2007 semester One party!

All day at work yesterday I kept checking the clock. Time seemed to pass slower that way, with every minute under my close scrutiny and I eventually gave up, started talking to Jess and Alex and spent the rest of my time chatting with the customers (some were really awesome), clipping the clothes up and running mental debates on what I should buy at the store to reward myself. You see, SEMESTER ONE IS OVER-OFFICIALLY. =)

And that spelt for CELEBRATION, well it was a good enough an excuse as any other so Vee, Fred, Sling and Liz rocked up at my house bearing all sorts of amazing yummies and alcohol and what was supposed to end by maybe...4am ended up lasting a whole lot longer. By a whole lot longer I mean 8.30am. That was when I exclaimed that I have not had had any sleep for 24 hours and counting. But hey, with the amount of fun we had, I'm not complaining. What say we do it AGAIN guys?!=)

Decided it was also a good a time as any other to cook dessert and by that I mean creme brulee, two-layered deep chocolate cake and almond jelly (like my SHF entry). Decided to cook some tumeric curry chicken and sweet potato mash. But I haven't any photos of all of them except the chocolate cake. My proudest moment was when I cut into the cake and for the first time ever, I didn't have to exert strength to make it through two hard layers of chocolate sponge. I knew it was gonna be good. =)

The cake recipe was closely followed, I didn't feel like making any changes and I didn't feel like going through the exhausting rollercoaster ride where I worry endlessly that it might turn out bad, I don't know about you but most of my layer cakes have turned out promising when first taken from the oven but just ends up being a hard to swallow, hard to chew, not really tasty kinda cake, and that bugs me. This time, I took the cake out of the fridge as soon as people started arriving, giving it aout 4 hours to settle to room temperature and THANKGOD the weather in Australia allows me to do so. It was a smart move!=)

I made a creamy vanilla frosting to go with the cake but I used slightly salted butter and that wasn't good plus, I was meant to use half shortening and half butter, which I'm assuming is because 1) color (shortening won't produce a yellow frosting) and 2) flavour (I think a mixture of shortening and butter produces frostings with less pronounced butter-like taste which can be icky) so therefore, faced with both color and flavour problems oh-and plus the issue of the salt, I decided to whisk in 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa and 1 tablespoon of icing sugar and TADA! Creamy chocolate frosting instead-still a little salty but a hell lot better. Frosted the cake, topped the entire cake with a basic icing made of milk, icing sugar and cocoa, and I was goooood.

Here's a link for a good creamy vanilla frosting, I've never made it but the recipe I used is similar. Sorry guys, I'm so tired from only 3 hours of sleep (I slept for 3 hrs after my friends left) I won't be typing the exact recipe I used because that means I have to walk to the kitchen. TRES FAR. And as for the basic chocolate icing, here's how it really went down.

Ingredients:

Milk

Cocoa

Icing sugar

1) start with 5 tablespoons of milk, 1 1/2 tbsp of cocoa and 6 tbsp icing sugar. Stir madly until smooth, add more milk, 1/2 tbsp cocoa and 2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar. Stir insanely again. Adding more milk if too sticky, icing sugar if too wet or cocoa if too sweet, keep stirring and stirring and adding and adding until you're happy or it's off a consistency that drips from your spoon in globs. Then pour of the top of your cake and using the back of a spooon, spread it out lightly. It should get stiffer with time and if you need more icing, repeat that whole stirring, adding process.

YEAP! That's how you REALLY do it-coz I can't remember exact measurements. *grin!