White Choc Cake with White Choc Frosting

I was flipping through my newly bought copy of the April 2009 Good Food magazine when I came across this recipe for hazelnut frosted white chocolate cake. I was immediately intrigued, because I've been looking for a good and easy recipe for white chocolate cake for ages.

Since I already had all the ingredients for the cake (not the hazelnut frosting) on hand, I decided to make the cake :D I used a different recipe for white chocolate frosting instead of the hazelnut frosting. (If you want the recipe for hazelnut frosting, leave a comment and I'll post it!)


White Chocolate Cake (pg 124 of Good Food UK April 2009, also the cover recipe)

• 250g butter


• 140g white chocolate, broken to pieces


• 250ml milk


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 2 cups self raising flour


• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda


• 300g or 1 1/3 cups sugar


• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1. Heat oven to 160C. Grease and line a 23cm or 9" cake tin.


2. Place butter, chocolate, milk and vanill in a small saucepan, then heat gently, stirring, until melted.


3. Combine flour, bicarb and sugar in a large bowl, with a pinch of salt, then stir in melted ingredients and eggs until smooth.


4. Pour batter into tin, bake for an hour or until cake is golden and skewer comes out clean. (This is very dependent on your oven. My cake took about 1 hour 15 minutes to cook well.)


5. Cool in tin. Once cool, you can wrap the cake in clingfilm and foil and then frozen to up to one month.

I did change that last line a little - instead of cooling the cake in the tin, I left it to cool for 5 minutes, then took it out of the tin, wrapped it in clingfilm and cooled it on a wire rack.

Once it was cooled, I started making my frosting, using this recipe that I got from this website:


White Chocolate Frosting:

• 100g white chocolate


• 100g butter, softened


• 225g icing sugar, sifted


• 1 tbsp milk

Melt chocolate, then leave to cool slightly. Beat butter in another bowl till soft. Gradually beat in other ingredients.


Simple, isn't it?? :D It's really easy to make this cake. It barely requires any thinking at all!

Since I was lacking the chocolate, I had to use only 50g of chocolate for the frosting, but it didn't detract from the taste at all :D I did make a small mistake with the frosting - I'd used the chocolate when it was still too hot, so it melted the butter and made the frosting all wonky. I had to keep stirring the mixture for ages before it cooled down and turned into a far more useable state! Still, the frosting turned out pretty good, albeit a little difficult to use, and rather unattractive looking.

This amount of frosting just barely covered my cake, so I would suggest making more of it - maybe about 1.5 times the amount.

If you're going to make a double layered cake, simply double the recipe for the cake, and triple the recipe for the frosting. Well, I say triple the frosting recipe because I like alot of frosting!

Once the frosting has been cooled and set, you can finally cut into your treat and sample this white chocolate-y goodness!


The Verdict:
Ingredients: Much like the butter cake with buttercream frosting, this is very much a store-cupboard cake. Well, at least, it is to me! I usually keep a few bars of white and dark chocolate in my cupboard just in case I want to make double chocolate chunk cookies in the middle of the night.

Easiness: Like I said, you don't even have to think about it! Dump dry stuff in one bowl, dump all wet stuff except eggs in another bowl, melt wet stuff, pour that and eggs into dry stuff and mix, and there you have it! The frosting is a little more complicated than the plain buttercream frosting, but only because you have to melt chocolate, which is also really easy.

Texture: Very very good! It's soft and squidgy, incredibly moreish. Slightly crumbly, but then all of my cakes are always slightly crumbly. Why is that??? Anyway, it isn't dry at all. I'm not entirely sure it it's the recipe or because I did the take-out-of-tin-and-cool-it-wrapped-in-clingfilm thing. Actually, it's very moist - to the point where it's almost the sticks-in-your-teeth kind. Luckily, it isn't too bad. The crust is actually a little hard, but it's forgiveable, I guess.

Taste: Very good taste! It tastes creamy and milky, with that hint of white chocolatey richness. Despite the fact that I used less white chocolate in it, the frosting is very good! I think that the fact that there is less white chocolate means that the white chocolate taste doesn't overwhelm your mouth. (You know how too much white chocolate can get cloying sometimes ^^;) So really, it isn't too jelak! (Jelak = easy to get sick of)


I think I will be trying out this recipe again, just to see how it'll taste like if I make it double layered, or with more white chocolate in the frosting! :D

Event Aftermath: Japanese Art Festival London

O_O I've just realised that I'd forgotten to post pictures of the Japanese Art Festival I went to nearly a month ago! Geez.....

Anywaaay! At the Tokyo City Promotion event that my friends and I went to on the 31st of January, we met Akemi Solloway, a very nice woman who is a Japanese language and culture teacher. She told us she was organising a Japanese Art Festival in Richmond and invited us to attend.

Originally, I hadn't planned on going at all, because I had scheduled myself to writing my dissertation that weekend. However, the girls on the forum were talking about it, and I was soooo tempted to go. I finally decided that I would go, when I saw on the website that they'd have takoyaki there :P

Here are pictures!!

This is what I wore:


At the place, we helped a fellow IG-er get dressed in her absolutely gorgeous furisode:


I was constantly fiddling around with her kitsuke :P It drove everyone nuts! By the way, in this picture, you can see my back, and also how well my zori matched my outfit :P


I was quite proud of this! It was our first time tying a fukura suzume onto someone else, and I think it turned out quite good! :D Yaaaay! Uhh it's actually less lopsided than in these photos LOL!


Later on in the day, Mel joined us! She was dressed gothic lolita style :D


Our "trademark" maneki-neko pose :P


"Do stupid poses! :D"
The result:


Later on, our IG friend was in the kimono fashion show that Akemi Solloway hosted! She looked great :) There were many great kimono all around!

Ahh, that was such a fun day! ^_^ Lol, we had alot of people staring, but there were also cosplayers about, so it wasn't so bad ;)

We did get to eat alot of things, like takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakionigiri and tempura curry rice, with calpico to wash it all down. Yum, they were all delicious! Too bad we didn't take any pictures... We just wolfed it all down, cos we were so hungry! Hahaha XD

Ooooh one last picture! We got someone to draw caricatures of us! Can you guess who's who? :D (Click on the picture to go to my Flickr page.

More pics here!

Rabbit stew

When I was in high school, I loved reading romance novels, particularly those set in medieval times. Most of those medieval romance novels would feature hunts and rabbits somewhere in the story. Thanks to those stories, I have always been curious about rabbit meat and how it tastes.

As of late, I have been reading many stories also set in medieval times, similarly featuring hunts and rabbit as food. After reading so many stories, I was hit with a sudden, intense craving for rabbit flesh.

Two days ago, I walked out to Waitrose for my weekly shopping. I was wandering through the meat section when I found that they had diced rabbit meat! Of course, I bought it.

Today, I had the opportunity to cook the rabbit meat. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but I figured that since it was diced meat, not a jointed or whole rabbit, I may as well make a stew. So, I cooked a nice rabbit stew, using my favourite lamb stew recipe, but replacing the lamb for rabbit.


Recipe:
1) Coat rabbit in flour. Heat oil in a pot, and fry the rabbit till browned. Take rabbit out of pot, and set aside.
2) In the same pot, add a little more oil, then add roughly chopped onion. Fry till soft. I like a little hint of spiciness in my food, so I added three chopped chillies. Return rabbit to pot, along with carrots and potatoes (prepared the way you like it). Stir-fry it a little to coat everything in a bit of oil.
3) Add hot water till just covering everything. Bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover and simmer for 30mins. Stir at least once every 10 minutes, because the water will evaporate fast! Add more water, if need be. Simmer till the sauce consistency is to your liking. I highly doubt you'd need to add any flour to thicken it, but if you like it really thick, then go ahead, by all means!
4) Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.


It turned out quite nice, I think. Of course, this is stew, so nothing much can ever go wrong with it! :D But surprisingly, rabbit flesh does taste quite good!

I've always heard that rabbit flesh is very similar to chicken in terms of taste and texture. You can throw that right out of the window. The flavour does have a slight hint of a chicken taste, but actually has a more game-y flavour. If I recall correctly, it tastes more like anteloupe than chicken. The texture, I feel, is a bit like a cross between duck breast and stewing beef (you know... beef that's too tough for anything but slow cooking), but slightly less tough. I will admit that the smell is a little odd, but you get used to it after a while. After frying the meat, it smells absolutely heavenly!

I know that some people would be horrified at the thought of eating bunnies, but honestly! Where's your sense of gastronomic adventure?? Besides, did you know that rabbit is higher in protein and lower in fat than other meats and poultry? Or that the cholesterol values are as low as or lower than other red meats and poultry? (I got that info from this site!) Delicious and healthy!

Precious few restaurants that I've been to serve rabbit, if any at all, but I think that if I ever have the chance to eat rabbit that has been professionally prepared, I will take it! After all, if it already tastes nice when I am the one cooking it, how delicious would it be if professionals cook it? Yum!

By the way, just a random note, but the pancakes I made yesterday? I had some leftovers that I kept in the fridge. For a quick brunch, I had them spread with butter and with smoked salmon. It was so delicious! The sweetness of the pancakes complemented the woody flavour of the smoked salmon. I only wish I had cream cheese to go with it, but I don't really eat cream cheese often enough to justify keeping a tub in my fridge all the time.

I think the next time I have leftover pancakes, I might try having it with mushroom pate and cold slices of roast beef or lamb! Yum~

Pancakes

I was absolutely craving for pancakes today, for reasons I myself don't know. So, of course, I googled for pancake recipes, and picked the easiest one with the best reviews.

I'm never using pancake mix again. Seriously. Making them from scratch is so easy, and it tastes sooooo much better! Not to mention, my pancakes are far fluffier and softer than anything that would ever come out of a box! They came out a little too brown for my liking, mainly because I'd accidentally turned up the heat a little too high in the beginning. Still, it's good stuff!

I'll have to remember to make these for Patrick when he comes down to London. With honey, butter and fresh strawberries, and maybe some smoked goose too. Yummm~

Here's the recipe:

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar (I think I added a little more than that)
pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp veg oil
235ml milk

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well in the center, pour rest of ingredients into well, mix into batter. Cook pancakes as usual.


It didn't take me 5 minutes to finish making the batter, measuring, beating and all. Yum. I had them with butter and honey.

Speaking of honey, I decided to try a different type of honey. My favourite is usually Scottish heather honey, although chestnut honey comes in as a close second. This time, I decided to try New Zealand thyme honey. I'm still not quite sure if I like it or not. Sometimes, it tastes like wet shoes! It certainly smells like it, too. But the texture of the honey is very smooth... Maybe it's one of those kinds of honey that you use for cooking savoury dishes instead?

Outfit Snap: Casual yellow kimono

Casual yellow kimono, originally uploaded by shira.C.

Yesterday, I still felt like wearing kimono, so I took out a wool kimono I'd bought about 5 months ago.

I've always had trouble trying to match this kimono with anything, because I'm not the biggest fan of hanhaba obi with anything that isn't yukata, but this kimono is so casual that it looks odd with nagoya obi. I've spent months debating on what to match this kimono with, but as I took out this kimono yesterday, my eyes fell on this simple cotton hanhaba obi, and thought they'd look great together!

They do look quite good together, methinks. The yellow stripes on the obi match the kimono, while the orange stripes on the kimono match the obi. Not to mention the touches of green and purple on the obi to add a little colour to the outfit. It's still a little too low-contrast for my tastes, but it's good enough for a simple, everyday outfit! I can really picture wearing this in late autumn, because the oufit looks so warm ^^

I dressed really quickly, so my kitsuke is a little messy, but it was comfortable and not too warm, so I was happy! I did feel extra fat yesterday - I think it's because I've been eating sweet things constantly for the past week! Haha. I must've eaten two cups of sugar in total over the course of one week... *shudders*

Anyway, what do you think of yesterday's kimono ensemble? :) Any other suggestions for obi? I welcome all ideas! :D

Outfit Snap: Red, Black, White Challenge: Take 3

Red, Black, White Challenge: Take 3, originally uploaded by shira.C.

Yesterday, I decided to wear kimono simply because I haven't worn one in three weeks (three weeks!) and was absolutely dying to.

I had originally wanted to respond to the IG forums' "Yipes! Stripes!" Challenge, but I couldn't come up with a nice ensemble with the kimono I'd wanted to wear. Instead, I took out another old synthetic kimono, and wore that instead! It's vaguely stripe-ish, but not enough to enter the challenge.

The colour scheme was a no-brainer. I didn't even have to think about it! Red, black and white seems just so ordinary to put together now. The best thing about this ensemble is that, except for the fact that the kimono is awase, it's really season-neutral! Even the juban is season-neutral :D

Speaking of the juban, the one I wore is one of my new juban from a lot of 16 I'd bought ages ago. This one is an all-over print of false white kanako shibori on red. Isn't it cute??? :D :D :D

I'm thinking that the next time I wear this kimono, I'll wear a blue obi or something, to pick up on the very faint and pale colours of the kimono's pattern. What do you think?

Beautiful day~

Although the sky is not very blue, today is exactly the sort of day I'd described two posts ago, minus the buzzing insects :D I'm feeling very happy and at peace at the moment. I'm also feeling good about the fact that I've cleared up my room quite a bit.

I just had to take a picture of this flowering tree, that grows in the garden compound right outside my flat.

I don't actually know what tree it is, because I've never been anywhere near it to check, and even so, I highly doubt I'd be able to recognise it! :P My botany skills are zilch. Either way, I think it looks really pretty, and is a very welcoming beacon for when I'm walking home.

Since there still will be sunlight for another three hours or so, I think I might indulge myself a little bit and wear a kimono, which I haven't done in three weeks!