My Wedding Shoes

Was supposed to go bridesmaid shoe shopping on the weekend. Which we did do, but instead of buying shoes for the bridesmaids, I bought shoes for myself!

:) 

Those bows are the cutest things ever!

High Tea

Last weekend was not just about baking. It was all about eating as well!

Went to a delicious High Tea at the Sofitel Wentworth as a hen's celebration for my future SIL.

Here's the menu and I must say that I managed to eat nearly everything (bar the plain scone and the smoked salmon - though I ate an extra quiche to make up for it!)

Chocolate Cadeau
A rich dark chocolate mousse, filled with praline and top with macerated strawberries

Macaronades
Macaroons made of soft almond meringue, filled with fresh raspberry cream

Financier
Baked mini hazelnut cake, top with coffee butter icing

Gateau Opéra
Chocolate pastry with layers of almond biscuit, decadent chocolate ganache and coffee butter cream

Lemon Curd Tart
Lemon tart, sweet pastry filled with almond and lemon cream, topped with scorched lemon meringue

Wentworth Cheese Cake
Our original cheese cake recipe since the inceptions of Afternoon Tea at the Wentworth Hotel. A light joconde pastry, layered with cream cheese and finished with seasonal berries

Framboisier
Light genoise sponge layered with raspberry mousse, raspberry jelly and fresh raspberries

Scones Jam and cream
Traditionally baked scones, strawberry jam and fresh whipped cream

Mini Quiche Lorraine

Sandwiches
Smoked salmon, horse radish cream, tiny capers on brioche
Double Brie, quince and wild rocket on baguette
Cucumber, dill and sour cream
Chicken and mayonnaise

Savouries on the bottom rack - they should've had so much more savouries in my opinion! They were my favourite!

and the lemon curd tart

Baking Bonanza

I was browsing through my friend's fabulous food blog aficionado when I saw a recipe for Chocolate Pepper Cookies. Straight away I knew I had to try it out. I love chocolate, I love pepper. Sounds like the perfect combination to me!

First thing to do was melt chocolate. I don't have a bain-marie but googling how to melt chocolate helped me out - I used a glass bowl over a saucepan of water. The last time I tried to melt chocolate, I did it directly in the saucepan. A bit of a disaster - burnt chocolate chunks galore.

After I finished melting the chocolate, I re-read the recipe, and realised I should've only melted HALF the chocolate! oopss... not much I could do now - I'd used up my whole chocolate supply.

So I carried on with the recipe. Last thing to add in - the ground black pepper. I'd bought some black pepper corns that comes in a grinder bottle. 12g of coarsely ground black pepper corns - too easy. NOT the case. It took me forever to grind 12g of the pepper. Definitely buying the pre-ground pepper next time!



In the end, I added some choc chips, and after 12 minutes of baking they were perfect! Most people have loved the combination though there are still a few sceptics out there. You won't know how good they are until you taste them!

Now, I can't title this a baking bonanza if all I made was cookies. Behold my cupcakes!

Straight out of the oven....

And now turned into gorgeous butterflies.... yum!

Dragon Boating

In a bid to get fit and in shape for the wedding, I've been roped into dragon boating with my dear sister.

My first experience with dragon boating was around five years ago, when I decided to enter the dragon boating competition at Darling Harbour for Chinese New Year through my then work place. In preparation, there were a couple of training sessions before hand, which I happily attended. On the race day, it was pouring rain - but that didn't really matter, as dragon boating is a water sport, and you will naturally get wet anyway.

I had so much fun, I thought about seriously taking up the sport. I asked CL if she'd be interested in joining with me, but she was too busy at the time for additional activities. And me being my lazy self, my ambitions of being fit fell to the wayside.

Fast forward to 2010, and CL had joined Dragon Boating with a vengeance! She's been doing it for several months now, and is looking extremely fit and tan. She's been encouraging me to join her, and a few weeks ago, I finally decided to go for it again.

The first training session was full on! Definitely not as cruisy as it was when I did it years ago. There were drills aplenty! (though I may have selectively forgotten the toughness of the training from before) But I know it's all good for me, so I will persevere and see how fit I become!

THE dress

My Wedding Dress has arrived! :)

Finally finally finally. It hasn't actually been that long. I ordered it October last year I think, so it's taken 4-5 months. I went for a Maggie Sottero design. They are all so beautiful. Plus, the majority of her designs have a lace up closure which is so much better than a zip - gives you room for movement. Zips are so very inflexible, especially if there's any minor weight gain or loss.

I would put up a picture of the gown, but just in case future hubby decides to look at this blog, I'd better not. Need to maintain the surprise for him after all.

Decorative Ideas

There's just so much to plan and think about for a wedding. Well, maybe not so much if a person is super organised. But with less than 8 months to go, I should really start getting a move on.

Tonight I was looking at Romeo's Chair - they're the stylists providing the centrepieces and other decorative things for my wedding. They used to have a terrible website, but now that it's been upgraded, I almost drool every time I look at it! Their styling is divine - I have a feeling that we'll be spending more on additional things that aren't included with our package at the Marriott....

Totally off topic - I'm glad that this thing automatically saves drafts - browser just shut down on me, and luckily I didn't have to do any re-typing!

:-)