Lemon Bar Snob, I Am.

I swear that, this is, to date, the tastiest Lemon Bar I’ve tasted. Just as Mary (from Alpineberry) describes it: a delicate buttery crust which 'snaps' slightly at first bite, a soft, smooth and almost fluffy filling of a dominant lemon flavor sufficient just to make your mouth pucker a little when the filling hits your tongue. And the perfect finishing touch? A light dusting of icing sugar. Add up all descriptions above and what do you get? The perfect lemon bar that none other can rival!

Lucious Lemon Bar

If you are, like me, a lemon addict, I highly recommend you to try this. (For the recipe, visit Alpineberry’s site.) I guarantee you won’t regret it. Going along with Mary’s description of the perfect lemon bar makes me a lemon bar snob as well, I guess, but who cares? It’s worth every bite!

Signing off now to continue savouring the lucious lemon bars...

P.S. I added a dash of cinnamon to the crust. And it tasted just as good, if not better! :)

P.P.S. Cupcake review in next post, I promise!

Baked Twice...To Perfection!

Once again this little blog of mine has been abandoned for about 2 weeks. And it felt like just a couple of days had passed by! A blink of an eye and we’re now stepping into the month of December…which also means…Christmas is on the way!!! Think December…and Christmas always comes into mind…but it also means we’ve come to the end of another year. I’ll have to say this year have been a really exciting one for me.

I’ve always enjoyed doing a little Christmas baking and this year proves to be no different. But first lets do a little update since I haven’t blogged at all in two weeks…first...there was my birthday…unfortunately no pictures…but dad treated me (and family, of course) to delicious seafood dinner (with mouth watering cheese crab, yum!) and there was also my mom’s birthday where her little girl (me larr) baked her a batch of cupcakes:

Green Tea Cupcakes with Honey Frosting

And then there was the birthday cake proper later that night (cuz she was really busy that day, how unlucky…)

Owh…and mom also signed me up for a coffee seminar at Starbucks Great Eastern Mall. Thought it would be boring, but turns out not! Well…it was, a little, at the beginning when they gave a little history about coffee and the establishment of Starbucks itself but I thought it was pretty informational as well. But the best part was coffee tasting! I got to try about 6 types of coffee…ranging from the mild tasting to the bolder ones…purely black without milk or sugar. I especially liked this year’s Christmas blend…which is kinda surprising because I never really appreciated black coffee at all…even though both my parents are avid “Kopi ‘O’ Kao” drinkers. And of course there were freebies given out after the seminar…and did I mention I also enjoyed Toffee Nut Frappucino on the house? Hehe…exclusively for seminar participants only. Some pictures…

Coffee Seminar Freebies!

Luv Da X'mas Blend!

Delicious Toffee Nut Frappuccino...close up!

I’d wanted to try the Almond Biscotti (which are sold at all Starbucks outlets) but at 4 bucks a pack (with only 2 pieces inside) it was pretty costly. Lucky me, they were included in the freebie pack that I got from the seminar. And boy, did they taste pretty good. Fragrant and crisp, with a generous amount of almonds and just a hint of lemon at the end of a bite. But still too costly for me to indulge on another pack, so I decided to make my own (ok, ok…I filled the box with my own biscotti…but I can’t be taking a picture with the empty box, right?). And since it’s near Christmas, I decided to add in a little cinnamon (I tend to always associate Christmas baking with cinnamon, dunno why), and came up with this:

Almond Raisin Biscotti with a hint of cinnamon

For those of you who are unfamiliar to the term biscotti, they are are crisp Italian cookies often containing nuts or flavored with anise. The term biscotti is the plural of the Italian word biscotto, which roughly means “twice baked”. The traditional way of making biscotti is by baking cookie dough in two long slabs, cutting these into slices, and reheating them to dry them out. Biscotti come in many variants and are prepared and flavoured differently in various regions of Italy, but they are mostly served to be dipped in coffee, tea, hot chocolate or wine (Extracted from: Wikepedia, the free encyclopedia)

And along with that I also came up with this: (which in my opinion is the best cupcake I’ve baked so far)

'Cinnamon Roll' Cupcakes

Named ‘Cinnamon Roll’ Cupcakes because they contained most of the ingredients in a cinnamon roll: raisins, rich glaze icing (which I mixed with a little lime, for a twist) and cinnamon, of course! And I topped them each with a small square of crystallized ginger and a dusting of ground cinnamon. Totally delish! And full of Christmas flavor…

As promised, my review on the Tea Lime Cupcakes with Lime Glaze Icing (which I made for a friend’s Deepavali open house). Honestly, I think this is a really strong tasting cupcake packed full of lime zest (I used the zest of 3 large limes for a batch), concentrated earl gray and topped with a really sharp refreshing lime glaze. Attempt only if you are a big fan of zesty citrus fruits. Otherwise, your first reaction will probably be: “The icing is so damn sour!” But being a citrus lover myself, I truly enjoyed this cupcake.

Tea Lime Cupcakes with Lime Glaze Icing

Well…this post is getting really long…and I should keep the other delicious treats for next time. And before I leave, here’s what’s coming up:

??? Cupcake?

Signing off! Till next time...

Escape of The Cleaner, The Cook & The Babysitter

It's been a more than a week since my last post. Since the hols started I've been 'awarded' a couple of new 'posts' at home, namely: the cleaner, the cook and the babysitter (since my sis is also having her hols). This partially explains why I didn't have the time to blog. But in truth it's because I haven't thought of anything interesting to crap in here (Flashback to my confession in the first post of being an uncreative writer). I'm just trying to deny it. Hah.

But even being totally busy with the cleaning, cooking and babysitting I still managed to sneak off to whip up a batch of cupcakes. It was the first batch since baking the White Chocolate Cupcakes. And speaking of those, I must say I'm totally impressed with them. Pretty surprising since it's merely the second time I was trying out baking cupcakes. They may have looked pretty impressive when I finished piping the last rossette of mint buttercream but I really wasn't too confident about their taste. Even worse, my mom had whisked off a whole dozen to her office early the next morning even before I tasted them (I finished baking them really late the night before, so didn't bother tasting them right away). Thankfully the feedback from my mom's collegues were good!

French Vanilla Cupcakes with White Chocolate Filling & Mint Buttercream Frosting

Anyway, this is my review after tasting them. At first bite they tasted really heavenly. The light and refreshing melt-in-the-mouth mint buttercream really complemented the white chocolate chunks and rich vanilla scent in the cake. Mmm...perfectly tasty. The only flaw was that some of the white chocolate chunks sank to the bottom (as they weren't chopped finely enough). And another thing, I would advice you against serving this as dessert right after a heavy meal. The cupcake was filling enough to be a light meal (for me). Wonderful served as a tea time treat with a glass of cold milk. But after dinner? I don't think so. Nevertheless, this is a cupcake I would definitely bake again.

Up next! Tangy Tea Lime Cupcakes with Lime Glaze Icing. And a sneak preview...

Till then, the chef hopes you'll live to eat and not eat to live!

So It Starts Here......

Hey peeps!

My spanking brand new blog...

Enjoy reading!!!

-Swan-