Earl Grey Figs Buns

One thing most people would normally do up at the end of the year (or right at the start of the year) is a list of new year resolutions. I've stopped doing that cos...well, my resolutions always end up being the same, and it just reminds me of a quote I saw somewhere "This year, my new year resolution is to fulfill last year's new year resolutions." So true isn't it?

Anyway, I wasn't actually going to post a recipe today, cos I thought I had forgotten to note down which recipe I used, but thank gosh for my iPhone, I had snapped a photo of the recipe I used (screenshot of my laptop at that moment). So, I guess one thing I should (try to) do in the new year is to procrastinate less - lest my backlog get jammed up too much/ I end up losing recipes.

Earl Grey Figs Buns

Earl Grey Caramel Chocolate Tart

I have actually cut down a lot on baking for the past few months. I probably bake bread more often than sweet stuff (I'm in the midst of trying to come up with a successful chocolate no-knead artisan recipe - works still in progress!) and even when I do bake sweet stuff, it's probably once in a few weeks, rather than once almost every week or so which I used to do.

Even so, my backlogs are still piling as I have been checking out new cafes with friends. I think I'll not be posting on all the cafes I've visited, as in - the ones that I don't think are good, I'll probably just archive the pictures I've taken but not post anything on it. I mean, why bother spending precious time to chronicle something that isn't nice? After all, if you really think hard about it, blogging is really akin to free advertisements to these dining establishments isn't it?

 Earl Grey Caramel Chocolate Tart

Earl Grey Custard Berries Tart

It's the prettiest thing I've made so far. Then again, with the abundance of berries in it, it is no wonder why I termed it as so isn't it?

 Earl Grey Custard Berries Tart

Earl Grey Pound Cake

It is inevitable that if you have an older sibling, some of the characteristics from the older sibling will rub off on you. Such is the case with earl grey. The Sis enjoys earl grey tea, and while I don't take it as it is, I must say I do love a cuppa earl grey milk tea.

My stash of my favourite brand of earl grey tea bags had ran out, and I was lazy to pop into town just to grab a box of it, thus I tried out a new brand of boxed earl grey tea leaves. I brewed a cuppa earl grey milk tea to test it out, and it was not as fragrant as my regular cup. Thus I decided to use it in baking rather than drinking. The first thing I chose to make was this earl grey pound cake.

Earl Grey Pound Cake

Earl grey tea roulade

Lately, I've been bookmarking alot of cake recipes. It's nothing new, I do it all the time, but it's interesting to note that while I had been bookmarking mostly entremet recipes mainly, lately, my attention has been diverted to the simpler roll cakes and chiffon cakes. I've never been a fan of both genre of cakes in general, and I'm actually surprised at the direction my attention span has landed in.

Earl grey tea roulade

Earl grey crème brulée

We kept postponing due to conflicting schedules, but Evan managed to finally drop by my new place for a long overdue baking session. We had planned to have brunch and make crème brulée together (something that we've not much experience at making so far).

 Earl grey crème brulée

Cocoa nib macarons with earl grey ganache

More macarons again. I'm certainly practicing making macarons very frequently nowadays.

Macarons for my nephew's birthday

Earl grey macarons

I made some Earl grey macarons a couple weeks back. I used a packet of Earl grey tea bag for the shells, and two packets to soak the cream when making the ganache. Yet, the earl grey flavour wasn't obvious. At all!

Earl grey macarons

Happy 2009!

So I had a date with Wenli last night. We headed to town late about 11 and had supper...till the new year. (: We were chatting normally and, had in fact, missed the first few moments of the year till we checked the time. Haha. Wen, remember what we were doing for the first few minutes of the new year? snigger.

We caught Twilight, and there were still many people catching the show even though it's been screening for quite some time already - proves that I'm not the slowest person in Singapore to watch it. ha! The movie was not bad. As someone who've already read the book, there are bound to be comparisons made between the novel and the film. The novel was more lengthy, describing things and people in extreme detail, while the movie cut them off, and even altered some of the story content. Oh well, it's hard to bring to life a book as always, so I'm not saying it's a bad movie, just that it's an alright show.

One thing I can't fathom - is Robert Pattinson that hot? I don't see his appeal. Not before in Harry Potter, and not now in Twilight. I mean, I could see why girls of all ages would be charmed by him, but personally, he's just not my type to swoon over. ;)

Anyway, here are the earl grey muffins I was talking about yesterday. I found the recipe at some website and it looked really healthy, with no butter, minimal olive oil and sugars - seemed like a low-fat muffin to me. So I decided to bookmark for future reference. Boy am I glad I did make it cos it tasted pretty good for a muffin without all the butter and sugars. I don't feel as guilty popping one of these miniature muffins into my mouth compared to say, a regular frosted cupcake? heh.


Baking them wasn't without troubles. The previous brand earl grey teabags we had in the house were attacked by pests, and I realised it (luckily) before I dumped a pack of tealeaves into the batter. I was opening up the teabag on a plate to sift through the contents, when I noticed miniscule things crawling about the plate. Eeew. Talk about off-putting. I had to leave the house to get a box of Twinings Earl Grey. tsk. The Twinings Earl Grey smell was really prominent even before I opened the plastic packaging of the box. Yum.



Oh did I mention I recently acquired a new toy??? I mentioned to Dad that I wanted a SLR-like camera, minus the bulk weight of the SLR. He handed me Panasonic DMC-FZ50. It looks really cool. I've been fiddling around with it these couple of days. I'm not even 1/3 through the manual, but I figure that nothing beats hand-on practice. ;) This entry's pictures were taken using the new camera. I love how the effects turned out. (:

I am thankful that Dad deals with electronic equipment - handy when I've developed an interest in photography - and that he passes me stuff when I ask for it. I am truly grateful for having a supportive Dad who indulges me so much.





Happy 2009!

Baking frenzy.

It was a baking week this week. Eclairs and macarons. The fridge is full of sweet goods - my baked goods, cakes and petit fours (Sister's birthday was just over, and she received quite a few of these) and tubs of ice-cream. It gives me a sugar rush just thinking about the amount of stuff in the refrigerator. Hoho!

I decided on trying out new flavours for the eclairs - earl grey and matcha. Earl Grey cos I know my sister likes earl grey, and matcha for Mua. (:

I didn't really like the earl grey flavour in the end as I felt the overall taste was just weird. Maybe the quality of the earl grey used wasn't good enough (I thought we had Twinings at home, but apparantly not.). My sister also said the earl grey flavour wasn't strong enough and she preferred the matcha ones comparatively.

I made enough to pack some for Mua and Siew and dropped them off at their place that night. Unfortunately for Mua, the box apparantly went "missing" when she reached home and she didn't get to taste any. Awww. Never mind, I'll do some other green tea goodie for you next time dear!

My first attempt at french macarons on 9/12/08. The main motive was to use up the egg whites left over from the pastry cream I made for the eclairs above.

I still had some egg whites lying around, and lots of leftover ganache I made yesterday for the macarons. What should I do? More macarons. ;)

The macarons I made yesterday were pretty pale in colour, I wanted vibrant hues so I added more colouring/powder to the macarons mixture I made today.

I sifted some cocoa powder on the second batch of chocolate macarons, hoping that there would be a nice speckle effect. But alas, I added too much cocoa powder into the macaron mixture itself, so the macarons turned out really dark, and the sprinkling effect was not really obvious.

A few more drops of red colouring turned the macarons into a richer pink hue. Can you spot a vague letter 'M' on the upturned macaron on the right image? I find it so cool - M for Michelle! Haha.

These are actually really really tiny macarons. About the size of a ten-cent coin perhaps. I piped different sizes macarons - mostly tiny/medium ones and a few big ones. I heard that macarons are really sweet bites, so I made them bite-sized so sampling all the different flavours won't leave anyone feeling as though they overindulged in sugar.