The volunteer stint begins...

So today D and I parted in the morning - him back to sg n me to the guesthouse where I'd spend the next 2 weeks.. I didn't quite expect myself to cry but it was a slightly teary farewell as the thought of being alone in an unfamiliar foreign place suddenly hit me.. We've been having a great time on the trip, and the hard n challenging part is now starting!

The last day was luxuriously spent (without having to burn too deep a hole in our pockets) on a hill resort with great view but today my accommodation is suddenly a lot more humble ;P All of sudden I am also merely spending say 2 US dollars for dinner at more local places instead of like 10-15 US in a more touristy part of town - i have yet to come to any conclusion which is better.. thankfully despite the more spartan accommo, the shower, fans, lights n all are working fine n I am still feeling alright :P it just feels like my room is what a simple hotel room may have looked like in the 80s?

"Teaching" (having no teaching experience my role will be more of assisting or co-teaching it seems) will start next Monday - hopefully everything will be fine!

Hot tea n cookies served at the pool! 

No more nice room, n bought some Oreo cookies myself for room stash... 

We just flew in to charming Luang Prabang from Bangkok this morning and am liking this place v much! It is really beautiful, peaceful and laidback.. yet not swarming with tourists (it seems so thus far; prob cos it is not peak season yet) The buildings are v well maintained and facades tastefully done up.. well deserving its UNESCO World Heritage Town status. Too bad I can't seem to figure out how to post my iphone photos. We couldn't resist the barbecued fish we saw the street vendors selling and feasted on one for dinner as it seemed hygienic enough haha - it was delicious paired with Beer Lao! Tummy feels little strange now but I think we shld be ok heh :) 

Lana Del Rey's Video Games

I've apparently heard this song countless times on Class 95 but it was only till last night that this song caught my attention - with the line "heaven is a place on earth with you". Phrased in very "secular" terms but thought it so beautifully and aptly captures what it feels like to be with someone you love? Her very deep vocals somehow appeals to me too..


.....

It's you, it's you, it's all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you
.....

Green Tea Souffle Swiss Roll

Have been wanting to try this recipe for the longest time since I bought my Jap recipe book a few years back, but somehow just never got down to it... Maybe cos I have been subconsciously brainwashed by the cupcake craze and making swiss rolls seemed a little too passe (the last time I made it was during home econs in sec sch) - like something only the older generation would make haha? Perhaps my disappointing and treacherous experiences with egg whites/ making meringue-ish bases (e.g. egg whites and whipping cream not stiffening etc) also left some mental scars so I was always more inclined towards the simpler, fail-proof recipes :P

But I was quite lucky today and succeeded! The most jittery part of making this was turning my whipping cream (comes in a liquid form) into a light creamy texture. Followed the instructions religiously and yay, the tips were good and all went well! The only boo boo was that I almost forgot to add my green tea powder and ended up adding them to the cake mixture slightly later than I shld have :)

Was pleasantly surprised by the really soft and fluffy texture of this souffle sponge cake and I am suddenly interested to make many more things that require the beating of egg-whites. This ranks as one of my fav things made! (but not too surprising too lah given my love affair with all things green tea hehe)

The cake base for rolling. The recipe was for one normal-sized cake, but I wanted to share the cake with more ppl and so turned them into 2 mini swiss rolls instead hehe.

 Spreading the filling onto the cake

 Completed swiss roll!

 "Dressing up" the swiss roll with green tea props :)

:)

Will be flying off to Bangkok/ Luang Prabang for a 3-week long holiday cum volunteer stint come Saturday... and I guess I won't be baking anything in a while! Hopefully my next phase of adventures brings me other new insights and learning opportunities!

I was recently inspired by another post on Joy the Baker (yeah, again ha) and decided to try roasting some black plums myself for breakfast. The sign to make these was when I found the exact same plums she used - at our friendly neighbourhood NTUC! Heh. Maybe plums are in season bah, but still!

They turned out quite pretty but the taste was a bit dubious haha. D didn't like the dried herbs but for me it was cos the plums weren't ripe enough yet and yet a sour undertone. Wld be lovely if I had used riper plums :)

Halved plums lightly seasoned with olive oil, a pinch of salt and sugar and some dried thyme

A piece of plum takes the plunge into my bowl of yogurt and cereal!

A baking Friday :)

It's been close to 2 weeks since I last baked! The itch to bake something returned and I decided to try out more recipes this morning. Decided on a simple maple and pecan layer cake (I took a triple layer cake recipe and made it two layers and didn't cream the sides for simplicity :P) and a lavender shortbread recipe I came across yest night on Joy The Baker's blog. Maple and lavender... Two ingredients I love!

Unfortunately the cake wasn't v successful - I was quite worried that my cake layers will end up with muffin tops that I baked them at a lower temp and for too long... So the cake texture turned out a little harder than I expected. I also had grand plans for flower-shaped lavender cookies using my small tart trays but somehow the dough turned out too sticky for that :(

 creaming the first layer...

 Laying the 2nd layer on top - the sponge cake is filled with pecan nut goodness!

 all done and decorated with pecan halves! cut a slice for myself... 

who eats the remaining 7 slices? (D hopes it's not him)

Yeah - unfortunately shortbread is mainly butter and sugar and flour (and in this case, some lavender too)

 A lavender shortbread and green tea picnic!!

This afternoon visited my cousin's ice-cream shop Merely Ice Cream at Sunshine Plaza. It's been open since Mar this year; and I finally decided to date my parents to go show my brave cousin some support! He quit his bank job to set this up with a few friends.. and though he is working hours are much longer than before, he is apparently happier doing what he does! If you are in the Bugis area, do drop by to give my cousin some support! I tried three flavours and samplers of several others - their green tea is pretty good; but sadly for me the "seasonal" Red Velvet Cake flavour was no longer available. Also like this flavour called Horlicks Panda (Horlicks with Hello Panda bits inside) heh.

On another happy note - I've not been harrassed by any side effects (like nausea, depression, dizziness etc) since starting on the anti-malarial drug yesterday! Hopefully they continue to stay away from me. Annoying though that I need to take the drug 2 weeks before and up to 4 weeks after the period of stay in Laos!

Nice places in SG!

We checked out the Artichoke cafe for brunch this weekend - their haloumi cheese and mushrooms plate was delicious! We also ordered some sausages with eggs and creamy semolina pudding but that ended up being too 'heavy' for our liking. Good food, but main courses and dessert were a little pricey :(

As their new sister bakery Overdoughs had just opened nearby, the pastry-fanatic in me cldn't help checking it out too. They sold more unconventional stuff like baklavas and cakes/ tarts not commonly found in local bakeries - I got myself a lemon and lavender cake bread thingy and a plum and rhubarb pie. While making my purchases I also cldn't help staring at the open kitchen, where one baker was doing some final touches to a tray of passionfruit meringue tarts. Somehow it's easy to feel envious of ppl who set up bakeries but when you have to do it yourself, it's another (tough) story!

After the brunch/ pastry stops I also stumbled upon a lovely shop at Bras Basah Complex! So I now have a new little cactus in my house (among other knick knacks I got) - D is right, I am such a stalker and hoarder of random little things.

Cold Feet + Budget airlines' dirty tricks

After thinking so much about and planning to do more meaningful things during my break from work, I am suddenly getting cold feet and feeling v tempted to just nuah3 at cafes/ at home instead. The annoying admin/ travel logistics for upcoming volunteer trips must have gotten to me too much. :( But yeah as the trips draw closer I am suddenly confronted with fears like - will I be bored/ have no skills to help/ not be able to get along with other volunteers cos I am AS/ unadventurous/ too old etc etc

So we were supposed to be flying off to Taipei tmr morning - but alas on Wed morning I was suddenly woken up by call from Dad. He narrated to me the scary news about impending typhoons (which will strike this weekend) showing on CCTV and urged me not to go for my trip and endanger my life... I mean I knew the weather wldn't be good, but not to the extent of life endangering..? But in any case, to save my Dad from worrying every single night while I'm there (and my mum from all the nagging) I gave in and decided to postpone my trip to Oct..

And then my nightmare with changing flights on budget airlines began. Cheapo me booked budget tics which were not refundable/converted to credits but luckily they can be still be changed for a fee - but with A LOT of hassle. Had extended conversation with tel operator about extra charges; was given lousy explanations for rationale behind fee policies (that was last night with JETSTAR) and this afternoon I had to make like 4 phone calls to Tiger Airways about various issues like sneaky booking fees slapped on online on top of change fees; system errors arising from incompatibility of the online booking system with Safari and Mozilla Firefox and such.

On the sneaky booking fee - was quite disgusted how Tiger Airways secretly slaps on a new booking fee (though small) for changing flights - in addition to the change fees (Abt $60 Sing) and fare difference. When I asked the tel operator - she was like oh, the system involuntarily does this but you can call us back to refund you the double-charged booking fee after you confirm and pay for the flight change online. Also thought it was v evil that in the payment summary, despite the new booking fee slapped on, the consumer is misled by the summary stating $0 booking fees though the total additional balance payable INCLUDES the booking fees! What inethical things you discover when you scrutinise the fee breakdown...

The total new fare is 5827 TWD, including the 191 TWD booking fee..

Since we had alri previously paid 3901 for the 'old' ticket, the balance due was thus 5827 - 3901 = 1926. But 1926 TWD includes the 191 TWD booking fee, yet the summary shows that there is no booking fee! Horrible.

Mini baking marathon and WWOOFing

Last Fri was quite exhausting, as I whipped up a record 3 desserts in a day - the blueberry cheesecake I made a couple of weeks back (sadly it turned out less yummy this time round); pear and cinnamon frangipane tarts and more cake pops! I wanted to treat my ex-colleagues to some home-made desserts at our housewarming and had planned to make 2 things... But I got a little paranoid that my pears (painstakingly sourced by D) wld become stale if I left them for too long and so ended up making 3 things. It was tiring though still satisfying - just wished someone else cld have done the washing up for me as my hands were rougher from all the washing up :( How do the real bakers manage to whip up so many things everyday?!

Come this Fri I will also fly off to Taiwan to volunteer at an organic farm as a WWOOFer! D and I will have a weekend getaway in Taipei before I begin my 2-week self-imposed hardship posting... Am getting cold feet and wondering if I can take 2 weeks of manual labour and scorching sun... but it's too late to regret and will just try to make the best of it. Hopefully turning vegetarian for 2 weeks can help me shed some calories :P Unfortunately typhoons are looming large - crossing my fingers that Taiwan wun be too badly affected while I'm there! And that we'd be lucky enough to get at least one nice sunny day this weekend (it's likely to be rainy the whole weekend. boo.)

Above: Tarts before cooking and while baking. 

Was really pleased that my tarts turned out quite pretty! :)

 and yummy too! (thanks to an excellent but a bit mafan recipe from What Katie Ate)

Also attempted to replicate the cake pops I learnt to make last Wed. They were relatively successful too - though the white choc coating provided by the instructor was a lot thicker than the one I made...

If you feel like you've had an overdose of baking blog posts - I can assure you that you wun be seeing any more in the next couple of weeks :P Will try to pen an entry or two about my farming adventures - if the internet access at the farm is good :)

Under-$35 baking classes!!

I am relatively proud of myself for sniffing out value-for-money baking class deals - in the past one week I took 3 classes for 3 different treats  - a $25 class for learning how to make cinnamon rolls at someone's house; a $15 Kemb CC demo class for chiffon cheese cake/ cream cheese choc cake and a $33 Groupon deal from Creative Culinaire at Tiong Bahru for making cake pops! (My mum thinks I am crazy - everytime she calls me I seem to have just finished baking something) The decorating part of the cake pop class was the most fun - because you can decorate them in any way you like; without having them all turn out the same as your classmates' :)

The most humbling class was the Kemb CC class - I signed up mainly because it was damn cheap and cos the CC was just 5 mins' walk away. Very convenient - plus I discovered too that if you sign up for a PAssion Card ($6 for 5-yr membership!), you only pay $15 instead of $20! Felt very pleased in an auntie way after registering haha.

Anyways, on hindsight - I went to this demo class with a rather bad attitude - unwittingly picking on my instructor and sms-ing D about her perceived shortcomings - eg. how she was not v hygienic and used her hands without gloves; how she didn't know how to use the classroom oven and other little things :P (It was her first time coming to this CC to teach; and apparently she had never seen this model of oven before lah). But at the end of the class, she made this really springy and soft cream cheese chiffon cake that made me somewhat impressed... Towards the end of class, she also shared useful tips about how to beat egg whites properly! So after class I went home to reflect on my haughtiness and resolved to be more humble when I go for ANY class in future. If I go to class to pick on the instructor's shortcomings instead of focusing on things I can learn; I shld prob just go home instead..

Above:  Raisin cinnamon rolls before baking!!

Below: Cinnamon rolls after baking and after some DIY food styling :)

The instructor was v proud how her chiffon cakes always turn out soft and SPRINGY. She demo-ed a few times how the cake shld 'bounce' when you touch the surface lightly...

The fold-in method when using egg-white in the cake recipe... 

[Note the iphone and ipad stalkers in the background... I think it's v stressful to teach classes these days, it's hard to stop ppl from recording down your every word and action]

 Another interesting and "古老" (the instructor claims) tip she shared with us... Apparently wrapping up sponge cakes with a damp muslin cloth helps to keep them moist and nice (esp the sides of the cake) and that was how she transported them to the CC

 My decorated cake pops! But to do this at home I need to secure a good variety of confetti for decorating... :(

Espresso cupcakes!

I finally tried to make some cupcakes this morning - Espresso cupcakes with Nescafe white coffee instant mix haha. The coffee taste is quite faint; but just nice. The cake was slightly overbaked but the frosting helps to mask the dryness somewhat :)

I had quite a lot of fun spreading the frosting; and trying to make them look as perfect as possible. It's a pretty time-consuming task, and I'd prob need a lot more practice to perfect my frosting-spreading skills. Relatively satisfied for a first attempt lah :P

A morning out at Gardens by the Bay

I initiated a family outing with parents and sis to Gardens by the Bay yesterday morning.  Having spent quite little time with them in the past few months, I really wanted to be a bit more 'present'. It's nice really that I now have a bit more time to do so.. :)

We chose the wrong day to go lah - I guess it's sch holiday for many kids (day after National Day) and the place was swarmed even though we reached around 10+. After like a 30 min+ wait to buy tickets, we finally entered the 2 conservatories and entered a whole new world of flowers and plants we wld otherwise not be able to see in SG. The Flower Dome was nice, but I was more impressed by the other dome "Cloud Forest" with this huge 7-storey structure covered by all kinds of climbers and shrubs on the exterior. It felt quite out of this world when I was first greeted by the huge waterfall at the entrance..

View from the flower dome - with the Singapore Flyer and city skyline in the background!
Below: Some very pretty and exotic flowers in the Flower Dome

THIS was one of the weirdest plants I found in the Flower Dome - the woolly cactus with funny brown fur growing out from the 'crown'... eeks.

The majestic-looking Cloud Forest structure! 

The rest of the weekend shall be spent nuah-ing around, as I have tried to pack too many things into my week and I actually feel slightly exhausted despite not working.. A few hrs was thus blissfully and brainlessly spent in front of the TV this evening to 'recuperate' a little; I plan to be equally chill tmr and we're gg to go have a nice morning brunch! Really haven't felt so 'light' and carefree in a while! :)

This week's creations!

I am 'settling well' into my state of joblessness and getting more housewifey :P Baked some cranberry and white chocolate cookies on Mon afternoon; and blueberry cheesecake yesterday afternoon. Am getting quite interested in food styling, and have started to amass a mini collection of various knick knacks that can further enhance my food shots. And thankfully it's National Day today; so I was able to share my baked treats with my family - the cookies have been devoured over the past few days and I am now down to 2 pieces of cheesecake in the fridge :)

The cheesecake (with a thin layer of baked sour cream finish) wasn't supposed to be this shallow - but a few cm wider cake pan led to quite a significant fall in height. Well it turned out looking like a cheesecake pie, but actually not too bad lah, it's now slightly healthier with less cheese per slice of cake :P

Cooking is something I am somewhat capable of but enjoy less and prob will never be v good at - because I don't quite fancy the food preparation part, which can be quite stinky or 'gooey'... like getting rid of fats, ending up with garlic-smelling fingers etc. But we had some leftover cheese sausage from the weekend, so I threw together a 'chapalang' pasta with mushroms, grape tomatoes, asparagus and sausage for yesterday's dinner  :)