Cooking: Sponge Layer Cake

Made this with my bestie for my other bestie's birthday. Had lots of fun making it, although many mistakes were made it still turned out half decent.

Recipe from Masterchef Magazine (the one with the Macaron tower on it).
Things I learnt: Don't fridge the ganache. Pay more attention when slicing cake so the layers are even(not my fault Masterchef grand finale was on). Get a palatte knife to spread not a spatula.

I think I should bake more cakes as my cake baking skills are pretty fail.

Masterchef

I don't think I've ever done a post on masterchef all year.
It's one of the shows I follow religiously and I have ALMOST watched every ep this season except for the 3rd last ep as I had tutoring and haven't had time to watch it online yet, but rest assure I will. I also half watched Friday's masterclass so I shall watch that too.
Yes, I know I'm in year 12 and shouldn't watch an hour (or more) of TV 6 days a week but I can't help myself, I guess it's where I secretly/not so secretly want to be. Luckily now that it's over I can get my head back in the books and start studying again as I've only been studying an hour or so a day due to tutoring and masterchef.

Anyone else love masterchef as much as I do? And wish that they were on it? Lots of people have told me to go apply for it but I don't think I will. First of all I won't make it cos my cooking is pretty fail. Secondly my food knowledge isn't very deep and broad, unlike Adam, I've never even heard of Romensco (or whatever the sauce was) before, but then again neither did Callum...Thirdly even IFFFFF (meaning practically impossible) I do make it to auditions and what not, filming starts November this year...exactly when VCE EXAMS are...maybe I'll try out next year. I would love to spend 8 months cooking and living in that awesome house......I'm dreaming again.

New Camera except it ain't mine

My dad bought a new camera, Canon 550D, he's been raving about it for months. Now he finally has his own.
Still learning all the buttons and functions and all that. Can't really say anything bad about the camera. However Dad bought a lens that isn't designed for my type of photography except for maybe sunsets. The closest distance it can shoot is 20cm or so, meaning it it extremely difficult to take pictures of FOOD and FLOWERS, my two favourite subjects to capture. Hopefully Dad will get a macro lens =] Also my laptop can't read the HD SD card cos it's probably too old. Turns out the only things that can read it in the house is the plamsa TV and the netbook, the two extremes of screen size. So hopefully I'll have some better looking pictures soon. Have a look at my flickr account for a few photos I've taken with it.

Also since Dad, my bro and I constantly fight over who's turn it is to play with the camera, I really want to get my own DSLR, hopefully I can win one.....I'm dreaming.

Cooking: Omelette

Haven't done a food post in a while and after this one it might be a while before I do another one as study is getting quite hectic at the moment.

Woke up today intending to do homework but ended up cooking an omelette for breakky instead of opting for dad's porridge.

Ingredients: An egg. Shredded ham/salami/whatever filling you would like. Grated cheese.

Method: Note: This is an asian omelette made a bit like a pancake.
Separate egg. Whist eggwhites to soft-stiff peaks(this makes the omelette fluffier). Add in egg yolk. Add in filling and cheese. Give it a quick whisk. Pour into pan as if making a pancake. Fry until golden then flip like pancake. Fry until other side is golden. Serve. I served with some mayo and a block of Laughing Cow cheese.

Made dinner on Friday but it was a bit of a disaster so I don't think I'll blog about it. Also made macarons on Saturday but that was a disaster as well. Macaron madness in our household at the moment.

I am quite excited as Dad bought a DSLR (Canon 550D)  =) Waiting for it to come now.

The Age Food Photo Comp

On Thursday I spotted this little ad box thingo in the corner of the green guide where it said photo comp for food photos!!! I was like 0.0 The Age is doing this?!!! My motivation, the $2000 worth of photography equipment, because at the moment, a 5mp point and shoot with a tiny blurry screen is quite annoying when taking lots of photos. As much as I love the manual focus on my ancient camera, the screen is so small and blurry I can't actually tell if what I'm trying to take is focused or not.

So why would I be telling people about this competition if I want to win it? (Although I know I won't but you have to have a tiny bit of hope right?) I can't enter it as I'm not 18 =( I went online to look at terms and conditions and it said must be 18 years of age. Damn, just one more month!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, so all food bloggers/photographers out there, go enter since it's free and you can have unlimited entries I believe. Entries close next Friday (23rd of July) http://www.promotions.theage.com.au/

Macaronssssssss

This morning mum decided to try and make macarons. Unfortunately I still had a bit of holiday homework to complete so I couldn't help out. By the time I had finished mum was about to pipe the shells so I helped her pipe them.

The mixture was grainy for some reason. And piping is very messy and it's tricky to keep them the same size which is important otherwise the macarons look funny when squished together.

After they came out of the oven. Looking half decent. Except didn't bake them for long enough.

Piped them with the left over durian curd from mum's birthday cake.

Chocolate macarons with durian filling.

Super super super sweet

Back to school tomorrow =(

Cooking: Tonkatsu again :)

Asked Mum what she was making for dinner and when she said 西汁猪扒 (dunno why "west" comes up as a T)(pork chops in western sauce) I asked whether I could make tonkatsu (吉列猪扒）instead. Not that there is anything wrong with Pork Chops in Western Sauce but after 15 years of it, it's good to have some variation sometimes.

A whole lot of tonkatsu. Bro managed to polish it off. Every time I make tonkatsu I have two problems, one being it gets soggy after a little while and the second is the coating doesn't stick to the pork. I think I have solved problem one by using panko breadcrumbs and doing this

After watching a few youtube vids of pro's doing it I have learnt that u have to drain them like this, not flat on its back. Even fish and chip shops do this. Used a steaming rack. Ingenious =P

Still have to work on getting the crumb to stick onto the pork. Help please?

Eating Out: Don Don 321 Swanston St

Wanted to come here since reading about how cheap and quick their food is, however every time I go to the city I can't seem to find it. Therefore I decided to google map it and it turns out that little bit is not on good maps cos it's Swanston walk? However I did find it on flickr and when I walked by today I realised why I never noticed it. It is like a black hole in the wall.

So we had about 30 mins to find some lunch before our movie started. Went there and got lunch in about 1 min? It was insane, like life was in fast forward. We decided to get takeaway as there was no way all 4 of us were going to fit inside that tiny place. So we crossed the road and sat on the lawn of the state library under the full afternoon sun. Chatting whilst eating our lunch from takeaway boxes.

Curry Chicken Don $6 or 7 

(it was so rushed I don't remember)

I know it doesn't look too flash. But trust me it tastes better than it looks. The curry sauce is sweet and mild but there is definitely curry flavour. The chicken pieces are large, boneless and tender. Brocolli was crunchy and not mushy, gotta eat your vegies. The radioactive red stuff is pickled vegetable of some sort, crunchy, sour, really good contrast to the curry. 

Friends had Sashi Don which was a let down. One friend didn't realise it involved raw fish (which she doesn't eat) and therefore I ate it for her, and boy was that weird sashimi. Looked fine but tasted like nothing. No salmon flavour whatsoever, texture was about right though. For $8.50 is seemed like a bargain but I'm not too sure. Maybe we went on a bad day. 

Another friend had the udon noodle soup. which looked pretty good. Only downside was it is quite hard to eat noodle soup from a takeaway container in your hand.

Food: 7/10 You get what you pay for.

Environment: 6/10 Extremely cramped. 

Service: 8/10 Quick and to the point. You order, collect change and your meal will already be there on the counter for you, even maccas can't beat that. 

Verdict? Sure I'd come here again, might avoid the sashi don though. Best place for REAL fast food.