Let us eat cake

Chocolate cake

Here's the chocolate felt cake that I made for a friend's birthday recently. It's similar to the strawberry felt cake that I made some time ago for another friend of mine. 

Work in progress

Complete with whipped cream, a slice of banana, wafers, and even a cherry on top

My friend just posted a picture of a lovely durian cake on Facebook. It's really making crave for some cake. I think I'd like to have a slice of cheesecake now. 

Oh look, here's a picture of cupcakes that my friend bought me for my birthday in March. :)


*end of incoherent thoughts

DIY: Cutest earphones in the world

This great project is really simple and only takes a minute for it to be done. I'm serious! Just get your glue gun out and stick something to your earphones!

The 2 tiny pieces of cake are actually deco materials that I bought a few years back. If you want to get some of these online, simply enter 'deco supplies' into the search box on Etsy. I bought mine from a shop in Singapore and I love sticking them onto ear posts to create the cutest ear studs on the world.

Now I'm off to listen to "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" by Lesley Gore with my 'new' earphones. And I feel so fine just to know that you're mine...

I almost bought this today

via

That 1/2 price tag made it really tempting. But I guess I could always knit one myself.


P.S.: Did I mention that it was also in kid's size?

Strawberry Fields Forever

Did I just ignore this blog for about 2 weeks? Sorry guys, I'm currently having my summer break. I haven't been doing many craft projects lately. I have been busy meeting up with friends, watching movies and lolling around the house. 

But I made this sweet felt strawberry cake for a friend's birthday! I'm not too pleased with how the strawberries turned out. Those white bumps are french knots that are very poorly done. If I had known, I would have sewn white beads on the strawberries instead.

Stayover with Weiwen and Amanda

I finally got to bunk in with Weiwen and Amanda in their hall last Friday! I know it's been almost a week but I've been rather busy lately to put up the photos and to write about it. Anyway, here goes!

First of all, I finally got the chance to give them the presents that I have knitted and crochet for them.

Please ignore the legs. Anyway it's not mine!

It's the Blanket Buddy as seen in 101 Designer One Skein Wonder and a Cupcake from BitterSweet. Actually I finished knitting the Blanket Buddy a long long time ago but never got around to fill up the head, embrioder the eyes and then give it to Amanda. The cupcake was an easier project that I finished in a single day.

The proud owners!

Hopefully Amanda will feel more comforted during her lonely nights in hall with the Blanket Buddy with her! And I certainly do not wish that Weiwen will get too tempted to eat the strawberry cupcake. She'll be choking on the whole furball!

Then we baked the whole night away in the hall's kitchen. Well, almost. It's supposed to be Weiwen's Double Chocolate Chip Cookie, but really it's simply a recipe she got somewhere and she added double the amount of chocolate chip required. There was so much cookie dough that we couldn't finish the entire batch that we baked that night! I'll try to post the recipe up soon. (^_^)

Hmmmmm...

This is my favourite piece (^_^)

Last but not least, I tried baking my cupcakes (yet again!) using the REAL oven in the hall kitchen. I thought it's gonna come out great. But it turned out HORRENDOUS, and this is not an exaggeration. The cupcakes was dark, flat, dense and tasted rubbery. 

I wonder if it's the problem with the mixture or the heat. The mixture had turned all watery by the time we started pouring it into the paper cups. But it also could have been the heat settings of the oven. Don't tell me how high I set the oven, I really don't remember.

One thing that I have to say is that this is the WORST baking attempt ever for the cupcakes. I kept trying to explain to both Weiwen and Amanda that it really isn't supposed to turn out this way and I've made it 100 times better in my previous attempts using my toaster oven.

And I tried baking - AGAIN and AGAIN

I have never given up on improving that cake/muffin 5 mins easy-bake recipe. So this is the most recent results of my baking attempt #3 and #4.

I guess generally there are improvements in the way it looks. There wasn't any spillovers compared to Attempt #2 and the muffins rose quite nicely.

baking attempt #3: the muffins kinda sags down at the centre...

baking attempt #4: i like the way the muffin breaks open at the centre!

It's also a little softer as I added more milk and less flour. But Kelly commented that it tasted like rubber and then refused to have a second serving.

Maybe it's the problem with my toaster. Kelly suggested using a microwave, just like what the recipe was initially meant for. I think I'll bake it again when I bunk in with Geokhan in her hostel next week.

That will be my baking attempt #5.

So, I tried baking again

I couldn't stop thinking about the 5 minutes easy-bake cake that I made using a recipe I found online. Although the result was less than satisfactory, I tried baking it again with a few modifications to the recipe.

First of all, I ditched the 3 tablespoons of oil. I didn't see the point of adding so much oil since it didn't add to the taste of the cake. It merely makes the cake greasy and clogs your arteries. In addition, I added 7 tiny drops of chocolate essence to bring out the chocolaty taste of the cake. Last but not least, I put my mixture into little baking paper cups to make them easy for sharing and to skip the last and most detestable step of washing (and scrubbing).

It all turned out quite well, I'd say. The taste was better than the first time I made it and the burnt areas were much lesser too. The only thing that I wasn't happy about was the way the mixture spills out during the baking process. But still, I'm really starting to like this recipe because it the starting materials were cheap and it was so quick and easy to make.

This is what I will be bringing for the picnic that I am going to have with my friends next weekend!

Chocolate cake in 5 minutes!

I found this really cute and easy recipe for a chocolate cake through Craftzine using the simplest ingredients that you can find in your homes! Don't worry if you don't have an oven, because this recipe only calls for a microwave oven.

Well, so I made one and this is how it turned out:

sorry about the poor resolution because I took the picture using my crappy phone camera

There are several things that I modified. I didn't have cocoa powder, so I used Milo powder instead. I didn't have cake flour, so I used All-purpose flour instead. Last but not least, I didn't have a microwave oven, so I used the conventional toaster I have. So in the end, it took around 20 minutes for my cake to bake and the top was a little burnt.

It tasted OK, not as nice as I thought and I hoped that it would be. Frankly speaking it looks like and even tastes a little like the less starchy version of the Chinese brown sugar cake (Fatt Gao). 

(photo from http://fenyingrecipe.blogspot.com/2008/03/2-fatt-gao-2.html)

But one thing that I really have to say is that the 3 tablespoons stated in the recipe is WAY TOO MUCH. The cake feels kinda oily in my hands and I could almost feel my tummy gaining diameter as I eat.

http://www.dizzy-dee.com/recipe/chocolate-cake-in-5-minutes#comment-2712