I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.) – Sylvia Plath
Tag: baking
new updates (recipe index + newsletter) // vanilla praline tartlets
Finally the most torturous 365 days in recent history can be referred to in past tense and humanity has stepped into what one can only anticipate to be a more smooth sailing chapter. In short, happy new year! In conjunction with the new year and the accompanying notion of a fresh, clean start to old […]
in pursuit of style // apple band tart
The re-questioning of personal style seems to be an annual affair at this point. It’s hard to definitively say if the broadly sombre atmosphere of 2020 and the somewhat shaky prospects of the upcoming year play a substantial role in this shift, but my stylistic preferences are becoming increasingly monochromatic and very much less sunlight […]
arcane // red wine poached pear tarte tartin
I watched the hazy morning glow streaming in through the windows give way to tiled rectangular shadows on the wall like the black and white keys of the piano. I counted the seconds as I watched them slowly and gradually grow fainter. …seven, six, five, four, three, two, one… and they were gone.
pierced hearts // apple rose tartlets
Occasionally there are moments where my eyes land upon an image so strikingly beautiful that it feels like its beauty is collectively crystallised into a long, slender icicle, gliding through the air seamlessly, like an arrow through the heart.
midnight musings (as always) // dark chocolate & cassis brownie
What makes night within us may leave stars. – Victor Hugo As I backspace furiously on abandoned half-written sentences from prior fleeting strokes of inspiration, filling the newly bleached white spaces with matte black text one character at a time at 1.22 AM on a Tuesday morning, my first immediate thought is that I needed […]
listening to lofi // baileys caramel cheesecake
Music at midnight, being bundled up in an oversized blanket, a slice of sweetness, the motion of a fork gliding through, the sugary warmth of spiced caramel – a perfect moment in time.
smokescreens // spinach and bacon quiche
Lately I’ve been learning that many things are not what they seem to be when you look a little closer. I knew clouds cast shadows, but I should have known the shade conceals dirt and ugly truths. We shape our own perceptions of reality by selectively taking in that which bolsters the ego and protects […]
fresh // lime, mint, white chocolate & blueberry tart
I suppose I imagined a garden blanketed in the most luscious green, the kind that glimmers in the sunset-tinted evening light as a sporadic breeze brushes gently over the leaves, causing them to give ever so slightly. Over the layer of greenery the sky infinitely stretches on and on without an end in sight, the […]
hazy // strawberry lemon brownie cake
Mentally I’ve written and re-written the introduction to this post a thousand times. Inspiration has never felt so desperately out of reach. It’s like curling your fingers into a fist in the air and hoping to capture a butterfly – in a room where there’s none. The cure can only be fresh air and freedom, […]
all is bright and all is gold // strawberry white chocolate passionfruit mousse cakes
There comes a string of seconds during the day when the still transparent air transforms into a fog of shimmering gold. The moments are fleeting, evanescent. If only you could twirl in circles on tiptoes with an opened glass jar held in a hand outstretched, fill it to the brim with the twinkling light and […]
holiday greetings // first ever gingerbread house
Happy holidays! I know it’s a few days past Christmas but I wanted to share my first ever gingerbread house project because I’d like to think that it was a major success, and also is there really ever an inappropriate time for Christmas content? Shout out to Pinterest for the ingenious window hack – gelatin […]
blaze // carrot cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting
She wore a dress that was dipped in the colors of a bonfire – streaks of orangey-yellow melting into a gold so bright it looked white. The air around her was a shimmering pale gold, and her dress twinkled in the late afternoon light with every soundless step she took. She walked head down on […]
in another world // apple rose custard tart
I imagined a world in gradients of pink. A dusty rose, a powdery faded pink, sweet pastel, an electric fuchsia bordering on cherry. I imagined them all together, like roses planted side by side in a flower bed.
transient fairytale // sweet potato coconut mont blanc
For the longest time ever I visualized the epitome of truly living to be hopping on a flight to an unexplored destination when the urge to go somewhere struck. Definitely somewhere with stunning blue waters running parallel to the whitest softest sand. Someplace where the locals spoke a different language, or at least speak a […]
a quintessential summer’s day // blueberry passionfruit cream cheese tartlets
Sun rays on bare skin. Cloudless cerulean skies. Crickets punctuating the muggy summer air with their unwavering high pitched cries. Afternoons so blindingly bright that everywhere you look is an overexposed picture. Flushed cheeks, floaty cotton dresses, long hair swept up in ponytails. Leaves a verdant green. An occasional breeze whooshes by. Sighs of relief. […]
the simple things // browned butter chocolate chunk cookies
The popularity of the simple chocolate chip cookie baffles me sometimes. From a baker’s standpoint they aren’t the most exciting things to make, but they elicit such dramatic reactions in the people I gift them to in the best possible way.
dream world // cherry almond tartlets
To be embraced by the warm aroma of caramel and butter and the music that is beautiful, reposeful silence – that’s my happy place, my dream world, the dimension in which my consciousness resides that is hazily tethered to reality solely by a strand of silken thread. It’s where I go to disconnect, this crystal […]
labyrinthine, enihtnirybal // no-bake strawberry cheesecake
There was a time when the overzealous student I was thought that the more complex the vocabulary and more convoluted the sentence structure I could use to articulate my ideas, the more intelligent I would seem. Then there was a time when I admired the clarity in my peers’ simplicity of speech. And then there […]
just dance in the damn downpour // cassis ombré mousse cake
Some days I lapse into moments where there’s a thunderstorm imprisoned in my mind and lightning bolts surging through my veins. I can’t sense anything above the chaos of dark thoughts churning and seething – not the sound of a Steinway piano played by angels’ fingertips or the perfume of a vaseful of ivory gardenias. […]
burn with the fury of a wildfire // strawberry praline mille-feuille
The first year of elementary school during an English class, my teacher posed us students a question that went something along the lines of, “Which is most important in discerning a person’s true feelings when he speaks – his body language, his words, or his tone of voice?” Majority of the class picked ‘body language’. […]
filtered moonlight, shadowed sunlight // chocolate fondant three ways
Products of 4 am writing endeavours scarcely endure, but due to that evening grande-sized latte here I am anyways, seated typing at my coffee table while listening to the abnormally loud whir of my heater and the sporadic whoosh of a vehicle speeding by on an empty road, wondering if those drivers noticed the warm […]
bring back summer // english scones
I saw a jumble of thoughts unravel into half-finished sentences in my head then suffocated the mental delete button before they could even materialize into black spots of digital data juxtaposed against the bright white of the wordpress editor. “Going back to basics…”, “I’ve not updated this blog in 5 months but hey how’s it […]
summer again // white chocolate cheese terrine
It’s not yet officially summer but it sure feels like it already – and I’m utterly living for it.
brownie but better // dark chocolate cherry cake
Oddly, I felt like typing up a rather lengthy side story a few hours ago but now I would rather just talk about this cake, which would take just a moment really because there are not many words needed.
flowers make everything look better // vanilla kiwi tarts
So as you can tell from the very innovative title, today’s post is going to be all about waxing lyrical about the beauty of edible flowers and how they elevate a rather plain appearance to something that looks a thousand times more gorgeous.
information overload // matcha mixed berries muffins
Looking back, I’ve always favoured a minimalist approach to pictures, both mine and others’. Usually that entails having an unadorned white background and containing very few elements aside from the ones in focus. I guess it’s because these pictures stand out in a society so cluttered with information that it would reach its breaking point […]
favorites // caramel mousse banana cake with salted caramel espresso sauce
There are some things that are just unwaveringly delicious – the combination of coffee and caramel, caramel and banana… this banana bread recipe specifically.
