An Exciting World of Fondant

To all of you who celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year: GONG XI FAT CHOI!". I am sending this post from Singapore over my long Chinese New Year holiday in this marvelous country. Yes, taking the annual leave from work and at the same time collecting information and finding resources for my new inspiration.

I don't know whether anyone of you have had experienced thinking about what would be next after all those blogs posted over the years. I have, and a new idea hit me recently after reading through some articles posted on Singapore Strais Times Online regarding the trend of customized decorated cakes, or to be more specific customized fondant decorated cakes in Singapore.



While fondant or also known as rolled sugar paste has been popular for a long time in US and European countries, it is rather new in Thailand or some other Asian countries. I have envied enjoying photos of fondant decorated cakes in hundreds of baking books and posts on the Internet, but always faced despair over the fact that fondant is a rare ingredient to find in Bangkok. Ever since my failure on developing fondant on my own last year, I never took the initiative of looking at it, ever again...... until now.

However recently I pledged to myself that I would work through this obstable and take a new step into an extremely exciting fondant world where colors are vivid, ruffles are almost so real, gum-paste flowers are so natural, and graphics find no limits. After a long indulgence in the variety of baking, it is now time to focus on improving the decorations on cakes and throw many real colors!!



Friends and blogger fellows, I wish for your mental support on this new endeavor :-) A new sweet friend, Kate of Sweet Artisan has been providing valuable information on fondant and all, and she is the fondant artists I have found and interacted with in Thailand. Go and check out her beautiful works.

Daring Bakers' Joconde Imprint

Thanks so much to all of you for sharing your favorite TV series :-) It is so nice to know a little bit more about your viewing favorites. Well, I could sort of deciding what series to go for next! Thanks again!

Meanwhile, I have to confess that I love love love this month's contest. Reminiscing one episode of my baking classes long time ago which included a lesson on joconde. Apparently it was not a great class, I would say or more like it was not a perfect joconde recipe that I got from the baking instructor. My imprint was never been clear and sharp like what I just did with recipe provided by Astheroshe. Thanks to her lesson with Chef John O. at The International Culinary School in Atlanta, Georgia USA!



I have had this imprint stencil sitting in my cupboard for the longest time and this challenge just gave me a chance to make good use of it. And while this month is a perfect month to bake everything that involves strawberries, I wouldn't skip any opportunity to include these beautiful fruits into my joconde mousse. Hope you will enjoy this Joconde Strawberry Mousse with me!

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

Glued

Who doesn't like to watch TV drama series? I for one have been forbidding myself from falling into the Korean TV series mania that hit the whole world like a storm. Say a few.... Winter Sonata, Stairway to Heaven, Coffee Prince? Any of these you haven't watched? I confess, I have watched none...

And I was just doing okay turning away from what everyone or anyone was talking about in the last few years. Our office maid is a Korean serie fanatics, she claimed she had watched and kept every single Korean series she could laid her hands on in this country. And feel free to talk to her about any actor or actress, old and new. She knows it all.

But to my surprise, I could never keep my eyes off of the US TV series. Some were exposed to me and got me glued to every minute and second of the storyline. Once I was a big fan of Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and The City". I had watched and rewatched the episodes a couple of times and started to write my sentence that went like "I can't stop but wonder ......". And then there were a few more provocative ones that entertained me shortly afterwards like "Six Feet Under", "The Ghost Whisperer" and "Lost". These three evently got me annoyed - don't know why, I just saw my interest diminish overtime until I found "Nip Tuck" and "Desperate Housewives".



The latest has become my all time favorite and funny enough I think the production could not catch up with my viewing speed so I ended up facing a lot of void for a certain period of time. And while waiting I got myself busy with replaying the old episodes or ..... opening myself to new options...

I stumbled into "Ugly Betty" a while ago and never really thought of getting into it until a closed friend told me she really liked it. My niece left our family trip this month with a message that I should catch "Glee". Wow, can I commit to that? While eventually came to meet face to face with "Ugly Betty" first episode, I had to admit - despite being a bit dull in the beginning - she grew into an interesting personality and soon enough she was adorable and had to exit Disc 6 of the first season. Oh man!

Do I miss Betty already like I miss all my family members that left after spending our wonderful time together in Thailand? Yes, I kind of do... so just have to catch the second season, shouldn't I ?. Meanwhile I have a few in my list: "The Traveler", "The Mentalist". "Brothers and Sisters" and "Dirty Sexy Money". Which one will drop and which one will sustain? Lets' see!

Do you have any favorite series too? Share your titles with me :-)

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Happy New Year, everyone! Wish you all lots of luck and joy, great health and success! Hope you have had a great new year holiday with your loved ones, family and friends!

It took me a while getting back to blogging. After my family trip was over and they all left last week, I was spending time cleaning up the house, taking good rest, and settling back to my old life. While these three things were accomplished, I realized it was about time to make new year resolutions, something I hadn’t allocated my time for due to the trip. It was about time to plan for my life in 2011!



I was glad that my family members were all happy with the trip. We had time exploring the beautiful mountain resort at Phuchifah, the relaxing beach resort at HuaHin, engaged ourselves in the intensive shopping marathon - something of which Bangkok is well known for, and most of all indulged in Thai cuisine. And with T’s presence in the trip, my family had learnt more about Thai culture. Can’t wait to have another trip with them next year!