Mango Ombré Cake

Since last year, instead of entremets, I've been making more layered cakes. It's pretty time-consuming to make entremets, and also, there's more cream in it than actual cake (I reckon the family prefers stuff that has more cake bits than cream bits), so unless I have extra time on hand, I don't think I'll be baking entremets much.

Mango Ombré Cake

Mango Coconut Loaf

Loaf cakes are one of the easiest things to bake. The most common loaf-type of cake would probably be banana cake (although it's normally called banana bread - I prefer calling it banana cake because it is not really a bread). When I chanced upon a recipe for a mango loaf cake, I was intrigued because I have yet to encounter a fruit-type loaf recipe which was not banana-based.

Mango Coconut Loaf

Mango Mousse Cake

My fave social media platform has got to be Instagram. While I'm still on Facebook and Twitter, I'm not really active on both except for using them as means to keep myself updated on the latest gossip vine. Instagram on the other hand, is different. People are visual creatures by nature, the overused phrase "a picture speaks more than a thousand words" is certainly true here. I love browsing Instagram, and I'm almost kinda an Instagram addict. When I'm bored, I reach for my phone to check on my Instagram feed most of the time.

There's so many talented photographers out there who have really beautiful Instagram feeds with their pictures of food, coffee, scenery, fashion etc. I've found that the foodies community in Singapore is actually quite big, split evenly between those who cook really well at home, and those who dine out at the latest hot spots. One of the Instagram user I currently follow is @discotilldawn. She had a really delish looking mango cake recipe up on her blog and I knew I wanted to try making it myself as the Dad loves mangoes and is always suggesting mango flavoured desserts.

 Mango Mousse Cake

French buttercream for macarons and cupcakes

Oh wow, and it's now the last day of 2010. Thank gosh. I must say that it hasn't been a very good year for me...but oh well, as long as I'm well-fed (too well-fed in fact), healthy, alive, I really shouldn't be mumbling or grousing much...

2010 has been a tremendously busy year for my oven, and sadly, it finally gave up on me (or was it the other way round hmmmm...), so we replaced it with a new one! I must say that I'm falling more and more in love with the new one day by day. It takes only 10 minutes pre heating time (compared to 20-30 minutes for the ol' one!), the temperature is reasonably correct (the ol' wonky one was off by 10 degrees higher!), oh oh oh, new things always seem so much better, shinier and prettier, don't you think so? (:

Coconut mango passionfruit macarons

Mango passion fruit panna cotta verrines

I'm a huge passion fruit lover. Singapore's a tropical country with loads of fruits available at all times of the year as we import a lot of fruits from all over the world (from neighbouring Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, and China to further countries such as USA and Australia etc). Ironically, I think I started noticing passion fruit only when I was studying in Australia. As I do my own groceries when I was studying there,  I noticed immediately when the wrinkly brown fruits started appearing at the fruit stall. I remember buying pre-packaged packs of six/eight passion fruits and scooping out the yellowy pulp and eating it with my granola and yogurt for breakfast.  The sour-y tang of the passion fruit, and the crunchy bite that the seeds always perked up my simple breakfast meal.

I've been on the look out for passion fruit puree for the longest time ever, and when I finally bought a tub of frozen passion fruit puree, I was so excited at the possible desserts I could make - macarons, ice creams, mousses etc etc. After browsing through all my bookmarked recipes, I finally settled on making mango passion fruit panna cotta verrines, inspired by Vi's (L' Atelier Vi) version here.

Mango passion fruit panna cotta verrines

Chocolate mango mousse cake

It was my one of my girlfriend's birthday, and we were all meeting to celebrate the belated birthday of her and another girlfriend's birthdays. so I decided to make a little something just because she's special. (:

I knew the girls probably don't really like sweet stuff muchos, so I made a small cake, then cut it smaller still to bring and share among the six of us. Haha. I was afraid if I brought the whole thing, they would have to stare at it and will themselves to finish it. And we were already meeting for dinner, so it would be silly to bring a huge cake cos our stomachs will be full already from said dinner.

I chose to make something with mango, because a few months ago, Daddy went Thailand for business, and came home laden with a kick ass box of fruits. Correction. Kick ass box(ES). Totally madness. He bought like a few excess boxes of mangoes to give out, but afterwhich, we were left with like a full box of mangoes, mangosteens, jambus, rambutans and some other stuff I might have missed out (me having a lousy memory). We were eating mangoes daily to the point that we were kinda scared of them. So I decided to cut a few mangoes and freeze them for future use. ;)

Chocolate mango mousse cake