Merry Christmas & fairy lights ♥

What is Christmas?  It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.  It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.  ~Agnes M. Pahro

White chocolate eggnog fudge

Last Christmas, my White Chocolate Eggnog Truffles went down a treat so this year I thought I'd stick with the winning flavour combo but in fudge form: White Chocolate Eggnog Fudge. 


Following the raging success that was the Salted Caramel Fudge, I felt like a fudge ninja.  I was on a fudge making roll.

'Tis the season for sweet noggy eggnog

Marge: [Opening the refridgerator] Homer, didn't you get any milk? All I see is eggnog.
Homer: 'Tis the season, Marge! We only get thirty sweet noggy days. Then the government takes it away again. [pours some on his cereal] 
~ The Simpsons (Marge Be Not Proud, season 7, episode 11)

Sweet noggy eggnog.  The best holiday beverage. Smooth, creamy and full of spices; it's like a chai milkshake but boozey.
 
According to legend (aka wiki), eggnog has its roots in medieval England having developed from "posset", a hot beverage made of sweetened hot milk spiked with ale or wine.  Over the years eggs were added and more potent liquors like brandy, sherry and Madeira used. The drink was popular among the aristocracy as dairy products and eggs were expensive and did not keep well.

The "nog" part of the name may be referring to a small carved wooden mug used to serve alcohol which was called a "noggin" in Middle English or perhaps is a shortened version of "egg 'n' grog" alluding to the name for drinks made from rum.

I love the stuff and I really wanted to make eggnog fudge and eggnog macarons this year for Baking for Hospice and all our Christmas parties coming up.  However, despite our colonial heritage, eggnog isn't a terribly common drink in New Zealand.  Not many of my friends had tried it before and when I went out in search of premade eggnog in liquor stores I couldn't find it anywhere!  So I made my own Sweet Noggy Brandy Eggnog.

Candy cane mint chocolate cupcakes

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire 

Jack Frost nipping at your nose 

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir 

And folks dressed up as Eskimos ~ The Christmas Song

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give ~Winston Churchill

C and I were discussing what our favourite Christmas carols were the other day.  It was a surprisingly difficult decision to make.  Do you pick the well known, often sung "Jingle Bells" or "Rudolph"; the local carol "Te Harinui", an oldie but goodie: "Feliz Navidad", hippy fav "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" or a pop anthem like "All I want for Christmas"(Yes, I'm a Love Actually groupie, loud and proud).

In the end I went with the classic: The Christmas Song.  Maybe it's because I grew up down under where Christmas time = summer time so we don't get white Christmases, but there's just something awfully romantic about spending Christmas curled up next to a roaring fire.  Sigh.

But whether you are celebrating a winter or summer Christmas in your part of the world, the season of giving is universal.

Baking = Love.  Giving = Joy.

And it was an absolute joy last week for Baking for Hospice to start baking for Totara Hospice South Auckland.  As a test run last Sunday (the main run being this Sunday),  we delivered baking for their Volunteers' Christmas Morning Tea and as my contribution I indulged my mint and choc obsession and made Candy Cane Mint Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting.

 

Salted caramel fudge: russian fudge's creamy cousin

Fudge, it seems, is rather difficult to fudge up.

They used to let us tackle it as kids to keep us occupied: just throw everything in a dish, microwave and stir, and voila you have fudge!

Making a grown up version however, proved a tad more challenging.  I seriously stuffed the recipe up.  I zapped it on too high a heat, didn't keep track of how long I microwaved it for, and generally didn't pay enough attention to the recipe.  At one point I had laid out my just-starting-to-set fudge into the pan, then turned around to see the white chocolate that was supposed to go into it, still sitting on the chopping board.  Then the white chocolate seized.  This fudge really could've been an utter disaster, but miraculously, I still ended up with a delicious creamy fudge.  Go figure.

A Nessie proof fudge is a fool proof fudge.

Lemon sorbet: when life gives you lemons, make sorbet

Every white will have its black, And every sweet its sour. ~ Thomas Percy

This year hasn't been the smoothest of years.  A bittersweet roller-coaster ride of a year.  It's crazy coz so many people I've talked to have also had a lemon of a year too.  Illness, marriage problems, family dramas; not to mention earthquakes, tsunamis and riots: you name it, its happened this year! What was it about twenty eleven?!

This year I've gotten married, passed my first year of med school and celebrated NZ's historic RWC victory but also said goodbye to a dear family friend, my grandma and my uncle. This topsy-turvey year has really driven home for me two important truths:

Fact 1: Life really is like a box of chocolates....dark chocolates.  The bitterness only makes you appreciate the sweetness all the more.  The deeper that sorry carves into your being, the more joy you can contain ~ Kahil Gibran.

Fact 2: Everything happens for a reason so when life gives you lemons, make lemonade...or Lemon Sorbet.

Monsieur, a wafer thin mint? Or mint & dark chocolate ice cream?

Maitre D: And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.
Mr Creosote: No.
Maitre D: Oh sir! It's only a tiny little thin one.
Mr Creosote: No. F*** off - I'm full... [Belches]
Maitre D: Oh sir... it's only wafer thin.
Mr Creosote: Look - I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.
Maitre D: Oh sir, just... just one...
Mr Creosote: Oh all right. Just one.
Maitre D: Just the one, sir... voila... bon appetit...
[Mr Creosote eats the wafer-thin mint. The Maitre D takes a flying leap behind some potted plants. There is an ominous splitting sound. Mr Creosote explodes.]
Maitre D: [returns to Mr Creosote's table] Thank you, sir, and now the cheque.
~ Monty Python, The Meaning of Life

First: A lesson in Kiwi slang.

mint:
1. A flavour based on the mint herb.
2. A hard candy of mint flavor.
3. A place where coins are made.
4. What collectors call something in perfect condition.
5. Something is cool, great, sweet, excellent, good: e.g. "I had a mint weekend." 

I really did have a mint weekend. Literally and figuratively.

Saturday: Went to good mate of mine's wedding at the beautiful botanical gardens. Stunning setting, absolutely stunning couple.  Got to catch up with some of my fav people in the whole world, spend the day in the sunshine, and then stuff our faces at the Chinese banquet.  And I got to exercise my democratic rights, flex my civic duty muscles so to say.  A pretty mint day really.

Sunday: Made Mint and Dark Chocolate Ice cream. You could say I had an ice cream Sunday.  A mint Ice cream Sunday.

Oh dear, I'll stop that now.

Delicious expectations: mocha brownies

Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations. ~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

I love baking but I'm actually not that good a baker.
 
Dude, I've mistaken salt for sugar and made a very salty chocolate log and almost burnt our house down by using a plastic microwave muffin tin in the oven thinking it was silicon.  Being debilitatingly clumsy, baking with me is not a pretty sight.  It usually involves me burning myself on the oven, butter and sugar flying missiles because I've set the beaters on too high, and flour all over myself, the kitchen, and the dog.  Hurricane Nessie has arrived.

I'd never ever back myself to go on any of those "Hottest Home Baker" or Masterchef shows on telly (as much as I love watching them, dramatic pauses and all).  I'd just blush like a tomato, mumble to myself the whole time and probably drop my baking.  Or burn it.  Or start a fire.

What you see on the blog is after I've cleaned up the disaster zone that is a post-Nessie kitchen, after I've taken 100 photos just to get those few precious decent shots. So I am always surprised, relieved, and stoked when people actually like eating my baking or like things I blog about here.

But once you have a baking blog, you do get a rep as "The Baker" and people do expect you to be able to whip up something delicious.  So when it came to baking for my path tutorial group (Team Faed), I was actually really nervous.  What to bake in my little shared kitchen in Dunners that a) I had the ingredients for  b) I could walk down to Uni and c) was delicious.  What to bake for people who have great expectations,  delicious expectations.

In a situation like that, a girl has to do what a girl has to do.  Break out the big guns, one of those tried and true, trusted few recipes you've been baking for years: Mocha Brownies.

Going nuts over chocolate peanut butter cupcakes with caramel peanut glaze

FACT: Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one's mouth.

Peanuts are so underrated.

Almonds are sexy thanks to macarons and friands.  Pistachios are oh so exotic when doused with rosewater and honey in baklava.  But the poor wee peanut doesn't have such a glamourous rep.  They're always the ones left uneaten in the roasted nut mix and unlike delicious pecan pie and chic frangipane tarts you don't hear anyone sing the praises of a peanutty pastry creation.

It seems the humble peanut is relegated to being the boring forgettable nut-cousin.  That is, until it's turned into gloriously creamy, deliciously salty sweet, Peanut Butter.

{peanut butter cream cheese frosting is a beautiful thing}

I'm a nutter when it comes to peanut butter.  On toast, in peanut butter choc chip cookies,  or just by the spoonful, peanut butter can do no wrong.

But for some reason, I've never tried incorporating it into a cupcake or cake recipe.  Until now.

Hello Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and Caramel Peanut Glaze.  Where have you been all my life??

Lemon madeleines for Baking for Hospice and writer's block

The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it....And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me .... immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents... and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine...so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea. ~ Marcel Proust from 'Remebrance of Things Past'

I made these Lemon Madeleines for our last Baking for Hospice spring themed round a whole week ago and for the whole week I've been writing, re-writing and re-re-writing this post but I just haven't been happy with anything I put down.  It's like Proust did such a good job writing about madeleines that my brain is refusing to encroach on his territorry.  There aren't even any good puns about madelines.  No puns = no fun.

Or maybe it's something to do with all the electioneering going on on tv in the last little bit.  All that politician prattle is frying my brain.

So I'm sorry if this post is a bit of a lemon.
 
Urgh writer's block, get thee gone!

{my gorgeous madeleine pan from my lovely law ladies}

Caramel Latte Macarons: coffee macs with salted caramel filling

Actually, this seems to be the basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis - a good hot cup of coffee. ~ Alexander King

I know I've been moaning about exams and studying for a while.  Now, looking back on it though, it really wasn't all doom and gloom.

Studying/working-till-all-hours teaches you all sorts of new skills and life lessons, like: how to take strategic 10 minute power-naps; how to disguise how scummy your hair is by putting it up in an alty top-knot; and most importantly: the art of getting as much caffeine into your system as possible.

Lately, I've been gorging myself on Nestle Caramel Latte sachets.  I know all you coffee snobs out there are gasping in horror.  I like to think of these instant coffee drinks as a caffeinated coffee flavoured treat rather than an actual coffee.  

Caramelly and frothy and with that essential caffeine kick.  What's not to love?

However, there is only so much coffee-drinking one can before the old bladder doth protesteth.  That's when you get to the coffee-eating, that's where the coffee baking comes in: Coffee Macarons with Salted Caramel Filling.

Think caramel latte but a macaron.  Words can't espresso how good these are.

Victory

{photo by Paul Estcourt via nz herald}

'Cause we are loyal.  Keep it that way. ~ Dave Dobbyn

All Blacks 8 - France 7.

You beaut.

Paint it black

{via mr vintage}

I look inside myself and see my heart is black  ~ Rolling Stones

Big day today.  HUGE day today.

Today is the day New Zealand has been waiting for, for the last 24 years.

Yes, my friends, today the final of the Rugby World Cup 2011 will be played at Eden Park by New Zealand and France.  A complete carbon copy of that very first RWC finals clash in 1987.

Same bat-venue, same bat-teams and hopefully, same bat-result.

A cookie paradox: Anzacesque oatmeal raisin cookies

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
'Tis hard to reconcile
~ Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 3, William Shakespeare.

Riddle me this: how is it that a cookie can be so average but so damn addictive????

I am hesitant to even blog about this less-than-ideal recipe but it is a complete cookie paradox that I feel compelled to share.

They came out of the oven and one bite told me:
a) the texture was blah: chewy-tough rather than chewy-good; and
b) the taste was blah: somehow both too sweet and too bland.

A pretty darn average cookie.

But I found myself going back for another and then another and another.  I could not stop eating these things.

I tried them on C.  Same effect.  He ate one and diplomatically said well they aren't your best batch of cookies darling.  But then, sure enough, he came back for seconds, thirds... fifths.

Which brings me to ask once again, how is it that a cookie so av could be so good?

Quickie: Chocolate Cake in a Mug

We all got the email.

We all thought: Psssh there's no waaaay this could be good.

I have to say, I happily ate my words.

Happy Birthday, Airplane Chan

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? ~ B.O.B

Happy birthday Dad!

Today you would have been 55...still a spring chicken!

I used to s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e to think of something to buy for you that wasn't socks or a tie but this year I think I would've nailed it.

I would've gotten you a really flash bottle of merlot and a big punnet of strawberries (even though they aren't really in season but I know how much you love strawberries with french vanilla icecream and [ick] milk).

{dad was a travel agent by trade and was affectionately known as "airplane chan" by his mates and clients}
{via weheartit}

...and a Semi Final Ticket. You would have been absolutely frothing at the mouth over the Rugby World Cup and probably placed a cheeky bet or two for the All Blacks just for luck.

I would have baked you a black forest cake (I can actually bake now - no more salty chocolate logs) and we would've gone out to dinner at Canton Cafe or that steak place you love out in West Auckland.

And you'd tell me off for procrastinating rather than studying.

{via weheartit}

How thyme flies: Caramelized onion, thyme, and cheddar cheese muffins

I think I blinked and missed the whole year.  How on earth is it October already??

All of a sudden it's one week till exams and there's this much study to do and this much time to do it in.  Sigh.   Who needs sleep anyways? Sleep is for the weak.

Ok, enough of my study whine and on to the recipe.

Muffins are one of those things that like to be thrashed together at the last minute.  It doesn't like you dwelling on its consistency or mulling over how best to fold the ingredients together.  No no, no mollycoddling for muffins, thank you very much.  Muffins just want you to chuck everything in, mix it up super quick and bash it in the oven.  Wham bam thank you mam baking.

That's what makes these Caramelized onion, thyme, and cheddar cheese muffins perfect for when you have a friend coming over for lunch, you want to make something delicious but don't have much time.

{have thyme but no time}

Procrastination station

{via here}

If only studying was half as fun as avoiding it.

We learnt today in a clinical skills tutorial about some unusual symptoms that patients suffering a heart attack may experience. One of these unusual symptoms was "An Impending Sense of Doom".

That is also a symptom of the recurrent sanity-threatening condition known as Exams.

Sticky date cake with butterscotch swiss meringue buttercream & labours of love

"If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him" ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Labours of love.  We've all done 'em.  Those little side projects that you pour your heart into for no reward other than a job well done at the end of the day.  You know those ones? You do it because you love it or because you believe it's a good and noble cause.  A labour of love can be hugely satisfying, incredibly fulfilling, and emotionally and spiritually rewarding.

They can also eat your life.

My all consuming labour of love for the last little bit has been helping put together the 2011 Med School Yearbook/Magazine.  Rachel (our visionary editor in chief), Clark (graphic designer extraordinaire), and I (deputy editor/grammar police) have been like Siamese triplets for the last couple of months: slaving away on all-nighter after all-nighter, sucking down litres of coffee, umming and ahhing over articles/backgrounds/layouts, and battling through funding fiascos; to put together our beautiful, almost full-colour, totally badass magazine which is going to print Monday.

We love it like it's our first born.  Our first born who we poured our blood, sweat, and tears into.  Our first born who has grown up, graduated, and should really be moving out of home now.

So mucho soz for the big gaps in posting.  It's because I've been consumed by this new amazing project, this current labour of love (and also coz managed to stuff my back but that's a story for another day).  I don't think I've ever laughed so much, slept so little, worked so hard, and learnt so many new fandangled words. And I got to know and love two of the most creative and talented people I've ever had the privilege to work with.  It's been incredible.

{spot the terrible segue}

You know what else is incredible: sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce - my favourite pudding.  Before these last stages of manic craziness for the magazine fully set in, I was up in Auckland for a week on study break. I always bake like a banshee every time I go home and this time I made an adaptation of my fav pud as a birthday cake for a family friend: Sticky Date Cake with Butterscotch Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Butterscotch Sauce.

Just beet it: Roasted beetroot, caramelised onion, goats cheese and orange salad

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. ~ Tom Robbins

Ahh beetroot.  Love em or hate em you gotta admit they are a striking vegetable.  Intense and majestic, so deep red it's almost purple.  I used to hate beetroot.  Mainly because I'd only ever had the canned stuff.  The sugary pink gelatinous slices you get in burgers that made the buns soggy and left pink smudges on the lettuce.  Yuck. 

But then I had a culinary experience that changed my life: I had the degustation menu at the incomparable French Cafe in Auckland and my gastronomical horizons were forever widened.  Never had I experienced such sophisticated flavour pairings, intricate techniques or inventive textures.  That meal truly made me fall in love with food all over again.  One of the dishes was the French Cafe signature: Roasted goats cheese, caramelised onion and beetroot tart and it completely changed my entire outlook on these ruby red gems.

I was a hater no longer. 

And in an homage to that glorious tart I wanted to recreate those flavours in salad form with a Roasted Beetroot, Caramelised Onion, Goats Cheese and Orange Salad.

All Black Sesame Macarons with Coconut Buttercream for Baking for Hospice

Rugby is a wonderful show: dance, opera and, suddenly, the blood of a killing ~ Richard Burton

I'm baaaaaack! It was study break last week and I was up in Auckland spending lots of quality time with family.  A happy sad week, witnessing the beginning of a brand new life and the twilight of another.  Reliving old memories, making new ones.  Lots of laughs, lots of tears.  It might look like I abandoned the blog for a bit but I was baking up a storm so watch this space for all the baking shenanigans I got up to!

Well, if you're in New Zealand, unless you've been living under a rock, you will know that little old NZ is hosting the Rugby World Cup 2011.

It's kind of a big deal.

Rugby is our national sport.  Kiwis live and breathe rugby and the All Blacks are national heroes.  But despite the All Blacks being favourites to win practically every Rugby World Cup since it's inception, we unbelievably haven't won or hosted the prestigious Webb Ellis Trophy since the very first RWC in 1987.

But this year is THE year! I can feel it in my bones.

So naturally, to show our support for our men in All Black, the Baking for Hospice theme this round was The Rugby World Cup round.  And for my contribution I made All Black Sesame Macarons with Coconut Buttercream.

Go ABs!

{Paint the town black, all black}

Beer o'clock: Chocolate Guinness Ruffle Cake with Salted Caramel Whipped Ganache Frosting

He was a wise man who invented beer ~ Plato

I'm a beer girl.

Yes yes being a little Asian girl I'm not exactly your stereotypical beer guzzler.  Not that I'm a huge drinker mind you.  Hardly.  Just like your stereotypical little Asian girl, I am a complete lightweight.  A pretty cheap date.  But give me a cool refreshing beer on a hot summers day and I'm a happy chappy.  Give me two and I'll probably be under the table.

Now, there are beers, and then there are BEERS.   Guinness, the infamous Irish dry stout, falls in the latter category.  Big, bolshy, in your face beer.  A meal in a glass.  Liquid bread.

Being such a lightweight and thus naturally preferring lighter wheat beers and largers, stout has never been my cup of...beer.    And on top of that, beer and chocolate is  not exactly a combination that screams delicious.  But when my Mum fell in love with this Chocolate Guinness Cake I knew I had to try and recreate it for her.

Homemade Oreos for Baking for Hospice

 

Procrastination is the thief of time. ~ Napoleon Hill

I'm supposed to be writing a genetics essay that's due this Friday but instead I looked up quotes on procrastination for this blog post.  Ironic.  The quotes are mostly all gloom and doom about how procrastination is bad yada yada yada but what the quotees have completely missed is this: Procrastination is fun.

I could've been looking up journal articles but instead I spent many a happy hour browsing Asos, Street Peeper, The Superficial, Tastespotting, not to mention all the food, fashion and design blogs I follow.  And now instead of essay writing, I am blogging.  Incidentally, blogging a post that I should have blogged about ages ago since the Baking for Hospice round I baked these Homemade Oreos for was waaaay back in July.

Yes, I am procrastinating by blogging about a recipe I have been procrastinating posting.  Poetic really.

Climb every mountain, make your own wedding cake

{photo by jel photography}

Climb every mountain, ford every steam, follow every rainbow, till you find your dream ~ The Sound of Music

Well, blow me down and call me Ed but I seem to have been conquering all sorts of culinary Everests recently.  Like macarons, making my own 2 tier wedding cake was for me an act of baking mountaineering.

I think this is one of my proudest baking achievements.  Really takes the cake.

What on earth possessed me to want to make my own wedding cake you ask, when a) I was living in a different city to where I was getting married, b) I've just started at Med school and c) I'd never made a tiered cake nor worked with fondant before???  Well, with professional wedding cakes costing around the NZD$1000 mark, there was definitely a huge financial incentive.  And then there was the reverse psychology incentive: the more people warned me against doing it, the more determined it made me.  You say: "Not a good idea Nessie, too stressful", I hear "Go on, I dare you".

Me, stubborn? No...

{photo by my cousin David}

Sunshine and Fush 'n' Chups at Tunnel Beach

{Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand}

What's more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I'll cook you some taters one of these days. I will; fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn't say no to that. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien (The Two Towers)

An almost wordless post today.

Am a bit of a busy bee this week, working on a monster of a post bout the wedding cake making process, it's massive, gargantuan even, a post to end all posts and also writing up articles for our med school yearbook, organising our next round for Baking for Hospice, while trying not to think about exams fast approaching...

So instead of my usual verbose offerings, here's a tranquilly almost-wordless photo spread from an oh so kiwi fish and chips (or as we apparently pronounce it "fush 'n' chups") picnic at Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Just another gloriously sunny but mind-numbingly chilly day down south.

Best Blog Award: ta muchly Bunny Eats Design!

The gorgeous Genie from Bunny Eats Design has passed on the Best Blog award to me - what a total sweetie! Thanks so much hun!!!

Ok so the rules are that I'm supposed to answer some questions about myself and award 15 other blogs the award too and let them know all bout it.  So here goes!

Hong Kong Honeymoon: Foodies Highlights Part 2

{prawn and spinach dumplings? why yes please}

Before I get into the post proper I need to vent just a little....I was an unfortunate victim of a manky computer virus that had my poor laptop down for almost a week (a week!?) and requiring a lot of TLC to cox it back to life.  People who make viruses = not cool.  Grrrrr.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest...back to the foodie posting!

Now, how could I possibly blog about the wonders of Hong Kong food without talking about yum cha?  Yes, my friends, the 4th wonder of this Hong Kong Foodie Top 10 is not a dish but a whole way of eating.  In fact, this whole part 2 post chronicles uniquely Hong Kongese styles of chowing down.

Of course, this is by no means all the wacky ways of getting your eat on in HK...this is after all a top 10 from our trip and 6 days does not a comprehensive foodie tour make.  But even in 6 days we managed to rack up an impressive repertoire of eating styles, so without further ado, let the Hong Kong foodie good times roll.

{daikon cake? don't mind if I do}