Night Drive

I took a lovely drive with Ai-Leen tonight – thanks Ai-Leen for accompanying me to deliver some of the R&B Cake even though it was past your bedtime. We went to Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Batok and Church before heading back to Seletar Hills. Bukit Batok is so far! (see map below… I marked the route we took in red)

Baked goodies bring you into people’s lives. We met Ade & Jeanne who were packing Ade’s room before the move to Hong Kong. I’m very impressed with how all her things are now kept in TOYOGO storage boxes… so neat! (I didn’t know there was a TOYOGO warehouse in Toa Payoh!… I learnt something new just by visiting her!) It was also nice to see Auntie Doris again… she looks so young with her new hairdo.

Hwee Cheng was working on her greeting cards when we reached Bukit Batok. She met us at the bottom of her apartment and we had a nice 5 minute chat about cakes, stickers, business cards, da-niao, B.B…. 

Our last stop was Church. Pastor Mark was locking up the premises when we arrived. He opened the gates and shutters specially for us. I hope that he and Chen Kee enjoy the cake!

 So that’s what people do on Sunday nights! Interesting!

Baking & Connecting

The best reaction to the R&B Cake was Ade nodding her head till her whole body appeared to be bouncing after taking a bite of the cake. Thanks Ade for your stamp of approval and for eating so many slices even though I baked you a whole cake!

 Baking seems to open a new way of connecting with people. It’s nice watching someone enjoying the R&B cake that I prepared and coming back for 2nd and 3rd helpings. I think that’s the best compliment that anyone can give.

Baking has become a new conversation topic with friends. The conversations vary from how you need to follow the recipe very carefully, to accepting a compliment, to how I don’t really like cheesecake, to lactose intolerence, to Nigella Lawson… It’s refreshing.

Baby Steps

The minute I get into the office, there’s an intensity in the pace of work. My day is packed with getting my projects done, clearing my inbox, replying emails, preparing training materials, attending meetings, planning for future events, liaising with external vendors, talking to customers, reading clinical papers and writing summaries… work doesn’t end. I can’t finish work by 5.30pm! So I carry on working into the evening…

 2 thoughts struck me this week:

1) I’m too tired to think. That sentence seems silly even to me as I type it. I tried blogging every night when I got home from work, but why would anyone want to read about a typical work day? Did I have any non-work thoughts to share? Yes, but I had trouble articulating my thoughts – too tired to think. Appalling.

2) It’s hard to relax after work. I met a group of friends on Thursday night for dinner and it took me at least 15 minutes before I really engaged in conversation. I had an issue at work that was unresolved and I was still worrying about it even though I had left the office already. Probably a one-off situation but… I NEED to relax.

Having said all that, this week was more balanced than any other work week. Meeting Ade & other friends for dinner before she goes to Hong Kong was the highlight of my week. I had fun baking this morning. The fragrance of the R&B bread from the oven was relaxing. I spent more time this week reading my Bible and learning about the nature of God…

I’m thinking of enrolling in a bread making course after January when I’m less busy. The extended family is planning to visit Hainan Island in April – that’s where my grandparents are from and its going to be exciting.

 These are my baby steps to finding balance… not bad for the first week of 2008, don’t you think?

Work-Life Balance

One WHOLE month of leave has finally come to an end for me. Truly luxurious! It was good down time and it was necessary. Necessary to unwind from being in ’tense-mode’ all the time. Necessary to meet friends who I truly cherish. Necessary to channel my energy to new hobbies. Necessary to refresh my mind. 

This cut-out from The Sunday Times (30/12/07) was good. “8 days of leave, 37 days of rest” - B.B. argues that technically you can’t say you get 37 days of rest since the  other 29 days of public holidays and weekends are already yours to begin with. True. BUT…

7 long weekends (February, March, May, October x 2, December x 2). 7 wonderfully long weekends during the year to pause from the repetitiveness of work. 7 long weekends to do things that really, really matter in life – caring for others, setting aside time to spend with family and friends, baking, attending church retreats…

Work begins tomorrow. I know that I will enjoy myself at work. Yet, there must be work-life balance… no. There must be work-life-God balance.

Happy New Year everyone!  

R & B Bread

 This is why I enjoy baking. There’s a thrill when I see the dough rise in the tin to form a perfect loaf, when I smell the sweet-warm scent of the dough as the aroma seeps out of the oven & when my new oven works perfectly!

R&B stands for Rummed-raisins and Banana. I’m not a fan of raisins when they’re dry and shrivelled. Rummed raisins are a different story altogether. They’re juicier, fatter, the aroma of the rum from the raisin is heavenly and they’re easy to make!

R&B tastes GREAT! Great, great, great! The caramelised top is slightly crispy and it complements the texture of the moist cake that has the flavour of rummed-raisins and banana in every bite.

Shiok-a-doodle-doo!

Shopping Therapy

I went to Tangs (yes, again… but only because I get rebates there with Citibank credit cards) to buy a new oven today. I ended up buying not just the oven but also a spatula, a loaf tin, measuring spoons, dark rum, sultanas, cranberries & a book “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart. Shopping therapy… Shiok!

It’s interesting how shopping can be therapeutic especially since you’ve got to make sure that you don’t overspend. But here’s my theory – shopping requires you to walk. Walking is a form of aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise promotes the release of endorphins in the brain. Endorphins are natural antidepressants. Therefore, shopping is therapeutic and gets you anti-depressed. Alternatively, you could just go for a jog.

And since I’m in my baking phase, baking is therapeutic too!

Lavender & Orange Cupcakes

Welcome to my blog & thanks for dropping by!

I bought a stand mixer from Tangs on Friday because I had a sudden urge to bake. Our stand mixer was spoilt and that gave me a really good excuse to shop! I wanted to buy the Kitchen Aid Artisan Series, but at S$899 the price was way out of my budget (even though it came with freebies like an ice cream maker and meat mincer). I chose the Kenwood Patissier in the end, and I love it.

 I love the beautiful red, the silence of the beater, the size of the mixing bowl and honestly, the way it looks just like the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer but costs only half the price!

     

Happy with my new toy, I attempted to bake some cupcakes. They didn’t turn out well on my first try (only 10 out of 36 were edible! To my brave colleagues who tried my first batch of cupcakes – “THANK YOU!”). I figured what went wrong. The heat in the oven wasn’t well distributed, so the cupcakes along the bottom and right side of the muffin tray always overexpanded! If I baked the cupcakes in the middle of the tray, the cupcakes turned out great size- and texture-wise.

Here’s a picture of the Lavender & Orange Cupcakes that I baked today (adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Lavender Trust Cupcakes).  I brought 15 successful cupcakes to church and everyone who ate the cupcakes said that they tasted good! Happy!