Cotton candy, constructed for a cake...

The taste of cotton candy usually makes most people think of summer carnivals and amusement parks. After making these pulled sugar and sugar rock caketop decorations that taste somewhere in between candy floss and dietetic sugar, I now think: Damn, that's a lot of hard work for soemthing that doesn't really taste like much. The pulled sugar daffodil flowers were the hardest to do. I thought my fingers were going to melt off!!! But they do look good, don't they? It's the textures of the finished sugar pieces, not just the colours and shapes, that set these apart from everyday cake toppers.

FOOD FROM FRANCE!!!

Long time no update. For now, here's a quick caption-less rundown of all the great tastes I've been sampling over the past weeks while I was visiting France and the Northwest corner of Italy. The above shots are from Aix-en-Provence, while all those that follow are from the Riviera, starting with the Italian Riviera first. Hope to explain more about the baked goodness later. Meanwhile, feast your eyes!

Some Goji baked-goodness?...

...or some wacky hungry-like-the-wolfberry-might-as-well-dump-them-in-'cause-I-didn't-have-any-cranberries scones.

Yup, these are Goji Scones. More of a savoury biscuit than a clotted-cream douceur, to be sure!

Guess what? That strong tincture of yellow you see smeared around the places where the berries dot the scones? That doesn't just look like something from a hot pepper. Goji berries are part hot pepper. Goji peppers is actually a more suitable name than goji berries, if you ask me.

Or if you were around to taste these.

So, while these creations were not spicy hot, these were definitely some scones for serious constitutions.

Other (better) ideas for Goji in the kitchen?

As a food, dried wolfberries are traditionally cooked before consumption. Dried wolfberries are often added to rice congee, as well as used in Chinese tonic soups, in combination with chicken or pork, vegetables, and other herbs such as wild yam, Astragalus membranaceus, Codonopsis pilosula, and licorice root. The berries are also boiled as an herbal tea, often along with chrysanthemum flowers and/or red jujubes, or with tea, particularly pu-erh tea, and packaged teas are also available. Various wines containing wolfberries (called gǒuqǐ jiǔ; 枸杞酒) are also produced, including some that are a blend of grape wine and wolfberries. At least one Chinese company also produces wolfberry beer, and New Belgium Brewery makes their seasonal Springboard ale with wolfberries used as flavoring. Since the early 21st century, an instant coffee product containing wolfberry extract has been produced in China. Young wolfberry shoots and leaves are also grown commercially as a leaf vegetable

From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfberry#Culinary

Stollen holiday memories linger...

At Christmastime I made my brother a Stollen. In return, he schooled me on techie stuff, like how to enter a blog entry... like this one! Since Christmas, I have been doing more baking than blogging. What can I say, it's still looking white Christmasy at my house. I have now made two more Stollen loaves -- each different from my brother's gift. But since I was at home, they didn't turn out to my satisfaction, mainly because I was relying on memory for the recipe (which is at the bakery, which is closed for a break). I am back to work on Monday so I'll get the recipe and try some more. I've even promised to make it again for my brother and send it to him early next week. I've said I won't let him down. (But I already have since I forgot my password to blog and to my Flickr site! Yup, these words were not typed in by me! Thanks a lot bro!) Either way, just trust me I am Stollen-obsessed and I've been researching it and there are all kinds of variations of this seasonal German treat: hazelnut, chocolate with fruit, marzipan. I am going to make a regular one and one another one... what's your favourite Stollen? Promise to share the results soon!
P.S. You saw my Xmas brunch sconewiches but did you see my holiday pound cake with eggnog cream and caramel sauce? Don't think so! Now posted on my Flickr set: KG Bakes

A lovely Xmas brunch

Ham and onion sconewich
Originally uploaded by marcusg58

Had these delicious ham and caramelized onion sconewiches with friends and family this morning. They were delicious!

Happy holidays everyone, and see you in 2009.

Baby's first birthday

So pleased! A picture's worth a thousand words... and this special occasion cake, the way it turned out, is worth almost as much.

There's nothing about this food porn video that's sexy...

... but it is kind of funny. My special fruit basket closes the video (before it goes to neon goop, that is!)
I'm also shown at 0:03, 0:05, 0:07, 0:09, 0:18, 1:15, 1:17, 1:18, 1:23, 1:46, 1:52... uh, I'm in this a lot. Perhaps not recommended that you consume this all in one sitting.