Marble Cake Cupcakes

Last week was bad for me in terms of workout - only did 2 pump classes the whole week with no cardio workout. Even so, those 2 pump classes consist one which I've forced myself to wake up 5.30 in the morning to attend a 7am class at LM. Was on leave last Monday and Tuesday, and since I foresee having to sacrifies gym for BBQ preparation later the week, I opt to attend the 7am body pump last Tuesday. Also, since it's FI's class, I can also bring him the long promised marble cake, in the form of cupcake. I actually enjoyed making the swirls for the marble effect.



Finished with butter icing - brandy, chocolate and coffe flavours. (I realized I don't have very good snaps of the end product humphhh...)

Chocolate Cupcakes

Had a BBQ party at home last night, as a welcome back party for my sis and BIL, and since we had overseas guests. Made chocolate cupcakes as my party cupcakes among other desserts.

The usual old fashion chocolate cake recipe but with dark chocolate cream for these cupcakes, instead of milk chocolate cream which I will use for the cake.

Only perhaps 2 persons managed to eat the cupcakes after the feast, kept some for my boss and Carebear (if she is not on diet, haven't got the chance to ask yet!)

The rest of the cupcakes went home with the guests as their desserts once they manage to digest the main courses.

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...)