2009 in a Nutshell

And so another year is about to wrap up. Time flies when you're having fun, right It's been a crazy year for me, full of memorable moments, and I'm glad to have my blog here to remind me of all my culinary adventures. This post is more for my own amusement than anything else, but here are some of the blog posts of this year that I found most memorable (for good and bad reasons):

Malaysia
The main reason I began this silly food blog. The abundance of delicious food and the general passion for cooking and eating where my family live was inspiration enough. A saying that is quite common with Malaysians is, "We don't eat to live, we live to eat!", and it couldn't be more true.

Raspberry Cupcakes
A blog post to match my blog name. And to meekly explain the reason for the misspelling of raspberry in my blog name. Unfortunately it's not much of a reason, just a random plucking of a name out of my head thanks to my lack of imagination. It worries me that my deliberate misspelling may have opened the door for even worse misspellings of the word. Let's just clear this up know. It's spelt R-A-S-P-B-E-R-R-Y. My blog name spells it raspberri, my lame attempt to be cutesy when I was twelve and coming up with a nickname on ICQ. Remember ICQ? Uh oh! Anyway it's not rasberry. And definitely not rasberri! Yes sometimes I really wish I could rename my blog.

Sugarcane AKA the BOFAG post
Hmm yes this post turned out to be more controversial than expected. I stand by it though, the food we ordered that night was terrible, and most of it was coated in the infamous BOFAG (batter of five spice and glue). I don't think I could bring myself to give it another chance, even though other bloggers seem to have had a fairly decent experience. I will always be honest with my opinion about the meals that I blog about, what's the point otherwise? To be honest I can't stand most of these vague 'South East Asian' restaurants. Authentic? Really??

Mum's Malaysian Honeycomb Cake
A recipe lovingly provided by my mother, the person who instilled a love of baking, and food in general in me.

Cocoa Nib & Salted Dulce De Leche Biscuits
These are still my favourite biscuits. I love them so much. They are evil but so worth the calories, please try them!

PUPCAKES!
I had so much fun making and selling these for Cupcake day for the RSPCA. It reminded me how much I love doing simple & cute baking. I ended up raising 200 dollars for the RSPCA which I was pretty pleased with.

Scones, scones and more scones!
This blog has unearthed my complete obsession with warm, fluffy scones. I have managed to to write up a grand total of 7 scone recipes this year, my two favourites being the CWA scones and the sticky golden syrup scones. There are at least 3 other recipes that never saw the light of day, but trust me, there will be plenty more scone recipes in 2010!

Cabramatta

It makes me sad that I only just discovered how awesome Cabramatta is this year. From the crispy skin chicken to the goat curry and durian & avo shakes, and the spring rolls, pandan waffles & sugarcane juice, Cabramatta is my food heaven. If only I didn't live so far away!

Ice Kacang Macarons
These were a labour of love. I came up with the idea of these macarons long before I even thought it would be possible for me to create them, but threw myself into it as part of the Daring Bakers' challenge. I've totally loved being part of the Daring Bakers group, it has helped push me so much with my baking, far beyond what I would have done on my own. It took quite a few failures, and a lot of aged egg whites to get it right. Oh and it really sucked losing all my completed challenge photos for this one. Damn you technology!

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
Because everyone loves popping candy :)

The Gingerbread Igloo & other Christmas baking
Of course, my gingerbread igloo. It was fun and a little frustrating to make, and I was a little surprised by the reaction it got, since I thought it was a little ugly when I first made it! Thanks for all the tweets and links to it :) I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.

Some of my other favourite posts:
Heavenly pannacotta with violets
Making brioche for the first time
Quince & Craisin Crumble
Zumbo cakes & Zumbo Macaron day
Slumberjack Millionaire Cakes
Perama!
Lemon Oreo Cheesecake Slice
Secret Dinners!
Sweet Potato Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Icing
http://raspberricupcakes.blogspot.com/2009/09/chat-thai-haymarket.html
Coffee Cinnamon Crunch Cake
Pineapple Jam Vol-au-vents

Thanks for following my sometimes-insane food adventures this year, I hope you all had a happy & healthy 2009, and here's hoping that next year is even better! I will keep bringing you things from my dodgy oven and even dodgier digital camera :)

Edit: If you came here looking for my s'mores cheesecake recipe (toasted marshmallow & chocolate cheesecake) then you'll have to be patient because it's not up yet! Come back next week and I promise it will be up. xx Steph