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Missie's Pud Inn Club. Save the best for last and give in to sugary bliss.

Puddings and desserts are definitely an irresistible treat for everyone around the world, whether it’s served hot or cold, in the form of a piece of fruit, syrup, hard or soft and sponge-like or crunchy – moderation is key, and the choices on offer are endless. Serve up, share and enjoy!

With my next Missie’s Pud Inn club being tomorrow, I thought I’d share with you my ‘Dream Around the World pudding menu‘ – if I could have any chef I could ever want around my dining table in my home, I wouldn’t hesitate to get these guys in….one day, I hope, I will get the opportunity to invite them to join us for Pud Inn Club. Dreams, do come true, right? #MakeItHappenCindz

• Course One: Chocolate Pot de Creme made by Chef Gregoire Michaud (twitter: @gregoireMichaud, Hong Kong-based)
  I first stumbled across Gregoire’s Chocolate Pot de Creme on Instagram, a dessert literally made in 5 easy steps, you can find his recipe here and it involves one of my most favourite ingredients, chocolate. Looks rather too good to eat too!
• Course Two: Brown Sugar Buttermilk Pie made by French baker Valerie (twitter: @GamineCuisine, France)
  Valerie’s baking is incredibly gorgeous, and I wouldn’t hesitate in hoovering up any of the crumbs! but she also has a creative flair with the ingredients used. Valerie’s baked treats definitely ooze “lovely” and “subtle” – take a look at the sweet choices to choose from on her blog here. You can find her pie recipe here. Served with some ice cream. Sorted!
• Course Three: Sticky Toffee Pudding made by the Rutland Arms Chef Mike (twitter: @moonlitpanda, United Kingdom/Sheffield)
  I first met and came across Chef Mike’s beautiful desserts when he kindly took part in my first ever Pud Inn Club back in September 2011 (how time flies!). The first course/time he woo’d me with was his version of the Sticky Toffee pud; a moist sticky treat that myself and other Pud Inn diners loved – it had a lovely natural toffee flavour too, and wasn’t too incredibly sweet or heavy-like.
• Course Four: Classic Dutch Apple Pie made by Weekend Bakery (twitter: @weekendbakers, Holland/Amsterdam)
  A traditional, comforting dish where simplicity is the key to success – a slice of happiness or one for all the family. You can find their recipe here. I’m really curious to find out what the differences between the Dutch version to the ones I usually make at home or find in British bakeries. However, I am sure I could get used to their version quite easily too – looks great!
• Course Five: Black Sesame flavoured ice cream made by Yee Kwan (twitter: @YeeKwanIceCream, Asian-inspired/UK)
  A melt-in-the-mouth dessert with the nutty taste of black sesame seeds, a favourite at Chinese and Japanese restaurants. The flavour of black sesame always conjures up those warm and comfortable childhood memories; the days when mum would make me and my brother fresh black sesame dessert for the family. Thanks Yee for taking me back to those scoops of comforting moments.

Brown sugar buttermilk pie by Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine. Photo courtesy of Valerie.

The Rutland's sticky toffee pudding made by Chef Mike

So there you have my dream ‘Around the World’ pudding course menu. I suppose this wouldn’t be impossible to achieve, I do have two out of the five producers/chefs not too far from me, and good things are indeed possible! Gregoire, Valerie and Weekend Bakers; come to the UK very soon, I smell a Missie’s Pud Inn club cooking up when you all do!

Finally…
Tomorrow’s Pud Inn tickets/spoons have all been sold out but if you would like to put your name on our waiting list or to express your interest in future events then please join my colourful mailing list to be kept up to date with my tasteful food adventuring or alternatively follow me on twitter and facebook.

I’ll see all our enthusiastic Pud Inn diners tomorrow and am really looking forward to it! – Missie Cindz :)

The building now contains several artist studios and hosts exhibitions and art projects

The Cattle Depot: When art meets real bread

In this sentimental post our new blog contributor, Gregoire Michaud shares with us his reflections and experience of bread making to bring art and cultural change.

The Cattle Depot: When art meets real bread

Built in 1908, the Ma Tau Kok Cattle Depot was originally designed as a slaughterhouse and it was used as one until 1999. The slaughtering activities were moved out of town and the superb red bricked house was renovated. In 2001 the site re-opened as an artist village where people from anywhere and everywhere would meet to share a common passion for art. The building now contains several artist studios and hosts exhibitions and art projects – a place displaying colourful painting, sculpture, painted glass art, writing, musicians, concert, movies, theatre and everything in between is represented and found here.

The art of baking
Everything except maybe baking; to me, baking and especially baking real bread is an art form unlike any other. Of course, I am not talking about pouring a bag of pre-mixed flour and water into one of these Gotham-City-like bread makers, but more about having bread with fully developed features, using noble flours, natural fermentation techniques and the proper know-how of good bread making skills.

Wing recycles aluminum cans and other materials to transform them into beautiful sculptures

I was invited by our good friend Wing, who happens to be the artist behind the art produced at House Nº1 in the village. Wing diligently recycles aluminum cans, glass bottles and other materials to transform them with a genius trait into beautiful pieces of art (see photo 3). For instance, he grounds different coloured glass and organises classes with children where he encourages them to create their own designs. He will then bake the ground glass in an incredibly hot oven where the powder melts and combines together as a beautiful glass tile (see photos 1 above). The children also learn about recycling; how it benefits them and society, as well as being creative in producing useful art. On this particular night, we didn’t do much of Wing’s traditional art. Instead we had a couple of friends playing the guitar, we sung songs and the young children created plaster moulds that would be later filled with melted recycled materials.

The children getting ready to bake wonderful Schiacciata breads

Secretly without them knowing, in my backpack I brought along with me a few kilos of bread flour, some eggs from my friend Garry who raises chickens in the New Hong Kong Territories, a few additional ingredients which included black olives, fresh garlic, roasted pine nuts and herbs to bake wonderful Schiacciata breads. We mixed and kneaded the dough by hand and after the intensive labour (those of you who know about bread making will understand how much kneading is required); we had to wait several hours before baking it (to allow for proving). The children had a blast kneading the dough and shaping their breads – of course it couldn’t have ended-up in any other way than covered with flour! Shaped as simple flat round breads, proofed and brushed lightly with rosemary olive oil. Our breads baking in the oven started to disperse their heavenly fumes all over the workshop…our eyes started rolling and stomach craved for slices of the freshly baked loaves. We were hungry. When it finally reached the golden brown crust it deserved, we sliced the long-awaited loaves and shared it with everyone; the bread literally disappeared within minutes!

Feelings of positivity and inspiration
Sharing and eating freshly baked bread, sharing music, sharing the passion for simple and beautiful art goes hand-in-hand together in my mind. I see something common when baking bread, when we were kneading the dough with the flour swirling, mixing with the ambience of the old rustic building around us along with the old wooden carpentry and seeing the children playfully smiling; I experienced something I seldom have done before in Hong Kong. Perhaps it’s a feeling more people should get to experience nowadays, especially when we live in a city where these sort of feelings seem to have been forgotten; beautiful art and real-life experiences has been too often replaced by an omnipresent and hypnotising digital world.

Let’s get the scales out and get baking!

Ma Tau Kok Cattle Depot
63 Ma Tau Kok Road
Kowloon
Hong Kong

Written and photos by Missie and Friends contributor Gregoire Michaud in Our Local Eats. {Thank you Gregoire for sharing your most recent baking experiences with us! A very touching and a lovely read.}

Deliciously low-fat banana and white chocolate chip muffins. Tastes as good as they look!

Currently, I’m still enjoying the time off away from the studio and instead have been baking away in the kitchen. Today I ran out of cupcake cases to make a batch of muffins to take down to Birmingham with me as homemade New Year gifts for friends – so what did I do? made good use with what I had already of course!

I’ve seen this technique done for all things cupcake-licious many times before so it’s definitely not a new idea, but a useful idea that’s been around for quite some time.

I think this is really handy and fuss-free idea from Martha Stewart and will be an especially handy trick for those times when we run out of liners/cases in the middle of a batch of muffins (and they keep the baked goods from sticking to the pan – that’s always a good thing!).

Delicious low-fat banana and white chocolate chip muffins. Scrumptiously filling, not too sweet and great with a cuppa.

Instruction for Muffin Wrappers

1. Cut 5-inch square pieces of parchment.

2. Spray a muffin tin with vegetable oil cooking spray, or grease up each muffin cup to hold parchment in place.

3. Place 1 piece of parchment into 1 cup of the tin. Use your fingers to make the crease around the bottom edge, pressing along folds to crease. Repeat with other cups and parchment pieces.

4. Pour the cake mixture into each of the parchment paper squares, filling them until they are about 3/4 full.

See Crisp Muffin Wrappers from Martha Stewart for more details if required.

Beautiful festive mince pies homemade by Ryan Swift and Lauren Swain for this month's Missie's Pud Inn event

I love a good mince pie – those small, tender tarts that somehow manages to hold the very essence of Christmas in its short crust pastry shell; the flavours, fruitiness, scents and spices, the luxury and richness of it all. It’s strange because when I was a kid, I used to hate the stuff, the taste of the brandy put me off and I remember, I used to eat the crust but left out the rich mincemeat! (how taste buds change…)

But now, with its buttery pastry and filling of rich fruits, sugar, candied citrus peels and alcohol – making them the essence of Christmas in a mouthful, scoffing these really makes my tummy smile. Last week I had a mince pies which had a pastry so fragile that it collapsed in the palm of my hand, with mince stuffing that wasn’t overpowering that made me feel boozy and the pastry lid, instead of a hard pastry shell, was a buttery almond frangipane-type topping making them so much better. I adore mince pies, I’ve never attempted to make my own (yet!) and will do very soon after tasting the frangipane mince pies made by my design colleague, Lauren Jones. I simply fell in love with the flavour combinations and the almondy frangipane mix makes a perfect topping for a mince pie. Simply a great idea, where mince pies just got better!

Do you make the perfect Christmas mince pies?
A few weeks ago I asked you all to share with me your top tips for the perfect mince pies (maybe you’ve got a special ingredient for the pastry?) let me know them all in the comments box below, afterall, this is a post for the Ultimate Festive Mince Pie! :)

Thank you to those who replied and commented – I really enjoyed reading your tips, keep these coming:

• Anne Kelly Parmee “Well, top tip one…make them smaller using mini muffin tins. Top tip two…use grated rind and juice of an orange in the pastry.”
• Christopher Baldwin “If using shop made mincemeat add a grated apple to the mixture to reduce the taste of the acetic acid.
  Yes orange zest in the pastry is gorgeous! If you’re running short of pastry use a star cutter to make the tops and give a good dusting of icing sugar when they are cold.”
• Sarah Garth “Make your own mincement I follow Delia’ recipe, (http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/mincemeat/home-made-christmas-mincemeat.html) all butter pastry is a must, add a festive look with a light covering of edible glitter and inject them with brandy…delicious!”

Homemade festive cheese and onion scones

I enjoy baking first thing in the morning because I like to grab those morning bright stars! #Opportunities

I go mad for the scone, whether they’re sweet or savoury, served with a cuppa – these treats never disappoint me.

Have these savoury cheese and onion scones with a nice hot winter-type soup like creamy mushroom or French onion. They only need to bake for 12-15 minutes to come out soft and golden. Remember, you can also make these as edible festive treats for friends and family – they’re bound to bring sparkles to any Christmas party…

Ingredients

• 225g (8oz) self-raising flour
• Pinch salt
• 55g (2oz) butter
• 50g (1oz) grated Cheddar cheese
• 150ml milk plus a little extra for glazing
• ½ tbsp poppy seeds
• 1 medium 0nion, chopped
• ½tbsp sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 220ºC (425ºF, gas mark 5) and lightly grease a baking tray.
2. Mix together the flour and salt, then rub in the butter.
3. Finely slice the onion and gently fry them over a medium heat along with the sugar and salt until nice brown caramel colour and darkened at the edges. This should take about 5 mins. Now transfer it to a plate to cool.
4. Stir in the grated cheese, poppy seeds, milk and cooked onions to the flour mixture and form a soft dough.
5. Turn out on to a floured surface and lightly knead, the mixture might be a little wet, if so, sprinkle some flour onto the palm of your hands to prevent the mixture from sticking to your hands. Pat the dough out to form a round 2cm thick circle.
6. Using a 5cm ‘star’ or ‘Christmas tree’ shaped cutter stamp out the scones until all the mix is used.
7. Place scones on baking tray, brush with milk and bake for 12-15 mins. Best served slightly warm. NOM!!

Cindz Tip: These scrummy scones can also be served as part of a buffet or party food selection. When the scones have cooled, halve, spread with butter, then sandwich with cress, cheese slices and chutney – whatever tickles your taste buds really!

Click here to download my Cindz recipes: Festive Cheese and Onion Scones – they’re NOM!

Click here to download my Festive Cheese and Onion Scones recipe – they're NOM!

 

My all-time favourite pudding – the ultimate quick and easy dessert. Serve with nostalgia.

You know how the Missie likes to be a little different. Apple and peach with cinnamon filling.

Move over Jack and your beans, it's all about Missie Cindz and her apples this summer!

BAKE IN IS THE NEW GOING OUT – it’s fun, and ingredients don’t need to be expensive.

It’s not hard to see the value in local, seasonal food, but I often think, how does one go about finding it, preparing it, and saving a little money along the way? – I’ve learned a few ways this week without doing pretty much anything, which includes, grow something edible, to eat seasonal food and baking at home.

Happy Baking. Don’t forget to Twitpic me your bakeful delights :)