Lousy baker

My first attempt at baking red velvet cupcakes: FAIL.

With mother's day just around the corner and summer half-way through, my productivity level rose high enough to get me up and about the kitchen and bake a batch of experimental cupcakes. It was good foresight to have tried the recipe I got online way before the second Sunday of the month.

This batch was salty, not the right red, did not rise enough, wrong texture-- and the list of problems goes on. So much for beginner's luck. Thanks to some food tech graduates working at my aunt's business, I have some insight to what actually went wrong and what I could probably do to make my next batches better.

As the old saying goes, I shall try and try until I succeed-- or until summer ends.

Hello, July

Last night, I ended June by cooking pasta for dinner and watching an LOTR marathon in HBO

One does not simply walk into Mordor.
Life is not a computer which can be screen captured, so I just took a picture of the TV.

Over the weekend

My sister and I aren't masters of the kitchen. Heck, we rarely cook, having no skills to boast of; pancakes here, instant pancit canton there, but never a decent viand. As the need arises though, we have been learning, individually, how to cook simple to special courses through experimentation. (Yes, we are women of science.)

What's left of the diningding when I left the apartment.

Last Saturday, my sister cooked diningding, a Filipino dish with lots of vegetables and bagoong (the sauce part without the shrimp or fish bits). She cooked it perfectly: not raw, not overcooked and with just the right saltiness that I like. We always try to eat healthy if we can cook it since it's very toxic here in the city.

Sweets and Dogs

Excuse me for being melodramatic but the last lollicake to be eaten deserves a few moments in the limelight.

There's nothing significant about the R.

After two weeks of saving the lollicake, I have decided to eat it. This was a big decision for me since I have been keeping them from harm's way, such as my brother's binge eating. Being in charge of the lollicakes (self-proclaimed, but still) that are actually my mother's, I thought that it was high time for the last one to be gone for two reasons: one, it might expire sooner than I think; and two, I'm leaving for Manila soon.

Kitchen Duty

Trying new things is the best way to spend summer vacation. Next would be having a sleep-eat-sleep-only routine 24/7.

For this summer, I opted to learn how to cook (and practice yoga, but that's another story). If green thumb is for gardening, I just don't have whatever you call its counterpart for cooking. Yes, we sell longanizas and a lot of other food but that does not automatically make me a kitchen goddess. Cooking just doesn't come naturally to me. So one of the first things I did upon arriving home was declaring that I wanted a cooking lessons from our cook. Unfortunately, our cook got sick and I didn't get my lessons.

On the bright side, my family has a collection of cook books, which listed lots of dishes and desserts from all over the world. I enjoyed fantasizing that I was constructing culinary masterpieces. However, not all my fantasies end up only as daydreams. No. Many of them actually came true, thanks to my handy work.

More Lollicake Pictures

I have taken pictures of the lollicakes my brother and I have been eating even though they are our gift to our mom on Mother's day. We have been consuming them very slowly, like having to ration food and water to survive. Except it's just for my pleasure of having a lot of one thing at a time. You know, the selfish, hoarder complexes of mine.

Anyway, here are the pictures I took:

Selfishness and Lollicakes

Up until now, we haven't finished the lollicakes that we gave our mom on Mother's Day. You see, I don't let anybody get one and go, even f the cakes are technically my mother's. I have always been selfish with these things-- chocolates, stickers, pencils, stationery. In fact, there's a fine line between me being a collector and me being a hoarder. I just love the feeling of having many of one thing.

But selfish or not, I love taking pictures of the pretty things and pretty people, i.e. lollicakes and my brother. I feel less selfish when I share the pictures I have taken. See?

My brother's daily ration.

Happy Mother's Day

Talking about moms and how great they are makes me all sentimental and mushy, but I don't have enough words that can describe how I love my mom and how grateful I am for her. It makes me sad, though, that many people tend to forget how special their mothers are but magically remember on the second Sundays of May. Even worse, there are those unfortunate souls who don't even care about their mothers! I feel terribly sorry for them. So this isn't just for my mother, but for all the mothers out there.

I don't get to tell my mother how I love her every minute of the day, especially when I'm away for my studies. I try to find time to remind her how special she is for me. Fortunately, I get to celebrate her twice a year: her birthday and Mother's day. And today, my brother and I surprised her with something sweet and special, just like her.

Nanay (Filipino for mother) with her special treat.

Lolli Cake

Tonight, my brother and I enjoyed some new treats: lollicakes. Yum!

Red velvet lollicake with pink frosting, butterfly candy and silver balls.

I first saw lollicakes in a booth during the Aklan Piña and Fiber Festival. These lollipops filled with delicious cake is so sumptuous (and cute) that I found it difficult to take the first bite. But when I started devouring it, there's no stopping me. How I wished I bought several more instead of just two.

After Ten Days

When I said I was on vacation mode this summer, I was thinking on taking a break from a lot of things, like counting molecules and differentiating radicals. But a break from one thing can lead to another. And so my blog is not as up-to-date as I would have imagined for this summer. Nonetheless, I am back with stories to share, although not everything can be told in one go.

i baked 'em, them brownies

Happy Halloween!

I still have my plate full of unfulfilled activities I wanted to do this semestral break. Unfortunately, I will be flying back to Manila tomorrow so everything will be put on hold until Christmas or-- even worse-- summer. But for now, as long as I am with my family for the next [less than] 24 hours, I am happy.

So here's what I have been up to for past ten days.

Last Monday, I celebrated my birthday, of course! It was an "exclusive" party. I only had my family and relatives come. I didn't throw a big birthday bash because I only turned seventeen.

I made a wish and blew the candle. My cake was a yummy Sans rival from Goldilocks.