The Boat Shed Cafe & Bistro, Queenstown

We got back to sunny (and rainy!) Singapore a couple of days back; and am finally getting over the jetlag! So instead of retreating to bed by 10pm like I did the past few nights, I am finally awake enough to blog about a lovely cafe by the shores of Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, New Zealand. A cosy little place called The Boat Shed.

I know it's unlikely many of you would drop by New Zealand anytime soon, but if you happen to visit in the next year or so, do check out this place! We happened to be staying a short distance away from the town centre; and this cafe was just a 2 min walk from our accommodation.

Niji Sweets

As some of you may be aware, I now have a little shop of sorts on Facebook. It's intended as a 'pilot phase' to gauge demand for my bakes and I intend to mainly bake on weekends. It's also a way for me to continue sharing my food photos and to share anything interesting related to baking :)

Here's the link, and if you like what you see, do me a little favour by liking my page!

p/s: Will be off to New Zealand for our 1st anniversary trip; and will be back in late April. Do drop by the blog again in end April - I hope that I will have some new bakes to share with you by then!

Blueberry Lemon Almond Cake

Made entirely with almond flour (ie. ground almonds), fresh lemon juice and blueberries, this was one of the healthy flourless cake recipes I experimented with earlier this year. Occasionally I run through my archive of food photos - and spot a few gems that I somehow neglected to blog about. This was one of them!

The topping is versatile - and if you're going all out to be healthy, plain or Greek yogurt is fine as a glaze, instead of something like cream cheese. Thereafter, top with fresh blueberries! I suppose yogurt isn't particularly conventional as a cake frosting, but hey, this makes a pretty wholesome and delicious breakfast cake to start your day :)

Pistachio Olive Oil Cake

DIY R&D efforts to create healthier bakes are ongoing, and the pistachio olive cake looks like it might fit the bill. While it's hard to dispute that butter is delicious, olive oil generally contains less saturated fats and cholesterol than butter. In addition, pistachios are relatively healthy nuts rich in Vitamin E, and among other benefits seem to be able to help reduce bad cholesterol! A little bit of cream was added (light, fresh whipped cream) to enhance the overall experience of enjoying the cake, but the cream hardly contains any sugar, so on the whole it's still a 'lighter' and slightly healthier treat :)

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Avocado Chocolate Frosting

After close to a week's break from baking, I finally decided to get down to baking again. While I picked up pretty cool skills/tips from my professional baking course, we didn't exactly bake anything very nutritious - and that was one of my main 'gripes' about the course. The nutrition and allergy component was not covered in much detail, and I find myself having to return to online sources/recipe books for information, trends and recipes on baking more healthily/ for special diets.

After my instructor shared her horror stories/ experiences during her hotel pastry chef days, I am also more convinced that most large-scale bakeries don't make anything very fresh, nor are they necessarily very hygienic. And they are likely to have used some kind of chemicals (such as emulsifiers) to bake their sponge cakes in large quantities (which are then frozen). I now have more of an insider view because our teacher made the class make 120 sponges one morning using the huge mixer (to simulate conditions in a real bakery) - and the trade-off was the use of emulsifiers and sponge cake mix to ensure that cakes still turned out nice and soft. 

And because I increasingly believe in eating well and eating right - I find it hard to imagine running something really large-scale, as that would probably mean some kind of compromise on the quality/freshness of my bakes.