All Posts Where has the sun gone today?  It was drizzling, the sky turned grey, and it was cold this morning that it dampened our spirits a bit.  My son and I were to go on a bike ride right after breakfast but since it was drizzling, we decided that we would bake cookies first. [...]

Eating sweetened tangyuan or onde-onde (in Bahasa Indonesia) during Chinese Winter Solstice Festival may become a yearly occurrence now. Before my parents moved close to me, I didn’t always remember to make onde-onde in the month of December; or sometimes I was too lazy to make some. But now, my mom is my motivation to [...]

I finally had a time to bake sweets for Christmas…ah, the joy of having two-week break from work.  It gave me a motivation to bake, it prepared me to be ready for Christmas.  Thus the sweet is aptly named Christmas almond truffle bars.  I’ve made this actually years before, don’t remember anymore if I’ve ever [...]

I wasn’t going to complain, but I felt down.  I haven’t been baking for maybe more than a month and I’m afraid I’m going to lose my skills.  The old adage of practice makes perfect should’ve been like a mantra to me, yet I perfectly ignored it.  Yesterday I was making genoise cake for my [...]

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year and I feel extra special this year because my parents are here with me.  By some luck,  my mom has her last Indonesian nian gao with her.  Somebody must have brought it with her and gave it to her.  This specialty cake is only available during Chinese New Year and is called [...]

In the midst of everyday life and assignments, I’m hungry for something sweet and quick.  My snack supply from Indonesia has reached the level of near-bottom, and I’m actually quite sad to see those goodies are gone.  If only they could magically reappear in the box, I’ll be happier. Yesterday I brought home a bag-full [...]

Here’s an idea to use up summer fruits.  Light, pretty, slightly intoxicating as well, a choice to have when you don’t have time to make an elaborate desserts.  The choice of using white wine, sweet wine, or sparkling wine is really up to you.  Even you can use sparkling juice to make it non-alcoholic if [...]

Why is it that when people think of coconut and pineapple, they’ll think of tropical island? I guess because coconut trees grow along the beach on tropical islands, and the closest tropical island to mainland US is Hawaii where there’s a lot of pineapple grown so people put that two together constantly.  Personally, when I [...]