House of Fine Chocolate..the place to be!!!

I've been in Adelaide for about 4 1/2 years now, and i must admit i was pretty upset with the limited options for dessert parlours here when i first came. I felt that it was REALLY unfair that Sydney for example had Max Brenner and Pancakes on the rocks for good desserts but Adelaide had NOTHING that i fancied!


However, i happened to come across this little chocolate dessert shop which is located on the bustling Jetty Road located in Glenelg last year..and ohh my goodness...I loved Adelaide 100 times more!Its called Bracegirdle's House of Fine Chocolate..and yes it definitely is!


Adelaide is like Penang i must say..We're always the last to get the good stuff. We only got Chills THIS YEAR in Penang..ya THIS year i repeat.


As for Adelaide, Star bucks came to town only last year and there's still no sign of Coffee Bean!

Anyway, back to Bracegirdle, it was the best dessert! i love the waffles there, as well as the chocolate sticky date pudding.


Their chocolate fondues are quite popular too i must say. They even have a lollies fondue which i haven't quite brought myself to try even though it sounds and looks interesting.


I'm normally adventurous when it comes to food but the waffles and chocolate SD pudding taste so good that every time i go there i just eat the same thing.They use Belgian chocolate in their desserts and handmade truffles.


Oh and guess what? They recently opened a joint on Greenhill Road and i am like 5 minutes drive away from it. Bracegirdle's really has a lovely ambience with original timber floors and just makes you feel at home when you're there.


Very homely and cozy. Its a nice place for an afternoon rendezvous in summer after having a nice stroll down the sandy beach of Glenelg or for a cup of hot chocolate and cake in winter.



Guess what they have right at the entrance?? A giant chocolate fountain!!Trust me, you'll be seduced by the glorious aroma of the melted chocolate! So, just follow your nose and enjoy *cheeky grin*

Big Table @ Central Market

BREAKFAST!!!!!!!!!i love having breakfast out and trying new places. A change of environment once in awhile is good as compared to staring at the same 4 walls of your kitchen day in and day out.

As stated in one of my previous post on how i LOVE the markets, i decided to spend my Saturday morning there this week. My house mate and i were willing to forgo our weekend sleep in session just to have breakfast in Big Table which is one of my favourite breakfast joints in Adelaide.



Its a little corner shop in the market where you just sit around on little kitchen stools, enjoy your breakfast and wash it down with a giant cappuccino to the cacophony of sounds and aromas of the lively marketplace.




Their milkshakes are really thick and rich too!




Big table is well known for their homemade mayo and basil pesto which is made fresh daily. They have a wide menu selection of sweet and savory dishes. Here's a little 'sneak' preview of their menu

• Green eggs and ham
• Big Brekkie- the lot served with fat toast or baguette

• Scrambled eggs any which way
• French toast with rhubarb and maple syrup
  
• Japanese fruit toast you can't jump over
• Porridge with honey, banana and cinnamon

Mon and I were in the mood for something sweet..i think its a girl thing..*hehe* and settled for the
- French toast with rhubarb and maple syrup


- waffles with fresh strawberries and ice cream( i know its winter and no one has ice cream for breakfast BUT i DO ).


We really liked the French toast with rhubarb but found the waffles just ordinary if you know what i mean. Nothing can beat the waffles in Bracegirdle or at The Store.
They also serve lunch and have a great selection of baguettes, fresh salads, muffins and the winter hearty soup from the cauldron that warms the soul.


So if you're at the markets and can't decide where to eat, give Big Table a go!

SUGA HIGH!!!

Day-o, day-ay-ay-o
Here i come with a banana cupcake recipe!
Hey, i say ba-na-na, i say ba-na-na-na-na
na-na-ay-O
Here i come with another cupcake recipe!
Work all night on baking lil cupcakes
(Daylight come and i wanna bake more) Stack banana till thee morning come (Daylight come and i wanna bake more)

HALOOO everybody!! I think im on a sugar-high mode or should i say cupcake-high mode..*hehe*
My rotation in hospital now is such a bludge which is really nice for a change. I'm not complaining one bit! I think my parents are getting a tiny bit worried though that every time they call me I'm at home or shopping..everywhere but hospital. But deep down they know i'm a good kid and will never skip classes. My sister until today still makes fun of me and thinks i'm a SUPER nerd..oh well.. i'm used to it by now.
Anyway, back to the main topic of my post..i baked again AND with company. I was flicking through a few cupcake books, burning a few of my brain cells away and trying hard to decide on what to make. I seriously just felt like baking EVERYTHING!!!!



I guess you might be thinking to yourself..she's such a bimbo and can't even make a simple decision. But really, it can be difficult.. I guess all mothers around the world feel my pain everyday in the kitchen, trying real hard to decide on what to cook for dinner. CHOICES , CHOICES and more CHOICES. Monica, my baking partner in crime came home early yesterday as well and was in a baking frenzy too.

Finally, the verdict was to bake banana crumb muffins and some chocolate muffins with the Baileys icing that i used for my mocha cupcakes! see i do keep to my words when i wrote last in my post that i was going to try the Baileys icing on chocolate cupcakes! The banana crumb muffins were REALLY moist and the crumb topping gives it the extra CRUNCH!




Being chocoholics, we added chocolate chips to the batter. The recipe is from a blog called baking bites.

Banana Crumb Muffins
Muffin batter:

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp vegetable oil
½ cup buttermilk
1 egg
2/3 cup (2 medium) mashed bananas, divided
1 tsp vanilla

Crumb topping:
½ cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
3 tbsp shortening, cut into small pieces.
1 tbsp mashed banana (reserved from 2/3 cup mashed banana)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease or line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.

Prepare the crumb topping: In a small bowl, whisk together flour, sugar and salt. Cut shortening into flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Larger crumbs are a bit more desirable. Stir in the mashed banana and set bowl aside.

Prepare the batter: In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, vegetable oil, buttermilk, egg, bananas and vanilla. Pour flour mixture into banana mixture and stir until batter is just combined. Spoon into muffin tins, filling each 2/3 full. Top each muffin with crumb mixture, dividing it evenly.
Bake for 18-21 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the muffins spring back when gently touched.
Makes 12 muffins

We added 1/2 cup of walnuts and 1/3 chocolate chips.Walnuts and banana goes really well.



As for my chocolate cupcakes, i'm really fussy when it comes to chocolate cakes, cupcakes anything chocolate and it has to be really moist and perfect if not i won't eat it. I wasn't in a mood to try any new chocolate cupcake recipes just to find out that the end result wasn't what i want it to be.




So i used 1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® devil's food cake mix, and added chocolate chips in the middle of the batter while placing the batter into the cupcake holders. I made another batch of my Bailey's icing to top the chocolate cupcakes and it was finger licking good! *grins*

More cupcakes!

I read alot of food blogs daily..Its like my daily dose of caffeine that i need EVERYDAY if not i start getting withdrawal symptoms and start thinking about it all day..*hehe*


When it comes to baking I'm still not too confident in making up my own recipes. You see, unlike cooking you can't really taste as you go in baking..once its in the oven the deed is done and you're kinda forced to eat up the whole batch of baked goods. As for cooking, you can adjust the flavour until you're happy with it.


I came across a unique Gateau Suprise Chocolat Pistache recipe from 101 cookbooks .
My housemates and i were having a few friends over for a cook up and decided to try out the recipe.




I must admit i only "supervised" the making of the cupcakes and didn't do much *guilty look*. Well like they say 'too many cooks spoil the broth' hence i was just preventing it from happening *hehe*



It turned out pretty well i must say and its going to be on our "good recipes list". The only thing that we felt was that the taste of the pistachios wasn't strong enough.



Therefore, the next time we make it we're going to add more pistachios to the recipe and not chop it up too fine. I'm not going to type the recipe out again cause you can find it here .

Its best eaten hot as you'll get to taste the effect of hot melted chocolate oozing out :)

Lobsters

The mission was to get the princess some lobsters!And boy, was the mission accomplished well. I was having one of 'those' craving sessions again..and this time it was for lobsters. I don't eat much seafood in Adelaide besides prawns and fish. Therefore, i get my 6 monthly smörgåsbord of seafood when i go home.

It was a beautiful evening and my parents and i headed towards Teluk Bahang where fishermen hawk their catch and seafood- crazy diners enjoy their favorite seafood every way possible.


























We ended up in one of our favourite little seafood restaurants that served delicious seafood dishes.We wanted the luscious crustacean's meat to be preserved with its natural flavour and not drowned in herbs or spices and ordered a grilled lobster with just salt and pepper.





It was really fresh and i strongly feel that it tastes better eating it by the beach, where the salty tang of sea air enhances its flavour.



We ordered a theochew stlye steamed fish and 2 vegetable dishes. One of the vegetable dishes that we tried was fried "yau mak veges with "tau joo"(romaine lettuce stir-fried with fermented beancurd) and it was really nice.




Half way through the meal, my dad wanted more lobster and we tried the lobster thermador(grilled cheese). Cheesy things are just not my cup of tea and therefore i enjoyed the grilled lobster better.
After the meal, the princess's cravings was satisfied and she had a BIG grin on her face.

Bailey's mocha cupcake

I was in a baking mood and recently purchased an icing bag and was dying and i mean seriously dying to use it! I've been looking for a good, not your everyday cupcake kinda recipe for the past few days and finally found one that i quite fancied.It was my dear friend, Sarah's birthday and the special occasion gave me an even better excuse to bake.

I settled for a Bailey's cupcake recipe but modified it to a Bailey's mocha cupcake..yummy!



Ingredients

4 1/2 ounces butter

3/4 cup milk

3 eggs

1 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tsp coffee powder

Icing

1 (8 ounce) packet cream cheese

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

Instructions

• Line a 12 hole muffin pan with LARGE patty cases (Muffin Paper Cups). NOTE: May need to change patty case size depending on your muffin pan. NOTE: Patty cases are OPTIONAL.
• Combine Butter and Milk in small pan, stirring on low heat until butter is melted.
• COOL to room temperature then add coffee powder to mixture.
  
• BEAT Eggs in small bowl with an electric mixer until THICK and creamy.
• GRADUALLY add Castor Sugar, beating until well combined. NOTE: Any substitute of other sugar may slightly change muffins, but is still OK.
• Combine sifted self raising flour and Cocoa. FOLD (With spoon OR Hand Mixer on FOLD;) combined mixture and butter mixture in two batches. (Means Combined flour, cocoa and butter, and then combined flour, cocoa and butter again).
• Divide between Muffin Trays with or without Patty Cases.

• COOK in moderate oven 180 degrees for about 25 minutes or when toothpick comes out clean when tested.
• Turn onto a wire rack to cool.
• ICING ---BEAT cream cheese in small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
• Add Sifted Icing Sugar WITH 2 Tablespoons Cocoa powder.
• BEAT well until combined.
• STIR in Liqueur.
• SPREAD Icing over cakes.
• Dust with extra Cocoa (OPTIONAL).

The cream cheese Bailey's icing turned out really well. I reckon it would really be a good icing for a rich moist chocolate cake. Guess who's going to try it out real soon..*cheeky grin*