Festive lunch @ Jamie's Italian [Tsim Sha Tsui], Hong Kong

Happy New Year! I cannot believe how quickly 2015 went by, and no doubt I will be saying the same thing in 12 months time. We celebrated Christmas day at Jamie's Italian in Harbour City. We have wanted to try Jamie Oliver's restaurants since he opened his first Hong Kong restaurant in 2014, but the thought of the weekend crowd at Causeway Bay always deterred me, especially with two kids in tow. We heard that he opened up a second restaurant in Harbour City, much closer to home, but the weekend crowd is not much better at Harbour City either. When we were looking at dining out options for Christmas day, Jamie's Italian was one of the restaurants we considered. The Festive Menu (HK$588) was made available on the website, and it consisted of three courses with five choices of mains and four options for dessert. The Festive Kids Menu (HK$220) also had three courses, with two mains to choose from. To confirm our booking, we had to send in a credit card authorisation form, as a guarantee against a last minute no-show. We arrived around 11:30 for lunch, and the restaurant was rather empty. It filled up slowly but surely, and was full by the time we left at 1:45pm.

Entering the restaurant flanked by a few booths and bar seats:

A larger dining area with tables and booths:

Onion, garlic and large legs of ham hanging by the open kitchen where some of the food were being prepared:

The waitstaff did their best to please and to provide a good service, but there were a few hiccups along the way and a few things seemed unorganised. When I tried to order the Pannetone Gelato for dessert (it was listed on the Festive Menu), I was told that it was not available. My son requested vanilla flavour instead, but when it came time for dessert, we were told that vanilla ice cream was not available too! We were the first seating for the day in the restaurant, so we did not expect anything to run out. But I understand that these things happen, and what matters more to me is that the staff were genuine in their efforts.

The starters were served on a plank. At one end were the cured meats which included fennel salami, pistachio mortadella, prosciutto and schiacciata piccante. Further along the plank were the fish: smoked fish pâté served on crusty bread (my favourite item on the plank, though the unpitted olives were annoying, and the smoked fish pâté was better without the pickled peperoncini), beetroot-cured salmon, and roasted shellfish (pictured off the plank towards the bottom of shot). The menu also indicated mini fritto misto with lemon mayo was to be served as part of the fish plank, but that was not served:

At the other end of the starter plank were the cheese - pecorino & chilli jam on a thin cracker, and mini buffalo mozzarella:

Also part of the starters course is the smoky mozzarella frittelle with spicy arrabbiata pesto. This was the kids' favourite. In the background is a glass of prosecco which is included in the Festive Menu (I opted for a glass of freshly squeezed apple juice so that the 2-year-old did not feel left out when her big brother got juice that was included in the kids' menu):

From the Festive Kids' Menu, the 7-year-old chose the Secret Seven Cheesy Pasta Bake for his main course - "homemade curly wurly pasta baked in Jamie's seven-veg tomato sauce with an English Cheddar cheese crust and crunchy herby breadcrumbs". Honestly, this was very plain-tasting and nothing special. Perfect for the littlest ones, but older kids may have preferred the Baby Beef Burgers instead which was the other choice for the kids' main course. Kids' meal included a salad and drink:

For his mains, hubby selected the 24-hour Slow-cooked Roasted Pork Belly filled with apple, sage, raisins and Christmas spices. He really enjoyed this one (and so did the boy), but it was quite rich and heavy so a couple of bites were enough for me:

I went for the decidedly unfestive choice of Sea Bass Fillets, pan-fried and served on celeriac and fennel purée with brown shrimp, samphire, lemon and brown butter. I really enjoyed this, though hubby preferred his pork:

The grilled vegetables and polenta chips that came with the main courses. The kids loved the polenta chips:

The Festive Kids' dessert course is Our Gooey Chocolate Brownie with vanilla ice cream, crunchy toffee popcorn and chocolate sauce. Very good, considering it is a kids' dessert:

Christmas Cheesecake with toasted Italian meringue and bramble berry compote. Also very good, but the hefty portion would have been too much if I wasn't sharing:

Honeycomb-flavoured Gelato, as a stand-in for the missing Pannetone Gelato. Yummy with crunchy bits of honeycomb, but three scoops is too much for one person:

It was a good lunch. There's potential for Jamie's Italian to succeed, and I am certain that things will run more smoothly in a few months time once the restaurant overcomes the initial teething stages.

[Prices above do not include any service charge, and tipping is encouraged (unusual in Hong Kong where a 10% service charge is usually mandatory)]

Jamie's Italian [TST]
Shop 412, Level 4, Ocean Centre
Harbour City
17 Canton Road
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel. +852 3758 3333

It's Christmas!

And just like that, it is Christmas again. Yesterday the 7-year-old and I did a baking project and made a batch of gingerbread men. Baking and cooking with kids is a great idea for the school holidays, and the best part is enjoying the finished product. His younger sister adores the gingerbread men, and she plays with them before munching off parts.

"Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!":

On Saturday, we ordered a small turkey from the Mandarin like we did two years ago, and invited a couple of families over to share in the festive eating. Amazingly, we managed to squeeze in eight adults and six children in our tiny apartment (which is already considered spacious by Hong Kong's standards). The turkey was delicious, but even the small size proved too big for us! One family brought along five baguettes and a bottle of champagne, and the other family brought a beautiful chocolate log cake from Robuchon's Le Salon de The. I made a couple of salads and a trifle, and we had plenty of food to go around with leftovers for dinner and the following day (there's still some leftover turkey in the freezer!).

The turkey from the Mandarin Cake Shop:

The turkey trimmings included stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, roasted pumpkin and two portions of whipped potato:

Tucking into the food:

Our home was filled with the joyous sounds of happy kids:

The delicious chocolate log cake. My trifle in the background already had a serving taken out before I thought of taking a photo. And I just realised I forgot to add the topping!

Here's wishing a very Merry Christmas to everyone, and an awesome 2016! Thank you for reading my blog :)

Christmas lunch @ Cafe Deco Pizzeria (Elements), Hong Kong

We are coming to the end of another year, and I hope you had a lovely Christmas! Since we already hosted a festive celebration at home earlier this month with some friends during my sister's visit to Hong Kong, we opted for a low-key Christmas day with Steph and her friend at a restaurant that opened up in the mall downstairs a couple of months ago. Cafe Deco Pizzeria took the place of another restaurant, and so far it looks like it's doing a lot better than the previous tenant did. Since the pizzeria is located opposite the entrance into our building, I always walk by it, and the tables are always full at peak meal periods. The festive menu looked good, the location is conveniently close to home, and it was an opportunity to give this restaurant a try. Despite making reservations a week in advance, the restaurant couldn't find my booking, but we managed to get a table - not the best table for our group, but a table nonetheless. Service was attentive, and both wine and water glasses were kept topped up. We could choose from the festive menu (four courses with a choice for the mains), or go a-la-carte, and all four adults selected the festive menu. The dishes were plated with care, and the food not only looked good, but tasted good too.

The appetizer was Smoked salmon with salmon rillettes, pumpernickel and lemon relish. I love salmon, so I really enjoyed this course. The salmon rillettes were placed on a small piece of thick crunchy toast, with a slice of good quality smoked salmon wrapped around them. The contrast of textures and smoky flavours all combined very nicely on a small plate - a great start to the meal.

Soup course was Light cream of morel with roasted chestnuts. This creamy soup with the earthy flavours of the mushroom and the sweetness of roasted chestnuts was delicious, and I found myself wanting more. Bread would have been a good accompaniment to the soup.

For their main course, the guys chose the Roasted turkey, apricot stuffing, festive vegetables, truffled potato and giblet sauce. The turkey was tender and juicy, and it was pretty good for a turkey dinner.

Steph chose the Fregola risotto with lump crab meat, tiger prawns, pecorino and basil. This was also my first choice, but I gave it up for the pizza to share with my son (hubby thought I was a fool to give it up for pizza, but ordering a full-sized pizza from the a-la-carte menu for a 5-year-old seemed rather excessive). Steph kindly offered me a taste of her bowl, and it tasted good with the umami flavours of the sea. The fregola gave a coarser texture than conventional risotto made with rice, which made us all wonder what kind of grain it was.

The boy and I enjoyed the Festive pizza with butter ball turkey, chestnuts, sweet potato risoles, spinach and cranberry salad, crispy bacon and sage oil. Although it was a full 12-inch size, the 5-year-old easily polished off half the pizza (but not the spinach!). It was a little strange having sweet ingredients like cranberries and chestnuts on a pizza, but there was only a small amount of them - just enough to give a festive flavour every second bite.

Dessert was Chocolate pudding filo with dark cherries and eggnog sabayon. The filo was filled with fruit mincemeat, which Steph said tasted festive. The ice cream was delicious with bits of cherries in it, and the eggnog sabayon pulled all the ingredients together nicely. This was a successful dessert which everyone enjoyed.

We don't usually invite friends to eat at restaurants we haven't been before, hence it was good to hear Steph remark after our meal that we always choose good restaurants to bring her to. We were pleased with our first visit to Cafe Deco Pizzeria, which ensured that it won't be our last.

Cafe Deco Pizzeria
Shop 1005,
1st Floor Elements
(Kowloon MTR Station)
1 Austin Road West
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2196 8099

Celebrating Christmas early

My younger sister came from Sydney to visit us for about a week and a half, mostly to meet the new baby and spend some time with her nephew. I was grateful to have her around to help, and the timing worked out well because she arrived on the night before my husband went back to work. She was great especially with my 5-year-old son who has no doubt felt the effects of having a baby sister at home and occupying a lot of my time. My sister has spent a lot of time with all her nephews and nieces (including a year of living with us in Japan and helping out with our son just after his 1st birthday), and I think she is well-primed and prepared for when the time comes for her to have her own kids! Since we had family around, we decided to celebrate Christmas early this year. Once again, the timing was good because it was around Thanksgiving, which we don't celebrate, but it meant that turkeys were aplenty. Home with a 1-week-old newborn obviously meant that I wasn't going down the DIY route, nor were we going to take the newly born bub out to a restaurant and risk exposure to all sorts of airborne germs and pollution (the crowds and poor air quality in Hong Kong are especially bad), so a takeaway turkey it would have to be.

Hubby and I were keen to try the turkey from the Mandarin Cake Shop, which we'd heard was a really good choice and has been on our must-try list for three years now. The "small" turkey was 7kg (HK$1988), which I was told could feed about 10 mouths. It was obvious that we needed to invite a few more people to help out. I certainly didn't think we would be entertaining guests at home less than a week after getting discharged from the hospital, but I did make it easier for us by using disposable plates, cups and cutlery, and asking a friend to bring salad. We kept to our Christmas tradition of inviting a Japanese family, and our friends told us that this was their first time having roast turkey for Christmas. We also invited an Australian friend who had recently relocated to HK for work, a good friend of my sister's from her childhood. We all had a good time, especially the kids who had a ball making a huge mess of the living room with my son's toys. The turkey itself was really good, a lot better than the one we ordered for Christmas in 2010 (which was pretty good too). The sides that came with the turkey - roast pumpkin, mashed potatoes, nut-free stuffing (as we requested for our allergic son), giblet gravy and cranberry sauce - also got our thumbs' ups. The turkey and the trimmings fed six adults and three kids at lunch, with enough leftovers for dinner for four adults and one kid, both meals supplemented with vegetables and one large baguette.

The huge box that the turkey and accompaniments came in, and the smaller one that held the pumpkin pie we'd also ordered from the Cake Shop:

It was like unwrapping a Christmas present:

The 7kg roast turkey:

The kids were more interested in playing than eating...

... but the adults had their priorities straight:

The pumpkin pie (HK$298) was very good, and there were none leftover to enjoy the next day. I especially loved the buttery pastry crust:

Good company, delicious food and a Christmas tree - all that's needed for a good Christmas celebration at home!

The Mandarin Cake Shop
Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong
5 Connaught Road
Central, Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2825 4008
Email: mohkg-cakeshop@mohg.com

Christmas lights in Perth's suburbs

Here we are, at the end of yet another year. And what is on my mind? At the moment I am busy trying to catch up on lectures and assignments on an astronomy course that I am doing online via Coursera (online courses offered by top international universities - for free!), and the part of my brain that had been sitting rather dormant since I left my engineering career six years ago is on overdrive with astronomic physics and mathematical formulae. We also just got back from a fantastic Christmas in Perth, and like all our trips home, we were kept incredibly busy with so many people to see but too little time. We had a great Christmas with our families, and it was a rather exciting one for our 4-year-old boy who got so many presents that we had trouble fitting them all in our luggage (unfortunately the large teddy bear that was as big as the boy will have to wait until we return for it next time). We left Perth last Friday in the midst of a week-long 40°C heatwave - very typical of Perth's summers, and something I do not miss - and right into a wintry cold snap currently affecting Hong Kong's weather.

Since it is New Year's eve, I shall keep this short and sweet. As we drove through Perth's suburbia, we saw a few houses decked out with sparkling Christmas lights. On a street near my mother-in-law's house, there was a house with lights that had been choreographed to upbeat techno Christmas tunes. It wasn't quite as sophisticated as the Gangnam Style one (also in Perth, but sadly the guy was forced to take the lights down only a few days after setting them up, and we missed out on seeing the whole thing in real life), but it was still impressive. Here is a 50sec snippet of what we saw:

Here's a pic of another house we saw that was so bright and full of lights, even inside the garage! This one was a simple one with no fancy choreographed flashing to music, but it certainly was a crowd-drawer in this particular street.

Shiny lights:

Hope you enjoyed the video and photo. Happy new year everyone!

Gingerbread Men

Last Tuesday on our way to my 4-year-old's gym class, I pointed out some Christmas-themed gingerbread decorations around the mall. He immediately recited part of the gingerbread man song ("Run, run, as fast as you can! You'll never catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!") and said he wanted some gingerbread men. I promised him we would make some on the following weekend, and the kid was really looking forward to it. So much so that he declared to hubby that we were going to make gingerbread men on the weekend quite a few times during the week. Despite the frequent reminders, in the midst of the frenzy that is my life during the week, I actually forgot all about it until my boy piped up on Saturday morning that it's the weekend, and we were going to make gingerbread men. I hadn't done my usual research for recipes, so I quickly did an internet search, spotted a well-rated and well-reviewed recipe from taste.com.au (a trusted Australian recipe website), printed out the recipe, and off we went on a trip to the supermarket (one of the many times I've been so thankful that the supermarket is just downstairs, and open from 8am to 11pm!). There weren't any gingerbread man cookie cutter at the supermarket, so the baking was delayed until the afternoon when I could source one. The things we do for our kids! But it was well worth it because the boy had a great fun mixing the ingredients together, and then cutting out the little men for baking - but I think he enjoyed eating them more than all the previous steps! The recipe states that the recipe makes 20, but I think the cookie dough proved too yummy to resist because we only made 14! The baked gingerbread men were delicious undecorated, but we managed to resist a few so that we could decorate them.

Some gingerbread men cooling down:

The recipe is almost verbatim from the website, with a couple of modifications. I used whole wheat plain flour, which required a tablespoon more golden syrup to help bind the dough. The dough was still a little dry, but I kneaded until it was as smooth as I could get it, and I managed to roll it out without crumbling. I didn't have 'mixed spice', but I used a generous heaped tablespoon of ground ginger, which gave the right spicy kick. I also used a pasteurised egg which meant that the dough was safe to eat raw, but I couldn't get the white to whip for the icing (turns out that some lemon juice or cream of tartar would have helped get pasteurised egg white to whip). Instead I made plain icing with just icing (or confectioner's) sugar and a tiny amount of water. I am quite against using food colouring in my cooking, and my boy is allergic to a number of things that Smarties or M&M's may contain traces of, so the decoration was plain white. It did the job, and my boy was perfectly happy with the gingerbread men. This is a fun baking activity for kids, but it requires close supervision and lots of help (especially with the electric mixer and the hot oven). Hubby, boy and I enjoyed this family project together, especially the eating part! We will probably make more to give away to his friends closer to Christmas time.

Run, run, as fast as you can!

Gingerbread Men

Ingredients
Butter, to grease
105g butter, at room temperature
90g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup
1 egg, separated
325g (2 1/3 cups) plain flour
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger, and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.

2. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease 2 baking trays with butter.

3. Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until about 4mm thick. Use a 9cm gingerbread man cutter to cut out shapes. Place on trays about 3cm apart. Repeat with any excess dough.

4. Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool.

5. Prepare the icing with 50g icing sugar and start with a teaspoon of warm water. Stir well, and add more icing or water to a stiff consistency. Decorate the gingerbread men (I used a piping tube, but a ziploc bag with a small nip in the corner would suffice).

Christmas Lunch @ Main St. Deli, Hong Kong

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. Mine started out not so great. I woke up feeling ill, and I had not only caught a cold off my son, I had also somehow gotten a stomach bug. We had decided to do Christmas a little different this year, to enjoy a festive lunch held by one of the nice hotels - the ones that require a deposit with the table reservation - instead of inviting guests over to squeeze in our tiny apartment for a roast turkey lunch as we did in the previous four years. I was really disappointed to have to cancel the expensive lunch buffet plans, but at the same time I was glad that we weren't hosting Christmas otherwise my illness would have affected more people than just our family. By late morning I wasn't feeling so sick, and I decided to salvage part of our Christmas celebrations and make the effort to go out for a light lunch (still not well to take on a buffet), but by then most good places were already fully booked. I recalled that the turkey we ordered from Main St. Deli at the Langham Hotel for last Christmas was pretty good, so hubby rang them to make lunch reservations and thankfully they could take our last minute booking.

Main St. Deli was great for a casual Christmas. Inspired by New York's famous 2nd Avenue Deli, Main St. is Hong Kong's first New York style deli. There were party hats (feather hairbands for the ladies) and glittery party horns on the table which helped add to the festive mood. The service was a little patchy, but I understand that the kitchen must have had massive catering orders to fulfill that day. The 3-course festive menu was reasonably priced at HK$338 (+10%), and there were two options for the appetiser and dessert courses, and three options for the main course. We even got a visit from Santa!

The Chocolate Milkshake was seriously good. We ordered it for the boy, but we had to order another one because we couldn't stop drinking it:

Hubby's appetiser - Cream of Spinach. Very tasty, and the thick slice of rustic bread was a good accompaniment:

My appetiser - House-smoked Salmon. This was also really good. Not too salty or strongly fishy:

Hubby's Roasted Turkey with Roast Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes and Cranberry Sauce. Excellent choice, and even the 3-year-old approved. It's no wonder many people choose to get their Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys from Main St. Deli:

My main course was Pan-fried Swordfish - unfortunately this was average at best. The fish was a little overcooked, and everything was just a little boring - I can do better at home. Go for the turkey if you're here for the festive menu:

Christmas Pudding with brandied custard - delicious spicy fruit mince:

Pumpkin Pie. I've never had traditional pumpkin pie before, but this was very much like a pumpkin-flavoured cheesecake. It was yummy:

All-in-all, this was not a bad save to Christmas day. I still couldn't eat much, but hubby was happy to eat more for my sake. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and just enjoying each other's company - the boys spent quality time assembling Lego vehicles from our son's new set, and the boy loved playing on the mini keyboard we got him. This Christmas was a nice laidback change to the previous few Christmases, and I could enjoy a relaxing time with my family.

Main St. Deli
Lower Lobby Level, Langham Hotel
8 Peking Road,
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Tel. +85 2 2132 7898

Christmas 2010

This Christmas was our busiest one yet, and we entertained two Japanese families and my father-in-law's family from Brisbane who is visiting us over the Christmas and New Year period. It seems that we have developed a bit of a tradition of inviting Japanese families to share with them Aussie-style Christmas-at-home. For the fourth year in a row, we have introduced roast turkey to Japanese friends who have never eaten from a whole roast turkey, and I will never tire of seeing the looks on their faces every time I bring the turkey out to the table. I did not roast this year's bird because although we recently bought a table-top Delonghi oven (the largest one we could find in Hong Kong), it is still smaller than our table-top oven in Japan (which was barely big enough for the smallest turkey). Instead I ordered a 6kg roast turkey from Main St Deli at Langham Hotel, and prepared everything else at home. The turkey was flavourful and thankfully not too dry, but hubby and I weren't too keen on the stuffing and gravy. Everyone seemed to love everything though! I spent 99% of Christmas day (and night) in the kitchen, but I would happily do this many times over again!

I made a Cobb Loaf Dip in addition to the usual snack fare. I made a healthier less calorie-laden version, and everyone loved it! Recipe here:

The roast turkey came with sage and chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce (with whole cranberries!) and gravy. Homemade side dishes included roasted butternut pumpkin and sweet potatoes with honey and rosemary, steamed cauliflower and broccoli with cheese sauce, coleslaw and mashed potatoes:

Hubby is getting quite pro at carving turkeys!

Everyone in our living room - it was a tight squeeze in our tiny apartment:

Dessert was a Peach Trifle using homemade cake, a can of sliced peaches, mango-flavoured jelly, homemade custard and topped with crushed digestive biscuits:

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, and I wish you all a fabulous 2011!

Christmas-related recipes

These are mostly for my reference so I don't have to do the research every year just because I was too busy to write down what I used/did. Rob said the roast turkey lunch I cooked for Christmas '09 was my best yet, and I suppose that is a pretty good reason to take some time to make note of my recipes.

Fruit Mince Pies (Cooking Project #6)

Rob and I made a small batch of fruit mince pies a week before Christmas, but most of them were eaten by the time Christmas rolled around. I blogged about making fruit mince pies before but failed to take note of the pastry recipe. This pastry recipe is modified from this taste.com.au recipe, but we made it by hand instead of using a food processor, and we used a 410g jar of ready-made fruit mince (Robertson brand) which yielded about 17 pies. We used a 12-muffin pan because we couldn't find patty pans anywhere here in Tokyo; in fact, my muffin pan was brought over from Australia because I couldn't find muffin pans here except for individual muffin cups which were relatively fiddly to use.

Ingredients
300g (2 cups) plain flour
40g (1/4cup) icing
150g chilled butter, chopped
1 egg yolk
2-3 tablespoons of water

Method
1. Combine the flour and icing in a bowl.
2. Using fingertips, rub in the butter to the flour mixture until it resembles fine crumbs.
3. Add the yolk and 2 tablespoons of water to the mixture, and stir until it clumps together. Add more water if it's too dry.
4. Bring the mixture together to form a rough ball.
5. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead until you have a smooth dough. Avoid overworking the dough.
6. Then proceed with making the pies as shown here.

Roast Turkey Stuffing

I have written a roast chicken dinner recipe before, but for Christmas, I wanted to put a little more effort into making the stuffing for the roast turkey. Quantities are only approximate - I generally used the same volume of onion, celery and carrot, all cut up to roughly the same size, and I seasoned it with herbs, ketchup, salt and pepper to taste. I went out on a limb with the ketchup but for some reason (fortunately for me!) it worked quite well with the stuffing. For roasting the turkey itself, I found this site quite useful. For our 4kg turkey (stuffed weight), I roasted at 170degC (fan-forced) for 145 minutes, breast-side down for the first 90 minutes.

Ingredients
some olive oil (1/2 tablespoon)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
3 rashers of bacon, chopped
3 slices of bread, crumbed (use a processor)
some stock or water (1-2 tablespoon - just enough to 'deglaze' pan but not too much otherwise you'll end up with soggy stuffing)

1 egg

Parsley and rosemary

Tomato ketchup
Salt and pepper


Method

Saute the onions until it is translucent and cooked. Add the garlic, celery, carrot and bacon and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are soft and the bacon crisp. Add breadcrumbs and stir well. Add the water/stock, egg and herbs and stir well to combine. Add tomato ketchup, salt and pepper to taste.

Sponge Cake for Trifle

No recipe here, just wanted to show off how well this sponge cake turned out. It's almost a shame that I made this sponge cake specifically for the trifle, because it would have made a nice decorated cake. I've posted a trifle recipe before.