Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, or it was 10 minutes ago.


Did some baking for my Family Christmas Dinner, a small contribution on my part. I've baked for Christmas Gatherings before, but that was a long time ago when I haven't really gotten that interested in baking yet, my skills at that time were mediocre at best and if the end product came out looking like a cake, even if it was hard as rocks and tasted like cardboard, I would still deem it a success.





Fast forward a few years later, I've got to admit, I am actually quite proud of how this cupcakes turn out, putting them side by side in a box looked so professional, like I should be heading to a bake sales instead of sharing it with my family, but share with them I did because it's Christmas, the season of giving and it's very rare for me to find so many mouth that are willing to consume the cakes I bake.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

I had actually made a batch of caramel sauce a few days prior to Christmas, spiked it with a bit of rum because alcohol makes everything taste better, it was pretty good, I kept taking it out of the fridge every once in a while, stuck my fingers into the jar and sucked on my salted caramel coated finger, and I liked to jazz things up by sprinkling a little sea salt on that finger before enveloping the whole thing in my mouth. 

The cake base is chocolate cake, the recipe I got from the bakery, slightly tweaked, taste the same as the the chocolate cake from Awfully Chocolate, which is really good, frosted with Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC), topped with chopped up sneaker bars, drizzled more salted caramel sauce followed by a healthy sprinkling of sea salt.  There's actually a  caramel core as well but the core was so thin I could hardly pipe any caramel in it so that was a fail.... I was trying my best to make the cupcake as caramel as possible, but it didn't work because I still have half of jar of salted caramel sauce in the fridge and no ice cream to pour it on.... although, I could always shove my finger in and then roll that finger in sea salt.

This was actually my favorite flavor out of the three I made because of the successful batch of caramel sauce that was pretty much drenched onto this cake, but apparently, my family members didn't think so because they kept taking all the other flavors. 

Cookies and Cream Cupcake

Next up is Cookies and Cream cupcakes.


The cake base is malt cake, the recipe is a combination of the one I got from my bakery and from the Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma which I wasn't really a fan of, I mean I like watching her Youtube videos but the recipes in the book just doesn't work for me, at all. One thing I did managed to get from her book are the cupcake flavor combinations though,so that's good I guess, can just adapt her recipes to the my own one, recipes I know that will actually work in this crazy humid country.




Frosted with some Oreo White Chocolate SMBC, drizzled with more crushed up Oreos and topped with half a mini Oreo that's not shown in the picture. I wasn't really a fan of this flavorful, the Oreo buttercream didn't really have a very strong cookies and cream flavor, probably needed more crushed up Oreo, I was quite stingy with the crumbs because I like my cookies and cream buttercream looking white dotted with pieces of Oreo bits in it instead of just being a grey lump.... but grey lump taste yummier.

All the flavors in one box

I didn't take a picture of the red velvet on it's own because it was the first one I frosted, I had to quickly stash it in the freezer afterwards because I was afraid the SMBC would melt, damn weather in Singapore, but I have a picture of the 3 cupcakes together.



The red velvet cupcake recipe is also from the bakery, honestly, the red velvet cake recipe at my bakery calls for a fruit vinegar and that fruit vinegar really brings out the flavorf of the cake, but sadly because I don't have that particular fruit vinegar, I had to settle for cider vinegar instead, which really didn't do much in terms of flavor., had I had the correct vinegar, this cake would have been amazing because back at the bakery, the red velvet cake was probably my favorite flavor to have, it really wasn't an authentic red velvet taste, but it was delicious. All the red velvet connoisseur would probably go ape shit crazy should I go let them taste the cake and tell them it's red velvet.





I thought the cupcakes would be finished by the time the dinner was over, I was expecting my relatives to bring home some left over to have as breakfast the next day, but no one did and I had about 15 cupcakes left at the end of the day, I had made a total of 36 and only slightly more than half was consumed. My relatives had nothing but praises for it, but I guess it wasn't good enough for them to want to bring home and eat the next day.




Despite all that, I had fun baking it, my Mum took the leftover cupcakes and shared it with our neighbors, so I had 3 left for myself and I really enjoyed the salted caramel, but not so much the red velvet, still have the Oreo flavor one left in the fridge that I will probably only eat when I am super hungry.





On a Gaming note.



One of my online friends recently got me a game off Steam, Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition. I was actually contemplating to get it because it sounded a lot like Monster Hunter, but after realizing I didn't really have a lot of fun with Monster Hunter, I decided to save my money and get DmC instead.




It was a good thing that I didn't buy the game though because that shit is hard. I've barely played for 2 hours and I've been killed so many times it's ridiculous, half the time it's by the skeleton mobs that aren't even supposed to be that hard to kill.


Total play time is slightly more than 2 hours, it's just very hard to enjoy a game that forces you to repeat the game every single time you die, mobs come back to live and your experience drops back down to zero if you don't spend it before you die, this game is brutal and I'm too much of a casual gamer to find this kind of torture remotely enjoyable.  When a game presents me with an option to choose a difficulty setting, I always go for the most insulting ones like Pussy mode, there's a difficultly setting lower than Pussy mode that sounds even more insulting? Alright, I will choose that one. I don't always go for normal settings unless I have completed the game once and find the game play to be very enjoyable like Dishonored and Heavenly Sword, actually I don't think I'VE played anything but easy on Dishonored, but I did play it twice to get a different ending and that's about as uncasual as I get.



I think for someone to be able to enjoy Dark Souls, they must be invested in the game and I'm obviously not invested in that game, the closest genre I've played to Dark Souls and enjoyed is Monster Hunter, and that game already made me want throw my PSP on my bed in rage so many times, I have my nerd rage under control... I will only throw my PSP on soft things, the floor and someone's face is a big no no.




Might uninstall the game pretty soon, at this point it's just taking up memory space on my laptop because I'm hardly playing it, I appreciate the Christmas present from my online friend but not this kind of game, I was actually contemplating whether or not to get this game in the past, but decided not to for good reason and now having own a copy of the game and actually played it for 117 minutes has just reinforced that decision I made so many months ago.

Assassin's Creed U Nit to patch that shit up.

After completing Dragon Age Inquisition, I decided to download my free copy of Assassin's Creed Unity I got from purchasing my laptop a few weeks ago.





The entire game was roughly 40 GB and roughly took me about 6 to 7 hours to complete the download, good thing I was downloading it whilst I was working at my Dad's office, so really even if it did complete the download any sooner, I still wouldn't be able to play it until I actually got home.



So the actual game itself is actually really fun but the technical glitches and the horrible controls this game suffers from caused me so much frustration.



When I'm playing a stealth game, timing and precision is very important, when I see the bad guy turns his back, I know I only have maybe 2 to 3 seconds to get up from the spot I was hiding, sneak up to his back and hit the assassinate button before he actually turns back, notices me and alerts every other enemy in the area to help him out, problem is because of the framerate and stuttering issue this game offers me, that 2 -3 seconds I have to get out of my cover and sneak behind him gets replace with a stuttering framerate, in which case by the time the game's framerate already gets back to normal, I have already been noticed and surrounded by 5 enemies, each taking turns to cut me down and if it isn't the framerate and stuttering issue, it's the damn controls, so instead of getting out of the cover from behind the chair I was hiding, my character ends up climbing ON TOP of the chair and just squats there like a dog, and when I try to get him off the chair, instead of slowing getting down, he jumps across the room right into where the enemy is and I just go "Dafaq?" out loud. The framerate issues gets even worst online, good thing there's no chat or voice system, otherwise I would've probably been scolded by all the other players playing this game in their parent's basement.





I tried to recommend this game to a friend of mine because I wanted to play Co-op with him, told him it was glitchy but did not go too much into detail about it, I have a weird relationship with this game because even though I get really frustrated when I am playing it, every time I quit the game, a few hours later I will want to get back right in and continue playing it, so when I was recommending this game to my friend, I was in the state of "I wanna get back in to play".... and after he did his research on the game and I had just completed a round of Co-op, we chatted again and he decided he wasn't interested in the game anymore because it was buggy and incomplete and at that time, because I had just completed a round of very buggy co-op, I was feeling really frustrated with the game so I just started ranting about how bad it was to him and blah blah blah, which of course made me sound like a hypocrite, and I guess he got a bit pissed that I was introducing such a buggy game to him because he started typing in caps, questioned my motives for recommending him that game and stopped replying afterwards.

So I dunno?

I have actually completed the game's main story line, a new patch was just released so I guess I am now going to pop back in and see if the game has improved or am I gonna quit the game in frustration.

Update.


The game still runs like shit. Even that GIF has a smoother frame rate than what I am getting in the game.  (The game actually runs fine now, turns out I had forgotten to plug in my charger before and the laptop was just running on it's battery, the patch actually works, now the game runs a lot smoother, still not at the framerate I was hoping for it to run at, but definitely a huge improvement from last time.)When I got my new laptop, I was expecting to get at least 60FPS on all the games I was playing, be it Dragon Age Inquisition, TERA or Maple Story, so to have Assassin's Creed running at below 30 FPS on my new $2000 laptop is like getting a freshly baked cookie from a bakery only to have someone walk past, pull down their pants and take a shit all over it, that analogy sounds odd, that's because I just baked a batch of cookies and they are fucking awesome.

Thick and Chewy Milk Chocolate Chip , Hazelnut and Pecan Cookies
It might not look very good but this is probably one of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

One good thing I have learned from working at the bakery is now I know how to tweak certain recipes, so these cookies don't spread out so quickly in the oven, look at how thick it is,  that's the kind of cookies I like, really high and chewy and filled with milk chocolate chips, and it isn't Crisco that was used to replace with butter because those sticks of vegetable shortening taste and smell disgusting.



When people say "and the secret ingredient is butter flavored crisco, this taste just like real butter"... I think they are fucking nuts because it taste nothing at all like butter, that's like saying shit taste like chocolate because it has been coated with a layer of cocoa powder and chocolate essence. What the fuck?



Anyways, this cookie is super awesome because not only is it packed with a shit load of milk chocolate chip, pecan nuts and like maybe 10 leftover hazelnuts I had leftover from making a hazelnut brownie, but it's super chunky and the texture is perfect, I have tried other "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipes online before, those were lies because those cookies came out either spreading like no one's business or it's very cakey, which has happened to me many times and I always considered them a success because a cakey cookie is better than flat ones.

Updates on life.

1.  New Laptop (Gaming Rig)

Purchased a gaming laptop from the IT Fair about 2 weeks ago. This is my very first gaming PC, my previous Asus was a budget laptop, the one before that was a very problematic Acer, that despite being a supposed "high end" computer was really just "high maintenance".



My Asus only failed on me once in the three years I owned it, send it to Sim Lim Square to fix it, one of the more reputable stores, I have learned do my research very thoroughly before stepping into a shop at Sim Lim Sqaure, and it never really gave me any more issues afterwards,  the Acer on the other hand failed me so many times I've lost count the number of times I've had to re install my Windows OS and all the software because the model was known to have hardware issues... to think they did nothing about it and just release it to sell to the public.




The new laptop I've bought is built by a local company called Aftershock and so far, it's been living up to it's name as a gaming rig, bought Dragon Age Inquisition within the week after I bought my laptop and it runs pretty smoothly on High settings, but it does start to get a bit choppy on Ultra settings, not that I can see any graphical improvements from High to Ultra,  I've never played any game released in the past year on high settings with my Asus before, medium at best, so being able to actually run a newly released game on High is very impressive to me.

Tapped that

I've really been having a lot of fun playing Dragon Age Inquisition, exploring the lands, fighting monsters, hooking up with a gay mage that looks like Freddie Mercury and passing judgement on criminals, I'm a gracious ruler it seems because I have yet to pass the death sentence on anyone.

Aiming to be tapped by that

Playing straight is boring, so why not become a promiscuous gay guy instead. I might break up with the Freddie Mercury mage and hook up with the Iron Bull instead.




Was also given a free copy of Assassin's Creed Unity when I made the laptop purchased, entire game was 40GB, took me a good 5 hours to download the whole game, but I'm not going to be touching that game yet until I am done with Inquisition. I always had a bad habit of not completing games in the past, not anymore.




I'm really enjoying playing games at a steady 50 frames per second, it's refreshing to not get a headache every time an explosion happens in the game and mt frame rate drops below playable level when playing the game suddenly feels like loading an image on the internet using a 56k modem.





2. Driving Updates.

Went for my driving lesson 2 days ago and I was almost late for my practical lesson, reached the school literally 5 minutes before my lesson started, quickly went to scan my IC and got my ticket and just my luck, I got the very instructor I complained about in my last blog post.



The very same impatient instructor who was more concerned with what he was having for lunch and what was happening on his iPad than teaching his own student. Normally when I am in the car with my instructor, I will try and ask questions during the lesson to keep the conversation going, wouldn't want to spend 100 minutes in complete silence, but when I saw this instructor's standing next to the car I was assigned to, my shoulders just dropped and my flustered "fuck I am going to be late" face just went blank because I couldn't believe my luck, out of the dozens of of instructors I could have gotten, I got him, again, was it because I was late, that's why I was assigned to him, did all the nice and friendly instructors get taken up ? Is he going to be on my list of permanent instructors because that is going to be fucked up.



So I walked up to him, showed him my IC and whatever else I had to show him, zero enthusiasm on my part and on his, got into the car and off we went to the public road, I couldn't be bothered to start any conversation with him whatsoever or ask him any question I had, I would rather embrace the long awkward silence in the car then to have to deal with him. I made sure to drive really slowly though because the last time, he kept complaining I drove too fast, so I kept my speed at 40km/h, which was extremely slow, he later told me I was driving too slow, which I agreed but I just maintained that speed because fuck all the other road drivers who are going to be late for their appointments. I'm kidding, I'm not a road hogger, I hope.



We drove around for 100 minutes, keeping the talking to a minimum, he kept asking me to "check your blind spot" every time I made a turn, at first I didn't know what was the point so I just turned my head before I did either a left turn or right turn like an idiot, many times way too early and I think the instructor also found it a bit ridiculous that I was checking my blind spot like a good 10 meters before the turn, I of course later came to understand what I was actually looking out for and did it properly.



He also kept asking me to do that during our previous lesson, I didn't know what he was going on about until the lesson 2 days ago because I'm slow like that and I didn't want to ask him any questions because he's not the "patient and friendly instructor" the car says he is.


It was a long lesson but he was less impatient then the last time so that was good, I think maybe it's because he already had his lunch so he's less cranky and I'm not driving at a speed that would endanger his life, so that might have calmed him down a bit, the last lesson he kept on grabbing my steering wheel very suddenly because he wasn't confident I was steering the car enough, which kept freaking me out, one time he actually accidentally scratched my hands when he was doing that, didn't even bother to apologize, I guess it's because I should be the sorry for one trying to crash us into the lorry that I wasn't going to crash into.


I'm hoping the next lesson will be a more friendly instructor, I haven't had a chatty instructor for a while now.



3. McDonalds Frappe



I've been having a lot of McCafe Frappe lately, in fact I have been having so much that my Devotee Card is soon going to enable me to get a free drink from them.


Every time I buy a drink, I get a stamp on the card, now I'm just one stamp away from a free drink. Maybe 4 isn't a lot but it's enough for McDonald's to be close enough to offer me a drink on the house.



Been getting their Double Chocolate Frappe and Red Velvet Frappe, those are really yummy, accidentally bought a Mocha Chip once, reminded me why I don't like Starbucks Frappes.



The drinks are always great, but I have one issue and that's with the baristas, the ones at Clementi Mall to be more specific. I was always served by two Malays girls and if I hadn't checked their name tag, I would have assumed they were the same person because firstly, they both were wearing hijabs, and secondly and most importantly, they never ever smile at all, every time I order a drink from either one of them, they just look annoyed, like fuck me for ordering a drink and forcing them to have to do their job.



If you are going to be working at the counter and dealing with customers, at least try to put on a pleasant expression, if you are unable to do that, than work at the back of the kitchen so the customers won't think they have offended you for making you do your job. I understand it can be very annoying when you have to prepare the same menu item twenty or thirty times a day, I have been there, but for fuck sake, I was the only customer at the McCafe counter, it's not like after me, you have to prepare another 12 red velvet frappe and 5 green tea ice blended for the long non-existent line of customers behind me.




F&B outlets should really consider whether a person who's applying for any position that has to face a customer has a resting bitch face or are just generally very bitter about life and shows it on their face is a proper candidate because that face is going to affect how the customer feels when making an order.

Driving and Froyo

5th driving lesson today and the end of my Stage 1 Practical Lesson.


The instructor I got today was a lot more stern than the previous few I had, I'm not sure if stern is the correct word, a more accurate phrase would probably be not give a fuck.



He was really impatient when he was pointing out the mistakes I was making, once in a while he would take out his iPad and I assume play a game and also checks the watch occasionally to see how much longer he has to endure my company, that feeling was mutual because half an hour into the lesson, I was already checking the time to see how much longer I had to endure sitting through this practical lesson taught by an instructor who obviously feels like he has more important things to... like eating his lunch right after my lesson. It sucked when I realized only half an hour had passed.




He was pretty much quiet throughout the entire lesson, excluding the times he is reprimanding me for driving too quickly, changing lane without checking the mirror, and really any scenario that might involve him dying in a car crash from my reckless driving, so at the end of the lesson, I was actually quite surprised when he started talking to me more patiently about the problems he had with my drivings and some other things I didn't really bother to absorb.... later I found out the reason why he suddenly stopped being such a sourpuss was because it was lunch time for him.




Worst lesson thus far and probably will be the last weekend lesson I will book that falls before their lunch time, also went for my Final Theory Evaluation and I failed that shit all over again, in fact I scored even worst than my last attempt, so frustrating.





After my driving lesson, i decided to drop by Westmall to try out this new craze of froyo called LlaoLlao, I knew it was frozen yoghurt, but I kept thinking it was going to taste like a regular softee but topped with fresh fruits and drizzled with sauce. I personally am not a fan of yogurt, I don't like how it taste, I don't like how it smells and I don't like how it looks all curdled and urgh!



The queue at that time wasn't very long, probably only had 6 people in front of me, but as I was waiting for my turn, the queue started getting longer and longer. I decided t go for their signature item which was the Sanum.


1 Crunch - Chocolate Crunchy Pearls

3 Fruits - Strawberries, Blueberries, Kiwi

1 Sauce - Raffaello




I wanted it to be as tart as possible, thus my choice of fruits, which was fucking stupid because the yogurt ice cream was already quite tart, the sauce was pretty good though, I had initially thought the sourness came from the sauce, but when I realized it was from the ice cream, I started to really dislike it, it was horrible and because I was taking a bus home, I didn't consume the froyo until I reached home, and by that time, it was already liquid. I actually threw my llao llao away because I couldn't finish it, not because I was full but because I just didn't like frozen yoghurt.




I know I'm not going to queue for it again.

Driving

Went for my third driving lesson yesterday, the weather initlaly started out fine when I was in the bus heading towards the school, there were dark clouds but the school was close by and I thought maybe I could get there in time before it starts to really rain, I was wrong.



The moment I got off the bus, it started pouring cats and dogs, there wasn't any slight drizzling before or any light rain that comes before a heavy rain, mother nature decided to skip all that and jump straight to a heavy downpour. I managed to get into the driving center 50% dry, my top was dry, my pants were half drenched in water and my shoes, well, it was a very unpleasant experience for the next 45 minutes.




The instructor who was taking me that day was very nice, he allowed me to drive barefoot when he realized how wet my shoes were, but now thinking back, it was probably extremely unsanitary, I doubt anyone actually cleans the accelerator and brake pedals, that would mean I was probably stepping on dried human pee, dog shit, dried up vomit, dead animal carcasses and many other things people step on with their shoes, with my bare feet. Urgh.



Got to drive on the public road from the get go, which was quite fun, drove around for about an hour, got to drove past my secondary school, which was quite nostalgic.  After that, went back to the circuit, drove a few rounds around it and the lesson was over, put on my disgustingly wet shoes and went back home after that. This is my third lesson, but the fourth one I have booked, I actually missed the third lesson I booked and ended up wasting $70 because I am a genius, and by genius I mean extremely stupid and forgetful.

Virgin Rainbow Cake Experience and more Cupcakes

Decided to have lunch at Dean and Deluca today.

I have visited Dean and Deluca once a long time ago when it only had a single outlet that was located in Orchard Central and it was the first time I saw a shop in Singapore selling Nielsen Massey Vanilla Extract, so that kind of elevated how posh Dean and Deluca was to me in my head. I almost bought the Vanilla Extract from but gave up when I realized how expensive it was.

They were selling one bottle for around $22, which at that time, I thought was really expensive, good thing I didn't buy it because my baking skills 2 years ago were abysmal, my cakes were always hard and the butter-cream I tried were thick and not fluffy at all, it was really bad, would have been a waste of a good bottle of vanilla extract, but now they are good and I can get my Nielsen Massey from Phoon Huat at a lower price. 

Anyways, went for lunch today and it really didn't surprise me that the menu items were all quite expensive, I was planning to pay for my own share but my sister decided to just treat me to a meal, so I went with it and bought a cup of iced tea as well.  When the total bill came back to almost $50 for the two of us, I got a bit shock at how expensive the meal was... $50 for 2 meals and 1 cup of tea, I can buy 10 cups of KOI with $50. I knew it was going to be expensive but I didn't expect it to cost that much.

Citrus Mint Iced Tea - $7.00

This cup of Citrus Mint Iced Tea cost $7, and it cost $7 because they gave us the biggest size without asking us, I didn't even realize there was a large cup until I saw the menu again.

It was more peppermint and not so much citrus because I couldn't taste any citrus flavor, so I won't be getting this drink again. The profit margin from selling this must be really fucking high because they probably have a huge jug of it in the fridge somewhere where all they do is probably fill that jug with water and let a few bags of peppermint tea sip in it for the whole day, throw a few slices of lemon while they are at it and viola... $7.00 per cup.

And then the lunch came and blah blah blah... boring savory stuff that I'm not going to get into. So before we left Dean and Deluca, I decided to get a slice of cake to bring home and consume, my stomach was bloated after my meal but I wasn't going to go home without a slice of cake.

The packaging was obviously too small

And I got myself a slice of their rainbow cake. I've always been fascinated by this cake because people are always so eager to get it for their kid's birthday party or for their own birthday party and I kind of understand the appeal, I mean look at those different colored layers of cake, it's a bloody nightmare to bake them in bulk.

Normally a rainbow cake sold at bakeries are just plain old vanilla cake dyed with food coloring and those aren't very fun for the taste bud, but the layers in this rainbow cake are individually flavored so every layer had a different taste.... doesn't make you feel cheated at the end of the day like normal rainbow cakes do. The disappointment the kids must feel when they realize the colors don't define the flavors... or maybe they can't be fucked.

So the flavors for each layers are...

Red is Strawberry

Orange is Orange

Yellow is Lemon

Green is Apple

Blue is Blueberry 

Purple is Grape

Awesome frosting.

When I first had a bite of it, I was very overwhelmed with the flavors, I guess the best way to describe the taste would be akin to eating all the different flavors of skittles at once, you can tell it's fruit flavored but the individual flavors don't really register, it's just this overwhelming sweetness in your mouth.

As satisfying as the different layers were, my favorite part about the cake has got to be the frosting. I'm not sure what it is exactly, it can't be whipped cream because it's too smooth and it held up really well at room temperature, I took hours to eat this cake because I was so full and the topping didn't show any sign of melting, and it can't be butter cream because it's too white... so my guess would be marshmallow frosting or some sort of meringue but definitely not dairy.  

Almost done.

Overall, it was a good rainbow cake experience and one I will probably revisit, should try out their red velvet one day and see if it's on par with the one from Lady M. I highly doubt it though. 

There was actually a cupcake shop within the vicinity called Cupcake Engineer and I would have bought some cupcakes from them had they not been priced at a ridiculous $4 a piece, and it's not even big, it's probably slightly smaller than those from Twelve Cupcakes who sells their cupcakes at $3 a piece. I mean I might try it out one day just for the sake of trying it out, but the price is really quite a big turn off, the price of 2 cupcakes would allow me to buy a slice of rainbow cake and still save 50 cents.

But I did get cupcakes from a shop I visited recently....

Your's Antidepressant... YOUR'S? Antidepressant

Cupcakes OCD, the sister brand of Oni Cupcakes. I have to admit, when I first saw the website of Oni Cupcakes, I didn't have a good impression of the cakes because the cupcakes themselves were flat, the buttercream designs were a bit tacky and the cupcake liners they used were really ugly, it's like the liners that neighborhood bread shop uses that screams cheapskate.

So when I went down to the shop to get the cupcakes with very low expectations. I wasn't expecting much, but I was curious to try, so I got 3 flavors, one my sister took which was their signature Nutella and I got myself 2 fruit flavored ones whose names I can't remember. 

I have to say, I am actually really surprised with the quality of the cupcakes...

Raspberry Buttercream and Vanilla Cake

The cake base itself isn't fluffy, it's not moist, it's a bit on the hard side and a little bit crumbly, but the flavor was good. The butter cream was great, can tell that they use real raspberry and not those artificial flavoring crap and I know because I myself recently made raspberry sauce from scratch.


It had a nice tartness to it, and this buttercream is as light as Swiss Meringue Buttercream but you don't see them charging their customers $4 a cupcake because of it, or maybe it's French which is equally time consuming to make.

Mango Buttercream with Chocolate Cake base.

Okay, so I just tasted this one, the cake base is bad, like really dry and crumbly, it's not very flavorful as well, if I were to bake a batch at home that came out like that, I would probably throw the whole batch away and burn the bloody recipe.

I really like the buttercream though, it has a nice creamy mango taste. They have really yummy buttercream but their cakes just aren't that good, definitely not as bad as I thought it was, the buttercream is definitely better than the ones from Cupcakes with Love whereas Cupcake with Love has a better cake base, but of course both shops are nowhere near the cupcake standards from Plain Vanilla.

Anyways, to give an idea of how low their cupcakes are... 

Red Velvet from Twelve Cupcakes

A red velvet mini cupcake from Twelve Cupcake. Lots of cake sponge and a little frosting, which is fine with me because I hate cream cheese frosting.

Mango Cupcake from OCD Cupcakes

That's quite sad looking for a cupcake base, not that I'm missing out much because the cake base was horrible, but as I have said, the butterceam is nice.

Bake Bake Bake

Been baking in bigger batches this week, no where near a professional bakery level of production, but enough to make me question my judgement.

First thing I baked this week was macarons. I haven't baked them in a while, the last time I did was when I was still working in the bakery and decided to bake some for my friends, that and also because I was using the bakery's supplies so no monetary losses on my part. 

Raspberry Macarons.

Since I had some Raspberry Puree left over from my previous baking attempt, I thought it would be good to use them and make a Raspberry flavored macaron. 

The last time I tried to make a raspberry something, I didn't really go over so well, but I am glad to say, this time, the final product did not meet it's end in the rubbish bin.

The shells aren't really in the right shade of pink because I over baked them a little and they started browning, so it became more beige than pink, which was really quite ugly because it looked like skin, a very smooth skin. 

No hollow shells!

But look... an interior that doesn't have a giant air pocket, an issue I always had with macarons in the past and probably will have again in the future, but for now, no hollow shells!  These ones were actually pretty good if I do say so myself because I used real raspberry and none of that artificial flavoring nonsense which are really disgusting in taste... using artificial flavoring is the same as eating mock meat... it's not the real deal.

Oh, and I bought a whole liter of whipping cream just to make the ganache which only called for 150g, so now i have 850g of whipping cream left in the fridge waiting to get moldy.... should probably start making some creme brulee soon and let my little blow torch shine.

Whole box of Raspberry Macaron

I really did bake a lot, normally I will half the recipe, but after owning a stand mixer, trying to whip up just 25g of egg whites is pretty much impossible, so now I have quite a fair bit of raspberry macarons stashed in the freezer for moments when I crave for a raspberry macaron, which doesn't happen very often because that's a very specific craving to have.

Today, I baked Brownies. Doubled the batch so I could do 2 flavors.

Brownie Batter

This is my favorite brownie recipe because it produces a brownie that's more cake than fudge, which I like and really, all the other brownies recipe I have gotten online so far always end up tasting like burnt chocolate, which is really nasty.


The brownie batter is really thick so it's really nice to just run my spatula through and create brownie batter swirl, looking at those swirls is oddly calming for me.

Hazelnut Brownie Batter

Before baking, first pump some Nutella into the batter and then scatter a shitload of toasted crushed hazelnuts and chopped up white chocolate. I was actually a bit worried that the toppings were a little too much, but decided to fuck all and just pile it on.

Hazelnut Brownie with a shitload of stuff on top.

 And pile on I did because look at the brownie, nuts were falling off from the brownie as I was removing it from the baking pan. I ate the nuts that fell off so no wastage there.

Tray of Peanut Butter Brownies and Hazelnut Brownies

I'm too lazy to take a separate picture of the peanut butter brownie, which is the other flavour I made, so instead, here's a tray of both flavors.



For the peanut butter brownies, I replaced Nutella with Peanut Butter and scattered a generous amount of chopped up Dark and White Chocolate on it. Personally, I prefer the Hazelnut version for it's crunch.



There were actually a lot more slices of brownie on the tray, but my Mother decided to give some to her friends since I am hardly meetup up with any of my own friends.




The brownies will probably be finished soon because my family actually eats the brownies, the macarons on the other hand, only I eat them so I am not sure I can finish, guess I can always give some of it to my neighbor.


Update on my Driving Lesson.


Failed my Final Theory Evaluation on Saturday because I didn't study and because I don't see why I should be sitting a test that's asking me questions that aren't related to me.  Mainly questions that are meant for Manual Car drivers..


For example, they would ask a question like...

"You are driving up a hill and your vehicle stalls, what should you do..."

....and as someone who's taking lessons to drive an Automatic Car, my answer would probably be "Step on the brakes, put the vehicle to Park and pull down the parking brake."



But no, instead the answer is...


"Press the brakes and depress the clutch pedal, change your gears to Neutral and apply the handbrakes." (not accurate because I don't actually know what I should do in such a scenario)



...I don't deal with clutch pedals or have to worry about which gear I should use when I am driving up a slope, the whole reason I am learning how to drive an Automatic Car is so I can avoud all that Manual Car crap, and now I am expected to learn them for my theory test even though it won't even remotely be applicable to me in the future. So fucking stupid.




I will be having my 2nd practical lesson on Tuesday though, looking forward to that, but just the thought of having to go for my Final Theory Evaluation again is just a huge bummer... maybe I should just brush up on my skills and learn how to study again.... something I haven't done in a very very long time.

Short Update on Driving

Had my first driving practical lesson today.



It was actually really fun, none of that theory crap where I have to sit in a classroom for 1.5 hours at a time listening to mind numbingly boring stuff my brain can't absorb and watching car accident videos that would have been banned had someone upload it on Youtube.




I think the practical lessons would actually be able to motivate me to go for lessons more regularly. Driving around the circuit today at a relatively comfortable speed and not getting into an accident was pretty awesome.



Apparently I can't blog anymore about my driving experience without losing my blogging flow so that's all. This length for a bog post feels like it should on Tumblr.

Happy Halloween

Made a raspberry cake today, it didn't go so well.

Look at this unsightly mess.

Once in a while I get a really bad bake, yesterday was one of them. An accidental Halloween cake, or as I would like to call it, the Menstrualberries Cake, and like menstrual blood, it does not taste good.



Just look at that mess, that ugly cake crumb with the weird moldy yellow colored crumbs, horrible French Buttercream that tasted like straight up butter and raspberry jam that was too thin to even be considered a jam.


The first mistake I made was not thinning out the frozen raspberries long enough in the pot. It got thick until I strained it and got left with a concentrated raspberry juice, which tasted great but was just not thick enough. $10 worth of frozen raspberries gone just like that.




The second mistake I made was trying to incorporate the "jam" into the cake batter, thinking it would create nice ripples through the cake, obviously it didn't do the job because the whole thing just merged with the cake and I ended up getting that odd color, it's like trying to create a marble cake using vanilla cake batter and a cup of hot cocoa.



And the recipe for the cake never really did produce very nice crumbs, even when I made it in the bakery, it never really look fluffy when I cut it open, it was moist and soft but the interior never looked fluffy.




Third mistake and the biggest one I think was my choice of buttercream. French buttercream taste amazing when I made it in the bakery, it was light, not too sweet and surprisingly did not have an over powering taste of butter to it, because the boss was trying to cut cost and got the cheapest brand of butter available, French buttercream also always had a very smooth and shiny finish. The ones I made at home on the other hand always reeked of butter because I always got good French butter that taste like butter should and really that's the whole issue I have with this butter cream, it was shiny and smooth but the butter smell and taste was just too much for me to ignore when I was having a bite of the cake.



I felt like I was eating cake spread with whipped up butter, it's gross and maybe there was some miscalculation on my part as well because it left an oily feel in my mouth afterwards, it really wasn't a good day to bake that day.



In the end, I deemed the cake to be a complete failure and did what I would have done in the bakery, turn them into cake pops. In the past I would have thrown the whole thing away or leave it in the fridge until someone else but I have learnt my mistakes... and the 2 sticks of butter I used to make the buttercream is fucking expensive.

Ta-Dah~! Minimalist Chocolate Cakepops
...because I don't have sprinkles, otherwise I would have blinged this shit right up and turn it into a disco ball 

I would have preferred to use Candy Melts to coat the cake pops, but because I had a bad experience with Wilton's Candy Melts, I decided to just melt some chocolate instead, and it's also very unfortunate that I do not have a microwave to make my life easier, so I had to melt the chocolate using a double boiler.

It came out well, nothing fancy but once again, would have preferred with candy melts simply for the vanilla taste because I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate. I have the taste bud of a child, it simply doesn't understand the flavor complexity nor is it able to enjoy the smoothness of the dark chocolate in the mouth... I just want my chocolate to be sweet and creamy like White and Milk.

The cake pops definitely taste better than the failed raspberry cake though that's for sure.

So now, I won't be doing anymore french butter cream, fuck that, now I'm going to stick with American Buttercream and maybe give the Swiss Meringue Buttercream a chance as well. French Buttercream holds up horribly in Singapore weather as well, the last time I brought home cakes from the bakery, the buttercream started melting on my way home, it tasted great but it was really sad looking.

Root Canal wasn't so bad afterall

Finally went for my root canal surgery after finding out I had to go for a root canal surgery 2 days back.



For the past 2 days, I was a nervous wreck, I spend 50% of my time searching "Root Canal", "Root Canal Pain Level", "Root Canal vs Wisdom Tooth Extraction", "Root Canal vs Braces" and really anything that's related to root canal and pain, I wanted to find a website that would pat my head and tell me everything would be alright.



And I did find a few websites that said root canal was "no longer a painful procedure  because thanks to the wonders of modern dentistry, what would have made even a grown man cry in the past is now a painless procedure", which calmed me down for a while, but after a while I decided that wasn't enough, I needed more assurance, so I googled even more and came across this particular website where people actually share their root canal experience on the website... and a lot of them weren't good...

TL:DR
Most painful thing she has ever experienced. 

and...

Root Canal went wrong.

Like a plethora of horrible testimonies of people just comparing it to being worst then childbirth or being the most painful thing they have ever experience, that they would rather rip off their teeth then to go through the procedure again.... very dramatic and scared the crap out of me.






So when it came to the day I had to go down to the dentist for the surgery, I was panicking, the bus ride was horrible because it felt as if I was riding to my death or the last bus ride I will ever take before getting traumatize by the root canal procedure forever.

The dental clinic is called Roots! and is located in the same building as where I get my braces done, so it was quite easy to navigate, and I actually got their on time... well I was one minute late but that's still pretty impressive.... I was almost on the dot.

Went into the clinic and was greeted by the dental assistant, it's amazing how all the dentist assisstant in the dental clinics I have visited in that particular building knows my name, the moment I walk in, whenever I go for my braces check-up, the moment I open the door...

"Hi Timothy, please take a seat" 

or with the root canal dental clinic assistant...

"Timothy right? Please pass me your IC and take a seat."

With great dental bills comes great customer service.



Passed the assistant my IC, filled up some forms and waited for my turn. I really wanted to get the root canal surgery over and done with, so it really didn't help that the patient before me after completing his surgery, decided to have a conversation with the dentist... he was talking really loudly and being a Caucasian, he was also really friendly, or he sounded like he was very friendly, so the whole time he was speaking to the dentist in the dental treatment room, I kept thinking that after he was done talking to the dentist, he would come out, notice me and try to start a conversation with me as well, which was a very uncomfortable thought because the last thing I want to do while nervously waiting for my turn to get my root canal surgery done was to start small talk with a complete stranger.... but luckily he didn't because I was really just over thinking things.




Got ushered into the dental treatment room a few minutes later and was greeted by the dentist, who was a very nice guy.  He started to do some small talk, tried to make me more comfortable and asked me to relax, I was at that point sitting in the dentist chair, whole body trembling because I was extremely nervous seeing the injection needles on my right, on a table with a bunch of vials which I assumed were once filled with local anesthetic medicine but have all been injected into the previous patients' mouth, and also because there was a standing air conditioner further back from the table of injection needles and empty glass vials just blowing directly on the right side of my already trembling body.




After some small talk, the dentist decided to go through with me what exactly he would be doing to me during the surgery, and after doing 2 days of intensive research, I already knew what he was going to do, but hearing him talk through the procedure calmed me down a little so I decided to just listen through the whole thing. There's something about being right there and then in the dentist chair that made me want to delay the root canal surgery for as long as I could, even for a minute, so when he actually completed his briefing with me, I got really scared because it turns out, I was actually more afraid of getting an oral injection than I was getting my tooth's nerves yanked out of it's canal.




So before the dentist walked away to keep his presentation charts, I requested for some topical anesthetic before getting the injection done, and I was going to ask him to leave the topical on for at least a minute, because I really did my research and I know you have to leave the topical on for a least a minute for it to take effect. The dentist was happy to oblige and he also knew what he was doing because he left the topical in my mouth for a good 2 minutes, didn't even have to tell him, he just walked out and told me to relax after applying the topical on my gums.





There are dentist who don't leave it on for long enough and they just inject straight away after applying it, which defeats the purpose... I have never met dentist who have done that personally, I always took it without topical anesthetic, but the last time I got an oral injection, the dentist did not do a good job and made the injection hurt like a bitch, he injected 3 times and it numbed everything in my mouth except the tooth he was working on, that whole treatment scarred me for life and that was the reason why I opted for General Anesthesia during my Wisdom Tooth surgery and the reason why I requested for a topical anesthetic first from this dentist.





The gums were properly numbed by the time the dentist came back and he proceeded to inject the local anesthetic in my mouth, I asked if it was only going to be once and he assured me that it will only require one shot, but at the same time, it will also sting despite having the topical applied.... that did not help me feel relax at all.




I found out that oral injections are a lot more easy to go through if I just put on this expression like someone was slowing shoving a huge gherkin up my butt....

Like this, but less expressive...

 .....like a perma constipated face which I believed confused the dentist for a bit because it probably looked to him like I was in a lot of pain when really that face was me anticipating pain. I didn't feel the needle entering but I could feel the liquid entering my gums and that did hurt a bit, so I flinched, the dentist apologized and injected the local anesthetic even slower than he was already doing, which I really really appreciated because the slower you inject, the less painful it actually is. Fact.




After the injection, I felt a lot more relax, the dentist once again left me alone, this time probably for a good 5 minutes to let the local anesthetic take full effect, and I just sat in the dentist chair, embracing the numbness that was slowly engulfing my entire upper right side of my mouth. When your mouth is numb, your lips feel so much bigger than they are, just makes me wonder how JayZ feels when he actually numbs his lip because he has a lot of lip space.






The dentist then came back again and by that time, the anesthetic has taken full effect and he started the root canal. I really can't remember much of what he was doing because I didn't feel any discomfort, I kept anticipating for a sudden pang when he was drilling the tooth and yanking out the nerves, but I didn't feel that, in fact, I didn't even realize he had done the cleaning up of the canal until he told me he was going to fill it up.






There was a TV that was showing what the dentist was doing to my tooth in real time, and I think he thought I was watching it, but seriously, with the chair being adjusted all the way back that I was thought I was going to slide right off, and having his hands in my mouth blocking my field of vision to the TV screen, I couldn't see anything, which was good because I really didn't want to see him drilling into my tooth.





During the procedure, I was very tempted to just doze off because there was literally no discomfort whatsoever, but as he was filling up my tooth, he was talking me through what he was doing and at that point, I was able to see what was actually happening on my tooth through the TV, I think the dentist chair go adjusted during the procedure so I could see him actually filling up the gap and flattening out the fillings to make it smooth, I never knew how meticulous it was to fill a tooth until I saw what he was doing and it was soooo boring to see him just scrapping the side of my tooth, flattening the filling, scrapping the filling again and at one point, I thought he was over scrapping and was going to just scrap all the filling he had just filled.




At that point I decided to just sit back and not bother watching the screen, just let him do what he was doing and I remember my the top of my head pressing against his stomach, like it was a pillow, I didn't even bother to shift my head, I just left it there and the dentist didn't seem to mind as well, probably gave him a steadier hold of my head as well, and before I knew it, he was done.





All the worry I had over the past 2 days were for nothing because this dentist did a fantastic job and I couldn't be more grateful. Friendly and meticulous, if only all dentist were like him, well I haven't really met any dentist who are assholes, except the one in the Army, that guy was an asshole.



Total damage was $850, which I thought was worth it for such a supposedly "worst pain I have ever experienced that's way worst than child birth" procedure being so painless. I read on forums of how people are going to cheaper dentist to get their root canals done, not really a good idea, I mean that's probably what those people on the dentist websites did, went for a cheaper alternatives and ended getting traumatize forever, happened to me, went to the school dental that was free to get all my cavities fixed, ended up getting a phobia of oral injections.






So root canals are really not painful at all if you manage to find a good dentist, espcially one that specializes in root canal surgery, in my case, even the dental clinic's name root canal related.




On the way home, while I was in the bus, I was actually seated in front of this 2 girls, who were chatting so loudly, and they had those those super educated JC kids accent, so initially I thought it would be nice to just eavesdrop, if that's even considered eavesdropping, they were talking about their schools and lecture and using really complicated English, it's like they have a thesaurus in their head and every time they are forming a sentence, their in built thesaurus will quickly find a complicated word to replace the simple words people would normally use....

For example.



Normal Person would say..

"The ulcer in my mouth is killing me"

They would say...

"This agonizing lesion in my mouth is causing so much carnage on my mental state."

  ...at first it was fun to eavesdrop, but the whole fun in eavesdropping is listening to a conversation that's meant to be private, those girls were obviously not trying to have a private conversation, so  it quickly got to the point where they just became really loud and annoying that I actually got really bothered by it, so the moment I saw a vacant seat in the front, I quickly went to occupy it.., and I'm someone who rarely switches seats in the bus, the only times i switch seats are when the air con's leaking, or the person beside me is way too fat and taking up more than 50% of my seat, if I can occupy 50%, I will still sit next to the fat person, or inconsiderate asshole who's spreading his legs wide apart so his ball can have some air to breathe.




 Anyway, I digress, when I reached home, the anesthetic actually wore off just in time and I could feel my mouth again, it was amazing how the dentist got the timing right because I got to drink my Gong Cha without having to worry that it will start leaking out from the right side of my mouth... I know that because as I was gargling my mouth during the procedure, water was leaking on the right side and I had to lean my head to the left to properly rinse my mouth.

Incoming Root Canal Surgery

So apparently now I have a zit growing on my gums, as if the ones I am getting on my face aren't enough, now they are popping out inside my mouth as well and it's the same as how a zit that has yet to show it's whiteness feels on the face, sore and painful.

Initially I wasn't sure whether or not to visit a doctor or a dentist, but decided since it was an oral issue, the dentist it was. Made an appointment today and popped by the dentist office, the dentist couldn't really do much because he specialized in braces and the white zit on my gum was obviously not braces related, so he took an X-ray came to the conclusion that one of my tooth has been infected, like right inside the teeth and the only way to solve this problem was for me to get a fucking root canal.

I didn't have a good experience with the dentist during my secondary school days, it was painful, it was long and it actually scared me to the point I started working on my oral hygiene so I would not have to experience what I experience in secondary school ever again, and now I get presented with a scenario that's even worst.

The procedure for getting my braces done wasn't bad because it was something I wanted, my wisdom tooth surgery was pretty much painless because I was put under general anesthesia, so even if there were any oral injections, which I am fucking scared off, I wouldn't know, BUT with the root canal surgery, it's not something I want to go through but have to otherwise I would get really sick from it, or as Google Search tells me, I "might get brain damage and die from the infection" which sounds like some Greys' Anatomy or House M.D. episode,  and during the root canal surgery, I won't be put under general anesthesia but local, which means a lot of oral injections are about to come my way.

I really want to pop this fucking zit in my mouth though, apparently it will bring some sort of instant relief, because it was drain out all the puss and I won't have this aching lump in my gum anymore, but there's a chance I might get an infection if I'm not careful with the sterilization of my needles, which I don't have and was contemplating on using a toothpick... which is just a very bad idea, so the lump is still in my gum but the pain is being put under control by painkillers.  

Surgery is going to happen on Tuesday and I am really hoping the dentist will apply some topical anesthesia on my gums first before injecting and please let the anesthesia work, I don't want to have to go through the whole surgery feeling the dentist probing, digging and yanking out the nerves in my teeth because that will really fucking hurt like a fucking bitch, I mean drilling a cavity near the nerves of my teeth is already bad enough.... but grabbing a raw nerve and yanking it out is going to fucking hurt, or as the dentist would say...."this might sting a little"...biggest fucking lie ever.