I don't really know if this qualifies as baking but it shall for this post. Last week, I celebrated my 21st birthday and one of my good friends, Rosa gifted me with the Happy Kitchen Cake Set. We decided that we should set out to make this cake at 1am.

While making the cake, I was surprised at how nicely everything smelled and turned out. Our decorating skills still need some work but overall I think we did a pretty good job. It also tasted pretty good considering everything was just powder and water. We just wished that the jelly didn't set so fast or they gave us more of the teardrop mould since we had so much jelly left over.

Sorry for the photo spam ... I went a little bit photo happy.

Last week, I decided that my inner hipster needed to get out and show herself. For this to occur, I travelled to Newtown with some friends and visited Brewtown Newtown.



The moment I stepped off Newtown Station, I could already feel the hipster coming out LOL. If you wish to visit, turn left once out of the station and keep walking straight until you see the store "T2". Once you reach the store, there's an alleyway right there and you just need to turn into the alleyway and you shall reach the cafe.

The cafe was actually bigger than I expected since I visited "Circa" in Parramatta and that place was tiny. I visited on a weekday at about 10:30-11am and the wait for a table was relatively small. We got placed at a side table which was actually quite bad for us since those tables were really high up. This made eating really difficult for us since we are all relatively small in comparison to the Australian population. Our waitress was really nice and friendly and I loved the overall feel of the whole cafe.

We decided to pick this particular place since we heard it was the only place in Newtown that served cronuts. I decided to try the chocolate cronut while my friends tried out the jam and glazed cronut respectively. The cronut was actually quite nice with a crunchy exterior but fluffy layers inside with chocolate dispersed between the layers of pastry. In addition to the cronut, I also ordered a hot chocolate to accompany it, which was probably a bad idea to begin with. The hot chocolate was pretty much perfect for me in terms of sweetness and creaminess so I would definitely go back for their hot chocolate. However, the hot chocolate combined with the chocolate cronut did leave me with a chocolate overload.

I would definitely come back again, in fact we plan on doing so, to try out their breakfast menu since we saw some plates and they looked absolutely delicious. I would however request to be seated at a table where bar stools are not used just for ease of eating.

If you know me personally, you would know that I have a love for coffee but I am not that great with dairy products. So to satisfy my coffee cravings without making me run to the toilet, I decided to make some mocha cupcakes since I couldn't really find a coffee cupcakes recipe that appealed to me.

I found the recipe on taste.com.au and can be found here.

Since I did not make the syrup, I can only comment on the actual cupcake batter. The cupcake itself is really nice and moist and has that bitter taste, which is expected. However, I found that the coffee flavour wasn't as strong as I would like so next time I make it, I would definitely put in maybe a half to a full tablespoon extra of instant coffee powder.

This adventure also allowed me to try piping icing for the first time. It wasn't an utter failure but it also wasn't the best but nobody perfects it on the right try. I think I will go and try a bigger piping attachment next time since I used a small attachment bought from Daiso.

Along with the redecorating bug, I have also gotten the baking bug too. Obviously, that means that I will document said baking adventures and post each one on my blog.



Early last week, one of my close friends had her 21st party and I told her that I would bake her cake. With some direction from what she liked, I baked the cake and I am somewhat proud of what I was able to achieve, especially since it was my first time using fondant and icing a cake. Who knows, maybe this will signal my entry into the cake decorating world LOL (trust me, it doesn't).

Vanilla Bean Sponge Cake:

White Chocolate Buttercream:

Icing the cake:

Towards the end of my uni semester that just passed, I got the redecorating bug for my room. That, consequently, led to my trip to IKEA to try and bring some of my ideas to life. However, looking back I didn't get everything that would bring my image to life but then again, I still have another 3 weeks of break.

So, this is my IKEA haul.