Muffins that go pop

I found poppy seeds!

In my 3 years of study in Warwick, I arguably spent 1 full year in all browsing the aisles in Tesco, Costcutters, Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencers. Another year might have been spent travelling, half a year in one kitchen or another whipping up something for the next potluck, and the remaining half a year trying to cram bits and bobs of facts, dates, names and theories only to regurgitate them at the year-end exams.

In that 1 year I practically lived in the grocery marts, I got spoilt by high accessibility to fresh basil, easy-peel clementines and cheap booze among others. Of course, it was difficult finding for asian produce. And when I did, cooking a full chinese meal would burn a hole in my pocket.

Coming back home to Singapore, I felt like I had to (almost) travel across the island just to get fresh herbs at not so astronomical prices. Easy-peel clementines/Mandarin oranges would only be available around Chinese New Year. Booze, well. Nuff said.

So when I find ingredients I hardly see, I usually just grab a bottle/packet of it and start planning a dinner around it for the coming weekend. Or, if like in this case the expiry date is very forgiving, I buy the bottle of poppy seeds, keep it in my cupboard and just wait. And wait. And wait.

I can't remember the number of times I'd bought a pack of lemons thinking 'Today will be the day I bake some lemon poppy seed muffins.' Lets just say there were many cups of honey lemon drinks, water spiked with many slices (and in some cases, halves) of lemons and squeezed lemon halves peppering my refrigerator because my mum believes it helps remove odour.

One fine day, I finally took out the well respected tome for baking to search for a lemon poppy seed muffin recipe. Of course, I had no idea how poppy seeds taste, I simply followed the scaled down recipe and baked away. Judging from the amount of eggs and cream that was needed for this muffin, I had no doubt it would still taste delicious even if I managed to somehow screw it up.

In the end, this was all I had ever wanted in a muffin. Soft. Fluffy. Dense. Bouncy. With a gloriously cracked tophat. The taste of the poppy seeds? They don't seem to add any flavour, but these certainly added some interesting crunch to the muffins.

Unfortunately, I added too little lemon zest, having gotten frustrated at my not so effective zester. (I highly recommend the microplane to anyone looking to invest in a good zester. Initially made as a woodworking tool, these blades last forever and give you the thinnest shavings of zest, chocolate, cheese. ) It ended up tasting like... eggy muffins? Still, this was a great muffin recipe that I would adapt as the mother-of-all-mothers muffin recipe.

Trivia: Did you know that if you ate enough poppy seeds, you would test positive for opiates in a drug test? A loaf of poppy seed cake or a few poppy seed bagels later, you'd be a certified druggie.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Recipe from Baking and Pastry (Culinary Institute of America)

Ingredients

369g All Purpose Flour

1 tbsp baking powder

293g sugar

248g butter

142g creme fraiche (I used whipping cream)

255g eggs

60ml vegetable oil

30ml orange juice

43g lemon/orange zest

50g poppy seeds (I used way less than that and it was still beautifully crunchy)

1/2 tsp salt

Method

Sift flour and baking powder together into a bowl.

Cream the sugar and butter in a separate bowl with 1/2 tsp of salt on medium speed until batter is smooth and pale.

Blend in the cream.

Whisk eggs, oil and orange juice together, adding to butter-cream mixture in 3 batches, mixing well after each addition.

Blend in zest and poppy seeds.

Add flour in 3 batches, mixing on low speed after each addition.

Fill muffin cups up to 3/4 full. Tap them onto a table gently to help the batter settle into the cups.

Bake in a preheated oven at 191 degrees celcius for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted emerges clean.

Leave to cool then serve with a cup of hot tea.

Good Chocolate Loving

Just a couple of weeks ago, I attended a talk on Pho. In my quest for more food knowledge, I eagerly signed up for another talk on Chocolate (An Enlightened Age: Chocolate in the 18th Century), and managed to tempt 8 other friends and family along.

Vincent Bourdin, the regional pastry consultant of Valrhona, spoke about how chocolate moved across the seas, how it evolved from a drink into a food, and how chocolate had been deeply intertwined in societal changes.

It was rather amusing when he whipped out a long stick to point to parts of the map in question. Very old-school and somewhat sexy, especially with his thick, black-rimmed glasses and tres strong French accent.

Things started getting sweet when some hot chocolate was served. Chef Bourdin had used a recipe that he felt best reflected the way it was made in the 18th century, which meant infusing cinnamon, pepper, cloves and adding orange blossom water to melted chocolate and just a touch of sugar.

What resulted was a strong, spicy hot chocolate, not like anything I had ever tried before. If you can imagine the heady, earthy chai tea meeting and falling in love with deep, rich and slightly bitter hot chocolate, Chef Bourdin's version of hot chocolate would be their love child.

While my friends and family finished their portions down to the last drop, even going back for second servings after the talk, it wasn't popular with everyone. My neighbour hardly touched his and offered his share to me, which I regret not taking now.

These talks have been pretty fun, and at merely $10-$25 per session, it's really a steal especially because of the big names that have been pulled in to conduct these talks. It shouldn't be surprising then, that a couple of my friends and I have already signed up for an upcoming one where we'll be eating out way through Austrian desserts. Sounds like pure bliss!

And now at a street near you!

There are days when all you want is a big bowl of meepok, extra chilli, extra black vinegar. There are days when you know you wouldn't make it through the day if you don't get your hands on some chocolate fudge cake within the next half hour. And then there are those days when you're really looking forward to winding down the day with a big, huge bowl of crisp leafy salad tossed in some ultra-light but tasty dressing. Something 'light, plentiful and delicious'.

I had been searching for this elusive bowl of salad, a bowl that would be substantial enough to be an entire meal in itself. But more often than not, the salads I found were tiny little pretentious fistfuls placed in the middle of a big plate. In the worst of occasions, they were not well-dressed having been tossed in some oil-based dressing when the salad had not been completely dry, causing the dressing to slip off callously.

By sheer accident however, I chanced upon the ONE. I was with a couple of friends for some drinks after work one day and wasn't in the mood for the usual pub grub of ribs, sausages or mash. So I ordered a healthy sounding Soba Noodle Salad despite the seemingly hefty price tag on it. It arrived with great aplomb, and upon the first bite convinced me to willingly part with every dollar I forked out for the bill.

Soba Noodle Salad Takeaway

Such a contradiction of worlds, to have found such a fantastic bowl of salad in Brewerkz of all places. Before then, I would never have stepped into it because of the wanna-be vibe I got just from itz name. But I've been a faithful customer, bringing groups of friends there for 'drinks', however only ordering salad and water. Sure, I felt a little out of place, but it's that good. Even my mum raves about it now.

I was over the moon when I found out Brewerkz opened another outlet along Bukit Timah Road. Among the other outlets, this is its smallest, which explains a more limited menu. But all the westies would be happy to know that the Soba Noodle Salad is on the menu.

Lately, I discovered a couple of new, wonderful eateries near my home in the western part of Singapore. One of which has been blogged about by CH recently, that I've become a regular at together with my family. It's always nice to know that the ride home after dinner is a mere 5 minutes away, and not a 10-minute-walk-to-the-carpark-then-a-30-minute-drive away. More good news to come for all the westies out there!

Update (May): I visited the Bukit Timah outlet recently and ordered what else but the soba noodle salad, but was disappointed by the portion and the dressing that lacked oomph. I hope it's a teething issue!