Just my point of view

Another 4-day weekend!

2012-02-03T14:29:00.000+08:00

One of the things about living in Malaysia that I really do like (though I think a lot of employers may not feel the same way) is the number of public holidays we have in a year! And in the last two months we have had several, one after the other! Let's see now.... if we restrict ourselves so that we dont go back beyond Xmas, we started with:

Sun 25th Dec, Xmas Day
Mon 26th Dec - since Xmas was Sunday, we get Monday off too.
Sun 1st Jan, New Years Day
Mon 2nd Jan - off day, since NY day was Sunday
Mon 23rd and Tuesday 24th Jan - Chinese New Year
Wed 1st Feb - Federal Territory Day
Sun 5th Feb - Prophet Muhammad's Birthday
Mon 6th Feb - off day, since the Prophet's birthday was Sunday
Tue 7th Feb - Thaipusam

Well there you have it in just the space of LESS than 2 months (ie, 25th Dec to 7th Feb) there are already 6 public holidays, which gave a total of 7 WORKING days holiday, not including weekends. So, as an employee working in KL, I could have taken 7 working days holiday (25, 26, 27, 30, 31 Jan and 02, 03 Feb) and had a stretch of 17 days break from work. Amazing!

And then we have nothing till May 1st - so for all working folks out there... hope you enjoyed your long break and that it is sufficient to 'hold' you till 1st May.

Tomorrow my beloved #1 niece (my brothers daughter - they live in Melaka) heads back to Moscow to continue her medical studies, after having had a nice long 2 months (almost) break. From the heat of Malaysia (usually at 30degC or higher!!) to the COLD of Moscow - currently running between -10degC to -20degC! As you can imagine, whenever she comes back to Malaysia her first comments (after greeting her family!) always run something in the lines of "IT'S SO HOT!!" :-D

Anyway, I digress! So, tomorrow we are heading to Melaka, to spend the day with my brother and his family, to spend time with #1 before she heads off. Our cousins, L&R will be joining us there and it will be good to catch up. Lunch, tea (for which I am currently making an Opera cake), then to the airport to see her off, and then home... and the next 3 days after that will be very very quiet and peaceful.

In just a few days time, I will mark the 2nd year since Ken said his final words to me and peacefully passed away. And, on the same day, we also mark my mothers 75th birthday. The challenge for me is to stop mysel from being despondent on that day - Ken would have hated for me to be depressed, and it is not fair to my mum either if I am depressed! I will manage - over the last two years, despite the hole in the heart not getting any smaller, I have gotten very good at appearing to be A-OK. I reserve the times of sadness to when I am on my own so that I do not upset anyone else.

That's it for now folks. Till next time, have a good day, every day!

CNY has come and gone...

2012-01-31T12:34:00.004+08:00

... and it was very quiet indeed. The traffic during the CNY week was absolutely heavenly :-). It felt like everyone and his/her siblings had left KL - either to go on holiday elsewhere, or to return to their home town to celebrate CNY with their family. It was possible to drive anywhere in the KL / Selangor area without any fear of traffic jams, and all the usually very popular shopping malls had loads and loads of parking available at all times. This week the traffic has gone back to normal (more or less), but next week is going to be lovely and quiet again as both Monday and Tuesday are public holidays - so given a four-day weekend, a lot of people will be out of KL again. LOVELY!

You know what saddens me nowadays though? Nobody, or at least very FEW people, do open house celebrations any more. I do an Xmas or New Year open house every year. A couple of my Malay friends USED to do open house, but last year even that stopped... and most of my Indian and Chinese friends NEVER do, and have never done, open house for Deepavali or Chinese New Year! And only one other of my Christian friends actually does an Xmas open house every year! It is rather sad actually that this tradition is dying out :-(.

Of course, this does not mean we dont keep in touch or meet up - we do. But the open house used to be such a wonderful Malaysian tradition, a tradition followed by all the people of Malaysia, of whatever race or religion, and it is sad to see this tradition dying away. I know that it is getting too expensive to do on a grand scale, but, hey, you don't have to do a major meal - just some snacks, maybe a ton of roti canai and curry, and some veg. The whole purpose of the open house is just to catch up with friends whom you have not seen for a long time, not to stuff your face!

Enuff said on that subject.

So what else has been happening? Well, I've been good about my ongoing resolution to keep going to the gym - at least 3 times a week, but more often 4 or 5 times. I do a 5km jog most times, and at least once a week do a major upper body circuit training round, followed by a 10 minute FAST run. And, yes, I do get up fairly early still to do this - mainly because, if I go late to the gym, there is nowhere to PARK!! :-D Yeah, I know, it is a silly reason, but it is an incentive to get up early and go - so I don't end up going round and round the car park a dozen times looking for a place to park. SUCH a waste of time!

My lovely cousins, L&R, from the US are here for a few weeks, so we have already spent time catching up, and I hope to spend MORE time with them! There is still a lot of catching up to do! This coming weekend, we are all heading to Melaka - my beloved #1 niece is heading back to Moscow for her medical studies so we are going to be there for lunch and tea (with Opera Cake made by me :-D ), and then we ALL head to the airport, see her off, and then we come home.

My Mum, after her angioplasty, is back to her normal morning walking routine again - and she says that now she can walk much faster than before without ANY breathing difficulty, and without the dreaded "pain in the neck" manifesting itself whenever she exerts herself (and, No, the 'pain in the neck' does not refer to either my Dad or me and my siblings :-p ).

Ooooh, I made a very interesting acquisition the other day - a non-slip mat called a GEKKO, which I placed on the (very curved) dashboard of my snazzy little car. This is to put my Smart Tag unit on - because my little car has absolutely NO flat horizontal space above the dashboard to put ANYTHING on, and the normal non-slip mat just does not work. Then someone told me about the Gekko, and I ordered it, and it is BRILLIANT! I placed it on my dashboard, put the smart tag unit on it, and drove at my usual 'fast around the corner' speed, and the smart tag did not BUDGE! It stayed put! I was soooo pleased :-). You can go check out their web site at http://gekko-dnastech.webs.com/. I definitely recommend it! And, the best part, when it gets dusty (thereby losing its 'stickability') all you have to do is rinse it clean with water, let it dry, and, voila, it is as good as new!

That's it for today folks. Till next time, have a good day, every day!

I went on a HIKE!! Yay!!!

2012-01-24T10:14:00.001+08:00

My friends, S & K, organise regular hiking trips to various parts of Malaysia, mostly in and around KL. Usually starting early morning, and, for the longest hike, taking several hours of actual hike time! I've been trying to go on these hikes all of last year and never managed it because, as someone who likes to plan ahead, I have always had something or other planned for those precise days that they end up eventually scheduling their hikes on... sigh.... sigh.... and triple sigh!

BUT, FINALLY, this last weekend I made it! They sent out an email on Fri Jan 20th for two hikes - one on the 21st (the very next day, Saturday) and one on the 23rd (Monday). And, as always, I had already planned something for the Saturday so I could not go for that BUT... BUT... YAY!! FINALLY, I was FREE on the Monday and could go... so I did :-D

That involved getting up at the really horrible hour of 5.45am to get dressed and drive over to S & K's house by 7am, as that was the meeting point for everyone. And, of course, by the time everyone actually turned up, it was closer to 8am. 16 people altogether, with the oldest hiker in his 70's, and the youngest hiker just 6 yrs old. Most of us were in our late 40's and early 50's with a few younger (30's) folks. A nice bunch of people. Cheerful (despite the early hour) and all raring to go.

It was not a difficult trek. We climbed a small hill in Taman Melawati itself, and though it did have a few steep sections we were greatly aided by the fact that there IS an actual path (which we have to walk single file) and there are 'railings' strung along most of the path. Mostly the railings consisted of heavy duty twisted plastic cord, some stretches had rubber hose as the railing, and in some cases there was even re-bars!! Since it had been raining the night before the ground was damp (without being MUDDY and icky) and, interestingly enough, I think the ground is actually safer to walk on when wet! My theory is that when the ground is dry, then the dry leaves SLIP on the dry soil... but when it is wet, the soil is compacted and the leaves dont slip on the damp compacted ground. But then, I could definitely be wrong too :-D.

The trip up took about 45 minutes, taking into account that most of us were first timers, and of course, going at the speed of the slowest members. No, it was not at all difficult and it was a really pleasant hike. Gets your heart beat going without wiping you out completely! Took a break at the half way point just for a sip of water and a breather, then took a longer break at the top of the hill to have re-energising oranges (Hey, it is Chinese New Year after all, and we have to have oranges!!), cooling watermelons, and fresh baked oatmeal and date cookies (made by me :-D). The trip down was much faster - maybe 30 minutes - and surprisingly it was easier to come down despite the fear that a lot of us first-timers had about SLIPPING when going downhill. Mind you, this was an easy hike. Next time around, for any more difficult hike, I must remember to take along a sturdy walking stick :-) to balance on when going downhill on stretches where there are no such things as 'railings' made of cord or otherwise!

And, during the hike, we met a number of people who do this hike regularly - and, to put us to shame, most of them are well into their 60's and 70's and they moved a lot faster than we did! One guy we met (maybe in his 50's), we had seen going DOWN as we were on our way up, and then the next thing we knew he was coming up behind us again just before we got to the top! He said he does this hike 3 - 4 times a week, TWICE each time! What can I say other than WOW!! It is a pity really that that little hill in Melawati is not closer to where I am, otherwise I might even be inspired to go more regularly. Hmmm, I must check out Bkt Gasing, which is a bit closer to where I am!

Oh yeah, check out these pics which I took while on this hike.

1) At the top of the hill. Blue skies, fluffy clouds, beautiful day.

2) And such lovely green and cooling surroundings

3) The little lake at the half way point (picture taken on our way back down)

4) KLCC in the distance!

5) And the same picture, taken at the limit of my little cameras optical and digital zoom capabilities!

I must get myself a nice long lanyard so I can hang my camera around my neck rather than have it in my backpack, as it is a bit of a problem trying to dig it out of my backpack to take a picture while climbing!!

OK folks, that's it for now! Have a good day, every day!

It's 2012 already? Where on earth did the time go?

2012-01-19T20:23:00.001+08:00

I don't get it. How is it possible for time to go by so fast? Does anyone have any sensible explanations? If Yes, please.... let me KNOW!!!

OK, enough moaning. First - apologies for the long long long loooooooooooooong silence. I just realised I have not updated my blog since November! And we are already past the middle of JANUARY in a whole new year :-p.

So, what have I been up to? Well, not a LOT, but have been surprisingly busy. Ben and Christine were with me in KL through till 4th December. And we made a trip to Singapore while they were here, and were able to catch up with Alan H (my beloved Ken's ex-boss), Rya (Lovely lovely Rya, Alan's right-hand lady!), and Tom S (another old friend of Kens). It was lovely seeing all of them again :-).

After Ben and Christine left, the house was back to being really quiet again - and both my parents and I really missed their presence. They provided so much life and energy! Anyway, life has to continue ... and so I got down to several tasks that I had been planning for a while - like putting up the Xmas tree and decorating it; putting up Xmas decorations (I got some lovely decorations while in Singapore); sorting out the cupboards under the stairs and throwing away loads of rubbish; finishing my Xmas shopping and wrapping all the gifts and putting them under the tree. Not to forget, making different types of cakes in between and, of course, fresh baked bread every few days :-). And, yes, I think I AM getting better with the breads :-).

Oh yes, before I forget, here are some pics of my Xmas decor:

1) The Xmas tree, with my new, and pretty, angel on top!

2) A family of angels on Ken's favourite baby grand.

3) Decor hung over the main door of our house.

4) Xmas trees, Santas, a snowman, an angel, and 4 Xmas tea lights, on the dining room cabinet.

This is the first time I have taken the effort to do more than just the Xmas tree, and I am already planning on doing a bit more than this for Xmas this year!

And, I hear some of you ask, what cakes and other goodies have I been making so far? Well... let's see: Simple sponge cakes with chocolate filling and choc ganache coating, or raspberry filling and choc ganache coating; Xmas plum cake (of course!); chilled cheese cake; caramel chocolate cake; chocolate mousse cake; panacotta; Fraisier; Swiss Roll; Apple filled brioche buns; apple crumble tart; lemon meringue tart; choux puffs with pastry cream filling, or with fresh cream filling; Churros (YUM); Banoffee pie; sticky toffee pudding; Malva pudding; caramel chocolate coffee cake. And, of course, BREADS - the usual low-GI multi grain loafs; raisin buns; pain ecossais; foccacia (YUMMMMM); croissants (YES, I rolled this by HAND!!!); and craquelin.

I did make the cakes for the Xmas Eve and Day get together - which was mostly family, but I did NOT do the cakes for my New Years Day open house - for that the catering for the food and the desserts was done by two amazing young ladies who became my friends when we were all attending classes at the Academy of Pastry Arts. Christine, together with another friend of hers, did the HOT food catering - and every single person (of the 100+ that came that day) totally agreed that the food was amazing and delicious! Check out the list of amazing food that they prepared ON THE DAY - IN MY KITCHEN (so now I can say that my kitchen is professional enough to cook for 100 people :-D ):

- Herb roasted potato with gherkin and parmesan
- Pan fried mini chicken murtabak
- Spaghetti Aglio Olio with chilli flakes and Parsley perfumed with Mint leaves
- Baked Chicken Syrah & Toasted Black Pepper Reduction
- Burnt garlic mushroom ragout
- Vegetables au gratin
- Fruit lollies - pineapple & watermelon "marinated" with sea salt
- Punch and Coffee/Tea

As for desserts - that was done 100% by Xiao-Ly - and she had to provide 100 pieces of EACH of the following:
- Mini chocolate tarts
- Mini lemon cupcakes with orange buttercream
- Coffee chocolate cake with coffee ganache and coffee buttercream

What can I say to describe all the above - both hot food and desserts? IN ONE WORD : DELICIOUS!! Seriously good stuff.

If you want to see what else Xiao-Ly can do - go check out her web-site at http://www.wix.com/xiaoly/crustz#!. And since we are heading into Chinese New Year, she has an amazing 100% home made goodies hamper that she can do for you or your friends, clients, whatever! And following that - she will have something equally amazing for Valentine's Day. So don't hold back folks - go check out her web site and ORDER!

As for Christine - if you want her catering skills, and if you have a kitchen able to handle the volume - get in touch with me, and I will put you directly in touch with her - and with any luck she may be free and available to do something for you!

So, what's been happening since New Year you ask? Well, it has not been a great month so far in some ways. A truly lovely, and well-loved, friend (Sally T) passed away Friday 13th Jan, after a 16-year battle with cancer, and her funeral was on Sunday 15th Jan. Her husband had passed away just 2 weeks before MY husband passed away, and she had been an amazing person whom I had always been able to just talk to - maybe because we both understood exactly what we were both going through, and so we could talk without having to EXPLAIN (!). Now she is gone, and it was heart breaking for ALL of us to lose her. She leaves behind 4 amazing children - a 24 year old daughter (who is working), a 23 year old son (finishing uni) and twin 19 year old sons (both in college). I am seriously glad that she is not suffering any more, but the world has lost a truly beautiful soul!

Then, on the same day as Sally's funeral, my Mum went into IJN (Institut Jantung Negara - National Heart Institute). She had been having the same symptoms that led to her bypass in 2008, and the pain was getting worse, so the cardiologist decided that it was time to do another angiogram. So, into hospital on the Sunday, and the angiogram was done on the Monday - the whole procedure only took 1 hour (11.30am to 12.30pm) but the 'angrio-gram' ended up as an 'angio-plasty' as they discovered a SEVERELY narrowed blood vessel, which required TWO stents. Thank God that this procedure now is so simple that they could put the stents in straight away without her having to undergo a second procedure! They kept her in the hospital overnight, as she is a diabetic and they had to be sure that the surgical wound, though tiny, did not bleed out. She was out of hospital on the Tuesday - reached home with a TON of medication by 2pm on Tuesday. She is still tired, still a bit shaky, and the wound site, through which they put the camera wire into her system, is badly bruised and somewhat painful. Thank God (again) that we have our tiny Nurul (our wonderful help) who really looks after my Mum so well.

And that's about it for now folks. We are now heading into Chinese New Year - a 4 day weekend coming up, and next Wednesday our much loved cousins from the US (L & R) will be here in KL for a month. We are WAY looking forward to seeing them again and spending time with them. And, I guess, somewhere in all that, I really need to get serious about job hunting too - since there will be more activity on that score once CNY is over. Wish me luck!

Oh, yes, before I forget - anyone want to buy my little Toyota Sera? Finally realised that I do have to sell her - I just do not have the time and ENERGY to worry about 2 cars any more. Let me know if you know anyone who would like to buy her - she is in good condition, engine overhauled, with only a slightly quirky set of signal lights, which only work properly once the engine is warmed up :-p. Other than that, she is in GOOD condition. Asking price... RM38K. Is that negotiable? Hmmm, I will think about that :-D.

Here's a picture of my Sera - and for those who don't know the car, the doors are gull-wing doors, opening upwards, requiring very LITTLE space on either side of the car :-). It is a 2+2 seater, with a small but quite serviceable boot!

And, FINALLY, that's it for this post...

Till next time folks, have a good day, every day!

Friends, holidays, more renovation work!

2011-11-21T16:38:00.000+08:00

Two very dear friends of Ken and I have been with me in KL since 4th November. Ben and Christine W arrived on 4th November afternoon, and my parents returned from India on 4th November evening, so we have had full house since then. The very next day after B & C arrived, we attended the wedding of the lovely young lady who handles the marketing and PR aspects of the Academy of Pastry Arts.

Hanne and Terence, I wish for you the most wonderful future together. There will always be challenges, rough patches, and obstacles, but I know the love you have for each other will help you both get through it all. Check out this picture of the happy couple. Both look amazing in their traditional Indian outfits!

Since then, we have kept ourselves busy - shopping, sight seeing, EATING, baking, a break in Tioman, and now B & C are in Langkawi, at Tanjong Rhu resort. Next week we are off to Singapore and then, very sadly, they will head back to Europe on 4th December!

We found time to go to the Royal Selangor pewter factory and had a fantastic time. Here Christine and I are posing next to the worlds largest beer mug!

And we tried our hand at the School of Hard Knocks to make our own pewter bowls. Very therapeutic!

Then, on another day, Ben had a lesson on how to make prawn sambal :-)

And just this last weekend, we celebrated FOUR birthdays which took place all in one week. Mine, my brothers, my brother-in-laws and Christine. We definitely did not want to put in all the required number of candles into any cake - or the cake would have burnt to a crisp... but we did put 12 colourful candles on a chocolate malva pudding and all 4 of us blew the candles out at one shot :-).

In addition to the Malva pudding, I also made Banoffee Pie (VERY nice), and mini cheese croissants, chocolate croissants and plain croissants. My mum made curry puffs too, so you can imagine how stuffed full of food we were at the end of it all.

This was then followed, on the same day, by dinner - beef/potato cutlets made by my mum, and roast chicken made by my sister! Talk about JUICY....

As to renovations - the 'powder room' downstairs has been revamped to put in a shower cubicle for our lovely maid to use. Also new tiling, new sink, new toilet. It looks so much nicer now! Also doing some minor changes to my parents bathroom and mine. Once that is done there will be no more renovations to be done for the rest of this year! Anything else can wait till after Chinese New Year next year :-p.

That's it for now folks. Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Baking course, coming to an end! Where did the time go?

2011-10-26T14:15:00.002+08:00

First, I can't believe that I have not updated my blog since 13th Sept! And, Next, I find it even harder to believe that this baking course that I have been busy with since 12th January 2011, is COMING TO AN END!! OH MY GOODNESS!! Well, they do say that time flies when you are having fun, and, yes, despite sheer exhaustion, I HAVE been having fun :-). A LOT of fun! More so since I never imagined that baking COULD be such fun. My late husband loved to bake, and now I know why. Hmmm, maybe it was his spirit that pushed me into doing this in the first place, as it is completely contrary to anything I would have ever done normally! I also like to believe that he is sitting next to me, laughing at me, and saying "I told you so"!

OK, so what has been happening? A LOT! We did modern cakes, dessert plating, wedding cakes, had our final assessment (YES, I PASSED!!), and are now at recap week - where I have had the chance to do a couple of new recipes, and also refresh my memory on some recipes not tried for a while. There are too many pictures for me to put them all up, so let me just put up a small selection:

Dessert Plating: Here are two, done by me (with some suggestions from Chef Fred). I like how they turned out!
1) Marshmallow, sandwiched with chocolate and with nougatine in between, with sorbet, and with green tea jelly.

2: Vanilla coconut mousse, with crystallised rose petals, and sorbet.

The WEDDING CAKE!! I have to say I do NOT like doing wedding cakes. However I am pleased with how this turned out. Gift boxes, with matching ribbons, one on top of the other, with a stylised heart to represent the happy couple holding hands. Simple, but pretty (at least I think so!)

My ASSESSMENT: All the assessment items, arranged on the table, for the chefs to 'assess'. We had 5 days to prepare, bake, put together, and finally display on the Friday. IT WAS EXHAUSTING! And I am glad it is over. So, what's on the table? Check it out:

1) From left to right, first, on the long black tile, 6 pieces of Religieuse, 10 glasses of my own verrine concoction (pina colada verrine), then the St Honore on the right. In front of that, on the left (next to the knife) is the Mille Feuille with traditional fondant frosting design. The plate in front of that has my cold dessert plate - banana choc pudding in a choc ball, with caramelised banana on choc sponge, with vanilla ice cream. Then on the raised plate in the centre is 7 individual pieces of Japanese cheese cake, with one piece on the small plate in front. On the right of that, is the Pierre Herme tart, topped with a simple chocolate disk. Below that is hand dipped chocolate with coffee ganache filling. Then we have the breads - double hydration ciabatta on the left (in the pink serviette lined bowl), and rye bread on the right. Behind the ciabatta is the Green Tea/Raspberry Opera Cake. On the same tile as the Opera cake you can JUST about see my macarons, and, in front, a tiny part of my HOT plated dessert - chocolate fondant.

2) And here is a better picture of the Green Tea/Raspberry Opera cake, with the macarons in front. One of the FEW times my macarons came out pretty good!

3) Close up of my Pina Colada verrine - the bottom is a coconut mousse, topped with a circle of choc sponge, then fresh diced pineapple which had been soaked in rum, then coconut mousse on top, and finally topped with fresh baked crumble. VERY yum :-D

4) Close up of the Mille Feuille! I'm very happy with the way the design turned out!

And now, the recap weeks... a few new things made:
1) Le Livre - supposed to be bread that looks like a book :-). The shape did not QUITE come out, but my nephew guessed correctly that it was a book!

2) Pain Ecossais - a French name, but apparently a Scottish bread. VERY light, very tasty. I loved the taste!

3) Pain a la tapenade! A simple croissant dough (simple, only because fewer folds!), spread with black olive tapenade, rolled up like a swiss roll, sliced, proofed and baked. This was LOVELY! Light, flaky, tasty.

4) CHURROS! Oh YES, I am so happy I know how to do this. Light and YUM, YUM, YUM! These were tossed in cinnamon sugar, but I am going to do chocolate sauce for dipping when I make it at home :-).

Today is a public holiday in Malaysia, so no classes (hence I have time to update this blog!). And then I have just TWO MORE DAYS to go, and this course is over for me! No idea what I will be making on those two days... will have to wait and see if the chefs have any new recipes for me to try. I am considering making almond/chocolate galette, as it has been a while since I did invert puff pastry... hmmmm....

So, what else is new? My parents are off in India (since 15th Oct), returning on 4th Nov. They went to attend a cousins wedding, and I figured if they are going to go all the way there, they might as well take the time to visit their close relatives and friends, because God only knows if they will have another opportunity while they still have the strength to do this trip! The house is VERY quiet without them around to bug me :-D, so I am enjoying the peace and quiet.

Oh, yes, in addition to that, on Friday, my sisters ex-maid (whom we have been in discussions with for some time as she wanted to come back to work and we need a maid) turned up :-). She has not changed at all, other than having put on a bit of weight! Tiny, cheerful, talkative, HARD WORKING. I told her to relax these two weeks, as she will be kept busy once my Mum is back, but she has been in full swing since Sunday! The house is the cleanest it has been in a LONG time. Even the back retaining wall (between our house and the house at the back) has been thoroughly scrubbed! I am really happy she came back, as she and my Mum get along well, and, having worked for my sister for 2 years and having been originally trained by my Mum, she is very familiar with Malayali style cooking - which makes it even easier for us!

So, all in all, it has been a good few weeks. And now, in just over 2 months, we will reach the end of this year. In between then and now, I have my friends from the Netherlands and Scotland (Ben, who is Dutch, and his wife, Christine, who is Scottish) coming for a month - Yay!!!! They arrive on 4th Nov (same day as my parents return) and I have the pleasure of their company all the way through till 4th Dec... then comes Xmas...

That's it for now folks - a very long post to make up for the long silence. Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Kitchen closer, closer, getting closer, to 100%. Now it is 98%

2011-09-13T23:47:00.002+08:00

Yep. We have a working kitchen again :-). And as of today, the kitchen is 98% complete! So, what, you may ask, is the remaining 2%? OK, so, let's see now - just a little bit of finishing on my granite table top which just got installed today :-). And that would be IT :-D. But, am happy to say, that does NOT stop either my Mum or I from using the kitchen already. All our stuff has been unpacked and put away... and that includes all Ken's cooking and baking stuff which has been sitting in boxes for close to a year already (basically, since I moved from my Mont'Kiara condo back to my PJ house!). So I have my baking area all set up, my Mum has her stuff all set up, and both of us are going through the ongoing process of "Hmmm, I think this should go here, and that should go there"... and we move things here, there, everywhere, till everything is where we want it to be for ease of use. Will take a few more days (or even weeks) I am sure, but it will be a nice process :-).

My parents room is also finished, and their new bathroom. Only missing the bi-fold bathroom door, but that should be in on Thursday, together with the new kitchen door - which will be at the entrance to the kitchen (from the main part of the house), to stop cooking fragrances from wafting through the whole house - particularly the PUNGENT fragrances (ikan kering (aka, salted fish), anyone?).

The side of the house is also sorted - with our new laundry area set up, the garden shed moved to its new site, and all the stuff that was in the shed has been moved back into it! Our kopi-tiam table is back in place, as is our little outside dining table. And, finally, all the outside lights are working (PHEW)! We have also installed Meshtec security doors at the front and side sliding doors - which I absolutely love! No need to use the iron security grilles, and the doors keep the mozzies out :-).

Anyway, here are a series of pictures showing the kitchen, in sequence (of sorts):

1) The view from the entrance to the kitchen. Tall cupboard flush to the wall at the left, and then the long run of cupboards starts...

2) Continuing the view of the long run of cupboards. This is my Mum's side of the kitchen :-)

3) Continuing the view of the long run of cupboards, you can see my lovely big cooker on the left, and the sink further down.

4) Close up of my cooker and that BEAUTIFUL BIG OVEN (in which I just baked 2 loaves of bread)

5) Now a view just straight down the length of the kitchen, from front to back.

6) Now looking to the back door, with my Mum's small fridge on the left, next to the sink, with the water dispenser on top of it. On the right of the back door is the new room for a *future* maid.

7) Continuing round, my Mum's big fridge, which sits with its back to my island. The maids room is on the left of the fridge.

8) This is my baking area :-), with my lovely new SPAR mixer in position. I LOVE the machine. It is QUIET and POWERFUL! Great for doing bread doughs!

9) Looking straight 'into' my baking area. Mixer on left side, my fridge and small oven on the right side.

10) And a better view now of my fridge and the small oven.

And there you have it... a lovely, USABLE kitchen, with LOADS of workspace, and LOADS of storage - most of the upper run of cupboards, esp the top 2 - 3 shelves, are empty :-), and No, that is NOT an invitation to buy more stuff for the kitchen! Well, that's what I keep telling myself anyway, but I already have my eye on a couple more things to acquire... but will tell you about these 'things' only after I acquire them (which may take a few months).

So that's it for today. Till next time folks, have a great day, every day.

Ohmigosh! I have a KITCHEN!

2011-08-26T20:41:00.001+08:00

Well, 98% of a kitchen, which is pretty darned good, cos it means we can now unpack and get our dining and living room back to normal, and we can resume cooking as per normal too! Well, ALMOST :-) as we still have to resolve a small issue with the new cooker, or rather, the gas connection to it, as it does not seem to be working right. I have a suspicion the problem is with the gas cylinder head on the gas cylinder side, as there was a lot of dust in it, and there are still small particles, which I THINK are preventing the head from sealing firmly to the cylinder, so the gas is not going through! Will see tomorrow when my lovely kitchen contractor, Athelea, comes to check it out.

Anyway, I don't have time for a long post today, as I am leaving for the airport in a couple of hours (flying to Shanghai to spend time with dear friends Peng and Tony), so here are just a few pictures to show you what is in place as of today!

1) Here is my baking area :-). The big empty 'box' on the right is where my fridge is going to go. The granite work top is not in place yet - will be at least another 2 - 3 weeks as they could only take measurements once all the cabinets were in place. But it still looks great!

2) And here is my island :-). My Mum's fridge is on the other side of the island, back to the support pillar. The back door of the kitchen can just be seen beyond that. The entrance to the maids room is hidden by the fridge.

3) Here is the sink and cooker area. My Mum is starting to familiarise herself with the kitchen. We'll both have to figure out the best place to put whatever we use the most :-).

4) And here is the front part of the kitchen, nearest to the kitchen entrance. The little kopi-tiam table is back in its place and my Dad is the first person to sit back in his usual seat to have a healthy snack of an orange :-).

Still have some lighting stuff to do, check the cooker, get some new switches, connect up some Eubig power strips, get the granite counter and the inset induction cooker.... and that's it for the kitchen. Other than that - have to finish the maids room, my parents room, their bathroom, and the outside area. Still a lot... but at least the end is in sight.

That's it for now folks. Till next time, have a great day, every day!

There's light at the end of the "kitchen"

2011-08-19T19:17:00.000+08:00

Oh boy. It has been a long journey, now 3 weeks late already, but, if nothing else goes wrong, then the kitchen should be ready for cabinet installation by Monday! Yep, I kid you not. And what do I mean when I say 'if nothing else goes wrong'? Well, in the process of removing the ceiling boards in the kitchen, so that the plaster ceiling could be done, the contractors discovered that the water outlets, both shower and toilet, from the two guest ensuite bathrooms upstairs were leaking! And the only reason that it did not get really bad was that, well, those bathrooms are hardly used - maybe just used a total of 4 or 5 weeks spread through the whole year (ie, only when friends come and stay). Anyway, having seen the leak, there is no way we could just ignore it! Cos if we did that, then a few years down the way, I would have to rip open the plaster ceiling and take down the upper run of kitchen cabinets just to get it fixed properly! So, I figured, better bite the bullet and get it done NOW!

Of course, if we had done the 'normal' thing, we would have had to rip out all the existing piping all the way down, as all the existing piping, which runs through the common (guest) bathroom downstairs, is made of galvanised (ergo, rust-able) steel. And that would have included hacking through existing walls, floor, etc. Which would have cost a bomb too! Then I had one of those "eureka" moments! Well, the room that is now being made into a maids room used to be my parents bathroom. The connection to the sewage tank is still there, under the floor (which had not yet been tiled or finished) and it is NOT using galvanised steel - it is using the new UPVC piping! So, I asked my contractor if we could just 'disconnect' and block off the existing piping, which only requires hacking the actual bathroom floors and no hacking of other walls, etc, and connect to new plumbing which would run in the opposite direction through the ceiling of the maids room, down the corner of the walls, and into the plumbing that is already there! And, Yes, he could do it, and Yes, it would cost a lot less! Of course, it meant extra days to get all that done before they could proceed with the kitchen... but it is now done, and the work has progressed well.

So, where are we? Well, with focus ONLY on the kitchen, this is where we are:
- All reinforced concrete work surfaces done, and tiled, both inside and outside.
- All flooring done
- All plaster ceiling done AND painted
- Ducting for cooker hood done, vented all the way outside - with the external vent protected from insect intrusion by mosquito netting
- Main kitchen window in place
- Door frame done
- Measurements for security grille for back kitchen door (and for maids room window, parents room window, parents bathroom window) all taken
- Double sinks, with a tap on each sink, done and in place
- Plumbing for the sinks connected
- Cooker and hood delivered and location for gas cooker ready with hole drilled to accommodate connection of gas cylinder to cooker
- All electrical wiring in place (to be connected by Monday)
- Kitchen walls all painted already!

So, for kitchen, the outstanding items, to be done by Monday:
- Acid wash of all tiles
- Electricity connection, and installation of all switches, plugs, and EUBIG power strips.
- Installation of all security grilles, and back door.

Then, on either Tuesday or Wednesday, my kitchen cabinets come in and get installed over a period of 2 - 3 days, and the cooker and hood will be put into place and connected, and my induction cooker will also arrive and be installed (small one, to be inset into the granite island).

While that is happening, the contractors guys will focus on finishing off my parents bedroom and bathroom, and the maids room.

So, there IS light at the end of the tunnel... and here are some photos, taken yesterday (BEFORE the painting got done):

1) This is the reinforced concrete area for the long run of cabinets just before the cooker. The wall has already been painted with the base coat.

2) And this is going to be my baking area. You can see the kitchen entrance (blocked by the wood) on the right, and the support pillar on the left.

3) A better view of where the kitchen entrance is going to be.

4) The location in my baking area where the leak was in the ceiling. They have fixed it all, and put up the plaster ceiling, but sensibly left a 'hatch' to use for future access if required.

5) And here is the double sink, set into the reinforced concrete. Both taps are in place.

More updates and pictures next week, once the kitchen is all done.

Till next time, have a great day everyone, every day!

Theory, theory, theory, theory... and THEN baking :-)

2011-08-16T20:56:00.001+08:00

We had theory lessons all of last week :-p! Not the most exciting way to spend a week, believe me, though the Chef did make it quite interesting with practical challenges :-). What practical challenges you ask? Well, how about these:

- The SPICE test: We got all different types of spices and herbs - chilli, turmeric, saffron, rosemary, dill, oregano, etc... Then we each took turns, BLINDFOLDED, to see if we could identify each spice or herb just from the SMELL alone! Ahem... let's just say it was interesting!

- The NUT TASTE test: Again, we got all different types of nuts - almonds, almond flakes, pistachio, walnut, macadamia, hazelnut, peanuts - all chopped small so we could not identify them by shape. We had various versions of these nuts - raw, roasted, caramelised. Then, blindfolded again, we had to taste each and see if we could identify them correctly.

- The FRUIT TASTE test: We took mango, orange, lemon, kiwi, plums, nectarine, apple, pear, banana, pineapple, canned pineapple, etc. We had all these fruits arranged as RAW RIPE, RAW UNRIPE, POACHED RIPE, POACHED UNRIPE, CARAMELISED RIPE, CARAMELISED UNRIPE, DEHYDRATED RIPE, DEHYDRATED UNRIPE, CONFIT (for lemon and orange). We also had blackberry fruit filling, strawberry fruit filling, strawberry jam, cherry fruit filling. Then we had to see, blindfolded, if we could identify each of these correctly.

It is amazing how much we rely on a COMBINATION of SIGHT, SMELL, TASTE and FEEL to identify something. Just taking away the SIGHT aspect (by blindfolding) makes it really difficult to identify purely by smell (the spices). And (for the fruits and nuts) taking away both the SIGHT aspect and the FEEL aspect (by chopping everything small so cannot feel what it is!!) it was really quite difficult to tell what you were tasting! The raw ripe/unripe fruits were not too difficult... but the cooked versions of the fruits - almost impossible to differentiate between ripe and unripe, and quite difficult to actually identify what we were tasting!

Of course, we also had other, slightly less interesting, subjects but, to be fair, the subjects are actually quite interesting, but after getting used to being on the go the whole time, baking, baking, and baking, it is difficult to sit down and pay attention in a classroom situation!

BUT, we finished all our theory lessons by Thursday, so we asked our Chef teacher if we could do the assessment on Thursday as well, so we could have a free day on Friday! Chef G agreed, on condition that we do TWO tests, instead of the planned ONE test... and we were A-OK with that, so, by Thursday afternoon we had done with the tests too!

Since Friday was free for us, I decided to go in to the academy anyway, to try and make Galettes from Invert Puff Pastry (I've made invert puff before, but never galettes), and also try the double-hydration ciabatta again (since the first attempt failed), and also wanted to try the malt baguette again to see if there was any difference in taste/texture between that and the normal baguette (Nope, no difference discernible to me :-P ).

So, how did the Friday go? Very well indeed for me :-). Check out these pictures and you will see what I mean.

1) Here's the double hydration ciabatta. What can I say? It came out PERFECT - light, fluffy, lots of wonderful air bubbles in the crumb of the bread, and so so so SO tasty! Had it for dinner that night - with my Mum's delicious fish curry. Sigh... could not have asked for a better meal anywhere!

2) And my very first attempt at galettes, made with invert puff pastry (where the BUTTER is on the outside, and the DOUGH is on the inside :-D)! The filling was almond cream, with a chocolate rice layer on top of the almond cream. The galettes rose quite well, though the layers were not as clearly visible as I would have liked. I also forgot to paint the baked galette with sugar syrup the minute it came out of the oven (so it looks nice and glossy). But it sure tasted DARNED good! I HAVE to practice making invert puff at home, though it is NOT going to be easy to do by hand. Sigh...

And this week we have been making tarts (which also includes macaroons). Today was my 2nd attempt at making French macaroons using the Italian meringue method - and it came out SORT of OK. Anyway, here are some pictures of what's been happening so far this week:

1) These are called WEEKEND Chocolate Vanilla / WEEKEND Pistachio Vanilla cookies. We can't figure out WHY it is called "WEEKEND"! We thought the chef was having us on... but, No, that is the name. First you make the basic vanilla mix. Then you take some of that basic mix and add either cocoa, or pistachio to it. Then you half fill a tiny paper cupcake mould with the basic vanilla mix, then top it up to three quarter full with the flavoured mix, and then you bake it! Has a very light cup cake texture, and the flavoured mix kinda swirls through the whole thing - a bit of a marbled effect. We filled the moulds up a wee bit too high, so they kinda fell over the top of the moulds and baked in funny shapes :-p. Have to try it again on Friday!

2) And here we go with the macaron! Ginger flavoured macaron shell, with mango-kalamansi lime ganache as the filling. Tasted really good, but I still don't like macaroons - wayyyyy too sweet for my taste!

3) Coconut balls - very short and sassy name :-). This is basically a small 10gm portion of marzipan (almond paste) - A lightly roasted whole hazelnut gets pushed into the centre of the marzipan and then it is rolled smoothly to form a ball, which is then dipped in egg white, and tossed in desiccated coconut. It then 'rests' overnight, at room temperature, before it gets baked the next day. This is TOTALLY yum!

4) Aboukir. Um, no, I don't know what the name means, but this is, again, a small 10gm portion of marzipan (almond paste) with orange peel and almond powder mixed in - rolled smoothly to form a ball, which is then dipped in egg white, and tossed in chopped almond flakes. Again, it 'rests' overnight, at room temperature, before it gets baked the next day. If you like orange peel (I DO NOT), then you would love this cookie too!

5) Chocolate sable biscuits, filled with banana pate de fruit. It sounds really weird, but it tastes amazingly good. If you are a banana fan, you will LOVE the pate de fruit :-).

Tomorrow is an off day for us (public holiday in Selangor, for Nuzul Quran), but we will be back on Thursday, when we have to do 2 more biscuits, try the WEEKEND cup cakes again, and make 4 different types of tuile. AND I will try and remember to take pictures of my kitchen and update that to my blog too.

So, till next time folks, have a good day, every day!

Kitchen tales... and BREADS!!

2011-08-06T22:26:00.000+08:00

OK, it does NOT help that the government has embarked on this 'register all workers' (legal and illegal) in this country. My question is - WHY do you have to REGISTER LEGAL WORKERS? I mean, the fact that they are LEGAL implies they are "ALREADY" registered? No? My mind is confused. But what this means is because of the HUGE number of workers in this country, the registration process has resulted in loads of employers losing hundreds and thousands of man hours, while their poor LEGAL workers sit in various immigration offices, sometimes till the wee hours of the morning, trying to get this extra paperwork completed... and, of course, this means that all work being done by these workers is HUGELY delayed. NOT fun, I assure you!

OK, enough moaning, let's get on with the story!

Where are we now? Let's see...

- All the tiles have been selected and delivered (kitchen and maids room floor, reinforced concrete internal surface, parents room extension, parents new bathroom)
- Wiring (and accompanying hacking for new wiring) has commenced. Wires are all in place. But no connections will be done till the tiling, painting, etc are done.
- Reinforced concrete surface with all internal tiling DONE
- Floor tiles in the kitchen DONE
- Kitchen double sink in place
- Roof tiles in kitchen and my parents room extension DONE
- Space for cooker properly tiled and ready

So, what's next for this week?

- measurements to be taken for the kitchen cabinets.
- wall plastering
- parents and maids room tiling, and hopefully parents new bathroom tiling as well
- Window frames and windows and (hopefully) security grilles
- the "pro-range' Elba cooker (with the HUMUNGOUS oven) will be delivered.

THEN - the final things:
- Close up the door from my parents room to the maids room - a new wall basically!
- all plumbing FITTINGS have to be put in
- wiring has to be completed
- New back door for kitchen to be put in.
- roofing, plaster ceiling, downlights, have to be done
- fitting aircon in kitchen (taking the unused aircon from my Dad's study upstairs :-p )
- all painting has to be done
- kitchen cabinet installation
- granite table top has to be installed

OK, we are getting slowly closer to the finish line, but it has definitely gone WAY above the original estimated time. I will be so happy when it is DONE!

And now for some pictures:

- This is the sink area. Double sink in place (each sink will have its own tap). Also the tiling on the inside of the reinforced concrete (RC) has been done. Ready to take measurements for cabinets now!

- And this is where the cooker is going to be placed. All the tiling is done.

- The long stretch of RC where there will be cabinets as well. Note the area to the left where there is no RC. A TALL cabinet will go there.

- And this is my soon-to-be baking area. No RC, as it will be cabinets with granite top all the way.

- And here I am looking to the back of the kitchen. You should be able to see the back door, the entrance to the maids room, and the little support pillar in the centre of the kitchen around which my granite island is going to be fitted.

- Here I am looking into the new room for a (future) maid, straight through to my parents room. That door between the two rooms will eventually be walled up.

- And here is my parents room. Still a HUGE mess, but, right now, the priority is on getting the kitchen completed!

With any luck, the kitchen should be done within the next two weeks (not talking about the rest!!, just the kitchen). Hopefully it will get done in time for me to make a cake for my nephews birthday! Fingers crossed :-).

OK, having got that out of the way let me tell you what's been happening with actual baking since my last update. First of all, the last week of July (25th to 29th July) we had our assessment week, marking the end of 6 months of the course. In other words we completed the intermediate level. I'm afraid I forgot to take pictures of the items we had to make for Monday and Tuesday of that week - basically we had to make Mille Feuille (with mousseline filling and floral decorations), Moka Cake (with Happy Birthday written on it), 3 types of Danish Pastries (I did the pinwheel, the duchess, and the butterfly), Multi-grain baguette, and Brioche.

Then, from Wednesday to Friday, we had to make Hand-dipped chocolates (I made Chocolate Chilli Pralines), Guanaja (Choc Mousse cake) with decor, 2 types of cookies (I made diamond cookies and choc chip cookies), Linzer Torte, Japanese Cheesecake, and one plated dessert with 3 dessert components. I DID remember to take a picture of the presentation of all these, and here it is:

This week marks the start of the final 3-months of this course, the *ahem* 'advanced' stage :-). How far advanced I will be, especially compared to the amazingly talented youngsters doing this course, is yet to be determined :-D.

And what have we been doing this week? Well, feast your eyes ...

- a TWO-LAYERED croissant. There is a layer of chocolate soft-roll dough on the outside, with the croissant dough on the inside. Looks interesting, doesn't it?

- And here we have a TWO-LAYERED croissant, in reverse - the plain soft roll dough on the outside, and the chocolate croissant dough on the inside.

- Pistachio cream and nut rolls!

- Rye bread. Like the designs? Made by putting various pastry cutters on the top of the dough before baking, and sifting flour over it, then removing the pastry cutters.

- Brioche puffs with creme brulee filling. Looks a bit like egg tarts right? But it isn't!

- Brioche puffs with raspberry jam filling.

- Herbal bread. Very strong tasting, but nice with curry. Smelt a bit like French onion soup!

- OK, we tried a 3-layer croissant - croissant dough on the inside, then two layers of puff pastry dough - the green one is pistachio puff pastry dough, and the brown one is chocolate puff pastry dough. Did I mention that the puff pastry doughs were both INVERT puff? Which means that instead of having the dough on the outside with a sheet of butter folded into the centre of it (like normal puff pastry), INVERT puff has the butter on the OUTSIDE with a sheet of dough folded into the centre of it. Have I mentioned that butter MELTS? So can you imagine the fun of folding and rolling something that has BUTTER on the outside? Well, we did manage it, but it took a lot of TIME!

- And here's the 3-colour croissant baked. Not very successful, unfortunately, as the puff pastry requires much longer than croissant dough to bake, but if we baked it for that long a time, the croissant dough would burn! Must try this again, but maybe using 2 layers of soft roll dough of different colours/flavours, rather than puff pastry!

- CARROT CAKE! First time making it. YUMMY! But must try it with soft brown sugar next time, and maybe a touch of maple syrup???

- Kouign Aman. Sinfully yummy... one TON of sugar (well, that is not TOO much of an exaggeration!). Check it out on Google to find out more about what it is.

- Pain Aux Herbes. Very nice!

- Double Hydration Ciabatta - this has got more liquid in it than it has flour. Olive oil and water... resulting in a very LIQUID dough. This did not turn out quite right. I think because in the process of transferring this very liquid dough from the work surface to the baking tray it must have collapsed a bit. Still tasted quite nice though!

- Bread made from LEAVEN (a mix made of 60% milk and 40% flour, left to ferment over a period of a few days with constant addition of more milk and flour in the same proportions). Minimal yeast is required for this. And it tastes REALLY nice!

Well folks, that's it for now. Till next time, have a good day, every day!

And the kitchen saga continues...

2011-07-26T22:37:00.000+08:00

... and sometimes it feels a bit like the Never-ending story! Fortunately, I can see that we ARE getting closer to the end!

So, what's happened? Hmmm, let's see now:

- All new wall building completed, except for closing up the door from my parents room to their old bathroom (which is now extended and converted to a room for a maid in the future).
- Most of the new walls have been cemented over
- All hidden plumbing is in place - need to fit taps, toilets, shower heads, water heaters, etc.
- Wiring (and accompanying hacking for new wiring) is going on now.
- Reinforced concrete surface and flooring for the new kitchen cabinets, on one side of the kitchen, are almost complete
- Roof frame and tiles for the kitchen extension are in place (Forgot to check today if they are in place for the extension in my parents room!)

So, what's left?

- all plumbing FITTINGS have to be put in
- wiring has to be completed
- measurements have to be taken for all those surfaces that are going to be tiled, and tiles have to be purchased (tile designs have been selected, just have to order the right quantity once the measurements are done).
- obviously, tiling has to be done :-p
- roofing, plaster ceiling, downlights, have to be done
- fitting aircon in kitchen (taking the unused aircon from my Dad's study upstairs :-p )
- all painting has to be done
- kitchen cabinet measurements have to be taken and the cabinets done and installed (measurements can be taken only when tiling is done... sigh)
- for "my" side of the kitchen, ie, where the baking will take place (!) the granite table top has to be installed
- the "pro-range' Elba cooker (with the HUMUNGOUS oven) has to be delivered.

OK, I know, it sounds like a lot, but it should happen pretty fast! For example, measurements for purchasing of tiles will be done tomorrow. Once the tiles are delivered, the guys will have the relevant surfaces tiled pretty fast - basically, kitchen flooring, RC top and inside, new bathroom floor and walls, and the extended part of my parents bedroom. The kitchen WALLS are not going to be tiled - I prefer paint, not tiles. The cooker will have a splash-back installed behind it though, to keep the wall clean :-). Cabinets, from time of measurement will take approx 2 weeks to be built and delivered and installed. The granite top for the baking side of the kitchen will take 3 weeks...but I can handle that - as once the kitchen is done, even without the cabinets in place, at least we can USE the kitchen again!

There will be a lot of other small things to do, but once the big stuff is done and the kitchen accessible, I can live with the rest :-D. And, once all that is DONE, then the little guest bathroom/powder room downstairs has to be re-done as well. But, after we are going through now, that is going to be a piece of cake in comparison!

Anyway, here are some photos to show some of the progress made so far, and some of the mess we are still living with outside!

- Here I am standing at the new back door of the kitchen, looking to the front, and along the long (almost 3 metre) wall, with the reinforced concrete in place.

- On the left of the picture, covered with plywood, is the entrance to the kitchen (currently blocked off for obvious reasons!). On the right, you can just see the beginning of the stretch of reinforced concrete (RC)

- My soon-to-be baking area is still looking a bit strange with the toilet bowl sitting in the centre!

- Now I am standing near the kitchen entrance, looking to the back of the kitchen. You can see the kitchen back door on the right, and the entrance to the maids room next to that.

- Same position, near the kitchen entrance, looking to the back of the kitchen, where the double sinks will be (under the window) and the cooker will be (on the left)

- Better view of where the cooker will be. You can see where the RC terminates! The cooker will be slotted in between.

- This is the view down the side of the house (from half way to the front), showing the new walls of my parents extended bedroom and the new bathroom.

- And here is my messy messy messy garden - picture taken from side of house. Can you see the black cat? Sitting quite comfortably on the electricity meter box just outside the fence perimeter of the house!

- Another view of my messy garden, taken from the car porch.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully the next post will show more 'concrete' (no pun intended) results of the renovation.

Till then, have a great day, every day!

More chocolates! Pretty amazing ones too :-)

2011-07-23T21:58:00.003+08:00

We had Chef Jean-Marie Auboine in this week - you can find out more about him at these two web pages:

- http://www.greatchefs.com/great-chefs/jean-marie-auboine/
- http://www.jmauboine.blogspot.com/

Let's just say that he is, in this field, EXTREMELY well known, and very very accomplished.

So, he spent this week, from Monday to Saturday, with all of us pastry/chocolate-newbies at the Academy of Pastry Arts. We also had several outsiders, some of whom are also chefs (local, as well as from Singapore and Australia), attending. The first three days of the week was focused on doing chocolate sculptures, and the next three days of the week we focused on making close to 30 different types of chocolate ganaches, pate de fruit, and caramels, and, on top of that, marshmallow and nougat! And once the ganaches and caramels were ready they were cut into squares, and then put through a 'chocolate enrobing' machine, which basically covered the ganaches and caramels in a nicely tempered layer of chocolate. Then each chocolate was decorated, arranged for display, and displayed!!! A very busy and industrious week.

It would take too long to try and describe everything we did, so instead I am going to show you pictures of all the completed items.

Let's start with the sculptures/showpieces first:

- An elegant lady!

- Flowers!

- A rather large and scary scorpion!

- I'm sure you've seen this sculpture in wood, stone, etc, many times. Now you are seeing it in pure 100% CHOCOLATE!!

- I think this is the Egyptian god (or is it goddess? or just a cat?), BAST

- And here we have Anubis!

- A robot mickey? I know this type of toy has a specific name, but I cannot remember what it is at all! Sorry.....

- This looks like the Venus de Milo, in chocolate, but WITH both her arms!

- This is my favourite - a musician!

- A pair of frogs, perched on a ...???

And, now that you've seen the sculptures, let's get to the EDIBLE STUFF.... SOME of the ganaches we made these last three days, are.... vanilla, lemon, earl grey, hazelnut praline, almond praline, coriander praline (my favourite flavour!), honey saffron, mojito, coffee caramel, coffee... and for the pate de fruits we made banana rum, lemon, kalamansi, cassis, and raspberry... and, of course, not forgetting the nougat (chocolate, as well as original, flavour), and last, but not least, the marshmallow - vanilla and strawberry flavours.

Below is a series of 7 pictures which shows the display we set up at the end of today. Note that this is not ALL the stuff we made. Just all those we had space to display :-)... and, of course, the marshmallows, the nougat, and some of the pate de fruit are there too... enjoy, and try not to drool over your keyboards :-D.

Drooling yet?

Till next time, have a great day, every day!

The ongoing KITCHEN saga!

2011-07-17T20:46:00.002+08:00

Well, what is there to say really? Yes, it is still a mess... BUT slightly 'less' of a mess! Walls have taken shape; the roof tiles are going into place; a lot (not all) of the demolished rubbish has been cleared out; plastering of the walls should start this week; some of the piping has gone in already for laundry area, parents new bathroom, etc; door frames and window frames are in place already.

This week - plastering to start; final measurements for kitchen cabinets to be done; roof tiles to be completed; floor tiles for kitchen to be selected; plug point locations to be finalised. There will be other tasks done as well, but these are the major things that I can think of for now. Also got to sort out lights for the kitchen, maids room, and parents room. Paint colours, bathroom fittings, etc. The original estimate for getting all this completed was 5 weeks... but it looks like that is definitely not going to happen as we are heading into the 5th week and there is still so much to be done! Completion is more likely to be 1st or 2nd week of August... sigh... I know I am the one who decided to do this, but I can't WAIT to have it over - I HATE THE MESS! And, of course, am looking forward to having SPACE in the kitchen - enough to unpack all my late husbands kitchen stuff which has been in packing boxes since last year! And it will be great to have space enough to do my baking without feeling like I am squashed into one tiny corner :-D.

Anyway, check out these pictures - taken a few days ago...

- This is the new back door to the kitchen. I am standing outside, looking at the door. The window on the left is the window for the new room for the maid (assuming we get a full time maid in future!)

- Here I am in the kitchen (near to what will be the entrance into the kitchen) looking all the way down the length of the kitchen to the back wall.

- My little OVEN used to be on this wall!

- And the tiny space that I had to do my bakery prep used to be here!!! Looks REALLY surreal with that toilet sitting there :-p... and in case you are wondering, No, this is not a new idea in kitchen design! That toilet will make its way to my parents new bathroom soon :-D

- Here I am still inside the kitchen, looking at the back door of the kitchen (on the left) and the door to the maids room (on the right).

I hope by the time I take my next round of pictures you will see huge improvements in the whole area. Right now, it still looks like a bomb-site that has only been partially cleared :-).

Anyway, we shall see how it goes, so, till next time, have a good day, every day!

Cakes for an alumni 25th anniversary celebration

2011-07-17T20:22:00.001+08:00

Two weeks ago my brother-in-law, one of the members of the organising committee who were arranging a major celebration, for the 25th anniversary of their medical college alumni in Malaysia, asked me if I knew anyone who could make a cake for them for their D&D. Of course, I immediately thought of the Academy, where I am studying pastry making... and, more specifically, thought of the two young ladies who have JUST finished their full 9 month course, have completed their final week-long assessment and who have PASSED their assessment! They are in fact the first two to graduate from the full 9-month course offered by the Academy, and they are both very accomplished in pastry arts (though both say they still have a lot to learn). Anyway... talked to the chefs at the academy and talked to the two girls, and the upshot of it was - Yes, they will do it! With advise and guidance, if needed, from the chef trainers, and with the use of the academy's equipment, and their help in ordering the ingredients, and other materials needed (all of which I would be paying for, of course!).

The basic premise was:
- CHOCOLATE CAKE (but not a typical boring sponge!)
- EDIBLE ICING (not the normal 'icky' buttercream icing)
- LOGO

Then, a week later, an added request to 'jazz up' the cake by adding figurines! Hmmmm... OK... the two girls were definitely up to the challenge!

The final outcome:
1) 4 moist chocolate cakes, 12" by 10", 2-layer, with vanilla buttercream in between, and topped with buttercream vanilla buttercream - with decorative items on each cake as below:

- Check out the lab coat with the stethoscope, the pen in pocket, and the scissors! Quite realistic looking stethoscope isn't it?

- Next up, surgeons scrubs and mask, 2 cheerful little molars (inspired by mymilktoof.blogspot.com) and a syringe.

- ECG monitor output, a heart, fixed with plaster, and loads of meds!

- and the 'main' cake, with the logo, and a cute doctor standing next to the cake, with more meds scattered across the top!

2) 4 moist chocolate cakes, 12" by 10", 2-layer, with chocolate ganache in between, and topped with chocolate ganache and then finished with chocolate glaze. Only chocolate shards (with the small logo of the university) and gold dust as decor, as below:

- Nice and shiny with the glaze topping, with choc shards and gold dust!

We had to deliver the cakes to the Holiday Villa Subang and have them set up before 6.30pm... so the girls and I loaded the cakes into my car - 4 cakes in the boot, 2 on the back seat, and the last two on the laps of the two girls :-) - and headed to the hotel. Had to carry everything up ourselves, managed to get the hotel people to arrange a big enough table to put everything on, and here we are, cakes organised on the table, and the two young ladies who did all the hard work, standing (with me in the middle) with the cakes! They did an amazing job, and I totally enjoyed working with them.

Xiao-Ly and Li-Yin a big THANK YOU for a truly wonderful job done, and a great learning experience for me!! I really learnt a lot from both of you.

Also a huge THANK YOU to the Academy of Pastry Arts for helping me to get this organised, to order everything for us, to allow us the use of the facilities, etc.

So, till next time, have a great day, every day!

Another round of wedding cake decor done!

2011-07-09T14:47:00.003+08:00

This week has reinforced my decision NOT to make wedding cakes! And it is not because the cake itself may be difficult to make, but because doing the DECOR is too incredibly tedious for my tiny brain to handle :-p. Tedious, SMALL, fiddly, fussy, etc, etc, etc. Sigh... However, I have to do this one more time - in the final 3 months of the course, and, believe it or not, I have already started searching / surfing for inspiration and ideas... otherwise when it comes down to the crunch I won't be able to do anything!

Anyway, here is what we did this week... first of all, we had to do a 3-tier cake, with each tier looking like a CUSHION! Of course, we did not actually make the cake as such... instead we were given a huge piece of styrofoam, which we first had to cut down to the specified measurements (base tier 15 inch square, middle tier 12 inch square, top tier 9 inch square). Once the pieces were ready we had to individually CARVE each piece to shape them into cushion forms... so, we started with this square of styrofoam...

And ended with this (somewhat) cushion shaped styrofoam!

From there, once all three 'cushions' were ready, we had to make sugar pastillage and cover each tier with the pastillage in our preferred colours... and this is what my team ended up with:

And just that process took almost 2 days to do!! Most of this I did as my team mate Aden was busy doing the figurines and fancy stuff that we wanted to put on the cake. Our other team mate, Aceline, was on medical leave from Monday to Wednesday, so it was mostly just Aden and myself most of the time, though when Aceline was with us she was very productive! 2 of the other 3 teams (just fyi) had 4 people each, and the 3rd team had 3 people! Luckily for Aden and me, Chef Tan helped to carve the smallest of the 3 tiers (Aden carved the middle one, and I did the big one), and Chef Azura later helped to do the decorative piping on the sides of the tiers.

While the tiers were being made ready, Aden was focusing on the 'difficult' bits and pieces that were going to go ON the cake...

1) Butterfly wings, to make butterflies (we ended up using only one in the end)

2) Flowers (made by myself and Aceline)! Small, medium, large. We used the smallest in just white, and airbrushed the medium and large flowers the lightest shade of pink. Airbrushing was done by Aceline!

3) Our caterpillar and bee 'couples', with mushroom 'highlights'

4) And here are the turtle and mice couples :-)

5) And the ladybirds!

Of course, we also need the bride and groom too... and here they are, courtesy of U-Hon (member of another team) who had made them and then made another pair he preferred, so he 'donated' this pair to us! Thanks U-Hon :-)

Once all the components were ready, we started putting it all together, and here it is:

1) The cake DONE, all components in place :-)

2) Close up of the top of the cake, with bride and groom in place, watched over by a butterfly

3) And here are the three of us with our cake - from right to left, Aceline, Aden, myself :-)

And how about the other teams? Here are the other amazing cakes produced by the 3 other teams. First the cakes, and then close ups of the toppers:

1) Cake and topper done by Nadiah, Suk Hui, Wen Li and Keng Joo:

2) Cake and topper done by U-Hon, Joanne, Angelica and Ang:

3) Cake and topper done by Cadee, Chok Tong and Sweet Ping:

Now the best part of the week was Friday! Why? Firstly because my team finished with the cake really early (like 11am on Friday)! Yippee!!! And secondly, two of my favourite students at the Academy (Xiao-Ly and Li Yin, who are the first two to graduate from the FULL 9-month course offered by the Academy) came and asked me, if I was free, to join them in their baking!! Phew, talk about an irresistable invitation :-). Of COURSE I said Yes... and here is what we made that afternoon:

1) SAUSAGE ROLLS, wrapped in milk bread, sprinkled with chilli flakes. YUM!!!

2) Brioche puffs! Sprinkled with soft brown sugar just before baking... another major YUM!

3) Chocolate chip cookies (on the left) and peanut-butter/chocolate chip cookies (on the right). NICE, NICE, NICE

So, a very good end to the week :-).

Till next time folks, have a good day, every day!

Kitchen reno ongoing... Man, what a MESS!

2011-07-03T15:30:00.003+08:00

Yeah, I can hear you saying "So, what did you expect when you do renovations? A shiny house?".. OK, OK, I know, I know.... but it doesn't stop me from thinking I will be glad when it is all done and life can return to NORMAL, though with more space to store things in the kitchen, and more space to get work done in there too :-D. I am SO looking forward to having SPACE to do my baking, especially with a new BIG oven coming in!! And if anyone is looking to get themselves a new cooker - check this one out : http://www.elba.com.my/procook-EPRC9860E.htm! This is what I am getting. A 5-burner cooker with a HUGE 105 litre capacity, 3-shelf, oven! Considering that most home ovens are 50-55 litre capacity, you can imagine the size of this one :-). They are having a really good offer on now, so if you ARE looking for a new cooker/oven, go check it out.

So, where are we at for the renovations?

Where the kitchen is concerned nothing much has happened since last update, as they have been focusing on getting my parents room extension + new bathroom done first. So, the last two weeks, they have done the following:

- Demolished the outside wall of my parents bedroom
- Built (and have almost completed) a brand new wall for my parents bedroom, 3 feet further out
- Built (and almost completed)the new ensuite bathroom walls
- Done all the relevant in/out plumbing for shower, sink
- Done the relevant in/out plumbing for the new esnsuite for my parents (yep, including connection to sewage tank).
- Started demolishing the end wall of the old ensuite (as this is going to be extended to be a new room for a maid (assuming we get one in the future).
- Started ripping up the old floor and wall tiles in the kitchen

Check out the pictures!

- new bedroom/ensuite walls

- This used to be the wet kitchen :-)

- This used to be where the fridge was in the dry kitchen

- This is where the sink for the dry kitchen used to be. The wall is gone and the dry and wet kitchen are no longer there.

- The end wall of the old ensuite is gone, ready for extending the room.

This coming week they should be able to:
- finish the walls for the bedroom and ensuite
- finish the demolition of the old ensuite and ripping out all the fittings and tiles
- finish pulling out all the old tiles and plumbing for the kitchen
- get the new kitchen walls at least half way built
- get the new room for the maid at least half way built

In the meantime, what about the mess in the rest of the house? Of course, "mess" refers mainly to the downstairs only, as the upstairs is pretty much untouched by all this - other than the fact that my parents have to use one of the guest rooms upstairs (luckily both the guest rooms have ensuites!!) while waiting for their extended bedroom and new ensuite to be ready.

Check these out:

- This is the dining room, crowded, but still liveable. Microwave, rice cooker, dish rack, all on the cabinet on the left, next to my fridge. Dining table holds medicines (for both parents), water bottles, and miscellaneous junk! And, on the right, between the piano and the grille doors, are packing boxes full of kitchen stuff, and on top of the boxes are the bare minimum daily use items my mother deemed necessary to survive till the kitchen is done. And not to forget the water dispenser (the pink and cream coloured contraption on the right of the picture) and the old oven (behind the water dispenser), sitting and waiting to be re-connected and installed in the new kitchen

- This is the entrance foyer. Lots of packing boxes under the stairs. The little kopi tiam table that used to be in the kitchen is now here. Also not tooooo messy!

- The living room - hardly affected really. My parents TV is sitting on top of the piano in the dining room, facing the two easy chairs.

- The hugely messy garden - the old windows and grilles, taken from the kitchen and my parents room, are all here... and will be re-used wherever possible. And check out the driveway! Half of it is occupied with bricks, bricks, and more bricks. When parking in the driveway, I have to get as close as possible to the side wall otherwise I have to climb over the bricks to get in and out of my car!

- This used to be where I would park my car every day... sigh... look at the junk lying there now! Never mind, I will get it back eventually :-D

- And, finally, here is the mess at the side of the house. All the things that used to be neatly stored in the garden shed had to be pulled out to move the garden shed, and wont be put back into the shed till the construction is over and we can figure out where we want the shed to be! Also, the dining table and chairs that used to be outside, and the kopi tiam table, have all been shoved to one side. Some of the kitchen cabinets from the wet kitchen are still with us, as we want to fix them up in the new laundry area. Also the aircon and compressor from my parents room, the immersion water heater, etc, etc, etc, are all piled up here! What a MESS!

Another 4 weeks of this to go... though I do expect that once the demolition part is complete, things will look a bit better! I can't wait!!!

Till next time folks, have a good day, every day!

Oooh, more chocolates this week too!

2011-06-30T22:33:00.001+08:00

After visiting the chocolate factory last week, this week is all to do with chocolates again! In other words, a choc-a-holics dream come true :-D.

Monday and Tuesday this week we were busy making chocolates - both the moulded and the dipped variety. There are 6 of us in our intermediate class at the Academy, and the Chef asked us to each choose 2 moulds to use - so we picked our favourite moulds... and my favourite moulds are the ones that produce chocolate spheres, and chocolate bullets :-D. Once the moulds were selected we then picked our favourite colours or colour combinations of cocoa butter and either sprayed the inside of the moulds with an air brush, or just used a paintbrush, or a toothbrush, or even just a finger, to get some of our preferred colours into the mould.

And here are my selected moulds, with cocoa butter colour swiped in already:

1) The chocolate spheres...

2) The chocolate bullets...

Next, we had to melt our preferred chocolate (dark, milk, or white), temper it, pour into the moulds and then knock out all the extra. This way, we get a nice chocolate lining on the moulds - this will be the shell of the chocolate when it is unmoulded. If tempered properly, when the chocolates are unmoulded you should see a really nice shiny outside, with the cocoa butter colour firmly adhering to the shell!

We then made various fillings (chocolate ganache with flavour or nuts or caramelled). Even strawberry JELLY plus white choc ganache to make a two layer filling!! We piped the various fillings into our chocolate moulds, let them set, then used a bit more tempered chocolate to seal off the openings in the moulds through which we had piped the fillings! These could then be left to set again.

These are my moulds, with chocolate lining done, and all filled with ganache and sealed off...

And here are the final products - the spheres and the bullets unmoulded, and also split open to show the insides...

1) The unmoulded spheres

2) The inside of the spheres. This had caramel chocolate ganache as the filling.

3) The bullets! I think they look gorgeous :-D

4) And the bullet broken open - this one had passionfruit caramel filling, topped off with dark chocolate ganache.

In addition to the above, we prepared chocolate ganache to use for DIPPING chocolates. We spread the various flavoured ganaches out into rectangular frames, which were on parchment paper which already had a thin sheet of tempered chocolate spread onto it. The ganache is evenly spread in the frame, and then left to set. Once it is set we cut the ganache into 2x2cm squares, temper more chocolate, then dip the ganache squares into the tempered chocolate, and let them set again. I made some MONSTER size Rocher chocolates too.

1) This is one of the ganaches we made. Almond chocolate ganache. YUM!

2) And here are the MONSTER chocolates I made - using the almond chocolate ganache, and dipped into tempered dark chocolate for the coating. Most tasty indeed! I will definitely do this at home.

And the following 4 pictures give you a full 360deg view of the table we set up to showcase all the chocolates we produced in the 2 days! Note, this is not ALL the chocolates in terms of numbers, but it is all the chocolates in terms of designs/types. We have at least twice this amount of chocolate not shown here, but only because we didn't want to make the whole layout look cramped and ugly by squeezing too many chocolate into each display tile! Having said that, I'm sure most choc-a-holics would not consider that type of display a bad one :-D

The rest of the week is for building a chocolate showpiece! NOT one of my favourite tasks, as I really consider it such a waste of money to use good chocolate to build something that nobody is going to eat! I did learn the techniques - for making some different types of chocolate flowers, for casting the bigger pieces for the body of the showpiece, for shaping and fine tuning the cast pieces, etc - but this is not something I will be doing at home :-).

One MAJOR plus point of this week (from my perspective anyway) is that I am now far more comfortable with the process of tempering chocolate, and don't panic when handed a huge container of melted chocolate together with a spatula and a scraper! This is good, because I do intend to make these chocolates at home, both the moulded/filled and set/dipped variety, and I do have to know how to temper chocolates for that! So this week has definitely been a good week from that perspective!

That's it for now folks. Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Visited the Callebaut chocolate factory!!

2011-06-26T00:02:00.000+08:00

And it was a most interesting trip! Met at the Academy, and by 8am we were all on the way. Traffic was pretty good, and the map they sent us was extremely good! No problem finding the place - in Klang!

By 9.40am we were all seated in their training room (freezing our butts off!), watching a video that basically took us through the cycle from cocoa pod to shipping off the cocoa powder, cocoa mass, and cocoa nibs, to the factories in different countries.

- Here we are, in the training room.

- and this is Jean-Marc. He had such a lot of patience with us!

After the video we had a short Q&A session with our host, Jean-Marc, and then we had a tour of the factory (no pictures allowed in the factory :-p). From there, back to the training room where Jean-Marc showed us cocoa pods, cocoa beans, cocoa nibs...

- cocoa pods, dried

- cocoa beans, extracted from cocoa pods

- cocoa nibs, extracted from the cocoa beans.

He then got us to taste different couverture chocolates (2 milk, and 7 dark) from different countries. Amazing range of flavours!

- These are the 7 varieties of dark couverture chocolate that we tried. My favourite was the Trinidad dark choc! Smooooooth and so nice and tasty!

He then showed us WHY we have to temper chocolate - basically it is because the cocoa butter requires tempering properly, or else it will crystallise. He tempered cocoa butter for us to see, and it was really interesting watching the transformation from liquid to solid. Now I can understand a lot better why the tempering process is necessary!

- the chocolate bar on the left was done with UNtempered chocolate, while the one on the right was done with properly tempered chocolate. The one on the left crystallised while the one on the right remains perfectly smooth!

- here you can see tempered cocoa butter, the round yellow patch on the table(!), which has taken just 3 minutes to set. The translucent yellow patch is untempered cocoa butter which is still liquid, even though it has been lying on the table for at least 10 minutes at this point.

We had lunch after that - provided by Callebaut. This included 3 items for dessert - 2 different types of cakes, both very yummy, AND the most amazing ROCHER I have ever seen! They were HUGE (and that's putting it mildly!). Had to share with Xiao-Ly as I just could not finish one by myself. Half was all I could manage :-p. They then gave us catalogues (showing their products) and a bag full of chocolates each! Truly generous :-D.... and then we all headed back to KL feeling rather happy with the whole day.

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

My kitchen looks like it got hit by a bomb :-p

2011-06-23T23:41:00.000+08:00

Well, OK, I know that is not what has happened, but it definitely LOOKS like it!

This is Day 4 of kitchen reno, and just check out these pictures... and compare them to the pre-reno pictures. I think you would agree that it looks like it got bombed :-).

1: This is the part of the original kitchen where the oven, m-wave cooker, etc was!

2: And this is where the sink was! The wall is almost all gone now... and you can see straight to the original wet kitchen area!

3) This is the part of the dry kitchen that was opposite where the fridge was!

4) And this is where the fridge was located...

5) And this is the wet kitchen where the fridge and the washing machine were.

I wish I could fast-forward to the end of July, to see the finished kitchen!

I am just imagining all the yummy baked stuff I can make once the kitchen is done. There are so many things I have been learning at the Academy of Pastry Arts that I want to put into practice on a regular basis - and that includes breads, tarts, cakes (especially the classic cakes) and even CHOCOLATES!!

Oh, and tomorrow (Friday 24th June) the Academy has arranged for all of us students to pay a visit to the Barry Callebaut factory in Klang! That should be very very interesting too :-D.

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Kitchen reno has started... YAY!!

2011-06-20T19:57:00.001+08:00

The outside of the house is full of broken pieces of wood, old kitchen cabinets, a useless cooker hood, an old 4 burner hob, and lots and lots and LOTS of dust and sawdust! All part of the process I suppose :-p.

The guys have made good progress already. They were at the house late morning, with all their required paraphernalia, and this is what they were able to do today:

- Re-positioned the kitchen fridge to BLOCK the entrance to the kitchen
- Disconnected the water dispenser (which is piped from the kitchen sink) and moved it into the dining room for safe keeping
- Disconnected and removed the built-in oven and moved it into the dining room for safe keeping
- Moved the small kopi tiam table and chairs from the kitchen to the entrance hall way.
- Closed off the entrance to the kitchen (behind the re-positioned fridge) with a large sheet of plywood
- Stripped ALL the cabinets off the walls in the dry kitchen and moved most of them to the side of the house
- Stripped HALF the cabinets off the walls off the wet kitchen, and moved them to the side of the house

Not too bad, for half a days work (they started around 11am, had a break for lunch, and left around 5pm).

And this is what the kitchen looks like now (and you can compare to the pictures from yesterdays post to see the differences!):

1) The dry kitchen, where the cooker and microwave were!

2) The dry kitchen, where the sink was!

3) The dry kitchen, where the fridge was, with the tiny space I used to use for my baking prep!

4) The wet kitchen, this part has not yet been stripped. It will take longer as the top and bottom are cement and tiles! Harder to demolish.

5) The wet kitchen, where the washing machine and fridge were. The washing machine is still there, but will be moved to a temporary location at the side of the house tomorrow. And one of the workers asked if he could have the little fridge, as we are not keeping it, and of course we said yes!

6) These are the blue cabinets taken from the wet kitchen washing machine/fridge area. We will re-use these in the new 'laundry' area. The tall cabinet will be useful for storing buckets, mops, etc, while the base cabinet and the wall unit will be useful for storing all the laundry and cleaning stuff. These cabinets will be eventually positioned next to the washing machine at the side of the house.

7) And these are the cabinets from inside the dry kitchen. One of our friends has asked if they can have the cabinets (!) and we've said Yes. They have, of course, confirmed that they will pay for having it moved to their place and re-constructed there!

And that's it for today... more to come :-). The suspense is building ........

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Kitchen reno starting!!!

2011-06-19T21:20:00.000+08:00

Yep, I am finally getting round to doing my kitchen properly! We moved into this house in the year 2000, and never did anything to the kitchen at that time because my mother (the major user of the kitchen at that time) said she was fine with the kitchen as it was, and she had a wet kitchen done for herself as well. So, basically, the dry kitchen never got touched. And since Ken and I never actually lived here (only coming back briefly for breaks from SG), we never used the kitchen!

Now that I am into baking... and I need to use the dry kitchen, I HAVE to get it done up properly as there is absolutely NO, or ALMOST NO, working surface at all! On one side of the kitchen, what little work surface there is, has been been occupied by the microwave. On the other side of the kitchen, where there is a small "L"-shaped work surface, one side has been occupied by rice cooker and kettle... leaving me just a tiny space, approximately 4 foot long, and less than 2 feet deep!

So, we start. Tomorrow! And, as part of the overall renovations plans, will be building in a new room for a maid (as we might have to get a full time maid in the not too distant future), extending my parents bedroom to make it wider (that was the 'original' maids room which we had lengthened but not widened when we moved in), and a new (bigger) ensuite for my parents room as well. The time line to get all this complete? 5 - 6 weeks according to our contractor friend!! Fingers crossed that it does only take that long! In the meantime, it is going to be 'fun' (NOT) to have dust in the air; no access to a kitchen; having a temporary cooking site at the side of the house, but no real facilities to wash dishes; and my parents will have to move to an upstairs bedroom temporarily, till their bedroom and new ensuite gets sorted out; and if we can't find an alternative temp site to put our washing machine, we'll have to go to my sisters place, 3 houses away, to wash clothes!! Oh yes... FUN :-p!! BUT, it will be worth it, to get the kitchen in order, to have more storage in the kitchen, to be able to FINALLY unpack all Ken's cooking and baking stuff, and to have LOTS more work surface, and A NICE BIG NEW OVEN :-) to do all my baking in!

Have a look at the following pictures, to get some idea of the CURRENT kitchen:

1: This is one side of the dry kitchen. As you can see - no work surface. Tall cabinet, oven, microwave, cooker, dish drainer....

2: ... better view of the dish drainer, and the sink. NO work surface! Next to the sink is the door leading to the wet kitchen. Also, there is not a lot of cabinet space either.

3: This is the other side of the dry kitchen. Small "L"-shaped area. The work surface you can see right at the centre of the picture is the ONLY 'available' work surface. Having said that, my Mum usually has stuff lying in that area (bottles, water jugs, fruits, bread, etc) which I have to clear away if I want to use that area! The rice cooker and kettle are in the area hidden by the fridge.

4: This is the wet kitchen. NOT a lot of work surface again. And I HATE the colour!!

5: The other side of the wet kitchen. Don't be fooled into thinking that area next to the washing machine is work surface! It usually is piled high with loads of CDs, tapes, and a mini-sound system - which my Mum has playing from time to time. And in between the little fridge and the tall cabinet is a 3-tier plastic tray with wheels which has onions, potatoes, etc, in it, and which, therefore, makes it difficult to get access to the tall cabinet! Highly irritating!

There you have it. The current state of my kitchen. So, I shall try and remember to take progress photos, as the work goes on :-). And by end-July I hope that it will all be complete and I can put up pics of the completed and fully refurbished kitchen!

Till next time folks, have a good day, every day!

5 months, and counting...

2011-06-17T23:42:00.000+08:00

Well, they do say that time goes by fast when you are having fun, and, since I am having quite a LOT of fun with this baking stint, time has been FLYING past at a great rate of knots! We have learnt so much, and I have even been inspired to get my act together and RENOVATE MY KITCHEN :-). Yes, it is all in motion already - and the reno starts on MONDAY! Bigger kitchen, more work surface, new (BIG) oven, more storage room (so can store all my Mum's kitchen stuff AND my kitchen stuff!). If things go relatively smoothly, the work should be completed by either 3rd week of July or end-July. Fingers crossed for me please :-).

On the baking front, we have done so MUCH in the last one month (and we are well into the 5th month of baking). And since we have done so much, it was very hard for me to pick and choose which pictures to share with you. I mean, we have done: Banoffee pie, Roasted Pineapple Tart, Apple Crumble Tart, Rhubarb Tart, Peach n Pistachio Tart, Bakewell Tart, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Malva Pudding, Tarte Pierre Herme, Berry Vanilla Tart, Cones, Lemon Shortbread, Cats Tongue, Almond Biscuits, Scottish Shortbread, Croustillant, Choc Hazelnut Spiral biscuits, Fig n Orange pinwheel biscuits, Choc Fudge, Nougat, Vacherin, Sacher Torte, Pain L-epice, Frasier, Pavlova, Swiss Meringue figurines, Le Succes, Passionfruit Mirroire, Gateau Marjolaine, Exotic "Cheesecake" Tart, Profiterole, Apple Strudel, Sabayon Fruits, Strawberry Tarts....PHEW!!! So, the only pictures I will put up are of those items that I think I will actually MAKE again! The rest would be... well... interesting to know, but not something I would really eat again! Mind you, I WOULD make it for any friend who wants it :-).

Anyway, here goes... and, as always, try not to drool all over your keyboard!

- The Apple Crumble TART! In other words, an apple crumble (as normal) but with a TART BASE of sweet pastry or sable pastry. SO YUMMMMMMMY!

- The Bakewell Tart: If you like raspberry jam (as I do!) you will LOVE this!

- Malva Pudding. I can almost hear you say "Huh", as that was my first reaction too. Imagine a sponge cake which, when almost baked, has rich chocolate sauce poured all over it! Well, this picture shows my attempt at this pudding. I poured the choc sauce on TOO EARLY, and thought I had a disaster on my hands! As it turned out, the sauce mixed nicely throughout the whole cake and made it incredibly rich and incredibly tasty. I would not hesitate to say that it tasted better done this way, as compared to doing it the 'right' way :-D

- Sticky Toffee Pudding! I could eat half a dozen of these at a sitting. Talk about sinfully delicious! Especially when eaten with the sauce... sigh...

- Cones, painted with chocolate on the inside, dipped in sweet garnishing on both ends, and then filled with either chocolate ganache or chantilly cream. Sweet little bites!

- Chocolate and Hazelnut spiral biscuits. Now, I am NOT normally a fan of biscuits, but this one is lovely! Great flavour combination.

- Sacher Torte. A classic German cake. And if you like chocolate, you will LOVE this cake!

- The Frasier! A.k.a. Strawberry shortcake. Isn't it extremely pretty?

- Passionfruit Mirroire. Amazingly refreshing and tasty. Especially when made with a fruit that is tart, rather than sweet!

- Gateau Marjolaine. Rich, nutty cake. Imagine - in this WHOLE cake, there is only 25grams of flour! The rest of the 'powder' in the cake is actually roasted almonds and hazelnuts which have been put through the food processor!

- Apple Strudel. Another German classic. Our first attempt came out as hard as a rock! The 2nd attempt came out pretty darned good, and we already have improvements in mind for our 3rd attempt!

- And last, but definitely not least, Strawberry Tart. Scrumptious!

So, we are 4.5 months done, which means we are half-way through this course already. We have still got lots of interesting things to learn, and I am SO looking forward to continuing this journey! Anyone who is still 'thinking' of doing this course, or any of the short courses conducted by the Academy of Pastry Arts, should stop "thinking" about it, and (in the words of that well known Nike ad) "Just do it" :-).

One word of advise, of course - DON'T eat everything you make! Or you will be twice the size of your house :-).

In the middle of all this fun, a day that is very special to me came and went - 14th June was my late husbands birthday. The days leading up to that day, the day itself, and the days after, were particularly difficult. Yeah, lots of tears - but managed to keep them to myself. Yes, I am OK now... and I guess I WILL always be OK, but I guess that all the special days will also still continue to hit very hard. But... life goes on, so I will also manage to go on!

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Into 4th month of baking already!

2011-05-22T13:47:00.000+08:00

It is hard to believe that I have already finished the first three months of this 9 month Cordon Bleu Patisserie and Bread Making course. If anyone has been thinking about doing something like this, I would definitely recommend this place. Yes, they are still a very young academy. Yes, they are still learning as they grow. Yes, they do make mistakes (um, who doesn't?). BUT, they are responsive, they are flexible, they have great chef/teachers, and, best of all, we have a lot of FUN while learning! You can refer to their web-site (http://pastry.com.my/home.html) to find out more, or you can always drop by to check them out in person.

Anyway, so what have we done since we started again on 9th May. First of all, we actually covered quite a bit of theory as well - sensible things like food hygiene; detailed knowledge of the various ingredients we use in baking; learnt about various famous chefs; more information on the different types of kitchen equipment used in baking; etc. We also found time, in between the theory, to bake some things too... and here they are:

1) Croquembouche! Constructed with nougatine base, and in between 'platforms', and cream puffs filled with pastry cream, held together with caramel, and finished off with caramel 'threads' twirled all round it.

2) Braided breads! The two on the right are 4-strand braids, then, from top to bottom, we have the 5-, 6-, 7-, and 9-strand braids.

3) Hot cross buns! Traditionally made for Easter. Well, Easter was not toooo long ago, so it was nice to make them. And they definitely tasted RATHER nice :-)

4) Semolina Bread. Hmmm, OK, this is not one of my favourites. You can either bake it or pan fry it, and we pan fried it with butter.

5) Currant Loaf. OK, I admit it. Apart from the semolina bread above, I LOVE anything with raisins, sultanas, currants!

6) Les Craqueline! YUMMY! But a diabetics nightmare! RICH brioche dough, with loads of sugar and caramelised orange peel in the centre, with more sugar sprinkled on top!

7) La Brioche Vendeenne. Rich brioche dough again, shaped into 80gm balls, packed gently into bread tins, and baked. Light, but rich, and tasty. Nice!

8) La Pastis Landais: Again a brioche dough, but very soggy! Had to be put into a ring mould to hold its shape. But it comes out incredibly light and soft!

9) Les Pognes de Roman ("Roman Fist"??). Don't ask me about the pink nuts! Apparently that is how it is done, though nobody could tell us why PINK!!

10) Caramel Pocket! Made with croissant dough - cut into squares, with a half circle cut in the middle, a wedge of caramel placed on it, the pastry folded over, and baked. If you like caramel, you will like this. I do NOT like caramel!

11) Raspberry Chausson. Also using croissant dough. Rolled like an empty swiss roll, sliced, flattened, each flattened sliced is then rolled oval, raspberry jam dolloped into the centre, folded over, and baked! Yummmmm. Kinda like a sweet 'curry' puff :-).

12) Hazelnut pastry cream roll. OOOOH so RICH. Kinda like a cinnamon roll. Made with croissant dough. Layered with pastry cream and caramelised hazelnuts, then rolled like a swiss roll, flattened, placed into mould, and baked.

12) Orange Marmalade Chocolate Twist: Again with the croissant dough. Layered with orange marmalade and chocolate chips (we used choc rice!), cut into strips, underside egg washed, the strip is TWISTED, and then baked. Surprisingly nice! Light and crisp, and the orange marmalade flavour nicely complemented by the chocolate!

13) Allumette: This is done with puff pastry dough. A layer of royal icing spread evenly over the puff pastry dough sheet. Cut into slices, and baked at a very very low temperature so that it does not take on a brown colour. OK, we didn't do it QUITE right, as the icing did get a slight colour, and the puff pastry all kinda tipped over as they rose, but it tasted very nice - light, crisp, sweet. Must try it again!

Had a hi-tea get-together yesterday - made chilled cheesecake with raspberry jelly inset into it; lemon meringue tart; rich chocolate tart (with fresh whipped cream to go with it); and mushroom/bacon quiche. Also had some of the raspberry chausson and the allumette. Surprisingly, I didn't eat any of what I made, other than a tiny slice of the cheese cake. I DID eat the prawn fritters that another hi-tea member brought, but luckily, after I told her what I would be making, she also had the foresight to tell all the others NOT to bring anything else to eat... otherwise there would have been enough food to feed at least 100 people :-D.

Another week starts tomorrow, so hope everyone has a good 'rest of the day' today, and a good REST today too.

Till next time, have a good day, every day!

Baking, Assessment, Trip to UK(!!), and back to Baking!

2011-05-14T23:06:00.001+08:00

It's been just over a month since my last posting, and a lot has happened since then. The saddest part was finding out that my brother-in-law (J) in the UK has been diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer, which is a particularly vicious form of cancer at ANY stage, let alone at the late stage. Baking class or no baking class, I just HAD to make the time to go see him and my very much loved sister-in-law (A), who is Ken's only sibling and younger sister. I love her and her husband dearly, and I had to go and see them both... so, once they gave their OK, I made arrangements to head to the UK. Left KL on 23rd April night, arrived Heathrow on 24th April morning, was picked up by a very good friend who, with her husband, drove all the way from Cardiff to get me - back all the way to Cardiff... and Ken's very good friend (K - who also lives in Wales) drove over to their place for lunch with all of us (and it was a 2+ hour drive for him too!). I spent the night in Cardiff, then the next morning they put me on a train to Warrington. Arrived there in the afternoon and A & J were there to pick me up. J has lost quite a bit of weight :-( (and so has A!!) but they are still the same very loving, and very lovable, people they have always been, and it was brilliant to be able to see them again. Their younger daughter (T), whom I have not met before, was there from the US, and her 2 week stay overlapped with my stay, so that was another major plus! Their older daughter (K - who lives close by) and her 2 sons spent a lot of time with us too, and I really really enjoyed my stay with them - being able to spend time with all of them as they are a truly amazing and close-knit family. I did a surprising amount of baking - which was hugely enjoyable to me, and (I hope) enjoyed by them too. Made quiche (both vegetarian and non-vegetarian), breads, tarte normande, and lemon-cream tart. Basically all things that could be made with zero equipment other than bowls, a whisk, various ladles and knives, an oven, and my hands! I spent a week with them then was picked up by Ken's and my friends from the Netherlands, who were driving from Netherlands to Scotland. They stopped in Warrington on Sunday 1st May, joined J, A and myself for dinner (cooked by A, with dessert made by me), and we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. The next day I left with them, heading up to Scotland. The drive from Warrington to Rhu in Scotland was approx 4 hours (not much different from my usual drive from KL to SG). I was with them there till Friday, when I flew from Glasgow back to Heathrow at noon, then flew from Heathrow back to KL on Friday night. Landed in KL on Sat 7th May night, was picked up by my sister, had Sunday to catch up on a load of laundry, then back to baking on Monday! Jet lag is still with me, even though it has been a week since my return, though I think the jet lag has been made worse by the fact that I have not slept for more than 3 hours a night for the last 2.5 years, and even less than that while I was in the UK! I counted myself lucky if I got 2 hours sleep a night while there. Anyway, I will get past it. I am just glad that I was able to get to the UK and spend some time with J & A!!!

The week before my trip to the UK was a full week of assessment, marking the end of the first three months of this course. The first day of assessment we had to do dipped chocolates, and chocolate mandola cookies - basically any cookie, with a filling, dipped in chocolate. I did plain vanilla cookies, sandwiched with raspberry jam, dipped in dark chocolate.

And here are my hand-dipped chocolates and mandola cookies :-). Not VERY pretty, but very nice to eat!!

The 2nd/3rd days were to do Opera Cake, Baguette, Paris Brest and Cream Puffs, Lemon Meringue and Palmiers (Puff Pastry). We had to present all these items by 4.30pm at the latest, on the 3rd day. Then the 4th/5th days were to do Croissant, Black Forest, Financiers, Florentine, and Macaroons, all of which had to be presented by 4.30pm on the 5th day.

I am only putting up a picture of the croissants I made as they came out absolutely WONDERFUL! This is the croissant...

... and this is a close-up to show the layering!

Anyway, I have to say, even if I am not the best baker or the best at showcasing what I have made, I AM very efficient at making the best use of available time, overlapping tasks, and getting things done fast... so I was ready to present by 2pm on the 3rd and the 5th day! Which was kind of a relief to just get it all done and over with. Am happy to say that I have passed the assessment and have a nice certificate to attest to that.

As of the 9th May we started again - like the 2nd semester, if you will. And got a total shock when we found out that we have to do 32 hours of theory - which was supposed to be a full 8 hours a day for the first 4 days. The thought of sitting still for 8 hours a day was a bit too much for all of us (including our Chef teacher) so we agreed to theory in the mornings, and baking in the afternoons - so it has not been tooooooooo bad :-D. Then, on Wednesday, our Chef asked us to DESIGN a cake, a chocolate, a tea bar, and a verrine! The design to be based on all that we had learnt to make so far, and on what we had learnt about complementary tastes. Once we had done that, and he had checked what we had done, he told us that our task on Friday would be to actually MAKE the cake we had designed!! Whoa!

So, we did! I think I had designed the simplest cake (sort of like a WHITE FOREST - with sponge, raspberries, raspberry syrup, raspberry coulis, and fresh chantilly cream). The sponge turned out a little bit strange, and required lots of cream to camouflage the imperfections, but it did taste good I must admit - the combination of raspberry and fresh cream is yummy! I think I will make that again, at home, once my kitchen is renovated (!), but might use chocolate ganache on the inside layers, rather than chantilly cream, and keep the chantilly cream just for the outside. We'll see how that turns out later. For now, here are the pictures of the cake:

The components: Chantilly cream on the left, raspberry coulis in the measuring cup, raspberry syrup in the bowl. I also had raspberries, but not in this picture):

Work in progress:
- Here is the cake, with 2 layers done. Sponge, cream, raspberries, cream, sponge, cream, raspberries (and each layer of sponge is daubed with raspberry syrup)

...and here is the cake, layers complete, with the first layer of chantilly cream:

... and here it is COMPLETED!

... and here it has been sliced open and tasted and approved by the chef, with some slices being taken by some of my classmates (am happy to say that they did enjoy it!) and the raspberry coulis running down the cut edges of the cake really looks YUM!

The rest of the cake came home with me, where I had a slice, and then the rest went to my sister and her husband and 2 boys :-). And after having my first slice of the cake I was even more certain that I will make it again!

That's it for now folks. Till next time, have a good day, every day!