Gooey Cinnamon Walnut Mini Rolls

The weekend is coming.  Weekends are good and bad news for me.

Good news because I can get to eat food not catered by the tingkat service which brings me sustenance every weekday.  I say "sustenance" because the food they bring me are such.  Sometimes they can qualify as real food but as these occasions number about 6 times among 20, so it is not a promising declaration.

I separate my intake between "sustenance" and food.  "Sustenance" is for the so-called food which keeps me alive but have not much to recommend themselves otherwise.  This is not a malicious pigeon-holing as sustenance is much under-rated.  You realise its importance when you are bed-ridden, unable to seek it and go for days essentially starving until someone checks on you and brings you some.

Food is for the rest which have some level of taste, texture, and presentation which brings you some degree of pleasure and joy.

On weekends, I am free to seek food.  That's the good news.

The bad news is that this expedition is a double-edged sword as I can indulge my soul with real food but am hampered by both my inability to move much and my limited finances.  So I have to be creative.  As I cannot always depend on the kindness of others.

One of the ways I try to keep my culinary sanity is to bake something on a Friday so I have some "real food" for when I feel peckish on the weekends.  Fortunately my appetite is quite small (but frequent!  And subject to strange cravings at odd times!).

Today I decided to make something "bready" which is quite a surprise even to me since I have never baked any breads before.  I am more a cakes and puddings kind of person.  Perhaps I was inspired to do so as I watch aghast at how fast the loaf of bread my friend had brought me was developing mould.  Egads, I barely had it 3 days when the green discs of death with auras of white decay started spotting the hapless white bread.

It's the humidity in Singapore which fast tracks everything along to its doom.  I could make some relevant social commentary here but I am sure the government monitors everything (including blogs of no account) so I am not taking any chances.  Thank you very much, Lee family.

I was always rather ambiguous about the much-loved cinnabons that Asians seem to adore.  Or rather they adored till something new came along.  Singaporeans are amazing foodies and are always quick and willing to adopt the latest food craze.  But their culinary curiosity also mean they move on to the next fad very quickly.  At one point, you would find the ubiquitous swirls of chewy bread oozing caramel yumminess everywhere, now they are little gems you actually have to seek out.

While I like the cinnabons, I find them a tad boring.  Sure they are good but they cannot sustain my interest for too long.  Perhaps I am more Singaporean than I thought!  I find myself wondering how much more interesting it would be if you added walnuts or dried fruit or played around with the bread. And I am not too keen on the raisins too.

So there I was, surfing for yet another recipe which I can miniaturise and bake in my muffin cups when I came across a recipe for cinnamon buns in a muffin tin.  Woah ... that's me, I thought.  Come to mama, I bookmarked with glee.

Firstly, I would like to thank Fuki Mama for her recipe.  I actually tested out the recipe the previous night but with some tweaks of my own, which were derived from Steamy Kitchen.  I was not sure which I should attempt so I decided to make a batch of the master dough and try out a variety of techniques.

Last night, I made the "dry" version of the cinnamon buns a la Fuji Mama.  I shall not go into details except that I rolled, cut, baked 6 pieces and ate them all.  They were nice but not excellent so I made a mental note to try out her original recipe some day before relegating the recipe to the "tried once, keeping for reference but no desire to repeat" folder.  They were a little too dry for my liking so I decided a gooey, wetter recipe was called for.

The master dough idea is brilliant as you can keep and re-use it for a variety of results.  I kept mine in a rather haphazard way which I am sure will induce some serious cooks to berate me soundly.  I stuck the darn thing in a ceramic bowl, flung some cling wrap over the top and left it in my fridge.  Ha!  I really like Steamy Kitchen's recipe as she is so detailed but she just seemed a little too hung up on some things which made me rush through her post and copy down the essential stuff without subjecting myself to the strait jacket experience.

So be warned if things go awry.  Sorry Ms Hair.

So here goes today's messing around with buns of cinnamon.

Sinning with Cinnamon-Walnut Buns of Stealth

Master dough (small serving):

1 tsp & a healthy pinch of instant yeast (because I was going to use it for muffin cups so I did not want it ballooning up like the Michelin Man - if using it for other purposes, you can increase it to 1 1/2 tsp I guess)

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup lukewarm milk (just zap it in the microwave but do not boil then just leave it to cool to lukewarm temp)

1 egg

50g melted butter (again, zap it in the microwave and leave to cool)

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cup flour ( I admit I cheated.  I did not use it all.  I think I used about 2 cups and a bit and once I eyeballed the dough to be be soft yet firm enough I stopped.  WTH does that mean?  It means I wanted a soft, fluffy bread that's not too hard and chewy as it's gonna be a lil bit in the muffin cup.  But if you are using it in a pan, you can make it firmer. What's it look like?  It's spongy and soft and does not stick to your fingers but moist.  It keeps better in the fridge to my reckoning.  I could be wrong but it worked out the way I wanted so who cares? I don't ...)

Topping (much like an upside down cake - yes, you see the connection now, doncha?):

1/2 cup caster sugar

50g softened butter

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

6 walnut pieces

(I also added a bit of the extra cinnamon-sugar walnut mixture from the filling)

Filling (super yummy):

30g softened butter

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

4 tsp chopped walnuts

Pinch of black pepper

(OK, Steamy Kitchen's recipe called for pecans but I didn't have any so I used walnuts.  Also she added a pinch of nutmeg but I forgot.  Anyway, it was fab even without.  I think I may ask this filling to marry me ...)

1.  OK, this recipe takes some planning and doing ahead so it is unlike me to undertake it but I reckon it's worth the effort.  The night(mare) before Cinnamon, dissolve the yeast and 2 tbsp sugar in the lukewarm milk.  It's instant so it'll be ... instant ...

2.  Mix together the egg, butter, salt and another 2 tbsp sugar

3.  Add the flour to make the dough.  I add a 1/4 cupful a time so I can control the development of the dough.  When it reaches the stage I like, I stop adding flour regardless of what the recipe tells me.  Why?  Because there are so many variables to all the other ingredients that you gotta eyeball things but also because I trust myself ... ha!  It's ready when you do not have any loose flour bits and the dough does not stick to your fingers.  If you make mistakes, don't panic.  If it is too dry, add some more lukewarm milk.  If it is too wet, add more flour.  Just have fun.  Oh, I also like to use my hands instead of a mixer.  One, because my mixer is kaput.  Two, because my hands are partially crippled so it is a pleasure to handle things with them when I can

4.  Now that the dough is a nice, squishy ball, I leave it in the bowl in my kitchen ('cos it's rather hot in there) with a cloth over the bowl to keep away the insects and whatnots and also to maintain the moisture.  Make sure your bowl is ready for this as this dough is gonna be expand and it wouldn't do for the bowl to literally have its cup runneth over

5.  Go do something else for about 2 hours.  Till the dough is almost twice its size.  Mine was more like 1 1/2 it size but it was OK for me since I was gonna be using it for a few more times and the humidity is my house would revive even the most slothful yeast

6.  Now you can use some of the dough or refrigerate it for later use.  Which is what I did.

7.  The morning after, take your now sadly deflated dough out of the fridge.  All that nice, lively, bouncy growth would have been inhibited by the icy retreat in your fridge so you have to prod it alive again.  I wet my hands so the dough does not stick and to allow it to be soft and moist.  Cut out a grapefruit-sized amount of dough and pat it into a ball shape with your wet hands.  Whack it onto a glass or ceramic plate (whatever you can scrape the dough off later easily) and stretch it from bottom up into the center like you are doing origami.  Ya know?  Like when you are making a paper rose?

8.  Turn it upside down so the smooth side is facing up.  Cover it with a cloth and let it rest to do its Lazarus thing for about 10 mins.  Can be longer, whatever makes you happy

9.  In the meantime, make either the topping or the filling.  It's up to you.  I made the filling first, which turned out to be a lucky stroke.  I'll explain why shortly.  I used some of the sugar and cinnamon to form a dry mixture with the chopped walnuts.  Why?  Dunno ... just felt like it

Cream the rest of the sugar and butter with the ground cinnamon and black pepper.  You can add nutmeg too although I forgot

10.  Go back to your dough.  It should have grown much like many men once they hit thirty-five.  Lightly flour your work surface and a little of your rolling pin.  You can afford to be a little more generous with your flour if you have worked out a soft, moist dough like mine.  If not, you might wanna go easy on the flour

Roll out your dough into a rectangle about 12" x 22" ... eh, how many of you (aside from Martha Stewart) actually bake with a ruler by your side?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  If you answered in the affirmative, I pity you.  If your dough is about the size (it's OK if it is odd-shaped, just chill, OK?) of half your forearm length and the about 1 1/2 - 2x the breadth of your palm, you're there.  Assuming you are normal-sized and not the missing link ...

I like mine a little thinner than 3/4 cm.  Again, back away with the ruler.  Just eyeball, OK?  If you like a bready bun, make it thicker.  If you like it with more layered swirls, make it thinner but not so thin you can see through it.  If you can, it's too thin, godammit!

11.  Now butter the dough liberally (that means reeeeal thick-like) with your creamy filling.  Try not to eat it all before this stage.  Do not be too greedy and butter all the way to the edge as it makes it a bitch to roll up later.  And the "ends" make great little snacks - more on those later.  Then sprinkle the walnut mixture over

12.  Roll that baby up.  Like a swiss roll 'cept there's no parchment paper to do that with ... hey,  now's there's a thought!  But anyway, just roll it up a bit at a time till it's a long roll.  See mine?  It looks a little ... er ... suggestive, no?  I have a dirty mind?  Like you didn't think the same ... pffttt.

No jokes about bar mitzvahs and the like, please

I let it rest while I make the topping.

13.  Cream all the ingredients for the topping.  I added some leftover walnut cinnamon sugar and whooey, that elevated this filling a treat!  Sometimes I do stuff I do not even comprehend but I just follow my instincts and they work.  Thanks, God, you're the man.

14.  So, I use silicon muffin cups.  They are dead easy to use and wash up. I adore them.  Also, I believe in recycling and much as I think some paper muffin cups are cute, the thought of such wasteful behaviour from me does not sit well.  Silicon bakeware may cost more but they are a much better long-term investment and really, the trees will thank you.

Anyway, pompous pontification over, let's now lock and load.  Firstly, preheat the ole oven.  I like to "over-heat" my oven first, then lower it to the "right temperature" when I put the goodies in to bake.  Why?  Dunno but my stuff always seem to come out better when I do.  So it's 190 deg C for preheat.

15.  Spoon over the topping into each muffin cup.  If you are not gonna use the silicon cups, just make sure to grease your muffin pan or wash up is gonna be a real pain.  Pick up the cups and plonk them into the tin to kinda level them.  Place a walnut piece in the centre

Again, it looks kinda of suggestive but from the opposite spectrum ... is this what they call food porn?

16.  Now cut the "cinnamon log" into 1 1/2 inch slices.  Again, back off with the ruler.  Really.  Come on!  Someone said it's dead easy if you use dental floss but I only have flossers so I made do with a knife.  Just flour the blade a little between cuts to make it s little easier.  Next time I am gonna get me some dental floss!  Anyway, I managed to get about 8 pieces from my log.  I trim the ends where there is not a lot of the filling and set these aside (they're gonna become snacks!)

17.  Place each slice into each muffin cup.  Cover them with a cloth and rest for about 30 mins.  I forgot as I got caught up watching X-Factor (there's a horrid fascination to this enterprise) and it was 45 mins for me.  But it's all good as they grew nicely.  See the difference after 45 mins!

Before.  Don't they look like roses?  So purty ...

After.  They look more like Roseanne Barr now ... no offense.

Bake in the oven at 180 deg C for about 18-10 mins.  OK, here's the drill.  I set my oven to 15 mins because my oven is possessed.  It never does what I expect so I tend to check on it for its Linda Blair impersonations before the time is up.  So at 10 mins, I check, saw that my buns looked mighty anaemic so I added another 5 mins to the timer.

At 15 mins, I check again and realised they looked nicely golden brown and another 5 mins might be over-kill.  So I watched for 3 mins and decided they were done.  So 18 mins for mine.  Sort yours out on your own

I upturned the lower left corner bun to show how cute the walnut garnish looks.  Kawaiiiiii!

18.  Remove and immediately upturn.  If you wait for it to cool, you are gonna get pralines for toppings so upturn while hot. Gingerly.  With oven mitts.  And a prayer.

So now you have yummy, gooey cinnamon walnut mini buns.  I tell you these beauts are dangerous.  They are so easy to inhale that you can finish the lot at a go.  With a glass of cold milk.  I had to restrain myself when I had wolfed down half of them so I could save some for breakfast tomorrow.

I started with two.  Then another two ...

And those ends?  You can bake them.  I cut them into small marble-sized bits and then placed them onto the same muffin cups still holding the dredges of caramel topping.  Roll them around to coat them in every little bit of sugary goodness and bake them for about 10 mins.  Check them - when they are golden brown, they are ready.  I also baked a couple as is and ... and this is the cool part ... ate them with some leftover curry for supper. Sooooooo good!  I wish I had more ends!  Am gonna make more later and try them out with my chilli prawns.  If I had chilli crabs, I would use these too!

You can pack away the buns in an air-tight container and refrigerate them for a couple of days (if they can last so long!).  Then let them defrost at room temperature and give them a quick zap in the microwave to soften the "praline"so they revert back to caramel toppings.

I stand by my moist dough for this recipe because (OK, the photos are shite but it's the best I can do with my dubious grip and my crappy mobile phone camera ... handling a camera in my condition is more than I can manage right now so suck it up) the bread is soft and fluffy.  If you like it chewy, use more flour and perhaps one with higher protein level.

So, I very happy with my experiment and will probably make more in the future but now, all that exertion has tired me out.  So it's painkillers and predisnone and all its happy mates for me before I go to bed.  But happily go I for I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow!

Sins of the Father

Aren't relationships a mystery?  A total pain in the arse?

I try to avoid them but it is rather difficult as long as you have a pulse.  Short of going neo-survivalist and barricading myself in an abandoned nuclear shelter, there is really not much I can do to avoid human interaction.  I am getting ever more fastidiousness as I creep into decrepitude, disdaining personal interactions, preferring a much more remote and therefore, less irritating option ... the web.

Have I always been so anti-social?  Yes.  In fact, as a child I was notorious for being difficult, surly, rude and un-responsive to friendly overtures. Back in those days, autism would have been dismissed in lieu of poor manners.  I have always rather suspected that I had a smattering of autism thrown into the mix of a lot of complicated familial issues.  Suffice to say I refused to speak till I was the age of two and when I did, it was in complete sentences in 5 different languages, all telling everyone to piss off and leave me alone.

So, being the ray of sunshine that I was, I was punished severely.  My grandmother, being an enterprising sort, decided that facing the corner was highly unproductive.  Instead, she relegated me to the kitchen and made me help out in the restaurant.  I was four.  My first job was washing the rice and plates.  Oh, and poundng the rempah, chilli pastes et al.

The chores evolved, increased and rose in complexity.  But they all spun willy nilly around me in the whirlwind of the kitchen.  I was resentful but strangely, I felt a peace in the kitchen.  The monotony, the focus and the tactile appeal to the senses were oddly comforting and the kitchen became a sanctuary from the madding crowd beyond it.

I will not suggest that my grandmother had the sagacity or tender mercies to push me into the haven of the kitchen to save my sanity.  The only tender mercies that woman knew was papaya juice to terrorise slabs of meat into mouth-melting surrender.  Neither was she so deep that she recognised how the mind, soul and spirit of a young child were macerating into potential manic depression with the battles she witnessed daily among her family members.

My grandmother was a phenomenal cook.  To this day, I do not think I have met anyone as brilliant as she was.  I am sure many attest to the same sentiment about their grandmothers but since I am not obsessively fond of mine, my declaration is actually quite an objective one.

The woman was unlikeable.  She was hard-edged, hard-headed, hard-hearted and hard of fist.  There was nothing soft or warm about her.  She made Snape look like a Care Bear and could seek and destruct any fond illusions of happiness you might harbour at ten paces without even caring enough to make an effort.  No, I did not like her.  I feared and respected her but like is too pale a sentiment for the complicated emotions I hold towards her.

In her own way, I think she loved me.  She certainly treated me better than most.  Which is not saying much.  But I am almost certain that is due more in part to my heritage than any true worth of my own.   Hey, this is no self-pity here. I know my own worth.  Most of the times.  And many times, over-estimate it too.  But with my grandmother I know the score. 

I was there on sufferance.  Because of my father.

The adored progeny.  The proverbial prodigal son.  Much idolised and canonised by my grandmother. 

So of course, everyone else in the family hated his guts.  He, too, was unlikeable.  Unless you were female, easy and dumb enough to fall for his lies.  Again, I harbour no false illusions.  The man was a louse and a danger to any female with a heartbeat.

Worse still, he was a chef.  

Now, I hold little stock in the snobbery widely held in the industry about the distinction between cooks and chefs.  Terms were invented to weld pigeon-holes for the less privileged so others can feel superior.  I have met many chefs I thought should have have fingers minced before they poisoned their customers.  I have encountered a good many "cooks" who have more artistry, skill and passion for food in their little fingers than Gordon Ramsey.

In the world of culinary snobbery, he who shouts loudest... well, makes himself heard.  And like the Emperor with his new clothes, there is always hordes of willing sheep ready to don the same mantle of culinary superiority.

My father was one such asinine, ladle weaving charlatan.  He lorded it over all and sundry (sans my grandmother, of course) because he was formally trained and critically accepted.  In those days, fusion was an exciting concept and Asian fusion was a mysterious bastion of snooty, culinary misconceptions.  It was the Wild West of culinary experimentation mostly based on unsound, unfounded, untasty and unsavoury food mutilations.  Americans then thought Velveeta was Miracle Whip and Miracle Whip was manna from heaven.  My father's Asian fusion was lauded as revolutionary, miraculous and culinary genius.

I mean no offense when I say Americans then would not know shite from shiitake.

My father's creations might look pretty since he favoured the nouvelle cuisine style of presentation, but once translated from plate to mouth, the reaction was novel indeed.  I think I actually threw up a little in my mouth when I tasted one of his award-winning dishes.  And as mentioned in a previous post, my grandmother declared his food "not fit for human consumption".

I still remember that night. 

For years I had harboured a deep, bitter resentment towards my father.  My grandmother held him up as a paragon of ultimate culinary supremacy.  She harped at me, pushing me to even attempt a third of his achievements.  From the age of five, she egged me on my ignorance, my lack as compared to my father.  I knew that was her way of pushing me to excel beyond him.  In fact, I later discovered that she had always thought I had more natural talent than my father but she was incapable of an affirmative measures of nurturing anyone.

Her way was to blackmail, threaten, terrorise, harangue and humiliate.  She was the penultimate bully and tyrant and no one was spared.  Except my father.  Or so I thought.  

In all the years growing up, I had never heard her criticise my father.  He was everything wonderful and the way she went on, I would have expected bloody roses to bloom right out of his arse.  I cut my teeth on gritting them everytime she threw him in my face.  It is a miracle I have any teeth left.

She always held out hope he would return home to take over the restaurant.  In the interim, I was expected to hold the fort and make something of it so it would not disgrace his eventual take-over.  I was designated the ever-loving bridesmaid with not a hope of being the bride.

Now, even at such a young age, I was no fool.  Well, no less foolish than any grey-matter holding, cognizant child of ten.  At that age I decided I was having none of it.  I settled on subterfuge.  There was no way I was going to slave away in the bowels of the kitchen for the rest of my life so my father could waltz back in and have a ball dedicated to him. 

So while I enjoyed cooking and baking, I also resented my supposed destiny.  I rebelled quietly, never letting on that I was going to consign my grandmother's grand plans to hell before I became my father's Renfield.  I determined never to become a chef or cook. 

In those years, I always thought my father's cuisine must be of the highest level.  After all, he was formally trained all over the world.  Critics had given him awards.  He bloody sent the clippings home to boast of them every chance he could!

My grandmother would not shut up about his achievements. I was right sick of hearing them.

Not that I would have any clue what his food tasted like.  I have vague memories of some egg-based dish he made me when I was a toddler but because I had not lived with or even seen my father since I was five, I had no idea what his culinary sensibilities were.  But since he was formally trained, and more importantly, he was my grandmother's son, I had always assumed he must be a culinary genius to whom I could never hold a candle to.

So it was my sixteenth year that saw almost the entire family carted off to America to visit my father's restaurant for the first time.  I shall not go into details about the strange, volatile cocktail of emotions I carried into this visit.  Fear, dread, anticipation, hesitation, yearning, insecurity, resentment, bitterness, envy, jealousy, vulnerability, disquiet ... I was a mess.  So I did what any teenager would do.  I gave attitude to everyone and everywhere I could.

I was cold towards my father and refused to touch him.  I pulled my best "Grandma Icy" act that I think even impressed my grandmother.  I was dismissive of everything.  I withdrew into my ear phones and books and ignored everyone and everything.

But still, I could not hold back my excitement the night we dined at my father's restaurant.

Of course he served his award-winning dish.  I can't remember what it was now but I believe it was a chicken dish.  One of his new-fangled Asian fusion creations that Americans appeared to adore.  The pride on my grandmother's face ... well, back then it infuriated me.  Now, it draws a smirk.

Yes, malicious glee and I are friends.  I am Christian by birth, not by natural inclination so piss off.  And I am a Catholic by up-bringing so pettiness is inherent. So deal with it.

The looks on our faces at the first bite was priceless.  Better than any pithy credit card ad.

My father - gloating, arrogant anticipation

The rest of us - astonishment, quickly followed by distaste

It was the worst shite I had ever tasted.  It defied description, partly because my poor beleaguered taste buds, stomach and mind have erased the foul memory as best as they could.

We were terribly silent, unsure of which foot to set out on the floor of egg shells we were perching on.  Despite my internal glee, I was afraid to look at my grandmother.  Afraid that her love might be so blind that her taste buds would follow, adding another death nail to my coffin of hopeless disgust.  Afraid that she might indeed recognise the pulchritude of my father's failed science experiment and see the howling disappointment in her eyes.  Despite everything, I am not the demon spawn she always claimed I was.  I did not want to see her hurt.

If she could be hurt, then somehow ... somehow it would be like someone telling me God did not exist.  That the sun is just a giant lightbulb some space invader forgot to turn off.  And we would all be doomed to nothingness as quickly as it remember to switch it off and save the environment.

Grandmother was infallible.  If she was ... then the foundations of my beliefs would falter.  Nothing could be certain again.  Fear was an icy pill in my mouth as I kept my eyes on my plate of fallen expectations.

And then I heard her.

"Everyone, up!  We're going back."

Eh?

"But, but ... Ma, we're just at the entree!  You have not even fin ...," my father sputtered in shock.

"You expect us to eat this?  This is not fit for humans to eat.  Everyone, home.  I'll cook some curry chicken noodles for supper.  Up!"

And just like that we quietly shuffled off behind her, thankful and bemused.

That was a life-changing moment for me.  From that moment on, I did not resent my father as much.  Well, not for the same reasons anyway.  At the moment, I even felt a certain sympathy for him.  And for once, I felt a spark of kinship that had nothing to do with the accident of blood that linked us.  

I, too, had been at the other end of my grandmother's acerbic, bitter tongue many, many times. Daily.  Sometimes hourly.  She could flay you faster and more to the quick than the albino chappy in that cheesy Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

I still did not want to become my grandmother's kitchen serf but right there and then, I stopped being afraid.  I was no longer fearful of being inferior to my father.  I stopped putting formally trained "chefs" on a pedestal.  If my father was a result of these training then God forbid I ever followed in his footsteps.

That my grandmother was also formally trained gave me some pause for thought.  I deduced that the difference between them was talent.  Grandmother had it so regardless of training, she would always be a culinary genius.  My father didn't.

I was not sure if I did but I was no longer afraid.  Nor did I care.  I simply like to cook. And eat. It did not matter how I achieved those two desires.  The journey was now cleared of self-imposed obstacles.

For once, the sins of my father had freed me.

For all the shite and misery he caused me, this was the one thing I was thankful towards him for.  

Thank you, Dad, for being a shitty cook.

Going Down Under with an Upside Down Cake

I have good memories of Sydney.  Many people always pontificate that you either love Sydney or hate it. And correlate that with an opposing sentiment towards Melbourne.  Which they will then speculate an analysis of your personality based on these bias.

I say they have too much time on their hands.

I like Sydney for a number of reasons totally unrelated to any hidden, deep complexes.  Probably because I am not deep or complex.  Sydney is just plain fun to me.  

The people are fun.  The food is fun. 

The airport is shite though.  I absolutely hate immigration in all of Australia.  I have never been so harassed as when I land in Australia.  Every freaking city there.  It always starts my visit to that country on a very bad foot and inspires a deep resentment towards each and every Aussie I meet until someone offers to buy me a drink or offers me food.

Luckily that happened a lot in Sydney so that explains why I like the place.  It also helps that I have a built-in gaydar which makes it possible for me to be in a 99% straight bar and for the only gay person there to find me out.  In a city like Sydney, I make friends faster than you can say char kway teow extra ham.

Yonks ago, my visits to Sydney were strictly of the straight variety.  Since I was always with my then boyfriend, who was decidedly homophobic and virulently American, my interactions were markedly strait-laced.  But even then, I adored the food and wines I discovered on those visits.  Those were what I term the "Romantic Times" filled with rose-covered gardens and coupley events orchestrated by my controlling boyfriend.  I had no say or misadventures but it was all terribly romantic in a very vanilla way.

A decade or so later, I was newly-divorced, much stronger-willed and had evolved into a right mess of bravado, determined re-invention and misguided delusions of inner strength.  In other words, I was ready for lots of misadventures.  

A friend invited me to gay Mardi Gras in Sydney and that started a now life-long hedonistic love affair with the city and the event. Whereas I loved the city before for its vibrancy and diversity, I now adored it for its sheer fun and how free I felt.  Never had I experienced such acceptance!  And the irony is that I am straight.

Even greater is the irony that I receive more invites and made more friendships as the only straight person in the group while my gay friends feel rather let-down each time.  Perhaps, it is because I always went in with less expectations or romantic fantasies.  To me, I just enjoy the people, the music, the smells, the food, the colour and the fearlessness of my expeditions.

I've travelled many cities but only in Sydney have I felt brave enough to accept the invitations of total strangers at a whim to go on a boat trip right there and then; to escape my gay friends claiming a sudden inability to remember what a straight person looks like and rush into the first taxi I see and demand to be taken to a place with good dance music; to enter a closing jazz bar and be cajoled by the musicians winding down, to share a joint; to dance on a float during Mardi Gras ... oh the misadventures were grand and have the makings of a bad song to be warbled by some whiny female with hair down to her arse.

I have not been back in ages.  I can now barely make it to the neighbourhood store, what more Sydney but I always keep a little of that city close to heart.

An invaluable aid is a cookbook I brought back with me on one of my jaunts too.  I am a little embarrassed to admit I had to be persuaded to buy it by a friend.  He kept assuring me that it would prove invaluable but I was dubious.  

One, I was slightly leery of Bill Granger.  Now I hear hordes of angry, scornful Aussies dismissing me as an ignoramus.  Perhaps.  But I tend to leery of all successfully commercial chefs.  Envy perhaps.  The more commercially successful they are, the more leery I become.  One of the reasons is because my father was fairly commercially successful with the critics on his side of the pond and he was an abysmal chef.  Thus, I tend to take most culinary accolades with a hefty pinch of salt.  

Another reason was because I had dined at Mr Granger's eatery when I was in Sydney and was not terribly impressed.  I had ordered my favourite brunch items of eggs benedict and salmon and spinach and had anticipated the heavenly melting, buttery, creamy, plain ooziness of egg and fish and iron-y bite of grassy greens ... and instead I got slightly cold, congealed blahness, unsophisticated seasoning and a total lack of imagination and sincerity.

Perhaps it was an off day as many expressed shock and horror at my declaration and urged me to return another day.  I never did.  For that price and with his reputation, I could not condone another massive disappointment like that.  My taste buds and culinary naviete will never recover.

Secondly, I seldom eat breakfast.  And the man made his mark at that period of time by supposed re-inventing the craze for it.  I was seldom awake for breakfast so why in the world would I purchase a cookbook undoubtedly perpetuating a craze I appreciate little of.  Sure, I like many of the items usually served for breakfast but they are rather easy to make so it did not make sense to me.

I purchased a Granger cookbook with the most pictures.  Hey, I am a visual person ... which explains a number of my ex-boyfriends, but that's another story for never.  A a pictorial reminder of my love affair with Sydney then?  I chose Sydney Food and for many, many years, I did not use a single recipe from the book although I kept it for the pretty pictures.

But recently I began to have a little more appreciation for the book.  Sure, the recipes are fairly simple.  But they are solid.  Much like the man, I suspect.  They are not fussy but dependable.  And adaptable because the cooking techniques they utilise are stolidly sound and based on basic principles.  Granger focuses on one star ingredient (or a duet of two complementary key ingredients) in most of the recipes in this book and it is almost Japanese in simplicity.  But the results belie this austerity.  I cannot declare them spectacular or outstanding, which many seem to.  Perhaps I am jaded by all the whizz and wham bam of more showy chefs but Granger's recipes are above adequate but below unforgettable to me.

Yet there is an insidiousness to his recipes.  You might not find them exciting enough initially but slowly and surely, you find yourself returning to them.  And with each reproduction, you find yourself adding and tweaking.  I think that is perhaps the beauty of a Granger recipe.  You are invited to re-invent his re-inventions. 

The man never says so in his book.  Or so I assume since I never read too deeply into his simplistic prose.  There is a solidness to his writing much like his recipes that drives your eyes in quick perusal.  Almost a comfortable complacency because you think you know what to expect.

Then in the execution, you discover the quiet strength and versatility.  I find it rather intriguing.  Granger, to me, is very un-Sydney.  There is not the rush and vibrancy of ideas but a rather quiet confidence and sneaking intelligence.  I rather think he is more Melbourne than Sydney but what do I know?

However, I have made the same recipe from his book three times now.  The first was true to recipe.  But since then, the second and third have been tweaked with surprisingly freedom and ease of creativity and results.  I say surprising not because I doubt my own creativity but because I did not expect such wild innovations to derive from such seemingly simple recipes.  

It's not as if Granger himself suggests the variations or options for culinary investigation.  In fact, in some cases, he seems a little rigid and stuck on a high horse.  Yet, somehow, the composition of his recipes seems to spin some random spurts of culinary curiosity in me.  

Is it because he is so stodgy that I feel I have to loosen him up?  Or perhaps, there is a strange pheromonical chemistry between Granger's culinary sensibilities that makes mine want to spice them up?  Whatever it is, it is surprising.

I am, however, rather grateful to whatever strange quirk Granger's cookbook inspires in me.  Because every experiment based on his book has been a resounding success.  Not to say that my experiments always fail.  In fact, I think I have about 85% success rate with all my experiments in all these years.  Not bad considering how wild some of my ideas are and that I tend to rush into them with very little fore-thought or calculation.

A creature of impulses when it comes to food, there I was again yesterday.  Another one of my witching hour cravings.  At 2am, I had such massive sweet-tooth yearnings, I woke up and started baking.  And my wisdom tooth had no say in anything.

But not anything chocolatey this time as I had overdosed on chocolate the week earlier.  I thought hard.  What did I have in the fridge?  The sparsity of ingredients made thinking not that hard.  

Apples.  I had lots of apples.

OK, something sweet with apples that is fast and easy.  

Didn't I see something in Granger's book a couple of days ago?  Something about an apple upside down cake?

And there it was.  Since I am just one person I never bake a full cake.  So I decided to tweak the man's recipe to make apple upside down muffins instead.  Easy peasy.  Not many ingredients, relatively fast and sweet enough to please even my nocturnal cravings!  Perfect.

Nocturnal Apple Upside Down Cake from Down Under

50g butter

1 apple, cored & sliced into 1cm-thick slices

Balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

- all these are for the caramel "top"

50g butter, softened

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup + 1 tbsp plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 tsp cinnamon powder

- all these for the cake

1.  Melt the butter for the topping on medium heat

2. Toss the apples in the vinegar and add to the butter

3.  Cook gently for about 2 mins, stirring occasionally till a little soft.  Taste test and adjust the compositions of ingredients to your preference.  I added a little more vinegar to "cut" the sweetness and give it a little more complexity and a slight "more-ishness"

4.  Add sugar and vanilla and cook for 3-5 mins more.  Taste test & adjust again - you know the drill now

5.  Remove the apples and arrange them on the bottom of each silicon muffin cup

6.  Increase heat and reduce the remaining syrup till a nice, rich caramel forms.  It's about done when it gets a dark golden shade.  Try not to burn it.  Taste test.  Taste test.  Taste test.

7.  Spoon the caramel over the apples.  I like loads so I tend to make more so I can almost soak the cakes to the middle when I up-turn them.  Drool 

8.  Now for the cake.  Preheat the oven to 180 deg C or 350 deg F.

9.  Cream the butter & sugar till pale & fluffy

10.  Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well in between

11.  Add the vanilla

12.  Sift in the flour, baking powder, salt & cinnamon

13.  Gently fold in to mix well but try not to over-do

14.  In a clean, dry bowl, beat the egg white till stiff but not meringued

15.  Spoon and gently fold into the batter.  Again, try not to beat as you want the volume and "airiness"

16.  Spoon into the muffin cups over the caramel apples till about 80% full.  They are gonna rise and you do not want the caramel bubbling over and out

17.  Even out the batter with a butter knife

18.  Bake for about 30-32 mins depending on your oven.  Mine is insane and possessed so it was 30 mins this time.  You can try to test its done-ness with the skewer test but you can really just eyeball it.  Cracks will develop and you can see in the "ravines" if they are done or not.  If that is beyond you, skewer away but I pity you

19.  Remove the muffins tray and leave to cool for about 5 mins.  I left them for about 10 as I started watching some Japanese drama online and forgot.  Ha!

20.  Slice off the "dome" to even it out so it will not wobble hopelessly when you upturn it

21.  Upturn.  If you have used silicon muffin cups, this will be easy peasy.  If you haven't, again I pity you.  And sure hope you had even presence of mind to butter, flour and/or line your muffin cups.  If not, I pity you endlessly

22.  You now have lurvely caramel oozing over the sides of your mini apple upside down cakes.  There should be leftover caramel juices in you muffins cakes.  Here is where the cut-off domes come in.  Take in hand and scoop out all the yummy leftover caramel.  Dip, munch, drool, repeat.

- If you pack the leftovers properly and freeze them, you can keep them for about 1-2 weeks.  Just take them out and defrost to room temperature.  You can then give a quick warming in your toaster for about 2-3 mins and serve with nice, cold vanilla ice cream or thick, clotted cream if you are diet-scornful.  I tend to have them as is not because I fear the calories but because I love the caramel so much.  Also, if you are going to freeze them, it is better to under-cook then over-cook, alright?

And there you have my tweaked, miniaturised apple upside down cake.  The more discerning amongst you may suspect that I tend to miniaturise most things, and to make them in small batches ... and I give guesstimations and do not hold to precision.  Highly radical in baking and Martha Stewart would scoff and scorn that I will never attain perfection or success.

To which I say, feck you, Martha Stewart.  I seldom screw up in baking even with my imprecise measurements and habit of winging things.  The reason is that I check and adjust ad adapt as I cook.  Eyeballing and taste testing are essential.  I think on my feet and that is no small feat when you take into account I am almost hobbled and unable to stay on them for long.

Cooking and baking is not a science.  I don't care what El Bulli says.  I say it is an organic art arising from the most basic instinct.  Hunger. 

You can waffle on about presentation and soul of food but the most basic thing it fulfills is hunger.  What you cook or bake has to be edible. It is the primary mandate.  If you spend all that time worrying and measuring and the result is an inedible lump of someone else's aesthetics, then you have failed yourself.  How it tastes and its success depends on you.  You decide what, how much and when you want to add or take away.  A recipe is a guide and based on someone else's preference.

You can study the principles and techniques to understand the logic behind the recipe (after all the Dalai Lama has it right - learn all the rules so you can break them properly) but no recipe is tied in stone.  You might as well make a stone soup if you forced feed yourself with someone else's demands.

Therefore, do no get so hung up over my recipe.  I didn't. Go forth and create culinary anarchy.  It's fun.