The Close of Another Year  

Posted by: Audrey in

I realize that I might not have time to post this tomorrow, so I guess I shall post this before the year ends and I'll be a year late posting this. LOL! 

These baking projects were just some that I did...there were quite a few others that I did with Justina and some other friends, but I mostly helped out so it doesn't seem right to post photos of those projects here. Anyways, here's to a better year next year =) Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to post about my resolutions and what not..

Lemon pepper cornmeal cookies (left) and chocolate chip spotties. The lemon pepper combination was quirky,  but surprisingly good! I don't know...some people may not like it, but I did =) Together with the cornmeal, the cookie has a bit of bite. Yum! The chocolate chip spotties were made for my cousin in Singapore...these were a favourite of mine during CNY when my aunt would make tins of them. I would devour them like crazy! Now I have the recipe, I tried it out and the taste is still amazing *grins* Not the prettiest kind of cookies, but all is forgiven when one bites into them!


 
Pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving...LOL! I had a craving to want to try out pumpkin pie recipes after seeing so many friends in the US post about Thanksgiving dinners and what not. As it turns out, pumpkin pie filling or even just sugar pumpkins are not found here in Malaysia =( So, I googled and found that butternut squash / pumpkin can be used! This was made with butternut pumpkin, and I'm glad it turned out well....so creamy and the spices incorporated into the filling are quite heart-warming. So perfect if served with a cup of hot chocolate =)


Fruit cake! I made this about 2-3 weeks before Christmas as the recipe called for some rum / brandy to be soaked into the cake and needed to be kept for the flavors to meld. This recipe was my Mom's...I still remember how yummy it was when she made it! And it did not disappoint even now. I soaked the raisins in some rum & orange juice too the day before I made this, and I ended up using the rest of small-ish bottle of rum to soak the cake. Result? Boozy, citrus-y and jam-packed fruit cake, especially after cooled in the fridge. Mmmmm....I still have ingredients leftover. Might just make it again once these get finished. *grins*


This was quite a last minute cake that I made for my colleague's birthday....this was made just one day before her birthday celebration itself, but thank goodness the recipe was fairly easy and pain-free =) It's a chocolate brownie with some caramel in between,  frosted with some buttercream and topped with a chocolate ganache. Initially I had just wanted the ganache to just drip to the sides like a decor, but I didn't know that I needed to chill it a little so that it's a thicker consistency to pour...I ended up having to cover the whole cake with ganache. Not a pretty result =( But I DID love the flowers on top! These were super simple to make, following a tutorial from Bakingdom on how to do it...they end up being the 'saving grace' of the cake =)


 

These were the latest caveat of mine...adorable miniature cakes for my manager on her birthday. Cake was chocolate sheet cake cut into rounds and frosted with some chocolate ganache, then covered in fondant. I was super gung ho, thinking that I could finish it in a couple of days...but just in case, I asked Justina if she would be free to help me out with the decor coz she told me she wanted to try and play with fondant as well. It was a God send that she came to help, because I don't think I would have been able to accomplish this all by myself!


The initial plan was to do 15 cakes like this, but the 4 in the middle would be 'hot chocolate cupcakes' a la Diary of a Ladybird, but my mismanagement of time, humid weather on top of rain, bad decision to put the ganache-covered cakes into the fridge and poor handling of the fondant caused the cakes to sort of disintegrate from the inside out. As you can see here, some of the cakes on the right already started showing signs of melting compared to the rest. *Sigh* This was taken right after everything was done so that I have proof of what I envisioned to be....and it would be super cute if the cakes remained like this till it was cut the next day.



I LOVE this little bow ribbon. Got the inspiration from my sis' Delectable birthday cupcakes from her friends. I wanted to also follow the stitching pattern around the 'ribbons' but alas, the tacky stitch embosser tool I got was a knockoff and couldn't do the pattern at all! So we could only do this....


Others were little rose buds with leaves....They're the cutest thing I've ever tried so far!


 
The final result....this was done barely 2 hours before I rushed off to work. I had lost 5 cakes to the melting, so took them off and made some quick fondant letters to personalize the cakes a little and to cover the huge spaces. Even then, some of the remaining cakes were already showing signs of melting yet again =( Luckily, Susan didn't mind that much...she told me it looked cute, so that's ok I guess. I shall attempt to do much better next time...found some techniques to cover fondant that seemed to work for the last few cakes (they held up well compared to the others!) so was thinking of trying it soon =) Hopefully there'll be more chances to play with fondant soon!


That's about it for this year I guess...lots of ups and downs. I love roller coasters, but having a roller coaster life is not all that fun. Still, c'est la vie, no? Happy New Year to you who is reading this (if there is anybody out there reading this!), and may the new year bring you blessings, joy and happiness!

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Pining  

Posted by: Audrey in

To pine (verb) - to yearn deeply; suffer with longing; long painfully

I think I finally understood what was it that made my head & heart ache so much. This initially was meant for my eyes only, but I realized Blogger has no function to make single posts private. Still, I figured...I don't have that many readers anyways, and if that someone reads this...well, things have already been awkward already, and I don't think it'll change anything since it was over and he's moved on. So what the heck.

Yes, it was a boy...a boy that I didn't realize that I had feelings for for so long. It kinda felt like ages and eons ago that the relationship ended, but looking back, it's only been a few months. And I'm still nursing this hurt for some reason. A friend wondered if girls like us, who hardly ever gets the guy, hang on that much harder compared to those who have it good and very often...I find this ever so true. To make it 'worse', this was my first relationship and yes, it cut way deeper than I thought.

I remembered that he asked me once if I had said 'yes' to dating him because he was the first one to ask me, or if it's because I do like him. I failed in telling him because a) I was not used to being asked things like this; and b) I am not the girl that wears her heart on her sleeve. Opening up always have a negative effect for me, so I always chose not to reveal too much. To be really honest, I initially wanted to say 'no'. Not because I don't like him, but I really enjoyed being friends with him. Saying 'yes' would mean ruining that friendship, but I figured if he could take that chance and ask, why couldn't I say yes? He has been nothing but nice to me, can talk the ears off anybody (which I like even though I'm quiet as heck), can be sarcastic (which I like because very few people gets sarcasm these days) and an overall good guy. True, he's not perfect but who am I to complain? I'm leagues away from being anywhere close to perfect.

Thinking back, I had wanted to ask something along the same lines too but I was too chicken to ask: Was the reason that he asked me out because he really liked me for who I am, or was it because I had taken the effort to make myself 'pretty'. Not that I'm near pretty or whatever but we had known each other for a few years already and when I first met him, I was overweight, had acne all over my face and I just can't be bothered with how I looked because let's face it...who would want to look at me? It was only the past year that I realized I needed a change for myself and I started working out, watched my diet, trying on make up to hide the hideous acne and finding that hey, I don't look THAT bad anymore. His previous girlfriends have always been quite pretty so it came as a big surprise that he would ask. I don't think I'll ever know the answer to this...but in a way, I guess it's ok too. I might not like what I would hear, so what you don't know sometimes is better.

When he chose to end the relationship, it got me thinking about whether it was me. I know everybody will always say the infamous line, "it's not what you did or about you..." but I can't shake off the feeling that it is. I had been speculating so much about it last time: could it be me being too 'clingy' by pestering him to talk about what's bothering him; was it because I said 'yes' to being his girlfriend too soon, making me someone who is too 'easy' to get...loads and loads. Again, I don't think I'll ever know, so it's quite pointless to keep speculating and giving myself more heartache when the other person didn't even give you much thought.

I had initially thought (and somehow believed) that OK, it's over but we could still be friends....seeing that it had never really gotten THAT deep and it's only been a few weeks that we had been together. It is only now that I realized I have been so naive and kinda pathetic that it could be the way it used to be before all this. He was a good friend...probably the closest guy friend I've ever had. I guess this was what made it even harder...losing a good friendship that has been built over a few years just because there were some 'complications'. And it is true that, even though we try to remain friends...things are never really the same. I don't really feel as comfortable being just a friend with him compared to last time...and yet, I pressed on thinking I can get over this.

Sis told me it's quite useless to stay friends, saying that it'll give me false hopes that he will be back...I told her I never expected for him to come back, and at that time I believed it to be true. Now, it's like I'm lying to myself....who am I kidding? If I am so over this, why am I still feeling shitty every now and then for no reason? Why do I feel like I'm always so hopeless and thinking about whether it was me who made the relationship fail? It always hit me hardest whenever I go out and see couples holding hands and chatting away happily....*sigh* You know, it's like...if you've never experienced it before, it doesn't affect you that much because you've never known what it feels like. But when you HAVE, and it's lost...that feeling just sucks balls.

I know he'll probably never read this...but yes, I find I still do have feelings for him. Not that it'll make any difference since I've found out that he's moved on. I wish him all the best...it's really the only thing I could do. And I'll let this hurt wash over...till it gets numb. Listening to the "Wicked" soundtrack so many times now, that I identify so much with Elphaba...the girl who is so different and misunderstood, who loves a boy who she feels won't ever love her back. "He could be that boy; but I'm not that girl," she sings...and that rings true. For Elphaba, it worked out in the end but I don't expect the same will ever happen. So, this is just for the comfort of myself to be able to let it out, and (hopefully) let it go. There was this 'assignment' thing from Oprah's new show...to let go of things that hurt us, or if we couldn't just yet, at least make the decision to let go. So this is my decision...to let go of the hurt and move on. I don't know when it will finally happen, but I've learnt that the mind responds to repetition. So, hopefully by the time I've told myself enough times that I need to let go, this wonky brain of mine will finally let it go and just let the memories be memories without all the pain attached to it.

Kinda ironic that the last few days of the year got me so sad when I see so many people having high hopes and dreams for the coming year. Well, since this is my post to decide to let go, I shall make the decision to let this year be put behind and wipe the slate clean.  =) I've had my '5 minutes' of wallowing in this blog post as Morrie puts it, so I'll be posting more happy things in my next post. Been making myself so busy that it's crazy...in a way, it helps with the pain by not thinking about it. Baking helps me too...and I'm so grateful for the projects that came my way when I needed the time off from the emo-crazy shit that I was going through. Next post will be about my projects...they keep getting bigger *wink* Stay tuned!

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In The Mood....  

Posted by: Audrey in

...for nothing really. I've no idea what came into me. It was all "I'm good, I can do this" with quite a few projects at work and hobbies to occupy me and my fickle mind. All of a sudden, BAM! A wash of just 'weird-ness' (the best I could describe it) overcame me and now I'm in the worst mood ever. Darn. 

I've been meaning to post some more baking stuff that I did, some future ones that I'd planned, and even my trip to Singapore. Before this, my excuse was that I was too busy to sit down and organize my photos and thoughts. But now, I guess the posts will have to wait till this 'thing' goes over. Could it be the holiday mood? If it is, it kinda sucks....WTF. Festive seasons are supposed to bring cheer, happiness and joy! Dang this brain of mine.

The really weird thing about this feeling is that I'm neither sad, angry, nor anxious. It's just really really uncomfortable and I can't shake it off. Even with my tried and true method, it seems to be failing. *sigh* I'm hoping this will wear off soon coz it's giving me kind of a heart / headache. Now I'm wondering if it's something that someone said to me or someone did to me....=\ 

I used to be good at pinpointing these feelings...when I do, I let it just wash over me -  pain and all - and it just subsides after a while. That could be days or weeks....but this kinda scares me a little! Sometimes I wish I could shut this off for a while so I could have peace but who am I kidding right?

Okay, babbling time's over...think I need to sleep this out. Fingers crossed and hoping that things will turn out better tomorrow...I need myself back!

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