Egg tarts Sunday

A Stephen Chow movie that i watched last night inspired me to bake these egg tarts.

It was a slapstick comdey about a cafe in Hong Kong that specialises in making egg tarts; the screen shorts of the gooey lovely egg tarts made me craved for them and i decided that i should just bake it today.

This is my first time baking these goodies and the recipe is found here
I substituted the pastry with ready made puff pastry and it still tastes good, just not too sweet.

Just make the egg filling with :

2/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups water
9 eggs, beaten
1 dash vanilla extract
1 cup canned evaporated milk

Combine the white sugar and water in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Cook until the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Strain the eggs through a sieve, and whisk into the sugar mixture. Stir in the evaporated milk and vanilla. Strain the filling through a sieve, and fill the tart shells ( which is of course already lined with cut pastry skins)
I know they don't look absolutely fantastic but they do taste wonderful, not too sweet like those in the shops.

Good for breakfast in the morning, especially for people like me who practically rush through every darn weekday morning.

Have a good week ahead & beat the monday blues..

i am learning something..

hello,

the weather here has been terrible recently with cold & hot drafts in the span of 3 days. One day i was wear a scarf to work, the next day, i was drenched with my own sweat while haggling with a car salesman. What is wrong with melbourne weather ??

Speaking of which, i am shopping around for cars recently as i finally got my parking permit.( with also means that i no longer have to move just because my darn apartment block doesnt have any parking lots for me, heheh)

I realised that hunting for a small used car is very daunting. Firstly, sellers tried ripping me off by asking for exorbitant prices for cars that are already more than 5 years old. Doesn't the value of a car deprecates by more than 30 % of the original price as soon as it gets on the road ?? Secondly, there are not many small reliable used cars circulating in the market.

Eg: A driveaway price for a brand new 3 door toyota yaris is about $17500. A private sellers' selling price for a 3 year old similar model is $15000, same for most other car dealships.

As for the toyota echo, sellers are not willing to go any lower than $10000 for their stinky 5, 6, 7, 8... years old car, considering it has tremendous amount of mileage and dirty aging interiors.

Is this an ongoing issue or is it just me ?

Or is it true that some cars do indeed hold their value despite being a few years on the road ?

I have done enough homework to realise that if i were to buy a 3 or 4 year old car, i might as well get a brand new model with no questionable stains on the driver's seat and of course, without the hassle of dealing with dodgy people..

hahahah

On a lighter note,

I have been churning out more jewelry. Delicate & dreamy pieces that reflect on the simple everyday romance.

These beauties are going to be for sale on etsy soon. Wish me luck :)

happy chinese new year

What happens when your first ever batch of pineapple tarts you bake for chinese new year taste like.. hmmm.. moth balls ?

Recently, due the increase of moths in my house, i have placed many moth balls in all my cupboards including my food pantry. Well, there was no warning notice on the package that i shouldn't placed it in my pantry, so i did. That's because the moths still seems to be manifesting the area even after countless cleaning and throwing out bags of dried goods.
The smell creeped into my flour and INFUSED it with its revolting stench. With an average whiff of the flour, there is no stench at all, but upon sinking your teeth into a ready baked tart, the mothy taste suddenly became really obvious.
i had a *munch.... munch.. hmm.. crap, it tastes like mothballs* moment

I have stopped eating it ever since and had stuffed them into the fridge with embarrassment.

But today something strange occurred. After 2 days untouched in the fridge, the mothy taste was gone. What a miracle ! I don't what happened inside there, could been caused by the temperature or something.

I made 2 different styles of pineapple tarts : heart shapes and wrap filled ones. I didn't want to buy flower shapes cookies cutters specially for this so i used the heart shape cutter which i already own.
Recipe is from here This is one of the easier recipe around. If you ever intend to bake this, you need to start making the pineapple filling 1 day in advance.

Enjoy!
Happy a wonderful new year ahead!

~I am on a roll ~

Drumroll pleasee..

3 more sparkling necklaces churned out over the weekend.

When the waves of inspirations strike you from here & there

Up & down, handmade seems to be the way to go. I love the thought of such beautiful creations are painstaking made with two nimble hands, a passionate heart & an inspired mind:)

There babies are one of its kinds; spurred by a moment of creative energy to construct something different from mass-produced retail lookalikes.

take the handmade pledge yay !