Hallowe'en

It is one of those days where nothing really goes your way. My one-year-ago-flashback was spent in bed nursing a terrible hangover, hearing the boys talking about a friend who threw up on our neighbour's front door, cleaning up vomit in the sink (graciously left behind by a random guest) and just living the life of a normal student. Fastforward a year later and everything's gone wrecked.

Of course, there really isn't any point sitting around and moping over some of the very bad decisions I have made in life. And besides, didn't they say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade? I had chocolate. A lot of chocolate. And I was in great need of a sugar high. But, precision weighing and baking isn't really for a grumpy/why-her-life-is-so-messed-up girl.

So out goes the digital weighing scale (oh, the travesty of it!) and in comes the measuring cups. Put everything in a deep pan, mix it all up and then add a handful of chocolate. Or maybe two. Or three. Anything to administer a life-can-be-good shot.

Just for the fun of it (and a bolt of inspiration from allrecipes.com), I attempted to make 'mummified' faces on my cupcakes. But of course, when nothing goes your way, nothing will go your way. Far from looking like some potential scary treat, my version turned out looking.. oddly, mouthlessly strange. Almost like a white version of mouthless Mr Messy.

Shoot me now.

Food for the Weary - ft Gypsy Toast

The fog of unemployment incessantly circling around me has been refusing to dissipate. Being forced to reckon with the big issues of Life is exhausting and I wonder if I will ever know what kind of ride I'll be in for. In a weird sense, I miss being a student. The predictability of knowing when your lectures are, when your essays are due and when the fearful big exams are almost a comfort.

With big issues and big exams (for the sis) to face, one always turns to comfort food. And in my case, bring on the Gypsy (French) toast! I think I'm probably the only person who could eat Gypsy toast for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the silky, eggy, milky, sugary concoction just adds so much dimension and character to the boring old bread. Add a pinch of cinnamon, or if you're feeling really rich, scrape in some vanilla beans (the real deal, not the essence/extract), toss it in sizzling buerre noisette and immediately the warm and buttery aroma makes everything so much better.

Venturing into The Land of Puff Pastry

Attempting to make puff pastry in my little oven of a kitchen is suicidal. But of course, not enough of a deterrence to stop me from attempting it. Yes, I know store bought puff pastry is everywhere. With so many brands at my disposal, I really don't have to go through all that much trouble. Still, as Chef G reminds us constantly, those will never ever taste as good as the ones you make from scratch.

In fact, Puff Pastry land is really worth a venture. Especially if you are feeling particularly stressed up. Hitting the tourage into shape, folding and rolling becomes a chicken-soup-for-the-soul routine.

Well, maybe until you start to see the fat-dough-fat-doughx 729 layers, then it becomes sort of a nightmare, only because you know you are going to eat the morsels of sin you've created.

Because the heat in the kitchen made the fat really impossible to control - what with instantaneous melting of the butter, I had to work really really fast and really really efficiently. Uneven pressure on my pastry resulted in some of the layers tearing, so the result of the pastry itself was quite disappointing.

Nonetheless, I decided to go ahead and make little palmiers out of it. They didn't turn out as flaky as I hoped they would be, but still, the buttery sugar crisp combination made the perfect after-nap snack :)

One up for the Alcoholics

Having way too much time on my hands, I decided that it was time to play around with recipes and try a spin on the classic strawberry shortcake. Because I had one too many mangoes in my fridge and because I had a bottle of vodka lying around (am I the only one guilty of this?) - the only logical happy ending is the marriage of both, oui?

I left my mangoes macerating in the vodka for a good 48 hours, so I think they were pretty potent by then. The strawberries, on the other hand, had to go without their alcoholic bath because somehow, strawberries and cream should be just that, sans frills.

I thought I pretty much found a lasting marriage, but I neglected the fact that my prized kitchen is a living oven. And that means thou shalt not attempt to make enough whipped cream for two cakes in one go under such extreme conditions and with a very sad excuse for a ice bath. Overestimating oneself is really not the smartest thing to do. Starting off with the strawberry shortcake only meant that my Mango Vodka Cake became the sacrificial lamb. The cream didn't go bad, but it became rather un-malleable, making the masking look like it had seen a whole lot of better days. But, I'd like to say that this just means another attempt at the Mango Vodka Cake(MVC) :)

O, and Oscar Wilde says that experience is just another name for our mistakes. Touche.

Keep watching this space to see how MVCII turns out!

Because life's one big picnic ♥

The best friend and I are somewhat mad about picnics - birthday picnics, welcome-home picnics and random because-everyone-is-at-work-and-we-are-jobless picnics. We threw one of our random picnics on the Monday after I got back but someone up there must have been pretty miffed that we were celebrating unemployment and decided to pour water on us. While we spent the rest of the day roaming randomly around sixth ave (because our favourite cafe decided to shut itself for the afternoon), we were pretty upset that our picnic was ruined. For the record, the moment we got on our bus, it stopped.

But, being obsessed about picnics, as aforementioned, what's a little rain right? 2 days after, we planned a tea party picnic for ourselves. Right in front on my little patch of grass. And because I don't have a humongous lake with swans on my patch of grass, I decided the next best thing was to make choux swans! Top it all up with freshly baked F1 cookies, butter cookie cut outs and a whole jug of ice cold..ribena, and we were all set to enjoy our afternoon.

Fickle

One of the things I missed most about home was the little Hongkong dessert shops offering their wide varieties of tongshui (the next best thing to eating tongshui in Hongkong, of course). The atmosphere in the shops are fantastic- no matter what time of the day you decide that its time for a sweet fix.These places are frequented by people from all age brackets, making me wonder just how much tongshui can Singaporeans really eat in a lifetime!

What I know for sure is that less than 24hours after my very comfortable 13hour journey back home ended, I found myself in one of the abovementioned shops. Now, we all know that we have to make many decisions in life. And being in one of these shops after a very long time left me in dilemma after dilemma. Hot tongshui, or Cold? Which choice should I pick (out of the never ending selection) if I should pick either?

Lucky for me, the dear friend I was with put an end to my deliberation and ordered both the Mango-Pomelo-Sago Ice Bowl and a bowl of Tangyuan (Glutinous Rice Balls in Ginger Soup). Even though the older folks would have frown upon this decision to eat both the hot (the Tangyuan) and the cold (Ice Bowl) in the same sitting, that was really the least of my preoccupations then and there.

Yumm.

O, and did I mention that I kept staring at the bowl of Mango Shaved Ice sitting on the table next to us? If only calories were never an issue ):

History: Upgraded

Yuebing jie (Mooncake festival), as I lovingly call it as opposed to the accurate Zhongqiu Jie (Mid-Autumn Festival), brings back the fondest memories for me. From gathering at my gran’s place and lighting up the garden with pretty paper lanterns, to the walk my cousins and I would make around the neighbourhood with our lanterns. The classic moment had to be when my sis- who was more concerned in keeping the flame in the lantern alive then watching where she was walking , walked straight into a tree. Though it happened a good decade ago, none of us refuse to forget that moment (much to her chagrin of course).

What I guess is intriguing about Yuebing jie, is that we are celebrating the success of a revolution, a rebellion. We are in an age where rebellion is almost deemed as taboo, so having a festival that commemorates it seems like a nouveau concept.

But of course, it is designed to make us think that the rebellion was for the greater good and since victors (the rebels) write history, it really is anyone’s say. So, according to the stuff we learnt in Chinese textbooks, secret messages were actually baked within the skin of the mooncakes and passed around to avoid arousing suspicion from authorities. Completely ingenious really, and thank god there was no such thing as modern day custom officials (between the provincial cities) or specially trained dogs to sniff out pseudo mooncakes from the real deal.

I’ve always been a fan of the traditionally baked brown-skinned goodness (singleyolkonlyplease), and I always found the more modern versions of the snow-skinned ones too much of a OD of artificial flavours and colours. With everybody wanting a piece of the (yuebing) pie, everyone was suddenly inventing new flavours like champagne something or truffle something. True, they were pretty and exquisite- but taste-wise, something always seemed to be a little off. And just when I was about to give up on the chase for a good snow-skinned yum, I tried the Mandarin Oriental selection. No, they did not pay me to say this, but for the first time, I actually really really felt that maybe it was time to embrace the ‘other’ mooncake. The Black Gold Premium Chocolate was perfection really; and the Ginseng, Premium Bird’s Nest and Omega Egg White Custard (despite the complexity of flavour and its really long name) actually WORKED.

Brown- skinned goodness: 0
Snow Skinned New found love: 1

I cannot help but emphasize that I am not a fan of anything that sounds overly modern or extravagant, especially when we are celebrating something as serious as a rebellion, but this combination really worked out. And, we are celebrating a success (of sorts), aren't we?