A Few of My Favourite Things !

Walking around Shanghai one evening we came across a place that was grilling lamb kebabs over a charcoal fire. We looked up at the shop frontage to see the shop name appearing in Arabic script next to the picture of a mosque. The music that wafted towards us along with the smoke was definitely Arabic although the workers looked just like extremely fair Chinese. Following some research, I realised that there is actually quite a rich Islamic heritage within Chinese history.

Towards the evening, long queues snaked across the street waiting for the lamb kebabs to come off the grill. Not wanting to wait, we just picked up some interesting-looking bread. The dough is mixed with pieces of lamb (chewy for the most part) and fat and baked into a fragrant flat loaf with a crusty exterior.

Next to the bread is an egg custard tart from Lilian Bakery, a franchise that has several branches scattered around the city. A connoiseur of egg custard tarts, A has decided that this is best one we have had so far and I am inclined to agree. The custard, which is wobbly and just eggy enough to lure me but not put A. off, is held together by a flaky pastry shell. Utterly divine!

Somewhere between a roti and a naan, this sesame seed-coated bread is fried in a large flat pan which gives it a crispy shell. We had a great version the first time then had a lot of trouble finding elsewhere. The second one turned out to be too soft and mushy to be enjoyable.

This is a Chinese delicatessen! Every second shop in Shanghai seemed to sell a variety of preserved and dried foods, biscuits and sweets, as well as herbal ingredients. Most of the preserved meat were vacuum packed in foil wrappers, making it difficult for non-Chinese reading people like us to determine what each contained – feet, chicken wings or tongue, just to name a few. This shop made it somewhat easier although I can’t imagine buying that porcine face mask. It reminds me rather creepily of Hannibal – eeeuughhh.

Adventures in Shanghai – Part 1
Adventures in Shanghai – Part 2
Images of Shanghai

On Saturday morning, we wandered across Carlton Gardens to Brunswick St in search of some coffee. that’s how we stumbled upon Mario’s, which we now know is a bit of an institution having been on Brunswick St for over 20 years.

The french toast was made with a multigrain bread, which gave it an unusual crunch, and served with real maple syrup. We also had bacon on the side to off-set the sweetness of the maple syrup.

The prices are really reasonable here and they do a fantastic cofffee.

Mario’s Cafe: 303 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065

In the name of research, I have also sampled cocktail buns from the Box Hill bakeries. The round one on the left is from Cakeworld and the skinny one on the right from the Carrington Cake shop.

As you can see, the Cakeworld one resembles the Montague Bleue in shape and size but with a little more glaze and sesame seeds. The taste however is almost exactly like the Maxim offering – not too rich but lots of dessicated coconut. I felt that the Maxim version was probably a little softer and fluffier though.

The Carrington cocktail bun is preferred by Thanh however they must have been having an off day. The bread is quite dark and the taste leans towards being slightly burnt. The bun itself is quite dry and almost stale tasting however the filling itself is pretty decent. It reminds me of the Montague Bleue filling as it was quite buttery, however it did not taste salty at all.

What’s the verdict?

Personally, I would still go with Maxims in Melbourne or Montague Bleue in Sydney. Of course, someone else may like to weigh in on this as well…

Along with everyelse in blogging land, I tried my hand at the no knead bread that is light on labour but requires forward planning. Crusty exterior with a nice crumb, this one also contains mixed grains.

Look at those fat Queensland prawns! They were very simply immersed in a brothy congee made with mixed grains and chicken stock until just cooked.

We also picked up some ‘Tabletop Grapes’ dried sultanas, crockery and teatowels from Portugal and a ‘Cowpat‘ fruit loaf that smells of chocolate and is stuffed full of figs, juicy sultanas and almonds. Gotta love a name like that!

My firm belief is that the best way to compare products is to perform a head-to-head comparison. You can therefore imagine my excitement when I came across Helen’s post about the Cocktail Bun Challenge.

I never understood how this coconut-filled bun came to be christened with such a name, nor has it often made it onto my tray as the room was usually taken up by pork-floss and pineapple buns. As it was however, I happened to Sydney taking in some pearls of wisdom from some of today’s great social and business thinkers. What better time to continue Helen’s good work by extending the challenge to Melbourne’s bakeries?

As the Montague Bleue cocktail bun won this challenge, it was only appropriate to put it up against what Melbourne has to offer. I purchased the bun from Montague Bleue on Thursday evening, taking it with me on the flight home. The next morning, I went in search through Chinatown and managed to snag one cocktail bun from Maxim and one from the Dragon Boat Restaurant’s takeaway window. Surprisingly, Bread Top didn’t offer these but that’s okay.

So here we have it, from the left to right, cocktail buns from Dragon Boat Restaurant (Melb), Montague Bleue (Syd) and Maxim (Melb):

Immediately apparent is the more oval shape of the Montague Bleue offering, looking like a podgy kid next to the other two slimmer buns. All three are glazed and sprinkled with sesame seeds but the Maxim bun also has a swirly pattern instead of the usual two parallel lines.

Dissecting the buns horizontally reveals that Dragon Boat has the most generous filling which is tinged with the faintest hue of orange. The Maxim filling is a shade darker than Montague Bleue’s but, more importantly, closer inspection of the filling as shown in the photos below reveals that the textures are quite different. Whilst the fililng in the Dragon Boat and Montague Bleue buns are smooth, the higher level of dessicated coconut in Maxim’s gives it a coarser texture.

Now, what about the taste? The Dragon Boat bun was only worth one bite due to the stodgy filling and density of both bun and filling. I had a feeling that this would come off the worst when I initially bought it because the baked goods here don’t seem to be as popular. In fact, I wonder how fresh their breads and pastries would be given the low turnover. However, fairness demanded that it be tried.

Despite having been baked the day before, the Montague Bleue bun was as Helen reported – soft and spongy with a saltiness to the filling that reminded me of century egg puffs. Buttery and delicious.

Unlike its Dragon Boat neighbour, the Maxim bun was also soft but the filling was what differentiated it from the others. Less sugar and more coconut, it also had a more definite flavour of sesame seeds even though distribution was even across all three buns.

So, who takes it? Whose cuisine reigns supreme?

Although I wish it had the salt-edge of the Montague Bleue version, overall i enjoyed the Maxim bun the most because of the higher coconut content. The next step is to take the challenge to Boxhill’s best!

PS: Having just taken another bite out of the MB & Maxim buns, I have to say that it’s a tough pick. I like the saltiness of the MB version but I think I could eat more of the Maxim as it’s less rich and, as i’ve already said above, more coconutty.

This is one of Nigella’s creations, a muffin dressed up as a jam doughnut. I’m too lazy to give you the recipe here but I can tell you that there were extremely popular at work. They had cooled a little so I heated them for about 15 seconds in the microwave. Great with a cup of tea!

Oh, and they were baked in my recently acquired mini cake tin. Aren’t the shapes lovely?

Way back mid-last year, a Paper Chef entry caught my eye and this recipe has been sitting in my ‘to try’ folder for some time. I love banana bread and would normally use mum’s recipe but buttermilk just conjured up such cosy feelings and images for me that I had to try this recipe out…with a few modifications of course!

I used one mashed banana and about 4 dried ones, all chopped up into little pieces, and also added not just dried dates but apricots and sultanas as well. With the additiional dried fruit, I really should have cut out the sugar entirely as it turned out to be just a tad too sweet for my tastes. What a great loaf otherwise though – moist with a good crumb.

Btw, A. loved the sound of buttermilk so much that he considered having it on his cereal but upon tasting a little, found that it not to be rich and creamy as he had imagined, but thin and sour instead!

Buttermilk-Honey Banana Bread

2 eggs, ¾ cup sugar, 1 mashed banana, 1/3 cup buttermilk, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 1 ¾ cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 30 g butter, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup chopped dates, 1/3 cup chopped dried bananas, 1/4 cup dried apricots and sultanas, 1/4 cup walnuts

1. Beat the eggs with the sugar for about 5 min until thick and light.
2. Add mashed bananas, buttermilk, walnuts, honey, dried fruit, oil, butter and vanilla.
3. Add sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
4. Pour batter into loaf tin and bake at 170C for 60 min until top is golden brown.

This was my second attempt at hot cross buns this week. The first recipe that I followed was from Nigella’s Feast and it did not turn out well. Maybe it was something I did or didn’t do but I would love to hear if anyone has had succes with that recipe.

This time, I modified a Delia Smith recipe – the first of her recipes that I’ve tried – and it was a winner! I left the dough to prove overnight instead of 1.5 hours, but that’s just because it suited our day, then moved from the fridge to our bench yesterday morning before we went to the Good Friday service. Mum, dad, W & W came over after the service to share in a bowl of mum’s duck porridge – yummo! In the meatime, I punched the dough down, divided it into 12 round portions and left it to prove again before piping the cross on and baking.

The result – fresh, spicy, fruity and full of flavour, quite unlike the first lot I made which did not rise very much and was therefore quite dense as well as flavourless. I did not have any mixed spice in the pantry and so substituted with ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. I don’t remember the exact amounts of each spice that I sprinkled on, but it was definitely more generous than the 1 heaped tablespoon of mixed spice that Delia recommends.

In fact, we did a little taste-testing of this against hot cross buns, both fruit and choc chip, from Browns and choc chip from Bakers Delight and I’m happy to report that both A. & I felt that mine trumped the commercially made ones The homemade ones had a better flavour and were slightly denser, giving them nicer mouth feel.

Hot Cross Buns

50g caster sugar + 1 tsp, 1 tbs dried yeast, 450g strong flour, 1 tsp salt, a few tsp of ground cinnamon/nutmeg/ginger/clove, 125g mixed dried fruit, 40ml warm milk, 1 egg, 50g melted butter. For cross: 2 tbs flour + boiling water to create paste for piping. For glaze: 2 tbs sugar, 2 tbs boiling water.

1. Stir 1 tsp caster sugar into 150ml tepid water and sprinkle in dried yeast. Leave until frothy.
2. Sift flour, salt, spices together and add tge remaining 50g sugar and dried fruits. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture, 40ml tepid milk, beaten egg and melted butter. Mix into a dough, transfer to a clean surface and knead until smooth & elastic (around 6 min).
3. Place back into bowl nd cover with cling film. Leave in a warm place until it rises to double its original volume (place in fridge if leaving overnight). Turn it out & knead it back down to its original size.
4. Divide dough into 12 portions and arrange on baking sheet. Slash a cross across each one with a sharp knife. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for about 25 min.
5. Mix the flour and water into a paste suitable for piping and pipe a cross on each portion of dough. Bake at 220C for 15 min, watching carefully that they don’t burn.
6. Brush buns with the glaze as soon as they come out of the oven.

Here is what I did this morning – the Sussan 10km Fun Run! I was pretty chuffed to (a) complete the whole 10k without stopping to walk; and (b) come in at just over 54min. Although my husband often questions why they would name events like these ‘fun runs’, I have to say that it really was fun to be running on such a beautiful sunshiny morning along the St Kilda foreshore and look out onto the blue, blue waters. So, how was your morning?

After completing the event, we headed to Baker D. Chirico, an artisan bakery on Fitzroy Street, to pick up a loaf. There are many delicious-looking treats just waiting to be had: lemon creme brulee, strawberry custard tarts, almond biscuits, baby meringues, little flourless chocolate cakes. We left with a loaf of rye bread and a slice of pear custard tart for my hubby, who sat reading patiently while waiting for me to complete the run. The loaf was just out of the oven, and we waited (im)patiently for it to cool before cutting some slices to have with lunch. Mmmmm, talk about yummy bread – so moist and fragrant.