fuchsia fragments: baking

Merry Christmas from SG to SYD!

12/27/2016 02:50:00 pm

Week 9: Baking in Tokyo

4/10/2016 08:07:00 pm

Lots of fun at work this week! First off, we had our hanami lunch picnic with an impressive turn out. So happy that almost everyone accepted my calendar invite so we had a big group of about 15 people! Unfortunately, the weather was a little gloomy and cool however we all still had a great time and the cookies were yummy! I am so glad that the little oven works. What a machine it is!

Work is ramping up a little bit which is always welcomed. Also had a few calls to connect back with ANZ so that's always great to keep up with what's happening as well.

Some of the Japan team and I were like ninjas in the night or secret squirrels on Thursday evening "breaking and entering" into the boss' office (we had a key...) so that we could cover his office in aluminium foil and balloons and leaving a present on his desk. Mission successful, he was surprised in the morning... too bad I was about 10 minutes late arriving otherwise I could have seen his reaction!

And then, my colleague ingeniously 'set up' an important meeting with the boss only to be accidentally 'double booked' at 3:30 for cake and Happy Birthday in Portugese! Surprise number 2 pulled off! The cake was yummy I was told which was a huge relief considering the electric beaters that I bought from Donki (cheapo ones of course) completely died as I was beating the buttercream so I had to finish beating it with a very weak whisk and a fork!! Luckily, the butter was soft enough to pretty much 'stir' to incorporate some more air in. And instead of mixing the ganache in, I just decided to layer the cake with ganache inbetween and use the buttercream for the outside of the cake.

Friday was the quarterly social event. And wow, it's boisterous, there was a pretty big turn out considering it was open to all GFA team members and I can't believe the time went by so quickly. It was almost 11 PM by the time we wrapped up (and went to Hooters for another drink) and shit, I cannot believe I drank so much. So we were pretty tipsy walking into Hooters and we had another beer and had this crazy freaking idea of ordering the extra-extra-extra hot buffalo wings. BIG MISTAKE TO TRY THIS WHEN YOU ARE DRUNK. My mouth was on fire and seriously, I was so grateful at this moment that the subway stops around midnight and we all had to go home because I went home and vomited and it was like tasting the chilli again... GROSS. Luckily, I had yakult at home and after vomiting and then passing out, I was feeling great in the morning just in time for my Japanese class!

Had another Japanese lesson on Saturday then went to Ikebukuro and Sunshine City to check out Pokemon World. It's kind of small but there are some cute (and reasonably expensive) items for fans. The shopping centre is a nice place to spend maybe 2 or 3 hours and have lunch.

Today, I had a trial baking class with my colleague Elena! She's a member of ABC Cooking School so I got a free lesson and we 'learnt' how to made Strawberry Shortcake. So yummy and we had a great time! Apparently a lot of Japanese locals sign up to classes as it is a great way to spend time and you get to eat what you cook and take home the leftovers. So a lot of people will sign up for a 10 AM lesson as it is a 2 hour lesson and then eat what they made as lunch! Pretty smart and the courses are really healthy and pretty cool. They do Italian, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, traditional Japanese, Korean, French... etc. Wish I could understand Japanese fluently so I can take these classes on my own!

This afternoon, I walked around Yaesu... YES!!! I have finally learnt how to navigate the nightmare that is Tokyo Station... Got a few more drugstore products (beginning to think I should probably stop now...) and got a few lighter tops from H&M. It was a good shopping day!

Cherry Blossoms season is finishing and it is just so magical to walk through a street where the petals are falling like snow. So glad I was here to see it. Photos just can't do these pretty flowers justice.

apartment

Week 7: Quarter-end

4/05/2016 05:08:00 pm

baking

in 2016, i want...

1/11/2016 12:41:00 pm

Right - so 11 days into the new year and I finally have somethings I want to jot down.

Firstly, my goals have changed. I've spent the past two years really solidly working on my business - slowly but steadily. I was not getting a ton of orders but there were peaks and I was really enjoying it. I like spending time on my own in the kitchen and just tuning the world out while I bake. It was great especially when you're given a task that you haven't done before and in the end, you manage to do it. Really fulfilling.

In the last year months, and even more closely, this past weekend, I've also realised that I try to do too much at the expense of other things. I've spent around 30 hours this weekend (not kidding) in the kitchen for cakes and prepping for a wedding. It's exhausting. Even now, I've taken a day off whilst it is 30 degrees outside and smoldering in the kitchen. I've hidden away to the darkness that is my bedroom, shades down and looking for some quiet comfort.

I'm moving to Tokyo in a few weeks and I am really looking forward to it. The end game to this step is a promotion and to focus on my career goals. With that comes even more time away from baking. It's not a hard equation: would I throw away my (pretty) stable career for one that's just budding, waiting by my laptop or phone for a new order to come in? Not likely. Not in this decade...

So as I was baking my nth tray of macarons in the evening last night, I sort of wondered if I'd be willing to come back to all this: giving up weekends at a time. I know I don't do it for the money for there's no money to be made really on this lower end of the scale. It's more the enjoyment and giving happiness to others. Maybe I will cut back? Or maybe I will rethink my strategy? What will I turn down? What is easy and achievable?

I look at what I wanted to do in 2015 - more cake classes and things related to baking. But even wanting to do that, I didn't find the time. It's almost like saying to those acquaintances, border line friends yes we'll catch up, let's do it. And you never do. And in all honesty, you probably never will.

2016 is easy: career goals + savings + travel + seeing my friends in other parts of the world.

Here's to a new year.

baking

Christmas is freaking amazing in JULY!

7/26/2015 04:55:00 pm

An exhausting Saturday...

I had a cake due for delivery at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning and my eBay package did not arrive in time. I was freaking out cause I really needed Dora figurines and no where sold them - apparently it isn't so popular anymore. I tried DJs, Myer, HobbyCo, the ABC shop, Kmart, Target AND Coles. No Luck. It was already late evening and thank goodness for Toys r Us and the girl on the phone who put the last FOUR... FOUR... little figurines on hold for me. Saved my cake.

And so it was an early morning start to get there at 9 AM when they opened to get these figurines, then had to race home to finish cake, box and deliver. And pack my roaster, turkey, duck and chicken (turducken!) and tupperware to get to Crows Nest.

So turns out all the timing worked out perfectly. Delivered cake, got Shannon and got to the Wongs' by around 11:30 which left us about 45 minutes to stuff the bird inside a bird inside a bird. What an experience. And no, I am in no hurry to repeat in anytime soon. But the end result: BEST TURDUCKEN EVER.

Lots of giggles and laughs along the way...

"I have never touched a bird this way before"

"Massaging a chook is totally the way I imaged my Saturday..."

I don't think we actually did so much - coffee run halfway through cooking, basting every hour, catching up on Masterchef, making mulled cider, mulled wine and tomato salad (literally.. tomatoes). And amazing paprika potatoes and sweet potato chips (too many on the tray, turned out soggy) but the potatoes were AMAZEBALLS. And made pumpkin pie and Joyce's giraffe swiss roll for dessert. yummmmmmm.

We cut back on the junk food this time (just 4 packets of chips ... lol) and the mulled wine was so good. Wish I could have had more if I wasn't driving.

We managed to fit 14 people, 2 dogs and a baby into the terrace... huge effort and watch 3 movies!!! Although we did skip through Into the Woods. Funniest thing ever though cause we skipped 5 minutes and NO IDEA what was happening. Weirdest movie ever... so not a Disney movie for kids. Mad Max: Fury Road was another weird one... it was literally a road fighting movie... with a guy playing the guitar the whole time??? And we also watched Pitch Perfect.

Anyways I think by the end everyone was so tired that it was like.. okay... what's next. Home!!! Please! It's a great drive in the early hours of the morning and although there was still more traffic than expected, it was give or take 35 minutes home including a drop off around Glebe. So glad to hit the pillow.

baking

Cake and Bake Show

6/14/2015 06:12:00 pm

baking

And you thought the week before was bad...

4/19/2015 01:39:00 pm

baking

Bomboloni

3/29/2015 10:59:00 pm

apple picking

O M G I'm so tired

3/01/2015 08:41:00 pm

baking

Productive

11/17/2014 10:00:00 am

There are just some weekends when you do a lot of things, and then feel that you can do more.

This last weekend was one of them. On Saturday, it was our typical brunch date in Surry Hills. It doesn’t happen often that I go to the same café twice within a very close time period but this was just one of those places where I really wanted something off the menu because I saw someone else eating it and it looked really good. And it was. French toast with grilled bananas and maple syrup plus crispy bacon (I actually asked for ‘extra’ crispy but it was just crispy to me). It was even more worthwhile cause I got a parking spot literally on the doorstep on the café. Big win. Chatted a couple of hours away about life, other people, you know that kind of girly gossipy stuff that we all like to indulge in.

I actually had planned to do a fair bit on Saturday and I think I did! I made the batches of white chocolate cake for Leonard’s 18^th cake, cooled, sliced, stacked and iced. I made my Christmas jams and burnt my arm in the process (but I swear by Vaseline, the white petroleum jelly kind – swelling gone in a few hours). I was so concerned that the raspberry jam didn’t set as thickly as I like jams to… I guess we’ll see but when I tipped one of the jars over in the morning, it wasn’t runny so that’s a good sign? And I even made my Christmas fruit cake. That took ages mainly because I didn’t have very many of the small cake tins so they had to be done in batches. And the cakes take 80 mins to cook so… there were a few lots of 80 minutes going on. And I was baking into the wee hours of Sunday morning. Whoops, perhaps I should have saved it for another day?

So as you’d expect, it was a bit of a Sunday sleep in and then it was cake decorating time. Ohhh, I’ve waited so long for this moment. The kneading fondant bit actually made me gag (I think it was either the smell of all the sugar or something I ate before) so that was rather unpleasant. But once I had the cakes iced with fondant and the real fun began… it was awesome. It was like thinking of so many things to put on it on the spot and random placing of figurines until they looked good. The cake looked epic and I was really happy with it. Yay.

I even made the cake pops that someone had asked for so I was feeling super accomplished and even managed to watch a few episodes of TVB (OMG, have not done that in… years?) and was in bed by 10. And up at 5:30 and ran 5k’s.

Think I may be a little high at the moment? Naturally, of course.

Anyway, I can’t help but notice this because it is kind of a pet peeve of mine. When people use slang at work. Actually, it isn’t even slang, it is just inappropriate use of the English language. Words and phrases like “you’s” and “heaps busy” and “but however” and “yeah cause…” or in email and commas and other punctuation is used in incorrect places (yes, I am one of those people who will read something and pause mentally when I see a comma or full stop)… it makes me wonder if people still care about the English language or if teachers are teaching children all the little things that matter (more likely, the child does not bother to learn the correct use of words and grammar). I remember my primary school teachers saying “You’s is not a word! Ewes is the plural for female sheep.” And “A comma is used to separate or group things not just cause you think there needs to be one after every 5 words”. And finally… writing emails like you were actually speaking to someone in conversation… big no!!!