Durian Tart - First Attempt

Tried making durian tart as part of the durian desserts request. Made this last weekend, but only had time to upload this entry now. I still have loads to blog, don't have enough time!

My SB told me that the durian cake was nice, even his friend said so :), well done for first attempt according to him. However, he said not enough durian. So for the durian tart, I've increased the amount of durian for the cream.

The tart shells are pretty easy to make, TLA love the tart shell even by itself.

One big mistake when making the durian cream was that the durian puree was not fine enough, hence I couldn't managed to pipe the cream through my nozzle. At the end, in order to be able to pipe through my star shape nozzle (the shape of the durian cream piped from the smooth tip nozzle looked erm... like something gross...). So, I tried to blend the cream again, but that made the cream lost consistency, hence couldn't form a nice defined shape.

SB couldn't come over to pick up the tart on time, and I guess I didn't keep the tart at a cold enough place (office fridge was too full!) Hence, he didn't get to eat them afterall, turned bad :(... So promised to make it again. An improved version hopefully.

It's A Rainy Day

Second day at work after my so called long leave. Not too bad in terms of work load today, I think I would be able to make it to the gym (it's pump day, can't miss class!!)

It has been raining since lunch time and in order to get to lunch, we actually drove to One Utama (can't walk to lunch around office area so we drove from basement carpark to basement carpark). Went to Oriental Cravings at 1U and boss drove and boss treated me. Goshh... what a dream job eh? The restaurant was simply crowded, guess loads of people was doing what we did to avoid the rain. (or 1U is simply crowded even during weekdays?) We couldn't get a big enough table to accommodate 5 of us (that's also the reason why my boss had to drive instead of getting the driver to chauffeur us to lunch) so the waiter had to move one of the patrons to the next table so we can have his table merged with ours. Amidst that table arranging, one of my very happy colleague came to whisper into my ear telling me this guy (who was forced to change table) was actually one of the judges who appeared in the TV reality show "who wants to be a model" (or something like that). True enough, and well, this famous guy later became 90% of the chat topic between my boss and I.

My boss who seldom watch TV (does it look like he has time?) had, of course, zero knowledge about this guy, so I gave him a debriefing of his background (well, OF COURSE I know nots about this guy too, haha that the point...) and of course I made up the background. Anyways, the topic of interest was if he is happy. I think so but my boss said a model, or someone involve in modelling business doesn't necessary have to be happy. Agreed. Still I think he is.

Told my boss after some constructive debating, while I happily dug into my food (braised pork in dark soya sauce with rice - fattening, full of carbo which clashed with the protein, but never mind, I'm going to gym later) and him bitterly waited for his claypot lo shu fun, that perhaps we should just do a little test, no point arguing.

That guy was leaving, and before it was too late, I gave him a prolonged glance, he caught my glance and quickly looked away (it's nothing to do with me being unattractive, I assure you haha); When that guy was walking away, I told my boss to look and see if the way he walked was quite happy-ish or not. My boss observed him for a while and turned to me with an amazed expression....

"Soooo? " I asked.

"He saw me looking at him and he gave me a prolonged stare!" exclaimed my boss.

Seeeee!! Told you so!

"Maybe he was looking at me because he thought 'who's this guy with also an out-of-bed hair do'?" continued my boss after I gave him a smug look claiming my victory in my theory.

We......ell. My boss came in today with a very out-of-bed messed up hair-do. He said it was an accident when I told him he looked cool in this hair-do. So, he was looking kind of cute today.

"No.......oo, I don't think so!" I assured my boss. "I don't think the reaction would be quite the same if, say, it were to be xxx (my other happy colleague) who stared at him..."

Mwah hahaha... so mean of me, but my boss was quite amused with my answer. So, there you go.

Welcome Back!

I've been very busy during the pass weekend... did 3 different types of baking, which I've assigned one of the baking - the caramel cupcake - to my little apprentice cousin aka Maddy. She did well, I've even left the icing of the cupcakes for her. Details of the baking will be in separate entries later, I haven't uploaded the pictures yet. I was going through my Picasa uploads and found some pictures taken by The Little Apprentice (TLA), among them...

Me baking

One of my overflowing baking "storage"

That was on Saturday night. I brought TLA to Tony's body jam class at SPK during the day and she loved the class a lot. The class was not so crowded and darling did some old time favorites, some requiring loads of space in order for us to perform the "drama". The lady president of the TFC (Tony fan club) was there and TLA was really delighted to have a role model (the president) to copy the steps and thus allowing her to breeze through the class.

TLA was also being assigned to get ready a welcome back "banner" and a welcome back card for MasterChef and BIL, who were arriving on Sunday.

The making

The welcome back card

The house is now more "crowded" with two more tenants, not to mention TLA staying over the school holidays. Then again, more "customers" for my baking, which also means less allocation for distribution.

Was on leave Monday and Tuesday, and my first day back at work was till almost 9pm. Honey dropped by my office yesterday evening to pick up his durian tart, but there was a little drama about the tart hiazzz.... anyways, got to get back to work first. Story telling later tonight if I can stay awake when I get home.

Surprise!!!

This is such a long due entry...

We've been planning for like 2 weeks for this surprise party.

Confirmation of the birth date...
I was quite sure Young told me his birthday is on 13 August... I remember having this conversation with him about birthdays last year and I jokingly asked him if his birthday was on 31 August when he said his birthday is in August. So, it's the reversed of the national day. Was having this MSN conversation with MB and she told me she that was how she remembers Young's birthday too.

The surprise party squad...
My #1 co-producer was supposed to be PiC, but she didn't turn up at Maxis on Monday... out of all Mondays... humphhh... my #1 "Insider" was SuperSpicyBabe. Discussed with SSB earlier and she said she will not let Young get any replacement for the Monday pump so as to keep him at the "crime scene". Mwah hahaha....

Told Hobbes and Little Bro also... they are my most supportive squad members. Hobbes had to teach balance and only managed to join us after his class (of course little bro reserved food for him). Little bro must be so hungry... he had this can't wait to eat look on his face constantly - till he got his food.


The cake...
I was wondering what cake to bake. MB told me birthday boy likes mango... and PiC actually managed to reconfirm this fact without causing any suspicion.


The food...
Esther planned to bring chili padi fried rice - IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! Despite the not advisable carbo, I had 2 plates! Actually all of us there had 2 plates. SSB you missed out big time! Ya... my #1 insider couldn't make it to the scene too.


The surprise...
Even though I've not attending Young's Monday pump for months, he didn't suspect me when I suddenly turned up for his class on that day. Or did he actually suspect? Later when we interrogated him about whether he was in fact really surprised, he said totally positive. Hmmm... Ok, he did look surprised. I loved the birthday song part, we sang our hearts out and tried to make it as loud as we can while the birthday boy tried to hush us.


I had a great time that night, working out was tough, when I went through the class, I actually thought "why did I come today!!!" goshh... I was screaming during chest, tricep, back track... but it was fun, especially when I've not seen everyone for so long... Esther hurt her shoulder, get well soon Esther! Oh, and her daughter will be delivering a baby next month. Saw her daughter today when I went to SPK, she looked like she's just 4 months pregnant... still looking slim and the stomach is so tiny.


Anyways... I realized later that the pictures I took was really lousy, I didn't even remember to take a picture with the birthday boy, and there was no group picture!!! No picture of MB too :(

Esther's Delicious Fried Rice

Make A wish....

Mango Cheesecake with Oreo "Crust"

It was for Young's surprise birthday do. MB told me, and PiC further confirmed that mango is the birthday boy's favorite, that's how I've came to decide on the cake of the event.

This is a variation of the raspberry cheesecake with chocolate biscuit crumbs. I found that one of the major problems using fresh fruits is the cake became too moist. While this gave a very nice texture and taste to the cake, it quite "ruin" the "crust". As a result the biscuit was very soggy, it became more of a moist cake base instead - nonetheless my very kind "food tasters" dutifully said it was nice - Thank you (though I know you guys will say nice even if it's not nice)!

Decorated with more fresh mangoes and fresh creams - we deserve it since we did a really tough pump class right before that (what fried rice??)

Will do the posting of the actual event after I've uploaded the pictures (I was actually blogging while waiting for my 8MB file to be e-mailed across to my boss - yes still in office, the consequence of taking leave yesterday. Haiz...)

Durian Cake - first attempt

I don't really eat durian because I was told it's fattening, plus, there's this "myth" about durian and pimple outbreak... so, I've not really been keen. Having said that... I'm not against the king of fruits.

There has been this request, erm... since last year actually, but the request was not being followed up and there were many other stuff to offer this requester in question. Hence, only now that I finally take up the "challenge". The result - quite bad.

Made a plain sponge cake for the durian cake. But the first attempt in sponge cake (never baked sponge cake for about 10 years, not joking, don't really like baking sponge cake) was quite a disaster. I've used a slightly too big baking tray, as a result, the sponge cake was very thin. Therefore, only managed to assemble the "cakes" into what looked like cream puff...

The cake was too thin, hence this look

So since my "apprentice" was here this weekend, I've entrusted her with the task of completing assembling all the "durian cream puffs", while I bake another sponge cake which might look more like a cake.

At the end, the cake turn out quite ok. The durian cream, however, were a bit too soft. It's very difficult to assemble as the cake threatened to collapse. The cakes were drizzled with some durian custard (which mum said smelled like "jagung" humphhhhh).

I wonder if durian goes well with butter cakes? It would be easier assembling a durian cake with a butter cake base instead of sponge cake. Or perhaps pipe the durian cream into a cupcake? Easier to assemble too. The next challenge is a durian cream tart.

I like experiments, it's how new items can come on to the permanent list. But I hate it most of the time because the chances of over producing certain ingredient is always there - I have so much durian cream and durian custard left. Can't be throwing them away and not sure how long it will last before I attempt the tarts which allow me to use the extra creams.

Told sms-buddy that I hope he had expected for my first attempt to be, well, like a first attempt. Though it's not so nice, but I really need him to help me with finishing them.

Any other guinea pigs? Opsss... I mean food tasters?

Weekend

I was in search for mango during the last two days... Went to Giant at LM Friday night, they only had a few and those were not ripe. Asked mum to get me some at the wet market on Saturday morning, but she said there were none... humph... Do I need to change to different cake? Told Hobbes when I went to his class at LM and he said change to durian... were you serious? Not everyone likes durian right? Well, I was baking durian cake, but it was an experiment (and thankgawd that didn't mean to be the cake, otherwise it's going to be so embarrasing to offer such cake for a birthday).

Woah... the Saturday pump was real tough, and Hobbes said it was tougher the week before? Can that be possible? I used all my usual weights, plus, I've gone crazy with shoulder track. Even though, knowing that my shoulder is the weakest after biceps, I used the 7lb dumbell instead of the 2.5kg plates. I know that is not like a lot different, but my shoulder was screaming even before half the track. The chest track was really tough till I had to give up a few pushes... The rest, I can't remember, only remember that I was all the time hoping for the tracks to end sooner... But you were right Hobbes, no matter how much we hate the torture (and you? no lah, how can we ever hate you?) we felt great after the class!

After class, continue to search for the mangoes... went to a fruit stall near where I planned to have my hair cut, but none. Stopped by at the supermarket down the street, and yay, they do have mangoes, but.... not so ripe, and by the look of it, not going to be sweet... but I guess I just have to make do.


Waited one hour for my turn at the hair dresser's despite me making an appointment!

Although running late after my hair cut, I still went to Great Eastern Mall, need to get supplies for my baby piggy. So, I might as well stop by Cold Storage... and WOAH!!! Loads of dark orange colour mangoes! All ripe! Looking Sweet! (and they were sweet, really sweet)

Phew...


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THE SCIENCE BEHIND DISH WASHING


I meant create an entry for last weekend activities, but only till now I could find time...

I was in for a volunteer at a dharma event. My aunty was in charge of a section and she told us she didn't have enough manpower because not many volunteers seemed to be interested or willing to be involve in her section... mum and I thought, it's supposed to be a volunteer work for good deed, for self cultivation, and more so, we should really help out with the task least disire by others. So there I was for the whole of last weekend.


I arrive at the "scene" on Saturday morning, and realized this funny scenario: 2 filled mineral water bottle tied to the water rubber hose...? Later I found out, the "science" behind it:

To keep the water hose down

And later this:

Containers to go through the "flour water" first to get rid of oil, then into the soapy water, next, rinse, and another final rinse. The containers will then be sent to a section where it will be wipe dry.

The "Crime Scene"

"end product" - clean containers ready for use

We were suppose to wash up the plastic containers for re-using. Meals were always provided during dharma event, and for event where Venerable Master Chin Kung is giving his lecture, the number of audience was always very very high. So, the organizer bought 25,000 pieces of plastic containters for the use of packing meals - lunch and dinner. Beakfast were bread which didn't require plastic container. Since it was a 5 day event, there were at least 10 meals being served, therefore, recycling of plastic container will definately help with preserving the environment and reducing wastage.

So, at one time we were washing like 8 thousand containers - box and lid. My cousin who was there to help out her mother said she had not wash so much containers in a year, well, I told her, make it a million years! Seriously...

One of the lunch boxes

Some of the cooked dishes.

30 over rice cookers in order to cater the number and size of meals

Assembling meal packs

The result of 2 days of washing was very painful butt because we were sitting on hard low stools. It was very tiring for the arms and fingers too. However, like any other volunteer tasks, once completed with full effort, we will be filled with full contentment too. :)