The Gingerbread House Chronicle

The first time I attempted to make a gingerbread house was four years ago. I was in Tokyo and going to Le Cordon Bleu. That was also the last winter we lived in Japan. Since then, Christmas seasons had been spent moving, traveling, and being busy with teaching and churning out cake orders. This year, I made a decision to stop teaching all classes one week before Christmas and not to take any orders for Christmas and New Year. This year, Christmas was to be spent cooking for friends and family.

Ever since the success of my first gingerbread house, I’d been itching to make another one. Living in hot and humid Singapore, however, presents its challenges. With the humidity level constantly hovering around 90% , everything turns soggy so a gingerbread house will no doubt collapse within hours of being constructed when the walls absorb moisture and give in to the weight. Two years ago I made a gingerbread tree with the yummiest, most buttery recipe I’d ever tried, but making a gingerbread house with that recipe is out of the question.

After some research I found two “structural” recipes. They are supposed to be very sturdy and humidity proof. In the end I chose one that had very simple ingredients because the alternative is one that contains honey, which is bad news because the house will be an ant magnet.

Time spent searching for recipe: 2hrs

Once the recipe is chosen, the next step is to finalize the design of the house. The cottage I built in Tokyo was cute, but for my second house, I had grander plans. I wanted Victorian, with two sections, a bay window, and maybe a porch. I found a basic template on the internet but to make sure everything fit, I cut out some foam boards and fine tuned the design. The pitch of the second roof that joins the main roof proved the most troublesome. I knew I should’ve paid more attention in three-dimensional geometry, but who would’ve thought you’d need that for anything, let alone baking? After endless tweaking, the roofs finally fit together, but I made the executive decision to forgo the porch this year. After all, I need to keep something for next year, don’t I?

Time spent building and fine-tuning the foam model: 4 hrs

Just like landscaping is an integral part of building a real house, some thoughts need to be put into building a garden for the gingerbread house. A snowman is a must, of course, and since the house will sit on a big board (13”) there’s space to place a girl making a snow angel, plus Princess Libby doing a doggie angel in the snow. But why limit yourself to just outside the house? Since I had all those big windows, I made a Christmas tree for the living room too.

Time spent making fondant figurines and ice-cream cone trees: 4 hrs

At this point, I was spinning a little out of control. Never mind I had no idea just exactly how sturdy this supposedly “structural” recipe is, and whether it can really stand up to the Singapore humidity, I must have light in the house! Here is where I ran into some trouble. You see, once upon a time in high school physics, I clearly recall yours truly wiring light bulbs and building circuits, but that part of my education must’ve been permanently deleted from memory. It didn’t help that there’s no true DIY stores like Home Depot back home, so I wasn’t able to find any electrical wires even if I were capable of wiring the house. Dear hubby, whose Electrical Engineering degree from M.I.T. had been collecting dust since the day he graduated, offered this when I asked how come he could once build a robot but now can’t even wire my house: “Do I look like an electrician to you?” Plan B: I bought a mini flashlight to be stuffed inside the house through the doggie door in the back. Whatever works, right?

Time spent pondering the myriad of products on display at Home Fixe and other DIY stores: 30 minutes


Baking the cookie pieces with this recipe was so easy. Since there’s no baking soda or powder in the dough, whatever shape I cut out, baked the same exact shape after it came out of the oven. There was no need to trim after baking!

Time spent baking: 3 hrs



After baking the cookies, I let them rest overnight in a spare bedroom with a dehumidifier running before decorating them. The one lesson I learned from making my first house: it’s much easier to decorate the walls and windows BEFORE you put them up. I had a lot of fun dreaming up how the house should look. I knew I didn’t want a childish rendition, but I also didn’t want a pure brown and white house, so I went with a classic look. I knew I wanted windows this time, but didn’t want to melt candies inside the window holes (again, fear of ants), so I used gelatin sheets instead. Simple! To decorate the roof, I decided not to cover it with candies or cookies. I was afraid that the added weight would cause the walls to buckle, so instead I piped snow “garlands” and small designs inside. The inspiration was from a flickr member’s gorgeous gingerbread house designs, and it worked out well. Another decision I made was to not leave the back wall blank, because, even though nobody will look at the back, I thought the back deserves some attention too. Since I’m planning to have Santa stuck upside down in the chimney, I thought I’d pipe Santa’s sleigh and his reindeers on the back wall, to make it look like they’re waiting for him. To fill up space, I also did a Star of David, and a doggie door through which the light source is to be stuffed inside the house to light up the rooms.

After decorating the pieces, however, I was horrified to find some of the cookie pieces starting to sag. NOOOO!!! The culprit, after I calmed down to find cause, was the flooding of royal icing. The extra water used to thin out the icing was absorbed by the cookies and made them soft. Horrified that I may not have a house after all, I laid out all the pieces on cooling racks and placed them into the spare room, with not one but TWO dehumidifiers running around the clock. I went to bed with my fingers crossed, hoping the pieces would dry out the next day.

Time spent decorating cookie pieces: 7 hrs

D-Day: will the house stand up or will it collapse? Holding up the walls with royal icing was very easy, but you know sometimes you have this nagging feeling but couldn’t really put your finger on it? For days I’d been thinking the position of the doggie door was weird, but didn’t know why I thought so. Then it came the time to put up the back wall, where I painstakingly piped Santa’s sled plus reindeers, along with the beautiful Star of David that almost caused the wall to collapse, and it hit me! I had forgotten to flip the template when I cut out the back wall, so now, all the piping details are INSIDE the house! I was so sad I could’ve cried, but construction must go on. Besides this major blunder, the only other minor hiccup encountered was that after putting up a weight-bearing support wall between the two parts of the house, I realized that I needed a hole in that wall for the light to shine through, because (didn’t I say the position of the doggie door was bothering me?) the doggie door where the light was going to be pushed in was on the other side of the house! So that wall quickly came down and I managed to saw an opening in it. Boy, now was the first ray of hope that this house just might stand up after all, because that wall was so tough to cut through!

After I had gotten over the trauma of the inside-out back wall, I started to enjoy the process of putting all the pieces together. I took one last look at the Star of David that is now a wall mural for the living room, and placed the roof on. Now it’s looking like a house! Even with all the tweaking and fine tuning, the two roofs still didn’t fit exactly, but the beauty with gingerbread house is that you can fill up any holes with royal icing and call it snow! I know I did a lot of planning for this house, but this is where I improvised. I added candies to the bay window roof, made extra bushes with gummy candies, put down a Quaker oat square doormat, and placed a pretzel fence around the house. I was having so much fun it was hard to stop adding stuff to the house!

Time spent assembling the house: 2 hrs

So there you have it, the gingerbread house that cannot be eaten and has to live in the spare bedroom where the humidity level is maintained at 50% by two very hard-working dehumidifiers. It did sit in the living room front and center during my dinner parties and will go to Palate Sensations for a photo shoot. After that, it will live in the reception area of the school until the humidity gets the better of it.

Until next year!

DIY Pastry Tool

Tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts to make, be it the traditional coffee kind or my own green tea version. I also like to make a stenciled pattern on top with icing sugar, after the coco powder or green tea powder, to give it a little something extra.

In the past, I've always had to ask someone to help me with this taks, either to hold the stencil or to do the dusting. The problem with that arrangement is that most people who are not pastry chefs, or surgeons, don't have steady hands. My helper gets really nervous when I ask her to hold the stencil just above the cake, without either touching the cake or moving the stencil. Her hands end up shaking violently. But when I asked her to do the dusting while I hold the stencil, she ended up dumpling mounds of sugar in some places and skipping other areas altogether. Trying to point her to the right direction without moving the stencil was next to impossible because you essentially have to hold your breath in order not to move the stencil. The husband faired slightly better but he's not as readily available.

Months went by where I had to put up with substandard stenciled pattern. Then I remembered one of my pastry students who always commented that there should be a tool for every pastry need. I started looking around the kitchen for something that can be turned into a tool to facilitate this particular pastry task. Lo and behold, the toasting rack for the microwave oven!

I attached three binder clips to the stencil, then attached the clips to the three legs of the rack with rubberbands, adjusting the length of the bands by wrapping them around the legs so the stencil would be suspended at the right height. I then carefully slid the tiramisu under the stencil and Voila! A DIY stencil sling!



Is it too premature to apply for patent?

How to Convert Your Friends into Twilight Fans

Like I said, I’ve turned into a Twilight fan. For three weeks after I came back from New York, I lived and breathed the Twilight saga, reading the books over and over again, watching the DVD, listening to the soundtracks, and searching any Twilight related video clips on YouTube. Yeah, I know, it’s all a little bit obsessive. The worst part though, is that I don’t have many friends who’ve read Twilight, it being a teen novel and all, which made it hard to share my obsession. So, what’s a girl to do, but to try to convert all her friends into fans, just like her? And what better way to do it than to throw a Twilight-themed girls’ night complete with a screening of the movie?

Here’s what you do:

Step 1: send invitation to all your girlfriends regardless of whether they’ve read Twilight or not. After all, the goal is to have as many of your friends as possible with whom you can discuss and obsess over Twilight together, so new blood (no pun intended) is crucial.

Step 2: get your friend who owns a cooking school to send her chef to cook the “bloody” feast for you. Who can resist a gourmet meal cooked by a handsome chef? So he’s no Edward Cullen, but in real life we have to make do.

Step 3: fill your place with as much greeneries as you can so it resembles Forks, the little town the book is set in that’s perpetually green and luscious.








Step 4: conjure up the idea to make a cake that look like Edward’s meadow and reincarnate Edward and Bella in fondant, despite the fact that you’ve never made any human figurines out of fondant before and that fondant literally melts in Singapore’s heat and humidity. To quote Edward, “Mind over matters.”












Step 5: play the soundtrack and Debussy piano music to set the mood.

Step 6: details, details, details. This includes the red apple, which is on the book cover, and represent the forbidden fruit; flowers that smell good and aroma candles to simulate Bella’s floral scent; drinks that look like blood, such as sangria and watermelon juice; and last but not the least, dress up in your vampire chic best! You want to make Alice proud.












Step 7: channel Siobhan’s ability so you can will it to rain after three straight weeks of sunshine and scorching heat. It wouldn’t be Forks if it weren’t wet and gloomy!

Et Voila! You have yourself a bloody good time with friends and virtually all of them are now converts. The next time you throw a New Moon party, nobody will be going, “Aren’t vampires supposed to kill people?”

Confession of a Twilight Fan

It all started on a long-haul flight from Tokyo to New York city. I already had plenty of sleep from Singapore to Tokyo so I was wired. After watching Gran Torino and Benjamin Button, and even a stupid Jim Carrey movie called the “Yes Man.” I was left with either watching a LOT of Clint Eastwood oldies or the teen vampire flick Twilight. Don’t get me wrong, I love Clint Eastwood in his early days, before he got all wrinkly and grey, but I wasn’t in the mood for a dirty Harry marathon, so Twilight it was.

And THAT is how I became a fan.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it was that grabbed me so forcibly, despite the postage-stamp sized monitor. It was as if I could physically feel the pain and torture that Edward and Bella were going through, never mind vampires don’t exist in real world and I’d never had the slightest interest in any vampire-related subject before.

When I reached NYC, I brought up the subject with my friend C, who happened to be a Twilight fan. She said she read all four books in four days, and went back to read them again the minute she finished. My interest was piqued and I contemplated reading the books as well.

A few days later, I met up with two other friends J and M, who are familiar with Twilight (maybe familiar is to put it mildly). J was so engrossed in the books that she spent an entire weekend in Bali, at a nice resort, doing nothing but reading the books one after another, completely ignoring everything else. She even confessed to pulling into an empty parking space once she was back in Singapore, in order to finish the last book before she went home, where she couldn’t ignore her duties as a mother.

By this point I had already bought the first two books and was waiting to finish another book before embarking on this surely to be addictive and all-consuming journey. Sure enough, once I started reading I simply couldn’t stop. It wreaked havoc on my biological clock, having just gotten over the jetlag from the trip to New York, I now voluntarily turned my schedule upside down again, for Edward.

It took me longer to read the books than my friends said it would, mainly because the story line was so gripping that I found myself skipping ahead, just a few paragraphs down the page, to find out what happened, before returning to the earlier part and read through the whole thing again. So in essence, I was reading the book twice as I go along.

A week later, I emerged from the fantasy world of vampires and werewolves, but I wanted more. So I read Midnight Sun as well, on Stephenie Myere’s website. After that, I went back and read the four books again, slower this time. Then I read Midnight Sun for the second time, along with Twilight (this would be the third reading now) so I could cross reference and find out exactly what Edward and Bella were thinking at the same time.

If all of this sounds a little bit obsessed, let me come out to say that I am perhaps the person who’s astonished by this the most, because before this, I had never been a fan of anyone or anything. I don’t have a favorite actor or actress, no favorite sports team, composer, band, or even a fashion brand. I don't swoon, ever! I used to wonder if there was anything wrong with me. The funny thing is, I didn’t like Robert Pattinson as Cedric at all in Harry Potter. I thought he wasn’t handsome enough for the role. Then when twilight came out, his pictures were all over the place, on the red carpet, at awards ceremonies. I still didn’t think he was good looking at all. But when I saw him as the brooding, pale vampire, everything changed. In interviews, he’s funny and self-deprecating, which is always attractive in a guy. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also musically talented. He plays the piano and guitar beautifully, and has a really soulful singing voice. AND he wrote and sang two of the songs in the movie. Now that is HOT. I never used to understand the screaming fans or the people who wait for hours just to get a glimpse of their favorite star. Now I can sort of see it. I’m absolutely positive that I’ll still be too mortified to join the throngs of teenagers to wait for Rob Pattinson on location, but I am pretty sure I’d be tempted to enter a silent auction to win a chance to be serenaded by him on the piano. If only I could get that as a birthday present, hmmm

For the record, I am not the only mature, intelligent woman to be swoon by Edward. In fact, all my friends who are already Twilight fans are all medical professionals, almost all happily married. Of course the husbands don’t understand how we could be so wrapped up in the make-believe world of vampires and werewolves, and the books are meant for teens for crying out loud! But my friend C summed it nicely when she said that it was like crack, you just can’t help yourself. And she is exactly right.

So you think you want to be a photojournalist?

Last month while having lunch, a friend casually asked me whether I signed up for the photography workshop at the American Club. She said that it would be conducted by a famous National Geographic photographer and that it consisted of five days of photo-taking and critique sessions. Even though she couldn’t remember the name of the photographer, I knew I wanted to sign up instantly.

I have been shooting for a few years now, both as a hobby and as a free-lance food photographer, but I have never had any formal training in photography and it would be a great opportunity to have a professional critique and evaluate my photos. It would also give me some incentives to go out and shoot more. Ever since moving to Singapore, my photographic subjects had dwindled down to food and my dogs only. Don’t get me wrong, I love shooting food, and the income that comes with it, but I miss the days when I would just grab my camera and go out and shoot anything that captures my attention. I blame it on the hot and humid weather in Singapore, but I also know that’s not the only reason. In short, I needed to be inspired, and what better way than to spend five days with an award winning photographer from National Geographic?

That photographer turned out to be Michael Yamashita. He is every amateur photographer’s dream come true, for he, just like you and me, is entirely self-taught, and managed to turn his passion for photography and travel into a successful career. Singapore is actually where it all started, where he did a photo campaign for Singapore Airline in the 1970’s. That portfolio led to his first assignment with National Geographic, and the rest, like they say, is history.

Day 1
During the workshop, we were asked to choose a subject and shoot it over the course of several days, until we’re satisfied with what we have. I first chose the Botanic Garden because I know the place well and it’s easy for me to go back everyday to shoot. After one afternoon of shooting, however, I decided that the subject is too similar to what I’ve always been doing, namely, landscape and detailed shots of flowers and leaves. I wanted to take this opportunity to push myself, to do something entirely different, but the question is what?

Day 2
We met in Chinatown Complex at 7am to shoot the market scene. I tagged along Michael and got some pointers. He said in a busy market place, a corner stall is always a good place to position yourself, because it’s open on two sides, and you get a better view of what’s going on. So I chose a fish stall on a corner where the fishmonger is a friendly woman with a pleasant face. I waited, and watched her chopping up fish after fish after fish. Finally, she’s done and was ready to hand over the fish to the customer. I clicked away until I got the shot I wanted: transaction at a fish stall. This process is what Michael calls setting up a scene and waiting for the right moment to happen.

Michael says you should always place the person in his/her own environment, so it’s important here to show lots of fish in the foreground and also some background of the fish stall.

Later I also took this photo of a man showing me his live fish.


A very important lesson I learned on that day is that you need to have patience and be ready with your camera when the right “moment” occurs. People will be nervous and shy away when they see you with a big camera pointed to their face, but if you just stayed and watched, they’ll eventually get used to your presence and go back to doing their own stuff. After a while, they’ll forget that you’re even there. That’s when you can catch them at their most natural and relaxed state.

I changed my subject from the Botanic Gardens to Orchard Rd, so that I can have more opportunities to shoot people. I went to Emerald Hill off Orchard Rd in the afternoon to shoot some shop houses and caught two old men reading newspapers in front of a store and two students walking by. Nothing too spectacular, but I didn’t run away when one of the old men started eyeing me suspiciously and instead stayed and kept on clicking.













Day 3

Went to the critique session in the morning but didn’t shoot in the afternoon because I had out of town guests.

Day 4

7am We met up again on a group shoot in Little India. There was a religious ceremony taking place in the temple so everyone got down on the floor and clicked away. I was so surprised that hardly anybody paid us any attention at all and carried on with their daily routine. The day before we talked about using fill flash to bring out the details so I tried it out here. Because in food photography you never use flash, it is one of my weakest points, and I don’t even own an external strobe, both because I don’t need it and because it’s added weight, but I’m beginning to see that a little bit of flash can make a huge difference in a photo. Not only can it highlight details it can also freeze certain parts of the photo while allowing other parts to be blurry in a low light situation. I don’t have an example of this later use of strobe but another member took some excellent shots using this technique.

Here in Little India, I am again overwhelmed by how friendly people are. Most people smiled and waved at us when they saw our cameras.

Some indulged us in our request and others gave a shy smile when they realized I had stolen a shot of a private moment:

One cheeky old man tried to rip us off though when we gave him some money to take photos of his parrot:
We spent quite some time with the old man and his parrot. I first shot the man sitting with the parrot in the cage. Then when we found out the parrot is the one picking out the fortune I decided to focus on the old man’s hand and the parrot when it chooses the fortune. The two best shots are posted above. This is what Michael calls “anticipate to a point, shoot lots, and hope you get it.”

In the afternoon I went back to Orchard Rd again, in the pouring rain. When it rains there’s a lot of reflection and people running, so potentially it can be very rewarding. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t find anywhere to stand without getting wet and wasn’t very good at balancing my umbrella so I didn’t get any good shots in the rain.

When the rain stopped, I again found myself in Emerald Hill. This time, I was in the midst of the Hungry Ghost festival. In the back of a row of shop houses, people were burning paper to pay respect to the ghosts. I lurked around for more than half an hour, getting myself and my poor camera covered in soot, and finally got one good shot.

The first time I went to shoot on Orchard Rd, I wanted to get a photo of people walking in front of the Visitor’s Center but the light was too bright at that time, resulting in a huge white space behind the UOB building. I had wanted to go back again at a later time and shoot a night scene. As Michael says, when shooting night images, it’s better to have some ambient light. That way you don’t end up with a huge dead space of blackness. So today the light was right, but I still couldn’t get a satisfactory shot. I guess some photos are better in your mind’s eye.

On the way back home I passed by Louis Vuitton and visualized a shot of one or two shoppers walking in front of the window display. I wanted a clear silhouette instead of a motion blur because I thought it would go better with the clean LV graphic display. As Michael says, “ Choose the light, choose the background, and wait for the moment.” This proved to be easier said than done because on a Friday evening, there were way too many people walking past the window so it was almost impossible to isolate just two pedestrians. Also, Michael said that silhouettes should be clean, which means no missing limbs and everything had to be clearly defined. After about 15 minutes of crouching with camera held up, I decided to give myself a break and put it on a tripod. Another 20 minutes later, I gave up and made a mental note to come back another time when the foot traffic is lighter. This is another lesson I learned: it sometimes take a scouting shoot to get the photo you want. Anyway, this is the best out of the more than 30 minutes of shooting. I wanted the people to be in front of the graphic part of the space, instead of in front of the window display, but it just didn’t happen on that day.

Day 5 - Final day of the workshop.

Today we’re putting together a slide show consisting of photos we took during the five-day workshop. Despite my strong desire to sleep in, I dragged myself out of bed to go back to Orchard Rd one last time to see if I can find any good photo ops. Have you ever been to Orchard Rd at 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning? I’ve never seen the place so empty. The night before I was complaining about crowds, but now I couldn’t find a single person to shoot except for street sweepers and buses, so I settled for that and practiced panning. Here’s a bus speeding down Orchard Rd, with Ngee Ann City in the background.

After an hour of non-action, I went to have some coffee and kaya toast in Paragon and when I walked out, I noticed a lit up sign that would make a good background. So I sat myself down on a bench on the sidewalk and waited for someone to walk down the steps in front of the sign. I waited and waited and waited, but nobody walked by. I finally found hope when I saw a cleaner sweeping the steps and got my camera ready, but he kept on missing the steps in front of the sign. After what seemed like ages, he finally came into my frame and started sweeping the steps, but he was done in less than five seconds and I only got two frames. His limbs are visible but it’s hard to see what he’s doing. There will be another re-shoot at this location, I know.

By now, I was thoroughly exhausted after four days of workshop and shooting, involving getting up at 6am on three of the days and juggling out of town visitors in between. My legs are numb from crouching for so long, my feet are hurting from walking, and my fingers are starting to cramp up from holding the camera. I’m slowly starting to realize that maybe I’m not cut out to be a photojournalist. On top of that there was the issue of food. I had never eaten so much in my life! Somehow, getting up at 6am tricks my body into thinking that I need two breakfasts. So I eat one after the photo shoot and another one when we get back to the American Club. It doesn’t help that the club has been plying us with a changing menu of warm baked goods and fresh fruits everyday. In addition to the double breakfasts, I also find myself eating more snacks throughout the day: when I needed a break from the shooting, when I’m waiting for the light to change, etc. All this walking around and holding a heavy DSLR had better be burning up lots of calories or I’ll become overweight before I ever have even a glimpse of hope of becoming a photojournalist.

Despite the danger of turning into a whale with severe arthritis and sleep deprivation, I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. For almost three straight days after the workshop, I found myself looking at my surroundings and seeing potential photos everywhere. Out of all the photos I shot for the workshop, my all time favorite is one that I took on my second day of shooting. The background is something I see everyday: a colorful poster plastered all over Orchard Road to cover up unsightly construction that’s taking place. Armed with my newly heightened sense for detecting photo ops, a spark went off when I saw it again that day. I decided to take a photo of someone walking in front of the poster. Preferably that someone would be slightly out of place among the glamorous women of Amazonian proportion depicted in the poster. I was waiting for an auntie or uncle in flip flops, but got something even better:

When I saw him I knew he was my guy: a little bit clueless, in a little bit of a daze, and just a little bit out of place. The only question is, will his stride and position be lined up with the women in the poster, and they did!

So here it is: choose your background, choose your light, wait for a moment that’s special, keep on clicking, and hope you have it.

And one last thing: only check your LCD once to make sure you have the right exposure, otherwise, don’t look at the photos you’ve taken until you’re home. Because whatever you’ve taken, you already have it. While you’re checking the images that you already have, you could be missing precious images that you could be shooting. If there’s one thing I learned and will never forget in this workshop, this is it.

Inspiration's in the Air

I have been watching the Olympics and getting so darn inspired by the amazing athletes. Without a question, they are all extremely talented but what I admire most is the sheer determination and dedication they have shown. The most obvious example is Michael Phelps, who’s won every one of the eight gold medals that he set his mind on winning. But it is those athletes who were dismissed as non-competition, or were deemed past their prime that inspired me even more.

Did you watch the tennis quarterfinals match between James Blake and Roger Federer? Who would’ve thought Blake could beat the invincible Federer? Or the women’s singles match between Venus Williams (world #7) and China’s Li Na (world #42)? When the game started everyone thought it would be a quickie with Williams crushing her opponent mercilessly, but Li held on, fought back, and won! In the gymnastics stadium, China’s Yang Wei finally won the men’s all-around after missing out on gold in two previous Olympic games. The next day, USA’s Nastia Liukin beat her teammate, the favored Shawn Johnson, and took the women’s all-around gold. To watch her on the balance beam was like watching a ballerina, except her whole dace floor is a piece of wood 10cm wide and 5m long! The Singapore women’s table tennis team also made history by brining home an Olympic medal after a 40-year draught. When they played the Korean team the entire island held its collective breath through the ordeal. In the end, the youngest team member Feng Tianwei played a critical part by winning two singles matches. And let’s not forget the 41-year-old American swimmer Dara Torres who missed the gold in the 50m freestyle by just 0.01 second. She became the oldest athlete to ever win a silver medal in the Olympics swimming events and a winner in my book.

The Olympics has almost another week to go and I am sure I will find inspiration over and over again. I guess you could say I am easily inspired. Since I am the type with no self-discipline and no self-motivation, I am always in awe of people who can drive themselves beyond their capabilities, and whose sheer mental force can push them to achieve the unthinkable. When Jason finished his first marathon in just over four hours with a badly twisted ankle, I briefly contemplated running a half marathon myself, before I remembered how much I hated running. That’s how easily I am inspired by people’s athletic abilities. I have never really been the athletic type and although over the years I’ve grown to tolerate hiking if there are nice sceneries to be seen, learned how to rollerblade because it was once cool, and even picked up tennis and golf so that Jason and I can have something to do together, I was never naturally athletic. I walk my dogs everyday for more than an hour and I play tennis at the American club every week anywhere from one to four hours, and I go to the occasional body pump or pilates class when I am feeling extremely motivated, but that is the extent of my exercise routine. Oh, I also hit a few balls at the driving range before my golf lessons so I don’t suck too much. But all that is going to change now, because if those Olympics athletes can win matches when all odds are against them, surely I can win over my own inertia and laziness.

Last week, after my one and half hour tennis clinic I sprinted to a Body Balance class five minutes later, sweat still dripping down my neck from tennis. After an hour of stretching and pilate/yoga-esque movements, I felt really good. Body Balance is the perfect cool-down to tennis, isn’t it? Riding the wave of inspiration, I also signed up for an 8-week spinning program at the club. It is actually a weight-loss program but heck, everyone can stand to lose a few pounds, right? The only problem is, the program starts after the Olympic ends. Will I still be motivated by then? It remains to be seen.

Search of the Perfect Almond Croissant

I’m a breakfast person. I like long leisurely breakfasts, either at home or at a roadside café, with a good cup of cappuccino. On weekdays I eat alone, because Jason leaves work at the ungodly hour of 7:30am and no amount of love can get this sleepyhead out of bed at that hour to have breakfast with dear hubby. Plus, unlike me, Jason is NOT a breakfast person. So weekday breakfasts are simple: a bowl of cereal with fresh summer berries, or a couple of slices of toasted artisan bread generously slathered with salted butter and a good jam. I’m still working my way through the jams I bought at the markets in Provence last summer and savoring every bit of it. Although I enjoy having my simple weekday breakfasts in front of the computer, I make it a point to sit down to have at least one proper breakfast every weekend. With three dogs by my feet, hubby sitting across the table from me, I don’t know a better way to spend a Sunday morning, which brings me to, my all time favorite breakfast food: almond croissant.

I first discovered almond croissant years ago in Paris, under the Eiffel tower. As far as the ways to discover a ubiquitous Parisian pastry item, is there any better location than a neighborhood café a few blocks away from the symbol of Paris? Before my encounter with the almond croissant, a nice flaky on the outside chewy on the inside regular croissant had always been my favorite. That day, however, among all the tempting pastries lined up behind the glass counter, my eyes were drawn to an “ugly mutant” croissant. You can sort of still make out the shape of a croissant but it had a bug-like shell, and almond slices sprinkled on top. I pointed to that, stuck out my index finger and said “S'il vous plait.” Minutes later, I was biting into the most luxurious breakfast pastry you could ever dream of. Granted, it was my first trip to Paris and I hadn’t embarked on my Le Cordon Bleu journey yet so you could say I was a lot more easily impressed then, but still, I think honest good food is honest good food no matter how discerning ones’ palate is. I had an almond croissant every chance I got for the rest of our stay in Paris and loved every one of them.

Back in Tokyo, I scoured every bakery in my neighborhood and found only one place that sold an interpretation of almond croissant. It was Yoku Moku, an iconic bakery on Omotesando that is famous for their petit cigare (a rolled up crepe-like cookie) of myriad flavors. The petit cigares can be found in the basement of most major department stores but the freshly baked cakes are only available at the Yoku Moku café on Omotesando. What a lot of people didn’t know was that in the morning, they put out baskets full of freshly baked pastries and among them I found a giant glazed croissant which they named almond croissant. It was vastly different from the ones I had in Paris, a more glamorous version if you would, and it was HUGE. It took Jason and I a lot of effort to chow down just that and two cups of coffee. It was also hard to come by. Over the years I was only able to buy it twice. It was always sold out, even when you go right at store opening. I suspect on some days they don’t make them.

Flash forward a couple of years and we’ve left Tokyo, escaped the humidity and air pollution of Hong Kong and ended up in Singapore again. Singapore, being humid, presents a lot of challenges to bakeries. Crusts on bread turn soggy almost the instant they hit the shelf and it’s virtually impossible to get a decent flaky croissant unless you bake it yourself. You would think that after so many years the almond croissant is but a distant memory, but not so, because we again had some amazing ones in a Parisian bakery called Boulangerie de Papa that supposedly had the best croissants in all of Paris. My passion was re-kindled and I was again on a quest to find the best almond croissant outside of Paris. And found it I did, in the most unlikely place.

We went on a holiday to Angkor Wat early this year and stayed in Hotel de la Paix for a few nights. Despite initial reservations about the hotel’s location right in the center of Siem Reap town, it turned out to be a tranquil sanctuary with tastefully decorated rooms and friendly staff.The best surprise, however, was the almond croissants at the breakfast buffet. I had one everyday of our stay there and bought everyone they had in the bakery the day we came back to Singapore. Sadly though, the curse of the Singapore humidity lived on. The nice crispy almond slices, along with the crunchy crust of almond paste turned soft when we brought them back home. Nonetheless, I was still happy, for Cambodia is a helluva lot closer than Paris. I was already making plans to revisit Hotel de la Paix, just so I could eat their almond croissants.

Why don’t I just make them myself, you ask? Believe me you, that thought crosses my mind every time I obsess about almond croissants, and my pastry course at Le Cordon Bleu did cover it in one of the demo sessions. Problem is, even in Tokyo, the land of DIY pastry, I was unable to find almond syrup, an indispensable ingredient in making the almond croissant, and substituting it with anything else, thereby compromising the authenticity was, to me, unthinkable.
So I sustain myself on memories of almond croissants I’ve had, the most recent ones being from Bouchon in Napa Valley and Tartine from San Francisco.

Then one day, the pastry goddess smiled upon me and told me to go into Hediard, which is just down the street from where I live but is so easy to miss that I’ve only been inside a handful of times. She told me to go all the way to the narrow hallway in the back of the store and there on the shelf, I saw, a bottle of almond syrup!

Did I run home with my precious bottle of almond syrup and make almond croissants right away? Of course not! I dug out the recipe and studied it and decided that I should start with the best croissant, which in Singapore, means frozen ones from Classic Fine Foods and baked to perfection in my own kitchen right before eating. Since almond croissants are traditionally made with day-old croissants (yes, it’s actually an ingenious way to recycle leftovers), I’d bake a few extras, eat some on day 1 and make the leftovers into almond croissants on day 2. Simple, right? Not so. It was months before I could find a weekend where we’d be eating breakfast home on Saturday (freshly baked flaky croissants) and have time on Sunday to transform the leftovers into almond croissants. You see when you’ve waited for so long to do something, you just want everything to be perfect.

The day finally came last weekend. It was Singapore’s National Day on Saturday and we were watching the Olympics at home on Sunday. So we had piping hot flaky croissants on Saturday and I made my first mini batch of almond croissants on Sunday. They had a glorious crunchy crust of sweet almond cream studded with crispy almond slices. Inside the croissant is a sweet filling of the same almond cream but it’s soft, which, combined with the subtle hint of orange blossom from the almond syrup, made it taste like something entirely different. It was perfect! Ok, maybe not perfect because I think I put too much almond cream on top so the almond slices slid off when the cream melted in the oven. But the point is, they tasted exactly the way I remembered, and now I can have them whenever I want. Is this the way to end an obsession or what!


Recipe (for six):

Six day-old croissants (the best you can find)

100g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar
100g almond powder
10g flour
2 medium eggs
10g rum
almond syrup
almond slices
icing sugar

1. Sift together flour, icing sugar and almond powder
2. Whisk together butter and eggs, then whisk in flour mixture
3. Whisk in rum – this is almond cream
4. Slice croissants down in the middle without slicing through
5. Soak cut surface in almond syrup
6. Pipe some almond cream into center of croissant, close up croissant and pipe more on top
7. Sprinkle almond slices on top
8. Bake at 180C/350F for 15 minutes or until golden brown
9. Sprinkle with more icing sugar if you want.
10. Cool on rack and eat when it’s cooled but before the sugary almond crust gets soggy

Pierre Hermé in Singapore

One thing I won’t complain about living in Singapore is the size of the place. True, it is just one tiny island that you can drive from one end to the other in less than 45 minutes, but it is conveniently located for easy traveling. Most places in Asia are just a short hop away and even Europe and Australia are well within 12 hours. North and South Americas and Africa are a little far to get to, but I don’t need to go there too often, now that my parents have retired and moved to Shanghai, and how many times do you need to go on a safari, right?

Anyway, my point is, Singaporeans are a well-traveled bunch and coming from a food-loving culture, they eat where they go at the best places they can find. As a result, mention any internationally renowned chef to any globe trotting Singaporean and chances are he/she has not only heard of the chef but has also eaten at the famed establishment. It is therefore no surprise that each year at the World Gourmet Summit held in town the list of guest chef looks like the who’s who of the culinary world. I missed the one last year because I was back in the States helping my parents move, i.e. tossing out high school report cards, college notebooks and even my wedding dress from their basement.

This year, I made sure I was in town during the WGS and I am so glad I did, because Pierre Hermé, the man who single handedly changed the way desserts are made and presented was one of the guest chefs.

I have long been a fan of Mr. PH ever since my Tokyo days and have visited his store in Paris as well. He may not be my all-time favorite pastry chef ever (that honor goes to Mr. Hidemi Sugino), but his innovative flavor combinations never cease to amaze and inspire me. Naturally, when my friend called to tell me that he’s going to be serving his signature desserts at Mezza9 I wanted to make a reservation right away. I also wanted to attend his master class, however I was not as decisive in that front. So in the time it took me to come to the conclusion that yes, I really do want to watch him from the back of an auditorium that seats 200, all the tickets were sold out. At least we booked our seats at the Mezza9 early enough.

After more than a month the day finally came. The six of us agreed (or rather, the wives decided on behalf of the husbands) to order a light dinner so we could try all seven desserts on the menu. In true Singapore “kiasu” style we pre-ordered our desserts before our meals, just in case any particular item runs out. While we were deciding what main dishes to order, Mr. Pierre Hermé stepped out into the dining room and all of a sudden I could feel my heart palpitating. He came over to our table and I asked Jason to take a photo for me with the master himself, then another one with all three ladies at the table. Normally I am not the type to swoon over a movie or rock star but I found myself gushing in the presence of Mr. PH. So it was in the presence of an iconic chef that I finally got a little taste of what screaming fans must feel when they’re faced with their idol.

At the waiter’s urge we ordered some side dishes to go with the main, but the main dish portions turned out to be very generous. I had almost half a duck on my plate and in order to conserve precious stomach space I had to give most of it to Jason. When finally the dishes were cleared away we ordered a bottle of dessert wine and waited for the arrival of Mr. PH’s masterpieces.

Now, in the order of flavors going from lightest to heaviest, they are:

Dessert Ispahan – rose flavored macaron filled with rose petal cream with raspberries and lychees, served with sorbet ispahan: lychee, rose petal aromas and raspberry sorbet.

I have had both the ispahan (macaron) and the sorbet (in the form of and ice cream bar, named Miss Gla-gla), which are both excellent on their own. But I have to say that having them side by side like this, when you chase the ispahan macaron with a light, refreshing bite of the sorbet, you’ll understand why this is his best known dessert.

Emotion Satine – compote of passion fruit, seasoned orange segments, cream cheese cream, topped with shortbread cubes soaked in flavored syrup.

I have also had this while in Tokyo, when the range was first introduced. I’ve always liked the tartness of passion fruit, especially when it’s paired with something sweet and creamy. One of my favorite elements of this dessert is the shortbread on top. People are weary because they look like brown sugar cubes but of course when you pop one into your mouth you’ll immediately realize your mistake.



Revelation – puff pastry with tomato, mascarpone cream, olive oil, pieces of black olives, tomato and strawberry compote.

There is a split of opinion on this dessert, with only two guys in our group liking it. Usually I am the first to order something weird like this because I am always for trying new flavors, but even for me this is a little strange. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tomatoes in desserts, it is a fruit after all. In fact, one of my favorite tarts was a cherry tomato tart from a bakery in Tokyo. However, the revelation lacks the magic element that pulls all the components together, so the tomato tasted like salad and the olives seemed really out of place.

Tarte Mogador – shortcrust pastry filled with milk chocolate and passion fruit ganache, with a piece of flourless chocolate cake inside, topped with roasted pineapple

Here is another one I did not like. For one, the short crust pastry shell was really hard and very difficult to cut, and then there’s the problem of the pineapple. Maybe the Hyatt couldn’t get a good batch, but it was kind of tasteless. Then there’s the cacao nibs. I confess I’ve never been a fan of cacao nibs, and especially not in ganache. I am all for contrast of textures, but biting into cacao nibs in an otherwise silky and smooth ganache is like finding coffee grinds in a nice cup of latte. It’s just not my thing. Sorry, Mr. Hermé!

The next dessert has no name but only a description: variation of chestnut, passion fruit and matcha green tea.

The bottom half of the martini glass was filled with a silky custard so rich and creamy and full of egg flavors I couldn’t stop eating. Then there was a layer of sweet chestnut cream and a layer of matcha mouse. Passion fruit pulp was drizzled on top to give this sweet and rich dessert some zing. The scoop of ice cream lent a nice contrast in temperature and it was all rounded off nicely with a paper-thin tuille. This is more like the Pierre Hermé I know.

Crème brulee with foie gras, cranberries and pear compote

Ladies and gentlemen, this is by no means your regular crème brulee! Although I eat foie gras at every chance I get, I’ve never had it in a dessert and to be perfectly honest, I had my doubts: will it be too rich, will it be too weird? All my doubts were dispelled the moment I took a tentative little bite. Oh how do I describe it? You know when you eat foie gras, you like the intense rich flavor but the burst of oil in your mouth is not really pleasant? Well, somehow Mr. Hermé managed to solve that problem. You taste the intense fragrance of the foie gras without the greasiness because, me thinks, it is first neutralized by the custard cream and further played down by the refreshing combination of cranberry/pear compote and fresh pear chunks. In the words of Randy Jackson, (watch American Idol much?) “Yo, listen dude, this is molten HOT!”

And last but not the least, an assortment of macarons:

The vanilla was too sweet for my taste and the chocolate had the same problem with the tarte: cacao nibs in ganache. I didn’t try the passion fruit milk chocolate ganache macaron but I really enjoyed the rose flavored ispahan, again. My favorite, however, was the white truffle. I know it sounds so cliché, but I really did enjoy it the most. I know it’s hard to make a good truffle dessert because I’ve had some pretty bad truffle ice creams before. Nevertheless, when it’s done right, it is the most incredible experience of flavor and aroma, which PH managed to do in perfection. The fragrance of the truffle is neither too pungent nor too subtle and the flavor is neither too intrusive nor too delicate. And with that perfect macaron we finished off our wonderful dessert course.

I was feeling content and happy about the whole experience, until the next day, when I found out that there was actually another different dessert menu just next door in the Martini bar. Had I known that I would’ve convinced my dinner companions to skip dinner altogether and order that entire menu too! Oh well, there is always Paris and Tokyo. Until then, Mr. Hermé.