Welcome to Just Heavenly's Blog

It's already 2009. When I last wrote this welcome message, I happily dated it 2010 to make it sticky. Stanley Kubrick's & Arthur C Clarke's vision of the future is almost in the past and we're refreshing this blog with a new look and a new attitude to reflect new challenges and new directions.
As you can see, the template has been refreshed and we've added a twitter bar for you to follow updates there and get to know us better, as well as our link to our Facebook profile.
In the past year, due to YOUR support, we've added a third outlet to the Just Heavenly family. And now, we're proud to be serving Petaling Jaya from our new hub there, A Slice of Heaven. Watch out for more to come.
To A Slice of Heaven in Jaya One - Coming Soon To Bangsar To Pleasures in Plaza Damansara PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO SEE WHAT'S NEW!

Friday, March 23, 2007

Designer Handbag


It's been a busy week, hence the dearth of updates. After this one there will be a mega update of cakes and decor as well.

We've done a few of these. The gorgeous young lady whose birthday it was requested this particular design. The original costs a pretty penny, let me tell you. But we hope they got value out of this one. It's one instance of being able to have your cake and eat it too.

One thing that Allan takes pride in is his detailing. The overall design is lovely but what I personally find amazing is the specifics. If you have a look at the closeup above, the zip, the stitching, and the buckles are mimicked very well.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

"Chinese Doughnuts"

They look a lot like these but more heavily dredged in sugar. The colour on these is perfect.

This tea time treat is really something to be savoured. Golden and slightly crispy on the outside and a touch creamy and tender on the inside. Since I have not made these for sometime due to pesky resolutions of virtue made at the turn of the Georgian AND the lunar calendar, I had to borrow a picture from the net. ;-)

It's actually one take on how you can cook Pate a choux with a few obvious differences.

210 ml water
2 tbsp vegetable shortening or unsalted butter (or lard if you prefer hehe)
A generous pinch of salt
110g bread/high protein flour
2 tsp of milk powder
1 tsp double action baking powder
2 eggs
Caster sugar/Cinnamon Sugar/Vanilla sugar for dredging
Enough oil to deep fry

  1. Bring water and shortening to the boil in a non stick sauce pan.
  2. Gently whisk the dry ingredients, i.e. flour, salt, milk powder, double action baking powder, together
  3. Using a wooden spoon, tip the dry ingredients into the boiling liquid and stir vigourously for 2 minutes until the dough leaves the side of the pot cleanly and the flour is cooked thoroughly. If need be, lower the heat and cook a while longer. Don't be alarmed if some sticks to the bottom of the pan. Just don't allow it to burn.
  4. Take off the heat and cool for 20 minutes and then stir in the eggs one at a time until smooth and sticky.
  5. Using 2 teaspoons, dip them in the COLD oil to prevent them from sticking to the spoons and form a small teaspoon of dough.
  6. Drop the dough into the COLD oil. This is important. If you drop it into HOT oil a crust will form and it won't expand.
  7. Turn up the heat to medium high and watch them slowly fry. They will expand quite dramatically.
  8. They are ready when they are a light golden brown.
  9. Remove from the heat, dredge in the sugar of your choice and serve hot!
I can never get enough of these. They are like salted roasted peanuts. Addictive. Be warned! ;-)

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Saving Birds Eye Custard Powder


We try not to use premixes. But when we do, we usually try and find a way to make them taste as gorgeous as possible.

Birds Eye custard powder is a favourite. Ever since I've been a little tyke, we've used Bird's Eye Custard Powder for pouring custard for our favourite puddings. Nothing like hot, creamy, custard to pour on Steamed Ginger Pudding or Peach Banana Crumble.

Part of the attraction of the premix powder is the speed with which you can make it. AND a fantastic plus for the home cook is that it's not as heat sensitive as making a creme anglais. Which to my mind is the most fantastic dessert sauce in the world next to a good Chocolate Ganache.

After all, push the heat a little too much and you end up with sweet scrambled eggs. Not fun.

Having said that, while I don't believe that Bird's Eye custard powder is a substitute for the real thing (creme anglais) you can get something very yummy if you follow the following tweak that I made to the standard Bird's Eye Pouring custard recipe;

Standard Birds Eye Recipe

1 cup milk
1 cup cream (makes it creamier and gives better mouthfeel)
2 tbsp Bird's Eye Custard Powder
2 to 3 Tbsp sugar

My addition
2 egg yolks
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla extract (don't use vanilla pods for this - save them for the creme anglais)
Pinch of salt (a magical ingredient)

  1. Take 3 tbsp of the milk and dissolve the sugar, custard powder
  2. Whisk up the eggs and yolks to combine thoroughly
  3. Bring the milk to a roiling boil
  4. Mix the eggs, yolks, and the custard powder mixture together
  5. What you want is to raise the temperature of the egg mixture gradually so you need to temper the eggs by slowly drizzling 2 ladlefuls (one of those soup ladles would be good) of the boiling milk into the egg mixture. (My old cooking teacher used to say "think about a little baby peeing, that's the speed you want to drizzle it in"
  6. Next, pour the milky egg mixture quickly into the rest of the boiling milk and whisk VIGOROUSLY. This is VERY IMPORTANT. Make sure you hold the pot firmly and whisk it to within an inch of it's life.
  7. Keep whisking for a couple of minutes then remove from the heat and continue whisking for another couple of minutes.
  8. Pour it into a jug, cover with cling wrap so the wrap is sitting on the custard. This is to prevent a skin forming.
  9. Serve warm.
Basically, the eggs give it an eggyness that is missing from the original and the cream makes up for that flatness that the standard recipe has, in my opinion! (Must qualify hehe)

If you feel that this recipe is too rich, by all means use milk instead of the cream and substitute an egg for both the egg yolks instead.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Cinderella & Her Footmen

After living with the "ang ang" red of the background for a couple of weeks, and almost needing sunglasses everytime we viewed this blog, we changed the colour to a rich chocolate and orange, in keeping with the colour of our new place in Plaza Damansara.

Oh, is that glass slipper mine?Don't move ma'am, we'll help you out!
What on earth is going on?

This weekend we had the pleasure of creating Cinderella and her two footmen. We're really proud of it.

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