Tangy Lemon Almond Slice & A Sunshine Award

Thunder rumbling outside, the clock is ticking, fingers tapping on keyboard, while staring blankly to my screen, I am suddenly lost for words. What will I be sharing with you this time? Just as I thought being nominated in a running for best food blog award, is the cream of the cake, I had another surprise news from Chloe and Sarah at Honey & Lulu. The sweet ladies have awarded me a Sunshine Award, where I feel deeply fortunate to receive. To celebrate another sunny occasion, while it is damp, raining cats and dogs outside, and to clear that nasty writer's block, I decided that I will create my own sunshine with my TANGY LEMON ALMOND SLICE.

Peach Custard Tart with Lemon Thyme Syrup Glaze

Tarts, tarts, and more tarts! Don't you just love them? So, over the last weekend while laying awake in my bed, googling and tweeting asking for suggestions which didn't work anyways, I decided that I will be making a PEACH CUSTARD TART with LEMON THYME SYRUP GLAZE.

Lemon, Elderflower & White Chocolate Trifle

Another week went by and lets kick start this week with LEMON-ELDERFLOWER & WHITE CHOCOLATE TRIFLE. Not your average trifle and it's purely for food lovers who wants a quick fix and be out of the kitchen in a jiffy say approximately less than 30 minutes (includes prepping, and washing up). Are your eyes sparkling up and brain screaming " Hell yeah!".

Baking Recipe: Lemon Curd Pavlova Tart

Okay, I think it's time for the lemon meringue tart to have a make over, not that I don't like the classic version. Whenever I host cookouts or dinner parties, my friends would always have 1 similar request." Jo, when can you make your lemon tart, or lemon meringue tart?" Sadly all these were not captured, recorded and blog about. After all, I only started my blog last year August ;).

For Recipe: Click on image to enlarge + Zoom

This time round, I thought of making the tart a little more interesting. I will fill it with soft velvety lemony lemon curd with lots of zing, and balance it of with the sweetness of pavlova. Not to mention it adds a whole new dimension and texture. Buttery soft crunchy crust, with zesty and zingy smooth lemon curd filling which is topped off with light fluffy mid-crunchy pavlova. I think it works, after all the elements are still a base of a lemon meringue tart. Instead or torching the meringue or baking it in the oven, you get a ready baked pavlova...Very much like 2 desserts in 1.

A new twist to my very own all time favourite tart. Have a great weekend!!

xx

Baking Recipe: {Pre-Christmas} Celebration Cupcakes

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! As usual, I guess I'm always a tad late. {Lol}. Can't believe it's nearing year end and new year 2011 is just around the corner. In fact, it's this coming Saturday. Wow!! How was your Christmas celebration? Any plans for the New Year Eve?

Originally, I had plan to cook for my family on Christmas Eve. Instead my god mum suggested to dine out. So of course my family and my god mum's went ahead and dine out. It was a twist to my surprise. Usually we would go for Western cuisine, but this time, we had Chinese Fusion Fine Dining cuisine. I had to say that I was at first slightly disappointed when I found out we had to have Chinese food during Christmas Eve and was sort of dreading the whole typical 9 course meal, starting with Four Seasons, then the Shark's Fin Soup, etc. However, my god dad surprised us with a customize meal. I must say, it definitely has introduced me to a different side of Chinese Cuisine.

Since Christmas day is the next day, and after all Christmas is the time for giving and sharing, I've decided to bake my very own version of Celebration Cupcake. {Lol} Basically, I tossed in some coloured ball sprinkles into the cake batter. If you're thinking.. {what is she up to?}. I wasn't thinking at all. I was just having fun baking something unorthodox, but topped the cupcake with Limoncello Buttercream frosting. {Yummmmmm} As to decorate the cupcake, the colour and snowflake out of white chocolate as the theme was definitely inspired from my friend Pei Li's Christmas Miniature Cupcake.

Recipe

Yields approx 16 medium sized cupcakes

Ingredients (Vanilla Cupcake)

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 tbsp unsalted butter

To prepare vanilla cupcake:

1. Preheat oven to 350F or 180-190 degrees. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

2. Combine milk, egg, vanila extract in a separate bow. Whisk together the ingredients.

3. In a mixer with dry ingredients and a padle attachment, beat in the butter at a time until it resembles like bread crumbs.

4. On medium speed, pour half the liquid in until batter is incorporated and add the remaining liquid. Turn speed up and whisk for another 2-3 minutes.

5. Fold in colour sprinkles for some light colouring effect.

6. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Transfer cupcakes to tray to cool down.

Ingredients (Limoncello Buttercream)

4-5 tsp of lemon juice
3-4 tbsp of limoncello liqueur
3-4 cups of icing sugar (or just enough for taste of frosting consistency)
1 1/2 stick of unsalted butter
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 cup milk
5 tbsp all purpose flour

To prepare limoncello buttercream:

1. With a paddle attachment, whisk butter until light, fluffy and creamy.

2. Add in icing sugar a little at a time, as you may not need 4 cups of icing sugar.

3. Turn speed down to slow to add in lemon juice and limoncello liqueur. Then turn the speed up again and continue to whisk until frosting double in volume, as it'll be light and fluffy.

4. In a saucepan, heat up milk but not to boiling point. Let cool slightly, then toss in flour all at once and stir vigorously, until milk and flour is incorporated. You will notice that the liquid will thicken up and return to stove and let mixutre simmer, while continue stirring.

5. Once liquid is thicker, let cool for a couple of minute. With a sieve, press the thicken liquid through into the buttercream. Discard the lumps. Turn the mixer back up and whisk the buttercream for the last time for 2-3 minutes until well incorporated.

6. With a 1M wilton tip, frost the cupcakes according to your choice of design. I did the 1M swirl and some star shape flowers. To decorate my cupcake, I made snowflakes out of white chocolate.

Ingredients (Snow Flake ornament)

1/2 bar of cooking white chocolate (you may decide how much to use according to how many ornaments you plan to make)

To prepare snow flake ornament:

1. Print out snow flake template of your choice. You may google for "snow flake clip art" and there will be tons of choices to pick from.

2. Melt white chocolate over a double boiler.

3. Place template underneath parchment paper prepared on a flat tray.

4. Place chocolate in piping bag with no.3 or no.5 tip; colour by piping out the chocolate following the template accordingly.

Do try it out for next Christmas!

xx

Baking Recipe: Limoncello Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting

So, what did I bake? Well, I made mini cupcakes – LimonCello Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting to be exact. Yup.. a mouthful indeed.

Mini LimonCello Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting

I was surfing for recipes one day and stumbled upon a magnificent site. Therefore, this recipe idea is adapted from MyTartelette.com. As for ingredients wise, I may have tweaked it a little here and there. Like for instance the recipe asked for 2 Tbps of LimonCello liqueur; but I sort of put in a little more for the extra lemony kick. Lol..