Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart, Somewhere deep inside you is where Christmas really starts, So give your heart to Jesus you’ll discover when you do, That it’s Christmas, really Christmas for you.” I love this Christmas carol, so heart warming and meaningful for me. Christmas is not about Christmas trees, Santa Claus, merry-making, loads of presents etc… but all about Jesus, it is not X’mas but Christmas. Christmas tradition accumulated through the centuries, some are meaningful, some are not, some are plainly money-making schemes.

This is the time of the year again where dates are in abundance. With the ‘Hari Raya’ just round the corner, what better time to make full use of these lovely fruits. I noticed that there are a lot of variety of dates on the shelves and got myself in a bit of a mess just deciding on what type to choose. I wanted the ‘not so sweet’ ones but ended up getting just that. Could not bring myself to eat them whole, just terribly sweet so I decided to put them in a cake.

Here is something very simple and nice to eat. This is my basic chocolate marble cake. I make a lot of variation from this basic recipe. Just like the other day, I turned it into an apple, dried cranberry and pistachio cake. Anyway, this one’s for you guys over in Melbourne, Kareen and Joyce and all marble cake lovers out there! Dig in!

100 gm castor sugar
250 gm plain flour
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate

Ask me what a clafoutis is 5 months ago, I would have answered you “Uh?” until I was eagerly looking forward to recipes by pastry chef Anna Olson on ‘Sugar’ during my last trimester, only then I knew what this lovely dessert was all about. The truth is when I was 15kg heavier then my normal self and craving for sugar high, any desserts that need minimum handling will rank highest on my list! CLAFOUTIS is one of them.

I happened to have accidentally combine 2 very lovely ingredients together the other day while whipping up a batch of delicious chocolate brownies for the kids during the school holidays. What I came up with was a mixture of chocolate brownies with a marbling of cream cheese on the top. It came out marvelous and I have made it twice since. For those of you planning for a Christmas dinner dessert, I highly recommend this. It is an easy dessert option that will hardly fail to impress your guests.

Hubby brought home some fresh berries from Washington last month and I just cannot imagine what to do with them. It will be such a waste to make fruit jam out of them since they are so expensive after our exchange rates. However expensive though, they are still slightly cheaper than those sold in our Supermarts.

This is one classic Malaysian dessert, eaten cold, sometime topped with shaven ice. Lovely till the last mouthful.

During the Chinese New Year period in Malaysia, many types of seasonal cakes and cookies are sold in the markets and Chinatown. To post them all, I will probably have to live up to my name “The almost Missing Cook” by choice. There are just so many. Some of them are the famous Kueh Kapit, Kueh Bangkit, etc …as for this post, I would like to talk a little about this sticky mushy sweet dessert called “Ti Kueh” which I bought just this morning.

‘Thong Yuen’ are little coloured balls made from glutinous rice flour and a pinch of food colouring. Usually eaten on the 22 December every year, this deliciously refreshing cold dessert is never forgotten because it also happens to fall on my niece’s birthday! This year, my mom roped in all her 3 precious grandchildren including the birthday girl to [...]

I usually wonder if cakes overall were unhealthy. I wish to believe that they are good for our health but I guess they are determined by what goes into the batter. This recipe I have here is healthier than a normal cupcake recipe because unbleached all-purpose flour and organic ingredients were used. 250gm unsalted butter 4 large organic [...]