Cakes and more cakes.

I'm not sure what constitutes a good red velvet cake but the one I got from Lady M was pretty top notch, if I am happy with the first bite, then it's, in my opinion, a pretty darn good slice of cake.

Should really check the price next time though, I just ordered it without realizing it was almost $10 for a slice of it, that being said, I would probably get it again when I am craving for cake and am near the shop. 

Even though I have been working at the bakery for a little over a month now, I haven't actually tried any of the cupcakes they sell, excluding those I sneak a bite when no one is around because it's not really a cupcake if there's no frosting on it. 

So yesterday, whilst frosting the cupcakes, I decided to whack a small dollop of cream cheese frosting on an extra cup of carrot cake. I like the addition of the pistachio nuts, not so much the golden ball sprinkles because those did not give it an extra crush like the pistachio nuts, it felt more like an injury waiting to happen in my mouth because those golden balls, as pretty as they look, are really hard to bite down on, so every time when I am actually trying to bite into them, I feel like I might exert too much pressure and just accidentally bite down into my gum and shove the golden ball sprinkle down into the newly created wound on my gum.

Today, I had to head down to the cake stall to actually deliver a fondant cake for an order that was due today, the whole journey there was a bit stressful because instead of actually taking a cab down, I had to take the train, it wasn't as stressful as the first time when I had to deliver a butter cream cake over but it was still stressful nonetheless.




If people came close to me I would just stare them away... like when I am stuck and having no choice but to stand in a crowded bus in the morning, and then someone who's seated down decides to stand up and pushes his or her way through the crowd of people while the bus is still moving and then plants themselves at the exit door,  invading everyone's personal space. The feeling I get when someone gets close to me as I am carrying the box of cake is roughly the same but with lesser enmity.





Managed to bring back some cupcakes today when I delivered the cake. The boss said I could get 6 free cupcakes to try and I have already eaten 3 of them, which explains why I am getting a sore throat.

Whack in the head.

So I was on the bus today on the way home, and because it was a relatively crowded bus,there were quite a few commuters who were holding on to the handgrips on the bus as they were making their way home. I was fortunate enough to be able to grab a seat during my journey home but was unfortunate enough to have a handgrip located right above me.

A few stops later, a kid comes along midway through my journey home and decides to grab the handgrip that was dangling above my head to steady himself on his journey home on the bus, the entire time I was worried whether or not I was going to get elbowed by him because his elbows were so close to my face had the bus driver decided to hit the brakes to stop the bus because someone had to get off the bus the last minute, I would have gotten a whack in the face by his elbows. 

After a few minutes of riding in fear, it was finally time for me to get off, so I pressed the bell and stood up as the bus was coming to my stop, hoping the guy would make an effort to move and grab the handgrips behind him for support to let me through, there was a lot of space for him to move around and a lot of other poles he could grab to support of himself, but no~, he decides to hold on to that stupid hand grip like his life depend on it UNTIL the bus came to a stop. 

So for the entire time between me pressing the button and the bus reaching my stop, I was stuck in a half standing half squatting position, going "Excuse me" , wondering when the fuck was this moron going to move his fucking hand and let me through. 

When he finally did let go, I was more than ready to move off because half squatting and half standing isn't a comfortable position to be stuck in for an extended period of time, plus if I didn't move soon, the bus driver was going to assume everyone who wanted to get off the bus already did and would close to door and drive off.  

So I tried to get out as fast as I could and for some reason, the bloody idiot who was gripping on the the handgrip was actually still holding on the to it as he moved his body back to let me out before releasing his grip on it, so when I stood up and tried to squeeze between him and my seat to get out, the handgrip swung right back and hit me in the head. 

It was so embarrassing because people were already looking at me as I was stuck in my half squat position, only to have an extra dose of entertainment when the "Thinking Man" gets smack in the head with a hand-grip.  The bus driver actually closed the door on me when I was about to reach the exit, luckily I was able to press the bell on time,and get off.



None of this would have been possible had it not been for one inconsiderate idiot.

Fucking idiot also needs a shave, I was staring at his stache the whole time....

If you can't grow a full mustache, don't grow it at all.

... he's got one of those half grown facial hair that Justin Bieber is rocking that looks ugly as hell. It's similar to the type that some girls get but they don't shave it off because they don't want to admit they have facial hair when it's painfully obvious to everyone else.

Let's get real...

I personally don't understand how some people are able to take on the "100 Happy Days" challenge on Instagram.  There are a few people on my instagram feed who are attempting to do it, but it seems as though the closer they are to the 100th day mark, the sadder their reason for being happy on that day becomes.




I was expecting to see people post things like...

"Day 59. My kid finally called me Mama! #100happydays"

"Day 42. Mum surprised me with a new puppy. #100happydays"

... I would be happy for the person if their kid spoke their first word or if they got a new puppy because that dog is fucking adorable, I love dogs, unless they bark at me first, then I will steer clear away from them and stare at them from afar while thinking negative thoughts about them, I'm sure the dog will be able to sense my displeasure and then feel bad about it and regret barking at me as I was walking towards him to pet him.



Unfortunately, although it probably isn't really much of my business, most of the #100happydays post I see on my instagram feed aren't really #100happydays worthy, things like....

"Day 10. My subway sandwich today was amazing. #extrarsauce #100happydays"

"Day 98. Nothing like a good cup of coffee to start the day. #prefertea #100happydays" 

I would like the coffee picture though, because it's a good picture and not because I agree with it being a #100happydays post.



I have seen people post things that are quite sad and then #100happydays, it's like me taking a picture of a rainbow cake and going...

"Only need to bake 2 rainbow cakes today from the usual 6. #100happydays"

It's not really so much of a "happy" feeling I get, more like "less miserable". There's a difference between being happy and being less miserable, I would know about the latter because I'm pretty sure I'm going through a quarter life crisis right now.

segue time~

I'm quitting jobs like no one's business because when I have a job, I can't help but think how much better it would be if I was working in another field, so I quit and look for another job and the whole cycle repeats itself. The process in my head is quite simple...

Look for an Interior Design Job. 

Reasons being 

-  I have a Diploma in the field.

- The pay is pretty decent.

When I do get a job as an Interior Designer, I start to find the job to be insanely boring, the pay is good but I spend half my time looking at the clock, waiting to knock off, I'm sure it's already 5 pm, so why is the hour hand stuck at 11 ?

Few weeks later, I leave the job and look for work at a bakery.

Reasons being

- The interior design job sucked

- I love baking

- Too add on to that, I have a professional certificate in baking.

The first few days on the job are great, I'm doing what I love and I'm not looking at the clock as much anymore. But then my hands star getting weaker as the week progresses, my grip starts to weaken. I'm working longer hours but getting a significantly lower pay, the long term benefits are non-existent, my future looks bleak if I were to continue in this field.

Honestly though, as awesome as the job is right now compared to the work at the restaurant, and as much as I don't hate this job, wouldn't go so far to say I love it, but I definitely don't hate it, it's not really something I can see myself doing in the long run simply because of monetary reasons. 

This time I'm going to give this job till the end of the year before making the final decision, follow my passion and get a shit salary or get an office job and get a decent salary. I'm even putting my driving lessons on hold right now because the whole idea of getting a license but not being able to afford a car in the future sounds ridiculous to me. 

Stick it out for a year... the only reason why my job sucks now is because of the damn rainbow cakes I have to make, it used to only be once or twice a week but now I seem to be doing it almost every other day because everyone wants a rainbow cake for their birthday.

Oh, and I managed to waste about 10 kg worth of chocolate batter today because I forgot to add in baking soda and baking powder into the recipe. Those 2 things are very bloody important, as insignificant as the amount put into the recipe might seem.

Horrible admin.

Emailed at-Sunrice 6 days ago asking them if I could schedule a day to head down to collect my certificate, they have yet to reply... I have also been too lazy to call, but after checking my email and realizing it's been 6 days since I sent out that email, I'm starting to feel a bit pissed off.



It's like when you sent a text to someone and they take forever to reply or not reply at all. I do get quite pissed off when they don't bother to reply at all, especially when I am asking them a genuine question which I need the answers to like right away....




"Hey, do you think I should wipe with my hands or just not wipe at all, there's no more toilet paper left and I am at a public bathroom ?"




It's not that hard to reply to a simple text message, it gets tiresome after a while but that's just because I have a relatively short attention span, if the topic is starting to bore me, I start to get less interesting and my text messages gets shorter and shorter, it's like a my message to the person to end the conversation right now before I stop replying entirely and end it abruptly.




I was suppose to get the certificate in February and on the last day there, they even told us they will drop us an email when the certificates were ready for collection, I never received any email of any sort from them except advertisement for their open houses...

"Do you have a passion in cooking? Join us and turn that passion into a career !"... where you work maximum hours and earn minimum wage.

Well the admin side obviously don't have a passion for what they are doing because they suck at what they are doing. Emailed them so many times and they don't reply to a single one of my emails... I am not sending out advertisements... REPLY MY FUCKING EMAILS !




The email I send to them is literally titled  "Regarding my certificate. Please reply to this asap!"




No reply whatsoever. Stupid Fucks. Even resorted to filling out their feedback forms on their website hoping they will reply to that... still decided to be the Stupid Fucks that they are and not reply to that.



I remembered on the last day, I was approached by one of the admission officer who told me to send her an email a few weeks after I graduate from the course to check if I was eligible to be accepted into the diploma course... I send a few and she never replied to any of of them.





The only way now is to call them up since they are so painfully oblivious to how replying to an email works. Can't even do that simple part of their own job properly, to think prospective students have to actually get screened by them first before they are allowed to be seen and interviewed by the chef instructors.



Apparently a lot of my course mate never went to collect their certificate as well because of the fucking stupid timing the school gave us to head down to collect them.





When I went for the interview prior to being accepted to join the certificate program...



"A lot of people who come for this certificate program are usually working adults blah blah blah...."




After completing the course and waiting an incredulous 4 months for them to finalize the certificate because they needed to wait for the trees where they get their paper from to ripen to the good old age of whatever is a good age to make good quality certificate papers out of...



"Oh please come down only on a weekday during this inconvenient timings for a working adult."



It's so fucking stupid how senseless they are. Just mail us the fucking certificates, that's the least you could do for screwing us over on the first day. We were suppose to receive our school identity cards on the first day, the cards allowed us discount privileges at certain bakery supply stores, none of us got the card because their card machine screwed up... for the whole 5 weeks we were there.



I have no idea what they were doing, but I doubt it will take more than a month to fix a bloody card machine, then again they don't understand the simple concept of replying to an email so I guess their negligence in their job is understandable.

So much shyt...

Had no choice but to take my day off for the week today.



Would've love to have my day off on one of the weekends rather than have it during the weekday, spending my weekends slogging away in the kitchen isn't exactly the most fun thing to do, but alas, I had to prioritize and put my Basic Theory Test first since I had already booked the slot for the test today 2 months ago after I failed my first attempt.



Managed to pass today's test, which came as a surprise to me because I did not revise at all the past 2 months after I failed my first attempt, which sucked so bad because I failed by one point, the same score the guy who was seated next to me today during the test got. Because I did not think I would pass, I didn't actually listen to whatever the instructors were saying before the test started about "getting your provisional driving license after you have passed your test today", so when I actually passed, all I knew was that I had to register for something afterwards, but then decided to screw it because I'm probably not going to have the time to actually go for the practical lessons with my work life now taking up most of my time.



Talking about work, I have officially been working for the bakery for about 3 weeks now, the work load has been steadily increasing, evident by the fact that this past week, I have been working over time for at least an hour everyday, and apparently as the week progresses, I will be shouldering more job responsibilities like making cake pops, which sounds fun, but when you have 10 kg to 15 kg worth of cake batter of different flavors to prepare and bake , rainbow cakes to make every other day and tubs after tubs of butter cream of be restocked every week, the last thing  you'd want is to have to be in-charge of making 100 over cake pops per week.




The cake batter part initially sounded therapeutic to me because that's what I tell the bosses of all the bakery I went to for an interview, that I like handling cake batter because I do.... at home.... in small batches that don't weigh over 5kg. The amount of effort it requires me to mix the cake batter by hand to ensure that all the flour, sugar and butter are incorporated after it had it's run at the industrial size mixer is enough to make my arms feel like I have just done the maximum amount of pulls up and anymore pushing would probably result in my pants getting soiled from sharting.





Good thing though is I still like handling cake batter, just not so much the part I have to transfer it to a pipping bag and then pipe them into the cupcake liners, repeat over and over again until the batter is done, it's very time consuming, the boss said it was faster but I would much prefer an ice cream scoop because it's less messy for me.




Rainbow cake is probably the thing I hate making the most in the bakery. It's because of that damn cake that I have to work OT, because of how bloody time consuming it is to make.




These are the steps...



1. Prepare a shit load of Vanilla Cake batter.


2. Measure out a portion of the cake batter and add a shit load of food coloring into the cake batter, you might think it's too much food coloring but don't be fooled, disregard that nagging feeling you have about having too much chemicals in your cake because you're gonna need more.


3. Pour vanilla cake batter that's choked full of food coloring chemicals into prepared cake tin because natural organic food coloring isn't going to bring out the vibrancy of a rainbow.


4. Bake that heap of unicorn poop.


5. Clean up the bowl to prepare for the next color.


6. Repeat Step 2


7.Remove cake from oven and allow it to cool.


8. Once cooled, which could take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes, remove cake from tin.


9. Pour new color cake batter into the empty cake tin and repeat until you get all the colors of the fucking rainbow.



10. Take a picture and post it on Instagram with the hash-tag  #fuckingwasteoftime



The person who decided to invent the rainbow cake should have been born colorblind.




I would be able to bake a lot more products if I didn't have to waste so much time with the damn rainbow cake. The feelings I have for preparing the rainbow cake in this bakery is the same as the feelings I had when I had to prepare the chocolate souffle in the restaurant I was working at....Loathe, loathe for the person who decided to order it.



We offer delicious red velvet cakes, chocolate cakes, vanilla cakes, strawberry cakes that you can pair with vanilla frosting that's speckled throughout with vanilla beans, cream cheese frosting, decadent salted caramel feeling and so much more but nooo~, you want to order the one with the most artificial ingredients inside because of how it looks.


I guess I'm just not the type of person who will go for looks over flavor when it comes to cakes, that's why I don't really understand the hype behind a rainbow cake and why people would be willing to pay so much more for a cake that taste exactly like a normal vanilla cake when at the end of the day, it's going to come out from their ass looking like a hot pile of pre-rolled cake pop dough.



If I wanted to order a cake from the bakery, I would probably go for a chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting, simple flavors that pack so much more punch than the dumb rainbow cake, so much effort but nothing special in terms of flavor, which sounds completely ridiculous to me for something that's meant to be enjoyed when eaten. If I wanted a rainbow, I would go buy a unicorn and feed it beans for breakfast lunch and dinner so it can fart me a rainbow every half an hour depending on how it's digestive system works.




Butter cream is actually not so bad to make, because the mixer is doing all the job, it's a Swiss meringue styled butter cream recipe, sometimes I'd wish they use American Butter cream instead, would be saving me a lot of time with the mise en place.That being said though, the clean up for any sort of butter cream recipe afterwards is always a pain. It's already not easy to clean the small mixing I used to prepare the buttercream in , much less a huge industrial size mixing bowl, it's so oily and the water just doesn't want to clean away all the small scraps of buttercream that's clinging on the the side of the bowl so desperately, and even when the bowl looks clean, it's still going to feel extremely greasy and oily.





Hopefully the cake pop responsibility won't be endowed to me so soon otherwise my overtime is gonna go over the roof and I will truly be working in a minimum wage job.





Also signed the contract last week so that makes me an employee of the bakery now, one that's still on probation and will be on probation for the next 6 months. I don't really like signing contracts because it makes everything sound so "legal" with conditions like...



"You can't replicate the recipes of the bakery for monetary and non-monetary gains otherwise legal actions will be taken against you..." so even if I were to have the recipes memorized in my head, I can't make a batch at home to satisfy my craving for a good bakery quality cupcake.



"There will be no Over-Time pay..." None at all, so if you work Overtime, your hardworking attitude will not be recognized at all, it's just you not working up to speed, that's all.


"You shall not discuss your salary with anyone..." probably because of how low the pay is.



"If you were to violate any of the conditions, the company will have the right you terminate your contract immediately without prior notice..." Yeah, that's if I don't quit first.





The boss is a relatively nice person but apparently the last baker quit because the boss got too demanding during the festive season and had set a bar so high that it was impossible to reach for the baker. I heard this from one of the other baker when I decided to break the ice and silence with some questions... and also because I love to gossip, so if that side of her starts to show, then I am probably gonna do the same because the main crux of why I quit my last few jobs were mainly because the people that I was working with started becoming unbearable. ... which puts me in the same position as Taylor Swift, if all your relationships aren't going well, the problem probably lies with you.