Yesterday, we had a class gathering cum celebration for yumin's birthday. In view of the occasion, I decided to bake her a birthday cake, my first every attempt at baking chocolate cake. And here, I must digress a little. After searching through many different recipes, I finally settled on one that called for buttermilk, cocoa, veg oil, hot coffee etc, thinking that it was the healthiest of the lot and also looked the best. Through out the baking, I was somewhat dubious of it turning out well as I made a couple of boo boos, like i wasn't sure how much was 3/4 cup of cocoa powder, so I added more than called for; I forgot to add the baking powder until the last minute. And the batter of the cake tasted weird, and I thought I had added too little sugar, or put too much coffee. With some misgivings, I put it into 2 round pans to bake..and waited..and waited..
I was anxious not to overbake it, so I kept checking for doneness. When it was finally out of the oven and cooled, it looked better than I expected. I then made a simple ganache topping which was not part of the recipe, but I thought would make the cake taste and look nicer. I heated 150ml of cream and beat 6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate into it, turning it into a silky, smooth and aromatic mixture. Unsure of how the topping should be, I simply poured it over the cakes and smoothed it with a spoon. A while later, I taste my masterpiece, and was delighted beyond belief...
The cake was like a chocoholics dream. Soft, moist and very very chocolatey. Topped with the chocolate ganache, it tasted beyond my expectation. And I secretly thought it tasted better than Lana cake, which in my opinion is overated. And the best part is, the cake is low-fat!!! How cool is that..hahah
Anyway, I digressed quite a bit..heh.. we met up at Hog's breath cafe,which is supposedly the hot new cafe in town. After trying it, I doubt I would go back again as the price is quite high, and the service sucks. I know its not easy being a waitress, but really, they treated us with such condescention and they were so not on the ball and we even had to pay for extra sauces. The food is not bad I guess and the portion of the main courses were pretty big.
Apart from that, I enjoyed myself tremendously, it's the company that matters after all, and to my surprise, I really had fun. We took lots of pictures, courtesy of my camera. And the conversation flowed along easily, filled with hysterical laughter, lame jokes, dirty jokes and lots of jabbing. After we cut the birthday cake(everybody loved the cake, and were full of praise..which made me very happy), we went to Harry's bar at esplanade for more chat over drinks, and then to the Hong Kong Cafe at Marina Square where all we shared a huge bowl of mango snow ice and french toast and toook more pictures. Everywhere we went, I think we were easily the noisest group around..hahah. Time flew past and soon it was 1 and time to go home. Thankfully Eugene gave me and Si yang a lift back and the rest of the Westies shared a cab home.
I think alot of us really changed and matured a lot over the years since jc days, I remember all the quarrels and the angst then. But some things just never change ;)
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