Creme Caramel Recipe

Being a pastry chef, people always tend to ask me what my favorite thing to make is. And my answer most of the time is Creme Caramel! I LOVE IT. Its something that I could eat continuously until I probably be sick.. and then eat some more haha

It all started back when I was a kid and visiting my mom's hometown of Ipoh in Malaysia. Its about a two hour drive from where we stayed and I loved going up to visit my various relatives and playing with my cousins. My grandparent's shop sells kitchenware and its a pretty big supplier in the area, and the shop was filled to the brim with exciting things for a kid to play with lol. 
Whenever we would go up, I would inevitably clamor for my favorite custard dessert. Its in this famous coffee shop and if you come too late, it may be sold out already. Everything there I love to eat and more about that in a later post but here is my favorite bit.

It was cold and sweet and oh so very smooth. It slid down the throat like silk and just thinking about it makes me crave some.
Anyway, I've been making it at home here in Melbourne and it always gets gobbled up (by me and my mom usually) pretty fast.

Creme Caramel
makes roughly about a 28cm serving dish

Caramel
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
...
Bring the two ingredients to a boil in a small pot and keep cooking until it turns a lovely medium gold colour. Make sure it doesn't colour too much and get burnt lol.
Pour it into the dish and swirl to coat the bottom and halfway up the sides evenly. Let it cool

Custard
8 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 litre milk
2 tsp vanilla paste
...
Heat the milk and sugar in a pot till dissolved and just about to bubble.
Meanwhile whisk the eggs and vanilla and then add the milk in slowly, whisking all the while.
Strain the mixture twice and then pour it into the dish.
Cover with foil or clingwrap and then steam on medium heat for about 50mins or till firm.
Let it cool before placing it in the fridge and chilling for 3-4 hours or overnight.
To demould, lightly push the tip of a spoon around the edge (where the custard meets the dish wall) before placing a curved dish on top and turning it out.

Simple and easy to make and oh so delicious! Go Go Creme Caramel!

Pottery

Going back in time to 2011 and 2013, I made two trips to Japan, and on those trips I stopped by Gifu. Gifu is located near Nagoya and is well known for its pottery. Truthfully, I have no idea where in Gifu I went (my geography is rubbish lol) since we were very most kindly taken by an old classmate's mother in her car. She goes there every week to do pottery at her sensei's house, and offered us a chance to get our hands dirty with clay and try our skill at making something.

The studio was amazing, packed full with all kinds of creations and tools and I was so nervous I would accidentally break something!

After introductions and translations, we were handed aprons and shown how to work our wheels. Theres a pedal to press which controls the speed of the rotations and if you press too hard while trying to create something... well... lets just say I had a couple of creations that went flying lol.

The clay was surprisingly hard to press down on, making my arms really sore after. But the sensei made it look so effortless and he just pressed here and lifted there and suddenly a plate was born, then transformed into a bowl, and then into a cup! We secretly called him godhands lol. He was amazing!

 After several attempts we all ended up with about 8 pieces each. We could then pick and choose which ones we wanted fired and glazed. As we were only there for the day, we weren't able to glaze them ourselves, so the kind sensei offered us several choices of glaze that we could pick for each piece we wanted. We also gave him our initials or kanji to be carved into the base so we would know who made which.

This was the standout piece of the boy, who accidentally made it wonky but the sensei was really amused and praised it, saying how wabisabi it was! We definitely chose this as one of the final pieces and it still makes me laugh to this day whenever I look at it.
After the pieces were done, our friend's mom kindly shipped them to us all nicely packaged along with photos of us getting messy lol. Here are some of our works from both trips:

 

We all had enormous fun and look at all the amazing pieces that came out of it! The gorgeous colours make me so happy whenever I look at them! Mine are currently sitting in a cabinet on display, too precious to use at the moment lol
Big huge thanks to the sensei and to Ryo's mom for all that they did for us! Each trip was definitely an unforgettable experience and if given the chance, I would love to go back again and try glazing as well this time!

Housewarming present for Jenny and Yuye

This was a while ago, but two good friends of mine bought their own home and to celebrate it, I made them a housewarming present. I didn't have to deliberate much as I kind of knew what I wanted to make from the start. I barely even took photos (and those I did were pretty random and with my phone at night lol) so excuse me for the quality in advance lol.

  

I knew the hardest part was to get the paper them to look like the real life them so I started there first. It wasn't too bad because I knew the kind of clothes they usually wore but the hardest part was trying to get Yuye's hair to look like it does in real life. I redrew that so many times that I'm surprised that the paper didn't just wear out from all the rubbing I did lol.

Then I sketched and inked out the rest of the drawing. It all flowed out pretty easily since I had what I wanted in mind already. There would be fruit trees in the background (some came with the house and some to be planted lol lets hope they survive) and a dog and a cat, both of which they are yet to get (quick! I want to play with them!!).

Most of the pieces were just cut out by hand but the figures and animals and words were traced before being hand cut from various coloured paper.

These are most of the small little pieces that I cut out. I did accidently knock it over and it was a pain trying to gather up the small bits and hope that I didn't miss anything lol

I then drew on the textures and details and shading stuff before assembling and sticking down the papers.

The finished product!! Added some silver highlights here and there and wrote a message at the back before wrapping it and passing it on to them.
Hope they like it!

A wedding gift for Ben and Emily

Not too long ago, I had the honor of attending the wedding of two lovely friends. After wracking my brain for ages, trying to decide what would be an appropriate gift for the 
newlyweds, I decided that something they could put up in their new home as well as remind them of the special day would be a good idea. Apologies in advance as almost all the photos are taken on my phone in bad lighting at night XD

I sketched up quite a few ideas and finally decided on a tree of life theme. I wanted something to signify their love growing and lasting forever. I was also dead set on having it in a three panel photo frame lol which sent me on quite a hunt through several shops over a few days trying to find something simple and elegant that wouldn't detract from the main work.

I drew up the image I had in mind and inked in the tree. Then I stapled it to the actual paper I was going to use and hand cut out the branches and body.

I've always loved papercraft and paper cutting and went through a phase of intense paper cutting which resulted in many many pieces being made and also the worsening of my arm condition lol. After that I decided that I had to cut down on the pressure my arms were put through and sadly limit myself to doing less paper cut work. Sad.

 

After the main body was cut out, i then proceeded to do the same for all the smaller branches as well.

Then I hand cut out all the other little bits. The leaves were a mix of three different shades of green (growth in spring) and the birds were because I got told doves mate for life. I know doves are white but I didn't want them to be the same colour as the border so I used a lovely purple instead.

Sticking them all down took a while and lots of sticky fingers lol. I also had to make sure that I stuck the right branches that linked back to the main tree.

Instead of hand cutting the letters this time, I thought it would be less strain on my arms and a lot neater to use precut ones instead. I found a lovely pack of letters and numbers that had several different fonts. I really liked the glittery black it came in, but since it was all different fonts, it meant that long words with repeating letters was no go. Good thing their names had no repeat letters lol and that the date was all different numbers. Phew. I also decided to add some leaves at the bottom to even out the whole thing.

Time to assemble it in the frame and hope that it looks okay!

Tah Dah!! The finished product in the frame!! Wooo!! Took me a couple of days but I'm glad with how it turned out. Wrapped and delivered and its with the newlyweds now and I hope they like it!
I really enjoyed making it and I kind of wish to make more lol. Next wedding maybe XD

The Beginning

I started writing a whole introduction but deleted it after rereading through lol
Here's a short summary of what I wrote:

This here is a blog about the various happenings and creations in my life. Feel free to have a look and leave comments if so inclined :3

The end.