incomplete imperfection

i woke up in the middle of the night, if i'm not wrong. (otherwise, it might have just been a dream that i recalled when i woke up today.)

indeed, today is 下雨天. my shoes - and the hem of my pants - were getting wet from the rain splash on the ground. on a day like today, we ask if we should have dessert for breakfast. then we reject the dessert (and the breakfast) in favour of a comforting brunch instead.

it's unusual how we always remember the gloomy days than the non-gloomy ones. (or is it just me?) it's like the harry potter movies - each one getting more monochromatic than the previous. if you remember, sorcerer's stone was full of happy colours, then gradually, starting from prisoner of azkaban, the colours started getting more grey throughout the series. there isn't even quidditch anymore.

the weather puts my mood down, but i suppose it just puts some people (like weiyang) to sleep. there's a dull ache inside me, that seems to say that some choices we make are/were wrong. but choices are choices, and to undo a choice (un-choose?) is to ask the rain to fall upwards.

it really does feel like december/christmas now. maybe weiyang wasn't that ridiculous in asking: when is christmas this year? i'm reminded of the 2006 and 2007 christmases, shoe shops, carols playing over head everywhere (all i want for christmas is my two front teeth), cherry pies, glasgow love theme, the cool icy voice of miranda priestly when says 'excellence',

seven hours of sleep

this is going to be the last post on soufflé for this batch of batter, because:

1. i've finished using the batter, and
2. i'm getting tired of eating it =/

to be honest, the second attempt (see previous post) gave a soufflé that was sloping on one side, and it developed a big fissure there, which i declined to photograph. so you were looking at the better side. but this time it's entirely different, and as perfect as can be already.

i sugared the ramekin thoroughly to make sure an even coating all the way to the brim. i think this aided in the even rise. just see the photos! the rise was even, the top was perfectly flat and unscarred:
i think the most exciting part is to sit and watch the oven for the twenty minutes that the soufflé bakes. you just see the top crust forming, then doming like surface tension of water, then it slowly peels away from the rim of the ramekin, and starts rising in a column. i think initially the sugar grains on the sides help the soufflé climb, then as it bakes, they melt, and become caramel, lubricating the sides to encourage even more rising!
indeed, the higher the rise, the less it will look failed as it deflates. i think a higher rise also means - counter-intuitively - a more stable product? it seems the tallest soufflé deflated the least. then again, maybe it's the illusion of proportions. still, it seemed to hold itself for a good two/three minutes.
cracking through the top crust revealed a top layer or chocolatey cream. somehow, that portion was not baked to fluffy dryness. the deep interior was nicely moist too, not creamy-wet. divine.
ok, i'm done being high. just needed the sugar rush to go away.

换掉角色

a quick research told me that a good soufflé should have a 'creamy centre'. sounds a lot like the bakerzin-tofu kind. i think it means mine were overbaked, dried out. but nevermind, i made attempt no.2 this morning, and it looked much better, much more correct. it also shows that chocolate soufflé batter can indeed be refrigerated overnight without much damage, though i think the lift might have been impaired slightly. (another website i read says that all soufflé batters must be baked immediately, with the one exception: chocolate.)

with some trial and error (and luck), i think i've devised my own instructions for modifying the original recipe to now bake in individual portions.
this is it: the vertical rise that can hold itself for about one minute out of the oven. i think, if it rose even higher in the oven, then it could afford to deflate more without looking like a failed soufflé. and the top wasn't cracked like yesterday's.
the inside is not as dry as yesterday's, but not as tofu as bakerzin's. i think it's getting better?

and it takes a sudden jolt to realise that some of the platoon 6 guys are in university already.

point me

i just made my virgin soufflé!
buttered and sugared ramekin. the grains of sugar are supposed to help the soufflé climb as it bakes, so that it rises tall and mighty.
and the soufflé is simply this: highly flavoured eggs. you just separate the eggs, mixing the egg yolks into a flavoured base, and then whipping the whites separately. folding in the whites provides the leavening power of the soufflé. and it's a good way to use up excess egg whites stashed in the deep freeze. (and probably a lot easier than macaroons.)
and that's that. i love the billowy look of the whipped egg whites (with a little sugar). after folding the whites into the yolky base, everything gives way to chocolate and turns brown. the batter is done.
portioned into individual ramekins. (soufflé was the very reason i bought them in the first place!) then, due to lack of mouths, and as an experiment, i stored some of the ramekins in the refrigerator to see if an overnight retardation would destroy the leavening power of the whites. (normally to make in advance, you stop short of whipping and folding in the whites, but some books i read said you could leave the mixture out for a while even after folding in the whites.)
they say the slightest draft can literally blow the tops off. a slight jerk could cause them to collapse. or even a loud noise. so i was careful not to disturb them until time to take out from the oven.
i didn't really like the cracks on top, but i suspect that's because i made a guestimation on the baking time and temperature. the recipe was for baking in a single large soufflé dish.

so, as you can see, the sides didn't entirely rise straight up vertically. i thought they would uniformly - and rapidly - rise to form a column. (which makes me think of the experiment where we put sugar into concentrated sulphuric acid, and a thick black column rose out of the container.) some sides were slumped, but where the rise is vertical, it's quite stunning i think. maybe i should have sugared the sides more thoroughly.
anyhow, they deflated very quickly once i took them out of the oven. (how do the bakerzin ones stay tall from the kitchen to the table?!)
but anyway, these were significantly different from bakerzin's. they're not as wet inside. more like a fluffy cake than tofu. (and i think it's nicer than the tofu-like ones at bakerzin.) are they supposed to be just moist or wet inside?

you could always walk

i am happy today. (satisfied.) and later there'll be chocolate souffle. i do hope it rises properly. right now i have a package of clinique products that is going to travel to places i've never been to before.

today is also idiot day 1, if you know what i mean. after a quick reflection, i realised these two years i assumed too many things.

chekhov's gun

i dreamt that a meanie pulled off all the petals of henrietta's flower, and replaced it with another, smaller flower. white, with red spots all over.

scrolling through some old emails from platoon 6, i happened to read (and read again) the very funny mail that guanwei sent on new year's eve.

暖的

in a chance encounter today i bumped into johnny zhuo, who thought that i was already working. but never mind, i'm getting that much closer to ORD.

so oeufs en cocotte were for dinner, with some more leftover potato mash. even with all these soft foods, my stitches are falling off. and so tomorrow i shall have to go back to the dentist.

it just feels so much better to let it all go.

kalutrushka

magically, i had a potato ricer at home all along. this saves the peeling step, so i can directly boil the potatoes skin-on. now, this is exactly what i need, in a time of swollen cheek and stitched-up gum. i've also found my desirable milk-butter-potato ratio. 1kg potatoes (before boiling), with 150g milk (full-fat) and 100g butter. it gives a firm mash that smells just milky and buttery enough.
a quick search on the net gave me the marinade for the salmon: 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tbsp dried rosemary, juice and zest of half a lemon, ground black pepper. i think i made a mistake pouring the marinade over the fish when i sent it to the oven. the lemon juice simply gathered and made it all too sour. but still edible and very fragrant.

two things

just two things after a left-side wisdom teeth extraction:

you are what you eat eats, and

there is no substitute for butter.

better than never

we share a common desire to gather around food. to eat; to eat together. but we also share a common disdain for doing the dishes after =(

it seems that whenever i make challah, the dough always comes out too wet, and i need to add a lot of flour to it. i don't know if this makes the bread become too dense, or less tasty.
the soaker to activate the enzymes in the whole grain, thereby starting the flavour production. and the biga, in which a little yeast is added to start the fermentation process. this is the 100% whole-wheat challah, so everything is whole-wheat flour.

i think the magic in making bread is the involvement of yeast. the point is to work with the organism; balancing time, patience, heat, water and food, you set it growing and performing its leavening. you can see it in the biga, full of small bubbles inside - proof of the life you're manipulating.
after endless addition of extra flour and 30 minutes, the dough finally stopped sticking so badly. but i couldn't tell if i had added too much flour or not.
dividing and preparing the dough for braiding. i've decided that the best way to make sure that all the braids are of equal mass is to cut and weigh them first, and preshaping into a ball since they will be made up of scraps.
this is by far my best attempt at forming the strands for braiding. they were all sufficiently long, and tapering just nicely at the ends.
this is the 6-braid. i love my ramekin so much that i've used it to hold the egg wash, which i must highlight - again - is made by straining a beaten egg. it removes the white coagulates which refuse to mix with the yolks.
the challah came out smelling like kfc, which made me want to eat kfc. and the bread is denser, less fluffy, than the transitional version, which i think is to be expected. but i couldn't be sure whether is was heavier than it should be, due to all that extra flour i added.

today, i tried five different desserts at bakerzin (four of which i've eaten before). diet i really going to start tomorrow. and i think - in a weird way - chocolate seems to sooth my throat; i can sing in the higher register now.

worlds apart

indeed, irresistible poison is a love potion story. it's very ironic, how the word 'potion' splices right down the middle of 'love story'. i think taylor swift couldn't have seen that coming.

this week is one in which i was snapped at a few times on so many different channels, and most of the time innocently. but never mind, it's always about raised tempers, hidden truths, veils of secrecy, masked intentions (and emotions), because we're all growing up.

anyhow, i found the song that i was trying to recall when seibu kept playing 喜帖街. it's 下雨天:

it seems, i'm not fated to go to the library book sale.