Ginger Beer Cupcakes

I had to make these cupcakes. I have been thinking about nothing but making ginger beer cupcakes for the last week. You can thank my dear friend Lisa from spicy icecream for that. I hardly ever used to drink ginger beer, but her recent obsession with it somehow triggered something in my brain and I have been going nuts for it. I was even lucky enough to grab some ginger beer cordial off my brother, and that's when I decided I had to try making cupcakes flavoured with ginger beer.

I had no idea how to go about this, I didn't like the idea of having to add so much liquid to a cake mixture. But I just went ahead with it, because I had so much ginger beer in my fridge. I'm so glad that I did because these moist, golden cupcakes are delish!

The flavour of the ginger beer gets quite diluted in the cake mixture, so if you can get your hands on the ginger beer cordial to help boost that, then I would really encourage it. These went a lovely golden brown in the oven and you could really smell the ginger beer in the cakes. I had to add a little bit of ground ginger to the batter to add a little extra gingery-ness, because I love my ginger. It's funny since I never used to like ginger as a child, only knowing it as that unpleasant tasting chunky thing that you might be unlucky enough to bite into while eating your Mum's stir fry. No one ever used to tell me it came in so many deliciously sweet forms!

Ginger Beer Cupcakes
(Yield: Approx 20 cupcakes)
For the cupcakes:
1 cup tightly packed brown sugar
125g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarb soda
3/4 cup ginger beer
2 tbsp ginger beer cordial (if unavailable, substitute with 1/4 cup ginger beer)
1/2 tsp ground ginger

For the icing:
375g (2 cups) icing sugar
140g butter (salted or unsalted), softened slightly
2 tsp ginger beer cordial (or 2 tsp ginger beer)
1 tbsp glace ginger, finely chopped
Optional: Plastic straws, chopped short

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Cream sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and beat well with an electric mixer until combined.

Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and ginger) into a separate bowl and mix together. Combine ginger beer and ginger beer cordial in another small bowl.

Alternating between adding the ginger beer mixture and the flour mixture, gradually fold the ingredients into the butter-egg-sugar bowl. The mixture should be pale and fluffy and as runny as a regular cake batter.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3-3/4 full and then bake in the oven for 18-20 mins, or until cooked through and golden brown on top, rotating tray halfway to ensure they bake evenly. Remove from the oven and carefully remove cupcakes from tray. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Beat butter with an electric mixer on high speed until it is light and fluffy. Fold in the sifted icing sugar gradually and then stir in the ginger beer cordial. Adjust amount of cordial and amount of icing sugar until it reaches a good consistency for piping.

Pipe icing over the top of cupcakes once they are cooled. Sprinkle glace ginger over the top of the icing and then stick a small straw into each cupcake.

Can be stored for several days in an air-tight container.

I only wish I could have gotten some of those cute bendy straws to use instead of boring straight ones! Everyone I gave a cupcake to asked me if there was something that they could suck up through the straw, expecting some sort of crazy ginger beer capsule in the middle. Others wished that the straw was edible. Sheesh I didn't realise expectations were so high!

Homemade Kaya (Coconut Jam), on Toast with Soft Boiled Eggs

I was so excited after I made this that I couldn't wait to post it, so it is skipping past my growing backlog of baking posts, expressed delived to you. If you've been reading my blog in the past, you will have heard about my obsession with homemade kaya. It is a thick, sweet coconut curd/jam, made with eggs, coconut and flavoured with pandan. In Malaysia, it is served on toasted white bread with a thick layer of butter, or on top of coconut glutinous rice, or even inside a pastry puff. A perfect kaya (for me), has to be super smooth, not even the tiniest hint of roughness, and caramelised so that it is golden brown. The stuff they sell in the Chinese supermarket just doesn't cut it, it's usually very grainy in texture and a green colour from the pandan essence that they use. The homemade stuff is usually cooked with fresh pandan leaves, so it doesn't turn green.

The homemade stuff is also usually made with freshly squeezed thick coconut milk, which means you need to get a fresh coconut and grate the sh*t out of it. Even with one of the nifty coconut graters that they usually use, this is a lot of work just for a jar of jam and it has been the main thing stopping me from trying this recipe at home. But after finding some fresh pandan leaves at the Thai supermarket Pontip (a couple doors down from Chat Thai), I decided to give it a try with some tetra-pack thick coconut milk from Thailand, just to see if it came close to that lovely golden spread that I miss so much.

A phone call to my Mum reveals that she pretty much knows a recipe off the top of her head, so after getting some valuable advice from her, and finding a pretty decent looking recipe by Amy Beh, I tried to make my first batch of kaya. I was very worried about it getting lumpy or grainy, so I cooked it over a double boiler at a very low heat, stirring constantly. A lot of recipes tell you to leave it to steam with a cover over it for a while, letting it caramelise, but I was too scared to try this method. The result was a very, VERY smooth spread, sweet & brown from the long cooking time, heady with the scent of pandan leaves and richly flavoured with coconut and egg. It wasn't quite as caramelised as I would have liked, so I added the extra caramelised sugar to give it that really golden tint. Served thickly spread on toast with loads of butter, and a side a soft boiled eggs with a splash of soy sauce and white pepper, this is my most favourite breakfast in the whole wide world.

Homemade Kaya (Coconut Spread)
(adapted from this recipe by Amy Beh)
UPDATED 2 Sept 2011
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
200g caster sugar
250 ml thick coconut milk (from the grated white of 2 coconuts, or the store bought if you cant get it, obviously fresh is better)
2-3 pandan (screwpine) leaves, knotted (add pandan essence to taste if you can't get the leaves)
2 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp of water

Set up a double boiler on your stove top (I used a wok full of water with a wire stand for my mixing bowl to sit on). Whisk eggs and egg yolks in a heatproof mixing bowl until it is well combined. Gradually add sugar while whisking, and beat until the sugar starts to dissolve.

Slowly add thick coconut milk to mixture, whisking until all the sugar dissolves. Strain mixture if using fresh or canned coconut milk. Place heatproof mixing bowl in double boiler, on a low enough heat so that the water is gently boiling. Add pandan leaves and stir continuously. You can use a wooden spoon to stir but I prefer to use a silicon spatula, since it helps to stop a layer from forming and getting lumpy on the bottom.

Stir continuously for 50-60 minutes. The mixture should start to go brown and thick around the 45 minute mark. If you think the mixture is cooking to fast and lumps are appearing, remove the bowl from the double boiler immediately, whisk to remove any lumps and reduce the heat before you return the bowl to the double boiler. I found that the egg white would sometimes clump together around the pandan leaves, and I had to scoop several small solid lumps of egg out of the mixture while I was stirring.

The mixture will start to get very thick and sticky. When it is at this point, remove the pandan leaves before it gets too difficult to lift them out without taking half the kaya with it.

If the mixture is starting to get too thick and it hasn't gotten brown enough, add a tablespoon of water to the kaya. It may be tempting to remove the mixture from the heat as soon as it turns brown, but you don't want to be very milky and creamy, so keep stirring it over the heat until it is light brown and not too milky. At this point if you want to be a deeper gold colour (trust me it makes it so much better), fry 2 tbsp of sugar in a small saucepan until it melts and goes golden, then add a tbsp of water and stir until the caramelised sugar is completely dissolved in the water. Carefully and slowly add sugar water to the kaya, a bit at a time, until you are happy with the sweetness and the caramelisation.

The mixture should be a smooth, lava-like texture and a dark golden colour. The double boiler ensures that the mixture does not go grainy or lumpy. Cool the kaya completely before placing in dry, clean jars. Store in fridge.
Yield: 1 jar, about 250ml

I know, the yield is piddly compared to the amount of effort you put in. But it's so worth it. My arms are still aching from the hours of continuous stirring I did, but the kaya was so good fresh off the stove with toast and soft boiled eggs.

Now as I was saying, my favourite way to have kaya is spread very thickly on white toast with lots of butter and served with soft boiled eggs, soy & white pepper. You can get this breakfast all over Malaysia and Singapore. Trust me, it is not healthy. It is not for the faint-hearted. But it's so devilishly good. I'm not lucky enough to have a soft-boiled egg maker, so this is the only way I know how to do it at home

Kaya Toast & Soft Boiled Eggs
3 large eggs
1200 ml water
Light soy sauce
White pepper

Boil water in a kettle or on the stove. Place eggs in a metal pot that comes with a lid. If you are worried about your eggs cracking, use a pin to carefully poke a hole in the base of the eggs and this is a foolproof way to stop your eggs cracking on contact with the hot water. When the water is boiled, pour over the eggs, make sure that your pot is the right size that the water level will cover the eggs. Place lid on and leave it for about 8 minutes.

Remove eggs using a slotted spoon and carefully crack along the middle of the egg using a knife. Crack open egg very gently into a small bowl, the egg white should be just set but still runny and should stick to the egg yolk. If there is still uncooked egg white then you will have to adjust the amount of time you keep the lid on the pot. Add a splash of soy sauce and a shake of white pepper.

For the kaya toast:
Get some very white bread, like the cheapo sweet white stuff. Toast two slices and cover one slice with a thick layer of butter. (I told you this wasn't for the fainthearted)

On the other piece of toast, spread a thick layer of kaya over one side. Sandwich the two pieces of toast together and then slice in half using a bread knife. Serve toast with soft boiled eggs.

This breakfast made me a very happy girl. I still want to perfect the kaya recipe, but this one is pretty decent, it tastes really good but it's just a tad milkier than I would prefer. It's probably because I used not-fresh coconut milk, but I don't think I can be bothered grating coconuts anytime soon. The stirring is pretty tiring, but the final result is worth the effort. There are definitely easier recipes out there, ones that don't require constant stirring, and others that don't use a double boiler, but I think this method gives you the smoothest kaya, and the texture is one of the most important things. If you can't get fresh pandan leaves a bit of pandan essence will do, but it might turn your kaya a bit green.

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi, Neutral Bay

My brother & I have a lot of trouble deciding on where to go out for dinner. Especially for special occasions. When he finally decided on visiting Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi for his birthday dinner, I was surprised and very excited. I'd been wanting to go here for so long, after hearing so many good things about it on Here Comes the Food. The main thing keeping me away was the price, it's a little bit on the expensive side of Japanese restaurants in Sydney, and I had been saving most of my splurges for Ju-Rin. But you know what, I think this might be even better than Ju-Rin.

I was a little confused when we walked past the door that looked like the entrance to the restaurant, until my brother explained to me that it's is actually split into two sections - Ju Ge Mu is the okonomiyaki & teppanyaki restaurant and Shimbashi is the buckwheat noodle house. We were going to Shimbashi tonight, which has a more traditional decor, including regular tables and also the low tables where you remove your shoes. They were nearly full so we were only able to book a low table, but it was impressive watching the waitresses throughout the night, their balancing skills while pouring tea and serving dishes was awesome!

Soba Dips [Special] ($6.00) - Soba chips served with sashimi dip

We get some of the soba chips to start off with, and are surprised when they aren't actually noodle shaped like we expected. They taste SO GOOD though. Like an extremely fancy Dorito but with a much more interesting flavour. The sashimi dip that it comes with is absolutely delicious, a mash of salmon sashimi with mayo and lots of other tasty things. We seriously contemplate getting another serve of this, but hold off since we ordered quite a lot of food.

Oh my god, I want more!

As another starter, we order the fish tartare salad from the starter menu and are gleeful to realise that the tartare is very similar to the sashimi dip above, and comes with more soba chips! The tartare is slightly chunkier, less creamy than the dip, but just as moreish.

Fish Tartare Salad - Fish tartare & seaweed salad with Yuzu miso dressing ($18.00)

The seaweed salad is nice, tons of different types of seaweed, way better than the deceiving seaweed salad at Ju-Rin (which is basically just a green leaf salad with nori). It comes with a refreshing yuzu miso dressing and a teeny tiny smear of Japanese mustard on the lip of the plate.

Aburi Sushi ($28.00) - Today's selection of lightly seared 9pcs sushi

We couldn't pass up the aburi sushi, I love my sushi when it is lightly seared. This is one expensive, sparse plate of sushi though. Like I mentioned before, Shimbashi isn't cheap. But it was worth it I think, each piece of was lovingly crafted, with it's own matching condiment on top, some were wasabi, mustard or mayo, or daikon radish. Everything was beautiful quality and a delicious morsel that fit in your mouth in one bite. It was hard to share this plate between 4 people though, we couldn't decide who should have what, especially when there was only 1 piece of a certain fish. My brother got the cuttlefish to himself but he said it was one of the best he had ever had.

Bonito flakes & seaweed

There is an entirely separate menu just for the okonomiyaki, so we know that we have to order one. They warn us that it takes a bit longer for them to make this, I think it was something like half an hour, but trust me it is TOTALLY worth the wait. It is so freakin' good. And make sure you get the extra cheese for $2.00. We waited with anticipation, playing with the tin of bonito flakes and seaweed that they give you to add on top of your okonomiyaki.

Country Mix Special ($18.00) - Okonomiyaki with calimari, sliced potatoes, Mochi & crispy potatoes (with added Cheese $2.00)

It was really hard to pick which one to get, but we decided to go with the Country Mix Special, enticed by the sound of the potatoes and calimari. The mochi is the only thing I'm not too certain about, and truthfully it probably didn't need it. As expected it was quite sticky and very heavy when you got a big glob of mochi, but otherwise it was heavenly. The layers of potatoes, with gooey bits of cheese oozing between it...it was sexy. And of course all that sauce and mayo on top in it's pretty patterns, it was utter food porn on a plate.

As you can imagine, this is a very filling dish. And it's a hard dish to follow, so we are all rather disappointed by the grilled beef tongue skewers that come out next. I think I prefer my tongue sliced a little thinner, since this one is quite thick and tough, so you can really feel that tongue texture as you chew into it. However, there is some nice charring on the outside and the marinade is tasty.

Grilled beef tongue ($10.00) - 2 skewes of grilled beef tongue marinated in white miso

As well as having a huge selection of okonomiyaki, they also have a large range of soba/udon selections. They are a buckwheat noodle house after all. We were hoping to get the one on the specials menu which cake with half plain buckwheat and half lemon flavoured soba, but unfortunately they were all sold out. Instead our whole table decided to try the cold soba noodles with the warm duck & Japanese mushroom broth. I would recommend sharing a large serve of the soba between two people, since they conveniently split the serving into two separate trays, avoiding the hassle of two people bending over the same bowl. Below shows you how big a half of a large serving is.

Komo & Kinoki Seiro Soba ($23.00) - Cold noodles served with warm duck & Japanese mushrooms dipping broth

The soba is nothing like the packet soba I've had in the past. It has such an amazing, rough texture, which is perfect for picking up the deliciously rich dipping broth. I don't think I can ever go back to eating regular packet soba again. I am quite happy to slurp this up very loudly.

Dipping broth

The broth is intense, concentrated with the flavour from the duck meat and all the different types of mushrooms. I absolutely adore mushrooms, especially all the Japanese varieties, and have gobbled them up straight away. When we have finished all our noodles and chunky bits from the broth, they bring us a little jug of soba water, which you add to the leftover broth until it is light enough that you can sip at it, as a cleansing hot soup. It's the perfect way to finish of the meal.

Soba-ya (Soba water)

All of us are supremely satisfied with our meal, and I am quite happy to fork over the $50 or so a head that we ended up spending. In the end we spent about the same as what I would spend at Ju-Rin, and had quite a lot of food. Of course the bill would have blown out to a lot more if we had gotten more of the sushi and sashimi, they seem to be a bit over-priced here. But the okonomiyaki, soba chips and the soba were so worth it, I am already dying to go back.

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi
246 Military Rd
Neutral Bay NSW 2089
(02) 9904 3011
Lunch: Tue-Sat: noon - 2pm
Dinner: Tue-Sun: 6 - 9.30pm

S'mores Cheesecake (Chocolate & Toasted Marshmallow)

Why hello, Mr. Toasty, Gooey Marshmallow...Aren't you glad you finally met Miss Chocolate Cheesecake?

I was sitting around trying to think what could be better to bring to a food blogger's party than the masses of Sweetness marshmallows I had brought in the past. I didn't want to be a one trick pony. Then I spotted my shiny new blowtorch out of the corner of my eye.

We don't really eat s'mores much in Australia. They are usually toasted marshmallows sandwiched between graham crackers with chocolate, and we don't get graham crackers here. But digestive biscuits are an almost equivalent substitute, as far as I can tell, so I decided to make a s'mores cheesecake. A digestive biscuit base (there aren't really any better cheesecake bases, except maybe ginger nut), a rich chocolate cheesecake and topped off with a thick layer of marshmallows, which were to be toasted with my blowtorch right before it was served. I may have done a little jig, I was that excited about it.

So it was just a matter of finding a good cheesecake recipe. Nigella is always pretty reliable when it comes to cakes, so her chocolate cheesecake was a good place to start. I doubled the biscuit base and halved the filling, and it was great! Super easy too, as long as you're not a dumbo like me and have a leaky layer of foil around your tin when it goes into the waterbath. My biscuit base became quite sad and soggy because of that :( I had to use the chocolate I had in the house, which was my Lindt 70%, which was a far bit more bitter than I wanted for the cheesecake, so I had to add extra sugar to the cheesecake mixture. But in the end the bitterness of the chocolate was just balanced off by the intense sweetness of those fluffy Sweetness marshmallows.

I was lucky enough to pick up vanilla bean, strawberry and gingerbread marshmallows, and they toasted perfectly under the blowtorch flame. They had a crisp golden toffee layer on top, and were all warm and melty underneath. This is my new favourite recipe for a dinner party dessert, especially because you have the fun of torching the top of the cheesecake in front of your guests, which is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

S'mores Cheesecake (Chocolate & Toasted Marshmallow Cheesecake)
(adapted from Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Cheesecake)
250g digestive biscuits
120g melted butter
90g dark chocolate, chopped (I used Lindt 70% but you can use a sweeter one if that is too bitter for you, I had to add extra sugar)
250g cream cheese, softened
90g caster sugar
1 tbsp custard powder
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
75ml sour cream
1/4 tsp cocoa, dissolved in 1/2 tsp hot water (not sure if you really need this to be honest)
Large marshmallows, either store bought or homemade, I used approx 20

Crush biscuits in a food processor or smash up in a zip lock bag. Add butter and process until the crumbs are damp. In a 20cm springform tin, press crumbs down to make an even base and then place in the freezer while you make the cheesecake filling.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Fill kettle with water and put on to boil. Melt chocolate either in the microwave in 30 sec periods, stirring until it melts, or in a double boiler. Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer to soften, then add custard powder and sugar and beat to combine.

Beat in the whole eggs and then the egg yolk, followed by the sour cream, beating again to combine. Finally add the dissolved cocoa and the melted chocolate and mix until they are combined well. At this point you might want to taste your mixture to make sure it is the right level of sweetness for you. I had to add 1/2 cup of icing sugar into the mixture at this point since the lindt 70% was quite bitter.

Remove springform tin from the freezer, line the outside of the tin very, VERY well with clingfilm and then a few layers of strong foil on the outside to keep it water tight. I have to say I have really bad luck with this, so water still leaked into mine. It's not the end of the world if this happens, it just means your biscuit base will be a bit more soggy than you want. Sit the springform tin in a roasting pan and then pour the filling into it. Fill the roasting pan with boiling water until it comes halfway up the side of the cake tin. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the top of the cheesecake has set.

Remove tin from the roasting pan and peel off foil anf clingfilm. Cool in its tin on a wire rack. While the cheesecake is still warm, place marshmallows on top. The bottoms of the marshmallow will melt slightly. I walked away from it for 5 minutes and mine ended up like this:

Which I quite liked! Leave to cool on the rack and then refridgerate overnight. When you are ready to serve, remove from the fridge and allow to come closer to room temp. Unspring tin and then slice up your cake ready to serve.

As a final flourish, use a blowtorch to toast the tops of the marshmallows until they are golden on the outside and gooey and warm on the inside. Trust me, this is the bit that makes this cheesecake.

Untoasted

If you aren't lucky enough to have a blowtorch, before slicing up the cheesecake you can stick it under the grill for a few minutes until the marshmallow layer goes golden on top, but make sure you don't burn it. Serve while the marshmallow is still warm and melty.

Toasted!

Now the only thing you have to be careful of is that you don't turn into a pyro like me and want to toast everything in sight while you are holding that blowtorch...