1 week from home....

Christmas is just round the corner and I'm ONE week away from HK, Noel and home.

I've been SO excited lately I can hardly sit still or focus on my readings for more than 10mins at time! Hahaha!

I've missed home and Noel (well, in my books, they're the one and same! :D) and am looking forward to seeing them both soon.

Meanwhile, I've decided to offload pictures from my overly bloated camera memory stick in lieu of the obscene amounts of photos I intend to take during the Law Christmas ball, which I'm ecstatic over as well.

Hahaa! Speaking of the Law Ball - I haven't even gotten round to piecing an outfit for that night yet, and I haven't got a party dress in my wardrobe! :S This is going to take some creativity and imagination but I'm looking forward to the challenge on Monday evening! Gambatte~!

Ok! So what have I unearthed from my huge stash of food pictures?

This: My 1st ever attempt at making my own granola. (If my memory serves me right, this was made during Spring this year... SO sometime in or around April 2010? Hahha! I KNOW... I'm pathetic at updating this blog! I promise to be more consistent this year. Kekkeke~

Maple Cranberry Crunch is what I've called it! Check it out! I love how the ruby of the cranberries contrasts so wonderfully with the rich gold of the granola bits.

Isn't it gorgeous!?

Noel absolutely ADORED it. Since neither of us has a sweet tooth, this was less sweet compared to normal granola and as I used less butter, honey and sugar, the stats on this batch was much lower and healthier compared to the average granola without compromising on the other health benefits! I'm pretty proud of how it turned out though I feel that I should bake them longer and have them crisp up a bit more next time.

More crunch, more bite! *nyom!*


2010 marks the year where I have been in a perpetual mood to bake and create. My latest hobby (I suppose) = Creating recipes and feeding people. SOooooooo shortly after the granola, I jumped right into making my first ever loaf of bread!

Hahaahahaha! This was an enjoyable/interesting experience 'coz I didn't have the right tools to make a perfect normal-bread-looking loaf, so I had to improvise and baked this in a round tray.... But anyhoo...

The process:

This was the first proofing. Such a cute tiny ball of dough huh =D

After 1 hour! @.@ My baby has GROOOWWWWN~!

Turning the dough out and punching the air out of the little lump! *bam bam bam!*

The final product!! And my first ever loaf! Woot! Proud mama here! YES.

This was scrumptious. The crust was firm and crusty... the dough was soft and supple with just the right amount of elasticity. I was pretty pleased with my 1st attempt - without ANY tools even! Hahah! Yes I know, I'm pretty jurassic in my equipment; I make everything with just a wooden spoon, bowl, sheer arm power *flexes* and my trusty oven!

We're not huge bread lovers, but we managed to finish this eventually. You probably can't tell, but the loaf was MASSIVE! Lol! We put it in the deep freezer and retoasted it before eating it... It lasted us a good month! @.@

Before I forget! This was the stash I made for that day - didn't take pictures of the cookie tarts I made (boo~) but at least there's this shot!




Look familiar? Haha! Yeah, they're my Jam Jewel cookies - the red ones at least. The green ones were coconut jam cookies - which were even more popular than the jam ones! @.@ Guess I know which ones to make more of and sell next time! I think Noel loved it so much he ended up hiding a stash for himself away from his colleague at one point! Lol!

My boyfriend cracks me up. He's my biggest fan and vice versa. =)

Ok! It's 7:47am now! And I'm off to get my customary morning run! Toodles peeps!

Chat soon!

Peace! xoxo

Jam Jewels

Was bored.

And tired.

And still on cloud 9.

Decided to bake while writing the ACT formative essay on misrep....

Wanted to bake berry white chocolate chip cookies but figured that I'm so experienced in those that I ought to try something new. So I did.

Made the jam (woot)!

Comprises of dried fruit and raspberry jam.

Mmmm. Smells wonderful. Hope it tastes as good too!



I love it when my room smells of sugared vanilla butter.

Peace out!

xoxo.

Sugar n' Spice

Here's a fun fact: this cookie was inpired by my professor.

Another fun fact: Inspired while doing tutorial homework.

Am I not the most geekish person ever?


Anyway, it's 12:30am and I've just had my dinner.... My digestive tract has been acting up of late and I've been rather ill so dinner was the 2nd meal for today.... *sigh* I need to get my appetite back on stable grounds. T_T

So a lil' something about this cookie. I opted for a harder, firmer cookie dough this time 'coz I wanted to try something new and thought it'd be pretty cool to have a crunchy and hard spiced cookie. The idea was to make coin-sized cookies (and therefore bite-sized cookies) that you can pop into your mouth and after biting down hard on it, the cookie will break into tiny pieces and release a mild but oldly addictive spiced aroma.

To add some originality to the cookie, I thought of rolling it in some sugar.... Just to see how it might turn out. And as you have probably guessed, I was pleasantly surprised. =)

With respect to how I envisioned the cookie, I thought I achieved my objective. To ensure that I wasn't going to breack any teeth (insert random geek-dom-ness - negligece in providing defective products) before I distributed them out, I tried 2, just to make sure they weren't too hard...

Unfortunately, I think it might still have been too hard for some.... ^^' Reviews weren't too good on these this time around... Probably coz it was an unexpected cookie; can't blame them since I didn't warn them about the hardness of the cookie! Hahah! My bad!

Thank gawd no teeth were harmed in the process.

Anyway, onto the shots....

Waiting patiently (or impatiently) for the hot breath of the oven.

Voilá!

Was inspired by Alice and Wonderland.

Mmmmm.

One of the things I adored about taking these out from the oven is how sparkly they were. They resembled jewelled amber dew drops. Sparkly and pretty, like a gem stone.

I really loved this cookie.

Brownie Fudge Mochaccino Cookies

I was up late one night and had just baked a batch of Brownies for Meeran and Liyan (marshmellows included), when it struck me:

Why shouldn't I combine brownie dough + cookie dough together?

You'd get the perfect balance of fudge-yness and chewy-ness.

Perfect?? YES YES YES! (Or so I thought... Gleefully too)

Well, here I am reading up on standing of applicants in EU Courts and baking.

Queer but true.

Anyway, in between Articles 263(1) to 263(4), I threw together my fudge brownie batter and a chocolate chip cookie dough I've tried before, chopped up the remainder of my white chocolate and dumped it into the glorious gooey chocolate and added some coffee essence just coz I felt like it.

Chocolate + Coffee are THE star pairing.

Which is why I LOVE mocha.

You must be crazy to not love Choco-Coffee, or incredibly sensitive to caffeine... Like Noel. My poor boy trembles after drinking English Breakfast Tea. @.@

So anyway.... Off into the oven the dough went.

The cookies were honestly good enough to eat as they were.... But I'm in a mood for excess at the moment...

A sin, I know.

I am a self-confessed sinner when baking.

And probably inspired by the white snow flakes wisping by my window at the moment... So I scurried down to Waitrose to get some vanilla white chocolate.

You know it's good white chocolate when you can vanilla flakes in them. Mmm. Hate white chocolate but I can appreciate a good product.

I know that the chocolate fudge and coffee cookie is already dense and rich and so I lightened the white chocolate melt by adding in some skimmed milk. Personally, I think I should've added more but I was afraid that it might not allow the chocolate to harden... So I was a tad conservative.

Here's the end result.

Again, self-praise is an international disgrace bla bla blah.

But to hell with it! Look at these babies!

On the chopping board waiting for the white chocolate goodness to harden.

On a plate. Just 'cause it's prettier.

Upclose and Personal

I am particularly proud of this shot. XD

OKAY. Now who wants to be FED?

Food, food, food..... GREAT food. YUM.

The thing about school is this:

You don't get much time to do anything else but READ and READ and READ.

And then when you're done with reading, you WRITE and WRITE and WRITE.

Whether it be typing out a 2,500-word essay on the laptop or writing out tutorial answers on a notepad, the result is the same:- school, and especially law school, is time-consuming.

Which explains why I have't updated in E.O.N.S.

Apologies.

Nevertheless, I am BACK. And guess what? With a post about none other than food - good food for that matter. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

After 3 gruelling weeks of having sold my soul to the workaholic-devil, I have emerged from beneath the workpile and went on a grocery splurge on baking products. All I knew was that I woke up one morning and my mind was screaming, "BAKE BAKE BAKE!!!"

It was a scary mantra and one that repeated itself all the way to Sainsbury's, down the aisles and all the way to the checkpoint, where it turned from "BAKE BAKE BAKE" to "YES YES YES! PAY NOW."

As you can see, I NEEDED a creative outlet - I needed to create/make something and I needed to do it QUICK.

You might think I overexaggerate when I say that I need creative expression. But let me assure you, it is not. I do thrive on creative expression. When I do not get my 'fix'(gosh, sounds like an addiction doesn't it?) I feel empty and frustrated. The cognitive dissonance can be quite hard to bear as I am left feeling unnurtured and uninspired.

The inspiration for this recipe was Noel. Everything that went into this cookie, and even things that were omitted, are Noel's favourites - coconut, macadamia, white chocolate with NO cinnamon added. Valentine's day, which also coincidentally is our 3rd year anniversary, is round the corner and I have him pretty much fixed in my thoughts.

I'm really quite proud of these cookies.

Firstly, the recipe was ENTIRELY self-constructed. No prior recipes referred to, no existing recipes tweaked. I literally did it from scratch and by instinct! Extremely proud of that achievement!

Secondly, considering that I haven't baked in almost a full year now, I am exeptionally proud that I didn't set my kitchen on fire..... Let's just say that I've managed to set my TOASTER on fire... So that should give you an indication of my level of *ahem* 'expertise' in the kitchen for the moment.

Thirdly, I did all of it my hand! That's right peeps, the old-fashioned way - no techonology. Just a fork. (sore arm yes)

Okay! Enough rambling. Let's move onto food porn (you know that's why you're reading this):

The Dough

Yep, I need a bigger bowl. It was bursting with goodness! Gaaaahhhhh

The Line-up

Convicts: It's a crime to be sinfully delicious.

The Close-up

A cookie-shot ain't complete until you have one of these!

*Blissful sigh*

Aren't they gorgeous!? I'm so happy!!!

Which reminds me, Cat and I went to QED Bistro down by St. Michael's Hill the other day for some yummy crepe. They were so good though I must say, I kinda expected/wanted my crepe to be thinner and crisper. Nevertheless, it was amazing for its price and size (massive!).

My spinach-cheese-mushroom crepe.

That's me, right there before digging in... Spastic look included.

Cat's mexicana crepe (avocado alert)

A very very delighted Cat. ;)

Good times.

Russian Cherry Teacakes

I've bought a new toaster oven!

And conveniently burnt myself making my 1st batch of cookies since the death of my previous one.

Took this recipe from the FoodNetwork.com (a great place for recipes by the way), and altered it (unintentionally, but I have a problem following recipes. Haha).

What I didn't know till AFTER I prepped the dough was that this is a twist on a traditional Christmas cookie - the Russian Teacake. Well, Noel had one and said it tasted like Christmas.

I guess I succeeded, aye?

cookies cooling on the tray....

Cookies ready to eat!

Nyom nyom nyom.

Russian Cherry Teacakes - I love thee.

Blueberry White Choc Chunk Cookies

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I discovered something really interesting while back in Singapore - Toaster ovens make pretty good substitutes for a normal oven when it comes to baking cookies.

I found out while staying at my mom's and conveniently short-circuiting the entire house coz I didn't know that our oven was faulty. With a large ball of dough sitting in my bowl, I figured I'd try toasting it in the toaster oven!

VOILA!

Magic.

Armed with this knowledge (new to me, though I'm sure many of you out there already knew this secret), I gave in to the baking monster lurking within me.

I woke up one morning and all I could think of was "BAKE BAKE BAKE BAKE BAKE BAKE BAKE BAKE BAKE Cookies!". I swear it was a silent but incredibly powerful mantra. The next thing I knew, I was breezing through the aisles of supermarkets and throwing stuff into my basket. Did you know that it's easier to find Coffee Extract than it is to find Vanilla Extract, which is a staple in baking? Omg I had to sift through 3 supermarkets before I found it... And yep, as all things are in Citysuper, it was MAJORLY overpriced.

I came back, threw the stuff into the bowl....

The white chocolate chunks actually look like cheese here.... Hm. Cheese cookies. I wonder....

And popped them into the toaster oven for them to poof up and bake nicely. NYOM.

Ta-dah!

Aren't they pretty?

Blueberry White Choc Chunk Cookies! I'm really proud of this batch since I made it all by hand and even chopped the white chocolate myself! Yaay!

Gah. Love baking! Next bake fest ---- Russian Cherry Teacakes!

Watch out folks! Callie G. is back and armed with a toaster oven that BAKES!

Peach Ginger Muffins + Macadamia White Choc Chip Cookies!

I made a batch of peach ginger muffins and macadamia white chocolate chip cookies before I went on my Easter break. It's been a while and I've been tardy in my updates!

Nevertheless, seeing as how I've completed the 1st of 2 courseworks and am taking a break, I figured I'd start clearing my backlog. (heh heh)

So here we go!

I googled and surfed the internet for a peach ginger muffin recipe but failed to find any. So, I'm quite proud to announce that this batch of muffins is an original recipe by ME! Muahahha! I love peaches and I love ginger so this was a good combo in my opinion. The best part about baking your own goodies is that you can tailor the ingredients to match your tastebuds. Since I'm a diet/health freak, this batch of muffins was a heart/cholestrol/diet-healthy batch as I reduced the amount of sugar added, used wholegrain flour and swapped butter for light olive oil.

Okay, onto photos of my baked goods! (food porn alert!)

Peach Ginger Muffins

The finished batch!

I'm so proud of you!!!!

A closer look!

I loved them - they were so yummy! The only point I need to note for future muffin-baking-escapades is that I ought to shake the muffin tray a few times to release air bubbles from the batter before baking. The many pockets of air within the muffin kinda tarnished the experience for me.

Ah well!


Macadamia White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Before popping them into the oven!

Cookies OUT! Piping hot and delectable! MmmmMMm!

The finished batch! (There was more but half was packed for Kyle and 1/4 was packed for Noel)

Another close up!

I loved the cookies much more than the muffins! Anyway, I baked this particular cooki only because Noel loves macadamia and white chocolate. Unfortunately, what I didn't know was that he hates cinnamon... But I ADORE cinnamon and tend to dust any batter I make generously with the fragrant spice!

:S Well, at least I know now! No cinnamon for Noel!

Am itching to bake some more! And I wonder who my guinea pigs will be! Guess I'll haveto wait till everyone's back from Easter break! Hehhehehe!

Speaking of which! My flatmate, Ashley, is returning to Bristol this Monday! Can't wait!

Ash & I just before Easter. =)

Quaker Oats into Ginger Cookie Dough + Other happenings on a beautiful Friday

Yep! That's right, I couldn't stomach the oats any longer so I threw the remaining sachets of oats into a new cookie dough - Oatmeal Ginger!


I love ginger cookies and always love it more if their incredibly spicy. I thought to shred raw ginger into the dough but somehow, the spiciness I had hoped for didn't come through.... I'm guessing I should just stick with ground ginger spice next time.

What's interesting though, is that as you bite threw the cookie, you can see ginger fibre in between the soft chewy layers. It's amusing but unsatisfactory. Hahah!

Anyway, I met Kyle and his friend, Jess, for lunch @ Nando's.

I suggested Nando's since Kyle's never had Nando's before and there is NO excuse for anyone to not try Nando's! So here we go!

That's right pal. This sign says it ALL.

Seeing as there were 3 of us, we ordered the whole platter which gave us the options of 2 large sides. So we naturally went with chips and corn on the cob.

A whole chicken, chips & corn. Mmmmm. Extra spicy of course.

Jess! She's such a sweet and nice girl! SHame we couldn't hang out more. Would love to get to know her better.

Oh happy happy Kyle.

Just see his look of absolute bliss. Hahah! (I know you want more Kyle)

After such a spicy and satisfying meal, we needed something sweet to achieve a maximum high on our gastronomical conquest (and also to mellow the sharp spice of the Extra Hot XXX Peri-peri sauce we were were dousing our food in) and headed into Brown's Brasserie for some good old tea-time sweet treats!

This raspberry chocolate brownie is the BEST I've ever had. It's warm, MOIST and filled with the crunchiness of raspberry seeds! I love it!

Innards shot. See the gooey goodness? Mmmm. Yum Yum!

Kyle had their vanilla ice-cream which came with a cookie.

So GOOD. I was on cloud 9.

I had to leave the 'party' early coz I had FUZE to prepare for. And wow, what a night to remember.

One of the most amusing sights ever always occurs backstage. Upfront, as the audience, all you see is the glamour and the finesse of he production. Now here're some exclusive shots of what REALLY goes on backstage.

Our dressing room:-


Complete with chocolate candies!

These were finished in an eye-blink!

Also, I absolutely loved Hannah G.'s hair last night. It's soo.... Gothically delicious.

Side profile.

Gotta love the hair & her make-up!

I love seeing how we're all always chipping in to help each other look good.

Nothing short of a semi-stip tease. Yep! The things we do when we're all high on performing.

Love ya Group 2.

All the girls.

The boys.

After FUZE concluded, we headed over to JAVA for the after party! It was a MAD HOUSE!

Yep that's right. I'm stamped VIP.

And nothing works better than a bag of chips to finish the night.