Stay home Saturday cook-out: Roast Beef

I was really craving for a good cut of beef and instead of heading out to settle that craving at a restaurant.  We decided to up the ante and do the cooking back at home.  Well, just blame it on the weatherman for making our decision all that easier for it was pouring the entire day last weekend.

It was no elaborate affair but all the dishes that we whipped up were hearty and some were kinda healthy.

Instead of a starter, I decided to recreate this Curried Carrot Soup.  Was itching to play with my kitchen gadget that we had brought back from Geneva.  It had somewhat become a white elephant since our return.  So, I wiped off the dust and made a blended soup with the kitchen device.  The soup was a crowd-pleaser and the helper learned the recipe so hopefully she can recreate this on her own.

Next up, the highlight of our dinner!  This mean roast beef that the Man has perfected!  The cut?  A gorgeous one that we got at Swiss Butchery, marinated wonderfully by the guys from the store.  All the Man did was to add rosemary, carrots and garlic to the mix and viola… a wonderful dinner awaits!

Now, isn’t that a gorgeous colour for a perfect roast?  After taking it out from the oven, the Man covered the roast beef in foil and allowed it to rest for about 10 to 15 minutes.  We realised that even though we were hungry and had wanted to dig our steak knives straight into the cut.  Resting the beef allowed the juices to be locked into the beef allowing the flavour to be juicier.  Us all silent during the mains was a testament of how good the roast beef was. ‘Nuff said.

As for the sides, I had a box of Gratin sauce gifted by a dear friend from Geneva.  So, I made a potato gratin topped with Tetsuya’s Truffle Sauce.  It was totally yums!  Gonna ask the pal to bring me more of the sauce so I don’t have to make it from scratch.  Hehe..

Lastly for dessert.  Was a little tired of making Molten Chocolate Cakes so for a change, decided to make a mini Apple Tart using this recipe.  Got a ready-to-roll puff pastry from the store but think I added too much flour to the pastry while kneading it, resulting in a slightly hard crust but the apples were beautifully done.  Topped with a scoop of salted caramel ice-cream from Marks & Spencer, this marked the end of our home-cooked meal.

The entire family had a wonderful time at dinner and this guy wished he could get in on a piece of the action.. but no, he didn’t!

Organising 101: Making sense of chaos

See that long white table there?  That used to be my dressing table.  It used to be clutter-free but obviously, that has changed.

It now looks like this – housing some of my prized possessions, along with a couple of prints and knick-knacks on the dresser.

The latest addition to my dresser is of course the glass pedestal and dome stand which was a recent purchase from Pottery Barn.  They finally ship to Singapore now!  Yippee!  Aside from using as a display for sweets, this stand also comes in handy to display my arm candy.  I featured the glass jar previously.  Don’t trash those pretty ribbons that you may have received when you purchase the item.  It just may come handy.  In my case, I threw a couple into the glass jars to create more colour into the mix.

And over on the other corner, we have my beauty corner where all my perfumes and cosmetics are displayed or cleverly disguised in a quirky box.

So how does your dresser look?  Neat or as chaotic as mine? ;p

Updates will be a little slower for the next week or so.  Work has taken over my life for now, but I’m really excited about one new project for the blog.  So, stick around won’t you?

The purple butterflies cake project

If you have been following my misadventures on my recent cake decorating course that I took, you would have known how stressed out I have been over my final cake project. There were only 5 lessons that we had to take in this basic cake decorating course, but it was enough to ‘stress’ me and Germsy out. In between all the cake talk, I guess we bonded even more with a glass of wine in hand. Fun times indeed!

In order to ‘graduate’ from this course, we each had to assemble a two-tier cake and decorate it with fondant. We were told to select a design by the end of lesson 2 and this was the cake that I chose – a gorgeous Anna Sui cake adorned with black fluttering butterflies.

[Image taken from http://www.hannahgracecakes.co.uk

Looks mighty challenging huh? And it was! I was told by my teacher to bake 2 X 6-inch cakes and 2 X 8-inch cakes and have them stacked one on top of the other. I honestly thought I had a 8 inch cake pan at home but it turned out I baked 2 X 7-inch cakes instead. I only realised the error when I stacked the 2 different sized cakes together and they look abit odd. But I was simply too tired to whip up another batch of cake batter and begin the process. So I chose to live with the mistake.

A lot of prep work was needed in order to make this cake. Besides covering our 2 cakes with fondant, I had to make the fondant butterflies a couple of days before, make sure they harden and bring them into class for the final decoration.

I made a total of 20 big butterflies and 14 small ones. 10 odd or more butterflies were broken in the process. Total time taken kneading of fondant plus making of the butterflies: close to 3 hours.

After settling the fondant butterflies, the next step was to cover our chocolate cakes with the fondant of your choice. Since mine was a purple-based cake, I had to tint my fondant which took me 1 hour to tint 1kg of white fondant. This was really getting to be quite time-consuming. Thereafter, I had to transport my cakes to Germsy’s place to have my fondant rolled out and covered there. Thankfully, Germsy’s daughter was a whizz at rolling and covering the cakes with fondant. So the sweet gal helped us with all our cakes with us taking a supporting role. Total time taken to cover 6 cakes : approximately 2.5 hours. Of course it’s not all work and no play, the wonderful host poured out some drinks while we worked.

Covering the cake with fondant is truly no easy feat. You have to make sure that fondant is rolled out to the desired thickness before laying it on the cake and slowly covering the gaps without breaking the fragile sugar piece. Well, didn’t have much luck in that department for a part of my fondant cracked really badly while covering the cake. So in order to ‘rescue’ the cake, I cut out a piece of fondant and covered the cracked part. This became a joke in the class for my cake looked like it had a stamp over it. I guess that’s my signature then.

Okay, now to the very last part – assembling the cake.

At our last lesson, we were taught how to stack our cakes and making sure that it had the right support without collapsing.

Next, we were given about 2.5 hours to put the finishing touches and decorate our cake.

The mother-and-daughter team doing a far better job than me in their cake decorating.

This was me, initially, working on my cake.

Towards the end, the rest of the gals chipped in and helped add the sparkles to my black fondant butterflies, simply because I added way too much cornstarch and the white specks couldn’t be removed. Yikes! But I guess it was good fun!

And just like that we’ve ‘graduated’ from cake decorating course 1! Don’t you think the pals’ cakes are also very lovely? I absolutely adore Germsy’s white cake with neon pink bows! Classy and funky all rolled into one!

And here’s a shot of us gals with our teacher.

My Anna Sui Butterflies fondant cake – it ain’t pretty but I guess I’m really proud of the cake that I’ve put together.

Of course, there’s room for improvement and hopefully if I ever do get the chance to make one of these cakes again, I hope to do a much better job at it.

Till then, we will be eating loads of choc cake here at the loft!

This has certainly been one pretty ‘mammoth’ and fun project that I’m glad to have done with friends on my career break. Doing this project has also opened my eyes for I’ll never look at any fondant cake the same way again.

Related articles

• My very own Tiffany cake! (j0annesim.wordpress.com)
• What did I get myself into? (j0annesim.wordpress.com)

My very own Tiffany cake!

My fourth lesson of the Cake Decorating Course saw us baking, icing and assembling our very own fondant cake!  A lot of work and care went into kneading the fondant and paying attention with the details while decorating the cake.  Not a glamorous shot of our work with tissue stuffed in the fondant bow but yes, that’s how the bow gets its shape according to my teacher.

Here are the cakes that we made in class.  Don’t you think the pink cake with the brown bow and polka dots look absolutely adorable?

Couldn’t help but feel a huge sense of achievement with how the cake eventually turned out!  Like the Tiffany & Co jewellery box adorned with a bow, the cake feels like it’s almost too pretty to be eaten.  So I’m gonna be admiring it for a little while longer before I cut it up and share them with friends.  Fingers crossed but I really hope they like it.

And here’s a group shot of my cake decorating buds with our cakes – all obviously happy with how our cakes turned out. 

I’m seriously nervous about my final project but hope it turns out looking decent for it’s gonna be served as dessert for next week’s dinner party.  Otherwise, I’m screwed and will have to make another dessert.   Yikes!  So please cross your fingers and toes for me won’t ya? 

Keep calm and eat cake..

Yes, keeping cool is needed while making chiffon cakes.  That plus making sure you read the instructions and kinda memorise them before making the cake helps as well.  This was my second attempt in making the cake.  The first ended up tragically (ie: it was flat)!  I was too eager to remove the cake from the tin and that was my ‘downfall’.  The cake went from almost fab to flat within seconds.  After the failed baking incident, I was obviously upset with myself so I began to re-read the recipe again.  Turned out I was supposed to invert the cake tin immediately after taking it out from the oven and then let the cake cool before attempting to remove it.  *face palm*  Arh well, lesson learned and thankfully, cake number 2 turned out almost perfect!  Phew!

Presenting my very first Yuzu Chiffon Cake.  Yes, Yuzu!  As you know I’m crazy about all things Yuzu.  So with some Marigold Peel Fresh Yuzu Juice and a teensy weensy bit of Yuzu concentrate left, I decided to whip up a light chiffon cake celebrating my love for Yuzu! 

Taste test?  It was really, really good!  I believe this might just be a breakfast staple on our table at the loft in time to come.  Looks like I gotta stock up on more bottles of Yuzu concentrate then.  Hehe.

Yuzu Chiffon Cake (Recipe adapted from Happy Home Baking)

Ingredient A:
(makes one 18cm cake)

• 3 egg yolks
• 20g caster sugar
• 90ml of Marigold Peel Fresh Yuzu Juice
• 10ml of Yuzu Juice concentrate
• 40ml vegetable oil
• 70g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Ingredient B:

• 3 egg whites
• 50g caster sugar

Method:

1. Sieve flour, baking powder together, set aside.
2. Separate egg yolks/whites and bring to room temperature. (It is easier to separate eggs when they are cold.)
3. Place egg yolks in a mixing bowl, add in sugar, and with an electric whisk on low speed, whisk till the mixture becomes very sticky and turn pale.
4. Drizzle in the oil, whisking at the same time till the mixture is well combined. Repeat the same with the Yuzu mixture. Sieve over the flour mixture and using a manual whisk this time, whisk until flour mixture is fully incorporated into the batter.
5. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until mixture becomes frothy and foamy. Beat in the sugar in 3 separate additions on high speed until just before stiff peaks form.
6. Add the beaten egg white into the egg yolk batter in 3 separate additions, each time folding gently with a spatula until just blended.
7. Pour batter into a 18cm (7 inch) tube pan (do not grease the pan).
8. Tap the pan lightly on a table top to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.
9. Bake in pre-heated convention oven at 170 degC for about 40mins or until the cake surface turns golden brown.  Instead of using a skewer, E from missus C’s reverie taught me to press the top of the cake lightly.  If the cake bounces back (ie: springly), then you know it’s done.
10. I thought this step was really important!  Remove from the oven and invert the pan immediately. Let cool completely before unmould. To remove the cake from the pan, run a thin-bladed knife around the inside of the pan and the center core. Release the cake and run the knife along the base of the pan to remove the cake.

And if you love anything with Yuzu in it, why don’t you give this recipe a try?

Personally, I think it’s just the kind of cake that helps to keep me calm so that I have more energy to shop on! 

 

Dinner-time: Truffle Pasta with Poached Egg

The mom-in-law. She lives with us so she does most of the cooking on weekdays. But she’s away for a couple of days so I took the opportunity to head back into the kitchen and whip up a simple dish for a weeknight dinner.

While stocking up for groceries to prep for the weeknight meal, the Man decided to pick up some Tagliatelle. He was in the mood for some Tagliatelle with white truffle oil. I found this recipe online.. tweaked it a little and viola.. whipped up this pasta along with some barbecued pork and steamed broccoli for a simple meal.

The recipe called for poached eggs. The Man and I, we attempted making them once but it failed terribly and ended up looking like flower eggs in hot water, so I never really dared to make them again. This time round, I was fairly determined to make them. Went online to find a tutorial on You Tube… watched the Gordon Ramsey video a couple of times before heading to the kitchen to make the poached eggs.

If you followed the step-by-step guide listed by Mr Ramsey, you’ll find that you will also be able to poach eggs at home too! We added white vinegar to the boiling water as it’s supposed to help the egg envelope in a cocoon faster. Pleased with the result, I started to prep the rest of the dish.

With some olive oil, I sauteed the portobello mushrooms and once it’s cooked, I added the cooked Tagliatelle pasta. If you find the pasta a little dry, you could add about 2-3 tablespoons of the pasta water (retained from cooking of the pasta). Thereafter, add about 3 tablespoons of white truffle oil. Give it a good toss and prepare to plate the pasta before putting the poached egg on top of the dish. Throw in a little chives as garnish and you’re done!

Kinda easy peasy huh?

So, S from Schwingen in Switzerland and L from The Swiss Watch Blog, I hope this recipe has inspired you gals to bring out the truffle oil and start cooking.

Adding the little touches to dress up a party

I love hosting small parties, especially theme parties.  Or maybe I just love putting the little touches to making a small party a little more special.

Since I was out sick most of the week, I had quite a lot of free time on hand surfing and pinning those pretty party pictures on Pin-Interest if I wasn’t lying in bed with a tissue that’s perpetually stuck on my hand (oh-kay perhaps too much infor on that one).  So I decided to make the most of all this free time to dress up our whisky party further by making some place-cards for the food items on the table using a pack of origami paper.

If you are hosting a sit-down dinner for a small party, you could also use this idea to make individualised place-cards for your guests too.  Alternatively, you could also use this nifty handicraft to place small bite-sized items inside the holder.

I’ve always loved flowers and in my honest opinion, I feel that they really do dress up a home.  So for the party, I picked up a bouquet of fresh pink florals at the supermarket, popped them in a vase, tied a white ribbon around the vase and viola!  A simple and fun piece to add to the home.

Finally, here’s another simple idea that you could replicate for almost any occasion.  Guess it’s no secret that we both love to drink wine.  So if we have a good bottle of wine, we usually like to keep the cork from that bottle as a remembrance.  All these corks are placed in another vase on a book-shelf.  So for the party, what I did was to place a tea-light in the center nicely nestled on top of the corks to make a simple center-piece for the dining table.  Surrounding this center-piece, I folded some paper cranes to symbolise us returning back to our home-country.

What do you think of the little touches that I’ve put to dress up our party?  Or do you have any party tips to share?  I’ll be happy to hear them and who knows it could just come in handy for our next party that we throw back in Singapore?