anyway, the crust was soft!superly soft. after my failed attempt at making a sourdough bread bowl, i sworn off anything that has to do with yeast. my sourdough was a total disaster. not only was it hard, it smelled….erm, too sour??i don’t know how to describe it but it is. i threw away the whole batch and ended up eating my clam chowder from a normal bowl instead. i prefer it that way so much more.

back to the pizza. i made chicken pizza. alright, more like “Anythign-Goes” pizza. i ransacked my fridge to find for food i can throw into my pizza. since my mom was on a mission to clean up the fridge, the only way i can think of to efficiently get rid of all the food in the fridge is via pizza.

tomatoes?perfect.

pineapple?great.

onion? huh. who cares. let’s just dump it in.

mushroom? nice.

chicken? now that’s a must.

with all those on hand, i sliced, diced and chopped and put it on my pizza and topped it with mozarella. heavenly. the base sauce i used was ranch sauce and i used a different brand which i don’t really prefer. next time i shall stick to the old one.

crap, i just remembered that i can’t recall the brand of the previous ranch sauce.

Most of the time, when i post food entries, there would usually be some pics. sure, this photos have some pictures but sad to say, this post would have to make do without any tasty, drool worthy pictures.my family members could hardly control their stomachs for as soon as it was time to eat, my pizza got dissected even before i could take a decent photo of it. my sister was already holding out the cutter and asking my permission to do the honours.

of course i said yes but as soon as those words left my mouth, i just realized that taking proper pictures of my pizza would be impossible unless i was willing to stop everyone from eating and placed the sliced pizzas back together like a jigsaw puzzle but like my family, my stomach protested that idea vehemently with a loud growl.

oh well, perhaps next time.

this is all tha’s left of my 9x10x1 pizza. it’s for my dad. he requested that at least a slice of it is set aside for him.

i know. i know. it’s a mess. the toppings are everywhere. that’s the problem you’ll face too if you try to cram everything into a measly 9x10x1 inch baking tray.

“Let’s color this batch blue. No, no, no. Pink would go better with this cupcake.” With that decision in mind, I ransacked through my box of icing colors in search of the pink one.  Of course the decision was not affected at all by my one-sided likeness to colors that happens to be in any shade of red.

Few minutes passed and I was still searching. Confident that I still had some left, I didn’t give up and continued on with the search. And finally, lo and behold! The bottle of pink color that has been hiding from me was found in the deepest corner of the box. Eager to put some color into my fondant, I was greatly disappointed to see not a drop left in the bottle. Nada. Zilch. Not even a measly one. Determined to have pink fondant, I went down to the baking shop to get it and the shop being only 20 minutes away from my house, I was a happy camper in no time.

Pink color? Checked. Fondant? Checked. Time to get down to business baby.

Alright, so before I played with the fondant, I did a lot of research on it. Some of you may laugh at this but hey, I’m a newbie. When it comes to me handling something for the first time, I want to know what to expect and avoid any mistakes.

Here’s what I’ve learnt:

1. If fondant gets dry while in the middle of handling, rub both your hands together with shortening (or in my case, margarine for I had ran out of shortening that day)
2. Flour the surface you’re working on with cornstarch
3. If it helps, flour the stencils and cutters you are using with cornstarch as well.
4. Flour your rolling pin if using
5. If applying color, add drop by drop to achieve desired color (this should be a no-brainer for all the pros out there and besides, its common sense)

That’s all that I have learnt so far. Some may have different views on how to use fondant but this is my amateur version of it.

Oh yea, if you guys are the hardworking fondant newbie, unlike me, you guys could probably find recipes for making your own fondant. Of course I find that the store bought one meets my needs just fine. It’s up to the individual preferences really as to whether or not they want to take the extra effort in making their own or be as lazy as me and just grab a Wilton’s fondant. I usually get the white one because it lets me have all kinds of colored fondant that my heart desires.

Pretty fondant. Colorful fondant. Me like it.

Few moments ago, my stomach growled. After being deprived from food for at least 12 hours, my stomach was begging for sustenance. So there I was, on my laptop, minding my own business and trying real hard to ignore the calls of my stomach, but of course, my will as a human being wasn’t strong enough. The lonely cheesecake box situated at the corner of my table that I had gotten awhile back, god knows from which era, caught my attention. Perhaps it was because of its bright orange color that made my eyes shift that side or perhaps it’s just my stomach way of telling me to feed it with any food within reach but whatever the reason was, my hand reached out for it.Thinking that I get to enjoy at least a stick of cheesecake from the ‘Brick Factory’, I opened the box only to have it closed right back immediately.

The smell!!Goodness gracious me!!If smell could kill, this one could definitely wipe out the whole of Singapore. The fine tasting cheesecake got moldy just by being placed at the corner of my table despite it still being wrapped in the box with the square packet thingy inside. The thingy main purpose (if I’m not mistaken) is to prevent molding to which I have to vehemently disagree cause as I have said, my cheesecake ended up something akin to ‘Fat Man’; the smell representing the mushroom cloud with my room being Nagasaki.

So I did what normal people would do; into the bin it went. Can’t really say I’m going to miss it because seriously, that cloud of smell has left a strong impression in which I doubt it’s going to be forgotten anytime soon.

Having said about smell, I baked carrot cake; cupcake style!!It was uber delicious! The smell was simply aromatic (a definite improvement from my ‘Fat Man’). I had to pinch my nose to prevent myself from inhaling the one thing that could break my fast as I had baked them around 9 in the morning. This is to avoid my mom from finding out I had done some baking cause if my memory serves me well (which is not often mind you), she strictly told me “NO BAKING farz.” But me being me, I made them. So I had them baked, cooled and pop them into the fridge all before my mom came back. Not bad eh? The carrot cake (ok, cupcake; for those that are so rigid in your baking terms) stayed hidden in the fridge (away from my mom’s prying eyes) till evening where I topped them with cream cheese topping. They were the first thing I grabbed when the time for breaking my fast came.

I got to say, the cake/cupcake is definitely better than the previous one my sister made (shh…don’t tell her I said that cause if she finds out, I’m so dead). The cake/cupcake is very moist due to the crushed pineapple (which I added more and decrease the amount of sugar to make up for the excess pineapple syrup) and the spices give the cake/cupcake the overall ‘omph’ that makes me categorize this recipe as a keeper. It wasn’t overly sweet and I think if coupled with a cup of coffee, this cake/cupcake would be the perfect snack for tea time.

I got that piece of paper with the recipe on it dog-eared mind you. It’s a definite keeper for someone who loves carrot.

p.s. my mom asked when I baked them and I replied, “Sometime just now.”

carrot cake cupcake-style!!!

i love the two tone swirl. it’s not that difficult to achieve but it does require 3 friggin piping bag!!

see that retro board under those cupcake?? i’m proud of that piece of art work…it took me 3 long hours of cutting and pasting to get that but it was worth it.

BUT…

I’m here to bring it back to life!!

one may ask why the sudden interest in this blog again. well, here’s the answer (this is the best way i could think of explaining):

ingredients:
3 months
a passion for baking
love for food
love for photography (definitely not me)

directions
mixing the months gently with passion and love, bake it for 3 months.
Periodically check for any changes.
After the 3 months is up, expect a fully revived blog.

And there you go ladies and gentlemen, the process in the decision making of a revived blog. pretty simple huh?