Tag: #life

Coconut Molasses Cake

Or The First Cake I Made In a Long Time During a Family Holiday, because it sounds 100 times more special that way.

A bit more than a while. That would be a good way to describe this period of absence. The air is heavy with moisture and the air con remote is a touch too far. Sweat is threatening to ruin the afternoon, but I’m learning to be ok with that again. The heat is foreign, but this is home. It has been too long since Home. Having just touched down here after a 10-day trip to New Zealand, it all does feel a little strange; the past couple of months have been saturated with train hopping and exploring more of the never-touched or heard or loved. From London to Germany to Austria and New Zealand. Never has a heart been so full or a conscience so sharp. I miss it, but Home is lovely and missed, too. Soon the plane will be calling again, and the suitcase will be bursting at the seams. Now? Now is for Here. And that means reminiscing the sweetness of the long gone with the pictures you see below, starting with Germany and ending with Queenstown. It’s a story starting with rustic pre-Christmas German charm, bellies warm with mulled wine and lips sweetened with lebkuchen (gosh I miss that so much already), then sun and adrenalin shaking up the frame in a town of all-smiles.

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~

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In short, a whirlwind of a year. From travelling a lot more to publishing my first book, to more moments of simultaneous despondence and ecstasy, to meeting someone special, doubting and then hoping, and then ultimately trusting. I have my doubts, like those concerning the western world and North Korea and the circulation of science and technology in the hands of people most can’t will themselves to trust. But perhaps the silver lining is trust. A lot of hope is stabilised with just that– trust in oneself, in those who love you, in love itself.

11.49pm. 11 minutes to 2017, here in Singapore at least, and I sit here reminiscing bits and bobs and splatters of time, grateful for what has gone and what has to come. What exactly remains unsaid, and that’s the way it will always be. The most important thing is to be wild, be the best of yourself. As of now there is no standard list of resolutions, no I Will Be Fitter or even a I Will Be Better or I Will Stop Judging and Being a Bad Sister. Which sounds ridiculous, like I’m some downgraded version of yesteryears, the worst of all the possible Alex’s. But I see the new year as a chance to hone previously set goals, and to love what I love with even more fervour and passion. I want to continue the upkeep of this blog, to weave stories of food and knowledge and life and love and science. To understand, then create. To explore and wander.

The last morning in New Zealand came and I decided to make something simple but festive. A tribute to both Christmas and New Year’s, with a gold sparkle and kick.

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The top is crispy, the middle mottled with brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon and plenty of desiccated coconut. A bite takes you to a good middle state of longing and bliss– post-Christmas, Pre-NYE. This is perfect with coffee (or champagne, hey), a dollop of yoghurt of coconut cream, and more grated coconut on top.

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Coconut Molasses Cake

Ingredients

260g all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda (alternatively, use self-raising flour and leave out the leavening agents)

pinch salt

160g sugar– 125g white and 35g soft brown sugar (subs: coconut/maple sugar)

1 tsp each of ginger and cinnamon (optional)

130g butter (sub: vegan butter/ Earth balance/ coconut oil)

120ml blackstrap molasses

120ml milk of choice (normal/plant-based)

100g (1 cup) desiccated coconut

2 eggs (sub: flax eggs– make one by mixing 1 tbsp flax with 2 tbsp water and letting sit for at least 5 minutes)

 

Directions

In a microwave, heat together the water and butter until both are melted. Preheat your oven to 200C (400F) and grease a 9×9 or 7×13-inch baking pan. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Add the butter-water mix, then mix in the rest of the ingredients on the list. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-28 minutes, then take out and leave to cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

Serve with coconut cream or yoghurt, grated dark chocolate and more desiccated coconut.

 

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Kaya Avocado Nut Butter Cakes

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A homemade gift goes far. In Tuesday’s case, it was my Grandma’s homemade kaya, or coconut jam, lugged all the way from Singapore when my mum came to visit just a few weeks earlier. It was the exact same recipe for the green batch of love I played around with for my kaya maple loaf cake, the recipe for which you can find on Amazon as I speak!! Whew, rush rush rush. Anyways, a throwback was in demand as I held the tubs of curdled emerald goodness. Once again, an odd combination formed the scaffold of more funny kitchen business.

I occasionally find myself refusing to go against instinct for the fast and funny. As a student, the will to carve out day-long space is for something in total artistic favour is admittedly a little impractical with coursework and intense lecture review. There is indeed worth in all that labour, and I look forward to when I can do so without a penny of guilt eating away at the back of my head. It is true creative catharsis.

So you whisk together the dry and wet, fill half your cake molds with the final batter, add a teaspoon of nut butter of choice, then continue filling, then bake. The combination of kaya and avocado was approved by my skeptical flatmate. The best bit, I personally think, is the crusty sugar outside of the whole cake. Mmmmm. Kaya is sweet and, depending on the way you make it or the brand you buy, very coconutty, as green as the pandan leaves used to flavour the homely concoction of coconut milk, eggs and sugar. Avocado pretty much substituted most of the butter in this case, so the final texture of the cake was incredibly tender but not reminiscent of your typical cupcake, which might leave a buttery crumb. Pressing this will leave your fingers dry (and beautifully scented), yet the mouthfeel is airy and moist.

As I’ve touched on before, I do enjoy eating and making vegan meals and desserts, especially after all those silencing documentaries and Youtube lectures I’ve watched on the veggie movement. Though I am not full vegan for personal and family reasons, I will now officially include vegan or at gluten-free versions for all my recipes. I only want this blog to cater to all types of dietary needs, so if any of you feel like something is amiss, please feel free to email or DM me.

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Kaya Avocado Nut Butter Cakes (makes 6-7 cakes)

Ingredients

*= vegan substitute

190g plain flour (*same weight of gluten-free flour)

a generous pinch of salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1  1/2 tsp baking soda

300g kaya (*recipe for vegan kaya below, using 1 sweet potato, 1 tsp pandan extract, 80ml coconut milk and 3 tbsp coconut or maple sugar)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg (*1 mashed banana)

120g white caster sugar (*same weight of coconut sugar)

1 mashed avocado

3 tbsp olive oil

optional: nut butter of choice

 

Directions

*to make vegan kaya: Roast one large sweet potato (about 200g) at 200C for half an hour or until soft and mashable. Using a fork or blender (you pick the easy way out, ha ha), mix with the rest of the stated ingredients. And there you have vegan kaya! You should be able to use all the kaya you make, but weigh out 300g to be sure.

Firstly, preheat your oven to 180C and grease a 8 of your muffin tins. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda and sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients excluding the nut butter and mix well. You should have a thick, green batter of easy dropping consistency. If it’s too thick, add a drop of milk/nut milk until you get the desired consistency.

Fill your cake molds halfway up, then add a teaspoon of  nut butter to the centre, then continue to fill with the batter until the mold is 3/4 full. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Serve with more nut butter, yoghurt, honey and frozen berries (trust me on this one).

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Baked Sweet Potato Doughnuts (vegan) + Book Launch

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It has happened!!

It would be very hard to condense a bunch of profound emotions and thought trails into a single blogpost, and it doesn’t exactly help that even I haven’t properly digested the fact that something I wrote has been published and is available online for the whole world to see and buy. Yeah. CRUMBS, the book I’ve spent a substantial chunk of summer intensely working on, is now available on Amazon and Barnes &Noble! This is madness. This is redunkulous. You know it’s big when I use exclamation marks in blogposts, ha.

From my heart to your heart, from my kitchen to your table, from my oven to your oven. This is madness. There are over 40 pages of recipes, with multiple variations and detailed descriptions. Most have been modified from various sources, trimmed and personalised over more than 2 years of playing around with iPhone in hand, flour on my face, hopping about like a lunatic from oven to study desk just to check to check on a loaf of banana bread. All kept me going. Putting the book together has elucidated the nurturing, enlightening nature of solo fun in the kitchen, and I give a more personal account of my intentions and motivation regarding the writing process and recipe themes in the book itself. I am so grateful; none of this could ever have happened without a few key people who pushed me to do so regardless of what I thought. No, I always said. But the will emerged on top, and Crumbs was born. Watch out for a few more posts highlighting some book features and sneak-peeks. I mean, this blog itself is already a huge sneak peek, but there are some recipes in there that have been heavily revised and boosted for the book, for all of you.

A little present today, that’s by no means in Crumbs, but one so easy it deserves a place in the archives and not hurriedly scribbled in my notebook, inevitably forgotten and totally left behind.

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Vegan sweet potato doughnuts. I laugh at the thought of me a few years ago, cursing the word ‘vegan’ and anything to do with that category, always of the opinion that ‘such’ self-imposed, rigid health standards did no one good, oblivious to the ethical and moral reasons behind the movement. After watching too many a documentary and educating myself only years later, I now admire the tenacity in word-spreading and lifestyle change, not talk alone. There is indeed justified meaning behind all this buckwheat, sweet potato, corn and quinoa. Not only is all of it delicious, it’s also good for us, the planet and, heck, the future. There will always be so much controversy in this field, but that’s human nature for you, and where’s the harm in contributing that little bit for generations to come?

Alright, the condensed milk icing on top obviously isn’t vegan, though you can always leave that little bit, and mix some nut milk and icing sugar together for a similar effect. As always, super easy to put together– literally a matter of plopping wet with dry, mix mix mix, spoon into doughnut pan (something I think you all should invest in if you haven’t already, for the luxury of quick doughnuts without the guilt of pouring litres of oil into a huge vat just to fry some for a few guests, though of course that’s also perfectly acceptable and I should indeed get round to listening to my own advice once in a while.)

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Definitely not your typical cakey baked doughnut, but just as delicious, especially if you’re into the whole chewy-gooey groove. Chewy-edged, tender and sweet in the middle. Imagine biting into a chewy date bar, but this time you get the characteristic sweet potato flavour, caramelised and starchy. Yessss.

Vegan Sweet Potato Doughnuts (with a not-so-vegan glaze if you wish)

Ingredients

1 medium sweet potato  (a Japanese yam works well too, you will simply get a different colour result)

125g flour (I used a mix of plain and gluten-free, though you could use either or)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

50g coconut sugar (or use plain white/brown)

100ml coconut, nut (almond, cashew) or rice milk

2 tbsp coconut oil

 

Directions

Preheat your oven to 200C and roast your sweet potato until tender, around half an hour. Leave the oven on but turn the temperature down to 177C after the sweet potato is done. Place the sweet potato in a bowl and mash it with the milk, salt and coconut oil. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar. Tip the wet mix into the dry and mix until you get a fairly thick but moist consistency, Add drops of milk until you get to this stage if your mixture is too dry.

Bake for 12 minutes. There will be no obvious browning because there’s no typical Maillard reaction going on– the milk and sugars used in this vegan recipe don’t produce the same effect, and the colour of the sweet potato is rather overpowering. Leave to cool for two minutes before icing; as said before you can use a mix of nut milk and icing sugar before topping with flaked almonds (I like the texture variation with that shy crunch), or make like me and dip in condensed milk before the nut splatter.

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Condensed milk Tahini Flapjacks

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The past weekend was one of the best that could’ve possibly been. The late Saturday afternoon welcomed a trip to Borough Market, undoubtedly one of my favourite places in one of my favourite cities. It’s here that I came across ‘flaxjacks’ by Flax Farm, a specialty flapjack store that uses cold-pressed linseed (flax) and linseed oil to add more bang for your buck. As I savoured their bestseller (apricot, orange and pumpkin seed), I realised not once have I tried making this classic, stereotypically English treat. With a new stock of ingredients haphazardly put together, the task had to be completed.

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Just a week into school has gifted the worth of baking once more; each bout of newness allowing ingress of a more meditative mode. All very complementary. Though I’m not used to making or eating flapjacks, I adore its solemn simplicity, both in character and assembly. It’s all just a matter of mixing together the traditional group of ingredients: rolled oats, golden syrup, butter and brown sugar. I changed the ingredients and proportion of this make-up, replacing most of the glucose bits with condensed milk, tahini, and, yes, golden syrup for good measure. Jam is then blobbed on top, which melts a little into the jacks and prove a firm, jammy consistency after baking.

Gooey tops slathered in the familiar milky sweetness of condensed milk, hard, well-cooked bottoms. I like the crunch of an edge and a little bit of snap when it comes to anything oat bar-y, and this recipe really did the trick with that. If you’re into less hard bars, simply bake them for a little while less.

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Condensed milk Tahini Flapjacks (makes 16 rectangular bars)

Ingredients

200g butter

pinch of salt

90g condensed milk

20g golden syrup

5 tbsp brown sugar

200g porridge/rolled oats

120g cereal of choice (I used cornflakes, crushed briefly before addition)

4 tbsp tahini

7-9 tbsp raspberry jam

 

Directions

Preheat your oven to 180c and briefly butter a 8×8 or 9×9-inch pan. Line your pan with some parchment, if you wish. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the salt, sugar, condensed milk and stir over the heat for a couple of minutes. Take the pan off the heat and mix in the oats, cereal and tahini with a wooden spoon. Press this mix into your pan to form an even layer. Dollop the jam however which way you want on your flapjacks; I did it in a 3×3 fashion. Bake the bars in your preheated oven for 35 minutes. Check them at the half-hour mark– if they are golden-brown on top, take them out. The bars may be soft to touch, but will harden as you let them cool on the counter. After letting them cool for 10 minutes, drizzle with more condensed milk and tahini, add some sliced almonds (optional, I added them for textural variety), and cut into bars. These are best eaten the same day, but can be stored at room temperature or the fridge for up to a week.

 

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Physiognomy

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= the art of judging someone’s character by examining his/her facial features.

Do not lie. You have done so before. And even if you’re a God sent cherry-faced cherub living on Earth to witness and record all human sin to report back to heaven in preparation for the throwing of us all in a deep dark pit once we die, you know that such judgement is both ubiquitous and unforgiving.

Careless example right here. Look at the man above. I caught sight of him in a café the other day and took a sneaky picture, pretending to be fiddling with my cold brew and adjusting the aperture for the damn window lights, before I finally let loose my inner Warhol and started sketching his beard. Clearly, my life requires odd fulfillment. Because the thing is, if I didn’t draw him, I would have felt inclined to steal something from him, just to obtain some physical souvenir from this fascinating creature.Unshaven, almost bohemian, dare I say Australian. Rugged, pale lobster. Isn’t it amazing how these are my judgements and my judgements only? I don’t even know the guy and here I am thinking he earns a living painting portraits and riding horses. The Love Traveller with a Macbook.

Another one. Angelina Jolie is known as the most beautiful woman in the world. The chiselled rectangle of a face, pearl-like complexion, as if her face were set in stone centuries ago and emerged only now to separate true beauty from mediocrity. Sleek feline, killer jaw, ravishing plump mouth. Not that I disagree with the fact that she is considered such; I’m much more interested in the meticulous and fascinating science which established all this. What scientists call the ‘golden ratio’. Phrenology. Physiognomy. I read in an article today that we typically unconsciously fall victim to our surroundings, mentally suggesting preconceived notions on what lies beneath the human face. What a terrible world, you must be thinking. It’s so obviously wrong, allowing our egos to thrive or be bust with each turn of the head, with each examination. But everyone does it, and everyone does it without a conscience.

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The human face is fascinating because everyone has a life and everyone has a story, yet we allow ourselves to make such rapid judgements, usually without even taking into account how others may perceive our own selves. Wouldn’t you love to walk up to a clone of yourself and get some conversation flowing? To see what it’s like outside of your precious set of organs, outside of the two holes on your face.

To really see you for the first time.

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