I'LL GO ALL ARTS AND CRAFTS ON YOU!

[via Explosm.net]

Now with ECON1101 finished, I'm mildly free to do all the things that make me happy. Which usually doesn't involve other people. Keke. Mind you, for my microeconomics finals, I slept for HALF AN HOUR the night before (not studying, although I tried; I just sat in my bed for 8 hours. Talk about killer insomnia). Then when I went into the exam hall, I fell asleep during my exam. Woke up thinking WTF where am I? And why do I smell like horse-shit?

[Note: UNSW makes us do exams at the Randwick Racecourse, where the joyful smell of horse excrement wafts through the air as you try to recall what the frak Coase Theorem is and how it is relevant to your life.]

Anyway, with half my exams finished, I'm free to do random stuff! Like make things! I like making things! I wonder why. Actually, no I don't.

I made.....

1) A mask for my No-Face cosplay:

Does this not look amazing? It's supposed to look like this. I made it out of paper-mâché. I'm so crafty, I know! I didn't know it would dry so freakin hard so I had to make eye-holes using a hand drill! LOL. I can't wait to finish the costume.

2) A totally edible sugarpaste TIGER-LILY!

made my own sugar paste from icing sugar, gelatine and glucose (if you need a recipe ask; I'm feeling too lazy to write it). But they turn out pretty. I didn't have any stamens so it looks kinda empty in the middle. I'll need more experience.

3) A MAGICAL CAKE!

HEHE. Doesn't this look like it belongs in one of those claymation movies? Wallace and Gromit's wedding cake. Haha. I was just having a bit too much fun with fondant and food colouring.

Ah. That was fun to write about. Now I have to get back to studying finance. My exam is tomorrow and I am procrastinating! My uncle came from Singapore and I didn't get to go out with the family with my cousin COS OF DAMN EXAMS.

*Sigh*. Maybe next time...

The Candy Man!

[Note: Videos might not work yet. Be warned, the videos are of seriously crappy quality. I used my phone! But still, better than nothing ;D]

After uni on Friday I went with my friends to Circular Quay (Sydney Harbour basically) and we danced around and had heaps of fun. Here's a panorama-ish shot I took of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge with my phone's cool panorama function. I think it looks quite pretty:

After that we went to Sticky! The world's COOLEST CANDY SHOP!! They make THE most awesome lollies ever. They look so cool and taste oh so good. And the best part is that everything is hand-made, and they make it in front of your face! I stood there for an hour watching the guy make them. And now I can share it with you! YAY. Looky-look!


They are so pretty. Little designs of sugar. I was thinking, "HOW THE HELL DO THEY DO THIS?" and then the guy (his name is David) popped out and was like, "I'll give you a demonstration in 10 minutes." Cool! We danced around and talked to the people for a while (David used to be a lawyer but dumped it to be a candy man. LOL!) and then it finally started.

First he got out a humongous vat of super hot BOILING sugar syrup at 160 degrees celsius and poured it on to a metal bench in front of him (turns out it was a water-cooled metal thing). His assistant (Lily; she has cool hair) helped him get all the bits out:


Then Lily got out some colours and added them into the sugar and started mixing. Normally, I'm not much of an anti-artificial-stuff kinda person, like I'm ok with food colouring and stuff, but some of these colours freaked me out a bit! For example, to make the sugar syrup white (like opaque white) he added this weird white stuff. I asked David what it was and he said it was titanium dioxide. I WAS LIKE LOL WTF? He told me it was biologically inert and I was like, "Umm. Oh ok. Fair enough!" but still slightly creeped out. Anyway, here's a pic of the blue:

Here's a video!

It was cool how David worked on one side and Lily on the other side. You could tell they were a really good team. Here's the creepy titanium dioxide stuff. Didn't stop me from eating it though:


The just-a-moment-ago boiling sugar cooled pretty quick because the table was cool (LOL PUN!) and so then they slid off the metal guiding things, leaving a funky weird pliable sugar mass to work with. They started cutting it into sections (to separate the colours) and then kneaded it:

Here's a video of them folding the sugar around:

After some kneading (using heavy insulating gloves, of course) this is what we were left with on Lily's side of the cool-table. A blue blob!


Unfortunately, old titanium-white had to be a bit weird, and so kneading it was not enough! To make it really pretty and have a nice sheen, the white sugar mass had to be pulled. Literally! The point of it is to incorporate air. Kinda like a meringue. Anyway, David used a hook and some cool technique to do it:

Pull, pull, PULL!!

Magically, a creamy looking mass remained:

Then we were left with 3 blobs of cool sugar syrup:

Now the three blobs of sugar are ready to be worked with. They were making a candy that spelt "AUSTRALIA". David had to slowly make all the letters in a long 3D kinda way so that when u cut it the cross-section spelt "Australia". Pretty cool, eh? Here's Lily fixing them up:


It's then rolled into a big giant cylinder and wrapped in another layer of sugar for decorative purposes. And extra flavour, I think. Video:



NOW FOR THE AMAZING PART! The huge barrel-looking sugar mass is then stretched out into a skinny tube, which is then sliced up into the lollies! Isn't that SO amazing?? You end up with miniature versions of the big thing!! AWESOME.

Stretching it....

And then chopping them up!

I think Lily does most of the chopping. She's really pro. She uses a tool that's kinda like that teppenyaki sort of thing. She's make an awesome teppenyaki chef!! She puts the candy rods on a mini anvil and then chops away, packs them into jars, and sells them for a ridiculous profit!!

WIN!

Red Snapper!

Today was another amazingly uneventful day in my "banal" life (totally stolen off another blog). Actually, not really. For one, I went to another Islamic Class this morning with Sheikh Naeem, and he told us how he tasted frozen durians with his sons and how it looked like pus flowing down their cheeks. Not nice. I love durians though, fresh ones, bought in tropical countries like Singapore. Delicious.

I watched Naturo Shippuden 28 today. I watch the episodes at KunaiNaruto (it's a really kewl website that hosts the episodes for FREE!). I've never really talked about my love/hate relationship with Naruto before, but yeh, this episode sucked major wang. It was one of those "believe in yourselves emo children!!" episodes. Not in the mood.

Also, I made palmiers! Another great podcast from DyannBakes. As you can probably tell, I am totally obsessed with this site. I was SO hungry and bored, and totally not in the mood to study (EVEN THOUGH MY HSC EXAMS ARE IN 32 DAYS) so I went and bought puff-pastry at my local store. The palmiers turned out alright I suppose, not sweet enough for me though. Here's a pic:

These are before baking...

During baking...

And the finished product!

I'm at that point in my life when I'm stressing out over everything. I have to study for my exams, I have to fill out my Co-op Scholarship application, I want everybody to sign my shirt, I wanna go places for iftar, I want to blog about certain stuff, I want to ARGH JUMP OFF A CLIFF. I am so anal like that; everything HAS to go to plan. Maybe that's why I like baking. There's a plan you follow, and you get results! Perfect.

DAY TWO

Where: At home again. I'm still waiting on invites to friend's houses...

What: First, it was milk tea (I HEART) with a fat juicy date. Then I ate the palmiers I made and some pineapple upside-down cake. After we prayed, we came back and had asam pedas ikan (with RED SNAPPER! Jeez this fish is so delicious...) and rice. SO insanely tasty. I feel so fat and guilty now. Bulimia FTW! (Not.)

Lindt Cafe!

Behold! The LINDT CAFE! A cafe built exclusively to serve its patrons with tender, heavenly chocolate, velvety ganache, tantalisingly smooth hot chocolate and crispy waffles! GASP. I am drooling at my own corny prose!!

Anyway, I went to this place a while ago with Am and company, I only had waffles though. $12 bucks each JAYSUS. I'm not rich ok!! I would have loved to have ordered everything, but ah well, life is unfair. Have a look at some of their delicious foods:

LOOK AT THESE CAKES. I was standing there, drooling all over the glass. Each one costs an arm and a leg, so I doubt I'll be tasting them anytime soon. *Sob*

Pretty chocolate...

No idea they could make almonds look so delicious!

I want this cake NOW! LOOK AT IT!!! SO SMOOTH!!!

I didn't see these chairs when I was there. Weird...

Voodoo chocolate! ME wants!

Choc-heaven!

Oh man. I want this cake. I want ALL THEIR CAKES! FEEED MEEEEE!!

Gobstopper

OMFG. I've been sucking on a $1 gobstopper all day, and I just got to the middle, and I BIT on it, and GROSS PINK CHEWY STUFF CAME OUT. YUCK. It tasted SO funky!

Note-to-self: Never buy cheap gobstoppers from vending machines at Centro Bankstown...