Beaten & Baked

Its been quite a while since I last posted something, been enjoying my one month holiday overseas and visiting my family. Now that I’m back, hopefully energized, I’ll be back to baking more things in no time. =D

Melbourne mornings in winter have never been pleasant, it gets cold quickly even with the sun shining at 9am (I have been spending my nights watching the Tour de France, mind you) and I need something warm and breakfasty besides bread from the freezer spread with kaya (a coconut egg jam), peanut butter or Nutella. Luckily, there are muffins to the rescue!

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What’s creamy, tangy and smooth with a crunchy base? A Cheesecake of course! Made with a lovely cream cheese from the local cheese shop in Victoria Market (Curds and Whey).

I used to make a white chocolate cheesecake which had so much white chocolate that I refused to eat it, much to the delight of my brothers. So I decided to look around for another cheesecake recipe which was not too sweet yet tangy for my taste buds (I don’t like freeze cheesecakes, so that’s out of the question). That was when my mum stumbled upon a Stephanie Alexander recipe for baked cheesecake on one of those weekend magazines that came along with the newspapers a long time ago.

The recipe looked tedious, enough to put me off as a novice baker attempting such a recipe. But I decided to go ahead with it as the final product looked good in the photos. When I made it the first time, I’ve never heard of using a water bath, and I was often scared of burning myself (burned myself across 2 fingers before). So pouring freshly boiled water into a baking tray with the cheesecake in an oven wasn’t exactly my idea of fun… almost burned myself again.

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Hello all! I know I’ve disappeared from this blog for the past three weeks, mainly due to being busy with assignments and presentations. =A= I also had my birthday (yes, another May baby) so I was busy for last weekend as well =P. So apologies for that~

I’m almost done with my assignments of the semester (which are all due this coming week as well OTL) and will be back to baking a few things before the exam period.

Anyway…

Look forward to a delightful cheesecake recipe this coming week which I highly recommend making, its easy to make and has not failed once! XD

(Please forgive me for all the emoticon abuse)

I’ve finally completed my 3000 word essay on Emotional Intelligence last Thursday and decided to make chocolate chip cookies as a reward. I found this recipe watching a youtube video featuring Nigella Lawson making these chocolate chip morsels, stuffed with 500 grams (2 packets) of chocolate chips. Re-watching the video and writing down the recipe, I baked them one night later.

When I first watched the video, 500 grams of chocolate chips!? Nigella, you must be mad! However, she says that although its excessive, no one can put a price on alleviating human suffering through a chocolate chip cookie which I agree wholeheartedly. The whole recipe was simple and straight forward, except for the 500 grams of chocolate chips, which was overkill even for me as a chocolate lover or maybe I’m just not hardcore enough =P.

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I rarely visit the State Library, but now I have reason to after eating at Mr Tulk. Basically, Augustus Tulk was the first head librarian of the state library and the cafe was named in honour of him. Located in the library, the décor vibrates the bookish feel of a library and customers can sit around on well spaced tables, reading their favourite book and sipping tea.

Basically, I went there on Saturday to have lunch with my family and this is mainly a picture post on the food and drinks we had.

Baked eggs with a hit of chilli and chorizo, dipping bits of bread into gooey egg yolk and spicy capsicum sauce. There was spinach on the bottom of the bowl as well, and seeing some green in the sea of read balanced the colours of the dish.

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