Longrain

This is the debut review from my friend Oblivion. Yes, that's the same Oblivion who comments on this blog regularly. This review has been posted unchanged by me, including any spelling and grammatical errors.

After weeks of pondering and planning. The night we all anticipated finally arrived and at the end, our expectations were far exceeded and each of us were fulfilled beyond our hearts content.

I am of course talking about the night we finally had the utmost pleasure to wine and dine at the famous Longrain Modern Thai Restrauant. As highly recommended by our new ‘anonymous’ Chef friend, Longrain is tucked away near the eastern end of Little Bourke Street, and we ensured ourselves our stay by booking in advance (or so I tried).

As you may all be accustomed to Thanh’s traditional approach to describing every aspect of his dinining experiences from the moment he sets his foot in the place to the description of every dish set forth at the table, my approach will be slightly different. My review will focus more on describing my overall feelings at various stages of the whole night’s experience. I will not go into too much detail about each sampled food, but rather engage the audience with compelling details of the trance set upon me the moment my mouth and lips tasted the sudden burst of natural flavour that devoured both mind and body.

Our usual party of five included myself would meet at my humble aboard situated approximately 30km from the heart of the City. Every member arrived with good timing with the exception of my wife who always has an unbreakable habit of arriving fasionably, but inexcusably, LATE. Nonetheless, I was more than able to guide my 2006 Limited Edition Corolla Conquest safely onto the busy Monash Freeway which eventually lead us to our destination in more than enough time to spare.

Upon arrival of the establishment, we were promtly greeted with a gentle smile and lead swifly to a small rectangular table, at the corner, surrounded by low seats which provided a slighly disappointing level of comfort. Nonetheless, we were all able to move around rather freely and able to shuffle the dishes with ease among ourselves during the night. None of us did not grimace too much with this seating arrangement.

The first quarter of an hour we engaged in the sipping of a few of many available cocktails to order whilst congratulating Thanh's recent rise to the Senior Level in the hierachy of his Coporation. Once the last drop of cocktail had gulpted down our throats, we began to inspect every dish named and described in the menu. Choosing very carefully with much consideration, we finally compromised on the dining itenary for the night.

With the exception of the Red Curry, every other dish could not be described in words without a great struggle with one’s vocabulary. Not to say the Red Curry was ordinary, but rather simply not a much greater measure above what one would expect at an average family Indian or Thai takeway. The rest of the them; undescribable – simply a gigantic explosion of flavour activating every pleasurable sensation in the mind and body. Every instance from guiding the utensil into my mouth to motoring my jaw in circles, I would scream silently in a wild passion of continious orgasms that lasted till my throat involuntariry swallowed the contents. The flavours from every meat, every vegetable, every sauce was magically present whether it was a result of the freshness of the ingredients or the impecible skills of the Head Chef who should not last one night of his life without great praise and compliment.

The overall environment that surrounded us throughout the night was of a fairly relaxed nature. The lighting was rather dim for my likings and the noise generated by drunken chatter from other patrons in the packed house proved overwhelming at times. However, it made next to no impact to me personally as I was enchanted most of the night with the pleasant and unexpected delights from almost each flavour that swirled in my mouth stimulating almost all the sensual taste buds I now considered bless to possess and no longer taking for granted.

As one would expect from any Fine Dining establishment, Longrain’s service was more than adequate to praise and compliment not only for it’s standards, but the warm and fuzzy feeling each staff placed upon us with their smiles and charm. The timing for taking our orders to delivering every dish could not be faulted.

In closing, I hope this review makes the point very clear to everyone what to expect if one decides to have a try at this very exclusive eatery. Unless there was a very sudden and significant change in management or in the kitchen, I can give my guarantee and my two thumbs up everytime someone even questions about thinking of visting Longrain.

Confit of Duck with Grapefruit, Lime and Coriander


Wagyu Beef Salad with Papaya and Spicy Lime Sauce


Red Curry of Braised Pork Hock


Spicy Squid and Pork with Fried Betel Leaves


Massaman Curry Lamb


Steamed Swordfish with Fried Betel Leaves and Thai Sauce


(Clockwise from top left) Black Sticky Rice with Mango and Sweet Coconut Cream, Vanilla Flavoured Tapioca with Palm Sugar, Egg Rolls, Caramel Custard, Coconut Jellly, Coconut Ice Cream with Yellow Beans, Yellow Bean Cake, (in centre) Ginger Ice Cream with Tempura Bananas


FINAL VERDICT (out of 5 stars)
Taste – 4

Value – 3.5

Ambience – 3

Service - 4

Comfort - 3

Overall – 4

An unforgettable experience worthy of the highest praise. Every dish beautifully crafted and prepared with a sea of flavour. A warm environment coupled with pleasurable and friendly service. Highly recommended for any casual diner and a must for lovers of Thai gourmet.

Quince Tarte Tatin

I was at a fruit shop waiting for my work mate to buy his apples after our lunch. I was just browsing the ailses when these ugly looking yellow things caught my eyes. I would have walked right past them previously, but thanks to the knowledge of blogs, I knew that these ugly things were quinces. I first saw a photo of them on Vida's blog. Vida also talked about how great they were and the aromas they produce. Since seeing that photo, I have seen them being used on a cooking show on TV, eaten many quince desserts at restaurants, gone on a quince paste hunt that turned out the cheapest quince paste at Casa Iberica.

So upon seeing these rare fruit, what would any self respecting food lover do? Well I don't know about you, but I bought every last fruit in the shop. Then it was decision time, what should I do with them first. I then remembered reading about Duncan's tarte tatin post and thinking how I wanted to try and make that. Then I thought, I can be smart and substitute the apples with quinces.

So I flicked through my cookbooks, all six of them, to look for an apple tarte tatin (is the apple part redundant as a tarte tatin implies apples already?) recipe. What should I find in the Women's Weekly Bake book, a recipe for quince tarte tatin. So I didn't even need to make guesses at what to do. The recipe showed how to prepare the quinces.

Finally, to the results. Well I love it. The aroma of the quinces is intoxicating. It's such a strange flavour that you just can't put your finger on. I love the juices from the quinces as the pastry is quite good too.





Quince Tarte Tatin
From Australian Women's Weekly Bake

INGREDIENTS
4 medium quinces (1.2kg)
1 cup caster sugar
1 litre (4 cups) water
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp finely grated orange rind
40g butter

Pastry
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup icing sugar
100g butter chopped coarsely
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp iced water

METHOD
1. Peel, quarter and core quinces.

2. Combine quince, sugar, water, juice and rind in large saucepan. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 2.5 hours until quince is rosy in colour. Remove quince from syrup and bring syrup to boil. Boil uncovered until syrup reduces to 3/4 cup. Stir in butter.

3. Meanwhile make pastry and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 200C. Line based of greased 22cm round cake pan with baking paper.

5. Place quince, rounded-side down, in pan. Pour syrup over quince.

6. Roll pastry between two sheets of baking paper. Place pastry over quince and tuck in edges.

7. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto serving plate.

Pastry
1. Process flour, sugar and butter until crumbly. If you don't have a processor like me, just use your fingers to rub the butter in.

2. Add egg yolk and enough water to make the ingredients come together.

3. Shape dough into ball and wrap with cling wrap and place in fridge.

Victoria Sponge

With many failed attempts at making sponge cakes, I had given up making them. Then I read about a Victoria Sponge over at Sarah Cooks. Sarah said this sponge was extremely easy and fool proof. So I thought I would give it a go.

The sponge was really easy to make, and even when I didn't have self-raising flour and substituted it with plain flour mixed with baking powder, it still worked really well. The cake tasted very good, not as light as a normal sponge, more like a sponge mixed with a butter cake. Nonetheless, this will now be my default sponge recipe unless I really need a light sponge for some reason. I'm still to find a fool proof light sponge recipe. If anyone knows one, please suggest it to me.

The sponge cakes can basically be filled with whatever you want. I just went with some whipped cream with a bit of sugar and berries.



Victoria Sponge
From Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess

INGREDIENTS
225g unsalted butter, very soft
225g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
200g self-raising flour
25g cornflour
1 tsp baking powder (if using processor)
3-4 tbsp milk

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Butter and line 2 x 21cm tins.

2. If you are using processor, put all ingredients in at once except milk and blend until mixed. Then add milk gradually until mixture has a dropping consistency.

3. If you are making with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar.

4. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time. Add spoonfuls of flour between each egg.

5. Fold in the rest of the flour and cornflour.

6. When everything is incorporated, add a little milk as needed to get the dropping consistency.

7. Pour batter into tins and bake for 25 minutes.

8. Leave cakes to cool in their tins for 10 minutes before turning out.

Cloud Cupcakes

I wanted to make cupcakes, and the name of this cupcake caught my attention. Cloud cupcakes just evoke images of a fluffy light cupcake that melts in your mouth. Well as the say in advertising, they sometimes lie.

The cloud cupcake turned out to be a vanilla cupcake (nothing wrong there so far) with an Italian meringue style frosting. The vanilla part of the cupcake with the jam is quite good. A nice base for other frostings in future. Swirling the jam at the top of the cupcake did make it look really awful and pimply. If you don't frost it, it looks terrible. I suggest swirling the jam into the middle of the cupcake so it looks better if you don't plan on frosting it. I also used some guava paste for some of my cupcakes and that worked really well too. The guava gives such a fantastic flavour.

The frosting part looked good but I didn't really like. The raw egg white smell came through still and just made it taste bad. It also made the cupcake way too sweet. I went to so much effort to pipe the frosting that I didn't want to scrape it off. Well, fate as it turns out, did it for me. As I had loaded all the cupcakes into containers to put into the fridge, I stacked two containers atop each other while I tried to transfer it the one metre from the bench to the fridge. You can see where this is going right? Well, the top container slipped and instead of letting it fall, I tried to catch it, which meant the second container in my hands flipped over. So all the frosting went everywhere. Usually I would be so angry, but I just laughed this time since it was so funny because the frosting wasn't good anyway.



Cloud Cupcakes
From Australian Women's Weekly Bake cookbook

INGREDIENTS
90g butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp strawberry jam
1/4 cup caster sugar, for decoration
pink food colouring

Frosting
1 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup water
2 egg whites

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line 12 hole muffin pan with cases.

2. Beat butter, extract, sugar, eggs, flour and milk in bowl with electric mixer on slow. When ingredients combined, beat at medium until mixture changed to lighter colour.

3. Divide batter into holes. Put a bit of jam on each and swirl into cupcakes using skewer.

4. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn out cakes onto rack to cool.

5. Place extra caster sugar into sandwich zip lock bag. Put a few drops of pink food colouring and rub colour into sugar.

6. Make frosting and spread onto cupcakes. Sprinkle with coloured sugar.

FROSTING
1. Stir sugar and water in small saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolved.

2. Boil, uncovered, without stirring for 5 minutes until syrup reaches 116C. Remove from heat and allow bubbles to subside.

3. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form.

4. With mixer operating, pour in hot syrup in thin stream. Keep beating on high until mixture is thick and cool.

Value For Money When Dining Out

When dining out, trying to determine if something is value for money is so hard. It's such a subject thing as one person's criteria for what is value is different to another. I will use two recent dining examples of mine to demonstrate.

The first dining experience is what I would call value for money. Before going to see Wicked, my friend and I dropped by Horoki for dinner. I love that restaurant and have written about it here, here, and here. The price for our dinner was $70, which is $35 each, although to be fair, my friend said she was quite full already and didn't eat one of the dishes. So lets say the meal for just myself would have cost $45.

So what did we get to eat for that price. Well, I got a beer while she got a juice. We then had my favourite daikon sashimi salad that contained beautiful cuts of fish combined with a tangy dressing that enveloped the finely shredded daikon with fish roe bursting at every bite while the seaweed and fried noodle crisps crunched away. We also got a Korean pancake that was cooked to perfection with no hint of floury taste and soft pieces of squid. We also got plump seared scallops with a thin gelatinous rice skin overlapping dressed with oil, capers and diced tomato. We also got a cod roe butter that smoothly covered some noodles with a sprinkling of paprika. Finally, to finish it all off, I got a velvety smooth creme brulee while my friend got an equally smooth panna cotta with berry sauce. Now to me, that meal was utterly delicious and great value for money.

Now fast forward a couple of days and let's contrast it to another meal that some may think is value for money, but for me was utter rubbish. That meal was eaten at Sofias Burwood. The meal cost $40 each when the bill was split with two other friends. Since one friend only had a salad and soup, my meal probably cost near $50. So this is what I got. Again, I got a beer. I got about 5 oysters natural that were not fresh at all and had no flavour. I also got a steak medium rare that was extremely chewy and absolutely flavourless. It was such a huge chunk of steak that I couldn't finish it. Sitting next to the steak was some vegetables that had been boiled to death and was so lifeless. To top it off, there was a mushroom sauce that tasted worse than the packet stuff from the supermarket and it drenched my plate so that everything was swimming in it. Then I got dessert, which I thought they couldn't possibly get wrong. How can you mess up crepes with bananas. Well, I got a huge huge plate (see photo below, my hand is there for aspect) of two crepes, with a tub of cream, bananas soaked in banana syrup and sprinkled with dessicated coconut and half a tub of "vanilla" ice cream. Let me start with the crepes. They tasted like they hadn't been cooked yet and was all stretchy. It tasted foul and I couldn't eat more than a couple of bites. The whipped cream from a can was also foul. The bananas, which you can't go wrong with right, were boiled to a mush and drenched in this awful synthetic flavoured banana syrup. Even the dessicated coconut taseted funny. And finally, that huge chunk of vanilla ice cream had absolutely no flavour. If you didn't tell me it was vanilla ice cream, I would have guessed it was lard.



So as you can see, some people may think the sofia's dinner was value for money. I got three courses which on paper sounded great. But in excution, was atrocious. I looked around at the other tables and the patrons looked quite happy, or at least not upset. Many were even happy to be able to take away a huge container full of pasta that was the remains of their meals. The pasta dishes were so huge I really thought all three of us could eat just one plate. If you think I'm kidding, look at the dessert plate above.

I don't think I'm a food snob, as I like eating things like Hungry Jack's burgers or at my local Chinese Vietnamese restaurants that serve $10 meals and be equally happy. But Sofia's, and other similar restaurants, are not value for money. I have been there three times, not of my choosing, and it has been equally horrendous each time. These types of restaurants should really change their style so that they serve smaller servings of better quality rather than this sloppy fare. Our meals arrived so fast (our steaks arrived in about 5 minutes, desserts in about 8 minutes) that they must all just be pre cooked and sitting there. It's worse than fast food, where even they claim they cook your burger when you order it now.

So to summarise, for me, value for money is eating well food that uses good (doesn't have to be experience) quality ingredients and excuted well. I would rather have the Horoki experience where I ate some exciting dishes and was full enough rather than have so much food at Sofias that I couldn't walk (if I ate it all, which I didn't) for the next three days but was terribly slopped together that even an ingredient like a banana could be ruined. Even if they did nothing with the banana and just sliced it and placed it next the "crepe", it would have tasted good.

One Restaurant, Two Menus

You are seated to a large round pink clothed table. Your nine friends and yourself are handed menus. You start to browse the menu while sipping on some Jasmine tea. As you are ready to order, a waiter walks past you and the wafting smell of something exotic whips past you. You crane your neck to look at the adjoining table. Curiously, the dish of Abalone with Sea Cucumber in Claypot that they have just been presented doesn’t seem to be on menu. Upon closer inspection, quite a number of other dishes they are eating doesn’t seem to be on the menu. You grab your friends menu to check that your menu isn’t missing a page. Nope, same thing. You start to think that maybe these are regular customers and the chef has made a special effort to cook something for them that isn’t on the menu. But as you scan across the restaurant, you see others are having the same dish.

Confused? Well, this is what happened to a friend when he dined at Imperial Kingdom with 9 of his friends. This friend of mine is a white Caucasian male, and his friends also happened to be Anglo Saxon too. In case you haven’t already worked it out yet, they were subjected to the anti-racism that occurs for Anglo Saxon customers at many fine, and not so fine, Chinese restaurants around Melbourne.

Some Chinese restaurants have two menus, one in Chinese which they give to Asian looking customers, regardless of whether they can read Chinese or not. The other “sanitised” menu is given to Anglo Saxon customers, who they think will not want to eat the other types of food and who they can probably rip off more easily. It seems a strange practise given that Australian’s gastronomic vocabulary has improved so much that they shouldn’t give people a choice in the matter.

Many a times I have been to Imperial Kingdom and seen other tables order the banquet and be presented with spring rolls, corn soup, dim sims, lemon chicken, seafood bird’s nest etc and thought to myself that a)no Asian would ever eat any of those things at a Chinese restaurant, and b)they could be trying so much more authentic and more delicious food. I’m not picking on Imperial Kingdom, just merely using it as an example as this was a real situation that occurred. When my friend was telling me about his weekend dining experience at Imperial Kingdom, before he even finished talking, I asked him if he ordered the banquet. When he said yes as that was the easiest thing to do, I started to rattle off the list of food items and he said that was what they had. The killer for me was when I said lemon chicken and plum pork. Uuugh, how many Asians ever eat lemon chicken anywhere. And plum pork is so hard to make taste right. Unless you use real pickled plums so that the dish has both a sour and sweet component, it just tastes so wrong. All restaurants use these generic ultra gluggy plum sauce that only gets served to the “gwei low” (Anglo Saxons).

It’s funny how so many Chinese restaurants are still getting away with having two menus. I guess maybe I may be overestimating the palette of most Australians. Maybe a lot of people are happy with spring rolls and dim sims, but why not give everyone a choice. Some might still go for the dim sims, but others may want to try that delicious Abalone.

Han Palace - Yum Cha

I caught up with some friends for Yum Cha. Kidman had organised it for Han Palace. None of us had gone back there for ages. It was chosen as that was the most central location for everyone. From when I was last there at least one and a half to two years ago, it was rather quiet. The food was ok with the main attraction being that it was cheap.

How things I have changed. We were all shocked when there was a huge crowd waiting to get in at the change of seating time of 1pm. Luckily, Kidman had booked beforehand so we were ushered in and seated while others jockeyed to get tables. A crowded restaurant usually means two things. The food is good since there is a constant rotation of fresh stuff, and you tend to have to wait as the trolleys take a while to come to you. We didn't mind the waiting part we were there to talk anyway.

As usual, I got everyone to pose for photos and took them when they weren't ready. Here is Jaslene and Kidman.


Jacky and I weren't entirely ready either when Kevin took the photo.


And a shot of Kevin eating away.


I have to say, the new management have really revamped the food. It actually tastes good now. Staples like "har cheung" (prawn wrapped in rice noodle, left), "woo tow gok" (mince wrapped in taro and crispy pastry, middle) and "char siu guen" (roast pork rolls, right) were actually good.


They also had the more Asian specialties such as Chicken Feet, Tripe and Tendons. All three had good flavours.


Other staples like "har gow" (prawn dumplings), "bao" (buns) and various other dumplings were all good. The desserts that we tried of Green Tea Cakes with Red Bean, Gluttonous Rice Cakes and Mango Pudding were godo too. Only the Tapioca and Mango dessert was a bit disappointing due to the mango being totally frozen. We joked that they must have accidentally left it all in the fridge or the cold tub they were serving it from had a hidden freezer inside.

Anyway, the place was noisy as any good yum cha place should be. The service was good as far as yum cha goes. Our tea pot was refilled constantly and the staff fulfilled every request we had such as rearranging the tables and orders for food.

Price wise, it's still good value there. The meal only cost us $17 each, not bad since everyone was full and we ordered a lot of prawn dishes. Now that I know this place is quite good, I have to join the throng of people and visit here more often on weekends for yum cha.

Overall Rating: 14/20, The food is good and the prices is very fair.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Punch Lane

After flicking through my 2009 copy of The Age Good Food Guide, I deicded on Punch Lane as the choice of dining locations as my friends left it to me to choose. The description in the Good Food Guide sounded really interesting and turned out to be quite accurate.

Punch Lane is located on the very crowded Spring street end of Little Bourke. You walk into a dark lit restaurant that is separted into two areas. The main bar is situated in the large more brightly lit room housing large chalk boards with specials and wines and numerous wooden tables. We were seated in the more intimate adjoining area where there was only 5-6 tables.

The waitress asked us for drinks and what type of water we wanted. As I don't believe in paying for any type of water, I asked for tap water. While we browsed the drinks menu, the waitress informed us about the night's specials in a knowledgeable fashion. The service throughout the night was efficient and friendly without being atrusive. The timing of the dishes is possibly a bit slow, but I guess some people like to take longer for their meals.

We started with a Tasting Plate, which contained some very interesting and tantalising array of flavours. There was empanadas, chicken liver parfait, Manchago cheese with Quince paste, Grilled Eggplant, Prosciutto and my favourite of the lot, Red Peppers stuffed with Goat's Cheese and topped with a White Anchovy.


Initially, we all wanted to have the Steak. But after some discussion, we decided to go with a larger variety of mains and share it. The mains we choose were obviously the Steak which was paired with a Parsnip Puree and Roasted Bone Marrow. A Confit of Duck with paired with Braised Red Cabbage and Apple. Finally, the Seared Scallops had a Artichoke Mash, Lemon and Caper Butter.

The Steak was very tender but surprisingly, the fillet cut lacked a bit of flavour. I loved the bone marrow and sucked out all of it in one big whoosh. Why don't more restaurants serve bone marrow, it's so unctuous (shout outs to Towser and Agnes, did I use this word correctly?) but addictive.

The Seared Scallops contained large plump scallops that were so full of flavour. The fresh tasting scallops really made this dish. The capers helped to provide a bit of kick to the dish, but the scallops could have been served by themselves and would still be a great dish.


Finally, the Duck Confit surprised me. The duck was not overly dry and the dish was balance of sweet, sour and salty. The apples were a great addition I thought.


For desserts, we got the Vanilla Panna Cotta with Poached Quince and the Rice Pudding with Rhubarb Compote. The pudding was a bit coying and we all just had a few spoons because the Panna Cotta was so unbelievably good that everyone was fighting for that. This was one of the smoothest Panna Cotta's I've tried and the Vanilla bean specks throughout the panna cotta could be tasted clearly. Paired with the fragrant quince, it was a perfect dessert.


The food was surprisingly better than I expected. What sounded on paper like dishes that were served at numerous other restaurants was excuted with skill and good ingredients, giving rise to some excellent flavours.

Service, as mentioned early was both efficient and unobtrusive. The atmosphere in the section of the room we were in was a bit more muted, but not overly so that you dare not speak at all. The lighting was a touch dark for my liking but otherwise it was quite comfortable.

Overall Rating: 15/20, Good food with some good service to match.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Truffles

I was thinking of a cake to make for a friend's birthday. Since he really likes chocolate (and so do I, as I would get to eat the cake too), I decided to make a chocolate cake. I've many numerous and most are good but I still continue trying more chocolate cake recipes. I hope to one day find the perfect chocolate cake. The search continues. Anyway, I wanted to dress up the cake and make it even more interesting, so decided to make Chocolate Truffles. Jon's recipe was really easy to make and tasted decadently luscious. I tried various combinations of alcohol and non-alcohol truffles with various nuts and frostings. In the end, my favourite by far was the Grand Marnier truffles with almond frosting.

For the chocolate cake, I tried the Moist Chocolate Cake recipe from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2. Note to Cindy (if you happen to read this), you may have noticed that my cook book collection has expanded. I now have added another 4 cook books to my collection, expanding by collection by 200% to a whopping 6 books hahaha.

I found this cake very good. It's somewhere between a dense mud cake and a light buttermilk cake. I think this cake worked well with the chocolate ganache as it wasn't overly heavy. The truffles really did lift the cake. Each time you bit into a truffle, you could taste the alcohol and I thought this made the cake another fold (that's an extra 100% for you non mathematicians out there) better. I can't actually quantify that finding as it's my own subjective measurement, so there is an error margin of +- 100%. Regardless, let's just say it was better with the truffles.



Moist Chocolate Cake
From Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2

INGREDIENTS

300g dark couverture chocolate, chopped
250g butter
5 eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup almond meal

METHOD

1. Preheat over to 150C. Line base of 23cm springform cake tin with baking paper.

2. Place chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir until melted. Set aside to cool.

2. Place eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until pale and thick.

3. Sift flour and baking powder over egg mixture and gently fold through with the almond meal and chocolate mixture.

4. Pour mixture into tin and bake for 50 minutes until an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean.

5. Cool in tin.

Chocolate Ganache

100g good quality dark cooking chocolate, roughly chopped
120ml thick cream

1. To make ganache, combine chocolate and cream in heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (water should not touch bottom of bowl). Stir occasionally, till mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside for around an hour, stirring occasionally till it has cooled and thickened to a spreadable consistency.

Chocolate Truffles

250g good quality dark Belgian chocolate
250g good quality milk Belgian chocolate
Approx 400ml Pure/ Double Cream (45% fat content)

1. Heat cream until it is boiling and add in broken up pieces of chocolate. Stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth.

2. Add alcohol flavours if you wish and pour chocolate mixture into bowls and refigerate for two hours at least.

3. Use a melon baller or teaspoons and make small balls from the ganache. Roll the balls in nuts, dessicated coconut, cocoa powder or whatever you wish.

Vanilla Slice

There are some people out there who are vanilla slice connoisseurs and are searching for the perfect vanilla slice. Check out the Vanilla Slice Blog if you want to join the crusade. I am very partial to a good vanilla slice and will always get one when I see it. After always fearing that they are really hard to make, after seeing Maggie Beer make one on The Cook and The Chef, I decided to give one a go myself. The recipe I chose was the one that looked the simplest. It's from the Women's Weekly Bake book and I've adapted it slightly.

As it turns out, the vanilla slice is so easy to make. And the all important taste. Well, like I said, I'm not connoisseur but I loved it more than 95% of the vanilla slices I have bought. The exception is the vanilla slices from Sorrento. It could be due to the fact that the ones I make myself have not been sitting on a shelf for days, or it's just that I made them so I'm biased. Whatever the case, they're great and I've made them a few more times since. One batch of this recipe only makes a small amount. I recommend you make a triple batch as I do each time. This will fill up a large square brownie tin of about 25cm x 35cm. They disappear so quickly that I assure you they won't go stale sitting on the bench.



Vanilla Passionfruit Slice
Adapted from Women's Weekly Bake book

INGREDIENTS
2 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry, thawed
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup cornflour
1 1/2 tbsp custard powder
1 1/4 cup milk (330ml)
30g butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Passionfruit Icing
3/4 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp passionfruit pulp
1 tsp water, approx

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Grease 8cm x 26cm bar cake pan. Line with foil extending over edges.

2. Place one sheet of pastry on a tray each and bake for 15 minutes or until puffed. Take out of oven and flatten pastry with a tea towel over them.

3. Combine sugar, cornflour and custar powder in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. When all the milk is stirred in, put over high heat and keep stirring until mixture thickens. When it has thickened, turn down heat to medium and stir for a further 3 minutes to remove the floury taste and continue thickening the custard.

4. Remove pan from heat and stir in butter, egg yolk and extract.

4. Place one piece of pastry into pan. Pour over hot custard and spread evenly. Place other piece of pastry over custard. cool to room temperature.

5. To make passionfruit icing, sift icing sugar into heatproof bowl. Stir in passionfruit pulp and enough water to make a paste. Stir over small saucepan of simmering water until icing is spreadable.

6. Spread icing over pastry. Set at room temperature and refrigerate 3 hours in fridge before cutting.