Beer o'clock: Chocolate Guinness Ruffle Cake with Salted Caramel Whipped Ganache Frosting

He was a wise man who invented beer ~ Plato

I'm a beer girl.

Yes yes being a little Asian girl I'm not exactly your stereotypical beer guzzler.  Not that I'm a huge drinker mind you.  Hardly.  Just like your stereotypical little Asian girl, I am a complete lightweight.  A pretty cheap date.  But give me a cool refreshing beer on a hot summers day and I'm a happy chappy.  Give me two and I'll probably be under the table.

Now, there are beers, and then there are BEERS.   Guinness, the infamous Irish dry stout, falls in the latter category.  Big, bolshy, in your face beer.  A meal in a glass.  Liquid bread.

Being such a lightweight and thus naturally preferring lighter wheat beers and largers, stout has never been my cup of...beer.    And on top of that, beer and chocolate is  not exactly a combination that screams delicious.  But when my Mum fell in love with this Chocolate Guinness Cake I knew I had to try and recreate it for her.

Homemade Oreos for Baking for Hospice

 

Procrastination is the thief of time. ~ Napoleon Hill

I'm supposed to be writing a genetics essay that's due this Friday but instead I looked up quotes on procrastination for this blog post.  Ironic.  The quotes are mostly all gloom and doom about how procrastination is bad yada yada yada but what the quotees have completely missed is this: Procrastination is fun.

I could've been looking up journal articles but instead I spent many a happy hour browsing Asos, Street Peeper, The Superficial, Tastespotting, not to mention all the food, fashion and design blogs I follow.  And now instead of essay writing, I am blogging.  Incidentally, blogging a post that I should have blogged about ages ago since the Baking for Hospice round I baked these Homemade Oreos for was waaaay back in July.

Yes, I am procrastinating by blogging about a recipe I have been procrastinating posting.  Poetic really.

Climb every mountain, make your own wedding cake

{photo by jel photography}

Climb every mountain, ford every steam, follow every rainbow, till you find your dream ~ The Sound of Music

Well, blow me down and call me Ed but I seem to have been conquering all sorts of culinary Everests recently.  Like macarons, making my own 2 tier wedding cake was for me an act of baking mountaineering.

I think this is one of my proudest baking achievements.  Really takes the cake.

What on earth possessed me to want to make my own wedding cake you ask, when a) I was living in a different city to where I was getting married, b) I've just started at Med school and c) I'd never made a tiered cake nor worked with fondant before???  Well, with professional wedding cakes costing around the NZD$1000 mark, there was definitely a huge financial incentive.  And then there was the reverse psychology incentive: the more people warned me against doing it, the more determined it made me.  You say: "Not a good idea Nessie, too stressful", I hear "Go on, I dare you".

Me, stubborn? No...

{photo by my cousin David}

Sunshine and Fush 'n' Chups at Tunnel Beach

{Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand}

What's more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I'll cook you some taters one of these days. I will; fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn't say no to that. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien (The Two Towers)

An almost wordless post today.

Am a bit of a busy bee this week, working on a monster of a post bout the wedding cake making process, it's massive, gargantuan even, a post to end all posts and also writing up articles for our med school yearbook, organising our next round for Baking for Hospice, while trying not to think about exams fast approaching...

So instead of my usual verbose offerings, here's a tranquilly almost-wordless photo spread from an oh so kiwi fish and chips (or as we apparently pronounce it "fush 'n' chups") picnic at Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Just another gloriously sunny but mind-numbingly chilly day down south.

Best Blog Award: ta muchly Bunny Eats Design!

The gorgeous Genie from Bunny Eats Design has passed on the Best Blog award to me - what a total sweetie! Thanks so much hun!!!

Ok so the rules are that I'm supposed to answer some questions about myself and award 15 other blogs the award too and let them know all bout it.  So here goes!

Hong Kong Honeymoon: Foodies Highlights Part 2

{prawn and spinach dumplings? why yes please}

Before I get into the post proper I need to vent just a little....I was an unfortunate victim of a manky computer virus that had my poor laptop down for almost a week (a week!?) and requiring a lot of TLC to cox it back to life.  People who make viruses = not cool.  Grrrrr.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest...back to the foodie posting!

Now, how could I possibly blog about the wonders of Hong Kong food without talking about yum cha?  Yes, my friends, the 4th wonder of this Hong Kong Foodie Top 10 is not a dish but a whole way of eating.  In fact, this whole part 2 post chronicles uniquely Hong Kongese styles of chowing down.

Of course, this is by no means all the wacky ways of getting your eat on in HK...this is after all a top 10 from our trip and 6 days does not a comprehensive foodie tour make.  But even in 6 days we managed to rack up an impressive repertoire of eating styles, so without further ado, let the Hong Kong foodie good times roll.

{daikon cake? don't mind if I do}