four layers of genoise cake with lemon curd and blueberry jam sandwiched between alternating layers. frosted with lemon mousse.

i’ve not baked a genoise sponge in so long i was starting to think i lost my mojo. but i guess the trepidation was uncalled for because the two cakes turned out really nicely. they were a beautiful golden with a cotton-soft crumb. i absentmindedly forgot that sponge cakes HAVE to be soaked in a syrup though, so the cake layers were pleasantly tender but dry. the lemon curd was a safe bet. i’ve been using this same pierre herme recipe since my secondary school days for anything that requires lemon curd - as a filling for tarts, for sandwiching between layers of cakes, for rippling cheesecakes, as a topping for thumbprint cookies… etc. the blueberry jam was a letdown because it was store-bought. i just didn’t have time to make my own because blueberry season’s over, and i only woke up at 12 in the afternoon to begin the cake-baking. the frosting stole the show. i had some lemon curd left over, so i beat it into some softened cream cheese and lightened the mixture with freshly whipped cream. when chilled, it becomes almost mousse-like in texture - it’s really delicious. aesthetically, the inside of the cake wasn’t as pretty as i hoped it would be. the curd was of the same color as the cake layers, so at a glance, it looks as though there’s only a blueberry jam filling. secondly, the blueberry jam was quite a dull color, i wish i’d made my own!

school’s a lot better than last year i guess, though i’m lagging quite a fair bit already. but i’m glad i’m finally putting in effort academically because if not i’d be feeling the same way i did last year - self-loathing and full of regret for choosing food science. i realize that all it takes to turn things around is a shift in perspective. things will never change unless you take some responsibility for yourself and make them happen. peace out! 

perhaps one of the reasons why people like reading is that books allow us to catch glimpses of ourselves and the people around us, snapshots in life that so often go unnoticed. or maybe it’s because writers have an incredibly innate ability that allows them to capture the human condition so eloquently that in reading these stories, we realize that we’re not alone, that whatever we feel is normal. i came across a fantastic excerpt from a book today. reading this short passage was so cathartic because it succinctly sums up what i’ve been feeling in the past few days, what i’ve not been able to put into words (hence the lack of updates haha). i’m posting this here for all you out there who’ve been feeling the same way that i have, and perhaps like me, you’ll get a quiet joy in the few minutes you spend reading this.

“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.” Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves) “

i wanna watch this musical when it comes to singapore ^^ that’ll be next jan i think! i’ve not read the book though…

love, love, love her red hair. and her uke too.

i wanna feel weightless, cause that would be enough

I hate those awkward tense moments where you can’t make out if a person is crying or laughing because their faces are contorted. And so you hold your breath and stare more intently, and then a laugh escapes and you feel slightly cheated for having been so emotionally invested. 

I hate unspeakable truths that cannot be put in words and be made known, for fear that they would crystallize and become what you always feared they would become. Shaking aside these thoughts, you decide to hold the faith and believe adamantly (stubbornly perhaps) that it’s not going to happen. Holding both this unspoken prophecy and faith that by chance it wouldn’t hold true, you bite your tongue as you slowly but surely witness that it’s happening after all. 

I hate reading the poignant ending of a book and getting all choked up with emotion while sitting in a bus full of people.

I hate loathing an aspect of someone but not being able to say it because you know that the flaw is so deeply ingrained that an effort to change this would prove futile. All you can do is just wait and hope that he/she would one day wake up from his/her drunken stupor… and that that day isn’t too late. 

I hate this ambiguity. The possibility of being sucked into the vortex once more is not something I relish. I secretly do think that I felt more than I cared to admit. 

(Although this is not a good space to soul-bare, I needed some form of catharsis, which explains the cryptic post. And since it’s meant to be cryptic, please don’t ask me what various parts of this post are referring to because that would invariably compel me to feed you with lies. Lastly, I’m alright, I’m just physically tired and as Marcus always says, night time’s emo time.)

HAHA it scares me how my best friend knows me so well. 

P: Are you mugging now
B: If I say yes will you feel guilty cos you are slacking hahahaha
P: Hahahahaha omg how you know I’m slacking
B: Girl you predictable 

And awhile back,

P: Argh I’m so sick of guys
B: Is this gonna be another there’s a guy clinging onto me rant
P: Lol how you know
B: Cos you are predictable? Haha

AM I THAT PREDICTABLE!! Anyway here’s a nice one-minute Daphne loves Derby song for y’allllll

1030 woke up from an intense dream which i’ve no memory of. replied messages on my phone. upgraded my applications and installed new ones. sorted my phone’s music library and downloaded new songs using my new app.  

1230 left the comfort of my bed. brushed my teeth and washed my face. examined my face in front of the mirror and to my dismay, my skin is STILL peeling. went upstairs and slouched on the couch in my living room. tried downloading rise of the apes but my internet connection was malfunctioning so badly i couldn’t torrent anything. browsed through news sites in a bid to improve my knowledge of current affairs. read depressing articles on poverty and malnourished kids, and about how they die painful deaths when their body consumes muscle (eventually the heart muscle) when the fat reserves are depleted. and i learnt that one test they do to determine if a kid cannot be saved is by measuring the circumference of their arm. if the figure’s smaller than 10.5 cm (if i recall correctly), the kid’s too far gone. i didn’t know that, and it made me feel self-conscious about my own arm circumference which i think is far beyond 10.5 cm. i also read about gay hiv patients getting biohazard tattoos while eating the coolest bakchang of my life - it had blueberries in it! 

1500 went downstairs for a shower. left home with my eco-friendly “sowing seeds of change” bag which contained my journal, a couple of pens and singapore studies readings, which i hoped to read in the library. walking down the street with the warm sun on my skin, feeling clean and fresh and smelling nice from the shower is really a splendid feeling. 

1600 reached the library, headed right for the wine section and emptied half a library shelf of its books. literally. sat snugly in one sofa (the joys of visiting the library on a weekday) with the pile of books in my lap. began reading the most promising looking one and taking notes in my journal. reading the book was such an illuminating experience; so many things that were confusing about wine made so much sense after reading. i finally had some understanding of the terms that were frequently thrown around by k and the lady boss when i was working back in saint julien, which made me feel very very satisfied. it was such a fascinating read that i ignored the blatant display of affection that was going on between the amorous couple seated beside me. by the time i got to the third chapter, i ran out of paper to write on (time to get a new journal). i had two chapters of wine knowledge condensed in six journal pages! in these two chapters i learnt about oxidation, the procedure of wine-tasting, skin-contact, varietal and non-varietal wines, the six main grape types, body, descriptive terms like “dry”, “crisp”, “oaky”, “tannic” and the factors that contribute to these characteristics in wine. the book’s “great wine made simple” by “andrea immer robinson” and i can’t recommend it enough! especially if you’re a wine noob like me, because it draws a lot of parallels between food and wine which really help give a more in-depth understanding of some concepts. i got hungry and mentally-fatigued so i borrowed the book, along with susanna foo’s fresh inspiration.

1930 lingered around the wine section of ntuc checking out the wine labels, which i’ve got a new appreciation for. some 750ml bottles cost only 15 bucks!! picked up a packet of coconut milk and headed home. 

2000 ate my dinner which was broccoli, roast chicken and rice. i doused everything with my favorite condiment on earth, sambal belachan mixed with lime juice. went to the kitchen, slit the packet of coconut milk open into a saucepan. thinned it out with some milk and brought it to a boil. added some thai glutinous rice and simmered the mixture until the rice was tender, stirring often. i layered the rice-coconut milk mix, which by now had gotten quite thick, with raspberry puree (leftover from the cake-making) into disposable cups and stuck ice cream sticks in them. made space in the freezer and stuck them in to freeze.

2200 here i am! typing this post while my brother watches nigahiga videos. i should probably head down to my room to do the singapore studies readings that i didn’t do in the library. AND I HAVE TO PACK MY BAG FOR CAMP, UGH CAMPS. and get some sleep because i’m gonna have to wake up at 615 am tomorrow. i hate 8 am lectures. bye world! 

p.s. if anyone wants to have a mini wine tasting with me please contact me (: 

Today has been an incredibly exhausting day - Sentosa in the day with the guitar people, followed by the glazing of my sister’s birthday cake. Speaking of which, here are the photos of the cake-assembly process! Firstly you have to make all the components of the cake (duh): three layers of chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, raspberry puree and raspberry buttercream. I did the components all in one night.  Once you’ve got that down, you can start on the assembly. I did this a day ahead. Firstly, you get one cake layer onto a cake turntable and slide pieces of parchment paper under the cake so the turntable remains clean when you do your frosting which will definitely get messy. Dollop on about a half cup of ganache and spreeeeaaaaaad….

Till it covers the cake in an even layer like this!

Pipe a ring of ganache around the circumference of the cake layer and spoon the raspberry puree filling onto the cake. The ganache ring prevents the raspberry filling from leaking.  

Gingerly place your second cake layer on top and dollop on more ganache. Do exactly the same thing as before. 

At this point, I chilled the whole cake because if you look carefully, you’d see the raspberry filling peeking out of the ganache on the first layer, and I got afraid that it might leak and ruin the whole thing. So I stuck it into the fridge for awhile to harden the ganache before frosting. In the meantime, I rewhipped my buttercream. It looked like it had curdled for awhile but after a couple minutes of determined beating, it became smooth and satiny again! This step is known as the crumb-coat phase because the aim is not to frost the cake perfectly but to coat every crumb of the cake. This is so that you won’t get any cake crumbs in your buttercream when you frost. So just apply a thin layer of frosting, just enough to cover the cake, and stick it in the fridge again. 

When you take the cake out and apply more frosting, you’d realize that the frosting goes on a lot better and you don’t have to worry about cake crumbs getting stuck on your spatula ^^ So just frost the cake until you think it looks pretty, and all the dark cake layers are covered. Refrigerate the cake until the frosting is firm to touch. At this point I removed the pieces of parchment and draped clingfilm over the cake because I figured that if buttercream has such a high fat content, the butter in it might pick up off-odors from my fridge. 

So today, when I got back from Sentosa, I took the cake out and removed the clingfilm.

I then reheated the chocolate glaze that I made the day before and poured it over the cake, letting it drip down the sides. 

Garnish with fresh raspberries. 

Stick it in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to set the glaze and you’re good to go! 

HAHA to celebrate my great effort, I met up with Wayne at Bar Bar and had half a bottle of Hoegaarden ^^ I love bars, I think they’ve quite a cool vibe. It’s a nice place to chill out with friends, too bad the restaurant beside it had closed by the time we got there, would have liked some escargots to go with the booze.