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.

Hot Cross Buns

I made this for Good Friday sometime back, and have meant to post this up much earlier, but my laziness got the better of me - Hot cross buns have long been a symbol of Good Friday. Each bun has an icing cross on top to signify the crucifixion. In England, they were once sold by street vendors who advertised their wares with cries of "Hot Cross Buns! "Hot Cross Buns!". Their street cries eventually became the nursery rhyme as we know it today.

Hot Cross Buns!

Hot Cross Buns!

One a penny, two a penny,

Hot Cross Buns.

Hot Cross Buns!

Hot Cross Buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons.

This nursery rhyme is actually quite addictive..while posting this, I can't seem to get the tune out of my head.

These hot cross buns offer an irresistible mix of sweet, spicy and fruity flavours. My only grouse was the glaze, which looked and felt a little plasticky to me. This recipe is from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2.

Flour's Famous Banana Bread

I just realised that its been almost a whole month since my last post.  Time really flies when one is super busy at work.  Its not so much that I've stopped baking totally.  Its just that I've been feeling rather uninspired to write lately. My brain and mind blank out the moment I come back home from work each day.  Even my experimental baking is now limited to simple stuff like muffins...and...more muffins.

Anyway, taking off from my last banana post, let me return to my leftover bananas.  Being almost the kind of person that loathe tossing out any still edible food, I decided to try out Flour's Famous Banana Bread courtesy of Joanne Chang in her book, Flour.  The resulting cake is very moist with a deep banana flavor.  Definitely my go-to recipe for banana bread from now on.  By the way, I did not use a one-month old decomposed bananas for this - instead, this banana bread post is one month late :)

Banana Layer Cake with Caramel Cream & Sea Salt-Roasted Pecans

I'm not sure why, but this household has a super tendency to overstock on bananas.  But as with most banana eaters, we only like them at a certain time in their development, and particularly, when they are still aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.  So when the bananas pass their prime and go all spotty and black, what does one do ?  That's easy - recycle them into super yummy irresistible banana-ey desserts, be it the simple rustic Banana Bread, or the more elaborate and indulgent Banana Layer Cake with Caramel Cream & Sea-Salt Roasted Pecans, which I had stumbled upon in Bon Appetit Desserts by Barbara Fairchild, and adapted slightly.