nutella kahlua pound cake

I promised you a chocolate pound cake way back when I published this post and I'm a woman of my word. I don't want or need to say much today, because the pictures will do the talking for me. I will tell you this - it's a marvellous cake, even if you don't like Nutella (heresy I know, but they do actually exist, these deviants) and if you do, then you'll want to make two.

vegan vegetable biryani

Biryani needs no introduction. It's as well known and loved around the world as it is in Singapore. But, versions abound and vary significantly from the original and from each other, and surprisingly, for such a popular dish, many aren't aware that it came from Persia. Its very name is derived from the Persian word berya meaning roasted or fried, a reference to the traditional way of preparing biryani (dum biryani) by 'roasting' the partially cooked rice and meat together over and under hot coals piled on the lid of the dough-sealed pot, during the final step in the proceedings.

Further proof of its origin is the fact that it was the Mughals who brought it to India and today, the ambrosial Hyderabadi version is perhaps the most renowned in India and in this region. The Singaporean take on biryani is a hybrid influenced by both the Indian and Arab diasporas and features very local inflections like pandan, lemongrass, evaporated milk and even coconut milk, in place of yoghurt.

techie troubles

Hi guys! Just wanted to let you know I haven't updated for a while because my poor overworked netbook crashed the week after my last post. I took it to the laptop hospital. The prognosis wasn't good and sure enough, my poor overworked netbook, which was supposed to have been a temp stand-in for my prima donna (and now lobotomised* laptop), but which had been chugging its little hard drive out for the last year and a half, finally breathed her last. *sniff* She will be missed.

I'm currently on the prowl for a lean, mean (read CHEAP) blogging machine and will update here, the minute all the celestial bodies line up, just......so (again, CHEAPPPP), and I'm successfully hooked up!

In the meantime, check out some of my favourite bloggie reads here.


Toodles!

xoxo
Denise


p/s * that's what happens when you have a teen studying Infocom Technology, in the house :P

kalio ayam (padang chicken curry)

Last week I had three pound cakes on my kitchen counter. Hubs and second son love cake, a well documented fact on this blog, and I love baking. Still, a chocolate pound cake stacked on a coffee pound cake, atop a rum pound cake, may be a bit much. Even then, I'm toying with the idea of a  mocha glazed walnut poundcake or perhaps, one riddled with nutty nibs and scented with the sweet, almost syrupy fragrance of almonds. Hi, My name is Denise... and I'm a bakeaholic.

No, no more cake, at least not for another few posts. But, I have to tell you, that chocolate pound cake was an absolute dreamboat. A deep tan coloured cake of indescribable chocolatey dampness. I won't unleash the adjectives as yet, but I solemnly swear to share the recipe with you soon. It would be a sin to keep something so good, all to myself.

cream cheese vanilla rum pound cake

It started with a sugee cake craving, that morphed into a prune lapis (Indonesian layered cake) longing that finally evolved into a raging desire for vanilla pound cake. This cake kept me up nights for a week, flipping through every baking book in my possession and every pound cake recipe good ole google laid at my feet, from Ina Garten's, to Martha Stewart's to Paula Deen's to Pichet Ong's. Why the anguish over a simple pound cake? Because in all my baking life, I've never been happy with the pound cakes I've made. They've always peaked and cracked horrifically and they've always been either on the dry or greasy side, never just right. And this time, I wanted my pound cake perfect. Plain but absolutely, non-negotiably, perfectly... perfect!

matcha vertical swiss roll

Today's post is my ode to green tea, beloved of my tea cup and my palate, and it will be one crammed with pictures to facilitate the making of this involved cake. I cannot live without green tea, but don't take my word for it. The proof's in this baumkuchen, this chicken noodle soup like no other, almond sables, this stupendously easy and delicious bee tai bak in green tea and last week's luscious matcha shorbread.I have green tea on the brain. Hence, the back to back matcha posts.

matcha white chocolate chip shortbread

I remember the first time I ever put a piece of shortbread into my mouth. I was thirteen and visiting my mum in hospital after she'd had some pretty major surgery. She was still woozy from anaesthetic and as I sat there, watching her chest gently rise and fall, my eyes strayed to the gift laden table beside her.

chocolate and vanilla zebra cake (eggless)

Finally got up the nerve to sign in to my blog dashboard this morning.  Couldn't believe the vicious beating my visitor stats had taken since my last post about a month and a half ago. Still, it warmed the old cockles to see that a surprising number of you continued to visit, despite the lack of updates. Thank you for your loyalty or curiosity, and for the lovely notes some of you sent to find out where the dickens I've been hiding and what the devil I've been up to. You know how blogging can be a consuming passion, an addiction? Well, so can life, lived normally. My neck's on the block here, but it's true to some extent, that food bloggers are a breed apart. Our families will attest to how we're slightly batty about our food, table settings, garnishes, props, kitchens and all our related 'toys'.

chocolate chip hot cross buns

After days and days of delicious fruit filled tea brack with mug after mug of tea in the afternoon, my original plan to make traditional fruit speckled hot cross buns at some point during Holy Week, began to loose its lustre. I had loved every fruity slice of dark, moist, spicy tea brack but it felt more and more like hot cross buns would be more of the same, albeit in adorable itty bitty yeasty bun form.

tea brack (tea soaked fruit loaf)

You must be thinking, I've got an Irish fetish, this being the second Irish recipe I'm posting in barely two weeks. What I have is an indescriminate (in the best possible way) food fetish and as I see it, every community has culinary gems that await discovery by the hungry and the curious. You could though, blame part of it on the lingering after effects of St Patrick's Day and the fact that I stumbled on a fabulous deal too good to pass up, while killing time trawling a supermarket, waiting for a friend to show up for lunch.

roti mariam (fried bread)

This is the bread that spawned my easy yoghurt naan, which spawned my easy garlic herb and sesame naan. So I guess you could say she's now a grandma? Hubs was having an evil craving, but I convinced him pan fried naan was what he really wanted, instead of fat sodden discs of deep fried dough. He bought it, for a while, but the beast once again reared it's greasy head and hubs would no longer be denied. 

I recently made a biryani and the first words out of hubby's lips were, "Got roti mariam?" When I grinned sheepishly, he glared and declared, "Enough with the freakin naan! I want roti mariam!". He can't seem to enjoy his biryani without a pile of these crisp, bronzed and blistered breads beside his mound of golden rice and spiced meat. 

cashew & potato curry

Hi all! It's time for our monthly Nona Nona feature and this month's theme, chosen by me, is cashew nuts. It should be no surprise, if you've read my cashew milk post, which started the cashew craze in my kitchen. Biren of Roti n Rice and Tea Tattler, my blogger buddy, personal friend and Nona Nona partner as always, gamely agreed, though she admitted cashews were a stumper as apart from Indian cooking, you won't find them in many traditional Asian dishes, the few exceptions being Kung Pao chicken, or cashew cookies.

This month marks our ninth Nona Nona collaboration, and next month, when Biren takes the wheel, will be our first Nona Nona anniversary. For a peek at our past Nona Nona features, click on the link. I can't believe Biren and I have been at this for almost a year and I can't wait to see what she has simmering for us next month! 

guinness and cheddar soda bread

Can you tell where I'm going with this? I'll give you a hint. Leprechauns love green almost as much as they love gold. Ok, so I'm not Irish, not even Irish-descended, which is why I've refrained from calling this "Guinness and cheddar Irish soda bread". But maybe Scotland's close enough? No? Well I guess the only way I could make this even remotely Irish then, is by pouring one half of a Guinness into the mixing bowl, and the other down my gullet?

cashew milk

A huge bag of unroasted cashews landed in my lap a few days ago. They're expensive and I didn't want them to go to waste so, I've been putting them to every imaginable use in the kitchen. Nuts tend to go rancid quite quickly in warm, humid weather and if kept in the fridge, haphazardly packaged, they will absorb odours from other foods very easily.

sambal bendi (okra sambal)

Okra is a sadly misunderstood vegetable, the operative word being "misunderstood", because, as much as it is reviled by many, it is equally loved by Indian, Nyonya, Malay and Louisiana Cajun and Creole cooks. Did you ever wonder how a vegetable with a reputation for being as slimy as a snail trail, or as wooden as a Dutch clog, could possibly be loved by anyone in their right mind?

sweet potato and longan soup

The Cantonese term "tong sui" encompasses a wide range of (usually) hot or warm sweet dessert soups, of which my favourite, is sweet potato and longan soup. Tong sui is uniquely Cantonese, as no other Chinese community is known to prepare them. Unlike most Western style or other tyes of Chinese desserts, tong sui, which literally means sugar water, is almost always fat free, light, refreshing and restoring.

kopi see (coffee with evaporated milk)

I'm really an americano kinda girl. If you're into coffee culture, you'd probably know that an americano (aka "long black" or "caffee lungo" or "aqua sporca") is what Italians call an espresso that's been diluted by at least an equal amount of hot water, into something the coffee gods of Europe deem suitable only for Americans with soft hands, and no stomach for real coffee. Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger. It gets worse; "aqua sporca" is Italian for dirty water. *yikes* I am not making this up. And I have absolutely nothing against Americans, soft hands or weak coffee. I mean, I love weak coffee, apparently.

easy lemon pickle

About ten years ago, I fell, with a huge thud, head over heels in love with all things Moroccan. The colours and crafts, the food and architecture, the spare, haunting beauty of the almost lunar-like landscapes, even, the Moroccan sun. I know there's just the one sun, thank you. But, in Morrocco, it casts a different light, it just does, and everything looks more beautiful, under it. I decided that if I were destined to die unexpectedly, in a tragic and dramatic fashion, please, please, please, powers that be, let me be lost in Moroccan Sahara, and never again found.

I once made a  tall jar of Moroccan preserved lemons that believe it or not, still stands in my cupboard with some of the original contents from 2003. I had two lemons left and was curious about how long they could last, as I'd read that these preserved lemons, if made properly could last indefinitely or till Armageddon, whichever came first. Challenge accepted!

lo bak koh (radish cake)

The Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year, is the single most important festival of the Chinese social and cultural calendar. No expense is spared when marking the occasion, whether it's towards new home furnishings, spanking new outfits for the entire family, travel expenses to reunite with kin, or the most delectable and expensive culinary delicacies to share with both friends and family. So it's no surprise Chinese New Year is so high profile that everyone, Chinese or not, seems to know about it.

easy garlic herb and sesame naan

When I posted my recipe for easy yoghurt naan, last year, I had no idea it would be so well received and eventually become one of the most popular recipes here on Singapore Shiok. I have had very positive and heartwarming feedback on it. Clearly, Indian food is one of the most loved in the world, and rightly so, for such a varied, sophisticated and flavourful cuisine. Personally, I love naan because apart from being utterly delicious, it suits my unimpressive dough rolling skills perfectly; irregular tear drops preferable, perfect circles optional...