ayonecan-cook

This jelly made the Top 9 on Foodbuzz 2nd May 2011. Thank you to the Foodbuzz community. Happy Buzzday! Truth is....I was tentative about making jelly. I rarely make jelly. It's like eating air. Almost. It doesn't fill you up, it doesn't provide you with much nutrition, its not ice cream, it's not pudding, it's simply solidified sweet drink in wobbly form. Neither hunkily solid nor refreshingly liquid. Neither here nor there, neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong. So I rarely have never made jelly to the memory of my grown children (have I sinned?). Some of them didn't quite know what it was when I did make these pretty things. They asked. And I answered "Jelly".  Cynical faces. Gelatine was foreign to them too (because I never did speak gelatine to them). So I spoke jelly. Again. Never mind. I gave up. But when I offered some to Z and R they finished it up and announced  "Sedap" . R playfully repeated it several times to aggravate m...

These Brioche made the Top 9 on Foodbuzz today 30th April 2011. Thank you to the Foodbuzz community! Happy Buzzday :) I used Sarah-Jane's brioche moulds from siliconemoulds.com. to make the brioche. They came out adorable with little buns on their heads. I thought it was quite funny when I picked one up and the little bun-head rolled off almost immediately. But it was only the one.  How comic it would have been if all of them had rolled off. These were the silicone moulds from siliconemoulds.com that Sarah had mailed me. As always nothing could be easier than un-moulding from a  silicone mould.  Effortless.  A tip I had learnt so that the tops are perfectly middle when they finished baking was to depress the base dough in the middle right to the bottom with your thumb before brushing egg yolk and placing the bun-head on top. Generally, it worked except for a few. But lopsided or not they were delicious, soft, buttery and adorable. What more does one need in a bun....

I don't celebrate Easter but I did have Easter egg moulds given me by Sarah Jane. Thanks Sarah-Jane. So I made some madeleine 'egg' cakes. Each 'egg' deliciously golden. They had also the humps without the use of baking powder. So I was very pleased. And they popped out of the moulds very easily without sticking at all. These are the lovely moulds Sarah-Jane had given me in 2 different sizes a few months ago. I used the smaller one. Do go to siliconemoulds.com for even more variety of silicone moulds. I had buttered the moulds using my finger very lightly. The details of the design came out clear marking the cakes very prettily.As you can also see the cakes came out with a lovely sheen. It was beautiful! I had gotten the recipe from All Recipes but the one thing that I did differently was regards to the butter. I clarified the butter by melting and heating it until the solids drop and begin to brown, I made beurre noisette. It added a lovely nutty flavour to the c...

I had three choices. To eat this mousse selfishly with the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in one hand, in morning light, in my cotton jammies, to serve it at a playful children's party or to serve it as a dessert after a dinner........ in a more elegant fashion. But we all know that the party and the elegant dinner was just a figment of my imagination, so yes, I dived into it while in my jammies with Oscar Wao's brief life just within reach. T he morning was blessed to be bright and sparkling. So I did the photo shoot based on the three different settings that were mingling in my head. (just to prove to myself that mousse can be breakfast food is versatile).                                     No friends, that isn't a fly. That's an over-roasted chip off a pistachio nut. Who would have thought chocolate mousse could be made w...

These actually made it to the Top 9 on Foodbuzz. Scabs and all! Thank you Foodbuzz community :) Happy Buzzday. I remember sugar scabs being made in a black, heavy, demented looking wok in our wet kitchen. On a gas stove right below a chimney. My god. We actually had chimneys!?! Anyway, for years I never could figure out how those sweet scabs  materialized. It looked easy and obvious enough but when you expected them to stick to the fried doughnuts when you chucked them in they wouldn't. Not unless you put the doughnuts in at just the right moment. While the crystallized sugar was still damp and bubbly.  When the bubbly sugar solidified and if too much caked the doughnuts like an armour you could always knock or peel the excess scabs off the doughnuts before serving.  (This is getting a little too rustic for comfort) Anyway, I think we, as in Malaysians,  may be the inventors of sugar scabs. I haven't seen it anywhere else except on Malaysian Sweet Potato D...

Avocados are one of the creamiest fruits I have ever come across. Its creamier than bananas but has not the sweetness at all. Its green is absolutely gorgeous, its a dream to slice through when ripe and I get a strange pulse of satisfaction from scooping it out of its shell. I have eaten this simply mashed and stirred into yogurt with honey drizzled over the top and I loved it. When I saw Chef Corbin make this on Restaurant Makeover I thought I had discovered my ultimate creamy health food in my favourite colour. It was easily made in a blender with coconut milk, some cream and some sugar or honey. Blend. Freeze. Scoop. I watched and heard the mm-hmms. Then I made some. If you're draped in a very gloomy day like I am today and are/am/is me please don't eat this. I felt a tad gloomier after eating this.  It didn't do it for me. And I have no idea what to place my finger on.  Avocado? Coconut milk? Cream?  Or all of the above? I suppose. Because I love all of them but I did...