Monday, December 04, 2006

lesson #058: the post about a lot, a lot, a lot of things

1. Tried baking cheesecake with Yang. At first we thought it was a total failure / disaster because when we tried a piece straight from the oven, it tasted really weird. However, after some time being chilled inside the fridge, it suddenly tasted nice. So hurray! I've found my calling as an amateur baker. Next up I might try cranberry muffins! Yummm...

2. Been losing, losing, losing at poker. I was the first to be kicked out twice in a row when we played 2 tourney rounds on Thursday night. And then on Friday we went up to London to see the LSE peeps' play for Malam Bakti, after which there was a round of pokers and again I lost. Ended up third place but still had to pay because only the first two win money. B-A-H! And then just now (it's Sunday night / early Monday morning) we played poker with the Italians / Norwegians and despite having chip leadership twice I stilll only tied for second place.

THIS SUCKS!

I realized I'm no longer satisfied with being 'in the money' (where you either break-even or win a portion of the pot). I wanna be on TOP of the money. It's just like me isn't it, to keep pushing for more and more thrills? I'm a serial thrill-seeker. I should be arrested.

3. Contemporary Lit exam tomorrow. It's gonna be about British films. I haven't really prepared for it so we'll see how it turns out tomorrow...

4. Bought 2 new tops upon a sojourn to Bershka @ Oxford Street. And then bought 4 sexy Topshop undies (translucent purple, translucent grey with polkadots, lace black & lace red thongs) because I felt an urgent need to feel beautiful. The gist of the story is... I GAINED A LOT OF WEIGHT. Baaaaah. So now gotta resort to undies to make me feel less repulsive. (But I still have a relatively healthy self-image I think...? Proven by the fact that I didn't forgo fried beef hor fun at Chinatown just because I found out I gained weight. Oh, and pandan sponge cake after that. And of course there's the dim sum...)

5. Cooking Chinese dinner tomorrow. Zhi's gonna stir up the veg dish while Yang's doing chicken stew. I'm gonna bake the egg tarts again. Here's the foolproof recipe for it (if I can do a decent job, then YOU can too!):

Egg Tarts, makes 22 portions

Ingredients

Pastry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
10 tablespoons butter, diced
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons cold water

Custard:
1 cup water
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
3/8 cup evaporated milk (can be subtituted with whole milk)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C.) (I did this step later... preheating right from the start isn't really necessary 'cos it takes a long time to press the dough into the tart pans.)

2. In a large bowl, mix flour and salt together. Blend in butter with a pastry cutter until mixture resemble coarse crumbs. In a small bowl, beat the egg with the cold water. Stir the egg mixture into the flour mixture to form a soft dough. Wrap with plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. (Or until it feels hard / solid)

3. Divide dough in half. Roll each half out to 1/8 inch thickness. Using a 3.5 inch (8.5 centimeter) fluted round cookie cutter, cut out 22 rounds. Press dough into lightly greased 3 inch tart pans.

4. In a saucepan over low heat, stir water and sugar until sugar dissolves. Measure 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the resulting syrup and set aside to cool.

5. In a large bowl, combine eggs, evaporated milk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Strain into reserved syrup and mix well. Pour into prepared tart shells.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is set. (There are some recipes that suggest baking the pastry first for a while, say 10 minutes, then taking them out to pour the custard in. Then put the 'finished' egg tart to bake again for another 15 mins. I suppose it'll result in a softer custard... I'll try this method tomorrow.)