And apparently, this needs to be put in here somewhere.
So go ahead:
I am aware that I have been missing a long time.
I was nursing a rather nasty concussion, effects of which I am still experiencing:
loss of concentration, as evident by the reduced Bejeweled high scores;
short term memory loss, as evident by my inability to harvest my Smurf crops on time;
among others.
I only have time for a quick post today.
And cupcakes are always a good place to start. 😉
My Godsis was confirmed last Sunday, and guess who was in charge of dessert?
Me! Me! Me!Â
Cupcakes for my Godsis’ Confirmation last Sunday. 🙂
I spent a week coming up with a design for the spread;
didn’t think that eating up lil’ Bibles and crosses was appropriate.
I’m a prude, I know.Â
I had a friend suggest a picture of Jesus on a cake: apparently it’s been done before. Go figure.
Once that was done, I spent weeks scouring various baking shops and the Internet for fondant / cookie cutters in the shape of sheep & doves; but I couldn’t find anything appropriate.
That, or it wouldn’t reach fast enough.
I ended up making all the doves and sheep out of rolled fondant.
I think it turned out beautifully, considering this was my first try shaping 3D decorations out of fondant. 🙂
Most Malaysians — or at least the ones that I know — have this misconception that Western cooking is difficult.
And it’s not just amateurs who won’t cook anything unless it came out of a box / packet;
I refer also to ladies who whip up mouth watering laksas, scrumptious curries, magnificent rendangs, etc.
They are quite reluctant to try their hand at cooking Western dishes;
and the excuse is usually that it looks too hard.
So they buy their roasts from the local supermarket;
add milk and water into their packet mac & cheese;
and stir minced meat into their bottled sauces.
Which shouldn’t be the case, because Western cooking is actually really simple. And straightforward.
Well, at least, the simple staple dishes are. 😉
The Nyonya for one appreciates the fact that she doesn’t need to pound and grind a-million-and-one spices before she actually starts cooking the dish.
So you may not be the next Gordon Ramsay;
and the spatially challenged — like me —may never present dishes that look like they came out from the French Laundry;
but you’ll never have to Q up to buy half price chicken roast at Tesco ever again!
Maybe that was just me and the Baba.
Every once in awhile, the NyonyaCelup gets a lil’ grandiose and thinks that she possesses the cooking & presentation skills of a fine chef.
It also doesn’t help that she stumbles onto blogs such as Mr. & Mrs. Eat A Duck’s — with their mouth-watering food & picture perfect photography — from time to time.
So it was only natural, when I decided to make about a dozen or so panna cottas earlier this week, that I’d look to them for inspiration
& attempt something that required less culinary skill, but equally stunning (visually).
The result were, predictably, disastrous.
For those of you who were wondering how my kasut manik is getting along:
Left side is left with the background beadwork…
Yes, I bead directly on the pattern.
Retracing it on Aida cloth is too time consuming. Deal with it.
What?
I’ve been busy!
Macarons don’t bake themselves, obviously!