Baking, Baking in the Kitchen

Christmas is coming and what better way to entice my family than to baked myself a fruitcake.  As we do not take alcohol, I made a non-alcoholic fruitcake using juices.  I remember when I was young and my Grandma will line us (her precious grandchildren) up and put us to work on the dining table.  She will be busy cutting her fruitcakes into pieces and all of us will be busy wrapping it up for our relatives, neighbours and friends.  Once the job is done, she will cook us our favourite dinner dishes.  While wrapping these cakes, we will be spoiled with Milo Dinosaur, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Currypuffs and Prawn Crackers.  I have never stop following this tradition of my Grandma's....I am still making fruitcakes....yes, siree!!!

Here's a photo of my 1st fruitcake for this year...

This fruitcake only lasted 2 days in this household....haha!

The next day, I was pestered by my little Princess to bake her some focaccia bread.  It seems that this bread originated from Italy and mostly seasoned with olive oil, salt and some herbs.  Here's a photo of my focaccia bread...managed to bake 2 slabs.

And...the following day, my other half wanted some butter cake. I tend to bake butter cake every week. Sometimes, I change it a little and transforms it to a marble butter cake so that everyone in the house will not be bored with it.  I not to sure if I have posted any butter or marble butter cakes before in this blog...so, I decided to post one today.  As you know, when someone mentions butter cake, you know that the main ingredient will be butter.  I have been eating butter cakes since I was a toddler.  This recipe has been passed down from one generation to the next and I am going to pass this down to my kids.  Here's a photo of my marble butter cake.

And lastly, a buddy of mine wanted us to try this recipe - CRONUTS.  What is a cronut? Its actually a huge craze right now around the world.  It is an invention by Chef Dominique Ansel for Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City. Cronut is a combination of croissant and donut.  Here's a photo of our homemade cronuts...

That's all for this time...happy baking, everyone!!!

Chicken Pie....

Chicken pies.....yummy....this is THE pie which I will safe up my pocket money to buy when I was young.  Oooo...the creamy gravy which oozes out when I bite into the pie....glorious!  I kept pestering my Grandma to teach me how to create these babies and finally, she gave in.  I must say its hard work for a 10 year old but I wrote the recipe down and I got working.  You don't know how I felt when I bit into my very first chicken pie.....I jumped, I screamed....I could still remember that day....haha!

Every since I mastered that pie, my Grandma made sure I made it whenever its on her "To Do List" but I didn't complain coz Chicken Pie was and still is my favourite pie.  I will make sure that I do the shortcrust pastry first and place it into the fridge.  Then I will make the filling.  My Grandma will make the Puff Pastry (her own secret recipe).  When I grew older, she decided to teach me how to create  puff pastry at home and I was impressed.

Here's my version of my Grandma's Chicken Pie.....my family loves it!!!

Have a wonderful pie-day, everyone!!!