Just last Friday (about a week and a half ago), I got an email from a professor saying that I've been selected (together with 2 others) to represent the school in some Anatomy competition.

You can only imagine how incredulous I felt initially when I read that email. Why, of all people, would they choose ME?! I didn't do that well in Anatomy, and overall my grades weren't that fantastic either. Sure I may have gotten first class, but I barely scrapped through to get first class. The school must have alot of (blind) faith in me.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was some essay competition that was going to be held on Saturday, 24th September. I spent the whole of last week preparing for my essay, drafting it and memorising it. It was so incredibly stressful. You may think, 'So easy what! Just memorise and regurgitate!' but for me, all the planning for the essay's structure was terribly stressful, having to make sure the essay flowed coherently and that it's not just a paper where facts are thrown randomly about. I hope I've done my best for the essay though- I 'gave up' a week's of studying to prep for it!

It was a 2 hour paper (I was rushing through it like mad!), and after it was over, I went to town to eat lunch with the gang and shop for baking supplies because one week of camping at home preparing an Anatomy essay really made me itch to bake desperately. And since Hooi Tzing was having a potluck lunch party on Sunday after church ended, I grabbed the opportunity to bake! 

Cheesecake brownies. It was meant for the party but the gang pounced on it and this was all that was left.

Red Velvet cupcakes cooling

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and 100s and 1000s!

Baking urge satiated!:)))

Labels: anatomy competition, cheesecake brownies, red velvet cupcakes

If there's one thing I constantly strive for, it's recognition. Everything I do, I seek recognition for my efforts. I willingly work hard to produce the best results I can get, and when someone pats me on the back and says, "Good job!", it just makes my day. I have a dangerously low self-esteem level, and I suppose that's the reason why I constantly yearn to be recognised. It makes me feel valued, like I'm actually useful, purposeful. 

I think everybody yearns for that recognition, but I don't think anybody seeks it as much as I do. It frightens me sometimes to think that everything I do, I subconsciously do it to either please someone or rise up to someone else's expectations.

That's why when I bake, I love it when people eat it, compliment its taste, and come back for seconds. Best if they finish the cake asap because it's so good. I don't know why, I seek gratification in the knowledge that I can do this to make someone happy, and this is turn makes me feel better about myself. Suddenly, I don't feel so worthless anymore.

I know that I'm paranoid and have no self-confidence. Sometimes I tell myself that I'm better than what I think I am. But this just sounds so conceited to me. Maybe it's my Chinese genes, but I cannot bring myself to boast to others about myself. That's why I cannot sell myself at interviews or in job applications.

There's such a thin line between self-confidence and conceitedness. 

Recently, for my housemate's 21st birthday, I made and assembled a chocolate banana cake. It was a layer cake, with chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, sliced bananas and topped off with chocolate ganache. It was a cake with many potential pitfalls- whipping cream is tricky to deal with, I've never baked anything that was in the cake before, and I've never assembled a cake like this before. I had no idea how to deal with mousse (or even make one). So I did alot of research beforehand.

I made up my mind to use the recipe for Awfully Chocolate Banana Cake from Aunty Yochana (http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2006/07/awfully-chocolate-banana-c_115252156264968965.html). I decided not to use her chocolate sponge cake cause it was too troublesome to make, and also because some readers commented that their cake came out lopsided. So I used a moist chocolate cake recipe from some blog (but I forgot the url!). I pre-tested this a day before (Friday)- the cake received a rave response from my 6 friends. I decided to go ahead and use Aunty Yochana's mousse and ganache recipes, since there weren't any bad reviews about those. I made the 2nd chocolate cake on Saturday afternoon. While waiting for it to cool, I made the mousse (making sure to chill the bowls and beaters, to watch for the thickening of the whipping creams, and to pour the gelatine while it's still hot into a bit of the cream mixture first before putting in the rest of the cream to prevent gelatine granules from forming). Then I realised that the coffee granules- which I was supposed to mix with hot water and add to the mousse- WEREN'T DISSOLVING. So I had a coffee paste, which was grainy with the crushed coffee beans. I was afraid of putting it into the mousse, in case it made the mousse grainy. So I ended up omitting that. I had to omit the coffee liquer too because my housemate (whom I'm making the cake for) is Muslim. Once everything was mixed, we found the mousse rather soft and liquidy, so I stuck my beaters in fearlessly and beat for another minute or so. LUCKILY the mousse didn't turn into butter and water, but harden up into a nice, dense foam-like consistency. Whew. The cake turned out very thin, so we couldn't only cut it into 2. I spread the mousse on, and left it in the fridge to chill over dinner. After dinner, I made the ganache. The Impatient Me left it to cool for a while, before immediately spreading it over the cake. BAD IDEA. Apparently ganache, after it's cooled down and left to stand, will thicken up, making it easier to drizzle and spread over the cake. Aunty Yochana didn't mention this (she simply said to wait for it to cool down) so I had a super difficult time ganache-ing the cake initially because it was dripping all over the place. It was only halfway through that I realised it was thickening up and becoming more spreadable. Wth. Aunty Yochana is NOT a thorough recipe writer, and even some of her readers commented that her recipes are not for beginners. So the cake was finally done! Yay!


How the cake looks like inside. Haha, nothing compared to the one Aunty Yochana put up on her blog.

The cake met with positive reviews, with one of them single-handedly eating almost half of it by himself over the course of 3 days. They forced some down on me but I thought it didn't taste as fantastic as what they were saying (I never eat my own baking). And yesterday, my other housemate finished the (stale) chocolate cake #1 even though it was rock solid because she likes to eat hard things.

I think my goal for chocolate banana mousse cake is to make one that's as good as Awfully Chocolate's one, but I've no luck searching for recipes anywhere. I only used Aunty Yochana's recipe because no other website had a recipe for this sort of cake. Hopefully the next time I make this cake, it'll be waaayyyy better!:)

Hello, I'm Mylene.

I love God, my family, my close friends, chocolate, Nutella, Nugatti, yam paste, Nonya kueh, baking, desserts, crunchy peanut butter, trying out new food places, books, travelling, airplane food, snail mail, vintage anything, medicine, wearing blood-red clothes, The Desiderata, stickers, hearts, making cards and origami, watching comedies, reading mystery/detective novels, playing mystery/detective games, mocha, yoghurt with fruits and muesli, dogs, quirky bags, soft & fluffy towels, pretty lingerie, Christmas, heels I cannot walk in, polka dots, smiles.

I try not to hate on anyone or anything because it's a waste of my time and energy. If I don't like it, I'll either try to change it or just ignore it.

I'm trying to live my life to the fullest, and be the best person that I can be.