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cheesecake swirled brownies

Brownies are all the rage on the cooking/recipe related websites and blogs, due to its versatility and ease in the making. But cheesecake swirled brownies seem to have caught on lately, and who am I to deny the fad once in awhile? And really, cheese plus brownies… who am I to resist?!

Over one of the weekends, my parents decided to take a trip back to Penang to visit my grandparents and family.…

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pandan kaya banana swiss roll

pandan kaya banana swiss roll

Swiss rolls have always fascinated me. Even as a kid, I loved cakes and chocolates and all things sweet, but swiss rolls in particular caught my eye. To me, a cake was eaten in slices, firm and crumbly as you poke in to it. So how in the world did one manage to get a cake to roll up so beautifully?

As I grew older and understood more, I also finally got to know a whole new world that was sponge…

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recyclables: evaporated milk sponge cake

recyclables: evaporated milk sponge cake

The start of a new series, the Recyclables! I call it such because I tend to cook meals, and end up having leftovers that I have no idea what to do with. With the inner baker in me, it really shouldn’t be surprise that more often then not, I end up using them in some form of baking or other. Take for example, this evaporated milk cake.

Over the weekend I made carbonara for dinner for two, but…

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syrup bites

Sometimes the whim to start baking will hit quite suddenly, out of nowhere, and extremely unexpected. While I usually have ingredients on hand, sometimes I really will only have the most basic of ingredients around, and its difficult to make something when you’re lacking this ingredient or that.

This syrup bites are extremely easy to make though, and use the mostbasic of ingredients. In fact,…

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easy butter raisin muffins

easy butter raisin muffins

Butter cakes are quite easily the easiest but most versatile cakes one could bake, especially in a pinch. I was bored one Friday evening, and since I usually baked something to bring along to my Saturday morning classes (its my effort to beat Saturday morning blues for me and my friends), I was rifling through my refrigerator only to realize I had a block of butter… and not much else.

As simple…

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pork rice dumplings | bak zhang

pork rice dumplings | bak zhang

Happy Dragon Boat Festival everyone! It’s one of the many traditional chinese celebrations that come along with a form of food, and the food this time is the ever famous, well known rice dumplings. Over the years, many different types of dumplings have evolved from tradition, and I love the nyonya ‘zhang’ my grandmother makes. Because of age though, she rarely makes them, as well as the alkaline…

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3 ingredient japanese cheesecake

3 ingredient japanese cheesecake

Baking is tedious work, so sometimes I wonder why I find such joy in it. It’s a laborious process of measuring, chopping, shaving, sifting, whisking and double-boiling, but the results.. oh so worth it. Sometimes though, certain recipe’s only need a pinch of this or a teaspoon of that, and I end up with a lot of leftovers I have no idea what to do with.

The same thing happened over the weekend,…

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kuih bakar | baked pandan custard

kuih bakar | baked pandan custard

My love for pandan is never ending. This probably… actually, it is mostly from my grandmother’s influence really. Growing up with a grandmother of baba nyonya descent, pandan is heavily featured in most of her cooking, dessert and dishes alike. Pandan is used to give fragrance to curries, color to kuihs, taste to food, in everything! it’s used everywhere, and I eventually ended up associating…

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japanese souffle cheesecake

Cheesecakes are without a doubt everyone’s favorite, but the dense, full creamed types can be a little too much sometimes, especially after you’ve had a heavy dinner. I for one, would never be able to devour another slice of cream cheese cake, not after I’ve had a full 7 course dinner. As much as I love my cakes, being that full just puts me off any food in general.

But cheesecakes can also be…

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Ahhh I was excited to eat this pretty lunch today. Whole wheat pasta with sweet corn, steamed broccoli, grape tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and black pepper. 

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pandan kaya cake

Let me reiterate, just how much I love pandan. It’s been called the ‘Asian vanilla’ by many, and I cannot agree more. Between actual vanilla pods and pandan, I think I’d pick the green one… and plus point, it’s much cheaper too!

One of those weekends after our grocery stockpile, I realize that my mom had bought a whole bag of pandan leaves, which consisted of multiple bunches! While I love…

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honey carrot cake

A carrot cake is a serving of vegetables. I’d like that to be true, but sadly cake is still cake, one of the most unhealthiest things around next to fast food. When you bake at home like I do though, you can at least try and negate some of that unhealthy ingredients away, if not all of them.

For one, I like to use natural ingredients in my cake. Which usually calls for banana, applesauce, agave…

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These workouts use combinations of strength and cardio to really make the most of your time! They all work on the idea of HIIT workouts (High Intensity Interval Training) by using shorter periods of more intense cardio with longer periods of medium intensity. This helps get your heart rate up and keep it up! If the weather’s nice you can even go outside and soak up some sun while getting your workout in! (If it’s rainy I love to put on my favorite show on Netflix and do these right from home). You can add these into your existing cardio plan (they’re great for cross training!) or cycle through them for a weekly total body plan!

For more at home workout plans go here! :)

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Lemon Chiffon Cake

Lemon goodness! Somehow, lemon works in any form of baked goods. Really! They make taste everything taste so fragrant, with a tangy aftertaste that lingers and makes you crave for more and more.

I was feeling itchy fingers one evening, and wanted to use up some butter in my fridge. Somehow I ended up making a lemon chiffon cake… which didn’t need a single block of butter at all.

In my defense!…

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Baked Egg Cake

The earliest cake I have in my childhood memory isn’t my favourite banana cake, nor is it the ever famous, super commercialized red velvet. It is a simple one, with the bare minimum amount of ingredients and no fussy tastes. It’s a old fashioned steamed egg cake, or I know it better as 鸡蛋糕.

I still remember my grandmother, with no electric mixer nor fancy cake making utensils, would be crouched…

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pumpkin 'tortoise' kueh

pumpkin ‘tortoise’ kueh

You know those little tortoise shell looking dessert/snacks you can buy at typical nyonya stalls? Yeah, I never had to buy them when I was younger. Actually, scratch that, I never had to buy any sort of kueh’s when I was younger, simply because my grandmother could make them.

  My grandmother could literally make anything. It got to a point where if there was a dish my brother and I liked in a…