Living in Singapore as a foreigner, you get used to the fact that many of your friends leave to go home again, wherever that might be. I'm sure this happens in other places as well, but I of course feel it more acutely here. I've made many good friends here - but many have moved away. I'll stay in touch and see them sometimes when I travel, but for the most part, they are gone. (Well, at least until Facebook happened...)
So it's pretty rare that somebody, especially another foreigner, moves *back* to Singapore. Which is what my friend Tamara did. She moved here in the mid-90's, set up a very successful chiropractor practice (she's the best) and then a few years later, moved to China to be with her husband.
A couple of years ago, she moved back and resumed helping bad golfers like me recover from our excesses, being a great friend to many people and delighting everybody she met with her great heart and phenomenal baking skills. Cookies, tarts, cakes - but most of all, Tamara's brownies - were always the hit of any party. And she baked prodigiously. It's amazing she had time for anybody's back...
Often she'd drop by with 2 or 3 boxes of some great baked delights, saying she just did them in her spare time and thought the kids and I might like some.
Might, indeed. We were lucky if they lasted to dinner time.
Anyways, Tamara is once again packing up her chiropractor tools and baking tins, and leaving us - this time for Perth. While she promises to one day return, she leaves behind many good friends, lots of adoring patients, and thousands of children bereft at the hole she is leaving in their dessert menus.
Luckily for all of us, she's also leaving behind her recipe for those great brownies. Modestly, she says they are nothing much, but we all know differently. (In typical Tamara-style, she even makes two different batches each time - one with nuts and one without - and then goes so far as to label them!)
Tamara, we'll miss you (again). But your brownies will always stay with us.... Thanks for everything.
Tamara's Brownies:So it's pretty rare that somebody, especially another foreigner, moves *back* to Singapore. Which is what my friend Tamara did. She moved here in the mid-90's, set up a very successful chiropractor practice (she's the best) and then a few years later, moved to China to be with her husband.
A couple of years ago, she moved back and resumed helping bad golfers like me recover from our excesses, being a great friend to many people and delighting everybody she met with her great heart and phenomenal baking skills. Cookies, tarts, cakes - but most of all, Tamara's brownies - were always the hit of any party. And she baked prodigiously. It's amazing she had time for anybody's back...
Often she'd drop by with 2 or 3 boxes of some great baked delights, saying she just did them in her spare time and thought the kids and I might like some.
Might, indeed. We were lucky if they lasted to dinner time.
Anyways, Tamara is once again packing up her chiropractor tools and baking tins, and leaving us - this time for Perth. While she promises to one day return, she leaves behind many good friends, lots of adoring patients, and thousands of children bereft at the hole she is leaving in their dessert menus.
Luckily for all of us, she's also leaving behind her recipe for those great brownies. Modestly, she says they are nothing much, but we all know differently. (In typical Tamara-style, she even makes two different batches each time - one with nuts and one without - and then goes so far as to label them!)
Tamara, we'll miss you (again). But your brownies will always stay with us.... Thanks for everything.
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup nuts
Melt butter, stir in cocoa and cool. Add sugar, eggs, vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients. Add nuts if desired.
Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes.
FROSTING
Cream 1/2 cup butter with 2 cups icing sugar. Beat 2 tsp vanilla, 2 Tbsp milk and 1 cup icing sugar into mixture. Gradually add 1 to 2 Tbsp milk into icing until smooth and of desired spreading consistency. For a chocolate icing add 1/3 cup sifted cocoa to the first addition of icing sugar.
"I sometimes just throw the frosting ingredients in a bowl without measuring. This frosting recipe makes a lot of frosting. But then I often make 2-4 pans of frosting to take over to friends parties if this amount of frosting is made. "
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