Fish and Tarts!

I think the best thing about living in a multi-racial and ethnically diverse country is that all major festival sets everyone in a festive mood! Now that the Lunar New Year is just around the corner, rows and rows of festive goodies deck the shelves of bakeries and supermarkets alike and everything's adorned in red. Needless to say, it's hard for me - and I imagine - everyone else to resist those delectable pineapple tarts and crisp prawn rolls begging to be taken off the shelves and just devoured...

What better time than now - when the craving hits the hardest - to roll out a fresh from the oven, homemade batch of my mum's finest pineapple tarts?! These buttery, sweet and tangy beauties need no introduction really. Just plop them in front of anyone and watch their eyes light up in delight! Heh..

Finally, I got to make the whole thing from scratch after watching my mum make them year after year and always not having the time during Deepavali due to exams and what not. Felt pretty good in the end!

I've only ever seen my mum make the fish jelly once and that was probably about 15 or 16 years ago but the image of it in my mind remains as fresh as the day I first set my eyes upon it.  The intricate arrangement of the scales combined with the fact that each "scale" has to be placed individually really makes this change one's perception that jellies are boring and easy peasy.

I was pretty worn out after trying my hand at it and it took almost half a day before it was finally ready to be unmoulded. It wasn't perfect but for my first attempt, I had no complaints!

Out With The Old, In With The New!

It's hard getting used to quite drastic changes in my schedule of late so the oven has been getting quite a bit of rest! A brand new year ahead full of challenges, rewards and of course - more, more and more cakes!

First up, I received another order for a log cake after a recommendation from my friend to another of his and I can't stress how grateful I am for that! Another chocolate hazelnut one to round up the year!

The new oven finally arrived in the last couple of days of last year and we had to try out the temperature settings to find out the optimal one for baking. There probably couldn't be a better excuse to get baking again in the new year! 

My mum had wanted to try out a black and white cake she saw on display at a shop some time back and I had two large bars of Korean white chocolate couveture just sitting in the fridge that I hauled back from my month long exchange trip there. It wasn't long before the cake was done and topped with both the milk chocolate couveture and the white chocolate one!

We got the new oven up and running and also had a sweet start to 2013 - two birds in one stone!