Tag: travel

Coffee Meringue Pillow Pancakes

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In other words, a twist on the main star of CRUMBS, hoho. Time and time again, at least once every week or every other week, this is the baby that holds its name straight, waving the ‘pillow’ flag high. So high and bright. Receiving a little social media tag from someone who’s tried and loved the recipe I fiddled till perfection almost 2 years ago still tugs at my heart, pulling its strings and sending me into a fuzzy daze for a full 5 seconds. Saturday usually demands an experimental flair, but the past one was in need of a tried and true favourite, albeit with a little twist and flick.

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There’s something so seductive about a mile-high pillow pancake.

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Had some leftover meringue from my previous recipe (do check it out, just scroll a little) and decided none shall go to waste, and permeated my reliable pillow pancakes with that, and some espresso because I was in dire need of coffee and this was another excuse to get another jolt here.

Although the batter resides with the same format as the original, ratios and all, the addition of meringue gently folded in and the dash of coffee makes each pancake belly a little more moist and slightly chewy. I did end up with a slightly more liquid batter, though the retaining of some lumps is still quite crucial for the same extra-high result. The week has been speckled with more dire Trump news and lambasting and Crazy, so settling down to my pan and butter, batter at hand, was all it took to calm a couple rattled nerves.

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Coffee Meringue Pillow Pancakes (makes around 10-11 medium pancakes)

Ingredients (vegan subs included)

190g all-purpose flour

3 tbsp white sugar

generous pinch of salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg (sub: 60g vegan egg replacement, or one banana, or make a flax egg by mixing 1 tbsp flax with 2 tbsp water and letting sit for 5 minutes on the counter)

40g unsalted butter (sub: vegan butter such as Earth Balance)

1 tsp vanilla extract

240ml (1 cup) whole milk/ buttermilk; use store-bought or make your own by mixing 230ml whole milk with 1 tbsp white vinegar, and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes before using (sub: almond milk or any other plant milk of choice)

1 tbsp coffee extract or shot of espresso

50g meringue, briefly crushed with a spoon or your hands (find the recipe here near the bottom; you won’t need all of it but hey the more the merrier)

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, crushed meringue and leavening agents). In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter in a microwave and set it aside, letting it cool. In another medium bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, vanilla (or insides of a vanilla bean), coffee extract/espresso shot and melted butter. Pour the wet mix into the dry mix and mix briefly with a wooden spoon or a normal dinner spoon. Continue to mix until everything is just combined, which means there will still be a few lumps, but no more streaks of flour.

Preheat your pan on medium heat and ready some butter. You know the pan is hot enough when you flick a little water onto its surface and there’s a clear sizzle. At that point, generously butter the pan and ladle tablespoonfuls of batter. I didn’t have to wait for bubbles to pop before flipping; the batter is thicker than usual and there’s no need to wait. Flip the pancakes when you notice the edges stiffening a little, or when you can slide your spatula whole underneath the bottom of the pancake. It will rise a little upon flipping, as if that action gives it life, and hence, breath. The surface should have a brown mosaic thanks to the hot butter. Once the second side is done (will take no more than 20 seconds), let cool on a paper towel. As mentioned above, these freeze wonderfully, so you can make a whole batch, have a small stack and stash the rest in a ziploc bag in the freezer.

Serve with butter and maple syrup, or whatever you want. I particularly like them with banana, its moist sweetness adjoining arms with the maple. What a Sunday.

 

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Chinese Walnut Cookies on Meringue Nests

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The early morning light is my bolthole before the day’s heartbeat ramps up. Right now I hold a small morsel of chocolate shortcake from my school library’s café, ashamed it’s not exactly what’s featured in today’s post, but its texture is reminiscent of just that.

Chinese New Year is still in the works, but its official advent last week was all the prick I needed to get myself busy in the kitchen, playing and toying with random festive ideas to half fool myself into thinking, as the only Chinese in the house, that pineapple tarts, oranges, ang baos (red money-filled packets) and all sorts of goodies were right there with me, emanating a pink blossom-hued energy, a light.

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These walnut cookies are little gems. Based off your traditional Chinese walnut cookies, which are very literally melt-in-your-mouth, the dough bursting with fresh chopped walnuts, brushed with an egg glaze and topped with raw walnut halves.

Their characteristic crumbly, buttery state got me thinking: this could pair more than well with a slightly unforeseen texture. My penchant for anything chew and goo may not be known far and wide but that’s precisely what I thought would tie it all together, and the answer, I knew, lay in the all-exclusive meringue. It did take a few tries before the right meringue consistency was achieved– too hard a meringue nest would fail to complement the more robust nature of the cookie, and the whole thing would corrode and disintegrate easily.

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This was a perfect surprise, for myself and a few family members. You bite into what’s almost like a paradox of taste. the buttery, femininity cookies are maturely ground, hard-bred, by the earthy and almost indelicate walnuts. Teeth sink a little further and are welcomed by the soft crackle of just-hardened meringue nest, still filled with white chewy goo in their hollows. Perfect by themselves, or with teeth-cleaning mandarins.

Chinese Walnut Cookies on Meringue Nests (makes 6 cookies, scale up as needed)

Ingredients

For the cookies:

125g plain flour

1/4 tsp each of baking powder and baking soda

pinch salt

40g butter, unsalted and at room temperature (sub: vegan butter)

40g sugar

1/2 a beaten egg, about 30g (sub: half a flax egg made by mixing 1 tbsp flax with 2 tbsp water, of which you can save half for later in the process, or 30g vegan egg replacement)

30g finely chopped walnuts (do this yourself or buy ready-made chopped walnuts)

6 walnut halves

 

For the meringue:

100g white caster sugar

2 egg whites (sub: vegan egg whites, and I have heard you can use chickpea water for this!)

 

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F). In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and both baking powder and baking soda. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. I just used a spoon for this; it’s easy when your butter is at room temperature. Tip this into the flour mix, alongside the chopped walnuts and half the beaten egg. The mix should be very dry and only just come together when you mix this by hand. I suggest using your hands here as it’s easy and you can feel when the dough just comes together.

Prep cookies on pan– grease a baking tray and take 42-43.3g of dough for each cookie. Roll each bit of dough into a ball, place on the tray, then press a fresh walnut half onto the top. You should get 6 cookies from this batch. Brush the cookies with the remaining egg, then bake in your preheated oven for 20 minutes. Once the cookies are done, leave to cool on the counter and turn the temperature down to 100C (212F).

Make the meringue. In a clean bowl and with a clean electrical hand whisk, beat the egg whites until they go frothy. Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until you get a glossy, opaque white meringue. Spoon tablespoons of this onto a silicone or non-stick baking tray and flatten slightly so you get 6 discs out of the volumes stated above. Bake the discs for 1.5 hours (90 minutes), and check that they haven’t burnt or anything, for sometimes ovens really do stupid things, at the 1-hour mark. The surface should be a pale pink-brown colour, cracking into one should have little effort and the middle should still be white and gooey.

Press each cookie into the tops of the meringues. These are best eaten immediately for optimum enjoyment of the texture interplay, though they can be stored for a few days in an airtight container.

 

 

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Baker and Cook

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Right. So. Baker and Cook. You know that feeling you get when you finally get to try some place that’s parading its raved goods everywhere on social media? Yeah, I got that feeling. Even when I stepped into the original, tiny (that beats the word minuscule, mind you) location at 77 Hillcrest Road, really near the pizza place I used to drag my parents along to as a kid. The place reeked of my childhood food memories. You walk in and there’s literally one big table, just one, aside from the two stools next to the window and a small outdoor table for two. That’s it? I thought. I have really got to learn how not to have such high expectations of everything. I was underestimating the untold grandeur of bread-crazed homies.

The place is named an artisan bakery, and I’ve tried a range of their goods, from their lamingtons to their famed carrot cake. Almost everything except the infamous, devilish, apparently ‘The Best’ lemon tart in town. Well of course i had to get it, for their wasn’t any other choice. Correction: I made my mother pay, since she surprised me with this morning trip anyway. Family benefits. I won’t complain. Oh right, I should also mention that it’s $4.95.

Verdict? Ok so, I cut it in half first, before forking a sliver and easing it a nice bit of curd and crust ever so delicately into my tentative mouth. I let the lemon coat the front half of my tongue, relished the sweetness, the tart stickiness, before coming to the realisation: It’s a tad too sweet. The crust too, I confirmed, as I continued the forking action. Not that I didn’t enjoy it. In fact, I could even say I thoroughly enjoyed it. But this, my friend, is not the best. Add one more lemon in whatever curd batter you’re churning, mate. And the crust could be on the lighter side of sweet, just to enhance the tingling tartness of a traditional lemon tart.

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Iced cappuccino– $4.50+$0.50

French toast (New!- Yes, that’s how they said it, with the exclamation mark)–$16.00

Oh my goodness, this french toast. Penchants run deep, so despite spotting words like ‘pancakes’ and ‘eggs benedict’ and ‘quiche’, all I could see was the golden arched halo above the ‘french toast’, and its winning description. Yes, it’s 16 bucks for some stranger, from me to him, oh happy guy, but this was anything but 16 bucks down the drain. Homemade brioche, dipped in lightly spiced egg custard, served with fresh fruit, maple syrup, lemon curd and mascarpone, and oh, for the heck of it, let’s sprinkle on tablespoons of icing sugar and toasted almonds. Now do you see why it’s 16. To further my point, the plate was around 10 inches wide. No food joke. It was an egg monster waiting to be gobbled up by another egg monster, if you know what I mean. The brioche was nicely thick and browned, holey enough to soak up all that spiced custard (mm, cinnamon and ginger), with the sides calling out to me with leftover, curly bits of egg batter, which you could tell was eggy enough due to it’s almost-fried-egg consistency. And I liked that. That rustic factor. Who cares if there’s a bit of twisted, dried egg batter at the sides? If anything, it was rather inconspicuous. The taste made up for every possible flaw that might have been there and gone unnoticed.

And you know, they’re actually geniuses for adding the lemon curd and mascarpone. Absolute geniuses. I hope you can observe my enthusiasm for lemon and how perfectly it went with the thick and wonderful toast in the picture right above. I’ve made my own lemon curd before, and I must say this one was up a notch on the thick and gluggy scale. Colour beckoned, taste was banal after a while. That was the thing with all the lemon dishes there. Just that bit too sweet. The syrup was also a little more like honey, and more fruit wouldn’t hurt. The mascarpone was a nice touch but looked shallow in comparison to the better lemon-and-french pairing. God, I love lemons. I love french toast even more, and I say that proudly when I look at that picture- moist, airy, fluffy french brioche smushed together with curd.

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Eggs Benedict– $19.00 (two poached eggs on toasted pain miche with hollandaise and hint of balsamic glaze and chilli oil, with salmon)

The balsamic glaze and chilli oil thing they had going on intrigued me. I watched my mother attach the crusty, heady plate of lavishly decorated eggy goodness with her knife and fork, mixing everything together into a hurricane of hollandaise and salmon madness. You see the crust? That was a babe, a real sight to behold. The crack was enticing, the melding together of more savoury flavours pleading. A bite was all I asked, and that was all I got. Felt the tang of the hollandaise and robust crunch of pain miche coat the salmon, that fishy flavour you first detect on your palate, with buttery breadcrumbs, cut in half like a fierce interjector by the softly sweet balsamic, even though amounts-wise it was rather paltry. The balsamic I mean, not anything else, Oh no, definitely not anything else. I wouldn’t have been able to polish off more than I slice of this rustic rye for the life of me (but that’s just me and my putrid stomach acting up again).

Fabulous.

This artisan bakery also sells homemade packaged products, loaves (I should die to try their fig and aniseed sourdough and wholemeal farmhouse toast), cakes and sweet buns. Tucked away in Hilcrest meant the most unusual peaceful and green morning for the mother and I. Thanks for paying, mother, let’s go back again so I can try their tartines?

Rating: 3.9/5.0

Baker and Cook

77 Hillcrest Road

64698834

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Antico Caffè Greco + update

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No better way to start the year than to talk about coffee, right?

But before that, a teensy update. I just started school, well technically it starts tomorrow, but the first day of Welcome Week is officially over. It is basically the week in which we ‘welcome’ the new cohort of Grade 11s with a whole slew of games and events used to promote some nice social interaction and hopefully break the ice between the new and old students. It is my final year and I’m filled with a new energy despite this constant lethargy, seeing the myriad of new faces, my teachers, friends. I actually love my school a heck of a lot, even though I’m always complaining about the volcano it really is, every so often spewing out some internal assessment or test alarm. Alex! Do this and that! Stop downloading episode 2 of the new Sherlock!! I mean really, who would listen to myself. It’s hard. My school is to me a benevolent being, there with me since the very beginning, entrusting me with all sorts of responsibilities, all sorts of experiences, cradling me. To just be part of it is rather extraordinary, as I note the accumulation of happenings and emotional roller coasters over a grand period of 5 years now, and counting. Bulging like a tumour, almost overflowing. Yes, quite extraordinary. I only pray I survive this year, all procrastination jokes aside (dear lord I’m the worst).

Now. Greco. It’s no ordinary café which you may find on the sidewalks of Paris or London (Well we were in Italy, but just go with this imagery). It’s a historic landmark, the caffeinated pride of the whole country. Opened in 176o -bloody hell, it’s two and a half centuries old-, this café was named after its original Greek owner. Before we came here I did a heck of a lot of research on all the best places to have a cup of goodness, be it joe or espresso, in Rome. This was on the top of the list countless times, and apparently historic figures such as Goethe, Lord Byron, Mark Twain and Hans Christian Anderson (childhood love!) hung out here in the 18th and 19th centuries to think and rest. You can imagine, a bunch of old and maybe bearded characters discussing their next literary adventures whilst sipping ever so politely from an embellished teacup, eyes withered, brains bright. An ornate, rustic enclave for artists, poets, thinkers. Yes, I thought, perhaps some of their creative wisdom and literary grandeur could rub off on me. I wish. I always wish.

The mere sight of it made my heart stumble. Trip up, guffaw. My nerves tingled. I needed coffee and dammit, I wanted to drink at the same place Goethe drank! Walking in, I felt a tinge of shame choke my stance. I wasn’t dressed in pearls and lace, the sort of get up appropriate for this gold-embellished half-hall, lined with red velvet chairs and penguin-tailed waiters, noses up, fingers fast. Oh, so fast. We caught a table at the side, quickly sat down, scrolled through the equally lush menu. Browns and burgundies. My favourite tones. What next? Oh yes. The coffee.

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Iced Cappuccino- 8 darn euros

Café Espresso- 6 euros

That translates to more than 10 bucks for a cup of coffee. If you can imagine the most posh café decked out in the Queen’s jewels, this would be it. But come on, the price? No, it’s not worth it. Not at all. So we sat down like normal people would, but that in itself turned out to be a major, major mistake. You actually pay just half the price for a cup if you stand up at the bar, if we were the stand-by-the-bar sort, but what’s more we’re a big family, and we would’ve been quite the crowd. Looking around, all the tourists were jostling about standing up anyway, and who would want to be in the middle of that scene?

Let me tell you more, because frankly I’d be glad to. Cue sarcasm. So sat down, ordered, after flailing our arms about trying to catch a posh waiter’s attention; I feel as if thin curly moustaches would’ve done quite the trick on every single one of them (yes, even the females). I saw the price of a noisette and felt a sharp twang of pain. I couldn’t let my parents pay for that, certainly not! I felt inclined to order an espresso, and yet my thirst for something cool- a kick in the arse on that almost balmy afternoon, was ebbing. I needed it. So iced cappuccino it was.

And iced cappuccino I did not get. I didn’t know if it was tradition or anything, but my first sip was almost painful. Painfully sweet, that is. Yes! Sweet! The syrup drained my tongue receptors of any sense and sensibility, clogging every nerve, everything was just dizzlingly sweet. Cold and refreshing I got, pure roast I did not. I finished it, rather uncomfortably, and lay back, my stomach turning slightly. Took a sip of my father’s cappuccino. It was good, but not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be. Take me to Oriole’s anytime, baby. I’ll pass on this place. Perhaps I was simply missing out on their famous espresso, and I do hope that’s the case.

Now for that limited edition raspberry and dark chocolate nespresso treat…

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VeganBurg

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Ha. Vegan, you say? Not so fast. Get up from the floor laughing. I know most of you would scramble at the thought of soy-and-tomato or mushroom-based patties. Maybe throw in a lettuce or two. Give it a little flair with a dollop of organic (shock horror) mayo. Oh! And organic cola to go with that. Or organic limeade and Pimm’s. If all else fails, we have some broccoli roulade and orange reduction to throw on a piece of (organic) bread. Bit of mayo won’t hurt. Who are we kidding right.

I have been meaning to (yes, I was actually looking forward to making this purposeful trip) try this place out ever since it opened. Boxing Day, free day, day with family. A super late lunch it was. It was more than half empty when we got there, Paul McCartney posing in front of the doors with his ‘favourite meat-free fast food joint’. That was enough to get my meat-hungry DAD feel a touch more enthusiastic. I could feel his sighs and bemoaning make the air heavier. Once again, not so fast dad. Just… I believe in the power of vegan. I believe. McCartney believes. So you must believe too.

Sat down, but got up again just to look at the menu. The words ‘cracked pepper’ and ‘hawaiian teriyaki’ shone their little delicate vegan beams onto my glazed eyes. I was hungry just looking at the pouches of sauce oozing from the fat sides. Came across the phrase ‘smoky BBQ’ at the bottom and I was good to go. And then. The God-awful service. There was only one teenage waiter with black stud earrings, orange hair and a I-don’t-give-a-f sort of attitude looking at us placidly since the beginning. Frustration mounted before I even settled on my order. Almost peaked, but I kept a steady calm. Doubts rose.

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Above: Smoky BBQ, $7.90 on its own or $11.80 as a set. I got the set, along with their ‘citrus cooler’ and seaweed fries. Military-style, in a mess tin (which by the way, you have to empty out yourself when you’re done with the grub)

Which apparently contains beta-carotene. I’m up a level in the Vitamin A department, guys! More molecules with beta rings. Hallelujah. Their buns, jokes aside, are made from ‘organic wholemeal grains, unrefined raw sugar, distilled water and sea salt’. Now, imagine if they didn’t add the word distilled. All hell might break loose. I like how they put the words ‘unrefined’ and ‘raw’ in the same sentence. Talk about redundancy. But they hit the spot, this burger. The bun was soft, pliable and fluffy. More so than a Mickey Dees’, I would say. Yes, even so. I’m pathetic because I forgot to take a shot to show the sides; excuse me because I was too busy enjoying it, too busy to lift my greasy fingers off the damn thing, wipe them, pick up my camera, find the right angle, aperture, shutter speed and focus, and take a good shot. I could have, but I didn’t. Right now I’m trying to deal with myself on this one. Please.

The thing about burgers is that… it’s only subjective to an extent. You cannot deny a good one. Compared to last time’s experience at &Made, these were brilliant. I tried my sister’s ‘hawaiian teriyaki’ ($10.80 as a set) and my parents’ ‘creamy shrooms’ ($11.80, set), and both were flavourful in their own individual ways. Having originally contemplated the hawaiian teriyaki, I was still satisfied with my BBQ choice, with sufficiently sweet and slightly spicy BBQ sauce leaving a generous coat between lettuce, and yes, there were onions. My annoyance lay in the fact that there weren’t caramelised. But that’s only because I’m picky and a bother when it comes to onions. I don’t mind raw, but boy, if they were caramelised… Munched through alfafa sprouts (say it five times), tomatoes and lettuce. All organic of course. All the burgers are actually identical, little groups of twins and triplets, if it were not for the sauces hiding underneath those tender buns, or the slight textural differences in patties or degree of vegetable doneness.

Yes. Mushroom and soy-based patties. Hyphae growing on my tongue. No, just kidding. These tender, rather thin patties boasted more flavour than I expected. Probably because they were more textured and slightly sweeter than what you would find in an average red meat burger. Didn’t provide the same gutsy bite, but nevertheless, I can’t fault the flavour. The shroom and teriyaki burgers beat mine hands down, but hey, it was a first. My sister got the hotdog, which, considering the whole meatless factor, tasted pretty impressive. Meatless, but tastes almost of chicken. Alright, more like 51.54%. And I say this for all the patties. Pale, slightly chewy little discs. As for the citrus cooler, it offered a refreshing break between bites, though was a little diluted for my liking. These guys should offer a carbonated option. Oh, the service.

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I might be back.

Only if that waiter throws away his apron.

Rating: 4.4/5

VeganBurg

200 Turf Club Road #01-32
Singapore 287994

Phone: 6462 1281

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