The Return of the Macaron Chronicles

Finally the macaron gods have smiled on me and I am in their favour again. Or perhaps it was the beginner's luck of the new Kitchenaid. Whatever it is, I finally succeeded at making macarons after 2 previous failed attempts. And this time, the flavour was a big hit! Chocolate Peanut Butter & Banana :) If I were ever going to make macarons for sale, I'd definitely include this! Once again, I shall let the pictures do the talking (courtesy of my new Canon 500D).

Lalala

I want to karaoke!

Kinda a short blog post huh. Maybe I should join Twitter since that's the latest rage nowadays. Will also help people keep up with me next time...

Packing

I really really need to pack my room. All the new clothes and stuff I just bought in HK and all the other random stuff lying around. Must get around to reading my books also. Things need to be put in their proper places and categorised and prioritised. Too. Much. Stuff. But I haven't had a free weekend in ages :( I need more time!!!

New Template (again!)

As much as I'm fond of the last one.. I really do prefer white-background templates. It's so much brighter and prettier...

Updates

I had started some updates on my iPhone while I was in Hong Kong. Got a bit too lazy to finish it up properly and post it. However, I did post up the pictures on FB, so I'll let those do the talking intead.

In short, I was away for the past couple of weeks. First for a personal holiday in Hong Kong where I spent infinitely more than I planned, and then a work trip for a conference to Seoul, where luckily I was all shopped out and spent a lot less. Before the trips, I was busy with the weddings. Speaking of which, it's back to weddings since I've got 3 weddings in the next month.

I've done some major damage to my wallet starting with the HK trip, which I thought wouldn't cost me anything since airtix were miles and accommodation was free! How wrong was I! I went crazy at H&M and some other shops (all Angela's fault!) and almost bought a Bottega wallet, which though I didn't, in turn led to me buying my Canon 500D (plus lenses). Bah. This was followed by crazy BB Cream and skincare sprees in Korea. I don't even use masks, creams and bb cream lor!!

The damage was further worsened tonight during the Tangs Singtel sale. Remember the dead mixer I have? Well, I replaced it.

Taaadaaaaaaaaa.



I am a proud owner of an ice blue (aqua to me) Kitchenaid! I also errr bought a set of Henkels knives and some anodised woks after being convinced by the auntie demonstrating that they were MUST BUYS. Gosh. I think I'm certified auntie. Sigh.

But ok, I think my new KA makes me cool. Heh.

Candy Bar, Strawberry Cake & A Dead Mixer

Apologies for the lack of posting. It's been pretty hectic the past few weeks with work and friends' weddings. Just this past Friday was Miss Ene's wedding and I was pretty tied up helping out as a jiemei and general planning. It was a great wedding and there were lots of fun moments! The full set of pics that I took are over on Facebook for those who are on my FB. Pulled out the below photos of the candy bar that I designed and set up for the happy couple :) I'm glad to see that people enjoyed it and there was hardly any candy leftover. Lots of kids on sugar high that night!

Finally got round to baking today. If you haven't noticed, yes I haven't made macarons in a while, nor even baked. I had wanted to make macarons but alas, once again the macaron gods are not in my favour. As I was separating the eggs last night, the stupid yolks slipped into the whites, which meant that the whites were tainted and won't whip well. I decided to just mix the yolks with the whites and find something else that will use whole eggs instead.

Inspired by the Patisserie Glace Strawberry Shortcake I had yesterday, I decided to do a strawberry cake. By the way, for those who've not gone to Patisserie Glace at Chinatown Plaza, you must!! It's got really yummy cakes! Anyway, so I bought some strawberries and attempted my very first layer cake. It was a good excuse to finally use the cake ring I bought.

I couldn't find a light strawberry sponge cake recipe that used whole eggs, since most of them called for beating the egg whites and yolks separately to maximise the volume of the cake. So I decided to just go with a Victoria sponge recipe in my James Martin Desserts cookbook, which I suppose was just a pound cake recipe (i.e. equal parts of butter, eggs, sugar, flour). I then whipped some cream with icing sugar to make the filling and spread it over the strawberry quarters.

Pardon my lack of cake decorative talent. I did have slightly more creative ideas but I didn't have enough whipped cream leftover to pipe a mound to plonk my strawberries on so I had to just stick them right onto the cake. The cake itself was a bit too heavy for my liking (I'm still dreaming of the airy light sponge cake from Patisserie Glace) and whipped cream melts pretty fast. One more thing to master - a good light sponge cake.

Oh... and I had so much trouble creaming the cake batter and whipping the cream using my handheld food processor whisk attachment. Why? Cos my Kenwood mixer has DIED on me. It refuses to turn on. The last time I used it, I had to cajole it for 15 min before it started. This time, when I turned it on initially, I heard a whir for maybe ONE second and it died... Sigh. And the warranty is over since I got it just about over a year ago during my birthday. Bah. Maybe it's time to finally invest in a Kitchenaid. Guess I can't really make anything for now, let alone macs. Boohoo.

Flowers for Juliana

Jul and I went flower shopping so that I can make her a bouquet for her photoshoot. Had a lot of flowers leftover so made 2 other arrangements.

I had planned for her bouquet to be mostly green with a little bit of pink, but the white roses turned out a lot more white than greenish. The bouquet was made up of lime green hydrangeas, kermit poms, viburnums, lime green argenteas, light pink ranunculus and white roses. Wrapped the stems in pink ribbon and finished it with some pearls for a more elegant look.