Snow Flakes Cupcakes for Christmas

This is a backdated post.... I have not been feeling very well lately and thus have procrastinated this upload. These vanilla cupcakes were baked and decorated with icy snowflakes for the Christmas family gathering I had at my house last week.

I had plans for lots of baking during this festive season, but since I have not been feeling so well lately, I have to push back some of the baking projects I have in mind. Hopefully I will feel more upbeat and energetic very soon... as Julian's birthday and Chinese New Year are just round the corner!!!

Christmas Cookies

Julian is having a christmas party in school tomorrow. I baked these cookies for him to bring to the party. These are chocolate cookies decorated with fondant and royal icing, in the festive theme off course.

I am back...

Sorry for the long absence.... I have not been baking because I was away on a family vacation in Western Australia. Visited the Margaret River region. I did not have much time to shop, but when I did get a chance to enter any homeware stores... my eyes would be darting around, hunting for baking wares! My aim was to look for items that are uncommon in my home land... and yes, I did managed to find a few things. I will be baking again very soon.... eager to try out the vanilla bean dusting sugar!

Black Sesame Chiffon Cake

This is the first time I am icing a cake, and apparently I am not very good at it. Cake decorating is a messy business, and takes a lot of effort and concentration. I hope practice will make perfect eventually. The cake itself is a black sesame chiffon cake. I was expecting the cake to be totally black, but I guess I did not use enough black sesame for that to happen. Nevertheless, the cake still taste pretty decent. I am definitely going to bake this again.

Chocolate Almond Cookies

Chocolate cookies with almond bits embedded. They are not too sweet and rather crunchy. A nice snack that goes with coffee or tea. I think I will make more of these during Christmas.

Polvorones

I have been neglecting this blog a little for the last few weeks. In between, I was actively addicted to games on Facebook, discussion threads in some forums, as well as shopping sprees at the malls. I was also away on a short vacation. Having realized the seriousness of my addiction to Facebook, I decided I should pull myself away from those games for a while and do something more constructive, like BAKE SOMETHING!!! I also realized that Christmas season is approaching, so I should start thinking about what to bake for family and friends this coming December. As a start, I tried baking these Latin-American and Spanish traditional shortbread called Polvorones. They have a 'melt-in-the-mouth' texture and are usually served during the festive seasons like Christmas. I made a small batch for testing and it was well received by my sons! Now that I am in the mood to bake again, I am going to find a few more recipes and try them out one by one during the pockets of free time that I have in between sending and fetching my sons to and from school.

Matcha Macarons

I have a bottle of matcha ( green tea ) powder that I have always wanted to use for baking something with. Finally, I found some time last Thursday to make a batch of matcha macarons. The matcha powder gave the macaron shells a very nice hue of green. I did not need to add any additional food coloring to the mixture at all. Also, I baked these macarons with a friend in mind. I had promised to bake something for her, but due to my busy schedule, it was always being procrastinated. So I am very glad that I have finally fulfilled my promise.