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Orange Sponge

DSC_9375 Hi everyone!

So I feel extremely terrible for not having updated this space. However, due to the crazy workload I have in school, updating the blog has kinda taken a backseat 🙁

Last month, I celebrated my 21st birthday. It was a really great one, with two birthday parties & a nice 2nd runner-up in an internal case competition. Although I aged 10 years within two weekends (of not sleeping for about 30 hours each time), I gotta say that I learnt a lot and that it was a very fulfilling experience.

Since then, I’ve had to submit assignments, catch up with tons of work & I’m probably currently going a little bit crazy haha. Recess week is next week but even then, I won’t be having much of a holiday 🙁

So here’s the cake I’ll be talking about today – Orange Sponge with decadent cream cheese frosting. So what happened for my birthday was that my mom baked the cake and I did the frosting + decorating. I didn’t want to stress myself to make my own birthday cake and since my mommy bakes so well (Y)

The first one was rectangle shaped with three layers. I had so little time so I just sprinkled coconut on the sides to cover up anything haha. The second was meant to be a tall cake. I had great ideas for the cake but the heat of Singapore just made my fondant flowers slide off. The worst part was that when we reached the restaurant, the whole cake had lopsided to one side and it was as though my entire birthday cake had just been destroyed :'( Thankfully, my brilliant sissy and mom managed to fix it (I think it still looks decent, yea?) (more…)

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Some thoughts outside of baking

It’s currently 1240am, Singapore time, and this is probably the first and hopefully one of the few times I post an un-related baking post.

I’m turning 21 in a couple of days, and the past few weeks (or maybe even the whole year so far) have been just moments for me to reflect on my life. There are so many things that I want to do, and so many things that I haven’t. But I guess it just isn’t humanly possible to be able to do everything.

I really needed to post this somewhere – not as a Tweet, Facebook or Instagram post. I needed it to be in a huge chunk & be able to capture everything that is currently on my mind. I know it isn’t related to baking, so do stop reading if you don’t want to hear a 20-ish year old reflecting on her life.

Having been blessed with great friends and family, I can’t help but wonder why I seem to get this sense of dissatisfaction pretty often. It is as though something is severely lacking – but I can’t quite pin point it. It really makes little sense for me to feel this way but somehow it does.

Baking was always my refuge, my safe haven to escape from the realities of the world. But perhaps even my passion for baking has been consumed by a wave of other things. It’s probably just a matter of time before things straighten out – it’s really odd that I’m feeling this immense wave of “down-ness”.

Another thing I’ve been doing is evaluating my self-worth. Am I capable of doing what I really think I can do? Or am I just imagining myself to be better in certain ways than I really am. Just as the sky has endless limits, there is always room for improvement. Yet, knowing this, I can’t help but feel a sense of less than ordinary self-worth.

I guess it’s time to go to bed & perhaps some of these negative thoughts will be gone by tomorrow.

Goodnight folks, and thanks for letting me ramble.

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Mao Shan Wang Durian Macarons Recipe

So in my last post, I talked about how I made 200 macarons in a day. I also talked about how I made lavender macarons and another macaron flavour with a very strong smell. If you tried to guess, you’d probably have gotten it right. Durian macarons!

Mao shan wang durian macarons

Now, huge disclaimer here: I do not like durian at all. I’ve tried it many times as a kid, as a teenager and have just decided never to eat it anymore since I don’t like it at all. I’m completely fine with the smell and the texture – it’s just not something I really appreciate.

So why durian? Everyone I gave these macarons to asked me that question. Well simply because all (or most) Singaporeans LOVE durian. I sacrificed my lovely hands to reek of durians for the rest of the day just for the sake of macarons. Yellow macaron shells with dessicated coconut I know, I do not believe it myself.  (more…)

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