Cherry Cheesecake

This is another winner from Nigella Lawson.  She is a true domestic goddess - I just love her and her fuss-free ways!  Recipes like this are especially welcomed to satisfy the baking addiction on a weekday.  I timed myself, and it only took me less than 30 minutes to whip this up (excluding the time I scrambled around the kitchen looking for the ingredients, and the freezing time of course).

Durian in the news

The infamous durian recently caused a false alarm in Sydney when its pungent smell was mistaken for a gas leak :) Read more here.

In celebration of our nation's beloved fruit, I have baked several fresh durian cream cake for friends and family over the last few weeks. 

The duck pond cake was for my niece's full moon party.  Don't be fooled by the innocent looking pond, for there is an explosive amount of very pungent durian cream lurking beneath :)

Heavenly Lemon Cloud Cheesecake

This was a recent request made by my sis-in-law, who recently gave birth to a gorgeous little baby girl, Iris.

Apparently, cheesecake aids in the production of breast milk... I bet you didn't know that ! We learn something new each day...

Tiramisu Cake for a 75th B'day

Hi all.. Its been a long while since I last updated this blog... so much so that Blogger removed me momentarily for inactivity :(

So, here I am, back again with my overdue reports on some of the bakes I had undertaken recently, in no particular order.

First up is a Tiramisu Cake which I had baked recently for my aunt's 75th birthday.

Orange Chocolate Cake

This is another good way to utilise your leftover mandarin oranges.  I baked this cake recently for my aunt who celebrates her birthday each year on the 7^th day of the Chinese New Year.  Except that I didn’t actually manage to deliver the cake to her as I fell terribly ill after that and couldn’t bring myself out of bed.  And she left for a trip the day after.  So I got to keep (and eat) the (entire) cake.  I then made a mental note to send my aunt a virtual cake through the blog, but only remembered to post it up now.  I have the memory of a gnat these days (and I am not even that old… really, I’m not kidding you :P )

Anyway, this is a real keeper.  The fusion of orange and chocolate is a brilliant one.

Mandarin Orange Marmalade

Since the end of Chinese New Year, I have been thinking hard of ways to use those leftover mandarin oranges in the fridge.  I woke up one morning with a marmalade calling.  Boy, am I glad I tried this.  Who would have thought that homemade jam was so easy.  I will probably never buy store bought jams again.  Most importantly, homemade jam is fresh, all-natural, and you know exactly what is going into it.  Now that I have experienced my first jamming session, I look forward to my next. 

I'm back.. (for now)

The year 2011 has been an interesting one for me when it comes to baking.  I’ve swung wildly from being an almost frequent baker in 2010 to not baking for most of 2011. Work commitments, what can I say ?

Although I have taken a long hiatus from baking and blogging, I look forward to resume the baking journey, and I hope that you'll still be interested to read about it here.

To set things into motion, here's the sugee cake and fruit cake which I had recently baked for Chinese New Year. This time round, in addition to the family heirloom recipe for the fruit cake, I decided to try out another version from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2.  I'm glad to report that both versions were well received by family and friends.