Cheat Eat

Cake Fraud?

Can a Black Forest cake be called a Black Forest if it is not filled with cherries?

It was the Father's 57th birthday. Since nobody wanted to eat a cake baked by me, not even me, we bought a Black Forest cake from this bakery. We had bought other cakes from them in the past. The Mother liked that their cakes are light and airy in texture and not overly sweet in taste. She also preferred the simple and traditional cake design compared to the more outlandish ones of other bakeries.

Imagine our surprise came cake eating time.  On first bite, everything seemed as per normal.
Chocolaty sponge cake, check.
Light whipped cream, check.
Chocolate shavings, check.
Sour cherries filling ... where's the cherries?

The Black Forest cake was filled with blueberries. In our many years of eating Black Forest cakes, we have never encountered a cake not filled with cherries until this one. I was particularly disappointed as sour cherries were my favourite. The original German name, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte literally translates to Black Forest Cherry Cake. If the cake had other fillings, to call it a Black Forest would be, in my opinion, rather misleading.   

On a cakes cake related note,  I can barely fit into my skinny jeans so I am officially on diet ... right after I finish eating this last piece of blueberries filled Black Forest cake.

On a non-cake related note, check out what the Father bought himself for his birthday:

Happy Birthday To Me And You Part 2

I don't know how the tradition came about but on the birthday of all mankind 人日, it is customary to eat a stew made from seven kinds of vegetable. Not that I hate vegetable but I always thought we should eat better when it is everybody's birthday. It seems different region uses different combination of vegetables with various auspicious meanings. According to the mother who is not too particular, as long as there are seven types of veg, we are good to go.

In Singapore, the markets sell prepacked ones. The packet we bought contains kale, spinach, leek, lettuce, choy sum, celery and one vegetable that I cannot identify. We did not make a stew, opting to stir fry the whole lot with some garlic. For some strange reason, all the vegetables tasted the same.

Happy Birthday To Me And You Part 1

Today is my birthday! No, I am not telling you how old I am. Let's just put it that I am not young. 

Today is also the 7th day of the lunar new year known as the day of humans 人日. Chinese mythology has it that the Goddess Nu Wa 女娲 who made heaven and earth created humans from clay in her own likeness on the 7th day making this day the birthday of all mankind. So it is a happy birthday to everyone too. Now, onto what I ate for this doubly special day,

Before we discovered Black Forest gateau, it is traditional for the Chinese to eat noodles on their birthday as the long strands of noodles signify longevity. For the Southerners, birthday noodles are usually mee sua 面线, thin wheat noodles that is cooked with soup or the yee fu noodles 伊府面, egg noodles which is fried.

With the almost non stop feasting since Chinese New Year's eve, my stomach, thighs and butt just cannot handle a rich cream cake, so the mother went retro and made me a bowl of mee sua in sugar syrup with 2 hard boiled eggs for lunch, a refreshing change from the high protein, high fat, high sugar, high everything New Year food. I finished the whole bowl despite the fact that I was never a big fan of mee sua. LL had the egg yolks so he was happy too.

The Bakaholic And IMBB 11 - Beans

Hello, my name is ST and I am a bakaholic. I have been baking almost every night and in the day time I am reading my cook books and surfing the internet for recipes. For the past two weeks every slice of bread and piece of cake my family ate has been home made. They either love me a lot or I am getting quite good at this baking thingy. I think it is the first reason. By the way, the ugly looking bread in the photograph is my first loaf EVER.   

I am so obsessed with baking I have ignored other things like friends, dog, shopping and most importantly, IMBB 11 - Beans hosted by Cathy of My Little Kitchen!!! So while I go kick myself for missing that, here's the round up. 72 entries and I am not one of them. Excuse me while I go kick myself again.

My New Love

This blog has been a tad neglected this week as I have a new love in my life, my prince KitchenAid stand mixer in shiny majestic yellow. Be expecting many posts on baking and even more of me whinging about gaining weight after eating all the goodies.   

Best Wishes For 2005

I had plans for a grand New Year's eve dinner party but it just did not seem right for us to be sipping champagne while victims of the tsunami did not even have clean drinking water. So in the end, I opted for simple homey food and donated the savings to the Red Cross.

A belated happy new year to everyone. May 2005 bring you all joy, health and lots of good food. Count your blessings and remember the less fortunate in this time of need. Donate or help as much as one can. After all, to give is happiness.

Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays

Happy Wedding

On the 16th of December 2004, one of my oldest friend, W got married. Weddings are stressful business. Both W and her husband lost so much weight they deserve to eat a cake each.

No, I did not make this wedding cake. Hopefully one day when I am good enough, I will bake one but not this time round.

All I Want For Christmas

I love Christmas, crass commercialism and all because I get to make up a whimsical wish list like this. Friends and relatives who are reading, these are the things I want for Christmas. See how considerate I am giving you ample time and providing the links so that you  will know where to purchase them.

Food, Food And More Food

What a weekend. With Deepavali, my parent's wedding anniversary and Hari Raya Puasa all within a day or two of each other, it has been an almost endless feasting of seafood, red meat, deep fried food and curries made with coconut milk. These are just the main meals, I am not even counting those chocolate cakes, egg rolls and other irresistible pastries that we are munching on the rest of the times. Even the dog participated in the fats and cholesterol binge by devouring a couple of marrow bones and roast chicken.

Organizing the recipes and photographs will take a day or two. Meanwhile, here are some Indonesian dishes that Yulia had cooked for Hari Raya Puasa: (clockwise from right) Opor Nangka which is a curry using unripe jackfruit, Lepet which is glutinous rice with grated coconut wrapped in coconut leaves and Rendang Daging, a spiced mutton stir fry.