just a mouthful of...

A day of cold cold ice cream for a super hot and melting day yesterday. I had an ice cream class yesterday. I taught my students to make

Blueberry ice cream, Green Tea ice cream, Coconut ice cream and Chocolate overload ice cream.

I had to force them to take home every flavour and leaving me with only the coconut ice cream. But they also left me with half of the share of Chocolate Overload ice cream.

This is one ice cream that I cannot take too much. Because I was allergic to chocolates. Its called Overload because I used 3 types of chocolates to make the ice cream. Bitter sweet chocolate curls by Callebut, Dark Chocolate shavings by Callebut too and also Valrhona cocoa powder.


Coconut ice cream, to me, was something refreshing for a change. Using coconut cream, heavy cream and whipping cream. The coconut cream overpowers the flavour of milk and cream. Leaving it a much desired ice cream to taste. I have also added toasted dessicated coconut and had some palm fruit on top.

I'll be packing this off to my mother-in-law. I think she will like this ice cream.

Give me a Fish

The old proverb that goes like this :

Give me a fish and I eat for a day. But TEACH me to fish and I will eat for a life time.

I usually don't take orders to make or mould fondant roses. These puny little roses of pink and blue were made for a customer who came to my store last week. She wanted to buy ready made icing roses. She has gone to other shops and all had flowers too big for the cupcakes she has to decorate.

She ask if I could mould it for her and she is willing to pay me for it.

I said YES but only have one condition. That she was to have a lesson with me to learn how to do this on her own.

So here it is..

Her 'fishes' for the day... Each rose is 1.5cm in diameter and each one made the same size too. I managed to squeeze in time after work each day and made these 2 nights ago.



And for her to learn "fishing" from me, that will be on 19th June 2009

A slice of brownie and a cup of kindness

Yesterday, my good friend, Chef Benny Seteo went to the Food centre next to our store for lunch. As he looked up, he saw Kitchen Capers. He thought that sounded really familiar. After lunch, he just went into the store and ask for "Gina Choong". I heard his voice from my office, and I recognized it so well..

When I saw him, I immediately felt that God has blessed me today. I rush up and held his hands and we talk for a fair bit and like 2 old friends who had a chance meeting to talk of old times and happy days ahead.

And Chef Seteo told me that he recently had surgery done, he lift up his shirt to show me a tube running into his stomach and out to a bag to collect 'waste'. His gall bladder had ruptured and the emergency operation was carried out to clean up the mess internally. He was scheduled to return to the hospital next week to remove the gall bladder.

As if touched by God, I knew he needed me to pray for him and to let him know that he is loved and watched over. I held his hand in mine and suddenly he ask me this :
Gina, do you remember what you used to tell me some years ago?

I told him I said many things to him and I won't know which was important for him to remember it so well.

So he said :

"I will always be here for you. Whenever you need me, I will be your friend in need and indeed."

He also told me the recipe I gave him for his restaurant is now a killer recipe. His customers loved it and would order in trays instead of slices. And every time when he serves Brownies, he is reminded of our special friendship. When customers ask him about the special ingredient in his brownie, he would often say

"My best friend, Gina Choong gave her kindness to me. That's the secret ingredient. She gives me this brownie recipe and its the best."



If you are in Singapore, do visit Chef Benny Seteo restaurants.

Here is the website to find out more.

http://eighteenchefs.com/index.html

Tapestry

I used to be crazy over Carole King's Tapestry music when I was in my teens. I don't know why. But I do know I loved to listen to her sing.



And when she teamed up with Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan & Shania Twain and did this song, titled "You've Got A Friend"; I knew I had to rush out to get her CD for it. Now they had it all on Youtube.


Now, years later, older and probably wiser *I hope*, its her voice I long to hear. Its rare these days to hear anyone sing from their lungs anymore. Every new age singer is singing out from their throats. :(

I missed old songs. I really do. So you will probably see me tuning to FM90.5 on Singapore waves where they had old tunes from past. My girls grew up listening to the songs I listened to. Natasha went into Choir in high school and loved to watch Musicals where the singers sung from their lungs. Its beautiful to hear the inner voice she used to say.

One of my all time favourite musical was "Sunrise Sunset" in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof". I realised that my dad had the same tastes too. More like a chip of the old block, and passing it down to my girls.




I hope my girls will pass this on to theirs and theirs too...

Enjoy the music!

A Box of Chocolates

Hubby missed out a wedding banquet he had to attend so that he could help me out at the store. So he ask me to make a box of chocolates for the happy wedded couple as they are friends in the church we worshipped at. Seems like I couldn't run away from this one.

This is what I made last night before bedtime. He chose the pretty box from our store. I chose the nice turqoise and gold foil for the chocolates and matching it with glassine brown paper cups.

The chocolates are made with white compound chocolate which had Valrhona crunchy pearls chocolates in it. I also added a hint of Jupe Japanese Royal Tea paste in it. Smells deliciously sinful.

Here's to many more wedded bliss for the young couple..!

A Time for everything...

Since opening the store, I found my days run in and out in a flash. Weekends are quick meals cooked in a one pot version. On nights, I just had Mozzarella cheese grilled straight on toast. I don't seem to have time to watch soapy serials on Channel 8 or movie flicks on HBO anymore.

My days and nights are filled with answering queries on emails or walk-in customers at the store asking about things I have in store.

But despite it all, I still find time to bake. And doing new recipes with the new ingredients I am selling in my store. And the most interesting thing was I could do this in a flash..after coming back from the store at 10pm each night.

Like this lovely Chiffon Cake I baked on Monday night using the Japanese UME Plum Fruit concentrated paste. It was light and yet firm and I even reduced the sugar by as much as 50%. The fruit paste was concentrated and sweetened. The aroma was heavenly.





Here is the recipe for it:

UME Plum Chiffon Cake
Recipe by Gina Choong

Ingredients A
4 egg yolks
125g Top flour
80ml fresh milk(I used UHT full cream milk)
2.5 tbsp Jupe Natural UME Plum paste**

Ingredients B
4 egg whites
80g fine sugar

Method
1. In a mixing bowl, add egg yolks to whip till well mixed.
2. Add milk, fruit paste to stir. then add flour and stir to mix evenly. Set aside.
3. Whip egg whites in a cake mixer till foamy. Then pour in sugar slowly.
4. Whip till it peaks. Stop the mixer and fold in egg yolk batter with it.
5. Pour into tube pan
6. Bake in preheated oven 160C for 35 mins.
7. Serve cooled.

Notes
You can get UME Plum Paste from Kitchen Capers store. Costs S$8.80 per 100g bottle.