some free time

this is the debut of rose levy beranbaum's pie and pastry bible in my kitchen.
her flaky pie pastry is interesting enough. the butter to flour ratio is quite high, but not 4:5 yet. her method portions out the butter 2:1, using the larger portion to rub into the flour, moisture-proofing it, and the smaller portion for whacking into flat pieces. she uses cider vinegar (which i happen to have) and ice water to bind the dough, and because of the initial moisture-proofing, the gluten cannot overdevelop. but a lack of practice caused some ugly looking pie shell.
it was a quiche lorraine, with some onion for more taste. rose had a whacky technique of moisture-proofing the shell from the custard mixture: the moment the blind-baked shell comes out of the oven, brush it was egg white, which will quickly cook to form a thin crisp glaze layer over the crust, thereby moisture-proofing it.

today i woke up to make some over the top version of cinnamon buns. this one is nigella's schnecken. other versions include pastry cream in the swirl, and some use brioche for the bread. i wanted to use dorie's recipe for pecan honey sticky buns, but there were no pecans, and the brioche dough required overnight chilling. so i made the schnecken.
this dough contained butter, milk and eggs as the liquids - no water - so it was almost like a brioche already. ever since judy's class, i am careful to check for the gluten window.
the syrup was a mixture of butter, demerara, golden and corn syrups. at first it looked like a creamed mixture, but in the oven it would caramelise. after smearing it over the base of the pan, i dotted it with walnuts.
the dough took a long time to roll into the required size. i had to keep letting it rest. but it was able to go quite thin without tearing.
the dough rolled up very nicely. the underside was just a little tacky to feel like it was stuck on the tabletop, yet still able to lift away when i pulled it up to roll. i managed to make quite a tight roll and it looked like a popiah after slicing.
the buns were placed over the walnuts and proofed, then baked. i think i didn't bake long enough, because the syrup at the base didn't thicken/darken quite enough. anyhow, when i flipped it over to let it unmold onto the wire rack, some of the syrup came out and splattered onto my legs and it was HOT.
these definitely took up half the day. but that's how long bread baking takes; it's a lot of waiting time. and then some breads just require a bit more effort, a bit more fiddling with.

i like my sugar and butter in bread rather than cake. so brioche, cinnamon buns, shnecken, and sticky buns are all delicious.

the fifth moon

my dreams the past few nights can't end because i get woken up by the alarm. my recent dreams have somehow involved driving, or riding. (last night i was riding through a flood.) indeed, when schools have holidays, tuition teachers get a lot more work. in the course of this week, i've become very close to three dogs. and i found a prata place which serves an incredible butter prata.

the past week has really passed very slowly.

when i was very young, i once found a very thick dictionary in a cupboard. now if i were to find it again, i don't know it’s still going to be as big.

after a whole day of rain and cloudy skies, the crescent moon still came out tonight.

silly crushes

sometimes i sit at the bus stop and just watch the vehicles go by. but today i was suddenly thinking of the world in 100 years. and then it gets even harder to imagine what it'll be like in 2500? presumably, we'd be gone by then. and presumably, there will still be people around. (right?) but then that sparked something: where will we be after we are gone? and more importantly, what will it be like when i'm old?

i just finished reading alice sebold's the lovely bones, and i think that triggered something. sometimes it feels like everyone else has moved on, like the vehicles driving past, like time - the river - itself flowing past. moved on with university, boyfriends, girlfriends, work, Life. and yet here is where i am: the bus stop.

i found my beautiful post of almost a year ago.

sometimes our timing is just bad; our paths just miss each others' by a few seconds, a phone call, a lunch. but a heavy rain can coop everyone together, and a mug of hot chocolate warm the heart.

something is just missing. it's like i'm stuck, and watching everyone move on. it shouldn't be happening. i'm doing what i wanted to be doing. almost. i'm spending 82 hours a month giving tuition and earning enough (to make myself happy), and spending the remainder of the time shuttling between homes, preparing lesson plans, getting not enough sleep, and being stuck in time.

yet i have no time to tend to my sourdough, and though i just stocked up on flours and hope to get nice chocolate buttons, i don't even think baking is going to get my life going again. day after day, it's waking up late and rushing from home to home, hesitating on what to eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner, facebooking endlessly and waiting for non-replies, trying to uprank on startutor (totally pointless), getting new assignments and getting even more frustrated over nothing yet again.

so, moving on.

not telling

i'm starting to grow the crystal again. and it's amazing how fast the marred face was healed overnight; now all the sides are smooth.
forgot about the coffee ice cream. it came out too creamy, not icy. i think that's because i used all cream and not cream with milk; so there was not enough water to form the ice.

抽空

the long awaited rain finally came this morning. and it was indeed a wretched rain. but i stepped into a japanese home, and there was a bundle of sunshine. it was a wide, empty, clear hall, a long table and a wall mirror. it's like you could just sit at the end of the long table and look at yourself in the mirror all day.

like komatsu nana.

the beginning of good

today, mummy brought me to chinatown to look at the shops selling kitchenware for commercial scale. the cooking vats are so huge that you can sit inside and be boiled alive. and the mixers too - you can sit in the bowl and let the paddle attachment mash you up.

four days ago something fell into place. (and actually now i can't remember what it was.) but today two more things fell into place. and maybe it really will get better now.

hot and cold cream

weiyang finally puts in his effort and sweat at making the caramel croissant pudding. with a shot of bailey's, this pudding is immediately transformed into an even creamier, richer, fatty piece of thing.
but so worth the effort.

i am currently churning a tub of coffee ice cream. this one uses no eggs. it's just cream boiled with sugar and ground coffee. steeped and strained, chilled then churned.
results to be revealed tomorrow.

right now i'm thinking of the first day at BMT. the ferry ride. the TV show on the ferry - some teacher trying to teach a choir of boys how to sing. the coastal route. the daily tides coming in and out. the planes flying overhead frequently.

and then the cold wind blows.