"Golden Dragon" on the tag

She caught me by surprise as I wasn't expecting her to bloom for me. I took her outside in the garden this summer and left her inside the gazebo for couple of weeks. I didn't know what to expect as I have never seen her provide me any blossom. Her petal has a darker yellow stripes on it and her leaves are at least 2 feet long. When I bought her about 2 or 3 years ago from Holes Green house she was only small and the lady, Stephanie told me it will take several years before she blooms. Stunning she started with one bud and gradually the rest opened up too.

Amaretti Cookies

The first time we tried these cookies were at my Italian neighbor Veronica's 91st birthday. Boy, towards the end of the night they were distributing all their bake goods that were served throughout the night. One of which were these cookies. Believe it or not I add every bit of it and left none. Most of it is made out of ground almond. According to the recipe instructions they suggested to roll it into round balls and bake but I baked it for the first few minutes, and saw nothing happened and decided to use the back of my spoon and decided to press it down. The final results were they have cracked around the edges of the cookies. It has the taste of almond extract and the texture were chewy. Note: Italian served these cookies on special occasions like wedding, christmas, christening etc.

French Madeleine

I understand in France they call these tea cakes. I saw many times while I was surfing the internet and thought it looked good but had never come close to one. My curiousity made me bake up a storm. My taste buds tells me it is more or less similar to pound cake.

Since it was my first time using a madeleline tray it was quite a challenge I had several questions do I grease the pan, how much batter do I fill etc. so towards the end I had more batter and more larger pieces.

Steamed Haw Flake Cake

I have tried postponing making this cake like forever! I was a little skeptical in the beginning about the final product. There weren't any cream crackers so I had to drive downtown to purchase some for this cake. I put the whole cream crackers into my kitchen aid food processor and grind it until it it more or less like bread crumbs. For future reference reduce the sugar to 80g and I will divide the batter into four parts so each layer will be even rather than counting each ladel as I added in each layer. Since I followed the recipe as directed I discovered that if I didn't steam the second layer long enough that is why the center of my cake caved in! This is due to lack of experience on my part but next time I will do a much better job. Frankly it is good enough for my tummy and definitely a keeper. My hubby likes it so do I! :)

Recipe source from Jode's site.

Indian Rope Hoya

This year in the summer I have decided to take her for an excursion holiday outside under our pear tree. She was growing really well with occasional rain showers on her throughout the summer months. I was excited to see her bloom for the first time since I bought her about 2 yers ago. Frankly until a few days ago she rewarded me with beautiful breathtaking blooms!!!

Sarawak Serikaya Cake

Thank you Boon Kien for this lovely recipe. This is quite a moist cake even after 3 days and it wasn't extremely sweet. I think I could taste more horlick in this cake. Even though I don't have the exact browning sauce (gulai hitam) I did it anyway. I didn't know for sure if 11/2 hour of steaming was good enough or not but I went ahead and steam a little longer and i wrapped up my steamer's cover with kitchen towel so the evaporated steam will not drip and wet my cake. So far it turned out really well and I am pleased with the result and the taste of the cake. So this will be definitely another keeper! :)