About Marshmallows, Chocolates and Everything in Between

 

The finished product, with freshly drizzled molten dark chocolate.

A closer look.

Removed from the cake tin.

View from the side.

Look at all that layers!  Mission Accomplished!

(Now that you have finished drooling over the pictures, I shall begin my post proper)

I baked this baby in January.  I was feeling particularly generous during my birthday week, so I decided to bake this over the weekend, then share it with my colleagues on Monday during contact time.  It is essentially a 3-layered cake: the base layer is the brownie; the middle layer is the mousse, topped with marshmallows; and the top layer is the chocolate cream, then topped with more marshmallows and drizzle with molten dark chocolate.  Sounds sinful?  Wait till you taste it!

I made both the brownie and the mousse on Saturday cos I need to chill both of them overnight in the fridge to let the mousse stand before I can apply the final layer.  As I said, it was a MAMMOTH 2-day effort!

Baking the brownie:
Nut-chopping frenzy!  Like my Christmas Cupcakes, the walnuts I bought had to be chopped up in order to spread out well in the brownie paste.  The brownie itself was relatively easy to bake, which is quite an accomplishment for me.  I once baked a brownie using those ‘instant brownie mix’, and it was disappointing.  Come to think of it, that was my FIRST baking experience!  Things sure have come full circle.  The current version was a rather thin brownie (to make way for the other layers), but it was a smooth, smooth preparation process.

Pouring the mousse:
Once the brownie had cooled down, I popped the brownie out of the 10-inch cake tin into a 10-inch loose bottom cake tin.  Then, I poured the mousse onto the brownie, then arranged the marshmallows on top.  The tricky thing was to keep the marshmallows in their places while I continued pouring the mousse over them.  The whole thing at this point looked like something I stole from the sewers but hey, gotta have faith in the end product, right?

Spreading the cream:
On Sunday afternoon, the mousse has firmed up, so it’s time to spread the chocolate cream on top.  I followed the cookbook’s instructions to a tee: melt the chocolate, then mix it with cream.  However, when the mixture became thicker and thicker, I knew an ‘uh-oh’ was not far behind.  Nonetheless, I decided to spread the thick mixture over my mousse.  So, the supposed chocolate cream had become chocolate crust.  Oh well.  Can’t win them, can we?

After that little mishap, I decorated the top with more marshmallows, and drizzle them with molten dark chocolate.  As you can see from the pictures, I did a pretty convincing job   Even my dear wife gave a long whoooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaa when she saw my work!

The moment of truth:
On Monday morning, I pushed out the cake from the bottom with much effort, and my ‘baby’ was born!  My colleagues were mighty impressed (a couple of them complained that I spoilt their appetite for dinner after eating their 2.5 inch x 2.5 inch slices). The whole thing turned out better than I had expected.  Now I know I can recommend my cookbook to any budding bakers out there!

About Encryption

My son has been speaking simple words for quite some time already. But recently, he started to speak his usual words with either the consonants or vowels replaced with other alphabets.  E.g. normally he would say, “seven, eight, nine, ten”, now he would say, “seben, eick, nime, fen”.  Initially, I thought he’s just being playful, cos he knew he said the words wrongly, and that his daddy and mommy would spot his mistakes from a mile away, so he just wanna see our response and have a good laugh about it.

However, the more I think about his actions, the clearer it becomes: My. Son. Knows. ENCRYPTION.

WHOA.

I mean, I may be thinking too much, but think about it: what are the basics of message encryption?  You take a normal message, run it through a cipher, and out comes an encrypted message, which is exactly what my son did!  Is my son a digital prodigy? Is he The One?  Am I in the Matrix?  Will my son fly?

WHOA!

About a Tarty Affair

Long overdue update again!  During this year’s CNY, my dear wife felt the sudden urge to bake her own pineapple tarts.  So, me being a loving hubby, went to Holland Village and bought her all the necessary ingredients and tools.  After seeing her creations of joy, my fingers started to itch.  And since there were leftover pineapple filling…

Being a true dude, I focussed on searching a pineapple tart recipe that is meant for dudes, i.e. tasty and easy to make.  So, I found my dream recipe here (and the video here).  I opted for the cocoon shape instead of the sunny-side-up shape because it looked so effortless on the video.  Also, I couldn’t imagine myself flattening dough evenly with a rolling pin.  Therefore, cocoon-shaped pineapple tart it is, then!

Dude Baking Tips 101: ALWAYS look for an easier way out.  Although conventional recipes call for mixing butter with flour using finger tips, I simply used the electric mixer to mix the two up, then change the mixer’s “hands” to dough kneaders and Voila!  Effortless dough produced

Ironically, the biggest challenge of this little culinary mission / experiment was neither handling the dough nor the baking process.  It’s getting the bloody sticky pineapple filling out of the plastic bag and shaping them into little oval balls.  It’s like really, really dry nose dirt.  And it makes a sick noise (sounded kinda like the alien egg sequence in Alien) whenever I succeeded in prying them out of the bag with my spoon.  Somebody went waaaaaaay overboard with the glucose…

But once that part was over, everything else was a breeze.  It’s all in the preparations.  Once I got the ball rolling, I managed to churn out 80 pineapple tarts within 2 hours.  After that, just glaze and bake.

Feedback on my maiden attempt has been great!  The texture was a bit flaky, but all in all, it’s good stuff   So, I guess I can start to take orders for CNY 2012 lor!

About Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody!  There’s nothing like some delicious pumpkin cupcakes to bring in the Yule-tide spirit, so I baked them, yeah.

The recipe looked simple enough.  Just prepare mashed pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, butter, self-rising flour, ginger powder and chopped pistachio nuts, mix them up together, put into cupcake cups, bake for 30 minutes and voila! Pumpkin cupcakes!  Now, if only reality was THAT simple…

Most of the ingredients can be bought without much difficulty.  However, the things that used up most of my time were the pumpkin and the pistachio nuts.  I needed to steam the pumpkin prior to mashing it into a pulp, so I whipped out the pan and the “3-legged steaming stand”.  Not big enough to hold the pumpkin.  Changed to a shorter “3-legged steaming stand”.  Still not enough space to hold the pumpkin.  So, I had to set up my stainless steel steamer set, just to steam half a small pumpkin (the steamer is big enough to steam, like, 20 xiao long bao).  After steaming, the pumpkin did became easier to be scooped from its peel, but it also felt like moist earwax…

The next troublemaker was the pistachio nuts.  It was at the moment of purchasing the ingredients that I realised that pistachio nuts have nutshells.  Yeah, that sounded nuts, but I thought little about it at the time.  When it’s time to prepare the ingredients, it finally dawned on me that I, FBJ, would have to hand-peel/crack over 100 pistachio nuts and chopped them.  Man, my fingers have never moved so fast before (not even during exams or computer games).  For 20 minutes, it was just grab, crack, throw, grab, crack, throw, grab, crack, throw, ad infinitum.  That had to be the nuttiest moment in my life, ever!

After these two challenges, the rest of the baking process was pretty straight forward.  Until I had to use a piping to squeeze the batter into the cupcake cups, that is.  I scooped the batter into the piping bag, lifted up the bag, and then stared at the aluminium piping tip beside me.  My mind went, “OK, so this is gonna be like the opening treasure hunt sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I just need to snip the tip of the bag, then attach the piping tip to the bag before the batter flows out.  Piece of cake.”  On hindsight, ‘piece of cake’ was more like ‘piece of rolling boulder’.  In other words, it was TOUGH.

The moment I snipped the tip of the piping bag, the batter started flowing out immediately.  I hurriedly attached the piping tip to the bag, amid a flurry of flowing batter and shattered ego.  For a while, I thought I made it.  Time to make some cupcakes.  As soon as I tilt the piping bag downwards, the piping tip promptly dropped into the cupcake cup and was buried by the batter.  “OK, so I sucked at this just like Indiana Jones,” I thought.  I continued piping the batter into the remaining cups before I finally excavated the piping tip.  By the way, my first piping experience made me feel like shitting.  Seeing the batter ooze out in long, sticky forms just reminded me of what I see when I sit on the toilet bowl every day.  Oh well, at least this one is edible.

As a result of my stubborn perseverance, 23 delicious and adorable pumpkin cupcakes were born that day.  And somebody’s gonna pile on some fats after this.

About yummy wife-made beef noodles

Not just ANY beef noodles, but YUMMY wife-made beef noodles!  Get a load of this baby: chunky succulent beef cubes, juicy mushrooms, springy CQYD noodles, crispy Shanghai green, all swimming in a thick oyster sauce gravy.  Now that’s what I call heaven on earth!

This dish got a bit of history, too.  When I started dating my wife back in 2004 (Gosh, has it been that long?!), she used to brag about all the wonderful dishes she cooked while she was studying in Melbourne, Australia.  This was one of them.  Come to think of it, maybe she was making a sales pitch.  You know, like, “If you marry me next time, you will get to eat this dish and that dish…”  Ah well, I guess she knew I was a sucker for delicious food.

Anyway, that was 2004.  6 years later, after a wedding, a honeymoon, a baby son and countless sleepless nights, she has finally found the time to cook this glorious meal for me.  And for the record, it was definitely worth the wait!  Now I just need to wait for another 6 years for the next dish on her list….

About snails

I hate snails.

I really, really hate them.

It’s always the same story: the rain has just stopped, you strolled down the pedestrian path, enjoying the cool air, when suddenly, THEY appeared before you.  Like something that popped out of an alien film, they slither across the field, waiting for their unsuspecting victims.  And before they knew it, “CRRRRACK!”, their pitiful lives ended under some poor soul’s shoes.  Seriously, what kind of life form would choose this kind of life?  If you see them, they creep you out.  If you don’t see them, they end up dead under you.  Oh, how I hate snails so.

Snails have four eyes.  That’s just wrong.  Two eyes are normal.  Three eyes, I considered as OK, because Er Lang Shen from Journey to the West had three eyes.  Four eyes?  Damn, only if you’re wearing spectacles.  The children storybooks always try to make them look innocent by disguising them as creatures who have two eyes and two horns/moustache.   I tell you, snails are anything but innocent.  They are the devil reincarnated.  Damn you, snails!

Snail’s shell.  Now, that’s another abomination.  Curvaceous and hypnotic, it gives beautiful ladies a bad name.  Its earthly colour tone camouflages its occupant, allowing it to fulfil its destiny of sneaking under somebody’s shoes.  You starting to see how devious this little vermin is?

But what’s worse than the snails themselves?  The snail-eaters, of course.  Dudes, snails exist for only one reason: to be at the bottom of the food chain, so that other animals can feed on them.  Why, oh why, then, do you want to subject yourselves to eating earth scum?  Just because some French dude covered it with garlic and spices and gave it a fancy name like ‘escargot’?  A snail by any other name would taste as yucky, as Juliet would say to Romeo in a very odd alternate universe.  O common sense, where art thou?

I SO hate snails.

Back from the Void...

Fair greetings to one and all! The date was 2nd June 2007, when I last posted on my blog. THREE YEARS of absence. Whoa... I can grow a beard in that amount of time, man! (Not that I have one now, love.)

So, what happened to yours truly after signing on THE dotted line? Well, let's have a conversation with myself and my self...

1. I'm happily married (The missus is reading this blog too, eh?)
2. I'm a father now (You the Man, you!)
3. I'll be a father of 2 within 2011 (You the Man x 2, you!)
4. I can cook dishes other than instant noodles (Hide the dogs, honey!)
5. I'm finally on Facebook (That's 1 to Facebook, and 0 to Friendster!)
6. I've cross the big Three-O line (When your childhood pop culture is being referred to as "retro", you really are getting old!)
7. I've stopped all forms of dancing (No more seismic activities detected on weekends!)
8. I still sing in a choir (However, shattered glasses are still a norm on Sundays!)
9. I now tilt the scale at somewhere near my birth year (For those who knew the birthday, be ready to clear the corridor when you hear footsteps!)
10. I'm blogging again! (Somebody get me a trash bag to cover my screen, now!)

So there you have it, the top 10 updates for the past 3 years. What now, then? Well, I hope to blog more regularly, now that I have my schedules more stable now. To my loyal readers out there (yeah, the 1 or 2 of you), it sure feels good to be able to 'talk' to you again from beyond the void again (cue ominous music...). You can expect the usual sarcastic, self-deprecating, goofball, screeching, off-beat, tone-deaf, out-of-pitch, un-PC writings from me, Le Fatboy Jim!

Knot-tying Day! (Special Feature)

Our dear photographer of the day, Mark Tan, has kindly photoshopped some of the photos he took today. Enjoy! (Click on photos to enlarge)

Knot-tying Day! (Part 4)

Finally, after a whole day of fun and games, I've returned home with my precious prize!

Ready... Set...

GO!

Running out of steam...

Almost there...

Aim properly first...

Crash landing!

Yay! I made it!

Another pair of tenants in our house.

It's our first night as a married couple! So the first thing we should do is... drink water?!

Kua Simi?! Kua ourselves lah...

Married at last! It's been a really fun day. Thanks to everyone who've made this special day so wonderful. That's all, folks! Now, where did we put those leftovers from the restaurant...

Knot-tying Day! (Part 3)

Yup, we're at the correct wedding.

Pretty, no?

Last minute check on the AV system...

My preciousssssssss.......

Looks cool, eh? Too bad they gonna tear this building down next year...

Sleepy wife...

... and groggy husband.

Zing! Pretty again!

More ancient friends! This gang hails back to my secondary school days.

This is the SECOND time we march in today! Don't we look good?

Time to cut and pose with the FAKE wedding cake :P

Hmm, what is everybody staring at?

Even my dear is staring...

She's amused! What's going on?!

Heh, it's the wedding video I created after months of hard work! Erm, plus the fact that the screen is pretty big and high up lah...

Yes, I am majorly pleased with myself ;)

I know something you dunno dear... yet :)

First dish of the night! I think this is one of the few dishes that both of us actually have the time to eat...

Time to glam it up!

Her tiara and my hairy crown.

"Tonight, I celebrate my love for you..." Guess which line of this song drew the loudest snigger from the crowd? ;)

Finished! That wasn't bad at all, was it?

My champagne popped prematurely. Save the impotent jokes to yourself, perv ;P

Bubbly and bubbles.

Bottoms up!

OMG! I'm unbearably cute on camera!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam...

Yam yam yam yam yam yam yam yam...

...SENG! (It's the "have lots of babies" yamseng lah, that's why).

Surprise item! "I didn't really prepare for this..." (which I did, DUH)

"... so I'll just sing whatever song they play! MUSIC, PLEASE!"

Of coz she's impressed! She just looked more amused than impressed, that's all.

C'mon everybody! Put your hands in the air!

"You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you..."

Hush! Watch me do my big ending!

Zeroing in on my dear...

Kneel, sing, kiss. What a great ending, eh? :)

Le family!

My colleagues and, some of them, her old teachers.

Sisters in black (plus a guy).

Seconday school friends!

NIE classmates.

The Vocal Consort (oldies).

Camera cheap sale!

The Vocal Consort (newbies)

Emil gang!

Parents.

Dashing, as always.

Pretty, as usual.

It's almost the end of the night! Keep the smile going!

My sister packed our dinner for us! The JOY!

Siblings.

Advice from the wise, "Must take good care of your wife!"

(To be continued...)