Sticky Date Pudding with Toffee Sauce

This was what I made for the September baby in my family. Happy birthday, dear! Instead of making one big pudding, I decided to make individual portions of the it in the form of cupcakes. This way, everyone gets to enjoy the whole cake by themselves. 

Braised Pork Belly

 
This recipe is an extension of the braised duck recipe that I have previously posted. I replaced the duck with pork belly. 

Apple Spice Cake with Rum Butter Cream

My church friend, K, was looking for a cake recipe to bake for our cell group leader's birthday. Happy Birthday, YN!! And her requirement was that the cake must have a masculine nature to it. I have never thought of cakes having gender and that was an interesting perspective. A Victoria sponge or a chiffon cake do look feminine and a carrot cake do have a masculine nature to it. To me, the decoration of the cake usually determine whether the cake is for a lady or a gentleman.

English Muffins

 
I like to eat English muffins. They are crusty on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. They are like bread but they are not baked in the oven, rather they are dry fried over the stove top in a pan without the use of any oil. They are not commonly found in our supermarket like the loaf bread. 

Fresh Figs

 

Singapore, a place that I live, is a small island state that imports most of our food. I am blessed to be able to eat the food around the world without having to fly to the country of origin. 

I found these black figs from Turkey recently in the supermarket. They are so beautiful. Their dark, shiny, purplish skin with a reddish interior. What a contrast of colors! How can we not be amazed with God's creations?

I usually have fruits without cooking them as the cooking process will destroy the vitamins and minerals in them. This is how I had the figs for breakfast over 2 days:

Macarons - The Italian Way

Front clockwise: Matcha sprinkled shell with bitter sweet chocolate filling, Chocolate shell with bitter sweet chocolate filling, Vanilla shell with passion fruit curd, Cocoa powder sprinkled shell with
bitter sweet chocolate filling, Raspberry sprinkled shell with white chocolate raspberry filling.

It was quite a fearful first attempt for me a few years ago to make macarons. I wanted to make them and was reading as many blogs as I can on the subject matter. (such as this blog)  I was so impressed at the passion of these bloggers as they went to the extend of very systematically showing the hows and whys in making and breaking one's macarons. I am thankful for all their effort and finally pluck up my courage to make them.