.

Then there was some braised noodles with the remains of duck 1, and a kong-pao dish of duck 2. Good, and good, the kongpao had requisite ma la and was not overly sweet. The final dish was Portugese baked seafood rice, essentially seafood fried rice blanketed over with a creamy sauce. Seafood bits was scattered generously here, most places would have used 'bicarbonated' prawns here but here there was hardly any trace of glassiness, the little prawn pieces had a distinct meaty bite. I generally steer clear of "Portugese" cream sauces because I've eaten many disgusting versions with too much curry powder haphazardly thrown in, but here, there was only a pleasurably mild hint of spice, just enough to give some boldness to the simple fried rice.

Everything was satisfactory up tilll then. We drunk our wines- a sparkling Majella shiraz, a Turkey Flat rose, another Majella shiraz but not the bubbly one- from the restaurant's Schott wineglasses (corkage waived), marvelled at the good and plentiful food and dissected office gossip. We rubbed our bellies and prepared to eat the dessert, and, was quite taken aback.

For what lay inside our dessert bowls was an unsettling splodge of thick white cement; someone had forgotten to stir the almond cream before serving and it was totally inedible, even the almond cream lover among us refused to eat it. The captain graciously replaced it with red bean cream and it was fine, the red bean soup was not thickened unnecessarily with cornstarch and the lotus seeds was soft and nutty, another old fashioned dessert rendered well.

All was well again, full marks.

Asia Grand Restaurant
37 Scotts Road, Asia Hotel Tel: 6887-0010

Baking Class- Swiss Rolls

   

Unlike the rather easy chiffon cakes, swiss rolls belong to the "difficult to master" category. At least this is what I felt.

Above left, what Judy demonstrated- a brightly coloured party confection with cute white mice. On the right, our products. None of the three cakes turned out right, even though we used emulsifiers in some of them. So unappetizing and dry that the cakes remain untouched after two days.

The only comfort is that almost everyone in the class experienced the same difficulty. Judy didn't even bother evaluating our efforts. Instead she gave us a recipe for log cake which she promised will result in a more tender cake. We'll see....

Updates (1st March 2006)

1. We, i.e. my friend rojak and I, made another swiss roll today. It is from Judy's recipe for log cake, and is very tender due to the egg yolks and milk inside, and turned out quite well. We spread it with cream cheese and liquer-soaked fruits and it was delish. It is still not comparable to Polar sugar rolls but not bad if I may say so myself.

2. To answer slurp's question, the rainbow colours are achieved by using colouring and piping bag, like so:

Another chicken ban?

Overhead while queuing for sandwiches in Spinelli:

Woman 1: That potato salad looks good

Woman 2: Got eggs leh, better don't order.Same also for the chicken salad.

Woman 1: Oh, yar hor, I'll have the ham sandwich instead!

And there I was, worried that the imports of Malaysian poultry will be halted anytime soon. So much so that the night before I called up the chicken seller to order more chicken, especially the kampung type, and a tray of extra large eggs.

I remember when the first wave of BSE affected UK, our immunology professor declared to our entire class of mostly impoverished students, that he was still eating beef. Well, we thought, if it is good enough for Prof, therefore it must be good enough for us. Plus, beef became very affordable so we could enjoy rib steaks instead of boring old mince.

Perhaps It was that surreal episode in my youth which accounts for my current irrational chicken-stockpiling behaviour. Or maybe I have become more Singaporean-like and it was my kiasu-ism manifesting itself. In any case, there is now plenty of eggs to make cakes or potato salad with.

Baking Class 2- Chiffon Cakes

                                 

For our second baking class, we learnt how to make chiffon cakes. No butter at all, the only fat was a little bit of corn oil. Judy talked about baker's percentages, actions of baking ingredients and the factors that make the cake light or dense. As usual, we made three cakes and decorated one, all within an intense 3 hours of very focussed, non-stop action.                           

                      

First, a Golden Citrus Chiffon Cake with orange juice and zests of orange and lemons. When it cooled we decorated it with orange jelly and chocolate transfer sheets. The second cake was a Banana Chiffon which had mashed bananas inside, my favourite. And finally, a Pandan Chiffon in which coconut cream substituted for soda bicarbonate.

This class was very interesting because we used our hands to fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mix. We learnt the finer points such as how to reduce the likelihood of air bubbles and the dangers of underfolding. At evaluation time, Judy said our cakes were appropriately high with even, soft and fluffy insides- actually there was a huge airpocket in the banana version but I managed to camouflage it- and my decorations were deemed 'respectable' though a bit overwrought. In short, not bad.

The cakes were much welcomed at home for their softness and relative healthful values, in any case everyone's sick of butter cakes by now. Now that I know how easy it is to make chiffon cakes, I will definitely stop buying them from the shops.

A Tale of Two Chapatis

On days when I go to work in my shop, I will forage for lunch among the small restaurants near Mustafa Shopping Centre . Usually it would be thosai with coconut sambar, thali sets or chapati with keema. So it was that one day, after a particularly satisfying lunch, I boarded a taxi to return to work. We soon started talking, the Indian driver and me. Upon hearing that I have just eaten some chapatis and generally like Indian food (except for fish head curry which is not truly Indian anyway), he eagerly started pointing to me his favourite eating spots around the area.

Keeping his recommendation in mind, one afternoon I went further afield than I usually do, driving to Norris Road to look for freshly made chapatis. The road is very short, it is more of a lane really, and at first I observed only two eating houses. One was a small airconditioned place serving rice and dishes, none of its patrons were eating chapatis. The next place further along looked a little more promising, it is a corner coffeeshop with nicer than usual furniture and more importantly, a griddle on the stall table. I asked the staff if they have chapatis, yes, he nooded. Ah I thought, this must be it, so I placed my order and sat at one of their squiggly-topped tables, expectantly waiting for the guy to cook my chapati, because the taxi driver said the chapatis are cooked on the spot.

     

The food arrived quickly, but the chapatis came in a basket. No one fired up the griddle to cook a fresh piece. Something not quite right here. Just then, the van parked to the side of my table moved off, and my eyes bulged nearly out of my sockets when I realised that just across was another coffeeshop where everyone was eating chapatis and there was a man in a sarong flipping them non-stop! To add to my consternation, a Chinese taxi driver parked in the vacated lot and strolled across for a chapati lunch. That was the place that the driver recommended, Azmi Restaurant. I should have known that I got the wrong place when the guy who took my order asked if I would like to have some tandoori, which would make sense because I had arrived at Khansama, a tandoori restaurant.

Aiyoh, what to do? I was in the wrong coffeeshop, how silly of me. But the food was already in front of me and I had to eat it. The chapati ($1.20 for 2) turned out to be quite respectable- it wasn't as dry considering it was made ahead, in fact it was almost moist. By itself it tasted a bit salty and nutty but upon chewing, the dough soften and became sweeter. It was like eating a hybrid of naan and chapati. The mutton keema ($3.00) was not the dry version as I expected but there was very little meat in it, which didn't bother me too much. The 'keema gravy' was tasty in a spicy savoury way and complemented the chapatis very well; so myuch so that I found myself unexpectedly enjoying myself. On the other hand, the allo gobi and sag ($3.00) were quite pedestrian and the panni poori ($3.00) nothing special, which was fine as it then didn't make me feel guilty for leaving most of them.

Anyway, I have decided I was going to eat more chapatis,to make room in the stomach I walked to Mustafa's and bought some kitchenware and groceries. After the shopping, I walked back to Azmi, and took a seat in a direction not facing Khansama. The furnishings at Azmi's are more basic but there have more customers. Servers take orders and food is delivered quickly to the tables. I ordered what everyone else was eating, i.e. chapati with keema. The food here is a lot cheaper, an order of 2 chapatis with keema and complimentary salad is only $3.00. Waiting customers can observe the cooks at work- one person makes the dough, another cooks the pancake on a flat pan and tosses it quickly, when it puffs the chapati is ready.

But was it really better? Well, I found myself not liking it as much as I thought I would. It was certainly fresh and very wholesome but my overwhelming impression was that it was on the dry and dense side, the edges especially were rather thick. The thing to do is to take a bit of it, and sqoosh it with one's fingers on to the keema to moisten it.  The keema was loaded with plenty of minced meat, peas and potatoes which makes the meal very good value for money. 

Taste is a subjective thing, and perhaps my instincts were more attuned to my tastebuds than I thought. If I was hungry I would certainly prefer Azmi's, but otherwise, I would choose Khansama's version which was lighter, more pleasantly chewy and overall slightly more refined. The driver also mentioned two or three other contenders nearby, hopefully I will have time to check them out too.

More butter cakes

My friend rojak came over for a day of baking. We spent a most enjoyable afternoon trying out some recipes which she has kept for many years, even revisiting the home economics textbook from our (long time ago) school days.

Cake 1: Creamed corn cake.

Creamed corn is not very popular nowadays, but when I was young we could not get enough of this sweet treat, eating it straight from the tin or finding it included in local desserts like ice kacang and kuehs. I remember my dad opening a tin, and we siblings lined up to eat it- a spoonful for daddy, one for me, one for second sis.... and so on until it was my turn again, since there were four of us (fifth brother was still a baby) the tin finished pretty quickly.

So I was excited to try making this cake when rojak suggested making this from a recipe which was originally her friend's, obviously old because they use ounce measurements so it must have come from a pre-metric age, but one of those things good enough to keep and share.

Two points about the method. One, we tried the convection fan setting of my oven, a first for me, I've never bothered to try settings other than the ones for the grill and oven. Two, we split the batter between a loaf tin and a muffin tray lined with paper cups.

The cupcakes turned out great- fluffy inside with chewy kernels of corn within, the tops sweet and slightly crackly; it cooked very quickly too, needing only about 15 minutes in the oven. The loaf version on the other hand, took a long time to cook which may or may not be due to the convection fan setting of the oven or the inappropriateness of the loaf tin. The finished product rose well but was unevenly cooked.

8 oz plain flour-sift with baking powder

1 tsp baking powder

6 oz butter

1 can creamed corn: water drained off

8 oz sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy

2. Agg eggs a little at a time.

3. Fold flour and corn alternatively, finally the vanilla essence

4. Bake 25 minutes, 170 degree C

Cake 2: Butter apricot-sultana cake

rojak wanted to know how a cake made with cake flour differed from one made with plain flour. The result was much like the prune cake I made last weekend, only this time I overfolded the batter which meant that the cake did not rise very high.

Cake 3: Cheddar Rock cakes

We were done for the day when I happened to flip through rojak's Home Economics textbooks which she has kept with her all these years. I had the same copy too, but being the eldest of four daughters my copy was passed to my younger sister as soon as I finished the syllabus so I have lost track of it. It was fun looking through the topics within (Cooking, Sewing & Housekeeping), recalling the recipes we tried and marvelling that the book contained such a lot of wonderful, and quite motherly, information.

On impulse, and since I have so much butter at home (NTUC was selling SCS at 2 blocks for $4.45), we decided to make rock cakes. The recipe is fail-safe, took all of 10 minutes to put together and did not involve the use of much appliances or gadgets. We substituted red cheddar for sultanas and made little mounds instead of fist-sized cakes. After 15-20 minutes in the oven, the little biscuity-cakes came out smelling wonderfully sweet, cheesy and buttery and was very good to eat too. Indeed it was my favourite cake of the day. Since the book is now out of print and not available in the shops I will reproduce the recipe. Variations include pineapple (2 tbsp), grated white coconut (1 tbsp) and raisins (50g).

100g flour-sift with baking powder

1 level tsp baking powder

50g butter

50g sugar

1/2 egg, beaten

Grated cheddar, as much as you like

1. Put butter into sifted flour/baking powder. Cut fat into small pieces and rub in till mixture becomes crumbly.

2. Add sugar, then beaten egg, and finally the cheese. Mix until even and stiff, then spoon dollops over a baking tin.

3. Bake 190 degree C top shelf for 15 minutes.

That should be the last of the rich butter cakes, next time we are making chiffon cakes which doesn't contain any butter at all.

Curry Debal

                                    

Last Sunday we made Curry Debal from Mary Gomez's An Eurasian Cookbook. This was the second time I used her recipe; the rempah of onions, ginger, chilli and mustard seemed a little mild to me from the first attempt so this time I added blue ginger, lemongrass and lime leaves for more 'zip'. Recipe included is my modified version.

It makes a very satisfactory one-pot dish as it has chicken, luncheon meat and roast pork as well as potatoes, cucumbers and cabbage. The roast pork bit is a nod to its origins, the dish came about as a means to use up leftovers like Christmas roasts. I particularly like making this dish as it doesn't call for santan, waking up early on a Sunday morning to buy freshly shaved coconuts just seem like too much work for me.

     Ingredients

• 1 chicken, cut up- marinated with soya sauce and pepper.
• $3 roast meat, sliced
• 1/2 can luncheon meat- cubed
• 4 potatoes -cut into chunks
• 6 cabbage leaves- sliced into squares
• 1-2 cucumber- rollcut
• Rempah- 6 onions, chillies, 2.5 inch ginger, 2 lemongrass, knob blue ginger. Grind till fine. I used my trusty Sumeet which did a good job.
• Lime leaves- finely sliced
• Mustard paste
• Vinegar- 4 tablespoons
• Salt & sugar - 1 tsp each

1. Fry potatoes, set aside

2. Brown chicken, set aside

3. Fry rempah and mustard until the smell fills the kitchen.

4. Return chicken to wok, add water. Bring to boil, simmer then add cabbage, simmer, add cucumber, simmer, and finally potatoes, salt, sugar and vinegar. Check seasonings. Sprinkle with lime leaves. Serve with steamed rice.

Homework- Butter Cakes

Last Saturday we stayed home and made our homework cakes. I will not provide recipes as we followed the school's, and it probably is not a good idea to reproduce them here. Both are butter cakes, which are too rich for me. Next week we are doing sponges.

In any case, the Spar SP-800 mini mixer is a fantastic gadget and well worth the expense. Don't be fooled by the 'mini' in the description, it weighs a ton and is more powerful than home mixers. It creams butter with ease, very easy to use and clean, and comes with 3 sturdy attachments- paddle, whisk and pastry hook. I bought a spare bowl which is good for whisking egg whites, and this was a real boon, whites done within 3 minutes and no more tired arms. Incidentally, Lau Choy Seng at Temple Street sells the same model and accessories, and their prices are better.

Cake 1: Butter Prune Cake.

Judy told us that one of her students uses this recipe in her business and it sells like, erm, hot cakes.

Ingredients: Butter ( a lot!), sugar, evaporated milk, eggs, cake flour, baking powder and prunes soaked in rum. Next time I would soak the prunes way ahead, it was a bit soggy, even after sprinkling flour on it the prunes stuck together.

Method: Egg white separated from yolks and whisked till soft peaks form before being folded into the creamed butter-egg-milk mixture. I find this method gives a lighter, higher cake (two knuckles in this case, well, we didn't have a ruler handy). Cook in 160 degree C oven. Incidentally I  noted Judy's tip which was to check the oven temperature, since I have two oven thermometers in my kit, I did as she advised and true enough, my oven is cooler than it should be, I had to turn the dial to 175 to obtain the desired temperature.

Result: The top was even and not too high or sunken. Sides were straight, but not lofty enough. The cake was light and soft, with a very tender crumb. The chopped prunes were evenly distributed in most parts, in some they sank to the bottom. The prunes added a welcome boozy tart sweetness to the cake, next time I might add more.

Cake 2: Butter Cheese Cake.

This is Judy's variation of cheese cake, and sports an intriguing sprinkle of fresh ground black pepper. A cross between heavier traditional baked cheese cakes and lighter Japanese versions.

Ingredients: Butter ( again, too much!), sugar, fresh milk, eggs, cake flour, baking powder and grated cheese- I used matured cheddar, and freshly grated black pepper.

Method: One bowl method. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, milk + flour and finally cheese.

Result: Yikes, it only rose a little, at its sides it only went as high as 1.5 knuckles. The top was even and not cracked, the mottled pattern was due to the sprinkled cheese topping. This was a denser cake than the first, but was surprisingly light yet melt-in-the-mouth rich. The taste was a bit strange at first, sharp salty peppery cheesiness mingling with the background sweetness, but left overnight, the flavours melded and came together quite pleasingly.

Baking class 1

At dinner last night, my friend ttc asked me why I have been slow in updating my blog. It turned out he was curious to know whether we made it to Madam Kwan's. Yes we did, it has become a sort of farewell ritual before driving back to Singapore. Nothing like a good hit of Malaysian cooking before returning to this (relatively) desolate culinary wasteland. Oops, get ready for the assault of ping-pong fishballs from outraged Singaporeans.

A little weirdness happened over the holidays too. After the usual Kong Hei Fatt Choy greetings, one or two cousins, relatives-in-law and even old schoolmates came up to tell me that they read my little old blog. This revelation never failed to promp a mental gulp in me, and a quick rehash of the more histrionic and cringe-making posts in my mind. It felt weird. I mean, I know my makan friends read this, but otherwise I haven't met any other readers who actually knows the real-life me. When I first started this blog and informed the siblings and email contacts most of them took no notice, so I thought I could remain in my semi-anonymous state. The ones I didn't inform somehow found out, and now it is weird, they know me, now they are privy to more of my silly self-absorption and food-fussiness. Weird. But hey, if any of you are reading this, let me state that despite the weirdness I still love it that you read my blog.

Readers also mean I feel a responsibility to publish. But after two years of blogging, what else is there to write about? I hardly cook. I eat out at the most uncool places. I have no wine vocabulary and honestly I am running out of topics.

Ah, but I still have one thing, my attention-deficit disorder. This syndrome is actually a good thing, because it usually manifests in my taking on far too many projects to handle. This year I aim to finish the king-size blue-on-blue quilt, master the power sun salutation poses, read the complete PD James collection and, bake. Yes, bake. The last project stemmed from a long-standing guilt- see, I have amassed quite a collection, i.e. two big white Ikea boxes worth, of baking paraphernalia these past few years, but only managed to bake twice, and both were bad cakes at that. It was time I acquired me some baking skills so I enrolled in a basic course. It is cakes first, if it goes well, maybe some bread and pastries. Which will give me enough material to blog about.

I came across Creative Culinaire in Sunday Times last November, and was prompted to sign up because it offers hands-on classes and the prices and hours seemed more reasonable than BITC. Our first class began last Saturday afternoon. There are 20 of us, and we are broken up into 10 groups. I teamed myself with R, our domestic helper, we are group 8. The class starts at 1 pm and ends about 5 hours later or whenever we finished the baking.

The first two hours the voluble and generous instructor Chef Judy Koh lectured at length about butter cakes, creaming methods, flour strength, size of bubbles, then she demonstrated the methods. After the demo it was our turn to make three types of butter cakes. The next three hours was spent in a lot of frenzy, as R and I figured out how to do so many 'firsts' -handle the cake mixer, save my curdled batter (the eggs 'plopped' in, honest), calibrate the weighing machine, unmould the cooked cake etc. When the baking activities were over, we sat down again for a debrief and then Judy went around to all the teams to look at our cakes and critiqued our efforts.

The first cake, made using a variation of the creaming method, i.e. beat the egg whites separately before folding into the creamed butter. It was supposed to be a Butter Walnut Cake, but after tasting the demo version I thought the walnuts were rather stale so I decided to omit them. It didn't rise as high as Judy's, on the plus side the sides were not caved in and the cross section revealed a fine even-textured crumb. It tasted really good the next day when I slathered it with loads of marmalade.

 

Next, Sunflower Cupcakes. These do not contain sunflower seeds, rather they are chocolate cupcakes decorated to look like sunflowers with chocolate sprinkles and a vivid orange icing. This cake was meant to be made as a joint effort with our table mates Team 9, but Team 9 has a more experienced baker so we were happy to let her handle most of the work. My contribution was sifting the flour with cocoa powder. Our cake turned out, again, a little low, and tastewise I found it a tad dry.

 

Finally, butter cakes baked in fancy silicon moulds. Is it me or am I imagining that silicon moulds do not yield a more attractive golden brown than traditional cake pans? But the good quality orange essence really made a difference in the taste. This was the cake which I inadvertently curdled, it became a little lumpy inside but the external appearance was fine.

It was a good thing my friend G joined us for dinner that night, she helped us eat some cakes and I gave her some more to take home. The class was very enjoyable and the hands-on experience made for quite effective learning. We are so looking forward to the next class the following Saturday.

Of course, what would a hobby be like without its accompanying tools and gadgets, wouldn't you say? Thinking that I don't possess a fancy Kenwood or Kitchenaid mixer, I rationalised myself into getting a really kick-ass professional mixer that now stands a little sheepishly on my kitchen counter. It would be tempting fate too much to post the picture of it before making a real cake with it first, so this weekend we will attempt to make our homework cakes. Wish us luck!