Strawberry Fields Forever

So. It seems to be strawberry season. I got 2 punnets from Shaw's at $1.99 each. Truth be told, they didn't turn out to be as sweet as I had hoped. Maybe that's why they were so cheap. So what did I do with so many strawberries? Make strawberry dessert! Again, we invited some friends over for dessert, wine and chit chat, so I spent some part of Sunday making verrines.

Tonight was a night of great conversation. I was particularly inspired by our Indian friend, Balu. He is a trained physician and spent the past 25 years of his life living and working in the deep forests of south west India. When he first graduated as a physician, he was challenged by someone to work in a reservation area amongst the tribal people. There were no roads, no buildings, nothing. He took up the challenge and has not looked back since. These are the types of people that Alvin interfaces with daily in school. What an inspiration.

Peach, Vanilla Mousse and Strawberry Verrines:
Adapted from Helen Dujardin

Serves 4

For the peach puree:
1 teaspoon powdered gelatin
1 tablespoon cold water
1 cup (200g) peaches, peeled and pitted diced small
1 1/2 tablespoon juice and zest of a lime (or to taste)
2 tablespoons sugar

For the vanilla mousse:
1/2 tablespoon gelatin
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the strawberry topping:
1/2 teaspoon gelatin
2 teaspoons water
3/4 cup (115g) fresh strawberries, halved
1 tablespoon of sugar (or to taste)

Prepare the peach puree layer:
Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and reserve. Process the peach dices with the lime juice and zest and the sugar until completely processed. Heat the mixture in a medium saucepan set over medium heat until it starts to bubble. Add the gelatin and stir until it is completely melted. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Divide evenly among 4 glasses. Refrigerate until set.

Prepare the peach mousse:
Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and reserve. Place the heavy cream, sugar and vanilla extract in a medium saucepan set over medium heat and heat until it bubbles. Watch carefully because the cream will quickly rise to the top of the saucepan. Add the gelatin and stir until completely dissolved. Let cool to room temperature. Divide evenly among the glasses. Refrigerate until set.

Prepare the strawberry puree:
Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and reserve. In the bowl of a food processor puree the strawberries with the sugar until completely smooth. Heat that mixture in a small saucepan set over medium high heat and cook until it bubbles. Stir in the gelatin and stir until it dissolves. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Divide it on top of the peach mousse and refrigerate until set.

My Weekend Non-Adventure

Today, I set out on a journey to Chestnut Hill Mall. Note: Anywhere beyond the Harvard Square area, I consider far. If you don't already know, I love walking up and down the aisles of shops that sell bakeware, cookware, dinnerware, cutlery, kitchen electrics, you get the gist. Surprisingly, there aren't many sophisticated shops selling such stuff in Boston - you would think it's one of the major cities in the US, so you can understand how excited I felt when I found out about Sur La Table over the internet.

I made the painful 1 hour journey by train and foot and sure enough, there were lotsa goodies! Two sad things though:

1. Though graduation is just 1 month away, we're still currently living the frugal student life so it was hard to justify spending $ on pretty but not so necessary/functional things

2. Our plans post-graduation have not firmed up; if I were to buy all this stuff now, I'd probably have to pay more $ to ship it to whichever country we're going to be for the next few years

I left the store with just 4 spoons, and a super long wish list.

Dessert Party At The Tans' Residence

Alvin and I try to make it a point to invite friends over to our humble abode for intimate dinner or dessert parties just so that we can spend quality time getting to know them better. Often, over the course of the academic year, we bump into each other at the Forum or at school functions and we say we have to get together for a meal, but it seldom happens because finding a common date and time to sit down at one place for 3 hours is such a huge challenge. However, this time, I was determined to make good on my word to some of our good friends, so I badgered Alvin to send out an invite for a dessert party at our place 2.5 weeks prior to tonight to get them to 'save the date'. Amazingly, all 7 people who received the invite showed up. I had been looking forward to tonight for some time now. Firstly, I haven't seen most of them for some time and really wanted to catch up. Secondly, I had an excuse to bake!

Today, I spent 6 hours in the kitchen preparing 3 desserts. Could have spent a lot less time, but one turned out to be a disaster, so I had to reconstruct it. You will find out which one in a moment.

I started planning tonight's menu about 1 week in advance. I had bought a bottle of rose flower water when we were in New York City last summer, but hadn't used it, so I wanted to try out the panna cotta just so that I could use my almost-a-year-old purchase. Don't worry, there wasn't a use by date. You can keep these extracts for years.

Rosewater Panna Cotta

Serves 6 - 8 depending on the size of your ramekins or glass containers

1/3 cup milk

1 (.25 ounce) envelope unflavored gelatin

2 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon rose flower water

Pour milk into a small bowl, and stir in the gelatin powder. Don't worry if texture is not consistent or smooth. Set aside.

In a saucepan, stir together the heavy cream and sugar, and set over medium heat. Bring to a full boil, watching carefully, as the cream will quickly rise to the top of the pan. Pour the gelatin and milk into the cream, stirring until completely dissolved. Cook for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in the rose flower water and pour into individual glass containers. Be careful not to stain the sides. If this happens, wipe the spillage with a wet tissue immediately.

Cool the glass containers uncovered at room temperature. When cool, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight before serving. The reason why I decorated it simply with just a strawberry is because drizzling any sauce over the panna cotta would have taken away from the rose scent, which would have defeated the purpose of adding rose flower water instead of vanilla extract.

After I had put the panna cotta in the refrigerator to set, I went about making the pavlova. I love making pavlovas because its majestic presentation never fails to impress guests. I also love the texture - crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside.

Fresh Berry Pavlova

Serves 8 - 10

4 egg whites

1 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/4 cups heavy cream, whipped

Mixed berries such as blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries

1 teaspoon icing sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 300°F/150°C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Draw a 9 inch circle on the parchment paper.

In a large bowl, bet egg whites until stiff but not dry. Ensure that not a particle of grease or egg yolk gets into the whites. Gradually add in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat until thick and glossy. This process should take about 8 minutes. Overbeating the egg whites can cause them to lose volume and deflate when other ingredients are folded in. Gently fold in vanilla extract and cornstarch with a spatula. To achieve a pristine white meringue, you will have to use clear vanilla extract. I didn't have that on hand, so the normal one did just fine too - it's just that I got a slightly beige meringue instead.

Spoon mixture into the circle drawn on the parchment paper. Working from the center, spread mixture toward the outside edge, building edge slightly. This should leave a slight depression in the center.

Bake for 1 1/2 hour. After 1 1/2 hours, turn off the heat in the oven, but just leave the pavlova inside the oven for another 1 hour. A good pavlova will be chewy on the itside, but crispy on the outside. You can test the texture of the inside of the pavlova by poking a toothpick or a knife in the middle. Do not panic if the pavlova's crust cracks in the center - it will be disguised in the next step.

Remove the parchment paper carefully and place meringue flat on serving plate. Only place the whipped cream in the center of the meringue when you are about to serve the dessert. Top with berries and dust with icing sugar.

I was pleasantly surprised at how I breezed through these 2 desserts. Little did I know, the third one was going to give me a lot of grieve. I had ordered 2 Nordic Ware baking pans from amazon.com and they were still sitting in the box, unwrapped, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to use them to make swiss rolls. I thought of doing something Asian, and sine I had a can of azuki bean paste in the pantry, I thought a green tea swiss roll would be good. Flopped big time. Somehow, I couldn't roll the sponge without having all the beans spill out. So I decided to reconstruct it. I made another bunch of sponge from scratch (I know. Pat on my own back for perseverance) and cut out heart shapes to make a heart shaped green tea layer cake.

Matcha and Azuki Layer Cake

Serves 8

For the cake:
4 eggs, separated

2 tablespoons butter (melted and cooled)

6 tablespoons sugar

2/3 cup flour

3 tablespoons corn starch

1 tablespoon matcha (finely powdered green tea)

Pinch of salt

For the filling:
300 grams anko (sweetened azuki bean paste)
2/3 cup heavy cream, whipped

 
Prepare the cake:

Preheat the oven to 400°F/205°C and line a 13-by-9-inch baking pan with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, combine the egg yolks with the butter and sugar. Beat well with a wooden spoon. In another bowl, sift together the flour, corn starch, and matcha. Stir the flour mixture into the egg yolk mixture until just blended, without overmixing.

Place the egg whites and the pinch of salt in a clean, grease-free mixing bowl, and whisk until stiff. Stir one third of the egg whites into the batter, then fold in the rest with a spatula, lifting the mixture to keep as much air as possible in the egg whites.

Pour the batter onto the prepared baking pan, making sure it reaches the corners, and smooth out the surface gently with the spatula. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, keeping a close eye on it, until just set. You do not want it to under-bake (if you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean, you're good to go). You also do not want it to over-bake because the sponge will be too tough.

Once sponge layer is baked, remove parchment paper and place it on a clean dish cloth. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes. You want to make sure you have 24 (for 8 individual cakes x 3 layers) shapes in hand.

Prepare the filling:

Mix the azuki bean paste together with the whipped cream.

Assemble:

Place one shape at the bottom, spread filling over it, top with another layer, spread filling again and finish with final layer. Dust with matcha powder. Refrigerate before serving.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

I am 28 years of age and I still catch myself asking friends around the same age this question. And I was taken by surprise when Ryan asked me this same question (paraphrased of course) when he and Katie came over for dinner.

I said my dream (and I now add 'for the moment') would be to own a big enough kitchen and dining area in my house to host paying guests for dessert. And just today, I found out there is actually a term for that: underground restaurant. According to wikipedia.com, an underground restaurant is an eating establishment operated out of someone's home, generally (though not invariably) bypassing local zoning and health-code regulations. They are, in effect, paying dinner parties. They are usually advertised by word of mouth or guerrilla advertising, often on Facebook, and may require references to make a reservation.

And also today, I realised that I could also be content with being a market stall holder. I don't mean wet markets like those you find in Singapore, but rather farmers' markets or weekend markets. I would set up my stall early in the morning, display all my cakes and pastries, yak with customers all day long and pack up and head home when the sun sets. Just thinking about the amount of pleasure I'd derive out from this puts a wide smile on my face.

New England Cornbread and Maple Butter

One of my favourite foods in the whole wide world has always been corn. So God must have kept that in mind while orchestrating his grand master plan for Alvin and I because New England is lobster, clam chowder and cornbread central.

With his PAE and job search over, Alvin could finally spend uninterrupted, quality time with me over the weekend. We went to Plymouth, a quaint coastal town an hour's drive from Boston and had lunch at this awesome seafood restaurant which I found via tripadvisor.com. Like most seafood establishments in the Northeast, we were served cornbread, accompanied by delicious, smooth, homemade maple butter.

I have been itching to replicate the maple butter since Friday and guess who found some pure maple syrup that Pin and Vincent got us from Vermont in the refrigerator. Perfect.

New England Cornbread

Yields a 9 inch x 5 inch loaf pan

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400°F/205°C. Spray or lightly grease a 9 inch x 5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir in egg, milk and vegetable oil until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Maple Butter

Yields 1 stick

1 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon maple syrup
Pinch of salt

Make sure butter is very soft, but also be careful not to leave it out too long because you do not want it to take a liquid form. Put butter, maple syrup and salt in stand mixer and set on 'stir' function for 3 minutes. Then transfer to a container and leave in refrigerator to harden.

Dead beat

8 hours (on my feet) and 2 dozen eggs later, I am sad to say that my (not 1 but) 2 attempts at Lisa's birthday cake proved futile. I am disappointed, but not deterred. Like I always tell Alvin, tomorrow will be a better day.