A Few of My Favourite Things !

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.

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t have good memories of Nutella, seriously. I’m sure that I don’t know any of them. My memories of Nutella stem not only from my childhood, but from our subsequent travels in Europe.

But, we will start from the beginning when I used to bring Nutella sandwiches made with thinly sliced Sunblest white bread to primary school. In around Grade 5, a new loaf came along in the form of the extra soft, light and airy Country Split loaf. Suddenly, it seemed, every sandwiche was made with these thicker slices so, of course, my Nutella sandwiches HAD to be made with this bread too. Even at that time, I was always quite particular about how my sandwiches were made and eaten. My sandwiches had to have a thick, oozy layer of the chocolate goodness – forget that thin smear just in the middle of the bread versions that my dad preferred. Nope, it had to be spread right to the edges of the bread. When I brought out the sandwich at lunch time, I would then hold the sandwich in both hands and squish it down between my fingers and thumb until the cross section revealed equal proportions of the white, brown, white layers. Occassionally, I would then roll it into a cigar shape before nibbling away at the sandwich.

Later on, I discovered that Nutella paired beautifully with both vanilla or chocolate ice cream. I would soften the Sara Lee Ultrachocolate ice cream in the microwave until it had the consistency of soft serve, then swirl in teaspoonfuls of Nutella – how’s that for a chocolate hit! What a joy it was then to spoon the creamy concoction into my mouth and pressing the hardened Nutella chunks with my tongue against the roof of my mouth causing it to melt gradually.

There was then a lull in my Nutella enjoyment until my first trip to Europe, when my memories of it again come into sharp focus. Paris and the ubiquitous crepe stalls – need I say more? The wafting, glorious scent of hot crepes spread with nutella…the thought of which can still cause me to swoon. Needless to say, A. & I had a few of these during our time in France. It seems that Nutella is not only enjoyed in France but also in Italy, where large families (or so I assume) can purchase 3 kg jars of this stuff from the supermarket. You should’ve seen the amazement in my eyes when I first came across one of these bottles. I cradled it in my arms with hopes of carrying it away with me, but alas, the (im)practicality of lugging a 3 kg jar of Nutella across Europe wouldn’t allow for this.

There is one memory of Nutella that makes me laugh instead of drool however. We were having a chat with some American friends during our time in Italy about Nutella. As with many othe words (like Adidas), they had a way of pronoucing it that quite clashed with everyone else’s and one friend insisted on pronoucing it as new-tella rather than nut-ella. There was no way she was backing down from this being the correct pronouciation until A. asked “So do you eat hazel-newts?”

Nowadays, we often have a tiny bottle sitting in the fridge as A. likes to have a spoonful every now and then (I prefer it at room temp myself). In honour of the many happy memories that Nutella has provided, I’m celebrating World Nutella Day with these chewy macaroons in which Nutella plays a starring role. I was actually after a slightly lighter cookie with a crispier shell but these Gordon Ramsey macaroons did well enough…all gone now.

Technorati Tags:nutella day, nutella, macaroons

I love food. I enjoy reading recipes, visiting restaurants, checking out gourmet food products, cooking for my friends and I’m not the only one. That’s why you are here, right? I do feel very fortunate and blessed to be able to do all of those things above but it’s time now to have a care for those who are not in as privileged a position as we are. Those around the world who are unable to afford food on a daily basis, let alone three meals a day.

Is this a problem that is too large to solve? Absolutely not! A couple of weeks ago in Melbourne, a group of top Australian performers and international acts including Bono, helped raise awareness about reducing world poverty through the Make Poverty History concert . This time, the food blogging world is out to do our bit to help those less fortunate. Initiated 3 years ago, this annual event known as Menu of Hope aims to raise funds for different charities each year. This year, the funds that we raise are going towards the United Nations World Food Program.

The good news is that YOU and I can do something to help. Food bloggers the world over have been busy sourcing prizes for you and there are some incredibly delicious-looking ones indeed! You can bid for prizes in the Asia Pacific region by visiting Grab Your Fork for the round-up of great donations.

Thanks to some generous donations, I’m putting up three prizes that you can bid for:

Two $50 vouchers for Chilli Padi (prize code AP23 and AP24):
Drop by the restaurant in Melbourne Central for some lovely mod asian cuisine before or after the movies. Even better, visit their Chilli Malam hawker stall the next time you are looking for a post-midnight snack after partying with friends. You can order roti, nasi lemak and other yummy hawker-style dishes. They even sell their own Chilli Padi stocks for making laksa and mee siam – perfect for a quick dinner after work

A $100 voucher to spend at Koko Black (prize code AP43):
Chocolate salons have been popping up all around Melbourne but Koko Black is a stand-out amongst these. The chocolate is made in-house and their hot chocolate is rated as one of the best in Melbourne. I think their house truffles are absolutely divine and the mint chocolate is another favourite of mine. I’ve also recently used the 74% Koko Black dark chocolate for some Alice Medrich desserts and will post about them this week. Try out their chocolates for yourself by purchasing a raffle ticket for this voucher. Can you IMAGINE how much chocolate you could get for $100?! (PS- if you’re interstate and are not able to visit Melbourne for any reason, I could possibly be talked buying a selection and posting it to you).

But why stop there? Why not put some bids in for prizes from other regions as well? Who knows, you may win a gastronomic tour of London or Tuscany that will make your next overseas trip more exciting!

After visiting the round-ups for the Asia Pacific region, you should then…

1. Go to the donation page at (http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII)

2. Make a donation, each US$10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. Do tell us how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code -for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for AP01 and 3 for AP02.

3. For US donors, if your company has agreed to match your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so we may claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

5. Raffle tickets are available until 22 December 2006. Check back on Chez Pim on January 15 when we announce the results of the raffle. (The drawing will be done electronically. Our friend the code wizard Derrick at Obsession with Food is responsible for the wicked application that will do the job.)

If you would like to bid on prizes from other regions, please visit the following for the round up of prizes:
US West Coast: Becks and Posh
US East Coast: Amateur Gourmet
US (the rest): Kalyn’s Kitchen
Canada: Cardamom Addict
Europe and UK: Davidlebovitz.com
Latin America: Cooking Diva

DONATE NOW and HELP US FEED THE WORLD’S HUNGRY!

I had recently come across some wattleseed at my not-so-local supermarket. This bushfood which is harvested as a seed from a plant member of the Acacia species, was originally used by Australian Aboriginines as a valuable, nutritious food source. They ate it raw, dried or incorporated it into their baking. Roasted and ground, wattleseed has a nutty flavour with coffee undertones.

As I don’t often come across native foods, unless it’s sold as a speciality item at markets, I wanted to make something with it. I decided on cupcakes and wanted to pair it somehow with pecans because I think the flavours match really well. In the end, I made a pecan crumble to sprinkle on top and for the surprise part, I would fill the cupcakes with an espresso frosting to enhance the coffee flavour.

I used a basic cupcake recipe from Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess and added about 2 tablespoons of this native spice. Chopped up pecans mixed with some raw sugar on top then into the oven they went. Once cooled, I made an espresso then used it to mix some icing sugar into a paste. This went into a piping bag with a sharp nozzle and was piped in through the base of the cupcakes. This is not a particularly fluffy cupcake so it took some effort to get the icing in. If you look carefully at the photo, you will see that I didn’t end up with much of the frosting inside but this turned out quite well because it wasn’t overly sweet.

These babies were really good. An unusual flavour that reminds you of coffee but not quite as strong as coffee/espresso cupcakes. Can anyone enlighten me on why my cupcakes have a little hump in the centre though? I’ve never had this happen before.

Head over to Alanna’s for all the surprises in month’s Sugar High Friday round-up!

Wattleseed Pecan-Crumble Espresso Cupcakes

125g SR flour, 125g butter, 125g sugar, 2 large eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tablespoons wattleseed, 2-3 tablespoons milk. Crumble: chopped pecans and a sprinkle of raw sugar. Frosting: Espresso and icing sugar

1. Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs and vanilla extract
2. Add dry ingredients and mix.
3. Add milk to form a batter with a ‘soft dropping’ consistency
4. Spoon into muffin tin, sprinkle pecan/sugar mixture on top and bake at 200C for 20 minutes.
5. Mix the espresso and icing sugar into smooth paste and pipe into middle of cupcakes through base

I love receiving packages in the mail! The feeling of anticipation when you know a parcel is on its way, especially when you don’t know exactly what it will contain.

I was fortunate to receive not one but THREE great packages, although I have to apologize for only having photos of the contents of TWO. Barbara’s was the first to arrive: pinapple lumps, sea salt flakes, Whittakers Peanut Slab, candles & mud soap from Rotarua, dried blueberry snacklets, freeze-dried Kiwi fruit nectar all wrapped up in a hand-woven red basket. the package arrived at work and everything edible was gobbled up so quickly that I didn’t even get a chance to take a photo. Sorry Barbara! And thanks for the lovely parcel.

Nicola’s parcel arrived not long after that and I was so delighted to receive a huge tea towel with a recipe for pavlova (who really invented it first?), organic coffee, some Whittaker bars in white, milk and dark chocolate, a Pinapple Lumps and a Giant Toasted Marshmallow chocolate bar and a Cotterill & Rouse Tamarillo Chutney that I can’t wait to use. And look at the two great food magazines! I was so tempted to pick up the Dish magazine the last time I was at the newsagents but I’m so happy that I resisted now.

And today, a hefty little pack from Jules! His blog focusses on wine so I wasn’t sure what to expect but look at the bottles; EVOO from Hawke’s Bay, an interestingly named Rocket Fuel sauce which I’m really looking forward to tasting (is it like a sweet chilli I wonder), Telegraph Hill Lemon & Herb olives, Kaitai Fire chilli pepper sauce and Gernot’s Gold lemon & ginger marmalade. Wow! My husband has already claimed the chilli sauce and olives Thanks so much, Jules!!!

 

Oooooo, I feel so bad! But yes, I am going to, um, sorta cheat but I’ll call it taking a little shortcut! I’m combining my entry for Sugar High Friday and Donna Hay Day with this little contribution. I present the Chocolate Ginger Checkerboard Cookie!

The theme for this SHF, which is being hosted by Ruth, is ginger – an ingredient that I use to absolutely loath. I could not understand why mum would want to cook with it all the time. I’d find it in soups, chicken dishes, vegetable dishes and I’d insist that she fish out all the pieces so that I would not accidentally encounter it during my meal. I didn’t understand how mum could enjoy eating the bits of ginger that she had removed from my plate but, y’know what, some tastes can be and are worth acquiring. I love ginger now, although I tend to use it more in savoury dishes than sweet.

I’ve been thinking about making the Chez Panisse Gingersnaps that Clotilde blogged about some time back but after reading that this Donna Hay Day’s challenge was Checkerboard Snap Cookies, I got thinking. More specifically, I got thinking about crystallised ginger pieces coated with dark chocolate. Translate this to the checkerboard cookies – how about dark chocolate squares matched with ginger-flavoured squares. And why not add some small ginger pieces to the ginger squares? Hey, why not go all the way and add ginger to the dark chocolate squares too?

So, I amended the basic recipe to include 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cloves and 2 tbs cinnamon and 1 tbs stem ginger pieces in half of the dough and cocoa and Green & Black’s organic dark chocolate with crystallised ginger pieces in the other half.

These cookies smell like gingerbread but for me, the dark chocolate parts were the best bit about these cookies – intensely chocolately with a hint of ginger. I would add even more ginger next time so there’s a real zing to each bite.

Chocolate-Ginger Checkerboard Snap Cookies

185 gms butter, 1 cup of caster sugar, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 1/2 cups flour, 2 eggs

1. Beat buter, sugar and vanilla until smooth
2. Add flour and eggs, beating until smooth
3. Halve the dough and add 1/2 cup cocoa powder and 1 tbs Green&Black’s dark chocolate with crystallised ginger pieces to one lot. Add 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cloves and 2 tbs cinnamon and 1 tbs stem ginger pieces to the other half.
4. Divide each half into 2 lots and shape into logs. Place a ginger log next to a chocolate log, then top ginger log with the other chocolate log and top the chocolate log with the other ginger log.
5. Slice into 4-5mm thickness with sharp knife and bake 10-12 min at 180C.

SHF, Donna Hay Day, ginger,

My entry for this SHF, hosted by spitoonextra, focussess on cream. Cream is made by allowing full-fat milk to settle, allowing the higher-fat layers rise to the surface and be skimmed off. When I was little, I did not like cream in the least. Ice-cream was fine, but cream on its own? Uh uh, not for me. On the other hand, A. thought cream was the bee knees and one of the treats he used to buy at fairs was a cylindrical waffle cone filled in the middle with pure white, creamy cream.

Now, although I still don’t love cream the way A. does, I can see how it can add depth to savoury dishes such as beef stroganoff (not that I’ve ever had this before). And of course, as most of us would know, cream is an essential component of many desserts. Imagine chocolate ripple cake without cream. It would just be…um, a pack of chocolate ripple biscuits. Okay, you can dunk it in milk and it would be pretty good but once you sandwich a row of these biscuits with whipped cream, it turns from just a pack of dry chocolate biscuits into something wonderful – a dessert that would not be out of place at a birthday celebration.

I was flicking through my copy of Yoshoku when I came across their Tokyo Tiramisu, which sounded perfect for a summery dessert. After pondering upon this for a couple of nights, I was inspired by the memory of the Ispahan from Pierre Herme. Why couldn’t I make an Ispahan Tiramisu instead?

I didn’t have time to make any rose macaroons so I had to make do with the normal savoiardi biscuits. The sponge fingers were carefully placed on the cake tray and brushed with lychee syrup until fairly well saturated. Whipped cream flavoured with some Eau de Rose from Fauchon was piped on top of the row of fingers, then raspberries and lychees scattered over the cream. This was topped with another layer of savoiardi biscuits and rose-flavoured cream. For the decoration, I piped out the outline of a heart in Valrhona Ivory chocolate and once set, placed this gently on a pile of red rose petals. Mmm, lovely, light and a wonderful melding of subtle flavours.

sugar high friday, shf, food and drink

Ed and Sarah above

Some guy and Jamie below

This post is a little tardy given that our Melbourne Food Blogger dinner was held the Wednesday before last, but better late than never, right? Anyway, Ed and Sarah had already posted about the night so it wasn’t like anyone was really waiting for this post to be posted, but I thought I’d load up the photos that I took on the night anyway cos they turned out pretty well.

Suckling pig (above) and chinese broccoli, aka kailan (below) from the Supper Inn – always a great place to stop by for a late supper (or at any time, really!).

After sending off the parcel for my BBM recipient yesterday, I was greeted at home by a parcel of my own. As far as I can tell, Mari is not a food blogger but after opening the box of homemade and decorated cookies that she sent, I think she should get onboard right away! 

Here are some close up pictures that I just HAD to share – look at how beautiful and intricate the decoration is!

Thanks, Mari!

Guess who this went out to yesterday? I’ve left 2 items out so that it doesn’t give too much away!

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