Hello Happy, Strathfield

The uni course I'm currently doing is structured differently to most degrees, so we end up having weird, random "holidays" while all my friends (who study different things, or are at different unis) are in the midst of preparing for their mid-sem exams. One MAJOR consequence of this is that I don't have anyone to hang out with. Not that that ought to be an issue, since these holidays aren't meant to be real holidays anyway. (Can you sense my bitterness?) I've written about it before, but I have some HUGE exams coming up at the end of this year, and as far as I know, the more studious amongst us are spending these holidays with their heads burrowed in their textbooks. I should be doing the same, but each time I sit down to do anything uni-related, I always get distracted by something on the internet. And, most of the time, it's food-related. *sigh*

Choco mousse dome

Case in point - two weeks ago, I was locked in the throes of some intense preparation for my end-of-course exam. My day consisted of getting up at 6am in the morning, shovelling down breakfast (I'm one of those weird people who wake up starving), and then plonking myself down in front of my computer for the next 12 hours in a desperate attempt to cram as much knowledge as possible into my tiny brain. I know you're probably thinking, "Wow, that's some dedication you had going on!" Yeah, I wish. You see, I'd plonk myself in front of my laptop with full intentions of spending the next 12 hours studying, where as in actual fact I'd get distracted within the hour and end up stalking people on Facebook. Or reading food blogs. Or running down to the local Hello Happy bakery for "brain food" while my family is out (since my mother disapproves of my love affair with pastries. Please don't tell on me.)

New York Cheesecake

On this occasion, I purchased the choco mousse dome and a slice of the New York cheesecake. I can't remember the exact price of each, but their cakes average around $3.80 - $5.00 per serving. More expensive than the ones from Chinese/Vietnamese bakeries, but cheaper compared to the European-style ones. Quite reasonable, I suppose. The choco mousse dome was everything I hoped for - creamy, light as a cloud, sweet and chocolatey.

Cross-section of the mousse dome. Excuse the mess on my desk.

The cheesecake, on the other hand, was a major letdown, tasting very dry and crumbly from being overbaked. I was in the mood for cheesecake on that day, but if I'd been so inclined to purchase anything from bakery, I most certainly would have gone for the almond croissant. Which I don't have a picture of, but trust me when I say that it is THE BEST ALMOND CROISSANT I've ever tasted. The flaky pastry absolutely shatters when you bite into it, and the almond filling is so wonderfully creamy and nutty...must get another one sometime soon, just so I'll have pictures for this blog ;P

Pasticceria Papa, Haberfield

Or, to be more specific, a pal and I pigged out on pastries at Pasticceria Papa on a fine, Sunday morning :D

 

As it so happened, I was seized by an inexorable wave of guilt on Saturday evening for my week of relative inactivity, and felt compelled to go outside for a walk at least. I felt much better twenty minutes into my turtle-paced "jog", and the rush of endorphins this precipitated opened my mind (and stomach) up to all sorts of naughty foodie ideas for Sunday's breakfast.

(An aside: Isn't it simply fascinating how the mind of a foodie constantly seeks to delude itself by coming up with wilder and more colourful justifications to indulge? Just sayin')

Anyway, I've been craving Italian sweets ever since I watched the Cake Boss episodes on cannoli and lobster tale pastries. I looked for recommendations for Italian bakeries in Sydney, and the one with the most rave reviews by far seemed to be Pasticceria Papa, situated in Haberfield. Since I've always found it a bit creepy to do foodie trips on my own (since nothing says "desperate" quite like downing a whole slice of cheesecake by myself while no one's watching), I texted a friend to see if she was up for a early Sunday run, with Pasticceria Papa's famous ricotta cheesecake for breakfast as a reward afterwards. She said "yes"!

(This is the pal. She's my exercise companion, and also my partner in crime when it comes to weekend foodie trips :D)

We met up at 6:30am this morning at my place, and jogged a leisurely 6km to Haberfield, chatting the whole way with ever-increasing degrees of breathlessness. Hey, talking and running at the same time is hard! I'd spent the night before committing the route on Google Maps to memory, so we found the Pasticceria with minimal fuss.

 

First, though, we decided to check out a bakery that was nearby, since my Pal wanted to get some bread. This place had the most amazing looking loaves: 

  

My friend got a brioche and a little piggy head. She bought me a piggy head too :D I went back for a bread shark, so impressed was I by their mastery in dough-shaping.

Then it was off to Pasticceria Papa!

WOW, so many choices. I knew I was definitely ordering the ricotta cheesecake, having heard people all over the foodblogging scene wax lyrical about it. I also got a long black espresso. It's my caffeinated beverage of choice to accompany sweets.

  

My friend ordered an Italian doughnut and a latte:

 

I tried the doughnut and it was sweet, soft and fluffy, not at all like the gluggy, saccharin, oil-drenched ones you get from those horrible chain stores (Krispy Kreme, I'm a-lookin' at you). But the star was definitely the ricotta cheesecake. I've never had cheesecake like this before. The actual ricotta cheesecake part was sandwiched between two biscuity "crusts", so it was more like a pie. But, as the Bard said: a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. i.e. I loved it!

   

I then went back and ordered a ricotta cannoli, and what I thought was a chocolate cream-filled sfogliatella napoletana (aka. puff pastry shell in the same of a lobster tail), but turned out to be a brioche-y cream horn.

 

The cannoli was extraordinarily good. Perhaps even better than the ricotta cheesecake. OH YUM.

 

The cream horn was kinda blah. Didn't like the chocolate filling at all. I think it was some kind of custard. It tasted like it was made with chocolate powder, or flavouring even.

 

Pal and I both got some stuff to take home to our families. I paid $25 for my box of goodies! It was a real treasure chest, though :D

 

Since we couldn't run holding onto a huge box of Italian desserts, we were content to just walk back and discuss possible candidates for future Foodie Fun Runs (lol, that's what I'm calling these trips from now on). We're thinking Lebanese sweets next!

The walk back helped me to work up an appetite (again). I proceeded to go Yum Cha with my family!

I think it was most appropriate that I wore this shirt to both eating events, lol :P Lookee, it's a silver pig!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend.Time to get back to the uni grind!

Pasticceria Papa

145 Ramsay Street
Haberfield NSW 2045
(02) 9798 6894

Website: http://www.pasticceriapapa.com.au/

Happy Mother's Day, 2011!

It's Mother's Day here in Australia today! We held our celebrations last night with a sumptuous feast at Sunny Harbour Seafood Restaurant in Hurstville. There were so many dishes to eat that we ended up taking home more than half of what we ordered. Which is really saying something, since we had the whole family + extended family there :D

I made a cake to celebrate the occasion. It was the least I could do to thank all wonderful mothers in our family. My mum has sacrificed so much so that we kids can have the best of everything, and all the opportunities that we would ever need to grow into confident and capable individuals. And our grandmothers basically raised us along with our mother from birth, as Chinese grandmothers do. Our aunty is like a second mother to us, and someone who we can always depend on for support and guidance.

All in all, a cake is nothing compared with all that they have given us. But it is very tasty! And looked quite impressive too :D

My mum is always complaining about how sweet the stuff I make is. "Put less sugar in!", she'd say when she saw how much icing sugar went into a batch of buttercream frosting. I try to explain that the proportions have been set by people with much more baking experience and knowledge than I have, and any less would interfere with the various chemical processes going on. Her response? "I don't care! Make it less sweet!"

So for this cake, I went with a Japanese cheesecake as the basis of my cake. For those who have never tried Japanese cheesecake before - you've been missing out. Big time! It's nowhere near as cloying and rich as a New York-style cheesecake (which I'm not dissing in any way, shape or form; I do love my NY cheesecake), but it still retains the aroma of cream cheese beautifully, while only using half the amount of cream cheese than would normally go into a cheesecake. The addition of a minimal amount of flour and corn flour gives it that sponge cake texture, but it'll never end up dry (unless you burn it in the oven). And did I mention it's not too sweet? Simply put - the perfect dessert for my mummy dearest.

For the filling, I was inspired by the birthday cakes we've ordered from Chinese bakeries. You know, the ones made with eggy sponge cake and filled with fresh cream and fruits. I prepared a strawberry mousse using pureed fresh strawberries, whipped double cream and gelatin leaves, and simply spread it on between the layers of cheesecake after the mousse had some time to set, as you would with a buttercream. I added a bit of sugar because I found it slightly too tart without.

I had enough mousse to fill three layers of cake, and to roughly crumb-coat the whole thing. And believe me, it was a very rough crumb-coat. I'm afraid that I didn't take much care aesthetics-wise with the inside of the cake (although all the flavours were there!) because I knew it would be covered anyway with the decorations on the outside. The only thing that suffered was the cross-sectional presentation. Oh well.

To decorate, I used chocolate-filled wafer rolls to form a sort of 'basket' around the side (something I had seen done through Foodgawker), and filled the inside of this delectable basket with grapes, banana slices and STRAWBERRIES. Great, big, juicy fresh ones. I love fresh fruit decorations. Nowhere near as time-consuming as preparing and piping buttercream, and so much healthier too :D

And, just for good measure, I made a whole heap of Chinese almond cookies. My siblings are always clamouring for them when they're served for dessert at a Chinese restaurant, to the point where there's embarrassingly very little left for the adults to have some. Not that they would ever think to deprive those greedy, little ones of their sweets :D Well, there was enough this time round for everyone to go back for seconds...and thirds!

So, on this Mother's Day, make sure to give your mum (or any other mother-figures in your life) a great big hug!

(And a piece of cake too).

Sources

Japanese-style Cheesecake: For ingredients, method and tips on baking the perfect Japanese-style cheesecake, please refer to this wonderfully-detailed post by The Little Teochew.

Fresh strawberry mousse filling: I adapted the recipe provided here by Academia Barilla, halving the quantities listed.

Chinese almond cookies: I used the recipe from Bel's blog, Ooh, Look.... I love the vibrancy of her pictures, and she posts the most delicious-looking recipes, not to mention the occasional review of Adriano Zumbo's latest cake creations :D



Peanut butter and oreo (mini) cheesecakes

Combining the best of both worlds, I give you...peanut butter and oreo cheesecake!

Pumpkin Pie (to continue the age-old food blogging tradition of assigning ridiculous, food-related monikers to one's privacy-loving friends), one of my oldest and best friends, is addicted to cheesecake in a really bad way. I often joke about how lucky it is for her waistline that she lacks the motivation to bake herself a cheesecake, so her opportunities to actually indulge in her favourite treat are far and few in between.

I, on the other hand, possess the means to whip up one of these anytime I feel like it. And like John Crichton from Farscape, it is only with an enormous amount of self-restraint and discipline that I do not put my knowledge of wormhole technology cheesecake-making to evil use. It leaves me feeling down-trodden and awfully redundant, but I can usually console myself with healthier baking projects like shortbread and glazed cinnamon rolls.

So imagine my delight when P. Pie issued a request for cheesecake for her next birthday. And not just any cheesecake, but Ms. Nigella Lawson's chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. But since her next birthday wasn't going to happen until sometime late next year and I was impatient, I took it upon myself to fulfil the request for a few months earlier and brought the finished products to a pre-Xmas dinner for dessert :D

I'd made this cheesecake once before for my own birthday party this year, and it was pretty much decimated by the hoards (who had already stuffed themselves full with gelato cake, potato salad and trifle, I might add) on the spot.

Yep, it was tasty all right.

 

The one at my party was made following Nigella's recipe to a tee, including the digestive biscuits base and chocolate-sour cream glaze. This time round, I altered the recipe and made glaze-less mini-cheesecakes for 1) easier transportation and 2) a higher level of consumption convenience.

I was inspired by Nicole's (from Baking Bites) Halloween Oreo Cheesecakes recipe, in which she cleverly used a single, whole oreo cookie as the 'crust' for her mini cheesecakes. As she has mentioned in her post, this is a great (not to mention delicious :D) way of avoiding the trouble of processing together the ingredients for the crust, and then actually lining the baking tin (which has always been my least favourite part of making a cheesecake).

I also made a spontaneous decision not to put any chocolate glaze on these mini cheesecakes after observing how high they rose in the oven. I had filled each cupcake liner until there was about half a centimetre left at the top in order to leave room for the glaze, but clearly I'd forgotten that cheesecakes do rise when baked *facepalm*. My suggestion would be to either get deeper liners, or fill them with less cheesecake mixture.

Without further ado, here is the recipe!

Recipe for Peanut Butter and Oreo Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients (adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe)

Makes 22-24 mini cheesecakes

For the 'base'

• 22-24 whole oreo cookies

For the filling

• 500g cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 200g caster sugar
• 125ml sour cream
• 250g smooth peanut butter

For the glaze (which I didn't end up making for this recipe)

• 250ml sour cream
• 100g milk or dark chocolate chips
• 30g soft brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C (or 325°F).

2. Line muffin tray(s) with cupcake liners. Place a single, whole oreo cookie at the bottom of each liner. It's fine if the oreo doesn't cover the whole base of the liner. As you can see from the first picture in this post, the cheesecake mixture went over the sides of the oreo, so the cookie was essentially embedded in the cheesecake. I think it makes a nice surprise when you cut it open to reveal the oreo inside :D

3. To make the filling, process the cream cheese, whole eggs and egg yolks, caster sugar, sour cream and peanut butter in a food processor or with an electric beater, until smooth.

4. Spoon filling into the cupcake liners until there's about 1cm of space from the top of the mixture to the top of the liner. That'll leave you with enough room for the (optional) chocolate glaze.

5. Bake in oven for 18-20 minutes. The top should feel set and dry. Take mini-cheesecakes out of the oven. If you're not planning on making the glaze to go on top, the cheesecakes are done by this point and may be allowed to cool. If you are making the filling, go to step 6.

6. While the cheesecakes are cooling slightly out of the oven, make the topping by heating the chocolate chips with the sour cream and brown sugar gently in a saucepan over low heat. Stir to thoroughly blend everything together. Once well combined, take mixture off the heat.

7. Spoon chocolate glaze over mini-cheesecakes. Put back into the oven for a final 10 minutes. According to Nigella, this is to allow the glaze to "set".

8. Take cheesecakes out of the oven and allow them to cool completely in the muffin trays, then cover with cling and put in the fridge to chill overnight. Take cheesecakes out of the fridge slightly in advance before serving.