Chinese New Year 2012 – Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year is round the corner again! It just seemed like yesterday that I celebrated Christmas and New Year… Don’t you think so?

This year I’m making pineapple tarts again. I did not try making the jam from scratch – couldn’t find the time to do so and I was worried that I’d fail in the making of the jam. So I ended up buying ready-made jam. /:

I made a trial batch last weekend – the tarts tasted really sweet on the first day, however, they don’t taste as sweet the next day. I can’t figure out why is that so but oh well, I’m glad they turned out delicious in the end! Can’t stop popping them into my mouth… (looks at waist line with a worried face)

Anyway, why a trial batch? Well, I played around with the second most important ingredient in the making of pineapple tarts (the first being the pineapple jam) – the butter.

The three competing butters!

Last year I tried between Anchor butter and SCS butter. SCS butter won hands-down. So, I read up more about butter this year and decided to conduct a trial again – with SCS butter (which was what I used last year), Elle et Vire butter and Lurpark butter. I bought them from SunLik.

AmsterDAM!

De Gooyer Windmill

I’ve been procrastinating… So I’m finally back with our next destination in Europe: Amsterdam! Leaving Berlin behind, we took a train to Amsterdam, a city of bicycles and bridges! Do you know how the name of Amsterdam came about? It’s because a dam was built in the river named Amstel – hence Amsterdam!

The largest city and the capital of Netherlands, there are many things to see in Amsterdam, including numerous museums, Anne Frank house and the ever-famous red light district, just to name a few.

Chocolate Brownies

This recipe was first posted in 2009, this is a repost with better (?) photo and improved recipe.

The 2009 version.

I made a batch of brownies last weekend to participate in the Bake Along hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, and realised that I’ve actually posted about this recipe before back in 2009 (and it’s already 2012 now!)

It’s cliché to start off by saying, “how time flies”… but I still have to say… time really flies! I started this blog in 2008, when I was still a learning baker with a 3-Megapixels digital camera. Fast forward to 2012, I am now still a learning baker, but now armed with a DSLR and a trusty tripod, a birthday present from X. (: I know my food photography skills still have a long way to go – but I think the quality of the photos are slightly better than before… right??