Eggshell Green

Mmm, cake

I’ve been up to my eyes in cake this last week!

First was an entry into the Threadcakes competition. I’ve been wanting to make this baby Godzilla cake, based on a Threadless shirt design, for a while and finally found the motivation (and time) to do it.

Cute and delicious

I baked a couple of test cakes and found a delicious madeira recipe (which I tweaked to make it an orange madeira cake) that was perfect – delicious, moist and something I could carve into. It was a lot of work, but I think I did well for my first sculpted cake. More details and photos can be found on my Threadcakes entry.

The other cake was for a friend’s grandaughter’s third birthday party. The wee girl wanted a yellow castle cake and I decided to add Rapunzel into the mix.

Yellow castle cake

Waiting for her prince

The main cake was a dense banana cake (I think I’ll use another recipe next time), and the skinny tower was a chocolate roll. Both are filled with a delicious butter cream. The skinny tower gave me troubles as it started leaning and sagging a bit – oh dear. The top tower was also a challenge to cover.

Just a bit of practice to better my cake decorating skills. I have lots to learn still!

Tags: baking, cake, decorating

Restaurant Review: Bordeaux Bakery

I can’t say I’ve been that impressed by Bordeaux yet.

We’ve only been when I have an Entertainment Book voucher to use up. Good thing because their prices are pretty high – $8.20 for a cheese/ham/tomato croissant!? I guess you shouldn’t expect normal bakery prices because they also trade as a cafe, but still, I think that’s pretty pricey.

I went in to the one on Thorndon Quay on Saturday to grab some lunch for the hubby and me. I didn’t think it would take 10-15 minutes to heat up a panini. It’s because they put it in the queue along with everyone else’s sit-in lunch orders. It’s pretty silly that they have two microwaves on the cashier side to heat up your pies (they don’t have readily hot pies either, boo), but they don’t have a panini press! So I stood there with my other goodies, including a hot pie, and waited and waited for my panini.

The panini (finally) was nice but nothing special. It was a bit of bacon, some mashed kumara and pesto. Not a lot for the $7.50 I paid for it. The hubby commented that his beef pie was “meh”, later clarifying that “it wasn’t good”. We also got a lemon danish and a custard square. The lemon danish was good but could’ve done with more topping. The custard square is better than most of the floury goop you normally get elsewhere, but not as good as the ones you can get from Aro Bakery.

I haven’t tried their sit-in menu so can’t comment on that. Maybe we’ll give it a go with the next Entertainment Book voucher… we’ll see.

Tags: restaurant, review

Restaurant Review: Zico

Well, well, well.

Unfortunately, my only experience at Zico last week was nothing to rave about.

We were a large group of ten, out for a birthday dinner on St Patrick’s Day, and the waiters were new or just clueless, so perhaps those factors have to be taken into account for the less than satisfactory service.

First off, getting the waiters to take our orders was more trouble than it should have been. We told one of them we were ready to order and he disappeared without saying if he’d be back to take them. Luckily there was another that we caught the attention of, but her order-taking skills could have done with some polishing.

Ms Constantine inquired about the salmon carbonara to ensure she could get it without bacon. Her carbonara didn’t just come without bacon, it came without carbonara sauce and was delivered as a pomodoro pasta – if you work in an Italian restaurant you’d know straight away that there was something wrong with that. The waitress however didn’t seem to know the difference and was confident that the dish was correct.

The three boys ordered the “real deal” lasagne which is “served with green beans and potatoes” as the menu stated. This turned out to be a vegetarian dish made with green beans and potatoes. Far from the meaty tomato-based lasagne that you would expect as the “real deal”. Until we realised that there was no meat in the lasagne, there was much confusion over where the green beans and potatoes were because the menu implied they would be on the side and not in place of the meat.

As for my meal, I ordered the duo of lamb and steak, medium please. It arrived mostly rare and some bits were barely sealed… at that point I just couldn’t be bothered with making more fuss so just ate what I could. The bits that were cooked to my liking did taste good though.

And at least I had a good glass of red wine.

'Medium' does not mean one half done and the other half raw

Tags: restaurant, review, Wellington

Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Iced coffee

Go to a Vietnamese restaurant, or my mum’s house, and you can get a refreshing iced coffee done the Vietnamese way.

Sweetened condensed milk is used in place of milk and sugar. I assume this is because Vietnam isn’t known for its dairy so fresh milk is hard to come by. The condensed milk also sweetens the drink and gives it a caramel taste, so it’s all good!

The way I make it is to dissolve 2 teaspoons of instant coffee in a couple spoonfuls of boiling water, stir in 2 tablespoons of condensed milk and fill the glass with ice and top with cold water.

You can stir the drink before you serve it, or do it the traditional way and serve with a straw so your guests can do it themselves.

Ooh I just read wikipedia’s entry on condensed milk, and recall mum giving us sweetened condensed milk on toast when we were kids. I never thought so before but it sounds weird now!

Tags: coffee

Pina Colada Cupcakes

I finally got around to making cupcakes this week – actually it’s the first time since Abby was born, which is not good enough!

Being summer, I thought a cocktail-inspired cupcake was in order, so I came up with the Pina Colada Cupcake. It has chunks of pineapple baked into it and topped with buttercream laced with Malibu.

The recipe is once again based on the awesome Scout’s Cupcake, tweaked for this variation.

Like eating a cocktail!

Tags: cocktail, Cupcakes, scout, scout's cupcakes

Restaurant Review: Satay India

As the name implies, Satay India do both Malaysian and Indian cuisine. However, sometimes they will only offer one of those (I think it depends on which chef is on that night).

Satay India, located on Allen Street in Wellington city, often does two for one deals during the week – as long as you purchase a naan bread with each curry, you get the cheaper curry free.

I have to say that they make the best butter chicken I’ve ever had. It’s creamy, tangy, and has a sweet caramel taste to it. And it’s not too sweet like most butter chickens can be. It’s just divine!

The naans are always fresh and delicious too. They make the stretchy bubbly type of naan unlike the floury bready stuff we got in the UK. In fact, our two experiences of UK Indian wasn’t that great. The butter chicken was a specialty at the restaurant we went to in Wales, but was not like any butter chicken we get here in New Zealand. It was certainly buttery, but not the right colour, texture or taste. It just wasn’t right. All I could think about was how much I missed the butter chicken at Satay India!

Aside from the butter chicken, their other curries are also very good – according to friends. I’ve had a few of the other curries but I like the butter chicken best. I’m not too sure about the vegie ones though – they always seem boring but maybe that’s because I like my meat!

If you are into your beers and curries, Satay India offers Kingfisher Strong in a 650ml bottle. For about $12 a bottle and with an alcohol content of not more than 8%, it’s not a bad deal at all.

They do takeaways which I’ve been told is great value for money too.

The only complaint I have is that you can’t take home any left-overs if you have the banquet. Something that isn’t obvious when ordering. Also, they forgot to give us our poppadoms that time too – boooo!

Tags: indian, restaurant, review

Durian custard and sticky rice

My husband would wrinkle his nose at this dish. He probably would hold it and stick out his tongue at the same time because he hates durian. He thinks it smells like farts and puts it in the same basket of foods that people shouldn’t eat, along with bitter melon.

But if you’re like me (and possibly also a ’strange Asian’), durian is delicious. I like it as it is, chilled a little and straight from the husk. But I also like it in custard form on top of fragrant sticky rice.

The main purpose of this post is to remind me how to make this for next ime. It’s one of those dishes that mum makes and I had to ask for instructions. She always does things by feel and I wanted to record some measurements as I was doing it myself.

Ingredients

• 1 durian segment (about 1 cup)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 1 T sugar
• 2 t corn flour
• 2 C glutinous (sticky) rice
• 2 C water

Bag of glutinous rice

Method

• Mash the durian and combine with the rest of the ingredients.
• Put the custard into a bowl.
• Fill a large pot with a few centimetres of water and bring to the boil. The water should come 1/2 of the way up the bowl.
• Lower the bowl into the water and cover the pot with its lid.
• Lower heat to medium-low and steam for 25-30 minutes until custard is set. You may need to top up with boiling water if you run low.
  

  Cooked durian custard

• Serve with sticky rice. To cook sticky rice I used a rice cooker. I put 2 cups of washed rice with just under 2 cups of water.

Durian custard served with sticky rice