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Happy Birthday Mom!

Mom's b'day was yesterday so I tried my hands on baking, for the very first time on my own! Recipe courtesy of Lih Yi ^^

Black Magic Cake

• 110 g all-purpose flour
• 100 g white sugar (initially 200g. I couldn't accept the fact that it was twice the amount of flour!)
• 30 g unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking soda (I didn't know it was sodium bicarbonate until.. yesterday T.T)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt (but my friends complained it was slightly salty though. So I might put 1/2 tsp next time)
• 1 egg
• 120ml strong brewed coffee (I used 3 in 1 coffee for this one.. LY recommends Nescafe Arabica)
• 120 ml buttermilk (I used full cream milk)
• 60 ml vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 175 C/350F. Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans or one 9 x 13 inch pan (actually it expanded to only half the height of my 8 inch square pan)
   
2. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center. (You might want to sieve the flour, baking soda and baking powder first for a more even batter I suppose)
3. Add eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed. Batter will be thin. Pour into prepared pans.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack. Fill and frost as desired.

The end result:

I was slightly upset that there was a big ugly crack in the middle.. It was also dome-shaped instead of square and flat..According to google results and LY, it was probably due to:

• my cake was closer to the upper heating element in the oven so the top part was baked faster than the bottom, causing the cake to crack when the bottom part of the cake started to rise
  
• the baking temperature (180 C) was too high
• the batter was uneven

But all in all it was pretty much a success and luckily mom enjoyed it (she HAD to, I suppose XD)

Check out here for June's recipe for the black magic cake (plus chocolate ganache as topping!)

Oh ya.

How we "dealt" with the leftovers from the steamboat. Using rice cooker ah! "Geng" or not?

Of parties & sleepovers

Steamboat on Sunday at Teck Hong's house! for mama's birthday celebration ^^ (pics courtesy of kk)

left to right: kk and mama

We were supposed to surprise mama when she came over TH's house but instead she found us squatting pathetically beside his kakak (who was washing dishes) behind the house. What an entrance, thanks to some misunderstanding o.O

Okay let the pictures do the talking!

the food for steamboat. We ended up (seriously!) overestimating our food consumption ability and so we're still finishing up our food till now... will fill in details in the next post ^^

Sweat's fruit punch! was an instant favourite; named virgin punch for no particular reason

the busiest person throughout the day... we kept calling out Teck Hong! every few seconds; thank you ah XD

Teck hong's brothers who barely ate and helped us with starting the fire instead.. paiseh betul

my another (paranoid!) reason for not wearing contacts...

no blog post is complete without a vain pic ^^

traffic light

posers

Mama's b'day cake made at TH's hs! Thanks to Chai Cheen, Bee Shuang and also me ^^

Only putting up this pic 'cause everyone else looks nice *pouts*

After that...

sleepover at my house!

flashing the classic 8-teeth-showing smile

ugly no.1

ugly no.2, ape version

We talked till around 3 something and when I went downstairs to get some water, my grandparents was up already (they sleep at 7pm). My grandma asked me, "eh, you all wake up so early ah?" o.O

That's all! gotta study for maths test tomorrow :)

College = Slimming Centre?

These are before/after pics from when we first started college (about a year ago) to the recent ones ^^ (grabbed from WY's facebook)

Lih Yi (wearing the same top! and with the same smile too^^)

Mama

Me

Callie

Sweat

Suat Hoon

Chai Cheen (ZOMG this is seriously the biggest transformation.. what we call the power of love XD)

Bee Shuang

Wan Ying

Kay Kay

Teck Hong

That's all! off to pasar malam now :)

Hoping, Dreaming

Happy birthday Suat Hoon! My companion on long, congested train rides and simply the sweetest friend :)

SH with the knife and CC with the spatula. making sushi over at my house (the knife is for carrots & cucumbers; the spatula? for show only la XD)

We bought her a bag from an online blogshop, Ultimate Dazzle (the bag has mysteriously dematerialized from the site!)

Thanks to Callie for handling the bag's payment and Lih Yi for the homemade b'day cake! (sorry no pic available)

Nothing much to report this week. Just plenty of emo rantings, read it if you're in a good mood and need a reason to be emo.

• Ever since AS exams ended, I am still finding myself in hibernation mode; spending my time going out with college friends, reading novels, playing piano, watching movies on PPStream, Restaurant City on facebook. Everything but studying. Guilt is starting to creep through my veins but I simply don't know where to start! And I realised I want to get into Imperial College REAL BAD. Maybe it's the fame, the "not everyone can get in" privilege or the "grass is always greener on the other side" thing. Either way, my efforts don't live up to my dreams at the moment. Note to self: BETTER SHADDUP AND START WORKING HARD!

• I've been distancing myself from lots of things lately. Church, old friends, clubs & societies. Reason? I don't know. Sometimes avoiding responsibilities seem to come naturally to me; courage has never been my forte. I've never been a master at words (esp spoken ones). I'm not outspoken, not hilarious enough, (is there ANY way of being funny without making fun of someone else?) and too old to act cute and innocent anymore. Note to self: Go to the Land of Oz and get a heart.

• Realized that some people aren't as they used to seem. I hereby use a aptly written chinese proverb: 路遥知马力，日久见人心 (literal translation: you can judge a horse's strength after it travels for a long journey; as you can judge a person's heart with time) Currently burdened with betrayal, insecurity and prejudiced judgment. Note to self: Write a letter to Dear Thelma (joking lar... it's not THAT serious)

Going to make muffins this Sunday with mom. Hopefully wafts of food will cheer me up :)

Kantoi by Zee Avi

Just heard this song on the radio today. Kudos to this homegrown indie artist! Damn cute (inside joke) :)

Autobots, roll out! Megan Fox, stay at home and stop being so damn sexy =P

Image by drzuco via Flickr

FINALLY watched Transformers 2 yesterday with Sweat, Grace S and SH at Sunway Pyramid... Honestly I'm not such a big fan of automobiles and them transforming into 10 storey high (or higher?) robots capable of wiping out cities and hundreds of people at one go. It's like Ultraman but only much, much cooler.

But I enjoyed the movie nevertheless 'cause:

• It's the hype. Everyone's watching it, so it's more open for discussion. It's like I watch FIFA world cup but not EPL. The feeling of having the whole world in suspense with you, waiting for that goal, is soo hard to find! It's like we're connected in some way, you know...

• Even if I couldn't differentiate Megatron from Starscream if they stopped talking, you've gotta admit the transformations look extremely complicated and definitely YENG! (in

  Image by Megan Fox Rules! via Flickr

  cantonese) honestly I wouldn't mind marrying Optimus Prime, he's so charismatic :)

• Megan Fox. The common enemy of the female race. We watch it to learn how to pout like her XD

By the way I've recently opened another blog for books I've read (as if I haven't bored you enough). Just finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer! Check it out here.

ED: UPDATE: Callie wrote a brief intro of our college classmates! Click here to check it out ^^