Bakeeelicious Christmas

So what's baking this christmas?

X'mas is all about our annual family get-together, with me contributing some sugary treats to the party spread. This year's desserts is no grand affair, nothing fanciful or complex, just edible bites to appease the sweet tooth(s) of both young & old.

On a side note, Dad requested for some cookies as gifts for his colleagues. Shed some sleep to bake an assortment of pinwheel, checkerboard, chocolate-chip walnut & winnie-the-pooh danish cookies, then packed them into little snowman bags ready to give away. Childish, but i like them cute this way!

Pinwheel Butter Cookies

Chocolate-chip & Walnut Cookies

Cookies N' Cream Cupcakes w Buttercream

Cranberry Orange Cupcakes w Rose Icing

Macha Madeleines

Chocolate Walnut Brownies

Duo-tone Strawberry Marshmallows

Each of them had their share of supporters phew. And the feeling of watching others chow down your food with glee is simply contenting! For a moment, all the invested money, efforts, forfeited sleep & time gets effaced (:

My personal favorite had to be the walnut brownie. Totally loved the way it turned out- crisp flaky crust, soft moist interiors (without the irksome brownie-stickyness), starring plenty of walnuts. I used a mix of semi-sweet chocolate and cocoa powder in my batter so the sweetness is controlled. yummieebrownieelicious~

And what's christmas without a requisite logcake?

Forget the swissroll & buttercream tales from before. This year i attempted a french-style Chestnut Yule Log, assembling a few of my own unprofessional & haphazard ideas...

French chestnut mousse, vanilla bavarian cream, praline crunch, almond succes, candied roasted chestnuts. Tasted real sweet.

bite in.

With a wink, christmas is history & a brand new year approaches... Time to round up my best meals of 2009 and start on new year resolutions.

Have a blessed festive season!

Dolce Vita

Sweeeeet Italian cuisine on my birthday.

I knew for myself how a dinner of bread & pasta would gratify so i fluttered down to Dolce Vita to effectuate it. Chef Marco Pedrelli totally charmed me over that evening with his upstanding Mediterranean fare & sincere affability to boot... Life is sweet indeed.

Dinner here can be a formal or relaxed affair, depending on your choice. Dining by the poolside bodes a calming retreat but i chose the warm interiors instead. Either way you're assured of laudable service from Mandarin Oriental's groomed waitstaffs.

The Olive bread had ciabatta's crust, but moister clingier insides. Escorted by a trio of sun-dried tomato paste, evoo+balsamic & flavored salt dips.

Amuse Bouche came in the form of cold cuts platter, sesame grissini & oil-marinated eggplant with capers. The cured meats sodium balanced in accordance to my liking. Twirl twirl twirl your Parma ham round the light grissini stick....

For mains, Linguine di Gamberi ($30) clinched an easy win. The prawns were sturdily enormous and strands spiced up in garlic-chilli olive oil glaze. I emphasize, glaze. Chef deployed a simple sticky viscous glaze to draw the dish's intensity. No sauce pools required.

My Spaghetti Marinara ($28) grasped similar execution. Seafood shelled primp & proper, glaze still as marvelous. A light coat was all it took for the strands to bloom in flavor... Every forkful released powers of evoo, garlic & savory tomato bodies yum.

Chef Marco insists all pastas to be handmade daily using a pasta machine hailed from Italy. His pasta is out-of-the-ordinary. Spaghetti comes Size L in full expansion, bearing firmer-than-usual bites... i totally took to this unique rustic rendition.

Stunning Olive Oil Macarons pre-dessert. Tender shells. Full-bodied EVOO fillings. These may change your perceptions of sweeetaphobic macarons.

Tiramisu ($14) was a literally neat slice (probably the neatest i've came across) binding firm mascarpone between thin sponge layers... there's even tiramisu icecream & almond biscotti to counter potential bitterness.

FRANGOLA- 14 year old balsamic-marinated sweet strawberries, vanilla cream, strawberry sorbet * Imagines strawberry chunks doused in black killer vinegar. oooh i got excited...

Until Frangola ($14) arrived on plateau and proved my apprehensions wrong. It was a good tart with almost-too-little yummy vanilla bean custard & toppings of strawberry slices interweaving white chocolate sheets. On the side a gummy Strawberry sorbet that pleased.

They ought to amend descriptions to "strawberry & white chocolate TART, vanilla custard, strawberry sorbet".

Then the restaurant successfully ambushed me with a slice of cake+song from the entire service team whoa before Chef's appearance with a red rose...... Really really sweeeeet of all of them!

*wish made, fingers kept crossed.

Chef & me (& rose) under unflattering incandescent lighting

This meal definitely climaxed my Nineteenth.

What can beat a birthday dinner with your favourite cuisine, a winsome chef & the person you love most in this world? Nothing comes close.

elaine had a happy, happy birthday...

Dolce Vita

5 Raffles Avenue

5F Mandarin Oriental Singapore

6885 3551