I have two group of friends who are divided into savory popcorn group and sweet popcorn group. The savory popcorn lovers are more sophisticated bunch. The bookies and the nerdies, who enjoys salted and peppery corn, or cheese corns or even corns with salted nuts. The sweet popcorn lovers are young spirited and more fun. I am neither young spirited nor fun, but I am a firm believer that popcorn should be richly coated with burnt sugar. The last fact is due to my amateurish attempt of over-cooking my caramel by a couple of minutes, every time.

I popped some corn, roasted some nuts, and coated everything with caramel. It is good. I tried to be generous with sprinkles of salt, but the caramel takes over everything. I am not complaining.

Ingredients are popcorns, almonds, cashews and sesame seeds.

I have a friend who was a distributor of that particular brand of ice cream with a lot of vowels on it which is the best ice cream maker in the world. Ever. She often gave us really, really good discount on some excess items she had in stock and I bought dozens of them. She always gave me a call first so I could pick out the flavor I liked best before they were chosen by other people. I filled up my freezers with those delicious frozen goodies and gave them away. Everybody loved me then.

When she stopped selling the ice cream due to some reasons, I was devastated. Okay, I have to admit that I refuse to pay retail. I called up a friend who helped me purchased ice cream maker and have it sent over. I decided it was time for me to churn up my own ice cream and make people love me again.

I only make ice cream based on one book. I ended up never give any away. People in the house polish everything I churn out of this fabulous machine and this even more fabulous recipe book. From the day I bought the machine and the book, I have been making ice cream twice a week and it is the most wonderful thing to have freezer stocked with frozen desserts that you know only the best ingredients go into it.

The sherbet was actually very beautiful and dense textured. A mocha in the real sense. When I was preparing the shots, I thought I had taken precautions of everything. I chilled the plate. I chilled the sherbet repeatedly between decorating steps. Well, they still melted. At the end of the shooting when I took this last shot, the fat content on the surface has melted completely, leaving me with this skeletal looking cones. Upset? Yeah. I panicked. But then there’s nothing else I could have done. So .. I hope you enjoy this post.

This simple snack, famously known as hunkwe pisang or kue pisang is made of mung bean starch. It is a popular market snack in the country, where normally a spoonful of batter is placed in the middle of one sheet of banana leaves and a slice of banana is placed on top of it before folding the leaves into a small packet. The starch gives it a unique bouncy texture and always serve cold. It is the perfect afternoon snack for hot days.

It has also been a while I have wanted to try making this. I think mother tried to show me how but both times ended disastrously. First time I burnt myself and the second time I burnt the batter. It seems to be one of the easiest snacks (or kue, as we call it in Indonesian). Everybody seems to have no problem with it. Mother suggested I made this as part of the Royal Selangor challenge, and I wasn’t very optimistic. I will let you decide.

The banana hunkwe I made used up about 10x more batter. The individual serving is usually only one bite, or two at most. This one, you will have to use a fork and knife to finish it up. But it is a good experience. I feel more confident in trying to shape it the traditional way. My brother is a big fan. I am still waiting for him to finish up the two cones.

Have you ever eaten our local kue (or kuih in Malaysian)? Which one is your favorite?

It’s another fruit-based jelly. I love mango and I have never met anyone who doesn’t. But it is one of the fruits that I think I enjoy the most as is. Meaning, nothing is done to it. Just the fruit, cut up and serve up on a plate. I don’t really get mangoes in other forms than that. I also have another thing about mango. Not a good one. I can never eat mango peeled by other people, other than my mother and my partner. Yup, I just couldn’t do it. So if I am to eat mango and enjoy it, I would have to peel and cut them myself.

I decide to try making jelly out of a couple of mangos we bought in the market, not sure what I would end up with. I use the basic composition of fruit puree, sugar, water, agar and lime juice.

I ended up with something taste and feel like the real fruit, in the shape of cone. The only thing I did was just transforming two mangoes into another form. It was pretty nice. The texture was just amazing. Everybody loved them.

Banana. Sticky rice. Grated coconut. Palm sugar. Sound familiar? Probably not. These are our street food. They are like the great grandfather of Indonesian street food. Not many sold them anymore these days, since people prefer fried chicken or bubble tea, or doughnuts. They are sold as a set, a bit of sticky rice, a couple of deep-fried plantain bananas, freshly grated coconut and sprinkled with melted palm sugar and wrapped with banana leaves. I like to be greedy and ask the vendor to drench them. Really wet the whole thing. Most often than not, they pretend not to hearing me. I mean, what’s wrong with a bit more of palm sugar? It’s not like the cost a lot, right?

When we make it at home, I can be generous. Like really generous. Okay, I think I had too much coffee at work today.

Back to the sticky rice. I used Nick Munro’s Pewter mould to shape the sticky rice to a nice cone and deep-fry some bananas, serve them with the mandatory coconut and palm sugar

Sticky rice (or glutinous rice) has to be soaked overnight, or at least 3-4 hours, to fully hydrate the grains. I am always told to get Thai’s sticky rice, which generally cost about twice as much as our local’s. The grains are said to be better shaped, or whole, compared to the more broken grains often found in local’s sticky rice. On the day you are to steam the rice, drain the liquid off and place rice in a steamer, preferably the ones with a lot of holes, bottom and sides. Fill the bottom part of the steamer with water, not touching the rice. You will end up with mushy porridge. Cook over high heat, covered.