I baked: Chocolate chip whoopie pies with Crme Chantilly

The first time I tried a whoopie pie was in Pique Nique, Singapore. AnAmerican creation, a whoopie pie may be considered either a cookie, pie or cake. Itconsists of two round mound-shaped chocolate cake/cookie/pie with a sweet, creamy filling. It is also sometimes called the "Big Fat Oreo".

According to food historians, Amish women would bake these desserts (known as hucklebucks, or creamy turtles at the time) and put them in farmers' lunch boxes. When farmers would find the treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!"!It is thought that the original Whoopie pies may have been made from cake batter leftovers.

I made these chocolate chip whoopie pies by adapting my chocolate brownies recipe, hence the texture is a cross between a soft cookie and chocolate brownie (a bit chewy and moist). For a simple filling, I made Crme Chantilly (vanilla flavored whipped cream). These chocolate rounds are actually pretty good eaten on their own but it wouldn't be a whoopie pie without the filling! These were a special treat for my kids since they are on school holidays at the moment - they were delighted to see and eat them!

We like to call them "mini chocolate burgers"

Baby D loves the crme Chantilly

School holiday treat

Chocolate chip whoopie pies with Crme Chantilly

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 11-13 minutes per batch

Makes 12-15 whoopie pies

Ingredients
For the whoopie pies

110g butter

50g unsweetened chocolate (I used Hershey's)

2 eggs, beaten

200g caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

125g plain flour, sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted

1/4 tsp salt

20g chocolate chips

For the filling:

200g whipping cream

1 tbsp icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180C (or 160C fan forced).Line 3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.

2.Melt the butter and the chocolate (broken up into small pieces) together on top of a double saucepan.

3. Once melted, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Stir in the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract, followed by the sifted flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until wel! l-combin ed.

4. Drop the batter in large spoonfuls on the baking trays. (First time I made it was using a tablespoon, and it came out rather big, like 9cm in diameter each, for a more dainty appearance use a teaspoon for to get 4-5cm diameter). Or alternatively you can pipe them for uniformly shaped rounds. Leave space about 4cm between the batter as they will expand during baking. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of each round.

5. Place tray in the preheated oven and bake for 11-13 minutes. It should be firm to the touch. Cool on the baking tray for a few minutes, and then place them on a wire rack to cool completely.

6. To make the creme chantilly, place the whipping cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl and beat until stiff. Put in fridge until required.

7. To assemble, pipe whipped cream onto one of the chocolate rounds then top with another round. And voila, a whoopie pie! You can eat them straight or put them in the fridge first.. either way it tastes really good!

I am submitting this recipe to Bake-Along No.31: Whoopie Pies hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena from Frozen wings and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids. Check out all the other whoopie pie recipes here.

East Vs West: Minmax & Acme Brunches

East or West, which is best? Here's our chance to put two brunches to the test.

MinMax at PNB Darby Park deals in dim sum, but outlaws pork ...

... so it's pretty much fowl play all the way, from the claws ...

... to the egg yolks, salted and turned into a creamy custard for these hot, fluffy buns.

Pan-fried chicken-shrimp cakes, stuffed with chives and swimming in sweet-sour sauce.

Something hard-to-find: deep-fried chee cheong fan. More crisp, less grease, mercifully.

MinMax has balls, brimming with gooey yam and meaty gravy.

Budget watchers will be relieved that prices here are OK. Two can eat freely for under RM80.

Verdict: Minmax serves satisfying dim sum, making a strong case for Chinese brunches.

Here's where the West takes a stand: From MinMax, we crossed the road and sauntered into The Troika's Acme Bar and Coffee, which has scrapped its weekend buffet and replaced it with a "Breakfast Club" that runs 9:30am-5pm.

Happy to see us: organic eggs with potato hash, sweet onions, chopped peppers, mushrooms, cheese, turkey ham and sea salt.

Crunchy French Toast, boasting brioche bread coated with corn flakes (snap, crackle, pop!), vanilla pods and sliced fruits, drizzled with pomegranate reduction syrup.

Can't call it a complete brunch without Eggs Benedict, made extra savory with kitchen-made salted beef.

Frittata with fresh ricotta.Most of these cost in the mid-twenties range.

Addictive bundles of pleasure: flaky pastry crusts with chocolate filling.

Brunch cocktails: Fizzy Bucks (freshly pressed orange juice, sparkling wine, grenadine) and Pomegranate Wine Cooler (pomegranate juice, sparkling wine, sprite).

Ichiro Sushi @ One Utama

Ichiro Sushi is a small Sushi Bar located inside Isetan's, Eat Paradise. We decided to give it a try after seeing the Sushi Counter being manned by 3 Japanese Chefs. The place was small with only a couple of sit-in tables.


Seafood Shiro Miso Soup

The soup was a little too sweet but was quite good with all the natural flavors of the seafood imparted into the soup.


Anago and Aji Sushi

The Anago Sushi was quite good. The Rice was a little dry therefore it was crumbling before entering the mouth. I liked the Aji Sushi better which had a nice firm texture with a hint of minced Ginger on top.


Chawan Mushi

The Chawan Mushi was very dense and way over-cooked. I think there was too much egg and too little water.


Sashimi Moriawase

The Sashimi slices were cut thick. I liked the Hamachi which was really fresh. Overall the quality of the Sashimi was similar to Rakuzen and Kura therefore it's nothing much to rave about.


Food: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Price: $$ (Approximat! ely USD $20 per person)


Contact Information
Address: Level Two, Isetan 1 Utama, Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya
Tel: N/A
Map:

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Dim Sum Kong Mah Sdn Shd @ Sg Buloh

Here I am back with my weekly dim sum postings!

If you have noticed, I have been attacking dim sum for 3-4 weeks in a row. Im not sure whats gotten over me; I mean I love my dim sum but I normally only go once a month at most. Dim sum, like tai chow (chinese big fry/stir fry aka simple chinese restaurant with food cooked upon order) requires a group of 4 pax at least to allow sampling of a minimum variety of the range a dim sum joint normally offers.
For 2, youll probably sample the most, say 8 dishes?

The last few weeks I have had a few fellow foodies who happened to be game to join me for my dim sum escapades. Ahh.just perfect! A table of 4-5, gorging on 15 18 plates of dim sum. Weekend mornings doesnt get any better does it?

My current target of dim sum joints are the old -school, simple and affordable ones. In the coming weeks I might be targeting the ones in hotels, but thats only a plan for now. It would be hard to find partners willing to fork out a minimum of RM30-RM40 per dim sum session versus the ones we had for the past few weeks, where each session costs about RM10-RM20 max per pax.

Kong Mah came to me as a suggestion by a friend. Though he doesnt blog as often now, Leos food postings had always leaned towards the old, traditional chinese restaurants, mostly hidden and undiscovered but offersunparalleledvalues and taste. I must say his experience in this category made me consider his suggestion to Kong Mah rather seriously.

Arriving at 730am, the outlet was rather quiet and there were absolutely no patrons. I was surprised, having had the impression that such dim sum restaurant would be bustling with diners; with families and old folks sipping tea and reading the newspaper by 7am.

The wait staff regard us rather curiously and one of the senior staff (well, she did seem more authoritative) showed us to a table and proceeded to take our orders for tea. The rest opted for chinese tea (as how a dim sum session should be) while I wasthrilled when she said they serve milo. Yes, sue me. I dont drink unsweetened tea.

The ritual here is the same, baskets of steamed dim sum comes around, take your pick and its placed on your table immediately. We had the usual, siew mai (pork dumpling) in 2 variations and steamed pork in black bean as well as steamed pork with yam.

Clockwise from left:Steamed pork with yam (utterly delicious! Do order if youre here),steamed pork in black bean (can skip), siew mai in chilli sauce (please skip! pork dumplings swimming in diluted chilli sauce?? what were they thinking?) and lastly the original siew mai (so-so).

There cant be too many meat dumplings for a dim sum session they say. As if the above wasnt enough, we had another order of Salted Egg Siew Mai. Yes, typical Chinese of us to go weak at the sight of salted egg yolks.

Im happy to say this was the best out of the lot. So my advice? Skip the rest of the siew mai earlier and zoom in on this if you have space for only one portion of siew mai.

This sui kow in soup was enticing but turned out to be quite bland.

The customary har kau (prawn dumpling) was passable. Have any of you ever ate those where theres a layer of starch covering the prawns inside the skin? I hate those!

Fishballs are a must for me but this rather creative looking one didnt quite pass the taste test. It lacked the fishy flavour and the texture was rather firm. I want my balls bouncy alright??
Oh, in case you cant make out the wrapping over the fishballs, its actually fish maw.

More fish. I was rather unhappy that I didnt get to eat good fish balls. This one is a mixed paste of fish and pork with some vegetables/herbs,stuffed in a lala shell. It fared better than the previous fishball as the seasoning and pork helpedto impart some flavour. The lala (shellfish) w! as rubbe ry from being oversteamed so I suggest that you ignore it.

Theres somethingirresistibleabout bacon. However you can give this a miss since Kevin said the black pepper sauce wasnt any good. I avoid black pepper so Ill just take his word for it.

If you have to have bacon, go for this. They messed up the black pepper version but dishes out a mean BBQ one.

Juicy pork paste inside!

Heres my next attempt at fish. This one came wrapped withbeancurd sheets andsteamed with ginger. Loads of it.

It turned out to be a mix of fish and pork, but heavier on the fish flavour-wise. I liked it and was duly satisfied after that.

Both Chee Cheong Fun (steamed rice sheets/rolls) and chook (congee) are also essential benchmark of a good dim sum outlet. Below we have the char siew chee cheong fun and Kong Mahs only option of congee pork and century eggs.

My test of good chee cheong fun smooth, slippery sheets with premium light soy sauce and spicy chilli. The sheets were alright, but the soy sauce was overly salty and the chilli lacked oomph. The Jinjang dim sum outlet does it so much better!

This however, beats Jinjangs version hands down. Thick and flavourful gruel with crispy fried onions on top,it was addictive but rather filling so go easy!
Note: I doubt they are fried onions but since I only took a spoonful and I actually skipped the fried bits, I couldnt tell fro sure. Anyhow, Kevin ordered this and he said it was fried onions.

How could wepossiblyskip the char siew pau? That was my fi! rst orde r once I sat down!

Kong Mah does a mean char siew pau. Do remember to order if youre here!

We had quite a bit didnt we? Well, there were 4 of us that morning so we made good progress!
Our consensus?
Kong Mah dim sum is well above average, worth a visit but not significantly memorable nor would it ignite any serious cravings.

The variety is impressive though, just that there are more misses than hits.

Oh, if you havent yet noticed, I usually skip the fried items during my dim sum sessions. However, exceptions are made for wu kok, the deep fried yam puff. Fortunately for us, Kong Mahs wu kok was totally worth the calories!

Kong Mahs beautifully wobbly egg tarts are noteworthy too.

Kong Mah is clean with spacious indoor and outdoor dining areas. Ventilation is good so there isnt a need to worry about excessive heat. Service is a bit shaky as the wait staff arent the most initiative bunch. It wasnt busy throughout our 2 hours visit but we were not served with further varieties even aft! er we ha ve finished our selection on the table. It took some effort to get their attention too.

From what I observed, the handling of food are carried out hygienically so thats a plus point.

Total Bill: RM80.00 shared by 4 pax. 17 items/plates.

Overall verdict?
Good variety thus ideal for big groups as everyone would be able to find something that they fancy. I wont mind re-visiting to sample different items but the urge to re-visit is certainly not as strong as the one in Jinjang.

Restaurant Kong Mah Sdn Bhd Dim Sum
Jalan Public
Sg Buloh New Village. Oppo. the morning market.

GPS: N03 197727 E101 567986