Shopping for clothes, Samurai

I have been doing shopping recently which is the reason why I am so broke now.

This dress, bought 2 weeks ago in the city, was meant for the big Tetsuya dinner coming up next week. BUT I didn't loose enough weight to fit comfortably in the dress in the way I envisioned it to be (which is: no matter how much I eat, the bulge in my stomach won't show). Yeah.. Nevermind! I shall wear it for Christmas!

Front and back.

Hahaha.. Hmm, this dress cost me half my weekly allowance. By right I should starve myself right now to compensate for the hole in my pocket (which will also serve to aid me in slimming down). That didn't happen. I ate cheaply. Hahaha. Therefore, I maintained my fattiness.

Dress is bought in a boutique store, which sources their products from London. Well, I bought this dress mainly because it was on the sales rack and it is so bloody cute. Stella wanted to buy this one-piece dress pants piece which costs about $200. But it didn't fit her. Stella! Buy for me~!

I was (very strongly) recommended by my French class classmates to go to Newtown for shopping. Apparently they have lots of boutique clothes shop and the best coffee shop. Yup, when there is food and clothes, I go.

I bought this ummm, how do I describe it.. a very revealing spaghetti tank. Very sexy.. hohoho. This boutique sources their stuff from South Korea and Japan. Therefore, the quality is there, so is the price. haha. Now must seriously think about slimming down.

Eat first. Dinner later that night was at Samurai in Balmain.

I absolutely love their agedashi tofu. The broth is so good.

Katsu don. It is my first time trying it here. Not bad. It has got lots of lightly caramelised onions and the chicken is quite tender. One thing Stella didn't like about this dish was there was too little sauce.

End.

Superior assessment

Hohoho, exam's over! And I passed!

Nah~ my finished cake. I took a picture of it only after Chef tried it. Therefore, the cut there. Nevertheless, you can still see the design. I cut the leaf design out of cardboard myself with the tomato knife. (To my secondary school art teacher: My papercutting skills improved!) It is not as defined as I liked it to be though. :(

"Happy Birthday" was piped in pistachio, chocolate jelly.

My classmates' gateaux!

The second assessment was the chocolate box. Each of us has to make a box entirely out of chocolate complete with 12 dipped marzipan petits fours.

Originally, I had this idea of making a sitting ballerina out of modeling chocolate and stick piped butterfly wings onto her back. It will be placed on top of the box as a centerpiece. (it will be so beautiful...) Sadly, I don't have the skill for it. First thing Chef said when he saw the humanoid shape thing that I've made was: I wouldn't make a woman like this. End of story. I changed my design. I made this ribbon instead. Very plain, very simple, because my time ran out.

My classmates' designs. All so beautiful!

Exam's over~ Home in 2 weeks!

End.

Lemon Zebra Mousse with Strawberries.

I call it the Lemon zebra mousse with grand marnier strawberries.

My final examination in the Patisserie course is due next week. And the topic is: design you own cake. The ingredient list is short. No chocolate, only cocoa powder to use. The possible flavours are strawberry, lemon, 3 kinds of alcohol, pistachio paste and vanilla. Thus, also very possible that more than 1 person will make your cake.

Well, that was my first thought. The second thought was, how do I stand out? That was at the beginning of Superior patisserie. After that, I went through a sort of unhappy, down phase, where I lost myself amidst the crowd, I let myself be affected by what others think, by what others say. Basically, I lost my focus. I had a few ideas for my cake, bounced them around for some time, then discarding them one by one.

Then recently, something I did without thinking, I poured my confusion, my unease onto paper. All of a sudden I felt much better, lighter. I had direction again. The concept came easily, and from there, many little inspirations hopped into my head. Hmmm, it all starts to feel good again.

My cake is a very simple cake. Vanilla, chocolate genoise sponge, lemon mousse and strawberries. I want it really light and bubbly. haha. Stella says my cake feels like little children running and jumping for joy. I really like the zebra mousse. And I hope many people will like it too. I mean if you don't really like what you've made, how can you expect other people to enjoy it as well. So yeah, I really really like it. :)

We gave our cakes out to a variety of people to try. Our neighbours, R, N and their Japanese friend. Our classmates at French class with the majority of them Australian except for one English. The verdict was both of us did very well. They all liked both immensely but I got the majority of the votes. (haha, actually all but one) Which made me exceptionally happy~ This exercise made me very aware of consumers' taste and preference and how very important it is. And also very glad that we share the same taste.

The cake, as you can see in the pictures, is not finished. The last decorative touch is just too lazy on my part to execute. haha. Imagine very fine cake crumb, dark and light (the colours of my genoise), sifted alternately onto the cake to give a circular leaf motif design. So you see the dark, light and white colours contrasting. The last piping of "Happy Birthday" on the cake in clear glaze. (Not too sure about that, have to work that out.)

Comments please! :D The more the merrier. Thanks! It means great help.

End.

Decorative Breads- Dead dough

Dead dough, also known as bakers clay, is basically dough without yeast, or any leavening agent. Our task for the day is to produce at least 2 decorative bread pieces.

Chef Herve's demonstration. With a combination of normal bread dough and dead dough, he created this bouquet of wheat grass. This is super cool. You know, you have to cut and shape every single wheat you see there.... within the time that the normal bread dough below takes to prove. If you're too slow, the normal bread dough tends to explode, and you'll see little gaps here and there. Not good at all..

Crocodile. Chef says for some reason crocodiles look especially good in bread. The entire of the crocodile is made with the "live dough" (which is another name for the normal yeast dough). The fact that the dough is expanding all the time, makes it more difficult to shape. Especially for first-timers like us, we take more time to get the croc into shape. Let's say by the time the head is done, the tail will look a bit bulbous. Then you have to try to squash the air out, and roll the end more, to get the tapered off effect again.

So this is what happens. An obese crocodile which may very possibly be saddled with high cholesterol and diabetes.

Wheat sheaf is cool though. The middle piece is a porcupine. haha.

Better looking crocodile, but still looks over-fed.

Guess who made this. Stella. My roommate. She made this super huge owl with a mouse in its beak (though I don't think you can see it). Kimmy observed it and told me in a very calm manner: Heidi, I think you need to be careful. O.o

End.

Panetonne, Stollen and Foccacia

This whole week seems very Christmassy. 2 other Christmas items: Panetonne (Italy) and Stollen (France, Swiss, Germany, that Europe area). Oh, and Foccacia. One of my favourite bready!

This weeks's student helpers: Soo Jin and Heidi.

The panetonne made the day before and left in the fridge to be retarded. Baked and eaten on the second day. Nice, quite like the brioche except it has got lots of extra stuff like sultannas, dried fruits.

Stollen. A fruit bread stuffed with marzipan and baked together. I find this bread is quite similar to panetonne, but it has got much less butter and ofcourse this has marzipan.

Wrap, roll and seal. Then shape. bam bam bam.

After it is baked, you cut it like a pro with the bready knife. Chef Herve is demonstrating.

HOHOHO, foccacia. Chef says he finds it very close to the pizza dough except that this is much much thicker.

Topped with olives, basil, thyme and majoram.

End.

Gingerbread House

Christmas is coming! Theme for this week is The Gingerbread House~

First we make the gingerbread dough and pin it out into sheets to bake. After it is baked, we attempt to cut it into the shapes (roof, walls, chimney etc..) Then we make icing sugar (a combination of egg whites and icing sugar) as means to stick the pieces together. The sticks poking out from the gingerbread house are to hold them together before the icing dries. Looks quite scary huh, like some voodoo house (or so kimmy says).

We had such an excess of time during the lesson that we made honey lemon tea for the class. Waaaaa.

And time to idle around, to take many pictures..

From left: Efsun (Turkey), Eduardo (Venezuela), Stella (Philippines) and Kimmy (Indonesia).

Hong wants to stuff the pastry brush up Kimmy's nose to revenge Kimmy for sticking the brush in his eye.

Our Gingerbread House, decorated with icing sugar, candies and smarties.

Heidi's love nest.

Why love? There.

Il greco- Midtown cafe

Friday night is outing night! Whee~

While waiting for the bus, I got Stella to do a series of "AEIOU". She actually agreed! muahaha, now I have a couple of picture that I can blackmail her with.

Arriving at the cafe, which is located along George street, next to KFC. It's newly opened, I think. Very pretty deco inside, with shimmery lights and all. Banana smoothie!

The food: is not great. For the price, I would expect better standards. Pork and fennel sausages is $18. Just two sausages with a bunch of salas leaves. The steak was almost well-done although Stella asked for medium. My penne was too dry, very difficult to swallow. I gave up halfway. Only the smoked salmon and tomato bruchetta was satisfactory. ._.

Kimmy, the one who got us here for its seafood risotto, was also disappointed. Sam just look bored. He worked in an Italian restaurant before, so he must be bored by all these food. haha.

This is sooo cute! We found it at the basement Japanese supermarket, after dinner. Similar to the Japanese sweet store in Takashimaya in Singapore, this store makes them fresh.

Taiyaki in anpan man shape. haha. I'm spouting rubbish. Filled with pastry cream. I bought a box of 10 for $7, getting-rid-of-leftovers promotion. Which means these little men were probably seating around for quite some time, therefore not piping hot when we were eating it, but still good!

Because we were still hungry from the "blah" dinner, we hopped down to Chinatown to feast at their night market. I ate ba kwa!! hmmm...

End.