Sunday, May 9
23rd of April marks the final paper for my 4 years of degree (at least that's what we thought) and 24th is the day I could finally turn the pages of my life to a new chapter and looking forward to our Redang trip on the 27th.
In the meantime, after my finals Tinq with Derek and Heruey came over to Melaka for a trip and meet Derek for the first time,
Meet Tinq, best gal friend since pre-school
since primary, Steffi (counter-snapping me with her Iphone)
since primary, Her Ruey (on the left) and since last week, Derek
fortunately some of my housemates went back to their hometown for a few days before our Redang trip so there won't be any cuddling or spooning going on, thanks to Kam Wah for being so gracious enough for lending me his car and his room for them to bunk in for the night..
Picked them up at Melaka Sentral and then picked up Steffi from Manipal as well! our primary schoolmates and boy she hasn't changed much though.. brought them to my favourite place with the best melaka chicken rice balls ever! and best of all it's damn ridiculously cheap! Can u imagine 5 people eating a full sized chicken and inclusive of drinks all for just less than 30 bucks?
fav!
While bringing them around the town area, it was like a recollection of the places in Melaka that I've had the chance to visit during the course of my 4 years at UTeM, wish I could snap a shot of it and lock it in my memory..
I remembered during my 1st year on my first outing when I actually saw the fort and the red house (christ church) right in front of my own eyes, it was like a surreal experience of seeing it in the flesh right from the history books. After four years, now it seemed to me like any regular monuments or buildings, absence makes the heart grow fonder indeed.
A Famosa fort
Christ Church a.k.a Red House
just couldn't help myself
And of course the landmark of Melaka, Jonker Street. In mandarin it was called, "鸡场街". First when one of my seniors brought us on the outing, my terrible lack of the cantonese language back then translated it from mandarin as the infamous Petaling Street in KL(which till now I've never been to) and I had the idea that the the two places had the same name for almost one year! my bad..
Jonker Walk a.k.a Jonker Street
But what I think Melaka gave me the best treasure was the cake restaurant called Nadeje that specializes in mille crêpe and served the best heavenly layered crêpe cake ever! FYI, mille means "a thousand" in french and crêpe stands for "very very thin sliced layered pancake", which implies the many many layers of crêpe of the cake. Tinq was so in love with it that we went again the day after for the second time with Kam Wah. I met up with Derek again in Kuching and he still can't get his mind off the Nadeje cakes. A definite must try.
heavenly~
Me and Tinq at Nadeje - round two!
Tinq insisted that the bear must be in each photo. Girls.
Kindly ignore the bear.
Introducing one of my close buddies in Melaka who wished not to be named in this photo *cough cough*
But what I think Melaka gave me the best treasure was a restaurant called Nadeje that specializes in mille crêpe and served the best heavenly layered crêpe cake ever! FYI, mille means "a thousand" in french and crêpe stands for "very very thin sliced layered pancake", which implies the many many layers of crêpe of the cake. Tinq was so in love with it that we went again the day after for the second time with Kam Wah. I met up with Derek again in Kuching and he still can't get his mind off the Nadeje cakes. A definite must-try.
After the heavenly delight, Satay Celup is definitely not to be missed. I just realized that I've only had the chance to actually try out Satay Celup only after a year in Melaka. Tinq was pretty particular about the hygiene of Satay Celup and a little paranoid about the gravy being celup-ed. From what I heard, they (being the general public) said that the boiled gravy sauce were never exchanged between each round of customers. Coming to think of it, it did start to get into my head after my imagination begins to wander off when the previous customers and their salivas began to play in my head.. UGH~
Satay Celup~
In the meantime, after my finals Tinq with Derek and Heruey came over to Melaka for a trip and meet Derek for the first time,
Meet Tinq, best gal friend since pre-school
since primary, Steffi (counter-snapping me with her Iphone)
since primary, Her Ruey (on the left) and since last week, Derekfortunately some of my housemates went back to their hometown for a few days before our Redang trip so there won't be any cuddling or spooning going on, thanks to Kam Wah for being so gracious enough for lending me his car and his room for them to bunk in for the night..
Picked them up at Melaka Sentral and then picked up Steffi from Manipal as well! our primary schoolmates and boy she hasn't changed much though.. brought them to my favourite place with the best melaka chicken rice balls ever! and best of all it's damn ridiculously cheap! Can u imagine 5 people eating a full sized chicken and inclusive of drinks all for just less than 30 bucks?
fav!
I remembered during my 1st year on my first outing when I actually saw the fort and the red house (christ church) right in front of my own eyes, it was like a surreal experience of seeing it in the flesh right from the history books. After four years, now it seemed to me like any regular monuments or buildings, absence makes the heart grow fonder indeed.
A Famosa fort
Christ Church a.k.a Red House
just couldn't help myselfAnd of course the landmark of Melaka, Jonker Street. In mandarin it was called, "鸡场街". First when one of my seniors brought us on the outing, my terrible lack of the cantonese language back then translated it from mandarin as the infamous Petaling Street in KL(which till now I've never been to) and I had the idea that the the two places had the same name for almost one year! my bad..
Jonker Walk a.k.a Jonker Street
heavenly~
Me and Tinq at Nadeje - round two!Tinq insisted that the bear must be in each photo. Girls.
Kindly ignore the bear.
But what I think Melaka gave me the best treasure was a restaurant called Nadeje that specializes in mille crêpe and served the best heavenly layered crêpe cake ever! FYI, mille means "a thousand" in french and crêpe stands for "very very thin sliced layered pancake", which implies the many many layers of crêpe of the cake. Tinq was so in love with it that we went again the day after for the second time with Kam Wah. I met up with Derek again in Kuching and he still can't get his mind off the Nadeje cakes. A definite must-try.
After the heavenly delight, Satay Celup is definitely not to be missed. I just realized that I've only had the chance to actually try out Satay Celup only after a year in Melaka. Tinq was pretty particular about the hygiene of Satay Celup and a little paranoid about the gravy being celup-ed. From what I heard, they (being the general public) said that the boiled gravy sauce were never exchanged between each round of customers. Coming to think of it, it did start to get into my head after my imagination begins to wander off when the previous customers and their salivas began to play in my head.. UGH~
Satay Celup~Will be flying off back to Melaka tomorrow for a 2 months extension course, something to do with the accreditation issues and stuff. I'll get into more details about it during my next post hopefully.
I'll be blogging again soon after I reach Melaka, that is IF I have internet connection at the new place.
Labels: A Famosa, cheesecakes, Christ Church, food, Jonker, Malaysia, Melaka, Mille Crepe, Nadeje, Red House, Satay Celup, trip, UTeM
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Sunday, January 18
Despite of the flood that happened last week, I still had the mood to make a green tea cheesecake although I'm fully aware that I'm literally living above sea level.
Actually the idea just struck me in that morning while I was browsing the net in the office and decided to give it a shot to make something for the chinese new year celebrations, so I bought the cream cheese and the necessary ingredients during lunch break for a trial bake to see how it would taste and experiment before making an actual one for chinese new year (cannot sia suoi mah...)
Basically the ingredients are mostly the same as the durian cheesecake recipe, and just substitute the part where the durians were added with the flavour you want. In this case, green tea powder or others call it macha powder.
Basically just add two teaspoons of green tea powder to the mixture and mix it all together, the green tea powder will give it a natural light grey-ish green colour. My cheesecake colour was a little off because I wanted to make green swirls on the top layer actually but instead the swirly mixture was not "liquid" enough (biggg mistake) and I can't mix the two mixtures on top, so I had to kinda blend it in instead.
That's why you see the colour on the top layer of the cake in the photo above a little "disturbing" in a way haha.. But when I tried it the next morning, I couldn't taste the slightest taste of green tea or any sweetness for that matter because I left out the condensed milk in order to fully compliment the green tea flavour. However I did add like a few spoons of sugar so it's not totally plain.
A little disappointed though, but weird enough my cousin Kim tasted it while I was at work and she msged me on msn saying that it's good?! Surprisingly, my aunt thought the same. I didn't get it, probably the cakes I made before I added sugar + condensed milk and it was TOO sweet? and I guess they liked the natural cheesey flavour instead of the sweetness. So in a sense, the green tea cheesecake now is like regular cheesecake, only GREEN?
I think next time I'd use Anchor cream cheese instead of Philadephia for green tea cheesecake because Philadephia has a stronger cheese smell (that's why it's more expensive) but Anchor has a lighter cheese smell (cheaper!), something I need to fully compliment and allow the green tea powder to work it's magic.
Sigh...
Actually the idea just struck me in that morning while I was browsing the net in the office and decided to give it a shot to make something for the chinese new year celebrations, so I bought the cream cheese and the necessary ingredients during lunch break for a trial bake to see how it would taste and experiment before making an actual one for chinese new year (cannot sia suoi mah...)
Basically the ingredients are mostly the same as the durian cheesecake recipe, and just substitute the part where the durians were added with the flavour you want. In this case, green tea powder or others call it macha powder.
Basically just add two teaspoons of green tea powder to the mixture and mix it all together, the green tea powder will give it a natural light grey-ish green colour. My cheesecake colour was a little off because I wanted to make green swirls on the top layer actually but instead the swirly mixture was not "liquid" enough (biggg mistake) and I can't mix the two mixtures on top, so I had to kinda blend it in instead.
That's why you see the colour on the top layer of the cake in the photo above a little "disturbing" in a way haha.. But when I tried it the next morning, I couldn't taste the slightest taste of green tea or any sweetness for that matter because I left out the condensed milk in order to fully compliment the green tea flavour. However I did add like a few spoons of sugar so it's not totally plain.
A little disappointed though, but weird enough my cousin Kim tasted it while I was at work and she msged me on msn saying that it's good?! Surprisingly, my aunt thought the same. I didn't get it, probably the cakes I made before I added sugar + condensed milk and it was TOO sweet? and I guess they liked the natural cheesey flavour instead of the sweetness. So in a sense, the green tea cheesecake now is like regular cheesecake, only GREEN?
I think next time I'd use Anchor cream cheese instead of Philadephia for green tea cheesecake because Philadephia has a stronger cheese smell (that's why it's more expensive) but Anchor has a lighter cheese smell (cheaper!), something I need to fully compliment and allow the green tea powder to work it's magic.
Sigh...
Labels: cheesecakes, food, photos
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Friday, December 26
Yeap, u did heard right. After much experimenting and an extensive exploration with cheesecakes, I decided to try baking a DURIAN cheesecake! Since making cheesecake is SOoOOoo easy, I tried coming up with my own recipe. Surprisingly, it tasted phenomenally great.. tasty and rich in durian flavour, my best cheesecake yet.
*slurp*
So here I'll post up a brief recipe for my DURIAN cheesecake. Note that you don't necessarily have to follow it exactly, the recipe is flexible to be changed anyhow according to your own personal like.
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*slurp*So here I'll post up a brief recipe for my DURIAN cheesecake. Note that you don't necessarily have to follow it exactly, the recipe is flexible to be changed anyhow according to your own personal like.
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Ingredients:
- Two packets of Tiger biscuits crushed finely
- Sugar
- Butter
- 500g Philadelphia cream cheese rest in room temperature
- A carton of Nestle's whipping cream
- 3 eggs
- Vanilla extract
- Condensed milk
- Durian flesh pulp (extracted from two durians)
Method:
1. First melt a quarter of a block of butter with 2 teaspoons of sugar and then stir in with the crushed Tiger biscuits untill mixed. Then pour the crust mixture onto ur baking pan and flatten it out as shown in my earlier entry here.
2. Once evenly flattened, bake it for 10 minutes or so and set aside to cool to room temperature.
3. Mix a 1/4 from a carton of whipping cream with the durian flesh pulp and blend it slightly till smooth like this. If not sweet enough, add sugar.
4. Then beat the Philadephia cream cheese till fluffy and then add 3 eggs one at a time, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of condensed milk and just another 2/4 more of the whipping cream.
5. Blend the cream cheese mixture untill smooth and rich but not too long, then mix the blended durian flesh pulp and blend untill even.
6. Pour the mixture on top of the Tiger biscuit crust and then bake for 1 hour with 160 degrees.
7. Once top layer is slightly brown and the texture is dense enough (jiggling the cheesecake shouldn't wiggle that much in the middle).
I saved a portion of the durian flesh and placed it on top just for decor.8. Leave it to rest in room temperature and then chill overnight. Served cold.
This is how it looked the next morning (after I had a slice of course)9. Eat it up quick before it's gone!!
Tips:
1. Mix the crust with other brands of biscuits for different taste. The amount of durian used is dependent, I used two durians. However if u're not really a fan of the heavy smell, just cut down on the durian portion and add extra sugar for the sweetness.
2. Durian flesh should be dry, not wet and should have a rich smell of nutty sweetness and not wet and sour or bitter. IMPORTANT!!
3. Mix the eggs one at a time and never beat the eggs too long to reduce bubbles. Small bubbles will surface up while baking and collapse ur cheesecake when cooled leaving an ugly crater. IMPORTANT!! (Perhaps Kuching's Secret Recipe should bear this tip in mind.)
4. Before baking, slam the pan on the table flat a few times for the bubbles to surface then pop them with toothpicks if u like.
5. When baking the cheesecake, place the cheesecake mixture on top of a water bath to retain the moisture inside the cheesecake and preventing the cake from cracking. IMPORTANT!!
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Durian Cheesecake might have an approximate life span of probably 1 week or less, so don't leave it in the freezer too long because the durian flavour will change and will not taste as nice as the day it was freshly made (probably that's why you don't see durian cheesecakes that often in restaurants), but I highly doubt that finishing this durian cheesecake is any problem at all.
Try it out! haha...
Labels: cheesecakes, food, photos, updates
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Monday, June 9
Well, a month of doing nothing could really drive a person into doing uncomprehendingly amazing things(well... sometimes). In my case, last night it drove me into a cheesecake frenzy and funny enough Alexis jumped on the bandwagon as well and we made a double layered chocolate swirl cheesecake at my place.
*swirly swirls*
This morning I couldn't resist but to take a slice to see how it tasted... Chocolaty!!
*chocolates layered swirl topping*... wanna bite?
Although I kinda messed up the portion of the batter due to some miscalculation and ended up with the chocolate portion of the batter more than the cheese portion resulting in an uneven layer, it still compensated for the fact that I love chocolate. One thing though, I could've eased out on the sugar because it was slightly sweeter than I expected haha..
Thumbs up and a high five to team Alexis and Desmond and especially to Alexis for the swirls, it was mainly his idea.
Hopefully, I won't gain anymore weight.
*sobs*
*swirly swirls*This morning I couldn't resist but to take a slice to see how it tasted... Chocolaty!!
*chocolates layered swirl topping*... wanna bite?Although I kinda messed up the portion of the batter due to some miscalculation and ended up with the chocolate portion of the batter more than the cheese portion resulting in an uneven layer, it still compensated for the fact that I love chocolate. One thing though, I could've eased out on the sugar because it was slightly sweeter than I expected haha..
Thumbs up and a high five to team Alexis and Desmond and especially to Alexis for the swirls, it was mainly his idea.
Hopefully, I won't gain anymore weight.
*sobs*
Labels: cheesecakes, food, photos, updates
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Monday, November 26
Ever tasted those rich creamy cheesecakes slices from coffeebean or starbucks or from restaurants that costs u around RM6 to RM7.50 per slice and wished you could make your own?
I did just that.
I was hanging out with ken and siew at the malls and suddenly had this urge for the taste of sweet, creamy, rich melting cheesecake. Then it struck me, why not bake one myself? I've all the time to spare, why not? So I bought the ingredients and referred to dyannbakes on the internet and my friends for the steps, among one of them is a working chef.
I did snap some shots of the main ingredient, Philadelphia cream cheese...
say cheese!
It's surprisingly easy to bake actually. I started off with the crust as the base first where I made my first mistake by mixing too many butter to the crushed biscuit crumbs causing the butter in the crust to seep into the batter later while baking.
Well, I'll give a brief description on the steps anyway, but it's MOST advised to consult other reliable sources or personnels for the ingredients and steps if you guys don't wanna end up ingesting self-made laxatives.
I prepared the crust beforehand by crushing biscuits into powder like form and mixing it with sugar with less than a quarter of a butter block into a solid mixture of crumbs. Then I poured the mixture inside the pan and flattened it evenly on the base and then baked it in the oven for about 10 mins then cooled.
the crust
Next was the essential part to a perfect cheesecake, the batter. My mistake here was lemon juice, I put too many lemons. The number of lemons should be one, I put four. Not forgetting the condensed milk, it's half of the normal can, not half from the small can, my bad. This is the part where we mix the cream cheese, eggs, vanilla extract, lemon juice, fresh cream, condensed milk once at a time into a batter. I'd prefer hand mixing rather than using an electric mixer cos I realized later afterwards that some of the cream cheese had sunk to the base of the mixing bowl unreachable by the mixer, another mistake noted.
Finally, the finale. The batter was then poured onto the baked crust and heated in the oven around 150-160 degrees for about an hour or so.
when done, I had it cooled within room temperature and then placed it into the fridge after.
em, emm...
Note the small hole in the middle, I had to use a chopstick to check whether it was done or not. Now I understand why some cakes have cherries in the middle of the cake or topping decorations, they were all defect cover-ups.. haha
The final product? The most perfect rich-creamy-slightly-soured-not-too-sweet original cheesecake I've ever made on my first attempt, not forgetting the 3kg I've put on ever since.
who moved the cheese!?
Rest assured, second attempt, my cheesecake will be...
Perfecto!
I did just that.
I was hanging out with ken and siew at the malls and suddenly had this urge for the taste of sweet, creamy, rich melting cheesecake. Then it struck me, why not bake one myself? I've all the time to spare, why not? So I bought the ingredients and referred to dyannbakes on the internet and my friends for the steps, among one of them is a working chef.
I did snap some shots of the main ingredient, Philadelphia cream cheese...
say cheese!It's surprisingly easy to bake actually. I started off with the crust as the base first where I made my first mistake by mixing too many butter to the crushed biscuit crumbs causing the butter in the crust to seep into the batter later while baking.
Well, I'll give a brief description on the steps anyway, but it's MOST advised to consult other reliable sources or personnels for the ingredients and steps if you guys don't wanna end up ingesting self-made laxatives.
I prepared the crust beforehand by crushing biscuits into powder like form and mixing it with sugar with less than a quarter of a butter block into a solid mixture of crumbs. Then I poured the mixture inside the pan and flattened it evenly on the base and then baked it in the oven for about 10 mins then cooled.
the crustNext was the essential part to a perfect cheesecake, the batter. My mistake here was lemon juice, I put too many lemons. The number of lemons should be one, I put four. Not forgetting the condensed milk, it's half of the normal can, not half from the small can, my bad. This is the part where we mix the cream cheese, eggs, vanilla extract, lemon juice, fresh cream, condensed milk once at a time into a batter. I'd prefer hand mixing rather than using an electric mixer cos I realized later afterwards that some of the cream cheese had sunk to the base of the mixing bowl unreachable by the mixer, another mistake noted.
Finally, the finale. The batter was then poured onto the baked crust and heated in the oven around 150-160 degrees for about an hour or so.
when done, I had it cooled within room temperature and then placed it into the fridge after.
em, emm...Note the small hole in the middle, I had to use a chopstick to check whether it was done or not. Now I understand why some cakes have cherries in the middle of the cake or topping decorations, they were all defect cover-ups.. haha
The final product? The most perfect rich-creamy-slightly-soured-not-too-sweet original cheesecake I've ever made on my first attempt, not forgetting the 3kg I've put on ever since.
who moved the cheese!?Rest assured, second attempt, my cheesecake will be...
Perfecto!
Labels: cheesecakes, food, photos, updates
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