I need to loose 3kgs

... at least.

The traffic was just crazy today! Took me almost 2 blardi hours to get home. Humphhhh!!!

One thing I am glad was I already filled up my petrol tank and only had to wait for one car at the gas station just now. But the journey back was TOO crazy, felt like screaming in the car! I text-ed Carebear when I left the office, that's when she was travelling from Kuching to Miri I think. AND I was still NOT home yet when she reached Miri!! Took me longer time to get from Taman Tun to Cheras. Can't believe it!!

Ok... calm down.

MC is back today! Yay, but she has gone to bed, too sleepy I guess. We planned to go hang out tonight, but we were surrounded by cars when we went out, luckily we managed to find a way to "escape" to come home. Everyone was out to the petrol station causing massive traffic jam all around.

I should have gone to the gym and loose those weights I desperately need to loose. I think since I have been eating as usual, I need more workout to burn the calories.

I give myself 2 weeks to loose that 3kgs!!!

that inspired me...

It was a rare opportunity that we went on a Europe trip last year without parents. We were MC, BIL, me and most of all, their first time away so far without parents, my cousin sister (occasionally nicked name as TLA in this blog) and brother. There was a lot of walking on our free and easy tour. It was like an adventure to the kids! Although tired, we always found ourselves enjoying immensely when we sank into comfortable environment at our pit-stop eatery places.

I was particularly in love with this place called The Caffettiera and my diary reads...

Our next mission was to locate a highly recommended tea room and the best galaterie in Rome... This was what the city guidebook said about the places: La Caffettiera Politician from the nearby parliament buildings lounge in the sumptuous tearoom of this temple to Neapolitan goodies, while lesser mortals bolt coffees at the bar. The rum baba reigns supreme, but ricotta lovers rave over the crunchy sfogliatella and rich pastiera.

We found the Caffettiera after walking passed a castle and the Pantheon. According to the guidebook, the Pantheon was built by Hadrian in AD 119-128 as a temple to the most important deities; the inscription on the pediment records a Pantheon build 100 years before by General Marcus Agrippa. The bronze doors are the original Roman ones. Inside, the Pantheon's glory lies in its dimensions. The diameter of the hemispherical dome is exactly equal to the height of the building. At the centre of the dome is the oculus, a circular hole 9m in diameter, a symbolic link between the temple and the heavens.

We were so tired by the time we reach the Caffetteira... we found a sofa seating area and the tea room was a fantastic place to hang out and unwind (not that we were done for the day yet). Their hot chocolate was superb, I had one with hot chilly pepper (ya... very special and spicy) and it's delicious! Alan's coffee was a but strong, but it looks really good! The cakes were great, we didn't get to try the recommended sfogliatella but the ones we ordered were just great. We spent more than one hour here and the best thing was no one bothered us and we didn't feel pressured at all to leave by the waiters. We spent lesser than at the earlier cafe we went and got so much more in return. Really highly recommended!

And so I thought, isn't TeaRoom a wonderful idea? Make that my dream...

Working on the dream

A quick post before I "start work"...

Completed my BC + BP combo last night. Feels great to have worked-out more than usual but I do have this pain on my left shoulder again, pain and not muscle pain.

After not joining combat for a long long time, especially Master C's, the class felt more interesting for me. Perhaps I should join this class only occasionally. As for pump, tough as usual. I had actually reduced weights for squat and chest track.

For the squat track, two reasons to reduce weight for me - instructor warned that the track IS tough; and instructor was using 11kgs, do I want to do the same? Of course I reduce to 10kgs lah. Lucky I made the right decision. Phew...

As for chest track, since I've worked my upper body in combat, I expect me to have less strength. And Carebear said we will be working from bottom up - and Hobbes Push Push track last Saturday sprang into my head - so reduced from my usual 6kgs to 5kgs only. (So, I'm pretty sure my shoulder pain is not because of pump).

Before joining class, I'd tried one of my own banana muffin (which cannot be called so, should call them choc chips muffins) and it was rather tasteless. So, the banana muffin recipe was not good (see comments under the banana chocolate chips muffin post) and I feel that I'm better when baking chocolate and cheese items. So perhaps I should stop baking banana muffins haha...

Anyways... I decided before class that I don't need to have dinner since I was feeling quite stuffed after eating the muffin. BUT, after pump, I was really hungry and in dire need of replenishing energy (to drive home). Ended up getting a mozzarella and vege toostie from O'Brien's before leaving TC.

Okay, I've decided to seriously look into my TeaRoom dream. So, first thing first, the location - ideally a neighbourhood type of environment, but with nearby offices. Not in the mall, at shoplots area but not Mont Kiara or Bangsar type of overly busy shoplots. Near to and convenient for all my friends so that they can drop-by all the time for a good gossip sessions (and of course to contribute to my "salary").

Any idea? Do share...

I wish...

I wish I can manage to do a back to back BC + BP tonight - I'm off from gym tomorrow so that I can bake a birthday cake for end of this week.

I wish I can hug all my friends now for their support - I know everyone wishes for great things to happen for me (soon), I'm crossing my fingers too.

I wish I can just believe that dreams are signs and will come true (exclude nightmares please!) - a gal friend just sms-ed me telling me she dreamt of attending my wedding with him (haha) but that is just a dream.

Banana Chocolate Chips Muffin

I'm sure this time they can be called muffins...

So happened mum bought some bananas a few days ago. And I've bought these new muffin paper cups which look too cute to be left aside in the cupboard. Finally, I do want to confirm a banana muffin recipe so I can "move on". (Carebear, the paper cups are good enough without the muffin trays actually - you can see from the picture that they were not supported by the tray)

I didn't try any after I baked them, too full. Will try one for breakfast tomorrow morning perhaps. The fact that the muffins had risen very well, I already liked this recipe. I leave it to the tasters to come back with the feedback.

The recipe made 12 which is just the good portion for tea-time bake. Mum bought Pisang Rastali which was different from those I normally got at the supermarket. I would expect them to give better aroma actually. And no banana essence added but added chocolate chips just to be "safe" - so that they could some how also please the chocoholic.

Thought the cupcakes were rather dull, so glazed them with honey to add some shine. However, I wouldn't expect the honey to give much aroma since it's just the Giant brand honey. Nonetheless, I think I could still get the effect - which I hope will last.

Too good to be true

Set my alarm at 8am but only woke up 2 hours later. Poor little baby was waiting patiently. But tomorrow I will have to wake up on time to give baby her bath.

Perhaps due to sufficient sleep and rest, I felt rather energetic and actually clapped when Hobbes said he wanted to do a non-stop class - circuit training according to Hobbes. Felt like I was up to the challenge. Well, I survived! But it was REALLY tough! Just because Hobbes won't be seeing us in two weeks time, or are you taking a break for the whole of June dear?

So, went through a no break BP, we did this chest track which I'd never done before, from the era of BP 30's as I was told. We worked the whole track from bottom, many many bottom halves followed by super slow. By the time I got up from the board after chest track, I felt my head spinning already. When we got to lunges, I felt my heart beating fast and hard against my chest. While doing the biceps, I could almost agree with the song that said "I'm in a bad bad mood, and it's all because of you...". Okay, I don't mean we hate you Hobbes, of course we love you so much, but it was really tough leh....

The parting advice from the instructor was since we worked so hard, don't go ruin all the hard work by eating Nasi Lemak. That was when I mouthed "Baskin Robbins" to Hobbes and immediately got the gleaming look from his face too. Haha... Ice cream is perfectly okay. Nasi Lemak, cannot!

So at 3pm, I headed towards Baskin Robbins, followed Hobbes at his heels without him noticing until we all reached BR. The queue was EXTREMELY long!!! When we checked, the then number being attended to was 107. My number was 128. I thought it was quite reasonable. So decided to wait... since I got company, I was chatting away and before I knew it, it had been 45 minutes of waiting already. Thought of giving up since it was rather late and the line was moving really slow. We found out that there were some inconsiderate customers taking their own sweet time in tasting the flavours before deciding!!! Humphh...

Finally at 4pm, Hobbes and gang decided to leave. Besides, Hobbes needed to rush for another class. So I was left to decide on waiting or leaving.

I waited because if I give up, I'd wasted one hour for nothing. The number being served at that time was 117. Okay lah. While waiting, I had nothing to do so sent a few text. And calculated the time BR used to serve its customer. The answer - 5 customers per staff per hour! So slow and I wasn't sure if that was entirely the customers' fault. So when I got my ice cream, it was 4.45pm -

Time taken - 1 hour 45 minutes
Cost savings - RM26.66
Reward - 2 quart tubs
Reaction from family (including 2 cousins, uncle, aunt, BIL, mum and MC (when she comes back)) - priceless :)

Okay lah, I'm all patient when it comes to pleasing my beloved ones. Cousin sis was already longing for me to get her BR ice cream when I mentioned the 31% BR discount for the day. My uncle was also very happy since he'd gotten into this dessert-mood recently. The other tub waiting in the freezer for MC to come back - Rum & Raisins + Jamoca Almond Fudge ^_^

After that was a major rush to TC! Fizz already called earlier to say she will be there early. But due to me waiting at BR, I only made it on the agreed dinner time. Farid and her had already spent 2 hours at Dome Cafe. Thanks for waiting patiently for me gals!

So handed cake to SSB (during which I managed to say "hi" to LadyNina) - thanks for the feedback and thanks for choosing TTB as your preferred baker - and rushed over to Dome.

Had a great gossip, or rather, story telling session and I am feeling really contented now. It's great to have my gal friends enjoying my stories, what more, agreeing that it's a good idea. And yeah, I'm occasionally quite smart too. Thanks for the compliment :) If only I can remember the brilliant lines Farid had came up with during the session. Farid, I seriously think you should blog too. Hehe...

As I quote Fizz, it's now Season 1 and story to be continued. But I sometimes feel that things are too good to be true and am loosing my judgement and instinct. I need help!

Hokey Pokey Coffee Cake

Here it is...

SSB MSN-ed for a birthday cake request. Yeah she's back in town till Monday. When I asked her what flavour, she said coffeeee... okay. I've got this coffee walnut cake recipe, and since SSB liked the name of the cake too, we've decided on it.

However, SSB asked for a smaller cake. Okay, instead of making the recipe into half (lazy to calculate the measurement), I made the full recipe, and make the remaining into cupcakes. Though, I had to admit, the "little" cake is taller than it should be, take it as a special treat and not the permanent specification of this cake :p.

The cake was baked at a relatively lower temperature, so as I thought, we got a rather moist cake, which I think should be nice - SSB let me know. The cake is reduced sugar as usual, moreover, the icing is butter icing, so will be a bit sweet if the cake is also very sweet.

Baked the cakes in two separate container, it would be advisable to do so especially with cake that's got nuts or fruits, because cutting the cake into half will be messy.

Sandwich the two parts with some butter icing.

Sprinkle with the chopped walnut pralines.

Stack the two parts together and thinly cover the cake with icing first. This will stick the cake crumbs together. If not, when you do the final layer of icing, you will see cake crumbs contaminating the icing, and if like me, the piped icing will fall off the cake.

Did the side with star shape nozzle, quite tedious, next time I will just weave the sides too. But last night I thought of reserving the weave for the top.

My "signature" weave for the surface.

Silver balls to add to the 3D effect.

Whole walnuts, birthday tag and some colour to decorate. Happy birthday uncle!!!

And the remaining for the cupcakes.