chronicles of young

Don't this look like macaroons? They are the most sophisticated  demanding thing I have yet baked.I guess I will never bake this again, unless I get a boyfriend (almost impossible now) and its Valentine's Day.  For one, it involves the tedious step of whisking the egg whites till they are stiff. And more importantly, the inner environmentalist in me screamed murder every time I put a batch into the oven. (Each batch needs 90 minutes, and I had 4.) To make matters worst, I thought I'd use my strong, reliable hands to whisk the whites, to save electricity. HALF AND HOUR later... (not to mention the nth number of strokes) Still no stiff meringue in sight. In the end I gave up and used my stand mixer. Thank you, dear stand mixer. I gave them just a hint of orange so the colour would be pastel. A trick would be to pour some colouring into a small bowl and dip a skewer in before waving it through the meringue. Meringue cookies   Adapted from Gorge...

From Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell When at crossroads and your heart is beckoning you to head to one of them but your mind, plus family and friends scream the other way, what do you do? Compromise? Follow your heart, but at the same time not knowing whether it would turn on you? Would the next best be as sweet and somewhat satisfactory as this time round? This little dame looks somewhat ugly but she still had me eating 3 while decorating the batch. Yum. They are all gone now. Sorry if you make no sense of what I'm saying. Sometimes my mind is not lucid. Can I attempt to explain  make people understand? Being good in studies and constantly topping the class does not mean that one is fit for Junior College. For some reason I particularly DREAD JC. Call me juniocollego- phobic, whatever. Anyway, I mind is in a mess cos I just told my parents I wanna go to a baking or culinary arts course in polytechnic, and not surprisingly (but caught me unprepared nonetheless) caused a coll...

Hey Dad, this post is dedicated to ya. Though you don't have a faintest idea. So, one day I decided to make steam a fruit cake, using a recipe I saw in Mum's recipe book (bet there are more gems inside). It called for me to 'fry' sugar! FRY?! Yup. Fry. This recipe was originally from Dad's Malay colleague. I quartered the recipe, and tweaked it abit. Here you go! To tell the truth this fruit cake owes alot to Dad. I had absolutely no idea how to fry sugar and even wrote down the wrong ratio of sugar. Thank goodness Dad wanted to bake with me. And when this rock bent this... [picture taken after I tried bending it back btw] and became this... Dad to the rescue! This time we got it right. Okay, anyway, after saying so much about 'frying' sugar, this is actually the last step. You pour this thing warm into the batter. Weird instructions right? That's why I wanted to bake this in the first place. It didn't look promising at fir...

I've got a fringe. It keeps poking into my eyes. So today, since I was in a not-so-fab mood, I took the scissors and went in front of the mirror and started hacking. Literally. Cos the scissors was rusted so I had to hack at my hair. Anyway, now this reminds me of Britney. Women like to cut their hair when they are down. Its a fact, you know? This is one of the few notable things in my life right now. Do I sound like I'm complaining? Hmm , okay this isn't the ideal life that I want to have but I understand I will grow to appreciate this (bloody) system in the future. It would be nirvana if I get to experiment in the kitchen right now, but I know this is Mum's territory,and that I will appreciate and adore my kitchen when I get my own next time. Like how Mum fanatically cleans the kitchen up after cooking everyday AFTER WORK. Mums have a huge reserve of power I tell you. Love ya Mum and Dad! Though I'm keeping this tiny little space on the Internet a secret for ...

Why is it that I find it so hard to do the thing that my heart tells me to? I know I will be doing the right thing but I just keep turning this bloody issue over and over. I seriously hate my mind at times. In there, all the indecisiveness boils, the bad (sometimes wicked) thoughts churn, and sometimes I am just too tired to stop them all. Which makes me think I suck. Okay, why am I even typing all this. Like anyone is interested. Oh I want those paper pans that Bakerella is giving. Sigh. I can only look longingly. Heck, I don't even know what is my favorite muffin so I am too ashamed to enter my comment.

Confession: I just deleted a recent post. The pictures taken were horrible. It stops there, but I didn't like it. Here's another post on the same thing, except I tweaked it abit. I fought a hard battle with the dough, which either didn't like me or didn't like the extra 60g of flour I added. What a dud. But the taste was okay. Same taste, slightly different texture (not a bad thing), but less oily. Good. Either crush 80g of almonds (for people who like labouring for their baked goods like me) or chop 'em finely. Be sure you have some left for garnishing! Sift icing sugar and flour into a big mixing bowl. (I doubled the amount to make two batches) Add 1/4 teaspoon salt. In goes those almonds. And then the vanilla extract and the butter. Cut butter into the mixture first before plunging your hands in. Now put your hands in. Use your fingers to combine to form a ball of dough. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper, depending on the size of you...

Just had a bad scare. Some unknown person added me on MSN and then proceeded on to say some weird(as in a sick way weird) things. Oh my gosh I'm going to turn damned paranoid now... I checked my FB to see if I added that person unintentionally, I checked here to see if my email is revealed in any way, I... I am so rattled by this. I mean, who the hell is this person? I will never EVER EVER use MSN again. Damned, I didn't use it for months and I just signed in today to add someone, and got this. Just my luck. On a brighter note, I'm making PW's cinnamon toast tomorrow!! Yum yum.. Love cinnamon.