Dessert Tour in Central, Hong Kong

During this trip to Hong Kong, I was very fortunate to have made a new friend whom I shall introduce as The Architect (as seen in The Matrix) of The Brunch Club. Like me, she has a passion for food and baking, and thus invited me on a dessert tour, visiting dessert places around Central that I hadn’t been to, one rainy afternoon.

First up, a bit about The Brunch Club. I’m proud to say that I have visited the cafe at least once in every of my trips to Hong Kong. The first thing that strikes you when you step in is how cozy the place is. There are several tables with sofas, which is perfect for a lazy afternoon with some tea, dessert and of course, catching up on your gossip, fashion, world events etc from the wide variety of magazines available for browsing (and for sale as well).

Note our choice of reading material

We had the salmon omelette (I forgot if it was with bacon or cheese) which comes with toast, a hashbrown and salad. It was delicious and quite enough for two to share. What I like about The Brunch Club is how it isn’t just a cafe to get coffee. It’s like a place to chill with friends, meet new people and basically spend an afternoon away from the hustle of Hong Kong. In the coming year ahead, I definitely see it as one of the places I’ll be spending time in on the weekends.

Okay, back to the tour.

Sweet Secrets (Address: 32 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, 2542-2816)

We shared the Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake, which came with a side of fruit and mango sauce. The cake was smooth, and the cheese/chocolate textures and tastes blended well together. The only gripe I had was the addition of the mango sauce, which basically added a confusing level of sweet tartness to the flavours. In any case, I would definitely go back to Sweet Secrets if I ever had a cheesecake craving.

Cake-a-licious (Address: Lower Ground Floor, 11 Lyndhurst Terrace,, Central, 28152218)

First of all, the name is simply adorable and very to the point. I always look down into the shop, which is located in the basement, as I walk past, and see an assortment of colourful cupcakes on display. I decided to try the Lemon Cupcake, as I wanted something zesty.

I find that unlike other forms of dessert, the simpler and more unadulterated a cupcake is, the better it tastes. This cupcake fit the bill and left a slightly tart aftertaste without being too saccharine sweet.

Sift Dessert Bar (Address: 46 Graham Street G/F Central Tel: 25304288)

I was particularly excited to go to this place because of a reason that I will reveal in July. Sift Dessert Bar pairs desserts with wine, which is a novel concept that is slowing gaining momentum in Singapore (read: 2am:dessertbar). It has an open-kitchen concept, where you can see your dessert being made behind the bar. However, 3pm is rather early for alcohol inhalation, so we settled on:

Sift Chocolate Cake – There is one chocolate cake that I can never resist, and that is one with hazelnut praline in it (I have always wanted to replicate such a cake at home). Every bite of premium chocolate mousse and hazelnut crunch bits was simply heavenly.

My friend’s order was the Ispahan, which, according to the website, is an ”homage to Pierre Herme”.  The lychee ice-cream was incredibly cleansing to the palette, which provided a contrast to the raspberry macaroon filled with lychee buttercream and fresh raspberries.

To say the least, I was on an induced sugar high at the end of the tour, and for several days after that. Of course, for me, desserts always are well worth it. Thank you, The Architect!

Chocolate Mint Wafers aka Girl Scout Cookies

The weather is killing me. Even the walk to the train station, which lasts about seven minutes, seems to take forever as I am so drenched in perspiration that my make-up threatens to run (not a good visual, I know). That’s why, these are times when you need a dessert that chills the mouth.  

Hence, while recipe-surfing on marthastewart.com, I decided to try out this lovely Chocolate Mint Wafer recipe, reminiscent of those Girl Scout Cookies which I have such fond memories of. It’s not simple, but I can honestly say that it’s one of those cookies that will surely impress your friends/colleagues/future-parents-in-laws/parents.

The instructions and ingredients for this recipe are, as always on Ms Stewart’s website, clear and easy to follow, so it’s best to click on the link I’ve given. What I want to do is give you a visual guide of what to expect when you try the recipe out for yourself. There are three stages to it – the cookie, the mint ganache (cream), and the chocolate covering.

Let’s start with the cookie:

After you have creamed the butter and sugar, beat in the egg until well-combined. Mix in the cocoa powder and plain flour to form a dough. Roll it out into a round disc before chilling it in the refrigerator for at least an hour (or overnight).

My only comment is that it tastes better than it looks.

An hour (or overnight) later, roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thick and cut out using any round cookie cutter (I used the jagged edge of a tart mould).

For the dough, please work fast. Because of its higher wet ingredient (eg butter, egg) proportion to the dry ingredients, the dough tends to turn soft very quickly. My advice, work in smaller batches, leaving the rest of the rolled-out dough in the refrigerator to chill.

Bake the cookies until you can smell chocolate (I wish that was applicable to most things in life), or for about 12 minutes. Now, I don’t mean that you have to be guarding the oven throughout the entire baking process, because the chocolaty aroma does waft out of the kitchen!  

The ganache:

This is basically a mixture of hot cream and semi-sweet chocolate. I mixed in about three drops of peppermint oil.

To fill your ganache onto a cookie, you could have easily spread a teaspoonful of it onto one cookie. But the smart-aleck in me decided to fill a ziplop bag with the ganache and cut off one end of the bag to create a “piping bag” of sorts. All I can say is, it was rather messy because the ganache was extremely malleable. In short, I should have taken the first route.

A sea of covered-up, filled-up cookies! Yummy!

For the final step, simply cover the chilled cookies with melted chocolate. And finally, the completed Chocolate Mint Wafers (along with the non-completed ones)!

It really is delicious, simple as that.

PS: I brought some along for Yixiao, Joyce (whom I now hail as the Queen of good-dress-buys-from-TF… kowtow…) and Zhirong during one of our lunch meet-ups because we should always share the love. The end.    

Pretty in Pink cake

 

We had decided to celebrate Xueling’s birthday before the trio left for their one-month exchange to India in search of themselves (just kidding.. they were going to work in the hospitals as part of their medical course). Of course, you can’t have birthdays without cakes, and so Michelle and I decided to make our cake a pretty-in-pink one.

I admit, I have succumbed to convenience. For the cake itself, we used a Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge cake mix, simply because it was affordable and easy to make. Of course, for true bakers, cop-outs as such would be a terrible sin. However, in our case, we were hot and tired (the weather is simply killing me), and the key aspect would be the lovely decoration.

Xueling’s Pretty-in-Pink Cake

Ingredients:

Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix

For the icing:

500gm icing sugar

100gm egg whites (about 3 egg whites)

1/2 tsp of lemon juice

food colouring/dye

Follow the instructions on the box to get a cake. We had separated the mix into two, so we had 2 square cakes to work with.

Make the icing by using an electric mixer to work the icing sugar, egg whites and lemon juice together. Add the colouring very slowly and cautiously to get the OCD-perfect shade of <colour>.

Ice one cake with about 1/4 of the icing mixture that you have. Use the rest to ice the entire cake as shown below.

Okay, that was when Michelle worked her magic. Because between the both of us, she has the better eye for aesthetics and design (being budding wedding planner that she is).

And the final product:

One piece of advice, fresh flowers wilt and decolour in the refrigerator. So, arrange them just when they are about to be served.  

Have fun!

I need a new oven.

My Baby Belling oven and I have gone a long way. More than a decade, in fact. My dad bought it for me for my tenth birthday, after my disastrous attempt to bake a sponge cake in the microwave oven (let’s just say it wasn’t spongy). Since then, it has followed me through thick and thin. Today, it still heats up, but old age has mellowed its ability to estimate an accurate temperature. Which makes me more of feel like a prophet than a baker.

I feel that the cookies are going to be done. I have a feeling that the next minute will create a soft, fluffy chocolate cupcake. This heat should be the right one for a perfectly done roasted chicken.

In any case, a new oven would probably not be in the works anytime soon. But, I should like to plan for my own place in future, and I was inspired by an episode of Debbie Travis’ home makeover show, where she fitted a teal retro-looking stove-cum-oven for an eclectic look in the kitchen.

I did some research and found out that the oven was from Northstar.

My favourate range of colours:

Bisque

Photo from: elmirastoveworks.com

Robin’s Egg Blue

Photo from: elmirastoveworks.com

Avocado

Photo from: elmirastoveworks.com

Lovely. Of course, I won’t be getting this any time soon. But, I can dream.

I’ve been going to marthastewart.com quite often for new recipes. Her recipe instructions have a distinct Martha vibe about it. Very precise, very clear. The outcome is also usually quite perfect, but perhaps not as perfect as how Martha could have done it.  

The two recipes I have done are:

1. Healthy Oatmeal Cookie

I like that wholemeal flour is used, which ups the fibre factor. Chewy and yet crisp cookie.

2.  Frosted Chocolate-Buttermilk Cupcakes

I didn’t do the frosting, because I felt that the cupcakes were moist and sweet enough on its own. I eat it refrigerator-cold, perhaps because it brings back memories of my Sara Lee frozen chocolate pound cake days. I do believe (hope) that this recipe is a little bit less fat-laden. Oh, I also replaced the buttermilk with light sour cream, which probably altered the taste, but ultimately, it still worked well for me.

On a TOTALLY separate note, I would just like to end this post telling everyone who reads this blog to be nice to the people you love and care for. It sounds so obvious, but often, we hurt, whether knowingly or unknowingly, people who love us. Perhaps it’s because we have higher expectations of them, so we get frustrated when they don’t meet them. Perhaps it sometimes is easier to be mean because it makes us a little less vulnerable. Perhaps sometimes we are just in a bad mood. However, for all these excuses we might give, we should also realise that doing and saying things that show you love them, even things that might seem insignificant to you, is more important than just thinking it.

Pensive pensive.