Food Phenomnomom!

Its been and gone but here are my pictures from Food Phenomnomnom held on the 1st of June at the Cooparoo Bowls Club. On arriving there, the place was absolutely packed! There wasn't parking to be found for a good ten minutes or more around the venue. We ended up going down the main road nearby and finding a side street to park on.

We did a quick run through of all the food trucks before making our plan of action. So here are the vans that showed up! First is the Neko Neko food Van, a Japanese food van selling sushi, Japanese sweet treats like fish shaped azuki bean pastries, udon dishes and bento boxes.

Closest I could get

This is the Pasta Cruiser, which sells freshly made pasta with a variety of traditional and non traditional pasta sauces.

Same for these guys

Thumbs up hotdog, had a massive line up and served five different types of hot dogs. The kicker for this food van was the huge amount of condiments they served with the hot dogs.

Ehh I'll just take photos of their sign

Juan More Taco is a Tex-Mex taco van, owned by one of my work acquaintances. They sell five different tacos, pork, chicken, beef, veggie and a special of the day.

Cute set up

Roam'in pizza is a wood fired mobile pizza oven that serve a variety of different pizzas as well as wraps.

Click on the photo to enlarge!

When I had arrived the Meatball Spot were telling everyone that they had completely run out of everything barring the wedges and were hastily restocking at the nearby Woolies/Coles. Its a pity cause I really wanted to have some. I didn't see them reselling meatballs until we left around 4pm.

Someone on IG said they were amazing ):

This is King of the Wings, they rocked up as I was getting there and I immediately hopped in line.They had five different wings for sale, the American BBQ with a hint of bourbon, bee sting with honey, sesame and chilli, the Southern Spice, a dry spice rub with a tasty herb mayo accompaniment, the Portuguese Crumb, a super crunchy coating with Portuguese flavours and the Chilliology, a mix of three of Australia's hottest chillis. You could also get steamed garlic butter chicken rice as a side or french fries. They also served potato samosas and veggie spring rolls for the vegetarians.

I saw Manda while I was in line and her let her cut in because she looked super sad when she saw how long all the other lines were.

Oooh~

While I spent an eternity in line for the King of the Wings van, I saw this van pull up from nowhere. Its the Kai Kart! New Zealand style pies, sweet baked goods, drinks and real fruit ice cream. 

Yay~

They sold out of most things really, really fast

I got super bossy and demanded everyone split up. I forgot my wallet at home which was pretty mortifying so I borrowed money off VGirl to stand in the line at King of Wings. HKBoy went to get pizza and also the tacos while VGirl and Mini VGirl derped around the trunks.

Veggie Pizza!

We got a vegetarian pizza for VGirl to mostly eat it had a very thin, slightly crisp base which probably would've been much crisper if we had eaten it as soon as we had gotten it. It had capsicum, spinach, olives, pineapple, mushrooms, onion, cheese and cherry tomatoes. There was a lovely wood smoked flavour to the pizza from the oven that they used.

Pizza~!

We grabbed one of each taco to split between us. From top left and going clockwise, there is the beef, chicken, veggie and then pulled pork tacos.

Oooh~

The sharing was made a bit more difficult by the fact that I was recovering from having a nasty upper respiratory track infection of some sort. So I was unable to share bites with everyone else, we decided to pinch off a bit of the meat off each taco and make our decisions to our sole taco each. It actually turned out quite well because we all had very different favourites.

The taco on the left is the slow braised beef in chipotle and adobo sauce with salsa verjo, pico de gallo and queso fresco. Salsa verjo being a simple red sauce made from onions, tomato, chilli and garlic. Pico de gallo is a basic fresh sauce made from tomato, garlic, coriander, onion and jalapenos. While the queso fresco is a feta like textured cheese that they get specially made from a cheese maker. I liked this one the most.

The chicken was the universal favourite on the right, I think they actually made it a differently to what they had on their website. They were chicken thighs marinated in achiote paste that were super tender and flavoursome. None of us realised that the green stuff on top was a super potent, home made jalapeno sauce that destroyed HKBoy's and Mini VGirl's taste buds. Manda had some too and she agreed it had a nasty burn. Mini VGirl had to run away to find a drink to quench the burn, she scraped off all the sauce and ate the rest of her taco quite sadly.

Not bad

HKBoy picked the pulled pork taco that got topped with some bright pink pickles. The pork was the universal second favourite. It was very tasty from memory.

The one on the right is the vegetarian taco that has spiced, crunchy pepitas, zucchini, roasted capsicum, fresh corn, tomatoes and queso fresco. VGirl wasn't particularly impressed by it and she said that the portions are quite small compared to some of the other Mexican places that she went to. She mostly ate the vegetarian pizza and ended up eating some fresh berry ice cream from the Kiwi van to fill herself up. I quite liked the pepitas that were in the taco. She also didn't at the bright green jalapeno sauce.

Hmm~

The main part of our meal were the wings from King of Wings. We got a 20 pack for $24 with a choice of four flavours. I decided that we would get every flavour but the Chilliology as VGirl said that the other people couldn't handle the spice.

Delicious wings. The smell was incredible.

So from upper left going clockwise, its Bee Sting, American BBQ, Southwest Spice Rub and then the Portuguese Crunch. The Bee Sting was sticky sweet with a mild chilli hint, which was Mini VGirl's favourite.

The American BBQ was Manda's favourite, she ordered her own box with the American BBQ and the Southwest Spice Rub. She remarked that the she was used to have a bit of a saucier wing, and the Southwest Spice Rub was quite dry compared to the American BBQ. That being said, she didn't go for the creamy herb mayonnaise that was on offer. We were both surprised they didn't do a classic buffalo wing.

The Southwest Spice Rub was my favourite, nice and crunchy and it went wonderfully with the herb mayonnaise. I really enjoyed it. I loved all of it though, I could eat any of these wings again and again. If I saw them at a market or something, I would gladly buy another box of the stuff.

The Portuguese Crunch was HK Boy's favourite one, he said he loved its super crunchy coating and the flavours in the batter they used.

Delicious wings

While we were eating, we sat at the back of the lawn bowls court. We saw a lot of little kids running around with nothing to do and completely unsupervised. When this lawn bowls game started below, a lot of kids were running around picking up the heavy balls and ruining the game, they were warned off constantly but it kept happening. As soon as one adult had turned their back, another kid passing by would see the ball and try and pick it up. One kid put himself in time out straight after an elderly man disciplined him about nearly getting knocked over by a heavy lawn bowl.

Serious lawn bowls

We had a chat to the lady organising the event while we were eating, two of the promised food trucks never showed up, a chocolate dipped strawberry van and the frozen yoghurt van. They didn't even bother to call them and inform them of it.

Matcha Chiffon Cake

Do you know what the most definitive indication of a woman's weight loss is? That one thing that tells you, "geez you've lost a bit recently."

Visible collarbones? Nope.

A thigh gap? Nope.

An arse that defies gravity? Nope.

No periods? That fine anorexia down to conserve body heat? Yes, but that's gone way too far. I'm talking quick fix here, no one drops down to anorexia proportions and goes back up in a week or two.

It's actually a women's breasts that tend to shrink first when losing weight. Breasts are pure fat, so it only makes sense that when the body is lean and mean, the first place to go is the breasts and pretty much nowhere else. Sorry thighs and belly fat, this is a more permanent storage solution for the body, so this is often the last to go.

What does this story have anything to do with matcha chiffon cakes? Well one of the finer points of chiffon cakes is that the lightness is due directly to the huge amount of stiff peaks egg whites used as well as the lack of heavy fat. Chiffon cakes, unlike most cakes, is made without butter and instead only oil, water and a splash of milk are used to moisture to the cake. This makes for a very light, fluffy and delicate flavour rather than the rich buttery flavour you'd associate with most cakes.

With this being said, chiffon cakes are quite plain in flavour and are always flavoured with something else. This recipe is easily adapted to contain other flavours though, like orange zest, lemon zest, pandan, vanilla and whatever else you can think of.

My cakes fell a little flat because I don't have a high cake tin. Since this cake is so light and has no real substance, it needs a high walled cake tin to cling to to support itself. You can buy specially made chiffon cake tins and things but I've never seen one for sale ever. Despite the lack of cake tin, they still had a beautiful rise and were soft and fluffy. This is the recipe I originally used. I just messed with the proportions a bit for lazy baker inside all of us, it still worked.

When I measure out this matcha powder, I normally sift it a few times to get out the tougher bits of tea. I find myself using a fair bit of matcha powder to make this cake but the flavour is delicious. For the neutral flavoured oil, don't use olive oil, it makes the cake have a really odd flavour due to its strong flavour. Vegetable oil is normally my go to for oil in cakes.

Beating stuff into stiff peaks is honestly the hardest part of this cake. Not so hard if you've got a stand mixer, or are willing to wash yours. I did mine the old fashioned way with a wire whisk and did the traditional test of standing it over my head. Jubi drew me a picture because I made this cake once over Skype.

I freaked out several times attempting this

Matcha Chiffon Cake

Uses: unsweet cake for Asians to enjoy.

Ingredients for the cake:
5 large egg yolks at room temperature
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1/3 cup of neutral tasting oil
2 tablespoons of milk
2 tablespoons of water
1 scant cup of plain flour with 2 tablespoons of corn flour well sifted in, aka cake flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
25g of matcha green tea powder

Ingredients for the meringue:
5 large egg whites at room temperature
1/2 scant cup of sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar

All the usual suspects

Instructions:
1. Separate your eggs.

I should just reuse this photo constantly

2. Beat your egg yolks and sugar together until pale, thick and creamy.

Same for this photo

3. Start mixing in the oil a little bit at a time, while whipping vigorously. Very much like a mayonnaise. I don't know why I do this, you can just add it all in at once, I found it made only a small different to how fluffy the cake turned out.

Shiny, shiny oil

4. Mix in the water with the sugary mayo mixture.

5. Sift the crap out of your matcha green tea, flour and baking powder. I normally do this about three or four times depending on how lazy I feel. If there are any chunky bits of tea left behind, just throw them out.

One of the many siftings

The colour quickly evens out

6. Mix the matcha/baking powder/flour into the sugar mayo mixture. Start working on the meringue mixture and you will notice the mixture will start to turn a bit greener as the tea infuses.

Shiny/lumpy

7. Time to work on the meringue! Start whipping the egg whites vigorously.

Is this picture upside down?

8. When it hits soft peaks, add in the cream of tartar and start adding the sugar in a teaspoon at a time. Whisk vigorously after each addition.

Dump the sugar in!

9. You will notice the egg whites start to turn nice and shiny after the sugar. Once the egg whites hit stiff peaks, you are done.

This glossy

10. Fold the first third of the meringue into the matcha cake mixture. Fold carefully before folding the rest of the meringue.

Fold it in! Not with a whisk though!

First third!

11. Bake in a high walled 22cm cake tin at 180C for about 40 minutes, this cake doesn't turn golden brown. It really only get pale and springy when pressed down, do the skewer test and you should be sweet.

Last few thirds!

Give it a light tap and smooth out the top

Yeahhh do not use a bundt tin, that's not the same thing at all.

Whats the name of my blog again?

Oh and I didn't bother putting in pictures about the thigh gaps, collar bones or nice arse. Its actually quite NSFW/raunchy considering what I'm looking up, especially when you start venturing into thigh gaps and nice arses. If you need photos, you're already on the internet buddy, check out that stuff in your own time.

Fijian Chocolate Cake

I have always wanted to make a really luscious coconut cake, one that was just as delicious as a Bounty bar. I wanted to have chocolate on the outside and soft, moist coconut on the inside. I wanted it to the richest, softest, moistest cake I'd ever seen, so unbelievably rich and full of coconut flavour that you'd be converted even if you didn't like coconut. I found it in this recipe that I found at this website.

 I searched a few different ones to get to this one and what really struck me was the use of a can of coconut cream. Last year, Mrs I., and I wanted to make a chocolate and coconut cake recipe, I found a few different recipes, we went home and made the cakes. I said that we should have a cake off and was pretty sure I'd win. Her daughter actually baked the cake and beat the pants off of me, which is embarrassing because her daughter was nine at the time. I've had one other chocolate and coconut based cake that had coconut milk in it and it was that cake,  the addition of that coconut milk made it so COCONUT. It just screamed coconut, like pure coconut creaminess baked into a cake with the rich subtlety of chocolate to temper it.

The recipe proportions are a bit strange for my liking. Mostly because when I printed out the recipe, for some reason, both the metric and imperial measurements were included. I chopped and changed things a bit and this became what I actually had in my cake in the picture below. I added in some desiccated coconut for the chewiness and I felt like there could've been more eggs added but I left it as is. The colour of my cake isn't as dark as the picture from the original website, but I went by cup measurement rather than weight as suggested.

I'm quite happy with how the cake turned out however, as it was very moist and intensely coconut flavoured. When I poorly attempted to split the warm cake, half of the top layer crumbled away and I ate most of it rather than attempting to piece it back together. I normally never eat my own cake but I couldn't stop eating this one.

Fijian chocolate cake

Uses:  converting people to the wonders of coconut, secretly making everyone have high cholesterol.

Cake ingredients:
210g of self raising flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
200g of sugar
2 eggs
125g of melted butter
400ml coconut cream, remove 3 tablespoons and top up with milk/water
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut

Not much to it

Icing ingredients:
3 tablespoons of coconut cream, reserved from the cake's coconut cream
150g of softened butter
2 cups of icing sugar
1 cup of flaked/shredded coconut
Lemon juice
 

I forgot to put the icing sugar in this picture.

Instructions for cake:

1. Sift all the dry ingredients, flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, into a large mixing bowl. Add in the desiccated coconut. Line your cake tin and preheat your oven to 180C.

All the dry stuff!

2. Beat the eggs lightly, and pour on top of the flour. Add in the melted butter and the coconut cream.

Plus the wet stuff~

3. Mix vigorously for several minutes.

Makes a cake!

4. Pour into your cake tin and bake in the oven for at least 40-55 minutes. Skewer should come out nice and clean. Allow to cool before attempting icing if desired, otherwise consume immediately.

Well, almost

Instructions for icing
1. Heat a large frying/saucepan on a low medium heat until warm, throw in coconut and stir frequently until evenly golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Be patient!

Ta dah!

2. Cream the butter until pale, soft and fluffy.

Using a whisk is silly fyi.

3. Sift in half the sugar and coconut cream, and mix vigorously until incorporated.

Coconut cream is such an odd grey colour

4. Sift in the remaining sugars slowly, while mixing. Add some lemon juice to lessen the sweetness if required. I used about a quarter of a large lemon.

Buttery

5. Split your cake into two layers and spread a layer of icing in the middle of cake.

Blob!

Please note, cooler cakes are easier to transfer ):

6. Carefully transfer the top back on and ice the sides and top of the cake.

I need to work on my icing skills

7. Press the toasted coconut to the top and sides and serve.

Thank god for coconut eh?