It's a repulsively hot Sunday afternoon here in Sydney and boy am I feeling the heat.
Since I'm staying in today, I thought I'd get into the whole baking and blogging thing again, as my last post was more about paper crafting and my holiday break. And, yes I am as surprised as you may be to see that it has been indeed, one week since my last post. Ha.
So here it is, yet another loaf. But in my defense, I had some overripe bananas and frozen blueberries left over from the previous pie disaster- so why not? Plus its easy peasy to make, and takes about 20 minutes to put together.
Voila! Breakfast for the next week
How cute is the doily? I got it from IKEA a couple of weeks ago, I love that place!
x A
Monday, January 10, 2011
Happy New Year and hope you all had a great Xmas.
For me, and most likely the rest of you as well, Xmas was again celebrated with family and food babies and NYE + NY in the company of awesome company and lots of food again- can't compain! In previous years, I never really got into the notion of celebrating NYE but as I have adopted the 'eh' notion late last year I accepted an invitation to attend a friend's family dinner ( which was way awesome) and danced in the new year at a house in Redfern. All in all, good times were had and I'm grateful for the company I keep these days.
As per usual, I haven't really felt like blogging but I'll sum up everything I've been up to in the last weeks in a photo roll. Note that majority of them are Instagram- its been an app that I've been obsessed with lately. The pictures end up looking pretty sweet!
View from the apartment on NYE
A couple of visits to the beach. Here I am embracing nature- which is only a recent development
Arrested Development- First night of Sydney Festival. The streets of were alive that night.
Eating pop corn. Don't really know why that's relevant but I like the picture
Okay, so I know I usually post about all the baked goods that I've made recently, but today's featured post relates to........
POM POMS!
After browsing some wedding blogs ( 3 of my friends got engaged recently- congrats to C+M, N+K and F+A woohoo!) I kept coming across these cute paper flowers, which could be stuck together to make pom poms.
So thats what I did.
They are fairly easy to make, and I found it quite therapeutic to do so. All you need is crepe paper, scissors and string. Um and probably a tutorial.
I'm listening to the Glee cover of 'Marry You' by Bruno Mars- as I have at least twice every day since I watched the episode. I think that must be one of my favourite episodes up to date. The covers are so fun and catchy. As I was telling Sammy who recently got engaged- it's too bad I can't sing or dance otherwise she'd be having a Glee wedding. Come to think about it, it's probably a good thing for her. ha
But anyway, yes this week I decided to bake double choc and walnut cookies. Also, yes that is a cat plate and it's weirdly awesome.
Now that I've got a bit of time on my hands, I thought I'd get baking again. This afternoon I decided to make jam drops, but in in the middle of cutting out holes in the center of the dough I decided that I really wanted to have something with chocolate in it ( plus the dough was really soft by this point, making it impossible not to fall apart!)
Solution= melt chocolate and DUNK.
They turned out pretty nicely, although I may have over did it with the vanilla essence. They are very vanilla-ery but still nice and crumbly when you bite into them.
You might have noticed, or will come to notice that the quality of these photos will have decreased in quality- as it will be indeed be myself from now on taking these pictures. So please bear with me people, hopefully I will get better at it!
I'll also leave you my favourite song from the musical Wicked. Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity. muah muah muah
Holy Cow. My last post was on the 16th of September. The 16th ??
Oh well, no time like the present hey? Tonight's post features the most scrumptious mutation of 3 things yummy. Here's the equation:
muffin + cinnamon doughnut + jam = CINNAMON MUFFIN DOUGHNUT!! I haven't been in a baking mood for a really long time ( about 3 months to be precise) , but accidentally stumbled upon this cooking blog called Noble Pig.
It featured this recipe and I knew I had to try it. And... success!
There's raspberry jam in the centre, and I made sure the batter mixture and topping was overloaded with heaps of cinnamon. Ooh there's also nutmeg in the mix too. I'd highly recommend giving the recipe a go, its really simple and soooooooooo tasty!
Not sure when I'll post next. The way I see it is , I like to bake because it's fun to not because I feel obligated to which is how i started to feel with this my baking project. It sort of felt like a chore, so now I bake purely for enjoyment.
Till the next time we meet, could be next week or next year. Who knows?
x A
p.s Who is going to see Oprah at the Opera House? And if you are, can I come?
Tonight's post features one of my favourite baked creations ever attempted- the black bottom cupcake. The first time I'd ever eaten this was at Moose cafe in Newtown a few years back and it was so good. The chocolate sponge part of the cake was dense and not too sweet at all, and I remembered the top bit tasting more vanilla than the cheesecake topping I used with these.
The recipe was another Hummingbird Bakery one, which again did not fail to impress and induce food comas in my co-workers and I. I remember having one straight out of the oven when it was warm and the chocolate chips still melted, and it was pure indulgence. My eyes rolled back slightly. That good.
Honourable mentions go out to designers Jesse and Ian ( otherwise affectionately known as 'Jessoir' and 'Iballs' in the office) who kindly helped me out on adding some creative fairy dust to the pictures. Bakethang's resident photographer bailed this week to galavant somewhere in sunny paradise and went snorkeling with tropical fish or something. Whateverrrrr. Anyway, I'm pretty impressed with how the pictures turned out as they were taken on Iball's iphone 4. So crisp!
Other rather exciting news of late is one of my best friend's recent engagement!! I am so so so so so very happy for her and her man. Can't wait for the wedding ( and the hen's ), and wish them both nothing but the best.
Oh, and my Topshop purchase arrived on Monday! It doesn't really top my first bit of exciting news, but it is very pretty. The kind of pretty that is more suitable to a garden party or an engagement perhaps? But when am I going to go to a garden party? Sheesh. Thankfully, the recent news of the engagement came to light. Therefore, I believe this is destiny. I was mean't to buy this dress- not on a whim, but because I was mean't to wear it to Sammy's engagement.
I'll end this post with a song that I've been currently listening to on repeat. It's kind of cheesy, but very sweet at the same time.
M&M cookies + wasabi pea + banana = flash backs to hospitality classes in highschool. Damn. I wish I had some spaghetti for the hair.
It's only 8pm and I feel like I haven't slept in a week. I had healthy dose of zumba-ring last night, with a friend who has never been to a class before and it was so fun. You know when you've had a good work out when you've got back sweat patches. Kinda gross, but in a satisfying 'heck yeah now that's a work out. Yeahh boiii!"
But in other news, I made my first Topshop online purchase the other night. Talk about an impulse buy, but after missing out in Beijing ( or was it Shanghai?) earlier this year I wasn't going to regret not buying this time. (Backstory: I ummed and ahhed over a Kate Moss for Topshop dress and didn't buy it, and never saw it ever again. Sadface)
I don't have any green dresses/clothing so this would be a first. I really love the cut though. What do you think?
