Recipe: Strawberry Custard Tarts...totally irresistible!

In this festive season full of laughter and joy, what would you associate the color red with? Santa Claus? Presents? Christmas party? For me, red is the color of festival, happiness and energy, and it just so happened to be the color of a couple of my favorite fruits too! Aww...just take a look at these beautiful strawberry custard tarts... tell me if you know anybody who won't get fanatical seeing red like this- a shrink may well be needed :P

So here is the recipe of this cheerful and luscious dessert that could stir up your festival mood right away (yea! put even more brandy in :P)~ try this for New Year ^^

Strawberry Custard Tart (yields 6 - 5" tarts)

Ingredients:

- 3 dozens Strawberries (6 on top of each tart - variable depending on personal preference)

- 6 thin slices vanilla-flavored chiffon cake (Optional - for placing inside the custard layer)

Tart base

- 80g unsalted butter (soft to touch at room temperature)

- 150g cake flour

- 35g sugar

- 1 egg yolk

- 2g salt

Custard

Part A)

- 300ml milk

Part B)

- 2 egg yolks

- 60g sugar

Part C)

- 50g cake flour

- 10g corn starch

- 100ml milk

Part D)

- 30g unsalted butter

- 20ml brandy (or rum) <-- Trust me this can't be skipped!!

Gelatin dressing (this is optional but it's so much more shiny and bubbly with the dressing on!!)

- 2 tbl spoon gelatin powder

- 20ml warm water

- 50g strawberry jam 

Alternative: simply crush approx. 8 fresh strawberries and cook with 40g sugar and 2 tbl spoon lemon juice)

Method:

Tart shells

1. Beat butter till creamy

2. Add in sugar, salt, egg yolk and mix well

3. Sieve in cake flour in two batches and knead the dough by folding and pressing forward by hand until consistently combined

4. Wrap the dough in plastic wraps and place in freezer for 30min

5. Lightly flour the table surface 

6. Pre-heat oven at 180°C

7. Take out a small dough ball and place in the centre of the tart mold 

8. Spread out and press the dough against the sides of the mold with even thickness

9. Trim around the top of the rim to make the tart shell clean looking inside the mold

10. Poke around the tart mold with a fork
11. Bake for 20min until golden color (cover the tarts with aluminium foil if becoming too dark)
12. Let the shell cool and dry

Custard

1. Bring the milk in Part A into simmer
2. Sieve and mix the cake flour and corn starch in Part C
3. Pour in the 100ml milk in Part C into the flour mix, stir to mix
4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in Part B
5. Mix the combined Part C into Part B
6. Pour the hot milk of Part A slowly into the B+C mixture, stir to mix
7. Heat the mixture with low heat, keep stirring until just thickened then leave the heat immediately
8. Stir in butter and brandy in Part D for the flavor

9. Let the custard cool and then refrigerate for 20min, covered with plastic wrap

Build the tart!
1. Take out the tart shells from the molds (better place each in separate dish to avoid too much transferring when it comes to serve - just to lower the risk :P)
2. Spread a thin layer of custard in the shells
3. Place a thin slice of chiffon cake on each shell

4. Fill the remaining wells of the tarts with custard
5. Decorate with fresh strawberries :)

Gelatin dressing
1. Melt the gelatin powder in hot water
2. Mix in the jam
3. Drizzle carefully on the strawberries without letting it overflow down the outside of the tart shells 

Each tart is good for one or two to share~ perfect for this time of the year that encourages giving and sharing :) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2014! <3

Chiffon cake recipe - so easy and versatile you will get addicted to making it!

This time of the year is like honeymoon - work is less crazy, I got annual leave days to clear, Christmas and New Year are around - meaning more holidays, and the main point is - finally I got some real leisure time to enjoy myself yay! :DD

So I made 2 variations of chiffon cakes in a row this weekend - one with bananas + dried cranberries, another with cinnamon poached pears & apples (omg it's the taste of Christmas!). Chiffon cake is relatively light as it doesn't contain butter~ so yea I guess I won't become a 肥妹 yet after this long weekend :D

This recipe I followed can yield spongy yet substantial cake texture, and it won't be too sweet (just the right sweetness I like) - the flavor is up to your choice of fruits/ ingredients and here are two types you can try~

Banana and cranberry chiffon cake

(8" cake pan - serves 4-6)

Ingredients:                     

- 5 eggs (separate yolks and whites)

- 60g sugar (10g for flour mix*; 50g for egg white foam**)

- 40g olive oil (or vegetable oil)

- 90g cake flour (or 60g cake flour + 30g wheat flour)

- 1/2 lemon (for juice)

- 2-3 bananas (crushed and have 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice added)

- 30g dried cranberries

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven at 160°C

*Flour mix

2. Mix the egg yolks with 10g sugar

3. Add in olive oil 

4. Stir in crushed bananas

5. Sieve and add in cake flour, stir till all mixed

*Egg white foam

6. Beat the egg white till a bit foamy

7. Add in 50g sugar and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice in 2 batches 

8. Keep beating till the foam is firm and smooth, and be able to form soft peaks

Get ready for the bake!

9. Fold in egg white foam into the flour mix in 3 batches

10. Add dried cranberries to the mix

11. Pour the melange into the cake pan and send it off to the oven for 50 minutes (at 160°C)

Enjoy watching the lovely cake puff up and get bronzed~

To serve:

12. Insert a toothpick into the center of the cake, if it comes out clean, it's done!

12. Place the cake upside down to cool once it's out of the oven (you could refer to the 2 methods below)

13. Optional: may decorate the cake top with icing sugar, and enjoy with apricot or whatever jam you like

Variation (which replaces bananas if you are not a fan): Spiced apple and pear chiffon cake

Ingredients:

- Same as above, except no bananas and cranberries

- 1 apple & 1 pear (anjou / bosc pear), chopped / finely diced

- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 60g sugar

Preparation:

1. Heat 60g sugar and about 2cups (500mL) of water in a saucepan

2. When the sugar has melted and starts to boil, add in chopped apples and pears, and cinnamon

3. Stir and bring the mix to simmer for 20 minutes till the fruits soften

4. Cover the saucepan and let the mixture sit for at least 2 hours (or overnight in the fridge)

5. Right before use, drain excess sugar water, and slightly dry the surfaces of the chopped fruits on a kitchen towel 

Method (95% the same as above, but pay attention to the slight differences~):

Pre-heat oven at 160°C 

*Flour mix - same as above but DON'T add in the fruits yet

 <-- Don't do this! It will moist the batter too much (bad example :P) 

and become this --> 

*Egg white foam - same treatment as above

The last mile before the bake...

1. Pour the flour + egg white melange into the cake pan

2. Drop the chopped fruit into the cake mix evenly (to allow the least time for the fruit chunks to sink to the bottom)

3. Send off to the oven for 50 minutes (at 160°C)

Done! Same serving method as above :)

Bon appetit! Enjoy!

Herbivores - Not only for veggie but also for tasty food lovers

Herbivores topped my mind when choosing a place to farewell my vegetarian colleague, and I hope it succeed in leaving her a tasty memory.

The tablewares were nice-looking, all designed and branded with the restaurant's name. The food was homey and delicious :))) We ordered set lunches that came with a soup/ salad, a main course with 3 choices, a dessert of the day and coffee/ tea, at $128+10%.

Pumpkin Carbonara was phenomenal~the sauce was so pumpkinly and slightly sweet, I couldn't tell if the sweetness was from the pumpkin or seasoning, fragrant mushrooms in it gave the dish a wonderful touch.

The Four Cheeses Pizza had a thin crispy crust. The pizza was cut in a way I was able to roll up short burritos of tasty tomato paste and generous amount of cheeses with arugula :) 

The dessert was yogurt pudding with mango sauce. The sourness was quite a nice finish for the meal.

The restaurant could seat 18-20 ppl, it is probably a cozy venue to throw a decent vegetarian party!

Herbivores

Address: G/F, 35 Staunton Street, SOHO

Tel: 2613 2909

Beachy munchies ;)

A highly recommended snack to bring with you to the beach - a can of frozen pineapple chunks!

Simply freeze the whole can the night before, it will make your beach day so much more wonderful! Just remember to bring a can-opener with you ;)

Enjoy the sun...sand...sea...and some icy juicy pineapples...mmm :)

Spoil Cafe - spoil yourself with no guilt feelings

Star Street Precinct in Wan Chai is famed for restaurants and gourmet. Going further into the neighborhood, you could find even friendlier eateries - Spoil Cafe is one of them. Situated at a little lovely corner on Sun Street, diners could have themselves spoiled by some seriously tasty food.

The ambiance
Spoil is a small restaurant with no more than 20 seats. Despite the small seating area, the high ceiling and full height glass walls create space and make the room look and feel relaxing.

Tiger prawn pasta with Thai style cream sauce
I highly recommend this personally, the sauce resembles the texture of carbonara but with an overwhelming taste of shrimp instead of bacon..absolutely delicious!

 Grilled spring chicken with orange citrus seasoning
The spring chicken was juicy and scrumptious, marinated with an appetizing citrus mix with lemon peel and orange juice.

Their bread loafs were homemade too! Like ciabatta bread but more moist and cake-like, not bad!

Desserts!! Spoil is famous for its crunch cake, but it's so popular that advance reservation is a MUST in order to get a piece...obviously my friend and I didn't due to our impromptu visit >< anyway, the desserts we ordered were delicious too :)

Signature rich chocolate cake & New York cheese cake
New York cheese cake was good, not disappointing, we know it's easier to make tasty NY cheese cakes than awful ones ;) In contrast, the 75% chocolate cake was extraordinary - very rich (didn't get to ask which chocolate they used, Valrhona?), not too sweet and has a lovely texture.

Spoil Cafe, like some of its counterparts in the Star Street Precinct, is good for diners with a quest for good taste, and for those who'd appreciate a relatively quiet neighborhood to take a stroll after dinner.

Spoil Cafe
Address: Shop A, G/F, Shun Ho Building, 1 Sun Street
Tel: 3589 5678

Lab Made Nitrogen Ice-cream - The Art and Science of Forming Ice Crystals

Science is gradually making its way into the world of gourmet, giving rise to molecular cuisines and the fancy terminology called mixology, even to "molecular ice-creams". A year ago, Ronnie and his girlfriend, two UK-graduated pharmacists, gave up their well-paid jobs to open the first nitrogen ice-cream shop in Hong Kong - something thy felt very impressive and passionate for. And the formula justified too, the combination of pharmacists with good understanding of science + experimental spirits + passion for good tastes = Lab Made Nitrogen Ice-cream.

The secret of the smoothness and creaminess of Lab Made's ice-cream is the freezing time. The longer it takes to to freeze ice-cream, the bigger the ice crystals, so the more grainy and icy the texture. Using extremely cold liquid nitrogen at -196℃ to rapidly freeze the ice-creams within only 60 seconds, much smaller ice crystals are resulted, and hence a smoother texture. The vaporization of "boiling" nitrogen at room temperature during the ice-cream production also creates cool visual effects at the open kitchen/ lab.

Not only the texture, the flavors at Lab Made also never fail to impress. Their menu changes every two weeks, creative ice-cream flavors are replaced by even more creative ones, some previous wins include HK Custard Bun (流沙奶皇包!!), purple rice sweet soup (紫米露), super lemon meringue pie, The Big Daddy - whisky chocolate, sea salt caramel...so what's on right now?

9/7 – 21/7 flavors
A – Birthday Cake
B – HK Custard Bun
C – Banocolate Rice Crispies
D – Blueberry Breakfast

Another thing that impresses me is that, Lab Made's scientists don't hide in a lab inventing new flavors, they are indeed aggressive in marketing and bringing out their inventions to the public outside Tai Han. They have extended their reach, and made themselves available for private or company parties' catering! Here's a recent adidas event featuring Lab Made - reeeeally CooL!

 This is ice cream re-invented. Happy 1-year Birthday to Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream!

Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Laboratory
Address: G/F, 6 Brown Street
Tel: 2670 0071

Contemporary Japanese Cuisine at 0.5°

When the city's Japanese restaurants are close to coming to an excessive level, and the food are more or less the same everywhere, people would start looking for restaurants where something different, or something a little more special, could be experienced.

Tai Han is always a neighborhood for experiencing. As suggested by its name, 0.5°Japanese Contemporary Cuisine + Bar is an izakaya restaurant that serves contemporary Japanese cuisines.

It has awing interior designs, thick hemp ropes, instead of paint or wallpapers, were hung to decorate the ceiling and walls, oval stones were placed in the hand wash basin where I felt guilty running water through (don't ask me why :P), and the dim lighting all came together to create the ambiance of its own. I believe its Japanese yen priced menu (1HKD=10¥) was intented to part of the design too!

 

 

Naming itself "contemporary", it sets certain expectations for customers to anticipate special details in each dish regardless of the seemingly ordinary names. Here are some which really did impress me and my friend :)

Sweet shrimp tartar 甜蝦他他

The presentation looked fun! - a bamboo steam basket arrived at our table, the server opened it to reveal some purple chips (purple sweet potato chips) and a glass egg, I am sure at that moment we looked so confused you would laugh at our faces :D when we saw the shrimp tartar inside the eggshell, we were even more confused, how were we supposed to eat? I guess the server was used to being asked this question a thousand times and must have been cursing the creator silently haha - but easy on this, here is the demonstration-

The shrimp tartar with fish roes mixed in was seasoned right to bring out the natural fresh taste of the seafood. Despite the cotton-like texture of the tartar, chunks of shrimp meat could still be enjoyed accompanied by crispy salted sweet potato chips in beautiful purple color.

Wagyu Konbu maki 炭燒布包和牛

I'd rather say it's a painting than a dish. The stone slate was layered with black squid ink bread crumbs resembling soil, and flower petals were pitifully scattered around rolls of mundane wagyu flesh...I am not an art person but I had a feeling this dish was inspired by art pieces of Vincent van Gogh's or some other impressionist masters'. The slow cooked wagyu beef tasted very nice in terms of the meat itself, the balanced taste of the fat which seemed to be totally absorbed back by the meat and the seasoning. The 'konbu' rice paper wrapping the wagyu was just right in thickness that managed to balance the overwhelming taste of the meat.

Deep fries lotus root slices and minced chicken 炸蓮藕片免治雞肉

This supposedly simple snack was surprisingly successful in winning my heart. Maybe it's the creative combination of these two matching ingredients that impressed, lovely!

0.5° Style paella

The contemporary touch of this dish was a Spanish seafood paella served in a hot stone bowl, fair enough? But that wasn't the point, haha! The highlight of this paella was the rice, which was cooked with lobster broth and it was super yummy. My friend and I were full but we insisted in finishing it till the bottom.

There are so many more items on the menu we wanted to try, yes next time. To enjoy the most out of trying new restaurants with special concepts, there is a golden rule I'd suggest following -Don't walk in with too high expectations, let the surprises surprise you - it's sometimes better to just be happy fools than serious nerds :) cheers

0.5°Japanese Contemporary Cuisine + Bar

Address: Shop B, G/F, 12-13 Shepherd Street

Tel: 2504 2777

My Father's Day Weekend with Vero's Chocolates

 

Went to the Landmark for Father's Day cake hunting (I was thinking about Sift's Father's Day special - CARAMOCHA but it was closed the time I got there, so I ended up in Vero). Its Signature Dark 70% chocolate is something I always wanted to try, so glad about the unexpected visit yesterday :) 

As a chocolate drink, Vero's Signature Dark 70% is intense as it's basically a cup of melted 70% dark chocolate. Taking a sip, you'd find it smooth and velvety in the mouth with a balanced bitterness and a slightly nutty flavor, and the fine and subtle sweetness kicks in as the finish - 70% is just a right number. The drink is more a generous portion of molten chocolate tasting than a "chocolate drink" - this expectation has to be set so you could enjoy the most out of it :)

Apart from a variety of chocolates, Vero also has a selection of patisseries. Except a couple (don't really remember which), all others have 1lb size to order. Wherein the "Chuao" was highly recommended by the shop manager. The patisserie is made of one of the best chocolate varieties in the world, Chuao, and chocolate and caramel mousse with fleur de sel, almond praline and chocolate flourless sponge - would love to try it next time! 

 

Okay, here comes the Chocolate Mud Cake I chose for Father's Day. It's one of Vero's best sellers and indeed it's a rich and delightful chocolate cake with consistent texture, one you could imagine as a moist soft brownie with smooth luscious chocolate throughout, in every bite. It's totally addictive and more importantly, my dad loves it :)

The service was incredible too. I visited at their closing time but the staff was still fun and welcoming. When I told them the cake was for Father's Day, the supervisor even offered to write a chocolate "Happy Father's Day" tag for me! It took them an additional 5 min to prepare so - really appreciate that not only because they made this cake special, also because of their spirits to serve. 

Highly recommend Vero for chocolate lovers!

Vero Chocolates

Central

Address: Shop 236, 2/F, The Landmark, 12-16 Des Voeux Road Central, Central 

Tel: 2559 5810

Tsim Sha Tsui

Address: Shop 23, Kiosk, G/F, K11 Art Mall, 18 Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Tel: 9709 4868

 

Another beautiful piece of shop display...