Mulled wine granita

One thing I'll miss from living in Europe, is the northern hemisphere Christmas. Wrapped up in your many layers, at Christmas markets outside, holding a steaming, cup of mulled wine .. Awesome! An experience I recommend to everyone!

Still, hardly an experience I can replicate here - Christmas here in Sydney is glorious and hot. We're outside, but holding onto an icy cold drink.

So how to somehow combine the two? Mulled wine granita!!

Momofuku Crack Pie - (for us XGLUTs)

Hi, my name is Shanks ... and I'm an XGLUT.

What is an XGLUT you ask?
XGLUT is the self-proclaimed-name (patent pending) I call a person whose world is turned upside down through the diagnosis from a blood test. A person who has loved and cherished gluten-based delicacies but is no longer loved back in return. A person who can no longer tolerate a loveless relationship, who takes hold of their life, and divorces (ex or X) the constitution of Gluten (GLUT). A person who is unique and now lives abroad (ex-pat) from the world of gluten.

Well it's not official but I am the chairman, secretary and single honorary member of the XGR, XGLUT Revolution. And to celebrate this occasion ... we're having pie!!

If you can't do what you imagine, then what is imagination to you?

The Opportunity: Bring in a plate of food at work in celebration of Chinese New Year.
The most prominent thing for me about Chinese New Year is colour. From red envelopes to red dates, the tear-jerking gold joss sticks, the reddish brown suckling pig, the loud fireworks and elaborate costumes of the prancing lions bursting the senses with vibrant sights, tastes and sounds. So red and gold it is.
The Evaluation: Proceeding with Mah Lai Go which is an Asian version of a sponge cake but steamed and golden. My friend's recipe's pictures looked good, but I am missing ingredients. A couple of hours were then wasted trawling through the Internet for easier recipes, even stumbling upon some aproned woman on YouTube. But seriously, who's got 2 oz of lard lying around?
Finally stumbled onto a recipe with only 3 ingredients - authored by none other than Poh from Masterchef. Her grandmother's recipe consists of self raising flour, eggs and sugar, in equal amounts. The pictures presented a snow-white cake with a bread-like texture. Am slightly worried but appearance is secondary and Poh always messes around with recipes anyway.

The Execution: The recipe was simple enough, 1 cup of each: eggs (~5), self raising flour and sugar. Probably best not to experiment with 5 eggs at a time...

Batch 1: To try achieve a more darker/golden coloured cake, I substituted with dark brown sugar first. Using an electric blender, once the sugar was added, it went everywhere. Which of course, lead to the discovery of an ant posse invasion, taking another 15 mins for them to vacate the premises.

Back to baking, home made self raising flour (also documented in the recipe) was added along with red dye then poured into silicon moulds and into the steamer with fingers crossed.

Batch 1 Result: Definitely red in colour, except they're dense... like rubbery dense...? Fail.

Batch 2: Now using caster sugar as stated from the original recipe. Also changed over to a whisk. Simon on The Cook and The Chef made stiff peaks by hand so it's definitely possible (one imagines)!

20 mins later, the eggs have multiplied in volume; more than Batch 1. Mixed in remaining ingredients and added dye to the bottom of the moulds for a change. Stick the next batch in to be steamed.



Batch 2 Result: Urgh, STILL too rubbery and wow, even uglier than before. Epic fail. It's time to admit defeat.
The Post Implementation Review:

1. Silicon moulds don't work for steaming, the moisture stays with the cake.
2. 1 egg probably doesn't equate to 1/5 cup of sugar...
3. The iPhone camera under this lighting sucks.
4. If these for whatever reason happen to fall on the floor, how high will they bounce?
5. Have never witnessed people jumping from their seats demanding Mah Lai Go at Yum Cha, why would colleagues be any more interested now?
6. Bakeries selling fresh egg tarts open early enough before work starts.

The conclusion: I imagined there was a genius baker lurking within. Failing that, following a recipe seemed simple enough. Even though what we dream and what actually eventuates may not always align, keep on experimenting.

Congratulations on the first 100 posts and here's to many hundreds more!

Chiffon cake

Paper wrapped chiffon cakes ... The kind bought from Chinese bakeries .. Light, fluffy and egg-y, they are definitely a childhood favourite! It's been a long held ambition to learn how to make them myself.

After some research on various recipes, most of the Asian sourced recipes include an emulsifier common to households in Asia, but not readily available here. I'm not a fan of adding more chemicals than necessary to my food, and as it was so common in all these recipes, I thought my ambition to make my own paper chiffon cakes had come to end. Luckily, I am also obsessed with all sorts of French baked goodies and I came across a French food blogger who had a chiffon cake recipe that is free of unrecognisable ingredients - just what I was after!

Ingredients I used:

• 130g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 large barn laid eggs, separated (from a 700g carton of 12)
• a pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 11 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Method:

• Line 12 waxed paper cups with baking paper (mine were 280ml cups).
  
• Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
• Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl. (Cos I'm lazy, I didn't do as suggested and sift it 3 times and found it still turns out okay.)
  
• In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks, salt, vanilla extract and 6 tablespoons of sugar until mixture is a pale yellow. Add in oil and water, whisking after each addition.
• Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk til blended.
  
• Using my bright-shiny-red Kitchenaid stand mixer (awesome x'mas present - thanks D!), I beat the egg whites til I got soft peaks, then gradually added 5 tablespoons of sugar until I got stiff peaks. To test whether your peaks are stiff, a fun test is to turn the mixing bowl upside down - if they don't move, your egg whites are stiff!
• Fold a third of the egg whites into the batter to lighten the batter, then fold in the rest of the egg whites.
• I lined my baking tray with some more baking paper, because previous experience taught me that sometimes the wax from the paper cups melts onto your baking tray and then you have to choose whether to scour your non-stick bakeware or not ... Hmm .. Prevention is always better than cure!
• Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cups and place on baking tray.
• Put in the oven to bake for 30 minutes. Try not to open the oven doors whilst baking, because like soufflés, your chiffon cakes can deflate if the oven suddenly cools down early on in the baking process.
• Once done take them out and turn the cakes on their heads! This is to minimise shrinkage as they cool down.
• When they're finally cool, they are ready to be enjoyed!

I've been experimenting with flavour - coffee being a family favorite! - and to do this to the recipe is relatively simple. I've substituted the 1/2 cup of water for 1/2 cup of Illy coffee espresso with some additional grounds to give it an extra kick. Green tea is another flavor I'd be keen to try and classic citrus flavors using zest and juice should work too.

As chiffon cake is relatively low-carb (roughly 2-3 cups of carbs yields roughly 12 cups of cake), low fat (no butter and you can choose a low cholesterol vegetable oil) and has no dairy in it (hence it's popularity in Asia), I think it's a healthier alternative to normal sponge cake. Not that I need another excuse to indulge .. :)

Sugar and spice and all things nice,
la chouquette sucrée

Re-re-wind, when the crowd say Ko-pi Lu-lu-lu-wak-wak...

Defecation is not a term commonly associated with food and one should probably avoid incorporating such practices anywhere near foodstuffs. Yet whilst the thought of consuming brown products formerly encased within fecal matter is inconceivable to most, could regurgitation produce a warmer response?

Weasel coffee, similar to Indonesian civet coffee, is derived from Vietnamese civets regurgitating remnants of ingested red coffee berries which are considered to be superior due to reductions in bitterness. The resulting beans are sterilised then lightly roasted for retaining flavour.

So, how to approach this? If one can consider the beans as merely reversing out of the civet's gastric garage then regurgitation is clearly the lesser of two evils. No bowel movements necessary!

On this occasion the Weasel coffee made was produced by Edible. Whiffs from an opened packet revealed rich chocolate and caramel notes which was promising; a very different aroma compared with Arabica beans. One cup of long black (americano) was brewed using an Aeropress.

The drink itself was smooth with zero acidity, bitterness and aftertaste. However, it was disappointing that the chocolate-caramel tones never reappeared in either taste or smell unless they were just that subtle. Sugar was added for the decaf drinkers; the sweetness overpowering any original flavour.

Several espresso shots made from regular Arabica beans were added to the remaining cup and then churned to make coffee ice cream. Yum.

So.. civet coffee. Reject it, embrace it, either way there'll always be some nutter willing to try something not quite right. Your immune system may eventually thank you for it.