This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.
[Do click on it.]
I call it the Fortuitous Fruit Bowl.
Bit of a lazy effort, I know. Tartlette did some brilliant work! I had something in mind like that but it is so hot and I am so lazy. So instead, in the Chinese New Year spirit, which happened to fall on Australia Day, I made fortune cookies from French tuille batter and took a picture using Japanese technology.
Hello friends! Here as promised, is my latest food review! It concerns the Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie (which by the way, I cannot pronounce) a classy little boutique based out of Singapore.
Anyway, as you my notice, the quality of my food porn pictures has increased by quite a degree! This is because I now have a DSLR camera which is uber awesome. Yes. Awesome. I encourage you all to click on the pics to see them in HUGE AWESOME QUALITY.
But enough babbling, onto the food!
I'm not exactly sure why they called themselves a chocolate patisserie since it didn't really seem like it had much of a chocolate emphasis. The place was very classy though. Black. A lot of black decor. Nice bags.
This little beauty was called The Jupiter. Anyone want to suggest any reasons why? The most brilliant icing job with the ganache; it was just SO smooth. And the sides were so vertical. It was wondrous to look at....
...tasting it however, was a different story. I'm not sure who thought putting passionfruit puree in the middle of dark chocolate mousse was a good idea, but let me just say it is not. It made it feel like there was something sour and greasy in my mouth, like the mousse was off. Not a good taste.
But it was so bloody pretty, so have another look. Ah! Sigh.
This next cake was called the Matcha, for reasons I would completely not have know had I not joined the Daring Bakers. They seem to like incorporating matcha powder into a lot of things, those Daring Baker people. Green tea powder.
This one was much better than the Jupiter; it had a bit of a graininess to it though. I'm not sure what it was. It was meant to be a green tea mousse or something. The biscuit at the bottom was kind of nice as well.
Last of the cakes, and probably the least, is this weird triple layered cheesecake thing that just tasted weird. I'm probably doing it a big injustice because I ate it when it was a bit warm, so I'm not going to say anymore about it. Not as pretty as the others though.
And now for the fun part...
!! THE MACARONS !!
[Haha. Like as if you didn't know it was coming :P]
1. Passionfruit: [6/10] It was not too chewy, no air bubbles at all, a reasonably well made macaron. Little bit grainy/dry but it was still very nice. The passionfruit flavour was very strong. Very nice flavour.
2. Pistachio: [7/10] Very moist. Texture was very very good. The pistachio flavour was very delicate and soft but it was clear. Good flavour.
3.Rose: [8.5/10] Much much better balance of the rose flavour than macarons I've had in Australia, which tend to be too overpowering. A delicious buttercream that reminded me so much of a Malay drink called Bandung (which is basically rose syrup + milk). So moist. Again, the rose flavour was the perfect amount.
4. 80% Chocolate: [7/10] A well made macaron with a good strong chocolate flavour.
5. Raspberry: [7.5/10] A moist macaron filled with raspberry jam, which was sweet and slightly tart, which was a good offset too all the great sweetness.
6.Caramel: [9/10] My favourite out of all of them! Such a delicious salted caramel taste! Ah the caramel flavour in the moist macaron was just heavenly. Just so good.
I hope I don't sound too pretentious. I'm just writing down what I truly felt about everything I tasted on that day. At the end of the day everyone has their own set of tastebuds. I hope you found the pictures enjoyable!
[Fed to my little sister. I know, I'm so nice right?]
I just came back from a 5-hour marathon shopping session (well more like sight-seeing session since we didn't really buy anything except food) with my little sister at Singapore's CBD area a.k.a. ultimate shopping district: Orchard Road. Ouchie ouch my feet hurt. I don't know how you people do this on a regular basis.
LMAO. I really want to buy Crisco (i.e. vegetable shortening) from Singapore because I've tried looking everywhere for it in Sydney and I JUST FOUND OUT the only place you can buy it is from a sex shop on Oxford St. OMFG. Damn Wilton-style buttercream better taste good if my only options are lugging a huge can of fat on an A380 or going into a sex shop to buy it as a quasi-lubricant. URGH.
Hey EVERYONE!! I'm still on holiday; joy! I came back from the Gold Coast on Wednesday. Such a good place for a holiday. Especially that I went with my friends! You can get up to so much wacky crap and no one cares haha. Poor Queenslanders. Who knew bleaching your hair was so easy? Asian hair too!
Anyway, now I'm in singapore with my Dad and little sis. A bit less exciting but the food and shopping is a LOT better. Ah Singapore! So much to do.
I found a baking specialty store. So retarded that they are so bloody rare in Sydney. Spent a LOT. I forgot what a bloody expensive hobby baking is.
Now listen to me rant:
People here are really confused about what "type" of person I am (i.e. race). Everyone's a little bit racist here (go on admit it) but it's ok cos I'm kinda weird-looking and everyone just assumes I'm from them. Chinese talk Chinese to me, Malays talk Malay to me and in both cases I have no idea whats going on. Smile and nod, penguins, smile and nod. Someone thought I was Thai.
I feel really tall here.
My dad has always lived and still lives a difficult life. He becomes irritable and very moody so easily and can really blow-off his top and go nuts and make me hate him for a while, but I just can't help but feel sorry for him so much sometimes. He works insane shifts at work and I think he feels like he has nobody. He is the type of person who finds it very difficult to connect emotionally to people (I think it was his own traumatic growing-up experience). He lives alone in Singapore. Sigh.
There are bloody huge cockroaches here.
Also I have to choose a language to study at uni BOOHOO! I transferred to commerce/arts cos I'm a freak and now I don't know what to do. Time to set up my first poll!
I locked the keys in the car. Again. *RAGE*. Except this time it was the new car and it doesn't have a spare key. *RAGE*. I called my mum expecting help and/or support but she was being unfortunate and told me to "deal with it" and hung up in my face. *RAGE*. I called up NRMA but the car wasn't registered with them so they said, "Sorry we can't help you." *RAGE*. Then I called up a locksmith and hard to fork out $110 so he could stick a wire in through the window and pull up the lock. *RAGE*.
Sigh!! So many interesting things happening in my life right now it's TOO MUCH LOLOL. Freakin' Malay society money embezzlement total bustjobs, all the parents punching each other up its just SO FUNNY. I NEED IN! And finding out about the secret lives of friends LOL ARGH TOO MUCH why didn't he just tell me LOLOL. I am losing it! Must be the damn work getting to me. I wish wish wish I could go back in time and ctrl-z.
I choose to paint a jazzy wall in my room for fun, I went to do it, climbed up to the top of the ladder, the ladder collapsed, and screamed, fell and now my back really hurts.
God is sending me a message. And somewhere in that message it says "...watch where you're going fat-ass!" See! Even God likes Mean Girls.
Oh and the "feature wall" looks like complete shit.
And the challenge for December is .... a French Yule Log!
Yes! Here is my attempt. All friggin parts of it: Mousse, creme brulee insert, crisp insert, ganache insert (which you can't really see, shame really) hazelnut dacquoise and dark-choc icing. And strange hemispheres on the top. I started off with only 2 (only had one Lindt ball left) but then realised that it ... umm ... didn't look quite right and then had to go buy another box of the stuff to make it a total of 4!
Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I want to destroy it. OH HOW I WISH TO RECIPROCATE ALL THE PAIN IT HAS CAUSED ME. I am so damn tired. I don't even want to taste it LOL.
This challenge was brought to you by the letter F. For fun. Not. Ok really now: This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand. Happy now demon program?
I went to a lebo wedding for the first time today! It was SO MUCH FUN. I learnt so many bellydancing moves. LOL! My ears are still ringing slightly from the music. The food sucked, as usual. That's one thing Malay weddings have that will make them stand out. Good food!
Hey slutinas. I went on a "business trip" with a few "business associates" the past weekend. We went to an amazing foresty/bush-place called Govetts Leap (an absolutely amazing STUNNING view of the Blue Mountains valley. ARGH it was so crazy good) and then we went adventure caving at Jenolan Caves (the Plughole Tour through the Elder Caves).
All in all, quite a fun trip, except the part where I ate a stale burger and got food poisoning and had intense vomiting the whole day and a mind-destroying fever at night. The sight of red meat still makes me want to puke. I can't eat food without paranoia anymore.
I'm going to the Gold Coast in 13 days, my one-month plan to lose 10 kilos failed miserably (Abs Diet book collecting dust on my new shelf), I'm still bald (hair grows slower than I thought) and I still haven't told my dad that I'm going.
Joy!
Still have half a mind to ditch all my friends and not go. But for stupid reasons. Mainly the clubbing issue. I don't want to go clubbing in Queensland! LOL! Can't we all just be young and naive and "boring" and stay home and be completely anti-social? I am seriously hardly clubbing material. I hardly listen to music, I can only dance when I'm in Sayed's movie room on his hot red couch, alcohol and skanky girls really are not part of my life, so I dunno! I just don't think I will enjoy it.
Unfortunately, due to the magnetic pull of peer-pressure, most likely I will succumb and be dragged to a night out of red-faced "fun". If I come out alive I'll do a little dance. Just for the irony of course.
Well, looking on the bright side, there's so many fun things we will do in the daylight hours! Like theme parks, pristine white sandy beaches and snorkelling and funnel cake (OH MAN I hope there's funnel cake. I've only seen it in documentaries. It's SO American!)
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Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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One of my close friends has left Australia to go study Medicine for 6 years in Bangladesh. We all went and sent him off today at the airport. It was kinda sad. He went all teary! I got a card for us all to write on (cards are the best presents) and forced him to only read it on the plane. Hopefully he'll be alrite.
As life goes on, poor Ahmad notices more and more how weird this World he lives in is. The perils of blowholes, the lameness of dry skin, ah! What an adventure. Click here for Part One. I love this type of post! Enjoy.
1. Bath bombs aren't very bomb-like. They're actually quite lame. After years and years of wondering what they were like I gave in and bought some, prepared a bath, jumped in, dumped in the bath bombs excitedly, all for less bubbles than if I had farted in the water. LAME!
2. If you ever happen to meet Abu Caristmas, the Father of Christmas Beetles, do not kill him lest he sends his army of ants to come and kill your cats...
Oops! He's dead!
NUUUU! MY POOR KITTIES!!! :(
3. Box jellyfish have eyes. And can see you. And stalk you. And sting you. And eat you. Ok, maybe not the last one. But still. Freaky. What happened to brainless sacks of water??
4. I used to think I had amazing skin. Now I realise I have very dry skin. As in ridiculously dry skin. Like I flake more than weetbix. Old weetbix. Here's my arm peeling at IKEA (I seem to live at IKEA these days):
Don't look at the hot furniture look at ME!
Look how ridiculously OLD my toes look! YUK! Someone hand me some moisturiser. Urgh. I hate moisturiser. So greasy. According to my Dad, cracked feet can be cured by a long soak in water, which is something I tried. Which didn't work. Another great piece of advice.
I thought, why not soak my feet WHILE PLAYING COMPUTER GAMES! Genius! Not! Maybe I should have just got electrocuted and won this year's Darwin Award.
5. I found out what cats do when the silly hoomans are away:
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Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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Earlier today, an Iraqi reporter threw not one, but both his shoes at George Dubya Bush's head. News sources from all around the world felt the need to emphasis how, in Arab culture, it is so very rude to throw shoes at people, and so thus, this was an extremely rude thing to do!
LIKE HELLO!?! Last time I checked, throwing your shoes at someone's head is quite rude, no matter where you live. It was so weird how every single news source emphasised that part so much!
P.S. if there does exists a mythical Shoeaklabaad where hitting someone over the head with shoes is a sign of greeting, I want an invite. Just for the lulz.
[N.B. I just stole that line verbatim from CNN. I kid you not.]
He's got some pretty good reflexes aye??
In similarly momentous news, my nose bled for the first time in my life today. I think (ok I know) I was picking my nose with unmatch gusto, and accidentally severed something tender. Blood ensued. And we all know in Australia, blood is often seen as a sign of bleeding.
It rose from the Deep, churning violently, Spewing forth its contents; mist, drops of spray, Upwards (mostly), drenching, distractingly. 'Twas the day the sea took my slipper away.
So soft on the skin in the mornings bright, Cold, liquid invigoration; Cleansing. Yet through ancient stone of unequalled might, It cuts and scrapes, a brutal dispensing.
Too lazy, am I, to write four more lines, And so you must bear, With these words of mine.
So mighty a force, there is none rather, So satiate the beast! Throw in the other!
Hey ya'll! GUESS WAT. My cats are allergic to fleas. Yes. After all these years (4+ they're so old!) of giving us fleas and spreading flea-ness everywhere, they're immune systems seem to have died and now they are allergic. It's so slack! Unlike silly hoo-mans with nails, they have claws and so they tend to scratch their skin into bleeding sores which get infected. And their hair falls off in awful patches so they look REALLY REALLY raggedy.
So after learning why their hair was actually falling off in bloody patches and learning what to do to stop it ( -$200 to happy vet man! CaCHING!) one by one we had to catch the kitties, put them in the toilet as they cried (yes they make crying noises. It's so pitiful. Makes you sad.) shave off the hair around the sore and rub in some funky cream.
Not fun.
So now the cats are paranoid, hate us heaps and don't trust us when we come closer. And don't listen to evil Dr Harry. FRONTLINE IS NOT AS EASY TO PUT ON AS IT LOOKS!! Especially when you cats are psycho lunatic street sluts who only come in for food and strokes. Eww.
Bad joke time. My sister called the cats cutters. Cos they cut themselves. LULZ LULZ! I know if life is so fair why do cats have claws. And cos the cats would only let the girls touch them (the cats are girls too) and they make all weird noises when it happens, my brother calls them the Pervy Lesbos. LULZ LULZ!
So anyway, my long-held belief that I couldn't get sunburnt turned out to be crap, I shaved off all my long luscious locks in a Britney-esque mental breakdown moment, and all subsequent attempts at making macarons have failed miserably. So basically my face is peeling off, I'm bald and I have a crapload of dishes to wash-up, with no reward. FRAKKERS!
Me and the school mates had a BBQ/beach-trip yesterday. It was a lot of fun. We left really early in the morning because they wanted to see the sunrise. It was so beautiful. Surreal. It was so nice to hang out with the guys again and totally go nuts without a care in the world. I felt like such a kid again, going wild in the sand.
And they really liked my smoked salmon sandwiches too!
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.
. . . .
In other news, I manage to make my first batch of MACARONS!!
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!!
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.
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.
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!"
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..."
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.
And the challenge for January is .... Tuilles!
[Do click on it.]
