A Classic British Treat

The Victoria Sponge - 100% Homemade.


A nice and easy cake to make and perfect for afternoon teas.

I used the recipe from deliciousmagazine, which required minimal ingredients.

Ingredients

Self-raising flour, caster sugar, egg, butter and a bit lemon to make the sponge and some bottled strawberry jam to make the filling (although it would be much better if you could make your own jam).

Cake mixture

Once the cake mixture is done, I divided it into two halves and poured into two spring-foam tins. You may put the cake mixture in one bigger tin. I chose to bake the two sponge layers separately as it is easier than cutting a big sponge into two equal halves.

Cake mixture in tins

Once the sponges are done, cool them on a rack before spreading any jam.

Sponges cooling

Sponges

Strawberry Jam spread

Once the sponges are cooled, spread strawberry jam on top of the bottom sponge then put the top layer sponge on top. Alternatively, raspberry jam can be used instead.

Victoria Sponge

Most recipes add whipped cream to the cake, but I am making the traditional Victoria Sponge which do not include whipped cream.

The edges of the sponge look torn. Perhaps next time I should grease the cake tins more thoroughly, lift the sponges out carefully and then dust the top with icing sugar.

Nice and tasty afternoon treat, with the hint of lemon cutting through the light and buttery sponge. Lovely strawberry jam sandwiched in between. Perfect with a cup of tea.

Here are some more Victoria Sponge recipes from deliciousmagazine and the queen of desserts, Mary Berry.

Waterloo Gardens Teahouse

In the UK, when you mention afternoon tea, scones and clotted cream usually comes into mind. Teas, cakes and sandwiches also come into the picture.

The last time I had proper afternoon tea was at The Berkeley, Knightsbridge and the Grosvenor House Hotel, Mayfair.

So, I was pretty excited when friends and colleagues told me about this cafe in Cardiff that serves afternoon tea on a 3-tier stand!

This little cafe or teahouse - The Waterloo Gardens Teahouse, is not located at the 'famous' Waterloo in London, but is aptly named after the street where it's located, called Waterloo Gardens in Penylan, Cardiff.

According to the teahouse's website, one can only reserve a table by pre-booking afternoon teas, and we soon found out the reason why when we arrived at the place.

Signboard Outside Cafe

View from our table

The place was filled with people enjoying their teas and cakes, people standing by the counter and people queueing up to wait for free tables!

Busy afternoon

As you can see on the wall behind the bar, the shelves are filled with pots of teas for sale to the public. You can buy "fine artisan tea from award winning estates around the world from this tiny little teahouse!

Tea Menu

Faced with a very extensive list of different teas that I can choose from the rather thick tea menu, I chose the award-winning Lychee Oolong. For me, fruity teas never fail to impress with their subtle sweetness complimenting the fragrant Oolong.

Hourglass

I was wondering why every table had this colourful hourglass and soon found out that it was to time how long different teas should brew in the teapots!

3-Tier Stand and Tea Set

3- Tier Stand

Clotted Cream and Raspberry Jam

Top tier consists of the clotted cream and raspberry jam for the miniature scones found in middle tier.

Scone and Coffee & Tia Maria Cake

Middle tier carries the miniature scones and slices of Coffe & Tia Maria cakes.

Finger Sandwiches

The bottom tier then holds the finger sandwiches including Mixed Vegetable Sandwich, Cheddar Cheese and Tomato Chutney Sandwich and Salmon with Soft Cheese Sandwich.

Normally, we start with the savoury food, hence the sandwiches. I thought the sandwiches were nice and normal, a far cry from being exceptionally impressive.

After finishing the savoury foods, we proceeded to the scones. I thought the scones were tiny and baked a bit too long as they have gone rather hard and dry. However, a big dollop of my favourite clotted cream just about saved the day. I must say that the cream tea (scones and cream) I had in Dartmouth was way better although it is unfair to compare scones here vs. those served in a Michelin starred restaurant. But even the cream tea in a normal cafe @ Cotswolds was nicer.

Then we continued on to the sweet cakes - Coffee & Tia Maria Cake. I liked this cake as it was very moist. The cake has a nice coffee flavoured buttercream, a very subtle Tia Maria flavour infused in the coffee flavoured sponge.

A rather rich cake but a sip of my Lychee Oolong tea just nicely cut through the richness of it.

Although this afternoon tea has not achieved the elegance and attention to details of those offered in Berkeley and Grosvenor House but this was very well compensated with a considerably lower price of GBP11.50 (compared to GBP35-40 at the other two establishments).

In conclusion, I would picture afternoon tea at this place as "like having sandwiches, cakes and tea in any other cafe" but served on a 3-tier stand and a tea set. But I do like the friendly atmosphere of this place as long as I don't have to wait in an amazingly long queue for a free table!



On a note, I found it rather difficult to enjoy my afternoon tea when the chairs are higher than the table! 

Kota Kinabalu Food Scene

It is great to be back!

Back home in this hot country, Malaysia, to see family and friends! Back to my hometown Kota Kinabalu (KK), the capital city of Sabah. A wonderful place for tourism with beaches, islands, forests, mountains for the more adventurous; shopping centres, restaurants, cafes, pubs and clubs for those who like city life.

and of course....Back blogging about food - my very first post in 2012.

First stop, noodles! There are so many different varieties of noodles in KK. Each named after the places (towns, villages, cities) of origin, with its own distinct texture, taste, flavours and accompaniments.

Foochow Kampua

Sarawak Foochow Kampua or Foochow Dried Noodles. Foochow is a place in China and people from there are called Foochow people, lots of Foochow people migrated to Sarawak, Malaysia. Hence, naturally the dried noodles they brought from Foochow is called Foochow kampua.

This dish is usually served with stir-fried minced pork and the noodles in it's original pale yellowish colour, different from other dried noodles mixed with dark soya sauce to give a brown-black colour.

Absolutely delicious thin noodles mixed with sauces made by the noodle stall owner. On the photo you can see slices of meat with a yellowish 'skin', that is called 'Chun Juan' or pork wrapped in thin layer of fried egg which is a bit like the Japanese Tamago. The Chun Juan is a Hakka delicacy found mainly in Sabah, so the Sarawakian noodle dish has been localized with a few pieces of KK Chun Juan.

Top with a few sprinkles of diced spring onions, this simple dish smells wonderfully fragrant and tastes superbly delicious!


Next come the dessert. With many new coffee shops or cafe springing out in KK, I could never keep up with them by coming home only once a year, or less!

For a small gathering of former high school classmates, we went to this new joint in KK called Station One Cafe.

For a new shop, it has the looks, the atmosphere and of course new customers who are always curious to try out new places.

However, the service was rather appalling as we had to wait ages to be served although we have repeatedly pressed the 'service call' button. The worse thing is that my friends had to wait almost 30 minutes for a glass of Three Layer Milk Tea and simple glass of Ribena with lemon slice!

Three Layer Milk Tea

Three Layer Milk Tea is literally three layers with the first brown layer of tea, second white layer of evaporated milk and the bottom dark brown layer of Gula Melaka (Melaka Coconut Palm Sugar). A nice glass of cold tea with the fragrance of evaporated milk and the natural sweetness of Gula Melaka.

Ice Cream Sundae

Since it was boiling hot, I ordered the Ice Cream Sundae that came with Strawberry, Chocolate and Yam ice cream scoops, one split banana and a chocolate love letter topped with some whipped cream. I guess the ice cream was more susceptible to the heat than I was because it melted into a smooth milky liquid in less than 10 minutes! Hence, I was left competing with the heat to DEVOUR the ice cream!


Lunch next day, again, consist of some sort of noodle.

This time it was rice noodle, which is known as the healthiest type of noodle as it was made of rice flour (gluten free!)

Giant Garupa Noodle Soup

What's incredible about this rice noodle soup? It was the main ingredient - none other than the Giant Garupa Fish meat!

Why is it so incredible? I will try and describe the taste and texture before going into the price of it!

It is a deep sea fish that can live more than 50 years and can grow more than 200kg, easily over 6 ft long!
The meat has a firm texture with a pleasant chewiness to it, which makes it a pleasure to eat!

The price? Can go up to RM8,000 (about GBP 1,650) for a 120-30kg catch. So my bowl of Giant Garupa Fish Soup Noodles cost RM22 when an average bowl of fish soup noodle cost around RM8!

The soup was of course delicious after being boiled for hours with the fish, pickled mustard leaves, tofu; sprinkled with some chopped parsley - a beautiful noodle soup dish!


Another cafe that we went to for dinner was Upperstar. Another coffee shop similar to the one we went to - Station One Cafe. Although they are called coffee shops or cafe, they are not exactly shops that sells coffee, tea and cakes only like Starbucks. Coffee shops here sell a variety of food ranging from Western meat chops to Asian rice and noodle dishes. They serve fresh fruit juices, coffees and milkshakes too.

Nasi Lemak King

I ordered the Nasi Lemak King.

They have three different range of Nasi Lemak, from the most basic Nasi Lemak Promotion, Nasi Lemak and the 'extravagant' Nasi Lemak King. All the same basic coconut milk rice with some shrimp paste sauce, ikan bilis, peanuts, cucumber slices and boiled egg. The only differences between these three Nasi Lemaks were the number and sizes of ingredients put on it, and of course the price difference!

The 'King' that I ordered has the additional chicken wing, which was a bit tough to bite, so I left it as it is after trying a few bites. It also had two long sticks of chicken kebab sandwiched with green peppers, and I DO NOT LIKE peppers, especially the green ones.

Overall, a so so Nasi Lemak interpretation as I have eaten much nicer and more authentic ones.


Then we went to another joint for desserts - Secret Recipe.

Mango Delight

The Mango Delight without much delight. The menu offers:"Juicy chunks of mangoes come together with home-cook mangoes puree and fresh cream...". As promised it has chunks of mangoes but they were not that juicy, the sponge was so dry that I had nothing nice to say about it, apart from the cake being light and posing minimal threat to increasing waist-line size.

Chocolate Indulgence

Now, the Chocolate Indulgence cake looked and tasted more promising. Made with layers of 'creamy and rich Belgian coverture chocolate and white chocolate filling'. With different tastes and textures to each layer of the chocolate cake, it was rich, tasty and nice to eat.



You can probably gather now that KK has been swamped with franchises and the local (much better) food places are slowly (now becoming quickly) being phased out, with only the very popular and long-running ones left!


Now going back to non-franchised food at Restoran Baba & Nyonya Recipe serving authentic Baba & Nyonya food.

Cendol Ais

Cendol Ais - green coloured jelly, served with crushed ice and red beans, drizzled with coconut milk and Gula Melaka. A delightful cold, sweet treat on a nice hot day! In the photo above, the owner forgotten to add the cendol on to the cendol ais! Hence, you can see the cendol being added afterwards in the photo below.

Cendol Ais

Rojak Buah

Rojak Buah - Mixed fruits with specially made sauce and crushed peanuts. A delicious local delicacy with a sweet and sour taste offering different texture from the fresh fruits, crushed peanuts and local vegetable.

Although it does not look like much, one has got to try it to understand what I mean when I say that it is a delicious dish!



Featuring my favorite drink when back home - Iced Milk Tea!

Iced Milk Tea

Many people like their HOT cup of tea, but I love mine served cold - ICE cold! A simple glass of iced tea with evaporated milk rather than normal cow's milk, simply refreshing.

Rice Noodles

Another bowl of noodles, this time it was the dried rice noodles in soya sauce (giving it a brown black colour). Served with a bowl of soup containing pork meat, pork meatballs and pork dumplings giving different textures to a simple pork dish.

Pork meat soup

A very satisfying meal indeed!

More to come as I continue on my KK food journey......

Christmas Cake 2011

The cake is now completed!

Remember my previous post on the making of the Christmas fruit cake?

Step two - icing and decorating, is now completed!

It brought back childhood memories of playing with plasticine, but of course, I used the edible icing to decorate the cake.

The Christmas cake was first covered with a layer of marzipan then another layer of royal icing. This of course was not an easy task as I thought, as I almost broke the rolled-out icing in several places while trying to put it over the cake. But it was quickly saved with a little dab of warm water, clever trick taught by my work colleague.

Then I rolled the green coloured icing into cone shapes, Christmas trees look-alike. However, due to difficulties in finding BROWN coloured icing, or even BROWN food colouring, I had to improvise and used white icing covered with chocolate flakes to try and imitate the BROWN tree trunk. Clever eh?

Then it gets even more fun when I rolled white icing into two different sizes of balls to make the snowman, before using colourful chocolate buttons to decorate it. Guess what? I could not find any suitable stick-look-alike for the hands and nose, hence I used broken pieces of spaghetti! Isn't my little snowman cute? haha!

After piping many dots of white icing on the trees and around the base, '~ta~da~' the cake is complete!

Well, the cake did not look exactly LIKE the professional looking one in this page found in the Decemember issue of deliciousmagazine.

Page from delicious. magazine

But I still love my very own version!

With that, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and all the blessings with friends and family!

All-butter Shortbread

Not just any shortbreads, they are star-shaped shortbreads - 100% homemade!

Thinking what to give my colleagues at work for Christmas, I got this great gift idea from the December issue of deliciousmagazine.

Shortbreads made any shapes you like and wrapped beautifully any ways you like!
For me, a homemade gift is always the best gift! These shortbreads are pretty, delicious, easy to make and a wonderful gift for this festive season.

Recipe for 'All-butter shortbread stars and hearts' by delicious.magazine as follow:

Makes about 32
Takes 10 minutes to make, 15-20 minutes to cook, plus chilling and cooling


Ingredients:
60g golden caster sugar
120g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla or orange extract
175g plain flour, plus a little extra for dusting


Cooking method:
1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, butter and extract. Sift over the flour and mix until it forms a dough. Shape into a disc, wrap in cling film, then chill for at least 30 minutes.

Stars

Star-shaped dough

2. Preheat the oven to 180 degree C/fan 160 degree C/gas 4. Lightly dust the work surface with flour, then roll out the dough to a thickness of 5mm. Use small cutters to cut out stars or hearts and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden around the edges, the transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Shortbreads in festive paper cups

Once the shortbreads are entirely cool, I filled some paper cups with them then wrap the cups with cellophane and finally tie them up in a bow with some curling ribbon.

*Drum-roll*.......and we get a pretty little edible gift!

The shortbreads were wonderfully sweet and very buttery and crumbles nicely in your mouth...yummy!

All wrapped up in gold stars cellophane

My colleagues loved the little gifts they received, took photos of them and did not even want to open them up!

With that, I wish you all a joyous and blessed Christmas. Remembering that it is all about God's love for us that He sent His only Son, Jesus, for our salvation!

Happy holidays and have a lovely time with family and friends!

Rise, Soufflé, Rise

I would say most, if not all, people would agree that it is absolutely essential for a soufflé to rise!


I love soufflés not only because it is not the easiest recipe to make, but also because of it's beautifully light texture holding immense flavours!


Everytime some chefs try to make a soufflé in competitions on TV, the judges always say:"He/she is really brave making a soufflé here, any tiny error could mean disaster!"


I braved it today and decided to make Lemon Soufflés following a recipe by none other than the queen of baking herself - Mary Berry!






Mary Berry's Hot Lemon Soufflés Recipe from BBC Food website:


(There is even a video where Mary Berry shows you how to make the soufflés!)


Ingredients:

• melted butter, for greasing
• 2 lemons, juice and zest
• 2 free-range egg yolks, plus 4 free-range egg whites
• 6 rounded tbsp caster sugar, plus extra for the ramekins
• 3 rounded tsp cornflour
• 1 rounded tbsp plain flour
• 90ml/3¼fl oz double cream
• 110ml/4fl oz full-fat milk
• icing sugar, for dusting (optional)

Preparing Ramekins

Preparation Method:


1. Brush the insides of four ramekins with butter. Add a small amount of sugar to each and turn them to coat the sides and bottom, shaking out any excess. Set aside to chill in the fridge.

Coated with butter and sugar

2. Use a fine grater to zest the lemons – grate the yellow outer skin, but be careful not to grate the white pith underneath (the pith will make the soufflés bitter). Cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice. Add the zest to the juice and put to one side.


3. Separate the eggs – crack each egg in half and tip the contents between the two shells, allowing the whites to slide through into the bowl beneath while the yolks stay in the shells.


4. Put four egg whites into a large bowl and two of the yolks into a separate small bowl (the left-over egg yolks can be saved for scrambled eggs or custard). Add 6 tablespoons of sugar to the small bowl with the egg yolks.


5. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan assisted)/350F/Gas 4. Put the baking tray into the middle of the oven.


6. Put the cream, flour and cornflour into a medium-sized bowl and whisk to a smooth paste.


7. Warm the milk in a large saucepan over a medium heat until just boiling. Remove from the heat.


8. Mix the hot milk into the cream, flour and cornflour mixture with the whisk – add a little to start with and mix well until the mixture is smooth like really thick cream. Press any lumps to the side to break them up. Then add the rest of the milk.


9. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and put it over a gentle heat. Beat vigorously with a hand whisk until it’s thickened. It’s important to keep whisking all the time so that the mixture doesn’t stick.


10. When you feel it thickening, remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the lemon juice and zest a little at a time. The heat of the pan will continue to cook the mixture.


11. Use a wooden spoon to beat the egg yolks and caster sugar together in the small bowl. Beat them into a thick paste.


12. Add this paste to the mixture in the saucepan and mix well until smooth. Put the saucepan back on the hob to thicken again. Whisk until it begins to bubble and then take if off the heat – the mixture should look like custard. Put it to one side to cool before adding the egg whites.


13. Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl using a hand whisk or electric hand mixer. Before you start, make sure the bowl and whisk are completely clean and grease-free, and make sure there’s no yolk with the egg whites or they won’t whip to full volume. Whisk until soft peaks begin to form – the egg whites should look like clouds.


14. When the mixture in the saucepan has cooled you can add the egg whites. Check the temperature of the mixture before you add the egg whites – it should be body temperature or cooler. Add one large spoonful of the egg whites and beat well with the whisk to make the mixture less stiff. Now use a large metal spoon or spatula to very gently fold in the remaining egg whites. Use the spoon to go round the outside and cut through the middle – the aim is to fold in the air bubbles slowly, without breaking them up. Continue until it’s a pale yellow mixture with no streaks of egg white.

Filled with mixture

15. Fill the ramekins to the brim with the mixture and level off with a spatula or palette knife. Run a thumb nail around the inside rim of the ramekins (this helps the soufflés rise evenly without catching on the sides).


16. Place the ramekins on the baking tray in the middle of the oven for about 14 minutes until risen and turning golden. Don’t open the oven during cooking. Time and watch the soufflés carefully – take them out as soon as they’ve risen and are starting to go golden. If you’re using smaller ramekins you’ll need to reduce the cooking time by a few minutes (5 or 6 smaller soufflés will need about 10 minutes).


17. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.

Hot Lemon Soufflé

Following through the very long preparation method, it can be rather labour intensive as it is very important to follow each and every step to the word because any errors would result in a failed soufflé. However, I did enjoy each and every step of making the soufflé, especially the 'beating the egg-white part' until I got a fluffy cloud of egg-white - beautiful! And of course, the part where I take them out of the oven.

The soufflés has RISEN!

14 minutes in the oven, no more, no less. Although it would have been perfect with a touch more browning to the surface with just a couple more minutes in the oven, but I was too concerned about getting them burnt!

Regardless, to me, they looked beautiful, had a super light texture and was filled with acidic lemon flavour cutting through the sweetness of the sugar.

The inside

For me, a rather good first attempt at making a soufflé, and I am looking forward to the next one! Maybe a savoury one...... 

Honey Dew Sago

A quick post about a truly Asian dessert...

If you like coconut, if you like sago...wait till you add sweet honey dew melon balls and syrup!

One of my all-time favourite dessert is this Honey Dew Sago!

I used the recipe from 'My Wok Life' blog.


Serves 5 - 6 bowls
Ingredients
1 medium-sized ripe honey dew, peeled and deseed. Cut half of the melon into big chunks, and use the other half melon to make small honey dew balls (using melon ballers) or simply dice into small cubes
5 tablespoons of tiny sago (about 60 grams)
5 tablespoons of sugar
200ml of water, plus 50ml more for cooking sugar syrup
200ml of coconut milk (cream)
3 - 4 leaves of pandan leaf, tie into a small bundle

1 pot of water (for boiling sago)

Method
1) Pre-boiling of tiny pearl sago: Place sago into a pot of water, and place the pot on stove to boil over medium-high heat. Let the sago boil for 5 - 7 minutes, or until it turns almost transparent. Stir occasionally. Heat off and cover pot with lid to let it stand for another 5 minutes. Thereafter, drain sago on a fine sieve over running tap water. Place the cooked sago in a bowl of half-filled boiled water (about 50ml). Set aside.

2) In another pot, place sugar, pandan leaf bundle and 50ml of water. Cook sugar into syrup over low heat. Remove pandan leaf. Set sugar syrup aside to let it cool.

3) Place chunky honey dew and 200ml of water into the eletrical blender and blend into honey dew juice. Pour juice into a large serving bowl. Stir in sugar syrup and coconut milk. Then, spoon sago into the coconut milk solution. Lastly, add in honey dew balls. Stir gently to well combine all ingredient. Place honey dew sago dessert in the refrigerator to chill. Serve chilled.

Honey Dew Sago

Extremely easy to make but with amazing results!

The dessert is best served chilled. Each mouthful comes with sweet, fragrant coconut flavour, then you get the melon-like honey dew to chew on. Then comes the slightly chewy sago adding another dimension of texture to the dessert.

Simply delicious!