Last day of my holiday today, and I am testing my new mixer (which I bought after breaking my electric whisk… 😖😖) Sometimes, you really do just feel an urge to bake something you’ve been craving, and today, cheesecake was my choice.
I opted for a Japanese soufflé cheesecake, which is a very light baked cheesecake that has a fluffy texture of a soufflé. It is traditionally baked in a bain-marie. When I visited Japan many years ago, this was one of those sweet treats I would actively look for, and I once had what I thought was the best cheesecake of my lifetime lol. 😋
I chose to top mine with fruits to add some acidity and freshness to the cake, but it’s just as good to eat as a plain cake! 👍
Japanese Soufflé Cheesecake
Quantity: 1 cake
Ingredients:
200g cream cheese
3 eggs, separated
90g caster sugar
30g cornflour
50g milk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
2. Beat the cream cheese until light and creamy.
3. Add the yolks, half of the sugar, cornflour, milk, lemon juice and salt to the cream cheese. Fold gently until well combined.
4. Use an electric whisk to whisk the egg white. Add the remaining sugar a little a time as you are whisking. Whisk until white egg is stiff.
5. Fold the egg white gently into the cream cheese mixture until well combined.
6. Line your cake tin with baking parchment and secure with paper clips. Pour your cake mixture into the tin.
7. Place the cake on a tray filled with hot water and bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden and well-risen.
8. Cool and remove baking parchment before serving.
Hurray to me for finally being able to catch a break from work! 🙌🙌 For my week off, not only my mum is visiting me right now in London, but we were also able to make a city getaway trip to Bristol and Bath for the past three days and two nights.
Bristol and Bath are major tourist’s attractions in the UK, the latter especially for its historical significance. I actually visited both cities once before around two years ago, so this time was more of an opportunity for my mum to visit herself! 😛 However, why would I deny the offer of a getaway trip haha? 😂😂
The City of Bristol Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, where we stayed
Bristol was apparently the hometown of Banksy. Now, I got to confess I actually don’t know much about Banksy’s works, but street art is definitely a big part of the city wherever you wander.
I don’t know if any of these is by Banksy, but they sure do look amazing! ❤️
Our first stop for arrival was at Little Chinatown (sticking well and truly to our Asian roots lol…) The food wasn’t bad at all, but we did end up waiting for over half an hour before we were fed after they confused our orders with another table… 😡☹️ (and my mum was definitely not a happy woman by that point haha! 😅)
Food at Little ChinatownZa Za Bazaar
After the very filling lunch, we decided to go back to rest in the hotel room. (Our unlucky streak though continued when we went back to the hotel… The reception checked us into the wrong room TWICE! 😓) Having then recovered slightly from the food coma after a quick lap, we went for a stroll by the sunset 🌅 around the Bristol harbourside and had dinner in Za Za Bazaar, an international food buffet restaurant. Turned out to be a big mistake because we were both beyond stuffed afterwards! 🤢
On the second day, we decided to take the train from Bristol to Bath. It was a very short journey between the two cities, lasting just under 10 minutes! 🚂 The biggest two attractions in Bath are the Roman Baths and the Thermae Bath Spa (how could one not wonder where the name of the city came from lol!), but my mum was uninterested in either, so we decided to simply stroll around the city… 😗 (I have been to both places in my last visit and the Thermae Bath Spa was right up my street with their rooftop pool! 🏊♂️ The Roman Baths was nice to see for its history though with a very hefty ticket price…)
Outside the Roman Baths
The other noticeable thing in Bath was its many pastry shops selling the traditional Cornish pasties. However, it seemed all the shops label their own Cornish pasties as ‘award winning’ or ‘best’, which made me sceptical about who to believe. 😅 Nonetheless, we did manage to sit down in one and had a taste of their Cornish pasty, but ended up falling in love instead with their Cornish pudding (which tasted like a custard-rich bread pudding to me. 😋)
The Cornish pudding on the right was absolutely delicious! 😍😍
Afterwards, we decided to head to the famous Pulteney Bridge by the river, bathing ourselves in the feelings of autumn. 🍂🍂
On Pulteney BridgeSecret Passage by the Bridge! Bingo! By Pulteney BridgeBeautiful! ❤️❤️A Walk in the Fall… 🍁🍁
And we decided to have one quick meal at a spicy noodle bar before jumping back onto the train back to Bristol! It was delicious! 😋😋
Beef Tripe Salad (top) and Stir-Fried Rice Noodles with Roasted Duck (bottom)
Our hotel stay came with a free use of the swimming pool and it was perfect to make up for my lack of spa time in Bath! 😁 (The odd thing was that the hotel’s fitness centre was located in a different building next door, so I needed to walk out the hotel’s entrance, cross the street with my towel and sandals and back lol.) I swear I could doze off there just by lying on the bench lol 😴😂 (Meanwhile, my mum was sound asleep in the hotel room haha! 💤 💤)
Relaxing by the pool 😎😎 (There was also a jacuzzi!)
As for dinner that day, we kept it easy and dined in the hotel’s restaurant before heading out and bought a bunch of ice creams back to the room! (My excuse- it was discounted in the supermarket! 😜)
Dining in the hotel Ice Cream Feast! ❤️❤️
We didn’t have much time on our final day in Bristol (as our bus was scheduled for the early afternoon), but we did manage to visit the university area and catch a good valued Italian lunch at Sergio’s before heading back to London! 🚌 (We didn’t quite manage to finish so we took the pasta away with us haha! 😂😂)
After quite an intense week, I really do feel I need a breather every now and then. Weather had been awful here in London ⛈⛈☔️, so curling under the cover at home have been the best policy in the past week. (Plus I don’t have much energy left to go outside… 😛) Thereby, I was lucky to catch a break last Sunday (both from the weather and work lol) and took a stroll around London in the soothing temperature of the fall.
One of my favourite things about living in this big city is that every time I took a new turn down the road, I always made new discoveries that continued to surprise me. This was very much the case when I decided (quite out of the blue) to take the tube to Vauxhall and stroll along the river from that direction. While aimlessly looking at the architecture (and taking random pictures lol 📸 ), I stumbled across Tate Britain and later passed by the Imperial War Museum by coincidences. I always really enjoyed visiting galleries and museums so it really was a bonus in my little adventure.
Beautiful painting inside Tate Britain ❤️I don’t know what you think, but I quite like this painting! 😂😂Look at those giant cannons!! (No puns intended lol 😜)Do you take a walk around your city too?
Got to say I was starving by the time I finished walking lol! 😂
So many roads that still had never been walked upon before. So many new adventures ahead. Can’t wait for the next time already! 😄 Why don’t you have a little adventure in your area too? You never know what it lays ahead! 😉
Winter has most certainly descended here in London now, and I am still getting used to waking up and walking to work in the cold. (Summer seems such a far dream now lol.👋) Nonetheless, my week began on a high after celebrating my birthday in the weekend. (Thank you for all of you who commented and liked my birthday post. ❤️❤️) But, honestly, the high did hit some bumps this week, but when is life truly a smooth sailing?
After work today, I was definitely craving for a hearty dinner and the first thing that came to my mind was a good, old hot pot. A hot pot is a Chinese cooking method where individuals cook raw ingredients such as meat and vegetables in a simmering pot of broth. It is a very prominent thing in family gatherings, and I grew up being used to my family surrounding a hot pot every winter.
The ingredients on the conveyor beltAll set!
My favourite hot pot place in London is a restaurant called Shuang Shuang in Chinatown (located above the ramen shop that I visited a couple of weeks ago). The restaurant is different to many traditional hot pot places in that every customers has one pot to themselves, instead of sharing one. And the raw ingredients are transported around through a conveyor belt, where the customers can pick up their selections like in a sushi bar. Not going to lie, initially I was quite sceptical the first time I visited the restaurant, but now this place has become one of my favourites in town. 😋
Mixing a dipping sauce is my favourite thing to do in every hot pot lol 😂 The House prawn ball – which is my favourite thing to order here.😋😋😋
A standard procedure of mine every hot pot is to create my own dipping sauce. My favourite is a hefty amount of sesame sauce topped with lots of spring onions and coriander, with a bit of chilli sauce. For me, a good dipping sauce is always the soul of a delicious hot pot! ❤️ And I did get carried away picking lots of food from the conveyor belt lol.
But I wont’t fall to a food coma yet until I finished the evening with my favourite ice creams. 😋😘
Egg Custard Tart and Strawberry Pocky Stick Ice Creams
Another year, another chapter of my life begins. They said that ‘the older you get, the wiser you are.’ Though I don’t think this phrase applies entirely to me, life can only go upwards and onwards! 👍👍 It was so much fun celebrating with some of my closest friends. And for the other special people in my life that weren’t able to make it today, I am always grateful for your constant presence around me. Sometimes, I do feel like I am not thankfully enough for what I have right now and just constantly want more. But, truly simplicity is the best, and what I have right now is really enough for me.
As for the birthday cake, I was very inspired to make a Devil’s food cake after stumbling across a video by Nigella Lawson one night. (You can see the link here👉 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tcZSTF4L0bw) Gooey, moist and rich. It is definitely one for any chocolate lovers. (And even better when served with a glass of Sangria! 🍷 You must excuse me as I was still quite tipsy whilst typing this post… 😂😂)
I added some wafer paper feathers, desiccated coconut and white chocolate stars to play along the light and dark theme of the cake, but you can have it just as simple as Nigella would and it would taste just as ‘heavenly’ as she described. ❤️❤️
As the weather turns chilly this week and my works continue to pile on, baking really allows me to take a step back and relax from the stress. Having said that, despite working through the weekends in the past weeks, I felt like I am starting to enjoy my job again. Perhaps is a turning point for me? (But we shall wait and see about that lol.)
Yesterday, I baked some traybakes for Free Cakes for Kids Hackney (whilst also sneaked our for a nice Indian supper in between haha). It’s a charity I’ve been working with for a couple of months now, and honestly what’s better than sharing the joy of your bakes than with someone else? 🙂 (And to be fair, it just gives me an excuse to temporarily drop my work and do something else lol.)
It is a bit later than it should be, but I would like to wish everyone a happy mid-autumn festival! 👏👏🎉🎉🎉 The mid-autumn festival is a Chinese festival that takes place during a full moon night somewhere between mid September to early October (due to the differences between the modern calendar and the Chinese lunar calendar). On this day, people celebrate the festival by hanging lanterns and eating a pastry called the moon cake. I have so many fond memories celebrating this festival with my family back when I was a child growing up in Hong Kong, so there was definitely a feeling of nostalgia when I dropped by Chinatown earlier today after leaving work.
Lanterns (top) and moon cakes (bottom)
Back then, my family and I would hang different lanterns around our house during the night. And being a child back then, I wasn’t fond of the traditional-styled lanterns, so would always end up picking all the cartoony or animated ones. 😅😅 (Looking back, it probably felt more like a mini comic-con than mid-autumn festival lol…) I remember one particular year when my family and I gathered around at the rooftop of our house and watched the full moon while surrounded by the lights of these lanterns. It was definitely a time in my life that I miss.
Whilst in Chinatown, I bought a packet of moon cakes from a Chinese bakery. Moon cake is a sweet pastry traditionally filled by lotus seed paste and salted duck egg yolks. This one I got though was not technically traditional as it lacked the salted yolks (which to be fair I was never a huge fan of anyway so there’s no love lost haha…😅) and it was sesame-flavoured. Nonetheless, a bite of this moon cake really takes me back to those times. I really wish sometimes I can just be a child forever. Do you feel the same?
Fancy a sweet treat to prepare yourself for a busy week? These wacky triple chocolate muffins have a melted chocolate centre and topped with a wafer feather. Sometimes it’s just fun to not follow any rules and let your imagination run wild. (Too be honest, I am still not sure about the way they look lol 😂😂)
For me, there is nothing more fun and relaxing than some late night baking on a Friday/Saturday night (when there is obviously no work the next day!) It’s only during these times I can forget about my anxieties over my insomnia and actually enjoy it. The freedom to do anything as the rest of the world is sound asleep… there is something strangely satisfying about that to me. Anyone else feel the same? Would love to hear from all the all-nighters out there! 😂🦉🦉
Triple Chocolate Muffins
Quantity: 4 muffins
Ingredients:
105g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g unsalted butter, softened
20g cocoa powder
50g caster sugar
1 medium egg
63g milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 pieces of dark chocolate
White chocolate, chopped
Wafer paper
Method:
1. Mix the sifted flour and baking powder together in a mixing bowl.
2. Rub butter into the flour mixture until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Sieve in the cocoa powder and add in the sugar. Stir to mix.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the egg, milk and vanilla extract together. Add the wet mixture to the dry flour mixture and stir until well-combined to achieve a lumpy and slightly wet mixture.
5. Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
6. Line a muffin tin with paper cases and spoon the batter evenly between them. Fill the cases up half way, and place the piece of dark chocolate into the centre. Cover up with more cake batter and place the white chocolate on the top.
7. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes, or until well-risen and firm. Test if the muffins are fully baked by inserting a skewer just slightly off the centre, and it should come out completely clean. Once they are ready, place them on a wire rack to cool.
8. Cut out the wafer paper into feather shapes using scissors and insert into the muffins to finish.
Having been swamped by work this week, I, like a lot of people, can find it difficult to truly relax and separate myself from the stress and business of work life. This also unfortunately kept me away from blogging in the past week, but I am determined to hopefully balance between two and continue to update here whenever I can. 💪 Honestly, this Friday feeling could not have come sooner! 😝
For me, autumn is the season of beginnings. Whether starting a new school, new college or new job, this time of year signifies the turning of a fresh page in many people’s chapters. As the weather becomes chillier after the long heat wave that was last month, I always craved for something warm and hearty. And, for me, no other food is better than a proper bowl of Japanese ramen in that retrospective. 😋
Tonkatsu Ramen
It’s a short and sweet moment of comfort which we all need in this busy time. And, speaking of sweet, I also dropped by to my favourite ice cream shop in London. 😉 (I wrote a post about the place months ago which you can see here👉 https://tangosbaking.home.blog/2019/05/29/its-never-too-cold-for-ice-cream/) If you’re looking for some unique, new or Asian-inspired ice cream flavours, do pay this place a visit if you happen to be in London!I promise you would not be disappointed! 😁
Lychee-Raspberry Sorbet and Sweetcorn Ice Cream
As I enjoy every spoonful of my sweet treat in the bright street of Central London, I wish you all the best in the weeks to come! 😉
Time really does fly when you’re having fun! Before long, my holiday is soon coming to an end and busy life will once again take over. It’s funny though that for my last weekend, I don’t feel as proactive in going outside as much as I thought I would, and rather I seem to prefer spending more time chilling at home. (Though it was great last night drinking with some old uni friends in Soho and then wandered into a late-night restaurant in Chinatown whilst tipsy. 😂😂)
With work looming around the corner, I have been trying my best to put the stress at the back of my mind by doing what I love most– and that’s baking of course! If you had somehow read my posts earlier this month, you would see that I went on a bread-making spree. Continuing this, I decided to make ciabatta for the first time yesterday. I find that there is something very unique about bread that is very stress-relieving. Unlike cake and pastry, bread needs time to be good. Whilst the impatient side of me may sometimes find that unbearable, I also found that oddly relaxing. Sitting around and lying down whilst waiting for the bread to slowly prove and rise… it’s like telling me, ‘What’s the point of rushing in life? Let’s just take the time to savour every moment that comes along…’ And that’s what I am going to do now, it’s sit and relax, and enjoy the now. 🙂
This recipe is found in ‘How To Make Bread’ by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. (I also added some dried herbs in it to spice things up! 😉)
Ciabatta
Quantity: 2 ciabatta
Ingredients:
200g / 1½ cups white strong/bread flour
4g / ¾ tsp salt
1g / ¼ tsp dried/active dry yeast
150g / ⅔ cup warm water
50g / 3 tbsp olive oil
Method:
1. Mix the flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
2. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add to the flour mixture.
3. Mix the mixtures together with a wooden spoon to form a fairly sticky dough.
4. Place about one third of the olive oil in a separate mixing bowl. Transfer the dough over.
5. Cover and let the dough rest for 1 hour. After the 1 hour, gently fold the dough twice and cover again.
6. Repeat step 5 for three more times. Add a little olive oil before resting each time so that the dough does not stick too much to the bottom of the bowl. By the end, the dough should be well-risen and bubbly.
7. Transfer the dough to a floured surface. Be gentle to avoid damaging the air bubbles. Divide it into two equal portions.
8. Shape the dough into a rough, slipper shape. Roll in flour and place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment.
9. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 240C/475F/Gas 9.
10. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown and it makes a hollow sound when tapped at the bottom. (You do not need a cupful of water to create steam in the oven as the ciabatta dough is moist enough to create steam on its own.) When ready, set on a wire rack to cool.
Tango's Baking 