One thing I really miss doing is organising dinner parties for family and close friends. I absolutely enjoy making dishes from appetisers to mains and Ofcourse desserts. I have always loved cooking for  people, I started approximately at 16 years old ? Where I made roast beef, salads and etc. for a bunch of close friends and they enjoyed it! And I never felt that much joy before seeing people enjoyed what I made. The last time I ever have dinner parties was before I flew to Singapore to do my internship and work. I wish I could do it here but I don't seem to have the time to do so.

Pork loin rubbed with some curry powder and spices. I made this for Christmas and I love it! 

Pork loin wrapped with glorious bacon. I am a die hard bacon fan! 

This was New Years Eve, few days before I left. My friends and I didn't have any plans so voila ! Dinner party again. We made too much of food that night, I think I had so much of left overs. 

Pork meat balls. It was suppose to be lamb meat balls but I changed the whole thing and modified it. Turned out pretty good. 

After today, I am looking forward to holding dinners like this again. I am quite glad that I will actually have time for myself,my family and friends.

22:30

I finally found the time to blog. This past two weeks have been quite hectic for me. On Monday, I was suppose to baked a Strawberry Summer Cake and experiment on Chorizo burger patties as well but that did not work out since I had some errands to run.

Anyways, I made a Peach Brown Butter Buckle cake last two weeks ago and it was amazing! I took the recipe from www.smittenkitchen.com They have so many amazing recipes. Even the brownie recipe from the previous post was from the Smitten Kitchen. As I browsed through Smitten Kitchen, I kept wanting to try so many things, I told  bugged Hun about the amount of things I want to bake and try and how we should go on an adventure so I can get inspired.

I usually decide what I am going to bake by asking Hun what kind of fruits is he craving for and then I find a recipe. The original recipe for the brown butter buckle calls for Nectarines but they are kinda out of season ? But hey! Nectarines are actually just a hairless version of peaches so no fret. 

Okay, so I woke up very early and excited  that Monday morning to make this. When I do something I always stay positive and happy, I think the last thing you want to do is to make something be it baking, making a card feeling unhappy because some how it shows. 

I used Donut peaches instead of the normals ones because I had such a hard time finding for normal peaches. So for this particular cake, I used all spice for the cake and cinnamon for the streusel. 

I love the smell of peaches, sweet and fragrant little things. However, the peaches I bought disappoint me a little because it wasn't sweet nor sour. 

The only time consuming part while making this cake was the brown butter bit. When it starts bubbling, browning it gets burnt fast so I can't really multitask because of this. Then it needs to be cooled down before I can actually start baking the cake. I pre-cut the peaches and squeezed some lemon juice over it to prevent oxidisation. 

The brown butter cinnamon streusel. It's amazing because it stays so crunchy even after a few days. So much love for this cake. 

 

The cake was so moist that I really couldn't tell if it was done baking in the oven or not. 

Cut a slice of this baby while it's still slightly warm, scoop a ball of creamy vanilla ice cream and eat it. The combination is heavenly! 

I'm hungry now from typing all of these. 

11:03

I finally decided to have a blog again. Well, it is just to keep my self occupied I guess.

So, I went to Bravery Cafe about 2 weeks ago at Lavender. Initially, Hun and I wanted to go to Windowsill Pie Cafe but just our damn luck that it is closed on Mondays' . Mind you, my journey to the city area takes 45 minutes plus to walk to the cafe, JUST to find out that it is CLOSED well makes me wanna scream because his colleague was raving about how good the pies were. The cafe ( Windowsill Pies Cafe is known for their pies, hence the name. ) I don't work on Mondays and every good cafe I know is closed on Mondays, just awesome.

We continued walking along the road near by the Cafe that was closed and we spotted this cafe which has no board or whatsoever, just a number 66. Well, I did not know that it was Bravery Cafe until I matched the Horse statue to the photo while I was scrolling thru some food blog. The cafe deco was so simple, not the kind of cafe you would go " oh wow, that's some pretty furniture ..." when you step in you know? Hun was actually the one who convinced me to stay and try it out since we don't really have any idea where to go. Best decision ever made, I fell in love with the desserts, though they did not have much choices but that inspired me to make my own Brownies.

I don't know about the other cafes but to me, this is the first cafe that I see serving their brownies in the smallest portion and I really appreciate that. I had their French Sea Salt Brownies and their Marshmallow Chocolate Tart. When I placed my order for the Brownies, I was really hoping that it would be chewy and crunchy because that is how I love my brownies to be.

I had a good cup of Ginger Lily Tea to accompany my sweet treats. I am a fan of Gryphon Tea, they have some awesome fragrant teas. My personal favourite is Nymph of the Nile & Hanami. Now, this Ginger Lily tea is on my favourite list. Anyways, the brownie I had a coconut-ish flavour to it, I did not mind that. I love it. I might be wrong tho, maybe it was not coconut oil. However, I savour every bit of the Brownie because of the portion. After I had that Brownie at Bravery Cafe, I told myself it's about time that I bake.

My baby kitchen aid is all the way in Malaysia but lucky me, Hun's Aunt has a mixer at home. 

I decided to make plain Brownies first before I get adventurous. I wanted to soak raisins in Bourbon and add it into my brownies but that will be next time. I have not baked for so many months, ever since the last time I helped my chef in Uni on weekends. Positive thoughts while baking my Brownies even though I was so tired from work. 

I think this is probably the third or fourth time in my life in baking Brownies. The first time I ever baked Brownies was during High School, I remembered that because I baked them for an Interact Club event. The second time was during one of the pastry lessons I had during my Diploma days. 

Anyways, I used 100 % unsweetened chocolate because of the amount of sugar that I had to put into the batter. According to the recipe I found.

The outcome was just lovely, Crunchy and chewy. Plus! it is not that sweet or bitter. Next time, I will modify or just carry on with more experiments.

23:56