My favourite recipes

I have something to confess. Sometimes, my desserts taste bad. BAD. Bad, in an Excuse-me-while-I-go-to-the-toilet-and-rinse-my-mouth-out kind of way. Still, I do put a picture up on Facebook, where it sits there looking pretty and accumulating Likes.

For absolutely no reason at all, (don't sue!), this is my version of Brad Spence's Salted Butter Semifreddo, 

It... looks pretty decent doesn't it? Ice cream resting on a bed of crunchy granola, surrounded by fresh strawberries and topped with an almond.

Still, it haunts me as The Most Disgusting Thing I Have Ever Tasted. A standard vanilla ice cream recipe goes like this: cream, eggs, sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. This recipe is just like that, except substitute the teaspoon of vanilla extract for a block of butter.

And yes, that mixture tastes exactly like how you'd imagine it would taste like. Believe me.

I went back to the recipe and scrolled all the way down to the comments. Every Single One was glowing and positive. In fact, the tagline of the post boasted "How to eat salted butter in a socially-acceptable fashion." Which was sort of a warning shot, I guess. What was I thinking?

A couple of days later, when my friend came over to my place, I gave her a bite of the semifreddo just to get a second opinion. No words were necessary; the look of disgust showed plenty. And whatever thoughts that were left in her mind were better left unsaid, for the sake of our friendship. Still, four months had passed and I don't think she ever quite got over the fact that I tried feeding her a frozen mixture of butter and heavy cream.




Damnit! If you can't trust the Internet, then who can you trust?

But this post isn't about my kitchen failures (I'm pretty sure I need more word space in that post, for one thing.) Quite the opposite. This is a post about my favourite recipes. I have tried many recipes over the years. Out of all those, there are only some which I would consider making again, and perhaps even fewer that I like to make over and over (or rather, those that my sister tells me that I should make.) And the rest? They’re a waste of effort, or my WOEs.

It's Flavours per Calorie. A good chocolate cake has the same amount of calories as a bad one. As my sister tells me, why waste so much time and effort and money (and her calories!) on making a mediocre one if she can buy one outside that tastes better?

She left the kitchen soon after, presumably off to pop this child's balloons. Original image here.

Because sharing, as they say, is caring, I’ve collated some of my favourite recipes right here. If I have a baking competition, here are the ones I’ll be submitting from.

I’ll be adding the rest of the links to the recipes soon, along with some tips for the recipes.

1) Chocolate Orbit Cake. With just four ingredients, it is also renowned as being impossible to mess up (the working title was Chocolate Idiot Cake), it nevertheless makes an impressive dessert, especially when paired with a sauce like vanilla crème anglaise. While other people are slavishly sifting flour and beating egg whites until the point of just right, you’ll have your feet up and polishing your nails within 30 minutes into the competition. The caveat though, is to use a good chocolate. Leave your Cadbury Old Gold and Nestle Plaistowe on the shelf, and reach for one of the more recommended brands 

2) Tiramisu

3) Chez Panisse’s Almond Tart

4) Chocolate Molten Lava Cake

5) Chocolate pots de crème.

6) Gingerbread House. This recipe makes strong, sturdy biscuits that holds up any and all decorations. Not strictly a dessert though, but I couldn't resist. Edible, but in the sense that cardboard boxes are also edible. Not recommended though.