Baking Exploration ::: Mini Cupcakes to Warm Hearts

Starting a journey of kitchen exploring and fun with the always mention "the darling" in this blog. Bringing wonders and smiles to everyone faces on my experience I would love to use this amazing look-see-eat blog to share recipes with all of you so you may be able to spread the joy to your friends & family too!Since I am here in Mauritius, lucky enough the service apartment dear is staying in have a wonderful average oven I am able to delightfully start my kitchen exploring journey.

List of recipe to share with all of you it is so hard for me to choose my first recipe to share in this blog post. Since dear just passed his 30th birthday, I would like to share this mini cupcakes fun baking recipe, which I believe would be the best first very special post.

Cupcakes
1/3 Cup Softened Butter
1/2 Cup Caster Sugar
1 Egg
1 cup sifted Self-Raising Flour
1/3 cup Milk
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degree C.
2. In a medium sized bowl, use an electric mixer on high speed to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well. 3. Next, add the flour, milk and vanilla extract and beat with the electric mixer on medium until well combined.
4. Line up mini cupcakes pan with mini-cupcakes papers.
5. Spoon 1 tablespoon of mixture followed by 1 teaspoon of cupcake fillings that you would like to have (eg. blueberry, nuts, chocolates, raisins, etc) then followed by more cake mixture.
6. Bake for 13-15mins until well risen and the top spring back when touch.
7. Allow to cool for a few minutes on a wire rack before putting the icing.

Icing
1/3 cup of Softened Butter
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 cup Powdered Icing Sugar
Decorative Sprinklers

1. Use an electric mixer on high speed to beat the butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually beat in the sieve powdered icing until all combined. Continue beating for 1 minute.
3. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle and pipe onto the cupcakes.
4. Decorate your mini cupcakes with sprinklers.


You may design your own cupcakes according to the occasions... This time around on 25 Nov 2010, it's designed for dear's birthday cake. Part of the surprise for dear.
Try it. It's fun and lovely.

Click here for our blog page Baking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Black Steer Restaurant - Trianon, Mauritius

I'm most definitely a carnivore at heart - I love my meat. And of all the meaty dishes, my favorite, top two are probably (i) a good steak, and (ii) a juicy slab of pork ribs. While I've been able to satiate my hunger for steaks marvelously thanks to Prime and other steakhouses in Kay-El, ribs are quite a bit harder to find.

It's for that reason, then, that the darling and I find ourselves at Black Steer. It's a 'chain restaurant' of sorts that I think originated in South Africa, and has somehow found it's way here to Mauritius. We're in the Trianon outlet.


The interior is pretty nice, and closer to a bar/restaurant environment (something like the TGIF and Chili's chains) rather than a sit-down dinner place. There's big screens and TV's everywhere, and also a rather lonely singer/keyboardist in the corner. He was good!


We decide to share a Mixed Starters (270 Rs). This comes with garlic bread, chicken strips, fried calamari, fried cheese and fried mushrooms. Chicken strips were excellent. Cheese also tasted great, but also felt a tad bit too sinful.


Rather than take two half-slabs, we just go for the Mighty Slab of Pork Ribs (575 Rs). Surprisingly, the waiter split the meal to two plates without us having to ask, which was a nice touch. Photograph here only shows half the rack. Most of the rib meat was nice, if a tad bit tough, and the 'edges' were a bit dry. BBQ sauce was finger licking good!


Total bill after drinks, tax, and discount was 944 Rs - roughly RM 97, so that's pretty reasonable and on-par with what you'd pay for a similar meal in Kay-El, too.

C-Delights - Steak and Seafood at Quatre Bornes, Mauritius

One thing that sucks about working in Mauritius is that my office is in Ebene, a high-tech 'office park' of sorts that has office buildings and nothing else. There's a distinct lack of reasonably-nearby shopping centres, entertainment, or food joints - sort of like a Cyberjaya-equivalent for you Kay-El readers. So work days are pretty much routine wake up, breakfast at home, work, lunch at cafeteria or lunch from home, work some more, dinner cooked by the darling (highlight of the day!), sleep. Rinse and repeat 4x.

But I digress. C-Delights is a somewhat tricky to find restaurant in the township of Quatre Bornes. It's by the main St. Jean's road, but only has a small signboard advertising its' presence.


On to the food! Garlic Mussels (170 Rs) to start. The garlic butter sauce is delicious, but the mussels themselves are rather dry. Kind of felt like they were pre-cooked and then thrown under a grill or microwave just before serving.


My Large sirloin steak (395 Rs) - ordered Medium. I'm not sure what the origin of this beef is, but it's decently good, and nicely grilled. In Kay-El equivalency it's definitely way below dedicated steakhouses like Prime, but probably on par with The Ship or Victoria's Station.


The darling has a Surf & Turf (395 Rs), which is half a sirloin steak and some fried calamari. The steak is also pretty good, and the calamari is fresh and tasty with a delighfully light and crispy batter.


After drinks and tax, the total bill for two came up to Rs 1,173 (RM 122). While the nearby Black Steer restaurant (that'll come in a future blogpost) is better for a similar price, C-Delights does have the advantage of being halal. Oh, and I do need to mention that I ordered rib-eye instead of the Sirloin that i was served :)

Photo Spam: Safari trip at Nairobi National Park

If you're ever in Kenya for work, play, holiday, whatever, do make sure you keep at least two days free for Safari at the Masai Mara national park. Unfortunately I only had one day free, so I had to go to the infinitely less awesome nearby Nairobi National Park.

The park is right next to Nairobi, so you can actually see the city in the background! Click here for a bigger version of this picture ~


Anyway, on safari you go in these vans that have the roof cut off so you can stand up and have a 360degree view of the surroundings.


Random shot of the trails.


Dodo? No idea what bird this is, haha.


Buffalo! Yeah I know, 'never see buffalo before meh??' XD


Only saw these two lions the entire trip. And even finding them took almost an hour of stalking and searching.


Zebra ...


More zebras and a kind of animal whose name I don't remember ...






Giraffe. Didn't see many of these either, probably 5 or so.


I remember specifically asking the guide what this animal was ... but I can't remember what he told me :(


More Zebras!


Safari to Nairobi National Park, David Sheldrick's Elephant Orphanage, and detour to Masai handicraft place cost me 11,000 Sh - roughly MYR 430. Was a tad bit expensive cos I went alone - going in a group brings down the per-pax cost considerably.