Joyeux Anniversaire Grace -- Charlotte aux baies

It's my friend Grace's birthday, so I designed her a cake with the assistance of Winnie.

I think making presents means so much more and the best. And it saves the hassle of finding a present!

Stay gorgeous, bubbly, healthy always and hope you have a great birthday!



Berry Charlotte (adapted from tartelette)

Coconut lady fingers:

• 1/2 cup cake flour
• 3 large eggyolks
• 1/2 cup sugar, divided
• pinch salt
• grated coconut

Compote des baies:

• 800g mixes berries
• 4-5 tbsp casting sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup cranberry juice
• 2 tsp gelatin powder
  

Mousse de framboise:

• 250ml milk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 sp chambord
• 2 tsp powdered gelatin with 1/4 cold water
• 1 1/2 cups raspberries mashed with fork
• 3/4 heavy cream

Crème fouettée:

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp granulated white sugar

période d'examen est ennuyeux...

Ça fait longtemps tout le monde, it seems quite dusty here.. It's been quite a few weeks, just too lazy to get myself to type up stuff. Anyway, it's been 2 days since I've been feeling fed up with reading text.. and just been speculating movies, animation and what not... sigh, instead of feeling stress. My boredom just builds up and get the better of me. Exams haven't started for me yet, it's this coming Wednesday and ends the Wednesday after that with Japonais! Simple, I hope. Whats worse is that I have a clash on Wednesday the 5th of November for Intro. to Finance and Français. Probably just think that the date for one of the exam will just be adjusted to another day but monash had to be queer and made some rule.

"In order to allow you to be able to sit both exams, one of your examinations has been moved tothe other session on the same day, as reflected on your personal exam timetable. This is known as a 'clash' of exams, and, to ensure the integrity of the exam paper is maintained, you must be supervised throughout the day.

UNIT TIME DATE VENUE

AFC2100 9:30am 5 November Caulfield Racecourse, Ground Floor, Clash Area Seat Number: 2 (Hey I'm not the only one :D)
FRN1020 2:30pm 5 November As above

PLEASE NOTE: You will NOT be allowed to leave the examination room between exams. Accordingly you should bring your lunch. Youwill be allowed to study for your second exam over the lunch break, therefore you will need to bring any study materials you may require with you. However, this excludes the use of electronic equipment such as lap-top computers, as these may be used as a meansof wire-less communication. The use of mobile phones is also disallowed."

As you can see, I'm stuck there for 7 hours. The whole day. Yes, whole day at the exams! Woot! I'm so hyped up for this NOT! I should bring an eski of ingredients to make an epic lunch or something.. :(! Probably should stock up on cake.. mm. I guess I am not really fuss about it since I'm never fussed about the exams anyway.. just this is really めんどうくさい.. Timeto turn this entry for the purpose of this blogspot!

To dust off some cobwebs from this foodblog, I have sort of made a rough plan of what to do after I finish exams:

• Bake weekly to make up for the lack of baking for past year :(
• Teach myself basic of french pâtisserie
  
• Bake a birthday cake for Feng and David(Wang)
• Bake christmas cakes as presents ;)
• Find more cafés
  
• Find more jobs (barista, bartender, patissier)
• Shopping hahah
  
• Join Army Reserves :)
• Control alcohol consumption
  
• Gym&Cardio more -> Lose weight/get ripped :D
• Nov 29th Rye trip <> Feb 8th Queensland
  

Today Yesterday was also me Mother's **th Birthday. Spent quite a nice dinner at Goshen on Kingsway. I'm even surprised we finished 5 dishes.. jab chae is a must for me everytime now! We got her a pair of heels, coco chanel perfume and cake! I must say, the lady who reconmended the flourless chocolate cake failed me quite bad. The cake was good with chocolate until the taste of rum hit. consisted of too much rum, which made it quite bitter. I think I'll go back to the strawberry pavlova..

Joyeux Anniversaire, Ma Mère!
flourless gâteau au chocolat (I should've asked what was in it >_<;;)

millefeuille et tarte aux fruits
Ma famille!

Je pense à sucreries..

A redesigned cute cupcake food pyramid from Cakespy

Recently, a website called Cakespy recreated something called 'The Sweet 100!' which listed. Their list includes 100 of "fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food"--but in our universe, it's all sweet! (In case any of them are foreign to you, links to pictures and recipes are included)

How many have you tried? If you'd like, feel free to follow the same guidelines:

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you've eaten!
3) Cross out any of them that you'd never ever eat.

4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your "To Do" List.
5) Optional: Post a comment here linking to your results.

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte (or Chocolate Torte?)
   
3. Whoopie Pie
   
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
   
5. Beignet
   
6. Baklava
   
7. Black and white cookie
   
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars)
   
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
   
10. Kringle
    
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
    
12. Scone with clotted cream
    
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
    
14. Halvah
15. Macarons (...)
    
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
    
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca "pearls")
    
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
    
20. Alfajores
    
21. Blondies
    
22. Croquembouche
    
23. Girl Scout cookies
    
24. Moon cake
    
25. Candy Apple
    
26. Baked Alaska
    
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream (but not brooklyn style)
    
28. Nanaimo bar
    
29. Baba au rhum
    
30. King Cake
    
31. Sachertorte
    
32. Pavlova
    
33. Tres Leches Cake
    
34. Trifle
    
35. Shoofly Pie
    
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
    
37. Panna Cotta
    
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
    
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
    
41. Anzac biscuits
    
42. Pizzelle
    
43. Kolache
    
44. Buckeyes
    
45. Malasadas
    
46. Moon Pie
    
47. Dutch baby
    
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
    
53. Daifuku
    
54. Green tea cake or cookies
    
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
    
56. Crème brûlée
    
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe
    
62. An "upside down" dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
    
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
    
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
    
68. Linzer torte
    
69. Churro
70. Stollen
    
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
    
73. Concha
    
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
    
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
    
79. Cannoli
    
80. Rainbow cookies
    
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
    
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
    
85. Rugelach
    
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
    
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
    
90. Divinity
91. Coke cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S'mores
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire's Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

Not so shabby, eh? Probably explains why I was fat during my early-teen years HAHA... awwwww

omg... hawt?

Mangez les emos...

It has been a very eventful weekend, shouldn't really type much since management exam is tuesday and haven't studied yet, whoops? haha I really hope i can somewhat bluff this one and to pass :), credit would be good but pass is satisfactory.

Photographies du week-end :
Caught the 11:30am train with Chii shi & Joy to attend the Melbourne Big Freeze on Bourke St Mall (also bumped into James). The freeze was fun but also COLD as! Damn 14 degrees... with everyone keeping close watch of the time, eventually Bourke St Mall became still. I was shivering a little cause it was so damn cold, Joy was shaking alot haha, too bad we're not on the clip D:.
But we were next to the tram which was blocked by group of frozen people, you could hear the mass dinging in the clip. I want to do this againnnnn...

After the Freeze, there happened to be a Zombie walk event occuring. There were so many, atleast a hundred and it was so funny! So we tagged along to enjoy the walk :D!

"What do we want?! ...BRAINS...

When do we want it?! ...BRAINS..."

What was really funny was the emos sitting on corner of Flinders & Swanston st. On the church steps.. seriously what kind of emos are they? Go back home and have a slit-wrist party or something. Anyway, people actually thought the emos were part of the zombies walk HAH! and the zombies started screaming out "Eat the Emos........"

Joy losing her brains, Sharing popcorn with old school movie Zombie

Zombie couple (one of the best ideas)

Déjeuner à Brunetti

Realising afterwards that we haven't had anything to eat for the day. I took Chii and Joy to Brunetti's on Flinders Lane. Costed $12 for a tart, chai latte & cappucino which is reasonable cause the tart was délicieux :D

Lemon tart with dark chocolate flakes

Went to MAXIM's bakery in Chinatown to get Kien a cake. Mango fruit pudding cake! The cake was so light, I ate a few slices ... *blushes*.
Karaoke was at Kbox, where we sheltered from the wet, cold weather. 3pm till 8pm, 5 hours of singing was just nuts. Dedicated endless songs to Kien, my voice going dead and I think he loved it. Then off to Allan's house for late night BBQ woot, my stomach was screammming for food! The night was fun, aslong as food & alcohol are provided.. mingling comes naturally.

More photos on Joy Kao's facebook

Morning after, the Sunday. Couldn't remember the in betweens except for spewing in the toilet for a long time... Noon arrived, we got fungry and continued the bbq :)

3:24AM 16/05/08 Status: still haven't touched revision yet.. sacré bleu!
too tired to cram at this time... I'm going to sleep

Is this a band meeting?

i am now ranked Latte :)

And what I mean is that my milk is good enough for latte standards now. I shall tackle cappucinos tomorrow. Finally got the frothing right, yay!

Egg tarts

Egg tarts from Breadtop. Not the best place to get it but atleast, it still tasted like one. This shop kinds of exists everywhere, so it's quite convinient for some nibble on some sweet/savoury pastry. In my opinion, Springvale has some really good tarts if you know where to find them ;). The pastry wasn't thick enough or I think it was cooked for too long as my tart would crumble before my mouth gets to it. :(

Look more enthusiastic Michael, you're on camera!

Saturday the 10th, was little TJ's birthday. Another gathering at Michael's house with bunch of '07 and '06 glennies along with other(manifest and such). Some girl had a funny comment "Is this like a violin party because it is quite lame".. I concur, only reason is because EVERYONE, like literally almost EVERYONE had some musical instrument in their hand, may it be guitars or violins or a drumania drumset. Everyone, its time to gather around the camp fire and sing-a-longs! Other than that, it was an enjoyable night. Thanks Tj, Bye!

I think a new item is added to the banlist from house parties.
1/ Tekken 5 (or games that aren't multiplayer)
2/ Mahjong (only at Lyns, haha)
3/ Musical Instruments unless the birthday kid requests you to play

Mwahahahaha!!!

I like to add, Jigglypuff is now one of my favourite characters in SuperSmashBros. Brawl on Wii!!

Une gâteau de mangue

Michael Tjong's birthday cake was also from Breadtop. Haha, alot of Breadtop? No, I did not buy any of these products today. Try to cut this cake into ... 20 something pieces! GOOD LUCK!! It was messy and wasn't attractive... yeah. The bits of mango fruit between the layers with the cream was just about right, not too sweet :). I don't... know what the cake is wrapped with though. Looks like a thin sheet of crépe. We also had "green tea" roll sponge cake due to realising how thin the porportions of cake each people had.

Fact: Breadtop now has 11 franchises all over Melbourne and some in Sydney. Guess what, they're all in asian places. Haha, kind of expected, n'est-ce pas?

Why the pants?

Ah mah god.. No way.. Your kidding ?! (Joy, don't worry, I didn't publicize your e-mail.. you won't have anymore strangers adding you haha)

Okay, for people who wonder why the "no pants Peter" name, some of my friends would know because they gave me this name..It really has happened.. Yes, the situation of me with no pants on. Kind of はずかし but funny. A side story none the less.

--a bit of reminiscing, i'll make it short i promise--
Kristin's 17th Birthday? I took over early in one of David's game of pool (8 ball) against Ken. There's a rule where if you lose without sinking any balls, you run with your pants (or whatever you are wearing down there) down, around the pool table. & yeah, that's where this name derived from. Oh I think David has photos of it too. --Wait-- ... I think Kristin was tipsy when she gave me that name?! Or was that "Dirty Dirty Peter" which was due to your trampoline!!! Ahoy peg-leg Alan and Kristin the deck scrubber!!
--oh, how short was that story!--

Apple & Persimon salad
Have you had your 5 to 8 servings of fruits & vegies today?

I'm not a vegetarian but I do prefer fruits & vegies over meat nowadays. Trying to get my family to follow and eat healthier is quite difficult when you have: a father who loves their meat, a sister who eats either junk or randomly. But yay for mum to putting more effort into dieting again! --i owe her a pair of new jeans in summer-- I guess, there's no point in discriminating.

Food is food. Life is short, so enjoy it :)!
Although, the more white hairs sprouting out of your head, the more health cautious you get..

Orange tea cake from Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie
I can't stop at slice no.1..

Ma mère walked through the door with a nice looking package. I think ever since I introduce Laruent Patisserie to my sister and mother, they only seem to buy cakes from there now... although the cakes are very good, stop spending money there, it's too expensive!

NOT! That'll never be a good enough reason, haha!

This was only $10-ish anyway, so it was quite cheap.. which came as a surprise.

I love dining at Laurent Patisserie! It's so relaxing and classy for a boulangerie-pâtisserie in Melbourne. It's probably so far, my favourite place to have a slice of heaven every now and then. It's pricey for small servings of cake, but worth every extra gold coins. Maybe food taste alot better when you pay cost more. Probably not in all scenarios. And it's interesting how Laurent has only positioned themselves in wealthy suburbs.

I noticed whilst serving it for David and Lyn who came to visit, that the orange tea cake was quite dry and brittle. So much crumbling while slicing the cake :(. Other than that, the orange flavour with chocolate chip in the cake was delicious, proven by the fact that I had several slices and Lyn couldn't resist nibling on some more. I would usually hesitate when it comes weird flavoured cakes.. Time to find new cakes to try then.

Yay!