My baby boy, my Huckleberry Finn turned 6 months old today. Wiggle as I sometimes like to affectionately call him has reached a momentous milestone. An age worth celebrating because that's a big achievement for both baby and parents.

Life has been a whirlwind since Finn entered our lives 6 months ago. Life has changed irrevocably. Everything has been new & foreign from changing nappies, to bathing a tiny human, breastfeeding and burping (because babies get a lot of wind). But 6 months on and we are old hands at these tasks. Now that Finn is old enough for solids, it's a whole new phase we are going through again. There have been ups and downs. Plenty of emotional, mental and physical strains. Parenting is hard, you are sleep deprived everyday and feeling like a zombie starts to feel normal. But I couldn't imagine life without Finn and he has changed our life for the better.

Motherhood & has kept me very busy lately. Sleep deprivation, early mornings and late nights has meant I have had very little time to myself, as I adjust to my new life. I have learnt to multi-task even better than I did before, and domestic chores have become less important. But last weekend, I managed to find time to spend some time in the kitchen baking. It felt great to have a couple of hours to myself doing what I love.

With rhubarb season upon us, I've been making good use of rhubarb season at the moment. So far I've made rhubarb jam, rhubarb syrup to mix with drinks and last weekend I made my version of a bakewell cake with rhubarb and blossom orange.

I feel so happy to say goodbye to Winter and welcome the arrival of Spring with open arms. It's been a while since my last post but I have good reasons for it. We bought our first home in London. I'm still getting used to the idea that we are home owners. Our spare time has been preoccupied with decorating, moving, unpacking and buying furniture and home accessories. All this has been taking place whilst I'm in my third trimester of my pregnancy.

I have also been busy with other projects.

I recently received a surprise in the post. A sweet and lovely new recipe book called Love, Aimee X, which features 50 creative baking recipes by Aimee of blog Twigg Studios. I have been following Aimee on Instagram for some time and I'm a huge fan of her beautiful posts and baking recipes like this Chocolate & Matcha Mille Feuille she kindly contributed to the blog.

After browsing through her book, I was inspired to make this orange and rosewater tea cake that I adapted from one the recipes in the book. With hints of orange blossom and rose water, one bite and it will transport you to an exotic location. It pairs perfectly with a cup of mint tea.

Congratulations Aimee, this book is well deserved.

It was Australia Day on the 26th January and it made me fondly miss my home country. It is peak summer over there and the weather was hot. I thought of what I would be doing if I was home. There would be a visit to the beach and lots of ice-cream eaten. Perhaps a visit to the harbour to watch the yacht parade. A gathering of friends and family would take place that would involve a bountiful, summer feast. It made me incredibly sentimental.

To honour this day, I made this Lamington Pavlova. A hybrid of 2 quintessential Australian desserts. A simple cocoa infused meringue recipe that is layered and topped with lamington flavours. Delicious and just what I needed.

To all my fellow Australian friends – hope you had a great day!

With the Mid Autumn Festival taking place on the 27th September this year, I wanted to try and make mooncakes for myself but mini versions with a twist. They are traditionally filled with red bean or lotus seed paste. Since I live in a chocolate loving household, I decided to add chocolate to the lotus seed paste for a richer filling. I bought a mooncake mold on amazon like . They created a beautiful impression and were much easier to make than I imagined. They are also traditionally made with an egg yolk in the middle but I left this out, as I didn’t think it would complement the chocolate and lotus seed paste. Plus, I’m not a huge fan of the egg yolk. As a child, I would always remove them.

If you’ve seen me on Instagram you would see that I was recently road tripping around Cork and Kerry in Ireland. Although the campervan we had was tiny and cosy, the freedom we had more than made up for it. Seven days of freedom, going at our own pace and bunking down wherever we felt like it for the night. If you’ve had the privilege to visit the emerald isle, you will know how beautiful, rustic and green it is here. I’m always blown away by how green the landscape is. We had sunshine and a tonne of rain and wind. But it wouldn’t be an Irish holiday without a bit of rain. I'll share more photos of this trip soon.

This week, I want to share this very simple meringue combination I rustled up before I went away. It’s basically a plain meringue with a dollop of whip cream with lychees and passionfruit. A light, summery and tropical combination that is perfect to end a meal. It couldn’t be easier.

Anyone fancy a decadent, chocolate cake laced with whiskey? This does sound quite rich for this time of the year but if you were offered a slice of this, I'm sure you wouldn't say no, right? I have been meaning to add this cake to the blog and it has been on my "to do" list" for a couple of months. I finally found the time to bake it and share it. I first made for Mark for his big birthday back in April, and it was so well received that I wanted to share it.

I combined chocolate with whiskey because Mark has a weakness for both. You can leave the whiskey out entirely, if you wish. I made a much bigger version for his birthday and it was only when I presented the cake did I realise how enormous it was. It was only right that we shared it around the pub, as there was no way we could finish the entire cake. This version is smaller version but can easily feed a party of around 15 people.

It's been a little quiet on this blog lately. Well, 2 weeks of radio silence since my last post here, which seems like such a long time ago to me. Last weekend was a rather busy one with a very big birthday celebration. It was Mark's big birthday and it was a long day of celebrating, drinking and eating into the early hours of Sunday morning. There would have been no other way to celebrate. It was such a lovely day spent with friends and family. A huge thank you to Mark's brothers who traveled from Dublin to London just for the night.

Can I also mention that I spent the night before the big day baking the biggest cake I have ever made? Even I surprised myself at how great turned out. It was 10 inches and 4 layers of chocolate whiskey cake. It was so good that I plan to remake a smaller version of it and share it here in the coming weeks.

A few weekends ago I flew to Dublin to attend a Kinfolk Dinner hosted by Joi & Damian of 31 Chapel Lane. It was one of those spur of the moment decisions I made, and one that I didn't regret. It was a case of being on Instagram at the right time when I happened to see a post from Joi about the dinner. I had missed the one in London last year and I thought Dublin (only an hour's flight from London) would be the closest I would get to one of these dinners. After pondering over the idea for half an hour, I knew I had to make the decision quickly before the tickets sold out. It didn't long before Mark and I decided that we were going, and we might as well make a long weekend of it in Dublin. Not that we hadn't been to Dublin before. We have been countless times over the years, but this time we decided we were going to do it differently. We weren't going to stay with family and we were going to visit places that were new to us.

Being married to an Irishman, it is only apt that I acknowledge St Patrick’s Day with something Irish. One of the first Irish meals that I was introduced to many, many years ago was seafood chowder. Chunks of fresh seafood swimming in a creamy soup with hints of fresh parsley. And of course, you must have Irish brown bread for dunking into the soup. So you see, this dish is typically Irish to me.

Over the years, since I've been with Mark, I have celebrated this day in so many different ways. We've been to street parades, hung out with other Irish people and drunk in lots of Irish pubs, having one too many drinks. But we're taking a break from the norm this year, as we went to a friend's birthday party over the weekend and our heads are still recovering. We're going to cosy up at home (being a Tuesday school night) with this comforting soup instead, whilst the continuing chilly nights make it suitable for eating soup.

Baking is quite new to me and when I say new, I mean about one year new. My enjoyment for baking started out of greed and to satisfy me and Mark’s love for sweet things. Besides a love for chocolate, we love a bit of cake. It would be safe to say we both have a massive sweet tooth.

I don't come from a family with bakers and so I didn’t grow up eating home-made baked cakes but my sweet tooth was appeased through other sweets like these.  I suppose it’s because baking isn’t a part of Vietnamese cuisine. The oven in my parent’s house is still as good as new, and has been used once when Mark cooked them a Christmas roast dinner when we still lived in Sydney. This may explain why baking didn’t come naturally to me. But I have grown fond of it and I find the process therapeutic. It still amazes me that you can mix together a few ingredients, place it in the oven and after a short time a cake is born.

Is it possible to ever get sick of blueberries? In my case, I don’t think I could. We are coming to the end of blueberry season in Britain and there is a bountiful supply that have travelled a short distance to our local markets.

From June to September, blueberries are in peak season in Britain, and at their best in flavour. During this time of the year, I can’t help but stock up and try out new recipes.