RecipeMuncher

(Joanne Chang’s Vegan Chocolate Cake)
Once upon another lifetime ago, I decided to ‘do my bit for the environment’ and adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. This lasted several years until eventually I gave it up as my interests in cooking and restaurants grew to the point where I wanted to be able to learn from eating/tasting everything [...]

(Cocoa bark with potato chips and cheese)
Apparently we have a ban on cheesy 80’s music in our house. Wish he’d mentioned it before we agreed to move in together. Or perhaps you never truly know someone until you start living with them and discover their little quirks. Such as belting out Whitney Houston classics into [...]

(Honey Quinoa Bars)
Floods and heat waves aside, the year has started pretty well for me personally. In fact there’s almost nothing to complain about unless I need to vent over lacking any material that requires a grumble or two to be lodged on this blog.
I’m loving my new job and have been able to [...]

(Breakfast biscotti)
Julie Andrews can have her cream-coloured ponies and whiskers on kittens. My personal list of favourite things largely feature comestibles. Cake crusts, warm oatmeal with dried cranberries, and breakfast.
Having breakfast is like pressing the Start button to my day. Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to eliminate lunch and dinner altogether and just [...]

(Breakfast biscotti)
Julie Andrews can have her cream-coloured ponies and whiskers on kittens. My personal list of favourite things largely feature comestibles. Cake crusts, warm oatmeal with dried cranberries, and breakfast.
Having breakfast is like pressing the Start button to my day. Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to eliminate lunch and dinner altogether and just [...]

(Chocolate and Cranberry Biscotti)
I don’t know about you, but I don’t make biscotti often. Something about that double baking requirement, often leaves me a bit too impatient. If I crave chocolate, I want it now, not two bakes later.
There are several exceptions to the rule, and Claudia Fleming’s recipe for chocolate biscotti is one of [...]

(Yellow peach upside-down gingerbread)
Summer is such a bitch. In exchange for the chance to dive into a big bowl of stone fruit and berries, you have to endure not only juice but copious amount of sweat dribbling down your chin. For the perfect weather in which to prove bread dough, you have the less-than-desirable climate [...]

(Baked’s Sweet & Salty Brownie)
Another year is finally coming to a close, and I say that with a huge amount of relief. It’s been a year of extreme highs and lows. Yes, I have discovered that I’m not as strong as I would like to be. And I hate that.
But it’s not so much a [...]

Ah, New York.
We came, we saw, we ate.
Then we ate some more.
Originally I had not intended to blog about our trip, hence the lack of relevant photos. This post is more of a personal reminder for me to revisit certain places I enjoyed so much during my two weeks there. Comments, suggestions (for future [...]

(Peanut butter parfait with brownie salt)
When going on holiday, I usually suffer from separation anxiety from the creature comforts I love in life. Occasionally I wonder why I even go on holiday at all, when the things I enjoy most, do not require travelling across continents for. My favourite cushion, a large mug of tea, [...]

(Torta de Tres Leches)
Well. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?
I’m not sure it’s necessary to bore you with details, but since some concerned friends did actually email/text/tweet me asking if I was okay after such a long silence on my blog, I thought I owed everyone some sort of explanation.
When I left a previous [...]

(Black forest skillet cookie)
Have you ever tried doing a skillet cookie, she asked.
Well no, actually I hadn’t, and was kicking myself that I didn’t think of it sooner. It seems almost a logical conclusion to reach, from skillet cakes to cookies. I suspect skillet cookies are the ultimate lazy but impressive dinner party dessert, [...]

(Spiced cherry and yogurt skillet cake)
My love affair with skillet cakes began a long time ago, when B and I used to make apple pancakes on a regular basis. The recipe for those pancakes originated from a newspaper cutting that has since been misplaced and is still dearly missed. My attempts to recreate the recipe [...]

(Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting)
The boy and I are both on holidays this week. It’s one of those unusual occurances normally reserved for a handful of days over the Christmas period. A rarity, in other words. Which also meant that I had really been looking forward to this week.
Unfortunately, I have not been [...]

(Quince and Walnut Crumble Cake)
When life gives you quinces, make quince crumble cake.
It is for those days that rush by too fast. When seasons turn from singlet tops and insects thumping angrily at the screen door, to leaves tumbling onto wet pavements, the scent of wool scarves, the whirr of the stand mixer, the [...]

(Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake)
If there’s one thing you can be certain of in life, is that the uncertain will always happen.
Shuna has written more eloquently about change before. I on the other hand, have at times attempted to fumble through some sort of explanation. An explanation about my long absence from blogging. About how a [...]

(Manuka honey pudding with coffee, chestnut and dates)
The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.
Pudding purists may want to avert their eyes now. As I was very pressed for time this [...]

(Chocolate butter cupcakes)
This week, I’m counting down a little nervously to the day I start whipping up a huge batch of these cupcakes for a friend’s wedding. I’ve baked in bulk before, but never at home with a pint sized mixer and a single oven. For weeks now, I’ve been worrying over the little things [...]

(Bitter chocolate souffle with warm chocolate sauce)
There are certain foods I am not a huge fan of eating, yet I still appreciate them as an art form because of the skill involved in their creation. Macarons are an example of this (a shocking admission, isn’t it?), as are souffles.
At one place I worked, we [...]

(Persimmon, cinnamon and yogurt brioche tart)
As we turn our clocks back, marking the passing of one season to the next, I can’t help but get a little excited thinking about the fruits that are slowly making their way into our shopping baskets and onto our tables. Fruits such as pears, quinces, and my favourite childhood [...]

(Hot Cross Bun with homemade marmalade)
Is it just me, or does holiday baking seem to revolve around a lot of dried fruit? Currants and mixed peel for Christmas tarts, dried cranberry stuffing for Thanksgiving turkeys and for Easter, raisin-studded hot cross buns… Mind you, it’s not like I’m complaining. Some of my best friends are [...]

(Orange ‘Tian’ – hazelnut sable, lemon curd, apple mint)
The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.
You know what they say : sometimes the simplest things are the [...]

(Passionfruit custard with candied ginger boterkoek)
A few days ago, I was given a bag of passionfruit, freshly picked from a friend’s backyard. Edible gifts like these are my favourite thing to receive. I often ‘pay it forward’ by baking with these gifts which are then given away to other people.
These passionfruit were especially good [...]

(Sticky ginger, golden syrup and yogurt cake)
This post had a beginning, but I decided to truncate it and concentrate on my main objective instead, which is to write this in appreciation of friends who have been supportive and helpful of late. You all know you who are, and since I’m not very good at expressing [...]