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.

Ahmet's on Oxford

So November is the birthday month of H., Z., and Mrs. I! They decided to have a joint party to share the love. Mrs. I actually didn't end up going due to continuing celebrations with her family, however, Miss Chatterbox, S., G., and her mother A., L., and D., NZ-A., Beck and her baby, H-Dizzle and Professor J., all came along, not a bad turn out at all!

I was originally supposed to organise the whole thing as ordered by Z., and H., but I only got as far as deciding the weekend it was supposed to be on before H., picked Ahmet's on Oxford. I was a bit irritated at her as I found it hard to get to, being the only non-driver out of all the people who turned up, however S., kindly offered me a lift.

I'm really struggling with how to take photographs of all the food for large groups of people, up to five or six is fine but any larger and I find its really difficult to take all the photos while people are hungrily waiting. I go with friends who are very patient with me but I feel like its really annoying waiting for me when the food is right there. Do I stand up and go over to each individual spot? Do I ask the waiter to present all the meals to me first so I can get a photo?

Lately, I've been getting people to take photos on my behalf and I use that photo no matter how it turns out. It's made for some very interesting or blurred photos recently.

The other Ahmet's!

I'm not sure what to make of Ahmet's interior, it reminds me of an oddly lit bathroom due to all the tiles? I'm struggling to remember what it looks like besides the photos I have here. I didn't get a good photo of their bar due to all the lights they had there. There are lots of water colour country scenes scattered around the restaurant.

Front desk with jewellery

The kitchen service area

The eerily glowing bar

Here is their menu.

Both H-Dizzle and H., ordered the ayran. Apparently this is Turkey's natural drink of unsweetened yoghurt, water and salt flakes. The taste is very strong with that sour, thick creaminess that you associate with plain Greek yoghurt. It has a very pronounced saltiness that emphasises the sourness of the yoghurt and its not as thick as it could be due to the water used to thin down the drink. I was quite surprised as I was expected more a lassi type flavour, a similar Indian drink made from sweetened or plain yoghurt and assorted fruit. When I tasted this, I would not have been surprised if this was a sauce for a particularly spicy main, H., did not enjoy her drink but H-Dizzle did, having had it on previous occasions.

Salty and sour?

I decided to get some cider, it was the Hills Cider and I got an apple one whilst G., got a pear one. I didn't like it, not sweet enough to my taste and with a mildly hops like flavour?

Disliked ):

I have no idea what this was called as it doesn't appear to be on their menu, however it was an absolutely delicious cheese, dill and shallot flat bread drizzled with hummus. I cannot even begin to describe the enticing smell that came from this bread from the liberal usage of dill. We cut apart the bread to share amongst our end, S., NZ-A., H-Dizzle and myself and I was a bit too slow to take a photo of all that oozy cheese. The bread was puffy and crispy, somewhat like pizza dough haha.

What are you called delicious thing!?

This was D., and L.,'s entree mujver, vegetable fritters. They're not the most attractive of entrees but they are incredibly delicious, being made of a light, creamy interior and a crunchy chickpea batter. I can't remember what was in them but I remember wanting to eat more of them.

So ugly, yet so tasty

Quite a few people got Turkish bread and dips to share as a starter. Me? I just ate what was offered to me haha. Both A., and G., got some as well as L., and her husband, D. The bread was soft, thick and puffy with a slight chew, it was very good stuff.

Soft and puffy

So much bread and dip!

From left to right, we tried the jajik, avocado, beetroot, hot and spicy, baba ganoush and hummus dips. The jajik is a creamy, yoghurt, cucumber and garlic dip which I avoided due to yoghurt upsetting my lactose intolerance like a bull in a china shop. The avocado was also surprisingly creamy and bland, I was expecting a guacamole type dip but it was quite bland. The beetroot was sweet, earthy and super pink. The hot and spicy relish was like an oven roasted capsicum that had a good heat behind it, it was a favourite. The baba ganoush was my pick of the lot with my love of smokey eggplant. The hummus was surprisingly average, with a very, very smooth texture, it wasn't bad though.

Dips in all the colours of the rainbow!

A., the house special pide consisting of salami, chicken, capsicum, mushroom, mozzarella and egg.  I didn't get to try this but A., remarked that she has had better and didn't really enjoy it. How can I say I didn't try this and still know what the pide base tasted like? There was one down my end! This picture was taken by H., as I was pinned against the wall and couldn't get up to take a photo.

Its so darn dark

Here is another pide, this time a vegetarian one. Z., ordered this are remarked that the mushrooms were very good, there was also capsicum, spinach, onion and feta. I found this one to be much cheesier than the tavuklu one for some reason, the cheese was so stretchy. Z., didn't really like her meal, stating that it was nice but she wouldn't go back.

So blurry

This is the lamb shish that Professor J., ordered, it came with a few pieces of flatbread, very buttery, garlicky and super fluffy potato mash and a tasty rice pilaf. I didn't see her afterwards so I was unable to ask her how her meal was.

Two thick skewers of meat

G., got the lamb iskander, a drowned looking combination of slow cooked lamb, Turkish bread and tomatoes with a tomato sauce and a dill and yoghurt sauce on top. It looks very, very saucy in my opinion. G., remarked that she didn't like it as the flavours were very bland.

It does look a bit struggle plate to be honest

My end of the table ordered the tavuklu pide to share, a garlic chicken, capsicum, mushroom and mozzarella topped Turkish style pizza. The pide base was delicious! Like the best deep pan base you've ever eaten, super fluffy, with a slight chew and crustiness.

This the chicken shish which came with turkish bread, mashed potato and rice pilaf. I can't remember who got this but it must've been someone sitting nearby as I've got a clear photo of it.

Much blur.

I was gunning for the king's mixed grill which had a little of everything on it. L., and D., got one to share and H-Dizzle and I split ours since we wanted to try lots of things. It came with turkish bread, rice pilaf, mashed potato, two prawn skewers, lamb, chicken and adana shish as well as a lamb cutlet. Delicious! A perfect size to share between two people. The prawns were a touch on the small size, bursty, sweet and garlicky. The chicken shish was also garlicky, so juicy and tender. The lamb was also very, very tender and I enjoyed that the most out of all the meats on this plate. The adana was mildly spicy and very tasty. I didn't get to try our sole lamb cutlet cause someone else at the table pinched it.

All the food!

H., once again, ordered the worst thing out of the menu. Not so much so, in terms of deliciousness but in size. She received about eight or ten garlic and lemon marinated prawns on top of some mashed potato and rice pilaf. She was highly disappointed and said that she was expecting more, especially with the price of the meal.

Much sadface.

The last dish that ordered to share was the ali nazak which came with your choice of chicken, lamb or adana shish. We got the lamb to compliment what we already had. This was a thick, slow roasted and very hearty stew of eggplant, capsicum, tomato and onion topped with lamb cubes and garlic and yoghurt sauce. I really enjoyed this dish as did NZ-A, H-Dizzle and S.,

So delicious

Ahmet's on Oxford
Atmosphere: 6, busy, dimly lit but with very comfy tables and seats.
Service: 5, ordered and got our food, nothing much to say.
Food: 6, the food at our end of the table was much better. I think it's because we all choose very different dishes and decided to share amongst ourselves. The other end ordered stuff that was a lot harder to share out and found their dishes very repetitive. I'm not sure if I would ever go back here again with that being said. The turkish bread was very good as was the pide, I think the flavours of the meat can be a little plain at times but they are very well cooked, always tender and juicy with a lovely smokey, charcoal laced flavour from the bits I sampled.

RJIE 20: Brekkie at Bitter Suite

Yeah, I am never going to go back here ever again. The menu just doesn't interest me and its too far away. This has been sitting unpublished with one dish for almost four months. Time to let go.

Bitter Suite is a lovely little cafe/bar which is open for all three meals and has a very extensive menu.I feel like its a bit out of the way, considering its not on New Farm's main street, Brunswick.

I got a seat by myself far, far away from everyone else. I liked that all the tables had a fresh arrangement of flowers on them, I actually picked mine because of the bright orange marigold on it.

Look how pretty it is!

I ordered a piccolo which was absolutely perfect, smooth, dark and just a tinge bitter, I drank it without sugar and would've had another one if I wasn't so buzzy from the first. They stock Fonzie Abbot expresso here which is a Brisbane based roaster, Hamilton to be precise. They stock really good hand roasted, single origin beans as well as wonderful blends, they do a lot of markets too, so watch out for them!

I'm a sucker for big breakfasts, this one consisted of a choice of eggs, a massive smoked pork cutlet, garlic mushrooms, spinach, tomato salsa, potato hash cake, roasted tomato, black pudding and a chunk of sourdough with butter. I really regret not taking a second photo of what the actual smoked pork cutlet looked like under the mushrooms and the black pudding, the meat section was the same size as the bread! It came with a little frenched bone handle which I thought was a nice touch, absolutely delicious and I didn't finish it. 

The scrambled eggs are the creamiest I've ever tasted, hands down, just a sunshine yellow, creamy blob of egg, that held its shape lovingly and didn't weep on my plate. The garlic mushrooms were nice and salty, using an assortment of button mushrooms and slightly larger field mushrooms. The roasted tomato was okay. The black pudding is not the best I've ever had, I really like black pudding but this one was quite plain, with just the nubbly texture of blood and creamy chunks of fat mixed in. The potato cake is okay, nothing special. I liked the chewiness of the bread and the little disc of butter was a perfect size for my slice of bread.

Bitter Suite
Atmosphere: 8, super cute, well lit little restaurant. I really enjoyed going here and I loved the fresh flower arrangements.
Service: 8, super cheerful, friendly waitresses who all greeted me whenever they walked past. It reminded me of going through my private high school as an alumni and being called ma'am all the time. They were very quick to clear away dishes and ask if I needed anything.
Food: 6, solid food, not particularly innovative or anything but still well cooked and very well presented. 

Verve Restaurant, Bar and Cider House

My posting has really slowed down recently because I've been so busy/drained at work. It's been a while since I've had a holiday and I'm pretty tired. The real reason though, is the damn heat.

Pretty much

The heat, considering I've lived in Queensland for 18 out of 23 years I've been alive, I am ridiculously heat sensitive. I sneeze every time I enter an area with a drastically different temperature. At work, I will always sneeze at 4am and 4pm, cause the air conditioning changes temperature to accommodate the different day/night requirements. I sweat like a sinner in a church with the non permeable gowns we need to wear for isolation too.

My catchphrase

My Boyfriend knows how much of a whiny, annoying bitch I can be when I'm hot and sweaty, since I always visit him before work. I normally end up stripping off to cool down, I hit/bite him when he gets too close and I moan and complain if the fan isn't on me. He knows now, to stay out of my way and bring me a cool drink when I come through the door. God, that boy is so tolerant of my bullshit.

Anyway, we went here for JGirl's 21st birthday! Shishi, Dr H., Mandy and I went. VGirl was still in Japan at this time otherwise she'd have been there for sure. When JGirl was commuting into the city, she got busted by ticket inspectors on her bus for not renewing her GoCard and go fined $220. She was so full of rage, I've never seen her so angry. We offered to pay it off as a birthday present but she refused, so we just threw money at her for a joint present, we made it rain the dollars.

So much blur

Here is their menu.

The specials of the day

Its a very dark, poorly lit sort of underground bar. There is a steep staircase leading downstairs and lots of little tables everywhere. The roof is very low and solid, so every sound is magnified in the small space. The majority of the pictures were taken with a smartphone as a back light which made for some interesting photos. Then we got lazy and hungry so the rest were taken in the dark. I am a very motivated food blogger.

Average level of light in this place

They have a very extensive cider menu but we just went with Elk pear cider and Rekorderlig wild berry. JGirl ordered the Elk pear cider and had a second one later that night, she says she likes it due to its low alcohol content. The Rekoderlig was my choice and I didn't quite finish it.  Here is the rest of their menu.

We got some calamari as one of our shared entrees, which came on a bed of rocket drizzled with balsamic glaze, two lemon wedges and some house aioli. The calamari was very tender with a slightly crunchy exterior with not quite a light dusting of salt as the menu said. Everyone found the calamari to be well cooked but very intensely salty, which spoiled it

Well cooked

We also got the trio of dips with bread, the dips change day by day but we guessed from left to right, roasted capsicum and feta, a white bean dip and then a beetroot and walnut dip. The roasted capsicum dip was by far the tastiest, smokey, sweet and a little bit spicy, it had a nice saltiness from the feta and we ate that one the quickest. No one really touched the beetroot, it had a nice flavour but it wasn't as sweet as the beetroot we're used to eating. The white bean dip wasn't as smooth as we'd like and quite bland too.

So many spoons

The first thing to come out was the cajun spiced prawn fettucini with rocket, cream, tomato and dry white wine sauce. The pasta was tasty, as were the abundant small plump prawns however the sauce was very creamy tomato and quite plain as well. This was the only thing that wasn't heavily over salted. Dr. H ordered this and we found that this was delicious when mixed with the pasta I had ordered.

So much blandness

JGirl ordered this goats cheese, chicken and pumpkin gnocchi with a cream and rosemary sauce. This was the pick of the day, super creamy and so cheesy with that double richness from the cream and the goats cheese. The gnocchi were like soft fluffy pillows. I even ate the pumpkin which I normally abhor, the rind was left on which I was a bit confused at. We scraped that plate clean, and someone may have licked it a bit but I won't say who.

So utterly delicious

Shishi ordered the Italian pizza which had spiced salami, marinated sour mushrooms, olives and roasted capsicum on top. It was so, so salty, we all had one slice and pushed it aside afterwards. The tomato sauce was a little spicy. The base was quite tasty though, thin, crunchy and with a good flavour.

Sad pizza

After this we went to Passion Tree and had some dessert, I ordered the crying nut waffle which consisted of one jumbo waffle, vanilla ice cream, some crunchy stuff, a cashew and brazil nut praline and a tiny pitcher of maple syrup. This was an utterly delicious dessert and I highly recommend it.

So tasty

We had a shared green tea frozen yoghurt with matcha balls and blueberries.

Pretty standard

This is the cake that Dr H made for JGirl! It's the standard chocolate mud cake from Woolies, covered with smarties, the red ones spell out 21, surrounded by chocolate covered biscuits and held up by a red ribbon. We didn't actually get to eat it because we didn't have a knife and we weren't sure how to cut it. We did take lots of pictures though!

Verve Restaurant, Bar and Cider House:
Atmosphere: 5, dimly lit, super noisy underground bar. I wasn't a fan.
Service: 5, quick service. I didn't really like my waiter but I can't put down a reason why. He seemed quite arrogant is my only real thought.
Food: 5, saved from a 4 just because of that gnocchi. The food was overly salty and not just from my point of view, it really detracted from the entire meal. That being said, everything was well cooked, just incredibly salty.

Chocolate Pavillion

Chocolate Pavillion! The ugly stepchild of the Southbank precinct's dessert bars! Check out their Urbanspoon, they've been slammed by nearly every other person who went there. It really makes for very interesting reading though. I had no idea of the reputation of this place when I went, every time I've been here is at the end of a meal with friends and we've been turned off by the line at Max Brenner and wanted a coffee to chat.

The following review is based off two trips there, one with my Dad, VGirl and my French Cousin, after we went to Char Char Yiros, as well as a visit with my Boyfriend, Lu., and Gill, after we went to Bamboo Basket.

Here is a link to their menu.

My French Cousin ordered the chocolate sandwich consisting of two layers of parfait between thin discs of chocolate, topped with crushed nuts, caramel sauce and tiny, crispy balls of milk, dark and white chocolate. The tiny chocolate balls tasted like Maltesers to be honest and they were absolutely everywhere in every dessert. I managed to take this picture mid fall, but other than that it was almost identical to the picture in the menu! He said it was tasty but unexpected.

VGirl ordered a mint and lychee granita, it was a faintly green tower of unending lychee ice. There was a strong and sweet flavour of lychee with a faint minty freshness from the mint. I gave myself a massive headache when I was drinking this. The gentle curvature of the cup made for deceptive drinking, as I drank and drank and the cup's volume barely changed.

Minty~

On the second occasion I went here, I picked the raspberry cheesecake. The plate was messily drizzled with a tart raspberry coulis, a small cheesecake with baked raspberries was in the centre, topped with more raspberry coulis and a drizzle of white chocolate sauce, a blob of double cream and some randomly scattered white chocolate crispy balls. The coulis was delicious! Sweet, tart and perfectly balanced, I really enjoyed the flavour of the sauce. The cheesecake was smooth, creamy and a good contrast to the sourness of the raspberries. The double cream had real little flecks of vanilla bean! All in all, I found this to be a good dessert wit a nice contrast of flavours.

My plate looks like a kid with red paint

Oozing interior

Gill., picked the sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and vanilla double cream. It was a very rich, sticky and moist pudding with a great sauce. I really enjoyed the taste I had.

Lu., got the Ferraro Roche gelato which came drizzled in chocolate sauce and random chocolate crunchy balls. It was tasty, smooth, creamy with a pronounced chocolatey/hazelnutty flavour.

Chocolate Pavillion
Atmosphere: 5, its alright. It's cute. I guess. Yes, in reality, I didn't take particular notice of the place.
Service: 3, I really have to say that the service here is terrible. You're barely noticed, its hard to get someone's attention, dishes aren't cleared and you're promised water on a slow shift and nothing ever arrives. Our orders were correct though so a 3 is what they get.
Food: 5, the food looks exactly like the picture which is nice. Delicious for what you get, although a bit small and I still have no idea why those tiny crunchy balls were everywhere.