Yes, I made my own birthday cake!

This is a brownie chocolate ganache ice cream cake. It was soooo delicious, my nephew and niece both had two slices each during my birthday celebration, one more slice when they woke up after their nap and finally one more slice before heading home. In my nephew's words, "we must eat as much as possible as we won't be able to eat this at home!" What can i say? Kids certainly don't lie when they know its something they like!

I also made this once while I was in Shanghai for a job stint during the summer; everyone there liked it then, and it was no different this time! My mother is my personal 'litmus test' for my creations; when a some one who doesn't like desserts tell you “Mmm.... this is good, the cake has a little salty twist that I like. Nice!” - its definitely an affirmation that its good! Hehe... blowing my own horn as usual.:)

Carrots are good for the eyes!

Wow, the last entry was almost a month ago, sorry for taking so long to blog again. I have been busy baking!

Don's birthday (he's a good friend of mine) was coming up, and i wanted to attempt something new and special just for him – carrot cupcakes! The first trial turned out terrible; I suspect that I either put too much orange juice during the preparation, or that it was the recipe I was referring to was one of the 'healthy ones' that skimped on the fat but usually would turn out short on taste. I told Philie about it, and she remarked that it was really pointless to make that way – cake isn't 'health' food to start with, so what's wrong with putting a little fat into it to make it better?

So on that lead, I looked for and found another carrot cake recipe that had a more reasonable balance of ingredients, and the resulting cupcakes turned out yummy! And, yes - i piped! I needed to boost my courage for this so I hoped over to Sandra's home (she's another good friend of mine), and with her encouragement, I piped cream cheese frosting on the carrort cupcakes Woo hoo!! The cream cheese frosting was super sonic! Tasty, tangy, not too sweet and combined well with cake, totally brining out the flavour of the carrots.

Feeling inspired I went on a spree, and eventually made, devil's food, dark chocolate ganache cupcakes, burnt butter cupcakes, on top of the carrot cupcakes. Yums right? I know!

The Rainbow Connection

Who doesn't love a pretty rainbow eh?

So when Toots 'challenged' me to bake a rainbow cake for her birthday, I did some research and found some rainbow cupcakes instead. Now how could I resist a challenge like that!

I had an hour or so to kill before a lunch appointment on Friday, and I decided to bake half a batch as an experiment.

The result?

The layers could be more even I guess, although I have seen worse. Heheheh I shall keep practising till I get it right! Toots, there is hope yet for that cake you want!

Phillie

An Epic Adventure

So the lot of us decided to get together and have a wee 'experimental' BBQ last weekend. Why experimental you ask? Cos we each made a dish that we had never tried before. Turns out, being experimental is fun! The food was amazing, and the company was great! What more could you ask for?

Presenting our experiments...

Left: Charsiew by KP

Right: B☆stard Lamb also by KP (Don't ask)

Left: Rosemary Chicken by Karen

Right: Good Ol' American Burgers by Matt

Left: Herb Buttered Cod Pieces by Stephen (Hee!)

Right: Chilli Lime Prawns by Phillie

Left: Gazpacho by Stephen

Right: Assorted Desserts* by Karen & Phillie

(*Red Velvet Cupcakes, Chocolate Stout Cake and Margarita Ice-Cream)

Again, thank you everyone for a great night!

(I do apologise for the shabby pix, we were too busy eating to get better shots!)

One for the big kids

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes - made for our little experimental BBQ over the weekend.

Even the non-dessert people approved of this yummy cake!

Chocolate Stout Cake + 16 year old Whisky = Very happy campers

Once again, thank you all for a great BBQ! (Food pix will be up soon)

Mae's kitchen's virgin cook out

My friend, Mae, just bought a new apartment. Well, not "just", it’s been a few months since she moved in. I’ve been told nonstop about her amazing show-kitchen-standard kitchen and how she refuses to use it. Sandra and I forced ourselves on her and had a virgin-cook-out at her place.

Earlier in the day, Sandra and Mae had prepared a beef dish. Sandra also made a yummy pork dish that tasted like what you’d get at Yoshinoya and I made Mapo Tofu. Now Mae had limited pots and pans, so by the time Sandra and I had our dishes going, we had to cook the broccoli in the microwave AND we did it all in half an hour!

All things considered, everything still turned out great. Even though the broccoli was slightly undercooked and Mae found a worm in it (and immediately stopped eating), we still wiped everything else out.

A few days after the cookout, Mae told me her kitchen was still oily! What an exaggeration, but the mapo tofu did create quite a splash!

Nigella's Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake

A big thank you goes out to Phillie for bringing some Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake for my mum when she was in the hospital. Mum was very touched!

Inspired by the what Phillie made, and my mum’s reminder of how much she adored it, I went about baking one too. It’s such an easy recipe to follow; within 20 minutes, the batter is in the baking tin and the whole lot was popped into the oven.

The reason the cake looks like it’s falling apart is because, in order to let the syrup soak into the cake mix, instead of using a toothpick or a skewer to poke holes in the batter, I used a knife! In the end, the effect was similar AND it was still yummy!

I didn’t have enough to give my dear friend, Phillie, so I will be making more SOON!