Lao Ban Beancurd

老伴豆花 finally reaches the west!

As I was on half day leave due to collection of graduation gown, I decided to check out if the rumors is true - the famous beancurd brunch finally landed in the west.

It is! Located inside Cityvibe shopping centre in Clementi. Long queue is spotted when I am passing by on the bus. I had walked around the shop confirming its existence. And the long queue is indeed waiting for the shop to be opened.

Since I had some time to spare, I had decided to join the queue as the opening hours is 1pm & 6pm till sold out. And hey, its only few minutes to 1pm. Thus I joined the queue under the scorching sun...

Its hot I tell you. Cannot believe that I am one of the people in the queue.

After 40 minutes, I was at the front of the stall. 45th minutes, I laid my hands on the beancurd. The sickening thing is that the lady 2 persons infront had wiped out the entire Almond flavored beancurd. I don't have the chance to try it... Managed to buy the original flavor instead.

Tada!

Verdict: It is really nice. Very different from the traditional kinds of beancurd in the hawker centres. You won't get sick of it when you finished the entire serving. It is sweet in nature and hence there isn't a need for sugar syrup. Smooth and delicious. But if you ask me to queue 45 minutes again for the beancurd, nope, I will not do it again.

Chocolate brownie

Lynnie gotten a new oven and she is so excited over baking and trying out the oven! It makes me inspired as well. Itchy hand me. lol. Decided to surf through my all time favorite Joyofbaking.com and looked for recipes that inspires me.

And this is it. Chocolate brownie.

Actually I was looking for something that can pair up with the truckload of vanila ice cream that I have.   And brownie seems like a good choice. Was laminating between brownie or chocolate lava cake. But brownie is still the easiest as there is no need for the use of electric beater. Everything can be done in 30 minutes (minus baking time).

For my adaptation, I use chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate as I still have a packet at home. Hence, I reduce the amount of sugar as chocolate chips are already sweet.

Recipe from Joyofbaking.

5 ounces (150 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chopped
1/2 cup (1 stick) (113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons (15 grams) cocoa powder
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup (125 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Butter (or spray with a nonstick cooking spray) an 8 inch (20 cm) square pan, and line the bottom of the pan with parchment or wax paper.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a large stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from heat and stir in the cocoa powder and sugar . Next, whisk in the vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Finally, stir in the flour, salt and chocolate chips (if using).

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a little batter and a few moist clumps clinging to it. Do not over bake. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature or chilled. These freeze very well.

Makes 16 brownies.

Red, white & black

Tried Menya Musashi at Raffles City Shopping Centre which I did not managed to try the last time round as the queue was too long. This time, Alvin & I was there early as we had a early dinner before our movie at Marina Square. 

Lucky for us, there is no queue at 5ish. However, our food took some time to be served. Poor staff management. 

Anyways, Alvin had the dried version of the ramen with red soup as a dip and I had ramen with black soup base. The shops boasts 3 signature ramen soup base. The red, white and black. Red is spicy, white is normal non spicy version (i think) and black is with garlic oil. 

The dry ramen of 3x serving size.

the black one.

The soup is slightly thicker than normal soups for ramen. Serving size is pretty alright but however, I don't think I will be back again. Something need to be done to the staff management. We saw a Japanese/Korean mum with 3 toddlers left the restaurant as the waiting time was too long to be served!

Menya Musashi
Raffles City Shopping Centre #01-16

Maison Kayser

Baked Black Sesame Chiffon cake the day before. Wanted to use the remaining black sesame powder but it turns out that there is white spots in the container. Threw those out instead. Used the black sesame paste I bought some time ago and had to find a suitable recipe for it as I had already cracked the eggs and separated them according to the recipe of black sesame powder. Grrr.

I finally found a recipe that can utilized all the eggs that I have cracked. No pics this time as the cake turns out to be extra fluffy and it slides out of the mould once I had inverted it to cool. And I had some trouble maintaining its beautiful looks while trying to lift the cake out. Don't think it is supposed to happen like that for chiffon cake. :(

Nevertheless, the cake is very fluffy. Very smooth texture compared to using black sesame powder. 

Photo taken from thesweetspot.

Recipe here.

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Met up with Lynnie to do shopping in Orchard for huarong's jie mei dress for her wedding the next day. Brought along the chiffon cake (above) for her (and Alvin whom I met later) to try too. 

We settled on wearing convertible dress and Lynnie bought hers from a shop in FEP for $49. I didn't buy as I already got one at home. Compliments to the salesgirl at Shereen (FEP, #03-49A) for her exceptional customer service. Really felt like being serviced by her and she know her product well. In swift movements, she is able to wrap Lynnie in different styles that she requested. *thumbs up. We left the shop feeling really happy.

As we were done quite early, we settled for high tea at Maison Kayser. AK had raved about the breads there and since we are in the area, we decided to try it out. 

My croissant and Lynnie's raisin bun (forget the name)

Definitely worth the visit. The breads are so nice and crispy and simply melt-in-your-mouth. Lynnie had the coffee and she commented that it is nice. We didn't try the set menu for high tea as we don't really feel eclair-ish then. But then we realized their eclairs are one of the raved items. Well, next time then.

Maison Keyser
#B1-09 Scotts Square

Black is the new in

Bought black sesame with honey spread during Isetan fair. Yummy! It is definitely something different from the usual spread and healthier too! The only down side is that the price is kind of steep - $10 a bottle.

Hokkaido Cupcake

Tried to make Hokkaido cupcake some time back in June. The cupcakes was not so popular then. Till recently there is a lot of hype on Hokkaido cupcakes that alot of bakeries ride on the hype. The cheapest I saw is $2 per cake. I've tried the one from Q Bread (which is the first I saw selling Hokkaido cupcakes) and it feels pretty normal, not as what I expected which was soft and fluffy. Polar cakes sells it too but they don't sell it separately. They sold in boxes of 6. It is a tad too much to finish.

Googled for the recipe to make the cupcake and I tried making it again for the 2nd time.

Recipe adapted from here.
Ingredients
Chiffon cake
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
35g corn oil
60g milk
70g cake flour
3 egg whites
25g sugar

Filling
60g dairy whipping cream
10g sugar
1tsp instant custard powder
Icing sugar, for dusting

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 170C.
2. Arrange paper liners on baking tray.
3. Hand whisk egg yolk and sugar till pale in colour.
4. Add in corn oil and milk, mix well.
5. Sift in cake flour, stir to combine.
6. Beat egg white until foamy, gradually add sugar, and continue beat till soft peak form.
7. Take 1/3 of egg white and use a hand whisk to mix into egg yolk batter.
8. Fold in the balance egg white with a spatula till well combine.
9. Scoop batter into pre-arranged paper liners to about ¾ full.
10. Bake for 20-25 mins at middle rack.
11. Beat whipping cream with sugar till firm and stiff (over a bowl of iced water).
12. Add in custard powder, mix well.
13. Pipe custard cream into cupcake and dust with icing sugar. Refrigerated before consume.

Both times the cakes sank upon cooling. I googled to find out the reason behind it and improvised on the 2nd time but the results is still the same. Arrgh. I cann't seem to master baking nice cupcakes. My forte is still biscuits.