Lesson 3 ~ Roses, Strawberry and Letters

Week 3 is where all the fun and intricacy begins.

We spent the entire time doing sugar art. Starting with leaves, we progressed to roses and letters. After looking at a cut-out green flower, someone had the brilliant idea of doing a strawberry. I was more than happy to take up the challenge and created one for myself :)

The art of sugar crafting was delicate, but certainly not impossible.

After the class, I decided to practice on roses.  An hour later, this is what I came up with.

I must that I’m very pleased with the results.

What do you think of the two-toned roses?

My cake journey:
Lesson 1 ~ Cake Decorating
Lesson 2 ~ Piping Techniques
Lesson 3 ~ Roses, Strawberry and Letters
Lesson 4 ~ Cake Designs & Fondant
Lesson 5 ~ Chocolate + Cream = Ganache
Lesson 6 ~ The Finale


Read more...

Keri Craig Emporium

I finally got around to writing this post about my high tea experience at Keri Craig Emporium. We saw the 2 for 1 voucher at Groupon and decided to organise a girls day out. The visit was in March, but I have been putting off blogging as the experience was sadly rather underwhelming.

Keri Craig Emporium is located in the lower level of Brisbane Arcade. According to their website, it “offers a unique shopping experience incorporating Fashion, Homeware, Gifts and licensed Fashion Cafe”.
 

Prior to our high tea visit, I have walked past Brisbane Arcade many times and never dropped in to Keri Craig Emporium. It looked rather exclusive and I was never brave enough to enter. Therefore, I was rather excited about finally visiting the store for high tea.

I was running late, but my friends who arrived ‘on time’ were waiting at the counter for at least 15 minutes before being acknowledged and shown to their seat. First impression = fail. We found the service pretty average and almost non-existent. Not only was it quite hard to get the waitress’ attention, but when we finally did, we were not presented with friendly service.

The food came in an elegant 3-tier stand.

The first tier was an assortment of sandwiches and quiches. It was simple and ordinary.

The second tier was the traditional scones with jam and cream. This was my favourite of the day.

The final tier was the sweets tier with a custard tartlet and rich lemon tart. The lemon tart was extremely lemony and zesty - it was entertaining to watch each other’s reaction after taking the first bite. :S

Overall, we were not overly excited by the food and it is unlikely that we will return. 

As for the fashion part, the style was beyond our age. However, this might be a suitable place to bring mum or grandma for afternoon tea.
Read more...

Fortune Well SiChuan Restaurant

SiChuan cuisine is becoming our new favourite with the temperature dropping. The hot, spicy and numbing style dishes is well-suited for this cold weather.

Fortune Well is located in Sunny Park, across the road from busy Market Square.

We went there for a late lunch last weekend. Being the sick boy (thanks to me passing on the flu bug), D had the free reign to order.

We ordered his favourite dishes: Kung Po Chicken ($15.60) and Dan Dan Noodle ($5.8).

The Dan Dan Noodle soup was a bit watered down but we still enjoyed it.

The Kung Po chicken was tender and full of flavour. Yum!

We also had the Chopped Green Onion Pancake ($3.6) for entree. It was just ok...crispy but oily.

Whilst not our favourite SiChuan restaurant, the prices are reasonable and the chillis will warm you up this winter.


Read more...

Lesson 2 ~ Piping Techniques

I think I may have found a cure to Monday blues. Our Monday cake decorating class has certainly brought excitement to start off the week.

I was nervous about baking in my new oven and took the advice to do a test cake. The cake turned out perfect and didn’t last very long in the house.

The ‘homework’ cake was a 5-star buttercake. The recipe was simple and straightforward; mix everything in a bowl, pour mixture in the baking tray and bake for 1 ¼ hours. We even had extra batter to make 2 mini cakes.   The result was a high, moist and evenly cooked cake. I am very impressed with the new oven!

For lesson 2, we learnt basic piping techniques such as star, flower, shell, swirl, letters and dots. It looked easy but requires a lot of practice to get it right.

We then moved on to decorate our cake with buttercream icing. The piping technique used was called the pretty petal effect. It was quite simple and yet looked beautiful.

My bow from last week broke and we had to salvage it by cutting off the top of the tail. It looked slightly distorted, so I decided to remove the tail completely.

And here’s a picture with my cake buddy.

I also found several sites with online tutorials on this pretty petal effect technique:
Sockerrus
My Cake School

My cake journey:
Lesson 1 ~ Cake Decorating
Lesson 2 ~ Piping Techniques
Lesson 3 ~ Roses, Strawberry and Letters
Lesson 4 ~ Cake Designs & Fondant
Lesson 5 ~ Chocolate + Cream = Ganache
Lesson 6 ~ The Finale


Read more...

Meet Fresh Sunnybank Plaza

We heard of a new dessert shop opening in Sunnybank Plaza and decided to join in the craze. Yes, the queue was crazy and it almost became a traffic hazard in the middle of the shopping centre.

Meet Fresh is a Taiwanese Dessert franchise that has a few stores in Sydney. This is the first store in Queensland, which explained all the hype about it.

After waiting in the line for about 20 minutes, it was finally our turn to order. We were enticed by the promotional poster on the entrance and decided to share the ‘Supreme Mango Crushed Ice’ ($8).

The concept was simple: order, pay, get a buzzer, find a seat, buzzer go off, collect your dessert.

I must say that I was a little bit disappointed with the mango ice. There was too much ice and the mango tasted like it came from a can. I am a big fan of mango, so canned mango just tasted weird. :(

I will give this place another chance and return when the queue disappears to try their Taro Balls.


Read more...

Lesson 1 @ Cake Decorating Class

I am starting a 6 weeks cake decorating class with CakeAge. The first lesson on Monday was fun, exciting and we have learnt more than we imagined in the first 2-hour session. Our teacher, Eleanor is very patient and definitely talented at making the lesson easy and enjoyable.

For our first lesson, we learnt how to colour the fondant, cover the cake board and make a big bow.

I am very impressed that I was making bow on my first class.  It looked like the one I had on my wedding cake!

At the end of the lesson, we were given ‘homework’ to bake a cake for the next lesson. I am very excited and can’t wait to see what we will learn next week!

Yes, and the Internet was finally installed yesterday. Phew, at least we don’t have to wait 8 years for it!

My cake journey:
Lesson 1 ~ Cake Decorating
Lesson 2 ~ Piping Techniques
Lesson 3 ~ Roses, Strawberry and Letters
Lesson 4 ~ Cake Designs & Fondant
Lesson 5 ~ Chocolate + Cream = Ganache
Lesson 6 ~ The Finale


Read more...

Where is my Internet?

We have recently moved to a new place and have been having trouble setting up an Internet connection. The ISPs we contacted turned us away with reasons such as having insufficient copper infrastructure in our area or our area is not covered in their service. I must say that we are definitely not living in woop woop in the middle of nowhere.

We had no choice but to go with Telstra, despite having to pay premium for the service. A couple of weeks after placing the order, I logged on to their website to check the status of my order.
This came up on the Completed Date Scheduled!!

Hmmm...looks like we might not be getting Internet for a while....
Read more...