P.Osh

Cheese cake #wefie.

There are frozen cheese cakes all over the place, because–well–it is probably the easiest way to make a cheese cake. Sometimes, such cakes are called “no-bake” cheese cakes. Just soften cream cheese, throw stuff in, and freeze it back.

But not so for P.Osh cheese cakes; while they are finally frozen, they were not made by freezing–and that is one huge difference! After using a traditional blending technique, our cakes are baked carefully for an extended period of time. The setting of our cheese cakes is a delicate process that paves the way for freezing to create a unique texture that cannot be found anywhere else. Bake, then freeze. This process is lengthy and tedious, but every bit worthwhile once you have tasted and felt the end product. The texture is somewhat like ice-cream–but better, according to the many who swear by our cheese cakes–and you would have to keep coming back because there is no one on our scale crazy enough to do cheese cakes like we still do.

Back when we started, the internet was young with undeveloped content; Facebook had just launched and there was no such thing as smartphones, WhatsApp, or Instagram. The business of selling cakes was still very traditional where we would bake what we thought we could sell, keep the stock, and try to sell it as fresh as possible. There was no way to reach out directly to customers or notify them as soon as something they loved came out of the oven. We can now, and we feel it is time for a change in terms of how we sell our cheese cakes.

We plan to bake a cheese cake flavour each week and just before it is ready for sale, we will notify interested lovers of our cheese cakes via WhatsApp and Instagram to make pre-orders within a couple of days. Best of all, such deserving customers will be given exclusive discounts only released on these platforms. Pre-orders will be taken via our webstore, and any stock unreserved will then be released to walk-in customers at our shops or webstore. In this way, those who appreciate the most will be given the best and freshness levels will be upped a notch.

Age-old traditions make awesome cheese cakes–and we cannot compromise. But we will learn and break tradition when it comes to making you happy. Enjoy our cheese cakes!

To be notified of fresh cheese cakes for sale and for access to exclusive cheese cake discounts, please use one–or both–of the following platforms:
1. WhatsApp – Add “90070014” to your phone Address Book and then send us a WhatsApp text to add your number to our Broadcast List.
2. Instagram – Look for @poshbegood and “Follow” us to receive our posts.

We’ve had these Christmas Goodies available for order since early November, and we finally get a chance to put it online. Truth is, we have been swamped with corporate orders and wanted to make sure we could be steady before allowing more orders. So here we are, this is the flyer that has been distributed at our outlets for the last month:

Just a few words:
Brownie Party – Maybe we have hit the sweet spot with this one. Our good old honest Chewy Brownie–lots of it–with two delicious fillings to choose from. Excitement you can trust–are we selling cars now? =P  And, a wonderful dark chocolate coating on the sides just helps to keep the brownie moist for longer–something we could all do with especially when enjoying brownies over a few days of celebration!

Fruit Cup-Cake – Smaller sized packing makes it great for gifting, but also for eating without the hassle of how to keep the remainder if it were a larger fruit cake. The fruit cake itself is good as ever, and the new non-alcoholic drizzle is super-awesome. This “cup-cake” is simply flying this year; you could try to order, but we might be sold out already.

Alright, enjoy the holidays, and Happy Christmas from all of us at P.Osh! =)

We are super, super, pumped to finally introduce our very own loyalty programme! But at the same time, we are somewhat sheepish… because we are kinda LATE! Honestly, countless fans have been imploring us for a discount/loyalty/rewards/just-gimme-something card for the past few years. Oops. That’s long… But enough moping already, we have heard you, and here we are now!

Because our ardent supporters have waited this long, we can only hope to make it better by offering unbelievable  rewards for our hardcore P.Osh fans. The P.Osh loyalty card is something mind-blowingly good. You would almost need to read the details twice to ensure you aren’t dreaming. But anyway, there are just two simple main points, which we will briefly explain:

1. One FREE brownie per day for the validity period.
Yes, come every day, and get a free brownie Every. Single. Day. Premium Brownie, Chewy Brownie, or any Chewy Brownie with standard toppings. Don’t bother to whip out your calculator (but you are going to anyway, heh); it’s gonna be oh-so-worth-it. Especially for that “lifetime” one. Real P.Osh fans will likely dive in for that “lifetime” membership, and we know brownie monsters will go crazy, especially when there’s a cap of only 200 of those memberships. =) Oh yes, you can also buy someone a lifetime’s supply of brownies for their birthday–if it makes them happy!

2. Storewide 20% off retail prices, no minimum spend requirement.
Customised brownies, brownies with toppings for events, cheese cakes, cookies, milkshakes, food, everything but the kitchen sink (and the cash register!) for a cool 20% off regular prices. We aren’t joking, and we know that you Customised Brownies birthday cake lovers and frozen cheese cake fanatics are simply gonna love this. If you have been buying our stuff for years, start saving money right now!

The programme is called “The P.Osh Society”, and members will be issued a digital card that can be conveniently “carried” around in their smartphones. Since the card is non-transferable, a form of identification will be needed whenever the digital card is used.

These are the two membership options with special introductory prices till 31 October 2015:
2-year membership for $88.00 (limited to 500 memberships)
Lifetime membership for $200.00 (limited to 200 memberships)

Hurry, don’t wait, especially when you’ve already waited this long! =)

Click HERE to purchase a membership; whilst stocks last!

Click HERE to view complete Terms and Conditions.

If you do a Google search, you would realise that there are more than 2 million pages claiming to have the best buttercream frosting recipe! But right here, right now, we are going to give you the true, real, undisputed, undeniable, absolute best one. =P  But truth be told, how was this magnificent frost spell bequeathed to us? It was an order from a master–well, actually it was an order from a customer. =)  They were going to use our brownies in small cute jars–inter-layered with pretty sprinklies and butttttercream frosting–as some fun food activity.

So off to the workshop we went… And we are going to share our yummy secrets with you! If you bake at home–cupcakes, sponge cakes, layered cakes, rolled cakes, brownies (but you really should just get them from this place called P.Osh…), cookies–try this out and let us know how it goes!

First, some basics. We use a mixture of butter and margarine because margarine is more stable in warmer temperatures, and our sunny Singapore isn’t the coolest of places (temperature-wise!). Using purely butter may cause the buttercream to be overly soft or even oily and wet when the temperature goes up, causing it to be very difficult to use and maintain. Yet, we can’t totally remove butter as we need it to provide that good richness and creaminess that you can’t find anywhere else. You may play with the ratio of Butter to Margarine based on where your final product is going to be hanging out: indoor air-conditioned or outdoor shade, etc. There is the last resort of using some shortening in the fat mix when the product is going to be in really warm temperature, because shortening is exceptionally stable at room temperature–it would even not melt in your mouth (body temperature), so just imagine what happens when it goes into your body. And that is terrible for us; run far away from shortening if you had the choice.

Sugar content must strictly be Powdered. Powdered Sugar “stabilises” the fat so that it is able to easily accommodate air beaten in, resulting in a soft and fluffy frosting. It also provides a structure for your frosting when it is used. The sugar on the outer surface of the product also crystallises when exposed to air, forming a nice slight crust. More sugar makes the frosting more stable; but be careful, too much sugar makes your frosting go grainy and tough, making it difficult to spread or pipe.

Vanilla Essence gives flavour and balances the richness of the fat and the sweetness of the sugar. Milk gives it another dimension of richness. Milk and Vanilla Essence also add moisture to your frosting so that it is smooth and creamy, which makes it easy to use. You may play with these wet and dry ingredients (sugar) to make the exact texture that you require.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (enough to top about 10 standard cupcakes)
40 g Butter
60 g Margarine
300 g Powdered Sugar (or Icing Sugar)
10 ml Vanilla Essence (or 2 tsp)
10 ml Milk

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (enough to top about 10 standard cupcakes)
40 g Butter
60 g Margarine
200 g Powdered Sugar (or Icing Sugar)
100 g Cocoa Powder
10 ml Vanilla Essence (or 2 tsp)
10 ml Milk

Directions
1. In a large bowl, add Butter, Margarine, Powdered Sugar, and Cocoa Powder (if making Chocolate Frosting) and combine with a spoon or electric mixer. Go slow at this time because you do not want a sugar or chocolate cloud floating around your home!

2. Once combined, increase speed of mixer (or hand… haha!) to medium to mix thoroughly. Scrape the base of the bowl to ensure consistency in the resulting mixture.

3. Add Vanilla Essence and Milk and mix with electric mixer at high setting (at this point, if you are using your hand, you may wish to purchase an electric mixer). This final mixing at high speed incorporates air into the frosting; do not over-beat the mixture, stop after 10 seconds.

4. Taste and feel for texture. For taste, add more of preferred ingredients if needed, keeping in mind proportions according to the basics mentioned above. For texture, you want to make sure that the frosting is smooth and spreadable. If too dry, mix in Milk a few drops at a time. If too wet, mix in a little bit of Powdered Sugar.

Use what you need, and remember to keep your excess frosting in airtight bags so that it does not lose moisture, which will cause it to harden on the outside and become grainy when the sugars crystallise. The frosting can be kept in the refrigerator for several days. When required for use, simply take out of the refrigerator and allow to warm up to room temperature. Never heat the frosting directly; if you need it warmed up quick, prepare a bowl of warm water and immerse the bag in it.

Happy Frosting, and till the next time,
Be good.

Once a year… we get to talk about this:

This picture is cruel because it simply induces instant writer’s block. Sorry–what was I going to say–oh yes, one could get lost in this picture if one isn’t careful.

You see, it’s a simple concept of taking as much time as you need. When do you need your fruit cakes? Alright, six weeks before that, take a bunch of premium dried fruits and just about soak them in a homemade concoction of rum flavours, compounds, and some other stuff. No alcohol–good for everyone.

Two weeks later, you’re ready to put some fruit cake together. It’s a matter of getting the little things right: dried fruits–now plump with flavour, freshly roasted walnuts and macadamia nuts, combined in a fruit cake mix perfumed with the fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg. Take your time, bake it slowly and gently in a moist oven. Be careful, the smells will drive one crazy.

Once they’re out, take good care of them. Don’t give them too much air–or they’ll dry out; don’t give them too little air–or they’ll over-bake. When they reach room temperature, generously splash Meyer’s Dark Rum for those who would like it–or add a rum flavoured drizzle for those who would like to keep it non-alcoholic. Double clingwrap the fruit cakes to keep them very airtight.

When do you need your fruit cakes again? Four weeks time? Just about enough time. Keep the airtight fruit cakes in airtight containers to age. As they age over four weeks, the various flavours meld and mellow, causing wonderful complex flavours to develop.

Fruit cake time? We’ve waited long enough. Slice up, warm up, and butter up–well, just a light spread of premium butter will complete this Christmas dream.

Once a year? What a torture to wait.

So our brownies recently went for an adventure together with a kindergarten teacher. She leads a class of young children who need extra help with their English–and how wonderful these children, to learn English using brownies!

As they are a little weak in their conversational skills, the idea was to let them sell something so that they would have to carry out a tiny conversation with someone. In that time, they would have to greet and make small talk (haha!), introduce their yummy brownies, throw in a little bit of persuasion tactics, make that sale, and offer gratitude before saying “Bye!” Though that may seem pretty easy for many of us, these children needed more work in this area, and this was going to be a really good exercise for them. Some of them did not know the concept of Dollars and Cents, and so a sale activity was going to help explain this in a real way.

Now, they made their own little signs to be attached to their paper plates of P.Osh brownies, and in that they learnt to write Dollars and Cents, with a little bit of Math work too. Beautiful, huh! Ready to go now!

And so they went around their little kindergarten to sell brownies to teachers, and even outside to sell brownies to passers-by who were interested in getting some yummies for tea! Kudos to the other teachers who were patient to listen and talk to these enthusiastic learners of English!

Teachers would also ask questions, and get the children to think beyond their scripts and get into actual, real-life, communications. And yes, the children did very well!

After all the hard work, it was time to taste some brownies! Reviews were rave, words of praise flowed, and we blush to see the extravagant praise lavished on those brownies… Well, anyway. So those brownies were an excellent reward for the day’s work, but more excellent were the lessons in English learnt! We hope these children continue to improve and never be afraid of speaking English–well, it’s only as hard as selling a brownie isn’t it? =)

P.Osh

Well, a Brownie Log was what we did for Christmas many years ago…

Anyway, hello again! Today, we are going to introduce some interesting and important stuff about the P.Osh Blog. There are a million things to talk and write about, but time only for about 1 post a week. So, we’ve got to pick and choose, and bring to you information that would be relevant, useful, exciting, etc. for our dear readers! And of course, we will keep updating everyone about P.Osh–’cause that is super relevant to you, isn’t it?

Our love for food requires that we blog about food! What kind of food? Well, there isn’t time for bad stuff, so we’ll only take on the good stuff. And so we’ll bring to you information about all kinds of good food around Singapore in a very organised manner (or so we hope!). IF you trust our taste, you may follow our recommendations, and feel free to tell us how accurate we were… or otherwise that we have half-dead taste buds–uh oh. And yes, we happen to have the most awesome grading system ever… BROWNIE POINTS! Though this sounds like some heavenly match up, honestly, we didn’t plan this (we’re not that great!). But why not, we will give honest feedback about the food establishments, and grade them according to Brownie Points. We have always been really strict on taste… but we will try to be gentle OK? Should you know of any place that could do with a review, suggestions, or tips, (or some publicity, heh) do suggest that place to us and we just might visit them soon!

Our love for what we do requires that we blog about all things to do with baking, chocolates, and sweets! Yes, recipes, products, techniques, new stuff in baking, and everything else imaginable. If we think it might interest you, we will show it to you. So, if you have any questions about these things, do let us know, and we will do our best to help you out! Just don’t ask us about P.Osh recipes OK? =P

Our love for good requires that we blog about what good our products have been up to! As you might know, our brownies and cookies have been used for fundraising activities and charitable causes for many years now. We have long thought about helping to give these various causes some publicity to let people know about their meaningful work and how they might help out. So we will do our best to shine the limelight on these good causes, and hopefully it will benefit them as well as our readers.

And finally, our blog will not be complete if we did not share little P.Osh secrets about upcoming products, developments, and stuff like that! At P.Osh, R&D is immense fun and you would surely enjoy being a part of it. Give us your thoughts and suggestions, who knows, you may even become a Brownie Stylist soon enough!

If we have left out something… oh wait, we must have left something out! So please, do let us know if there is a certain mainstay topic that you would like us to cover from time to time, and we will definitely consider adding that to our repertoire.

Sounds good so far? Come back next week for our next post!

Till then, be good.
P.Osh

Welcome to the P.Osh blog!

Here is where you get to hear from us–news, upcoming promotions, interesting stuff, and… something you would love. (come back soon to find out!)

We will post weekly–or more often–so do visit whenever possible! What you can expect from us in this blog is the same honest-to-goodness quality that we carry throughout the P.Osh brand, and that streak of unreserved fun that we have always had.

That’s all this is about for now; we hope to see you back here soon for our next post! =)

Till later, be good.
P.Osh