American Carrot Cake

Its been quite some while as I deliberated on the abstainence after my recent chicken pox 'outbreak'. (assurance granted, it wasnt that bad either). I was told to stay away from eggs for as long as I can. ( eh, 100 days i hear). However, my mind questioned on how could 3 medium size eggs, in a average size home baked cake could affect the scars, which as it seems, are taking the longest time to heal. Patience behold, well, forgotten i have, that gone are the days when youthful as I was before when speedy healing was at its peak, versus now age as catches up, so scars healing takes time. Time indeed, waits for no man.

Digress I shall not. Yes, allow me to re introduce the all time favourite of mine, the American Carrot Cake. This receipe was borrowed from none other than Aunty Lucy. There was this craving that was unstoppable. I love the natural aroma of spices and herbs. Thoroughly enjoyed the process of inhaling the aroma of the mixed spices during the mixing process, and the whiff of the mixed spice when the cake was in the oven baking, the fragrance lingers the whole house. Divine is the word. Its truly therapeutic for me. A great way for destressing as all focus were on ensuring that the bake not only has to be well baked, (not overbaked), in good shape ( and not in flop), and the taste must be the right too, and of course, hopefully better than before.

Yes, the main critic, my Mom, loves it, so that would mean that it is a pass rate! She nodded as she finished up a slice which initially she felt was too big a slice. Well, I enjoyed a 'slimmer' slice of the cake myself too, the crunch of the generous walnut pieces, with the grated carrots.

A lovely carrot cake which will last for another day I suppose.

Strawberry Grapes Marshmellow cake

oh yes, i have been rather busy at work, managing new group of individuals who are new to me as i am to them. Starting afresh in a new environment with new working colleagues can be a toll if not for this hobby cum passion i can indulge myself in by immersing thoroughly into the frame of mind in perfecting the look, taste, color and layout of the cake.

this has been one of the favourites which i have been drooling over from the posts from LeeLee of Baking Mom and Jestina from Hut of Cranberry. And over the weekend, i finally decided that my craving was beyond restrain and i took a ride from my brother who was heading towards town area, and he drove me to the nearest NTUC at Bukit Panjang. Boy, i was glad to grab one punnet of strawberries and one punnet of dark colored seedless grapes and HL fresh milk.

upon reaching home, i took out the receipe and started working on the biscuit base using digestive biscuits and unsalted butter. followed by the marshmellow layer and then the jello layer after freezing the sliced strawberries and bite size seedless grapes. all the works of boiling, chilling, freezing, slicing, mixing, stirring were all worthwhile.

my sisters and Mom gave thumbs up for this and looking at the pictures, i am glad that this round of the making of this strawberry and grapes marshmellow cake turned out wonderful 2nd attempt. i simply love the color, the taste and yes, every bite was gorgeous goodness of pleasure indeed.

thank you LeeLee for sharing the wonderful receipe. yumz.

Eggless Mixed Spices Bread

For those who have read my posting in Imperial Index, I am still in the recovering state from my delayed chicken pox 'controlled' outbreak. yupz, getting chicken pox at my age is no joke i must let you know. And so, for those of you who have yet to 'experience' the outbreak, go for your jabs or you will regret as I am because I have to keep to simple and light diet for next 100 days it seems. So no seafood, no fried stuff, no chicken meat, no eggs, no beans, no chillies or curry or spicy stuff. Boy, feeling so deprived.

With that, it also means that any bakes that I want to attempt to bake has to be eggless and not so oily too. Hence, using the same sweet bun receipe from Lee Lee, I had to tweak the receipe to suit my present needs. So this turned out to be a fair looking, soft white, mixed spices power bread. I must confess that using self raising flour instead of bread flour and plain flour was a grave mistake though the bread turned out edible and soft. It was tiring during the hands on dough making process. Naturally, my arms are still aching from the strain caused yesterday. (especially when i had to try all means to get the yeast to ferment and for the dough to rise, that was fruitless 2 hours of waiting and reattempting to roll the dough. conclusion then was = no more wrong usage of flour!)

Nonetheless, it was great fun to 'play with food' again yesterday and the fragrance emitted from the bake is simply heavenly and yes, its the freshness of it all that makes it all worth while.