honey drizzle

Monday, October 29, 2007

Chinese O levels over, what a relief(:

Warm bittersweet chocolate mousse. From Bittersweet by Alice Medrich. She has very interesting techniques and recipes. A chocolate mousse recipe thats baked instead of chilled, which eliminates tempering of eggs. Served with icy frozen raspberries, because chocolate on its own is an overkill.







9:54 PM

Friday, October 26, 2007

White chocolate ice cream. I think its an illusion that white chocolate seems more elegant in ice cream rather than bar form. Its not real chocolate, but chocolate isnt always a basis for comparism.

Im fed up with my ice cream maker. It makes good ice cream, but takes hours longer than it should, for which I have to listen to blender-loud noises coming from the kitchen.



Dark chocolate peanut butter torte with white chocolate ice cream. Making the torte is incredibly fun, you seem to make frosting, melt and whip whip. Then you pour it into a pan and bake it(: I would try it with hazelnut butter another time.



Chocolate banana swirl cupcake. For Astrid/ttm/eeleng.



3g cake(: Dark chocolate cake base with strawberries and white chocolate mousse. Extremely bad picture, it was completed at night and never got to see the day. Inspired by La Tartine Gourmande. Her pictures are extremely pretty.



Hazelnut chocolate meringue ice cream cake. Chocolate pavlova layered with hazelnut gelato. Pavlova doesnt freeze, the merits of a high sugar content.


7:56 PM

Yesterday, church camp kind of worship, after like 10 months. Its weird after so such a long time then we have something big during combined service and rest of the time is normal. Cheryl you should have stayed(:

Dance night planning starts, pros and cons(:

Meanwhile I try to figure out how to study for a language.


7:56 PM

Valrhona dark chocolate raspberry brownies. I used to think brownies were extremely cliched, everybody makes them. But if you take a very good brownie recipe made with very dark chocolate and add raspberries, it becomes something different altogether. When refrigerated it becomes truffle-like, dark and dense.




Vanilla bean mascapone gelato with pine nuts. I love vanilla beans, mascapone and pine nuts. The gelato is really different from anything else, the flavour combination goes really well though.


7:56 PM

Friday, October 19, 2007

My really bad history marks were pulled up tremendously by social studies, almost 4 grades. I'm so thankful. That lessens my depressed mood over the week, God really answers prayers.


5:14 AM

Monday, October 15, 2007





Strawberry and vanilla bean cake. Strawberries and cream in cake form, for my grandma's birthday(: Vanilla genoise cake brushed with strawberry syrup layered with macerated strawberries, filled and frosted with vanilla bean chantilly cream.

Making the cake was happiness, whipping the eggs and sugar and watch it climb higher and high up the mixer bowl till it tripled in volume, macerating the strawberries until they were dripping in their juices, whipping the vanilla bean perfumed whipped cream.

Bad pictures, was late for the dinner. I bought cookbooks today, and got really cute cookie cutters for my birthday(:





My ice cream maker works!


11:45 PM





Blood orange poppy seed macarons. I'm really happy, this was my most successful batch. Almost all came out identical. I always had a problem for consistency, half of my batch would look okay, and the rest ran into each other, had misproportionate feet and cracked.
The macarons didnt really taste like blood oranges, rather like oranges. Maybe because the buttercream was flavoured with blood orange curd. The poppy seed flavour was too subtle, I should have added more to the macaron shells, I had enough poppy seeds to last me a lifetime.

I'm not good with colour. The finished macarons didnt look anything like what blood orange macarons should look like, with no relation to the colour of its dark ruby juice that gave it its name. Maybe more rose, and orange. And I didnt want to colour the buttercream. The oven time and temperature needs some experimenting, I think I baked mine at too high a temperature at a shorter period of time. The macarons discoloured.


11:45 PM

Thursday, October 11, 2007



Chocolate Kahlua truffle cake. Its called by a lot of names, chocolate intensity, chocolate indulgence, chocolate oblivion, and more. Its just a flourless chocolate cake, with no almonds or other kind of nut for structure. It doesnt have a crumb, texture is like truffles, but softer and smoother. And the coffee flavour is quite strong, the original recipe didnt call for Kahlua.

My springform pan isnt a hundred percent leakproof, and I should have know better. So some water from the waterbath seeped into the springform even when I wrapped it twice with aluminium foil. It didnt spoil the cake, but someone's portion had to be sacrificed. I need to get more cake pans. And, the cake slice was chilled when I sifted over the icing sugar, water condensed on it, forming an ugly sticky glaze. It spoiled the presentation. And I wish I had better cake cutting skills.
Its good with raspberries. And blood orange sauce. I found blood oranges too at ntuc, of all places. Its really nice to go to a supermarket and they stock things you think they wouldnt. Like pomegranates, or blood oranges or passionfruit or rhubarb.
Jong is in love with David Lebovitz too(: His ice cream book still eludes me, either they dont stock it, or I forget to bring the voucher.


5:12 AM

Tuesday, October 09, 2007


Green Island, in the rainforest.

Australia, indescribable. Our theme song really matches(:

It was the most amazing experience, I had so much fun, saw so many incredible things, and made many more friends. Never had I seen waters so blue, so even-better-than-swimming-pool-water clear, biodiversity so rich, trees so old, lakes so deep, creatures so big, so unimaginable.




For one, I really got to know my bunkmates better, Carisser Nicole Andrea Fang Jacq and Claire. I couldnt have asked for nicer bunkmates. I got to know people I didnt know before, and make new friends. And the last night in bohemia playing the name game(: Also I got to know people like Min Feng and Joanne too. We didnt exactly break out of our cliques , but at least we bonded a bit.


I'm really glad for the teachers who came with us, Miss Yang and Mrs McDougall. They are the most patient and understanding teachers. Mrs McDougall for encouraging us to write our journals, even though we didnt like it, but I discovered much more by writing my thoughts down. Miss Yang for reading it and writing really sweet notes back. They knew that the Ming Palace incident was a genuine mistake, and were really understanding about it. And I'm sorry Sze wing, maisie and andrea for getting you guys worried.


12:17 AM