Chocolate Eggs: Memory of Easter

Today is my last day of Easter break. Starting on Monday and so on will be busy with lots of cooking experiments to looking forward. The memory of Easter that I wanna keep this year is the Easter dark chocolate eggs, the Easter surprise from lovely hubby. I lately influenced by him to like dark chocolate than milk one. BTW, this chocolate is definitely yummy and smooth. Once you pop into your mouth, it will melting gently. I love it. Thanks sweet hubby:) Looking forward for more surprise next year...

Ended 2008, Getaway to Daylesford - Mineral Spring Spa and Goodies from Choc Mill

It's pretty hard to make a day trip in Melbourne due to weather that keep changing all the times. So lucky for us, that on 30 Dec 2008 was a nice sunny day which was a perfect day to drive along country side. There are plenty of interest place to explore in Victoria, I think we made the right one to drive to Daylesford. It's about 2 hours driving from our place. Consider pretty long driving, as there is not much to explore over there. However, it's worthed to visit Chocmill for chocoholic like us:) and Hepburn for those who enjoy spa as I did. I do love Chocmill and definitely will drive there again some times during this year. The chocolate was marvelous, once you eat it, you can't stop it (sound like there's some addictive on it, but it's pure Belgian chocolate). Herewith some memories and goodies from Chocmill which I'm sure will make everyone drooling...

Chocolate machine to produce fresh chocolate


Display that definitely will make you drool





Yummy chocolate ice cream topped with dark choc



And finally, our goodie bag: assorted dark choc to enjoy at home when we miss Chocmill.

X-mas Dinner Menu - East meet West

While the x-mas lunch is so popular in Aussie, I'd prefer to have x-mas dinner which's allowed more time to prepare the stuffs. Our X-mas 2008 celebration were simple and tasty with mostly home made meals plus some dinner breads from new Korean bakery shop and take away roasted duck from Chinese restaurant:) and special menu that I was looking forward to cook: Turkey breast stuffed with the recipe I found from Food Ideas magazines. So, what did I have for x-mas dinner? Basically, it's a combination of East and West menu, to fulfil every body's taste.
First, for the appetizer, we had dinner bread with butter and Peking Duck wrapped.
The main course was turkey breast stuffed served with Rosemary Roasted Potato, Salad Mix with Asian dressing sauce, Green bean with crispy crumbs, honey buttered dutch carrot and Garlic steam Lobster bough by my mother in law.
I like something sweets for the dessert. My first choice was black forest cake by Gordon Ramsay, with the recipe from Australian Good Food Magazines. As soon as our stomach were singing, then I forgot everything:), so some pictures were forgotten to be taken as well.

Here is the tiny crunchy dutch carrot with the picture taken before cooking:)

Turkey Breast stuffed wrapped with bacon.




Yummy Gordon Ramsay's Black forest cake recipe with my own decoration.

Chocolate Madeleines

Madeleines are a great company to enjoy our lazy afternoon tea. There are easy to make, with the simple ingredients and tools. I got this recipe from my cooking book collection by Donna Hay - Simple Essential Chocolate with a little bit adjusting in sugar contents cause we don't like too sweet cake plus I dusted with some icing sugar. These madeleines are turn pretty good and yummy.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

65 gr caster sugar

50 gr AP Flour

1 tsp Baking powder

2 tbs Cocoa powder

60 gr melted butter

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180'C. Whisk egg and sugar in a medium size bowl. Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa over the egg mixture and fold through with the melted butter. Spoon the mixture into greased madeleines tins and bake for 10 minutes or until its set. Dusted with icing sugar.