Sunday, October 17, 2010

All things ginger


My weekend begun at 7am Saturday; I baked a Sour Cream and Ginger cake from the Kylie Kwong recipe book, for my brother in law who recently lost his mother after a long illness.



It's a simple, unassuming looking cake.  Golden and rustic-looking, sunken in the middle.



But cutting into it reveals the delicious and unusual little secret - an inside layer of sour cream.  I'm never sure what the ethics of reproducing other people's recipes in my blog are - particularly when I can't find it published anywhere online.  So let's just say this: before baking, the cake batter itself is quite thick.  You make an indent in the top of the batter after you've spread it into the cake pan, and pour in some light sour cream, which then bakes through the whole cake, making it moist and slightly savoury on the inside - a little like having a cheesecake centre.  On the top, raw sugar is sprinkled so that it forms a sweet crust above the sour cream.  It's a nice combo of sweet + ginger + savoury + tart flavours, as well as several different textures; cakey + soft + a gentle crunch on top.


Sunday I took a friend to Gingerboy for her birthday, for the Sunday Hawker lunch.  A whopping FOURTEEN courses consisting mostly of different types of dumplings, along with some obligatory chinese broccoli and sticky rice.  Some favourites:  spicy fried calamari, chicken satay dumplings, oxtail potsticker dumplings, salt and pepper tofu, and the apple & cinnamon dumpling at the end.  Oh, and the Cherry Gimlet cocktails were a lovely tangy accompaniment to the flavours on the degustation menu.

Where are the photos of the actual food?  Sorry, it simply wasn't on the agenda today, I was too busy enjoying the flavours to worry about the visuals.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Buttery almond coconut cake (gluten free)

A fellow food blogger posted this recipe from a book I have in my collection - Belinda Jeffrey's "Mix and Bake".  It's a favourite among friends who've had the pleasure of indulging in the buttery, almost fudge-like cake.



Rather than reproduce the recipe here, I'll let someone else deal with potential copyright issues (I'm never quite sure what the protocols are) and instead refer you to http://ieatthereforeiam.blogspot.com/2008/08/buttery-almond-and-coconut-cake.html