One STEP closer...

Alo...it's been a real busy week for me here, got 9 assignments (including 1 midterm and 3 presentation + debate) in hand which gotta get them completed in 1 month time...do u believe it? O.o Gosh~~ I've felt the pressure nowadays...must keep myself on track to be consistent in time arrangement....hee~

I've just made my 1st ever egg tart today, a special bday present for Chian Ee's 21st birthday today~ Despite that, I've also bought a wool scarf and bday card for her present too, keke!


Top: The ingredients needed ; Bottom: Filo pastry on the baking tray (Filo pastry sheets are so thin like piece of papers)



Yea, that's the external look of Portuguese tart a.k.a. 'Pasteis de Nata'

The texture of the tart custard was exactly the same as what we used to get outside...Yippie~ But, by following exactly the recipe I got, the tart ended up to be too sweet!! Luckily I have tasted the hot custard and stopped from adding the entire sugar, aware of diabetes arh, folks...;-) Another thing is, I've made a mistake by using filo pastry instead of puff pastry...hehe...so it can be improved in the future...not a bad try~~


New product from Pocky...Its called 'Pocky Kinako', topping made with 5 different cereals...a healthy snacks...lol

Alright, its time for me to move on...final sem = busiest sem...LOL! I'm gonna turn my blog into a food bloggie...will update it with some other issues about FOOD in the future...ok, all the best pals...Tchau, ate depois (Goodbye, see you later in portuguese)!!

Here's the recipe, just try to alter the amount of ingredients urself according to personal's taste!! ;-)

Original Recipe Submitted by: John J. Pacheco on Allrecipes.com
*amount of sugar used has been decreased*
Ingredients:
1 cup of milk (~250ml)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 tablespoon of vanilla essence
100g white sugar
6 egg yolks
1 pack of frozen puff pastry

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups and line bottom and sides with puff pastry.
2. In a saucepan, combine milk, cornstarch, sugar and vanilla essence. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. Place egg yolks in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk 1/2 cup of hot milk mixture into egg yolks. Gradually add egg yolk mixture back to the remaining milk mixture, while whisking constantly. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from the heat, let it cool down for few minutes.
3. Fill pastry-lined muffin cups with mixture and bake in preheated oven with same temperature for 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is lightly browned on top.

Flour Monster has its own story...

Hehe, flour monster, that's what my friends here call me...Ever since I was young, I already addicted to stuffs made of flour, including noodles, bread, cakes, tarts, brownies and many more...Kenneth has brought a huge box of doughnuts for us as a fairly generous 'souvenir'...it's freshly baked from a well-known doughnut shop called 'Krispy Kreme'. It is based in Sydney and has its own branch down in Melbourne. From what I heard, they are going to open second branch bakery in Brissy...woohooo~ Cheers to all doughnut's manias...






























The external design of Krispy Kreme box and mouth-watering doughnuts (coated with icings)

Actually, the best of all the doughnuts offered in that bakery is the original-taste doughnut (doughnut with cinnamon powder) but it was out of stock when Kenneth purchased them. But, its already million of thanks to him for bringing a such heavenly dessert to fill our hungry stomach up...These doughnuts are famous with its soft texture which came with extra fragrance...The most important part is that the doughnuts are just enough in sweetness...wow...extraordinary stuff~

In a sudden, I decided to 'reopen' my home based bakery yesterday, in conjunction with the 'celebration'of the yummy desserts that Kenneth has brought for us...Haa, funny right? I've baked kiwi muffins this time...This self-created idea was inspired by the previous muffin recipe...!





























Baking in process & centred-cut view of the Kiwi Muffin topped with cinnamon icing(Let's enjoy~)

From what I've learned from the previous post about cake baking, I have readjusted the baking temperature used to 20 degrees lower - 160 degrees! It turned out to be in good shape and yummy too...You'll feel the satisfaction when your friends praised for the great dessert...Hard works are worth, keep you motivated to move on~hee...Gonna set my target higher for next baking session ---> TIRAMISU!!

**Please contact me for the muffin recipe...hee~

Its all PASTA matters...

Today is the 'Easter Monday', another public holiday for Aussie here. I've been slacking for the past few days as Kenneth came all the way from Sydney on Sat to take his stuffs back and visitting all of us. He just started his new chapter of life, working in Deloitte firm in Sydney for 1 and half month. Its been 5 months since my last meet up with him~

He has been asking me to suggest a place for us to dine for good lunch before his trip to brissy in phone few days ago~ I just recalled that I have read an article about food from Sinchew newspapaer. It was written about an Aussie based italian franchise restaurant called 'Fasta Pasta', which is newly established at Ikano Power Centre in PJ area. Malaysia has been chosen to be its first oversea branched restaurant. Yoo, M'sians, gotta be proud oo! Then, I told him about this yummy idea and without hesitation, he agreed with that. The nearest Fasta Pasta restaurant is situated at Stones Corner, which is about 20 mins from Brisbane CBD.



Alright, let me briefly introduce this Adelaide based italian restaurant...It was established in 1980, by three local Italian chefs living in Aust for years. They decided to introduce original italian style cuisines by offering the most significant food in Italy --> Pasta for the local people here. This great idea has been working so well until they have more than 40 franchise restaurants all over the Australia land at the moment.


Yeap, arrived at the restaurant around 20 mins or so, here we rolled... They provide various choice of pasta which is made using fresh homemade ingredients. They are proudly claiming that "At Fasta Pasta, we only use 100% durum wheat pasta because it is superior quality pasta and it has lower Glycaemic Index (G.I.). A lower G.I. means ‘slow release’ of carbohydrate in to the body to give you longer-lasting energy."



The interior design of the restaurant and the pic of local brewed Ginger beer & Italian Latte.



Fettuccine Cabonara (wide noodle) & Gnocchi Teresina (potato dumplings which is so special, the texture is like pan mee dough)



Kenneth and me (with messy hair look, yuks). Regular munchies like us, always opt for good food !

To be honest, the food here were simply 'Squisito' (italian word of delicious) !! The pasta dough were exactly as fresh as what they have promised to their customers. You can definitely taste the difference from those 'instant' dry pasta. The sauce base were well-cooked with adequate amount of spices and saltiness. The ingredients used including sun-dried tomatoes, ham, cauliflower and others, had been the additional limelight for those two amazing italian creations. Gotta thanks to Kenneth for treating me this meal, appreciated it much!!

Kenneth had made a move back to Sydney today, gonna prepare for tomorrow's working day! All the best in your working life, mate~ You're always welcome to visit us again!! Oh ya, just let me know if one of ya outthere has tried the M'sia's Fasta Pasta...thx ya, hee~

For more details, please visit http://www.fastapasta.com.au or http://www.fastapasta.com.my

The myth of cake baking...

Heyo...its been a long time since my last post on bloggie! I've been using multiply most of the time for now, so please refer to my multiply page for recent updates, hee! In this brand new year, I would like to start my new post about cake baking idea, secrets and troubleshooting kind of questions. Gonna 'reopen' my personal home bakery in this 1 week of easter break, yum yum!

Its really frustrating sometimes when you have encountered some even minor problems. They will eventually ruin your whole day, mood, worst will be loss of eating appetite...You would say, "is that so serious?". Yes, it is...haaa. Here's some failure mysteries:


First - The 'X' fault -- this is when the cake splits down the middle and quite frequently looks like, well, an X. The outside of the cake is cooked and possibly burning, but the inside of the cake is still not completely cooked. These cakes generally have a peaked top also. This is caused by having the oven temperature too high. A very hot oven will form a crust on the cake too soon and this will in turn cause the cake to rise in the center only, giving the characteristic peak. The uncooked part of the cake is being pushed to the top by the already cooked portions of the cake, which are solidifying.

(Pic depicted from www.petrossian.com)
Second - The 'M' Fault -- the sinking cake. You know the drill -- you take the beautiful cake out of the oven and it looks wonderfully risen. Then 5 minutes later, it sinks in the middle. Your oven is too cool. This happens because the air (that you so carefully beat into the cake to make it light and fluffy) is trying to escape, but the crust is already solid. While it is in the oven it doesn’t have a chance to escape. As soon as you take it out, the crust starts leaking moisture and developing pores, which the air immediately escapes out of, and viola! Sunken cake.

The solution for both these dreaded instances is to get an oven thermometer. Just because you set your oven to 350F, it doesn’t mean that’s the actual temperature the oven is. Everyone’s ovens vary, some by 1 or 2 degrees, some by 15, some by way more than that. So get a thermometer and put it in your oven. Next time you will know exactly what kind of heat you’re dealing with.

The dah....here's the wonderful mouth-watering Tiramisu after getting through all these vexations...hope I can make it one day too, haa!

(Pic depicted from http://www.ferraracafe.com/nyc/specialty-descriptions.php )

All the above Q & A part were quoted from the article "Faults & Leaveners: The Intrigues of Cake Making, by Jennifer Dunklee". Thanks for that to make this post an interesting cake issues related article...alright...say 'HOLA' to wonderful cake life...mum mum... ;-P