I’ve always been intrigued by decorated cookies, especially ones which are intricately decorated in the most beautiful designs imaginable. However, I never attempted them as I felt they would be 1) too sweet, and 2) too much work.
But sometimes, curiosity makes you do things you thought you wouldn’t do…
In celebration of the oh-so-lovely weather, I decided to try making some decorated cookies last weekend. As Easter was fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to make Easter egg shaped ones. And so I did.
My initial plan was to make a whole range of Easter egg designs… in a number of colours. But, I changed my plans very swiftly when I realised that I had about 80-90 cookies to decorate. I kid you not when I tell you that piping decorations on anything more than 40 cookies will take a toll on your shoulder muscles. My shoulders were aching the day after I made these, and it made me have total respect for professionals who do this on a daily basis – they must have arms (and shoulders) of steel!
Having said this, I still had a complete blast making these, and will definitely be making more in the near future. Whilst I was pleased with how these turned out, I wasn’t altogether satisfied with the royal icing recipe and my rather amateur-ish designs. All the more reason to make some more very soon! One thing I will do next time around is to make less cookies so I can focus more attention on the actual decorating!
Oh, and I also made some yellow daisies, because flowers and the colour yellow are totally what spring is all about anyway. 
Happy Easter, everyone!
Sugar cookies
Adapted from this recipe on All Recipes
- 340g butter, softened
- 1 cup caster sugar*
- 4 eggs
- 2 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp almond extract
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 4 1/2 cups plain flour, plus more for rolling
1. Sift the baking powder, flour and salt. Set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl, until it becomes pale and creamy. I used my stand mixer and the paddle attachment. You can just as easily use a handheld mixer, or even a wooden spoon if you have strong arms!
3. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing after the addition of each egg.
4. Add the vanilla extract and almond extract, and beat until just combined.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture, and mix until well combined. Cover with clingfilm, and chill the dough in the fridge for at least an hour. (I chilled my dough overnight.)
6. On a floured surface, roll out the chilled dough to a thickness of your liking (usually between 0.25-0.5 inches). I suggest working with a small proportion of dough each time – I divided mine up into four batches to ensure the dough was always nice and chilled.
7. Cut the dough with the cookie cutters of your choice, and place them 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking trays.
8. Bake the cookies in a oven preheated to 190′C for 6-8 minutes, until slightly golden around the edges. Leave to cool completely before decorating.
* To ensure the resulting cookie wouldn’t end up too sweet, I reduced the amount of sugar used to 1 cup (from 2). I’m glad I did, as I felt that the cookies would have been waaaay too sweet otherwise, especially when paired with the icing. Do feel free to use more sugar though.
Warm miso chocolate cake. I knew I had to order this when I saw it on the menu. I mean, how could I resist the combination of a warm miso chocolate cake with a mochi center, miso caramel, and adzuki shiro-an (red bean sweetened paste)? This was absolutely gorgeous, and I think I must have let out a little squeal of delight when it was brought to the table. I never thought that miso could be paired with caramel, but it worked really well… think of it as an Asian twist on salted caramel, because that is exactly what it tasted like. The warm chocolate cake was moist, and the mochi center was a pleasant surprise.
Whilst I was enjoying my warm chocolate cake, people kept on coming in to take away their soft serve. Intrigued, I decided that I simply *had* to try some. So I did. The waiter who initially served us (but had gone on a short break) was extremely surprised when he got back to find the ice cream in front of me, asking me “didn’t you have the chocolate cake?” with a puzzled look on his face. If only he knew how much I can eat…
Because we enjoyed Kyotofu so much, we managed to squeeze in another trip just before leaving New York. Priorities. 
We tried their matcha lattes (both cold, and hot) – both were good. I felt that the hot version was better, but that might have been because it was a very cold day.
Anmitsu – adzuki red bean, coffee & strawberry agar, shiratama dango (mochi-like balls made from sweet rice flour) and kinako ice cream. You get a choice of kinako ice cream or a vegan coconut sorbet, but I chose the kinako (soybean flour) as it was something different. This was again beautifully presented. It tasted as good as it looked, and my favourite bit of it was the kinako ice cream. The red beans had just the right amount of sweetness, and went well with the ice cream and the dango. I love anything chewy, so naturally really enjoyed the shiratama dango. I couldn’t eat the sugar wafer though – that was too sweet and too hard for my teeth!
Black sesame sweet tofu, served with a hoji-cha syrup. I had a hard time deciding between this, and their signature white tofu. I ended up choosing the black sesame version as I felt the white tofu version would be similar to 
I also bought a selection of their baked goods to bring back to London – again, this was influenced by the many, many people who walked in to do this each time I dined there. The photo above is of their genmaicha brown rice almond financiers (golden) and matcha green tea almond financiers (green). I absolutely loved these. Surprisingly I enjoyed the genmaicha ones more than the matcha, as the tea added an extra nutty flavour to the financiers.
Miso chocolate brownie. As you can tell from the photo, there were sesame seeds in this – I thought this was absolute genius. I’m definitely going to try making some sesame chocolate brownies very soon! I must say I couldn’t really taste the miso in this, but it was good nonetheless.
Chocolate chunk and hazelnut kinako cookie. What I really liked about Kyotofu was how they put a Japanese/Asian spin on their food. This looks like your standard chocolate chip cookie, but believe me when I say it was better than that. The kinako (soybean flour) added a pleasant nutty aftertaste to the cookies. Only way I thought this could be improved = some sea salt sprinkled on the tops of the cookies.
I made semifreddo for the first time last summer (and yes, they have sat in my pile of backlogs for almost a year now), and thought the good weather was an excellent reason to finally blog about them.
I made two batches of semifreddo: one with gooseberries, and the other with raspberries. I also experimented with various ways of presenting the semifreddo, as you can probably tell from the photos. I made some into pops, some into a ‘loaf’, and some into mooncakes.The mooncake moulds I used are jelly molds, and I did worry that the semifreddo would not unmold properly… thankfully they managed to retain the intricate designs post-unmolding!
What I really enjoyed whilst making this was the flexibility to experiment – you can choose to make seperate fruit/semifreddo layers, swirl the fruit mixture into the semifreddo, or use the fruits as they are. I initially planned to make a raspberry swirl semifreddo in a loaf shape, but got too lazy to puree the raspberries and so just used the berries whole. It worked out well though as most of the raspberries sunk to the bottom and thus produced quite a lovely design.
The idea behind this “grid menu” is to offer the surprise of a tasting menu, whilst still maintaining some control by being able to choose the main ingredient of each course. You are of course encouraged to share your preferences/dislikes/allergies with the waiter, which is in turn relayed to the kitchen. I have heard that some people are not a fan of this format as they prefer to know exactly what they will be eating, but I’m sure the staff would happily elaborate on the dishes if needed.
Gougères. These little babies were to be the start of a very delicious meal. These warm savoury mini choux pastries were very good, and I could have eaten ten of these without much of a problem. I stopped at four though, as I knew I would become too full otherwise.
Halibut dashi. This is one of the best soups I have ever tasted. The dashi had just the right amount of smoky fishiness, and the bunch of seaweed and rosemary in the cup enhanced its fishy flavours. I adored this, and almost wished that this was an actual menu item.
The halibut tea was served with seaweed lavash crackers – I could only imagine how much work (and skill) goes into creating these, as they were paper thin, allowing just a hint of light to shine though it.
Sturgeon sabayon with chopped sturgeon pieces, served in egg shells. This sabayon was beautifully light yet extremely flavourful, and I found myself repeatedly dipping my spoon into the shells trying to get to every last bit of sabayon.
Bread rolls. Oh, the bread. These were unlike any bread rolls that I’ve been served at restaurants, in a good way. These bread rolls were very flaky, and reminded me of curry puffs (a popular Malaysian snack). And somehow, it still had a soft and fluffy interior – I would pay good money to learn how to make these! The rolls were served with two types of butter – one made from goats milk, and the other from cows milk. I really enjoyed the goats milk butter, but R found it a tad overwhelming (he doesn’t like goats cheese either, but I quite enjoy it).
First course #1: Foie gras brulee with variations of apples. If you like foie gras, you will LOVE this. Beneath the crispy brulee topping lay the richest, most decadent brulee I have ever tasted. So, so good. The slightly sour apples provided both a textural contrast, as well as helped to cut through the richness of the brulee. I also enjoyed the crumble which was sprinkled on the apples – I think this was made from brown sugar.
First course #2: Hamachi with fennel, horseradish and meyer lemon sauce. Compared to the foie gras brulee, this sounded a little boring in comparison. Thankfully though, it did not taste boring. The fennel complemented the mild flavours of the hamachi beautifully, and the horseradish added the right amount of heat to the dish.
Second course #1: Seared cod with fennel, clams and a bergamot sauce. This was cooked to absolute perfection. The cod had been seared to give it a wonderfully crispy crust, and the cod flaked away beautifully at the mere touch of a fork. Fish is so often overcooked, and I was so pleased that this wasn’t the case with this dish. Simple yet so well executed.
Second course #2: Lobster claw and tail with edamame. This was as pretty as a picture, the sort of food you almost do not want to eat because it’s too beautiful. Almost being the key word, naturally. Again, the lobster was cooked perfectly, and went well with the smoked sauce and edamame. There were also these little crispy slivers on the plate, and neither R or I could figure out what they were. I suspect it was derived from lobster, but I may be mistaken. I was going to ask, but I got too engrossed with eating and errr.. forgot.
Third course #1: Pork (belly and loin) with mustard seeds and spatzle. Oh. My. This was obscenely good. The pork belly was tender and melted in the mouth. Nothing like well cooked pork belly to make my day. The mustard seeds added a really nice twist to the dish, and in my opinion elevated it to something a little more special. Though to be honest, the pork was cooked so well that I wouldn’t have cared if I was only served the pork belly and loin with no accompaniments.
Third course #2: Veal with winter vegetables and sweetbreads cooked two ways. You might be getting bored of all the superlatives I’m using to describe the food, but it’s hard to not use an abundance of superlatives when the food is so good. The veal was by far the best piece of veal I have ever tasted. Hands down. It was wonderfully tender and worked very well with the sweetbreads.
Pre-dessert: Tangerine with jasmine and celery. Looks can be so deceiving. This looked like a “normal” plate of tangerine granita… oh, how wrong I was. The tangerine granita had pieces of tangerine in it, and was paired with the most delicious jasmine ice cream and jasmine foam. The thing that made it special was the inclusion of micro celery leaves in the dish – I normally hate anything with celery in it (yes, hate with a capital “H”), but I really enjoyed this. In fact I think it wouldn’t have been as good sans the celery leaves. This doesn’t mean I now love celery though, mind you!
Dessert #1: Lemon frozen yogurt with lemon crumble, candied lemon and candied olive. The frozen yogurt was bursting with citrussy goodness, and was served with variations of lemon cake – a lemon crumble, a lemon cake “slice”, and small morsels of lemon cake. The biggest surprise of the dish was the candied olives, which I thought would be out of place in the midst of all the lemony goodness – but actually worked very well.
Dessert #2: Coconut and passion fruit ice cream, with papaya and bruleed pineapple. This was a tropical island on a plate. Both ice creams were refreshing and bursting with flavour (I preferred the coconut – only just!), yet very creamy. The mini meringues also were a very nice touch, and helped to add texture to the dish.
And to finish off the meal, some peanut brittle and lime pate de fruit. I especially liked the pate de fruit and its zingy-ness.
