食べblog

Adapted from Glorious Treats

Frosts 10 cupcakes (swirl)

1/6 cup butter (40g)
80g cream cheese (directly from fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (always use pure vanilla extract if possible)
1 1/3  cups powdered confectioners sugar
1 to 4 Tablespoons milk

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Possible variations: substitute milk with kahlua or other liquers :)

Fried rice with luncheon meat is one of my comfort foods. I miss Ma Ling luncheon meat. It was pulled from the shelves following some food health scandal and I haven’t found a good substitute ever since. It’s a perfect one dish meal with lots of vegetables and is extremely versatile. 

Possible additions: Spring onion (chopped) 

Fried rice with luncheon meat and mixed vegetables 

Serves 3-4 

2 cups cooked rice (I used a mix of brown rice and Japanese germinated brown rice) 

2 cups frozen vegetables 

2 eggs 

1 small can of luncheon meat 

2 red onions 

2 cloves of garlic 

2 tablespoons of soy sauce 

vegetable oil for frying 

sesame oil to taste 

salt and pepper to taste 

1. Dice the luncheon meat, onions and mince the garlic. Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl and add a pinch of salt. Set aside. 
2. Heat the pan or wok. Lightly fry the luncheon meat until brown and crispy. DO NOT add any oil to the pan because the luncheon meat has plenty of fat which will ooze out. Remove luncheon meat from heat. 
3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in wok and pour the egg in. Let the egg partially set before breaking it up into bits. Remove egg. You don’t want the egg to be too hard. 
4. Add 2 tablespoons of oil to wok. Saute onions and garlic till fragrant. Add frozen vegetables and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Add rice and continue frying for 2-3 minutes. 
5. Make a well int the middle of the wok and pour the soy sauce. Once the soy sauce sizzles, mix it with the rest of the rice. 
6. Return the cooked egg to the wok and stir to combine. Add a few drops of sesame oil. Serve immediately. 

72% cocoa Valhrona Guanaja chocolate. $25 for 500g.

The recipe called for 100% cocoa pate but I wasn’t able to find it. Using bittersweet chocolate as a substitute worked well. I think I forgot to bang the trays against the table top or there was some other issue with my oven heat. Hollow shells again! And HUGE protruding feet. They LOOK passable but there’s this hideous air pocket in most of them. Sigh. At least they taste good.

Chocolate ganache was excellent but it tends to melt fast. Yummy yummy certainly a keeper. ^^

Photos taken by my lovely friend Karmen Siew with her brother’s DSLR. ^^ Thanks Karmen!

Unfortunately, I overbaked my second batch of macarons and they turned out BROWN. 

The ones on the left are the successful ones (still a little brown but not too bad) and the ones on the right were sadly overbaked, brown and hard.

I think my oven was a little too warm. Perhaps 150-160 would be more ideal —> that’s why an oven thermometer is important for me to know what could have gone wrong.

To my horror, my metal baking sheet warped during cooking. It was fine when cool, but tilted horribly when in the oven :( Thankfully it didn’t result in severely misshapen macarons.

Maturation

Pierre Herme (and most other food bloggers) recommends a 24 hour maturation period in the fridge for macarons. This works wonders and conceals a lot of imperfections in macarons including dry insides. I tasted the failed batch a day later and it was almost perfect—fluffy insides coming together perfectly with the filling…just that the shell was still too thick because of the overbaking.

Bottom line: do not judge your macarons on the day of baking —> let them mature and you’ll be really surprised. :)