I love flowers.
Caught a gorgeous sunset during the Easter long weekend.
Tried flying a kitesurfing trainer kite. It was very fun and calming.
Loving my new jewellery holders. Finally got these organised after so many years!
Monthly Archives: April 2012
Donna Hay Molten Chocolate Chunk Brownie
Continuing on my “Donna Hay pre-mix” series, as I’d like to call it, tonight’s dessert was made using the Molten Chocolate Chunk Brownie pre-mix.
This has to be the easiest brownie I have ever made! Aside from the pre-mix all that was needed were:
150g butter, melted
2 eggs
That’s it! Dump everything into a mixing bowl and mix until everything is well combined. Then add in the chocolate chunks that came with the box.
This is a very good brownie mix – tastes like real chocolate and crunchy on the outside and chewy in the middle. It smelled very heavenly too when baking filling the whole house with the aroma of chocolate.
If there’s one thing that needs improvement it would be the amount of sugar in the pre-mix. The brownies were too sweet for my liking and too chewy because of all the sugar caramelising. The brownies from the edges were almost rock hard and my little cousins found it hard to eat them. They were still chewable when freshly baked but after they have cooled down it will take a lot of effort to munch on them. Other than that, a slice or two and a glass of milk are all it takes to get the party started. Ice cream and cream optional.
Passionfruit & Lychee Caprioska
A tangy and slightly sweet cocktail I first had at a Gold Class cinema. It was so delicious that I decided to make it at home.
For about 2-3 people all you need are:
shots of vodka
2 limes, squeezed
3-5 tablespoons passionfruit pulp (I used passionfruit in a jar because it’s easier that way)
1 large can lychees in syrup, drained and syrup set aside
a handful of ice cubes
Using a cocktail shaker, put in your desired shots of vodka, lime juice, lychee syrup and ice cubes and shake away. The 2 limes should give you about 2 oz and the lychee syrup from the can should give you about 10 oz. This is more tangy than sweet so you can adjust the sweetness/sourness by adding in less lime juice or adding more syrup.
Then, in cocktail glasses or any other glasses, add in about 1-2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp and about 3-4 lychees that have been teared into chunks. Pour in the shaken juice into the glasses. Then hang a lychee on the rim of the glass and serve.
This has got to be one of the most refreshing drinks ever. Enjoy!
Donna Hay Easter cupcakes
I was given a very short notice at work yesterday that I was making mini cupcakes for our Easter morning tea slash colleagues birthday. This was due to my showing off of the new mini cupcake pan that I bought during my lunch break that had all the ladies in the office craving for some cupcakes. So all my plans of studying that night went out the window and I stopped by the supermarket instead looking for inspiration for my cupcakes.
I’m just gonna go ahead and say this: I have never used pre-mixes for my baking needs. Never. I like making things from scratch and although it is time consuming to get your measurements right, spooning and leveling flour soothes me. But I was intrigued with the Donna Hay blue pre-mix boxes staring at me in the baking aisle. Out of all the boxes on the shelf, Donna Hay’s stood out because they look natural. Natural and homey. I thought I’d give that a shot since I was pressed for time anyway. The Donna Hay pre-mix range has cupcakes, brownies and macarons. Out of the spur of the moment I bought them all!
Last night was about the cupcakes though. I bought both the vanilla and the chocolate variety. I know, my colleagues are always spoiled with sweets. The package comes with all the dry ingredients you need and you just have to supply the wet and perishable ingredients such as butter, eggs and milk. The instructions are printed clearly on the box so it was easy to follow.
Ingredients
Cupcake
1 box Donna Hay vanilla cupcake or chocolate mix
125 g butter, softened
2 eggs
180 ml milk
Icing
1 packet Donna Hay icing mix (from the box)
125 g butter, softened
1 tablespoon milk
You can easily follow the instructions on how to make the batter and icing so I won’t repeat it here. Basically you just whip everything together until you get a smooth batter then you’re ready to pop them in the oven.
You let them cool while whipping up the icing and voila! Cupcakes are ready. And because it’s Easter I topped them with mini Easter eggs. The box said the recipe yields 12 big cupcakes but I ended up with more than that. I had 12 big cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes of each flavour. So yes that was quite a lot of cupcakes.
So that I can honestly judge the result of the pre-mixes, I followed whatever is printed on the box as it is. It told me to whip the butter for 10 minutes I stood there and held my handheld mixer for 10 minutes while watching Modern Family.
The verdict on Donna Hay’s cupcake pre-mixes? Overall, they were delicious and really easy to make but they are not without flaws. Let me list out what I like about the pre-mix and what I think needs improvement.
Pros
- fresh, tasty, and insanely moist cupcakes
- easy to follow recipes
- sweetness was just right, even for the icing
- provides a good basic cupcake base that you can dress up
- comes with cupcake liners
- not greasy, not one bit of grease mark on the tins and I dont even have to wash them
- office people loved both the chocolate and the vanilla ones
Cons
- Just for the chocolate cupcakes – the liners peeled off from the cupcake even before I got to ice them and even more liners peeled off due to vehicular movement when I transported them to the office
- more accurate description on the box (e.g. yields 12 cupcakes but I ended up with almost twice the amount)
At this stage, I am really pumped to start using the macarons and brownie pre-mix.
Have a blessed Easter! xo
Blend Cafe @ Melville
Whoa. I realise it’s been a while since I last posted something food related. With working and all that studying 24 hours in a day is seriously not enough. But rest assured I have been eating out quite a lot too since I don’t have much time to cook a proper meal so I shall get the blog up and running again with more restaurant posts for the weeks to come.
I’ll kick it off with Blend Cafe, a local neighbourhood cafe in Melville serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, home-cooked style. I say home-cooked because I find the food here to be unpretentious. It’s simple, fresh and tasty. I started coming here for those nighttime dessert cravings. They serve good coffee and one of the better tiramisus.
Left impressed with their coffee and sweets each time, my family and I finally made it for breakfast. It’s the usual breakfast menu with eggs and bacon, eggs hollandaise, muesli, etc but what really stood out for me was the baked beans. It’s not those canned baked beans for sure. I don’t even like baked beans but I found myself wanting more. The beans are cooked just right, not too hard but not mushy, and the taste was just divine – tangy with a hint of spiciness. The dish below is a potato cake with poached egg, hollandaise sauce and oozing lava of baked beans.
We enjoy coming to Blend so much that even my little cousin asked to have his birthday dinner here. And so we did. The cafe was pretty packed for a Monday night (but then again, this place is always packed) but we made reservations so we were seated straightaway. The dinner menu was not overly exhausting and nothing particularly special. Still, we were able to find something we like and something that suited everyone’s tastes.
Here’s a run down on what we had that night from the top, left to right -
* Gamberi - fettuccine with prawns in creamy tomato sauce; very fresh pasta with succulent prawns – you cant go wrong with that
* Copacobana pizza – with sausage, ham, pancetta and pepperoni; the boys loved it
* Salt and pepper calamari – served with an Asian style lime and fruit salsa as dipping sauce and I polished it off before anyone else could. It was very refreshing to contrast the heaviness of having deep fried squid
* Fettuccine alla vodka – pasta with chicken and spinach in creamy vodka rose sauce; very tasty pasta and tender chicken. Loved the sauce.
* Paella – finally a place where the paella rice is cooked just right. Serving a bit small to be shared but it was good nonetheless
* Prawns with rice – an item on the specials menu but was nothing really special about it. Rice used was the same as paella rice so it was basically a wet paella with prawns in tomato sauce
* Surf n Turf – scotch fillet steak with mushroom sauce and prawns. tThe mushroom sauce was good and steak was tender and tasty but it came short of a medium done steak.
Overall a gem in the suburb of Melville where you can have a great night out.
My rating: 8/10
March ’12 in a nutshell
March 1st. A good cup of hot chocolate to mark the start of autumn.
Working and studying have been full on. I have always thought that I could study forever. That was before I found out that working and studying at the same time suck the life out of you. Every day I see the files and books I need to read I die a little. But it’s a commitment I have made so one must push through.
Discovered something (not so) new. It turns out that I really really like Brie. Yes, the cheese. I’m not a big cheese fan nor a cheese connoiseur. My knowledge of cheese is limited to cheddar, parmesan, and mozarella. But brie? Brie is one heavenly goodness.
Wedding prep is coming along alright. Went for a hair trial with the bride.
Style # 1:
Style # 2:
What do you think?
