Pandan coconut crepes, iphone games and a Holiday Greeting

I've recently got an iphone and got very addicted to these three games

- smurfs village

- bakery story

- restaurant story

Haha, i'm sure you guys have all heard of at least the last game, but these games are sooo addictive (much more addictive then papertoss, fruit ninja, and angry birds, IMO).

Restaurant story

mac & cheese, omlettes, french toast, garden salad, bacon & eggs

Bakery Story

choc chip cookies, tea, coffee, brownies, macarons, chocolate cake, carrot cake, cinnamon rolls

i love playing smurfs!

You:

- build mushroom houses (the more you build the more smurfs you get to work for you)

- plant crops of fruit and vegetables

- complete requests from Papa smurf

- play games for money and XP

There's alot more but its such a rewarding game i reckon, so cute as well.

I've been practising making crepes lately, i find it really therapeutic the repetitiveness of it all, and they are delicious with almost anything (spreads and jams) but on this occasion ive made a pandan custard. To save time i bought these from Cabramatta for $2 a pop!

all you need to do is add boiling water & stir.

I've used a recipe from taste.com.au, repalced the milk with coconut milk, and the plain flour with wholewheat flour.

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour (or wholewheat flour)

2 cups milk (or coconut milk)

3 eggs

olive oil cooking spray

Method

Sift flour into a bowl. Whisk milk and eggs together in a jug. Add milk mixture to flour. Whisk until well combined.

Spray a medium, non-stick frying pan with oil. Heat over medium heat.

Pour 2 1/2 tablespoons batter into pan. Swirl to cover base. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until light golden. Turn over and cook for 1 minute.

Transfer to a plate. Cover to keep warm. Repeat with remaining batter.

Assemble

spoon custard into a long line, sprinkle with dessicated coconut, roll up like you would a spring roll. Serve!

Lastly, i would like to wish every one of my readers a very Merry Christmas, and a fantastic New year! I hope you all get lots of pressies, eat lots of yummy food, and a great holiday break (if you do get one).

I return to work on the 3rd January :( But i have a few things planned for my one and a bit break

-tennis

-baking

-cooking

-brunching, lunching and dinnering

- yoga

- gym

- coastal walk

- ice skating

- family get togethers

Can't wait! Cya everyone :D

Profiteroles - My first time

Profiteroles are something I always thought was very tricky and time consuming to make, so I never thought to make them, only bought them!

Until one day my mom asked, if i knew how to make these, as they were here favourite.. so one Saturday afternoon - me and mom in the kitchen - tackled on this project together :O)

Surprisingly, it was very quick, and simple as well. One thing i'd do differently is probably to do the puffs first, and once they are out of the oven, to start on the filling, as you need to keep checking the puffs AND the filling as well, one of the other could burn or over cook - but luckily my mom was around to keep everything in order hehe.

We made about 25 bite sized profiteroles, and my mom loved them! Personally i like eating them a couple hours after so that the pastry goes slightly hydrated and soft from the filling, but they were nice eaten straight away as well. Will definitely make these again in the future.

Ingredients:

For choux pastry

75g butter

3/4 cup (180ml) water

3/4 cup (110g) plain flour

3 eggs

For creme filling

2 and 1/4 cups of whole milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

6 egg yolks

2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar

1/2 cup (75g) plain flour, sifted

For choux pastry

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line 2 oven trays with baking paper.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine butter and water and bring to the boil.

3. Add the flour whilst constantly beading with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes away from the side of the saucepan and forms a smooth ball. Remove from heat.

4. Transfer mixture to mixing bowl and beat in eggs, one at a time, with an electric mixer until the mixture because smooth and glossy.

5. Drop rounded tablespoons full of choux pastry dough onto the prepared trays leaving 4cm between each one. I used 2 spoons for this - filled a tablespoon with the mix and used the back of a dessert spoon to scrape and plonk it onto the paper. It was a bit sticky so I used the back of the spoon to smooth out the balls and make them nice and round.

6. Bake for 7min or until pastries puff up.

7. Lower the heat to 180 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 10min or until lightly browned and crisp.

8. Cut an opening in the side of each profiterole and bake for a further 5min until they dry out.

9. Cool the puffs on a rack till room temperature.

Making the filling

1. Bring milk and vanilla extract to the boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat and set aside for 10min.

2. Meanwhile, beat egg yolks and sugar in medium bowl with electric mixer until thick. Beat in the sifted flour. With motor operating on low speed, gradually beat in the hot milk mixture. Once the milk is incorporated, return the mix to the saucepan.

3. Stir over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens.

4. Cover surface of bowl with plastic wrap (prevents skin from forming) and refrigerate until cold.

5. Once the puffs are cooled and your custard is cold, you can fill them. Either spoon them into the slits you cut before or using a piping bag and straight nozzle.

Brittania Restaurant

The Mall,

Queenstown-Lakes 9300,

New Zealand

(03) 442 9600

After having dinner close to our hotel, (a Restaurant called Vknow in Queenstown, review will be done soon) we went for a walk down town which took about 25 minutes (and takes 40 minutes on the way back because of this big ass hill!!).

Checking out the dessert menu's of each restaurant, we were walking around for about 15 minutes... that's me - i'm very indecisive and i like to see everything that is on offer before making a decision. Even if i see something that i would like, i won't settle for second best unless i've seen other options hehe..

The restaurant doesn't stand out too much if it werent for the menu stand on the ground floor- I wouldnt of spotted it. Heading up the stairs i wasn't sure if i was going into the right door but that was confirmed once i stepped into a room that resembled the inside of a ship! With wooden walls, old carpet, as well as wooden tables & chairs, the walls had posters of maps, life jackets, fish nets, all sorts of ship related items.

The man (who i assume was the owner as he was just sitting around on the empty tables as we walked in) took our order of one "spotted dick", & asked 'is that all? i highly recommend the grand marnier icecream boat"

So we ended up with two desserts :]

The pudding was more like a cake, and was still warm from coming out of the oven, i could tell it was only baked to order because it had the nice soft just cooked texture of a cake. It was topped with cream, chocolate sauce, served with whipped cream and a classic vanilla ice cream. This was my favorite dessert out of the two, although it could've been a larger portion of cake :P

When the boat came out- all eyes were on our table, as you can see its a beautiful piece of food art, the sails made of toffee, and knowing toffee would set quickly, the artist would of had to work very quickly with the design, i think they did a great job. It was more a decoration though cos i only broke of a bit and didnt eat the rest. The 'Boat" was made out of dark chocolate, and was filled with scoops of grand marnier icecream and whipped cream. The ice cream had very little liqueur flavour, but was still very creamy. & i think i remember there being a flake stick in there too..

Brittania Restaurant has a really great atmosphere and very friendly staff, i do not regret taking the man's recomendations as i've never had anything like this boat before hehe, its very cute & creative. WHile the restaurant was abit empty (it was a Sunday night, and about 8pm), looking around, there were about 6 other people dining, and i noticed very large servings so i can say this place is great for value as well.

Brunetti's

194-204 Faraday Street

Carlton VIC 3053 Australia

After a long stroll up and down the iconic Yarra River in Melbourne's City Centre, we ventured to the Crown casino to find a shop that served iced chai tea drinks. After almost getting lost (due to some area's being closed off) we came to find that the shop was no longer there :(

So a short drive later we found ourselves in Carlton, and Ann brought me to this busy shop cafe that took up almost a hand full of the street's numbers. With heaps of people lining up to buy the larger sized cakes and sweets, we pushed our way to the left of the long counter, where you can find small bite sized morsels, (and so you can taste more!)

All these 'mignon & dolci' (mignon meaning cute or dainty) were only $1.80 each, so we bought a few.. Well, Ann let me choose !! :) With another two rooms full of seats, we luckily scored one at the front behind the windows.

Coffee Mignon
profiterole filled with coffee custard & topped with a coffee fondent

Mini Lemon Tart
a shortbread base filled with lemon custard

Pistacchio mignon
profiterole filled with pistacchio custard and topped with a pistacchio fondent

Vanilla canolli & chocolate canolli
a crunchy pastry filled with vanilla/choclate custard

(the chocolate cannoli was missing icing sugar!)

three chocolates mousse cup

say 'dolci!'

After finishing our 6 desserts, Ann saw a $2 coin outside on the path ... if you look closely you can see Ann outside (red top) picking it up Lols. So with another $2 in wallet i bought another two!

Bigne San Giuseppe
a light doughnut pastry filled with
strega chantilly cream and coated in sugar

Chocolate cheese cake

My favourites have to be the chocolate cheese cake, the mousse cup, and the chocolate cannoli. When we finished we had to sit for a bit, and let idea of us just gorging on almost $16 worth of mini cakes sink in. At this point i was thinking "Yup. DEFINITELY going for a run in the morning!!"

Brunetti's was a nice cafe to sit & chat, and with such a huuuuuge selection of cakes, tarts, biscuits, mignon, chocolates and nougat to choose from, the store also offers gelati, icy granita's, fresh smoothies and juices, foccacia, salads, crepes & over 40 handmade chocolates.

One visit is absolutely not enough, but for our short weekend trip - it was.

Hilton Hotel Sydney - Glass Brasserie

Level 2, 488 George Street

Sydney, NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9265 6068

Ann was nice enough to get me to come to a sugar hit with her, and she chose the Hilton's Glass Brasserie for us. Our booking was at 9, and we had finished dinner at 7.30.. so we were sitting in the hotel lobby for a good thirty minutes (after a quick stroll up & down George st to walk of dinner). At ten to nine we thought, meh - lets just head up.

We were seated in a corner booth (yay for both of us getting booth seats), and were asked if we wanted tea or coffee. We both went for tea, i chose the chamomile & Ann chose green tea. Both came with a tiny shortbread cookie.

I really liked the simple tea pot, cup & saucer, makes for pretty pictures hehe. Not long after we got our tea's, we got our sugar hit plates.

item #1

This is the order i had them in! The first, a marshmallow (which had been blowtorched) with a shot glass of raspberry chocolate fondue. Heavily dipping my marshmallow into the slightly bitter (but oh-so-good) fondue, i had left over to scoop up with my now empty paddle-pop-sort-of stick. Really, these portions are way too small, i wish i ordered two hehe.

item #2

Second, was a ball of early grey ice cream rolled into a cookies & cream biscuit, served on a white chocolate pandan parfait. This came last on my yummy list, the flavours didn't mix well for me, but i did adore the pandan flavour in the parfait.

item #3

This, was heaven in each spoon that went into my mouth. I've never had anything sooo melt in your mouth, warm gooey goodness. I savoured each spoon, for as long as i could, and wished that i could do a tim tam ad on it - a never ending cup of chocolate fondant. I definitely want to try & make this at home (i have ramekins yippee!)

This was my first & unfortunately my last sugar hit (possibly only for 2009). It scares me who many calories i'm paying $20 for, ever since i started my food blog the number on the scales has just slowly risen, just like the exchange rates lately.

Ann however, went to a few others: Shang gri La, Swissotel, & Azuma Kushiyaki. However much i am jealous, i'm glad i didn't cave in, and smile at all the calories i saved myself *sigh*

Guylian - The Rocks

91 George Street
The Rocks
Sydney NSW 2000

After dinner one night, we were after a place for desert, and the closest walkings distance cafe from Pony - was Guylian.

I've visited Guylian before, but it doesnt compare to Max Brennars or Lindt. It was just the four of us so we shared two cakes, & coffees/hot chocolates.

I'm not too sure what this was, but it was a special (not on the standard menu list. I thought it was the 100% pure pleasure, but after asking Lorraine she told me it definitely wasn't! I wish i had taken a photo of the specials page >_<.

The presentation was like a piece of art though - it always makes things taste nicer if they are presented nicely :)

We had a little surprise in the middle, i think it was some purple berry.. hard jelly or jam. The color was very deep purple, and was colouring the surrounding cake as well.

Guylian Tiramisu $14

Sponge lady finger, expresso syrup & mascarpone sabayon. Again i love how this dish was laid out, the red love hearts in the orange circles - so cute! The expresso syrup was strong, but nothing beats home made tiramisu (where you can overload on the liqueur heehee)

I think the cakes here are nicely presented, and the names of a few of them really shout out to you (like 100% pure pleasure, sounds like you'll be eating something so orgasmic!).