Anchor Cream – Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes

Happy New Year my Dearest Readers 🙂 Hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! I plan of posting more frequently…clearly hasn’t worked! Again the same reasons (excuses!) being very busy at work and we also had friends coming over staying with us. Anyhow! my New Years resolution is to share more exciting events, reviews and recipes with you all!

That’s why I’m going to start 2016 with a Mini Victoria Sponge cake recipe 🙂 This recipe is inspired by the new range Anchor cream that KeepLeft PR sent me. I really like the bottle and screw top packaging, I feel like it keeps the cream fresher for longer. It’s also got those clever lines on the side, so you know exactly how much you’re pouring without having to use another measuring cup. Meaning one thing less to wash, now that’s always a bonus. The Anchor cream is now selling exclusively at Woolworths.

I found the Anchor cream very smooth and easy to whip. That’s why I decided to make something which uses the cream in its whipped formed and not cooked or incorporated with something else. Initially, I wanted to make scones, however, I have already shared that recipe before and I wanted something a little more cake like but still keeping it cute and dainty. Ta-da! Mini Victoria sponge cakes 😀

Hope you like this recipe! Please share and let me know if you’ve made them!

Recipe – Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes adapted from Mary Berry
Yield – 8-10 mini cakes

Ingredients
175g Unsalted butter, soften
175g Caster sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
175g Self-raising flour

300ml Anchor Thickened Cream
Strawberry jam
Icing Sugar for dusting

Notes
– Feel free to use any type of jam or marmalade you would like
– You can also use this recipe to make a 20cm cake instead of mini cakes

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan forced) or 376°C, lightly grease a shallow tray with butter and cover with baking paper to prevent sticking.
2) Using an electric mixer or by hand mix butter and caster sugar together until the mixture is very pale and light. Make sure to scrap the sides this will take approximately 5 minutes. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well between each addition and again scrape the bowl. Add the Vanilla extra and mix to combine.
3) Sift the self raising flour into the mixing bowl and gently fold in until the mixture is glossy and smooth. Try not to over fold or mix.
4) Spread over prepared pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes. Until lightly golden brown, check whether it is cooked using a skewer if it comes out clean it is cooked. Leave it to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes before removing it from pan.
5) Poor Anchor Thickened cream into bowl and whip until soft peaks form.

6) Once sponge cake is cool enough, use a cookie cutter to cut into small disks.

7) To assemble use one cake as the base, place one tablespoon of whipped cream followed by strawberry jam another cake and dust with icing sugar.

Daisy@NeverTooSweet received the Anchor Thickened Cream as gift from Keep Left PR 

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Sydney Foodie Getaway – Club Carlson

Source: Google Image

Sydney is one of our favourite cities to visit in Australia. Mr Bao and I try and visit once a year if not more, however, this year we haven’t had the chance to make the trip up…but we’re planning to do so very soon. We’re itching to go back 🙂 Coincidentally, I was invited to participate in a competition where I detail my ideal weekend in a blog post and if I am lucky enough to win, I will get an all expense paid for trip worth $3000 for 2 people! So wish me good luck my Dear Readers!

Source: Radisson Blu

This competition is ran by Club Carlson which is the records program of the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group which own the Radisson Blu, Radisson, Park Plaza, City Inn to name a few. I assume as a club member the more you visit, the more benefits you will receive and be able to redeem free nights which would be a great excuse to travel more and save money on accommodation! So my ideal weekend would start off with a 9am flight from Melbourne and arrive in Sydney just after 10am. This will give me more than enough time to catch a taxi and get to the Hotel. I would book a foodie getaway Bentley Package at the Radisson Blu Hotel.

Source: Radisson Blu

Hopefully my room will be ready and we will be able to check into our room, put our luggage away and head out for brunch! Whenever I go to Sydney I go a little crazy and do as many food stops as I can!

Flour and Stone

First stop, I will definitely go visit Nadine Ingram owner of Flour and Stone! I simply cannot get enough of her Panna Cotta lamingtons! I’ve been annoying her for the past 2 years to please deliver them to Melbourne! I will also bring my own little esky to take a couple more home to Melbourne!

Source: Three Williams

After two food stops, it’s time to do some exercise and what I mean by that its SHOPPING 🙂

Source: Westfield Sydney

Even though I live very close to a Westfield in Melbourne, I love shopping at Westfield Sydney. There’s a good variety of stores from the high end brands such as Prada, Miu Miu through to the more casual and affordable shops like Dotti. Let’s not forget about the food! They have Din Tai Fung (love their Xiao Long Bao), Ipuddo and more importantly Laduree!

After some exercising I will definitely take this opportunity to sit down at Laduree and have a macaron or two will a cup of tea. Perfect way to spend and afternoon if you ask me!

I’m probably pushing it…because we’ll be stuffed by then…but I still want to make ONE more food stop before we head back to the hotel! That’s a quick dash to Bourke Street Bakery for their Ginger Brûlée tart.

Source: Bourke St Bakery

With a large box of goodies from the bakery, we will head back to the Radisson Blu hotel. Remember how I said I’ll book in the Bentley Package, well it’s called this for a reason. It’s because this package includes one night’s stay in a Premier Room and also 2 tasting menus at the renown two hatted restaurant Bentley. I knew the restaurant was moving from Surrey Hills to a new location, however, I didn’t know it was into the Radisson Blu. It will be two birds one stone if I stayed at the hotel and also save on travel time ~

Source: Time Out Sydney

I’ve just had a look at the tasting menu and every thing sounds amazing what do you think of this dessert Violet Ice-Cream, Cocoa Honeycomb and Blueberry? hehe I think after a 7 course degustation dinner we won’t be hungry so we’ll head back to our room and relax! I’ll most definitely be using the free wifi to Instagram all the things we’ve ate that day!

Source: Radisson Blu

We’ll leisurely wake up at 9am the next morning and order breakfast from Bistro Fax and delivered to our room, because I love the idea of breakfast served in bed! It’s a plus because it’s also included in the package without having to pay anymore ~

After breakfast we’ll slowly get changed and pack everything and prepare to check out, we won’t rush because it’s Sunday and we should enjoy the time left we have in Sydney. We’ll leave our luggage at the hotel so we won’t need to carry it around with us. We will then make our way to the Sydney Fish market for some fresh salmon sashimi, baked lobster and cheese. This photo above was taken a couple of years ago when we visited the fish market 🙂 I’m sure I’ll be doing the same when I go this time!

Source: Blackstar Pastry

Wasting no time after a delicious round of seafood, I’ll drag Mr Bao to Blackstar Pastry a patisserie that has been on the top of my list for the longest time! Can’t believe I haven’t had this Strawberry Watermelon and rose water cake before!

Source: Radisson Blu

Since we’ve left our luggage at the hotel, I thought we should try the High Tea at the Radisson Blu as you all know how much I like high teas ~ It appears to be a traditional afternoon tea set with a good range of savoury and sweet items.

Source: Darling Harbour

And that will take us to the end of our foodie getaway weekend in Sydney. I will be so sad to leave Sydney so soon! I hope you liked reading about my ideal weekend away. I got so excited writing about this post, I’m already looking at tickets to Sydney! I really hope I will win and we will be visit Sydney very soon 😀

Daisy@Nevertoosweet was not sponsored to write this post, however, this is part of a competition run by Digitaslbi and Carlson Rezidor/Club Carlson.  

Baby Ho’s Baby Shower – Conservatory, Crown

Congratulations dear friend and fellow food blogger Lianne (Food Made With Love) who is expecting her first child in August 🙂 She’s heading home back to Singapore for a couple of months to deliver the baby and spend time with family. But it wouldn’t be right for her to leave before we threw her a baby shower! We decided to leave the handwork of baking and cooking to others and chose to have afternoon tea at the Conservatory at Crown Casino ~

 

It’s been such a long time since I’ve visited the Conservatory, and since then it’s gone through a renovation and it’s looking more modern with more natural light coming through. The Afternoon tea is $50 per head and is offered 3pm-5pm on Saturdays and 3:30pm-5:30pm on Sunday.

It’s a buffet style which is great because it means free flow of food and you can pick and choose what you want more or less of ~ It had all the usual items you would expect at any high the ribbon sandwiches, bruschetta and mini pies.

Good range of savouries

However, what really impressed me was the Chinese roasts, especially the Peking duck pancakes, BBQ Pork Buns and dumplings which I’ve never had before. Another idea just came to me, I’m sure someone else has done it before but I think a Yum Cha high tea would be fun too!

For those who don’t fancy Chinese, you can also have some Grissini breadsticks, dried fruit and a range of cheeses which I know Ashly (Im So Hungree) will appreciate!

 

It wouldn’t be a high tea without SCONES even better when it’s unlimited, you get a choice of plain or fruit ones and also clotted cream and strawberry or raspberry jam to serve with.

Chocolate Fountain

But the most important part of afternoon tea or anything meal is always DESSERT for me 🙂 And for those who have a sweet tooth like me, you will not be disappointed here at Conservatory. They have a large bench full of sweet goodness. Let’s start with the chocolate fountains! Yup it’s plural because they have 4 flavours, dark, milk, white and an orange flavoured, dip strawberries, marshmallows and whatever you fancy ~

Gianduja mousse cake

All the cakes were so pretty look at these mini Gianduja mousse cake with a short crust biscuit base and finished with a little silver leaf ~

Black Forest cake

Berry Cheesecake

If you haven’t noticed these amazing photos are taken by the one and only Iron Chef Shellie so of course I had to use more of these photos hehe I need lessons! I didn’t get to try all these cakes but they’re all so gorgeous.

Lemon Tart

I did get to try this Lemon Tart and it was wonderfully made with a good short crust pastry and a creamy filling which wasn’t too tart or sweet ~ Really liked the use of the mini merengue and strawberries which gave it some texture and flavour. Overall, we were quite happy with the afternoon tea here, my only comment would be 2 hours seemed a little rushed when you calculate the time spent queuing up in line at the food stations but definitely a great place to go with a bunch of girls. As a matter fact I didn’t see any men 😛

 

Couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon and to celebrate such a great news with Lianne 🙂 Wishing her the very best with the delivery of her little bundle of joy and can’t wait to catch up with you again and meet Baby Ho in person!

Meeting Nami (JOC) – Hanlai Hotel, Kaohsiung

Big huge hello to all My Dearest Readers! How have you all been? I have been keeping up with most of you through Instagram and other forms of Social Media, but boy I’ve missed blogging. Have been so preoccupied trying to catch up with everyone in HK and also doing some (erm…maybe a LOT) of shopping 😀

Have so so so many new stories, restaurant and cafe to share with you. But the first one would have to be meeting Namiko Chen from Just One Cookbook! If you like Japanese food and have tried to Google for Japanese recipes, I’m sure you would have come across Nami’s amazing blog with easy to follow recipes, step-by-step photos and she has recently added videos for her recipes!

Nami and I have followed each others blog for quite some time now, and we’ve always talked about meeting up one day. Coincidentally, last week Nami posted up on Instagram that she was flying to Kaohsiung, Taiwan to attend her brother-in-law’s wedding. I was ecstatic! Because I too was going to Kaohsiung the next day, so I boldly messaged Nami and asked if she would like and have the time to meet up. So excited she said yes, so we quickly organised to meet on the Tuesday afternoon at the hotel lobby lounge cafe at the Hanlai Hotel.

Hanlai Hotel

I got out of the taxi and started looking around the cafe when I saw a lady wave at me and I recognised that was Nami and her husband! She was everything I imagined her to be, the sweetest, gentlest and most genuine people you can meet! We had such a good time talking about everything from how she started her blog all the way to how she moved from Japan to the US and the challenges there are. I also shared all the crazy things I get up to down under hehe

Hello Nami!

Moving onto the food, we decided to get the tea set which was $299TWD ($12AUD) each including a drink. It was such a generous serving and we simply did not expect so much food, the food was served on a little 2 tier stand with sweets on the top and savoury on the bottom.

Afternoon Tea set $299TWD ($13AUD) + 10% Service Charge

Starting with the savoury items, there were two tuna sandwiches, a baguette with a piece of ham and a petite serving of pasta prawn with a spicy tomato sauce. I really enjoyed the baguette with the ham as it had good flavour and crunch from the bread. The prawn pasta was a little spicy for Nami but I thought it was quite nice maybe because I like spicy food.

Then there were the sweets, we all got a small serving of fruit which I thought was really nice as it’s quite refreshing, a small square sponge cake with vanilla custard which was my absolutely favourite. The sponge cake had the lightest texture. Last but not least we all got a different piece of cake, I got the strawberry shortcake which I knew Mr Bao would’ve loved because this is one of his favourite cakes! There was, however, a little too much cream for me.

We were also given an extensive list of drinks to choose from, not just tea or coffee. I ordered the iced coffee latte with coffee jelly and it was lovely with a strong coffee taste but what really impressed me was the coffee jelly which I kept scooping into my mouth~ I also like how most restaurants and cafe have set meals which include a drink, while it doesn’t seem as common in Australia.

Iced coffee latte with coffee jelly

Would highly recommend anyone going to Kaohsiung to stay or visit the Hanlai Hotel and try the afternoon tea. I think it’s really good value for money, for less than $15AUD you get to enjoy a wonderful afternoon tea with delicious food and drinks. The atmosphere is also really nice for a bunch of girls to get together and chit chat.

Once again would like to thank Nami and Mr JOC (her hubby) for meeting me! It was such a pleasure to finally put a face to a blog and I really admire their dedication to their blog and have become so inspired by them to really put more effort and time into my own little blog! Hope you have a safe flight back to San Francisco and I’m sure we will meet again either 😀

Hanlai Hotel
No.266, Cheng-kung 1st Rd
Kaohsiung City 801, Taiwan R.O.C.
高雄市前金區801成功一路266號
PH: 886-2-2751-7527
Website: http://www.grand-hilai.com.tw/english/index.htm

Vogue High Tea – Langham Hotel

I have always been into food and desserts but before the food blog, there was MAKE UP! I was (still am) obsessed and friend use to tell me to start a make up blog, but then I realised I didn’t really like taking photos of my face all the time 😛 Anyhow, I’m a fan of fashion magazines because I love reading about the new trends and Vogue is one magazine I love flipping through. I always find their styles so timeless.

Vogue High Tea

Last week I received an email from Sascha from Liquid Ideas asking for my address because Langham wanted to send me a small gift. I was immediately intrigued and knew that it would be something sweet hehe and I was right! That same afternoon a courier arrived with a small white box and told me not to shake it. I gently placed it on to the table and started to opening and couldn’t help let out a little shriek when I saw the super cute cakes and Vogue eclairs! Such a sweet and thoughtful gift, I have never had any cakes delivered to my house ~ It totally made my day and I was smiling from one ear to the other.

I was then invited to try the new Vogue High tea which is a collaboration between Vogue Australia and Langham Hotel in Melbourne to create a trendy and classy high tea in celebration of the spring races. Definitely could not say no as I have always like the high teas at the Langham ~ I asked Lianne to be my plus one because I knew she would appreciate it a lot more than say Mr Bao 😛 Most appropriately we started the event with a glass of Chandon champagne each.

Vogue High Tea set

Very quickly the Vogue high tea arrived, a very traditional afternoon set with ribbon sandwiches at the bottom – egg mayo, poached chicken, smoked salmon and cucumbers. Really appreciate the freshness of the sandwiches and egg and mayonnaise is still my favourite!

Scones – clotted cream, jam and butter

I really hope one day I will be able to make pretty looking scones like these. Last time I tried to make them they were fine flavour and texture wise but they definitely looked like huge volcano balls! These were freshly baked still warm to tough when we had them and served with clotted cream and strawberry jam ~

Vogue themed sweets

Now lets move on to my favourite part and that’s all the sweets on the top tier. I could seriously skip the other two (ok maybe not scones) but definitely forgo the sandwiches for some more macarons hehe ~ There’s a good selection of goodies – chocolate macaron, lace cookie, very vanilla cupcake, Vogue strawberry eclair, lamington bon bons and chocolate salted caramel popcorn tarts.

It’s hard to pick a favourite but it would have to the chocolate salted caramel popcorn mini tarts which had a little banana flavour through it. Another one that I liked was the Vogue strawberry eclairs I loved how small and dainty they were and the strawberry creme patisserie filling inside was lovely!  While the lace biscuits were so pretty and I could imagine how nice they will look at a wedding ~

Parisian Tea

Lianne also got a tea, and I recommended the Parisian tea that is quite popular I actually haven’t tried myself but heard it’s rather fruity and refreshing. She described that it had hints of vanilla, definitely going to have to try next time I go ~

Hot Chocolate

While I got a hot chocolate which was nice, I would’ve liked it even more if it was thicker and more chocolatey.

I had a wonderful girly afternoon with Lianne and enjoyed working through the high tea set, I recommend skipping lunch or having a super small lunch before coming there’s definitely enough food for 2 or 3 ladies 🙂 The Vogue high tea is now available from now until the 8th of November for $65 per head including a glass of Chandon and the latest Vogue magazine. Remember to book early especially for Melbourne cup day.

Aria Bar and Lounge 
1 Southgate Avenue
Melbourne, VIC 3006
The Langham Hotel
PH: 1800 641 107

Daisy@Nevertoosweet dined as a guest of The Langham Hotel Melbourne and Liquid Ideas