last week saw me through a wedding order and some insane dessert attempts. i made lots of desserts in a span of one week or so, and i dunno where i got the energy & stamina from, consider that i was pretty much shut off few months ago. remember what i said about bringing butter or cream cheese to room temp only to put it back later? i was THAT lazy. then suddenly, i find myself churning out dessert after dessert, never feeling tired at all. basically i think i just wanna challenge myself in creating all these. and everytime i succeed on my first attempt, i get a real sense of satisfaction!

mont blanc

having traditional afternoon tea in a hotel's lobby lounge is as close to heaven as you can get, no? there's nothing not to like about sipping tea and nibbling on finger food all afternoon in a classy environment, i thought naively. so despite knowing that i'll be paying 40 bucks just for that few meagre pieces of finger food, i blatantly went ahead. but at the end of the day, i came home feeling sorely disappointed, and with a gnawing ache in my heart that wouldn't go away. why? mayb becoz i had some terribly unrealistic high expectations, of what i'm not sure. maybe becoz when i entered the acclaimed 6-star hotel, i just couldn't feel anything "6-star" about it, nothing like when i entered st. regis or shangri la. or maybe becoz the food wasn't good. or simply becoz i'm not a tea person? or maybe, ALL of the above reasons! while i couldn't say it was a lousy experience, i felt it was mediocre at best. in short, nothing to shout about.

i made some kickass & ridiculously good vanilla bean ice cream and i can't wait to share the recipe with you guys! it all started with a case of having too much leftover whipping cream from my previous attempt on the apricot panna cotta. nowadays i buy whipping cream in 1L carton instead of 200ml coz its alot more worth it that way. only about 8 bucks for 1L, compared to $3.40 for 200ml, but it'll also mean i get alot of leftovers, so what could be better than to make some cold comfort food like ice cream? vanilla bean ice cream is all i eat these days and i'm glad most patisseries are using vanilla bean in their ice cream coz you just can't beat the real stuff. and yes, i turn my nose up at the cheap supermarket variety, the kind that only use essence in them. i only regret not making it any earlier but its never too late! glad i now hv my stash of vanilla bean ice cream to call my own. and it also makes me wonder what i can't or won't do *chuckles*