BKK BAWLING

I finished The Ink Black Heart (all 1012 pages of it) in Bangkok, and am consequently feeling more literary than I have for a long time. Which makes one thing clear: a good, long book is always an essential travel item.

But I haven’t written anything for a while, save for tedious advice on the legal problems that plague the G0v+ (what? You mean the G is plagued by legal problems?!?!), so this will be structured like one of those. If you found this readable and easy to understand, you are most welcome to go to my LinkedIn page and endorse the relevant skills I have demonstrated. 

Background

I was determined on this trip that we would do something other than take the Chao Phraya tourist ferry (one of our favourite things to do, hasn’t gotten old). Accordingly, we ended up at: (1) SEA LIFE Bangkok Ocean World (“Aquarium”) – totally unplanned – and (2) Safari World Bangkok (“Confused Zoo”) (sort of planned, but evidently we did not plan ENOUGH as you will see). 

Food and accommodation

We had enough Golden Circle points from previous holidays and staycations in Singapore to make staying at Shangri-la Bangkok (again) worthwhile. We got a suite, which had a sofa in the “living room” that converted into a bed, where we unceremoniously told Them they were to sleep. They had a blast, of course, saggy mattress and likely unwashed sofa cushions notwithstanding. 

The shops in the area mostly survived the pandemic – I went back to Serene Massage (about 5 minutes’ walk from Shangri-la) for a full body massage, foot reflexology and a pedicure; the coffeeshop across the road was still bustling, and I recognised the roasted meats uncle from when we were last there. The noodles didn’t taste as great as they did the last time, but I put that down to Their being able to squabble more loudly and coherently now. 

Sarnies Sourdough opened just down the road from Serene Massage. The food is great, and if you’re lucky like us you’ll get to see influenzas in action, posing in front of the quaint and cute storefront (I typed that with a small eye roll), and holding up plates of eggs benedict while smiling appealingly at the iPhone wielded by their long suffering insta bfs.  

Things we did

(1) Aquarium

12/10 would recommend going:

a. Nicer vibe, more thoughtful exhibits than the S.E.A. Aquarium. Jon’s thoughts on this are summed up thus. The S.E.A. Aquarium was RWS’s afterthought, built to distract from the main business of the casinos. The Aquarium felt more like it had been built for its own sake. 

b. We paid for a combo ticket that gave us free popcorn and Pepsi (Coke?) (which we didn’t redeem), and a 4D Aquaman show. Which turned out to be a highlights reel of the Aquaman movie (i.e. the worst one in the Marvel franchise, ever, or so I was told) in 4D. You decide whether you want to skip it.

c. Also included was a glass-bottomed boat ride, and entry to Madame Tussaud’s Bangkok. The former is quite short – the boat just takes you around the tank that makes up the underwater tunnel exhibit – and the guides are enthusiastic young people who speak heavily accented English that isn’t the easiest to understand, but it was cool enough and it’s always nice to see young people enthusiastic about something meaningful (in this case marine life, and its preservation and care of). We skipped the latter, because we spent a good 3h or so in the Aquarium, inclusive of said boat ride. 

d. Highlights of the Aquarium include the spotted garden eel, and manta ray feeding – look out for the other fishes fighting over the scraps the manta rays failed to grab with their flat, always smiling but are they really mouths. 

e. The Aquarium is located in Siam Paragon, which appears to have been renovated since the last time we were there pre-pandemic. The oyster omelette at the Bangkok’s “Best Of Hawker Food 2022” pop-up was better than the one we had in Chinatown (we didn’t manage to get a table at T&K this time so went to the restaurant opposite), and the “award-winning” tom yum seafood noodles were so-so. BUT there is a Smokey’s in the food court, with proper baked beans.  

(2) Confused Zoo 

Confused Zoo is divided into two parts: Safari Park and Marine Park. The latter is a bit of a misnomer, because there were more than marine animals there. 4.5/10, but maybe this was because we didn’t do enough planning? 

We naively thought it would be like the Singapore zoo (Bangkok generally gives me a Singapore-esque vibe, it’s quite efficient and clean) – buy tickets online, rock up and enter by scanning the QR code. 

This, of course, was not the case. It was an exceptionally crowded day, and we ended up queueing for close to an hour before we got to the counter to scan the QR code to get hardcopy tickets, which were the only means by which one could gain access to the Confused Zoo. 

Our Grab driver initially offered to queue for us – the queue for Thai citizens was relatively short – and we think he wanted to drive us into the safari, but because we had no clue what to except, we rejected his offer. We ended up having to queue for tickets for the bus to the safari as well. 

I’m on the fence about whether the queueing was worthwhile (hence the 0.5 deduction to 4.5/10):

a. Because of the above, we missed the not-to-be-missed orang utan, dolphin, and elephant shows. But this could have been mitigated through better planning and research? We caught the sea lion and bird shows though. Overall, Marine Park was more like a show-based theme park than a proper zoo with exhibits for learning about animals. 

b. Kids generally like seeing real giraffes, zebras, tigers etc., so that was nice for Them, because we got to see said animals in their “natural habitat” in the Safari Park (on that note I heard a HK tourist say to his companions that he asked whether he could walk through, and was told that it was a 7km journey. It would in any event have been dangerous. Best to go to the Safari Park after visting the Marine Park). 

c. The Confused Zoo is probably best suited to young adults wanting a laugh and something different from the usual Bangkok eating and staycation without parents activities (sniggers): the energy to get there, into, and back from the place; gawping at the cage-on-a-truck from which tourists can feed tigers (an additional 1200THB which we did not pay and anyway it was all booked out); signs peppering the tiger enclosure in the Safari Park entreating you not to get out of your car under any circumstances, and if your car stalled, to stay in your car and keep horning; the wild west stunt show at Marine Park that featured a lot of shooting and people falling into “wells”, and had a scene where two characters were caught in flagrante delicto (the many children in the audience notwithstanding); and the piece de resistance, the “MUST-GO” River Safari which had robotic animals, extremely politically incorrect exhibits (life-size dioramas depicting a “tribal” village, complete with dark-skinned robot natives holding spears and a captured (robot) white explorer hanging upside down above barking (robot) dogs), and a SCARY CAVE meant to depict coal mining but how do you explain the (robot) wild boar which pounced out at us?! Here's a YouTube video of the entire River Safari. A throwback to the 90s and a simpler, more uncomplicated time. 

d. You can feed giraffes at Marine Park (I TOLD you this was a misnomer), but Jon and I were too drained from queueing for tickets to engage in this activity, even for Them.

e. The Indian buffet looks marginally better than the International buffet (this place came with a “buffet lunch”) but Jon made us choose the International buffet, whereat I could only bring myself to eat Thai mango salad and slices of guava. Word to the wise: best pack your own food and bring it in surreptitiously. There was a bag check which suggested they would confiscate food not purchased there.   

f. The journey to the Confused Zoo took about 45-50mins from the hotel. Obviously we didn’t plan for how we were going to get back to the city; Grab predictably failed us and Jon ended up having to walk to the main road to get us a taxi, which only agreed to bring us to the nearest mall (it was called Fashion Island, I kid you not, and was surprisingly modern and crowded).

(3) Last full day in Bangkok

This was the day after we went to the Confused Zoo. We had breakfast at Sarnie’s Sourdough, Jon went for a run in the hotel gym while I went for foot reflexology and a pedicure while They played Woodoku on my phone. Then we all went to the swimming pool, ate hotel food poolside, then went up to the room and piled into the big bed after we all showered and watched NatGeo and ordered more hotel food. The boys declared this their favourite day of all 5 days we spent in Bangkok. 

Conclusion and next steps

I hope you enjoy your next holiday. Or, you know, you could just save the airfare and staycate again (see third activity). 

Perth/Margaret River: Running Auntie and Slacker S**t Parent Edition

In this post, I will discuss the three things we prioritised on our recent trip to Perth, as well as give you a pro auntie tip, for living your best Singapore life on holiday (why would anyone want to do THAT?), in better weather. Follow my guide, and you can too! Caveat: if you go during the December school holidays (summer in Australia), there might not be better but potentially worse weather. At least the sun sets a couple hours later and it’s cool in the morning?

I will answer the most important question first – yes, Aesop is cheaper in Perth, but not THAT much cheaper. Look up Singapore prices before you go and decide whether it’s worth the luggage space.

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Our No. 1 priority was staying near outdoor running routes.

In Perth, we stayed at Quest on South Perth Foreshore. The main pro of this property was that it was about 50m from the run/bike paths that circle the Swan River. I ran twice, the Strava maps are shown below. For exact details, you can follow me on Strava.  

Other pros:

• Connected to Mends Street Arcade, which has a Jason’s/ Cold Storage Fresh equivalent.
• Rooms come with a microwave, washing machine and dryer, basic cooking facilities, and the beds are turned daily. 
• Really good banana bread at Atomic Espresso in Mends Street Arcade.
• Two playgrounds in the vicinity. One is about 50m from the property, and the other is slightly further down, maybe about 400-500m away. 

Breakfast sandwich without barbecue sauce in the foreground, banana bread and Andy Lau in the background.

Cons:

• Nearest supermarket is a Jason’s/ Cold Storage Fresh equivalent, i.e. overpriced groceries at Singapore prices, even the fresh produce. But after travelling all that way with young children (the flight is only five-ish hours, how weak are we) you’ll willingly fork over the money for their ready to heat, surprisingly healthy meals.
• The nearest playground is a sand playground. Offspring will for sure truck sand back to the room.

At Margaret River we were originally booked to stay at Riverglen Chalets (where we stayed on our last trip), but had to give up the booking because we got COVID and had to postpone our trip. This cluster of chalets is quite near the town centre, maybe a kilometre or so, and a couple hundred metres from the entrance to Rotary Park, which is where the Margaret River parkun is held (Saturday mornings, check out the website).

We ended up staying at Chalet on Percheron (single chalet), a lovely if ulu property, essentially an Airbnb. It’s ~1.5km from the main Margaret River running/bike path, ~3.5km from the town centre, and ~3.8km from Rotary Park. But there are wild kangaroos and a huge backyard, where you will set your children free and be disappointed that they are still full of beans after running around for close to two hours.  

I did three runs when we were here, but am only showing two Strava maps because two of the runs were on the same path. Even if you don’t make it for parkrun, the route in Rotary Park is quite nice and has some trail (but nothing technical, mostly packed mud fairly free of tree roots. Why don't we have anything like that here?). The run to Prevelly is excellent, and if you don’t want to do an out and back, you can get your family to drive down to meet you (don’t worry your sweat will dry quickly and it will feel like you never ran at all) and have breakfast at The Sea Garden restaurant. The banana bread is good as well (sensing a theme here).

Admittedly there aren’t as many runners/ bikers as there are in Perth and definitely way less than on the PCNs in Singapore, so it takes some getting used to. But I daresay it’s pretty safe (nothing untoward happened to me, and I felt safe enough to not bring my phone), just go during daylight hours OR if you should be so lucky to have grandparents along, someone can watch the kids and you can go with your spouse. 

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Priority No. 2: Cooking. 

I suppose the point of being on holiday is not to have to perform such menial tasks, but I was already going to do laundry anyway, and I cannot resist the lure of fresh produce and an uncluttered kitchen. Also, there is only so much restaurant angmoh food Asians can consume.  

The no. 1 thing you should cook is steak, potatoes, and broccolini. The last time we came to Margaret River I also made cream of mushroom soup, but as Jon pointed out we prioritised regular runs this time round so there was less time and energy for cooking.  

Pro auntie tip: save the small containers of butter you will keep getting when you order banana bread (see first priority above), and which they give you on the aeroplane. You can use the butter when pan-frying the steak. It will be a bit melty, sure, but just stick it in the freezer the first chance you get.

I would also do a mashed potato, though I tried to do roast potatoes this time round. The problem is the ovens at most of the properties are a bit temperamental and don’t heat evenly so it’s not easy to get the nice golden brown one is used to with a familiar oven. 

From the Woolworth’s receipt below, you will see that I bought “chicken bulk” for $6.20. This consisted about 10 good sized drumsticks, which I roasted, took the meat off of, then boiled the bones for stock together with the chicken drippings and kale stems. 

The shredded meat was just about enough for two meals for the four of us, one of pasta and one of ramen soup (I bought a jar of miso paste and added about a tablespoon to give the soup some body). Pictures below. 

Ramen on our last night in Margaret River. Because Asian.

Tomato (cooked down), kale and chicken pasta

Steak in the background  (it was really very good), and not quite golden brown roast potatoes.

 

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Priority No. 3: Don’t bother about visiting wineries for food and wine (scandalous). 

If you can get a booking, great, but if you can’t, don’t sweat it. And if you don’t buy any wine, it just means you will have more luggage space to bring back 4L of your favourite detergent (AUD$17.80) which now costs a whopping $9.80/L at Cold Storage. 

How long will you last me? ㅠㅠ

A lot is said about how expensive eating out in Australia generally is, so here I present to you pies from: (1) Margaret River Pies; and (2) Witchy Pies (this is in Witchcliffe, which is on the way to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse). Said lighthouse was undergoing renovation when we went though, so check before you go. We went to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse instead this time round. The guided tour (by a very tall man named Paul) was good, as most guided tours in Australia usually are (it’s the angmoh accent perhaps), and I bought a book at the gift store called The Ways of the Bushwalker. 

Mexican Pie from Witchy Pies

Beef pie from Margaret River Bakery

Sausage Roll from Margaret River Bakery

Jalapeno Pie from Margaret River Bakery (similar to Mexican Pie, above)

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Picspam – what you're really here for, because it's easier to look at travel pictures, except these aren't really travel pictures, are they?

Offspring with red kangaroo at Perth Zoo. Admission is a bit pricey but well worth it. If you have to choose between the zoo and Caversham Wildlife Park, I'd choose the zoo. Unless, of course, you must join the ranks of Singaporeans who have 100001 videos of their children feeding kangaroos, and must upload a picture of your family with the wombat to social media. The #fomo is real.

I'm a sucker for all this naturally dried fruit. I'd skip the cauliflower puffs, and the avocado chips are available at Cold Storage.

The nice thing about this brand of yogurt (about the cheapest of the lot and readily available at most supermarkets) is that random jokes and facts are revealed as you eat the yogurt (the tub is clear plastic and said random jokes and facts are printed on the inside of the label). Just be prepared that your offspring will not stop with the knock-knock jokes thereafter. We had a joke-telling contest one night before bed, I think mine was by far the funniest: Knock-knock! Who's there? Ander! Ander who? No, Ander-roo! 

Fish and chips from Zamia Cafe at King's Park, Perth. I spent four hours at a playground there with the boys, because Jon had to work one morning. These fish and chips were surprisingly good.

Offspring at the playground near Zamia Cafe. The playground where these stone sculptures were located is pretty good (it kept Them occupied for 4 hours, so...). Not pictured, the awesome obstacle course. But D and his wife took their kids to the Rio Tinto Naturescape which he said has even more fun things (like a creek!), so consider this my PSA to go to the more heong King's Park playground.

View from the top of Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse (thank God for the beautiful rainbow); in front of Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse.

Other places of note:

• Underwater aquarium at Busselton - we couldn't get tickets this time, but I highly recommend it. 
• Swings & Roundabouts (restaurant, probably related to the winery) which is one of the first restaurants you will see when you drive in to Margaret River from Perth. We had some doubts but the supermarkets were closed by the time we got there on our first night, so we gave it a go. We had the inferno pizza (nduja!) and shared the duck rillette, and They shared the fish nuggets (real fish). 
• Eagle Bay Brewery. Food wasn't great and I didn't feel up to driving so Jon couldn't drink much, and who in their right mind goes to the Margaret River region to drink BEER?! But we didn't need to make a reservation (perhaps this post is really a lesson on the need to make reservations, but what kind of holiday is it if you have to make so many reservations?) and there was a large grass patch with a small hill for Them and Their ilk to roll down.
• U&I Cafe, Perth. Open 24 hours, serves pho and other Asian food. 

***

I hope you have a nice time, if you choose to go. But maybe don't tell me you're going to Perth until you're back, unless you want to bring back more laundry detergent for me. 

SUGEE CAKE

A few weeks ago, Andrew set his heart on a sugee cake for his fifth birthday cake. This was due entirely to The Marvellous Sugee Cake by Quek Hong Shin. It’s one of a set of four children’s books, the other three being The Incredible Basket, The Amazing Sarong, and The Brilliant Oil Lamp. The illustrations are gorgeous and the writing is engaging and doesn’t grate (which is more than I can say for some adult SingLit, but I digress. The Stacey museums series by Lianne Ong is pretty good too, if you’re on the lookout for local children’s books). 

I wanted to do the sugee cake justice, because when it comes to making things like these, these occasion cakes, I know you will agree there is no doing things by halves. As it is when I make something for the first time – and I generally don’t like testing recipes for sweets so I have to get it right the first time I make them, haha – I spent Too Much Time trawling the Internet for sugee cake recipes. 

There were surprisingly few websites/ videos for traditional Eurasian sugee cake recipes (compared to other types of cake). And the recipes were either vague in some parts (e.g. 90% of the ones I found) or just really bossy in tone (e.g. Kitchen Tigress. But I guess with a blog name like that, what was I expecting?). Even the video Hong Shin made with his friend Andre was a bit vague. 

Anyway, I consulted Jessica at Sunset Railway Café – she makes sugee cakes to sell every week – and in the week before Andrew’s birthday decided to go with Mrs Cecil’s Sugee Cake recipe, with tips from Kitchen Tigress’ recipe (I didn’t want to use the latter because she had you measure your egg whites and egg yolks by weight. Not a bad idea if you are really picky about this sort of thing, but come on, separating eggs is already so sian, who wants to weigh yolks and whites after that???). 

Eurasian grandmothers might be rolling in their graves at the following, but if you, like me, were looking for a sugee cake recipe and found them all frustratingly vague, this is for you. I hope it turned up when you Googled and that is why you are here.

Caveats: 

• I prefer my cake on the less moist side, so this is not super rich and is a bit crumbly – but as I said,    my mother told me it tasted like sugee cake from an old-school bakery. I’ll take that. If you want a    sugee cake that is richer and moister, you’re better off bribing a Eurasian friend for their Top Secret family recipe, handwritten in neat cursive in a tatty, held together with scotch tape notebook whose yellowing pages are stained with rempah fingerprints. A recipe where the proportion of egg yolks and butter to semolina flour/ all-purpose flour is higher than what’s stated below will result in a richer, moister cake (duh). 
• I used my stand-mixer, and both the paddle and whisk attachments. I think a hand-mixer would do the job ok (bonus if yours has a whisk attachment).
• I made 18 cupcakes and a six-inch cake with my first batch of batter (doubled), but if you clicked here from my Instagram, you will know that the six-inch cake sunk in the middle, probably because I opened the oven door one too many times to check on the cupcakes. And, I confess, also to check on the bread I was baking at the same time. Moral of the story, don’t try to bake too many things at one time when you’re trying out a recipe for the first time. I scooped out the middle and the rest of it had baked up nicely, so that was ok. 

RECIPE

Makes one 8-inch cake. I used a dark springform pan, 3 inches tall. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper, and grease the sides with a liberal amount of butter.

Baked for 1 hour or so at 160C without fan. 

p/s also my apologies, the formatting is terrible but I haven't been writing often enough to spend the time required to look up formatting on blogger, haha. 

Ingredients

About 170g semolina, err on the side of a bit more, e.g. 175-180g (original recipe called for 150g, but see step 1b)

200g butter (I used salted, because I use salted butter for all my baked goods)

1 tablespoon brandy

6 egg yolks

140g sugar (original recipe calls for 150g)

2 tablespoons vanilla

80g all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

40g whole almonds (I used skin on)

3 egg whites

Method

1.   Toast the semolina. 

• (a) Spread semolina thinly on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. 180C oven, no fan. Give it 10 minutes, take out the baking tray and give it a good stir, then stick it in for another 5 minutes.
• (b) I found that the semolina reduced in volume by about 20g after baking – so you want to start with about 170g semolina at least, to get 150g toasted semolina. 

2.    Toast the almonds.

• (a) When you take the semolina out to give it a good stir, you can stick the almonds in. No need to line the baking tray.
• (b) Remove toasted almonds and toasted semolina when the semolina is done, i.e. after the full 15  minutes of toasting the semolina.

3. Let semolina and almonds cool. The semolina should cool pretty quick as you measure the butter.

4. Cream the butter and semolina, and add the tablespoon of brandy to the mix as you are finishing up the creaming to incorporate (see 4b below). 

• (a) This is where I found most recipes too vague – “mix” the semolina and butter? “Combine” the semolina and butter? Do I melt it or what??? But thankfully Jessica was able to give me some tips. 
• (b) It’s actually like creaming butter and sugar. USE YOUR STAND-MIXER’S PADDLE ATTACHMENT. The butter should be room temperature (I admit I don’t bother with letting it come to room temperature from frozen, but you definitely should especially if you are using a hand-mixer. It doesn’t matter so much with a stand-mixer because it’s powerful enough to get the butter creamed from a frozen-ish state (but recipe bloggers are frowning, I know)). Do not cream for more than 5-8 minutes or so. Err on the side of longer if your butter is in a frozen-ish state. 
• (c) But because no mixer is made equally, I will just say – DO NOT whip the butter and semolina to death i.e. it should NOT be too fluffy and pale. If it is, this means you have overwhipped the butter and your cake might not have enough structural integrity (fancy term. Also King Arthur Flour did a write-up on over-creaming butter and sugar and why you Should Not Do So. I think similar principles apply here).

5. Let the semolina-butter-brandy sit for about an hour. I left mine out on the counter and it was fine, it didn’t melt and was still quite fluffy after an hour, but my house is generally quite cool even when it’s boiling outside. You might want to stick your bowl in the fridge.

• (a) It did cross my mind that if the point of creaming the butter and semolina is to incorporate air into the mix, wouldn’t the air escape if I let it sit for a while? But what do I know?
• (b) Jessica says an hour should be sufficient, but I know some recipes say to stick it in the fridge overnight. There’s never enough space in my fridge, so I didn’t do this. 
• (c) In Andre’s version that he made with Hong Shin, Andre soaked the semolina overnight in cream (see the YouTube video and the comments). 

6. If you’re using a stand-mixer, transfer semolina-butter-brandy to a clean bowl, if you haven’t already done so. Add egg yolks and sugar to the bowl you creamed the semolina-butter-brandy in (or if you’re using a hand-mixer, just use another bowl). WHISK the egg yolks and sugar (i.e. use the whisk attachment) until you reach the RIBBON STAGE.

• (a) This was also a step no one really bothered to explain in their recipes. Mrs Cecil’s sugee cake video tells you to beat the egg yolks and sugar until they are fluffy (or something). Which, ok, is kinda correct, but “ribbon stage” is a more commonly used term. It essentially means the stage where the egg yolk-sugar mixture is dropping off your whisk in “ribbons”, when you stop mixing. You can google videos of this.  
• (b) But note interpreting this step was pure guesswork, although to be fair the point of all these steps, after all, is to incorporate air into the batter for a cake that’s not too dense. 

7. Add vanilla extract to egg yolk-sugar mixture. Whisk to incorporate (I continued using the whisk attachment). 

• (a) Please don’t use Bake King brand imitation vanilla extract unless you really must. 

8. Add semolina butter to egg yolk-sugar-vanilla extra mixture. 

9. Sift the 80g all-purpose flour and 4 teaspoons baking powder (to avoid doubt, 80g is the unsifted weight of the flour) together. Add this to the mixture that resulted from step 8, together with a fat pinch of salt (I agared, since I used salted butter). You can continue using the whisk attachment to incorporate the flour, but since I am paranoid about you over-mixing the batter, better to just fold the flour in with a spatula. 

10. Remember the toasted almonds? Chop them in a food processor, then add to the batter. 

• (a) I went with around 25 pulses or so – you want a mix of bigger but not too big (I can also be vague) chopped pieces and finer almost almond flour like bits. You could also do this on a chopping board with a sharp knife, but I sliced into my left thumb chopping kale during Phase HA HA HA (was it only barely a month ago? What is time, in 2021?) and have been chary of chopping things ever since. Almonds have a tendency to bounce around when chopped, so definitely a no-go. 
• OR you could just buy ready chopped almonds, I won’t judge you. But then I don’t know about toasting chopped almonds (step 2), will they burn easily?

11. Whip the egg whites in a CLEAN, DRY bowl until the soft peak stage. 

• (a) I have a hand-mixer in addition to my stand-mixer, so I just used that. But if you are using your hand-mixer, please wash and dry the beaters before doing this. I’ve never tried, OBVIOUSLY, but every recipe blog I’ve ever read reminds me that my egg whites will not whip properly if my bowl and beaters are not squeaky clean. 

12. Fold the whipped egg whites into the batter. 

• (a) I did this in thirds, by hand, with a spatula. Do not use your mixer for this step. You want to be quick and thorough, and you don’t need to be TOO gentle with the egg whites. The key is to have a decisive folding motion and incorporate the egg whites into the batter quickly. 
• (b) Do not overmix – just repeat the folding motion until no streaks of egg white remain.

13. Scrape the batter into your prepared baking pan, bake cake. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR UNTIL AT LEAST 50 MINUTES HAVE PASSED. If making cupcakes, I think this amount of batter makes about 12-18 cupcakes, depending on how full you fill the tin. I filled each hole slightly more than two-thirds, and they baked up to the top. Some also spilled over, but they were still good to eat. Check for cupcake doneness around 18-20 minutes in.

Parting comments

Decorate as you wish! I didn't make royal icing because I don't like icing (or frosting) (what is cake without icing/ frosting?) but I did put blue pea flowers on top (Popo brought some from her blue pea flower plant, all that were whole, she said).

  Crumb shot, after the blue pea flowers were plucked off the top of the cake and placed in water so Daniel could show the grandparents and uncles a "blue pea flower experiment" over Zoom (now everyone knows they turn water blue. "If you use hot water, they will release the blue more quickly!" said Popo. Did you know that?). Jessica also says the tunnels (holes) are because of air bubbles/ slightly too hot oven temp (I couldn't really hear her properly through her mask and the social distance ha ha).

#wfhdiaries: Days 33-37

When you can’t get your kids out of your hair:

Courtesy of the cover of The Economist, 30 April issue (The 90% economy)

This was actually Andrew’s class’ craft, 快乐的理发师 (Happy Hairdresser!), but Daniel asked to do one too. The boys’ end products are below. No prizes for guessing who created the above.

I see someone tried to wash the glue out of your hair. My, what large teeth you have!

Daniel’s class is embarking on learning 量词. To the question 小朋友们，你们家有几辆车呢？, I heard someone say FIVE! Daniel was momentarily flummoxed – I popped out of the study to check on him when I didn’t hear him joining in the chorus of responses, and came upon him staring at the screen askance. But Mummy, I have Lightning McQueen and Jackson Storm and all these other small cars, how do I count how many cars I have at home?

Jon also had some craft work. Imagine my ire when he realised he was supposed to contribute “L” instead of “A”. Waste rough paper only.

As you know, I made Taiwanese oyster meesua last week to celebrate the super nice thing that happened to Jon at work. But in the ultimate act of spousal betrayal, I procured all the key ingredients from Qoo10 (dried cuttlefish and frozen Korean oyster meat). Would you trust a company that suggests the perfect homecation would start with me unboxing a spin mop, and thereafter smiling beatifically as my helpful, well-behaved child and I undertook to mop the floor together?

Last week was super hectic at work, though I found it quite enjoyable, like old days. Because of it, I ended up having an unexpectedly heartfelt conversation on Saturday night with W, my old roommate, after I thought to tell her that I have over the years (and that is very many years, about 7 I would say) channeled the efficiency and focus she radiated the moment she barged into our room in the morning. I hated it at the time (of course), but I will always be grateful for the sense of discipline she helped instil through her exacting demands. The satisfaction and pride that the knowledge of a job well done brings cannot come about otherwise (though I can hear D snidely remark that it’s the competitiveness talking.)

But the week also reminded me, again, that it was right to have left so soon. I was snappier than usual with Jon and the boys, the fact of the matter being that when you’re both chionging, there just isn’t much, if anything, left for the kids or the household. The slack usually picked up by mothers is just left to… slack. And no matter what a wonderful learning experience! it is to realise that you cannot have or do it all blah blah blah [insert feel-good statements here], it’s just irritating AF when the slack is left to slack, like dishes being left too long in the sink, festering dirty laundry and tons of clean unfolded clothes, the eco-guilt of getting takeaway but really you cannot face cooking again….

The emails that need to be sent have been sent; no celebratory drinks by the river in these times (not that there were for a long time pre-CB anyway). These days the reward for the pleasant exhaustion is a book and a nap, maybe an episode of World of the Married...? I hope you are having a good public holiday.