Melbourne trip 2011 Part One & Banana Oat Pancakes

Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria in Australia. One of the places that I have eyed on for awhile to visit. My family and I finally made a trip there and it was a wonderful experience and a nice get away indeed! Mid November's weather is like Spring to Summer season, so the temperature was really nice too! In our stay, we got to experience both the colorful city life in Melbourne as well as some quiet stay in the nearby seaside cities which is only a couple hours drive away. However I realize  I didn't really capture many nice pictures this time....perhaps I was too busy taking care of my kids, lol! Anyway, bare with me and hope you will still enjoy viewing them. ;)

Flinders Street Station is the central railway station of the suburban railway network of Melbourne.

(GPO) General Post Office Clock Tower, one of the prominent buildings in the CBD area.

One of the highlight in Melbourne is a visit to their famous Queen Victoria Market.

An abundance of fruits all over the market. Not only that, it sells all sorts of stuff over there too! I even heaved back a 10 inch pie dish, 4 ramekins & a 24cm cast iron roasting dish! Why? Because it was so cheap...the cast iron roasting dish only cost me AUS$24.90! Ok ok, will show you all once I cook up something with them. After I returned to the hotel then I realised that I've forgotten to take pictures of the store. It's located in the far end corner of the market. Haiz...gotten too excited about my purchases!

A showcase of Artisan breads there. Looks good isn't it, but I didn't get any since I decided to eat this instead....

How good does this look?! I realize that Aussies love their bacon and ham...I have at least one serving of bacon or ham every other day...:P Yum!

It wouldn't be right if you don't get to see a real koala when you are in Australia. In fact that is basically what my kids wanted to see most of the time while we were there. (*_*)"

It took me so long to get this shot. Some koalas simply just shy away from the cameras and it seems ages before they move an inch. :P

Since this trip was a visit to a koala conservation center, the animals are always at a safe distance from the visitors. So seeing them through my camera lens is as"close" as it gets. :P

Look at this cuddly cute baby koala bear! It's sleeping so comfortably in it's mummy's arms. (^_^)

I'm sure anyone that had been to Phillip Island before knows about the "No photography" rule on the penguins when they do their "penguin march" back to their young on land. But we were so lucky that we spotted one baby penguin the day after! Good thing it was bright day light, so no flash was used, heehee!

The Nobbies, one of the most breathtaking spots we visited.

Caught my little one gazing out into the blue ocean. Wonder what she is thinking...

These eye catching and colorful boat sheds are at the lovely beach in Mornington, a small seaside town. I love how quiet this place is, there are only a handful of people at the beaches there on a weekend afternoon. And those 3 are my husband and kids!

We are practically the only people there. (^_^) Finding such a nice, clean, quiet beach is like finding a treasure...I love it!

We even found small starfishes near the beach sides! No worries, no sea creatures were harmed in the "making" of this post, hehehe..

On our ferry ride from Mornington to Sorrento, Queenscliff, we actually saw dolphins swimming along side the ferry! It's too bad I didn't have my camera with me. (-_-) Sorrento is yet another small quiet town with many gracious old buildings, definitely a nice place to get away from the hussle and bussle of city life.

We stop at this really nice place call The Pear Cafe for lunch. Love the ambiance there. 

Warm toasty bread with steak ham and juicy tomatoes plus gooey mozzarella....a simple and satisfying lunch.

Best of all, with a cup of Mocha. Frankly speaking, I'm not a coffee person, but this cup of Mocha is super yum! It's creamy rich, fragrant and chocolaty (yes, chocolaty). Hmmmmm!

Before I keep going on with more photos of my trip, I think I should save it for my next time. Else this post will be super long! More photos will be posted next time with scenes from the Great Ocean Drive! So stay tune!
What's a food blog without any food?! So here it is; I want to share with you all a simple, delicious and healthy breakfast that you can easily whip up for you family; Banana Oat Pancakes.

I got this recipe from the special edition of "The Australian Women's Weekly Christmas Entertaining 2011" magazine. I usually love to buy the local food magazines whenever I go traveling, and Women's Weekly is definitely one of the good ones to get.

These pancakes are so so good! You would think that oats will make the pancakes heavy, but no, oh no, they are light and creamy, almost melt in your mouth! Really! I was a little worried my kids will shy away from them because of the oats, but luckily, they each had 4 pancakes...doubled what they usually have. ;) I did slight modification to the recipe, here is my version:

Ingredients for Banana Oat Pancakes: (serves 4 adults)

375ml fresh milk

80g unsalted butter, cut small

100g quick cook oats (original calls for 140g)

60g plain all purpose flour (original calls for 50g)

40g brown sugar (original calls for 1 tbsp)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

pinch of cinnamon

2 egg,s separated

1 tbsp cater sugar

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 small bananas, about 150g (original calls for 340g)

cooking oil or butter

butter, maple syrup and fresh fruits to serve together

• Combine the milk and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts and bubbles appear around the edge. Remove from heat and stir in the oats. Set aside for 10 minutes.
• Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a medium bowl. Whisk egg yolks and vanilla extract into oats mixture; add flour mixture and stir until just combines.
• Mash bananas; fold into the pancake batter. Beat the egg whites with 1 tbsp of caster sugar till stiff peaks, then fold into the oat mixture until just combined.
• Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat; spray with cooking oil to grease. Drop 1/4 cups (60ml) of the batter onto the pan; cook for 2 minutes each side or until cooked through and browned both sides. Remove pancakes from pan; cover to keep warm. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve while still warm.

I love oats, so these pancakes are perfect for people like me. :) I'm not exactly a health freak, but if you are...better still, you'll love it! It's that nutty, creamy taste from cooked oats that's just so good! You gotta try this out and you will know what I mean. And I am very sure these pancakes will be on my breakfast plate very often from now on. :)

Okay, hope I didn't bore you all with my super long post! Have a good weekend all and stay tune to my next post. ;) Cheers!

Happy Birthday Dad!

It was my father's 72nd birthday last weekend. As always the whole family will gather at one of his favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate this event. Since it's year end with school holiday still on, the whole family made it, all 17 of us. Yes, I have a big family, that 17 people (including myself) doesn't include any uncle or aunt, it's purely my parents, their kids plus grandchildren. Although technically it should be 21 of us, 4 is currently overseas which will be back this CNY. *yoohoo!!* It's not easy to gather everyone so I'm always very excited about such family events. (^_^) For my dad's birthday this year, I decided to bake something different...something that you probably can't find it in the bakery store. Black Glutinous Rice Sponge Cake with Passion Fruit Swiss Meringue Buttercream...unique enough? How cruel of me to experiment a new recipe on all 16 of my family members! Lol!

I was debating for awhile what kind of sponge cake should I bake, fruit (again)? Black Sesame? Plain? I then suddenly remember the pack of black glutinous rice flour that Doris from Tasted & Tested gave me during our last blogger's gathering. *Thanks Doris!!!* And I really like the 2 BGR cakes that she baked that day! So I went with the idea of baking a BGR sponge cake. It almost feel like I'm playing with fire....experimenting on a new recipe knowingly that I can't mess up since I need a proper cake for the event. *gulp!* I went with it anyway, lol!

Since I baked the cake the night before, I figured I will have enough time to bake another one or the least go buy one if anything goes wrong. (-_-)" Luckily I didn't mess up and everything fall into place nicely. *phew!!* Although I do think that the texture of the BGR sponge cake is slightly on the dry side, else it would have been perfect. :P Need more practice.... :P

I merely used the same recipe for chocolate sponge cake but replacing the cocoa powder with BGR flour.

Ingredients for Black Glutinous Rice Flour Sponge Cake

203g whole eggs
32g egg yolk
120g caster sugar
21g light corn syrup or glucose
1/4 tsp salt
32gs oil
21g black glutinous rice flour
106g plain flou
1/4 tsp baking soda
21g milk

Please refer to here for similar steps in baking. 

Before I know it, this was what was left after everyone gets a small slice. I quickly took a snap before it was taken home by my teenage nieces whom seems to love it very much, heehee!

As you can see from the picture, the cake is gray due to the addition of the BGR flour. :)) And the combination of black glutinous rice with passion fruit is not weird at all since the black glutinous rice has only a mildly fragrant scent. In fact it was pretty nice! *thick skin...hahaha* I was actually glad I did this combination, and tried out this new recipe. When will I get a better chance to have 16 "guinea pigs" ready to try out my cake, hahaha!  :)

Ok, got to go now. Hope everyone has a good week ahead! Cheers!