Baked Ice-Cream Cake - A Different Approach

Someone gave me a tub of ice-cream that I didn’t quite like. As I was taught as a kid not to waste food, I ran through my cookbooks and googled for recipes trying to find some use for the ice-cream. My eye caught on some key words and the idea of baking flashed through my mind.

I began to piece together a recipe which I thought doable; and so, here is an idiot-proof recipe to bake ice-cream into a lighter version of a pound cake. I loved the result, especially the fragrance that came from the red-bean ice-cream. If you have a sweet tooth, add another 20 g of sugar to the recipe below.

Baked Red Bean “Ice-Cream”

Ice-cream                    230 g, any flavours and liquefied

Self-raising flour          190 g

Method:

1.     Set oven to 180 degree C

2.     Sift flour.

3.     Stir ice-cream until completely melted.

4.     Add self-raising flour and mix well.

5.     Pour mixture into a cake mould and bake for 35 to 45 minutes.

6.     Test cake with a toothpick. If it comes out clean from the batter, remove the cake from the oven.

7.     Let the cake rest on a rack.

8.     Serve cake plain, or with a dollop of ice-cream.

There’s Nothing Like Oxtail

I have a soft spot for any dish that contains oxtail. Although this animal part seldom sat on my family’s dinner table, I’ve always loved its rich robust flavor. And I’m always on the lookout for it whatever the cuisine. I haven’t had much luck, though, searching for oxtail in Chinese cuisine; I’ve done much better with Malay and western food.

I remember that when I served oxtail at the restaurant I used to own in Hong Kong, it would draw ooohs and aahhs whenever the lid was lifted off the pot, because the space would immediately fill with its luscious aroma.

The following recipe is the one I used in Hong Kong.

Oxtail Stew with Guinness

Oxtail                          750 g

Plain flour                   4 tbsp

Oil                               4 tbsp

Onion                         2, chopped coarsely

Carrot                          2, diced 

Celery                         4 stalks, diced

Potato                         2, diced

Button mushroom     150 g, halved

Salt                              1 tsp

Butter                          2 tbsp

Bacon                          100 g, diced

Garlic                           5 cloves

Shallot                         5

Red wine                     ¼ cup

Tomato paste              3 tbsp

Guinness stout            1 can

Coconut juice              1 cup

5-spice powder           1 tbsp

Lemongrass                 2, bashed

Salt                               1 tsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven at  180 degree C.
2. Dust oxtail with flour. Brown oxtail with oil. Set aside.
3. Saute the vegetables and salt with the remaining oil in the French oven for 5 mins. Lower the heat, cover the pan, and sweat the vegetable for 10 minutes. Remove and set aside.
4. Saute bacon, garlic and shallots with 1 tbsp of butter. Return oxtail to the pot and deglaze it with red wine. Add tomato paste and stir well.
5. Pour Guinness stout and coconut juice into the pot. Add 5-spice powder and lemon grass.
6. Put parchment paper directly onto surface of the stew. Make sure parchment paper covers the surface completely.
7. Cover the lid and bake for 1½ hours.  Add the sauted vegetable and continue to bake for another 30 minutes.
8. Season with salt and serve.

Bruschetta with Wild Mushrooms – In Memory of a Magazine

I was a journalist for more than 20 years. And in that time I had the good fortune to head a number of leading interior design magazines in Singapore. Some were existing titles, while others were new ones that I conceived and brought into being.

Among my duties – and pleasures – as editor were the visits my team and I made to some of the most beautiful houses in this region. I also met fascinating people -- movers and shakers many of them; and I enjoyed first glimpses of trends as well as privileged access to happenings within the industry. To top it all, I was paid to read mountains of magazines during working hours!

The cover of the final issue.

There was a foreign magazine that had great influence on me, particularly when it came to determining the direction and content of my own work. Metropolitan Home was an American interior and lifestyle magazine that catered to urbanites. Its focus was casual, contemporary living centered around chic, high-end interiors and design.

When the magazine was first launched in 1974, it was called Apartment Life and was aimed at the so-called Woodstock generation. In 1981 the magazine underwent a re-brand, emerging as the hipper Metropolitan Home, with more up-to-date layouts and features targeted specifically at the Baby Boomers.

The interior pages of Metropolitan Home.

Metropolitan Home had gorgeous photographs of interiors that I used to salivate over. It also had some regular columns that I thought were very clever and original for their time. One of these was the ‘Hi/Low’ feature, in which an interior scene with very expensive furnishings is first shown, and this would be followed by its ‘mirror-image’ with furnishings and decorations purchased at a fraction of the cost. I was so taken with ideas such as these that I used them in my own magazines.

Since Metropolitan Home was a so-called ‘lifestyle’ magazine there were recipe pages too, and I would faithfully cut these out, file them, and test-cook them whenever I had the chance.

It was heartbreaking for me when Metropolitan Home folded in December 2009, a victim of the economic recession and the collapsed housing market. This recipe is from the late magazine; and it never fails to wow the audience when I serve it as an appetizer.

Bruschetta with Wild Mushrooms

Baguette                                  2

Olive oil                                   ¼ cup + 3 tbsp

Butter                                      ¼ cup

Dried shiitake mushrooms     50 g, soaked in 2 cups of warm water for 30 minutes,

sliced

White button mushrooms     250 g, thinly sliced

Shallots                                   2 tbsp, minced

Garlic                                       1 tbsp, minced

Salt                                          ½ tsp

Ground black pepper            ¼ tsp

Mascarpone cheese               300 g

Method:

1. Remove crust from bread. Brush bread generously with olive oil. Toast bread in a 160C oven for 10 minutes or until crisp. Set aside.
2. Heat butter and 3 tbsp of olive oil. Sauté shallots and garlic until translucent. Add all mushrooms and fry for another 3 minutes. Add mushroom water and simmer slowly until the liquid is fully absorbed.
3. Remove from heat and season it with salt and pepper.
4. Let it rest to room temperature.
5. Spread marscarpone cheese on bread. Spoon mushroom evenly on top of cheese.
6. Garnish with Italian parsley (optional).
7. Serve.