7th March: Macarons from Jewels

                  

Yohan bought me Jewels.. For a moment I thought i had a diamond ring.. But he knew I didn’t like diamonds.. So thank god for that.. But he is just so sweet and full of surprises..

So it was actually macarons from Jewels Artisan Chocolate

The flavours were a little weird but some were interestingly likeable..

From the top:
Passion Fruit (Filled with passion fruit conserve & almond cream)
Black palm island salt (Filled with salted egg & almond cream topped with black palm island salt)
Raspberry (Filled with raspberry conserve & rose almond cream)
Butterfly Pea Bloom (Filled with kaya & pandan almond cream)
Green Tea (Filled with green tea & dark chocolate crunchy pearl)

I didn’t really like the fruit ones cuz they were too common… Personally, I liked the black palm island salt.. Probably because I like salted egg… Butterfly Pea Bloom was really weird though.. Pandan and macarons… was not quite a good match for me.. It probably needed something else…

Jewels Artisan Chocolate

Orchard Central 181 Orchard Road #02-31/32
Tel: +65 6509 8998 Fax: +65 6509 9339

Opening Hours: 11am to 11pm daily

Welcome back Samuel!

Samuel returned from France two nights ago, and I finally had the chance to meet him.. He's really surprised me from the time I met him again during my pageant last year.. Remembering the bunch of us not really liking him cuz we thought he was arrogant, he really highlighted to me first impressions dun count.. Running into him along the corridor on the day of my pageant, I found out he was a long time friend of Tim.. We asked him along to come watch me for the pageant... He said he would try, but he was not sure,, But he turned up in the end, and with a bunch of flowers! So sweet! It was really surprising for me cuz I thought no one knew the culture of giving gifts when you turn up for a friend's performance..

So what was the surprise this time round? He actually bought me the blow torch I asked for when he was in France.. Mind you this is from France, made in FRance.. Priced in Euros, you wun believe how expensive this is.. I wanted him to help me buy, but it was a souvenir from him.. Its like woah! I didn't even spend that much getting Omiyages for my coursemates...

To pass me my long waited gift, we met up and guess what? He came to pick me!! And we went Holland V! I finally had the chance to visit Shermay's Cooking School to look at the little shop selling good stuff.. And we visited all the quaint little shops we found there.. There was this shop where we bought a hazelnut crunch cake from.. Well, actually a place where Samuel got it from.. He's like a Singapore version of Tat-chan.. The second man I knew who had a sweet tooth! Ain' that adorable? Haha... I'm sure he hates this description... And very nice Mr Chee treated me to Haagen Daz after that...

I have to blog this because he is the first friend I had who made so much effort to cheer me up.. And in this short time, I have learnt how true Samuel is as a friend to all his buddies..
And, I have started my splurge on the more extravagant ingredients.. Madagascar vanilla bean paste and extract set at $70+?

3 days before Christmas

Well, since Elvin ordered his 10 boxes of chocolates, I started working on the presents Elvin wanted for his friends.. I spent the whole afternoon shopping in AMK, Phoon Huat Sembawang and Sheng Shiong at Ten Mile Junction.. By midnight, I finally whipped up these ten boxes of gifts Elvin ordered.. I also started baking for the Christmas party for Sunday.. (TOMORROW!!) See.. I wrapped Elvin's order nicely.. Hehe.. The top left is Cointreau Orance Cheese cups.. (Cups made of chocolate) The one below is a bailey brownie and on the right, we have White chocolate Vodka mandarin christmas bells with Bailey Dark chocolate on the bottom.. The snoopy chocolates were either vodka peach or vodka mandarin white chocolates..
It was kinda hard to mix alcohol with chocolate cuz the chocolates would kind of turn lumpy... But I totally loved the bailey brownie..
On top of that, I tried to make Janan's Triple chocolate Bailey Cheesecake.. (haha.. Janan said it tastes like ice cream when frozen!!) As you can see, the cheese mixture was mixed with melted chocolate.... I took this cuz I loved the marble effect..
After chilling it in the fridge for a few hours, I decorated it with cocoa powder and gummy letters.. Hehe.. I also cut some star malibu rum cake and topped the cake.. :D

I delivered the cakes at about 10am to Janan, followed by Elvin, and I came home to....

-_-zzzzzzzz

Bouquet of Piglets and Tiggers

Oink Oink and I took this on Sunday... Think it would have looked better without the wink.. Lol.. But somehow, the mirror doesn't look like a mirror.. Except that its really dirty.. Oink oink should clean it with newspaper..

I wonder if anyone remembers this big bouquet I made before my pageant. It was to help my godbro, Clifford to surprise his gf.. He got this for her just to welcome her back from her few days trip in Malaysia. Talk about sweet. Awwww... But it took me three hours!!!!
So how can I resist a photo with that big bouquet of piglets? Last week, Louise approached me to wrap tiggers for her after she saw the pigglets.. Thankfully these took one houe only cuz the tiggers were lighter, and they were this cute koala hugging style magnets.. So I made them hug the flowers.. So cute!!!

Again, I just can't resist a shot with the bouquet. But this is so much smaller.. Haha.. But still nice and cute!!!