egg cups

I could – I could really do with one of these right now.

last night, a crime happened. my innocent, soft loaf of delicious, seedy (not seedy but seed-y), wholemeal bread was ripped from its sanctuary atop my oven and tossed to the floor, packet ripped open, bits of plastic and crumbs everywhere. when I gingerly lifted it from its prone position, the bread slices fell out like the saddest flood of emotion.

the suspects of this violation? the cat from next door, or a bird – whichever animal which had come in early last week to do the same unspeakable crime to a piece of jerky we had left wrapped on the counter.

pray for bread loaves everywhere, everyone. I hope you get to eat a lovely breakfast yourself full of eggs and ham and delicious things!

xx

p.s. as some quick instruction: flatten your slice bread with a rolling pin, cut into the four corners an inch inward, fit into a muffin pan, and fill with ham and cheese. top it off with an egg, and bake at 175c until jiggly but set. at the beginning, it’ll take longer than you expect, but it’ll finish faster than you’d think (the same can be said of the eating)!

mr jones orphanage cafe, bangkok

absolutely a sweet-tooth’s dream and a dentist’s money-maker of a cafe in the siam paragon mall in bangkok – this is a long photo post, so bear with me. but the spread was amazing – I can’t even imagine how many types of cakes and sweets and confectionary were on offer.

it’s very clearly a female-targeted place, and of the young, squealing, one-directioner variety: it’s got cutesy furniture, tiny booths that grown man look squashed in, and of course the sweet-dominated menu reflects it best. but I’ve got to be straight – I recommend this more for the sheer experience than any gastronomic interest; the chocolate cake we did have was rather pedestrian.

the versatile blogger award

the very talented sophia at silk and spice and michelle at bite by michelle were kind enough to give me this award (thank you very much!) – these women are great cooks and brilliant photographers, so I feel very humble and grateful that they would.

as part of the award, I now have to figure out seven facts to tell you about myself – but safe ones, right, so I won’t have to kill you after telling:

chocolate-glazed eclairs with white chocolate pastry cream and orange-lime curd

remember the no-microwave, one-bowl curd I made a while back? well – I made these then. and I haven’t gotten down to sharing these with you because.. it got lost in my mountainous stack of drafts.

which is terrible. because these are lovely and adorably miniature and just about one of the most impressive things (well, it impressed me) I’ve made in a while. and they are tasty to boot. make them this weekend!

butter cake, and more

I’ve already posted my current go-to recipe, and it yields a not-greasy, fine-crumbed, dry-like-a-good-tea-cake specimen of a butter cake – you can get it here.

now for some tips:

1. lining a strip of butter over the surface will help you control the crack of your butter cake – we’re talking about a 2-3mm width of butter down lengthwise. it’s not full-proof – the crack doesn’t always go where you think it should – but it does help produce a beautiful crack.
2. for a coffee marble, increase the sugar to 110g when creaming with the butter. proceed with the original recipe, but stop just before adding milk.divide the batter into two; to one half, add 0.5-1 teaspoon vanilla extract*, and to the other half, add (1 tbsp of instant coffee granules moistened with about 0.75 tbsp of water). you can up the coffee to about 1.5tbsp of granules for a stronger flavor, and remember to add milk to both batters for the magical one-thousand-two-thousand-drop.

   dollop the dark and white batters alternately, and swirl through with a knife.

   *you may omit the vanilla extract if you wish – but I think it makes for a more fragrant cake.

3. for a chocolate marble, repeat as above, but use 1 tablespoon of cocoa instead of the coffee: sift and fold into half of the batter before swirling.
4. for a durian butter cake, beat in 160-170g of durian puree (avoid the excessively fibrous bits) after you mix in the eggs, but before folding in the flour. continue as with the original recipe: fold in the flour and add enough milk till you get that plop.

x
have a great rest-of-the-sunday!

orange poppy seed muffins

I don’t have a recipe for you today – these muffins turned out a little denser than I’d hoped, largely due to the deeply-passionate-but-terribly-tumultuous relationship I have with my DRÖMMAR pan, which is both taller and deeper than conventional muffin tins (exactly the way I like ’em).

but poppy seeds, woo! those black specks make me something happy.

what are you up to this weekend?
x

marble cake

this cake was an experiment – I swirled two different recipes to try and get some decent marbling, but I forgot to take their different densities into acount. this left me with a prettily-cracked-and-browned cake that instead had the chocolate batter suspended in the middle of the yellow, without the swirliness that I was looking for.

so what I’m trying to say, really, is while I don’t have a recipe for you today – I do have some pretty photos that might inspire some sweet success on your part this weekend. talk soon!

x

p.s. if you’re in the mood for a bit of marble cake, there’s a great recipe in the archives (one of my favourites, too!)

orange-lime madeleines

my favourite madeleine recipe – here spruced up with the zest of a whole orange and lime, half a teaspoon of vanilla for the honey, and omitting the glaze for beautiful simplicity.

the worst part of the weekend is the knowledge that the new week is starting – which contrarily shortens the weekend further. but knowing you spent the time on precious (and tasty) weekend endeavours helps.

if you live in a timezone where your sunday is barely starting, I hope you have a great one!

x

table water (crackers)

I can’t be the only person with a liking for truly plain biscuits, can I? carr’s table water are some of my favourite crackers for their crisp snap and tasty plain wheat flavour – and I never knew how easy it was to make my own. they are immensely addictive on their own – but also go so well with peanut butter and cheese (yes, I promised you this a month ago, I’m so sorry).

but you’ll forgive me – pretty please? – when I tell you that these only need four ingredients, all of which you probably already have in your pantry.

nutella-stuffed banana cookies

did you know you could make cookies with bananas? I always thought they were far too moist to make proper cookies – and I was right, sorta. cookie is a misnomer for the delicious rounds of banana whatchamacallit these are – they are deeply caramelized, crazy fragrant, not nearly as filling as a slice of dense banana cake – not there’s anything really wrong with that; and really, I think it’s best to imagine these as a browned muffin top.

but like loads better, because there is nutella.