Archive for the ‘dessert’ Category
western basics, class 7
Awww it’s the second to the last Palate Sensations Western Basics class!
Having been to other cooking schools I appreciate the kitchen at PS even more these days. It’s so organized, homey, and well stocked. You feel like you can really cook anything in there. It’s fun puttering around the kitchen all day especially when you don’t have to do the dishes (thanks Loretta!).
The last 2 classes are all about desserts and this lesson we covered cakes and tarts. Two words for you today: sugar headache.
Two other words: worth it.
cupcakes wars by marmalade pantry
Let me give you a glimpse into my highly structured and regimented life. Every night I come home and spend a good hour or so perusing my Google Reader feeds. It’s my equivalent to reading the morning paper. My Google Reader is organized into topics like: kstuff (for my kdrama and kpop addiction), pstuff (Mabuhay!), funnies (Milk Toof and FML go here), and food (duh) – among others.
One night I came home to a post from Cupcakes Take the Cake about cupcakes in Singapore. See now this is important because I am oven-less and cannot bake my own cupcakes. On top of that I’ve bought cupcakes in Singapore before and they were not tasty. Nuh uh. They were dry with exorbitant amounts of frosting. They were worse than Safeway cupcakes.
But the cupcake on Cupcakes Take the Cake did not look dry. They looked moist and delicious. Further to that, lo and behold, the place in question is located one block from the office. The hell? Let’s fix this cupcake-less life shall we?
georgie’s singapore top 5
I don’t care if he’s becoming a grown man (ew). He is my youngest bother and I will always call him Georgie. I’m the big sister. I can do that.
Coming at you live from Hanford is Georgie’s Top 5.
This is what Georgie looks like. Except actually his head is a little bigger than a controller.
mooncake madness
I am all rusty with the blogging. I’ve started this post about 4 times. I refuse to use the backspace again. I will soldier on with whatever word vomit decides to spillover.
I went to a mooncake making class with Pat and Ruth today. It’s nearly the Mid-Autumn Festival again (yes, again – I’ve been living here for a year!) which means mooncakes are coming out all over the island. There are several different types of mooncake. The most common are baked to a shiny brown with thin skins and a heavy, sweet filling of red bean, lotus, or yam paste. The class, which we took at Jialei Confectionary and Training Center, covered Shanghai style lotus paste mooncakes, flaky yam paste mooncakes, and also a quick lesson on how to make the yam paste from scratch.
Golden flaky mooncakes with lotus paste and walnuts for decoration. These were nice and warm outta the oven.
chris’s singapore top 5
On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Joann wrote:
hallo brothers,
so you took a lot of pictures and both of you are quite funny right?
why dont you EACH do a ’singapore top 5′ for my blog? whatchuthink? top 5 favorite things about singapore (can be places or food or things) and should include pictures as well as some writing.
i think it would be fun! cmon!
love,
ate
Yup, I bullied lovingly asked my brothers to do guests posts for the blog. As background, I had 2 of my brothers fly out to Singapore to spend some quality time with their favorite big sister. One of them actually responded to my request (the other will face my wrath later). If you find yourself with your 20 year old brother in Singapore and need stuff to do/eat, please refer to the list below penned by middle brother (aka recipient of birthday cupcakes), Chris. My comments in the fancy italics.
the great singapore food tour
I’m supposed to be in Bangkok right now relaxing with some iberry after a long day of ziplining in the rainforests of Chonburi. Instead, I’m chillin on the couch watching the first season of The OC with the brothers. What are the odds that my brother would develop a 101F fever, sore throat, and nausea 8 hours before our flight? Sigh. Grounded.
This does mean I have lots of time on my hands and thus have fewer excuses to drag my feet on the ol’ blog. In truth I’ve been feeling wishy washy about it. To blog or not to blog? I’ve been taking the camera out less and less, feeling less impressed and less intrigued by the yum yums to be had all over the island. Too lazy to document any culinary magic happening in my humble kitchen. In short my friends I’m feeling all blogged out. I’m trying to get revved up about it again so let’s begin by a post that needs, nay aches, to see the light of day.
Nags and I with the leadership of some of our favorite true blue Singaporeans, Melina and Isaac, put together an office food tour to visit 4 of the island’s tastiest hawker stalls. Please make way for the gluttony of 1 rainy Saturday in Singapore, 17 hungry tummies, and 4 hours of num nums in the tum tum.
The fun started in Tiong Bahru which I have to say has a pretty nice, modern hawker center. Very spacious, adequately clean, and lots of variety.
brought back to life by iberry
I’m spending a lazy weekend at home in ultimate relaxation mode. No appts, no have-to-dos, no must-meets, etc. I have a bunch of those types of things (some of which are fun) on the horizon so I’m spending this weekend loading up on the me-time.
Let it be known that my month long hiatus is not the product of a lack of food adventures. There was lots of eating going on but there was also lots of burnt out-status going on too. That’s all behind us now since my recent trip to Bangkok has gotten me all riled up to share my latest favorite find.
I first learned of iberry via the loveliest of lovely food blogs, Eating Asia. They reran an old post about their love for iberry which coincided with my business trip to Bangkok so I jumped at the chance to try something they had featured. My first trip to iberry was the dessert end of dinner at Central World the pictures of which died an unexpected death due to user error (read: I accidentally deleted them). How amateur of me. Didn’t matter though because after my first visit I KNEW I would be back the next day.
ji de chi – remember to eat!
Cute name for a shop, huh? As you can see I had Hong Kong style dessert two nights in a row. Oink oink to you too. This one was after Yum Cha with Kwan and Pui. Kwan said her favorite dessert place was nearby so after some wandering we rolled ourselves into Ji De Chi, which according to the wall decorations, is a favorite of local celebs and has garnered itself a few awards.
aw chew desserts
This place is always, always busy. I’ve even seen it in a few guide books as *the* place for Chinese/Hong Kong style desserts. We saw this place before dinner so we made sure to leave some room in our bellies for a visit.
The verdict: good but not life changing. The most popular stuff on the menu is the mango sago which I wasn’t in the mood for due to my scratchy throat. I picked the sweet potato with sago while Steph got the milk custard. We were lucky enough to grab a table outside which gave us some breathing room from the durian specials of the day.
onde onde(licious)
I’ve had a great day of eating (and laser tagging) and am now at home making the familiar dent in my couch while I couch potato status and watch American Idol. (PS Adam Lambert, you are totally overrated.)
My Makansutra guide has been gathering dust on my bookshelf for a few months but I pulled it down to do some research for an upcoming work event. The section on onde onde reminded me of some of the posts on EatingAsia that sing the praises of gula melaka. This prompted a lunch time hunt for these sweet treats which, I’m proud to say, was very successful.
