Tools of my trade

My kitchen essentials:

KitchenAid KSM150 in Tangerine: I’m still as happy with my KitchenAid as I did when I first received it 4 years ago. It’s a quintessantial piece in my kitchen and I love how it aids a touch of colour to my otherwise monochromatic coloured kitchen.

Philips Ice cream maker HR2304/70: A very basic model of ice cream maker with a pre-freeze coolant.

Cuisinart Smart Stick hand blender with whisk and chopper attachment: I really hand-held blender. I use it mostly when I cook soups, it is easy to wash up and I like it that I don’t have to blend the soup in batches in my standing blender.

Silkomart silicon baking mat: I think this is the best in its category. There are a lot of cheaper, made-in-china silicon mats. But before you buy them, you need to check the the temperature that it can take (would be good if it is between -60°C to +230°C) and secondly, make sure that it is FDA compliant.

Tanita kitchen scale: I use a digital kitchen scale to weigh all my ingredients. I think it is more accurate than measuring with cups. I think that a digital kitchen scale is a pretty nifty tool to have around in the kitchen even though I am in love with some of the vintage manual scales! (but I love the tare function of a digital scale too much to switch)

Instant-read food probe thermometer: Essential for candy making and even to test the internal temperature of a roast!

My pantry basics:

Varlhona cocoa powder: I buy these in 500g packets from a store called Sun Lik Trading in Singapore. They also supply Varlhona chocolate couverture which I buy from them. They sell them in different packet sizes (From 300g to 1kg)

Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract: I like using this brand of vanilla extract in all my baking products. Try to use vanilla extract instead of vanilla essence (which is often made from artificial flavourings) when the recipe calls for vanilla.

Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Vanilla Bean Paste: Sometimes, I will choose to use the vanilla bean paste instead of the extract especially in recipes where you require to use vanilla bean. The paste is thicker and you will find specks of the vanilla bean in it. You can do a 1-for-1 substitution with vanilla bean paste for the extract.

Vanilla castor sugar: What I like to do is to place my used vanilla pods into jars of castor sugar and let the vanilla flavour permeate through the sugar. What’s great about this is that it doesn’t cost you an additional cent!

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