For The Love Of Baking

Bake. For the love of baking.

Dear everyone,

sadly, Blogsome will be closing down their hosting service by December 7th, 2011. Consequently, this blog address will be no longer valid afterward.

Right now I’m trying to steal time to move this blog to Wordpress and tidy up the new place as best as I could. So no worries, we’ll meet there soon.

The address is http://pennylanekitchen.wordpress.com/ if you want to sneak a peek, or maybe help me with the window decoration?

I hope you stay around.

Love,

Lalampa, Kue Pisang Kenari, Ikan Bumbu Asam, Ikan Woku Belanga, Guraka, Bubur Manado
Just got back from 2 weeks voyage across Ternate - Raja Ampat - Banda Neira - Ambon, where I went crazy for Kue Pisang Kenari, Guraka, Terong Saus Kenari, Cinnamon Tea and Nutmeg Jam!
 
Adventure-wise, I had an unforgettable journey of a lifetime. Food-wise, I’m deeply in love.
 

 
Do you see the flaming red peeking from inside the nutmeg? It’s mace. Banda produces premium quality of mace for the whole world. The whole islands are covered in Nutmeg and Kenari trees. The Kenari trees are often very big and old, as old as decades, even hundreds of years.
 
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An entry for idfb challenge #1: Food By It’s Country of Indonesian Foodblogger group

The Turkish delight! The one that keeps me craving night, after night, after night! After night!

This is a middle eastern sweet nibble that comes not only in large variety of fillings, but also the country where it claims to be the origin of. I saw this dessert many times on television shows, fell in love with everything about it. One day my good friend brought me one, and it was the sweet joyful wonderfully crunchy yet beautifully moist thing I put in my mouth. I crave for it ever since.

If you searched on the net, as I mentioned earlier, you’ll come up with lots of nuts variety for the filling. Pistachio, almond, walnut, hazelnut, cashew, macadamia, peanut, along with unlimited combination of them. Use whatever you fancy of, or whatever you have easier access to, don’t worry, you can’t go wrong with all these delicious nuts. For me, almond is the cheapest around, it is now even cheaper than Kenari. It’s funny, because Kenari is of Indonesian origin. I wanted pistachio and walnut, but the they are unbelievably expensive in Jakarta, I might as well wait for anyone coming from middle east to bring me some pistachios. Anyone?

I tweaked some recipes into one that suits my preference. First attempt was too sweet, I suffered sugar high all night. The second attempt was p-e-r-f-e-c-t, it was gone in a minute I couldn’t even have a chance to take any photos. This was the third and it got better everytime. What so great about this recipe is that, not only it uses minimum amount of sugar and is dead easy to make, but also, unlike most baklavas, it has just the right strength of sweetness because I didn’t pour all the syrup at once. I drizzled only a couple tablespoons over the hot baklava, just enough to let it drip onto the sides of every squares and wet the bottom layer. This ensures your baklava will be sweet enough, moist enough without losing its crispiness, but not heavily immersed in syrup that would make it too sweet. You can always serve the rest of the syrup alongside the baklava for additional sweetness.

Gotta speak about the syrup here. It was soooo gorgeously magical! Apparently, the concoction of honey, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel creates a magical potion you can’t resist. Seriously, I’m under spell now. My friend said it was, “Slurping good!”
 

 
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Video by Pinot
 
Ooh, yeah! I can’t wait to announce this!
 
Ok, here we go. Once upon a time, 4 female foodbloggers, met online and got to know each other via blogs and emails. Two of them live in Kuwait, one lives in New Zealand, one in Jakarta, Indonesia. They were bonded by two things they’re really passionate about: food and photography. One sunny day, they decided to write a book about the two: food photography. They worked on it for about 8 months, and now the book is on its way to the bookstores in Indonesia!
 
They call themselves EmpatRana, which translates as Four Shutters. They are Arfi Binsted, Dita Ichwandardi, Irra Fachriyanthi and me, Riana Ambarsari
 
Here how the cover will look like:
 

 
Here, we talk about food photography in simple, easy to understand terms, the way we learnt it in the first place. We reveal our humble home studios, which are basically a table, a source of light, some help from reflector and props, and more little help from our children .
 
The book is projected to be available at bookstores in Indonesia this July 13rd, 2011 at the latest. So stay alert, you will wanna have this, trust me!
 

 
I made these 2 years ago

Oh, well. Found the photo in my hard drive and suddenly realized I never published it except in my own head. You think I’m a little ‘cuckoo’, you might be right. Are you scared? *grin*

What I love about these cookies is that, first, it was cinnamon and nothing but cinnamon. Second, it used wholewheat flour instead of white flour. To my palate, whole grain has more layers of flavour than the plain white one. And third, again, it’s cinnamon.

Was it good? My God, yes. Perfect for the coming Ramadhan and Idul Fitri.

I took the recipe from HillBilly Housewife, but I think it was very similar with the recipe from Allrecipes.com except that it uses butter instead of margarine. Use whichever you fancy since it doesn’t make much different. I’ll use butter for the second time around, not that margarine will make it bad though. Now, let’s roll.
 
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Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I always love Nigella right from the very beginning I saw her television program. I love everything about the show: the pictures, the photography, the flow, the concept, everything. The recipes are so-so, but i don’t know why that flaw, if it is actually one, doesn’t really matter to me. To me, recipes are more like ideas that we adapt freely from time to time rather than some sort of instruction sets. As long as they are not totally fraud, I appreciate and cherish them as the treasures I am obliged to explore more. And I love the simplicity and throw-your-caution-to-the-wind attitude she boasts which I think is more important than batting yourself with perfection. So far, I managed to try out some of her recipes, and even though I think the Triple Chocolate Brownies was not really a champ, I love her Cardamom Macaroons I wished I could have them everyday.

When I saw this book, I knew I would adore all the photos exactly like I dreamily stare at every frame, shot by shot in any television programs of her. They were the first thing I looked for in this book. But then I read it, and the writing,.. I heart! I enjoyed her narration so much I found myself taking notes of words I love . I love her way of thinking incorporating gadgets and equipments, not only the ones that work for her, but also those that, in her words, “languished gathering dust in a cupboard under the stairs before being sent, defeatedly, off to the thrift store.”

I think I owe the adoration and religious loyalty of sitting in front of my TV set everytime she’s on to the fact that I simply see myself in her. Capturing imperfection as fun, enjoying kitchen mess like it is the most interesting decoration reflecting live and liveliness, I even agree with her idea about banishing kitchen drawers in any way other than for storing mugs!

So, from me, five stars

View all my reviews

 
To masquerade my lack of food blogging lately, let me share some sneak preview from the upcoming recipe book by Fatmah Bahalwan and NCC Team that I happened to be the photographer of. It is the last instalment of the recipe book series of 60 Foolproof Recipes: Dessert and Drinks.

As with the last book, I worked with two of my colleagues, Citra and Nadrah, to help me with the styling. And it was one of the smartest decisions I made in life, beside quitting office work and getting myself a good handblender stick .
 
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I know, I know, most of you will frown. Especially those of you who live in Indonesia, where the cost of repairmen is fairly low. So convenient to just simply make a call and let them take care of the business while you’re sipping your ice tea and reading the latest Martha Stewart Living on the porch. And for how much? The cost certainly won’t kill your cash flow and thus it will be totally, totally worth it. Hence the ice tea

However, you know, I was born a crafty hand. I inherited it from my late beloved Mom, who fixed her own sewing machine and would climb up the roof and saved us from fluttering potentially tumbling tiles tragedy. So I grew up not only adapting some fixing skill from my Mom, but also in deep appreciation toward this craftsmanship and the zeal that goes along with it. I figure if I live in western countries it would be very useful for us to master this skill. I know my Mom still needed a repairman to fix her oven, but I think if she didn’t have 7 kids hanging on her back 24 hour a day I’m pretty sure she would’ve taken the matter into her own hands.

I came across this website about 2 years ago, PartSelect, it sells spare parts of almost all appliances you could possibly have at home. I know it doesn’t make your jaw dropped, but here is the catch: what if it tells you how to fix your appliances?

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We were in Yogyakarta end of January this year, me and my NCC fellows. We got to do a cake decorating demo promoting our books in Solo, then took the advantage of time and place by taking further trip to Yogyakarta. It was our last day, we drove to Alun-alun and spent the whole afternoon having Wedang Ronde, cycling around, giggling unstoppably along the process

Wedang Ronde is a Javanese dessert, one of the pride of Yogyakarta: glutinous rice balls stuffed with sweet peanut paste, floating in a hot and sweet ginger tea. Wedang means hot. But this dessert can be enjoyed cold too, although uncommon.

Classic, refreshing, nostalgic.
Damn good.

Here is the recipe taken from the upcoming book of Fatmah Bahalwan & NCC Team, which is the 4th installment of 60 Foolproof Recipes series: Drinks & Dessert. So this is kinda a sneak preview.
 

Food styling by Citra Anggraini Kusuma & Nadrah Shahab
 
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These photos are from last year. I was at Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia, waiting for my class to begin. I’d be teaching food photography class that very morning. I got to Sugarflours too early, obviously. The store was still closed, it was around 7. I found this old style cafe in the corner of the block. It was the only business opened in that early hour. The smell of the coffee vaporized and intrigued me in a second. Bangi Kopitiam.

Dragged my heavy backpack to a table at the farthest spot from the counter, plunked myself in a chair and grabbed a menu. One coffee caught my eyes in an instant: Kopi Perempuan. Or translated as Female Coffee. I could almost feel it in my mouth already.

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