CHRYSANTHEMUM POUND CAKE

To heck with editing pics in Blogger. It’s a pain. I still haven’t figured out why I can’t move pics around my post by right-clicking and dragging anymore. So I’m giving this Windows Live Writer a go today to see if it’s any easier. I am also trying out Windows Live Photo today for the first to see if it’s easier than Picasa. It seems to have more features and it’s quite easy to use.

The other day, while browsing around for bundt pans at the Cookshop in City Square, I saw these cool Nordicware pans. The one I chose was the 10 cup Chrysanthemum pan.

The pattern is intricate and the pan is hefty. I like!

The “petals” in the pattern create a lot of CRUST, and as you know from my sidebar’s ongoing “Who Love the Crusties” poll, a humongous majority of people are into the crusties and covet the brown bits. So this pan’s for you.

I chose a pound cake recipe from one of 5 new cookbooks I purchased recently. I really ought to take some pics of my bookshelf. It’s bursting with way too many fantastic cookbooks. I found this winner from Bakewise, by Shirley Corriher. The book is hugely thick but I soon found out that most of the pages were filled with “The Math” and explanations of formulas. Much of the explanations are redundant (extracts are repeated throughout the book). I could do with a lot less of the repetition and instead with more stories, recipes and illustrations. Despite the redundancies, so far I’m on board with Corriher’s excellent and in-depth knowledge. What’s important to me is whether the recipe works…and can be duplicated by the home baker.

I can honestly say that this is the best pound cake recipe I’ve ever baked. The staff at work concur when I brought them some leftovers and I received rave reviews. The crust was amazing. The interior crumb was moist. It was everything a pound cake should be. And more!

On the first day, fresh from the oven, the pound cake had a nutty aroma and flavour profile. I practically inhaled a quarter of the cake on my own and had to go on the treadmill and run for 90 minutes to alleviate my guilt. On the following day, the pound cake was just as moist and the crust was still crispy and delectably crunchy and crumbly. It was fabulous.

The only problem I encountered with the recipe was that it called for a 12 cup bundt pan. None are to be found nowadays in cookware stores in Canada. The staff at the Cookshop said they stopped making those a while ago. People use 10-cup bundt pans according to them. The store only carried 10-cup bundt pans but I know I could have used my angel food cake pan. That would have been boring though. So I bought the cute chrysanthemum pan.

btw, posting through Windows Live Writer--so far-- is easier than blogger. I like it. I’m going to keep using it until I find something better. This is so user-friendly I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner! I guess I didn’t have problems before and I tend not to fix things unless they’re broke!

The most intriguing element to Corriher’s pound cake recipe was the addition of whipping cream beaten to the soft peak stage. What it adds to the cake is moistness and a dimension of nutty butteriness. She adds this whipping cream element to some of her other cakes too and I have a feeling those recipes will be winners as well. I’m going to try one of her other recipes for Bebe’s 6th birthday cake. No, I’m not going to outdo myself like I did last year with the Ariel Castle Cake. I don’t think I can top that. I’m just going to go girlie-girl and do a simple cake with flowers. She wants chocolate of course. I’m thinking white frosting. Maybe a really tall cake…taller than it is wide!

CHEF HEATHER HURLBERT’S MAGNIFICENT MOIST WHIPPED CREAM POUND CAKE

from BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking, by Shirley O. Corriher

Makes one large 12-cup (2.8 L) Bundt cake, of 24 small fluted cakes

• 2 T each butter and flour to prepare the pan or pans
• 2 cups (16 oz/454 g) unsalted butter, cut in 2 T (1 oz/28g) pieces
• 2 3/4 cups (19.3oz/546g) sugar
• 1 T (15 ml) pure vanilla extract
• 6 large eggs (10.5 oz/298 g) room temperature
• 2 3/4 cups (12.1 oz/343 g) spooned and levelled bleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (118 ml) heavy cream
• 2 cups (8 oz/227 g) fresh or frozen and thawed blueberries, optional

1. Generously butter a 12-cup (2.8L) Bundt pan or 24 fluted brioche tins. Add 2 tablespoons (0.5 oz/14 g) flour and rotate the pan to coat. Dump out any excess.
2. Arrange a shelf in the lower third of the oven, place a baking stone on it, and preheat the oven to 350degreesF/177degreesC.
3. With a mixer on medium speed, beat the butter to soften. Add the sugar and continue to beat (cream) until very light and fluffy, scraping down the sides and the bottom of the bowl at least once. While creaming, feel the bowl; if it does not feel cool, place in the freezer for 5 minutes and then continue creaming.
4. Beat in the vanilla. On the lowest speed, beat in the eggs one at a time.
5. Add the flour in several batches, and mix just until blended well.
6. Place a medium bowl with the beaters and the heavy cream in the freezer to chill for 5 minutes. Then with the cold bowl and cold beaters, whip the cream until soft peaks form when the beater is lifted. Whip just a little beyond the soft peak stage.
7. Stir about one-quarter of the whipped cream into the batter. Then gently fold the rest of the whipped cream into the batter. If using, fold in the blueberries. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
8. Place the cake in the oven on the stone and bake until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out moist but without crumbs, 50-60 minutes for the Bundt pan, about 20 minutes for small tins. Place the cake in the pan on a rack to cool for 10 minutes. Loosen the cake from the pan by jarring it against the counter. Invert the cake onto the serving platter to finish cooling.

*NB: Cakebrain’s Chrysanthemum Bundt Pound Cake was made with a 10-cup Nordicware bundt pan sprayed with Pam. I poured in enough batter to reach about 1 1/2 inches from the rim and poured the remaining batter in a small 2-cup loaf pan. I adjusted baking time for the loaf pan to 50 minutes and the bundt for 65 minutes. I didn’t use a stone in my oven. My baking times were slightly longer than called for in the recipe as the tops still jiggled slightly.

TESTING, TESTING...MINI BLACK SESAME CHEESECAKES

Mini Black Sesame Cheesecake with Oreo Cookie Crust

How fortunate I am to be able to do some product testing and recipe experiments! It's a whole lot of fun (when stuff turns out beautifully delicious!) and quite hilarious when it doesn't too. My colleagues at work have been more than willing to taste-test my recipes and they are on the whole, quite honest. There are those that will hoover up anything and everything I give them, but they're just being kind I know because they don't want the stream of food to stop. They gave this cheesecake the thumbs up, and I think it's quite good too.

For this test recipe, incorporating "The Product"...an instant Black Sesame Dessert mix (it's a dessert soup), I decided to go the cheesecake route. The chiffon cake I made was a flop because the dessert mix threw off the delicately precise proportions of ingredients required to produce a proper cake. So, having a sort of black sesame epiphany, instead of cake, I made no-bake mini black sesame cheesecakes with oreo crumb crusts. They were smooth, creamy and delicious.

RICHMOND NIGHT MARKET

Richmond night market on a Sunday at dusk.

Oy. I have a new laptop. It's a Dell and it's red. My mouse is red too. It's purrrty...and faster and a whole bunch better.

Everything looks so wonderful but I have been having nothing but problems with Blogger because I can't click and drag my pictures in the Compose mode and I don't want to fiddle with it in html though I know how to cut and paste in it. I also am having a whole lot of aggravation with the sensitivity of the keyboard and the touchpad. Every now and then for some reason, my screen's view maximizes on its own or sometimes I accidentally open up a new tab.

Weird things are happening that I haven't seen before.

So, it's taken me about 8 times longer to post something than usual. I gave up trying to upload a bunch of pics because it was wearisome trying to reorganize them. I hate how blogger just spits them out wherever. So, I created collages first.

Hey! now for some reason, there's like circles showing up all over my screen. They're like water rings that move out from the centre and they also go from bottom to top of my screen. So weird.


a bonanza of cheapie toys, sunglasses, techno gadgets and even underwear and socks can be bought at the night market!

We headed out to the Richmond Night Market around 6:30pm on a Sunday. We found ample parking and walked the 10 minutes to the market from the parking lot. It was still warm and sunny and Bib was in her stroller. The market officially opens at 7pm, but many vendors were already set up. About half of the stalls were already set up at 6:30 and ready to sell their wares.

There seemed to be an inordinate number of stalls selling pretty much the same stuff: a whole bunch of sunglass stalls, dvd stalls, techno-gadget stalls and cheap jewelry stalls. I couldn't believe how many stalls sold underwear. Like how are you going to try on any of the bras out in the open? They also had stalls that sold just socks...hundreds of socks: Hello Kitty socks, Instant noodle socks, Pokemon socks etc. You could buy Chinese tea, plants, knick-knacks, kiddie toys and electronic games, purses, shoes, wallets, refurbished iPods and cell phone decor. I found a stall that sold fresh local berries. They were delicious. They sold a ready-to-eat fresh mix of them in individual plastic cups so you could grab, go and eat. And we did. Even that magical Shammy cloth was sold there.

the food stalls are the highlight of the Night Market

What do most people do at the Richmond Night Market ? Well, I didn't see too much buying going on in the retail section. People mostly walked around lookie-looing. However, the food section was bustling with activity. Huge lineups indicated that the stall was worthy. I noticed the takoyaki one was pretty long. The bubble tea and eggball stalls were pretty busy too.

Most items in the retail section were less than $20. Many of the items I looked at were around $10. At the food stalls, you could buy most items for under $5. Most people go to the market for the food. There's so much stuff to try out. They had Dragon's Beard candy, dim sum, takoyaki, bbq squid , corn, smokies, pizza, Japanese-styled hotdogs (think Asian condiments) and bubble tea. There was grilled squid and meat skewers, fresh juices, fruit, noodles, buns and though I didn't go looking for it, there's usually stinky tofu (yuck!) There was so much to try and so little room left in my tummy!

Bebe's got the Pearl Milk Tea and Bib fought her for it. Bebe's bigger (almost 6!) but Bib screams louder and fights dirty. We had to break it up by inserting another straw in the cup. Then, it was a sippy-contest to see who got more of those little carcinogenic bubbles they love so much! Yes, we love it; no we don't indulge too often fortunately!

Stomach was seduced by the huge grill with the little squid tentacles spilling across it. The little curly legs were calling him. He took off and came back with some grilled squid and fried tofu all smothered with sweet Thai chili sauce. Though I had no inclination to try it, he said it was good.

My favourite thing to eat at the food stalls is the tako yaki. It's a little savoury doughball with a chunk of octopus in the middle. It's topped with takoyaki sauce, mayo and bonito flakes and seaweed. It doesn't sound like it should be so good, but it is. You could also ask for shrimp or other fillings if you like. I never bother trying anything other than tako. I love watching them flip the little dough balls. They used a flick of their wrists and the skewers to rotate the balls to cook all over and make perfect balls. The texture is a little crispy outside; slightly chewy inside and the mayo and takoyaki sauce all brings it together. It's very Japanese and very good.

If you're looking for the Richmond Night Market, you turn right off of Bridgeport Road (that's where Ikea is) and drive past McDonalds and Home Depot. You'll see signs posted everywhere pointing you to parking. Parking is actually free and ample if you get there early like we did, but it's about $5 if you get there later or want to park close. It's $5 to park in the lot where the Night Market is. It's located on 10 acres of light industrial land amongst warehouses. The Night Market is open on Fri-Sun. Fri-Sat from 7-midnight; Sun from 7-11pm. Holidays are Sunday hours. It's on from May 15 to Oct 4, 2009.

12631 Vulcan WayRichmond, BC

It was another great day of eating and I will keep you posted of more places to have fun and eat in Vancouver this summer.

Sunday Fun in Vancouver

Fisherman's Wharf in Vancouver, near Granville Island Public Market
there's the Burrard Street bridge in the background


I can feel that summer's here in Vancouver. I had a fantastic meal of local Spot Prawns twice already in the past week. Yum!

School's almost out; I'm finished all my marking and everything's winding down. Whoopee!

Today was such a fantastic day. It was warm and sunny but there was a definite strong sea breeze running through the city. We took the kids and headed to Granville Island public market. I wanted to see if any local Spot Prawns had arrived yet. Unfortunately, the sign on the dock said that the boats wouldn't be in until 1pm and we were there at 10 a.m.

ah well.

It was nice looking around the docks. There was fresh wild sockeye salmon, and a couple of tuna boats were docked too.
walk along the seawall...it's lovely!

Undeterred by the lack of local prawns at the dock, we headed off towards the Kids Market where I spent way too much money on scrapbooking supplies again at the I'm Impressed store. Then, we had a bite to eat at Sammy J Peppers since Bebe proclaimed she was starving. I wasn't wanting to fight the seagulls for a spot on the dock to eat so we opted for the restaurant setting on their patio. It was great because they're decked out for kids. They had crayons, paper placemats that they could colour and they even had a family room. I had no idea since I had never gone to this restaurant before. The meal was a success and the food was good. No one had any complaints...plus we had a great dockside view of the boats moored nearby.

fresh produce in the public market: Rainier and Byng cherries

We went to the public market to buy some food for the coming week. It's so great seeing all the fresh fish and produce and it inspires you to cook fantastic things.
I'm a sucker for cherries and there's nothing like sitting on your deck in the summer with a bowl full of 'em.
The girls never leave the public market without a bag full of donut holes from Lee's Donuts. Sometimes if you're lucky, you can see them through the big window out front making them fresh. We always buy 1/2 a dozen each of glazed plain and chocolate. mmmm! By the time we get home, most of the holes are gone! and I haven't even touched them yet!

Chocolate and Plain Donut Holes from Lee's Donuts in Granville Island public market.
Here's a pic of the huge planter full of flowers on my deck. The Nasturtiums are humungous!

On another note, the other day I received some samples of black sesame and peanut mix from a HK company that makes these dessert mixes. I received 2 boxes of each flavour so that I could test the products and create some recipes.

My mom took one look at the boxes and ripped one open, exclaiming that she loved the black sesame dessert soup and wanted a bowl right now. She just added hot water and then sat back and slurped one package down. Each box comes with 4 packages that makes 4 bowls.

I decided to make a chiffon cake with sesame swirl. Let's just say it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I think a cake is too unpredictable for this product because of the other added ingredients...sugar and starches etc. I wanted to give it a try anyway. In general, I prefer freshly ground black sesame that I grind myself. I've never used prepared dessert soup mix for baking. The other ingredients are proving to be a bit difficult so far. So, I'll try again in a few days. I haven't had a cake flop in ages and it was quite deflating! literally! I kind of had the feeling it wouldn't turn out but I crossed my fingers and tried it anyway. I'll be trying something less temperamental in a few days. I am not deterred!

this test cake was garbaged because it was such a flop! too dense and not too pretty either!