fairy

i made the chocolate beer cake for jiayi's birthday. this time i used tiger beer again. sorry, no time to go and get guinness.
the various stages of preparing the cake batter. beer and butter, then plus sugar and cocoa, then plus sour cream and eggs, then plus flour.
the batter was so luscious and delicious. the beer gave it a very ferrous tang. and of course the pan was scraped clean (because i ate up all the remaining batter).
this is the third time i've made this cake, and each time, the same circular crack appears on top. it's something i feel so endearing.
i also made cornmeal shortbread cookies again, this time using - sadly - inferior butter and doing the dough by hand. the cookies held their shape better and were exceptionally crunchy, but tasted very flat. i think that's the result of using inferior butter.

and today i made some cookies. they don't have a name, but i think of them as anything-goes-cookies. i used up my cornmeal in them, and managed to finish some butterscotch chips too. and the christmas-coloured M&Ms too.
late lunch with steven and the others, and endless walking at orchard just tired me out so completely. but i saw the most beautiful tarts i have ever seen at orchard central.

and this is my new computer. i love my desktop background. it makes me feel so dreamy, so retro, so french.