PeraMakan

For lovers of Peranakan food, this is your paradise. Previously situated at Joo Chiat, this cosy homely restaurant, which serves to-die-for authentic and affordable nonya food, has since moved to Keppel Club.
But one thing remains unchanged - owner Kelvin Lee's dedication to serving only the best.
Some must-trys include the tender beef rendang - which melts in your mouth, the babi ponteh, and the Nangka curry with prawns.
And once you're done with the spicy, you have to save space for the apom berkuah (coconut pancakes served with banana sauce). The flawless combination of fluffy pancakes and smooth, luscious banana sauce makes for the perfect sweet end.

Sweeet factor: 4.5/5

PeraMakan
10 Bukit Chermin Road
Level 3, Keppel Club

The simple life

This restaurant has been at Wheelock Place for some time, but I've never been tempted to walk in cos the thought of paying more than $10 for hawker food just doesn't sound right to me.
Made an exception today (cos of a sudden craving for "teh") and my conclusion is - do NOT ever make another exception.
The hyper-diluted "teh" absolutely did not satisfy my craving.
And when the gula melaka ($3.90) arrived, my heart sank. The sago had a strange gooey consistency. The coconut didn't taste fresh, but powdered.
The saving grace was the prawn mee ($11.90) my friend ordered.
Huge prawns and generous slabs of pork were served on a bed of noodles, in fragrant broth.

Sweeet factor: 1.5/5

The Simple Life
501 Orchard Road
Wheelock Place
#02-18

Sun with Moon

photo courtesy of bpacker

Trust the Japanese to come up with the kookiest of presentations - a tofu cheesecake cooped in a cage. But aesthetics aside, this tiny slice of dessert packs a punch, and I highly recommend that you save some space after dinner for it.
It has a very smooth consistency that isn't too rich or cloying. There's also a hint of lime, which gives it a pleasant tangy aftertaste.

Sweeet factor: 4.5/5

Another dessert worthy of mention is the green tea tiramisu, which scores with its light and fluffy sponge and whipped cream combination. Light, and extremely pleasing.

Sweeet factor: 4/5

Sun with Moon Japanese Dining and Cafe
501 Orchard Road
Wheelock Place
#03-15/16/17

Il Piccolo

Panna cotta and tiramisu in a heartland kopitiam? That's right.
Il Piccolo, which sells restaurant-standard Italian food at hawker prices, has joined Botak Jones in this little corner of Toa Payoh North.
In fact, this heartland enclave - one of Singapore's best-kept secrets - has become a mini cosmopolitan food hub of sorts, with Japanese, Thai, American, Italian and local fare.
We tried Il Piccolo's sweeet offerings today, and were suitably impressed.
The panna cotta was extremely smooth and light, and not overly sweet.
A tiny complaint, though, was that we would have preferred just a hint of milk, not half a carton.

Sweeet factor: 3/5


Same complaint for the tiramisu - the taste of milk was just too strong. I would have opted for alcohol in place of milk!
But for kopitiam prices, who's complaining?

Sweeet factor: 2.5/5

Il Piccolo
970A Toa Payoh North

Double dose of goodness!

Half the fun in baking is exploring. The other half is opening the oven and being greeted by the scent of heaven.
We had double the dose of fun today.
When you combine sugar and spice, you really do get all things nice (corny! heh). Yup, our cinnamon walnut brownies were a real treat.

Our Baker's tip: Cinnamon in anything just smells heavenly. So go ahead and double the amount of ground cinammon needed. For an added twist, try ground ginger or ground all-spice.


And our brownie oat chewies turned out quite a wonderful surprise as well.
They may not be the prettiest of creations, but they were definitely big on taste.
Our cookies were drizzled with delicious chocolate, and the oats made them soft and chewy - just the way we like it.

Our Baker's tip: To add a little more crunch to these, you can vary the recipe by adding raisins, dried citron peel or chopped nuts.

Cookie monsters r us

It's a good day - Two successful yummy cookies emerging from our oven in a single day.
Our double peanut cookies turned out crunchy and not too crumbly. The added dash of chopped peanuts also gave them a bonus ooomph!
Bakers are definitely happy people, we're convinced of that!

Our Baker's Tip: When baking with peanut butter, always use creamy peanut butter. It's easier to cream and won't spatter all over you. For the crunchy nuttiness, add chopped peanuts.


We're back with our "green" recipes!
We bought way too many oranges for our zesty orange cake and orange marble cake last week that right now, the fridge is still overflowing with vitamin C.
Can't possibly let those fresh oranges go to waste, can we? So what do we do?
Bake some orange chocolate chip cookies, of course!

Our Baker's tip: I'm partial to a chocolate-orange combination but for a vanilla twist, you can substitute the dark chocolate chips with white chocolate chips instead.

Apple Cranberry Almond delight!

We were a bit apprehensive when we first saw this recipe.
Kinda ambitious trying to pack so much into one cake, don't you think? But we were mighty pleased with what emerged from the oven.
The fragrance of the apples and cranberries was heavenly, and the flavours blended and complemented each other really well.
Bonus - this cake is chock-a-block with antioxidants!

Our Baker's tip: Be generous with the dried cranberries here. These soury bites help to give a certain pizzazz and a lot of colour to the tart apples.

Choc Chip Cookies

Enough of fancy-nancy-schmanzy recipes for us.
We thought we'd go back to basics and bake some good ol'fashioned familiar comfort food - chewy chocolate chip cookies.
Good on the tastebuds, great for the soul.

Our Baker's Tip: If you like these cookies chewy like I do, don't overbake them but remove them from the tray the minute they're out of the oven while they're still a little soft.

Sweet and sour squares

Cross an old fashioned chocolate brownie with a tangy orange sponge cake and what do you get? Chocolate orange squares! (duh!)
This creation basically sprung up from all the left-over ingredients we had from our past few baking projects, and it turned out pretty ok.
That's what we call "recycling". Cakes can be "green" too!

Our Baker's tip: I'm such a fan of these marbled cakes now that I know how easy it is to do. For this one, divide the dough in half and dollop one half checkerboard-style on the pan. Add cocoa to the other half and fill in the gaps. Then swirl your spoon all over the mixture in fancy patterns.

Thumbs Up for cookies!

The recipe book called these Thumbprint cookies because you're basically supposed to use your thumb to dent the cookie's middle, before filling it with jam.
But because we jammed them full of nuts and raspberry sweetness, we prefer to name them Jammy Nut Cookies!

Our Baker's tip: The fun part about these cookies is you can fill in any type of jam you like. I used raspberry, but you can also try marmalade, blackcurrant or strawberry.

A dose of Peel Fresh

Feeling Fresh and Fruity, so we got busy in the kitchen today with our excess storage of tangy oranges in the fridge, and came up with some zesty orange squares.
We used double the dose of fresh orange peel than what the recipe called for to add some extra flavour and kick.

Our Baker's tip: The recipe calls for store-bought orange juice but for a more fragrant orangey smell, use freshly squeezed oranges instead.

We're going Bananas!

We've been hit by the Brownie Bug lately.
What to do? The last one was so satisfying and got such encouraging reviews from our friends that we just couldn't help ourselves.
Today, we discovered a bunch of too-ripe bananas lying around, so well, we thought we should put them to good use.
Throw in a good dollop of peanut butter and ta-da! Peanut butter banana brownies!

Our Baker's Tip: Don't know what to do with bananas which are slightly over-ripe and bruised? Turn them into brownies! Their mushiness and moistness is perfect for banana-based brownie consistency and texture.

Mocha Almond Brownies

Boring chocolate brownies? NOT!
We were in the mood for a lil something extra to perk us all up, so we thought why not throw in some good old java and nuts.
We were bouncing off the walls after a dose of mocha almond goodness!

Our Baker's Tip: I used instant coffee powder for the mocha taste. For more caffeine oomph, you can try espresso powder instead.

Square is the new Round!

It's one of those "fat" days, you know. Yet, we couldn't curb our craving for something sweet.
So we decided to try and bake without butter. Yup, you read right. Zero butter.
Add some pineapples. Throw in a handful of walnuts. Cut them up into tiny bite-sized pieces, and what do you get?
Gorgeous, yummy yet healthy pineapple walnut squares.
We like!

Our Baker's Tip: For a non-butter cake, this one remains surprisingly moist, mainly because it uses a whole can of pineapple and its juice.

Spike-D at Big O

It was named one of the top five favourite desserts by The Straits Times, Life! Eats in 2004.
And now, three years later, it's definitely still one of my hot favourites.
Called the Spike-D, this tiny dome of chocolate and durian heaven does not disappoint.
You'd think the combination would be too cloying but it's modestly light, and my plate was empty despite having had a really full dinner just minutes before.
A deserving award winner indeed.

Sweeet factor: 5/5

Big O Cafe and Restaurant
501 Orchard Road
Wheelock Place
#02-04/05

Buffet at Marriott Hotel

Buffet dinner at the Marriott Cafe was satisfactory with fresh prawns, crayfish and oysters for starters. Though the cooked food was just so-so.
Naturally, the sweeet selection of desserts was the highlight of the night. Variety was plentiful with cheesecakes, green tea tiramisu, chocolate mousse, and even chin chow.
Hate to admit that I was too stuffed by that time to try every single one.
But I couldn't resist the coffee chocolate mousse that was rich and smooth - A sweeet end to a decadently sinful dinner.

Sweeet factor: 4/5


The tangy and sour raspberry almond jelly was also a welcome contrast to the rich foods we had. The almonds were fresh and crunchy, and the jelly, light and refreshing.

Sweeet factor: 3/5

Marriott Cafe
320 Orchard Road
Singapore Marriott Hotel

Sweets at Waraku

Fans of green tea will adore this gorgeous ice cream cake from Waraku Japanese Restaurant.
I am one who believes green tea should be drunk and not eaten, but even I was won over by this light yet flavourful dessert.
Easy on the palate, it goes nicely with the chocolate and red bean toppings.
The perfect end to a very satisfying dinner.

Sweeet factor: 4.5/5

Waraku Japanese Restaurant
Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard
#01-213

What's brown and nutty?

Everyone loves brownies! Who doesn't?
Anyway, instead of the usual chocolate brownies we're all used to, we decided to give our comfort food a little extra kick by mixing in a whole lot of sinfully rich peanut butter.
We also threw in a bunch of walnuts for extra punch.
Ah well, guess we'll have to do more kicking and punching at the gym tomorrow!

Our Baker's Tip: To make the brownies look 'marbled', drop melted chocolate chips in even intervals on the surface and then use the tip of the knife to swirl the chocolate through the batter.

Hey Sour-puss!

We were in the mood for something less sweet and a little more sour and tangy today, so what better way to tickle and tantalise our tastebuds than to treat ourselves to a lemon meringue tart.
The meringue turned out soft and fluffy, though we had to keep an eagle eye on the oven!

Our baker's tip: When baking, monitor the pie every five minutes to make sure you don't overburn the meringue. Once it turns a golden brown, it's done!