As I grow older, I realise more time really does fly by in a blink. 2019 has been quite a year for me in terms of getting myself out of my comfort zone (such as starting this blog and an Instagram account- something I have avoided for a while lol), and I really have learnt more about myself as a person throughout this past year. 🙂
As we are approaching to the end of another year, I always find time to try to get myself to reflect on things that have happened throughout the past year. And I always found a quiet walk helps with that process, especially being in one with nature. 🍁🍂🌾 So I took a stroll around the beautiful Arthur’s Seat, somewhere I used to come by regularly growing up in Edinburgh.
There were happy and sad times, as well as high and low moments in the past year. But I know that they are all treasured moments of a long journey and all played a part in making me better as a person. It is only the beginning now. ❤️
But I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been reading, liking and commenting on my posts here. 😊 Getting followers is one thing. I started this blog as a mean to get away from my daily life, so I could only ever dream of the supports I get here. (Honestly, I was elated even by the presence of one reader at the start lol! 😂)
Can’t wait to see what 2020 will bring! Hopefully more new ‘adventures’ on the horizon! 😀👍
(P.S. Also here are my Top 9 bakes according to my Instagram account! Plenty more to come in 2020 of course! 😆)
Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! 🎄❄️💫❤️❤️ It’s so nice to be back home in the holiday, isn’t it? (I certainly am, since I am posting this whilst setting up a bath lol! 🛀)
Hope you all are enjoying your holiday, and I am sorry if this post dampens the festive mood for you but I have thought long and hard before writing this… My break didn’t start off well when I found out three days ago that my family home was broken into. Losing valuables was one thing but I am just glad that no-one was hurt. However, I am upset by the fact that someone feels they have the rights to violate the place that holds so much happy memories to me. Here I am, a few days later, taking a picture of this cake at the exact same spot where it was broken into… I still feel a little uneasy around the house, but hopefully over time it will heal. ❤️ Though I am not going to let this stops me celebrating Christmas with a smile on my face! 😊
So happy with how this cake turns out ‘cause I’ve never done something like this before! The cake is just a simple vanilla sponge covered with a smooth whipped cream, and topped with flakes of chocolate. However, the iced biscuits are actually shortbreads as my family and I are not particularly fond of gingerbread, so I made a break away from the tradition lol. 😛 (A tip: Make sure to always rest the shaped biscuits in the fridge or freezer before baking. This is to prevent the butter from melting too fast during baking so that the biscuits don’t lose the shapes you probably spent some time painstakingly trying to cut out! 😂)
Can’t wait to be binge-watching Christmas TV all day tomorrow! Merry Christmas and best wishes to you all! 🎅🎄❄️💫🎉🎉🎊🎊👏👏👏
Three more days and counting! Time really does fly before you know it! 😆 And at last I am so happy that my holiday has begun!
I took this Sunday to fulfil a promise I made with a friend. Last week, I was supposed to bring her a mojito cake for a viewing party of the Strictly final, but I was down with a cold and was pretty much bed-bound for the weekend. 🤒 But never too late to make up for lost time, right? 😁 So today I brought her a mojito snow angel cake to make up for it haha! 😇 The cake was composed a lime sponge soaked with a mojito syrup and covered with a lime and mint icing with some shots of rum! 🍸 (Try not to get drunk lol) It was then finished with a white fondant and some tempered chocolate work plus a few small touches for decorations. ❤️
Christmas baking truly marks for me the beginning of the seasonal festival. There are so many things I love about Christmas, from the beautiful lights in the streets of London to a crazy time in the Winter Wonderland whilst listening to the best Christmas tunes. It’s truly the best time of the year! ❤️💚❤️💚 What are your favourite things about Christmas? 😊
Last year, I decided to make a Yule Log after seeing it done in the Great Christmas Bake Off the year before, and I was so happy with how it turned out in the end! 😁👏👏 Swiss roll was the first ever bake I learnt to make so it does bring back a sense of nostalgia to be making that back at my family home. ❤️
(P.S. A couple of days after that, I also made a Christmas croquembouche! 😆)
So I heard it was Thanksgiving this week. 😊 (Just to clarify, being British, I am normally totally unaware of it! 😂) But I just want to use this opportunity to say thank you for those of you who keep on following me on my blog and allowing me to share many of my memories and love of baking and food here! ❤️ I started this blog as a ‘getaway’ from my daily life as I was at a point where I wasn’t sure where to go in life, feeling unhappy and stressed out at my job. I never knew if I will even get a single reader, but seeing the regular comments and likes here really do make me smile.☺️ In the past month or so, I am feeling much more relaxed and happy with what I am doing at work and outside of work, and I do feel I owe it partly to the community here to make me feel more confident about myself.
For those of you who read my last posts, you may remember that I went on a city getaway trip to Canterbury last weekend. That mango Kulfi I had in Ambrette there was just so delicious, I couldn’t resist the urge of trying to make it at home after finding a recipe online. 😋
The flavours of this Kulfi are mango and pistachio. (Here is the link to the recipe I used: https://www.196flavors.com/india-mango-kulfi/) The recipe is in cups, so I did have to look up conversions and it was still very easy to follow. I couldn’t be bothered buying saffron or cardamom so I ended up throwing in about a teaspoon of the mixed spice I had in it. 😂 It was still really delicious though! (And a perfect dessert after coming back from the cinema watching Frozen 2. ⛄️❄️) I got a large batch still left in my freezer to finish, so any volunteers are welcomed! 🤣
This morning I woke up at one of the earliest times ever on a Sunday! ☀️☀️ (Normally I am completely knocked out well past noon… 😂😂) Nonetheless, this is just going to be a short post. After checking out from the inn, I went for a stroll around Westgate Gardens and Dane Jane Gardens before departing from Canterbury. I took so many photos of the beautiful fall scenery, I thought I have to share some here! 😉
And now I am back in London in my warm, cozy bed, reminiscing about all these beautiful imageries of the nature. ❤️❤️
Honestly can’t say how excited I was for this weekend! 🙌🙌 After reading so much about city getaway trips on the social media and internet, I have always wanted to do that and, earlier this week, I went on an impulse and booked a trip away from London for the weekend! Having said that, I didn’t want to go too far (and avoided flying in case I won’t make it back in time for work on Monday lol 😂.) So I ended up choosing the historic Canterbury in Kent as my destination, only a relatively short one and an half hours by train from London.
The historic Canterbury
Despite sleeping quite late last night, I set my alarm (with snoozing lol) early for this morning. Victoria Station was super busy but I managed to grab a breakfast roll from a Burger King before hopping onto the train.
Scenery from the train
The train was such a peaceful ride. Not only did I get to enjoy the countryside scenery, I also was able to get some work done during the journey and kept myself occupied. 😂👌
Looks like winter is finally in full swing…❄️❄️
The weather was not the best when I arrived with slight drizzle running throughout the lunch hours. Strangely though I wasn’t hugely bothered and continued to explore the old city.
The entrance of the iconic Canterbury Cathedral. I would have gone in if it wasn’t for its steep entry fee… 😓💸💸In front of the Canterbury Cathedral Amazing metallic painting of London in the Castle Fine Art ❤️❤️The Old City
The steep entry fee of Canterbury Cathedral put me off from going inside…😥😥 So instead I had a wander inside Castle Fine Art nearby, then Old City before heading off for lunch.
The rain got heavier 🌧🌧 as I was heading to the restaurant, so I almost sprinted my way there. I did some research and chose to go to The Ambrette Canterbury, an Indian fusion restaurant. And I must say I was not disappointed, in fact I was slightly taken aback by how good it was! 🤤🤤 (I am not exaggerating but it is hands down the best Indian food I have ever eaten! ❤️❤️) The price is also very reasonable as well, especially given their quality! (Costed me under £24 for the entire lunch… That’s less than twice the entry fee to go inside Canterbury Cathedral haha. 😂😂)
Complimentary appetiser: Chickpea and Venison Dumplings Starter: Saffron infused chicken thigh and liver kebab with coriander chutney, mango and saladMain: British pork belly with with Dauphinoise potato, crackling, seasonal vegetables and Biryani rice with tomato & ginger sauceDessert: Mango Kulfi with flaked coconut, poppy seeds and almonds
I have never heard of Kulfi until today! (For those of you who don’t either it is an Indian ice cream.) But it was so delicious, I want to go home and make this myself! ❤️❤️ (Watch this space haha 😉) Not only were the dishes presented beautifully, but they are wildly flavoured with spices! If you are a lover for spices, you will definitely love this place as much as I did! 🤤🤤
The Old City in the evening Beautiful!The Christmas MarketAmazing Christmas lights! ❤️❤️
After a brief rest in the inn (which is a convenient spot within the Old City), I went for another walk in the evening to catch the beautiful, bright Christmas lights under the night sky. ❄️❄️❄️ The streets and market were busy with brilliant music playing in the background. Since I moved to London, watching Christmas lights and going to Christmas market have become a tradition of mine every year to welcome the full swing of the winter season, so this year I am simply starting somewhere else! 😉 Christmas can’t come any sooner! ☃️🎄⭐️ (And I brought a slice of Yule Log back to my hotel room after dinner! 😋❤️)
As a baker, I always like to challenge myself with new styles of baking and learn new techniques. One day I decided to pick up Filo pastry. It is a pastry known (quite notoriously 😬) for its difficulty and effort… and indeed it kills my arms every time making it with the endless amount of rolling. 😵😵 (It’s one of those thing that you might as well just buy in the shop isn’t it? 😂😂) I heard you can making the rolling process easier with a pasta machine, but it is a tad too expensive for me to get my hands on…💸💸 (Plus I have no intentions of making fresh pasta any time soon lol.) However, whether homemade or shop-bought, this thin, crisp pastry is definitely one for many delicious recipes. 😋❤️
Spinach and Cream Cheese Filo ParcelsJapanese-inspired California Filo Tarts
I adapted my Filo pastry recipe from Paul Hollywood’s Spanakopita recipe on BBC food (See link here👉 https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spanakopita_26903) Why don’t you also give it a try? 😉 Let me know what ideas you may have with Filo pastry in the comments!
A very big LATE Happy Halloween to everyone here! 👻🎃🕷😂😛😁 (I was absolutely swamped by work this past week, but you are now probably getting very sick of hearing this by now lol!) I hope that you had a chance to celebrate this fun festival. From all those scary costumes to sickly parties, there are many things I enjoy about Halloween, but one of my favourite things, of course, is doing some ‘scary’ baking for it. I didn’t manage to find time to do that this year though, but I thought I will share my Halloween bakes from last year. 😉
These Halloween 🎃👻 coconut biscuits are vegan and made using dairy-free margarine. I adapted a recipe from the allrecipes UK website for the biscuits. (This is the link👉 http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/33572/vegan-coconut-biscuits.aspx) The icing is made from icing sugar mixed with coconut milk and food colouring. It’s a very straightforward recipe that I was able to whip up before a Halloween night out, and it was fun to able to enjoy these snacks (with some booze of course haha!) before hitting the ‘haunted’ city. 🌃
Though baking wasn’t on the card this year, I still got to celebrate the festival last night attending a ‘Twisted Circus’ event in Clapham. Didn’t manage to drink much this time, as the price tags were super high! 😅 But it was still a good night out! 😉
Tango's Baking 