Crumbly and Chewy - Craneberry bites

Even though I have not baked anything this week, I had the pleasure of savouring these little mouth-size craneberry bites, all thanks to my baking friend Stephanie =]

As you can see, the cookies were very nicely cut out, something I dread doing when it comes to making cookies. Cookies certainly are easy to bake as compared to other baked goods. But when it comes to shaping them, it can be a headache sometimes, especially when the dough is too soft to handle.

In this sunny island where I reside in, it is summer all year round and the daily temperature hovers between 23 to 32 degrees C. The solution? Repeat the chilling process of the cookie dough each time shapes are cut out and the scraps are gathered.

In total, there were not one, not two, but three different lovely cookie shapes - stars, bears (look like bears to me) and flowers.   

A quick bite into these fascinating treats will reveal an unmistakenable crumbly yet chewy texture. Hmmm.... crumbly and chewy at the same time? Yes, these cookies are chewy too. Chewy simple because of the dried craneberry, offering a contrast in texture and a breakaway from the monotony of the buttery fragrance.   

The cookies did not have a chance to lie around for long. Before I knew it, the cookie jar was empty. My younger brother sure hows to appreciate his cookies.



Once again, thank you Stephanie, for these wonderful treats!

I will be making my mooncakes over the weekends. Stay tuned for updates on them....

Bakes from A New Friend - Muffins

Remember I mentioned a blog visitor of mine who emailed me in my french apple tart post? My new found friend, Stephanie, kindly passed me some homemade muffins the day before. The muffins were very nicely wrapped up in see-through plastic wrappers sealed with thin golden foil strips. I was touched by her efforts and sincerity. In return, I passed her some banana chocolate cakes I have made that day, which however, was contained in a non-fancy plastic food saver obtained from SKP.

Naturally, the muffins became my choice of breakfast the next day. In case you are wondering, the muffins I received are Chocolate Matcha and Vanilla Cranberry. These tiny cakelets are lovely - soft,  fluffy and slightly moist, not a tad oily and with the right level of sweetness. The vanilla cranberry muffins had a nice buttery aroma and the cranberries were juicy to the bite, making me wonder if they were dried fruits or the real McCoy. I love how the matcha and chocolate flavours combined to give a grassy, rich bodied cocoa taste. This unique combo definitely hit the right notes for me.

Stephanie, if you should start blogging about your bakes, these cakey muffins definitely deserved to be featured at the earliest opportunity. Thank you for these mouth-watering treats, my friend =]

The Highly Anticipated Food Bloggers' Meetup - My Very 1st

Sunday, 8th August 2010 is a very special day for me. Nope, it isn't National Day Eve (Singapore's National Day falls on the 9th of August, marking our anniversary of independance). It is the day I met up with like-minded bloggers from all walks of life holding a passion for the culinary arts, be it baking or cooking.

The meeting took place at Edith's lovely and spacious home. It was really kind of her to welcome us with an open heart, considering that some of us are meeting her for the first time in person. All along, I got to know about these fellow bloggers through their blogs. Through reading their blog posts and exchanging comments, I learnt about little tidbits regarding their family, profession and other interesting details about their daily life. However, that was only the blogging persona. It is hard to imagine the looks of the talents behind these food blogs.  

Among the fellow bloggers, I got to know Youfei and Pei-Lin the earliest. Back then, I was still a noob at baking and blogging and that was before I went on my year-long hiatus (I'm still noobish in some aspects, for instance bread making, lol). Slowly, I discovered more lovely blogs on the bloggosphere by other creative food directors whom I met at Edith's place for the very first time.  

Fellow talented bloggers and creative directors at the meetup:

Pei-Lin from Dodol & Mochi

Jane from Passionate about Baking

Grace from Kitchen Corner

Edith from Precious Moments

Josephine from Sugar and Everything Nice

Bee Bee from Honey Bee Sweets

Aimei from Baking Cottage

Youfei from Loving Baking

Jess from Bakericious

Shirley from Kokken 69

Yan Ee from Sweeter Side of Life

The entire meetup lasted for 6 whooping hours! At 12 noon, the bloggers started flowing in. When everyone arrived, it was time for a sumptuous buffet spread of home prepared food seasoned with lots of effort and spiced with tender loving care. I could swear that the buffet spread is one of the best that I have eaten in my entire life. Sorry to the five-star hotels and reknowned restaurants. Most of them would not even come close to the standard of food served at the meetup. I was grinning from ear to ear and could hear my mind exclaiming with delight when I helped myself to the food.

Snap! Snap! Photo-taking time... Typical of us food bloggers, lol.  First thing we did was dish out our cameras to take pictures. No pictures, no blogging...

Edith's open concept kitchen. Buffet time!

Mee Rebus prepared by Shirley. Thick and flavourful gravy.

Bandung drink prepared by Edith. Great beverage to go along with all the mouth-watering food.

Bakewell tarts prepared by Grace. Soft-cakey yet crumbly. 

Sandwiches prepared by Yan Ee with nice eggy filling which I enjoyed.

Sweet and savoury porkfloss seaweed swiss rolls. I never had such swiss rolls. Really special. Kind of reminds me of sushi.

Wonderful pork and beef burgers prepared by Grace. The buns were homemade too. Nice and soft. This burger beats all the fast food burgers hands down anytime!

Chicken curry prepared by Josephine. I like the thick consistency of the gravvy. Not overly spicy. Sedap =]

Wholemeal cookies by Yan Ee. Full of nutty goodness. 

Chocolate truffles by me..

Chocolate cookies with fleur de sel. I like the sandy crumbly texture of the cookies. Very different from the chocolate cookies I had so far.

Lavendar and plain shortbread cookies by Aimei. Cute packaging obtained from Daiso.

Olive oil spiced assorted nuts by Jane. I liked the aroma of herbs and spices here, fragrant but not overwhelming. Each blogger was given a tub to bring home.

Durian tarts by Pei-Lin. My favourite flavour of all time. I took back some tarts for my friends to try the next day. Everyone unanimously replied it was really good!

We forgot to take group pictures after eating and chatting. Jess helping herself to the mee rebus and Edith busy snapping away..

The lovely ladies: Josphine, Jess, Bee Bee, Edith (concealed) Aimei and Yan Ee (concealed)

I missed out some pictures on the food. Bee Bee brought along Mang Guang Kueh (Similar to Soon Kueh). The skin was soft and chewy, not hard and dry even though it was cold.

Some of my friends who knew that I going to the meetup jokingly asked if I could bring them along for a good feasting. They would have been in for a superb treat had they attended the meetup with me, lol.