Nuts Chan

Nuts chan is located on The Highway in Mount Waverley. From the name, you would never guess what type of food it was. At best, you would guess it's a Chinese restaurant. But it's actually a Japanese take away and restaurant.

We walk through the front end of the restaurant to a tiny area where there are a few tables. We're seated and were going to order some beers, only to find they don't serve beers. So instead we settle for some green tea.

We order a Sushi and Sashimi platter to start. The fish is fairly fresh, nothing spectacular but better than most suburban Japanese restaurants.


The Teriyaki Chicken was fairly tender pieces of grilled chicken drizzled with a teriyaki sauce. Again, this is better than most suburban places.


The Sukiyaki a mixture of tofu, noodles and pieces of beef. The mixture had that slightly sweet taste of a sukiyaki and worked quite well together.


This little suburban restaurant is good for a quick easy meal. The sushi and sashimi is of a good quality and good prices.

Overall Rating: 13/20, Good local Japanese restaurant.

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.

The Cedar Tree

Kin really wanted to have Lebanese food, so after some searches and one failed booking attempt, we got a table at the The Cedar Tree Restaurant. The restaurant is located in Brighton.

When you walk in the tiny shop front, which is quite easily missed, you see a long restaurant with wall hangings, large paintings and brightly painted walls. It felt quite inviting, even when we got further back into the restaurant and there were fewer diners.

After being seated and our wine poured, we settled on the banquet for $35. You get free corkage with the banquet.

The banquet started off with a trio of Dips with Lebanese Bread. The dips would actually be the highlight of my night. The Hommos and Baba Ghanouj were so wonderfully flavoursome that we ate way too much bread. The Taboulie Salad was very refreshing.


The Savoury Pastries contained one with feta and the other one with lamb in it. The feta one was good although the lamb one did smell too strong for my liking. The falafel was excellent as it wasn't overfried so it was too dry. In fact, it was quite moist and soft.


The Jawanih (chicken wings) and Ors Kafta (lamb patties) were quite good. The chicken wings were crispy but a bit too salty. The lamb patties were moist with a charred outer that I liked.


While Kin, Phuong and I were eating the Chicken Rice, which we were enjoying with it's tangy lemon dressing, a belly dancer started to perform.


The belly dancer strutted her stuff across the restaurant. She was very good at it, shaking those hips at an extremely fast pace. A question I do have is, why do a lot of belly dancers have quite a wobbly belly. You would think that with all the shaking they do, they would have washboard abs.


We had a lamb curry with rice to finish and we were all really full by this stage.


But since I love desserts, I kept going. The Mahalabia, which was like a panna cotta with an orange blossum syrup sounded better than it tasted. The custard part was quite bland. The Baklawa and Halkoum (Turkish Delight) weren't so good. The Halkoum was really sweet and didn't have that fragrant flavour. The Baklawa came nowhere near that of El Fayha on Sydney Road. I have tried so many baklava's at so many restaurants and bakery but none have yet come close to El-Fayha yet. I keep mentioning El-Fayha each time I mention baklava as those two words are synonymous for me now. I have gone back so many times but still can't get enough of his pastries. I don't know what his secret is.




The food was quite good and really filling. It was good value for money considering the price. The service was professional and efficient. I liked the belly dancing although some diners at other tables seem almost annoyed to have their meals interrupted.

Overall Rating: 14/20, Good Lebanese food at a good value. I liked the belly dancing as well.

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.

Marbled Mocha Brownies

So I love brownies, and I love baked cheesecake. Well, when you combine the two, it's amazing. This marbled mocha brownie from Belinda Jeffrey's every reliable Mix and Bake is the ultimate brownie. You get the chocolate-y goodness of the brownie, while also getting the soft creamy texture of the cream cheese part. It also looks great with the swirls throughout the brownie.

To make this brownie is very easy. Obviously it's not as easy one bowl Macadamia Brownies also from Belinda, but it's not much harder. You basically make the brownie and then mix in the cream cheese.


Marbled Mocha Brownies
From Belinda Jeffrey's Mix and Bake

INGREDIENTS
180g dark chocolate
90g unsalted butter
3 tsp instant coffee granules
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp coffee liqueur or very strong black coffee

TOPPING
250g cream cheese, at room temperature
60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup castor sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp coffee liqueur or very strong black coffee

METHOD
1) Preheat oven to 180C. Butter and line a 32 x 24 x 5cm baking tin with baking paper.

2) In saucepan, melt chocolate, butter and coffee granules over low heat until all melted and smooth. Leave mixture to cool.

3) In large bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar for 1 minute. Sift flour, cocoa and salt into mixture. Stir them in lightly. Add vanilla extract, liqueur and melted chocolate mixture. Stir until well mixed.

4) In another bowl, beat cream cheese, butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Drizzle in the beaten eggs a bit at a time, beating well between each addition. Mix in flour and liqueur (mixture may look a bit curdled).

5) Stir brownie mixture and pour into prepared tin, leaving about half a cup of mixture. Tilt tin to get mixture to spread evenly. Dollop spoonfuls of the cream cheese topping all over this layer. Drop teaspoonfuls of the reserved brownie mixture over the cream cheese. Use a skewer to swirl the two mixtures together. Don't overdo it or you will lose the marbled effect.

6) Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the edges are pale golden and an inserted skewer comes out with moist, but not wet, crumbs. Cool brownies on a wire rack. When completely cool, pop into freezer for an hour to chill.

7) Once firm, invert brownies out of tin and peel away baking paper. Cut into slices and store in an airtight container. Brownies can be stored in the fridge for two weeks.

Sho Noodle Bar - Bloggers Invitation Dinner

"Sho me the noodles" screams Rod Tidwell to Jerry Maguire. Well, actually he doesn't say that, but he would if he was invited to a bloggers special dinner at the newly opened Sho Noodle Bar in the Crown Entertainment Complex. Some of you may be wary about going to Crown, but I actually like all the food choices available there. I've tried, and loved, Rockpool, The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel and Koko. I liked Crown Conservatory, Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons and Bistro Guillaume. I think the restaurants are unfairly lumped together with the casino aspect and some people refuse to go because of that. There are numerous great eating establishments there that can be visited completely independent of the casino.

The newly opened Sho Noodle Bar will test some of you. It's located on the gaming room floor itself, just inside from the atrium. The open restaurant means that all the noise from the gaming floor filters right through it. You'll either love it or loathe it. I loved hearing the adjoining poker room players scream in joy whenever they won something. The restaurant is marketed as casual dining and would appeal to gamers, (or gamblers depending how cynical you are) but judging from the quality of service, food and fitout of the restaurant, it would be a shame if diners were deterred from eating there just becuase the restaurant is within the gaming area.

The restaurant has a calming fit out, with deep seats for a drink of tea in front of the tea displays, to tables for casual dining or the bar seating with a great view into an Iron Chef style kitchen that I wished I had. The little decorative touches around the room like the helped to make it interesting.




The night started off with meeting my fellow bloggers over a tea ceremony. I met many familiar faces in Dan and Mellie (Tummy Rumbles), Jane (Deep Dish Dreams), Jackie (Eating With Jack), Ed (Tomato), Jon (Melbourne Foodie), Neil (At My Table), Elliot and Sandra (1001 Dinners 1001 Nights) and some new faces in Pat (Cooking Down Under) and Ida (A Wok In The Wild Side). While we chatted away, we were served some very good champagne (or Australian Sparkling is my guess) and watched as one of the staff performed a meticulous tea ceremony where the tea was filtered many times. The Oolong tea had a slight tartness to it but it wasn't too bitter and I really liked it.

Next up, Master Pin Tan (head chef of Sho) showed up how to make some very fine noodles. He was very personable and explained that the noodles only contain wheat flour and water, and no other secret ingredients. The key was to get the right consistency and using the correct technique, you'll end up with long thin noodles such as those he made.


Finally, another staff performed a Kung Fu tea pouring show. He flung the long tea pot all over his body and in various poses, poured the tea straight into tiny cup without spilling any. Very impressive indeed.


We were then seated at the bar to watch the chefs cooking away in the kitchen. While our tea cups and wine glasses were filled with a variety of fine teas and wine, the food started to roll out. First up was an assortment of dumplings, Har Gow, Siu Mai and Vegetable Dumplings. All three were very good, with the skin of the har gow being that perfect consistency between being gelatinous but not too thick. I even liked the siu mai, which I usually hate. I think the higher ratio of prawn meat to mince made it good.


The standard Cold Platter of Soy Chicken, Char Siu and Roast Duck was average. The soy chicken was a touch dry and needed more soy. The char siu (which I don't like at any place although some places do it a bit better by cooking it more crisp) was a bit under done. The roast duck was the best of the three, with a crispy skin and soft meat.


The next dish was my favourite. I just adore lobster and the Lobster with Honey Chilli and Spring Onion was a treat. The lobster was fried and tossed in a sauce that tasted to me of sweet chilli, worcestershire sauce, vinegar and sugar (or possibly honey although I didn't really taste the honey flavour). The tang from the sauce coated each piece of tender juicy lobster meat. I even picked out the meat from the head so as to savour the last of the lobster flavour.


The Barramundi with Chilli Oyster Sauce was again a great dish. Fried fish work well with a sweet sour type sauce, as in this case. The chilli helped to give it an extra kick that lifts it even more. The barramundi was served with some wok fried Gailan.


The Beef Rendang was a very hot curry. I'm never a huge fan of rendang but this one was quite good. The meat was extremely tender and not stringy, so that was a plus. The rendang was hot, which I like, so another plus. It probably needed a touch more coconut cream.


The Wok Fried Chicken with Dried Chilli was definitely the worst dish of the night. I didn't like it at all. I've had this dish at other places and usually it's chicken literally fried with just dried chilli. This means the dish is fiery full of chilli flavour. However, this dish had no kick and this rather awful sweet plum type sauce mixed with it. To me, this is a dish that is catered to the Australian palette.


The Char Kway Teow as featured in Epicure was very good indeed. The noodles were cooked very quickly so it had that "wok hei" as Neil and I were discussing. The worse thing to do with rice noodles is to cook it slowly so that it falls apart. With some soy and some plump prawns and chinese sausage, this dish was "yummy" (happy KP, I threw in the word yummy just for you).


The night finished off with a trio of desserts. There was Diced Mango with Raspberries, Mango Pudding and Mango Ice Cream with a Lychee. You can't go wrong with fresh mangos, so that was a refreshing end to the meal. The Mango Pudding had a good consistency and had a good mango flavour, not the best I've had, but nowhere near the worse either. The Mango Ice Cream tasted rather funny and I didn't like that much.


The service throughout the night was fantastic. Dishes were brought out quickly and old plates were cleared. Our tea and wines were topped up constantly. Our head waitress, Annie, deserves a special mention. I recognised her from her days at Koko, when she made our first visit there very good due to her excellent service. I don't know if the normal service is this thorough, so I'll have to see whether that standard is maintained.

Overall, I had a fantastic night. The food was very good and so was the service. The ambience of the restaurant was energetic due to the open kitchen and the noise filtering from the gaming floor. So I would recommend that you give Sho Noodle Bar a try. I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed as the prices look very fair.

Here is the bit where I have to say that the meal was complimentary of Crown. So you can take my review for what you think it's worth. To me personally, there is no conflict of interest as I have confidence in my own values that I would have totally trashed this place if it was bad.

Last, but definitely not least, thanks to Tara Bishop, Media Relations Manager at Crown for inviting me. I had hepas of fun and sorry about the initial scepticism. If there's any further invites from you, I'll say yes without questioning the legitmacy and sending your mind into a spin. :-)

Los Amates

The beauty of blogs is that you find out about great places which the traditional media may not have reviewed. I first read about Los Amates at Where's The Beef. Michael and cindy have gone on multiple visits, so check out all their posts. Even though they were describing the vegetarian food at the restaurant, I was still intrigued enough to give it a try.

I was meeting my good friend for dinner, and seeing as he lived in Rathdowne street, this restaurant on Johnston street was the perfect choice. We both also like spicy food as well.

As we enter the restaurant, we were instantly assaulted by all these smells. It was a fairly cold night so we were sniffing up the smells and warmth of the restaurant. We were seated to a table near the door. Despite the tables being quite close to each other, the low level buzz in the restaurant meant that we had our own conversation without having to overhear what the next table was saying.

For drinks, we couldn't go past all the cocktails that we were seeing at all the tables around us. We got Mojitos and they were fantastically tangy and minty. I loved it. I also got a Pacifico (I think that was the brand) Mexican beer on the recommendation of the waitress. As she said, it was indeed a lighter tasting beer and I enjoyed it.

For entrees, we got Ham and Cheese Quesadillas. The quesadillas were served with two sauces, and as much as I love salsa, I actually thought they went better with the sour cream. A delicious start to the meal.


For mains, I got the Chilli Beef, served with some stewed beans, rice and salad. The beef was quite hot, which I liked. But it was possibly a bit too hot such that the chilli drowned out the flavour of the rest of the sauce and meat. The beans were soft and surprisingly I liked it. The salad with it's tangy dressing was really good, as it broke up all the other flavours.


My friend got the Tacos, which was fantastic. The mince mixture was crammed with flavour and you get these flour pancakes to wrap it all in. Dipped into the sauce, this dish was really tasty. If we go back, I'm definitely trying the other tacos available for sure.


For dessert, I got the Flan de la Casa, which is a Spanish creme caramel basically. It was ultra smooth and a small slice was enough to satisfy my dessert habit. Overall, the food was both new, interesting and delicious. I'd only ever eaten Taco Bill mexican food and that stuff isn't very good. But this mexican food was much more to my liking (at least hot means hot rather than some watered down version for Australian palettes) and I will revisit this place for my Mexican food.

The night was very enjoyable and the ambience in the restaurant was just right. The restaurant actually stretched a lot further back, with the middle section more subdued and the back section totally boisterous. I think I would rather sit in the front of the back as I like a bit of a buzz in a restaurant. The service was friendly and efficient most of the night. Only when I ordered dessert from a different waiter than the waitress serving us through the night was there a bit of confusion. But a simple enquiry about dessert got it brought out immediately.

Overall Rating: 15/20, Delicious Mexican food with a great ambience in the restaurant.

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.

Cafe Vue - Cocktail Night

Claire was the pioneer and showed everyone how it was done a few times, then Cindy and Michael took the plunge, followed by Agnes who also enjoyed it. I'm talking about Cafe Vue's weekly friday Cocktails Night. There is a constantly changing menu each month, with a theme to match.



Seeing how everyone was enjoying it so much, I decided to get in on the act as well. I enjoy a cocktail, even if cocktails are a bit girly. It doesn't matter. A good cocktail is a great mixture of flavours that enhance the individual alcoholic elements in it. As the saying goes, it is "greater than the sum of it's parts".

Arriving before the official start time, John, Mia, Esther, Kin and myself were crammed into a four person table in the alley between the cafe and street. The seating wasn't the most comfortable as three of us had to squeeze into a seat clearly for two. The bench seats also meant our backs were quite painful by the end of the night. We were also right near the door that lead into the small back court where the smokers were. Seeing as all of us didn't smoke, it wasn't pleasant when someone opened the door and smoke wafted towards us at the speed of sound (or possibly a bit slower).

Seating complaints aside, the rest of the night was enjoyable. It was a tad dark (and regular readers will know I don't like dark restaurants) but in this occasion, it was probably just right. We were having cocktails primarily and the low lighting felt right. The service (contrary to Kin's objections) was quite good. They did check that we had our water refilled and that we didn't require anything. Obviously, the service is not as flash as in Vue de Monde where the service was impeccable. But it was casual and light hearted without being lazy.

The cocktail theme for the night was the Caribbean, and every cocktail contained rum. I'm a huge fan of rum so was looking forward to it.

The night started off with a Puerto Rican Special. Here's the problem with writing posts way after the event. You forget things. There was an explanation for the name of the drink, something about people smuggling rum out of Puerto Rico during a war or something. Bascially the drink was Bacardi rum mixed with orange liquer and rind. The matching food was Clams and scallop with corn puree. I loved this dish as the sea flavours worked well with the corn puree. The cocktail was quite good, but not something I would order by itself again.


The second cocktail of the night was a La Florida Rum Daisy. It was again Bacardi rum mixed with fruit punch and finished with a glace cherry and mint. This cocktail was very fruity and I liked it. It was paired with a Foie gras hot dog. I thought a hot dog roll would literally be filled with foie gras (how silly of me, as if you would get so much foie gras for what is already a great value for money meal) but instead it was a hot dog that didn't taste much like foie gras. The hot dog didn't taste too different to a normal hot dog.


The third cocktail was an Olaffsons Fix (you need to pronounce Olafssons with some throat spit action the waiter joked). It was an aged Havana rum with some fruit juice I can't remember, vegetable gluten (whatever that is, I asked the waiter but he wasn't sure) and topped with cinnamon. I liked the taste of this cocktail but wasn't sure if I could taste the vegetable gluten or not. The matching food was the best (or at least a tie since I have a biased to desserts) dish of the night. It was Roasted baby vegetables filled with a duck mince. The dish was presented on this very cool artist palette plate and each vegetable looked like a dab of paint, very clever.


The fourth cocktail was a Coopers Ranch Punch. As the theme was the Caribbean, again it was Bacardi rum mixed with fruit juice. This time it was guava juice with jelly guava strips. I love guava juice so hence this was my favourite cocktail of the night. The matching food though I didn't really like. It was Cheddar cheese with a peeled jellied grape on rye. The combination of flavours wasn't really to my liking, as the rye dominated the flavours.


By the fifth cocktail and a quick mobile phone chat outside, I had lost my blogging focus and tucked into the Grand Marnier creme caramel with guava soup before Kin reminded me to take a photo. This dessert had all of my favourite elements. I love Grand Marnier, creme caramel and guava juice. I would have never guessed they would all be combined in one dessert. Needless to say, I enjoyed the ultra smooth creme caramel immensely and drank up all the guava soup. The matching cocktail was a Black Stripe, a mixture of aged rum with whisky. The warm cocktail sure packed a punch and was a powerful end to the night. Esther was feeling the effects of the cocktail so gave her drink to Kin and I, and we lapped it up with joyful glee.


Overall, I thought the night was good. The seating, as mentioned, wasn't ideal. The drinks and food were good and I think worth the $75. I would go back again depending on the cocktails and food. Service on a whole was quite good. Ambience was a bit lacking in the corridor area.

Overall Rating: 14/20, A fun night to be had with some tasty cocktails.

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.

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.