Tag Archives: food

Decadent Milo Layer Cake

I’m looking for guest posts once again! The guest post can be a recipe post, a “tips” on how to bake/cook something post or a nutrition related post. Just email it to qiting93@hotmail.com and I’ll get it up and going!

Warning: please do not read if you’re very prone to depression or to having suicidal thoughts. Scroll to the bottom for the recipe.

Sometimes, the person who seems to be happiest on the outside is the most depressed. Sometimes, the person who seems most patient on the outside is the angriest. Sometimes, the person who seems most outgoing is actually the most inconfident and lonely. Its sad, but its the truth.

even if you don't feel like dancing at all.
even if you don’t feel like dancing at all.

It all goes really well.

You learn to deal with it.

Hiding the pain becomes easy. When someone says something that hurts, you get used feeling the pain, hiding it inside and not letting it show at all. You learn to smile when someone says something or does something that hurts. They don’t know that what they say can hurt. You don’t want them to know. Until one day, you can’t take it anymore. The suppressing gives you headaches. Your depression is getting out of hand. Suicidal thoughts surface more often than ever before. You learn that suppression isn’t the answer to everything. You find it hard to smile a real smile or to genuinely find something funny. You remember the 5 years that you couldn’t smile at all. You don’t want it to happen again.

One of the troubles I’m having with this is this friend of mine. (I have no idea how I keep becoming close friends with people detrimental to my mental and emotional health but it keeps happening– somebody stop me please!!)

We are supposedly close. At least she thinks we are close. Because she’s able to share all her troubles with me and I’ll try to be really helpful and help her all I can. But the thing is, I’m never able to tell her anything because she’ll always turn the focus to her in the end. Say, if I’m having a bad day, I’ll be so happy to see her because yay, finally a friend in sight, and I’ll say “I’m having a bad day. This morning, blah blah blah happened…” and she’ll stop me mid sentence, saying “I’m so happy today! I had a bad day too last week and I’m still reeling in its effects though. A couple of my friends were so nice to me and…” In short, she’lll totally ignore me and shift the conversation to herself.

Every. Damned. Time.

And she wonders why I always seem happy. Hey friend?! Maybe its because you never bother to listen at all??!! I hate always being the comforter and never the “comfortee”.

"I'm always there for you, for every silly little detail of your life. 
But when I need you, you couldn't care less."

I tried to tell her this once, to finally share with her how I feel and this is how the damned conversation went.

(After she tells me about how she was sad that a friend did not talk to her for three days and was it her fault? What did she do wrong? And me saying he was probably busy, don’t think too much about it alright and blah blah blah because that’s all she’ll let me do.)

Me: Hey, you know I’m not actually not as happy as you think I am. I do have troubles too.

Her: Then why don’t you tell me about them?

Me: I always try but you always don’t listen and change the subject!

Her: Really? Maybe I didn’t know you were trying to tell me something! Maybe you should be more clear about it.

Me: Okaaaaaayyyyy…. I’ll try. So, um, these couple of days have been really bad for me…

Her: It’s been horrible for me too! You know, I had a meeting with my project group just now… (proceeds to tell me about her “misery” for the next 10 minutes and ignores me yet again)

As you can imagine, every conversation I have with her has become me screaming on the inside the whole time. The other times, she keeps telling me that she has the worst life ever when she’s actually freaking lucky. Her mother loves her and dotes on her like crazy. She hates peanuts and her family make damn sure not even half a peanut appears on her plate, as do the hundreds of other food she refuses to eat. When she has troubles, she has at least five friends who will listen to her troubles. She has never been through an illness worse than a flu, contracted any disease, is as fit as a fiddle, and aside from a false lack of confidence (she actually has tons of confidence. You need a lot of confidence to believe tons of people enjoy listening to you whine about how horrible or awesome your life is), has had a smooth sailing life. Yes she has been bullied, but even when she was, she still had at least 10 friends behind her during then, so she said after interrupting me when I was saying how horrible my childhood was, which really is terrible to the max, and you’ll know if you read my other posts. In other words, she wants everyone to think her life is horrible though at the same time, she’s trying to make sure everyone knows how terrific it is. When a friend has troubles, she pretends she can’t hear them or ignores them completely. But when she has troubles, everyone has to listen. One word– selfishness.

There are, of course, other things, but I think I’m already dedicating so much of this post to her its annoying yours truly.

Someday I’m going to find a friend who will not only share with me his/her feelings, but will let me share mine too. Someone who’ll give me advice and not interrupt me every time I say something, someone who’ll accept my deep and dark side but will not be influenced by it. Its hard. I thought I had found a good friend in that friend I mentioned above, but as usual, I suck at making the right friends, always finding the ones that’ll push me to suicidal thoughts and whatnot.

Someday, I’m gonna find a true friend.

And to all the horrible friends I’ve made before,

so many times… I guess its time for you to go.
"If your friends cause you to lie or pretend about liking or disliking, enjoying 
or loathing something. 
If you're having to change yourself for them. 
They were never friends to begin with. 
Choose them wisely."

Trust this man. He’s hell a lot smarter than I am.

And to end the “heavier” part of this post,

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MC1b

I made this cake for a great friend of mine for a couple months already. She’s a Christian like me, listens to me, is genuinely sad when she can’t offer me good advice. Although I can’t yet bring myself to tell her everything, I know she’ll always be there for me, and I’ll always be there for her, even though we are miles apart.

MC2

This cake is moist, crumbly and decadent. Its milo flavoured, which really means malted chocolate flavoured.

MC9

For the text version of the recipe, click here.

Hazelnut Opera Cake

After months of school in Taiwan, I’ve realised that there’s something scarily wrong in society. It may be the influence of the media, according to my analysis, that’s making girls feel that they have to conform to the media’s definition of what is “beauty” in order to fit into society. My skinny underweight friends in medicine complain that they are too fat while their chests are as flat as most guys and even flatter than some guys (you know, those who work out). They set weight loss goals which would turn them into skeletons while the other girls, still slim but of acceptable weight, whine about how they need to lose weight all the time. Its downright annoying, and to an extent, even disturbing. 

I can’t understand why people can’t accept their weight for what it has been the last 5 years of their lives (the same weight since past puberty).  My other friends tell me its because guys like girls that way– bony and slim– and so girls, in order to attract the guys they like, want to look skinny for them. Honestly, I doubt guys enjoy girls yapping to them about how they should lose weight without fail everyday. I believe its not the guys’ fault. True love is about loving the person for who he or she is, accepting the person for being him/herself, whether he/she is thin or fat, ugly or beautiful (everyone’s bound to get old one day). Trying to make yourself look skinnier to attract guys, or just because you want to look like a model is wrong. Its alright to believe in yourself, and to believe in God, because He will lead us to the right person.

More about “Fat Talk Free” here:

http://feminspire.com/fat-talk-free-week-changing-the-way-we-talk-and-think-about-our-bodies/

Find the “Fat Talk Free” Pledge here: http://bi3d.tridelta.org/Pledge

Alright, and what better than a calorific Hazelnut Opera Cake to end this post?

opera1

In case you were wondering, here’s the layering of the cake components from top to bottom:

Ganache

Cake

Coffee Buttercream

Cake

Ganache

Cake

Coffee Buttercream

Cake

opera2

This recipe was adapted from Honeybee Sweets

opera3 opera4

opera5

Recipe for Coffee French Buttercream was adapted from 萧影欢城

opera11

opera8

opera9


For the text version of this recipe, click here: Hazelnut opera cake

Ciao!

What I’ve been up to these days

Some foods from the night markets:

Custard Cream puff

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Baked Swirls of Matcha on super soft doughImage

Typical lunch in Taiwan

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One of my favourite foods here- Charcoal-baked MochiImageImageImageImageImage

Cheese Baked Pasta in Cream sauceImage

Spicy Fried Chicken Baked Rice

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My favourite school food– Curry Rice with pork piecesImage

Some tradtional Chinese sweets. I love these too much for words to describe. Not a good sign. ImageImage

Peanut and Sesame Pancakes

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Custard Cream Pancakes

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Charcoal- Baked King Mushrooms– fat free, msg freeImageImageImage

Japanese Style Cakes with Matcha or Custard Cream fillingsImage

Charcoal- Baked Chou (smelly) TofuImage

Some handmade Chinese pastriesImage

Assorted deep fried awesomeness

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Low Fat Yogurt Soft Serv

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Handmade mochi by a road vendorImage

School food

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Local foods!

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Taiwanese Wanton Noodles

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My absolute favourite Taiwanese Breakfast– Egg Pancakes (Dan Bing)Image

Japanese Style Cakes

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My childhood favourite– Apple BreadImage

油豆腐

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Kang Kong

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Taiwanese Chicken Rice

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Stir fried Glutinous rice

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肉羹湯

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A typical Dinner

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Those pancakes again!

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Coffee flavoured with custard cream fillingImage

Foods from restaurants:

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Red Bean Pancakes from Pingtung– my hometown!Image

Spring rolls with ice-cream

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Cocoa Milo Truffles (Reduced Fat and Sugar)

I had never thought I would make truffles.

Truffles are the creamier sister of chocolate that’s, more fattening, artery-clogging, round, eaten on its own, too insignificant to be filling and too high in calories to remove the damage it brings to one’s conscience (darn, I could have eaten 20 biscuits and swallowed the same amount of calories, blah blah blah).

My mum wouldn’t eat it (“Are you trying to kill me???”)

My dad wouldn’t (“I don’t eat chocolate.”–> I know I know, Is he your really your dad?? Rest assured he is).

Truffles.

Obviously, this had to be a healthier version. (And also, I had to try to use up the remaining ingredients like shortening, cocoa powder and milo powder before leaving. Mum’s orders. Who’s to argue?)

This is my first food post without having processed my images through photoshop and illustrator and I really miss them. They’re, were, my buddies. 😦

I never thought I would have too much cocoa powder either.

“Wow! It only costs $4.95! That’s about 2 bucks cheaper!!!” got me 2 extra boxes left unused 1 week before I need to leave. I’m considering bringing them along so I can get doses of hot chocolate when I’m feeling crazy.

Aspiring Bakers #22: Lightened Up Cakes (August 2012)

Hi everyone! It’s my turn to organise Aspiring Bakers this time! Many thanks to Small Small Baker for giving me this chance 😀 

Okay, let’s get this straight. 

Everyone has a cake they love. Everyone. Whether they are a savoury or sweet person. But the problem is, stuffing your face (well, at least, if I stuff my face) with cake, you’ll pack on pounds. No difficult science around that. 

So! Seeing that, for the Aspiring Bakers theme this month, hopefully all the bakers out there would like to join in, baking healthily, or rather, healthier cakes! I’m really excited to see what you can come up with so please join in! 

Let’s eat Lightened up cakes this month! 😀

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Definitions

“lightened up” refers to either 1 of the below or preferably a combination of the following

1. reduced fat (by at least 30%)
2. sugar free e.g. using natural sweeteners like xylitol, stevia and maltitol, etc.
3. reduced sugar (by at least 30%)
4. use of unrefined flours (at least 50%) e.g. whole wheat flour, spelt flour, etc.
5. low GI
6. low gluten e.g. you can use glutinous flour, brown rice flour,  white rice flour, sorghum flour, millet, and teff. This option is similar to the previous Aspiring Bakers guidelines which you can find HERE
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Who can join?
Everyone! (if you do not have a blog, just send me a photo and recipe of your bake)

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How to join?

Step 1 :
Make a lightened up cake, whether sweet or savoury, in the month of August 2012 (thanks WendyinKK for correcting me!). This does not include stuff like carrot cake (kuih kind), yam cake (kuih kind), etc. i.e. No kuih, though things like ma la gao (馬拉糕) are allowed. 

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Step 2 :
Post it on your blog between 01 August 2012 and 31 August 2012.
Your post must include the recipe or link to the original recipe. If you are using a recipe from a book, please include the title of the book too.
Any entries that are posted outside the date range will not be accepted. 
Any entries that do not include a recipe or link to the original recipe will not be accepted too. 

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Step 3 :
Please mention that you are submitting your post to Aspiring Bakers #22: Lightened Up Cakes (August 2012) hosted by Qi Ting of A Dessert Diet and provide a link back to this post HERE.
Entries will not be accepted if the above is not included. 

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Step 4 :
Email to qiting93@hotmail.com in the following format:

Your name or nickname:
Your blog name: (omit this if you do not have a blog)
Name of your bake/dish:
URL of your post:
URL of your photo (one photo for each entry): 
(alternatively, you can attach your photo in your email).

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Please use “Aspiring Bakers #22” as your email subject. You may submit more than 1 entry.

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The roundup will be posted on 01 September 2012.

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If you are interested to find out what’s on the previous Aspiring Bakers #21: Gluten-Free Bakes (July 2012) entries, hosted by Hankerie, see the roundup HERE.

 
 

 

Skinny Chilli Cheese Fries

I thought about making fries. After the episode of absolutely shitty Aston fries last week (talk about a greasy, tasteless, gross mess of potato strips), I dreamt of crunchy, non- greasy, tempura-like, garlicky, peppery potato chunks. Topped with nacho cheese, spring onions and even chilli. And then I found the perfect fries at The Purple Foodie. And easy chilli with great reviews at All Recipes. And homemade nacho cheese at Pensylvania Macaroni Co. Made healthier and skinny chilli cheese fries were born. Apologies for the bad photos.

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With Shoestring Fries

With Potato Wedges

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As mentioned,

fries were adapted from The Purple Foodie, chilli was adapted from All Recipes. And homemade nacho cheese from Pensylvania Macaroni Co.

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Because who doesn’t love fries?

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Choices and an Update

A couple months ago, we had a GP (general paper) lesson about choices.

In the 21st century we have tons of things we can choose from.

We suggested examples. My friends suggested movies, music, books, stationery brands etc. And well… food.

Do you find yourself reaching for the same bowl of noodles everyday?

Do you find yourself having the same type of sandwich everyday?

Do you always cook with the same brand of oil/condiments?

Do you always choose the same sides most of the time (not all the time because sometimes the side you want runs out :-()?

Have you used the same brand of face cream for most of your life/many many years? (oops, now where did that come from….?)

Out of the hundreds of types/brands/CHOICES out there, you always prefer that choice and never want anything else.

Do you?

These are some of what I have been eating this couple of weeks (among other things)

Going on to something else now! I’m totally guilty of the things I said above! For the past 3 months, (and particularly the past few weeks) I’ve been doing the same thing everyday (studying, sleeping too little, feeling to tired to study, throwing past year papers I’d done into the trash and picking them out again with bare fingers. Okay. The last part wasn’t true. Hee. BUT I was quite close to doing it, minus the part about picking the stuff out of the trash. Eeww.) eating the same things everyday, walking the same route everyday… BORING! I. Need. Some. Baking. Back. Into. My. Life.

After ‘A’s I’m going to blog Full- Time and bake stuff everyday to experiment. Here’s a list: (all low fat/fat free & healthy!)

1. Chocolate Cookie Dough Pie

2. More frosted cakes!

3. Carrot Cake!

4. Chocolate Cake

5. More Sweet Bread

6. Pizza

7. Ice-cream (not baking but its on the list anyway)

8. Brownies

9. Cookies!

10. Mooncakes and Chinese Pastries

11. Etc.

*the links bring you to what I’ve already made 😀

I could go on and on.

I can’t wait for school to end! I hate having a life built around school, around a timetable someone drew up for me. It kinda sucks.

Oh well…

Gotta stop procrastinating and get back to work! 😀