Yesterday, as I was busily potterying about the kitchen making , tuna tataki and steamed rhubarb pudding, I got a text message from my good friend Adriana, whose birthday it was that night.
Something along the lines of...
I'm so stressed out cos my work friends were told they shouldn't bring a cake which was their initial intention and now i have no cake :S
Well, it was Sarah to the rescue with a quick batch of coca-cola cupcakes. Adriana wanted cupcakes, because the club where she was having her birthday does not allow knives or forks.
So, these are exctly the same as the last time, but this time I made a double batch, and waited for the cupcakes to cool down before applying the icing. And as an interesting note, I only made a single quantity of the icing (ran out of icing sugar, you see), but it managed to cover all the cupcakes, with one carefully spread teasponful of icing per cupcake. In fact, I think it works better with slightly less icing, as the icing is quite sticky and messy. Furthermore, both cupcake and icing are sickly sweet. And any more of that sugary, sugary icing would make kids extremely hyper, or induce some sort of hallucinatory dream in adults.
24 cupcakes
I let the icing on the cupcakes set in the fridge, then packed them into a couple of ice-cream containers, and thence into a paper bag for easy transportation. All in all, it took about 1.75 hours to make the cupcakes, including the hour required to bake them (2 batches at 30 minutes each). So it was quite a time-efficient exercise, I must say.
2 boxes
And here we are at the club... eating cupcakes in a club. How novel!
in chaise lounge
cupcake in club
it's a cupcake
hitomi loves cupcakes
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADRIANA!
Something along the lines of...
I'm so stressed out cos my work friends were told they shouldn't bring a cake which was their initial intention and now i have no cake :S
Well, it was Sarah to the rescue with a quick batch of coca-cola cupcakes. Adriana wanted cupcakes, because the club where she was having her birthday does not allow knives or forks.
So, these are exctly the same as the last time, but this time I made a double batch, and waited for the cupcakes to cool down before applying the icing. And as an interesting note, I only made a single quantity of the icing (ran out of icing sugar, you see), but it managed to cover all the cupcakes, with one carefully spread teasponful of icing per cupcake. In fact, I think it works better with slightly less icing, as the icing is quite sticky and messy. Furthermore, both cupcake and icing are sickly sweet. And any more of that sugary, sugary icing would make kids extremely hyper, or induce some sort of hallucinatory dream in adults.
24 cupcakes
I let the icing on the cupcakes set in the fridge, then packed them into a couple of ice-cream containers, and thence into a paper bag for easy transportation. All in all, it took about 1.75 hours to make the cupcakes, including the hour required to bake them (2 batches at 30 minutes each). So it was quite a time-efficient exercise, I must say.
2 boxes
And here we are at the club... eating cupcakes in a club. How novel!
in chaise lounge
cupcake in club
it's a cupcake
hitomi loves cupcakes
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADRIANA!
The shopping expedition my mother and I made to Prahran market on Thursday involved a lengthy rest at the Crabapple Bakery, which is cute and dinky cupcake heaven.
Crabapple Bakery
Shop 6
Prahran Market
9827 8116
and
Shop 7
1567 Burwood Highway
Tecoma
9754 5888
The cupcakes, of which there are many varieties, cost about $4, with a 50c surcharge for sitting down and using the fine pink china. You can also get tea in a fab silver pot with gorgeous pink teacups. I can't remember how much the tea was, but we paid $16 in total for tea for two and two cupcakes.
They also sell scones and cream, but we'll have to wait for next time to try them. Ooh, and you can buy full-sized cakes, lovely pink and blue cakestands, plates, cute giftcards, teacups, teapots and so on.
But the main event is definitely the cupcakes.
I had a lemon-blossom cupcake...
lemon blossom cupcake
...and my mum had a sticky date cupcake...
sticky date cupcake
Here are the gorgeous teacups!
teacup, teapot, milk
I was afraid the cupcakes might be dry on the inside, but indeed, they were lovely and moist...
inside of lemon blossom cupcake
inside of sticky date
Delicious!
I enjoyed the experience so much that I returned 2 days later, taking a respite from the stress of Chapel street shopping. I had a "banana split" cupcake, which was a banana/macadamia base with chocolate fudge ice-cream. DROOL!
banana split cupcake
Crabapple Bakery
Shop 6
Prahran Market
9827 8116
and
Shop 7
1567 Burwood Highway
Tecoma
9754 5888
The cupcakes, of which there are many varieties, cost about $4, with a 50c surcharge for sitting down and using the fine pink china. You can also get tea in a fab silver pot with gorgeous pink teacups. I can't remember how much the tea was, but we paid $16 in total for tea for two and two cupcakes.
They also sell scones and cream, but we'll have to wait for next time to try them. Ooh, and you can buy full-sized cakes, lovely pink and blue cakestands, plates, cute giftcards, teacups, teapots and so on.
But the main event is definitely the cupcakes.
I had a lemon-blossom cupcake...
lemon blossom cupcake
...and my mum had a sticky date cupcake...
sticky date cupcake
Here are the gorgeous teacups!
teacup, teapot, milk
I was afraid the cupcakes might be dry on the inside, but indeed, they were lovely and moist...
inside of lemon blossom cupcake
inside of sticky date
Delicious!
I enjoyed the experience so much that I returned 2 days later, taking a respite from the stress of Chapel street shopping. I had a "banana split" cupcake, which was a banana/macadamia base with chocolate fudge ice-cream. DROOL!
banana split cupcake
Yesterday for lunch my parents and I went to The Brasserie by Phillipe Mouchel at Crown to celebrate my birthday.
This is one of my favourite special occasion restaurants, but I really think you don't need to save it for special occasions, especially if you go at lunch and get the 3 courses plus a side dish for $40-ish deal. Which we always do.
So, when you sit down, they give you fab bread rolls with olive oil and deliciously salty dukkah.
bread, oil, dukkah
Here are our entrées.
Mum's wagyu beef carpaccio - I think it had slivers of apple on top.
Dad had his usual escargots, which were delicious.
escargots
I had confit vegetables with a poached egg on top. I was planning on having a VERY BIG main meal, which took 40 minutes to come out, so the waitress recommended that I have a light starter so as not to be bored waiting.
confit vegetables
And onto the mains...
Dad's was duck with figs. He said it looked small on the plate, but was extremely filling.
duck
Mum had snapper!
snapper
I chose the cassoulet, which comes with a warning that "it takes 40 minutes to prepare and is very filling". It had toulouse sausage, duck, pork and lamb in it, with white beans. Wowza!
cassoulet
Here are our side dishes...
Chips - good God, I love fries!
beans
salad
Watch me work my way through that cassoulet. I did my best, but couldn't finish it.
cassoulet 2
working my way through
with apologies to phillipe mouchel
Unsurprisingly, being the greedy ho that I am, I still had room for dessert.
I had a chocolate tart with mango sorbet. The tart was very rich, very chocolatey and not sweet at all. It contrasted very well with the light and tangy mango sorbet.
chocolate tart
Mum had this fab looking frozen honey nougat terrine thang. It was gorgeous! On reflection, even though my chocolate tart was nice, I probably should have ordered this.
nougat frozen
Mmm... coffee!
coffee and petits fours
This was such a fabulous meal. I adore The Brasserie!
This is one of my favourite special occasion restaurants, but I really think you don't need to save it for special occasions, especially if you go at lunch and get the 3 courses plus a side dish for $40-ish deal. Which we always do.
So, when you sit down, they give you fab bread rolls with olive oil and deliciously salty dukkah.
bread, oil, dukkah
Here are our entrées.
Mum's wagyu beef carpaccio - I think it had slivers of apple on top.
Dad had his usual escargots, which were delicious.
escargots
I had confit vegetables with a poached egg on top. I was planning on having a VERY BIG main meal, which took 40 minutes to come out, so the waitress recommended that I have a light starter so as not to be bored waiting.
confit vegetables
And onto the mains...
Dad's was duck with figs. He said it looked small on the plate, but was extremely filling.
duck
Mum had snapper!
snapper
I chose the cassoulet, which comes with a warning that "it takes 40 minutes to prepare and is very filling". It had toulouse sausage, duck, pork and lamb in it, with white beans. Wowza!
cassoulet
Here are our side dishes...
Chips - good God, I love fries!
beans
salad
Watch me work my way through that cassoulet. I did my best, but couldn't finish it.
cassoulet 2
working my way through
with apologies to phillipe mouchel
Unsurprisingly, being the greedy ho that I am, I still had room for dessert.
I had a chocolate tart with mango sorbet. The tart was very rich, very chocolatey and not sweet at all. It contrasted very well with the light and tangy mango sorbet.
chocolate tart
Mum had this fab looking frozen honey nougat terrine thang. It was gorgeous! On reflection, even though my chocolate tart was nice, I probably should have ordered this.
nougat frozen
Mmm... coffee!
coffee and petits fours
This was such a fabulous meal. I adore The Brasserie!
Friday night was my workmate Alex's birthday, and we went to see Ice Age 2 in the beanbag cinema at work. Fun, fun fun! I asked Alex what he wanted, and he replied, "something homemade"...
What else could I make but cupcakes? These are the coca-cola cupcakes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. Ordinarily I'd choose something more rich and decadent, but I had all the ingredients for these at home, and the absence of double cream or dark chocolate in the ingredients list meant it was cheap to make! Bonus!
So it's just an easy melt-and-mix dealy. You sift the dry ingredients into one bowl, and set it aside. Next, you mix buttermilk and an egg in another bowl. Then, you melt butter, cocoa and coca-cola in a pan. Mix it all together, and pour the batter into muffin tins. A word of warning - the batter is extremely wet. Like, so wet that I thought it would soak through the muffin papers. But, I chucked it in the oven nonetheless, and they turned out fine.
cupcakes
icing
Here's the icing. It's pretty simple too, just cocoa, icing sugar, coke and butter, melted and stirred together. In the recipe, Nigella instructs you to ice the cupcakes while warm, but I'd advise against this. You see, the icing was very sticky, and icing the warm cupcakes resulted in a big, sticky (but delicious) mess.
gimme gimme
They were really nice - very light, moist and sweet, and a million miles away from the rich, dense chocolate cakes I'm used to. I think they'd go down really well at a kids' birthday party.
one cupcake
Yummy! But I don't know if it was a good idea to eat sticky and moist cupcakes in a cinema full of beanbag cushions. Whoops....
What else could I make but cupcakes? These are the coca-cola cupcakes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. Ordinarily I'd choose something more rich and decadent, but I had all the ingredients for these at home, and the absence of double cream or dark chocolate in the ingredients list meant it was cheap to make! Bonus!
So it's just an easy melt-and-mix dealy. You sift the dry ingredients into one bowl, and set it aside. Next, you mix buttermilk and an egg in another bowl. Then, you melt butter, cocoa and coca-cola in a pan. Mix it all together, and pour the batter into muffin tins. A word of warning - the batter is extremely wet. Like, so wet that I thought it would soak through the muffin papers. But, I chucked it in the oven nonetheless, and they turned out fine.
cupcakes
icing
Here's the icing. It's pretty simple too, just cocoa, icing sugar, coke and butter, melted and stirred together. In the recipe, Nigella instructs you to ice the cupcakes while warm, but I'd advise against this. You see, the icing was very sticky, and icing the warm cupcakes resulted in a big, sticky (but delicious) mess.
gimme gimme
They were really nice - very light, moist and sweet, and a million miles away from the rich, dense chocolate cakes I'm used to. I think they'd go down really well at a kids' birthday party.
one cupcake
Yummy! But I don't know if it was a good idea to eat sticky and moist cupcakes in a cinema full of beanbag cushions. Whoops....
For my brother's 24th birthday this year, we went to one of our favourite restaurants, Kenzan in the city. I haven't been there since I was a young girl. Aah.. how I love it.
Kenzan Japanese Restaurant
Collins Place
45 Collins Street (56 Flinders Lane)
Melbourne 3000
We started with delicious edamame (beans), which are given FOC when you sit down.
edamame
And started, as usual, with the massive assorted sushi/sashimi platter. DELICIOUS.
sushi sashimi moriawase
For mains, Mum and Dad both had tempura and rice.
tempura
I was disappointed that they no longer have tonkatsu on the menu, now that I'm back on pork. But I was more than happy with my choice of mains (2 entrees, really)... Smoked tuna with eggplant...
eggplant and smoked tuna
..and salt grilled ox tongue. Ox tongue is one of my favourite foods on the planet. Here it was served with Cupie mayonnaise, my other favourite food on the planet. Wow. (However, I have to admit, as great as this one was, I prefer the late great Oobata-san's version from Asukatei).
gyuu tan
Daniel had salmon teriyaki.
sake teriyaki
And for dessert... Daniel had green tea and vanilla ice-creams.
green tea and vanilla ice-cream
Mum and Dad shared green-tea ice-cream with red-bean (I couldn't find the photo, sorry)...
But my dessert was the best!
White sesame mousse, filled with redbean and a whole chestnut, with black sesame sauce
inside of mousse
It was absolutely divine.... I love the Japanese spin on Western desserts!
And yes, after all that, we still came home and found room for cake. It was a Laurent hazelnut chocolate mousse cake, it was rich, it was sweet. It was almost like eating a stick of butter, but much tastier.
cake
cake slice
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL!
Kenzan Japanese Restaurant
Collins Place
45 Collins Street (56 Flinders Lane)
Melbourne 3000
We started with delicious edamame (beans), which are given FOC when you sit down.
edamame
And started, as usual, with the massive assorted sushi/sashimi platter. DELICIOUS.
sushi sashimi moriawase
For mains, Mum and Dad both had tempura and rice.
tempura
I was disappointed that they no longer have tonkatsu on the menu, now that I'm back on pork. But I was more than happy with my choice of mains (2 entrees, really)... Smoked tuna with eggplant...
eggplant and smoked tuna
..and salt grilled ox tongue. Ox tongue is one of my favourite foods on the planet. Here it was served with Cupie mayonnaise, my other favourite food on the planet. Wow. (However, I have to admit, as great as this one was, I prefer the late great Oobata-san's version from Asukatei).
gyuu tan
Daniel had salmon teriyaki.
sake teriyaki
And for dessert... Daniel had green tea and vanilla ice-creams.
green tea and vanilla ice-cream
Mum and Dad shared green-tea ice-cream with red-bean (I couldn't find the photo, sorry)...
But my dessert was the best!
White sesame mousse, filled with redbean and a whole chestnut, with black sesame sauce
inside of mousse
It was absolutely divine.... I love the Japanese spin on Western desserts!
And yes, after all that, we still came home and found room for cake. It was a Laurent hazelnut chocolate mousse cake, it was rich, it was sweet. It was almost like eating a stick of butter, but much tastier.
cake
cake slice
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL!
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