Wow, it's been almost 2 years since my last post... OMG..I have been that busy! So what brings me back to this site. It used to be my fave blog when I was not swarmed with my other duties.

Well, i was toying with the idea of making a cake for a friend's birthday.  Since the last post, there's been many challenges & changes to my life. I have stopped baking (temporarily) because I now live with 2 large dogs in the house. One sheds fur very frequently and i am paranoid that it will end up in my cake batter and icing.

MANGO/GLUTINOUS RICE birthday cake
On the topic of birthday cakes - i am remembering all the strange cakes I've make and had in the last two years. First was of course the Mango & glutinous rice pseudo-cake (sitebar on the right).

AGAR-AGAR birthday cake
Another was made by my friend when I was in the 'vegan' stage of my life. How to make a cake with no eggs, no dairy products. So, i hinted making another pseudo-cake. This time using what we call "agar-agar', something similar to jelly but firmer and with more bite.

PRINCE WILLIAM'S groom cake vs BATIK cake

http://www.sprinklebakes.com/2011/04/prince-williams-grooms-cake.html

Now back to the present -  I accidentally googled and found  Prince William's Groom cake, which is again a non-bake, chocolate & McVites biscuit concoction.  It seems that its on of the Queen's favourite tea cakes.

Strange... it looks just like what we here in Malaysia (Sarawak, specifically) call "Batik cake" because the slice looks a piece of traditional batik cloth, where the cloth is immersed in a thin layer of wax, dried and crushed to give that crackled look. Then dyed with dark brown dye that seeps through the cracks. Remove the dye and you have plain white fabric with brown crackled lines.

http://cornercafe.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/kek-batik/

With sincere apologies to both site owners, I've lifted off one photo from each site to illustrate the similarity. Both use biscuits. Malaysians like the Marie biscuit, the Brits, McVities :