Oreo and White Chocolate Popcorn

An idea which I came across too late in life, but not too late.

A while ago I decided that popcorn was a healthier and low-calorie snacking option which I should adopt instead of my other not-so-good tendencies like chocolate and cookies.

I sort of just brutally murdered that standpoint with this recipe which I discovered.

Oreo and White Chocolate Popcorn

30 min

Serves 2-3... or 1 potential diabetic

Ingredients:

150g white chocolate: chopped and melted over a double boiler

12 Oreos: crushed moderately – biscuit, filling and all!

1/2 cup of corn kernels, popped according to packet instructions OR1 7-inch saucepan full of popcorn

Get down and dirty:

1) Once both popcorn and white chocolate have cooled a little bit, mix all ingredients together well.

2) Place in freezer for 5 minutes (preferably still in metal saucepan, which will help cool the popcorn even quicker) or, if you are weirdly patient, place in fridge for half an hour, to set the chocolate.

3) Remove and separate big chunks. DIG IN!

4) Slow down, there.

This recipe includes a little bit more popcorn than I'd used, because the sweetness was rather cloying, (maybe it was only 'cause I ate so many in one go) but I originally popped 1/3 cup of corn kernels.

Best enjoyed sparingly! Now, you can be a superior movie-goer. Your popcorn is of a higher calibre than all of them sweet-and-salty peasants.

Perfect profiteroles

Just for the record, I made 50 of these on Saturday night, and they were gone by Monday night.

It is week three of my domestic independence here in London, and I've not had food poisoning, so all is well. To take a break from the long school days and exercise some productivity, I decided to bake some profiteroles, which doesn't require complicated ingredients nor much fancy equipment, perfect for a new-ish kitchen.

Perfect Profiteroles

makes ~30 small profiteroles

(adapted from essential desserts)

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Extra equipment

Piping bag with long, narrow nozzle (How to make a DIY piping bag)

Ingredients

Choux Pastry:

50g (1¾ oz) butter

90g (3¼ oz/ ¾ cup)plain all-purpose flour, sifted twice

3 eggs, lightly beaten

Filling:

375ml (13 fl oz/ 1½ cups) milk

4 egg yolks

80g (2¾ oz/ ⅓ cup) caster sugar

30g  (1 oz/ ¼ cup) plain all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

110g (3¾ oz) dark chocolate

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Instructions

To make the filling:

1. Put the milk in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Set aside while quickly whisking the yolks and sugar in a bowl until combined.

2. Whisk the flour into the egg mixture.

3. Pour the hot milk slowly onto the egg and flour mixture, whisking constantly.

4. Wash out the pan, return the milk mixture to the pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture boils and thickens. Boil for two minutes, stirring often.

5. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and stir in the vanilla extract.

6. Lay plastic wrap directly over the surface of the mixture to prevent a skin from forming, then refrigerate until cold.

To make the choux pastry:

1. Preheat the oven to 190ºC, set on fan mode, and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper. (210ºC for regular oven setting)

2. Put the butter in a large heavy-based saucepan with 185ml (6fl oz/ ¾ cup) water and stir over medium heat until the mixture comes to the boil. Remove from the heat and quickly beat in the flour with a wooden spoon.

3. Return to the heat and continue beating until the mixture comes together in a lump and leaves the sides of the pan easily. Allow to cool slightly.

4. Transfer to a bowl (I used a standing mixer for this) and beat to release as much heat as you can. Very gradually add in beaten egg, until all the egg is added and mixture is thick and glossy – a wooden spoon should stand upright in it. If it is too runny, egg has been added to quickly, and you have to beat for several more minutes until it thickens.

5. Sprinkle the baking trays with water to create steam for rising the pastry in the oven.

6. Spoon rather small heaps (they rise a lot) of the mixture onto the baking trays, and leave room for spreading.

7. Bake for roughly 20 minutes, (20-25 for regular oven setting) or until browned and hollow-sounding, then remove and make a small hole in the base of each puff with a skewer. Return to the oven for 5 minutes to dry out. Cool on a wire rack, bottom-side up.

Filling the choux pastry:

1. Pipe the custard filling generously into the choux puffs with your smallest long piping nozzle through the hole in the base. The weight of the profiterole should increase noticeably after filled.

To make chocolate topping:

1. Chop the chocolate and put it in a large heatproof bowl with the oil.

2. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and remove it from the heat, and sit the bowl over the saucepan, ensuring that the bowl does not touch the water.

3. Stir occasionally until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.

Finally...

1. Dip the top of each profiterole in the chocolate.

2. Allow to set or refrigerate in airtight containers before serving.

It was actually pretty easy to do, just quite time-consuming! But it's all worth it, plus you get to lick custard out of the saucepan and the piping bag. Also, don't forget that remaining chocolate dipping, which deserves to be eaten straight out of the bowl with a spoon!

On a side note, I was really lucky to have the sun shining gloriously into my bedroom the next day, through my sheer white curtains, onto a broad windowsill – is this the perfect food-photography setup or what? Who needs fancy studio lights? (Okay, granted, I had a DSLR camera on a tripod with big fat zoom lens)

Let's just hope that the sun decides to shine every time I bake something new. London, be generous!

Fruit Paradise

I'm back in London and getting comfy in my new flat. The last of the freshers party was last night/this morning, yet I'm up early on a Sunday morning with a cup of hot chocolate and some quiet music. I have yet to do any serious cooking/baking, but I do need to get into this new habit of making practical meals for a busy midweek schedule.

One of my last few lunches in Singapore was in Fruits Paradise, a Japanese fruit tart café franchise which I'd been eyeing for a while. They've got all these amazing plastic tarts for display as well as the actual ones in the chilled glass shelves, gleaming like mountains of juicy gemstones.

For a little bit of hot food pre-tart-madness, my friend and I got a katsu curry with ebi shrimp and chicken nuggets, (SG$12.90) (above) which was alright. Funny that they should serve fries as well as rice, though!

Just look at that beauty. Gorgeous layers of light mousse and sponge, as well as mango cream and fresh mangoes and strawberries, lined with shortcrust and flaky pastry! This 'Summer Sunset' (SG$6.80) was delicious, and worth its price for the size, light taste, and definitely its visual appeal.

My friend ordered a choco mont blanc (SG$7.80) which came atop a brownie and chocolate shortcrust base. The mont blanc's chestnut taste was extremely mild, and I wasn't a fan of the pairing with hardcore chocolate components like the brownie base and the chocolate sponge within. Although I'm not much of an expert on mont blanc and have only had it once before, the tart wasn't bad, but an unfortunate hit-and-miss for me.

Because we just couldn't get enough of those tarts, my friend and I got a final mango tart (SG$6.80) to share. This. Was my absolute favourite. It is an amazing tart – there's a light, cream cheese base which worked really well with the sponge, mangoes and cream, plus the fresh mango slices topped it all off perfectly.

The tart pastry also really stood out for me in these tarts, they had a distinctive, golden (can things taste golden? I say they can.) buttery taste which complimented the creamy, fruity tops really well.

I'm definitely paying Fruits Paradise a visit the next time I'm in Singapore, their tarts are just the perfect [edible] centrepiece to any conversation!

Fruit Paradise (there are other branches too)

Ang Mo Kio (AMK) Hub

#02-18

53 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3

569933

Singapore

www.fruitparadise.com.sg

Wimbly Lu Chocolate Café

Exciting news of the day: One of the photographs from the previous post on Oreo Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake Bars made it onto foodgawker – at last! Admittedly, it was my fifteenth submission, but only the first successful one at that.

This can be due to the fact that my brother passed on to me his Canon DSLR camera a few days ago, along with two lenses: 50mm and 18-135mm. Proper food photography, here I come! (Hopefully)

So my birthday is on Wednesday. I'm a 9/11 baby, while my friend Janice is a 9/9 kid! It only made sense that two extreme foodies like us went to somewhere reputable for high tea.

We arrived about twenty minutes early to their opening time of 1PM, so we hung around the shophouses for a bit, where there were a few other bakeries and Western eating places, and also a cool-looking wooden table which gave Janice a flash of inspiration:

I know, I should totally go into portrait photography, right?

There's a lovely conservatory-style area at the back of the café, preceded by a dim but cosy seating area facing an open kitchen/bakery and chocolate display cabinet.

It was raining that day, and I actually suspect that they redecorate according to the season or occasion! My evidence: the staff were visibly buzzing around inside before they opened, and they could have been tweaking the decor! Also, I've seen pictures of the café filled with little hearts, all posted in February, as well as other similar pictures with Halloween lanterns. I'd be very impressed if they actually hung those raining clouds to reflect the weather outside! It really added a fantastic touch to Wimbly Lu's intimate and personal setting.

To make sure that we're having a legitimate lunch and not just stuffing our faces with desserts instead of having a proper meal, we ordered a double seafood and cheese toasty ($6) which was so-so.

Me made our next choice from having read other reviews and recommendations – waffle with salted caramel ice cream, plus a topping of maple syrup. ($8.50)

This waffle was pretty much perfect, it really hit that criteria of a crisp exterior and fluffy insides. From what I've heard, every single waffle served is just as perfect! Talk about quality control.

The salted caramel ice cream was delicious – flavourful but not sickeningly sweet. We definitely could have had a bigger scoop. The maple syrup was a good choice of topping as well.

Now I'm no expert on sticky date pudding, as this was my first one ever. I've got to say that it was delightful! Warm, gooey, sweet, and addictive. I only got to taste dates in my last mouthful, though. I'm not sure if sticky date puddings have to taste strongly of dates.

It would have made more sense for the dense, rich pudding to come with pouring cream or ice cream, but it didn't, so we ordered an addition scoop of honey cinnamon ice cream. ($3)

The cinnamon taste was a little stronger than expected, which was a surprise, but a good one – like apple pie in ice cream form! There wasn't much taste of honey, it was probably used mainly to sweeten. The ice cream flavour didn't go that well with the pudding. However, the texture was perfect in my terms. Not too icy, yet not too heavy and gooey – somewhere among that blissful in between. We found ourselves craving more of that honey cinnamon ice cream!

With service charge, the bill came to somewhere around $25 in total for the both of us, which is pretty reasonable for the great atmosphere and food. Wimbly Lu is definitely somewhere I'll return to for a relaxed dessert experience the next time I visit Singapore!

Wimbly Lu
15-2 Jalan Riang
Singapore 358987
Tel: 62891489
www.wimblylu.com

Princess of Wales

The Princess of Wales Pub is located near Primrose Hill, on a bright, wealthy residential street. A little challenging to get to, especially on a hot summer's day with the London Underground acting up on a typical weekend, forcing you to squeeze on replacement bus services with sweat clinging on to everything.

Colourful nearby houses

I decided to pay this particular pub – which is quite out of the way for me – a visit as a result of winning Zomato's weekly Write-For-A-Bite contest. (They did originally offer me £50 off my bill at Bacco's, but there was some complication with the restaurant, so they gave me £30 off The Princess of Wales instead.)

The view from atop Primrose Hill

The pub was quiet upon our arrival at 1.30pm. (The transport delayed us for an hour. Welcome to London!) The sun was shining, and the shutters were wide open. The place is wood-panelled all over, with the bar in the middle, and there's a cosy garden-basement just down the stairs.

English pubs are great for getting, well, English food. My sister ordered some chicken with gravy and a Yorkshire pudding, as it was Sunday, and they had roast specials with a live jazz band playing at 4pm! The chicken was tender, the gravy just-right, and the veggies soft and generous.

Her husband got a prawn salad with beetroot, which was part of the Sunday specials as a main, but it was quite a scarce portion for the price. (approx. £13)

I got grilled sea bass with potatoes, sliced courgette, and smoked mackerel pâté. The sea bass was very impressive – it had a tasty, crispy skin, and soft meat. The mackerel pâté was particularly interesting – smoky, fishy, tasty, but rather oily – and went well with the cool courgette salad.

By the time the jazz band started playing, the pub was filled and buzzed with summer, pint-induced liveliness. Dessert was a scoop of salted caramel-flavoured ice cream atop a nut-filled brownie. The brownie had rather hard edges, but a soft, cake-y inside. The salted caramel ice cream was so good, I was tempted to lick the plate clean.

We ended up with a bill of about £60, but the voucher helped to pay half of that. The Princess of Wales is a great place to chill and have drinks with friends. Sunday brings you more reasons to visit, due to the roast specials and the live jazz band. A walk afterwards on Primrose Hill followed by a nap under a tree – there was no better way to complete this particular summer Sunday.

The Princess of Wales

22 Chalcot Road

London NW1 8LL

0207 722 0354

Mikado White Chocolate

Mmm, chocolate-coated biscuit sticks. Pocky used to be my snack-of-happiness, (I just made that up... don't question me, I don't know either) and a box of strawberry-flavoured Pocky was unbeatable among all the other snacks sold in my old school's bookshop.

Mikado is actually the exact same thing, it's simply been renamed throughout Europe. I never get why they do this, it makes immigrants like me panic for a month or two, yelling, "They don't have Pocky here! They've got these other brands but no Pocky! It's not the sameee!!!" to anyone who would listen.

Since Strawberry and Chocolate were the only available flavours sold in the bookshop, (I didn't really do grocery shopping) so this was actually my first time trying the White Chocolate coating. (was on offer for £1 at WH Smith)

It's now my favourite flavour! The biscuit stick has that perfect snappability ('moreish' isn't a real word too. Deal with it.) that I know and love, and the smooth white chocolate coating is just delicious.

 A little bit of silliness – Mikado/Pocky is probably the closest I'll ever come to having a cigarette in my mouth!

Crunchy Nut Clusters with milk chocolate curls and honey

"Crunchy Nut is on offer!" my sister suddenly half-yelled as I was standing in the cereal aisle of Tesco deciding between the healthier Special K options or Cookie Crisp and sugar-coated things.

For £2 (U.P £2.69) we got a 450g box of cereal clusters and chocolate curls.

The clusters of puffed rice, peanuts, and oats were simply decadent! The honey coating was extremely yummy, and as always for Crunchy Nut, the peanut fragrance really came through, in a sweet rather than nutty way.

The clusters really stuck together, and didn't fall apart easily even when submerged in milk. The chocolate curls were not so significant, but provided the tiniest hint of taste and soft texture. The milk became quite sweet as a result of the honey, hooray!

A great cereal, I'm definitely getting it again some time. This cereal is basically for everyone – kids, granola-lovers, nut fans, chocoholics, sweet teeth, the whole lot!

Merba Cookies

After hearing good things from a friend about 'those cookies which come in aluminum foil-looking plastic with a brand name starts which with an M, I think, or maybe a C, I don't know', I've decided to keep an eye out for them. An import from USA, they are almost never on the shelves of a regular supermarket. The only way to find them is through scouring the off-license shops. (little corner shops selling snacks and essentials... but mostly snacks)

Like a ninja on a mission, I toured London and dashed through every off-license store in sight, before I finally found them.

In real life, I simply wandered into this random off-license shop one evening, which surprisingly existed on an uneventful street about 10 minutes from my house, while in search of a late-afternoon snack. I stumbled upon these 'Merba' cookies which were 'the famous American Chocolate Chip Cookies' and had an aluminum-y wrapping. Bingo!

The cookies were truly American in the way that they were sweet and they weren't afraid to let you know. Healthy eating is irrelevant when it comes to these cookies. Their only mission is to taste good and lure people back for seconds.

Aside from being delightfully sweet, they were generously chock-filled with milky chocolate chips. The cookie is slightly on the hard, crunchy side rather than being the the soft, gooey type, but not to the extent that it feels dry, especially since the multitude of chocolate chips serve to moisten up every bite. Salt can somewhat be tasted in the cookie, which makes it quite impactful on the tongue – quite overwhelming for those who aren't too used to rich sweets. However, if you are an a-chocolate-chip-cookie-is-a-god-damn-chocolate-chip-cookie-there-is-no-holding-back type of person, then these ones are for you.

You look at the picture on the front of the packet and you expect something great.

You definitely get something great with these Nougatelli Cookies, which are my favourite of the lot.

It is pure bliss as you sin your teeth into the cookie and meet the Nutella-like hazelnut filling!

White chocolate and red berries is a popular cookie flavour combination which I enjoy when it is done well. (Lizzie's Food Factory does a good one.) However, these cookies were filled with dried, chewy cranberries which had an over-tangy taste, and I didn't enjoy it. The white chocolate's fragrance was unfortunately killed somewhere in the rubbery, cranberry stampede.

The 'brownie cookies' were certainly appealing, but I was doubtful of 'crispy' as a description on the packet. Aren't the best part about brownies their fudgy, soft texture?

These had the texture of a regular crunchy cookie. The only 'brownie' aspect is probably their rectangular shape, but otherwise, it is no different from a same-old double chocolate cookie. The American sweetness is still there, and there is a satisfying chocolate taste which does the brownie justice.

Aside from that cranberry mess of a cookie, Merba has great cookies which any sweet tooth will definitely enjoy. I've seen them sold in places like Costcutters and several other off-license shops, so nobody really has to go on a ninja-hunt, really.

Tutti Frutti UK

It's a real blessing to find an eating place in Soho where you can sit down for as long as you like without feeling like you should get up and leave so that you can make room for the people in the queue and escape the accusing stares of the staff.

Tutti Frutti has an entire funky basement filled with sofas, chairs, tables, books and board games which is a huge appeal for people who have time to kill whilst in the Soho area, or those who fancy a lengthy sit-down with friends over yummy dessert which won't make you feel too guilty.

There are about ten dispensers of different-flavoured frozen yogurt lining a wall in the shop, and these flavours vary day-to-day. Some which I have seen are Red Velvet, Blueberry, Kiwi, Soy, Nutella, Peanut Butter, Watermelon, Chocolate, and many more. Peanut Butter has got to be my favourite so far. They've got the full list on their website, but not all of these flavours are always available in shops.

The prices go by the final weight of your cup, at £1.85 per 100g. There are two cups to choose from, and the smaller one has an average price of £3.50 while you could expect to pay an approximate £5.50 for filling your froyo in the bigger one. Students get a discount of 10%, or 15% if your bill is over £10. (That would have to be a big cup of froyo, and no, getting two cups in the same bill wouldn't be very smart if you're a student.)

You can mix and match flavours, and I tend to sway towards those which aren't related to fruit, because the toppings which I choose afterwards are cookies and chocolate – you've got chocolate chips, mini oreos, chocolate chip cookies, buttery shortbread biscuits, Cadbury Flake, coconut shavings, ground peanuts, gummies, and all sorts of other stuff, it's hard to be short of options. Not too far away, they also have a healthier selection of toppings which includes grapes, pineapples, kiwis, and cubes of different fruits in general. I've been apprehensive to try, say, Nutella froyo with a topping of kiwi cubes, but I'll try to be adventurous in my next visit.

There's an app on the app store called Kooki which has a few loyalty cards from various eating places in London, and Tutti Frutti has got a card on there, which enables you a 6th cup of free froyo.

The shop also sells bubble tea, brownies and Malaysian pancakes. It really is a gem in the middle of Soho and I do recommend it, as there is something for everyone!

I just wish that they had awesome topping variations which can be used to make epic froyo architecture like this one which my friend did in Tutti Frutti Canada:

Tutti Frutti
2 Bedford Street
Covent Garden
London WC2E 9HH
United Kingdom
info@tfuk-froyo.co.uk
www.tfuk-froyo.co.uk/

Kit Kat x4! | Chunky Coconut, Chunky Hazelnut, Green Tea (Japan) and Cookies & Cream

When it comes to chocolate, I choose Cadbury over Godiva. I choose Mars over Hotel Chocolat. I choose Nestlé over fancy-schmancy Chöcôlatéei de Poshé (est. 89 BC). For me, a fat chocolate bar under a pounder brings me way more happiness than a skimpy box of chocolates with strange or boring flavours.

When I have a sweet craving, I want a Kit Kat Chunky to munch on, and not little bite-sized, heart-shaped truffles with a ruddy lemongrass filling. (I still have that horrid gustatory memory etched in my head. "Unpleasant" doesn't even cover a quarter of it.)

A shelf of chocolate bars is bound to be available just round the corner if you are anywhere near ample civilisation here in London. You will always find the usual: Mars bars, Aero, slabs of Cadbury Dairy Milk, slabs of Galaxy, Wispa bars, Bounty, and of course, Kit Kat Chunky bars.

Kit Kat Chunky Coconut was one of the four flavours participating in the Kit Kat Chunky Champion Campaign 2013 (Might as well call it the Kit Kat Khunky Khampion Kampaign) which ran from mid-January to mid-March, during which four new Kit Kat flavours were available in supermarkets, and consumers could vote for their favourite flavour online. The most popular flavour would then continue to be sold while the rest would just disappear slowly from our lives.

The coconut flavour came simply from the addition of a taste and fragrance. However, the bar is still no Bounty equivalent yet – much of it is still like any old regular Kit Kat Chunky. Coconut fans would relish, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get one of these, nor would I choose it over a normal Kit Kat Chunky.

Hazelnut and I have a connection. When I was a kid eating Nutella on toast almost every morning, I assumed that Nutella was simply the best-tasting chocolate product ever for a magical, unexplainable reason. I don't know why it took me such a long time to find out that the addition of hazelnut is accountable for bringing a nutty extra to the taste of chocolate in a Nutella jar, but when I did, I worshipped this combination – Ferrero Rocher made so much sense at last, and Hanuta was expectedly divine when I first tried it.

Naturally, the Kit Kat Chunky Hazelnut is my favourite of the lot. There's a creamy layer of hazelnut cream above the wafer layers, and it is all coated in chocolate – nothing can go wrong here.

I didn't bother with the other two flavours, but mint won, while choc fudge retreated into the corner with a crestfallen face that said: 'chocolate within chocolate... I thought I was special...' Like everybody else who was strongly rooting for a flavour other than the mint contender, I started a riot in my bedroom when I found out about the results online. I never eat anything mint, because it reminds me too much of toothpaste. Choc fudge just didn't make any sense to me at all. ('But... I swear I'm special...')

It might be way too late for any of this, but a last word must be put out there for the sake of justice: Kit Kat Chunky Hazelnut is the true winner. And you all know it. Deep inside.

I got Green Tea Kit Kats as a gift from my housemate when returned from Japan, her homeland. The bars are considerably smaller than Kit Kats sold elsewhere.

The bar is completely green, with specks of green tea powder. Nothing chocolate-related in sight so far.

My first reaction when biting into it was thinking: 'this simply tastes like white chocolate...' However, a very mild green tea taste rests on your mouth after a while, which is good, as it can go very wrong when it comes to tea, which can tread into the bitter zone. The chocolate also has a slightly grainy texture due to the green tea powder.

I wouldn't hesitate buying this flavour regularly if it were sold in the UK. White chocolate can tend to be too sweet and sickly sometimes, but the thinness of green tea helps to counter that – a really good combination choice. Arigato, Japan.

I was so psyched after hearing that they sold a cookies & cream flavour of Kit Kat. Cookies & Cream remains my favourite, staple ice cream flavour to date.

I don't really care if each twin bar is 107 calories, I just want to eat chocolate, which is undeniably unhealthy and fattening anyway!

In retrospect, this is a very poor interpretation of the blessed cookies & cream flavour. Eating it was a pleasure, with a combination of white and milk chocolate used in the coating of the regular wafer biscuits – the best of both worlds. But they could have either put in a little bit more effort and actually include cookies or cream in it, or rename the product.

Kit Kat is the first that comes to mind when I think of a chocolate bar. The variety of flavours caters to a wide range of tastebuds too! (not mentioned here are orange, peanut butter and dark chocolate)