Oh hello there. I bet you're wondering which hole I just crawled out from? ;) I must be a very rare species to be coming out of hibernation so late in the northern hemisphere summer.

Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am from the 'lost my blogging mojo' species. Have you ever heard of us? We hide behinds our (notebook/pc) screens daily, pondering on what we should post on, while stalking everyone elses blog for inspiration. What do you mean you've never heard of us? You mean I'm the only one of a kind????? ........

Hmm.. it is rather pathetic isn't it? Can't believe it's been over 2 months since I blogged and I even missed my own blog anniversary - 2nd one too, I might add. My only saving grace is that I have been planning a big long post about what I've been up to. However, that isn't quite ready to be published yet. So you'll have to be content with this for now...

I also realised that I've not participated in any blog events since Menu for Hope, Peabody's House Warming Party and WTSIM back in November when I arrived in London. Not sure I could even call this a food blog anymore. :P

I think that it's only fair that my first post in a while be something that is food related. After all, it's been a freakin long time since any food related posts graced this blog. So, for now, please accept my humble offering of an adaptation from Bill Granger's latest cook book, Holiday.

Bill made a Baked Apple Cake by caramalising some apples with butter and brown sugar in a oven proof pan and then adding the batter onto the pan and baking the whole thing (fruit/cake/pan and all!) in the oven.

I didn't have any apples around but had some pretty ripe nectarines and threw in some rapsberries for a good measure. I also didn't have an oven proof pan so this went in an oven proof dish instead.



Baked Raspberry and Nectarine (pan)cake
adapted from Bill Granger's Holiday

Ingredients:

1 large knob of butter
2 tbsp of brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 nectarines, cut into 1/8th
1 punnet of raspberries
1 tbsp flour (for dusting)

3 eggs
3/4 cup of milk
3/4 cup of flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp of caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Sift baking powder, salt and flour together into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add in the caster sugar.
4. Using a whisk, slowly mix in milk and one egg at a time until the mixture is just combined (do not over mix). Once combined. Set aside.
   
5. Melt butter and brown sugar in an oven proof pan.
6. Once butter is melted, add in the the nectarines and cook for approximately 5 minutes.
7. Add in 1/3 of the raspberries towards the end of the cooking time and turn off the flame.
8. Toss the remainder of the raspberries in the flour.
9. At this stage, if you are using an oven proof pan; scatter the remainder of the raspberries into the pan and pour the batter on top of the fruits. If using oven proof dish, transfer the nectarines and berries into the dish before pouring in the batter.
   
10. Bake in the oven for 15 - 20mins until set.
11. Serve with vanilla ice cream or for a breakfast/healthy option, serve with greek yoghurt drizzled with honey.
    

The verdict:

For various reasons, this didn't come out the way I thought it was going to/should taste:-

1. Perhaps the oven dish didn't conduct the heat as well, because I ended up having to increase the cooking time as the middle of the cake wasn't quite cooked.
   
2. I didn't have enough nectarines so it ended up being a bit on the tart side because of the raspberries.
   
3. At first it tasted almost pudding like, but later on the batter tasted like a thick gooey pancake - not very nice...
4. It looks heaps better than it tasted.
   

Overall, the berries and nectarines tasted really good and both fruit and cake went well with vanilla ice cream but I must admit I was a little disappointed. Bill's recipes are generally well liked (by this household) and usually turn out quite well so I am quite surprised at the outcome of this. I must try this again to make up for the disappointment....

perhaps.. the failure was just my own self justification for being out of practise in the kitchen.... ?

Labels: berries, wtsim

Hello! You must be sick off hearing me apologise (again) for the lack of food related content here lately. We've had Alv's mum visiting the last two weeks (she leaves today) and with me playing tour guide and our weekend traveling, there has barely been anytime for me to bake let alone blog. I'm off to Salzburg today, I really should be sleeping since I'll need to be awake in less than 3 hours to catch the bus to Stanstead Airport for a 6:30am flight. I promise to be up and baking again next week and have some fruits of my baking on by the start of next week. For now, I will have to leave you with this meme that Cooksister, Jeanne tagged me for a few weeks ago.

Oh, before I forget, today's trip breakfast is Banana and Nut bread from Epicurious. I'll have to blog about that another day =) Meanwhile, the above photo are some daffodils photographed earlier in March on a stroll through St James Park in London.

Have a good weekend everyone :)


What were you doing 10 years ago?

10 years ago, I was repeating my final year of high school. *pause*

Ah Hah....I bet you thought I was a high school drop out!

Actually no, I don't think my parents would've let me live through til now if I had dropped out of high school. I had just finished high school in Malaysia at the end of '96, but since we emigrated to Australia straight after that, I had to start high school again (boo!). I was in the final year of completing my Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) which is an essential University entrance exam in Melbourne, Victoria.


What were you doing 1 year ago?

A year ago today, I was in Tokyo on the last leg of my whirlwind trip through Japan. For the 18 days that we were there, we crammed in visits to some of the top visitor attractions in Japan: Nara, Himeji, Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima, Osaka, Fukushima (just outside of Tokyo) and Tokyo. We savoured as much japanese cuisine we could and overdosed on onigiri because we could not get the little buggers back home. My only regret was that I didn't spend more time in Tokyo and we weren't able to fit in Kyuushu into our schedule. I suspect falling ill in Japan contributed the shortened schedule. We lost 2 days from me being sick in bed with some nasty flu. I was so sick (coughing repeatedly) that upon arriving back at Melbourne I went straight to the doctors who pronounced that I had picked up a chest and throat infection and placed me on the antibiotics straight away. Nevertheless, it was the best trip ever and with now being spring and all, I am reminded of the time we spent in Japan every time I see a tree blossoming, getting ready for summer. sigh.....


Five snacks you enjoy

1. Strawberries
2. Chocolate - especially truffles!
   
3. Potato chips/crisps
4. KFC chips & gravy
5. Magnum almond ice cream

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire

1. Buy a nice house with a nice and fully equipped kitchen for me :)
2. Renovate my mum's kitchen because she desperately needs a new one.
   
3. Buy a dishwasher - my current one (Alv) sucks!
   
4. Support the Australian Cancer Research Program and Oxfam. - It's easy to say that I want to support a charity and I'd like to think that my little yearly donation counts towards something but sometimes I do wish that I am little less selfish and careless with my spending and have a little more to give.
   
5. Invest the rest and go on a holiday every year with what I earn from the interest.

Five bad habits

1. "I'll do it later"
2. Snoozing for 40minutes.
3. Sleeping in the shower in the mornings - one of the main reasons why I am always late!
4. Over eating - I have a habit of finishing everything on my plate because I don't want it to go to waste. This always leads me to feeling sick after a meal because I've over stuffed my stomach.
   
5. Pretending to 'still' be asleep when Alv is trying to wake me up.
   

Five things you like doing

1. Sleeping. =)
   
2. Playing netball - I miss netball =(
3. Going on walks with my camera.
   
4. Cooking. (I like cooking more than baking)
   
5. Reading whilst listening to my favourite tunes on my ipod.
   

Five things you would never wear again

1. Bike shorts*
2. Mini skirts
3. 3/4 skinny jeans
4. Black tights with an oversized top - 80's flashdance style
5. White pants*
   

*because they make my butt look huuugee!





Five favorite toys

1. My Nikon D80
2. 2nd generation mini ipod
3. Asus W7 notebook
4. My Fossil watch
5. My Panasonic lumix DMC-LX2
   

And, finally, five bloggers to tag for this:

1. Kat, Our Adventures in Japan
   
2. Patricia, Technicolor Kitchen
3. Ellie, Kitchen Wench
4. Manggy, No Special Effects
5. Dhanggit, Dhanggit's Kitchen

Labels: misc