MY CAKE DECORATING CHALLENGE ..PART TWO

It has been more than a week since I have made an entry. That's because I have been spending most of the time kneading colours into fondant which as always seems to take forever. And each time I have gotten the colour kneaded in evenly I found that it needed just a touch more. I then start the kneading all over again with the additional pin drop of colour punctured into the ball of fondant. And by the time that was done and the colour had evened out again I then realise that I much prefer the previous shade. It has been completely maddening. For those of you who have worked with fondant you know how painful that is.

And if you have had to keep the ball of fondant overnight (tightly wrapped) because you haven't the time to finish it all off you know that you will end up with a ball of fondant that is rock hard and with which you could effortlessly maim that ear piercing surat khabar lama man (old newspaper collecting man) who revvs by your house about 5 times a day and shrieks like a banshee in the stupor inducing hum of the afternoon for a few deafening minutes each time.

I have also made countless successive trips to the baking supply store, The Cake Connection, at One Jaya which is the only store that sells a small range of Wilton colours and a good variety of sugar paste flowers that makes me stop and wonder why I bother making my own.

But make my own I must. As a matter of fact, I have requested my daughter to get me some more food colours and mail them to me from the US. I have also requested her to get me some maple leaf and other strange looking leaves gum paste cutters in the smallest size so thatI could attempt(note: I said attempt) to make a Martha Stewart wedding cake like this..........



Isn't it lovely, pretty and whimsical!!!!! I soooo love it and so does my sis in law.

Although I will only be making a single (1 level) cake (not 3 tiered) and that the design looks easy enough I just discovered yesterday that I would not be able to make it because my daughter has not been able to get hold of the leaf cutters. Getting them online is an option but it is not one that I am willing to make at the moment. But isn't the cake just adorable? sigh...

I have made some fondant roses though and although my first ones after a long hiatus were exceedingly short of spectacular all in all they weren't too bad. I still can't get the colours right...I am going through a 'I-don't-know-what-colour-I-really-want-exactly-but-I'll-know-when-I-see-it' phase and is something that I simply have to shake off if I still want slender/weak/wimpy wrists. Hulk Hogan I am not and have no intention to be. I see a long and winding road ahead and the pin of light at the end of the tunnel is no where in sight.



Do you like the colours?


I have no idea what the cake might look like because I still have a month to have a long drawn discussion with myself (my sis in law has been so kind and has left the decision making to me although, like me, she does love the Martha Stewart cake above). I know that I will use roses and some other tiny flowers in a combination of three colours............. perhaps like so.....


What do you think?

MY CAKE DECORATNG CHALLENGE

Another dear nephew is getting married next month and I had agreed (out of a flash of foolhardiness) to make his wedding/hantaran/'wedding gift' cake. And I'm bracing myself just so I don't crack into a million pieces and drop to the floor in smithereens from panic attacks. Having said that I do, however, hope to pull it off and emerge with a gaspingly, breathtakingly and cardiac arrestingly beautiful cake that will finally put my name up in lights for the rest of my life.....even if those are lights that glimmer pathetically at a mere 10 watts within the confines of home and family.

So......... colour smeared fingers, sugar crusted hair, perplexed-to-be husband and slappy happy ants here I come.

Which means, dear freinds, for the next few posts, I'll be updating you of my struggle, of my revisits to my long abandoned cake decorating tools and in all likelihood of my irregular heartbeats, of my blood, of my sweat and of my tears.

Just last night I cajoled and patted my dusty, whining tool box from under the shelf, fingered the tools inside, widened my eyes in horror at all those confounding utensils, dug feverishly around for my cake decorating books, stacked them up by my laptop and cudgled my brains so that I went into a cake decorating mode. So I think I might be ready.

And this morning I'm going to the bakery supply store to get 2 tons of icing powder, some Wilton food colours, some round styrofoams to use as cake dummies for practicing, some liquid glucose, some shortening and some gelatine. I'm off .........Will be back soon..

Hi ! I'm back. Got them food colours, two styrofoam dummies, searched the disorganized store for the other ingredients, knitted my eyebrows at the clueless attendants but finally managed to get the rest of the things inspite of them. My fingers are itching, my temperature's rising, my pupils are dilating and I can't wait to sweep everything out of my way so I get down to serious business.

These are my cake decorating bibles that I cling on to for dear life..


If you would like to play/work along with me here's the recipe for the gelatin icing for the sugar paste flowers. It's from "The Icing On The Cake" book. This is what I have always used to make roses, primroses, leaves, figurines, clown noses, tulips, alley cats, violets, impatients, forget-me-nots and some disasters.

Gelatin Icing/Modelling Icing/Sugar Paste
500 gm icing sugar
1/2 oz or 12. 5 gm gelatin powder
4 Tbsp (60 ml) water
2 tsp (10 ml) liquid glucose
cornflour

Put water in a heatproof bowl. Sprinkle gelatin into the water and let it soak for 2 mimutes. Place the bowl over a pan with 1/2 inch of water and set on the stove. Heat gently until gelatin dissolves. Remove from heat and stir in the liquid glucose. Allow to cool for 2 minutes. Turn the mixture into the bowl containing icing sugar and mix in. If the mixture seems wet add alittle more icing sugar. Add sufficient cornflour to allow the icing to be worked like bread dough. The finished icing should no tbe sticky. Wrap in cling film and place in an airtight container until ready to use.

This is the fondant/sugar paste that I have made with the recipe above and which I have coloured pink just for a trial run. I will be buying more colours tomorrow to experiment and until I decide on the perfect combination.


And these are the tools that I will be using......



And this is my plan...........well, 2 plans. Plan 1 is to decorate cake A and plan 2 is to decorate cake B... if cake A is ugly.

PITA BREAD WITH NICE DEEP POCKETS

The most interesting thing about pita bread are their pockets. The way they puff and the way they don't brown too much. They remain mostly pale as they're cooked for only 5 minutes in an extremely hot oven. I had set the oven at the hottest setting and baked the breads on the lowest rack. It was as simple as that and in all honesty that is probably the secret to getting these babies to puff. It's all in the heat. And the fact that the dough was soft and moist provided enough moisture for steam to form that helped lift and puff the bread giving us the pleasure of finger deep pockets that we could fill with anything that strikes our fancy.

They were so quick, easy and enthralling to make that I should have made them when I first thought about it. And believe me that was a very very long time ago.



These breads were so easy that I made them twice today. I bumped into this recipe at Allrecipes.com and it was a complete success in puffiness, deep deep pockets and in look. A very good recipe indeed.


The recipe.......



3 cups all purpose flour ore whole wheat or half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/8 cups water
extra flour for dusting

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Mix yeast, sugar and water in a small bowl and add to the flour followed by the oil. Mix with a fork. If you have a bread machine you're supposed to put everything in and let the machine do the work. Please refer here if you're using a bread machine.

Mix well and then knead for about 5 minutes.Add more flour a little at a time if the dough is sticky. When the dough is smooth put it in a greased bowl and let it proof for 30 minutes to an hour. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or cling film.

When the dough has risen to double its size take it out from the bowl and divide into 8 parts.


Take one part and make it into a ball and then roll out into a circle with a rolling pin about 6 or 7 inches in diameter. There is no need to let them rise a second time. It is baked immediately.

Bake in a preheated hot hot hot hot hot hot oven directly on the oven's wire rack or on a separate wire rack or on a preheated baking pan (place the wire rack or baking pan in the oven for 15 minutes with the oven temperature at the highest setting). Bake for 5 minutes. Those babies will puff. Just before putting them in the oven you can also sprinkle the rolled out dough with some water for good measure. The drops of water changes to steam and helps the pita to puff up.

When puffed and lightly browned on the top take them out using a spatula and place them on a wire rack and cover with a damp cloth to let them soften. Do the same for the rest of the dough. And check those pockets out!

If they don't puff they will still taste good though. But if your oven is REALLY HOT they will have to puff.

According to the recipe they can be kept in the fridge in a plastic bag for a few days or in the freezer for 1 to 2 months.

STEAMED LAYER CAKE - KUIH LAPIS PANDAN

Two important words in making Asian cakes are evaporation and condensation. It makes all the difference between jadi and tak jadi (To become or not to become.......To be or not to be) :)

Making a steamed kuih lapis successfully has always eluded me. I have never been successful at it. Either because the layers took forever to solidify in the steamer or they came out in a one colour block or the top looked like it had been spat on or all of the above.

Whenever I asked friends for a recipe or why the recipe didn't work I never could get a satisfactory answer. And it was often that I went home, hanging my head low, with my tail between my legs and swearing (genteely) under my breath. So that was how I lived for 800 years.

Then one day the heavens spoke to me.They roared "Evaporation'!! and 'Condensation'!! I wrote the words hurriedly down in my book of life. And ever since that divine intervention I have lived the following 600 years streaming tears of joy.

But it is only in 2009 that I have been brave enough to (decide) to attempt the steamed kuih lapis again, with the guidance that I have been accorded.

But another secret that I was not told was the fact that that *bamboo steamers are not just pretty, rustic little things. They are crucial and central and are the core of successful steaming in the Asian kitchen. I was not told that evaporation, condensation and bamboo steamers put together are a classic example of synergy.

For bamboo steamers, like punching bags, like women, like mothers are one of the parts of the whole that provide that vehicle for absorption that is crucial in the maintenance of harmony and sanity in this mad huffing, puffing, steaming, evaporating and condescending world. It absorbs all nonsense and all excessive drops from condensation and it is a receptacle for tears of anger, of frustrations and of steam. In an Asian kitchen a bamboo steamer is indispensable, that is, if you want a taste of an unrippled, unblotched, perfect and sweet dessert in a little corner of your life.

But, like all things good and sublime, its contribution to the whole is often overlooked, underrated and more often than not it goes by unnoticed. Except by the chosen ones.

Now let's discuss the recipe........this is a recipe from Amy Beh. It uses a large portion of tapioca starch or tapioca flour (they are one and the same) and a small portion of rice flour. But instead of the rice flour I had used glutinous rice flour by mistake but all in all it turned out wonderful and strangely enough it reminded me of gummy bears. This is a firm cake, slightly sticky and it cuts well. It is here that you can play around, that is, with the ratio of tapioca vs rice flour to get the texture that you like best. Half and half would be good to try.

There are softer versions that use a larger amount of rice flour as opposed to tapioca flour but which does not give that translucent effect. But which is just as delicious if not more. I will be posting the recipe soon.

Doing away with the traditional red and white of a steamed kuih lapis I used the juice of pandan leaves and made them green and white instead. Green is my favourite colour. The gentle yellow-green and the creamy white that eventually formed the thin layers of this sweet were just exquisite....... in my humble opinion.


Also, because it cut extremely well, I used a cookie cutter, stamped them out into pretty flower shapes and at the end of the project I was practically jumping for joy. I thought they were perfectly pretty, tasted very good and would make delightfully elegant after-dinner desserts or cocktail sweets or a treat for a childrens' birthday party.

This is steamed kuih lapis reinvented. I proudly and perpetually patted myself on the back.

The flavour was lovely and it is a recipe and presentation that I highly recommend if you want something old, something new, something sweet, something adorable and something really really good.

It's perfect for peeling too for those of you who have spent half your childhood irresistibly peeling off the layers of steamed kuih lapis before popping them into your mouth, like some adults I know. ;)


The recipe.........I halved Amy Beh's with some added adjudsments.....

The syrup :

350 ml thin coconut milk (from 1/2 grated coconut)
225 gm granulated sugar
2 pandan leaves, knotted
pinch of salt

Combine and sift :

225 gm tapioca flour/starch
60 gm rice flour or glutinous rice flour ( I used glutinous )
1 tbsp mung bean/green bean flour ( Or hoen kwe flour)(they all one and the same)

250 ml thin coconut milk (from 1/2 grated coconut)

Pulsed in a blender, strained and juice extracted :

4 pandan leaves, cut up coarsely
50 ml water

To make...........

Boil ingredients for the syrup until sugar dissolves. Strain and let cool.

Sift the flours, add the 250 ml of coconut milk and stir until smooth. Pour in the boiled and cooled syrup gradually and stir well to blend.

Divide the batter into 2 portions and to one of the portions add the green pandan juice and stir well to mix the colour in evenly.

Lightly grease with a light cooking oil (sunflower or canola) an 8 inch preferably non-stick shallow pan. Set up the bamboo steamer and get the water to a rolling boil and I really hope that your stove is level.

Pour in about 100 ml of white batter into the pan and steam for 6 to 7 minutes covered. Do the next layer green and so on until the batter is all used up and the green layer is the top most layer. Whent he final layer is poured in steam the kuih for 20 to 30 minutes to ensure that the whole kuih is completely cooked. team the last 5 minutes uncovered to dry the surface.

Let the kuih cool for 2 to 3 hours, brush the top with very lightly with cooking oil then cut. The knife of cookie cutter may be lightly greased for easier cutting.

This is not a tall kuih because I doubt that you will be able to find a cookie cutter tall enough to cut through if the kuih was any taller than this.

PS : If you would like to make it the traditional way and not stamp out cutesy flower patterns :( just double the recipe and use a 9 inch round pan instead.


* Bamboo steamers, unlike stainless steel steamers, absorb the drops of water from condensation extremely well thus preventing the food/cake from getting soggy. Although most stainless steel steamers have domed lids that allow droplets of water to flow and drip to the sides of the pan and not into the food it does not work as well as a bamboo steamer (and I suppose never will). The bamboo wood soaks in the moisture immediately and completely. This is evidenced in the dampness of the bamboo steamer after being used.

SUGEE SEMOLINA COOKIES

I went on a quest for a sugee/semolina cookie recipe.

You know, the ones we get from the roti man with his quirky honk every evening, years ago (ok.... decades ago) when he did his rounds. And when we (the little kids and teenagers) would rush out to meet him halfway in someone else's driveway. Coins tingling or dollar notes flapping, eyes searching, voices squealing, fingers pointing at this and that. It was a time when queuing didn't exist (yes..we were wild).

And I would always reach for the sugee cookie. The big round sugee cookie that melted in your mouth as soon as you put it in. And then wished that you had bought 2 of them right after the roti man had throttled off, the only vestige of his existence being the smell of the exhaust fumes from his motorcycle. Yes, that semolina cookie but which were called the sugee cookie.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that the sugee cookie that the roti man was selling, the one that I had been gobbling down every evening for a few years of my life until more pressing matters pushed that cookie, crumbs and all, into an amnesiac nook of my brain, only to surface again in 2009, was not a sugee cookie at all. In the sense that it contained no sugee/semolina.

What a dissapointing surprise. It was ghee that I had been gobbling down and salivating over. Just pure ghee and flour and sugar. So why did they call it a sugee cookie? Why why and why?

Not that I have anything against ghee, except for the cholesterol in it, but I couldn't help but feel somewhat betrayed. If you know what I mean. It's like having chomped down on a butter cake and it was actually not butter but magarine. Or a steak that was not meat but tofu in disguise. Or having been told that it was a chocolate cake when it was carob that they used. Or when you reached home thinking of the kuih dadar on the table but it was not there.

So the roti man's sugee cookie is no longer my friend. No matter how good it was I want sugee in my sugee cookie like I want butter in my butter cookie or chocolate in my chocolate cookie.

So in my quest for a true semolina/sugee cookie I found a recipe at Recipezaar. I have made these twice since. Once using white sugar and today I had followed the original recipe and used brown sugar. Both times I found them a little too sweet but otherwise very crunchy, addictive and good looking. I would reduce the sugar a little next time.

The brown sugar resulted in a darker, more golden and flatter cookie while the one with white sugar was fair and lovely :). It's your choice. I prefer the one with white sugar.

The recipe.....the original...

4 oz butter
75 gm soft brown sugar
100 gm plain flour
75 gm semolina
25 gm ground almonds

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in flour and mix well. Add the semolina and ground almonds and mix to a firm and smooth dough. Pinch balls of dough, place on a lined or greased baking tray and then flatten each ball with a fork.


Swipe with some egg white and place a slice of almond on it or a whole almond if you're feeling perky. Bake for about 10 mins in 180 C oven until golden brown. Keep in an airtight container.


These are the ones I made with white sugar a few months back. Aren't they pretty as well?

MAMAK FRIED NOODLES - MEE GORENG MAMAK

It has been scorching and then raining sheets successively throughout the day almost everyday and we are all feeling sticky, sticky and sticky. Humidity's high, motivation's low and my kitchen is feeling pretty lonely all by itself in its sticky little corner. That's because I haven't been so friendly. In fact I've been quite brusque, I've flapped my hands, thrown my head back and short of laughing hysterically, I've cried 'be done with you!' and I would leave as soon as it's Cherryonacakely possible. These days I cook for survival.

Oh give us spring. Would I be cooking all day long if we had spring?

I don't think so. I would be out there singing with the birds and playing with the flowers. And probably rhyming silly words.

Would I be cooking all day if we had winter? Uh Uh I don't think so. I'd be in bed, drowned in quilts, cuddling up and with the hair dryer blasting me to a roast.

Would I be cooking if we had Autumn? Nope. 'Cause I'd be sitting by the window, all day long, sighing and swooning at my favourite colours.

So, then you ask me, what would get me cooking?

The answer my friend is not blowin' in the wind, soakin' in the rain or in the colour of the fallin' leaves. It's inside of me right now. It's in my helly belly. It is Hunger. A ravenous, howlin' Hunger. For mee goreng mamak.

How many pans must a woman dent before you call her a woman

How many times must a kettle blow before it's turned off for good

Yes, 'n how many times must a kitchen tap drip before the plumber comes along

The answer my friend is not blowin' in the wind

The answer is not blowin' in the wind

It's in my helly belly.

And mee goreng mamak is my one and only.

Mee goreng mamak has been living inside of my head for as long as I have known it. It got married when I got married , it screamed when I birthed, it shattered into a million pieces when I heaved-hoed my head in times of vain, it shriveled and stayed subdued to a point when I pondered on more 'important' things, in short, it's me in mee form. Earthy/down to earth, complicated/confused and hot/hot.

Nothing could beat the earthiness of a mamak mee goreng. It was conceived out of whatever was around, at hand and within reach. At the mamak (Indian Muslim)shop. So practically anything and everything went in. No planning, no strategising, no theorize-ing, no speculating, no cudgeling of their brains, Just plain 'if I can reach it it goes in', 'if I can see it it goes in', if it's there it goes in'.

That, it seems, would be the only reason why curry sauce (any curry sauce) went in, why potatoes went in, why it is a complex and confusing mix of a million ingredients for what was supposed to be a simple dish of fried noodles.

Naturally one wouldn't have curry sauce lying around or ready boiled potatoes, or fried soy bean curd cake or shredded cooked chicken. So to make a mamak mee goreng, contrary to the way it was conceived, some amount of planning and organization would come in handy........ Bleh.

But it is sooooo good.

The recipe.........

Fresh yellow noodles (or dried egg noodles, scalded n drained), enough for one person ( Iused pasta vermicelli)

2 shallots, sliced finely

2 garlic, sliced finely

2 tsp of curry powder, any

1-2 or 3 tbsp curry sauce,any (buy some curry from your nearest Indian restaurant/mamak shop)

2 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp of tomato sauce

2 tsp of fish sauce

1-2 tsp chillie paste (made from ground dried chillies)

some shredded cooked (fried or roasted) chicken

a couple of large prawns (halved sideways or anyway you like)

1 egg

a handful of bean sprouts

a handful of sliced cabbage

a handful of greens (any greens)

1 tomato, halved

a few slices of fried firm bean curd cake

slices of 1 small boiled potato

slices of prawn fritters (optional)

3 or 4 slices of fresh red chillies

1 small stalk of spring onions, chopped

2 kalamansi limes (limau nipis), halved

salt

about 2-3 tbsp of cooking oil

Before starting to cook, mix all the sauces, curry powder and chillie paste together.

Heat pan, heat oil and throw in the sliced shallots, garlic and stir till softened. Add the prawns, chicken meat and stir over very high heat. Add the mixed sauces.Stir over very high heat all the time. Add the cabbage, greens, bean sprouts, sliced potates, tomato, bean curd, sliced prawn fritter if using and stir, stir and stir. High high heat. Add salt. Add about 2 tablespoons of water if too dry. (it should be a little saucy). Add noodles, stir and push aside. Break an egg into the cleared portion of the pan, let it cook half way and scramble the noodle mixture over and into it; over high heat all the time. Mix well, the mixture should be wet (moist-moist wet) but no sauce. The noodles should be coated with all the sauce.

Dish into a plate or bowl, squeeze the juices of 2 limes over it, sprinkle with a few slices of fresh chillies. extra quarters of a tomato and the chopped spring onions. Serve. Enjoy. Yum!

This dish ends up being enough for 2 persons after everything has come together.

PS: My mamak mee goreng may not be the best but it comes close enough to stop me howling.

COCONUT-FILLED CREPES - KUIH DADAR

Since starting this blog I have come to realize that decisions aren't made sitting down. Uh Uh. 'Cause the sooner I get my bottom off this seat the sooner I'll make something edible and blog worthy.

I've been vacillating in virtual reality between a multi layered cheesecake, pocket pitas, elaborately decorated cupcakes (I so roll mine eyes), puffin muffins, an Indian briyani, a daring baker's homemade bicep-forming shoulder-broadening spinach lasagna, a Chinese steamed fish, spicy roast chicken, long cheese sticks, a rustic apple roll, a choc chip mocca cake and a zillion other foods that have been bookmarked but which have yet to become a reality.

Decisions,decisions, decisions.

Decisions too become very hard when you're trying to please everyone and you're trying to kill/feed 2, 3, 4 or 5 birds/humans with 1 stone/recipe. It becomes difficult too when there are a million excuses to not make them. But since pragmatism is the stepping stone to progress move forward I must and move forward I will.

So the only inexcusable food that would be inexcusable not to make would be a coconut filled crepe. As simple as only simple could get because a Malay crepe is rustic and covered with all the indentations that ineptitude would allow.

Unlike the western crepe where fineness, silkiness and the laced tidemark-like lines are the hallmark of a skilled crepe maker a Malay crepe maker would consider all that crepe-crap. We want the holes. We want the holes. We want to burst our bubbles. And of course........... we want it green.


Some of my friends/non-friends would probably raise their eyebrows and scrunch their lips at this little observation especially the one about the holes and bubbles but for as long as I have lived that is what I've seen. Holey crepes. Well to be more exact, indented, pock marked, burst bubble crepes. Beautifully indented, pockmarked, burst bubble crepes. After all, beauty they say is in the eyes of the beholder.

Kuih dadar (crepe cake) reminds me of old world sarong-clad and generally overweight mak ciks (aunties) swirling and rolling holey crepes with their chubby, greasy and shiny fingers in the wet kitchens of Malay homes. And if the filling that they make is darkly moist and a touch salty and quite sugary sweet with the slightest hint of a crunch from the coarsely shredded coconut it makes them all the more memorable. The crepes. And the mak ciks too.



So holey crepes here I come.......scrunchhhh.......stretchhhh......yaaaawnnn.....finally I've ripped my bottom off this chair.

The recipe....

The crepes..

1 cup of plain flour
250 ml fresh milk or coconut milk(the consistency of fresh milk)
*50 ml pandan juice (made by blending 4 pandan leaves with 50m ml of water and strained)
1 egg (you could use 2 for a thinner batter 'n it would work as well) (I didn't for health reasons)
pinch of salt

Blend all ingredients for the crepes in a blender or use a wooden spoon or whisk. If necessary strained to rid of lumps. Let rest for 20 minutes. It will thicken slightly upon resting.

*If you decide to use green colouring or pandan paste do substitute the 50 ml of pandan juice with 50 ml of water or milk or coconut milk.

Filling

2 cupsof fresh shredded coconut
1 disc of coconut palm sugar or 3 Tbsp of muscovado sugar
2 - 3 tbsp water

Place sugar and water in a small pan (if using solid palm sugar do crush to coarse pieces first). Heat just until the sugar melts. Add a pinch of salt and then put in the shredded coconut.Mix well until the coconut is completely coated with the sugar. Taste and if necessary add white sugar to sweeten.

Making the crepes......

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a 7 - 8 inch non stick pan until hot. There is no temperature limit unlike in a western crepe. The hotter the pan the more holes and bubbles you're going to get. Pour in a small ladleful of batter into the pan and swirl or use the bottom of your ladle and spread the batter in a circular motion with it. That's is what is usually done. Lower the heat and cook until done and the mixture solidifies. It will be obvious. When done you could flip it over for good measure and keep it aside on a plate for rolling later. The crepe should be about 6 inches in diameter.

Check to see if the 'right' side of the crepe has holes or indentations. If there are congratulate yourself. If there aren't heat up the pan a by a few degrees so that the oil sizzles when you pour on the batter. For each crepe you make put a half teaspoon of oil in the pan and heat it up.

It is the hot bubbling oil that causes the 'holes' or indentations and makes the crepe look porkmarked. It sounds awful but that's how it's been done. It would be strange to see a smooth as silk, 'bald' Malay crepe.


The crepes can be stacked up until the last crepe is done.

Filling and Rolling......

Roll up the crepes like you would a spring roll. Make them nice and snug and neat.


Because this is an almost ideal world I managed to make 9 crepes from the batter and had enough filling for 10 crepes.

LOOK MA! NO CHEATING!

Please be warned that the following pictures are graphic and are meant for housewives only.

Imagine my shock, my disappointment and my disbelief when I got home, drooling some and then felt my fingers slipping into this mush. I turned the water melon over and what did I see? Two big rotten holes in the skin of the water melon. Was it on a special offer? No. Was it a 'buy one free one' ? Heck no. Were they on the regular display shelf? Heck yes. What did I feel? Cheated. Indignant. And parched. Where did I buy it? TESCO. TESCO MUTIARA. DAMANSARA. SELANGOR.


These water melons were being displayed to tempt us. They were densely red, sugary, oozing juice and just calling out my name. I gravitated. They were sliced in half and wrapped neatly in cling film so that we did not have to heft, tap, curl our eyebrows, squint our eyes or make impossible decisions. These water melons were saying "We are as good as we look. Buy us! we're good! See! No cheating. We've been sliced. Look at us! See we're red, healthy and consumable! Buy us!" I heard them. And silly me. I bought one of them.

The rotten portion that I cut off. That was like over one third of the halved fruit.


So the next ime I see the sign Tesco I'll remember this. The next time anyone mentions Tesco I'll recall this and tell the story and the next time I have nothing to blog about I'll pay a visit to Tesco, buy some rotten food, come home and take some pictures.

By the way, while I'm on the subject of Tesco I might as well mention that I find a number of Tesco cashiers/front line employees particularly annoying and insolent. Or shall I save that for another post?

Hmmm......maybe I'll take some pictures of them too.