Chocolate Orange Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

I went nuts playing with frosting, and not in a good way. It's not as easy as I thought it'd be. I squirted some frosting out trying to draw a circle...and my circle got disconnected all the time, my frosted cupcakes looked pretty...pathetic! We all had a lot of fun though...SC, myself and my helper each got to frost at least a cake...and here are the horrible ones we did...

I did the horrible circles (they were meant to be "roses", but I failed miserably) and the wobbly heart, my helper did the "flower" with just four petals (she meant to draw five petals but somehow overestimated the space heheheh) SC did the star and...

....the Chinese character which could be interpreted as "yum" (jeng!).
How creative of him!

I also did a little smiley face...which also meant that this cake had too little frosting, too bad!

I used recipes from all recipes, I just reduced the portion to eight cupcakes, added a teaspoon of orange essence in the cake batter (recipe link here), as well as a teaspoon of orange essence and a drop of orange food coloring in the frosting batter (recipe link here). The chocolate orange cupcakes turned out wonderful, chocolatey and moist, the frosting gave a delightful tang to the combo. I'll be making these babies often ;)

Speaking of writing with food...it all started when we went to a Japanese BBQ joint for a lunch and SC wrote the same word using thick, juicy, tasty ox tongue chunks.

He said that this should be every food blogger's favorite word, yum!
I couldn't agree more ;)

Roasted Duck with Orange Honey Glaze - My Sweet Ugly Duckling

Weird. Isn't this Hong Kong? The land where ducks and geese, roasted or preserved, are just hangin'...at almost every street corner? Yeah! The last time I checked, it still is!

So, I thought finding fresh duck meat might be easier than finding the perfect, comfy high heeled shoes (which is equal to the quest for the holy grail for my troublesome feet), but boy, I was so wrong. Carefully, I searched the fresh poultry stands in wet markets, the frozen sections of supermarkets....I found whole chicken, black chicken, chicken legs, wings, breasts, skin on, skin off, bone on, bone off...but I didn't see no duck, AT ALL!

Naturally (I think you know this annoying human nature), the harder it is to find...the more you want it. A friend told me that chilled duck meat is available (at HK$28/half a duck) in a luxury supermarket far far away (in Western District, like 1 hr and 15 minutes traveling time from my place. In Hong Kong, that's practically a different planet). Do I want it that bad? I was contemplating jumping onto a bus one weekend to get that piece of hot duck azz, then thought better of it and planned to just get a chicken instead.

Surprise, surprise, what did sous chef find lying helplessly at the corner of poultry section of the frozen shop? Bags after bags of frozen whole duckies, at HK$28 for a whole duck! HAHA! Score! By the way, I am crossing the phrase "great attention to detail" off my resume.

I was thinking how to beautify my ugly duckling...and thought of oranges. Hold it. I need to manage your expectations here. This is by no means the classic Duck a L'Orange, baby! This is just my way of perfuming my ugly duckling.

Roasted Duck with Orange Honey Glaze


Recipe

Tenderizing
- 1 duck, defrosted
- 5 cm ginger, crushed, or ginger powder
- 5 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 3/4 onion, sliced into big chunks
- 2 oranges, sliced into big chunks
- hot water, olive oil, salt, white pepper
Trim duck's excess fat (wish I could do the same to mine), wash duck, rub inside out with salt and pepper. Saute garlic, ginger, onion with a bit of olive oil, add duck (I cut the duck into quarters), add orange pieces, add water just enough to cover everything. I used a pressure cooker for 20 minutes. If you are not using pressure cooker, cook until duck meat is tender and you get creamy colored, tasty stock (use the stock for other purposes later). Set the bird aside for grilling.


Glazing

- 1 clove garlic
- 1/4 onion, thinly sliced
- 2 cm ginger, julienned
- juice of 1 orange
- orange peel (of 1 orange)
- orange chunks (of another orange)
- honey, salt, white pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, olive oil, a bit of hot water
Saute garlic, onion, ginger in a bit of olive oil, add orange peel until everything's fragrant, add honey, orange juice, a bit of hot water, orange chunks, salt, white pepper, a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, let it caramelized a little. Use some to give the duck a rub, set aside some for sauce.


Grilling

Preheat oven to 250C. Throw the duck on an oven tray (I lined mine with foil - for easy cleaning later), place bits and pieces of glaze in, outside, and all around the duck, sprinkle a bit of salt and white pepper. I added extra honey/glaze from time to time to get more beautiful golden brownage. Grill until golden brown.

It ain't no Gisele...but my ugly duckling was sweet.

Orange Cinnamon Raisins Muffins & My Weekend Loot

Finally! Baked goods with neither banana nor chocolate! HOHOHO! I wasn't exactly feeling experimental, trying to learn new things, yada yada yada....blablabla

I made these simply because:
- There were two large oranges on my dining table (gifts from sous chef's mom, as I don't generally buy and consume oranges), staring blankly at me, almost totally lost their hope of being useful, fulfilling their destiny...threatening to rot then and there in front of me. The idea of rotten oranges with worms coming outta them terrified me more than the fear of having to use and consume them
- My sous chef threatened to report to his mom that I wasted the oranges (she HATES to waste food). I still want to stay in executive chef's good book ^_*
- There was no banana in sight (or the title would've been "Banana Orange Cinnamon Raisins Muffins" ^_^)

Anyways, they turned out light, fragrant, and perfect with my morning jasmine tea (the coffee machine at the office nearest to me is broken!)

Recipe
- 1 large orange, peel skin off, separate orange into tiny pulps (I didn't use the skin and squeeze the juice, I threw in the little segments of pulps. If you wish, you can grate and include some zest, and cut the orange into segments and throw them into blender/processor)
- a handful of raisins
- 1 cup self raising flour
- a dash of cinnamon
- 5 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 175C. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl, sprinkle with cinnamon, make a well in the middle. Mix egg, vanilla, oil, and milk in another bowl. Pour liquid into flour, mix it a bit, add orange pulp segments, add raisins (keep some raisins to sprinkle on top of the muffins). Pour about 2 tbsp of mixture into greased muffin tray (I lined mine with paper cups, so no greasing necessary), add a couple of raisins on top, bake for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes.

....and...last weekend, I did my favorite weekend activity = supermarket browsing. This time I went to Whampoa's JUSCO Supermarket...and got myself these goodies. I heard about these Oreo goodies from a galpal from the States, but we surely never saw these in Hong Kong! ^_^

I love the softness of this Oreo cakesters. But pleaseeee nabisco, could you produce one without the stuffing? T_T pleaseee

These are great as they aren't too sweet, but a little too crunchy for my taste. I am more of a softie gal.

Let's see how long I can do without baking any banana-related goodies ^_*