Udders

I know I’m slow to the game but I’ve made up for it by trying loads of flavours at two different outlets, one at the Lorong Kilat outlet just after our Spanish dinner at Don Quijote and another time the next night after dinner with parents. I think these are pretty much at the top of the list for ice cream in Singapore. The ice cream is incredibly smooth and rich, yet not cloying at all. I quite liked Kick S Cream Caramel as there was a tinge of salt in it that really kicked things up a notch. If they had a straight up salted caramel flavour, I’d be an instant fan.

The next night, we had a whole bunch of flavours. I remember Mum had Orange Choc Bitters, which was a very somehow transparent-tasting chocolate tinged with pleasingly bitter undertone of orange liquor. This was in contrast to Dad’s very rich chocolate flavour that was punchily chocolate. Those two were the highlights, which unfortunately aren’t quite captured in the photo. The rest of the flavours were nice too, just not memorable enough to make it here. They’ll have to wait till the next time I make a trip there.

Udders
87 Upper East Coast Road
Tel: 6448 8732

17 Lorong Kilat, #01-08 Kilat Court
Tel: 6466 1055

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Whisky Night

We had quite a few new whiskies to try out, first being the rather famous Yamazakis. These beat Scottish whiskies in blind taste tests and we were curious to taste the difference. It helped that in my last pass through Heathrow airport, I had a little sip of the Yamazaki 12 and was very taken by it.

The Yamazaki 12 (43%) is the entry level single malt from Suntory. It’s very smooth and light, with slightly fruity pineapple overtones and a lovely smokey ending. Lightened with a few drops of water, it takes on an almost sweet character. Very easy for a first-time single malt drinker.

Now the Yamazaki 18 (43%) is three times the price. I’m not sure if it’s three times as good as the 12, but it is Very Good. At first there was nothing much on the palate, but suddenly it exploded in the mouth like fireworks (the fireworks bit is according to DC). It’s smooth and buttery, tasting like dark herbal honey, except without the sweetness. It’s firmly on the favourites list.

We also got the MacDuff 27 (45%). It was from a little shop at Ion Orchard called Vom Fass that dispensed various liquors, vinegars and oils into little bottles. We started with 100ml of it for starters. This whisky took us on a different plane altogether. It was smooth like no other whisky I’ve tried, with very little bite of alcohol. It had an almost hay-like nose and a complex blend of flavours that made me keep going at the little bottle. We’ll have to get a refill to taste again.

A Very Alcoholic Cherry Almond Cake

I’d recently discovered some really nice dried cherries in Carrefour that don’t quite cost the sky (just an arm and a leg). It allowed me to finally try out Nigella’s recipe for a cherry cake. Her version involved natural glace cherries. I haven’t seen natural glace cherries anywhere in this corner of the world before and I thoroughly detest the typical bright scarlet ones, so I upped the decadence level by soaking the dried cherries for some hours in a mixture of kirsch and rum. It worked out beautifully, tasting a little like christmas fruit cake. It gets even better the next morning as the alcohol from the cherries infuses the cake. I’d imagine it’ll do wonderfully with extra dark rum scattered over the cake and left to age for a week before serving.

Before we get to the recipe, a few tips on prep work. First, soak the cherries overnight in a mixture of kirsch and rum. I ran out of kirsch, so topped up the alcohol with dark rum to cover the cherries in a bowl. Use brandy, whisky or vodka if you don’t have either the above. Next, halve your cherries or chop them very roughly  as I think the cherried alcohol infuses better in the cake that way. Last word on flour: I don’t really like the hassle of stocking both plain and self-raising flour and also keeping track of my baking powder to make sure that it’s not expired yet. What I do instead is to make up my own baking powder by using cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda. If you’d like to tailor your own recipes, halve the amount of baking powder to find out how much cream of tartar to use, and halve the amount of cream of tartar for how much bicarbonate of soda to add.

Ingredients:

200g dried cherries, soaked overnight in alcohol mix and then halved
250g flour
1½tsp cream of tartar
¾tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g butter
120g sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 drops almond essence
100g ground almonds
about 3 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Butter and line a loaf cake tin.
2. Drain the cherries, reserving the soaking liquid
3. Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy, then add eggs and almond essence.
4. Fold in flour and ground almonds.
5. Make up the cherry soaking liquid to 6 tbsp with the milk and fold into the cake mixture.
6. Fold in the cherries and scrape out into tin.
7. Bake for 1 hour or so until a satay stick comes out clean.
8. Let cool completely before removing from tin.

Makes about 12 slices.