Edible gardening

I've been wanting to make an edible potplant for the past year. I'm not sure where it came from, but I recall seeing photos of potplant desserts popping up. Perhaps it started from Heston Blumenthal and his amazing edible garden? I'm not really sure. I just really wanted one..

Instagram is a wonderful thing. It's one of the things I use as a "to do", "to go", "to eat" wishlist. Okay.. call me Asian (well actually, I think it started off being an "Asian thing" to do, but now it's just a "foodie thing"), but I love taking photos of food. Food is meant to be seen by the eyes, smelt by the nose and tasted by the tastebuds. For me it's smell, see and then taste. And because you can't preserve smell and taste, you can at least capture how it looks. Hehe :P

When I was in Sydney this year, I wanted to get a potplant dessert from Blackflower Patisserie. Thanks to Instagram, I saw a photo of it whilst I was in Sydney and decided to go find it. (I love how Instagram tells me where to go.. instantly. It also happened in Tokyo when I saw a photo of a really cute cafe with the cutest matcha latte art. So I went there on my last day of my holiday). But when I got to Blackflower Patisserie, I found out that it was only served during the evening. I was quite disappointed because I had to fly back that evening.

But... as I was browsing Instagram for any cute (I really am a sucker for cute things..) or interesting things in Seoul before I went again, I found out about Banana Tree. They served potplant desserts and potplant bingsoo! I saw it. I wanted it.. and I got it! Hehe. They didn't serve the bingsoo during winter though, so I was a tad disappointed.

The potplant looked great! I think I was more in love with the shovel spoons though. The dessert itself was just a small patty case of cream and cake. A tad disappointing for the price, but definitely cute! I eventually decided that I had to find those shovel spoons for myself and found them on ebay. :)

I decided that I'd make my own pot plant desserts. I tried looking for mini terracotta pots but couldn't find any. So I ended up with plastic ones.

Edible potplants
Makes about 10

Matcha genoise (see recipe below)
Matcha mousse (see recipe below)
Black sesame crumble (I made mine with blacksesame, butter, sugar and a little flour)
Matcha cookie crumble (I made mine, but I don't have a recipe for you)
Chocolate mushrooms (I made mine)
Chocolate rocks (I bought a packet)

This was how I imagined it:

Matcha genoise

2 eggs
40g sugar
40g plain flour
8g matcha
20g butter, melted and cooled

Cream the eggs and sugar. Add in sifted flour and matcha.
Fold in melted butter.
Pour into a lined slice tray.
Bake in a preheated 180C oven for about 15mins.

Matcha mousse

100ml milk
10g matcha
1 egg, separated
40g sugar
80ml cream
1 tsp gelatin powder

Beat egg yolks and 20g sugar until pale.
Heat up milk and matcha on low heat. Take off from heat.
Gradually pour the eggs into milk, constantly mixing.
Add the gelatin.
Sieve the mixture if needed.
Add the cream.
Whip egg whites with 20g of sugar until stiff peaks.
Gently fold into matcha mix.

To assemble:

Make sure your pots are clean firstly.
I double lined mine with some IKEA cupcake patty casings as they're taller than the average patty case. Stickytape it at the bottom so it stays.

Cut rounds of cake out. I used the back of a piping nozzle.
Layer one round of cake. Half fill with mousse. Add another piece of cake. Fill with mousse to the top.
Refrigerate overnight.

Sprinkle black sesame crumble.
Gently twist a toothpick into the mushroom chocolate stalk (This will keep it steady). Stick the mushroom into the cake.
Sprinkle some matcha cookie crumbs. Add a few chocolate rocks.
Refrigerate when not consuming.

Great for gifting ;)

I love my shovel spoon! It also came with a shovel fork. Hehe.

It's been a while..

So.. I am back.

I'd been craving to bake and cook so much. It doesn't help when MasterChef is on television 6 days of the week. I didn't watch the first few episodes but I've been following it since (give or take an episode, but I can always watch it online anyway). I want to make a croquembouche. I'd love to spin sugar. And I don't care if I get burns!

They made macarons in tonight's episode. My first attempt at macarons failed miserably. I blame the cookie press that I tried to use. Stupid me. I do intend on trying it again.. soon. Poh's macaron's looked so pretty, but overbaked! Sounded a bit too crunchy.. Haha.

But. I nearly gave up at one point though. The passion I once had for baking.. seemed to fade away. I won't go into my personal issues though. Let's just say, that I'm easing back into this. It's difficult considering there's another issue. Why, I'm full of issues, aren't I? -__-

Anyway, here's what I've been doing.

Lemon and blueberry yoghurt muffins.


Semi dried apple slices. Sliced and baked in the oven for 30-40mins. No need to add anything! Just bake! Yum yum.


Mushroom risotto with tomato, spinach and capsicum.

Tomato and mushroom risotto

C made really nice risotto the other time. And since tomatoes, mushrooms and arborio rice were on sale, I decided to try and make some too. :)


Thus I made tomato and mushroom risotto for dinner. Took 2hrs for preparation and cooking. And now I'm really tired. I'd been standing all day (I rarely get to sit at work) .. :(

Well, I used the whole packet of arborio rice which was 500gm. So I have a very large quantity of risotto. There's a lot left..

Tomato and mushroom risotto
Makes about 10 servings

500gm (2 2/3 cups) aborio rice, washed

7 cups of hot water
5 tsp vegeta chicken stock

2 tbsp margarine
2 onions, diced
500gm mushrooms, sliced
1/2 a green capsicum, diced
200gm long round green beans, cut into bite site pieces

pepper, to suit taste
shredded cheese, for serving
washed baby spinach leaves, for serving

Dissolve chicken stock into the water.

In a large saucepan, add margarine and saute onions until slightly brown.
Add mushrooms and saute until brown as well. Then add in green beans, tomatoes and capsicum. Saute for a few minutes, then transfer to a larger pot.

Add the aborio rice to the pot and stir to mix.
Start to add in the chicken stock to the pot, 1-1 1/2 cups at a time.

(This is what a watery mixture looks like)

Simmer the mixture on low heat and mix once in a while. (If you forget to mix, you'll burn your risotto!).

(This is when you can add more stock)

When the risotto doesn't look as watery, add another 1-1 1/2 cups of the chicken stock and follow the same procedure. Do this until all of the chicken stock is used up, or until the rice is cooked. The rice should puff up, be soft and look 'fat'.

Note: Somewhere in between, you can add pepper to suit taste.

Simmer the mixture until it is no longer a soup consistency (like shown above).

Serve on top of spinach leaves, and with shredded tasty cheese. I added more ground pepper on the top because I like pepper :) Mmmm. Peppery