Banana Split with Walnut Toffee Shards

I thought of preparing banana split for Sabina and...yours truly so we'll have enough space in our small freezer ha.ha. You can make it healthier by using low fat ice cream or frozen yogurt.

Ingredients:

A piece of banana
Ice Cream, flavour of your choice (traditionally, it is vanilla)
Ganache (link to previous post) or caramel sauce
Walnut toffee shards

For Walnut Toffee Shards:

1/4 c sugar
2 Tbsp. water
drop of lemon juice or pinch of cream of tartar
2-3 T chopped walnuts

Procedure:

Cooking sugar comes in stages. 

1. Prepare the pan where the toffee will be poured before you start cooking. A silicone mat (silpat) can be used or line your flat tray with aluminum foil brushed with butter.
2. In a non-stick pan, put sugar and water. Do not stir.
3. Cook until amber in color. (I slightly swirl once in a while, to distribute the liquid evenly).
4. Once desired color is achieved, off the fire, quickly add the walnuts and gently swirl aga to coat the walnuts with cooked sugar.
5. Pour in tray and slightly tap to even out the cooked sugar.
6. Leave to cool. 
7. Cut in pieces using knife.

To assemble banana split:

1. Cut the banana into half.
2. Using a boat plate, lay the banana and top with ice cream.
3. Drizzle with ganache or caramel sauce (I used my left over dulce de leche).
4. Top with toffee shards.

Notes: 

• Please be extra careful in cooking. You can burn your skin with boiling sugar syrup. No joke as it is as painful as boiling water. 
• It took me approximately 8 minutes to achieve the desired color.

Bowl Bar Oiden

Sydney has a reputation of being expensive. I will not disagree but as long as you know when and where to buy your stuff, sometimes you'll get good deals. Trust me on this ha.ha.ha.

My sister recommended this small Japanese restaurant in the city. If you're on a tight budget, this place is perfect. Cheap yet it taste good. Check out their menu.

Our average bill per head, you won't believe it : AUD9.00

Stewed Beef Salad (Left Bowl, 2nd row from top);
Teriyaki Chicken (Right bowl, 2nd row)

Pork Katsu

Tea for One, anyone?

In a country where morning and afternoon tea is part of a day's work, I can't help but fall in love with tea. I prefer green or black tea with some fresh milk.

Last December, my daughter and I received tea for presents. Without a tea set, I was compelled to buy one. Yes, enough to have afternoon or morning tea set-up at home for friends. I bought cups and saucers, a tea pot, a tiered cake stand and the whole shebang. The T2 tea brand is awesome. They have fancy infusions and the packaging was impressive, too.

Desserts are best enjoyed when served with good beverage together with friends and family. One of life's simple joys.

For health benefits of tea, I'm sharing this article that I came across the other day. Read on...13 Reasons to love tea.

Madeleines

This small piece of joy is a French classic. When I went for a trip in Paris I made sure that I'll buy myself a piece or two.  I tried Laduree's. Unfortunately, it was dry. Maybe because I bought it late in the afternoon, hence, it wasn't that fresh. 

Majority of the recipes I have read are mixed using sponge method. The eggs are mixed at a high speed until thick, light in color and volume has somewhat doubled or simply, until ribbon stage. Even the recipe that I used before uses the same method. Recently, I came across French Food Safari on TV and they demonstrated Madeleines. It is simpler for there's no need to use a mixer. I tested it last week and it yielded good results, although I tweaked it slightly.

Orange Poppyseed  Madeleines
adapted from French Food Safari

Ingredients:

40 g unsalted butter
100 g white sugar
1/2 t baking powder
100 g plain flour or 50 g plain flour & 50 g cake flour*
zest from one orange
1 1/2 t poppyseeds
1 egg
30 ml milk

Procedure:
1. Pre-heat oven at 350 F or 170 C.
2. In a bowl, put the white sugar, baking powder and flour together. Mix slightly using a whisk.
3. Meanwhile, melt butter in a pan until slightly brown in color (it has better nutty taste).
4. Add the zest into the melted butter (I prefer my zest to come in contact with butter to infuse the flavour better).
5. Slowly pour the melted butter into the dry ingredients and mix until blended.
6. Put the batter in the fridge for 30 mins or so.
7. Grease the pan using canola or vegetable oil spray and sprinkle with flour, tap & remove excess flour.
8. Spoon or pipe out the batter and bake for 11 to 13 mins or until done.

Note:
* I also tested the recipe using half plain flour & half cake flour. I want to achieve a softer texture than using plain flour. You can, by all means, use 100% plain flour.

Grill'd Healthy Burgers

Yesterday, before catching the Wizard of Oz at Riverside Theatre, we decided to have dinner. We had no specific cuisine in mind and so we decided to play it by ear. While walking, we came across Grill'd. We checked the menu and since, Sabina loves burgers while Ariana wants to have something light for dinner,we ended up there.

They serve a wide range of burgers (chicken, beef, lamb, veggie and kiddie treats) and a few side orders of chips and salads. The Moroccan lamb burger was good! I had it in panini bread while Sabina had simply grill'd beef and of course, the diet conscious one, had Caesar's Salad with grilled chicken. The salad was served with sunny side up egg and it was surprisingly nice. It gave a rich taste.

Simply Grill'd Beef

Moroccan Lamb Burger

Caesar's Salad

It was also good to know that the company has a great sense of social responsibility. The Local Matters is how it is called. Upon ordering, we were given three bottle tops and we can choose which community group we want to support by dropping the bottle top into the respective jars. The group that got the highest number of bottle tops will be given a cash donation. It is done on a monthly basis. Isn't that nice?

Our average bill: AUD16.50.

Carrot Cake Slices

I've been craving for this cake last week. Maybe because I haven't had it for a year now. Despite my busy weekdays, I managed to bake and finish at 11:00 PM last Thursday night. Me and my cravings!

Here's another very easy recipe for you guys, no need to have a mixer (for the cake at least) but a hand mixer will do for the icing. The recipe measurement though is in weight.  

Ingredients:

400 g plain flour
15   g baking powder
10   g cinnamon powder
5     g ground nutmeg
1     tsp salt

400 g grated carrots
360 g sugar
4 pcs. large eggs
260 ml canola oil
180 g walnuts
180 g crushed pineapple,strained (you can substitute raisins, soaked in rum)
40   g honey


Cream Cheese Icing:

1 bar (250 g) light *cream cheese
125 g butter
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 c powdered or icing sugar**
2 tsps. lemon juice
zest of lemon, if desired

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven at 350 F or 170 F.
2. Mix all first five dry ingredients together .
3. In a mixing bowl, combine carrots,sugar and the rest of the liquid ingredients. Mix until blended together.
4. Add dry ingredients and mix until there are no traces of flour. 
5. Then, add crushed pineapple & walnuts.
6. If using a round pan, you can bake the cake batter in two 8" round pan or rectangular pan. Line your pan with baking paper.
7. Bake for 45 to 55 mins. or until done. Baking time varies depending on the size of the pan you used.  

      Procedure for Icing:

• Make sure the cream cheese and butter are both soft. Take it out of the fridge an hour or so before beating them together. Otherwise, you'll have tiny lumps of butter or cream cheese.
• In a bowl, beat the first two ingredients until well blended.
• Gradually add the icing sugar.
• Lastly,  the lemon juice & zest. 

      Finishing the cake:

• Ensure that your carrot cake has cool down completely before finishing it with cream cheese icing.
• Using a metal spatula, spread the icing on top.
• You can color some of the icing with orange and green for carrots and leaves.
• Suggested toppings: chopped walnut or drizzle with caramel sauce or dulce de leche (as shown on photo). 

 Notes: 
*  Regular cream cheese can be used, of course.
**If you don't want your cream cheese icing very sweet, you can use 2 1/2 c icing sugar.

New Packaging!

New packaging for Tim Tam and Cherry Ripe! Orange and chocolate are one of the best pairs for sweets. Cherry Ripe is an interesting combination of dessicated coconut flavoured with cherry dipped in dark chocolate.

Palitaw

Palitaw is a native Filipino dessert or snack. The flat oval or round shaped sticky rice is cooked by boiling.  It is also the main reason why I broke my mom's blender when I was ten. I tried grinding glutinous rice using her blender. Ha ha ha. Thank heavens for glutinous rice powder these days.

I actually freaked out when I found out that my youngest hasn't tasted palitaw. Hence, I made some for her to appreciate our cuisine.

I bought frozen grated coconut for I don't know where to source the fresh one here in Sydney. After thawing, the coconut  gets so watery. Solution: I gently drained the water using a strainer then I transferred it on a flat tray. At very low oven temperature or after turning off the oven and while it's still hot, I left the thawed coconut for few minutes to slightly dry.

PALITAW

1 c glutinous rice powder
1/2 c water
Freshly grated coconut, as needed

Sugar topping:
White sugar as needed (around 1/2 c)
Toasted sesame seeds, as needed (approx. 2 T)


Procedure:

• In a bowl, mix glutinous rice powder and water together until it forms into a ball.
• Make small rounds/balls and flatten each using your palm or rolling pin if desired.
• Lay them on a tray and leave to dry for few minutes.
• Boil water in a medium sauce pan. Slowly drop each flatten sticky rice.
• Once it floats, it's cooked. Remove with a slotted spoon and lay on a tray.
• When all done, roll each piece in grated coconut.
• Serve with white sugar & sesame seeds. 

Note:

It is best to serve the sugar and sesame seeds separately. Otherwise, you'll end up having watery palitaw.

Basic Brownie Recipe Version 2

I've mentioned before that brownies can either be fudgy, which I prefer, or cakey. I tweaked a few ingredients in my previous post and did a kitchen trial last week and voila! Cakey brownie. This recipe has a more intense cocoa flavour and is not as sweet (which worries a lot of people these days) as the other recipe. The members of my taste panel, my family members ha.ha., prefer this one though. Have a go on this one guys!

BROWNIES (Version 2)

Ingredients:

3/4 c butter, melted

1 1/2 c sugar

3/4 c cocoa powder

3 eggs

1 c plain flour

1/2 T baking powder
1/2 t  salt (if using salted butter, you might want to cut this out)

Suggested Toppings: nuts (you can try salted ones for flavour contrast), choc or white choc chips or simply plain and dust it with powdered sugar before serving

Procedure:

Please refer to  Basic Brownie

Note: recipe was tested using 100% cocoa powder

Which one do you prefer?

Blissful Brekkie at Bon Bon

I received a canister of hot chocolate drink mix for Christmas from my friend, Carol. It was from Bon Bon. I've been to the chocolate store before but I didn't know that there was a cafe downstairs. For our next breakfast adventure, we woke up a little bit early last Sunday to try their breakfast offering.

We were stunned by the nice rustic ambiance of the cafe. Reminded me of our cafe in the Philippines, Northern Brew. We were greeted by the Barista and soon the friendly staff approached us. The girls had a cold chocolate drink while I tried the hot dark chocolate with a hint of Habanero chili. Wow! I love the kick of chili at the end. It lingers. 

What did we order? Sabina had a croissant filled with smoked ham, Gouda and sliced roma tomato. They take pride in claiming that the croissant is traditionally made with 120 layers. Indeed, it was flaky, light and buttery. I had slightly toasted rye bread with poached eggs, haloumi, cherry tomatoes, avocado and arugula. It was awesome!  Ariana, on the other hand, had Belgian waffle topped with berry compote, mascarpone and pistachio nuts. I'll let her tell you what she thinks about her food. I guess, she was the least happiest among the three of us, ha ha.

Ariana says:
I do have to agree with my mum when she says I was the least happiest. Overall, I'd give my breakfast item a 7/10. The toppings were, for the lack of a better term, fantabulous. The creaminess of the mascarpone, in addition to the toasted pistachio nuts, compliment the tartness of the berry compote. I did however struggle to find the Belgian waffle itself. It absorbed most of the compote and ended up being soggy - and unidentifiable if I do say so myself. But hey, you get free chocolate afterwards so it's all good! 

Overall, it was a lovely breakfast. The ambiance, food & service were nearly perfect. After paying our bill, we were given three tiny boxes which we could take to the chocolate shop upstairs for free chocolate of our choice.I had white chocolate filled with  champagne flavoured ganache. I think the girls went for the coffee filled ones.We'll definitely visit back soon.

Average Bill per head: AUD17