Mother’s Day is just around the corner. I am a Mum and can’t wait to be pampered on Sunday. However, since my mum and mother-in-law are in town this weekend, I am planning to bake something for the two special women in our lives.
I saw the Blueberry Oven Puff Cake on Not Quite Nigella’s blog (It’s one of my favourite food blogs, by the way!) and I couldn’t help but make it. It is so easy to do! I plan to make this again on Sunday 
I love macarons! I first tasted them on one of my visits to Melbourne. Lindt Cafe makes heavenly macarons.
What are macarons? According to our trusty Wikipedia:
A macaron is a sweet meringue-based confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food coloring. The macaron is commonly filled with buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. Its name is derived from the Italian word maccarone or maccherone.
I have been sorely tempted to try and make them myself but I’m too intimidated by my friends who have tried to make them and met many kitchen disasters along the way.
Macarons made by Bronwyn
I’ve only learnt to appreciate how good various kinds of bread are since moving to New Zealand some 10 years ago.
My childhood spent in Manila was focused around the Philippines’ (and I must say the whole of Asia!) daily staple of rice. We had rice morning, noon and night just as Kiwis have their bread and potatoes. Even our desserts used rice as its key ingredient.
Fast forward to 2012 and here I am, experimenting on various kinds of breads like a true Kiwi
We still have rice 3-4x a week but we no longer have them for breakfast and rarely at lunch time too!
Apart from my favourite pandesal, focaccia bread is my next favourite type of bread. I love that its crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy on the inside. It’s really yummy and I’m glad I got my hands on a recipe for this.
Here’s how I make foccacia bread using a breadmaker. Sorry, I can’t live without my breadmaker!
Yup. You read that right. This recipe that my friend Bronwyn shared over Brands4Tomorrow is the best brownies I’ve ever baked. It’s such a hit among my daughter’s friends that I bake this quite regularly for her to share at school.
Here are the key ingredients I use to make these lovely brownies:
I use Hershey’s Cocoa powder and Nestle Toll House semi-sweet morsels for my brownies. I don’t think these are available in New Zealand. I buy them from the US.
NOTE: Originally published in April 2010. Reposting it here on Life’s A Dish.
I was craving for homemade taho the other day when my brother told me that his wife (my SIL) made taho for their snacks at home. I thought to myself, what better way to while away the time while I’m recovering but to make my own taho?
If you are familiar with New Zealand’s Biosecurity regulations, you will be able to appreciate my happiness in finding out that the longed for, craved for, Krispy Kreme donuts can be brought into the country without a problem!
Well, I wasn’t sure the donuts were allowed but I just had to try.
On my recent trip to Melbourne, I bought a 3 x half-dozen boxes of these creamy delights!
and like I said, no problem at all when I arrived in New Zealand.
As long as you declare the food items you have and present it to the MAF officials at the airport, you shouldn’t encounter any difficulties. They’d either let you in or tell you to bin the item.
So guess what I’m going to be buying and bringing into the country every month? 
Goodbye diet! LOL
NOTE: Originally published in July 2010. Re-publishing on Life’s A Dish for posterity
NOTE: Originally written back in March 2011, a month after the 22 February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch.
The aftermath of the 22 February Christchurch earthquake found me so stressed and the only thing that could relax me was baking. A few days before the earthquake, my husband Simon bought me a NZ Recipe book “Gran’s Kitchen: Recipes from the notebooks of Dulcie May Booker“.
One of the recipes I tried was the Cheese Cakes recipe. It was such a hit. Both Simon and Bea devoured the first batch in one sitting! My friends have asked for the recipe so here I am sharing it with you too
We had some overripe bananas sitting on the kitchen counter and if you know me, I hate throwing anything. So, I decided to bake the Banana Walnut Bread, the recipe of which I got from The Mixer Bible: Over 300 Recipes for Your Stand Mixer Second (2nd) Edition
What I like about this recipe (if you own a stand mixer) is that it tells you what attachment to use and for how long).
Continue reading
Sans rival sounds French but it’s definitely a Filipino dessert!
It was my brother-in-law, Joel’s birthday last week and I thought…why not make him one of his all-time favourite desserts?
I dug up my recipes collected from various friends and family and found what I was looking for – the Sans Rival recipe!
I made changes to this recipe though.
Here ya go!
Eating Turon de Saba (Banana Fritters – hails its name from the Spanish ‘Turron’) brings back memories of afternoon snacks bought from the local street vendor or homecooked by my Lola (grandmother).
Since migrating to New Zealand, apart from the homesickness that still plagues me to this day, one of my biggest frustrations was the lack of Filipino food available in the country. However, with more and more Filipinos migrating to Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth, so did the abundance of my favourite Filipino foods.
The ‘advantage’ of this increase in migration was the availability of the bananas of my childhood, the Saba! It didn’t matter that they weren’t fresh (you can buy them frozen), I had my Banana Saba and that’s all that mattered!
What is your favourite reality TV cooking competition?
Total Voters: 4
Loading ...Get every new post delivered to your Inbox
Join other followers
