Addiction

I don't think my dad has been too pleased with my new addiction to buying gorgeous bundt moulds. But, can you really bear to put a halt to this? When normalcy (banana chocolate chip teacake) gets an instant face-lift and comes out looking completely new and refreshed, it can be pretty hard.

So I say cool stuff, and bring on more moulds pretty please!

Onehelluvacake

So, I'm pretty sure that it's no secret that I wasn't the best student back in school. When everyone had their noses buried in books, camping in the infamous school library, I was at home looking at books.

Yes, looking, not reading. When friends were turning to Amazon as a last resort for finding that all critical text that some other desperate soul had on a permanent loan from the library, my searches inadvertently veered off-course to the land of baking books.

My mum definitely freaked out when I excitedly showed-off my random new found baking books via skype two weeks before finals.

But, something good did come out of all my random purchases. Flipping through the book earlier this morning left me convinced that a chocolate merlot cake would be just the thing I needed to complete the weekend.

And let me share with you the best kept secret ever:
Chocolate+Merlot = Unadulterated Bliss.

'Nuff Said. I'm going to have another slice.

Straws and My Tart Craze

The one thing I missed out 3 years in ol'London was strawberry picking. The season of straws always coincided with the dreaded examinations or post-exams when exploring Europe was more in vogue. Last year was no exception, with my examinations stretching way longer than everyone.

So while the flatmate and his visiting brother happily trooped out to pick/eat/both straws, I was stuck at home with my nose plastered to my books in a desperate bid to reverse my fate. T'was a real bummer to say the least, but of course, the said flatmate did come back with a huge box of straws for us and made a really yummy traditional Eton Mess out of his yummy picks.

With my last tart crust turning out into a joke (see mango tart post), I was quite adament on making a successful tart - both process and end product. And yay! finally managed to beat the heat (with flour) and rolled out my tart crust the way it should have been done (: Chef G would've been proud.

And then I found out that my sis finished the milk. Imagine my horror! To have a tart shell and gorgeous red straws lying around and NO milk to make the pastry cream. I think I must make an awful chef- no maison en plus whatsoever and always finding out that I'm lacking some ingredient or another at the very last minute. But, I decided to substitute it with whipping cream instead. Not as smooth as desired, but still, a fuller bodied (in terms of fat percentage) denser creme patissier made its debut.

Don't straws just make you want to smile?

Let's bake away our friday night, shall we?

I stayed home on Friday night to bake 2 brownie cakes, 1 strawberry shortcake, 6 mini strawberry short(cup)cakes, 1 cheesecake and 1 oreocheesecake all in the name for charity. Not bad huh? And I did all of the above in 4 hours! I think, I've officially reached cake superstardom.

To be honest, I actually wanted to finish up the baking this morning, but I was on a roll last night. And when you're on a roll, you just don't stop, do you? Nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats seeing the butter+sugar+flour in their various proportions combine to form morsels of yumness. And of course, seeing your brownie falling out perfect from your (crisco-ed really well) William Sonoma pan really, is as good as having strawberries with champagne.

Okay, I think what was truly gratifying was that my tiny nuclear family wouldn't have to bear with eating the same thing for a few days straight. Which then meant that I could actually go CRAZY baking, without feeling guilty (which is a truly amazing feeling).

And in case you're still wondering, the huge cake with 'Cookie' emblazoned across it is my brownie which I'm damn proud of thankyouverymuch! Such a misnomer really, but don't the prints look amazing?


























I do need to make a special mention that doing all of the above within 4 hours wouldn't have been possible without the darling sister's help. My little commis de barrière's invaluable contributions really made cake superstardom achievable. (No, she didn't force me to do this)

So, till the next bake sale then (:

When life gives you strawberries..

you make a strawberry shortcake. Decided to bake a cake for a colleague's farewell over the weekend, and because Korean strawberries are all the rage at the moment- I thought the Strawberry shortcake would make a yummier alternative to any chocolate cake I could whip up.

Unfortunately - I did have a cake emergency! Imagine going back from your friendly neighbourhood supermarket only to find out that half your straws are rotten! Okay, that still wasnt as bad as finding out that I was on my way to finishing the second (and last) box of straws, double eeps!

Still, it did turn out pretty okay i'll say :) could have been better save for a few factors but yayness! looks better than the last one I did.

Mint

Meet my new-ish pot of mint! It has wilted and revived itself twice (after a dose of water) within the two weeks that I've had it. Not bad huh?

Don't get me wrong, I haven't been deliberately ill-treating my mints- its just the mercurial weather that we've been having that's causing all these freakish behavioural patterns. Plus, I've been conscientiously watering it- once in the day and once at night. Yay me!

Now I sound like I'm suffering from pre-mature aging (with me being proud of my plant and all). Or maybe, I'm just really looking forward to retirement.

Marbled.

'When I ORD-ed, you guys were still playing marbles!', said the dad randomly in the car one day while sharing another anecdote from his army days.

While I'll never get the chance to go through the war paint, sweat and mud (thank god), my life has been a pretty marbled mess. And all that talk about marbles resulted in inspiration for the rainy Sunday so I went back to basics with the marble cake. Yes yes yes, its all incongrous and all too random but you know what, I couldn't care less. After all, it is probably the cake unanimous with my childhood days where things were simpler and a whole lot less complicated.

Decided to attempt two different looks- one with the marbling done on the surface and the other not so much marbled but layered. Both turned out pretty good, I'll say.

And I'm just hoping my marbled mess turns out sweet.

Push the (shortbread) buttons

Seriously, where do my weekends go too? I've begun to feel that somehow, two days never ever seem enough. On top of that, I've gone as far even to decide that maybe somehow, a lack of a social life and spending more time spacing out and doing my own things doesn't seem half as bad.

D-I-Y Sunday involved the sister and me furiously shaping shortbread into buttons before the merciless heatwave our country is currently facing softened everything to nothingness. But external factors can always prove to be useful excuses when things don't usually go your way. Attempt Martha Stewart in a non air conditioned kitchen was really not the wisest move.

And yes! the cookies are PINK! I think the heat finally got to me.

of Yogurt Cakes and The Invasion of the Monkeys

I've been in a bit of a yogurt renaissance at the moment. I used to go crazy thinking up crazy variations of yogurt cakes back in London (and despite that, usually almost always ending up with the lemon poppyseed yogurt cake). But being in SG where poppyseeds are almost non-existent and where mommies are going eww to the idea of yogurt cake, I've dismissed any inclination or desire to even suggest, let alone attempt to embrace it.

Seriously, it is different living with 3 guys who would eat almost everything I bake with extremely supportive attitudes and living with the mom and sis and the dad who doesn't eat anything with fruits in it. The idea of a much lower average consumption and too much wastage (and eating the same thing for breakfast 3 days in a row) has constantly weighed on my mind.

So thank goodness for the lunar new year holiday break - where an abundance on food is actually encouraged! Baked up a mandarin orange version of it on the eve (for our visitors as a change from the usual bakgua snacking) and a blueberry version on the 7th day (since it was 人日). Blueberries, unfortunately, were a tad sour, so thank goodness the sweetness from the yogurt cake helped to counterbalance a little. Is it too much to ask for sweet blueberries? ):

On a separate note, the monkeys from the forest nearby have once again restated their claim over my neighbourhood. But this time, they've actually taken to walking into more kitchens (mine included) and stealing the lollipops we bought for the nieces.

Looks like a huge scrub down and dettol-ing is in order. Sure hope the invasion is only temporary.

of christmas and giving

A friend once told me that philanthropy was merely men's way of making themselves feel good about themselves. I guess different people have different feelings about volunteer work/philanthropy. Some associate it as a purely monetary contribution, while others pursue it as a lifelong commitment.

I've always had very conflicting views over these community involvement projects (CIP). Instead of donating (whatever coins I have in my pocket) weekly to the hoards of teenagers trying to fulfill their quota of CIP along our famous shopping street, I'd rather donate food, something more practical.

So, I spent the greater part of yesterday baking the light fruit cake + chocolate cookies (in gingerbread men cut outs) and driving me and Y down to our nearest hypermarket to stock up on Milo/Coffee/Soda Crackers for the old folks home. Yes, I drove on my own. But I made sure that the carpark was an open-aired one- just so I won't have to deal with the humiliation of cars honking at me while I make my 12948th attempt at reverse park.

Y has been involved with a project on community music, working with dementia patients for the past year. She kindly invited me to join her and professors yesterday as they carried out their 'Christmas Special'. Watching them conduct carolling, simple jigsaw puzzle playing - I doubt there was any other way I could have spent a better afternoon.

Oh and by the way- I gained a whole lot of encouraging fans! 'Ying ah, you should open a shop!' I'm just glad that we were able to make their day- my best Christmas present ever!

Can you smell the brandy?

Because I was terribly bored at home, and with the newly tightened braces really getting on my nerves, I decided to bake. A lot of people find me weird because seriously, who needs a precision, full on concentration hobby when you're simply just frustrated with your teeth (and yourself for wanting to have nice teeth. The price of vanity.) But yes, I bake to distract myself from pain and it has served me well.

Yea, my fruit cake doesn't have quite the dark glamour of the traditional ones, but I never really like cakes that colour. Christmas on our little island is far from the gloomy, cold, miserable dark at fourp.m. christmas-es experienced on the other side of the globe- so why bake the traditional heavy dense cakes that are usually doused so heavily with alcohol, you can't taste nothing.

Thank goodness we learnt how to bake the light fruitcake at school :). Although Chef C went a little crazy in administering Rum to the finish product, I kept my dousing well under control. And instead of Rum, I used Brandy instead- simply because Brandy has such a christmassy smell, non?

Still, you'd be surprise at how the brandy permeates the entire cake when it has been given its 48 hours of rest. Add a splosh of brandied butter and you've got yourself Christmas on a plate!

Mine Came Early

Look what my darling aunt got me! I feel truly loved :) Anyone wants an Oreo Cookie Cake?
William Sonoma is truly genius.

When we all become Kids

Spent the later half of the day having fun with my little nieces in the kitchen today.. and my sis and I couldn't resist starting on the cookies first whilst waiting for the arrival of our princesses.

Kinda regretted not going crazy on the food gels and having only one colour to work with. But thank god for my sister's obsession with (what we call) roly polies. Having these multicoloured goodness in your fridge are almost guaranteed to put a smile on any kid's face :) and of course darling R couldn't resist eating as she decorated her cookies!

Good times and the perfect way to spend the birthday week!

When Boredom Creates

Friday's Project: The Basketweave Attempt #1
Just because I've been hugely enamored by its intricacy :)

Because ilovepeanutbutter

My love affair with the peanut butter (smooth only please) goes way back. Can you imagine a world without peanut butter? Or worse, without Peanut Butter and Jelly (PBJ) on toast/whitebread/brownbread? I think, and I am certainly not exaggerating, that my world would crumble into a heap of nothingness without my PBJ.

Of course, the mom is always freaking out when I tell her that I had that for breakfast(or lunch, or dinner) because when I eat PBJ, I eat PBJ. One slice never suffices and I think my record is half a loaf at one go.

[note to self: never buy a jar of peanut butter when you are alone overseas, especially after you haven't had any for a long time]

But I digress. While PBJ is clearly essential for me to function, Peanut Butter alone can do wonders too! In a bid to stop myself from wolfing down another half loaf, I decided the next best thing would be to make peanut butter cookies! And I did.

This marks the end of the baking hiatus and the return of weight gain. How smart was I to think that the 5 batch of cookies that is now sitting on my counter top is going to be 'healthier' than a loaf of bread.

Where are santa's helpers when you need them?

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.