Green Apple with Yakult

Another Yakult-based drink - Green apple juice with Green Apple Yakult. Somehow, I think adding Yakult to fruit juice makes the fruit juice taste even better.

The first time I had a fruit juice plus Yakult drink was years ago.. when I visited the Singapore Polytechnic. I thought the fruit juice stall at the canteen was really creative!

Another combination I've tried (and liked) is Red Apple Juice with Grape Yakult.

Best Ever Banana Cake Not

This recipe from RecipeZaar has about 750 reviews.. and you would have thought that with 750 excellent reviews, there is no way the cake would turn out anything less than fabulous.

But as the way things often go.. my banana cake didn't turn out fantastic.

The recipe was simple and everything went well. The mixture looked really good before I sent it into the oven.. But even then, I had my qualms... I had used a smaller cake pan than what the recipe suggested.. and my cake was just too tall.

Looking pretty before the oven

The baking temperature of this cake was really low (140 deg C).. hence the long baking time (1 hour 10 minutes according to most of the reviews..) suggested in the recipe. I think the low temperature was to allow the sugars in the banana to slowly caramelize. Leaving the cake soft and moist, with a caramelised side.

My cake tasted pretty alright.. but because it was so tall.. It took me 2 hours to get it cooked.. and even then it was still a little teeny bit under-cooked in the centre. And I really shouldn't have put the banana slices on top of the cake. Most of them sank right through during baking, resulting in a pretty lopsided and less-than-pretty cake.

 How the cake looked like after baking for about 2 hours.. 
It's the first time I've baked a cake for that long..

Fortunately the taste was still pretty good. 

Not the "Best Ever" banana cake.. 

but a pretty decent one. And everything banana 

goes well with a glass of cold milk.

A Shapely Little Drink

Yakult has always been one of my favourite drinks.

As a child, I would pester my parents to buy me Yakult whenever we go to the supermarket together. I must have been a very persistent kid.. because even up to now, whenever I go to the supermarket together with my parents, my dad would invariably ask if I wanted to get Yakult.

There is just something about Yakult that makes it so appealing. Maybe it is the fact that it is supposedly healthy.. even though it taste incredibly sweet.

Anyway, there are some interesting facts about Yakult that you might not know about.

1. Singapore is the only country in the world with flavoured Yakult. I remember there being 5 different flavours of the drink as a kid.. The Strawberry flavour was stopped when I was in Primary school. There are 4 flavours now left - Grape, Green Apple, Orange and Original

2. Yakult is more expensive in Singapore than in most of the other Asian countries. I know that for a fact because I sometimes look out for this drink when travelling. It goes for almost half the price of what we pay here in Hong Kong! But of course they don't get the choice of having flavoured Yakult.

3. And they get smaller bottles of Yakult too! The 100ml bottles we drink here are also larger than those sold in other countries, including Japan and Hong Kong.

4. Yakult does home-delivery in Singapore. There is a Yakult van that comes by our place every alternate Tuesday to deliver Yakult to my neighbours. I used to order from them too.. but gave up because I couldn't be at home waiting for the delivery every Tuesday afternoon.

5. There is a Yakult factory in Singapore, located at 7 Senoko Ave. They conduct free tours of the factory.. and you can call them at 62577882 to make an appointment. I haven't gone for this tour myself.. but I am sure it'd be really interesting to go with my niece and nephew!

Yakult - The Healthy Family Drink

Taken by me with The Husband's new lens..