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Last day of uni (Black Star Pastry + Grill'd)

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Last Friday was our last day back at uni, it was kinda sad but more exciting at the same time! We had made plans to celebrate afterwards at Newtown.  I've seen so many people raving about the Strawberry Watermelon cake at Black Star Pastry so that's we decided to settle for dessert. We finished uni at 4, got a little speech from our lovely coordinator, took a year group photo and set off on the walk to Newtown. It was kind of early for dinner so we decided to have dessert first. We got to Black Star Pastry at 5:01 and were devastated to see it had already closed! We were late by a minute (they close at 5). Despite our efforts of knocking on the door, the staff inside did not open up to apologize. But while looking at the door we realised there was another pop-up store at Town Hall. We had to decide whether we would chase it or leave it, and we chose to do the former, for obvious reasons! We desperately wanted that cake! We went to Town Hall and took a while to f...
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The Emporium

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This cafe has a great welcoming atmosphere with options to dine in or outside. We went on a weekday so it wasn't that busy. I wasn't that hungry so I ordered a side. It was filled with Dutch, purple and orange carrots with Harissa dressing. It was great in the beginning but after a while, it got boring. It would've been better if they had one or two other veggies (rather than just carrots). Roasted Dutch carrots, cashew dukkah, harissa dressing $9 Chocolate cremeux, honeycomb ice cream, chocolate soil, dulce de leche, espresso gel $16 The dessert however, was delicious. It had lots of crunch, texture and flavour. There was lots of bits and pieces like bread, chocolate, ice cream etc. The amount was good in terms of portion control. Yes, I know the photo doesn't look as appealing as the lighting was poor but it looked way much better in person.
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Black Star Pastry (Strawberry Watermelon Cake)

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Some of you might know about the desperate attempt I made last year for the Strawberry Watermelon Cake (see previous post at  Black Star Pastry ).  Yesterday I had the privilege of tasting this cake at a party. I got super excited as I’ve been wanting to try this for almost a year now. I was so tempted to just skip the mains but I patiently waited for dessert time and made sure I left space for the cake :P In the meantime, I went to take a close look at the cake (could not resist, for obvious reasons) and I was amazed at how magical it looked. It was constructed beautifully starting with a layer of almond  dacquoise followed by cream, then a slice of watermelon with cream,   almond  dacquoise and cream again. Finally, it was topped with strawberries, pistachios and dried rose petals. It was a quite a delicious cake but unfortunately, it did not meet the expectations I had. I liked certain elements, such as the lightness of the cream layers, f...
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Daddy's birthday 2015 | Buttery fruit cake

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Happy birthday daddy! This perfectly describes how he continues to inspire me! And he always is!  In the past, I always used to purchase cakes because I did not trust my baking skills enough to be able to pull off a fancy cake for a special occasion. But this year, I've been a bit of an experimental baker so I thought I'd give it a go.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. Initially, he said plain cake again (probably because he did not want to trouble me during my final days of thesis writing). After I pressed further, he gave me buttery fruit cake as an answer.  I was happy with this because I had never baked one so it'd be fun to do one. I started my recipe hunt. Most traditional recipes use alcohol but because I don't drink, I had to look harder to find one that didn't so I could eat it too :D Eventually I found this. I've followed this recipe pretty closely with some little changes.  Normally I would not use ...
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Wholemeal date and walnut loaf

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Happy Monday everyone! It has been a while since I baked a loaf so thought I'd make one :) Recipe adapted from http://daa.asn.au/recipes/wholemeal-date-and-walnut-loaf/ Ingredients 2 eggs, lightly beaten 100 g pitted dates, chopped 45 g margarine 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 cup water 40 g walnuts, chopped 1 cup self-raising flour 1 cup wholemeal flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 2 tablespoon LSA oil to spray Method 1) Preheat oven to 180 °C. 2) Combine dates, margarine, sugar and water in a saucepan. Stir and boil gently. Set aside to cool. 3) Sift flour, baking powder, LSA. 4) Add in walnuts and eggs  5) Add in date mixture and mix well. 6) Lightly spray a loaf tin pan. Line with baking paper. 7) Pour mixture into pan 8) Bake for 45-50 mins. Skewer should come out clean.  9) Remove from oven and cool for 10 mins 10) Turn out on a cooling rack. Slice and serve with yoghurt, if desired.
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Moong dal and pumpkin curry

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Mum left some moong dal in the fridge, I've never cooked with it before so I wanted a recipe to use it. This was probably one of the easiest curry I have ever cooked! So simple yet so delicious :) Recipe adapted from: http://www.steamingpot.com/pumpkin-moong-dal/ I modified the recipe as I did not have some of the mentioned ingredients. Ingredients 1 TB EVOO 1 cup of boiled moong dal (1/2 cup raw) 1 onion, finely chopped 1 tsp of garlic and ginger paste Turmeric powder (sprinkled) Curry powder (sprinkled) 250g pumpkin, finely chopped, skin on  1 red capsicum, small cubes 1 tomato, small cubes  Cumin powder (sprinkled)  Few green or red chillies  Fresh coriander Method 1) Boil moong dal (refer to instructions above- easier if done beforehand) I already had my boiled moong dal so I started from step 2 2) Add EVOO oil 3) Add onions, garlic/ ginger paste and turmeric powder once oil is hot 4) Stir for a few seconds 5) Add pumpkin, boiled lentils a...
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Manageable March

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I started this month feeling overwhelmed and out of control, both emotionally and physically (playing the catch-up game with my workload). As I have said, I have had a lot going in my life in the past couple of months. While the majority of it has left a very positive influence in my life, there are some areas of it where negativity continues to tingle. I have told myself I will focus on the sunny side of it, work around this to normalise it as much as possible. The good news is that I have succeeded; I have managed to focus my shift back to work, and it has been working so far. However, there are occasions when my mind starts drifting away into the other land. But happy to say, I have been pretty productive this month, managed to get through ethics applications, two paper revisions (almost) and a few other things. In other news, I have finally started working on our wedding day blog. It took me a while to start because I wanted to wait until my ‘mental load’ reduced a little. We h...
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Holiday cooking (Part 2)

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This part of my holidays was spent a bit differently. I went away to Asia to spend some quality time with my mum. I didn't have to cook as often as I normally would (mum and others pretty much took care of everything) The food supply was also a bit different, some of the things I use back home wasn't readily available here.  Not having access to some things was difficult, but at the same time, I got to try other things I don't eat as often in Sydney (like guavas, they're my favourite!) Recipe up for oatmeal omelette  :) Orange pancakes with spicy chicken Sweet potato, guava and orange salad Guava, pineapple and mandarin salad Yoghurt pancakes Sea of green! Pineapple and chicken pasta Chicken, carrot and pea dumpling Chicken, carrot and capsicum skewers Green papaya and broccoli ribbon pasta Oatmeal omelette
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Lindt Chocolate Cafe

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I've wanted to try Lindt for a very long time. I've made plans of coming here but somehow got turned off. I was really excited when I entered and being surrounded by all the chocolate felt pretty amazing. It took me some time to decide what I wanted (I think you all know about my indecisiveness by now).  We ended up ordering a lava cake and waffles. In the meantime, I looked around and ate with my eyes :P Sad to say, I was quite disappointed because the flavours were heavy, even for a chocolate lover like me. The ice cream was great, but there wasn't enough ice cream to balance the intense flavours from the lava cake. I think I would've liked it more if there were less cake and more ice cream.  Chocolate Lava Cake ($12) The waffles were a let down as they were ordinary and did not come with any fruit either. We were not happy with this as most places offer same waffles, including fresh fruits at a better price! Waffles with ice cream ($15) ...
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Parramatta Lanes

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I heard a lot about Parra Lanes last year so I thought I'd make a time to see out this year. At first, we had a lot of trouble finding out where we needed to go. I've heard Parra Lane gets spread across over multiple stations to distribute the crowd. However, the problem was that the places aren't always easy to find. After walking around for some time, we managed to get hold of a map from a security staff. My main reason for coming was to try some knafeh; I've heard so much about this dessert from people who came last year. But we realised this particular shop was furthest out from our location. First stop was Koi Dessert Bar but there as a long line. While waiting in line, I decided to try the strawberry watermelon gelato from N2. I've always been a huge admirer of the strawberry watermelon cake from Black Star Pastry . I thought it'd be an interesting combo to have it in a gelato form. It surely was, I quite liked the gelato cake, it had a very stron...
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