Toblerone Cheesecake

Mmmm....I made a Toblerone Cheesecake today! It was so rich. The reccipe came off the back of a box of Philly so its not incredibly exciting. heh. It was terribly easy too, especially since it didn't involve baking anything. My oven is still dead, so there have not been any baked goods out of my kitchen in a while. sigh Also I forgot to take pics of the cheesecake before the boys dug in, so I've only got pics of a half eaten cake. The layers are choc cookie and almond base, toblerone cheesecake, dark chocolate ganache, whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings. I was supposed to use Toblerone shavings, but I decided the last bar was going to be for me! Ok, maybe I'll give N one or two pieces. But thats about as generous as I'm feeling right now. hehe.

Yeah, doesn't look that great after its been hacked into. Oh well.

My friend Josh, devouring his second piece!

Also made some truffles some weeks ago. The pics aren't great and the presentation sucks big time. But hey, at least they tasted good!

These are dark chocolate truffles, one is rolled in chopped almonds and the other in cocoa powder. They were good!

from left to right: dark chocolate ganache rolled in coconut, dark chocolate ganache dipped in dark chocolate and almonds, white chocolate ganache dipped in dark chocolate and almonds.

The white chocolate and lemon cake of last night was a hit and I kinda liked it despite the white chocolate-ness. It looked pretty good too. Pity I don't have a camera anymore. Need to work on getting myself one. Anyway, what to make tonight? hmm....I've got another sponge cake left (they come in packs of two.) I was thinking a chocolate mousse cake. Was watching this TV show this afternoon during lunch called the Food Lover's Guide to Australia. They featured this lady who makes specialty cakes and she demonstrated a white chocolate mousse and raspberry cake. The cake itself was pretty basic but what was amazing were the chocolate garnishings she made. It was incredible! Hopefully one day i can work with chocolate like that. It looked so beautiful and it really made a world of a difference to what was otherwise a pretty ordinary cake.
In other news, the exams are looming and I'm in full-blown procrastination mode. NOT. GOOD.
Whats worse is I have an exam three days before my birthday and another one two days after! Seriously! What the hell!! Hope everyone else is having a better time of it than I am.

Been having some issues of late. Well, not really issues so much as things to think about. The main one is about N. It's been decided. N is going to move in with me. Unless the real estate agent says he can't, but thats unlikely. I'm excited, it's going to be great. We practically live together anyway. This means no more travelling from my house to his every week. So that's all great, but I think some of you might have discovered the slight hitch in the grand plan. That's right, my parents. They still don't know about him and to be quite honest, i don't know how to tell them. So you see how him living with me could be a problem? Hell even if they knew about him, him living with me would be a problem! So what scares me is that sometime between now and when i graduate, my parents will decide to come visit. What to do then? Kick N out for a couple of weeks? Maybe. I sure hope no one in my family gets the bright idea of coming on a surprise visit. So yeah, I brought this up with N and he freaked out a little bit. Anyone can think of what I can do?
Food for thought #2: I havent told work that I'm coming home for 2 weeks in July. Hmm....I don't know what to do about that either. I don't want to get fired for it, but I want to come home. augh....And my parents don't want to let me come home for just one week. evil people.
Of course, how can we forget the dreaded exams. bleh. I am so bad at exams its amazing. I mean, I'm singaporean! How can I be bad at exams? I've certainly done enough of them!! nrgh. Not looking forward to it.
Making a white chocolate and lemon cake tonight. I dont like white chocolate. bleh.

here it comes again...

its been confirmed. i am completely insane.
its the lead up to exam period, which of course means i've got an assignment due every other day. once the assignments are done, i've got exams. when exactly do these brilliant academics think we're going to get the time to study for their exams when we're all rushing to submit assignments? mind you, its generally the case in the exam that you can't write about the topic you did for your assignment. isn't that great? ugh!
back to the point, i've concluded that i'm 100% loony because just when i get really stressed and NEED to focus on my work, that's when i start dreaming about food. not just eating, but cooking as well. i start creating recipes, mains, sides, desserts. basically, they drown out all other thoughts. you can imagine that this can get slightly inconvenient. well its happening again.
i wish i had ting's problem of not being able to sleep for a couple of days this week. all i've wanted to do the last few days is sleep! and i don't know why!! it's frustrating because i know i have work to do. what's even worse is that N is on a mission to make sure i get my work done and i do it well. so he's constantly bugging me to study, study, study! sigh. so sleeeepy....
in other news, i have a new job. i'm working at gelatissimo. highly exciting. now i don't really want to go home in july.

Men, Women and True Love

I've been missing my smelly little boy of late. Look at that face. So sweet, so innocent, so very curly! I loved him so very dearly. He was probably the first creature I ever truly loved. Don't get me wrong, I love N too. But Copper was there first. I've been thinking about him alot the past week because I found and returned a lost dog about a week ago and it was an English Cocker, just like my Coopy. Since then I've been missing the feeling of having a warm, furry little thing randomly come trotting along and snuggling up to me. I've been missing the way Copper used to absolutely demand attention and not take no for an answer, he'd literally stand on you if you were lying or sitting! I know I will have a dog in the future. But I miss the feeling of having one right now. And I know N would love to have one too. We've talked about it. He's as much of a dog lover as I am. When I told him about the silly things Copper used to do, he laughed in that way that only someone who loves and understands dogs and their silly ways can laugh. Ok, I know you guys are probably getting bored of my sentimentality. Moving on...

I'm in the process of writing (another) essay right now. This time for linguistics and the book my essay is directly tied to is all about how and why miscommunication takes place between men and women. It looks at why men and women sometimes fail completely in understanding each other. Its incredibly interesting. It suggests that the difference in communication styles is a result of the different ways in which men and women look at human relationships. Basically, that men see relationships within a hierarchical structure and women look at it from the perspective of varying intimacy. I'm just wondering if anyone thinks this is a whole load of crap. The book offers a lot of anecdotal evidence to support its theories, but also offers some evidence based on research and studies done on adults as well as children. Apart from N, I havent had a lot of experience in dealing with men beyond a superficial level. Well, I don't count my Dad because our differences are generational as well as gendered, so its hard to tell where the miscommunication lies. Besides, he's crazy anyway. So I was wondering if anyone wanted to offer examples of problems they've had in communicating with members of the opposite sex and think about how this can be understood in light of theories presented in this book. I'm only about a third of the way through it though. And yes, I have been in uni for way too long. I wonder if the things I learn in this book will make me overanalyse the way N and I communicate. Hmm..

Ok, that was a long one.

OMG I'M BLOGGING!
Ok, this is just a trial post. Just to sort of ease myself into things. Hmm...I've been incredibly inspired by the multitude of foodblogs that I've been reading of late and was considering recording the ins and outs of my baking mania here. In addition, of course to general updates of my highly exciting, thrill a minute roller coaster ride of a life. That said, highly exciting news update for the day relates to baking. My oven is dead. Thats right, it kicked the proverbial bucket. Which of course means I was instantly inundated with new dessert/dinner ideas that required my oven. sigh
In other news, I made nasi lemak yesterday! Now is when you all marvel at how wonderful and amazing I am. It was so incredibly good, which may or may not be because I havent eaten nasi lemak in ages and have forgotten what its supposed to taste like. I should've taken a picture of it to get the foodblogging ball rolling. Anyway, I was really proud of myself, and so should you all be too.
Also, I'll be back in Sg first two weeks of July for all of you dying to see me again. Consider yourself warned.
To everyone who missed Eurovision this year, you silly silly people missed the greatest gathering of European musical talent ever! Cheesy song lyrics, outlandish costumes, pointless backing singers and dancers coupled with fantastic Eastern European accents singing in English made for an amazing evening of entertainment. But fret not, there's always next year!
Right this was meant to be short. So much for easing myself into this.
Till next time!