2012!

a new year – a fresh new beginning.

well technically if one wants to change  - dates do not need to be a constraint, but sometimes we all need some sort of timeline to help us move along, and a new year does just that!  :)

This year, I will do my best to spread the word on baked and eaten to more people!   previously we were operating from a community kitchen, and it was not convenient as we were sharing a place with other bakers.  This year, will be a time to really try and make a difference!  it’s hard and i have to be really thick skin (and I’m naturally darn thin skinned!  so it’s significantly more difficult for me…but try i will!)

i hope you have got your goals/aims/resolutions whatever you prefer to call them and are also actively working towards them!  Jiayou everyone (and me too!)!

2011…wrapping up.

how time flies!  don’t you feel that as we grow older, time seems to whiz by even faster???

2011 has been an eventful and busy year for us at Baked and Eaten.

it was a year of many decisions – a year where the lease of the community kitchen was up, and time to decide whether to move together with our friends to the new location.  we pondered for a few agonizing months, and decided after much much thought – that we would not move with our friends.  we started looking around for a new place, and there were many bumps along the way (pssttt….my little secret – it can get pretty demoralizing at times!! much as I absolutely LOVE what I do – without a place of operation….there isn’t much to continue on especially since NEA doesn’t allow home bakers….i understand they need to ensure things are hygienically produced to protect the public…though the flip side is rentals are especially crazy!!!)

maybe it’s luck.  maybe it’s sheer graciousness.  maybe my wish was sent to the universe and answered.  maybe it’s the real love of what I do daily….i don’t know…..but I just thank my lucky stars that we were approached and asked if we wanted to take over the kitchen space!! words can’t express the relief and the happiness and I was really grateful for the oppotunity!

long story short – baked and eaten has our own dedicated baking studio and I love it!!

BUT this post is not so much about how much i love my baking studio (ooooo…but i sure do –  i love keeping everything spick and span and clean and tidy…..a little ‘controlling’ huh?;))

it has been a testing year on many fronts, and all these time, I kept going back to a simple ‘trick’ of sorts that keeps me sane….and happy (well reasonably at least!)  It’s a really simple thing – so easy that one would underestimate the effect and impact it has on your life…..it’s counting my blessings.  being grateful for whatever i have (or not have), and taking life as a lesson.  shifting mindsets during the process,and I hope in the process – become an even better person.

some of my blessings?:)

• my family - for the subtle and quiet support they have always provided me.  especially my parents.  they don’t say much, and I know they worry for me but they don’t question me on the path I decided to embark.  staying in the corporate world sure as h*ll pays a lot more, and with much less effort and worry(disclaimer, given my nature, I’m no slacker.  you just have to do your duties which are somewhat ‘contained’ for the lack of a better word), and a lot more comfort!   and ‘oh, i work in a bank’ sounds a lot more prestigous than ‘i’m a baker’ *snicker*.   BUT I’m sooooo much happier.   the sense of satisfaction and pride and happiness – simply cannot be compared.   which brings me to the next point…..

• wonderful customers - especially the repeat and loyal customers who return to us to satisfy their chocolate cravings, and some seem to have converted to cupcake fans as well!!;)   some of our customers are also some of the nicest people around!!! they don’t need to, but they take the extra effort to tell us how much they enjoy our brownies / cupcakes, and that they will help refer us to their families and friends.  it really gives us a huge morale booster and makes our day so much brighter!

• my friends – they have been so supportive and encouraging and some even go out of their way to promote my brownies.  without their encouragment and motivation – life would be that much harder!

• my cats - my two little furballs remind me that life can be simple and somehow helps me refocus on what is important, and that certain things are simply a waste of my energy. undeniably, at times i get really miffed at things or people, but when I come home to them, life seems so much simpler – pet therapy!!  even the stray cats at my void deck, feeding them provides you a very simple yet profound happiness.  maybe it’s compassion for another living thing…

• myself!  hahahah!!!! i’m no narcissist but i an grateful to have gone out on a limb to get my business started, and to really put myself out there (and boy….i don’t do well in uncertainties, so this is quite a bit of a stretch for me). grateful to remain strong and (reasonably) positive in trying times (but hey – see all the points above – they support me!)

they are obviously many many many many more things that i am grateful for….and this last post for 2011…well wraps up the year by thanking my lucky stars that I can still continue doing what i love – for a lot more years too i hope!

hope you had a good 2011, and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!! I hope 2012 brings lots of love and happiness to all of us!!! that’s not too much to ask huh?;)

why we have been in ‘hiding’!

much as i hate to admit it, i’m guilty of disappearing from my blog every now and then.

usually a couple of reasons…either i’m really busy in the kitchen, fingers (and brain) on strike (read: plain lazy) or in these couple of months – pretty stressed and occupied.

now...i was looking for some funny image, but ain't this a much better pic?;)

and i do apologize!  there were a couple of times i wanted to post an update, yet as things were not confirmed – afraid i’ll jinx myself, I decided to post only when things were finalized.  yes, i admit i can be superstitious that way… (and no, i don’t think it actually any difference…still better safe than sorry!)

anyway, hopefully in 2 weeks or so, I’ll be able to properly account to you on what I have been up to!  This has been a really eventful year full of bumps, really trying at times and makes me wonder if this course is worth staying on (gasp! yes, much as I absolutely LOVE what i do, doubt does creep in).

Luckily when i think of the joy of my small business –  doing things I am proud of, having customers telling me how much they enjoy the brownies and cupcakes, it makes me realize – there is really not much other option (also since i pretty much figured that I don’t enjoy being stuck to a desk!).

I guess such is life… that we must all go through challenges. hopefully we turn out stronger!  and as a friend once mentioned before – we must keep picking ourselves up after each fall!  (well, technically, it’s more bumps – i shall not exaggerate!;P)

Thank you for all who have patiently waited for an update! and i promise to share the good news when things are confirmed!!:)

ah mao

remember ah mao?:)

for a looonggg time, it never dawned on me to take a photo of her, and when i do remember, i usually don’t have my phone with me.   the other day i finally remembered AND had my phone with me, so see photos of the lovely albeit skinny ah mao!  (i think my cats are MONSTERS compared to her!)

ah mao in alert mode! saw me and got up so quickly before I could take a face shot!

running after me as i make my way home to get food for her!

ah mao eating...still can't get a clear head shot. next time i will show u how pretty she is (to me) with her piercing intelligent looking eyes!

OCD rearing its head again!

been sick for a couple of days, and couldn’t muster the energy to do anything much.  feels sucky to always be lying down or sleeping simply because breathing’s such a labor cos’ of the phlegm…..so i did something simple around the house – cleaning!

I find it super therapeutic cos’ I get to see the effects with pretty much little effort….well sometimes a lot of elbow grease, but effects are fast!

okay, this list is gonna be boring (so skip it if you must), but I must list them to make me feel less guilty about the inordinate amount of time i spent lying down like a worm while my body tries to recover from the darn flu!

• did some of my filing (which i haven’t touched for a good year or so! still got more, but at least half of it is done!),
• tidied some paper work (which was at one point strewn all over my table top and any available space i could simply chunk them at) and tidied my room in general
• cleaned my cupboards and drawers,
• washed and polished my basins and cleaned the mirror,
• washed my stinky floor mats,
• washed my smelly cats butts cos’ they didn’t finish their business cleanly!!
• put up a hook in my toilet (so that I can hang some clothes and reuse w/o it crumbled…but still many pieces remain on my sink top and chair)
• wiped my ceiling fans,
• cleaned off the rust off my fork (which has been there for ages, and try as i might – couldn’t get it off – until i googled and it said VINEGAR! Works!!!! and a lot less elbow grease! but huh…there seems to be a mark where the knife was soaking in….)
• and blah blah blah… which includes vacuuming the floor several times….

obviously the above were done over a few days!  much as I wished i had the strength to finish everything within the same day! but i’m no super woman!

hook for my clothes! hanging nicely in the toilet so that my clothes don't get crumpled from being stacked on top of each other!

but i also get bored REALLY easily….so yesterday headed to orchard, and got myself….a nice table lamp!:)

energy saving lamp - looks cute too!:) sorry about the blurry photo!

looks nice and cheerful huh!:) and it’s energy saving with a 18W bulb, and when i get bored of my working area (which is what is preventing me from doing more work!), i switch the lamp on, and VOILA!  a different environment – more warm and cosy – to work in. keeee…..yeah, i’m nuts like that. (when i was young –  i used to get superbly distracted by the state of the room i was studying in….i think i am very much affected by my surroundings, so i try to keep them clean and tidy as much as possible – to prevent myself from being distracted!)

.

plus..instead of my ceiling lights which work at a combined 72W, i’m saving the earth by using the night energy saving lamp.  thing though is that it can get kindda glaring since it’s in eye-sight, so I use a piece of scrap book paper to block the glare.

nice warm and cosy.....

alright….enough of obsessing over my home….now gotta go think of how to make my chocolate passionfruit cake without it collapsing!! childhood friend (gosh! ~ 20 years!) wants to get that for her dad, and the last time, the whole thing fell apart while experimenting!!

okay, charmaine tan, focus!  thinking about tidying the kitchen and the drawers and the shelves can come later!!

shopping, moisturizer and light bulbs!

in an attempt not to let this blog go ‘cold’ too often, shall post some random ‘bo-liao’ non-baking related stuff!

ever since i left the corporate world, i’ve been pretty stingy on myself – no shopping, and everything i buy for myself is on a needs basis.  well, after a year plus, a mini treat is in order huh?  so i went a mini shopping spree, and got a couple of much needed clothes (i hate to admit it, but some of my clothes were starting to look dreadfully old!).

i was glad to get some fresh new tops, but the thing that made me MOST happy (aka favorite buy) was this necklace!!!

ain't it pretty?:)

so pretty right!  It was from G2000, and normally the retail price is $26…but i got it at a steal at…. $9!!! ahahahaha…. the sales lady came to me, and said all accessories were at $9, but i didn’t see any ‘notice’ or signage, so I thought i heard wrongly.  I went back to ask the lady again, and yes, i heard correctly! I didn’t think twice and just bought  it.  i’m not an accessory person, but at that price, i’m sure it will come into good use one of these days!   *happiness*

oh! and I also bought this moisturizer at a 20% off!  The brand’s not exactly famous, but I really feel that the products are really effective. much less marketing gimmicks (or at least significantly less than the major cosmetic brands so I don’t pay the price for marketing) – it just works!  at least for me..

eucerin

I have dry skin, but I feel superbly moisturized after using it, and best thing is that you don’t have to use a lot!  but…..the price ($42.20) is a major turn off and I contemplated for quite a bit before using it again but mainly cos’ it was on sale, and recently i had 2 very bad pimples (1 even bled!! and I usually don’t have pimple issues) and I suspect part of the pimple problem could be due the current moisturizer i was using – it sure has a funky smell which i didn’t like at all.  so good bye loreal hydrafresh. never gonna use you again if i can ever help it!

okay, now onto the more interesting topic of….light bulbs!  i recently found out that two of my home lights were super energy unfriendly – a whopping 40W!  actually  most of my lights in my home are energy saving, but somehow, not quite sure how come I missed these two electricity sucking lights for a good 4 years!

blood sucking light bulb....well, technically - electricity sucking!

40W!!

with electricity bills rising, and also being a person that doesn’t like wastage (in this case electricity), I went to buy an energy saving bulb.  check it out!!! it’s ONLY 8W and has the same lighting effect as a 40W!!  seriously happy !!!  not only do  do my part to save the earth by wasting less natural resource, I also benefit by paying less for electrical bill. it runs on 20% of power compared to before!!!  every little bit counts to reduce wastage.  of course the light bulb is more expensive – $6.50 compared to $1 but it lasts longer, and saves electrical bill.  so, happy to pay that bit more.

8 W energy saving bulb - emitting the same amount of light that a normal 40W bulb provides at only 20% of electricity!

exploring the ‘neighbourhood’

so this morning I was at the baking studio as a customer was picking up her order. after the customer collected her order, i was still groggy and in sore need of my caffeine fix, and decided to head to loysel’s toy @ 66 kampong buggies.

I’m a coffee lover, and have heard rave reviews about the coffee there and well, as you probably already know – a sucker for nice looking things/places, and was drawn by the chic relaxed atmosphere from photos i saw online, so decided it would be a good day to explore a new place!

I got a white flat (essentially coffee with little foam – YAAYY!  i don’t like foam, cos’ I have to ingest tons of ‘air’ before I can get to the precious kopi and I sure am impatient that way!) and husband got a mocha.  coffee was good, and it was really at the decent price –  $3.5 for the white flat, and $4 for the mocha.

white flat kopi with a cinnamon biscuit.  the mocha coffee looks the same. table looks nice huh!

i also  got a ham sandwich, and I LOVE it! ham was generously thick and I love the sauce, nice and refreshing…but i have no idea what sauce went into it – i just eat! ahahaha…. and I do like the way they presented their sandwich.  pretty don’t you think? sorry, my photo taking skills don’t do it justice.  husband likes it, but he is a soft bread kindda person and felt it was a little too crunchy.

ham sandwich with chips

so after I got my caffeine fix, on the way back to the train station, I thought, hey! i can check out Antoinette, the cafe that was featured on the papers a couple of weeks ago, opened by the ex-chef of Canele.   it was really a pretty shop  - very atas-y, and it was filled with diners!  I didn’t take any photos on the inside, but did manage to snap one of their exterior.  pretty huh!

Antoinette

ah mao

okay, this post has nothing to do with baking or my sometimes obsessive compulsive nature about keeping things neat and tidy. it’s about cats. not exactly, but somewhat.  indulge me as I ramble on.

I love cats (well, and animals in general, but i digress) and my late grandma also loved them.  she fed them, and allowed them to wander freely in her home and you knew she really loved them and that was where I had many fond memories…how there was a super manja one who would come on command; how once, 3 female cats all got impregnated by the same black cat and delivered all at the same time, resulting in 9 kitties! (this was 20 over years ago, so….there wasn’t any sterilization program then!); how one of them  them ran up to the 2nd floor of the house, hid under the cupboard and gave birth to kitties (and i would be so curious and enthralled that I would peek under the cabinet and find the day-old kitties so pink and fragile!); how my grandma showed me the way  she taught the kitties the correct place to pee and poo (gently pushing their butt and also their head at the gully hole which was hilarious); how one of the cat caught a lizard and was happily carrying it in its mouth, and halfway, the tail dropped (and boy! did i really bounce really high!) and the cat got so spooked and scooted off!!

anyhow, I love these creatures (except for the evil black one which badly and  mean badly scratched my family dog. vicious little thing…), and much as I love them, i generally don’t feed strays.  well, the answer to that ‘disconnect’ involves a complicated thing about feeling terrible about not feeding the rest of the cats cos’ if if you feed one, you gotta be fair and feed the rest…and feeding so many cats is something I honestly can’t see myself doing.

but I do feed one. she’s definitely not the prettiest (in fact a bit scruffy looking) nor the most manja, but  I make an effort to bring food to her simply cos’ she is really skinny (there are feeders, but i think she is probably picky about food…or don’t eat well) and somehow I find her endearing – maybe cos’ she well behaved and generally don’t bug people much, and so her scruffy looking face just grew on me.

so I will bring her food when i see her around (which she usually is cos’ I’m FOOD to her), and today, it dawned on me that….it makes ME happy to extend the effort to give some comfort to another living thing.  to see that she is happily eating the food and is able to put some substance in her tummy….well, makes me feel less self absorbed and in general more able to let go of petty stuff that one usually encounters in the usual day – that there are things more worth my time than getting riled by annoying humans (especially those who think the world revolves around themselves..i wonder why they think so highly of themselves..such ignorant beings.).

so this entry is to remind myself to constantly keep peace with myself and to remember not to get flustered by people who should never be given a ounce of my precious time simply cos’ they are not important.  I did that wonderfully well today, and am so proud of myself!  :):)  and i think i managed to do so cos’ of ah mao.:)

hi there! yes, we are still alive!:)

yes yes, i know…i have been a real lazy bum these recent weeks!  Not been posting cos’ I have loads on my mind, and can’t seem to focus (on a side note –  i went for a chinese ‘gua sar’ massage the other day, and the lady asked if I am frequently nervous and worry a lot, and I said ‘yes, how do you know?’, and she said by scrapping the back, the area that comes up more ‘reddish / black’ – is weaker and can show what potential problems the body has – amazing huh! then she went on to ask me a couple more questions, and they were spot on!!  the miracle of the body and TCM!  okay okay, i’m digressing.

I went for Cake Love Couture’s shop opening over the weekend, and it sure was a lovely lovely shop – the lady owner Raiha – does fabulous customized cakes and her workmanship is exquisite!  don’t take my word for it, check out the photos on her Facebook page (they have an AMAZING 8,800+ fans!:)  really indicates how well received they are!

anyhow, I don’t have photos of their SUPER pretty shop – there’s even a chandelier!:) (i have a thing for chandeliers), BUT i have photos of…. the door gift they gave!!:)

post-it pad, bag holder (see the bling bling thing on the black velvet pouch?), cookie cutter (sponsored by kitchen capers), box of cake (pink box), cookies (sorry, i finished them and all that's left is that ribbon on the pink box), and vouchers (not shown here)

so lovely right!!! makes me feel like a kid at christmas. hahaha…wondering what’s in the bag and all! eke….

 

check them out if you are into cake decorating lessons!

 

okay, ciao for now.  I’ll do my best to post more often!!!

pardon me

ahh…pardon me for the lack of posts recently – lots on my mind lately, so many things to think about, and i shall tell you what i’m mulling over – AFTER i have a solution….hopefully!

anyways,  thought to post some photos of something that brings a smile to my face…..my tidied balcony!:)  at least one portion of it!

me and my slight OCD...SLIGHT huh....though given how messy i can be at times - i probably don't have the calibre!;p

next up? my perpetually messy kitchen table!!! super super distraught at its state.  i RESOLVE to get a metal rack (though i think it’s UGLY) and have things tidied up……bleah.