Ling

I KNOW! I was kind of choked...our family used to buy bread there all the time when I was a kid. My favourite thing from Blundell Bakery were those thick, shortbread-like cookies studded with bits of candied cherries. And I always got an apple turnover (or two). I'm sure it's been mentioned, but I recently had the baguette at La Baguette on GI again, and was reminded of how good it is.

I did a quick frosting (cream cheese, chocolate, icing sugar) to slather on the gingerbread cake. Much better.

It's my ONE day off today, which is why I'm taking over this thread so much... I guess I'm being an eager beaver, but I baked this recipe: Gingerbread cake The lighting is really poor and I realize the whole brown cake/brown chair in the background/brown table/brown placemat thing is kind of...uhm...brown. But it was the only pic I took before my camera died...must buy batteries! The cake is very soft with a tender, rather delicate crumb (this is straight out of the oven...we'll see how it is tomorrow). It's not dry at all. The recipe notes that this cake was traditionally served with butter and eaten at dinner (hence it's relative lack of sweetness, I imagine.) The cake itself is good, but I think it would definitely benefit from some caramel sauce! The only change I made was a moderate increase in spices (an extra tsp. of both the cinnamon and ginger, and .5 tsp increase in nutmeg, which I found resulted in a tastier batter.)

^I wish I lived near you, Patrick. Lucky friends and neighbours you have, indeed! I baked a gingerbread cake today from the new Best of gingercakes thread. I used this recipe: Gingerbread cake The lighting is really poor and I realize the whole brown cake/brown chair in the background/brown table/brown placemat thing is kind of...uhm...brown. But it was the only pic I took before my camera died...must buy batteries! edit: I decided the dry cake wasn't much of a dessert, so I slathered it with a quick chocolate cream cheese frosting. Much better.

Wow, I'm not sure if I understand this question. Are you saying that you book tables of 4 to 5 people at several restaurants and then just try to fill the seats? So, you might have what, 45 reservations around town? Then you have to call and make the changes, increase or decrease each table? That seems like an awful lot of juggling and calling and cancelling (you cancel, of course) just to attend DOV. Yes, it's a pain for restaurants, but what about you? Am I reading this right? ← Some of my friends do this...not 45 restaurants, but booking tables of 4-6 at 5 or 6 restaurants, then asking around to fill seats. I don't think there's ever been a problem with them filling the seats. But somehow this year the friend I thought I was going to West with ALSO booked reservations, not knowing that I booked for us too! So now I have to scramble and find someone to eat with, which is easier said than done since a lot of ppl have other Dine Outs to go to that Friday night!

Thanks for the compliment, Rebecca. I don't like the dry mouthful of flaked coconut either, but I use dessicated coconut for the Peninsula Grill coconut cake. Sometimes I'll make an angel food cake for people who are watching their weight, but I've never found angel food cakes to be particularly exciting to eat. Ditto plain sponge cakes, or genoise. I see those types of cakes as merely vehicles for frostings and fillings.

Whoa! That's awesome! Do you get to eat all the treats you make, Patrick?

^It was my friend who made the reservation! I didn't choose the restaurant... The few of us who've been to Mad Greek before agreed that Mad Greek was better. (Portions are much bigger there too.)

Here's a site with a bunch of gingerbread recipes. (To clarify--are we looking for a gingerbread or gingercake? Or does it matter to anyone? I love both...) I looked at all the recipes and their proportions, and the two recipes that I think would appeal to me most, in finished form, are the Double Ginger gingerbread and the Gingerbread cake recipes. Both look like they would be moist, and include a variety of spices. Also, they are not the sweetest of the recipes on the site. The Double Ginger gingerbread contains buttermilk, which I like in a cake recipe. Here's a Williams-Sonoma recipe that also looks good...it's another recipe I've been meaning to try! Ginger cake with warm caramel sauce In Vancouver, Chef Neil at The Hamilton Street Grill does a comforting dessert called "Gingerbread pudding". Basically, you bake a simple gingerbread cake, cube it and mix it with a eggy base (like you would for bread pudding), rebake it, then top it with caramel sauce. It's quite the legendary dessert here in Vancouver! Here's his recipe: Gingerbread pudding The cake is very basic, but works well in this application. If I were to riff on the gingerbread pudding theme, I'd probably use one of the recipes I listed above (with more ingredients and complexity in taste), and decrease the amount of sugar in the caramel recipe. One thing that I can't do at home, though, is the amazing pumpkin ice-cream and ginger ice-cream he serves with the gingerbread pudding....

This one...Fresh Ginger cake

Here's an out-of-focus picture of the pecan cake I made a few days ago. I'm kind of bummed about the picture...the cake looked pretty nice, but we forgot to take a picture until we had savagely hacked into it already. Anyway, the cake was done using RLB's "Golden Almond cake" in The Cake Bible, but I subbed pecans in for almonds. You can see the two layers of Valrhona Amaretto mousse, then the cream cheese frosting over the entire cake. Dacquoise on top.

^I haven't made the Guiness Stout cake, but I noticed that comment and I believe that the recipe on Epicurious is missing the baking powder. There wouldn't be much leavening otherwise.

^I'm not a fan of white chocolate, but I bet that tart would've made a believer out of me.

I've had dinner at Gingeri. It was good, but it's been about a year now and I don't remember what I ate.

Thanks for the photos, Lee! I love all the pictures...particularly the creamy scrambled eggs, the stuffed chicken wings, and the tea house. How long were you in HK for?

I love gingercakes! And now's the perfect time of year for them too. I'm in! Here's a very popular recipe that I've been meaning to try for years! Guiness Stout ginger cake The proportions in this one look promising... Ginger cake by Rick Rodgers another recipe that looks good.... There's also one in Baking with Julia

^I'll PM you the recipes...I shouldn't post them here. And I don't have a bf. Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, that's The French Laundry cookbook. The recipe uses squab, but I couldn't find any on GI so I bought a pheasant from Armando's. They were selling the same pheasants at Tenderland, but the line was a little longer there. The pate choux is Pichet Ong's recipe. I use this recipe for both savoury and sweet applications...my current favourite way to eat them is stuffed with coconut cream! Here's a pic of a plate I did a few days ago: And filled with salmon mousse for Christmas: All the vegetables, the figs, the apples, the baguette, the cheeses--all from GI. The foie gras is from Les Amis.

Zoinks!! Can you share the recipe? ← My brownie recipe is in Recipe Gullet. Search "Ling's Favourite Brownies". The peanut butter frosting is just something I threw together with my leftover condensed milk (from all the pate choux I've been making.) It's just some peanut butter and condensed milk...haha.

Oops...forgot about the caramel apple pie from a few nights ago.

I made a brownie torte this morning with peanut butter frosting...kind of ugly... I also had two pieces of Church's chicken (thigh). I guess this counts as lunch...I woke up at noon.

Here's something I just slapped together...doesn't look great. I ate this for breakfast. It's a Valrhona brownie torte with peanut butter frosting. Here's a shot of the coconut cream puffs I made on Sunday. I'm still waiting for my friend to send me the photo of the pecan cake I made...the photos are on his camera.

I was also surprised the toptables opted out this year (from the looks of it). ← I know West is participating...I just got a 9:30pm reservation for the 27th.

Thanks...here's a link to the pictures from the dinner: dinner pics! I would've liked to have done a more involved dessert than caramel apple pie...but it's his favourite, so that's what I did.

Here's a meal I made last week. Most of the ingredients were purchased from Granville Island. Exceptions include the pate choux and pastry dough (homemade). goat cheese and Parmigiano Reggiano mousse in pate choux salmon tartare, baguette from La Baguette (on Granville Island) plating picture...I use my hands. Is that bad... pan-seared pheasant on swiss chard, figs, and foie gras caramel apple pie (yes, I used a snowflake cookie cutter for the top crust...because it's Christmas and I'm corny...haha)