A new year, a new beginning

I have finally decided to move from my website to a blog. The free web-hosting provided by Angelfire had given me endless headaches. After 2 years on it, I have finally decided enough is enough. My well meaning friends have always urged me to use a blog format but I guess I must have been a real masochist for punishment. Enduring the shortcomings of free Angelfire is no easy task. I have always thought that beggars cannot be choosers since I am too cheap to pay for web hosting. Well, maybe in the real world but then on the net, beggars can be choosers!!

Here is my first post which was salvaged from a third Angelfire spin-off. I had to do 2 other spin-offs to work around the 20MB storage limit. Starting from my initial website at

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/tomsbread/index.htm, I spun another web at

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/artisanbread/index.htm

Traversing through these 2 websites is complicated enough and it would be downright silly of me to do a third spin-off especially when bandwidth is exruciating limited for free Angelfire webhosting. Publishing the updates was equally daunting. Finally tonight, after wasting 2 hours trying to upload some updates, I decided to quit Angelfire and start with a blog format. I will maintain the original 2 sites as there are some useful links and information for people to start baking bread.

I had been inspired to do a website after learning so much from fellow bakers in the US. Their websites gave me so much inspiration that I felt compelled to try out the breads that they had posted.

So now, a new year, a new beginning. First post: Operation salvage from crippling Angelfire:

Blueberry Tarts
I had some guests today and to entertain them, I made a batch of blueberry tarts to serve them. The tart shells were baked in the morning together with my Cinnamon buns. My wife made the Mascarpone cream cheese filling and they were topped with blueberries. I had to use frozen blueberries sitting in my freezer but they turned out well. These were not very sweet and still had the mild tartness of fresh berries. An apricot glaze completed the assembly. There was even a request for a 'take-away' so what more can I ask for?