Thursday, November 27, 2008

This November, I am into...


Wearing: anything that doesn’t make me look fat, grey boots from Jones, killer heels from Carvela, jade bracelet, Caudalie Vinoperfect radiance serum
Styling: with the BaByliss hair straightener
Eating (and drinking): Greek yoghurt with fruit compote and granola, mint tea (obsession fuelled by holiday in Marrakech), strawberry Fruli
Reading: The Nasty Bits, Lolita
Listening: girl bands like Wondergirls, Girls Aloud and S.H.E.
Watching: The X Factor, new season of Top Gear
Baking: cupcakes, cakes and cookies, oh my!
Partying: learning to Ceroc, weekends filled up with social events – Christmas season is upon us!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Bakefest

About a month back, I finally found where my mixer had been kept, and because things have quietened down a lot at work, I've been going into a baking frenzy. Out came all the cookbooks I brought with me to London, and I spent many a night poring over them, wondering what recipes to try. I decided to revisit recipes I'd tried before (like Nigella's chocolate cherry cupcakes and Pierre Herme's Suzy Cake recipes) before tackling new and untrodden grounds.


I'm really happy that I've finally nailed the Suzy Cake recipe. I realise that I hadn't made any mistakes the first time round. I had only been too impatient and tried to un-tin my cake before it had cooled. I've since made this twice and both times, it has come out superbly. I love serving it with raspberries and some cream. It's also an instant crowd hit because of that tremendous hit of chocolateyness.

The Nigella recipe, I have discovered, definitely needs tweaking. To be honest, I'm not much of a Nigella fan. She very often uses too much butter, cream, oil and sugar in a lot of her recipes, and I've found that her measurements aren't always right. If I cooked like that all the time at home, I'd have a really fat ass in no time. However, I will admit the cherry chocolate cupcake recipe (I made strawberry chocolate cupcakes previously) is just too yummy and easy to pass up. It doesn't even require a mixer. The second attempt came out well, but I still feel there was a wee bit too much sugar. My colleagues didn't have any complaints though.


I decided to decorate the cupcakes with some lavender from our garden

Confident that my baking mojo hadn't gone, I've now branched out to non-chocolate desserts. The first I tested was a lemon angel cupcake recipe from Cupcakes!. The taste was really yummy, but consistency-wise, not so hot. Turns out I had overbeaten the egg whites and sugar, so they were a little chewy.

I tested another lemon cupcake recipe from the same book, and remembering not to overwork the dough, the lemon tea cakes turned out much better. I think I'm slowly learning the science of cooking :) Next thing on my list is to resurrect my chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Korea meets Mexico



Images from FeetManSeoul

Things are a little slow in the office now, so I've been indulging in quite a lot of surfing. One of my recently discovered sites FeetManSeoul brought my attention to the Seoul Fashion Week. I really enjoyed clicking through the collections, in particular one designer, Ye Ranji, who based her collection on Frida Kahlo. I love how she's taken the prints and mannish pants and translated them into something modern and wearable. One final thing: I'm in total lust with those shoes. Where can I get a pair?




More pictures from FeetManSeoul and the official website (click on The Centaur to view the collection).