The butter/margarine debate

Working with Planta

So, normally I bake with butter because like many other people, including my chef friend who graduated from le cordon bleu and claims that she's just a cook, thinks that butter is the main make-or-break ingredient of pastry. If you have good butter, you pastry will taste delicious!

To break tradition, and my currently unfounded bias that stems from me preferring butter than margarine on my toast, I decided to work with Planta (a kind of margarine).

I decided to bake something basic- vanilla cupcakes. Recipe from BBC- http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cupcakes_93722

The very first difference was in the smell of my sugar and planta mixture. Normally i would get a rich buttery smell as I mix the sugar and butter together. My planta mixture smelt like oil- plant fats more than the buttery animal fats that I'm used to. As I swirled, a speck of it dropped out and I instinctively wiped it off the table with my finger and put the speck in my mouth. It taste like oil and sugar. Weird. Different. Healthier maybe? Since it's made if plant oil. Anyway I finished off the rest of the steps and tossed it into the oven to get the final verdict.

... and the verdict according to my brother was that it taste normal. It was only after I told him that I used Planta instead of butter that he remarked that the aftertaste was not one of buttery goodness but one that taste like Planta, and not as nice. Personally, I too felt that the cupcakes had a strong Planta taste and I would definitely prefer butter, for that rich buttery taste that makes the calories of eating the cupcake worthwhile.

In this taste test, both my brother and I are certainly biased because of our preference for butter. So in my biased opinion, butter is definitely better for pastry making as it gives the rich creamy and buttery goodness that only butter can. I guess a blind test, where I bake both kinds and ask people to tell me which they prefer, would be more fair. But I'm just baking cupcakes because I felt like eating them. So I'll spare the test. oh on a side note, I feel that using Planta did not affect the texture of my cupcakes in anyway. They came out light and fluffy.

And since I live in Singapore, my favourite brand of butter is SCS butter, although it is a little pricey and I normally use Buttercup butter (the cheapest) to make some pastries like brownies and chocolate cakes where I feel that I should save the extra money to get better quality chocolate (Hershey's chocolate), since the main make-or-break ingredient, as I call it, is chocolate. But if I'm making buttercream frosting though, quality butter is definitely a must, so I use SCS to give it a pure, creamy goodness (true to their packaging).

Anyway, since I decided to stick to using butter for pastries and I did not finish my Planta...I'll try making main dishes which require oil with it! I'm quite hopeful that it'll help to give the rich taste without the buttery effect in some recipes!  

Tu Tu Kueh (嘟嘟糕)

I was walking home past Bendemeer market sometime last week and I chanced upon a stall selling Tu Tu Kueh! I was quite excited because it's been some time since I've seen them.. they used to be more common when I was younger.. but somehow it's not as popular now..

so I decided to buy a box of 5 for SDG$2. I think it's super cheap!! Although my dad would say that it's expensive because they used to sell 5 for $1..

I choose all of them with coconut filling.. hmmm.. pop one in your mouth and you can taste an explosion of sweet coconut flavour. What's great about this coconut filling is that it's not very sweet as they did not use white sugar but Gula Melaka (Palm sugar), which adds an extra depth to this dish.


After finishing my last tu tu kueh, I decided that I'm not satisfied and went to google how to make them.. found a recipe online from http://ellenaguan.blogspot.sg/2012/06/kueh-tutu-aka.html that I'm going to try when I have time!

beauty product talk

So I've tried the remaining 2 products from Etude house- The Lip patch and Eye mask.. Overall I must say that I am quite disappointed with their products as I found that the lip patch did not have any effect on me.. The eye mask was quite pleasant-smelling and since I left it in the refrigerator before using it, the icy cold mask was really refreshing. However, a frozen slice of cucumber will provide the same effect.

While I still haven found the right mask so far... I have found my favourite BB cream.. it's Skin food's Aloe BB cream in shade 1.. yay!

So I'm going to compare Skin Food and Etude house BB creams in terms of my 3 main concerns when I buy a product

	Skin Food	Etude house
Texture	light	heavy
SPF	20 PA +	30 PA ++
Coverage	acceptable	acceptable

As you can see, Etude house provides better sun protection and that means overtime it's suppose to better prevent you from premature ageing from the harmful UV rays of the sun.

But for me, a bigger concern was the texture of the product and how it feels on my face so I'm sticking with Skin food because it feels really light and is totally wearable for the whole day! And I think 20 PA + is enough protection from the sun anyway..

 so I squeezed out a blob of cream from each product..

...and applied it on my hand like what we'll all do with testers at the shop.. my left hand is the one with the products(left most side has Etude house BB, and side closest to my right hand has Skin food BB) and right one is without. Visibly, my left hand looks much smoother. In terms of coverage, both of them provided reasonable amount of coverage.

Review: Etude House Black Head Removal Dual Sheet

I thought it was quite cool that they have a two-step procedure for removing black heads. Cosmetic shops are literally everywhere you go in Korea- I bought this inside Lotte World amusement Park.

Step 1: Apply the Black head removal sheet that contains Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs) extracted from citrus fruits, that help to peel the skin.

I left it on for 15 minutes and washed it off with water immediately after that, as products with AHAs tend to peel and exfoliate the top layer of our skin so I didn't want to leave it too long in case it peels off too much of my topmost layer of skin.

After removing the first sheet, I used a cotton bud to remove the black heads (or in my case, white heads) on my nose. About 50% of my white heads came out and surprisingly the colour that appears on my cotton bud was brownish. I'm not sure if it's skin that has been peeled off by the chemical AHA or is it Sebum from my oily skin.

(The brownish tips of the cotton bud...)

Step 2: Apply the tightening Gel Sheet to minimize pores
After 15 minutes there didn't seem to be a reduction in my pore size.

Overall: I think that if you really want to remove blackheads, visit a beautician for a more thorough job. This product, like many other home kits, is more useful to use in-between facials for a temporary reduction in blackheads. I try to visit mine once a month and as I have oily and sensitive skin, they usually squeeze the gross stuff out of my face and skip the lymphatic facial massage part. I think that facials produce the greatest visible change.

Hello everyone!

Hi! I've decided to start a blog to record some of my thoughts- so this blog may be quite randomly organised according to what I feel like saying at the moment.

I just got back from Seoul, South Korea so I'm thinking of doing some product reviews with the stash of (mostly free) products that I got from the various cosmetic shops..

Here's a pic of some cosmetic samples I got from South Korea. 

 
Some of them are totally in Korean and I have no idea what they are.. while those which had some English words, I managed to Google and find out what they were.. 

The first few products that I'm keen to try are those that I've purchased from Etude house..

Actually I'm trying out the Black head removal right now as I blog so I may blog about it very soon!

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

-This poem is to date, my top favourite love poem as it portrays love exactly as it is. It is realistic in which it says that love will make you cry but eventually when you've peeled through to the last loop of the onion, it becomes a wedding ring- symbolic of endless love. Right at the beginning it rejects the cliche of the red rose by saying "Not a red rose", because red roses are so commonly used that the choice to give one is like thoughtlessly saying "I love you".