And the challenge for October is ... is ... PIZZA!?
!! LOL. NO. YEAST. ARGH. AHMAD + YEAST = FAIL. !!
This month's challenge is hosted by Rosa, of Rosa's Yummy Yums. When I logged on to the forums and saw it was pizza I *groaned*. Sigh. Yeast. Yeast. Slimy little buggers. All they do is eat your sugar and fart out gas. Haven't quite yet got a hold of them. Last time we did something with yeast (well besides the crackers) it was a disaster.
Anyway, might as well get on with it I said! There is "daringness" in DB after all :P. I tried the recipe a few days after it went up and had a few problems. 4 cups of flour does not equal 605 g where I live. LOL. So I made the mistake of taking 4 cups as 4 x 250 g. Silly me. So I ended up with things in the bin. Or being left outside so long it fermented into demon soup.
Sorry no millions of pics + explanations today! One, I really don't have any expertise at all LOL and two I've been way WAY too busy (in final exams now gah) to spend a lot of time so this will have to do!
I made 2 pizzas: A desert pizza (an AMAZING peanut butter, chocolate, pecan, banana and cream-cheese explosion) and and a regular margarita. You can see I attempted to do a stuffed crust (but it didn't turn out. LOL!)
Well, clearly the dough turned out eventually (LOL :P). It was SO stretchy but still held together! It was AWESOME. I think I might have just tossed it around a biiiit too much. Excuse the funky-fied brightness/contrast of the picture. Didn't feel like showing any face.
As a result I look like a demon trying to catch your souls with my purpley membrane thingy. Humour me. LOL.
I'm about to stay up studying the whole night and the only emotion I'm feeling right now is desperation. Is that even an emotion? I'm almost 100% sure I'm not going to be able to attain a high enough mark to pull up my WAM to 80, and yet I keep on trying.
I'm so jacked up on caffeine (thanks RedBull) that my left eye will not stop twitching. Remember, only 2 cans a day if you're sane! I'm pretty sure I've gone over the limit. A few times over.
I recall telling you the story of how I ate a rosebud sometime in the past but I can't seem to find the post and so I will assume I didn't. Somehow in the midst of final exam studying madness this story popped into my head.
For some reason or another (actually I know the reason but it's just too random/weird/occult to confess on the internets) I had to eat a rosebud. Yes, a rosebud. Somewhat against my will. And very much against my better judgement.
Anyway, here I was sitting on the floor at the apartment we rented for a while in Singapore during certain eventful times of my life I rather hate to relive, with a rosebud in one hand, and 5 people looking at me waiting for me to munch on it.
And so I did.
Nom.
Nom.
Nom.
Little did I know that the I didn't really have to munch on the whole damn thing, just the petals. Don't ask why, I won't tell (and I really don't know myself). And so I accidentally the whole economy (lol jkz) I accidentally ate all the stamens and fugness and bitter shit and so I was gagging to death but see I was still obliged to eat it. I asked the person if I could spit if out but he obviously he said no and he went and got me a glass of water to help it down.
You know how much I hate drinking water on its own, but I took a gulp anyway. Turns out the genius got me a cup of warm water (YUCK) and so now swirling around in my mouth was a warm soupy mixture of rosy filth.
Joy.
I almost lost control of my mouth and spat it all out but that would have had very unfortunate consequences and so somehow I managed to force myself to swallow it all, even though I was almost about to cry from how unfortunate the feeling was in my mouth (urgh the taste still torments me).
So, basically, the moral of the story is, if you offer me sugar-crusted candied rose petals, please don't be offended when I say, "f*ck off."
Semester 2 is over! And I didn't ditch my last lecture! I am AWESOME. Ending this semester on an unsure note. How will I go!? I need an ultimate ultimate performance in these finals or else I am gonna be analised.
In other more random news, I rode in an Australian taxi for the first time! I know right?? I've been living in this country for more than 12 years and the first time I ever ride a taxi is when my cousin is too lazy to catch the Wynyard train to Circular Quay and so we take a cab. Cost $10! Bejaysus! I wonder how much it would have cost to come back to Lakemba.
I think Singaporean taxis are a lot cheaper. And better.
In other news, I am SUCH a bad employee. My quasi-boss called me up for training on Saturday but my cousin came so I wanted to go to Parramatta and eat waffles with him (Max Brenner *droool*) and so I DITCHED WORK. OMG. I SUCK. I felt so bad afterwards.
Totally embarrasing thing happened today. 7 out of 10 embarrasing.
ANYWAY. One of my random through the family acquaintances on Facebook gave me the idea of free education at uni (a.k.a. jumping into random lectures to learn stuff). I thought YAY I ARE SO SMARTS LETS JUMP INTO A BIG JAP LECTURE AND NO-ONE WILL NOES US!
Except NO.
Turns out the lecture was a Jap-1B lecture (as in ppl already could speak rudimentary Japanese) and so it was a total wtf experience. Add to that the fact that the classes were really small and the lecturer knew everyone by first name basis and we stuck out like BIG FAKE SORE THUMBS.
The lecturer went up to ppl during the class and the whole time I was praying PLZ PLZ don't come up to me but damn HELL Murphy's Law she came up to me. Sigh! Then she started asking me stuff in Japanese and I had no idea what was going it was SO BAD. I tried to do some astral projection which totally didn't work so I was stuck there totally embarrased rambling nonsense ARGH FAIL FAIL FAIL!
In other news, I'm chewing a Mentos now and it hurts. Frakking ulcers.
P.S. Did you know Jehovah's Witnesses are banned in Singapore? LMAO WTF?!
Uni started again today. Midsemester break was so amazing. As in relieving. Today was another amazingly fun day of uni. Totally radical joyful sexed up fun times.
Skipped lectures again even though I swore (for the 967578th time) that I'd go to every single one as a result of my crap-tascular results. ARGH! Studying sucks!
Anyway. I felt stupid again today. No-one can make me feel more stupid that bloody effinfg Vladimir. Why does he have to be so smart for? In MY domain too. Why, oh why. In other joyful news I get that exam result tomorrow and that will determine if I jump in front of a train or not.
Far out. It's so bloody hot these days. Summer came so fast this year. Hell, it's not even Summer yet. Bah! Clothes are sticking to my skin againnn it feels so nasty. Well at least waking up early is a lot easier. No point staying in bed if it feels like a sauna. Maybe I should stop using a blanket.
But it's way too comfy.
Hmm. I was driving home from my friend's place in the evening and it was all Summery stuffy and the clouds were all red and dark and ready to pour and then my mum sends a txt msg telling me that there's a black out of the whole street at home. How fun. I like blackouts. I didn't think they happened anymore. So much for modern technology and watever.
Blackouts remind me of more innocent times. Running around in the dark with candles. Being too terrified to go to the toilet because there was light and something might rape me as I was sitting on the dunny. No television? Hmm. Not really.
Anyway, as I was driving back it turned out that the traffic lights had gone out too. All the big intersections had no lights working. I swear there was an accident about to happen anytime. Dumb cops were so useless! Lucky I was on the main road so I could just keep driving straight throught the lights (win for right of way). All the side roads had to wait and try to sneak in an entrance.
Happy Eid! Eid Mubarak! Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri!!
The holy fasting month of Ramadan ended yesterday, so today is the Muslim holiday of Eid! Everyone's all joyful and celebrating and kiddies running about happy that they have tasty food and cash from parents.
Whole family stayed up late last night making the traditional set of Malay Eid food, i.e. lontong, kuah lodeh, beef rendang, sambal udang, ayam masak merah, etc. Sigh! Malay food is SO GOOD. Not really as widely known as say Chinese food but it is SO good.
It was so funny having to organise everyone to cook all the dishes simultaneously disaster. 6 PEOPLE in one tiny kitchen!! HELL. I like it though. Everyone has to contribute, male or female (don't you just love the gender equality??) My brother isn't so kitchen friendly and didn't cook the chilli properly in a certain dish and so quite a few people are going to have upset tummies. But happy tongues. XD XD.
It's so funny our house is always so packed out on Eid cos all the local families my mum knows come to our house cos we famous on Eid and eat and be merry.
And sooo I had to make a cake! DAH!
I made a traditional Malay cake called kueh lapis (literally "layered cake") which is made from a CRAP load of unhealthy fatty ingredients (20 egg yolks. In one small little 25 x 25 cm cake. LOL! Not to mention half a kilo of butter. But anyway...) but tastes SO GOOD.
My cake really wasn't as pretty as this one, but according to all the old Malay mummas (there were a LOT of them) it was very much moist and tasted very authentic. Awww! That made me happy. Apparently they sell for a crapload. $70 a cake. Oosh!
The challenge for September is ... *drum roll* ... Lavash Crackers!
...
*crickets chirping*
...
WHUT??
Haha. If that too was your reaction when you saw Lavash, then don't worry we're both similarly ignorant of Armenian-esque cuisine. I logged on to The DB forums after washing the chocolate pastry cream off my hands full expecting to be hit with another diabetes inducing round of chocolate, cream and butter, but was pleasantly surprised by my first savoury challenge!
More bready than cracker-ish but still tasty!
No lengthy pic-fest this time guys SORRY I'm too lazy to photoshop and prettify all the pictures like I usually do. I'll just leave you guys with a video of how you work your lavash dough in the true armenian way!!
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
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I HATH BEEN REDEEMED!
LIFE ONCE AGAIN HAS MEANING!!
I was so upset that the Lindt macarons sucked so frakkin much that today after uni I caught the earliest bus to The Rocks and navigated the winding paths of the Old City area to find a little French patisserie French-Man told me was quite exquisite.
Yes. I take my food seriously.
This patisserie, Le Renaissance, which sounds amazing pronounced in the true Francais accent, is according to French-Man a very decent place for pastries, comparable to true Parisian pastries (he would know).
When I walked in the shop I was really nervous cos I knew this was where all the rich business dudes hung out for coffee and I was in full povo wear with not so much cash on hand. But I went in anyway.
The cakes were so beautiful! Oh! The presentation! Ah! The prettiness! What patisseries in the inner west (a.k.a. The Ghetto, i.e. where I live) so miserably fail to realise is that it is ALL about the presentation. And the taste too. Of course.
I bought an Opera Cake (just for the sake of all you Daring Bakers ;D I just had to!) as well as one of their resident creations, whose name I can't quite remember.
Not to sound too bitchy or anything, but the cakes were not all that great. I think I could have done better with alternate choices. Opera cake had a strangely high ratio of jaconde to buttercream and chocolate creme patisserie so the experience was too much of overwhelming greasy mouthfeel. Maybe it's meant to be like that. The other cake was amazingly well presented but the outer sponge was quite dry. They could have done much better.
And now, to the core of my post.
They had...
Macarons.
*Heart skips a beat*.
I bought 6 macarons. 2 chocolate, 2 passionfruit, one jasmine and one vanilla. I was out of the dreamy fantasy state. Like a divorcee who is no longer under the illusion of blind romance.
But I had hope!
I went home, and when it was time to break my fast, I tried the chocolate maracon.
Joy!
It was good! Full and chewy and strong and chocolatey and enjoyable to eat~! The shell was crunchy without being dry and the inside was soft yet chewy and not sickly sweet and smooth but with texture ah!
And then there was the passionfruit macaron! Ah! What a dance on the tastebuds that was. Amazing amazing AMAZING flavour. Vanilla was very enjoyable as well. Jasmine was a bit too floral and too sweet but still enjoyable in small amounts.
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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[Due to popular demand I HAD to finish the story :P]
My brother works at the Reserve Bank in the city at Martin's Place and it happens to be right next to one of the Lindt Cafe's in Sydney. He gets to eat their tasty stuff often. Lucky!
Anyway, one day I found out that Lindt Cafe has MACARONS! Yes! Those evil little circular devil pastries that dance all over the internet and poke their creamy little tongues at me full knowing I'll never get to taste a real one any time soon. Did I tell you how I bugged my french-uncle/soon-to-be-boss to get me some Laduree macarons from Paris??
YES I AM THAT OBSESSED.
So one day I bugged my brother enough and he finally went and got some for me. Man I was like crapping my pants in excitement. I was like SO WET. I practically smashed the door down when I got home to taste one.
I carefully took one out of the box...
...and took a bite.
[Edit]
Where was I? Oh yes.
I took a bite...
And was crushed. So many hours of fantasising about wonderful flavours and Lindt's reputation and whatnot but unfortuntately only one word can describe the experience.
Meh.
Just so incredibly boring. The shell was so dry and felt very flaky and gross in my mouth. Not a pleasure to eat at all. Such an unfortunate texture. So hollow! It was like a air bag that once the shell cracked it just all fell apart in my hand.
Right now I'm consoling telling myself that it's just Lindt that sucks and that in Paris they'll taste like I fantasise but until I go there, we'll have to wait and keep trying to make them.
I made that blog post title just cos I felt like it.
And it feels bloody hot.
One of my uni friends is really pissing me off lately. Sigh damn emotional religious people! So bipolar!! Far out. And I'm totally allowed to make bipolar jokes mind you. It runs in the family. I'll tell you that story another time. ^^;;
Dude I totally didn't fail accounting. HAHA.
And I had an actuarial exam today. TOTALLY SMAsHED IT. Studying hours and hours straight totally works people. Try it!
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Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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I voted for the first time on Sunday. Local elections. I felt like, all important and stuff. And oh so democratic. It was really strange too. Like my opinion actually counted or something. And not having to vote the way anyone else voted or wanted me to vote, but voting for who I felt was the right candidate (or who I was fooled into voting). And all that other happy jazz.
It was funny cos I didn't know the policies of any of the candidates at all. People were crowding around me and everyone else handing me pamphlets of how to vote for Labor or Liberal or this particular independent or watever. I comtemplated voting based on how aesthetically pleasing the candidate was but then I realised that that was a tad bit too Fahrenheit 451 than I'd like to be comfortable with.
When people ask me who I voted for I say, "Obama".
Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch is bought by the Bank of America for $50 billion dollars. Who would have thought that within 6 months there would only be two of the Big 5 investment banks left. If something as big as Lehman Brothers can fail, who is safe? The gigantic farce of financial derivatives is slowly being unravelled! They always seemed slightly dodgy anyway. I would be quite scared if I was living in America. Nonetheless, exciting times for finance students!
L-O-L. Did YOU KNOW that MS TRUNCHBULL (a.k.a. the physical manifestation of ALL THAT IS EVIL) is actually Laura Thyme from Rosemary & Thyme?? LIKE WTF! Amazing what a bit of make-up can do haha!
From eating babies...
...to all Prim and Proper! LOL!
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Roald Dahl's novels?
Hello once again happy people! I have a macroeconomics quiz tomorrow that I haven't studied for but who cares! Blogging is fun! And I should do a language major instead! But enough wishful thinking. More language study! Maybe then I can fluently speak many languages like londongirl! Once again, my chosen 7 languages, arranged in order of increasing hopelessness!
Malay: I have done absolute nothing since my last post! And hence I know absolutely nothing more! I want to buy some Malay primary school textbooks, a Malay grammar book and a English-Malay dictionary. Same for Arabic, Japanese and French.
Arabic: Better, better! My Lebanese friend was speaking to his mum on the phone and I understood a few lines! WOOHOO! That was coolness. Except that slang Arabic is a bit different to the more formal Standard Modern Arabic I'm learning. Getting better. Learnt lots of pronouns and attached pronouns and stuff like that.
Japanese: Notice how Japanese has trumped French since last time?? HEHE. That's cos I learnt all my hiragana!! I had such a amazing turning point magical moment in Japanese. Remember these cool Japanese stuffed-toys I blogged about a while ago? Well, I was looking at them again recently and I realised that I COULD READ THEM:
Here's a picture of it posed conveniently in front of my blog.
ZOMG! IS THAT HIRAGANA?
TO-U-FU! Tofu! So they ARE called tofu-toys!
That made me so happy. Like REALLY happy. I went nuts for a while and no-one could understand my joy and everyone was making fun of me. But I didn't care! Epiphany! I have broken into a whole new world!
[P.S. Nothing new on French, German or Mandarin. Pew pew.]
I went to Animania '08 again!! Second round!! Woohoo! And this time I cosplayed! HAHAHA. It wasn't really that fun to be honest. But I'm an attention whore and people give you attention when you're dressed up as a snake demon so anyway. Here are my two entries for "Stare at Me and Take Pictures" a.k.a. "I Wish I Was On Project Runway":
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Thursday, September 04, 2008
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Ramadan Cream! No, not a special desert made during this most auspicious of months, but rather how lazy people with bad Arabic pronunciation (i.e. moi!) say, "Ramadan Kareem!" which basically means, "Happy Ramadan!"
I've been meaning to make a post on this since Monday, but have been putting it off, but since I saw fellow Daring Baker pixxienix do a post I thought, "Darn it! Do it already!" And so I did.
Haha! Reading last year's Ramadan post made me laugh. Quote:
Once again, the holiest of months is upon us: Ramadan!
At this time of the year, Muslims (like me!) all over the world fast (sawm), and refrain from eating, drinking, sexual relationships, bitching about other people, and being naughty in general. 'Tis the month to be pure and holy. Amen.
Anyway, if anyone of your friends/acquaintances/family-members suddenly stops eating during the day for a month from sunrise till sunset, and has really bad empty stomach breath chances are they're fasting.
Make them really nice food! They'll appreciate it! ;)
You guys are in for a treat today! HEHEHE! Happy Ahmad had a lot of fun with this challenge. Especially with the photography too! I'm getting much better with lighting and whatnot and as you shall see, the pictures in this episode of The Daring Baker are probably the best I've done so far. This time around I'll not try to talk to much and let the pictures do the narration.
Anyway, time for obligatory background check, eclairs are basically choux pastry (read: shoo pastry) filled with a filling, in this case chocolate pastry cream, and optionally topped with chocolate glaze. Choux pastry is so easy to make, and its so amazing too since it puffs up insanely much using only its own steam (no baking powder! GASP.) Pate a choux, as it is also called, can go from this ...
... to this ...
... with only heat! Brilliant isn't it!? ^_^;;
But before you make your pastry shells, old experienced me suggests you make your filling first (especially if it is a pastry creme, since they need time to chill) to save yourself lots of heartache and frustration. Especially if your DAMN F*#%IN$ PASTRIES KEEP FREAKIN' COLLAPSING *Bashes head against counter-top*.
Ahem. Moving along.
Making Your Chocolate Pastry Cream:
The base of a good pastry cream is good fresh milk.
Stir continuously until it reaches a boil. Supposedly a "rolling boil" but I have no idea what that means. *Shrug*. Do you like my cool nifty whisk gadget? IKEA!
On the side, break some eggs and steal their yolks.
Throw some cornflour over them to stop their complaining.
Oooo! Pretty close up shot!
I should at this point in time, despite you having so much fun violating your eggs, remind you to keep stirring your milk, lest you end up with a nasty skin layer. Which has to be manually removed, and ends up looking ...
... slightly disturbing.
Whisk the egg yolks, and add them to the milk ...
... whisking continuously until ...
... it becomes thick and creamy-licious. Mmmm!
Melt your dark chocolate and pour it in (with one hand and camera in the other hand. Haha. My camera ended up so sticky by the end of this.)
Stir, then add soft butter...
Stir stir stir somemore and then you get the most delicious chocolate cream filling EVER. It's SO GOOD. I kept eating it with a spoon even though I hadn't even made my eclairs yet! Haha.
Be sure to chill. It's way tastier cold. Well, I think anyway.
Now for Step TWO!
Making Your Choux Pastry:
Melt your butter in your milky-water as quickly as possible to avoid water loss. Once I even melted my butter in the microwave and poured it in the milky-water. It was a good idea I think.
Then add your flour ALL at ONCE in one great floury flourish!
Stir over low heat until it gathers into a ball and unsticks from the sides. This little guy needs a bit more drying. Not quite together yet.
Add your eggs one at a time (LOL I really should practise what I preach haha) and use a mixer (or if your a masochist use a wooden spoon) until it becomes smooth. Here's where choux pastry gets a bit tricky. Because chickens are weird and can't make perfectly identical eggs all the time, you might not need all of the egg. You kind of need to make a judgement about how thick you want your pastry to be. I like to think the ideal point is where it can be piped and hold its shape with only slight drooping. But then again, I usually make things up as I go along.
Love this picture. And there you have your "dough".
Part Three!
Baking Your Shells:
By this point, I had generally made the recipe about 6 times (no exaggeration) and so besides knowing the recipe off by heart, I felt like experimenting with different shapes to see what kind of results I got. The first is with spoons, the second a regular pipe, and the third is a squiggly sort of shape I saw in some video on the internet. And the results are...
Wow. Fat. LOL!
Damn top heating element. Keeps burning all my crap! Never fear happy people, I bought a new oven and it's coming soon! Weee! The top heating element actually made the things crispier, which I really liked.
I cut them in half and glazed their tops.
And last but not least...
The Result!
I love how this looks. But even more, the taste is amazing.
Full-frontal shot.
I tried my hand at desert plating. Looked cute, but I think I'm not quite there yet.
Extra Fun:
I've been dying to try my hand at making a Paris Brest since forever and I thought this was the perfect opportunity. Lots of leftoever choux! What to do!? That rhymed. By the way.
Hot, no?
*Phew*. That was fun. Now I have to go wash the damn dishes. My silly FAT family keeps eating all my food and never helps me clean up!
And the challenge for October is ... is ... PIZZA!?
Anyway, might as well get on with it I said! There is "daringness" in DB after all :P. I tried the recipe a few days after it went up and had a few problems. 4 cups of flour does not equal 605 g where I live. LOL. So I made the mistake of taking 4 cups as 4 x 250 g. Silly me. So I ended up with things in the bin. Or being left outside so long it fermented into demon soup.
Sorry no millions of pics + explanations today! One, I really don't have any expertise at all LOL and two I've been way WAY too busy (in final exams now gah) to spend a lot of time so this will have to do!
Well, clearly the dough turned out eventually (LOL :P). It was SO stretchy but still held together! It was AWESOME. I think I might have just tossed it around a biiiit too much. Excuse the funky-fied brightness/contrast of the picture. Didn't feel like showing any face.
Anyway, might as well get on with it I said! There is "daringness" in DB after all :P. I tried the recipe a few days after it went up and had a few problems. 4 cups of flour does not equal 605 g where I live. LOL. So I made the mistake of taking 4 cups as 4 x 250 g. Silly me. So I ended up with things in the bin. Or being left outside so long it fermented into demon soup.
Sorry no millions of pics + explanations today! One, I really don't have any expertise at all LOL and two I've been way WAY too busy (in final exams now gah) to spend a lot of time so this will have to do!
Well, clearly the dough turned out eventually (LOL :P). It was SO stretchy but still held together! It was AWESOME. I think I might have just tossed it around a biiiit too much. Excuse the funky-fied brightness/contrast of the picture. Didn't feel like showing any face.
