The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.
Making some tasty streudel dough by hand. Who needs machines!?
Ah! Look at these ingredients!!! *DROOL*.
Naked apples haha. My mother would be angry. EAT THOSE SKINS!!
Chop chop. I added honey and lemon juice. Can't go wrong there!
I hate rolling dough with a passion.
Cripsy edges?
Streudel magic!
[clearly I am not having times for long posts hopings to you enjoying the pictures, yes no?]
I just assumed I could leave it in my fridge forever and it'd be cool. Then the day I planned on making this cake for my sister's friend (who asked for it) I read the expiry date and they are all off! LAME. I thought ah stuff it it's butter should be alrite!
Then I tasted it and thought hmmm....
It left a funky sort of taste on my tongue I'm not sure if I imagined it or not. Sorta like if I licked a battery, but not quite so intense. Funky. So I chucked my butter stash in the bin and since the local supermarket closed down imma gonna have to drive to get my stuff.
ARGH. This better turn out good.
Yesterday I went to have sushi with my mates and since 2 weeks earlier my uni friend introduced me to the joy of actually eating wasabi (as opposed to mixing it into soy sauce) so I thought I'd be all cool and do it again except that it didn't quite work and I put too much and ended up dying.
Yes. I am dead.
At least my nose anyway. Oh lord! It did that fume-y painful thing and my nose was so painful argh my body probably hates me LOL! I remember the first time I had wasabi I though "LOL WASABI PLZ! I ARE LORD OF CHILLI."
Silly me.
But I do love my chilli. Not my green-horseradish. I think I might be starting to understand slightly why some people are into that kinky BDSM stuff. See one of my friends can't take chilli at all so I made him try this delicious thai thing and he didn't enjoy it at all cos his was dying from the actual physical pain of the chilli. Whereas I ate it and it stung a little but it was so enjoyable.
Maybe sado-masochism is like that. Normally people would just get off on the simple stuff and if they got whipped or whatever they would not be able to enjoy anything at all due to the pain but if they got over it maybe it would open up another avenue of enjoyment.
Well, dearest readers, the masterminds back at The Daring Kitchen decided that "Hey! Let's branch off! Franchise! EXPAND. Why stick to just baking?? First cakes, next THE WORLD!!!"
Anyway, cut a long story short, now there's a savoury cooking challenge every month too! Yay cheer clap sing dance tiao wu! And this month's challenge is....
Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi!!!
Woohoo...or not. I've never even tasted gnocchi in my life. always thought it had something to do with potatoes. I guess ricotta works too!
Well, time to get cracking isn't it? You need some ricotta for ricotta gnocchi. Seems the story is the guy is always wet and that's never good so what we gotta do squeeze all all of his juice. Using a cheese cloth, of course.
Overnight's always good, till you get something like...
...this! Looks like a giant steamed bun~! YUM!
Apparently to test if the cheese is dry enough is to make a ball and leave it on a piece of paper napkin, and if no ring of water forms, then hey presto your good to go!
A little wet-patch but I think we'll be alrite.
Add some eggs, butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano...
...and mash mash mash till it looks fluffy and awesome.
Then wash your hands, take out your handy plain flour and get cracking! Roll all your dough into cool little ovaloid gnocchi things and dust them heaps or they'll get all sticky and you'll get pissed.
Leave in the fridge for an hour for a nice firm-up session.
When you're ready to cook, bang a pot of water on the stove, salt generously when it begins to boil, dump the gnocchi's in and lift them out when they float and are a little firm and...
. . . . . .
Voila!
Prettiness!
Oh, forgot to talk about the sauce. It's just butter and a bit of water cooked on a skillet. I added garlic too.
Mmmmm tasty.
Gratuitous zoomy macro shot.
Haha. Haven't written a post like this in a while. Hope you liked it!
Here are some numbers for you pedantic-types:
For the gnocchi:
1 pound (454 grams/16 ounces) fresh ricotta (2 cups) 2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten 1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter ½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed) about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt) plain flour for forming the gnocchi
A beautiful thing just happened. The last mini-post-it note in my mini-post-it note pen coincided with the last chapter in my microeconomics answers booklet that I had to tag.
It made me so happy.
Then about a minute later I tried to cut a wire with this pair of scissors i've had since 10th grade and the scissors broke. I'm surprised I'm only mildly upset. It's probably lucky I had that happy coincidence as a buffer or I would've had another breakdown hehe.
Thanks to the economic depression Yada Yada the government is handing out these coolors $900 stimulus packages to anyone who filled in a tax return last year. AND I DIDN'T. I thought that it wouldn't hurt to try and fill one in late so I just went on the ATO online website to fill in my first tax return.
I didn't earn much, and I thought it would be piss easy but then all they started asking all this crap about capital gains and how many same-sex babies and dependent invalids I had LIKE WTF.
So I clicked no to everything and hoped it would be alrite.
Today in my Week 7 Chinese lecture we were learning negation of certain verbs. One of those verbs was "yao" or something, meaning "to have to do" (not 100% sure i'm sorta guessing).
Anyway, the funning thing was that the negation wasn't "bu yao" as is for regular verbs, but suddenly became "bu bi". And so the lecturer was there screaming her head off saying BOOBIE BOOBIE BOOBIE and wondering what was so funny.
The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. And I made them into little mini-mixed-berry friand sort of things. They look so pretty don't they? I bought a tripod and some half decent lighting off IKEA and my photos look a lot nicer now. Click on the shots! They go all big and detailed and you can even see the vanilla bean specks. Ah the vanilla mmMmm. Such a creamy cake. Here's another shot slightly zoomed out:
I've been having dreams about death quite a lot lately. Twice I've had really vivid dreams about the whole human population being wiped out! Last night I had this dream where some sorta weird meteor shower was coming down and it killed everyone and it one of them hit me and I died. Except before that someone told everyone that we should go to higher ground (which kinda doesn't make sense) and hide under these metal sheet thingies, like that would save us lol, and then we all died anyway. And then we all came back to life and died again. And again and again and again. It didn't hurt though. It was just like boom you're dead.
She was really old though. She had a fall on the steps and had to go to hospital but she died. Now her husband is living alone. At the funeral her daughter got really drunk and started screaming and crying and rolling on the grass in the front lawn it was scary.
Ah sigh. I was not able to do this month's Daring Bakers challenge. That makes me really sad actually. I had a goal of never missing any challenges, and I was especially excited about this one, but life is life. Uni work piling up, work is not going very well (had my first boss chastising experience today :( it didn't feel good. I suck. Sigh).
Daddy's back in the house and is managing to drive everyone crazy AT THE SAME TIME (quite a gift I must say). Constantly invading the privacy of my room. Ok I gotta explain this story. You see my family is huge and the house is small so my whole life i've never really got any personal space and my brothers are the biggest slobs the world has, so all i've known is a mess I can never clean and no sense of privacy.
So one day my mum felt sorry for me and said I can have the back room if I clean it up and I pounced on it straight away, cleaned it up (oh the agony of painting) and spent a grand or so at IKEA and hey presto! My room is beautiful and its ALL MINE.
So I really don't like my dad coming in here and making bloody silver colloid under my study table. GOD. F*#$U*ING SILVER COLLOID. IT'S FAKE. GET IT INTO YOUR HEAD.
And now after all these years just when I get my own space DADDY wants to move HOUSES YAY SO ALL MY EFFORT GOES INTO THE BIN.
So I've started learning Chinese (mandarin). Every lecture/tute/seminar we sit there and chant pinyin until my throat is raw and dry and my tonsils also thought it would be a really good joke to pop up in an infestation at the same time.
I've learnt 6 characters out of 600 for this semester and I'm starting to get worried. Ah well. At least I'm studying in week 1, unlike in previous semesters. I want to fly away and die.
I went to the toilets at the shopping centre that is next to my old high-school. It smelt like shit so I just thought yay someone's been busy here. After I washed my hands I went to the hand-dryer machine and next to it was the rubbish bin.
And in the bin was a shit.
Yes.
A shit.
Not a piece of shit.
A whole shit.
Someone actually chucked a shit in the rubbish bin. Either someone squatted on the bin and did it or actually bothered carrying the piece of defacation and putting it in the bin.
I'm guessing it was the latter (it was not surrounded by toilet paper or anything so I guess the sick dude carried it in his hand). I know almost 100% without a doubt it was a guy from my old school. They're all sick and demented like that. He definitely got some sort of sick sexual pleasure from doing something like that ARGH that is so nasty!!
In the joyous spirit of Valentine Love, We The Daring Bakers, present to you...
The Chocolate Valentino.
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.
With only 3 ingredients (chocolate, butter and eggs) this deliciously moist and delicate flourless cake truly brings out the flavour and quality of the chocolate you choose to use.
Layered with rasperry conserve and served with a vanilla bean ice-cream, this is one of the most delicious cakes I've made. And so easy to make as well! This is one cake I will definitely be making again.
There's this horrible news story out recently I read on the BBC. It's about this woman in the UK who queue-jumped at a Sainsbury's and then when someone got angry at her she got her boyfriend to punch him but he punched the wrong guy and the poor dude died.
Like. WTF?
So some dumb shit got caught out about doing something wrong and reacted like an animal and now some poor dude who had nothing to do with it died and left behind a family.
Posted by
A
at
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
comments (3)
I thought I'd pop around and write something as there seems to be more people than ever coming round this joint to read me ramblings. So here I am!
Random thought: "Zack and Miri" is an awfully awkward film to be watching with a group of friends. O_O. But oh so funny! Hahahahaha. Funniest and dirtiest scenes ever GAWD. Go watch it yourself for details.
Lawl.
Went to uni again a few times and saw ALL the attention whores again and told them to ALL GO STICK STUFF UP IN THEIR DARK PLACES. And then I got a free lemon slushie and stole some pens from the Islamic Society stall. They always have good pens.
Bought a shart-load of text books I will probably never use, dreamt of learning Chinese, Japanese and French, and slowly realised that maybe it might be a little hard. But then I said WHO CARES and dreamt of punching James Vincent in his Ghana-ish face.
But it's not his fault. He's a nice guy.
I met up with my academic mentor (mentor-ess to be more precise; I love morphology) who was really nice and indirectly encouraged me to get counselling because I didn't have a HD average the uni wanted me to get and told me that "I too know how it's like being a foreign student".
Note to self - people think I'm a foreign student! Read: exotic. Work it! Yay. Now I'll get some pity points from her. Pity she's an accounting professor. I wish I got someone from the economiccs department or something.
And I won another hannari tofu plushie from the claw game woohoo!
While I do realise your pissing all over my door-step at least once a week is the only way you know how to express your deep feelings of love for the 3 female cats of my household, I must inform you that not only does it make me want to wringe your neck from the disgusting smell that only a strong bleach-assisted scrubbing will remove, but also that all the 3 pretty female cats that prance around tempting you with their bodies have, unfortunately, had their female parts removed, and so they are as butch as they come and have utterly no interest in you or your strange masculine cat pissing rituals.
I totally forgot I'm supposed to be watching me language or else MVMU will reject me on moral grounds. NO! I really want my cooking blog. With cool graphic design.
Anyway, my Dad came and is driving me nuts (UTTERLY NUTS), my Mum ran away to live with her friend (joy for divorce) and I've just started the first book in the Wheel of Time series! I'm quite excited I've heard so many good things about it. And it's gigantic! I can feed my obsession for a while.
I hope it's not "awesome" like how Terry Pratchett was supposed to be "awesome". God I tried reading Small Gods and DIED of boredom. I'm really hoping just that one book was shit (there I go again. Sorry. Although it really was necessary language) so I can experience some more well written joy. But that book was just so bad.
Anyway. One day I too shall be a published author and you can remember how you read me first here. FU!
So anyway, I impulse bought a DSlite (cos I had a Pokemon craving), then I returned it, cos I found out a new version is coming out soon, and then I went out and bought more useless crap don't need and probably soon won't want. A consumerist through and through.
Mainly because it doesn't hurt. Wart-off is actually useful for something. Well more like "good" for something. If you can call the strange sort of pleasure you get from peeling strips of dead skin off or cutting blisters off and watching strange sticky fluids burst out "good", that is.
Usually I'd have gone to the doctor to let him do all the dirty work. But my sleeping patterns are just so insane (my sleeping hours are other peoples working hours) that I'd never get a chance to actually go to the doctor.
Plus, it's kinda fun.
If I could somehow get rid of the pain when it blisters, if I ever got bored (like REALLY bored) I'd so go to the pharmacist, buy wart-off and apply it somewhere inconspicous and peel off the dead skin.
Internet raids are scary. Especially when /b/ is involved.
So I went on my computer yesterday and Reddit's frontpage linked to some creepy ass video of this nutjob kid bashing a cat. Ah it was so dreadful. The cat was just so scared and silent most of the video, just taking all the abuse. It was clear that it had taken that sort of treatment before.
Then the internets gets angry and really quickly the kids details get uncovered and his phone number, address, etc all get posted up on 4chan and he gets his own little dedicated website:
Wart-off is the most disturbing medicine I have ever used. And is also the first time a cure has hurt more than the disease. You see I woke up one day and realised I had three little warts (planta warts) on 3 fingers and went to the doctor. The warts were tiny and didn't hurt at all, no discomfort whatsoever, you could hardly see them unless I told you where to look.
Anyway, the doctor prescribed wart-off. He told me to keep applying it. I thought it would just go away, but then my fingers started to sting and blister. I went to the doctor and he got all happy that it was blistering ("Ah! I like it when it blisters." WTF?) and started hacking away at the skin. It turns out wart-off is actually an acid solution designed to make your skin die/blister/fall-off.
Then he said repeat for another week.
Now I am on day 2 of said "another week" and the skin has already completely fallen off. It is SO freakin scary. I applied it for 2 days, the skin raised up, and then fell off. There's these weird white patches on my fingers now where the skin fell off.
Oh the joys of being lost in translation. Apparently the Malay phrase for "thank you" means "your mother is well worn out" in punjabi.
Terima kasih - Thank you. Teri mah kasih - Your mum is a [censored].
Well technically not a [censored]. But if you call a person's mother "well worn out" I would only assume at least a few people would come to that conclusion...
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.
Making some tasty streudel dough by hand. Who needs machines!?
Ah! Look at these ingredients!!! *DROOL*.
Naked apples haha. My mother would be angry. EAT THOSE SKINS!!
Chop chop. I added honey and lemon juice. Can't go wrong there!
I hate rolling dough with a passion.
Cripsy edges?
