Suzy’s cake and the chocolate tart.

I owe some reicpes on this site. So here goes.. No new pictures though, unless you want some photo of squashed chocolate cake in a tupperware. The thought of cutting a slice, putting it on a plate, dusting some icing sugar on top and drizzling some vanilla sauce over while waiting for the light to be just right, taking out my camera and taking a couple of shots then uploading it onto my camera is just too much work! I only have a couple of minutes before Hana wakes. Life on happygrub will take time to get back to normal.

 

For the first recipe I owe butterflyrubrics:

Its that chocolate tart.

For the base I used this recipe but substituted ground hazelnut for ground almond as that was what I had in my pantry. This tart was inspired by the crispy chocolate tart I had at the chocolate factory. Its a layer of shortcrust pastry, topped with a layer of crispy hazelnut milk chocolate or praliné feuilleté, I used a Pierre Hermes recipe (see below)  and then topped with a dark chocolate glaze. The recipe below will yield two 24 cm tarts.

For the praliné feuilleté
200g Nutella or gianduja
50g milk chocolate, melted
80g feuilletine (substitute with crèpes gavottes or rice crispies)
15g butter, melted

In a bowl mix the Nutella, melted milk chocolate, feuilettine and melted butter.

For the dark chocolate glaze

200g Valrhona Guanaja,melted

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Combine in chocolate and butter in a bowl.

 

To assemble

One portion of the shortbread would yield two 24 cm tart shells. Proceed with rolling out of the pastry or pressing dough into 2 tart pans with false bottoms. Prick base all over with a fork, Bake at 180C for 25-30 mins till golden and sounds hollow when tapped. Leave to cool.

Spread a layer of the praline feuilette at the base of each tart. Leave to chill in the fridge till firm, at least an hour. Top with chocolate glaze and leave to set for another hour. Before serving, leave tart out to thaw for at least ten minutes.

 

 

 

For Suzy’s cake (a recipe from Pierre Hermes Chocolate Desserts) an almost flourless chocolate torte, here’s the recipe. You can check photos here on Patricia’s blog. I baked this for Elia, Hanna (not the baby) and Fatin (Elia’s 8 yr old sister, I got the age right this time!) who visited me yesterday. Thanks for the gift! Elia and Hanna were in secondary school with me and were a year my junior. My mom thought it was unusual that we would meet up after years of not seeing each other, I explained we got close thru reading each other’s blogs! At least Elia and I, Hanna has a SECRET blog which I’ve never read..

Suzy’s cake

250g Valrhona Guanuja
250g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
70g all-purpose flour

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Butter a 24cm (9in) round cake pan that is at least 5cm (2in) high, line the bottom with parchment paper, butter the paper, and dust the inside of the pan with flour; tap out the excess and set the pan aside.

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over – not touching – simmering water and heat until the chocolate is melted; or melt the chocolate in a microwave oven. Set the chocolate aside to cool; it should feel only just warm to the touch when you mix it with the rest of the ingredients.

Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat on medium speed for about 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl frequently, until the butter is creamy and the sugar well blended into it. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each addition. Reduce the mixer speed to low, pour in the cooled chocolate, and mix only until it disappears into the batter. Alternatively, you can fold in the last of the flour with a rubber spatula. You’ll have a thick, smooth, satiny batter that looks like old-fashioned chocolate frosting.

Scrape the batter into the pan, smooth the top, and slide the pan into the oven. Bake for 26 to 29 minutes or until the cake rises slightly and the top has lost its sheen. The top may crack a bit and the cake may not look entirely set in the center; when you test the cake by inserting a slender knife into the center, the knife will come out lightly streaked with batter, which is what you want. Transfer the cake to a rack to cool.

When the cake has cooled, chill it in the refrigerator for an hour or two to make it easy to unmould. Turn the cake out, remove the parchment, and invert the cake onto a serving platter so that it is right side up. Allow the cake to come to room temperature before slicing and serving.

Serves 6-8

Chocolate fix

I’ve been having terrible salty chocolate cravings. I need salt in my chocolate. I’ve been eating lots of these:

Bakerzin Sweet Pleasures: Layers of hazelnut praline dacquoise, Jivara milk chocolate ganache with fleur de sel, topped with chocolate mousse. There’s a super salty layer somewhere in there.

Beard Papa’s Chocolate Fondant: Valrhona chocolate molten chocolate cake on a biscuit base. And its salty!

And you know how much I love awfully chocolate’s ice cream

 

On a separate note, I think I’m addicted to Mt Sapola’s lemongrass range. Picked up a tube of lemongrass handcream and bought mom a whole hamper for her birthday.

backdated stuff

Giant beef pide my mom made and brought over for lunch. She’s the source of a lot of our meals lately as we’ve been busy, then sick, then tired in that order.

I promised Damien Pignolet’s recipe for roast chicken, but its really really long, so here’s an alternative tutorial

I didn’t have cooking twine and obviously not an expert at trussing chicken as can be told from the bird above. I dug into my craft box, I can’t remember the last time I did any craft, and pulled this out.

The mess in my tiny kitchen post roast chicken.

No roasting tray so I used a rack suspended above a baking tray. My oven was in a mess though with lots of splaterring and spluttering

Remember that Sherry Yard chocolate pudding cake?

This is how it looked like inside. Leave me a comment if you’re dying for the recipe and I’ll try to slowly type it out. Its 3 pages long! And I can’t seem to find it anywhere on the net.. The cake itself is nothing special, it was a little dry to me. The pudding filling was quite delicious and a nice change from the usual ganache or butercream frosting.

When life hands you Sunday rounds..

You make Sunday roast..

..recipe from your favourite cookbook..

..read between cool sheets with the air conditioning on (can anyone stand the mid year heat and humidity in Singapore now??)

..Tea was homemade Valrhona cookies after a long nap with a glass of very cold milk.

 

More to come with recipes..  And photos of the mess in my kitchen after cooking a meal. I’m exhausted from all the cleaning rather than cooking!

More from last weekend

This is what it means by bake till a crust forms

Deceptively neat squares that don’t really separate that well becuase though the edges were set, the middle was incredibly fudgey! Which are fine if you like fudgey brownies. I think the cause of the uneven making is that my oven can’t be set at 175C which is the set temperature. I baked these at 180C. Watch them well cos overbaking will give you a super dry brownie.

 Notice the different textures, the brownie in the second row and to the right was from the edge so it baked up almost cake like while the middle brownies were noticeably fudgier. Since the recipe is right over her in Laureen’s blog, I shall not retype it. The only changes I made to the recipe was halving the sugar and using all bittersweet chocolate. I used Phoon Huat’s dark couveture because I’ll can’t afford to bake with Valrhona yet. Its a little wasteful I think, I’m saving it for truffles! Hopefully this weekend.. My dad’s coming back from the Middle East soon so I can’t wait for the pistachios and walnuts and dates.

The last of daylight on my now dead orchids. They lasted a good 3 weeks, outliving their cut flower counterparts by a good 2 weeks!

I’ll give you this look too,

If you glugged my Thai chilli sauce out of the bottle causing an avalanche over my vegetable spring rolls (thanks Mama!) H made the exact same mistake. Now why does Thai chilli sauce come in such a wide necked bottle and refuse to come out with a gentle shake then decide to totally empty on a harder shake?

Seth was in a sleepy mood.

Black on Black Pierre Herme Truffles

 

I made a vow to myself to start baking from the books I currently have till I have mastered the recipes and techniques before buying another. There’s still that voice in me that’s screaming “I need another cookbook!!” But lucky for H, I surpress that monster. Though it still comes out once in a while especially when I feel the need of some cheering up. Cookbooks have it all, beautiful words that read like a novel, pretty photos, glossy pages, excellent design, hard covers, slippery jackets, big and heavy, and everything else I love in a book.

So anyway I am going to cook my way thru my cookbooks and what better way to begin than with the pastry master himself. I had some cream that was going to expire soon so these truffles were perfect. You need just 4 ingredients: chocolate, cream, butter and cocoa powder. I used Valrhona Equitoriale 55% which was S$9.50 for 300g at Sia Lik. I used only one container for the whole recipe so its quick and easy and not much cleaning is involved in making the ganache. The cocoa powder part is a little tricky though.

Black-on Black Truffles

Adapted from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Herme

260g bittersweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream (I used Bulla’s Pure Cream)

31/2 tablespoons butter

cocoa powder for dusting

How I did it:

Melt the chocolate in microwave on high for 40-60 seconds in a plastic container with a cover like an old plastic ice cream tub or tupperware, timing may vary according to your microwave. My chocolate was at room temperature and my microwave is quick so I had to watch it to make sure the chocolate didn’t burn. It took slightly under a minute. Add in the cream and stir to blend, then the butter a tablespoon at a time. Stir to melt. You may need another zap in the microwave if your cream was very cold to start with and the chocolate and cream mixture has become too cold to melt the butter. Leave the ganache to cool at room temperature for a couple of minutes. Cover the container with the lid and leave in the fridge to set(now u can make sense of the tupperware bit right, less washing up and the ganache is in an airtight container), about 3 hours or overnight if its convenient for you. Put your cocoa powder into a bowl and dust your hands with the powder. Scoop a tablespoon of the cold ganache onto your palm and roll to form a ball, this can get a little messy. Toss it back into the cocoa powder and gingerly toss it around to coat. Put straight onto serving plate or in a covered parchment lined airtight container and kept in the fridge for consumption later.The ganache itself is very yummy. But please let it set to let it live to its full potential as a fat round truffle.

Addition: I think the cream wasn’t such a good idea because of the high fat content (read:45% milk fat) the ganache ended up solidifying to quite a hard block,  akin butter. And I had one hell of a time rolling it into balls. In the end my truffles looked like chocolate rocks. Ugly chocolate rocks. I have to be brutally honest. I found it easier to roll when it rested a mere 2 hours in the fridge than when it rested overnight.

For help always turn to Martha. All photos courtesy of MarthaStewart, I gave away all the truffles before having the time to photograph them. And yes, they were VERY ugly.

 On a separate note, I have so many photos from the bolywood veggies outing, here’s a sneak:

Somehow snails move seem to move very fast when you’re trying to squat, adjust your manual focus, hold your umbrella and try not to get the camera wet.

Erm Shafia (my cousin), somehow your umbrella followed me to Kranji. I think you left it at my mom’s house and I somehow picked it up and brought it home with me then its sort of found its way to my car. I only looked at it at bollywood veggies and somehow figured out it belonged to you. Let me make it clear here: when I went to medical school, it WAS NOT called Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, it was called Faculty of Medicine.

Because wordpress doesn’t allow me to shrink my vertical photos without blurring it, here’s a gigantic photo of the kuih bingka. Oh the kuih bingka. If I can create an idiom today, it would be: “never trust a bingka with a flat top” Bingka is a Malay cake made of grated tapioca, coconut milk and sugar and it should definitely have a craggy crispy top! I also had a delicious, small overpriced loaf of banana cake that was oh so delicious, I’ll share my favourite recipe soon and more photos, including the “warriors” that run Bollywood veggies.

I spent today moping bout my too short a weekend like a love lost.

Awfully chocolate

This may look familiar, I’ve posted about this ice cream before. And ice cream has been the cause of my 3 kilo weight gain over the exam period. This was during the blissful celebration after the exam and before the weighing scale. I think the sedentary lifestyle contributed too. H swears I’ll lose it after the same amount of time at work, I’m not sure if it was a way to stop me from morphing into a calorie counting monster. Anyway, I’m giving myself 3 weeks of work for the weight to come off, if it doesn’t I will be training to run a half marathon next year. I was inspired by a colleague who just completed the Standard Chartered marathon.I never thought of her as a marathon runner as she looks like a doe eyed milk complexion pretty flower, it was pretty surprising, especially since she was sitting for the exam with me. Perhaps I was the only one who was flat out after the paper.. I mean people are running 42 km, no kidding!

I just adore the chocolatey hei (black in Mandarin, pronounced hei in the first tone which is high pitched and a single flat tone) ice cream. Its nice to have just one flavor in a shop, I walked in to the small shop at Cluny Court and was just hit by the delicous piney smell of their HUGE christmas tree. Now if only someone would create a pine chocolate ice cream, I would definitely get a pint of it. Anyway if anyone can tutor me in conversational Hokkien, please drop me a comment  or and email at nfarhan29@yahoo.com.sg and I’ll get in touch. I’m willing to pay a good price and its negotiable. In the meanwhile I’m still struggling with my Mandarin but there are loads of audios on the internet which are really helpful.

From the awfully chocolate website:

Our philosophy is simple and unique.

The focus is not variety but quality.

Our product line is delibrately limited.

We don’t display our products.

We don’t advertise (if we have to pay to say we’re good, we’re not that good).

We don’t sell our cakes in slices.

We don’t hard sell.

We let you discover awfully chocolate your own way.

Now for the chocolate freaks out there (u know who you are.. Zhullie, Laureen and ___________ insert your name right here) please share your favourite chocolate fixes! And Laureen I’m so so impressed by your cooking demo!!! Congrats, what a milestone!

There was once a time when the most common question I would get from friends or relatives were phone consults and queries on who’s good in whichever field of specialization. Since I started this blog, I’ve been recieving a lot of “where to eat questions” and “how to cook”. I’ll be compiling a list over the next year or so on places and things I like to eat, it’ll be in a category “eat like a grub”. I hope you’ll enjoy it and it would be one of the things to say thank you for reading and all the supportive comments! And I will try to break down the recipes and define more terms on cooking techniques.

And for all those who has been reading “happygrub” for sometime, perhaps I’ll tell u a bit on whats in the name. My name Farhan means happy in Arabic and my husband whom I often refer to as “H” is named Syed which also means happy in Persian. And for those who know me well, u know that H’s other name which is a nickname also means happy. And grub is what he always says to me when he wants his meal “Got any grub there?” usually in a Southern twang which is a little strange but just a H kind of thing. So thats how it came about, happygrub!

Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend..

I’m still recovering from the transition from study to work but it was a good day. I really have great colleagues and its funny, but I never understood the term “office politics”. I’ve worked for close to 3 years and I’ve never had to deal with any form of back biting or stabing or distrust I think is associated with “office politics”. In fact I’ve exasperated some people when they tried to moan about office politics because I can’t identify with the problem and probably give useless advice. But then I learnt that listening helps, so perhaps I learnt to be less unhelpful by listening. I received a small little mini version of the “month’s rosters” from a fellow medical officer who took the time to compress the dizzying amount of information called the “month’s rosters” into a sheet of paper. I think I’m using a lot of “inverted commas” for no good reason. Anyway the month’s roster is the most powerful weapon you can ever have when working, its more powerful than having a brain, though a brain helps sometimes when you’re a doctor. The month’s roster has all the information on who’s covering clinics on which days so you’ll never be conned to cover a clinic you are not rostered to, it helps to divert people to the right doctor, “no I’m not covering the A&E its Dr so and so, please call her/him to see this patient” and it helps you get help, to call the right senior at the right time if you ever need any help. Anyway this colleague also recently gave all of us a copy of a huge stack of guidelines and departmental protocols abbreviated in small sheet of paper. He’s my new favourite person and part of the group receiving a batch of homemade cookies. I think its not just a random act of kindness that happened out of chance, I studied thru much of my specialist exams without buying a single book, all have been loaned by kind souls who knew I was sitting for an exam. There’s lots of handholding and we’re always taught to “see one, do one, teach one” meaning watch a procedure, do it and then teach it to someone else. It doesn’t literally have to be ONE, in case I’m scaring some people, but thats the general idea. I was taught a line insertion today by one of the registrars and he literally brings you step by step with lots of “cardinal rules”, little tricks he’s learnt along the way that were really priceless. Then there’s the mandatory free morning coffee that the senior buys you everyday and there’s the offer to car pool when we’re working Sundays. Its always good to pass on this little acts and I’ve created some rituals myself, like “fluid resuscitation” (the lingo for pumping in intravenous fluids for a patient with low blood pressure) at midnight which is my trip down to the 24 hr convenience store for ice cold apple juice (Coke makes you jiterry at night, avoid at all costs). Usually this is handed to my tired house officer who are always wway too hard working to look after themselves and are very thirsty in tropical Singapore.

Anyway I am baking a whole kilo of chocolate chips which is a whole lot, this is adapted from the King Arthur’s Baking companion and is a little different from my previous crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe. Its caremelly from the brown sugar and the mixture of buter and shortening gives it the crisp from the shortening yet the flavour of the butter. Salt is really essential and I use it though my butter is salted. I’m spreading cookie love, perhaps you should to. Especially for that nasty “office politics” victims or even the offenders..

This is extracted from the email I’ve been sending out cos so many people had asked for the recipe after receiving the cookies last Eid:-

…the key to these cookies are using the right chocolate chip which melts in the mouth rather than the rock hard Hershey’s other homemade cookies have.

 

Using Red Man Couverture dark chocolate chips is essential (dark and NOT super dark). it is available in Phoon Huat. The country of origin at the back of the package says its made in Germany. This is in contrast to non courverture chocolate chips which are made in Malaysia. The price difference is about 30% more too, a 500g pack would cost $9.95 I think any good quality dark chocolate chopped up would work.

  

Crispy chocolate chip cookie

 

1/2 cup (100g) butter – softened
½ cup trans fat free crisco shortening
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
2 cups chocolate chips

 

When ready to bake the cookies – preheat the oven to 190C. Line baking sheets with parchment.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffly. Beat in the vanilla, Beat in the egg, then the baking soda and flour. Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

 

Drop the dough using a teaspoon onto the prepared sheets. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes (10 minutes was right on for my oven), or until they are golden brown. Remove them from the oven and tranfer to a rack to cool after a couple minutes. The cookie will continue to crisp up after they are cool. Though they are good freshly baked, their flavours really develop about a day later.

Makes a lot..

 

 

 

Its time to say goodbye.. At least for the next 2 weeks

I guess you were expecting this day to come, when I say goodbye for a little while. I need to study for an exam. I’ve not been doing it at all in the last 3 weeks. I’ve been really busy as you probably know. My calls have been busy too so I have been spending time recovering and sleeping off all the sleep debt I accumulated. You know you have a really good friend when you can appear at their house, crash on their sofa (and I mean really deep slumber) after a few mumbled words and get a box of chocolates at the end. Thanks Mel!

And of course, one of those famous cards wishing me well for the exam. Thanks for the 13 years of friendship and the dozens of cards that span the years..

And to Razlyn and Anas, congratulations on the engagement! I’m sorry I missed it, well you know the reason Raz. No weekends. You looked gorgeous and the house looks wonderful don’t you guys think?? I really really wished we were there.

I’m still trying to cook as and when I can, the busier we get the more we are in need of a home cooked meal don’t you think? This is poached salmon with garlic sauteed portobello mushrooms on a bed of hummus with a tomato and basil salad. Dinner cooked in one pan in 20 mins. I poached the salmon in the same pan the mushrooms were cooking in the juices from the mushrooms.

Things have been crazier still this week and I think today was the day I had enough!! I just needed to sleep it off which I did this afternoon,post call, and I’m feeling cheerier. I’ve just had bad calls with the full works: collapses, resus efforts, MICU, seizures, urgent dialysis. I’m assigned to the clinic this week so half my day is spent in the clinic and I just don’t have time to update relatives, order the next day dialysis sessions, and other things here and there while making sure all the urgent stuff like prescriptions, discharges, getting the patients reviews from other specialties, getting them prepared for procedure/operations, arranging scans, handling new admission etc etc etc so my phone rings and rings and rings and rings and my battery runs flat in a day which is pretty unusual.

So it turns out I’m actually looking forward  to this study break. Catch up soon, after the 5th of December to be exact!

BBM arrived!

I have been waiting for some sunshine to post about the lovely package I received from Stephanie thru Blogging By Mail

The box came with a little furry mascot

Vanilla syrup for my latte! Yay!

Peppers for pasta..

Chocolate, well, CHOCOLATE!

Vanilla tea from her local teahouse

This is a truly beautiful book. Also included were more chocolate and a lovely novel. Thanks Stephanie being the lovely hostess of the event and for the thoughtful package!