i never knew i would hv craving for a simple vanilla cake with a glass of cold milk since i've always thought i had "complex tastebuds" but i did so i went hunting for a recipe in the middle of the night. i didn't wanna spend an hour baking a cake therefore i opted for cupcakes instead. i had really good results with magnolia bakery's red velvet cupcakes sometime back so i just wanted to try their famous vanilla cupcake recipe this time round.
my collection of chinese cookbooks, mostly on french patisserie and translated from japanese. i hv alot more chinese than english ones coz its really difficult to find english books on french/japanese patisserie and entremets. most french or japanese books would usually be translated to chinese, seldom are they translated to english so i'm really glad i can read them. i spent a small fortune on these but its still much cheaper than going to pastry school :p
as i was browsing through my chinese cookbook collection, i came across this cake recipe which i found very enticing. a weekend cake, or gateau de voyage is a traditional french pound cake thats rich and buttery. i don't fancy butter/pound cakes much coz i find they use wayyyyy too much butter and take wayyyyy to long to bake. plus they're just too rustic for my liking. but perhaps its the lovely combination of spices, rum, nuts and candied peel in this one that makes me wanna go ahead... and there's just something really christmassy about it too.
