Hi friends and vistors,
With effect from today, this site is no longer updated with the latest stories.
All new entries and post will be directed to our main domain at www.delciesdesserts.com
Kindly click here to enter our new website.
Cheers,
Delcie
Shopping.
Girls would go crazy when it comes to shopping.
But how about shopping for the right oven? We went down to Mustafa to check out several types of ovens and had a quick chat with the experienced sales lady.
When choosing an oven, the sales lady may ask you, “what are you planning to use the oven for?”
Whether is it for baking cakes, cookies or roasting a chicken, different types of oven are required for different cooking.
There are 3 known types of oven in the market:
I would go straight into the point in explaining which oven is best for baking cakes.
Option 2, i.e. top and bottom heat conventional oven, is the most preferred choice for baking cake.
<u>Why?</u>
The heat produce by the top and bottom heating grills are gentle on fluffy cakes i.e. cakes/pastries that require to rise in form. For example sponge cake and muffins.
If the fan-based oven is being use, the air blowing out and circulating within the oven may change the soft and delicate structure of air-incorporated cakes. Usually, cookies and brownies are good with fan-based oven.
Do stay away from the steam function if you’re using all-in-one oven for baking cakes unless you are steaming cake pudding or Malay kuih that require water to cook.
Our trainer is someone who is extremely particular with food handlers’ fingernails. As female, we would prefer to have long fingernails so as to project a more feminine side of ourselves. However, he warned that if we do not practice good personal hygiene, it can result in cross contamination of food.
For ladies, as our trainer advised, we should always keep a nail brush by our hand basin to ensure that we brush our nails thoroughly after using the toilet, before and after handling food, when our hands are soiled and also after handling raw food.
Even for the guys, it is equally important to ensure that your nails (eventhough they are short) are clean and free of dirt.
Another note for the ladies who wear jewelleries such as watch, rings, bracelet etc, when handling or preparing food, it is advisable to keep them away as they may contain harmful micro-organisms that can cause food poisoning.
To add on to yesterday’s topic, it is compulsory for all food handler (as long as you come in contact with food) to attend this food hygiene course and to get a typhoid injection before operating in a food establishment.
While we are still on the hygiene topic, lets talk about the chicken rice stall owner who had tramatised our trainer.
It was located in one of the coffee shops at Jalan Besah area. Our trainer, Rodney, at that time was washing his hands. A minute later, a big buff guy came out from the toilet. His apron was hanging over him the whole time he was in there. That guy walked passed Rodney, went out of the toilet and walked straight back to his chicken rice stall to continue working.
So what exactly is wrong with that chicken rice stall owner?
Firstly, he was wearing an apron. Perfectly appropriate for food preparer. But going to the toilet with it, is totally unappropriate!
Next, he did not wash his hands after using the toilet. Whether he’s doing a big business or a small one behind that closed door, it is equally dirty. Without washing his hands, and going back to handle the chicken is totally gross if you were to think about it.
So I hope his story would enlighten you to be more aware of the general hygiene practices.
Take care,
Delcie
Both Suki and I attended a full day Food Hygiene course from 9a.m to 7p.m., held at Jalan Besah CC last Wednesday.
It’s our pleasure to share with you that we both managed to pass the exam and to obtain a certification for us to officially operate in a licensed food shop or food stall.
The sad thing is that we may have to wait for another 1 to 2 months for WDA to process our certification before we can get our hands on the original copy. The happy thing is that our helpful trainer, Rodney Seah from Ascendo Consulting, is going to write us an official letter to give us the green light to start operating in a shop.
We learnt alot about handling food, cleaning, personal hygiene and the different causes of food poisoning as well as, the demerit point structure of NEA standards.
The objective of this course is to raise the standard of food hygiene in Singapore. This course is compulsory for all who wish to operate in the food business and to pass the exam is the minimum requirement.
No matter what, I think this is a great initiative by the government in enforcing strict control over the food that is being distributed to the public. At the end of the day, we realised that there are so many hygiene practices which we had overlooked and taken for granted. Hence, from that day onwards, we promised to commit ourselves to take extra precaution on ensuring that all desserts coming out from us is of the highest standard with quality.
You’ll be surprise on how dirty some chefs are when they handled food. Just yesterday, when I was queuing to buy lunch at this coffee shop located in Serangoon, the man at the next stall selling Minced Pork Noodle (apparently to be a famous shop there) was packing the “fa chai”, a black hairy-like herb, into a container. In the next second, he dropped the container and a few “fa chai” dropped out from it, and roll onto the floor. Without thinking, he threw the dropped “fa chai” back into the container, looked around to see if anyone saw him and continue packing.
I was totally disgusted and thank god, I didn’t buy my lunch from his stall.
There was also another incident related by the trainer himself during the course. But because I have to run my errands now, I’ll blog about it tomorrow and do stay tune to be horrified by how dirty the Chicken Rice owner is.
Where do the names of our desserts come from? Wonder no more as I’m here to explain the origins of our desserts’ names.
We came up with the names after formulating the recipes as well as fine-tuning the experience when each dessert is being introduced into our mouth.
It’s a fascinating thing to do as we learnt to understand our desserts better during the process. I thought we should share this journey with you guys.
In this post, let’s talk about our Strawberry flavour – Lost in Love.
Why the name “Lost in Love”?
Pink and red are commonly associated with the feeling call “Love”. Your heart is red in colour and while most girls love pink, strawberries is the best fruit to represent “Love”.
While strawberry is a symbol of Venus, i.e. the Love Goddess, if you do not know, strawberries actually belong to the rose family. Surprise as you may be, the fruit that you once knew as “strawberry” isn’t really quite a fruit or belongs to the berries family. It’s a small plant.
In fact, the fleshy red “fruit” is the individual female reproductive organs of the rose flower, named Rosaceae. The actual fruit lies on the surface of the strawberries, that is the little seed-like object sitting within the skin called “achenes”.
In addition, being part of the rose family, it is definitely a symbol of expressing love. Calling it Lost in Love, the freshest strawberries are infused within our delicious cream cheese mixture. At the end of the day, It’s for you to dig them out and feel the love we’ve injected into our desserts as you take in each mouthful of Delcie’s strawberry cheese mousse.
For those who are in love and are seeking to share your love with your friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, husband or wife, our “Lost in Love” is definitely the best gift choice to go for.
Enjoy!
Delcie
Over the weekends, we sold over 100 cups!
It was a privilege and a pleasure to have friends giving their support to our desserts and our “Help Build a Cafe” fund-raising project.
I would want to thank the following friends of Delcie’s who have contribute to our fund raising project….
Vanessa Lum, thank you for choosing Delcie’s Fantastic Four gift packs for your children’s teachers on Teachers’ Day.
Robin and the rest of his classmates, 4 Love from KCP, thank you all for supporting our Fantastic Four gift packs to get into the good books of your teachers. 
Cindy Yeo, thank you for helping me spread the love to your company. It’s a pity we couldn’t have you with us on Saturday.
Augustine, thanks for coming down so early to roll off our first sale.
Vanessa, thank you for patronising us again. It’s a pleasure to have your family with us on Saturday.
Webster, thanks for supporting and agreeing to help me out with the packaging.
Tian Yu, thanks for supporting and it’s really great to see you again after so long.
Matt Rigbye, thank you for dropping by and showing off your interesting coin pouch.
Siva and Kenny, thanks for coming to support my desserts. I’ve always anticipate to meet you guys.
Ernie, thanks for rushing down right after work to show your support.
Ai Ling, Qian Ling, Michael and Shi Hui, thank you all for your kind support and coming down to the party. I hope you guys had a great catch up with each other.
Jun Wee, thanks for supporting and hope you get well soon!
Last but not least, to Joycelyn from Gone Fishing Cafe, thank you for promoting our desserts in your shop and your sweet testimonal at the BNI meeting last week.
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If you’re also looking for a thoughtful thank you gift to your clients, boss, friends or family, our Delcie’s Fantastic Four gift pack makes an especially thoughtful thank you gift. A gift that says, “Wishing you many sweet returns for doing what you did for me.”
It was such a blessing last Saturday. Despite me having my wisdom tooth taken out and was sick the night before, the whole party went on smoothly. In fact, I thought both Suki and I wouldn’t manage to pull through the whole party without collapsing.
Nonetheless, we had fun and shared lots of laughter as we come together as one. Many of our friends were brought back together once again after not seeing each other for ages! It was a big reunion for us all. Thank you to those who managed to make it to our tea-party held at Tanjong Rhu last Saturday.
PS: To our friends who had fallen sick over last weekend and unable to attend our party, we wish you a speedy recovery and hope you’ll be able to join us the next time. Take care all!
I was just wondering what is the difference between muffins and cupcakes after blogging about the both of them.
In fact, if you were to ask me about the difference between a cupcake and a muffin, I would conclude that the proportion of the ingredients used in each cake is different; the texture is different, the sweetness content is different and the appearance is also different.
Generally, you will find muffins mostly in cafes. They are best eaten warm with butter and a cup of cuppa.
As for cupcakes, they are more fanciful and sweeter, mainly top with decorations and colourful frosting.
Let’s talk about the ingredients:
Cupcakes Ingredients:
100g Flour
75g Sugar
75g Butter
1 Egg
1-2 tbsp Fresh Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
Muffins Ingredients (makes around 6 muffins):
200g Flour
50g Sugar
75g Butter
1 Egg
100-150ml Fresh Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 tsp Baking Powder
As promised, below attached is a video on how-to fold flour into the cake mixture.
Instructions: Using a tablespoon, from the outside of the cake mixture, do a clock-wise scoop and cut through the cake mixture. Repeat until flour is evenly folded into the mixture.
Cheers,
Delcie
If you can view this video, click here.
I didn’t have the craving but I need to work on something to distract me from the pain that was coming inside my mouth.
Unfortunately, I had my wisdom tooth extracted earlier on in the afternoon.
Against all odds, I thought to myself, why don’t I bake muffins today? I need to do something to keep me distracted from the fact that I lost 2 teeth today.
So I came up with these cute little wonderful blueberry and banana muffins.
Like the cupcakes recipe which I blog about last week, these muffins are also easy to bake.
Muffins Ingredients (makes around 6 muffins):
200g Flour
50g Sugar
75g Butter
1 Egg
100-150ml Fresh Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 tsp Baking Powder
Banana Flavour:
1 piece of small banana, mashed
Blueberry Flavour:
Half cup of fresh blueberries.
Alternative: Half cup of defrosted blueberries, drain and dust with half tbsp of flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.
(1) Cream sugar and butter till creamy state.
(2) Beat eggs and vanilla essence till foam appears.
(3) Pour beaten eggs into eariler cream mixture gradually.
(4) Continue beating till all eggs are mixed into the cream mixture.
(5) Sieve flour and baking power together and add them gradually into above cream mixture.
(6) Using folding method, fold in all the flour mixture as you gradually pour it into the cream mixture.
(7) Slowly fold in milk until mixture form dropping consistency.
Folding method is extremely critical in ensuring all air are trapped in the mixture. Tomorrow, I will attached a video on my blog on how to fold flour into muffin mixture.
(8) Divide muffin mixture into half. Half for banana muffins and another half for blueberry muffins.
(9) Mash bananas with a fork.
(10) Fold in mashed bananas into half of the muffin mixture.
(11) Fold in blueberries into the other half of the muffin mixture.
(12) Scoop the mixture into muffin cups and put to bake for 20-30mins in middle row of oven at 180 degree Celsius.
(13) Bake till golden brown. Remove from oven and let it cool before serving.
