Kitchen disaster, again

I'm so gonna cry..

'It' happened again today! Ugh...

I was gonna bake bestie her surprise birthday cake today. But everything went so so wrong.. everything, totally.

1. sponge cake

It didn't rise. It wasn't normal. Because i listened to the maid and let her mixed the alot-not-melted butter part with the little-melted ones = butter became thick. It made my batter curdled and resulted a heavy, thin sponge cake :(

I re-baked this.

2. the egg yolk mixture

After whisking the egg yolk mixture like a madman into a creamy and thick mixture + gelatin paste, i poured the prepared syrup into it!! The syrup was meant for brushing the sponge cake :(

4 eggs wasted, not to mentioned, an extra of 4 egg whites on top of the already-there 4 whites for me to brainstorm how to use them all.

I re-do the egg yolk mixture, along with the gelatin paste and the syrup with rum.

3. egg whites

When i was re-doing the gelatin paste, the hot water accidentally got into my 5 egg whites bowl. Egg whites cannot be contaminated especially if you wanna whisk it to its peak form and i actually wanted to attempt macarons with it! :(((

4. 7" cake ring

The recipe did state that it was for a 7" cake ring but i stubbornly think that 8" cake ring (coz i only have 8" round cake ring) will do as well. After i've made my cream cheese mixture, i realised that it is not enough afterall for an 8" cake ring. Sigh.

I ended up using the normal 7" cake tin lined with Glad Wrap, praying and hoping i can just pull the cake out beautifully without anymore problems. *crossing my fingers now*

What's worst is that the cake tin isn't tall enough for my final layer of cream cheese! *sobs*

5. syrup

After i covered the sponge cake with the cream cheese mixture, i realised i forgot to brush the syrup onto the sponge cake before slapping the cream cheese on!

6. syrup again

After everything was done, just when i thought nothing can ever go wrong again, i accidentally tipped the syrup container over which meant for the fruits tomorrow!


So much for a surprise. I'm so frustrated and upset that i'm pretty sure if i were to scream out loud, even the friends in KL could hear me!

To add on to my misery, i realised i did have a 7" cake ring afterall (but in square shape) when everything was done and i was taking my shower.

Today isn't my day, really :(

And i think i cannot bake at night, especially when it's almost my sleeping time. Poor bestie... sigh.

All i can do now is pray that the cake can be pulled up tomorrow and the Glad Wrap will not break in the midst of it!

I really h.a.t.e kitchen disasters. Period.

p.s : but then, who doesn't right? :P

pps : really looking forward to some pampering tomorrow - facial, yay! But not the extraction part though - ouch!

ppps: thank god my unlucky day has got nothing to do with the car!!! *phew* I read (my star sign) that this month, accidents will happen when i'm rushing off to somewhere. But the thing is, i'm always rushing from one point to another!

Oh no!!!

Dinner

Another one of those random dinners that i photographed, mainly because i bought spring onion the other day :P

Stir fry taufoo with minced meat and spring onion

Har lok (one of my fav dish!) Not sure what u call this in English though. Probably caramelised prawns?

Everytime when i wanna post my dinner, the vege dish always turns out to be okra. Heh.

3 kinda of mushrooms soup with fishball

Don't belittle this very simple soup. It's darn yums to drink. I use ikan bilis stock for this soup and on top of the 3 kinds of fresh mushrooms, i added my own dried shiitake mushroom as well. Hb loves this like m.a.d.

Pizza

I love making pizza... It's expensive but it's still cheaper than buying from the outside. Well, slightly cheaper only, to be exact - it's the ingredients. Very expensive! But still, i like :)

Super supreme pizza

Another problem that i always have when i make pizza is the dough. I can never get my hands on the right recipe!!

The dough is always a failure, in my and hb's opinion until ... this time. I finally found it!!!! *yippeeee*

The crust was almost perfect and the fussy pot hb thinks so too!

I'm absolutely thrilled. I'm happy. I'm ecstatic.

Next, i'm gonna play around with the ingredients now that i got the pizza dough almost right.. me gonna make some authentic italian pizza :P

Steamed chicken

Steamed chicken with mushroom, ginger and wolfberries.



This is an ultra simple and healthy dish..

I ate this quite a bit during my confinement. But till today, we are still eating it from time to time whenever i feel a tad too lazy to do stir frying, deep fried dishes with sauce etc.

For confinement, i add in the 'huang jiu' to marinate the chicken before steaming. Now that i'm not in confinement anymore, instead of using 'huang jiu', i use shaoxing wine as substitute.

Easy, healthy and pretty yummy too!

Plus, lotsa good gravy for the kids to mix with rice! *wink*

Tiny!

I did say my Opera cake was only 2.5cm in height right? It was slightly less than that actually.



That's my thumb there.

Height : slightly taller than my thumb

Width : the length of my 2 thumbs combined.



The kpo boys' hands and my hand.. :P

Small right the cake? Even though it was tiny, the flavour and taste.. so power!! The cognac, coffee and chocolate + the crispy layer of coffee butercream and chocolate that was sandwiched in the middle ... one word -> fffwwoooahh!

I felt as though i was eating a cake that was bought from really 'atas' bakery!

Can't wait to make it again. Just bought the cake pan yesterday! :D

Believe it or not

You must be wondering why 'believe it or not' has anything to do with 2 packets of curry dishes above right?

You will not believe what i did!

I got them free.

From strangers.

Tempeh with huge prawns

There was this Malay wedding kenduri near the void deck below my house last weekend. It was raining on Saturday afternoon. So beep beep and i took the long way back from the car park to go home.

As i was walking along the corridor, i saw 2 malay aunties scooping and doing whatnots to at least 4 huge pots of yummilicious dishes. I tried so hard not to stare but i simply couldn't! Bet the aunties there saw me salivating so badly until they smiled at me :P

Sambal sotong

Me the kpo couldn't help but to ask a few questions in Malay and also introduced myself as well. We hit off pretty good. One of them asked me to stay for lunch and all but i declined politely. Too shy la! Heh.

Side track abit, you know, i've always liked the Malay community. Coming from Malaysia, i kinda miss them actually.. I don't even know any here :(

From what i observe, they are really nice and friendly, especially those aunties... Bet i could learn tons of malay dishes from them! :pppP

And and, i would love love love love to visit them for Hari Raya!

Anyway, after i've gone home, i realised that i was still salivating over the food i saw earlier plus i really wanted to know them better so i can do house visiting in the future!

So, what did i do?

The very not shy me went down again with my troop, armed with a bag of fresh apples which i had just bought earlier and a box of homemade steamed tapioca kueh.

Before i could gave them my apples and kueh, they passed these 2 packets of very very delicious curry dishes first. Like any very nice people would do, the auntie actually tried to stuff the tempeh dish with lotsa big prawns for this stranger here. Unbelievable isn't it? I was a stranger and she did just that and it wasn't as though there were many huge prawns left in the pot y'know..

I was deeply touched.

Unfortunately, we didn't exchange phone number and all as the sister who lives in my block wasn't there with them. Plus, we were attracting quite a number of stares from the guests, hence the very quick exit and goodbye from us. So wasted.. :(

p.s: the dishes were soooooo spicy and sedap. I'm craving for more now!