Baby Elsie's Dedication Cake

A few weeks ago, J and I decided to make a baby dedication cake for one of our friend who had just had a baby girl recently. We started throwing some ideas around and we finally decided to make a chocolate mud cake covered with pink and white fondant topped with a few baby-related decorations. I was originally planning to make a fondant bear but since this year is the year of rabbit, i ended up making a pink rabbit.

Having had experience making a 21st fondant cake last year, we knew that this one would be a lot easier because we were just going to make a one-tier cake - so no spending countless hours ganaching gazillion of cupcakes and covering them one by one (don't get me wrong, it was fun but just time consuming).

J made the mud cake in the morning so that by the time I finished work we could ganache and decorate it. I made the pink rabbit the night before just to make sure it had enough time to dry and harden. The most fun part was making the decorations and putting them together on the cake. Believe it or not, the pacifier was the trickiest decoration to make despite it being the smallest of them all =P

We were quite satisfied with the final product (although there are plenty of areas to improve in) and glad that the parents liked it too. Enjoy the photos =)

Pineapple Tarts 凤梨酥 Recipe

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

I love pineapple tarts, especially home made ones! Just to think about that lovely sweet and sour filling wrapped around by a melt-in-your-mouth pastry already makes me drool.

J and I have been wanting to make some pineapple tarts for quite a while and, after x months, we finally made it! Mission accomplished, in a way. Making pineapple tarts are certainly fun but at the same time, tiring and time consuming. Poor J had to cut up the pineapples and make the pineapple filling, which involved 1 - 1.5 hours of non-stop stirring. The sad thing? Two medium pineapples only yielded a minuscule amount of pineapple filling (fine, not that little...but you get the point). Making the dough was certainly less tiring and easier too. The most fun part was actually making the pineapple tart, i think i got a bit carried away and made a little chick (ate it before i could take a snapshot of it)
The finished product was very delicious and fragrant; all the effort put in was certainly worth it!

Pineapple Tarts Recipe (makes around 25)

Pineapple Filling:

- 2 pineapples, finely grated
- 4 tablespoon caster sugar

1. Slice and grate pineapple until fine. (If you have a food processor, use it!)

2. Strain the grated pineapple. (If you have a metal sift, that'd help!)
3. Let the pineapple simmer in a wok until dry
4. Add sugar and stir till the pineapple becomes thick, dry and sticky

Pineapple Tart Dough:
- 350g plain flour
- 1 tablespoon custard powder
- 250g butter
- 1 egg yolk
- 40g icing sugar
- pinch of salt

1. Sift flour, custard powder, salt and icing sugar together

2. Cut butter into cubes and add them to the flour mixture. Using your hands, mix the ingredients until you reach a crumbly consistency.

3. Add in yolk and keep working on the dough until you get a smooth and soft dough (make into a ball)
4. Rest the dough at room temperature for at least 30 minutes

Pineapple Tarts
1. Divide the pineapple filling into roughly 25 portions and roll them into balls
2. Do the same with the pineapple tart dough, each ball should weigh ~22g
3. Flatten the pineapple tart dough until it's enough to wrap the pineapple filling in it

4. Mould it into a rectangular shape and using a fork, draw lines on top of the rolls. Do the same with the rest of the dough and filling.

5. Put the pineapple tarts onto a baking paper-lined tray and brush them with beaten egg yolk. Bake for around 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool before storing them in airtight containers.

Finished!

All you have to do now is to sit back and enjoy them. Share these lovely goodies with friends and families during this Chinese New Year Season! *putting them in nice containers make great gifts too! ENJOY~

My little book preview

Remember that blog post about the book competition held by Nuffnang way back in August?

As some of  you probably know i was one of the three happy winners of the competition and we all got to publish our book idea, thanks to Blurb. Since the book was due mid-October, i spent most of my free time making the book and didn't have much time to update my blog during that time (i apologize for that). Anyways...without further ado, i present to you a preview of my little humble book...

-

My Misc. -sometimes life is about the little things that make your day- by Mavis Wong

I also decided to use my blog post for the book competition to enter The Nuffnang Christmas Blogger Challenge because it stood out from all the other posts that i wrote in 2010. It made me realize my (EVEN GREATER) love and appreciation for food and also for the other little things that are part of my life. The book challenge made me think of what i wanted to share with my readers and how to convey that. It was hard work, especially given the time we had and I don't think i did an particularly good job - being a rookie myself with no expertise in book making. Despite of that, I hope that the book will still, in a way or another, be inspirational to you. I will use this experience as a learning opportunity and improve my skills.

Lastly, i would like to thank Nuffnang for bringing all these awesome challenges every month and i hope i can win the oh-so-cool iPad for Christmas! That'd be seriously awesome and it will definitely be very useful to a food blogger like me!

Nara Festival 2010

Remember the post on the Okonomiyaki Recipe? I was meant to blog about the Nara Festival but completely forgot about it until today, when i was looking through my unused blog photos folder. Sorry for the late post, but here you go.

Candles placed all around the Nara Park for the highlight of the festival

The Canberra Nara Festival celebrates the strong Sister City relationship shared between Canberra and Nara (Japan) and this year, the event took place on the 18th September. The festival offers a variety of things to do and there is always something for everyone. There were mochi pounding and calligraphy demonstrations and things that people could get involved into such as kite flying, origami making, calligraphy, massage trials and some Japanese performances to enjoy. The highlight of the event is obviously seeing all the 2000+ candles lit by the end of the event - unfortunately, i wasn't able to stay long enough to see it! (sucked...)

Seeing little kids 'fishing' for colourful water balloons definitely brought back glimpses of my childhood; felt like getting one, but i didn't =P. 

Being a food fan, i had my attention mostly drawn to the food at the festival...and being a mochi lover, one of my must-do things was to not miss the mochi pounding demonstration. In a nutshell, the mochi is placed in a big mortar and pounded with wooden mallets until it reaches the right consistency. The mochi is then made into smaller pieces and eaten with a sweet peanut mixture, red bean paste or nori & shoyu (savoury).

I think i wasn't too fond of the nori & shoyu mochi...i prefer my mochi to be sweet

There were various flavours of mochi and daifuku available for sale and i ended up getting the Sakuramochi, since i don't get to have that very often. Sakura mochi is a pink mochi filled with red bean paste and wrapped with a salted sakura leaf.

The Okonomiyaki was not good and that's why i shared an Okonomiyaki recipe here in my blog! They had put to much batter and too little ingredients. It was like eating an overly thick pancake that was dry and not sweet. The Takoyaki, on the other hand, was delicious (and pipping hot!). No wonder there was a long queue not long after i got mine.

The gyoza tasted good and authentic but some of them were a bit burnt on the edges. Other than that...oishii~ 

It was an afternoon well spent, immersing in the Japanese culture and enjoying some of its delicacies. Sadly i had to leave early and missed out on the main highlight of the Nara Festival. Next year, perhaps?

A Floral 21st Birthday Cake

One of the major things that i was doing during the month of October was planning, designing, doing taste-trials for my friend's 21st birthday cake. Gladly, i wasn't doing all of these by myself; i had J to share the load and keep me company (since it was a shared project). The whole process was a fun and worthy experience, even though it took away some of our sleep time and energy. Despite being faced with some uncertainties and failures on the way, those 31 hours of hard work definitely paid off. The cake turned out very pretty (both of us couldn't stop saying '...so pretty, so pretty') and the birthday girl really liked it too.

I also decided to submit this blog post as part of The Nuffnang October Blogger Challenge because i thought that the cake & cupcakes were so pretty that i would totally take them to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The cupcakes have beautiful pastel colours and delicate flower decorations that especially suits a spring season tea party.

The journey started when we accepted the birthday girl's request to make her 21st birthday cake. At first, it sounded cool and fun but when we actually stopped to think about it we were like "Wait...it's her 21st birthday cake, not any other cake that we usually make". The birthday girl was going to hold a sit-down dinner for 50 or so guests, so we couldn't just make any Michel-Patisserie-like cake. It had to be displayed during the dinner, pretty, tasty and something that would feed 50+ guests. I immediately knew what we were dealing with...Fondant Cakes! Neither J or myself had ever made a fondant cake before, so we started to do heaps of research and watch Youtube videos about fondant cakes.

The birthday girl wanted green tea-flavoured cakes so we ended up making a White Chocolate Green Tea Mud Cake (main cake) and Green Tea cupcakes. We adapted the recipes from the book Planet Cake - A beginner's guide to decorating incredible cakes by Paris Cutler. We basically just added green tea powder to the recipes and reduced the amount of sugar needed in them. It's definitely a great book for beginners (like us) who are interested in cake decorating!

With everything ready and set to go, it took us 3 days to finish our little work of art! Let the journey begin...

Day One

We made the mud cake (as it can be stored longer) and coloured 6kgs of fondant to the colours needed: pale green and four shades of pink. That was a lot of muscle work involved! We were both pretty exhausted by the end of day...

Mud Cake Batter

The different coloured fondants

Day Two

That's when we made 6 batches of cupcakes (86 cupcakes in total), brushed them with syrup and covered all of them with white chocolate ganache.

Testing the batch of green tea cupcakes

Brushing the green tea cupcakes with syrup before ganaching them

Day Three

This day was entirely dedicated for decorating the mud cake and the cupcakes. We rolled out some pale green fondant and cut them into circles to cover the cupcakes. We also rolled out a massive 'sheet' of pale green fondant to cover the main cake and then, we put edible pale gold ribbon around the bottom rim of the mud cake. 

Cupcakes covered by pale green fondant

Covering the White Chocolate Green Tea Mudcake with Fondant. It wasn't as daunting as we thought afterall...

Covered mud cake with edible pale gold ribbon

We cut out a few hundreds of flower-shaped decorations to be used on cupcakes and the mud cake. All flowers were brushed with white shimmering glitter for a prettier finish and some flowers were decorated with metallic cachous.

Cutting flower-shaped decorations

More pretty flower decorations

In process of decorating the main cake

Finished cupcakes! I think it was past midnight when we finished all  them...

Day Three was probably the most fun and rewarding day for both of us as we got to see the final product! Yey!
It was such an accomplishment for us, i have to say. *tears...J also tears...

More photos of the finishing product...

Sorry for the long post, just felt like a proud mum!

The Lobby - Wedding Reception (Lunch)

As most of you might know from the previous post that i haven't been updating this blog in ages! I do apologize for that but October has definitely been a hectic month for me. Things are getting better since i have just submitted my book as part of the Nuffnang August Competition and finished my friend's 21st birthday cake (a post coming soon)

During the busy month of October, i had been able to witness a beautiful wedding that took place at the Gold Creek Chapel followed by a lovely lunch reception at The Lobby (King George Terrace, Parkes). It was such a marvelous day that everything was just so perfect - beautiful day, beautiful chapel, stunning bride and groom, nice restaurant and food! I haven't been to a great deal of weddings but i reckon that The Lobby serves great (wedding) food, if not the best so far, of all the weddings that i've been to.

They had an alternate service menu but i still managed to taste almost all the dishes. We started with a round of entrees which were the Togarashi tiger prawns with a citrus and summer berry salad and Beetroot cured ocean trout with snow pea and caper puree, potato crisps with orange sabayon. I got the ocean trout entree and it was simply beautiful. The skin was crispy and the fish was cooked just the way i like it - simple but still moist and flavoursome. The beetroot added a subtle sweetness to the fish and the puree enhanced the ocean trout's delicate flavours. The prawn was cooked nicely but i think the togarashi overpowered it.

Togarashi tiger prawns with a citrus and summer berry salad

Beetroot cured ocean trout with snowpea and caper puree, potato crisps with orange sabayon

After some touching speeches we started having our mains which were: Herb crumbed eye fillet with a panache of vegetable, caramelized onion vol au vent & mustard cream and Gingered pork cutlet with sweet potato puree, apple sage compote & English spinach. I had the eye fillet and it was nice and lovely with the mustard cream and the vol au vent was alright. In regards to the pork dish, I have to say that it was very delicious and the portion was very generous. The pork cutlet itself was tender and moist, and every component of the dish complimented each other well.

Herb crumbed eye fillet with a panache of vegetable, caramelized onion vol au vent & mustard cream

 Gingered pork cutlet with sweet potato puree, apple sage compote & English spinach

After our mains, we were greeted with some beautiful desserts: Lemon curd tartlet with warm nectarine salsa, vanilla marshmallow & mint syrup and Espresso and Tia Maria semi freddo with baby macarons & choc mint slice. I didn't try the latter one as it contained alcohol (at least it seemed to from the name), so i had the lemon curd tartlet dessert. I immediately loved the colours of the dessert, the yellow colour from the lemon curd looked lovely next to the white marshmallow and pink-ish nectarine salsa - such a pretty spring dessert. The tartlet was good and not too sweet, and marshmallow was very light and fluffy. The sweetness and acidity of the nectarine salsa together with the minty syrup held the entire dish well, making it deliciously refreshing. I didn't try the semi freddo but i heard that it was delicious too!

 Espresso and Tia Maria semi freddo with baby macarons & choc mint slice

Lemon curd tartlet with warm nectarine salsa, vanilla marshmallow & mint syrup

What is a wedding without the wedding cake? Of course they had one!

The wedding cake looked very cute and fun with two little teddy bears and hearts on the top tier. The cake was dense but moist and i especially liked the base!

The pretty and cute wedding cake

Forgot to mention about the restaurant but it is lovely and elegant place with tall glass windows all around and stunning views to the beautiful gardens. The meal was lovely, the speeches were touching, the dancing was sweet and most importantly, the bride and the groom were both gorgeous. SMB wishes the best to the both of you and may you two live a happily ever after life, just like in fairy tales!

Handmade Market Canberra

I was so happy when i made it to the Handmade Market Canberra last Saturday, even though i could only spend half an hour there. Handmade Market takes place every three months and the next one is set to be on the 4th December. You can still check out some of the designers at Shop Handmade Canberra (City Walk Blvd Canberra City) if you missed out on the market and can't wait until December.

The weather was so perfect on Saturday and i do regret for not being able to stay longer. There were so many stalls with lovely handmade jewelry, crafts, clothing, dolls and the most important of all...FOOD! With only half an hour in my hand, i managed to visit Real Chai, Dream Cuisine, Batemans Bay Nut Roasting Company and Sweet Petite. I think that is quite an achievement!

At first, i was trying to spot the area where most food stalls would be and once i got there i was instantly attacted by the beautiful cupcake tower from Sweet Petite.

All the cupcakes were beautifully decorated and totally fit the theme "Sexy and Luscious". I got a Sexy Red Velvet cupcake and a Sultry Black Forest cupcake. Loved the Sultry Black Forest Cupcake for its moist chocolate base, lovely chewy cherry goodness in the centre and the pretty and not overly sweet frosting *wants more now...

The Sexy Red Velvet cupcake wasn't as moist and the icing was a bit sweet for my liking, but it still looked gorgeous.

After this, i was looking forward to try Dream Cuisine's macarons. On my way to find it, i managed to taste a small cup of the RealChai Original (with milk and honey) and some freshly roasted Honey Macademias from Batemans Bay Nut Roasting Company. The Chai was good and macademias were lovely. I definitely have to try the RealChai Chocolate and other roasted nuts next time!

My final stop was Dream Cuisine - a simple stall with lovely macarons, tarts, florentines and brownies. I tried a bit of the Raspberry macaron, the Passionfruit macaron and small slice of brownie (nice!) there and bought another four macarons to take home. I got Cherry, Salted Caramel, Honey & Lavender and Pistachio & Lime macarons. I liked all the macarons but my favorite ones were the Cherry and the Pistachio & Lime.

I liked the Cherry macaron as it had a bit of cherry in the middle and filled with a delicious milk chocolate ganache; liked the Pistachio & Lime for its refreshing and light taste. Honey & Lavender was quite unique but it took me a second bite to like it and lastly, loved the saltiness that accentuated the caramel in the Salted Caramel macaron.

Ever since my visit to the market, i've been having cravings for cherries...what is your latest crave?

3rd Annual Truffle Degustation at Parlour Wine Room

Having missed almost the whole Fireside Festival (due to my Hong Kong trip) i was very happy when i managed to come back in time for the 3rd Annual Truffle Degustation at Parlour Wine Room (16 Kendall Lane, NewActon Pavilion). I've never been to the previous two years' truffle degustation, so i was definitely looking forward to it.

It was a cold and windy night and i was so glad that upon arrival, we were seated right next to the fireside and in tall tables too. Parlour Wine Room has a rustic Victorian decor with lovely Victorian armchairs and sofas and beautiful lamps. The piece that i liked the most was the center blue ceiling lamp because it was quite unique and it looked like a lot of blue-shaded balloons held in a cage. The night started with a welcome speech telling us a bit about the truffles used (which are grown in the Canberra region) and the matching wines for the dishes in the degustation menu. Then we were offered some drinks and bread (accompanied by truffle oil and paprika).

The degustation started off with a Shiitake & Truffle consommé which was nice considering that i have not had a decent consommé in ages. The shiitake taste was quite predominant but it had subtle hints of truffle too. The next entree, the Kingfish Ceviche with Shavings of Truffle was simply lovely. The fish was fresh and its subtle sweetness went well with the truffle.

Shiitake & Truffle consommé

Kingfish Ceviche with Shavings of Truffle

The Truffle Scented Milk Curd with House Made Lavosh was something different since it's not the usual type of entree that i would order. I liked the crispy house made lavosh and as for the curd, it was alright - something different.

The next dish up was the Seared Scallop, Smoked Duck, Cauliflower Puree and Truffle Paste. As usual, i love my scallops and this one was no different. It was juicy and nicely seared. Even though the Smoked Duck had was a bit dry, it still had a nice flavour and it went well with the cauliflower puree and truffle paste and also the vinegared enoki mushrooms.

The first main was the Truffle Scented, Mushroom Ragu Paella. I thought it was a funny name for the dish because it looked and tasted more like a risotto than a paella. I quite liked the dish and was delighted by the use of a variety of mushrooms in the paella. Lovely dish!

Second main was the Stuffed & Smoked Pork Trotter, Apple & Truffle Mayonnaise and Wilted Romaine. The pork was nice but i didn't fancy its flaky texture. The mayonnaise was definitely IT, it helped to bring all the components of the dish together.

Before the final entry of our dessert, Poached Pear, Truffle Pastry with Almond & Truffle Honey Cream, we got our palate cleanser which was a Mango Sorbet on a Bed of Olives with Fennel Sherbet. I don't want to sound overly excited over a Mango sorbet, but it was definitely a very fine one. Unfortunately the olives didn't do it for me but the fennel sherbet added that exciting fizziness to the sorbet. The final dessert overall, for me, was a bit disappointing. Firstly because i am not a big fan of poached fruit desserts and secondly (perhaps the main reason) because the truffle was too overpowering in the cream that made the whole dish 'fall apart' - i did like the truffle pastry though.

Mango Sorbet on a Bed of Olives with Fennel Sherbet

Poached Pear, Truffle Pastry with Almond & Truffle Honey Cream

The dinner was enjoyable and the staff was very attentive and efficient. Definitely loved the decor of Parlour Wine Room and there were certainly a few memorable dishes from the truffle degustation menu such as the Kingfish Ceviche, the Mushroom Ragu Paella and the delicious Mango Sorbet! Looking forward to the 4th Annual Truffle Degustation next year!

Multicultural Festival Canberra 5-7th February

The Multicultural Festival (in Canberra) was held from the 5th - 7th of February and to my surprise, it was really packed. I believe that a good percentage of Canberrans were present on the day that i went because street parkings were full, the new Canberra centre parking was full and at least 2 levels in the old canberra centre parking were full. It was great seeing so many countries and cultures gathered together in this festival and there were a lot of stalls set up promoting various countries' cultures and their cuisines. However,to my disappointment, the Brazilian stall was not selling food at all. *sigh.

Due to time restriction, i couldn't stay in the festival for very long and didn't get to try a lot of food (not to mention that some queues were long). They had food from Italy, Spain, Argentina, Korean, Russian, Indonesian, Sri Lanka, Macedonian, Greek, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, South African, Lebanon...etc...(too many to name, but you get the point)

I tried some Indonesian food: Opor Ayam (Braised Chicken in Coconut Milk), Satay Beef and Chicken (liked the peanut sauce), Russian Piroshki (Meat and Cabbage) and some Alexandria Sausage. I think my favorite was probably the Satay Beef with the peanut sauce...very tasty! (though the photo doesn't look like it)

Live music and happy people cooking are always cool.

Satay Beef Skewers

Russian Piroshki (Meat and Cabbage)

Alexandria Sausages