Savoury Birthday Cakes: from Singapore Chicken Rice Birthday Cakes, or Pork cakes in Thailand

Pick Pork cafe, Thailand. Pork cake from their Facebook page. 

 

Here's a blessing, brought to you by covid-19 and an inventive Singapore marketing man. 

William Soh is credited with rescuing a business with the idea of a chicken rice birthday cake.

When non-essential birthday cakes and bakeries were banned, and only essential food shops were open, up came an entrepreneurial adviser who invented the chicken rice birthday cake. Chicken rice is the national dish of Singapore.

Two things happened. To attract the customers looking for birthday cakes, shops not allowed to sell sweet ones made savoury ones. The rice is made into a mound topped with boiled or fried chicken and vegetables. 

Have seen those lunch boxes designed for picky children by inventive and creative mothers making faces and animals out of slices of tomato? Then you know that miniature tomatoes on sticks and all sorts of sliced vegetables and whole peppers can be arranged decoratively. 

Add Happy birthday, or Happy Mother's Day, or Happy Anniversary or any other message on top. Instant birthday cake.

We already have discussions about too much sugar and cake in our family. I want cakes featuring fruit and flowers. My husband and son are not keen on birthday cakes, which mean too much over-eating for themselves and everybody.

If you are looking for a dessert with less sugar, or more fruit, consider cheesecake, carrot cake, banana cake, apple strudel.

For low carb, gluten free, and no sugar, options are available. From locaba.sg

Also look for fresh rose cakes.

Useful Websites

https://www.asiaone.com/lifestyle/singapore-cake-shop-offers-chicken-rice-and-zi-char-dishes-shaped-cakes-your-next

https://www.todayonline.com/8days/eatanddrink/newsandopening/hilton-chef-turned-hawker-sells-birthday-cakes-made-chicken-rice

https://locaba.sg/bakery/blueberry-yogurt-cake/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_substitute

https://jajabakes.com/korean-fried-chicken-cake/

http://www.celebrate-with-cake.com/2013/12/chicken-rice.html

https://www.facebook.com/pickporkcafe/

https://thewhiteombre.com/bakery/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=201

https://www.foodline.sg/cakes/shops/Twenty-Grammes/14100-Cakes-N-Desserts/AlaCarteOrderP/62990-Single-Rose-Cake/

Edible cupcake toppers (won't ship to UK)

https://www.amazon.sg/Cupcake-Toppers-Wedding-Birthday-Decoration/

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/business-connect-collaboration-innovation-lab-tickets-268315507907

How To Use Holiday Snaps And Restaurant Birthday Cake Photos For Greetings

I showed my happy birthday dessert on Facebook and received extra greetings and good wishes regarding my birthday from friends. On Whatsapp a friend sent me a birthday greeting, telling me that her birthday was the same day as mine. She had attached her cake with the words happy birthday attached.

I then realised that you could use your own picture of your birthday cake with the words happy birthday as a greeting to others having birthdays later.



Only when I copied my photo and scrutinised it, considering cropping it, did I notice that the h in happy birthday is lower case.

Why is this? I suspect it is because people going into catering and creative jobs such as art are often visual rather than academic, interested in art and pictures rather than text.

Maybe I am wrong and it is just that visuals are often copied so the small number with errors get noticed.

So, if you are using photos with text, check the text carefully. If I had noticed at the time, would I have sent the plate back for correction?

No. Firstly, I received a free cake and when somebody has taken time to please you I don't like to look ungrateful. It was done last minute in a hurry.

Secondly, I never send things back in a restaurant unless I am on the last course and paying up and will never go there again. I do not wish to upset the person preparing food. They could take revenge on me or other customers or the management. They are probably low paid staff very proud to have a new job. On the other hand I could point out the error so they improve and get it right next time.

I would be more inclined to try to correct the chocolate myself.

To conclude, you can use your birthday cake pictures from any year as a greeting card. I shall collect mine together in an album called birthdays.

A birthday card could be created showing the year's events and successes, of the lifetime of successes and travels.

Other travel pictures can be used as a collage for Happy New Year.  Show highlights of your past year's travels. 

Saved pictures of Valentine's day can be used for next year's Valentine's Day wishes.

Happy travels and happy greetings.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. I have other posts on Birthday meal at the Tanglin club, birthdays, Valentine's Day, New Year, Singapore, destinations worldwide. Please save links to your favourite posts.

Souvenirs From Hanoi, Vietnam: conical hats and cut-out cards

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Street vendors follow you trying to sell them. they are on tables in front of shops. finally, at the airport souvenir shops.

Travel information
Restaurant
www.hungryhanoi.com

For hotels
booking.com
Comparison site:
https://www.clicktripz.com/rates/search/index
For airlines
travelok.com
vietJetair.com (Comprehensive list of budget airlines in Wikivoyage.)
For transport
https://www.grab.com/vn/en/

Language
Duolingo.com 
(Remember to click on the sound symbol to hear how words are pronounced.) 

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Dessert Delights & Free Cookie Cutters For Your Xmas Tree Cake Top

Delicious desserts at the ADELPHI HOTEL - a tiny paragraph in the Daily Telegraph newspaper alerted me to this hotel in Melbourne, a city I visited some time ago. I remember it's long restaurant street with lots of Italian style restaurants and touts outside every door tempting you with offers of a free drink, free dessert, two for the price of one, ten per cent off. Now something even more tempting. A dessert bar.

In a hotel with a dessert theme. Bar stools like liquorice. Candy patterns on the carpet. Toffee apples on check-in.

Popcorn in bedrooms. A macaroon at turn-down time.

The hotel is a local landmark with a glass bottom swimming pool jutting out over the street.

I tracked down the hotel website on Tripadvisor and saw the photos by visitors. Finding the hotel's own website was surprisingly challenging, as I kept trawling down websites which wanted to book me a table.

Finally I found the hotel:

adelphi.com.aus

Then I found the restaurant with the menu and pictures of the desserts.
http://omnom.kitchen

One of the offerings is a variation on the French religieuse, or nun. A kind of snowman, or rather snow woman, made of profiteroles with a ruff of cream, which I had seen at a restaurant show in London. (Mentioned in an earlier post by me.)

Unfortunately I am unlikely to get to Melbourne in the near future, not for Xmas. But what can one do at home?

If you want inspiration for making your own desserts, sandwiches or a child's lunchbox, check out Grace Hall's creations.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-2610244/Packed-lunches-look-good-eat-Creative-mother-turns-picky-sons-lunchboxes-works-art.html

For special occasion birthdays, I like the cakes in Jan Asher's book.

Christmas/Hanukah cookie cutters
Getting ready for Christmas, I just bought two copies of Essentials magazine number Xmas issue from a Tesco Express in order to get the metal cookie cutters.
One set consists of a Christmas tree, six pointed wiggly edge star, and bell. The other set has a five pointed straight sided star, an angel (I thought it was a gingerbread man until I looked closer) and a J shape candy cane.

A six point star was on a mince tart at the end of the set meal at the Civil Service Club Xmas dinner.

The Xmas cutter will do for cutting biscuits or sandwiches. I plan to use if for icing shapes to stand up or lie flat on a fruit cake with a white icing top.

More Cutters From Morrisons
For only £1 in Morrisons you can get three large cookie cutters with a seasonal them in red plastic. The designs I was for three: Xmas tree, star, and another.


Chocolate Moulds
If you want to make something more elaborate, you can buy chocolate moulds for hearts and other shapes from China online from Ebay or in the UK from Lakeland (online and various branches including one in Watford. Lakeland has sets of mould for making your own chocolates and a larger mould for a train.

Back to where we started: The desert restaurant in the dessert hotel:

Adelphi Hotel

187 Flinders Lane 

Melbourne 

Victoria 

VIC 3000

Australia
Ph: (+61) 3 8080 8827
omnom@adelphi.com.au

Lakeland has 68 stores in the UK with a kinds of gifts and gadgets for the kitchen and home.

www.lakeland.co.uk/StoreLocator‎