Harbourfront Day 10

White Dog Cafe serves what I think is termed as American home cooking? With menu items like chicken pasta in cream sauce and canned tuna garden salad, you can't really catogorize it into a genre. It's all good though, with desserts by a Japanese patissier.

Vanilla Cherry Cupcakes

It started with a surprise find of affordable natural vanilla beans at the cake supplier store. This gourmand produce usually goes for $5-$15 a pod at specialist supermarkets. Hence, we are inclined to use vanilla essence instead of the real thing. As Jamie Oliver says, the real thing is soo much better.

Inspired by the famous Magnolia Bakery's signature vanilla cupcakes, I decided to bake a batch of vanilla cinnamon cupcakes with dark cherries. As my oven won't allow a 12 holder tray in, I had to use individual metal cupcake holders instead. A recipe for 12 was spread out to make a baker's dozen for good luck =)

I didn't have enough vanilla leftover for the frosting, so I substituted with a few scoops of the cherry syrup and added more icing sugar to make up for the increase in liquids. The final icing turned out a sweet baby pink and I couldn't have asked for better.

Chilli Con Carne & Cornbread

Cornbread is a savoury muffin that unlike commercially mass produced versions, smells and tastes full of that wholesome fresh corn from the farm. The recipe is simply modified from the usual muffin mix by adding cornmeal to flour in equal parts, milk instead of water and fresh corn off the cob.

My family enjoys these muffins either served with honey and butter for breakfast or as a side with chilli con carne, fried chicken & gravy. I like to make chilli as any remainders can be used as chip dip or hotdog sauce. It usually doesn't last that long on the table.

Harbourfront Day 9

Italian for lunch today at Modesto's: Penne Pescetarian and Vanilla ice cream with butter cookies. A pescetarian diet means the only meat you eat is fish.

Szu's Birthday

My sister's birthday today. Cake from Bengawan Solo, lotsa cream!

So I made her favourite salad, Caprese. It's easy to put together and can keep for a couple of days in the fridge. You just put sliced tomatoes and sliced buffalo mozzarella together, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper, top with coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves. Voila!

Ice Ball

The faithfully handcrafted ball of ice by your bartender in Japan bears testament to the country's dedication to their craft. A perfectly round ball of ice is carved by the bartender from a block of ice in 10 seconds flat. A technique that takes an apprentice years to master. All this effort so you get to enjoy your cooled drink longer as the ice ball melts slower than ordinary ice cubes! 

For professional pubs that want the same quality of ice but, lacking in experience, a professional copper machine is available for around $1,000. For the discerning home drinker, plastic moulds are available at MOMA, Muji or Daiso. I know where I am getting mine =)

Harbourfront Day 6

Surf & Turf today with a front row view of the cable cars.