Daring Bakers - Challenge SEVEN!

And the challenge for November is Caramel Cake!

Just think of a mountain of sugar. Then cook it till the smells drives you so wild you dip a spoon to taste it and realise BLEH! This isn't SWEET!! Then pour it into a batter, stir, cook, and enjoy!

A lot of people were complaning about how sweet the cake was. Maybe they didn't realise that the caramel was meant to be cooked to smoking point, which kind of removes much of its sweetness to leave that deep burnt caramel flvour.

Well that sort of summarises my first attempt at recreating the Caramel Cake, this month's Daring Bakers challenge, a creation of renowned pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon, hosted by Dolores (from Culinary Curiosity) and co-hosted by Brownie (from the Blondie and Brownie duo), Jenny (of Foray into Food) and Natalie (the alternative baker from Gluten-a-Go-Go).

Phew. Well that was a mouthful. Don't won't to give any itty bitty little evil computer programs any chance to mess up and get me booted off the DB's. *

ANYWAY, moving along, the cake was really strange. Dense and strong. I would most likely describe it as an "adult cake". Very strong mature flavours. I think with a bit more practice, and more patience, if I could master this cake, it would be quite popular!

The buttercream was quite good as well. Burnt butter was an amazing flavour. Maybe I will try to incorporate it into another type of buttercream. Icing-sugar types are often too sweet!

You can find the recipe on any number of blogs on the Daring Baker's blogroll.

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In other news, I manage to make my first batch of MACARONS!!

YES.

Warhammer Online

Hey ya'll. My results for semester 2 came out. Let's just say Ahmad is currently not a happy boy. So now, I'm going to introduce you to the new love of my life. In sickness and in health, meet:

I dived head-first into the world of demonic MMORPGs and let's just say it's a littttttle bit addictive. At least its not WoW! All you WoW FOOLS! I command you to convert to WAR!!

Meat

Life is weird. How do I know this? I just do.

Anyway, I've always ALWAYS had this idea since forever that being a vegetarian is haram. Like full-on forbidden. I thought everyone thought this way too! In my head it was something to do with "making something forbidden to yourself from that which was made as a provision for you." I didn't bother asking anyone (which btw ppl is a bad habit).

Then recently, after an Arabic class I asked my sheikh, "Is vegetarianism haram?" and he looks at me funny (like I'm delusional). Then he said, "No! Of course not. There's nothing wrong with it." I was like HUH WTF? BUT BUT. Then he goes on and explains how in Islam meat is considered an extravagance and how meat cultivation is a major environmental detriment which is against Islamic principles and I was all like HUH HUH SINCE WHEN.

So suddenly after all these years of viewing vegetarianism as that weird but cool concept that appealed to me and which I might have like to have done but never seriously would have has suddenly become something real and concrete. Weird sentence, I know.

I haven't eaten meat in a while now.

Life is weird.

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And good thing I like dhal.

Hi FRIENDS!

I know! I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy. Bite me.

The Ahmad-Wiestrauss-Laplace Orgy

Hi friends. Are you having fun? I'm not. Yay! Now that exam period is almost over, my obesity will soon reach its peak. In crude limit notation this is expressed as:

weight ----> infinity as t ----> exams

This is due to the Ahmad-Weistrauss-Laplace-Lapdance theorem, which states that the mass of an individual is directly proportional the the distance from the nearest MacDonalds. Now, lets use the epsilon-delta definition of a limit to rigorously prove this theorem.

Because we all know that mathematicians like it rough!

Anyway, I am SO bored of exams right now (but strangely loving maths). I want to play computer games till the sun goes down. My dad came from Singapore and so my mum left the house and is living with her friend. Everyone was expecting dramas but it really isn't so bad.

Ah! The joys of life.

OBAMA-POWAR

Obama won! Yay! Freedom! Joy! Peace and Doves and Rainbows!

My perception of American presidency throughout my mentally-able life can be summed up in 2 words:

Blowjobs & Guantanamo.

Perhaps Obama can reinstill a little of the world's faith back into America.


Gotta love it!

Bonus

Once, when I was about 6 years old, back in Singapore, I walked past this man who was talking to his teenage son about his job. The man said to his son, "Work hard and you'll get bonuses!" I remember thinking "LOL WAT AN IDIOT! BONUSES ARE ONLY IN GAMES FUFUFU!"

Clearly played too much Golden Axe.

Study procrastination...

Do you know what I do when I'm procrastinating from study and being all lazy and fat? I cook! Haha! My family feels all lucky (well SHOULD feel all lucky) during my final exam periods (and I feel like crap) as the kitchen miraculously turns into a production line for all a manner of baked, steamed, fried, poked and prodded tasties.

Unfortunately for me, that has led to ahem "equatorial engorgement" as I like to call it, so I'm trying to cut back on baking a little bit. BUT I CAN'T! It's in my BLOOD! I wonder if I had any bakers in the family line...

Anyway, in my attempts to save time cooking to get more time studying (making bloody creme brulee and lemon meringue pie from scratch really gets time consuming with the washing up and may contribute to a substantial drop in my WAM) I went to the super market and bought instant pancake shake mix and some maple syrup to satisfy my gastronomical urges.

UNFORTUNATELY THE DAMN MAPLE SYRUP WAS SOME FAKE SHIT THAT DIDN'T EVEN HAVE SUGAR IN IT! I realised I was buying the fake stuff (i.e. not the real stuff from Canada or watever) but seriously, this is taking this sugar-free business just a little bit too far don't you think! I don't want to be pouring sorbitol all over my pancakes.

And to make things worse, the pancake mix was the worst I've ever had. It couldn't take being soaked in syrup and turned into mush. Uber low gluten content maybe?? Who knows. At least it wasn't gluten free urgh.

Ah well. To be fair, the faux-maple syrup was the best tasting sugar free thing I've ever had. Which is really not that much of a prize.

Anyway, back to study.

"Regulation and Professional Ethics for an Actuary..."

Yawn.