Rose, rose my love...

The rose

This was supposed to be posted on Sunday. I got caught up with quilting but that's another story.... As you know from my previous post, I've got us a rose baking mould from the Paris craft show.

That's green tea icing with some powdred icing sugar

The verdict: I love silicone moulds!!! No messy greasing and lining baking pans! Plus it comes in so many interesting choices in terms of shapes and size. For this try, I've made green tea cake and its green tea icing. Turns out not bad. The only down side for this particular motif mould is that I can't bake it as per normal temperature due to the "petals" - the petals part will be hard as it cooks faster than the rest of the cake. Instead of 175°C, I had to turn in down to 160°C. Thus cake bakes longer. But then again I just LOVE how it turns out! Next time I'm going to bake a chocolate cake - you know black rose? hehehehehe....

Paris craft show

Ladies, ladies every where!!

OK, its true that I'm not suppose to spend on crafting items until at least after Feb. 2009. Well that's according to my financial advisor (my inner voice on the financial department - call me CRAZY but I'm sure EVERYONE has one!) . And once again I've failed to adhere to the advise and scummed! hehehehee....

My newly acquired stash....

Above embroidered lamps. Below: Granny Square show!

Here are the items I've got. Well its not a lot since I went to the Paris craft show (http://www.creations-savoir-faire.com/) with the men in my life, whom one of them will glare (yes GLARE!!) at me if I decide to walk away from the show with more than 15 items. I think the guy practically keeps track of my numerous stash at home now.... Which reminds me; did he acquire another plant recently? Hmmm....

Fully hand stitched quilt. Amazing isn't it?

So back to the show. JP would say "average age was 50 and majority would be women". Yes its true but still 50 isn't OLD!!! The show was pretty interesting, with sections; needlework, jewellery making, art & deco, paper & scrap booking and cooking/baking. I think there were more quilting stalls than those selling cross stitch items and accessories at the needlework section. Saw a pretty amazing quilt by a member of the French Quilting Association. Took her 2 years to finish it and the result as stunning! I was so temped to buy fabric packs there as it was quite a good bargain but then again I prefer to buy when I plan for my next project. Besides I'm just giving quilting ago for the moment. Sad to say I walk away with only 3 charts as I can't really take my time to browse through and there were sooooo.... many ladies there looking at the same thing as I was!! So there's 2 Drawn Thread (I LOVE them!) and another by Dessin DHC (French company).

Silk paper wedding dresses looks dreamy & pretty....

She's making sure that its paper...

Cardboard items

A good thing here though, is there was an aisle specially done up to show off different crafts which could give my some fresh ideas. There's the crocheted themed (granny squares every where!), embroidery (lamp shades with really interesting motifs), paper themed (beautifully shaped out lamp shades & cardboard furnishings) and there's even several silk paper wedding dresses on display!! And not forgetting some 3D framed paper pictures, which took to a Christmasy themed.

Framed 3D pictures

Don't they look nice? Its made with paper using Fiskars

And then at the end of the aisle, both of us got distracted by a flowing chocolate fondue fountain..... :) Needless to say after tasting some "artisans" chocolate, we bought 2 boxes. heheheehe.... And then I saw some silicone baking mould. Ever since I bought my Winne the Pooh silicone mould, I really enjoy using these fuss free moulds - no need to oil/line the pan AND easy to clean/pop cake out. Besides its not only for baking, its also for my jelly making. So I finally bought a small piggy mould and big rose mould.

THE CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!!! How can you NOT get get distracted by it?!?!

We were pretty tired after spending half a day there. OH! There's another show in Feb. 2009 but this is only dedicated to needlework. I'd love to go and the entry fare is only 10 Euro (Creations et Savoir Faire is 12 Euro!) but I think there'll be a very slim chance that we'll go to Paris in Feb. But there's ALWAYS 2010 right? hehehehehe...

It has been AGES...

Since my last post. OK, OK I'll admit it. I might be a little bit slack on updating my blog but at least I did! :)

So to wrap it up, what I did for the whole of October was making blueberry muffin (it was really purple!!), made my 1st pizza, my 1st successful waffle (can never get the batter right!) and we went to Geneva for a visit.

My purple muffin batter.... :p

I'd always wonder why is blueberry call blueberry when they tend to squish out purple juice? May be it looks blue outside and from afar? HHmmmm.... Anyways, JP didn't like the muffin as it was bland. Well I didn't intend to make these for dessert actually. Muffins was actually registered in English as "moofin"in 1703!!!! So you see muffins have a pretty early history as Wikepedia here says. And why it turn purple? I think must be the fact that I add them in too early and also that its frozen blueberries - have you seen the price tag for the fresh ones? OMG!!! CHF4.90 for only 100 grams..... :p

Pizza pan and silicone mat at the background.

And oh! I think I'll make pizza every forth night on weekend from now since I've got the dough just right and I have my pizza pan to thank for! hehehehehehe...... BTW, you've got to try out silicone mat, no more fussing about dirty worktop as you just lift the mat up or wipe away! Plus stamp out cookies lift up so much easier here! I remember when mum used to make pizzas for us when we were kids. She didn't have a pizza pan but used the stainless steel plates so each of us have our own pizza! I even remembered we made our own tomato puree sauce from scratch. Back then it was kinda difficult and expensive to get dried oregano/basil, Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan, but still she made our Sunday late lunches at home fun!

Any ways, my pizza came out not as round as the ones bought but its still has a crispy crust. And no, I did not twirl it in the air like one of those Italian pizza man. If I did, I'll have to waste more dough to just throw it around!

Look my waffle is smilling! :D

See the picture above? I actually got this waffle cum sandwich maker for free (credit card points) sometime back. Made loads of sandwich but could never make "great" waffles - its either uncooked in the middle or its too tender. I now have it just right - batter the constancy of heavy cream and cook it double time on my maker.

Looks like a pianting right?

Don't you just love the colours of autumn like the picture above? It was taken while we were walking about at Geneva. We don't go there often coz it takes 1 hour drive from our place. In fact I think the ONLY time we go to Geneva was to the airport! :) We managed to visit Azni, my Terengganu girlfriend from school, who was at work in this luxury SPA in the heart of the city. It has been AGES since we last meet up, but I'm glad to just see and catch up with her even for 15 mins. I hope to see her and her other half before the year ends.

BTW, I've been finishing up a gift for NNC's 2nd Anniversary Gift Exchange and it's already to be wrapped and mailed next weekend. Can't say much on the item I've made, only that it has flowers and its in the green toned coloured family with ribbons as trimmings. I just hope that the lucky person likes it and will put it to good use. Next up, baby quilt for Owen and at the same time my kitchen curtains. I know, I know, I'm really behind on the later project but I'm going to buck up and hopefully will see it finish BEFORE new year eh?