The Great Chef

When you see someone posting their recipe post and indicated "Highly Recommended", would it motivate you to try it out?  Well, I do.      Victoria Bakes has somewhat been so diligently baking her cakes away and it seem that most of her posting she has this "Highly Recommended" recipe post ~ oh dear ... I can't seem to catch up trying out her "HR" recipes if she keeps going with her "HR" post! And if you have been following her post.... all her cakes seems to be so captivating with the print on the cakes...so lovely and cute. Back to my post today, I have bookmarked this Espresso Almond Butter Cake when Gert of Kitchen Snippets posted hers, I thought I could bake it at my soonest, so went seaching for sour cream but can't seem to find any at the supermarket shelves.  Wanted to substitute for yogurt instead but.....aigh....  And so, until Victoria Bakes posted hers last month that really get me going to make mine yesterday. ESPRESSO ALM...

In less than two weeks from now we will be celebrating Christmas.  Have you done your shopping and plan your Christmas menu or baking any goodies to be given as gifts? As usual, though I don't really celebrate Christmas, to get into the Christmas mood, I be baking my favourite Christmas Cake or you can called it mixed dry fruit cake or Christmas pudding, or even steam fruit cake.  They are all the same to me. This year, I have made few batches earlier and all were distributed out to families and friends. I have also try making it some into small mini moulds which was supposed to be given away for my reunion friends get together but unfortunately I have been unwell so I have to cancel my trip back to my hometown.                      I think this mini ones looks nicer and presentable in serving too. If you intend to make this, you can follow the recipe  here (Christmas Pudding) or here (Steamed Fruit Cake).   But...

Have you tried baking Biscotti before?  I love biscotti especially with lots of almonds inside.   Biscotti is used to describe as a long, dry, hard,  twice-baked cookie with a curved top and flat bottom meant for dunking into coffee or wine.  The traditional biscotti recipe uses no form of yeast or fat (butter, oil, milk) as I have read.  I have baked biscotti years ago  (here ~ Almond Biscotti) , and in fact that recipe I have tried for a few times just because I wanted to achieve in cutting the biscotti in thin slices.  Believe me, it is no easy task cutting into that thinly slices.  I wanted to bake that recipe again for giving it as a gifts but on second thought, I should try out other recipe too.  There are tons of recipes to choose from the internet .... some uses whole egg, some with butter, some with vegetable oil, and some with egg whites.  And while searching for a simple recipe, this recipe from Delia Smith   caught ...