If you’ve had a hard day of shopping at the Birmingham Bullring, why not treat yourself to a nice Afternoon Tea at Chi Kitchen on the 3rd Level inside Debenhams!
A trip to Houtong Cat Village, Taiwan
While I was researching what to do in Taipei, I can across a few bloggers who wrote about Houtong cat village. The reviews were quite mixed. Some people said it is quite boring while others enjoyed visiting the place. So I decided to see it for myself. What I didn’t plan for was the weather! It was raining “cats and dogs” on our visit which was not ideal! As you can imagine, if it rains, all the animals hide away. Anyway, we did get to see a few cutie cats, so read on!
New Summer Menu at Pizza Express
Spring into the new summer menu at Pizza Express! We are no strangers to Pizza Express and regularly enjoy their gorgeous and delicious meals. While we love their regular menu and we all have our favourite dishes, their new summer menu looks delicious which they’ve just launched.
Yesterday, we popped by to the Pizza Express in Tamworth, which was opened in 2014 next to the Jolly Sailor Ventura Park. There is limited free parking spaces but you could also park at the Sainsbury’s car park or John Lewis on either side. The restaurant can seat 110 people and they get quite busy over the weekend, so it is best to book a table.
The artwork in Tamworth was inspired by local born Seaman, Colin Grazier, who captured codebooks vital for the breaking of the Enigma cipher from a sinking German U boat submarine. A series of screens and a selection of canvases with coded messages provide an intriguing environment based around the Enigma code.
Kitchen Trotter Review
Recently, Kitchen Trotter launched their monthly country subscription kit. They aim to bring the global cuisine experience to every UK household. This is a French start-up with a successful Kickstarter campaign under its belt; Kitchen Trotter will allow their cooks to create recipes from the four corners of the world with great and exotic produce.
Founded in 2012 on the passion of three French entrepreneurs Pierre-François Lotiron, Aicha Mansouri & Kenza Hachimi from different backgrounds, sharing their love of cooking, the best memories of their travels and the flavours they discovered.
Each month, Kitchen Trotter kits offer a culinary journey through a menu full of mystery, delicious products and authenticity. In their kits, subscribers learn how to cook the traditional recipes of a surprise country. Kitchen Trotter also offers tailored subscription with kits accessible to every budget starting from £29,99. To subscribe to Kitchen Trotter, visit www.kitchentrotter.co.uk
Tuesday Tutorials 2015 Week 44
A huge welcome to Week 44 of the Tuesday Tutorials Pintorials Pin Party! Just a reminder that this linky will occur every fortnight. Therefore this will be open for two weeks until 13th November 2015 so you have plenty of time to link with us! This week I am featuring snacks.
Tuesday Tutorials 2015 Week 38
A huge welcome to Week 38 of the Tuesday Tutorials Pintorials Pin Party! Just a reminder that this linky will occur every fortnight. Therefore this will be open for two weeks until 2nd October 2015 so you have plenty of time to link with us! This week I am featuring desserts.
Tuesday Tutorials 2015 Week 25
A huge welcome to Week 25 of the Tuesday Tutorials Pintorials Pin Party! This week I am featuring berry themed desserts. Yes, it is dessert time! The berries are currently in season so put on your apron and start baking!
Tuesday Tutorials 2015 Week 24
A huge welcome to Week 24 of the Tuesday Tutorials Pintorials Pin Party! This week I am featuring three different desserts from different countries.
Blueberry Chocolate Roulade
Happy Egg Taste Makers recently partnered up with food stylist and instagrammer, Marte Marie Forsberg, who has provided her Top 5 Tips for creating the best looking food. So they set us, the Happy Egg bloggers, a challenge to take part and create our own style using her tips for a chance of winning some great prizes.
I love baking and I have always wanted to make roulade. I have tried a few times now and had made a rainbow roulade and vanilla sponge with strawberry. This time I am going to make this Blueberry Chocolate Roulade. This recipe is from the Favourite Cakes book by Best Baking.
Milo Tiramisu
Ever since I learnt how to make Tiramisu via Sacla Cookery School (read my Sacla Aubergine Parmigiana’s recipe here), I wanted to try it out! So I finally I got around to it!
This is my first time making Milo Tiramisu and it works! The best of it is that I didn’t even use raw egg white. I find it hard to make tiramisu with raw egg white as I am not used to eating raw food. So I swapped it with mascarpone instead. I know that you can buy pasteurised egg whites which would be better in this recipe. The product is called Two Chicks but not many places sell it near us. I couldn’t find it in Tesco or Morrisons but managed to find it in Waitrose.
This will take only 30 minutes to make and you need to let it rest overnight before you serve.
Sago Pearls with Melon
Many Chinese sweet desserts are quite light and refreshing. They are not very often found in the UK Chinese restaurants with plates of fresh fruits or fried banana fritters the more common options. I love eating sweet desserts after a heavy meal in Singapore especially like ice kachang, grass jelly and many more yummy delicious desserts.
I am really pleased to come across this Sago Pearls with Melon recipe from the Chinese Feasts & Festivals published by Tuttle Publishing. This is a cookbook that is divided into two sections, covering feasts and festivals. It also explains the significance of each dish and a delicious recipe for its preparation. There are 57 delicious recipes in this book and is very unique. Normally you will find food gourmet photos in cookbook but in this book, all the dishes are illustrated by watercolour. The contents are beautifully laid out and it also explains the most important festivals, including the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mooncake Festival and Chinese New Year in detail. I enjoyed just reading the book.
I chose to make this simple sweet dessert as I have all the ingredients at home! I have been wanting to make this sweet dessert for ages! I had bought a 500g packet of white sago beads in a Chinese supermarket. They do come in coloured sago beads too and can be kept for a long time.
Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake
I have never tried to bake a marble cake from scratch as it is often easier to use a pre-mix to bake with my children! We all love marble cake for its chocolate swirls in the cake! But there isn’t much choice of marble cake pre-mixes on the market.
Anyway, recently The Happy Egg Co have kindly sent me a signed copy of Eric Lanlard’s Totally Chocolate cookbook, which features all his favourite chocolate recipes! I was so excited when I saw this chocolate and vanilla marble cake recipe which also happened to be his first listed recipe. I was thrilled to make it from scratch!
The fabulous chef, Eric Lanlard also created Peanut Butter & Chocolate Egg Cups for the Happy Egg co which can be found on their website.
Chocolate Profiteroles
After I watched Comic Relief Celebrity Bake Off, I really wanted to bake chocolate profiteroles too! They are my favourite desserts! However I was temporarily stopped in my tracks when my mixer went kaput. I managed to find a new affordable mixer so here’s how I got on with the profiteroles.
Peanut Cookies
Peanut cookies are one of my favourite snacks to eat during Chinese New Year. Normally we will buy them from shops in Singapore but now living in the UK, it is impossible unless I buy them from Chinatown. So I decided to make it myself using the recipe book given to me by my aunty.
The first obstacle I found to making this recipe was trying to buy roasted peanuts without added salt. In the end I bought raw peanuts and made everything from scratch. You can usually find packets of raw peanuts in the health food aisle of a supermarket. To make roasted peanuts, I chopped the raw peanuts in a blender and roasted them in the oven at 160°C for 15 minutes. I stirred the peanuts every 5 minutes of baking.
2 Minutes Santa Hat Cupcake
Last week, I baked a chocolate cake, cut out cylinder shapes and made icing. Unfortunately, my icing was too runny and it ruined all my mini cupcakes! So I had no choice but to cheat as my guests were due to arrive. I bought the ready-made vanilla icing and a packet of cupcakes! So if you ever ruin your Christmas party snacks or need a quick Christmas recipe to impress your relatives and friends, look no further! This is very simple Santa Hat cupcake and won’t take you too long at all.
You will need a piping star nozzle and piping bag for this.
