Dine Out Vancouver – 2009

Rex Rotisserie and Grill

Located in Bentall Centre, downtown, I had never been there previously. It was nicely situated behind a water fountain. However, there was almost no one in the restaurant. Granted, it was the first night of Dine Out, I was a bit surprised.

Click on pictures for description. Sorry the pictures are dark, no flash was used.

Verdict:

Really, quite a mediocre run of the mill restaurant. Nothing fabulous. The best was the appy, but even that was not that great. All in all, I don’t think I would go back again. Nothing wrong in particular, but just not worth the $28. Not in terms of quantity, but quality.

Purple yam custard

Light, easy and tasty purple yam custard. I know, this purple colour may seem artificial to you, but there was truly no colouring added! So if you like purple, or you’re on the purple diet, then here’s the recipe for you. What’s more is that it can be adapted with kobocha or something similar, and you can add whatever spices/flavourings you desire.

This recipe was originally intended to be used with kobocha, as it was given to me by a Japanese friend who made really delicious desserts. The texture is just like a creme caramel, without the richness. And if you leave in some chunks, then you can really taste the delicious purple yam.

Pictures to come.

Blueberry coffeecake

On the westcoast, people seem to be especially green and ecofriendly. By this point, you have probably heard about the 100 mile diet, where people eat foods produced within a 100 mile radius of them. That’s right, folks… it’s possible! (Albeit a bit more pricey. I try to buy local, which allows foods to be packed with the utmost nutrients and saving on pollution from the transport by cutting down on the journey travelled.

The key to this is cooking seasonally. As it is blueberry season here, the blueberries came from an organic U-pick farm. Oh, how I love U-pick! It’s a smorgasboard of berry delights, and you can eat until your fingers and tongue turn blue while you’re getting the exercise from picking the berries. In addition to this, the eggs are from a local free-range chicken farm. This free-range thing is really not just a trend, as many civic establishments will only be allowed to use such eggs from now on. So this is my entry for the Earth Food Monthly Mingle.

While I didn’t source the flour and other ingredients from local sources, I know that it could have been done. Although I’m trying to incorporate slowly this local eating so that a practical balance can be achieved. But making a conscious effort to buy locally is my little way of reducing my footprint.

This coffee cake is the most addictive recipe ever! I must warn you, that once you’ve made it, you better have someone to share it with, or you might find yourself eating the whole thing unknowingly. Freeze the extras to be safe. It’s jam-packed full of antioxidant blueberry power, and with only a moderate amount of butter, so it’s well worth the baking effort.

Easy-Bake Oven recall

<Gasp!> My namesake, the classic Easy-Bake oven of your childhood years, is being recalled. Apparently, those made between May 06-July 07 are a burn risk. So if you have one, then please return it. If you have an old one, then please be cautious when using it.

Coconut matcha chiffon cake

Ok, I think that I’ve done my last basic cake experimentation. My oven is asking me to make something else. Enjoy! I adapted this recipe from Lily’s recipe for Pandan Chiffon Cake. But since I don’t have pandan juice readily available in my pantry, I went with the ever so trendy matcha.

Taste: Today, I made a luxurious tasting coconut milk chiffon cake. The matcha provides antioxidants and a nice light taste. The coconut taste is barely noticeable. If you had not been told that there was coconut in it, you would not detect it. But it adds to the moisture of this cake.

Texture: Very soft and even moister than the Chinese sponge cake!

Low fat sponge cake #2

So, I’m on the continuing quest to find a good cake recipe to act as a base for my celebration cakes. Today, I went with a recipe from a friend. Strangely enough, it comes from a baker from Safeway. But I’m assured that this wasn’t made for the store, but for his personal use. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Safeway baked goods. It’s just that they aren’t exactly known for Asian-style cakes).

Taste: This one is moist with a light crust on the outside. It is a Chinese-style sponge cake. It’s similar to what you would buy in a Chinese bakery, where they sell it as a paper-lined sponge cake and “gai dan goh”. Or in a Chinese fresh fruit cream cake. If you wish, you can add some vanilla for a nice fragrance. But I generally leave it out if it will be in a filled cake.

Texture: Definitely sliceable when cool. The texture is just a bit drier than the hot milk sponge cake, which makes it more sliceable. But as you can see, the crumb is also very fine. There are a few tricks to getting the crumb this way. It doesn’t work for me everytime. But when the egg whites are just beaten in the right way, they will produce this nice crumb. It stays moist when well wrapped in plastic wrap or a cake case. Let me know if you would like to know how I beat the meringue. Although it’s a pretty forgiving recipe.

Low fat hot milk sponge cake

Coming off the delicious high of the chocolate lava cake and cookies, I wanted to make something low fat. So I opted for a simple cake. The hot milk sponge cake is nice and easy because it doesn’t require you to beat the egg white and yolks separately. I believe that this changes the crumb of the cake a bit. Compared to the chiffon cake, this cake has a very fine and even crumb with no opportunity for large air bubbles.

For this recipe, I adjusted a hot milk sponge cake recipe I found on RecipeZaar. I used directions from Alice Medrich’s hot milk sponge cake because her sponge cake is the best I’ve ever made. It retains its moistness days later and freezes very well. However, there are many egg yolds and more fat in that I recipe and I wanted to see if I could cut down on that.

Taste: The aroma was nice and it was definitely delectable. For my tastes, it was a tad on the sweet side. So I think that I would cut back on the sugar to 1/3 cup and see if it still tasted sweet enough. I will try to cut down on the baking powder to 1/4-1/2tsp. I think that this might have affected the depth of the flavour, so I would adjust this before increasing the butter a bit.

Texture: It was very very soft and moist. I really liked the fine crumb of this compared to the chiffon cake. So I think that I would prefer to make this to the chiffon cake because the crumb is more beautiful. Sorry, but the picture doesn’t do it justice. The compromise is in the height of the cake, as it is not as high as the chiffon. But this cake will also give more consistent results, and there is not as much room for error in the folding.

Chocolate lava cake and cookies

Today, A, E and I made a successful lava cake. To top it off, we added Haagen Daas vanilla ice cream and sliced frozen strawberries. It was soooo delish! The picture is not that great, but the taste was phenomenal. I think that it was because 71% dark chocolate was used (Ritter extra fine dark chocolate squares). I had been worried that the cake wouldn’t turn out becuase all the egg ingredients had been beaten together all at once instead of beating the whole egg separately first. However, this didn’t seem to affect the cake negatively. Also, the batter wasn’t so fragile that ambitious folding affected it much.Having some ooey gooey yummy dark chocolate left over, we decided to put it into our white chocolate almost vegan cookies (not a drop of butter or egg is in the dough!). Unfortunately, I had forgotten to mention that the cookies needed to be flattened before baking. So 1″ balls of cookie were popped into the oven, but didn’t flatten. So halfway through, we realized our error and decided to flatten. However, by this point, the chocolate had already been softened and exploded all over the top of the cookie as they were being flattened. Nonetheless, this was such a delicious cookie and low fat to boot! It didn’t taste vegan at all! It tasted like a rich normal white chocolate chip cookie. It really amazes me how solid fat could be taken out without any ill effect.

Water chestnut pudding cake

Something nice and cool that doesn’t require an oven. In this mini-heat wave that we’re having here, temperatures are supposed to go up to 37C inland! Crazy! Not wanting to turn on the oven, I made this cooling water chestnut cake. Nice, crunchy and sweet, it’s the perfect treat to cool off (if you’re like me, and don’t have an ice cream maker that is.)

Result: It’s kinda like a slice of jello, but a bit chewier and less sweet. The crunch of the ample chestnuts gives just the right crunch and sweetness. And if you believe in TCM, then water chestnuts have a cooling effect on the internal body as well. So you get a therapeutic bonus!

Chocolate lava cake… a flop

So, it was bound to happen. I was happily going on my baking ways, when this horribly ugly cake came about. I was practising a new recipe, as I’ll be having a baking potluck with a few close friends. They really like lava cake, so I decided for a trial run. But yuck, it did not work. Basically, I whisked a whole egg with some salt, sugar and vanilla. Then I folded in some melted dark chocolate and butter, followed by the tiniest smidgeon of flour.

I had hid a bit of white chocolate in the batter to melt and ooze out. But the result was that the chocolate sunk to the bottom. (Not enough flour perhaps?) And the white chocolate did not really melt, while the dark chocolate was still quite raw. The whole concoction tasted quite eggy. The plus side was that it was a small recipe and it didn’t take too much of my time or my beautiful chocolate. In the garbage you go! And I’m just disheartened enough to try again… 🙂

(I’m not including the recipe for obvious reasons.)