Attempting to Bake with Blueberries

A lovely blueberry, almond and lemon cake

After you have filled an 8L bucket with blueberries, what do you do with them?

The first thing I did when I went home was to grab them by the handful and quickly pick out any stems or leaves before putting the berries in plastic bags and freezing them. It's best not to wash the blueberries before freezing because it with wash away the natural protective coating, causing them to deteriorate faster.

At the bottom of the bucket I found three small spiders we had carried 27km away from their home! I humanely left them on our patio ledge...

Then with a bag of blueberries I had stored in the refrigerator I attempted to make blueberry muffins. 

The recipe was pretty straight forward, but somehow I managed to bungle it and ended up with muffins that tasted good, but were very dense, thankfully not as hard as a rock. 

Unfortunately they were not fluffy at all. I had added baking powder, perhaps not enough milk... 

Another factor is possibly not mixing the butter enough to incorporate more air.

I thought it was strange the recipe had called for mixing the berries in some of the flour mixture, but it turns out this is correct; it's so that the blueberries don't all sink to the bottom.

Today I decided to try another recipe, a blueberry, almond and lemon cake by British chef, restaurateur and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi. I even watched the New York Times video of him making it so that I would not get it wrong this time.

I made sure the butter was room temperature and mixed it with lemon zest, sugar, vanilla extract and three eggs before adding the dry ingredients of flour, almond flour, baking powder and salt. 

The batter came together nicely and added almost all the blueberries before putting the mixture in a loaf pan lined with parchment paper that was covered with butter. 

It was in the oven for 15 minutes, then the rest of the blueberries were added on top (so that they didn't all sink to the bottom) and then it was baking for another 35 minutes.

The end result?

The loaf was very fluffy in the middle, had a wonderful lemony taste, not too sweet, and the edges crisped up a bit thanks to the almond flour. The only fault was putting it in a bigger loaf pan; will put it in a smaller one next time for more height.

I managed to redeem myself!

After taking a bite, my father asks, "Why didn't you make two loaves?"

Making Citrus Almond Cookies

Bright, lemony almond cookies that are easy to make

My visiting relatives have taught me how to make a few delicious things in the kitchen, mostly sweets!

The first one was quite easy, citrus almond cookies that are bright in flavour and look pretty with icing sugar sprinkled on top.

Dough sprinkled with icing sugar

The ingredients include grated lemon rind, sugar, olive oil, almond flour, eggs and flour that are mixed together.

A pro tip is to get a melon baller to portion out the dough as equally as possible, but also to shape them as round as possible.

Before they are put in the oven, icing sugar is sprinkled on top.

After baking for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, they are done! The end result are a firm exterior and soft interior with a lemony taste.

Ingredients:

Grated rind of 1 lemon or 1 orange

1 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup olive oil

2 lightly whisked eggs

2 tablespoons lemon juice/orange juice

2 cups almond meal

1 cup plain flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

 

First Attempt at NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies

Big chunky chocolate chip cookies for the holidays

Happy New Year and wishing everyone all the best for 2026!

Just before the Christmas holidays I finally got off my butt and made some cookies that turned out pretty well.

The New York Times has several chocolate chip cookie recipes, but this one has gone viral. Check out the video here.

I read the recipe several times, bought the semi-sweet chocolate discs and went to work.

It calls for bread flour and cake flour, but I read in the comments that all-purpose flour worked well too. I found cake flour in our pantry so I used it and all-purpose flour.

Perhaps I didn't wait long enough for the unsalted butter to be at room temperature, but it seemed to be well combined in the mixer.

I cut a lot of the sugar, both light brown and granulated, and in the end the dough yielded 19 golf ball-sized dough balls that I froze for 24 hours before baking my first batch of a dozen cookies.

Again I didn't defrost them completely before putting them in the oven, so they ended up like big mounds instead of lying flat. But they were cooked through and I lightly drizzled sea salt on top of the cookies as soon as they came out of the oven.

The end result was a buttery, slightly flaky cookie that had a lot of rich chocolate without the cloying sweetness. 

I gave them to a friend from Singapore who was visiting and her son loved the chunky cookies!

Then I tried defrosting another batch of the ball-shaped dough a bit longer before baking them, but they still turned out round and chunky with slightly melted chocolate discs.

So I don't know why they ended up like that, perhaps the discs were too big? Or I over mixed the flour? 

Nevertheless they were still happily eaten by others so they are worth trying to make again.

Picture of the Day: Canele

Caneles are the Mt Everest of pastry baking

Caneles. They are a small slightly sweet treat made from vanilla, rum, egg, flour, butter and sugar. They are mixed together, then the batter is left to rest for a few days in the refrigerator for the flour to fully absorb the ingredients before it is poured into small, round copper molds and baked.

The end result is a deep brown colour on the outside, and a knife should be able to make a pretty clean cut, revealing a bubble interior that is almost like custard, slightly soft, yellow and have a hint of alcohol.

Apparently making caneles is not easy -- one food blogger gave the analogy that if making panettone is the Mt Everest of baking, then making caneles is the Mt Everest of pastry baking.

The word canele means "fluted", and this pastry dates back to sometime between the 15th and 18th centuries in Bordeaux, France. Back then winemakers used egg whites to clarify their wine, and the leftover egg yolks giving to nuns to feed impoverished children, while other yolks were used to make caneles.

About a month ago, a new bakery opened in Vancouver called Tona and the caneles there are impressive.

The exterior is slightly crunchy thanks to the caramelised, slightly sweet exterior, while the inside is a fantastic contrast that is not pillowy soft, but rather a moist softness with hints of vanilla and rum, making the taste and texture so complex and beguiling.

While they're a bit expensive at C$4.50 each at Tona, a lot of skill and technique is involved in making these, and the caneles here are irresistible!

First Impressions of Hong Kong Two Years Later

Nice to be back walking along the promenade again

Woke up at 4am this morning with jet lag and couldn't get back to sleep until around 6am for another two hours. It took me a while to get organised but I finally got out the door and on a whim took the tram going west from Sai Wan Ho.

The streets were much quieter because it was Good Friday, and many people have left for the long weekend. By the time the tram reached Causeway Bay it was 11.15am and I realised Din Tai Fung was there. Vancouver is set to have one towards the end of this year, so I decided to have my dumpling fix.

Xiaolongbao looks a bit smaller at Din Tai Fung

When I got there the shutter was still down, but staff were busy in the kitchen wrapping dumplings. The restaurant actually opened before 11.30am and there were only a handful of us waiting to get the first seats.

As I perused the menu I was shocked that the prices had gone up, and not only that when the food arrived, the dumplings and other dishes looked smaller. Shrinkflation, folks. The food was still good, but for one person it cost HK$230 for pork dumplings, vegetarian dumplings and an appetiser of seaweed and beansprouts with a generous drizzle of sesame oil.

Nearby was Sogo and even though it was lunchtime it was not packed with shoppers despite encouraging its members to collect five times the points on certain products. I managed to score 20 percent off on swimming caps because I bought two.

The next stop was to see Bakehouse, a popular bakery that had opened there after I left. It was completely packed with a queue of people waiting patiently to snap up sourdough egg tarts, pastries, cookies and coffee. Amazing.

Bakehouse doing a bustling business

I then headed to Sheung Wan to buy ferry tickets to Macau in a few days. There were massive lines at TurboJet (the red ferry), while the one for Cotai (blue) was not too bad. Service was brisk with three people servicing counters for tickets to Macau as well as China. 

There weren't as many mainlanders in the city, though today is Friday. My friend and I saw a group of young people wearing the same cap with a small Winnie the Pooh stuffie on it! How ironic.

She took me to a bookshop called Mount Zero in Tai Ping Shan that will be closing at the end of the month. It has been accused by the authorities for several minor violations, including illegally occupying a space outside the shop. It's a tiny place and there were lots of people standing in front or trying to get inside to take a look. 

After that we made our trek east, walking through Central, then Admiralty towards Tamar where there were a lot of people waiting to look at... glowing eggs. It's an exhibition put on by Team Lab from Japan. There are giant eggs that you can touch and apparently make sounds and these things go all the way down the grass at Tamar into the water too. We had to fight the crowds to get to the waterfront.

Mount Zero bookstore closing soon

Almost two hours later we made it to Fortress Hill and enjoyed a Japanese meal that included grilled fugu or puffer fish, and yakitori skewers of beef, chicken, mushrooms, scallops, shishito peppers, and sweet potato, and boiled edamame washed down with sake.

Hopefully that long walk will keep jet lag at bay!

Picture of the Day: Rice Bowls Cool Chiffon Cake

Rice bowls are the perfect way to cool chiffon cakes

The other day we made a chiffon cake and I carefully separated the egg whites from the yolks, and afterwards my mother whipped the egg whites to a white foam, while I used a hand blender to mix the yolks with flour, sugar, and vanilla extract.

She then carefully folded the egg white foam into the custard mixture to make sure it was blended without stirring it, and then we poured it into the chiffon cake mold. My mother was worried it was too runny and that it seemed flatter than previous ones we'd made.

Oh well -- we put it in the oven and then hoped it would rise.

The cake rose way above the cone in the middle!

And it did! Well past the cone in the middle!

The next dilemma was wondering how we would cool the cake upside down without damaging the top of the cake.

My solution? Using Chinese rice bowls upside down to hold the prongs higher and it worked brilliantly. 

Several hours later the cake shrank a bit, but now I've found another use for rice bowls when baking! 

Picture of the Day: Oatmeal Cookies

These oatmeal cookies are vegan and only use four ingredients

One thing I couldn't do in Hong Kong was baking so now it's nice to have access to a large oven and make something from scratch.

Scrolling through Instagram I'm seeing more short cooking videos and they post the recipe too. 

The one I saw the other day was for oatmeal cookies -- using just four ingredients: oatmeal, chocolate chips, peanut butter and bananas.

After buying a bag of chocolate chips, I tried out this recipe.

Just before putting the cookie dough into oven

It's simple enough -- mashing up two bananas (the more ripe the better), and adding a quarter-cup of peanut butter, a quarter-cup of dark chocolate chips, and one and a half cups of oatmeal.

After I mixed them thoroughly together, I scooped the dough onto the baking sheet, making 12 cookies. I flattened them a bit and then baked them for 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

When my timer went off, the cookies seemed very soft and baked them for another five minutes, but they hadn't changed much in terms of firmness and turned off the heat and left them there.

They were still soft, but they were already golden brown so they should be done.

Nevertheless they taste delicious. You can taste all the ingredients, and not one overpowers the other.