Macarons

Hadn't really done much baking this past few days, been too immersed in looking for a job and also playing WARFRAME,  a free MMO which I have spent $50 on just getting in-game cash item.



I kept thinking....

"$10 isn't a lot of money, I have spend more on McDonalds before so why not"

... and I kept having that mentality when I was buying in game cash that it snowballed and became $50. Needless to say, I have stopped after realizing I have less than $1000 in my bank savings.






So today, I decided to try and bake some macarons, using the stand mixer I bought recently and the new oven. The last time I tried making a batch of macarons with my stand mixer, it failed horribly because the batch I was making had so little egg whites the whisk attachment couldn't reach them to actually whip them up... along with a list of other problems. So I decided to just double the portion today and make twice as many shells as I normally do.




The meringues formed perfectly it was so amazingly firm... that's why so many bakers love their stand mixer... it helps me by preventing me from suffering a possible carpel tunnel syndrome.




Decided since I had so much shells, I would do two flavor, a dark chocolate ganache version and a salted caramel version, the sauce I had prepared yesterday because it's always nice to have a bottle of salted caramel on standby in the fridge.

Used 70% Chocolate because that was all I had left in the fridge and after making and tasting the ganache, I got reminded why it was left in the fridge in the first place. Why would anyone eat dark chocolate with a anything higher than 70%, it's not sweet at all.... in fact, it was so bitter I had to stick a slice of fresh strawberry into every piece of chocolate ganache filled macaron for extra taste.  

I know I am not a sophisticated individual who has the taste buds of a chocolate connoisseur. I like Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate.... the former having the least cocoa content and the latter having no cocoa content at all. If I told a french chocolatier I love chocolate and my favorite ones are Milk and White, he will probably scoff at my face.

The salted caramel batch with a healthy sprinkle of Maldon Sea Salt Flakes. I like how the flakes look on the caramel, makes it look so professional, pity the shells were an ugly mess. 

I was feeling generous today, so I decided to let most of the shell become actual macarons, I mean look at the top macaron's bottom shell, that's some shitty feet that I would have normally just thrown away or send to the starving kids in Africa or something.

So many interviews...

Decided to head down to the restaurant on Monday to collect my final cheque after I had been asked to collect it 3 weeks ago.

I had contemplated in the beginning not heading down to collect that money and just treat that last few days I had worked there as charity because I thought the sum of money was insignificant considering the fact it was pay for only 2 days, and on top of that supposed insignificant payslip was an additional sum of money I had to fork out because of a bleaching accident with my apron. My level of laziness knows no boundaries.... every time I think about not heading down, a louder voice in my head will go...

"What about those audience members who screamed like crazy when Ellen presented them with a $100 AMEX Gift Card."

I calculated and the pay was around like $60 - $70 excluding the damaged apron fee.

But on Monday, I was at the peak of my boredom and really needed a reason to go out before I actually started feeling like an actual waste of space, so I decided to just change, take a bus and head down to the restaurant. And the second reason why I was contemplating about leaving the cheque in the restaurants' hands forever was because I was afraid of meeting my ex-colleagues again for whatever reasons.

The last time I quit my job, I got reprimanded by my ex-colleague the following day after I quit for "not having the initiative" to pass them the client list.  It was already a horrible working experience to begin with and to have that senior ex-colleague scold me on the phone the day after I quit, it's like the cherry on top of that wonderful and amazing work experience. 

I was very afraid that that might happen at the restaurant, that one of the chefs might suddenly just come up to me as I was about to enter the restaurant and just throw a pan of freshly fried shallots on my face and crack an onsen egg on my head because I might have done something that might have pissed them off before I left, I'm paranoid like that. I think if someone were to accuse me of doing something I didn't do, others might actually think I did it because I am acting "suspicious" when it's really just me over thinking. 

When I reached the restaurant, the nice lady at the counter, whose name I can't remember and feel really bad about it,  and the cooks who worked in the kitchen when I was still around working as their pastry cook remembered me, the managers were both very friendly and even the boss talked to me and asked me how I was doing. The managers probably understood the predicament and stress level I was in when I was manning the pastry kitchen alone, one of them even came in on a few occasions to help me out, so I think that's why they are really nice to me... it's like talking to a Soldier who went to put his life on the line for his country, except in my case, it's my sanity on the line for the restaurant.... because I have already done my part as a soldier and those were good times before all this real-life insanity started happening.

It was a good thing I went to collect my final payslip because it was actually a lot more than what I had anticipated. Didn't question it though, just took it and left... happy that the people I had worked with had a good impression of me unlike the people in the design firm, that one we parted on a bad term, the secretary was nice to me on the last day but other than that, I really don't have any positive feelings towards that company.




Maybe I might have offended some customers, but they can go fuck themselves because nothing pisses me off more when a customer decides to send back an order because "the souffle isn't high enough" or "the orders are taking too long"... literally after sending out the order, the waiters will bring it back because the order has been cancelled as the customers felt that it took too long....should bake them a complimentary souffle in a ramekin the shape of a dick and ask them to suck it while it's still hot.

So on Tuesday, I went for my trial run at the company which I went for an interview about a week ago. I honestly have nothing much to blog about because it was all quite boring to blog about really. 

I went there early in the morning at around 9 am, earliest I have woken up in 2014 because now I'm a lazy stay at home nerd who only sleeps, eats and plays the computer when he's not doing any eating or sleeping, so I reached at 9 thinking I would be done with the assignment before lunch time and leave maybe at 12 noon.... I was wrong.

They handed me a floor plan on a piece of paper and asked me to draft it out onto AutoCAD, which sounds easy to do, until I realized that the floor plan was not to scale at all... not to one scale anyways, the top part of the floor plan would be to scale, but when you reach the bottom, it's an entirely different scale. It was a nightmare to attempt to measure the floor plan using a scale ruler that at one point, I just decided to eyeball the measurements.  That took me the entire morning because there were a few moments where I was just staring at the floor plan blankly, wondering why the fuck they had to make my life harder by not putting all the measurements I needed on the bloody drawing.

Headed out for lunch with the workers there, who were quite nice and chatty, I mean they were better than the ones at the previous design firm, they actually made me feel welcome and not like the new awkward kid who got invited to sit at the table with the popular kids who keeps talking about their own stuff and telling inside jokes during lunch.




During that lunch, I decided to ask the secretary about the candidates who had gone through the same things as me, and there were like 2 others who came before me and I was the final one before the company will make the decision to hire who.... everyone else apparently took as long as me to complete the trial assignment... which made me feel good, then bad when I realized that I will have to deal with such floor plans for a very long time. 

I have every intention to stick to the next job I get like a leech, the last time i said I will give the job a 3 month testing period, I quit in 3 weeks, another time I said I will work for 6 months, I left in 2 months... don't have a very good track record so I leave out those work experiences on my resume, which makes me look like I have been wasting the last 8 months since I ORD just partying and fooling around... except I don't party or fool around in real life, my social life isn't really that exciting.... or even exist.

After lunch, headed back to the company and continued with the space planning, where I just stared at the screen again for a good 5 minutes because I was suffering from designer's block. I haven't visited an interior design blog for a very long time now so I was severely lacking any ideas and inspirations, the only inspirations in my head are baking related and gaming so it took a while for me to actually get an idea, plus I was looking at the time on the computer because I can't believe I was so slow, like hurry the fuck up man.

When I finally completed everything, it didn't feel very good because I honestly felt like the work I had done was garbage... surprisingly, the boss said I was actually better than the previous girl who came for the trial run and that even though I still needed to brush up my skills, my ideas were more interesting.  I think he might be bias towards me because I was a student to one of his classmates during his schooling days. 

I completed everything by 6 pm, peak hour when the buses are full. It was not fun to squeeze in a crowded bus and also attempt to get off one at your stop. There were students who just finished school, who are honestly a bit on the smelly side, and then there were PRCs who also just knocked off from work and were on the way home...  they were also on the smelly side and they really like to air their armpits like no one's business, it was really gross to see the armpit hairs just sticking out from the sleeves of their polo shirts, it's like seeing the source of where that stench was coming from, which made the stench I was being engulfed in that much stronger.

Today, I went for another job interview at a design firm that was located near the company I went to yesterday for the trial run. I was late though because I got lost in the car park where their office was located... there was no signage at all except the one that was on their doorbell, I actually walked past it thinking the place was under construction.

This interview did not go well though, I left with the exact same feeling as my last interview with the furniture shop, we had a good chat, one filled with a lot of awkward silence... they didn't really prepare a lot of questions to ask me so this one lady kept going...

"Ummmm.... Okay so..."

To try and get rid of that awkward silence, which made it worse because she had nothing to say after that, so it ended up with her just looking at her colleague hoping she had a question to ask, and when that colleague also had nothing to say, I had to quickly shoot a random question just to get rid of the awkwardness.



They were friendly, none of the stupid "What are your strength and weakness" questions and things like that, just straight to the point about the job and when I was available... which I think they ask because they just wanted to get rid of the awkward silences.




When I told them I was expecting a response from another job company at the end of the week, and they told me they will get back to me in two weeks, I knew they weren't going to consider me anymore because if they did, they would be competing with the other company and try to get back to me at the end of the week as well, not 2 weeks later when I might already have been considered and accepted the job offer from the other company. So it was a wasted trip.



The trip home was horrible, realized my ez-link was out of cash, so I had to take a bus to the nearest control station to top up my card, decided since I was going to be going to a control station, why not head to town and see what I can get there.




So I stopped at Somerset, walked all the way to ION Orchard to top up my card, only for the machine to not be able to read my NETS properly, had to keep sliding it into the machine for it to finally be able to read the card, afterwhich went to withdraw some money and realised I was short $200 from my account, which I am afraid might have been because I keep inserting and re-inserting the NETS into the top up machine and it might have deducted a lot more money than it should have.




In the end decided to head home, empty handed with the back of my shirt completely drenched in sweat, it was disgusting to even lean back on the bus seat, was so afraid that when I stood up and leave, the chair will just have this huge patch of sweat.... there wasn't.

Coffee.

Was able to get a cup of Frappcuino today at Starbucks to confirm whether or not I actually have a caffeine addiction.



Bought a cup of Asian Dolce Frappacuino, the coffee flavour of the month or week or day, thinking it was Dulce de leche flavored, it was not.  I mixed up Dolce with Dulce since they are essentially pronounced the same way.... or maybe Starbucks spelled it wrongly and there really is Dulce de Leche inside... like how there's supposed to be Baileys in Twelve Cupcake's Baileys Chocolate Cupcake but you can't really taste any... makes me wonder if they measure their alcohol like how one would measure their vanilla extract... just a tiny drop, a hint of Baileys that you will be able to taste if you were to leave the buttercream in your mouth and swirl it around for a good 10 seconds before spitting it out.




I have made Baileys buttercream before for my Guiness Cupcakes and mine is really strong, because I eyeballed the whole thing, was really just pouring it out from the bottle like I was pouring myself a glass of it to drink.


Anyways, I couldn't taste any Dulce de leche in the coffee drink, which really is just bitter to me and reminded me why I didn't enjoy drinking any Frappacuino from Starbucks, I only drink it sometimes to look classy and shit, because only people in business suit drinks Starbucks Coffee, in my mind really, the people who actually drinks Starbucks in Singapore though are probably teenagers who likes to hang around Starbucks to study for their exams or use the free Wi-Fi... which they have "paid" for by buying the $10 cup of coffee which they nest because that cup is their pass to stay in the coffee shop indefinitely.




So, I thought I had actually made the transition from a tea drinker to a coffee drinker, but I guess that wasn't the case. When I say Tea Drinker I don't mean brewed Darjeeling Tea or any fancy stuff like Earl Grey Tea, I'm more towards Black Tea with the pearls inside and every once in a while when the house is out of soda, a huge cup of Lipton Tea with a slice of lemon in it... which when left on its own for a few hours thanks to my gaming habits, really become something that makes your breath really smelly and if I can smell my own rancid breath then it must really stink.

Running.

My goal to improve my running stamina was put on hiatus the past week because I couldn't find my running shirt.



So the last time I ran was 3 days ago in the gym with my Army shirt and I don't really count running on the treadmill as really going for a jog, just doesn't make me feel like I am about to drop dead and die at the 1.6 km mark... and for that treadmill running session, I actually only ran 60% of my intended distance because I accidentally hit the stop button instead of the "gradually slow down" button if that button even existed, and since I didn't know how to start up the treadmill from where I had stopped, rather than fumbling around with the controls and possibly sending myself hurtling through all the exercise equipment behind me from the accidental "burst of speed" from hitting the wrong key that might exist, I decided to just pretend like I had every intention to stop it and walked off, the lady who was using the treadmill beside me looked at my direction funny when I stopped and I assume it's because she was probably comparing her running speed to mine and in her head was having a running competition with me.



I  decided to suck it up today and wear my army shirt out for a run, and because I also don't have a proper pair of running pants, I had to settle for my army pants.



I don't like running in my army shirt because it's not really the exercise shirt that we wear in the army but the admin tee that we wear when we are not wearing our normal uniform, the one we wear to sleep or when we are just loitering around in the bunk, it's not proper exercise clothes, it's almost on par with the rags people wear at home as their home shirt or at least I wear rag like shirt at home. my clothes literally have holes on them around the sleeves and at the collar... and my running pants were really really short, did not compliment my long and skinny legs that were hairy as hell, plus I am really paranoid and think that when people see me wearing a army shirt, they will assume I am fit and am representing the army, I have to thank the busybody Stompers for this.



Not surprisingly, I was only able to run for 1.6 km before I had to stop and walk the other 1.6 km back. Turns out I didn't really care whether I looked like shit and was representing the army guys in a bad light because I was exhausted as fuck... really wanted to run a bit as I was returning home but I was very sure that if I did, when I actually do stop, my vision will get white from the lack of oxygen,  I will start breathing heavily and then probably squad on the ground to take a breather while people just walk past and stare. I am okay with not looking fit because who am I kidding, with a frame like mine, no one is gonna believe that I can actually run 3 km without stopping... probably being wanting me to stop lest I hurt my frail body. I also didn't properly hydrate myself before the run so I blame that, as well as the McDonald I had for lunch prior to the run, that's not a proper energetic meal at all.




Am currently having this obsession with McDonald's Frappe. It's so fucking delicious. Might have to go Starbucks and get one of their Frappacuino soon to see if I am actually having a caffeine addiction because I use to really not enjoy drinking coffee... not that I hated it, but I would rather watch someone else drink it then drink it myself, it's like how I like to see others enjoy slices of cheese but I won't let that slice of cheese go anywhere near my mouth. I also like watching people eat... it's like porn but you don't get judged so harshly if you were to tell it to your innocent-minded friends... like me because that's what many people think of me when they first meet me, pure and innocent... until they really get to know me... I mean this blog is probably a good sign that I am anything but pure and innocent, if anything really, it just shows how much of a fucking whiney ass fuck face I really am.





The only reason why I can blog so much is because I am so bored at home with nothing to do, and I still haven't collected my final pay check from the restaurant yet, it's been 16 days since they told me it was ready... gave me a 3 pm-5 pm time slot to collect on a weekday, if I had been working, that would have been an impossible timing to head down to collect my pay.... it's right after lunch hour and just before dinner, but alas I am not working and really am just lazy to head down to collect it, the last time I went to collect my pay, it was accompanied with a horrible motion sickness induced headache and witnessing a guy shitting his pants on the bus, plus I am sure they are aware of the terrible timing I have been given to head down so I am just gonna let them assume I am busy working and don't have anytime to go down.

Lunch out.

I have been longing to eat at this restaurant at Plaza Singapura called Hoshino Coffee for a while now and finally had the chance today to try it out today.



The main reason why was because they are serving dishes that were exactly the same as the dishes that are being served at the restaurant I was working at and I really want to dine at the restaurant I was working at but I don't feel comfortable going there as a customer just yet.



It's very tiring for me to have to acknowledge the presence of every waiter who passes by because I used to work with them but I am not necessarily close to them. It's like when you see someone you know on the street that isn't exactly a friend, but someone you know nonetheless so you have to acknowledge their presence, ,and it's even worse if they are like really far away but both of you have locked eyes on each other,but since you don't want to be creating a scene by shouting across the mall, you just keep walking straight and smiling awkwardly at each other until finally you reach each other close enough to actually talk to each other and then all you say to each other is "Hi.What are you doing here ?" and then "Okay. Bye." after hearing the obvious answer "Oh, just here to skin my cat so I can turn her fur into hair extensions."



So that's what I think dining at the restaurant I work at would be like, with all my ex-colleagues walking around collecting orders as they pass my table. So I settled for Hoshino Coffee.




Had their coffee and baked rice, really wanted to eat the pancake though because I have been preparing the exact same dish so many times I have lost count, alas my stomach couldn't take it anymore so I had to give it a miss, plus it was super expensive. 2 meals, me and my sister, who ordered a pasta, with 2 cups of ice coffee that was already heavily discounted, total cost was $45, if I had ordered the dessert and the drinks that I originally wanted to get, the price would have been $65.

IKEA lied.

During my job hunting last month, I thought it would be a good idea to have a career with only the most popular Furniture store in the world, IKEA.




It was actually my first choice after I left my job as a Pastry Cook, to work in IKEA, because that's how much of an underachiever I am. Why work in a Interior Design firm where you can learn so much more things when you can just work in IKEA, look at their furniture all day long and predict which ones will last less than a year when someone actually sits on it and break both the furniture and possibly their tailbone if the furniture doesn't rupture their anus first.




So I send in my resume and a pathetic excuse for a cover letter, waiting to get a response because their website stated...

So when they stated that they will keep me posted, I was under the assumption that someone from the HR department will look through my resume and get back to me... but instead I got an automated email....

During my initial read through, I actually thought it was send by an actual person because I thought they had misspelled "Hi"... so I checked my keyboard and realized that the letters were too far apart away from each other for it to be a misspell and I doubt they would hire someone who suffers from Alien Hand Syndrome to write emails for them..  Turns out "Hej" was Swedish for Hello


But despite the fact that it was an automated email, I was still quite optimistic about the entire thing because they did state at the end that they will get back to me within 30 days.



AND ~ It's almost been 40 days and I still haven't got back any response. Seriously IKEA, what the hell is wrong with you, if you have no intention of getting back to the people who aren't selected for the position, don't tell them to "Kick back and relax" and "expect to hear from us within 30 days".



For the first 20 days or so, I was actually expecting to get a response from IKEA, apart from the automated email. Kinda had a feeling that I was probably not going to be selected when I realized I probably screwed up their "Personality Test", I am really slow like that, so it takes a while for my brain to actually register the fact that I will probably not be getting the job after not getting any response from the company in the second half of the week.



The personality test probably helped painted a picture of me as a loner who occasionally slits his wrist to feel alive every once in a while to IKEA. I don't like this Personality Test bullshit, meet me in person and you will realize I am not a loner who slits his wrist, I am actually someone who stutters and flop sweat when he is being interviewed. So that's my whole IKEA experience, there goes my dream of having Swedish Meatballs that are allegedly made from horse meat for lunch everyday.




Speaking of flop sweat, I flopped sweat when I went for my job interview yesterday... but one good thing about the interview was that I didn't actually stutter as much as I thought I would have. I always stutter and flop sweat when I get interviewed, the back of my shirt will get a tone darker and I can't speak without sounding like I have been crying for the past hour in the toilet.... I didn't cry, didn't have time for that, I was in the air conditioned bus marking my territory by leaving my back sweat on the bus seats.





The interview went well, need to go back for a trial run, like a second interview sort of thing, except he won't be asking me what "my strength and weaknesses are" but actually put my skills to the test by making me do space planning and 3D renderings, the former I am relatively confident in but the latter is probably gonna be so fucked.  Hope everything goes well and by go well I mean not having the software crash on me while I am rendering. Has happened many times on my Acer before and I did not appreciate it.

Happy Single Awareness Day

Facebook was filled with so many messages of couples yesterday proclaiming their love for one another because it was Valentines Day, and with that post will be a picture of either a bouquet of roses or a picture of 2 of them kissing each other accompanying it.




It's like when it's Chinese New Year, my Instagram will be filled with pictures of people wearing brand new clothes with #ootd and then they will stand and post in an empty void deck, probably belonging their relative's HDB flat, or during Christmas when people take pictures of their Christmas Trees because their presents are probably too lousy for an Instagram post.




"Mum and Dad got me a Notepad from Popular Bookstore for Christmas! #wtf #discountedshit #seriously"




Valentines Day is the day when couples find the need to proclaim their love for one another out loud, it's like how when Sunday comes, people who believe in Jesus starts becoming Christians but when Monday arrives, they start using the God's name in vain. So seeing pictures of people making out on my feed during Valentines Day is understandable because it's the one day I won't judge someone for their heavy petting Instagram videos.





What I find a bit irksome are couples who proclaim their love for each other on their Instagram page or Facebook page everyday... simply because it reminds me and Heidi and Spencer from The Hills, whose behaviors are really attention seeking you sometimes question if it's really love or just 2 attention seeking whores sponging fame off their shamelessness at PDA-ing in front of paparazzi for the public to see. I actually came across one Instagram user, a Singaporean, who kinda reminded me of Heidi and Spencer, except her outlet is Instagram and not Paparazzis and tabloid magazines.



It's not as bad as Heidi and Spencer and bit of PDA is great for a relationship, but when you have a video of yourself and your boyfriend playing in a pool, back hugging each other and stuff, and then have someone film it, I find that to be a bit disturbing... especially because they have a huge following of like 40k followers, maybe like 10% of it are spam accounts but still, it's a pretty big group of strangers to be sharing such an intimate moment with....

"Hey World! Here's me with my boyfriend happily playing in the pool! We are so in love. And we even asked someone to film us having fun just so we could show you guys, most of whom we have never met before in real life and probably never will."

I mean you never know, Samantha_Loves who followed you yesterday on Instagram could be a 50 year old hillbilly who also happens to be a pedophile, TeddyStickers who liked all your pictures could be a 30 year old necrophile and RandyKnox who left a comment in a foreign language might have been using those PDA photos to jerk himself off at night.... those are the last people you want updated on your love life.



I wonder how a normal date of theirs without their photographer would be like...

"You are in the way of our love". Really need to proof read a picture before saving it as a JPEG and deleting the original file permanently. 

My photoshop skills are a bit lacking and my illustrator skills are non-existent, but the punchline is "Sorry but the restaurant is closed." when they finish taking their photo and are about to enter the restaurant. And I have no idea why the first picture has a grayish background.


I think that's what happens when they go out on a date, must capture the perfect shot even if it means using up 80% of their date timing to do it.



I don't really believe they are faking their relationship, but her constantly parading her Caucasian boyfriend on Instagram makes her look like someone who has Pinkerton Syndrome.


UPDATE : Apparently there really is someone who's actually following them around and taking picture of them making out and acting all lovey dovey. Sounds like the start to a porn film, honestly though, how romantic can a date be if there's a third wheel constantly following you around like a paparazzi, taking pictures of you and your date every time you two are making out.

Truth to be told, the reason why I am bashing her so much is because she looks like someone I didn't like that I used to work with in that infamous design firm I keep talking shit about. It's really just my biased opinion of her because she just happens to look like someone I don't like. I know it's horrible but I can't help it! I have issues worse than her alleged Pinkerton Syndrome.

"Macaron" isn't how the french pronounce "Macaroons" . Stop Mispronouncing it !

Went for my run this evening in my attempt to stay fit and not fail my next IPPT, one of 2 things that still haunt every Singaporean Son after they have ORD from the army, the other being reservice.

So I actually downloaded this app called "Zombies, Run" on my iPhone to make my running more fun, and I actually really like running, for like the first 3 minutes, anything after that is just me forcing myself not to stop even though my soles feel like they are on the verge off tearing of my feet and my heart suddenly feels it's pumping way too hard, and when I'm in that state of torture as I am running, whatever music I am listening to on my iPhone seem to suddenly slow down.

Songs like "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis suddenly sound like something that can be rapped by me without my tongue getting in the way of me trying to pronounce and enunciation every single word. That being said, I actually do know the song lyrics by heart, I just can't impress people with it because the only way to truly impress them is to be able to rap the entire song instead of telling it to them like a bedtime story.

Anyways, the app is fun initially, but once you get tired, the only thing that is going though your mind is your inner wuss asking you to "just stop and walk the entire way home"... when the game goes like...

"There's a zombie behind you, you have to sprint right now if you don't want it to catch up to you, it's gaining up on you! "

.... and I have been running for a good 9 minutes, I don't speed up, I either maintain my speed or I slow down and just start walking. If a real zombie apocalypse were to happen, I would probably transition into a brain eater and be chewing on brains within hours, or maybe just get shot dead right on the spot.

It's sad how I am blogging so regularly now. It's not because I have topics that I want to talk about, it's because I am so bored at home doing absolutely nothing productive, perks of being jobless, that I need some sort of outlet to release my boredom, apart from baking.

Actually baked like 2 things today and made Swiss Meringue Buttercream with my stand mixer. I like the mixer, makes my life so much easier. 

One of my two bakes was macarons, I actually ended up burning my finger because the oven gloves I have at home is so thin, but it's not because it was thin that I burnt myself, it was because it was so thin I decided to fold it over itself and grab a hot metal rack out like how one would use a kitchen towel to grab something out their own oven.... my index finger unfortunately wasn't covered my the oven gloves and it ended up coming into direct contact with the metal racks in the oven. Oh and my macarons also failed, knew they were screwed the moment I piped the first shell, it was too wet,  it wouldn't stop leaking from the piping bag, it was like it was on it's period.... just wouldn't stop leaking and I couldn't even pipe properly, so frustrating. So I essentially I burnt my fingers for macarons I knew were doomed to fail. 

The other bake was brown sugar cupcake and I think I have found a recipe very similar to what Plain Vanilla Bakery uses for their Salted Caramel Cupcake cake base. Moist and fluffy, the latter I would like to thank my mixer for making it possible, all that was missing was the salted caramel buttercream, had to settle for the Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream, didn't have cream to make salted caramel sauce. Swiss Meringue is a good buttercream, sweet but not chockingly sweet and super smooth as well, only problem is I can't leave it out in this weather without the buttercream melting all over the place.

Speaking about cupcake, I remember coming across a blog online once, and in that particular post, this blogger was raving about cupcakes he bought from Plain Vanilla, saying how he was given a salted caramel cupcake without the frosting by the owner because the shop ran out of Salted Caramel Cupcake and that despite the lack of any frosting, he was able to taste the caramel sauce that was infused into the cake.

I would like to call bullshit on that....

What are you talking about? There's no caramel injected into the cake base at all, I have eaten the cake before and I am very sure there is no caramel sauce that's infused in the cake, it's the brown sugar you are tasting. It's so pretentious when people online blog about their review on a certain restaurant or bakery that they chanced upon and talk about the food that they have tasted like they are some sort of food connoisseur and then being absolutely wrong about the taste of the food or the preparation method. 

"The steak was so tender and juicy. I could taste the freshness of the pig they killed just to make this piece of amazing medium rare."

"I really enjoyed the traditional Matcha prepared by the old ladies in their Japanese outfits, it's definitely comparable to the Jasmine Green Tea by Pokka"

"This macaron was so amazing, perfect grainy shell texture with large air pockets in the cookies to make it a truly delicate french confectionery, but they could probably leave the filling in the middle out, just ruins the texture of the crunchy shells."

Oh and I fucking hate it when people pronounce macaron as macaroons, that's probably one of my pet peeves, when someone I know says it wrongly I always correct them. I especially hate hearing the french confectionery being mispronounced on those Youtube videos of people teaching you how to make them, if you pronounce it as Macaroons, then where the hell are your shredded coconuts.


That's like calling your Father Mum and vice versa because both of them are your parents.

Not so well.

Had my second interview today, well technically it's the first because the first one actually decided to waste my time, so today was my first job interview for 2014. Last year I had 2 interviews within a 4 month period and I'm hoping not to make it a habit to try and get as much job interviews as I can in a year.



My work experience that's reflected in my resume isn't actually very long even though I had joined and quit so many jobs last year. Those are definitely not experiences I would like to be reflected in my resume...



1st Job Experience

Design Consultant         -  The company name is actually a Taylor Swift Song.

Work Duration             -  July 2013 - July 2013

Reason for Leaving       - I really disliked my co-workers which in turn made me really hate my job.


2nd Job Experience


Pastry Cook               - The company is doing so well now it's actually low on manpower.

Work Duration           - Nov 2013 - Dec 2013

Reason for Leaving     - The company is doing so well it's actually low on manpower, which meant I had to do the job of 2 pastry cooks and still get paid the same amount per hour, which was already pretty shit to begin with.  



3rd Job Experience 


In House Space Planner - My Father's Office

Work Duration               - When I am free or am jobless.

Reason for Leaving         - Oh, I am always welcomed there.




Out of desperation, I did leave the part about me working at my father's company inside the resume as "job experience", but leaving out the part I was working for my father because he saw me as a charity case.



The whole interview started out with me filling up this form with questions like "What's your greatest achievement in life that you are proud of" and "What's your dream job if you could have any job in the world"... am I suppose to answer all this answers truthfully or just make shit up as I go along.



My greatest achievement in life is probably beating a few million other contestant in the game of life and having the chance to be born and my dream job is to be able to bake and get paid a shit load of money for it. I obviously couldn't put those answers so I left the greatest achievement part blank and put my dream job as "anything related to design".



Coming up with bullshit on the spot is hard work during the Q&A with my interviewer.



Question : What is it about interior design that fascinates you.


Actual Answer I would like to have given : Nothing really, I actually only find it mildly interesting, you wouldn't see me taking an interior design magazine to the toilet as I am taking a poop.


Question : What do you think makes you stand out from the other applications who have applied for this similar position.


Actual Answer IWLTHG :  Probably the fact that they might actually have more passion in the field than me. I have zero passion in the field to be honest, it's just something I find much more interesting than being an accountant or anything that requires me to be staring at a monitor filled with numbers to be crunched. ( I actually felt really uncomfortable just thinking about saying "great passion in this field" because I know what passion feels like and it's not present in Interior Design.)



Question : So why did you choose our company.


Actual Answer IWLTHG : Because IKEA didn't get back to me despite their automated email promising to get back to me within 30 days, don't make a promise you can't keep IKEA.



I actually told the interviewer I tried applying for IKEA but they didn't get back to me, in a fun light hearted way like a joke of course, he fake laughed but I knew I should have just shut my mouth about that.



And I just can't get past his slight accent, it wasn't necessarily American, more like how a Deejay on a radio station would speak, so that prompted me to use a fake accent whenever I was talking to him and I really hate when people speak in an accent that's obviously fake and not their own, it's just really really weird and uncomfortable hearing them speak like that, like what are you doing speaking like a Primary School kid during an Oral exam, and when I realized I was doing that, I kept trying to forcibly switch back to my normal accent mid-sentence, but then would subconsciously do it again, so during the entire interview, my accent was a mishmash of Singlish and really bad American accent.



When it was my turn to ask questions regarding the job, I tried my best to ask as much questions as I possibly could because I know my resume isn't impressive and the answers I had to the interviewer's questions were less than stellar.  There was a lot of redundant questions, a lot of pregnant pauses because my head was trying to think of even more questions like "Are the furniture here affordable" or "How are all this different from IKEA", like really stupid questions I shouldn't have asked  and I always blabbered about school work and design, veering off topic to prevent any awkward silences and at one point the guy just goes...

"I find you are very design oriented and we are actually looking for someone who's more sales oriented."

That's when I knew the interview really went south.  After that I kinda knew I was pretty much screwed over and just continued asking more questions, and even though he said I was asking really good question, his earlier comment already answered my biggest question... will I actually get the job.




At the end of the interview, he didn't ask me about the starting salary or my earliest available date... both of which I left blank in the form, he just shook my hand and ushered me out without telling me when I could expect a response from them regarding the job... I had to ask him myself, to which he replied the secretary will get back to me.... no window duration of like 1 week or 2 week, just....

 "Oh the secretary who called you and arranged for this interview will let you know again."

Okay, so that means like within a decade to never?



The only reason why I am so paranoid with the salary part is because for the last 3 or 4 interviews that I have went, we always discuss about the salary at the end of the interview or somethings half of the interview will just be discussing about the wages. And for 2 of the 4 interviews, the interviewer actually asked me when I could start work, that I should call them up whenever I am ready.



When I was actually walking out of the shop, I notice a stack of free design magazine at the store entrance, and was really contemplating on whether to grab them or not to create an impression that I was "really interested in interior design" on the off chance the interviewer might still be observing me as I was walking out. I am super paranoid about this thing, in my head, I kept thinking the magazines were placed there as a test by the interviewer to see if the interviewees are really interested and passionate about design, because if they are, they will take the booklet. I would probably do that if I was in a position to hire someone because I am weird like that.




So I am not going to put my hopes too high up for this job, probably not gonna happen, although I really like the shop location, it's really quiet and there are only like 4 workers at one time in the shop and hardly any customers, it's like my perfect place to work in... would have been more perfect if it was a bakery.







UPDATE : So to give a rough idea on how commission works in this company.  Apparently you get a basic salary, which I wasn't told exactly how much probably because they didn't feel like they needed to since I won't be considered for the position anytime soon. When the interviewer told me we do get commission for selling the furniture, I was thinking along the line of like 20% of the total amount the customer spend, considering the fact that the furniture themselves are quite expensive and 20% because I have a feeling the basic is quite low and most of the salary will be from the commission...  apparently not.



For every $1 000 you make in sales, you get a 1% commission or something like that, I think it's a lot more than $1000 because I remembered being shocked by how low the commission rates were... and when you hit your next target, your commission increases by 0.25%.  So that means either you have an actual basic salary that you can survive on or you really need to do hard selling to the point of threatening and endangering the lives of the customer's family members.


"If you get this amazing sofa set for $10000, I will let your son live and he might see the light of day, but if you choose to grab this $200 single seater, all you will get is a finger in a box, and if you buy 2 single seaters you get 2 fingers... you get how this works don't you ? Get something from the discount bin and I WILL MAKE SURE THE ONLY GRANDCHILDREN YOU WILL HAVE ARE PREMATURE EJACULATIONS. The choice is yours."

Interview went well.... Pfft

My interview was today....




So before that, I actually decided to go for a run on Sunday to kinda wear myself down so I can actually maybe get tired enough to fall asleep early and get up on time the next day, which is today. My body clock is now sleep at 2 am and wake up at 11 am.




For the run yesterday, I managed to cover a total distance of 2.2 km before my legs decided to give in and started to walk the remaining 1 km home. Total time taken was 20 minutes, which is not so bad considering the fact that I haven't actually jogged for half a year now... and the last time I actually went to do my 2.4 km run for my Fitness Test, it took me a good 22 minutes, because since my friend and I were already doomed to fail the entire test, we decided to fuck all and just give up, so we walked the entire 2.4 km, causing everyone else who had already finished running to wait for us. I felt bad until the person in charge started shouting at us for wasting everyone's time.




Managed to fall asleep at 1 am yesterday night, technically today morning, and got up at around 10 am to bath and get ready to head out for the interview, legs all sore from the jog yesterday, a sensation which I actually enjoy as odd as that may sound, it's like my body's way of telling me....

 "Good Job, turns out you are not such a couch potato."

So the company I applied for and was going to go for the interview today is located all the way at East Coast Road. Before I applied I actually checked out their Facebook page and saw that their office was actually very well designed, it looked very homey and very cozy, which was why despite the distance, I decided to apply for a job there anyway, and that was during the period when I had just quit my job and was desperately looking for a new one.





The total travel time required for me to get there from my house is roughly 90 minutes according to Google Maps, so I made an effort to leave the house right after I woke up and took a bath because with public transport you gotta give an additional 15 minutes waiting time, which is about how long it took for the first bus I took to arrive at my stop... hoping to arrive the design firm 15 minutes before my interview.




After travelling in the bus for a good 30 minutes and being really grateful I wasn't getting any sort of motion sickness, I felt a buzz in my pocket where my phone was and it was a message from the design firm...

The interview was at 12 pm and I was only informed about the interview being postponed an hour before our agreed timing... and there was no "Apologize for the inconvenience caused" or anything to say they are sorry about wasting my damn time or transport money.

I mean where the fuck do you think I live? Across the fucking street?

I was definitely pissed off, but not angry enough to not think straight and ask them to go fuck themselves. So when they told me when I was available for a reschedule , I just told them I wasn't available this week,  because I really can't be fuck to take another trip to their office.

And it actually took me like a good 5 minutes to send the replies because I was constantly writing and deleting, reminding myself it's probably not a good idea to leave a bad impression of yourself, like they have already done to themselves. Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have put "Thank You For Your Consideration" because there's no act of consideration going on anywhere, the boss can't even be bothered to prioritize an interview planned a week ago.... I actually wrote "Sorry About it" at the end but decided to delete it because I have nothing to be sorry about, they are the one wasting my time.

The initial reply for "When will you be available this week" was actually "I think it would be best if I stop wasting my time and withdraw my application now." But than thought that it sounded a little harsh, so I just lied and said I wasn't available this week. 

And then they replied....

"Okay how about 4.30 pm today"

Oh wow, that's so magnanimous of you to spare me your boss's 4.30 pm time slot today. Okay Sure? why not, I will not head home now but instead stay around in Little India where I currently am, shop until I drop for 2 hours and then take a 1 hour trip to East Coast Park and cycle in the park a few rounds for another 2 hours to stink myself up before going for the interview. FUCK YOU! 

From a 12 pm interview changed to a 4: 30 pm on the same day with last minute changes that requires a 4 hours journey back and forth on my part. 

What the actual fuck man, it takes me 2 hours to get to your place and another 2 hours to go home, I am not going to want to attempt to head down there twice in one day and waste my bloody time and listen to the boss talk to me about a position I wasn't really interested in in the first place and will no longer be interested in thanks to the tainted image he has created for his company and himself for wasting my time in the morning. Especially not at 4.30 pm when it's so close to peak hour, which will probably increase my travelling time home to probably 2 hours 30 minutes. 

To do the math if I were to actually agree to the 4.30 pm interview....

1 Hour Travel Time In the Morning. (due to last minute cancellation)

1 Hour Travel Time Back Home 

2 Hour Travel Time In The Afternoon for Interview.

2.5 Hours Travel Time Home after Interview.

Total Time Spent    >   1 + 1 +2 +2.5 = 6.5 Hours Travel Time

That's literally half the day spend travelling around Singapore for a job interview.

The initial idea was to head down there and listen to what the company has to offer and what benefits I would get if I actually chose to work there, and whether those benefits would outweigh the distance issue, but they can't leave even a good first impression, going there for a later interview is just going to be a waste of my time since I will probably be scrutinizing and scoffing in my head about anything they say.

"Our company firmly believes in meeting deadlines for the clients and we expect our workers to be someone who can complete and hand over a project on time."

That would be rich coming from the boss.

Granted I am only an interviewee, but for fuck sake if you want to postpone an interview at least have the decency to tell me a few hours before instead of telling me when I am already in the bus on the way there. 

At the end of the day, still no apologies for the inconveniences caused, even after I told the person about the 2 hours journey time. I mean can't you connect the dots, 2 hours journey time, you tell me an hour before the meet up, that means I am already half way there.... which also means...

The last time I was told last minute about a postpone in timing was during a secondary school meet up with my friends, literally 15 minutes before our scheduled meeting they tell me they have to postpone it an hour later... and I usually like to go 10 minutes early, needless to say I did not have a good time that night which was suppose to be "that evening".... it's just not a good way to start a meet up with friends you haven't met in months. Now I've learned to never go early when I am meeting them, had to learn that the hard way... which sometimes still makes me one of the few early ones.

And actually the position doesn't benefit me more than it benefits the boss. Based on what I have learned from the previous firm,(all figures are based on how the previous firm shares their profit with their workers, and that lady boss is apparently one of the more generous one, she is nice although she doesn't look like it, it's just her employees that I can't stand.)


Project Cost

Total Amount       (Including Contractor Fees etc)                             -> $20 000 (minimum)

Total Profit Earn   (Maybe 10% of entire project cost)                        -> $2000 (looks like a decent amount)

Total Profit You Earn  (40% of the total profit)                                   -> $800 (actual amount you earn)

Profit Given to the Boss (60% of total profit)                                     -> $1200





And that's based on a low budget sales, one girl actually managed to earn $20, 000 in a month, that's only 40% of the profit, which means the boss actually got $30, 000 to spend that month because one of her workers decided to work her ass off.



It's really a win win situation for the boss if he manages to hire someone, unlike those with a stable salary where all your earnings come directly from the boss's pocket. That's why it's such a lucrative business and you don't need any actual qualifications because the boss isn't paying you because you are qualified designer, on the contrary, you are actually paying the boss for allowing you to use her list of contacts of contractors... especially so for those who don't give a basic pay to their workers in the beginning.

Just a daily blog....

I started my day today by going for my Basic Theory Test.

From the get go I wasn't really confident about passing it because it has been 2 months, give or take, since I actually took the evaluation and passed that one, of course I was hoping I'd pass on the first try and get the whole thing over and done with.  What I didn't except though was to fail the test by a single point. Passing mark was 45/50 and I got 44/50, what are the odds, seriously, failed by 1 point, those damn road signs all look so similar. Now I have to wait another 2 months before I can take the test again, probably to fail another round. Oddly enough I wasn't that upset about it, I am just surprised I actually almost pass... my Final Theory Test is probably gonna be fucked if I ever pass my Basic Theory Test.

My initial goal was to get my license within 4 months, but then that goal sort of took a backseat when I realize how disinterested I was in automobiles and anything related to it, all I want is the convenience of driving around in a car and reaching my destination in 20 minutes rather than an hour and a half with probably a splitting headache from motion sickness if the ride is gonna take that long. And it's been a while since I actually studied for a test for a topic that I am not really interested in.

The last test I took was the hygiene test in the culinary course, but that was okay because I am actually interested in baking and since the hygiene thing was related I was more or less able to absorb some information from the Chef Instructors as they were teaching them to me... a bit like a sponge, once the test was over I just squeeze that little nugget of knowledge and let all that information back out into the wild.

So I went home and decided to do some therapeutic baking after getting butter and sugar from Cold Storage. Attempted to make some chocolate cupcakes for my Mum's friends who were coming over in the evening and in my head, I was already imagining how it would look with the frosting on it. 

I made the cupcakes using baking powder instead of baking soda, and the recipe actually called for both, which meant that I actually added double the amount of baking powder and no baking soda.  A few weeks ago I actually went to the store specially to get baking soda and I actually only realized I bought the wrong one this afternoon... 

What the fuck brain?

"Baking is a science, measurements need to be precise or everything will not turn out right."

Wouldn't I know anything about that. Suffice to say I threw the whole batch of failed chocolate cupcakes into the bin, if they can even be called cakes, disgusting little buggers. I actually used up the remaining bar of Lindtt White Chocolate in the cupcake batter, the bar of white chocolate meant to satisfy my creme brulee cravings, because now I fucking love creme brulee and what's better than normal creme brulee? White Chocolate Creme Brulee.

My Mum then decided to drive me to get the baking soda to make more cupcakes and after that horrible failure I decided to make vanilla one instead. So I got the baking soda and some heavy whipping cream because she doesn't like her buttercream to be too sweet. On the way home I decided to ask her to drop by Courts and get the stand mixer. 

What I settled for because I am unemployed and don't have the luxury to spend as much as I would have liked to.

Compared to the KitchenAid that I was planning to get, this one is actually pretty ugly because it's made of plastic and just looks really clunky and cheap, which it kinda is, that's why I bought it because I have no income at the moment, the only "income" I got this month was from the red packets I received from CNY, hopefully next month I will actually start getting actual pay checks again instead of more red packets for my birthday.

It does the job of whipping the cream, but I really can't stand the batter mixer, it's looks like the balloon whisk's underachieving younger brother. But it's a pretty good machine despite it's clunky looks and it was only $199 so that was pretty cheap. 

Oreo Cookies and Cream Cupcake.

Second time's the charm with a different recipe,hopefully that also applies to my BTT,  opted for a vanilla cupcake instead and made the whipped cream using the recipe from the restaurant I was working at because that was the only recipe I remembered, even bought the same whipping cream, which after making it myself and tasting it, realized that it actually taste like shit, had a very strong vegetable oil taste to it... that's what I get for using non diary whipping cream. 

It's like whenever I make something by myself at home from scratch, I get super anal about the quality of it, so I decided to masked that disgusting taste with a shitload of Oreo cookie crumbs as evident in the picture.  The cake base was moist and soft like a cake should be, but the flavour wasn't quite there, good thing there was the whipped cream.... would have been so much better with Swiss meringue buttercream, which now i will be able to make without having to worry about getting carpal tunnel syndrome thanks to the new stand mixer.

Brings back such memories....

After 2 weeks of sending out resumes and lamenting on how old I am getting, because 24 and jobless is not a very good combination, I have finally gotten a job interview.




Applying for a job as an Interior Designer again, and after going to forums about Interior Designs in Singapore, it's like all the memories of working in the previous firm started flooding back into my mind and it didn't feel good at all , well it's not so much memories, just a really unpleasant feeling. I'm not sure if it's because of the job scope or just because I had a bad experience working at that particular firm, but now I'm actually second guessing myself whether to actually go back to Interior Design.



Back in the day when I had to wake up early to go to the EXPO just so I could stand around and pull in potential clients at the Interior Design roadshows for hours on end.... first week of the job and my very first weekend got burnt. I'm hoping the new firm doesn't have to go to the roadshow to actually get clients because if I actually got the job, that's the last thing I want to do.....



First of all, it looks fucking desperate, it's like the guy at the Control Station who's desperately trying to give out all his flyers so he could knock off form work early but no one is really interested in " Getting your kid the right Tutor at Tutor My Todd" or the free massage you get at the massage parlor if you bring your entire family along, that's how I felt when I was standing outside the booth trying to pull in customers.




Secondly, more than half of the people who are there are just going around testing out the waters and going into every Interior Design firm's booth, so essentially what you are giving to them is a free consultation., and then they will walk out and go into the next booth to get another free consultation.... and it didn't help that the firm I was working in was obviously charging a much higher rate than everyone else... the excuse being that we "pay attention to small details"... which essentially just means that we go to Pinterest, look for a closet design, rip that design right off, pass if off as our own, get the carpenter to build it and charge you $6000 for it.... plus a lot more stuff like the cabinet design we ripped off from Dezeen and not to mention the shoe rack design we ripped off from IKEA. And then we point the small details like the recessed handles and try to use that to justify the insane $6000 price tag and the customers eat that shit up.

"Oh recessed handles ? I have never seen that before, here's $36000, I'll have 6!"

That was what the 4 month old designer tried to tell me to explain to me that our design firm was different from the other firms, that we pay extra attention to details.  Like seriously...

"You see this orange lines on our cupboard design, and all this small little ridges at the side of our beds,  we are the only design firm that do all these minor details for the customers."

I think that's called accenting and the fact that she thinks they are the only company that does that shows how much of a greenhorn she is, then again, none of the "designers" there are actually design trained except for the lady boss. And they also lie about their work experience, the 4 month old worker tells clients she has been in the field for 2 years, there's even longer the the most senior designer there. So much for work ethics, and when asked how old the 2 year old company was, they tell us to say it's 4 years old. SO MUCH INTEGRITY! And then they try to make it sound believable by telling the clients that the lady boss has been in the field for over a decade which is the only truth in that string of lies.




Oh, and when one of the client decided not to use our services because we were charging them 150% of their intended budget , no surprise there, one of the senior designer whom I was working with on that project started to bitch and whine about how our time has been wasted and what not after the clients have left, which I thought was unnecessary because despite their cancellation of our services, the client and his wife were actually really nice and pleasant people who even recommended his friends to us. If she was bitching and whining about such nice couples for making the decision to not use our services, I wonder what she actually does to actual tough customers, probably go make a voodoo doll out of them and poke needles into them when she has the time.





I mean getting your design work done at the design firm I was working in during the roadshow is equivalent to getting a $3.00 macaron from some blogshop run by a self taught baker when Bakerzin is just around the corner selling one for $1.80... Macarons made by trained Pastry Chefs who have been in the business for years. It's just not a very smart deal at all.



So much negative thoughts just thinking about that old design firm. I did not have a good time there at all.... and it doesn't help that one of the few people there whom I thought was a friend actually started to unfollow me on Instagram. It's not that it's because I have less followers, it's the fact that he actually made the effort to go look me up on his list of "followings" and hit the unfollow button that annoys me. The only times I unfollow someone on Instagram is if they are flooding my page with horrible blurry and foggy shots of them in a club drinking booze and looking flushed red in pictures or when people like that "friend" of mine actually making the effort to go to my profile to unfollow me. I just find it very odd that he would do that, so I follow suit and unfollowed him.




Unless you are some big shot celebrity or actually post nice photos worth liking, I'm not going to follow you if you aren't following me because honestly, some people post really shit photos that I had no choice but to unfollow. My feed isn't going to miss those shit pictures you have taken of yourself in the club where I can hardly see your face because the person taking it is probably getting alcohol positioning from the copious amount of booze he just consumed.



Well this turned out to be an unpleasant post.

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake.... I think it's Japanese

So here's a picture of a Strawberry Spongecake I made yesterday. Hand whipped everything, and I mean everything.... eggs took me a good 10 minutes whip by hand until thick and pale and the whipped cream was probably a good 5 minutes. Followed the recipe and turned out it was only for a single layer so I ended up having to whip the eggs twice by hand. All that effort wasn't for nothing thought because the taste was prety good if I might say so myself, there's nothing a little rum cant' spruce up.



The importance of a good hand whisk. Got it when I went to Culinary School, apparently it is really expensive... definitely got my money's worth. Paying an extra $10000 for the designer to "pay attention to details"? Not so much.

I'm so glad I got the Rowenta oven over the Stand Mixer because the oven is currently my favorite thing. I can actually fit in trays that are bigger than an A4 paper and it's an electric smart oven. The best thing about it is that I didn't have to pay a single cent for it, it's my gift from my Mother as a Christmas Present.... sort of thing.


Well she was planning to help me get a new mixer but I just decided to let it be a Christmas gift rather than a "spur of the moment suddenly fork out $500 to get me a mixer" thing. That's one of the benefits of not actually asking my Mother for money to buy me miscellaneous things like clothes and shoes every few months, she offers to buy me a mixer when I just bring up the topic of wanting to get one out of my own pocket.



The mixer of course later became an oven that cost $650, I was actually procrastination with the purchase of the mixer because I didn't know which brand to buy and if I really needed a mixer. I knew I definitely wanted a bigger oven for sure to fit the new tray I had bought hoping it would fit but didn't. That hope is the same as hoping you would win the lottery but you know you never will.



The first thing I made was obviously Macarons, to test how good the new oven was, I had to make something that would be very finicky to prepare, and what better than something that took me months to perfect-ish.

Cookies and Cream Macaron.

None of the shells cracked at all in the oven, it was amazing. Although I did screw up during the sugar syrup part at the beginning process, nothing to do with the oven. And the ganache was actually firm and did not melt at all at room temperature. It was a very good macaron making day, except for the part where the sugar syrup actually burnt and cause the egg whites to cook prematurely during the meringue making process and I had to repeat it multiple times because like an idiot I kept overcooking the sugar mixture, but otherwise it was all good. People who don't make macarons probably won't understand the process.

White Chocolate Creme Brulee

This is one ugly shot but it was really good creme brulee if I may say so myself. I actually really like creme brulee now. And the top is burnt because I had to use a broiler as I didn't have a blowtorch.

Pavlova

Because of my obsession with making creme brulee, I had a lot of leftover egg whites to make pavlovas. Think I over baked this though, it wasn't very nice.





And here are some of the last baked items I made using the old oven. *cue sad music*

Red Velvet Brownies. 

Those were my only successful batch of brownies, I have made a lot and they all always sucked but this one was actually good. It's like my oven knows it's going to be replaced soon so it's doing it's best to impress me buy baking this brownies to the perfect doneness. 

Profiteroles.

This was my first time making Profiteroles, or Choux Pastry. Might have gone a bit overboard with the salt but it was still good, just can't seem to find a good vanilla custard recipe to go along with it. All those I have made so far either taste like flour or have a strong egg taste to it which is disgusting.

Actually my old oven is still in use, just not as much. Used it to heat up some fried rice yesterday night, which gave me a stomachache this morning. Hell hath no fury like an oven's scorn.





Just received a call from another company asking me to head down for an Interview. Nice to know now I might actually have a choice to decide where to work at.