I think I have completely mastered the art of indulgence. It involves zero baking of my own, merely getting up at a fairly late hour mid-morning, throwing some roomy clothes on, slapping on a decent amount of concealer and makeup, a taxi ride and voila. It is the Life of Brunching. Maybe it’s the change of lifestyle ever since I moved which is a little more hectic and fast-paced now, but such indulgences (trust me they don’t happen that often) feel utterly well-deserved and I’d equate the relaxing qualities of good brunches and quality time spent with girlfriends to that of a holiday. The works. Enough said.

Just last weekend, I discovered something so glorious it had to be shared. Or rather, everyone had to have a mug each because it was ironically too good to share. Graze mocha – refer to photo above. Thick, creamy and rich; more chocolatey than most, this was so decadently good an opening to brunch. It was hard to stop after 3 gulps and put this mug down. I know I shall be craving mugs of these on cold rainy nights.

As soon as conversation started flowing (no doubt lubricated by mocha), the dishes started arriving. I loved that they all looked so simple, honest and homemade, exactly how breakfast food should be! Clean, fresh and sort of understated on medium-sized white plates.

Spanish Omelette

This was by far my favourite dish of the day. The Spanish omelette was delicious with bits of chorizo and mushrooms, topped with fresh rocket and seasoned new potatoes that gave a little sweet citrusy tinge to it all. Those little spuds really made my day, whatever they were seasoned with!

Signature Cast Iron Pan – two scrambled free-range eggs, hash browns, bacon, chipolata, baked beans, roast vine tomatoes and mushrooms

A beautiful dish to behold with that rustic feel to it. I think we girls were a sucker for the cast iron dish anyhow, considering one of us had a little cocotte (imported from France) in her handbag. I hate to admit that this resembled dirty fry-ups with my housemates on Sunday morn. It wouldn’t be fair (to Graze) to do a comparison because I mean the latter had a real variety of ingredients, better execution of the dish, baked beans that did not come out of a can and it tasted delicious. But there were similarities for sure – the whole concept of a fry-up. Graze had just upped their game, polished their shoes you know.

Eggs Benedict – two poached eggs served on brioche toast with hollandaise and two slices of mortadella

This probably wasn’t as good as the eggs I had in a recent brunch trip. The eggs were slightly over-poached and it lacked that impressive oozing waterfall of molten yolk when attacked with a knife though the mortadella was quite scrummy. It didn’t have that swollen body poached eggs tend to have, a slight wobbliness and inability to contain its insides not unlike a huge badass blister under your skin, angrily threatening to explode (wow that’s a gross analogy but you get the idea right that sort of precarious balance between a whole egg and a poached egg come undone). I wasn’t sure why the hollandaise had been browned on the top as though it had been set under a grill for a few seconds.

Scottish Smoked Salmon Bagel with Cream Cheese, Dill and Rocket

Toasted seeded bagel – now that’s something hard to find in Singapore. This was lovely and the smoked salmon has to be mentioned. WONDERFUL! Very flavourful and not at all bland like some smoked salmon can be.

Savoury aside, we come to what we saved our tastebuds for.

Old Fashioned Pancakes Stack – with berries, honeycomb ice cream and maple syrup

The pancakes were as expected, fluffy and delicious although a little thinner than we’d hoped for. But they were delightful and well paired with berries and maple syrup (hard to go wrong with such a classic combination). What we really liked was that fat ball of melting honeycomb ice cream. If we didn’t have quite so many girls around the table and I was mindful of etiquette, I’d have grabbed that soup spoon of ice cream and dunked it into my mug of Graze mocha. Bet that would’ve tasted sublime.

Orange and Vanilla Waffles – with chocolate sauce and cut strawberries

Mmmm. Need I say more? And ahm, REALLY GOOD vanillla ice cream. My heart melted just a little at the sight of those specks of vanilla seeds. The ice cream was so rich I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d snuck some clotted cream into the mix.

And to end it all on a rosey-hued note, a glass of Libalis Rose Maetierra wine which was of a lovely shade I wanted it as a nail polish colour. Happy smiles all around, food bellies nicely concealed under roomy dresses or blouses and a slight reluctance to leave this beautifully light restaurant. As we stepped out into the street and hailed more taxis to take us to our next destination (yea a crew of fat ladies who lunch), I couldn’t help noticing this slightly lethargic but warm feeling in my belly. I realised that that was the sensation of peaceful contentment and a stomach goblin finally satiated.

Graze
No. 38 Martin Road
Singapore

http://www.graze.com.sg

Considering that I blogged about this place two posts ago and here we are again really says something about this place called Strictly Pancakes. It’s good. I think about it a lot. I don’t hafta wait til Shrove Tuesday – or days of staring at eggs, milk, flour and a buttered hot pan willing it to just work by a twitch of a bewitched nose – to have pancakes.

The first pancake café in Singapore. It’s got me hooked. And it’s so legit I nearly cried when I ate my stack of pancakes.

I sat through 3 hours of class today grumpy as shite because I was hungry and deprived of viable options of food. It came to the sorry point that I made a (disturbing) passing comment to a girlfriend of mine, ‘I’m so hungry right now I could sink my teeth into your shoulder blade.’ She was wearing a bareback top. She now thinks I’m weird beyond weird. But that’s fine. We went halves over a plate of pancakes and I think we’re still the coolest pals as gal pals can be. We all find reasons to be amiable with each other in this world, now don’t we? If it involves food, I suppose. Let’s just all try to accept this fact of life and live with each others’ idiosyncrasies.

I’m so glad that pancakes don’t take a million years to whip up so food gets put on your table fairly quick. Three baskets of mysteriously spiced and seasoned chips glide onto the table. Then six cups of iced tap water. A bout of thumb twiddling, of utterly awkward silence and staring at mobile phones willing someone to beep or ring you so as to give you something to do to fill this ridiculously useless and unwelcome period of waiting. ‘Hi I am hungry and waiting for my food and I don’t want to do anything else like talk stupid when I just want to wait for my food.’ Other tables are noisily clanking their knives and forks, cutting up fluffy clouds of pancakes heavily and indecently doused with maple syrup, participating in unimportant sometimes polite chatter between mouthfuls of deliciousness, every bit of movement and noise pisses me off. I am HANGRY. Gimme food!

Then the sound of footsteps, and ka-ching ka-ching. It’s flipping pancake jackpot. I’ve never seen a more beautiful plate of pancakes. Mine don’t even come close, possibly because I never make chocolate pancakes. It’s almost unmentionable in my house. Pancakes must be pancakes, white and fluffy, uncorrupted by what we know as cocoa powder. Oh bugger that. These were glorious. Chocolate sauce, dripping custard, dusting of icing sugar, mini chocolate chips and wet juicy pneumatic and squidgy brandied dark cherries. Hello beautiful, come to Mama! The glorious Blackforest stack. I finally got to have a taste of this notorious babies. But what a shame that Strictly Pancakes had a bad day with their freezer and so, NO ICE CREAM. 20% off though. Yea okay. I’m easy like that.

Across the table, a friend was tucking into Lemon Curd for Nerds which looked suspiciously similar to our Blackforest stack minus a few key ingredients. Chocolate pancakes + lemon curd which resembled, in aesthetics and taste, wet custard but was delicious nonetheless. Would’ve liked the lemon curd to be a little more tart and lemony but figured it might not have worked too well with pancakes that generously rich in chocolate!

I’d love to share what the others ate but I was so busy inhaling my half of the Blackforest (I don’t think I looked up from my plate, okay maybe twice just to check the progress of others around me) I didn’t give two flying fish about getting clicks of their pancakes. But if you wanted to know what they ordered, you can check back to the first post of this café here.

What a great close to the week. The goblin in my stomach is appeased. Until the next food adventures, peace.

TGIF.

At first I got distracted by my own pancakes photos, looking at them I relived the moment. And then I got distracted by the scent of coffee (I’m sat in my school café) and just shortly after I got distracted by some cute guy with big guns trodding on by. So now I’m back (even though I never really left!) and I give you this.

My salvation last Saturday to soothe a hungry soul, and one who missed out sorely on Shrove Tuesday. Yes I confess I was too busy to even slap around some batter and flip a couple of pancakes. I’m embarrassed (that goes without saying) but not so much since it opened up the opportunity for a virgin voyage to Strictly Pancakes. And they were good. Nothing like homemade pancakes but considering these were done fresh 5 minutes after ordering, I’m quite impressed at the soft buttery vanilla-y fluffiness of them pancakes. And their range of assorted butters (garlic & herb I liked much) really made this place for me. It really worked that there were big comfy sofas on the 2nd floor up a narrow creaky flight of stairs, lit by rooftop skylights and completely ruled by a chill-out-shutup-and-eat kind of atmosphere. Nice.

Strictly Pancakes. Strictly pleasure oh my days. And so good for the soul, on a rainy day as this.

Side note: this place does amazing chips. Spiced and well salted. I’m definitely coming back for the chips too which is totally random and so unrelated.

Strictly Pancakes
44A Prinsep Street
S188674

It’s funny how sometimes you’ll find my friends and I standing about in a straight line, frozen stiff when there appears a swarm of squealing toddlers running zig zag about you or between your legs. It’s terrifying, absolute pandemonium unfolding before your eyes. A dear friend of mine even confessed this most ridiculous line: ‘I am allergic to two things; one of which is children.’ I don’t think I’m particularly allergic and I don’t really believe he meant what he said. Call it the heat of the moment. It’s perfectly logical in my opinion, however, that some people find children annoying, judging that the we’ve witnessed some which are just nightmares. But I have to admit that majority of the little buddies that I’ve met or spotted at work around the baby section are just truly adorable. And don’t get me wrong, I am in no way anti-children and I do want children in the future. Just a warning to my future kids though: discipline discipline discipline and then sweet treats on Sunday if you’re good otherwise you’re getting shoved under the stairs with no tea (your Mama Diva here’s giving you this headstart years in advance).

Nevertheless, when my soft spot for children goes away, I’ve been known to be a real mean dick – I’ve stolen candy from a kid before. So sue me. Who was that poor sucker? My sister. I stole her candy. I stole her whatever that thing is that babies suck on when they’re teething. I stole it right and good and it even waved it in her face, laughing.

I am mean and I ain’t gonna deny that. And oh yea, I’m greedy like that.

Maybe it’s because I’m still a child at heart. But humanity has got the better of me, civilization has socialized me and so I’ve stopped doing dumb things like that. If you can’t have what they have, make it for yourself. And so I did. My little sis C texted me to say Mum was making a lovely spread for breakfast Saturday morning. I wasn’t gonna lose at breakfast half a world away and if my mama can’t make it for me, suppose I’ve two hands, a pathetic kitchen but a brain nevertheless. The plan? To self-indulge in the kiddiest, cutest breakfast ever. And if mini-anything is not simply the cutest, I don’t know what is.

Catty has been tweeting about this – Matcha Madness. Matcha – one of the four foods I love most in the world (mushrooms, berries, matcha and black sesame seeds – they drive me wild). What is it about? You like matcha? You eat matcha? You want MORE matcha (from Teapigs)? Then head on over via the link and take part. Stop procrastinating. Go paint the town green.

So. I basically agreed to get involved, partly because I love to win things. Who doesn’t, right?? My post for it, however, is definitely not the most creative. And compared to the other things I’ve made before using matcha, this certainly pales in comparison so bad I probably shouldn’t have even bothered. And here comes the BUT. I gotta say the simple combination of flavours in this reminds me of Japanese Christmas Cake – strawberries, fluffy light sponge and whipped cream. This is quite perfect for the summer heat especially when British strawberries are at their best now, all red ripe and fat. Simply use your favourite pancake recipe (I’ve used one meant for dorayaki actually, recipe over here), whip up some double cream with matcha and a touch of icing sugar if needed. Put everything together including the ripest sweetest fat strawberries you can find and drizzle golden syrup over.

When I was a kid, I used to make up combinations of fruit and biscuit as dessert for my parents. After a meal, my mama would clear away the dishes and I’d be busy in the kitchen hacking away (alright, actually nimbly slicing away) at whatever fruit was available, banging together some biscuits, chocolate squares that sorta thing together and putting it all nicely on a plate a la smiley faces, concentric circles, towers, etc.

Some kids had Lego. I had fruit and biscuits.

This childish pancake stack is really a tribute to that little kid me. The cherry on top? Those broken bits of matcha biscuits I stabbed into the matcha whipped cream. I have so much class, now don’t I?

It’s Shrove Tuesday, ie. Pancake Day! Well it’s not like I need an excuse to have pancakes. It sorta is like a Sunday brekkie thing to have but pancakes when it’s not even mid-week is so much more indulgent and delicious. Knowing that just about the rest of England is having pancakes too (albeit the English crepe-like ones) – savoury or sweet – helps with feeling all fat and happy, and a lot less like the lone greedy chubster.

I spied some gorgeous rhubarb pancakes over at Nic’s Cherrapeno and I couldn’t help getting some rhubarb as well. I think it’s gotta be one of the prettiest pink edible things and I simply love it in a trifle or yoghurt. Thanks Nic for a lovely pancake idea. I’m really glad I made this as I love all things tart. Although the rhubarb sauce wasn’t as tart as I wanted it to be (didn’t wanna tart-out my flatmate), I thought it was a very delicious variation of the usual plain pancakes or the same old blueberry pancakes I find myself having every time.

I’d love to stay on here longer, but I gotta hit the books again. Yes I am a geek, don’t judge me. And yes the work’s starting to pile up. Third yes, I’ve turned into a granny who fights the cold with hot soups, cups of tea and blankets about my knees. Well, grannies are so in right now. You can’t fault that. Off I go, leaving you the recipe.

This recipe’s given me the fluffiest, softest pancakes ever. But it didn’t rise enough to my liking and it may have needed some rising agent like baking powder. I might have to experiment and compare with other recipes in the future. Nevertheless, they were good. Like little fluffy clouds.

Recipe yields 8 pancakes
Rhubarb Pancakes
Ingredients

1 cup self-raising flour
2 tbs melted butter
3/4 cup milk
1 tbs sugar
1 egg yolk
3 egg whites, whisked to form stiff peaks
pinch of salt
about 1/2 cup rhubarb sauce

In a dry medium bowl, whisk egg whites to form stiff peaks.

In a separate large bowl, sift flour, sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre.

Beat lightly together the egg yolk, melted butter and milk. Pour into the well and mix gently to form a lumpy batter. Fold in egg whites, leaving some touches of egg whites intact.

In a small frying pan, heat some butter, add a ladle of batter and fry until bubbles start forming on the surface. Flip and allow the other side to cook for another minute or so. Repeat until all the batter is used up. Keep the other pancakes in a warm oven or let the hungry buggers you live with gobble them up whilst you work hard at the stove!

Rhubarb Sauce
Recipe can be found here, which I used for a ganache. You can use this in the pancake batter and to serve over them.

If someone were to break into my house, into my bedroom to be more specific, whilst I’m in and demand all my valuables, my reaction would definitely be:

Please, take everything you want except my passport and laptop!

Firstly, I probably shouldn’t be making any demands at all. It seems totally unwise to be attempting bargains when face to face with a nasty desperate burglar. Secondly, there shouldn’t even be the most minute allowance for a break-in but I’m just saying ‘what if’; of course, I’m totally crossing my fingers and banging on wood that it’ll never ever happen. Thirdly, shouldn’t one’s life be more important than something mechanical and material like a laptop?

Only thing is, my laptop’s like my love-child. Ok, maybe not so much a love-child but an amniotic sac that contains all my unborn children – failed attempts at poetry, bits of surprising cleverness, the puzzle pieces of a story I’ve yet to successfully put together, precious photos & artworks & graphics and a massive database of tunes. Oh, not to forget university documents and important essays (strange how that only came to me as an afterthought!). And I could never willingly give that over to someone. Just as anyone would feel violated at the thought of a complete stranger entering your house and going through your things, I would too feel massively violated at the thought of having someone rob my intellectual property and know personal ‘memories’ (photos) and ‘obsessions’ (music).

Another great problem would be the attempt to re-build all that work. It could be easier for others with a better memory but seeing as I ain’t too good with remembering as I was in high school, attempting to reconstruct my writings and put together my iTunes and photo database would be near impossible!

Paranoia hit me this morning and by some strange stroke of magic (if you could call it that), I was so sure that my beautiful Macbook might die on me soon. I pray it won’t since it’s been such a gorgeous girl for 2 years now. I’ve promised to take it for a nice upgrading come Christmas to increase its performance but somehow there’s a tiny nagging feeling at the back of head and it’s a good nagging feeling because it’s pushing me to backup my most important documents. Hopefully, you lot out there will also be hit by the Paranoia Bug and think to backup whatever you hold important to you. Even if nothing bad’s happened, even if you computer is working like a beauty, even if you’ve never been burgled – be careful! It’s always good to be safe than sorry.

Putting aside that most random story and paranoia, let me share with you the best pancake recipe (I won’t say ‘ever’ because there might be better ones ever – but this is the best I’ve made so far). I love pancakes. But I’ve never had that perfect plate of pancakes which I could proudly proclaim to everyone “I made that!”. So each time, I go on and slather butter and pour gallons worth of maple syrup on them feeling a little miffed and upset. However, I’ve altered and tweaked my pancake recipe each time I make them in the search for that ultimate fat pancake. I’ve deifnitely not once given up. Talk about the Pancake Pilgrim’s Progress (I hope I haven’t made John Bunyan turn in his grave by perverting his title)! What’s so good about this attempt I think is that I might just have managed to alter my pancake recipe to the point of perfection — but perfection for me alone. I’ll be using this recipe from now on, except on Pancake Day (when English pancakes must be served), because these guys are the ultimate fat buggers I’ve been searching to create all my life. These are really fat and definitely fluffy. Be sure to cook them through. If you’re not careful, the fat layers might deceive you into thinking it’s all cooked through when actually there’s a tiny bit of uncooked gooeyness in the middle.

Add blueberries for the ultimate experience, or whatever toppings please you the most. These are still great plain or with the tiniest dash of cinnamon. I think the next time I whip these up, I’m adding two slices of crispy streaky bacon on top – major sin at breakfast time! Just the way I fancy it.

Ultimate Fat Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes
Ingredients

2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbs butter, melted
2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup blueberries
more butter, for frying

Place all dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk to mix. Make a well in the middle. Add eggs and gently whisk in. Add milk gradually as you continue to whisk. Batter will be lumpy and bubbly but that’s fine.
Melt some butter on a frying pan or skillet and ladle out a ladle of batter into the middle of the hot pan, using the back of the ladle to spread it out into a neat circle. Cook about 2-3minutes until bubbles start to form on the wet surface. Slip a spatula underneath the pancake, shuffle it about to unstick the pancake from the pan.
Now, flip the pancake with a gentle flick of the wrist – like a pro – or use the spatula. Cook another 1-2 minutes.
Serve up warm with extra butter and syrup.

I’m running out of Fruit & Fibre cereal and much as I’m a true-blue need-cereal-and-caffeine-girl in the mornings, I’m getting a little bored and seeing that I’m no longer rushing to run into campus for long-haul revision sessions or exams, there was more than enough time and energy to whip something different up. Besides, we’d been in the park yesterday evening playing frisbee and volleyball (I missed volleyball so much it was real good to get out). So why not have a little treat. Diva needs to harness sufficient energy to whip those asses ya know.

We were Team Awesome against Team Smelly Crap. I think our score was 19-10? I would gloat and do a little victory dance but just to be on the safe side lest karma comes to bite me in my bum, I’d with great sportsmanship thank them for a good noisy messy game and look forward to the next one. Will have to run into town today to purchase a proper volleyball — we were, chhh!, playing with a football.

As much as I love English grub, I think the Americans beat the English for pancake making. English pancakes, although yummy as hell with lemon and sugar, doesn’t pack quite the ooomph with that thick eggy cakeyness so God bless the Americans for some culinary skill and genius with pancakes (and of course, there are other things but pancakes are more important, like seriously). I’ve 2 packets of poppy seeds sitting in the pantry cupboard and without the permission to make cakes or muffins, I have nothing to use them for. They look so sad just sitting there so I was glad to find this recipe on 101 Cookbooks. Didn’t have all the ingredients so a quick-fix and I was all set for a sleepy breakfast-making.

Pancakes don’t require much effort and you can do it sleepwalking, yawning, comatose, etc. Alright, you know I’m just jesting. Right then, with no further ado I present to you the recipe.

I shall save my post-pancake enthusiasm for my novel writing later. Yes indeed, I’m getting back to work on my moi novel! It’s time. My characters are calling out to me — they were getting a little annoyed with the cramped spaces in the back of my mind — and with so much time on hand (I can’t be cleaning my room all day) it’s the best opportunity to focus on gathering together my wits and putting my all into it.

Recipe has been reduced to yield 3 large fat pancakes and altered a little from the original one on 101 Cookbooks.

Poppy Seed Pancakes
Ingredients

1 cup wholemeal flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tbs butter, melted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbs sugar
3 tbs poppy seeds
pinch of salt
lemon curd, for serving

Whisk together flour, baking powder and soda, salt and sugar together in a bowl. Make a well. Pour the milk, egg and melted butter into the well and mix in. Mix in the poppy seeds.
Heat and butter a frying pan. Ladle the pancake mix in and spread out using the back of the ladle. Fry about 2min on medium heat or until the wet surface starts to bubble and you can see the sides of the bottom starting to brown and firm up. Flip and cook another 1-2min. Place cooked pancake on a plate that’s being kept warm in the oven.
Continue for the rest of the pancakes.

Thereafter, plate up and serve with lemon curd and lemon slices (for more Englishness).

Another one of my random trial & error moments. The first time I had okonomiyaki was in Tokyo and the okonomiyaki restaurant was quite a random one we found across the coolest popcorn shop ever. Not only did we find loads of stalls in Tokyo Disneyland selling all sorts of unthinkable flavoured popcorn – like curry, bubblegum and coconut! We stumbled upon a shop styled like an old sweet shop but instead of shelves of different types of sweets, it had different flavoured and coloured popcorn decorating the walls and shopwindow all the way to the ceiling. One of the coolest moments of my teenagehood I reckon. It was little me in popcorn heaven.

The okonomiyaki restaurant was an eye-opener as well. I love DIY cooking on the dinner table. So things like steamboat and Korean BBQ excite me very much and I tend to get rather bossy when it comes to cooking it at the table. What I found out at this restaurant was that the person who attends to you doesn’t just serve you your drinks or food, he makes it for you at your table! It was a strange experience but really good because he was so skilled and friendly, explaining to us the best ingredients to put together and so on.

Okonomiyaki is like a Japanese pancake with cabbage. In my opinion, it’s very good for you. Cake + egg + vegetables…yea, sounds exactly it! It’s name basically means ‘as you like it’ pancake so that really works for me. That’s 2 points already. The final scoring point: it’s simple enough to make at home and takes like 15min max including prep time. With that at the back of my head, I was out and about town just checking out some oriental shops. Strange to think I’ve never actually properly visited Birmingham’s Chinatown till this year. But now that I’ve discovered it, although it doesn’t stock the things that I usually want, it’s nice to observe the hustle and bustle the people working there and the way they interact with their regulars. Made a visit to the indoor market as well. Haven’t been back in about a year ever since I started relying a lot on supermarkets and online grocery shopping so it was good to go back and take a stroll about the shops. Kebab shop, city butcher, fresh shell fish and seafood, a chocolate shop, African food shop, Chinese & Asian food shop, shops selling the odd trinket and city souvenir. Had a pretty nice time just looking about. Bought a cabbage from the Chinese shop. The ladies running the shop were so busy chucking vegetables here and there and moving their stock about, I believe they got more annoyed at me looking around and getting in their way than my actual purchase of a humble little cabbage. Was even growled at by a rather large-nosed lady as I was searching the shelf of oriental sauces. Thank goodness whilst I was waiting to pay, a lovely lady struck up a conversation about cabbages with me because oddly enough it was only then that I actually felt like a customer rather than some annoying kid getting in the way of life. Well, you know what I mean! It was fun though, and it made me forget how cold I actually was in my lightweight cardigan. Indeed, I am a true idiot. Who, in their right mind, assumes that it’ll be nice and warm just because the sun is out when it was snowing yesterday?!

Anyway, this was so quick and easy to make. It smelled so good as I was cooking it too. There were times when I was awfully tempted to just pick off the hot pan. Only setback I believe was maybe the dough. Seemed slightly too doughy for me so that will need working on. The next time I make this, I’ll opt for a non-vegetarian one because I’d really like to have an okonomiyaki with more powerful flavours like say with bacon and octopus. Eew, maybe; but to me…oh my life. This makes one pan-sized okonomiyaki which can be sliced into 4 servings.

Ingredients

300g flour
2 eggs
210ml water
1/3 cup sliced cabbage
1/4 cup sliced leek
1/2 a red onion, chopped
1 tbs teriyaki sauce
some sliced beetroot for garnishing

Mix the flour, eggs, water together. Then add the sliced cabbage and give it a good mix so that the batter coats all of the cabbage. Add the sauce. Grease a frying pan and heat it up. When hot enough, add the pancake mixture and spread it out with the back of a wooden spoon till it fills the whole pan, its edges reaching out to the sides of the pan. As it cooks, add the other ingredients on the top. I prefer to add the ingredients but kind of mix it into the pancake as it cooks so that it doesn’t form an extra layer on the uncooked side as this will prevent you from getting an evenly brown side. This cooks about 4min each side on medium heat.

Apart from the cabbage which is an essential ingredient, you can vary your okonomiyaki with other ingredients like seafood, mushroom, seaweed, katsuobushi shavings, chicken, beef slices, bacon, octopus, etc. which would give it a lot more flavour than mine. Just remember to serve with a lot of Japanese mayo and okonomiyaki sauce. I couldn’t source all the ingredients that I would’ve liked so this was really quite a badly prepared dish. To make things less dismal than they already were, I garnished with beetroot strips on a bed of bistro salad leaves.

Think I made fish cakes? Or tiny burgers? Wrong again.

Never heard of Welsh Cakes? Well, if you’re not Welsh, you can still find out more about this teatime delicacy here. Originally cooked over a hot stone or bakestone over a fire instead of baked, they were a good alternative to bread (or when there was a shortage of bread). Not a surprise why it would have been labelled a poor man’s food. The welsh cake is similar to a scone and made pretty much the same way – with your hands. It is just as dense but more cake-like in texture and less crumbly. They are usually not eaten with anything else other than a bit of sugar and butter, warm or as it is, with a comforting cup of tea. What makes it so good is its unique flavour from the spices, rich butter and raisins in it.

It is so easy and quick to make this, although a note beforehand: you’ll have to get your hands dirty and greasy to make these lovely cakes. After they are made, you can wrap them up in a sandwich bag and keep them for a teatime snack whenever or breakfast the next day. The flavours will just keep getting better and stronger the next day.

Welsh cakes are usually quite light in colour. At first I thought I’d burnt mine but I think the dark brown colour of my cakes occurred mainly because I’d used dark brown sugar instead of caster. When you don’t have the right ingredients around, either go out and get some or find a suitable substitute! Don’t give up before the game’s over, is what I say. After these cakes are cooked, roll them about in caster sugar for extreme prettiness and subtle crunch as you bite into them. If you’re on a tight budget like me or am just very unprepared, leaving them as it is still works beautifully.

I’d been meaning to give this recipe a try for ages but had never bothered to get down to it. Very pleased I made them because they’re just so good. This really is about as close to one of the yummiest quick-fixes I’ve ever made. Bless Nigella for that! Recipe has been taken from Nigella’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess but I’ve halved it.

Welsh Cakes

Ingredients

250g cup self-raising flour
125g cold unsalted butter, diced
100g sultanas
1/4 tsp ground allspice
touch of cinnamon
75g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten

Right. To get started – sift your flour into a bowl. Add the cubed butter. Wash your hands, dry them. Plunge ‘em next into the bowl and start rubbing the butter into the flour. Raise your hands in an upward-downward motion as you do this to get some air into it. This will finally end up with a nice, light, crumbly mixture. Try not to leave any large pieces of butter because you want to really get it all into the flour to flavour it and get it altogether.
Next, add the spices in. You don’t usually need to add any cinnamon but I think it works beautifully with allspice. 3 good shakes is enough I reckon. Don’t forget the allspice. It’s really what makes welsh cakes welsh cakes. The sugar and sultanas goes in as well. Add the egg to make a soft but not sticky dough. Form a dough ball then press into a disc. If it’s a little too sticky, flour it a tiny bit. Cover with clingfilm and leave for a minimum of 20 minutes.

Put it in the fridge for a minimum of 20min. When the dough is easier to handle, flour your work surface. Get the dough out and flatten it to about 1 1/2cm thick. These cakes will rise slightly as they cook on the pan. Either using a cookie cutter or a round class, cut out the cakes. Preheat a frying pan – unoiled.
When it’s hot enough, place cakes gently onto pan and let cook about 3min each side. Careful not to let them get too brown and burnt or it’ll just ruin the flavours.

Remove from pan, roll about in caster sugar. Serve warm with butter.

I was gutted when I found out yesterday my Abercrombie Anarchy Party has to be cancelled or put on hold because of someone else’s surprise birthday party. Not to mention, my DJ The Bitter Pill and I have worked hard to put the playlist together – we were so looking forward to this! (Ok fine. I basically gave him orders and he was running the rest of the marathon whilst I pansied off doing my own thing) Think about it – amazing house party or Vodka Revolution with sleazy fat old men and heavily tattooed skanks? Geez…you can totally tell what an ass I am.

I’m just a little miffed. Anyhow, I started surfing food blogs because I wasn’t too enthusiastic about diving straight into my French Art History essay first thing in the morning. Stopped at fellow Cream Puffs in Venice and thanks to her, I managed to get a base recipe for these lovely pancakes. This is based on Bill Granger’s Ricotta Pancakes which you can get off her own blog which is amazing. I’ve taken it and tweaked it a bit for my own cravings.

I love lemon curd. I like lemon curd pie; I like lemon curd (lots of it, gooey mess that it is) on toast, no butter please. Lemon and sugar on thin pancakes is the British way. And lemon curd is really a traditional British dessert topping. Made with eggs, lemon juice and zest and sugar, it is a thick gooey mixture; an alternative to jam for bread and scones. So this recipe is kind of like a hybrid pancake I suppose – take the real fluffiness of American and put it together with the best of Britain! You can make your lemon curd from scratch, it’s very easy. Or, if you’re a grumpy lazy fart like me: head to Marks & Spencer and get a jar of their Lemon Curd which is lovely and made with Fairtrade Sugar. Other than supporting the Chicken Run for Free Range chicken and eggs, I like to have Fairtrade tea and sugar. Another reason why I absolutely adore Divine Chocolate.

This has to be the BEST pancakes I’ve ever made. Wonderfully fluffy (this is not a joke) and so light with a great subtle taste. I made this for 2 persons so I halved everything off Bill Granger’s recipe before making any changes. This yielded about 5 alright-sized pancakes. Here’s what you have to do:

Ultimate American Lemon Curd Pancakes
Ingredients

1/2 tbs caster sugar
1/2 cup skimmed milk
2 eggs, separated
3/4 cup flour, already sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1,1/2 tsp salted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used the one with vanilla seeds for extra power)
1 generous tbs lemon curd
orange zest (keep some for garnishing)

For serving:

Golden syrup/maple syrup
More lemon curd
Icing sugar for dusting

Separate the eggs into 2 bowls and beat the whites till they’re white and peakish. Don’t overdo it though. In the other bowl, use a whisk and whip the yokes, sugar, vanilla, lemon curd and melted butter together till nice and airy. Next, whisk in the rest of the dry ingredients and some orange zest. This will thicken up, so you’ll have to add the milk next to relax this mixture. You can always adjust the consistency of the mixture with flour/milk depending on how thick or how wet it is. Following this, tip the egg whites into this and mix.

When your pan is hot and ready – add butter onto pan. Start frying these pancake babies! Flip when wet side begins to bubble. Slap ‘em on a plate, serve generously with lemon curd, drizzle maple syrup and some icing sugar. Indeed, if you’ve not got a heart for sugar, you might wanna cut all that sugary goodness out. ME? I went for it.

And I was pleased and satiated.