The Sugar Bar » Easter

Tea at Blenheim Palace

diva — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:21:16 +0000

I was in Oxfordshire since last weekend soaking up some good ol’ countryside. If the weather had been a little less harsh and a little more forgiving, I think I’d have more pictures to share. Frankly speaking, however, I was just a tad bit lazy. Knowing this was probably the only ‘break’ or ‘holiday’ I was gonna get for about another 2 months, I wanted to be as lazy as I could and to enjoy myself thoroughly without having to frustrate physical movement with camera-slung-around-neck or camera-held-tight-in-both-hands. Getting away from any sort of technology was very refreshing as well. I admit I was still visibly active on Twitter but my Blackberry got minimal usage. The beloved laptop was left back home in London, the iPod got squished into a corner of my bag very often saved for used sweet wrappers and crushed receipts hardly given a second thought. And believe it or not, I barely touched my camera. It was food shoveled into mouth (or if it was busy chomping, it was engaged in very precious conversation with H) before the clicking of shutters. It may not have been the vacation of a lifetime but the sense of peace and zen, and the joy I had in reuniting with a friend who’s practically my soulmate would’ve beaten any holiday package hands down.

In the span of 5 days, we covered much ground. We (or rather I) woke up to beautiful breakfast spreads, coffee-ed at our much loved Morton’s and lunched at Maison Blanc where I missed the man himself by literally 30 minutes! The awesome thing was that H got speak to the man in all his glorious French-accented English. H’s mum got his book autographed. And wait for it, our dear Raymond Blanc even gave her an emergency number to ring lest she needed his help in the kitchen! Now if only I’d booked the earlier train, I might’ve had the chance to witness this most delightful affair.

I didn’t mope about for long as the fresh breads and grassy flavoured olive oil dip at Quod wiped my brain of any other thoughts. Mind became blank, and mouth awash with drool. A bit like a blank canvas ready for painting, I was starving and eager to begin my meal. Two glasses of crisp white and a spankingly good duck confit with this scrumptious orange-laced sauce.

You might already know we did some Easter baking. H has two ovens. I have zero at the moment. Or rather, I’ve one but it’s half a world away and I have no hopes of turning this microwave/grill crap that’s lodged into my kitchen wall into something fairly able to churn out cakes and cookies. If you’re presented with the opportunity, pounce on it. And so I did. But a holiday’s all about being decadent. Decadent to the point where you’re not even making the effort. So of course we ate more sweet treats and had tea. And whereabouts? At Blenheim Palace. Yes, where Winston Churchill was born. And where the house (as it used to be called, rather than ‘palace’) was later refurnished in the style of Versailles.

If you’re wondering, no we didn’t have afternoon tea at The Orangery or The Indian Room. The Water Terrace Café, a self-service cosy little one, was good enough for us. And when I say good, I really mean good. Cakes, scones, biscuits all homemade and generously portioned; tasting like bits of heaven and not factory-produced blocks of sugar and shortening. Really helps that the hot drinks are served in large cups (with a saucer) so you feel like you get your money’s worth and enough hot liquid to warm up your soul and fight that bone-chilling damp cold. No kidding. The weather that day was so awful. It did not help that I was wearing ankle cut offs and low-riding little loafers. Where was my performance gear when I needed it!

Nevertheless, Blenheim Palace was enjoyable and this little jewel of a café was like spotting a glowing hearth of a little cottage deep in a cold, dark, unforgiving forest. I can totally say I ate well, rested well and indulged up to Easter weekend. I’m back in the big smoke fighting the tube crowds, uneven cobblestone and sordid transport prices, with only M&S speckled eggs to keep my poor heart settled and at peace.

Happy Easter Sunday everyone.

Blenheim Palace
Woodstock
Oxfordshire
England
OX20 1PP

Red Champagne Lollipops

diva — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:27:00 +0000

When I was a kid, Chupa Chups lollipops were like crack for me (and I’m not saying a child on crack is the best thing, or actually legal but I’m just saying..). The banana chocolate combo was a little sickly but I totally heart-ed it. And the strawberry ones were always so satisfying. Then in high school, it was suddenly really cool and fashionable to have a lollipop in the mouth about 24/7. You didn’t really need to suck on it. Just have it there. Have it exist in your mouth = instant popularity. It doesn’t quite work that way now unfortunately. But lollipops sure do bring me lots of joy just looking at it or giving them away.

I meant to make lollipops along with champagne jam for Meeta’s Monthly Mingle but totally missed the deadline having had to deal with life and some lollipop failure last week. Meeta celebrated her 609th post (congratulations!) and 4 successful years of her blog with the very elegant and regal queen of wines – champagne. I was so psyched for this! When I saw her MM tweet, my online shopping for candy making stuff began and it was all quick quick chop chop efficiency. Sadly enough, I haven’t been that efficient in meeting the deadline.

Thankfully, Meeta’s been too kind to wait for my entry and so here’s my contribution. It also Easter break and time for Easter sweeties. All the more reason to try again in hopes that I can spread some sugary joy to others. My lollies weren’t perfect but they were lollipops nonetheless and still a great improvement from the ones before. Only one was quite as it was meant to be from the butterfly mold but I was elated enough that they were unmolding fine from having greased the molds very generously. Of course, simply greasing a baking parchment to form round lollipops is and would’ve been dead easy if I’d done that last week right from that start. Now why didn’t I do that last week to save me all the post-candymaking failure depression? Well, we live and learn. That seems to be my motto of late!

I couldn’t decide at first between my champagne jam or champagne lollipops since the latter is sorta a cheat, using champagne oil instead of the real bubbly to flavour the hard candy. I finally opted for the latter. The jam can wait when juicier summer berries start hitting the shops. She says. Let’s hope I stay true to my word and don’t get carried away by something else. I’m just too fickle.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m gonna sit back, relax, and nurse my sorethroat. In the meantime, these lollies are gonna make nice little Easter gifts! Happy Easter folks.

Red Champagne Lollipops
Recipe adapted from She Simmers’ recipe here

Generously grease with sunflower oil lollipop molds. If making round lollipops without molds, prepare baking parchment across flat surface or cookie tray, secure it down and grease with oil.

Combine sugar, light corn syrup and water in a heavy-based saucepan. Bring to the boil without stirring. Secure candy thermometer to the saucepan, making sure that the bulb of the thermometer doesn’t touch the base of the saucepan but is somewhere between the bottom of the saucepan and surface of the candy mixture so that temperature recorded is accurate.

Allow mixture to boil until it reaches 250-260d F. When it does so, carefully add a couple of drops of red food colouring. Gently swirl the saucepan to mix the colouring into the candy mixture. Do not use anything to mix it as the boiling action will allow for the colouring to mix through.

Continue to cook until mixture reaches 300d F.

Remove saucepan from heat and once the boiling action stops, add the champagne oil or any other flavour oils you are using and carefully stir through.

Pour syrup into prepared molds. The syrup will start to harden almost immediately so work quickly. Place lollipop sticks in the centre, pressing it into the middle of the hardening syrup. I add a little more candy syrup over it so that its securely fastened into the candy.

Leave to cool for 8-10mins. The lollipops should be ready to unmold by then. Allow to cool completely left standing in a glass, or put the sticks through a colander so that the candy does not touch any surfaces.

Under running tap water, rinse off excess grease and continue to let it dry off. Don’t attempt to wipe the surfaces with cloth or paper as that will leave unsightly marks.

Wrap lollipops with plastic wrappers, tie with ribbons and send them away as Easter gifts!

I died from Easter chocolates, dissertation and now, Sugar Bar’s revived!

diva — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:58:36 +0000

Is there a stench of rotting and damp in this blogspace? The Sugar Bar has gone all postmortem wrinkly, cold and lifeless. But o’ joy! I am back! And happy to be back.

A few updates. I am quite bedazzled by my own efficiency. I have printed my language paper and my dissertation – which I printed 2 copies of and had bound at the bindery today after handing over £40!!! oh my life! – 2 days before the deadline! What a relief. I am also happy to say that I intend to revive this blog (whenever I have the time) despite the exams drawing near…wait for it….(drumroll)…because I now am equipped with a new swanky beautiful goddess of a camera. It’s not much, but the Canon Powershot G10 is like a small dream come true for me. It is the yummiest camera I’ve ever ever had in my 21 years and I can’t wait to start fiddling about with it properly to see what this girl can do. So, watch this space. I may not have a lot in the cupboard that’s edible, I may not have a lot of time or disposable income (what income?) to gallivant about the supermarkets for fresh edible food or the sanity left to cook and bake when dire times are just around the corner, ie. final year exams that count massively towards my undergraduate degree, but I do hope to post up as much as I can. Especially since quite a few birthday celebrations are heading my way.

So anyway, important thing is I want to thank all of you who have sent me such nice messages and left comments that really made my day. It was nice to know that there were others out there who were just as upset as I was when I lost my camera. What a grey day that was! Also, cheers to all who also sent me words of encouragement. I can’t believe there were people who bothered at all when all I did was moan, and moan, and then moan a whole lot more, about my dissertation and my sad life (it really isn’t sad at all. I just quite enjoy being melodramatic).

I’m really glad that’s done and out of the way. I think I experienced 2 little deaths over Easter, from over-eating chocolate, and from my dissertation. And gosh, was I a pain to live with. Crabby, irritable and plagued by dehydration headaches. No doubt, I feel a little lost now that I’m ‘sort of’ finished. But in between handing these essays in and the exam revision, I can’t say if I feel just a little sleepy, a little hungry, a little like I’ve been resuscitated from the dead and so, quite liberated or just not quite with it. If I’m making any sense at all, I’m probably ‘with it’ then, barely. I need to catch up on some sleep. That’s probably it.

Right, so I really just did drop in for a quick ‘hello’. A revision plan is a must and a top priority for me now. Nevertheless, I will food-post for sure. In fact, I am starving right now. Stay tuned. It may not be party time for me right now, but you can be sure the party times will be around preeeetty soon.

Hope all’s good with you lot. And that Easter was a really good one this year. If anyone, like me, died a little from all that eating, drinking and chocolates – good on ya! Death by chocolate is something I welcome any day, any time. And this is just for Steph: let’s go get ourselves a Party in Our Tummies!!! Fun times…

Easter Lunch: Oven-baked Lamb Chops, Roasted Root Vegetables with Rosemary Onion Sauce

diva — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:56:09 +0000

Easter Weekend officially started on 21 March and ends today Easter Monday 24 March. As everyone knows, I broke Lent and had chocolate way before Easter Sunday so really, I couldn’t very much celebrate by tucking into chocolate as I felt too guilty and naughty already. However, it didn’t actually faze me from getting into the festive mood with Easter Lunch! It’s really all about the feasting. Easter calls for easter eggs, hot cross buns, the Easter Bunny and simnel cake. It too, with the advent of spring, presents us with lamb – a lovely, fragrant, sweet-smelling meat which is a high source of high-quality protein, vitamins and minerals. Lamb, a feature of Easter, was sacrificed at Jewish Passover. For Christians, it came to symbolize Christ’s death on the cross and hence, is very apt for having it on the day we celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

You’d be glad to know that lamb, as compared to other red meats, has very little marbling of internal fat. With most of its fat on the outside edges of the meat (kinda like really good lean back bacon), it’s so easy to trim off excess fat. Apart from its low-calorie potential, lamb meat is high in CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) which possesses antioxidant activity. This acid is produced naturally in the stomachs of herbivores. And unfortunately, cannot be found in our own bodies since we do not produce it. Conclusion? Lamb is great!

Ben & I went to the butcher’s 3 days ago and purchased a couple of lovely double lamb chops. They were really tender and this dish really came together in terms of flavour and fragrance. Have to say I might have piled it up with garlic and rosemary too, which I believe are one of the best ingredients that go with lamb.

Oven-baked Lamb Chops, Roasted Root Vegetables with Rosemary Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Start work about an hour before. This is so simple to do and once you get started, it really is just a chuck it aside then whack it in the oven type of meal.
To marinade the vegetables, crush the garlic cloves and put it in some olive oil in a bowl. This will flavour the oil which will be used to coat the vegetables. Add some honey and mix it in. Chop the root vegetables into nice chunks then coat them in your honey-oil mixture. Add the herbs, a bit more olive oil and leave aside to marinade.
On to the lamb. Finely chop the clove of garlic. Using either fresh rosemary or dried rosemary leaves, crush these leaves in a bowl. Add some olive oil to your baking dish and throw in your garlic and rosemary. Put your lamb chops in and coat well. Season with salt and pepper. Leave aside for the flavours to set in for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 200d Celsius.
Root vegetables go into the oven about 15min before the lamb chops. Put it in the bottom layer. After 15min, shift it to the top layer in the oven and slide the lamb chops beneath that. Leave to bake for 30-40min. Do a quick check about half way through. Once the vegetables start to go crisp and brown about the edges, shift it to the bottom layer and move the lamb chops to the top layer. About 10min before taking the meat and vegetables out of the oven, get to work on the sauce.
Melt some butter in a saucepan. Once melted, let the chopped onions sweat in this lovely hot butter. Remember this should be done on low heat. Add the stock bit by bit, followed by flour, all the while stirring constantly. You should be aiming to liquefy the sauce with stock and then thickening it with flour. You have to judge this carefully to reach the consistency you’re aiming for. Once the sauce is thickening up well, add the milk and stir carefully. The sauce should have become a lovely white thick sauce by now – the heat should have started to weld the flavours together and if you smell it, be careful not to swoon! Finally, add some grated pepper in and 2 generous tablespoons of good double cream. MMMM.

Dish up and spoon out the sauce over the lamb chops. Serve lamb chops slightly pink and tender or well-cooked. Either way, this is delicious.

Chocolate Season: Easter Nests & Fairtrade Divine

diva — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:30:28 +0000

I need chocolate to breathe.

Let’s face it – who doesn’t? Some people claim not to like chocolate very much, but in small doses, they’re hooked. So let us all indulge, be humble subjects of the Chocolate Gods.

Got up early this Sunday morning determined to do a big shop for food. One, I’m stocking up for the easter break. Two, I needed a couple of special things for the meals to come (indeed, look forward to some of the challenges I’ll be setting myself up with!). Three, sometimes you just need a trolley and supermarket aisles to sort you out you know? My shopping list was a right monster – and thankfully I did stick to it. Hans was with me as well so her presence definitely kept me in check. Or I would have spent the whole day just loading up the trolley. The only deviation from my shopping list was, you got that right, a slab of Divine Chocolate. **it comes in dark chocolate, dark chocolate with fruit and nut, mint dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, orange milk chocolate, coffee milk chocolate & hazelnut milk chocolate which you can get from selected stockists or online from their website.

I like all kinds of chocolate. And knowing me, you’d think I would be a snob about it. Sure, I do highly regard good brands of chocolate like Godiva, Max Brenner and Prestat. Sometimes though, it’s good to remember that everything always starts out small and simple. Divine Chocolate is an amazingly smooth and creamy chocolate whichever flavour you get. It’s hard to put my finger on what makes it so good (other than the fact that it’s packaged in one swankily designed paper-foil wrap), but one thing that certainly makes it different is the fact that it’s Fairtrade. Many people have the misconception that Fairtrade is not as good as the non-Fairtrade. That might be true for some products, undoubtedly. But it’s all about finding the right Fairtrade brand and being loyal to it to help other Fairtrade labels get up to standard.

The Fairtrade Foundation is a non-profit organisation, aiming really to help set up fair trading structures for the poor and disadvantaged, ensuring that honest trades occur between retailer and producer. I think what they are doing is amazing and if anyone is interested in finding out more : click here for Fairtrade. Current products I’m using that are Fairtrade: sugar, chocolate and tea. Am hoping to look out for more good products that are Fairtrade and make a shift to support the cause. For now, it’ll be hard to miss me with a Divine chocolate bar whether I’m on campus between lectures or on a cross-country train.

The advent of the Chocolate Season has also pushed us to this – Easter Nests. The ultimate, easy-to-make sweet treats!! Of course, I say easy-to-make but you should have seen how we ‘culinary experts’ Hans and I found ourselves creating more mess than we had expected to. Hans initially pounded all our Shreddies to powder and I curdled some of our dark chocolate by adding cold milk to the warm melted chocolate. ‘Twas godawful! I do believe these ridiculous mistakes were only made due to the immense excitement that had overpowered us completely. It all turned out well. Break up your shreddies. Melt some dark and milk chocolate. A little butter or milk if you think that’s what it needs. Mix the broken Shreddies into the chocolate. Form into nests, make sure you leave a little hole in the middle. Then Mini Eggs on top! Slide it into the fridge for it to set…this takes like 2-5min then back out again. We took ‘em out real quick and polished them off even quicker.

Easy peasy. Only thing left is for someone to present me with a Divine Chocolate Easter Egg. Anyone???