If you're looking for Indian desserts in Singapore, Serangoon Road has a few shops. You can find South Indian and North Indian desserts there. All in the same shop.

Do you know? The more popular posts in this blog are all related to chocolate. I guess everyone loves chocolate, aye? All of us find chocolate is very smooth, rich, sweet and tasty. It's a very comfortable food. But do you know how they are made?

To be honest, I don't know either. But I know the last stage of making chocolate is tempering. And sometimes we need to do the tempering at home, especially when you purchase cooking chocolate or block chocolate to make dessert.

A few weeks ago I wanted to temper the chocolate to make some chocolate cookies. I had a hard time with the hard block chocolate. So I tried wikipedia (the online for dummies) on how to temper chocolate. At the end of the day, the chocolate was in bad temper and I was in bad temper too.

Since I have all the time in the world right now, I tried Youtube it instead. Now I found a much easier way to temper chocolate.




Oh, French guy....


If you're doing a business and you have no time to put it in and out of the microwave, there's a new tool in town.





Amazing, huh????

Do you remember how I was complaining about bad nyonya dessert I had in Melbourne with Yvonne (also a blog admin here)? Erm...it's here >>> Nyonya dessert.

Since I'm back in Malaysia, more precisely...back in Penang, I didn't miss the chance to savour some nyonya dessert. I had Bubur Cha Cha, and this was my first time meeting YT (also a blog admin here).

We headed to Gurney Drive, where supposedly it's food haven. Honestly, I think it's been too commercialized. Anyway, the Bubur Cha Cha was a thousand times far more better than the one in Melbourne.

Here the recipe for Bubur Cha Cha. It's so simple you can dance Cha Cha.


Ingredients:
300g taro, diced
150g orange color sweet potato, diced
150 g purple/yellow color sweet potato, diced80g black-eyed beans, soaked in hot water for 2 hours(optional)100g sago pearls(optional)
100g tapioca starch
Very hot boiling water
Red food coloring (or any color)
2 cans 400 /ml coconut milk/cream
1/4 tsp salt
100g sugar, or to taste
3 pandan leaves, knotted


Method:
1. Steam diced taro and diced colored sweet potato separately until soft (about 20 minutes).

2. Cook soaked black eyed pea until soft(if using. i cook in the pressure cooker)

3. Cook sago pearls (if using. I did not use these, cos the i made the chewing tapioca starch) until they become translucent (about one half hour).

4. Using a spatula, add very hot boiling water to the tapioca starch in a mixing bowl, bit by bit until it becomes doughy. Mix well with a drop of red food coloring. When it can be handled with bare hands, roll into 1cm thickness and cut into strips. Cook in boiling water until they become translucent (about one half hour). Remove and soak in iced water until needed.

5. Put coconut milk/cream, sugar, salt and knotted pandan leaves into a pot and bring to a gentle boil, stirring continuously.

6. Add taro, sweet potato, , tapioca jelly and black-eyed beans, sago pearls and mix well.
Serve hot or cold.

Do you remember awhile ago YT posted up this photo in this blog?

Actually she ordered a custom made charm bracelet for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's my charm bracelet. And it is the sweetest of all my charms collection because (1) it's a present from YT, (2) all the sweetest things are there, and (3) it's just so me!

Now I have to introduce each of my charms to you. First, it's the Paddle Pop Rainbow flavoured lollipop.

Chocolate biscuit with vanilla cream. Yummy... can you believe, it actually tasted like Oreo?

Here we have strawberry ice-cream with chocolate topping.

And YT's favorite chocolate chips cookie. And it's from Chipsmore!

White cotton soft marsmallow. Oh, I wish there's hot chocolate too.

Lastly, we have CUPCAKES!!!! Woohoo....My favorite charms of all. It's chocolate cupcake with strawberry frosting and chocolate chips top with cherry.

Kawaii ne??????

I thought YT would post up this dessert we shared at The Sire. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

We had Apple Creme Brulee served with slice peach, roasted and reduced apple sauce, vanilla ice cream and some Pocky look-a-like chocolate stick.

Creme brulee in an apple is really a bad idea. It wasn't that nice because they didn't burn the top part well enough. So it was quite soft. I can hardly taste anything. The apple was too saggy. It was quite hard to chew off the skin. Don't get me wrong. I just said, it was a bad idea. But it wasn't THAT bad.

Not sure how to explain it, I'm just wordless. But I'll rate it 4/10.



The Sire Museum Restaurant
King Street, Georgetown
Penang
Malaysia

Aren't they adorable? So pretty and colourful. Somehow it looks like candy. Of course it's not edible. It's made out of polymer clay. To be exact..........it's handmade out of polymer clay.

Stephanie was the person who baked all these mini cupcakes. And she's the one who sponsored this very first readers appreciation program. Love you, Steph!!!!

Steph has a blogshop where she sells all her handmade jewelries. Personally, I'm quite addicted to her charm bracelets now. I confess I visit her blogshop everyday just to find out if she made any new stuff. You can also visit her blogshop to check out what other jewelries she has. To be honest, the photos on her blogshop didn't do much justice. The real thing is much more attractive. When I was browsing on the internet, I didn't thought of buying any of her stuff. But when I saw it with my very own eyes, I couldn't resist buying two charm bracelets.

How to get that exquisite handphone cupcake charm?

YT asked me to come out with a competition. Being the usual lazy pig, I just can't stretch my mind to think of anything creative. So, the first person who leaves a comment with his/her email will be the winner. Easy! What are you waiting for? Comment now!

Anyway, let's get things straight to the point. I ordered the salted caramel mousse with caramelized puff pastry, apple and cinnamon beignets, granny smith sorbet, feijoa and pain d'epice. Although I've said this on my blog, I'm going to say it again here.... Isn't this looks like some pop art????

Will Wayne Thiebaud or Yayoi Kusama inspired by this? Pretty right? I can frame this up and hang it on my wall. I really love the plating. Among all the selections on the plate I love the salted caramel mousse the most. Duh! The mousse is wrapped in pain d'epice crumbs. The caramel puff pastry with apple and cinnamon beignets was my second choice. Then comes the Pocky look alike pastry sticks. And the granny smith sorbet. And the rest are real feijoa fruits and bits and pieces of artistic touch.

I was debating whether to order the mandrin balloon dessert or the salted caramel mousse. I'm not regret getting the salted caramel mousse, but I'm just not happy that I haven't tasted any of the balloon dessert before. You can't get the balloon dessert anywhere, and it so happen Kermadec is one of the very few places that makes good balloon dessert. I'm so fascinated by it.

While I was in Auckland, unexpectedly I met a friend there and we went to The Grove for dinner. The restaurant is just located next to his church. Hmmm...how small Auckland is.

Although The Grove serves very good food, but I'm just going to talk about the desserts here. I'm still working on my post "In Search for the Best Fish in Auckland", so stay tuned to my personal blog for that.

We were served feijoa sorbet for pre-dessert. It's on the house. I love fine dining for these little complimentaries. The feijoa sorbet tasted exactly like the fruit with no added sugar. But the caramel powder gives extra flavor to it. If you're wondering what fruit is that, I'll blog about it later in my personal blog. It fascinates me that New Zealand has a lot of weird fruits.

I ordered the caramel panna cotta dessert. I was a little surprised when I tasted white pepper in it. It's quite creative. Who will ever thought of using white pepper in sweet dessert? Sometimes when the chef is too adventurous, the result tasted quite bad. But this creation is really wonderful. I don't mind having it everyday! Also served with the caramel panna cotta is the white chocolate gelato. It's super fantastic. By the way, I can't tell whta is the green dressing. It tasted sweet and refreshing. Not sure if there's any kiwi in it.

My friend ordered the vanilla parfait. It's served with strawberry cream and rosemary. I'm not sure how it tasted like, but I'm sure it's really nice. He was complementing the dessert all the way. After he has finish the whole thing, he tried eating the dark brownish thing on the jelly. Haha... It's actually rose petal. He thought it was something edible.

I'm going to Auckland again, soon. Not sure when I will have the time. The next time, we'll going to have the tasting menu. The food is super fantastic. I would fly to Auckland just for a few hours to dine there again. Well, provided that I have the luxury of cash and time.

I rate the desserts 10/10.


The Grove
Saint Patrick Square
Wyndham Street
Auckland (City)

After a really tedious tour at the Auckland Museum, I headed to Parnell for chocolate break.


I read many many reviews about the chocolate boutique in Parnell. So, I was going to check out what's the big hoo-haa about the place. The shop looks so much like old school French village kind of shop. Really beautiful.


However, the interior is a bit too common. I've been to many many chocolate boutique before, but I must say, this shop doesn't offer that much. I ordered the chocolate platter.

What we have here is chocolate brownies. It's warm. I love warm brownies. Super yummy.

And chocolate ice cream. I have to eat this first because it melted so fast. There's some crunchy peanut with honeycomb texture in the ice cream. It's really wonderful.

And some chocolate praline. I couldn't eat anymore, so I took these home. But I totally forgotten about it in my bag. The Australian custom made me throw them away. Grrrr......

And some chocolate mousse. It's still nice, but I prefer my own chocolate mousse.

I really regret ordering this Chocolate praline drink. I was chocolate overdosed at the end of the day. I advise you to share the chocolate platter with someone else. They are enough to feed three person.

The owner was quite scary. I had the menu open on the table, at the same time, I was writing a Mother's Day card on my lap. My Mother's Day card, nice right????

The owner walked to my table and snatched away the menu and screamed at me, "The menu is copyright! You can't copy it!!!" I got seriously shocked! First, I did not copy her menu. I was writing on my Mother's Day card. Second, she shouldn't scream even if I'm copying it. Lastly, under copyright law, it is permissible to copy up to 10%. Hey woman...I used to study Intellectual Property Law and Copyright Law is my major. I presented four cases on copyright before. Don't scream at me like I'm a pariah ok?