Rosemary Brown Butter Pound Cake with Sea Salt on the Side

There are many ways to add jazz up an ordinary pound cake.  Mostly by adding ingredients such as candied orange, flowers, spices, tea, coffee chocolate, pure extracts of this and that….  Many recipes also add salt .  I like a little salt in my pound cake.  There is just something about the contrasting sweet and savoury that somehow rounds up really well with the buttery goodness. This is also how watermelon and many fruits are eating in Taiwan – with a little salt on the side.

But my favorite way to is to sprinkle the pound cake lightly with coarse sea salt before eating rather than adding it directly to the batter.  Sometimes I have it on the side for dipping, too.   Plus the crunch adds another dimension to the taste.  My favorite is fleur de sel from Guérande, by the way.

I’ve adapted the brown butter recipe from Gourmet’s October 2009 issue.  I infused the butter with rosemary as well as added another teaspoon to the batter.  I omitted the salt and served the baked nutty buttery rosemary heaven with salt on the side.  Lovely.  Really.  Give it a try.

Rosemary Brown Butter Pound Cake (adapted from Gourmet October 2009)

2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter

2 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 medium stalks rosemary

1 tsp coarsely chopped rosemary

1. Preheat oven to 160 C with rack in middle.  Butter and lightly flour an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan.  (I used a Bundt.)

2. Heat butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet with the three stalks rosemary over medium heat until milk solids on bottom are a dark chocolate brown.  Transfer to a shallow bowl.  Let cool , discard rosemary stalks and strain.  Chill in freezer until just congealed about 15 minutes.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder and the chopped rosemary.

4. Beat together brown butter and sugars with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.  At low speed, mix in flour mixture until just incorporated.

5. Transfer batter to pan, smoother top, then rap pan on counter to settle batter.  Bake until golden-brown and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.  Cool in pan 30 minutes, then invert cake onto a rack and cool completely, right side up, 1 hour.  Serve with coarse sea salt on the side.  Please.

Bael Mini Cakes

Many, many, many weeks ago, my sister came to bake.  We had been talking about making bael cake for the longest time but the opportunity never presented itself until then.  Since we had more candied bael than we could use, we also made a batch of bael cookies adapted from an online recipe that didn’t deliver, so no post on that.  But the cakes or mini-cakes came out perfect.

We adapted the recipe from a Thai Macrobiotic cookbook – อาหารชีวจิต ตำหรับอาหารบ้านคุณชูเกียรติ.  Yes, there is such a thing as Thai Macrobiotic.  Do not be duanted by the word Macrobiotic.  The cake was moist and sumptous with the salted butter. That’s right.  There is butter in this Macrobiotic recipe.  Why else would I even use it, huh?

Instead of wholewheat flour I use regular white flour.  I also added Chinese red dates to the 1/2 cup of bael juice.  Other changes?  I used salted butter in place of adding salt to the batter with unsalted butter.  Lastly, I baked everything in those cute small Nordic Ware molds.

Recipe adapted from Aharn Cheevajit Tumrub Aharn Baan Khun Chookiat (อาหารชีวจิต ตำหรับอาหารบ้านคุณชูเกียรติ)

2 cups           White or cake flour (sifted twice)

1 teaspoon   Baking powder

1 teaspoon   Baking soda

70 grams     Salted butter

1/2 cup        Muscovado sugar

1/2 cup       Candied bael(chopped)

3 medium-sized  Eggs

1/2 cup   Bael and Chinese date juice (Lightly grill about 3 slices of bael and boil with 5, more or less, dried Chinese red dates (not the candied kind) and 1 cup water.  Leave to cool before use.)

1. Beat butter until soft.  Slowly add in the sugar and continue beating until creamed.  Add in an egg and mix well before adding another.  Continue until all three eggs are well mixed in the mixture.

2. Roughly divide the flour into three equal parts.  Slowly add one part into the egg mixture.  Mix lightly.  Add in half the bael juice.  Mix.  Add in the second flour part.  Mix lightly and add the rest of bael juice.  Mix well.  Add in the last flour part and chopped candied bael.  Mix well and set aside.

3. Preheat oven at 170 degree Celcius.  Lightly butter then dust the molds.  Shake all excess flour.  Fill the molds 2/3 full.  Bake 40 minutes.

Clafoutis Tart

New Year in Thailand is what I refer to as fruit-giving festival. As part of the gift-giving tradition, each year the family gives and receives huge baskets after huge baskets of fruits. And with Chinese New Year a couple of weeks away, we are sure tons and tons of oranges, tangerines, and pomelos will soon make their appearance. I never knew what to do with all those auspicious fruits. We tire of juicing them after a while. This year I might try to sorbet or jam them. That is if I can get mason jars in Bangkok again. They make phantom appearances in the store every once in a while.

Meanwhile I make clafoutis.

I was given a LARGE box of New Zealand cherries a couple of days ago. They are not very sweet which makes it perfect for cooking. No, really. I never cook fruits that are good eaten as it is. I found a recipe in Eric Kayser’s Sweet and Savory Tarts that includes almond meal. Just what I wanted. Plus it’s a Clafoutis Tart. Now I can finally use up that inside-out puff pastry that didn’t rise and ended up being a bit like shortbread. Yup. Got rid of three things at a time. Three? I also made a banana and chocolate chips clafoutis. Ok, that is four. I got these short fat bananas that no one wants to eat. Don’t know why. So, into the clafoutis they go. With chocolate chips, of course.

The recipe is adapted from Eric Kayer’s Sweet and Savory Tarts. I use real vanilla bean in lieu of vanilla extract and my failed inside-out puff pastry.

Ingredients:

300 grams shortbread pastry (Refer to his book for the recipe.)

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

200 grams granulated sugar

60 grams ground almound

60 grams all-purpose flour

200 ml whole milk

400 grams crème fraîche

1 vanilla bean

The topping:

200 grams cherries

200 grams banana

Chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 150C.

2. Like baking pan with shortbread pastry. I used several small heart-shaped pans.

3. In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs and egg yolks together with the sugar.

4. Add in the ground almonds and the flour, beating constantly. Then add the milk, continuing to beat at a high speed to avoid lumps forming. Incorporate the cream and the vanilla extract.

5. Wash and dry the cherries. Remove stalks but leave unpitted. Arrange in baking pan. Pour mixture over the cherries and bake for 40 minutes.

6. For the bananas, peel and slice them about 2 mm thin. Arrange in baking pan, sprinkle with chocolate chips, pour mixture over and bake for 40 minutes.

Avocado & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes

I suspect the Goddess of Baking likes to play tricks on me. Earlier today, I made brownies with a recipe from Saveur magazine. I swear I followed the instructions word for word. And what do I get for being so square? My brownies came out dry and floury. Very.

Ok. I used 1/4 less sugar but that shouldn’t cause it to be dry.  Should it?

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To say I was UPSET was putting it very lightly. I was making it for my loving 8 year old niece. She has been asking (countless times) me when I will make brownies again. Usually I make Cheesecake Brownie and she would scrap off the cheese part. She was with me when I was mixing everything in the kitchen and I could just see the anticipation in her eyes. When I popped the thing into the oven, I told her 40 minutes and the brownie would be ready. She gave me a big smile and skipped back to watching TV.

Well, forty minutes later, I ended up with a dry, flour-y, chocolaty mass. Luckily, my niece went home for lunch. I don’t think I could bear to see the disappointment in her eyes. Ever have big round watery eyes stare at you? So I figured I’d make up for it with Avocado & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes. (Ran out of chocolate to make more brownies.)

The only thing is I don’t have any recipe for it. I wanted to use almond meal and crème fraîche. All the recipes I found have either one or the other. Being me, I thought I could just use a basic cupcake recipe, add or substitute a few things and……ta-ta-daaaaa, taaaaaaa-daaaaaaaa…..the cupcakes will wow my niece. At least, they should make her forget about the brownies.

But my parents forgot to ask the Goddess of Baking to bless me when I was born. It took me a while to get it the way I want. I was in the kitchen from noon till late evening. I don’t even know what I am going to do with the flopped cupcakes.

More food for nephew’s goldfish?

My very first mishap started with the avocados. I had bought two and one of them was all brown and fiber-y inside. Of course, I discarded that one but I had already mixed all the other ingredients together. Ingredients enough for two avocados.  Well, I could only halved it and used the other one for plain Chocolate Chip cupcakes. Everything should work fine, right?

But no, no, no, NO! The Goddess of Baking smirked and the first test batch came out wet. Extremely wet. I guess in substituting some parts of the flour for almond meal and adding mashed avocado made the mixture, well, wet. The damn thing was I had already filled the rest into cute little cupcake paper cups. Yup, I scooped them out again. Weighed the whole thing again, gave it a rough estimate and added more flour. Then I scooped everything back into those cute tiny cupcakes that were beginning to annoy me.

Why can’t I just use larger cupcake paper cups? Oh. I remember. I BOO-BOOED on a test batch and only have so much left. Enough to fill only two large cupcakes. Imagine two avocado cupcakes after hours in the kitchen? So, nine small cupcakes they are.

I did the same thing for the plain Chocolate Chip batch and filled everything into large cupcake paper cups. By now I was hungry and tired. My legs were sore. I must have overfilled the paper cups because……..

the blob returned! Well, more food for the goldfish, again.

But in the end, I am happy with the Avocado & Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. It was moist and the almond meal gave it a nutty and slightly dense flavor. The avocado also gave it a creamy and buttery texture which marries very well with the sweetness from the chocolate chips. I am not sure if my niece likes avocados or not. But at least she can always pick out the chocolate chips.

The recipe below is for Avocado Chocolate Chip Cupcakes only. Initially, I was going to top it with cream cheese frosting but ran out of cream cheese. Then I thought a coconut milk glaze would be just as decadent but I was tired………and if it failed the goldfish would be pissed. I topped each with chocolate chips, instead.

Ingredients:

100 grams crème fraîche

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon allspice

120 grams flour

40 grams almond meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

55 grams sugar

60 grams chocolate chips (and a few more for decorating)

100 grams butter (softened)

1 avocado (mine came to 120 grams when mashed)

1 tablespoon lime juice

1.  Preheat oven to 180 C.

2.  Combine the first four ingredients together.  Mix well.

3. In another mixing bowl mix together the flour, almond meal, sugar, baking soda and baking powder.  Pour into the mixture in number one and mix well.

4.  Mash the avocado with the lime juice.  Add in the softened butter.  Mix well and pour into mixture number two.  Add in the chocolate chips and mix well again.

5.  Line cupcake paper cups on a baking tray.  Fill in the cupcake mixture and top with chocolate chips.

6.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Check if done by sticking a toothpick into the center of one of the cupcakes.  If it comes out clean, then it’s done.  If not, continue baking for a few more minutes.

Banana Fritters with Nutella Sauce

Lady’s Fingernail Bananas or Leb Meu Nang in Thai (เล็บมือนาง). They are different from Lady’s Finger Bananas in that these have tapered ends that curve upwards. Much like a true lady’s fingernails. Of course.

They are grown in the south of Thailand and are about 3-4 inches long without the fingernails. I also find them starchier and sweeter than most bananas which makes them perfect for cooking. Especially fried.

Personally, I prefer them about 80% ripe for frying so they won’t turn soft and mushy. They can be drizzle lightly with honey but are best with a chocolate-coconut-milk sauce. Or Nutella-coconut-milk sauce, more specifically. You can make your own chocolate sauce from scratch but who can resist Nutella with bananas? Especially, with hazel nuts and coconut milk thrown in?

Ingredients:

10 Lady’s Fingernails Bananas about 80%-90% ripe (or any other banana of your choice. Just make sure they are not overripe. Unless you like fried soft bananas)

Coarsely chopped hazel nuts for sprinkling

Enough oil for deep frying

The batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup coconut milk

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped hazel nuts

A pinch of salt

The sauce:

5 tablespoons Nutella

3 tablespoons coconut milk

1. Start by making the Nutella sauce first. Put the Nutella and coconut milk in a bowl and put it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. Mix well. Add more Nutella or coconut milk as needed. Set aside.

2. Peel the bananas and brush lightly with lemon water to prevent oxidation. Cut them into bite-size chunks if you are using the larger variety of bananas.

3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, coconut milk, hazelnuts, and salt until lumpy. The lumps will give a crispier crust. Mix only when you are ready to fry so the flour won’t become doughy and heavy.

4. Heat a pan of oil on medium. Dip the bananas in the flour and try to scoop as many hazelnuts as you can. Put into pan of oil. When one side starts to turn golden brown, flip over. Fry the other side golden brown. Remove and drain well.

5. Arrange on plate. Drizzle with Nutella sauce and sprinkle with hazelnuts.

Pâte Feuilletée Inversée

Or Inside-Out Puff Pastry. I have never made puff pastry before but I decided to go ahead and make this anyway. It’s just butter dough encasing more-or-less a water dough. Plus, the instructions didn’t seem that hard. Ha. Ha. Ha. Was I wrong. I made a few boo-boo’s because I thought I had the instructions memorized. But as they say, to cook a dish, you have to make it at least three times.

My first attempt failed simply because I over mixed the butter dough or first détrempe. The butter and flour should only be mixed until they are lumpy. If mixed finely, it will result in a mealy dough that tastes like shortbread. Worse, it will not rise. Well, I tried. I gave it a few extra turns and it turned into a fine mashed potato of a dough. I went ahead and spend one whole day making it, anyway. The puff didn’t rise. Keeping the rest for nephew’s goldfish.

My second attempt also failed because the butter dough got over mixed again. I was extra careful this time, but butter melts at the speed of lightning in the tropics. Before I knew it, butter and flour became one happy cream-like meal. And, again, I spend one whole day making it. Couldn’t bare to throw it away. Needless to say, the puff didn’t rise. Keeping this for nephew’s goldfish, too.

As they say, third time is the charm. Not for me. I didn’t over mix the dough. But I guess I didn’t mix the second dough well enough. Not only did the puff not rise, it was a crumbly mess. Just like the topping for apple crumble. More food for the goldfish.

By now I was making one inside-out-puff pastry per day. I wish I were at a professional cooking school. Then I can ask Monsieur Le Chef:

“Why is this thing acting weird?”

“Madame, it breathes. It has a mind of its own. It’s the weather.”

Yea. The weather. I seriously believe all pastry chefs should apprentice in the tropics. I tried everything to keep the butter dough from melting so fast — working on a frozen baking pan, in a very cold air-conditioned room, rolling dough on cold marble….. It’s Thailand. I’m lucky the marble didn’t melt.

I gave it another try yesterday. If it still doesn’t rise, well, I’ll just have to rent a cold room. Or my nephew will have very fat goldfish.

I made sure the first dough is not over mixed, and the second is just soft and elastic. Then I got down on my knees in front of the altar. Light three incense sticks. Pray and beg the Buddha. May the puff rise.

After giving it the last fold, I couldn’t help myself but cut the dough. Youpi. Yay. Yay. Layers. But did it rise?

Did it rise!

I did my victory dance. Thank the Buddha. The goldfish are relieved.

It’s possible to make inside-out puff pastry in Thailand. Just heed a few precautions:

For a recipe refer to one of these three books and a website: Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets, Pierre Hermé’s Plaisirs Sucré’s, and Wayne Gisslen’s Professional Baking Fifth Edition, and iVillage. They all differ slightly in quantity and type of flour used. But the method is the same. Basically.

1. Work in small quantities. When I first started making it I was using the amount specified in Dorie Greenspan’s book. It’s more than double in Pierre Hermé’s book. I find that a smaller dough allows you to work faster and the butter won’t melt that much. That and using lots and lots of saran wrap.

2. Don’t over mix the first dough. Don’t over mix the first dough. Don’t over mix the first dough. Seriously, DON’T OVER MIX THE FIRST DOUGH. It should be lumpy. Not pea-size lumpy. You can’t get that in this weather. Walnut-size lumps are ok.

3. No matter how fast, you work, the butter will melt (more or less) and ooze to the sides. Just cut and scoop it back to the center. I used a cake spatula to smear it back onto the second dough. Oh, yes, I did.

4. As you roll the dough to get three times its length as it is wide, the weird thing will want to spread wider and wider instead of longer and longer. It’s the butter having a mind of its own. I solved this by placing the dough between two sheets of saran wrap. Start pressing down on the dough to make parallel indentations. Stop when the dough has the desired width. About 5-6 inches. Fold the sides of the wrap before rolling again. This will prevent the dough from expanding width-wise.

5. Flour lightly in-between each folding. I didn’t do so in my previous attempts. I was following PH’s instructions. He suggests flouring only before baking the dough. I don’t know if this helps the butter from melting and becoming one with the second dough. But the puff rose. Just don’t over flour it. I did and the puff is a little flour-y. But it rose.

6. If you’ve done all of the above and it still doesn’t work, rent a cold room. Or get on your knees and pray.

No Knead Bread

Slow is all I can say. I am not referring to the amount of time that you need to let it ferment but more on how long it took me to give this a try. Half the world is already baking this on a regular basis and I have only just joined the bandwagon. Real slow, huh? Better late than never, I guess. When I first read it on The New York Times half a century ago 2 years ago, I was intrigued but I was also living in France — The Land of Artisan Bread at Every Corner of the Street. Well, almost. It was easier for me to just grab the weekly baguettes at Kayser (exactly 8 minutes from my house) than make bread. Plus, my tiny Parisian apartment didn’t come with an oven……even if we bought one we’d had to put it under the bed. The kitchen is that small. I forgot all about No Knead Bread until I saw Spelt flour in the supermarket in Thailand. In fact, along with it I found Atta flour, a wide range of Waitrose flour, and other “exotic” flour. All at reasonable prices. Amazing, huh? Thailand has certainly come a loooooonnnngggg way.

Since I have never had spelt anything before and so much has been written about splet bread, so, spelt bread it is. I was tempted to add Atta flour and a variety of other flour but I thought it’d be best to just start with half white bread flour and half spelt. Who knows how the flours will react. Might turn into No Rise Bread.

My first attempt was a total failure. I added 1 5/8 cup water as specified in The New York Times. After a rest of 12 hours, I was faced with a very wet formless blob of a dough. It spread every which way like it’s got a mind of its own. It was impossible to follow through with the fold and rest process. I tried adding more flour (1 1/2 cup) but it didn’t work. In the end I chucked the whole thing into the garbage bin. Let the blob colonize the trash.

Cheese & Honey Tartine – Manchego would have been my first choice, but, alas, we don’t get that in Thailand.

Frustrated, I set up to mixing the second batch. This time I used only 1 1/2 cup of water. After saran wrapping it, I cursed it gave it a good blessing and hope all my bread woes will be gone tomorrow. It was only then I realized it was almost noon. Which means, I would have to be up at midnight to fold and rest the dough, then bake it at 2 AM. No frigging way was I going to do that. I let it ferment for 19 hours instead, and got up at 7 AM to make bread. (I swear the only times I wake up earlier than that to cook were to make food for monks.)

Grilled Tomatoes, Chorizo & Mint Pesto Tartine – mint and chorizo are my new favorite combo.

This time the dough was still a little wet but almost foldable. I did the best I can and let it rest for another two hours while I went back to catch up on some zzzzzzzzzzzz….

Fried Eggs, Mushrooms & Crème Fraîche – a random mix and match that turned out sumptuous.

When I finally got to bake it, it was beautiful even if it was slightly moist. I know I am supposed to let it cool before cutting but the sweet aroma of fresh baked bread made me really hungry. I went ahead and cut myself a slice and ate it as it is. Sometimes, bread is best enjoyed au naturel.

Bread and Butter – the combo that never fails.

I found out later from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day that bleached white flour tends to absorb more water thus making moist bread. (I plan to bake bread from this book as soon as I can get myself a nice big slab of stone.

Nam Prik Pao Tartine – a staple for many Thais abroad.

Over the course of the past few days, I enjoyed as many different kinds of tartines as I can possible concoct with whatever ingredients I have in the fridge. They were all lovely thanks to the crusty bread that I can now whip up effortlessly. As long as I time myself right.

Nutella Tartine – the staple for the kid in all of us.

*****

A few days after writing this post, I decided to make natural yeast water for my bread. (More info here.) I used dried figs in hopes of churning out fig-gy yeast water to make out-of-this-world fig bread. After three days I ended up with black molds. I chucked the whole thing into the garbage bin. Let the mold and the blob colonize each other. Upset, I made another batch with half Spelt and half whole grain unbleached bread flour with tasteless commercial yeast. The dough still came out moist. I could barely fold it. I am convinced it’s the tropic humid weather.

Since I recently bought four cute little Staubs, I divided the dough into four almost equal parts and made 4 different boules: lardon & thyme, pecorino, fig, and au nature. I think it worked for me because somehow the dough didn’t rise as much this time and it could fit into four small cocottes. The pecorino one was a bit of a disaster. The cheese oozed out and created a nasty burnt mass at the bottom of the oven. Bad cheese, bad.

My favorite is the lardon and thyme boule — luuuurrrrrrvvv the smell of fresh baked thyme and lardon.

Baked Mascarpone & Stilton Stuffed Fig with Red Wine Sauce

I bought a bag of figs that didn’t taste as great as I had anticipated. They weren’t soft, chewy and sticky. I was all about to feed them to my little nephew’s goldfish when I got the idea to poach them in spiced red wine and bake with cheese. (I used the usual spices — cinnamon, clove, anise star.) Only I couldn’t be bothered with the poaching part. I simply let it macerate in the wine mixture for three days. It worked wonderfully. The figs reaked of the Penfolds Grange that I used. I had half a bottle left from the previous night and decided to put it to good use instead of raiding Hubby’s wine cellar. And no, I refuse to drive for an hour in the traffic just to get a cheaper bottle of wine. I am eating it anyway. Might as well use a wine I like. Of course, there wasn’t much I can do with half a bottle. So, I made work with three figs. HA.HA.HA. I didn’t have high hopes for the result but oh, my God. They were DELICIOUS. So delicious that I made another batch with a bottle of Prosecco for lunch with friends from way back when. This time I only soak the figs for a night. The flavor is not as intense as the red wine (or is it because of the Penfolds?) but it was good all the same.

Three figs to half a bottle of wine is a little over the top in the end. I could have used six. For the one bottle of Prosecco, I used eight figs. Twelve to fourteen would have been ideal but eight was all that was left. The recipe below is for one bottle of wine to eight figs.

Ingredients

2 cups water

A bottle of wine of your choice

1 stick cinnamon (about 12 cm)

4 cloves

1 star anise

8 dried figs

2 tablespoons Muscovado sugar

8 tablespoons Mascarpone

8 pieces Stilton cut into 1 x 1 cm thick and 2 cm long (about a heaping teaspoon each)

3 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon fresh thyme chopped (optional)

1 tablespoon butter

Butter for brushing baking pan

1. Cut and discard the top of the figs. Make criss-cross cuts 1/4 of the way down the top of each fig. Soak them in hot water until plump about 20 minutes. Remove, drain well, and set the figs aside.

2. Pour 3/4 cup of wine, all the spices, and the remaining sugar into a bowl and put into the microwave for 20 seconds or just long enough to melt the sugar. Remove and give a quick stir to make sure the sugar is well melted. Add in the figs and remaining wine. Saran wrap and leave to macerate for three days in fridge.

3. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celcius. Remove figs and drain well. Put the remaining wine into a pot on medium heat and let simmer until half is left. Discard the spices and reduce further until a syrupy sauce is obtained. Add a tablespoon of butter and set aside to cool. Be careful not to let the sauce caramelize and become candy.

4. Mix the Mascarpone with honey and thyme. Stuff each fig with Mascarpone 3/4 full. Insert one piece of Stilton into each. Line a baking pan with foil and brush lightly with butter. Put the figs on the pan cut-side up. Drizzle with honey and bake for 20-25 minutes.

5. When done, drizzle with red wine sauce and serve.

For the Prosecco version, I wanted prettier presentation. I slit the bottom of each fig and piped in the Mascarpone and stuffed in the Stilton.

The only problem was I put the figs slit side down and all the cheese oozed out during the baking. I ended up with flat limp figs in a pool of melted cheese. I guess I should have put the figs cut side up.

Baking for Pak Kred Orphanage

When Sis asked if I would be interested in baking for the Pak Kred Orphanage, I jumped right at the chance without any hesitation. True, I have only baked cookies like twice in my life, but I was sure if I followed the instructions right to the minutest details I can get it right, right? So with another friend we baked Melting Moment cookies with Lime Butter Cream and Caramel Custard Chiffon Cake. We spend one whole afternoon churning out the cake and cookies with high hopes that the children will love them. I thought everything turned out well but my friend was a little upset that the cake didn’t rise as much as it should but I felt the taste more than made up for it. After that day I was determined to bake more often and maybe someday the kids will give me big thumbs up!

The next day we drove down to the orphanage excited to give the children the baked goodies along with other donation. We stopped first at the Pakkred Babies Home Foundation for abandoned babies. It was already past noon when we arrived and all the babies were napping. I managed to get a glimpse of the sleeping babies. So many of them! All napping soundly. How can anyone abandon such beauties! Now I understand Brangelina’s adoption quest. We promptly dropped off part of the donation and drove to the next foundation for the physically and mentally handicapped children on the other side of the street. There was a group of children playing catch when we arrived. Those still able to run pushed those in wheelchairs…they were laughing and all having such a good time…without a care for the world. But the most heart-wretching part was seeing mentally handicapped children lying helplessly on the floor. Sis had warned me that she could barely contain herself from crying the first time she visited the place. It really felt like someone was gripping your heart to rip it out and cut it into pieces…

After giving the donation to the administration, Sis started giving out the baked goodies to the children. They loved the cake but threw away the cookies! Dumped them right into the garbage bin right in front of us! Haaaa….I just luuuuurrrrvvvvv such unpretentious innocence! Children are such a joy to be with! Guess children only like cookies made from chocolate and chocolate and CHOCOLATE!!!

Saved a piece of the Caramel Custard Chiffon Cake for hubby….he loved it, too.

These cookies they spat out…

I was hesitant to take any pictures of the children, afraid they would be self-conscious but boy, was I wrong. They couldn’t careless.

I hope whatever the future holds for them, they will always be happy and carefree.