If ever there was an overdue fine imposed for blogging, I would have lost my entire life savings by now. But, thank goodness no such rule was ever imposed, not now, and I hope, not ever.
However, that still doesn't give me an excuse to not to post as frequently. There were many changes and many still on-going, the thought of trying to juggle many things at once proved even more difficult and challenging than I thought. Since when has life has been a bed of roses? Sure enough there were good times, but it is also the bad times that made the good times seem even better. No?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in some dire situation now nor am I facing bankruptcy. Just my two cents worth after busying around in a entirely different way. And as with all life matters and activities, it's a love-hate relationship.
Anyhow, I havent been able to bake for leisure and for fun for sometime now, but I have definitely some backlogs that I've yet to clear. A colleague actually asked if she could come over to my place to bake a cheesecake for her boyfriend's birthday. Naturally I'd be more than happy to agree. Not being a cheesecake expert, she actually thoughtfully researched and e-mailed me 2 recipes she carefully selected out of the thousands.
So I decided to bake both at home, let her taste test and see which made her jump for excitement.
First up! Chocolate marbled cheesecake. I never really had any affinity with beautiful, jaw dropping marble swirls and this was my *ah hem* lousy attempt in doing so. This cheesecake is pretty dense and rich with a distinct sour tang from the sour cream. The recipe actually called for creme fraiche but I decided it wasn't cost effective,hence I replaced it for sour cream.
Next up! A rich, dense chocolatey chocolate cheese cake. The base was made with digestive biscuits with sugar and cocoa powder. The 100% chocolate cheesecake was a tad too rich for my liking and in my opinion would have scored a better rating if the base was a normal fragrant digestive biscuit base. Despite the full chocolate cheesecake, it was surprisingly better than the marbled cheesecake.
So, we agreed that if you marry the both, base from number one plus cheese part from number 2, you'd get a winner. Of course we felt the whole chocolate thing was a tad too dull and plain and we played around with ideas such as, to add some ferrero rocher into it etc.
And obviously, I haven't got to that part. I'm still clinging on to this thought though and hoping that it would materialise one day. =p
Have you ever had friends who known you for a lifetime and have seen your recent craze in this mad indulgence in baking and all that photos you posted on the blog, BUT, have never ever seen or tried your yummy bakes ever?
It's funny how I'm frequently caught in such awkward situations. Friends whom I've known for life have yet to taste a single cake/cookies/anything-i-have-baked.
Deciding that it was too much for her to bear, and to show her unwavering, loving support she requested me to bake a black forest cake for her. And to be honest, I've never quite got around to baking a black forest cake. Although, it's kinda like THE birthday cake most of us used to get during our birthdays.
Nonetheless, I was happy to have embarked on this maiden attempt and have found this magical kirsch gel thingy that is packed with such strong alcohol content. It wasn't as difficult as I imagined and the chocolate curls really did save my life for the botched sides. They certainly are an easy way out for beautifying a cake =p
More details on the recipes soon! For now, I've gotta run!
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