Date: August 1st, 2010

Time: 4:53PM

Mood: Extremely guilty for neglecting my blogging duties.

Dear Readers,

Apologies again for my lack of blogging lately- 3 weeks to be exact. I haven't really got an excuse for not blogging, but I can say that I haven't been slack with my baking at all. Oh by the way, yes I am alive ( I have again survived serial killer motel). I've just come back from a lovely yum cha/rose & lychee ice cream/shopping day with Jess so I'm feeling nice and relaxed. Time to put my blogging pants on.

So the past few weeks have been epic. I know I like to exaggerate 'sometimes' , but on looking back I don't know how I'm still standing... or talking for that matter. First up was a 3 day shoot that took me back to my favourite vacation spot of all time- Mt Kuring-gai, where I got to spend two nights at Serial Killer Motel. Actually, I must say this time wasn't too bad. I didn't have a tv remote, but there was a switch next to my bed that turned the tv off from there. Not that I actually turned the tv off the whole two nights, but I liked to have the option.

Oh and the best thing about the 12-13 hour days, was getting to sit in a black ferrari!!! Can't guarantee that it will happen again in this lifetime, so I took the opportunity.

I don't have pics of these yet, but wil try to get some up here if I can. On another note, I also managed to sample every type of chocolate in the snack tub, every type of muffin.... pasta... every type of everything really. Not good.


Ok so next up was my bloody awesome trip in Melbourne with Christine, also known as the '4 day shopping and eating bender in Melbourne'. Truly.

We arrived on Saturday morning and hit the ground running with breakfast at Madame Sou Sou's on Brunswick St, Fitzroy. This was the second time I've been there, and it was just as good as the first time. I had the croissant with smoked salmon , and it was sooo very good. The pastry was light and a little crispy- not oily at all. We met up with Trong and and Lisa for abit of introductory shopping and the next 3 days were history.

In a nutshell, our tour of Melbourne went like this:

Cafes/Restaurants stand outs:

• De Graves St Expresso. Best french toast ever, only strawberry leaves were left on the plate- that goes for both of us. Also, great coffee!
  
• Japanese bar & grill. Wagyu beef, mushrooms and eggplant on the grill. Heaaaaaven. Forgot what it was called, but its near Chinatown
• Parisienne Bakery and Boulangerie in Essenden. Devine! I had the smoked salmon baguette and escargot. The interior was very chic- all white, with flowers and a little Eiffle Tower statue.
• Maze- Gordan Ramsay's fine dining resturant. You know those moments when you experience something truly amazing and your eyes kind of roll back into your head. Yes, this happened many many times during the 7 course degustation dinner. (Especially with the pork belly course and lamington dessert). I've eaten at the the one in Tokyo too, and it was just as good
• 7 Seeds. Seriously one of the nicest coffee joints I've been to. Its on a very industrial kind of street, but once inside the first thing you see is a bike hanging off the wall. You venture inside and its a big open space, with tables and chairs on the side. It looks like a warehouse space actually- kind of like Deus ex machina in camperdown.
  

Other than that, there have been a few birthdays on, eating out.. OH! and I got to see Ne-Yo at the Winterbeatz concert last friday with Sammy. It.was.amazing. He sang all my favourite songs ie: sexy love, because of you, mad, single, nobody,knock you down- basically all the ones that induced school girl squealing.

But enough of that, here are some bits and pieces from the last few weeks:


Breakfast at The Parisienne Bakery and Boulangerie. Hot chocolate, escargot, salmon baguette, mixed berry brioche and almond croissant. I think my heart stopped that day, but it was so good at the time!


Caramel Mudcake with white chocolate ganache. This was incredibly yummy, and looks even better next to Cake Monster by Brecon. I also got this recipe from Women's Weekly.


Chocolate Crackle with Peppermint icing. Not quite sure why I made this one, but it sure brought back memories of primary school! Recipe was from the Kellogs website.






Happy Birthday Si!
This is a cheesecake brownie topped with Raspberry cream.This one was from Hummingbird Bakery.


Ummm I think that just about covers it! Hope you enjoyed the bake explosion that was my blog post for this week. Its kind of hard to amalgamate the last three weeks of my life + bake thangs in one go, so hope this one made some sense.

But back on track for now. Scouts honour!

x A

p.s I forgot to mention that I saw Mary Poppins in Melbourne and it was fantastic, you should all see it when it gets here!

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes & The Cat's Meow.

Hi you guys!

Well here is my weekly contribution to my little baking project : Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They are pretty badass if I must say so myself. The great thing about these ones are that they've got strawberry pieces at the bottom, and topped with crushed biscuits for an added crunch. Soooo good.


But first things first- Eclipse. So to follow through with our tradition of seeing the Twilight movies at Gold Class cinemas, myself, sister, Christine and Jenny made our way to Maquarie Centre last Sunday.

Personally, I thought it was quite enjoyable and its production value was waaaaaaaay better than New Moon (you know, when Edward's face pops up next to Bella's head and tells her not to do dangerous things. How cheesy was that?!). It was engaging from the very beginning where Riley gets attacked by the vampires, to Jacob with his shirt off, Jacob being a human/wolf heater in a sleeping bag with his shirt off, Jacob lying in his bed with half his body in a cast with his shirt off... did I mention the fact that Jacob had his shirt off?

As you may have guessed I am Team Jacob all the way! Yeah, yeah, lame I know. Whatever, I don't care! Try and make me not post pictures of Jacob... which is what I'm going to do rigggghhhhhtttttttt here:



Hmm.. I didn't know that I was going to write just about Jacob's abs. Maybe it says something about the film? That Kristen Stewart and Robert Patterson aren't that worth mentioning?That they're really good at lacking charisma and personality? Just my opinion anyway. Bringgggg on Breaking Dawn and Jacob and his abs. ha ha..


So you may have thought that my waffling on about Taylor Lautner was in reference to tonight's title 'The Cat's Meow'. If you thought that, you were so wrong. Check this out.



Holy holy moley. Last Saturday I decided to have a nice stroll around Newtown, particularly down south end of King St as I never really get the chance to make my way round those parts. On my way past the markets, I decided to drop by Black Star Pastry (on Australia St) which I'd heard only good things about. Sitting there on its lonesome was the very last strawberry and watermelon cake which I had to have. Get in my belly!!

It truly was The Cat's Meow. Sigh. If you're every around Newtown, you need to stop here and try this. mmm mmmm... strawberry and watermelon layer cake... mmm. Ok enough of that.

This is what I made this week:




Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. There are strawberry pieces in the cake, and the frosting is topped with crushed biscuits- hows that for the ultimate icing?



Look, I have the same hair as my Japanese doll. Waaaaaay cool.

So going by my blog posts, I've officially kept up my little project for 11 weeks now ( well actually 13, but let's not remind ourselves about my 2 week long hiatus shall we?). This is most awesome news. I must admit that when I created this blog out of pure boredom , I didn't think it would go further than a couple of weeks. And 11 weeks of yummy baked goods later, and with readers from outside of Sydney Australia ( Hellooo Inter-state and International friends!) it's still here! Yay.

But... not to rain on my own parade, I'm not sure if I can write next week. Things are getting mighty busy for Bake Thang! I've got a 3 day shoot which will take me back to serial killer motel for TWO WHOLE NIGHTS , back for a day then off to Melbourne with Christine for a couple of days. Sweet! ( not about the motel bit).

Until then,

x A.