It is embarrassing to say that I used to mix up Katherine Hepburn with Audrey Hepburn when I was a kid. They looked completely different and I've absolutely no idea what caused the mix-up then. I started to get interested in classic movies during my teenage years, and after watching quite a number of Audrey Hepburn's movies, I've finally realised that these two actresses were two completely different persons and I also started to refer Katherine Hepburn as "the other Hepburn". :-P

The only Katherine Hepburn's movie I've watched so far was The Philadelphia Story, and while I'm not familiar with her work, it's a pleasant surprise to know that she has left behind a legendary brownies recipe. Thanks to Lisa who came up with the new TWD logo (you can see it at the sidebar), I got to try out this recipe because it was chosen for TWD this week. Otherwise, with my habit of skipping the whole brownies section when I go through my cookbooks, I would've give this recipe a miss!

The brownies are soft and fudgey because there isn't much flour in it. A little ground instant coffee and cinnamon powder gives an interesting twist to the flavour. But again, the brownies are too chocolatey for my liking and I could only manage one tiny slice. I love this recipe though, because it was so easy to put together. Everything was done using 3 utensils - spatula, sieve and saucepan, and it goes without saying that I spent very little time in cleaning up the dishes too!

If you want to give the recipe a try, check out Lisa's blog!

Since my return to SA one week ago, I've been lazing around and basically do nothing all day long. I know that I have to keep baking/ cooking so that I can finish my ingredients before the big move, but I just don't have the mood. I couldn't even concentrate when I read the recipe of perfect party cake and I have to read a few times before I finally get an idea of how to proceed. Two ingredients from the recipe managed to catch my eyes though, and I knew that I have to bake the cake so that I can get rid of the leftover raspberry jam and sweetened coconut in my pantry.

So I managed to bake the cake half-heartedly today. I wanted to start baking in the morning, but instead of doing so, I lied down on sofa and stared at my laptop screen until noon. And then I had to rush through the process in order to catch the afternoon sun for my pictures. Anyway, the cake looks small in the picture because I used two 6-inch cake pans and made only 3/4 portion of the recipe. Well, don't ask me how I came up with 3/4 portion, the calculation of the amount needed for each ingredient almost drove me nuts!

Having said that, I'm really glad that I baked the cake. Other than getting rid of two items as mentioned above, the cake is very yummy, in my opinion! This is the first time I made such a "tall" cake and I couldn't help but admired the cake for quite a while before I cut a slice and prepared the set-up for photo-taking. :-)

If you want to give the recipe a try, head over to Carol's blog! Don't forget to check out the rest of the TWD-ers' versions of perfect party cake from TWD blogroll!

In one month's time, my hubby and I will be leaving SA for good. As the move is totally unexpected, my pantry is full of ingredients which I brought over from Singapore during the Chinese New Year trip. I have to clear the stock as much as I can and so I've been baking very often lately. One of the recipes that I tried out was these extremely yummy rosemary and walnuts cookies. Recipe is as follows.

Rosemary & Walnuts Cookies Recipe
Recipe taken from いつでもクッキー、どこでもクッキー

Ingredients:
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
30g castor sugar
1 tbs milk
120g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
30g walnuts, toasted and chopped into small pieces
1 tsp dry rosemary

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 170 deg C.
2) Using an electric mixer, whip butter and sugar until the mixture turns pale and fluffy. Add milk to the mixture, whip until combine.
3) Using a rubber spatula, stir in flour, baking powder and salt until well combined. Add in rosemary and walnuts.
4) The dough will be quite crumbly, knead until the dough is smooth and forms a ball. Keep it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
5) Using a rolling pin, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into 5-mm thickness. Cut out cookies with a 5-cm round cookie cutter. You should be able to get about 15 pieces.
6) Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and let the cookies cool on a wire rack. Serve.

I prepared these coconut-roasted pineapple dacquoise two weeks ago, just before I left for my short trip back to Singapore. So it was quite a rush to complete everything in half a day and I tried to take some decent pictures of the dacquoise before the sun set!

I halved the recipe and managed to get 6 pieces of meringues, using a small oval cake ring. The meringues were assembled into 2 sets of 3-layer dacquoise, with pineapple slices in between and spread with white and dark chocolate ganache respectively. To finish it off, I sprinkled shreds of toasted coconut on top.


I skipped the step on refrigerating the dacquoise for 4 hours, because I was running out of time. After snapping a few pictures of the dacquoise, I finished them off all by myself. I think the dark chocolate version tasted much better because it was not too sweet.

If you want to give the recipe a try, head over to Andrea's blog!

Tommi of Brown Interior has chosen honey-peach ice cream recipe for TWD this week. If you have read my previous post, I had a big bag of apricots sitting in the kitchen. So I used them to churn out half a batch of ice cream using the same recipe.

Fortunately, I only made half a batch, as my hubby declared that it's way too sweet for him after having just a spoonful of the ice cream. I had to finish the whole tub all by myself, but I'm not complaining. I've always preferred fruit-based desserts and so the ice cream is very yummy, in my opinion!

Head over to Tommi's blog if you want to give the recipe a try!

Since the beginning of May, the weather in SA is getting hotter day by day. On some days, the temperature almost reaches 45 degree Celcius! Needless to say, it is quite impossible to stay outdoor under such sweltering heat for too long, and even if we need to go out for groceries shopping, we can only do so at night.

As I reluctantly welcome the arrival of summer, I stuff myself silly with stone fruits at the same time! After staying in South East Asia for all my life, where the only stone fruits we can get are imported and usually tasted quite bland, I can't help but stock up the extremely sweet and juicy stone fruits whenever I go to the market. They are not only delicious, but very cheap too! I bought one and a half kilogram of apricots recently and it only costs SGD3 (USD2).

With such a big bag of apricots in the kitchen, I started to pore over my cookbooks for recipes and for that few days, I've been trying out different dishes using apricots. I even tried to create a braised chicken dish with apricots but unfortunately it did not turn out as good as I wanted it to be. I'm quite satisfied with the other dishes though, and one of them is baked apricots stuffed with almond paste, recipe is shown below!

Baked Apricots Stuffed with Almond Paste Recipe
Adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food

Ingredients:
13 ripe but firm apricots
1 cup almond meal
1/2 cup castor sugar
3 tablespoon rose water

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
2) Cut apricots into halves, remove the pits and set aside.
3) Mix almond meal, sugar and rose water in a medium bowl until it forms clumps.
4) Take lumps the size of a small walnut and stuff into the apricot slits. Press the apricot to squeeze the filling gently.
5) Arrange the stuffed apricot halves on a baking tray, bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the apricots have softened a little. Keep an eye on them and remove from oven if they start to fall apart.
6) Drizzle some honey on the baked apricots, serve hot or cold.

I am always looking for the simplest recipes to try out when I have new cookbooks added to my collection. So I can't believe that I've waited this long to bake Parisian apple tartlet. It's one of the easiest and quickest recipes I've attempted so far!

Having said that, I attempted this recipe twice, because I was not satisfied with the result of my first attempt. I followed Dorie's instruction in the book and arranged 4 chunks of apple on the puff pastry, but it refused to puff up as nicely as the picture in the book. So I tried it out again by arranging thin slices of apple on the pastry. The tartlet looked slightly better than the first attempt but still not good enough. Anyway, it doesn't matter, the tartlet was really yummy and I will definitely bake it again!

Head over to Jessica's blog if you want to give the recipe a try, and don't forget to check out TWD blogroll!

Before I'm being labeled as a chocolate-hater, I'd like to clarify that I don't mind having chocolate in my dessert as long as it plays a supporting role, for example, plain cakes with chocolate chips or in this case, cinnamon squares with chocolate frosting.

The cinnamon squares recipe that was chosen by Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures is a great choice indeed. The layer of chocolate chips, espresso powder, cinnamon and sugar mixture in between the cake go well together and it tastes even better with the chocolate frosting!

Head over to Tracey's blog if you want to give the recipe a try!

My laptop has been infected with virus since few days ago, and I can only get it repaired when I'm back in Singapore in two weeks time. In the mean time, I have to use a spare computer at home which is slow and hangs very often. It is too frusrating to use this computer, and so I'm now spending less time on the internet. I'm start to visit all of your blogs when my own laptop is up and running!

Steamed Cake with Wolfberry Recipe

Ingredients:
115g egg white (about 3 eggs)
85g caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1g salt
35ml milk
10ml olive oil
80g dry wolfberry

Method:
1）Lightly grease a 9X5-inch baking pan with olive oil, then line the pan with baking paper. Soak wolfberry in a bowl of water for 3-5 minutes, dish out and then pat dry with paper towel.
2) In a medium bowl, whisk egg white with an electric mixer until foamy. Continue to whisk and at the same time, add sugar in 3 batches. Whip the egg white until stiff peak forms
3) Sift flour and salt over egg white mixture. Using a wide spatula, fold the mixture until just combined.
4) Mix milk, oil and 60g of wolfberry in a bowl, pour over egg white mixture. Fold the mixture until well combined.
5) Sprinkle remaining 20g of wolfberry on the cake. Pour the batter into the baking pan, steam in medium heat for 20 mins.

The recipe selected for TWD this week is chipster-topped brownies. It is something that I'm not really fond of (i.e. chocolate cake), but it seems interesting to prepare because it consists of a layer of chocolate chip cookies on top of a thicker layer of brownies.

One minor problem I encountered was spreading of cookies dough on the brownies batter. It took me quite a while to get it done, but all in all, it's a simple and straightforward recipe.

I can't say that I like these chipster-topped brownies, as it's too chocolatey for my taste. But I like the crunchy (cookies) and moist (brownies) texture though.

Head over to Beth's blog if you want to give the recipe a try!