Pho Stop

Monday, December 29, 2014

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As 2014 draws to a close, I would like to look back at the year with fondness despite everything negative that has happened, and I would like to remember the happier moments I've shared with friends and family. Thus, I shall attempt to archive some of those times here on this space before the year ends and today, I'm starting with how I spent my day a week ago with one of my closest friends, Chris. I thought it was pretty apt that the place we visited was called "Pho Stop" (like, full stop) because it's one of the final meet ups I was having with my friends before the year ends and it serves as a good conclusion so the title of this post has adopted the name of the Vietnamese eatery along Tanjong Pagar. 


Tanjong Pagar is a pretty place, with colourful shophouses lining the street and it's evident that a lot of the heritage buildings are being preserved there. The area is clustered with bridal shops and walking down the rows of shops with glass doors allows you to look in to swoon over the beautiful dresses most girls would one day dream of putting on or just being envious of cute couples about to start a new chapter of their lives together. It's incredible and it makes me happy (or possibly very upset, depending on my mood that day and my own perspective of my prospects of getting hitched in future). Chris and I were joking about how this would be the best place to bring a boyfriend to hint if he is taking too long to pop the question. 

We headed there without any eatery in mind though, and although majority of the food shops are either hipster cafés or Korean BBQ restaurants, we settled for Vietnamese cuisine at Pho Stop, which was dimly lit but gave off a very chill vibe. It wasn't crowded at all, and we got a corner at the back of the restaurant all to ourselves, which was so great, especially since it was raining outside. 


Hello Chris :-) 


And we got our warm bowls of pho which really warmed up my tummy that cold afternoon and made me incredibly happy. I can't remember what we got but it was very lovely and the spring rolls were pretty amazing too. Plus, I personally thought it was affordable, and the portion is a lot bigger than Nam Nam as well so this is a great alternative. We sat inside the restaurant for a pretty long time, not wanting to get out until the rain stopped and so we did exactly that :-) 

This was taken when I set up the camera on self-timer mode to take a picture of the both of us but somehow Chris ran over to the camera at the last minute (or rather, second) and I decided not to waste the shutter. 

:-)


And just because spontaneity is great and because I am a huge believer it makes the best decisions for people, we decided to pop by the Red Dot Design Museum. A couple of times I've actually been there, the museum was actually closed for various events or that the resident exhibitions have been replaced by other things but this time, I finally got to visit it in its original state. The entrance fee is $4 for students as it isn't a public government museum and is run independently but $4 is pretty affordable and it's actually the perfect place to spend a bit of quiet time with whoever you're with - it's insanely empty, which is a great thing for visitors but not for the operators of course. 


The museum mainly features innovation in the form of tangible products that have been made/ are in the works. A lot of these designs are either very aesthetic or "genuis" in the way they solve first world problems and it's quite nice seeing them displayed. This museum is also very interactive, in the sense few of the products are secured behind glass and you can actually take and hold the products in your own hands. In fact, security doesn't seem very tight and it seems very possible for theft to occur even. 

I personally thought it amusing that every single Apple product was featured, but I do suppose Apple really scores in terms of design - every product of theirs is sleek and pleasing to the eye, though I think the iPhone 6 is pretty disappointing in that aspect.


There aren't many things to be honest and it only spans one floor but I have no regrets visiting it because it's always nice to see other people being so creative and feeling a tad unaccomplished and bad about myself (or rather, what I meant to say is that it really inspires visitors to think out of the box, not to invent something but perhaps just in every life). It also made me appreciate all the thought that goes into everyday objects that I use often as they feature quite a few kitchen gadgets which I love. 

Chris being cultured ;-) 

Cute packaging they feature - yes they even feature cute things! 


And just because there were only three people in the museum - the other person was a Caucasian man, who looked astonishingly deep in thought all the time as he viewed the products (probably has some great, big, innovative idea brewing in his head) and didn't really mind us, the above is the resultant photographic evidence of how comfortable one could get there. We basically set a camera up on one of the shelves and even sat on the floor of the museum. It looks really naturally here but in actual fact, we must have been quite a sight. My camera's beeping sound signalling the number of seconds left before the shutter closes just rang through the entire museum's pin-drop silence and it was rather embarrassing.

But it was definitely a good day, and I'm so thankful for great and constant company like Chris :') Thank you friend, you already know how much you mean to me.


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On Leadership

Friday, December 26, 2014

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About a year ago, in December as well, I wrote a blog post about some of my thoughts on leadership and it mainly centered around how I thought our society had the misconception that a person's ability to lead well is correlated to how well one does academically and I definitely still think that holds true today. Last year though, I had a different perspective and focused more on leadership positions itself partly because my entire year was spent on things related to House Captaincy/ being a prefect and all the responsibilities that came with it and thus I was influenced by a lot of my experiences holding a position in school that gave me a platform to do things, and I personally was/ am not very strong with academics (especially at that point in time, with all my science subjects) which was really what inspired and led me to pen down what I posted ultimately.

This year, my perspective has undoubtedly shifted and I wanted to write something on the sort of leadership that exists outside of positional leadership, about the sort of leadership that I have realized might even matter more, the sort of leadership that might actually be more difficult to attain, depending on which point a person is at in his/ her life. My train of thought is in all honesty really triggered by a series of bad experiences I've had witnessing people in positions of authority not exactly displaying what I personally deem "good leadership behavior" and for me, it was disheartening to see something like that happen and I thought it wasn't very enriching for team members to constantly receive criticism that is by no means constructive and having ideas slammed down repeatedly without the least or any consideration put into them at all. 

It may be the result of high standard levels but it was incredibly discouraging and I don't think a real leader should ever leave anyone feeling bad, no matter how tight deadlines may be or how doing practical things like that could increase productivity. I didn't like it at all and it made me highly uncomfortable. I can't say that I could do things better if put in the same position and perhaps it's so much easier for me to say these things as I was just a mere observer, but I'm definitely making a mental note not to emulate such actions. 

Before entering junior college proper this year, I made the conscious decision not to get myself involved in clear leadership roles - more specifically, joining the obvious leadership board in school. Alright, I make it sound like I would have been guaranteed a spot (which is not the case at all) but I suppose I decided not to try out for it and truly, I thought that would be putting my leadership journey to an end - or at least, that I wouldn't have a platform to lead, that I wouldn't have a platform to influence or impact others. 

Through the course of 2014 though, I've come to realize that not everyone with a leadership position is a leader but someone without a leadership position can actually be a leader. I never believed that cliché statement about how "everyone can be a leader" but it's actually quite true especially at where I am right now. Somehow, I feel like I'm making more of an impact on people and leading them in terms of sharing my beliefs, in terms of sharing what I know and it's kind of strange how when I'm not focused on getting work done, I tend to influence others more, even through rather shallow means like this social media and even this blog. Not having a set platform to lead makes my audience more limited but it makes them the people who are truly interested in hearing the things I have to say, who sincerely trust me and that's so lovely. 

This year, I made the conscious effort to spread positive vibes to the people around me, caring about people more and I try to share things that mean something to me in hope that someone else can take away from it and I have been getting pretty positive feedback especially on channels such as ask.fm and I feel like my voice is a lot more valued this way. To me, it's a form of leadership in an unconventional way. It gives me a lot more freedom and I don't feel tied to my positions and I speak only when it matters to me - last year I always thought what people in my school would think about me and even centered posts I made public on various platforms around House and Waddle. I have a lot of passion for what I do, but it shouldn't consume me because my position is not all to who I am as a person. And I think people ought to realize that, especially those who are currently in positions of influence - I wish I'd known this sooner but today is not too late :-) 
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A Happy Friday

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

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Most Fridays are good, they signal the end of a trying week especially on school weeks and beckons the start of the weekend. 

Even during the school holidays, there is a significant change in atmosphere and mood of the people around me; that's always nice, and it seems like the festive period livens everything up a notch. 

Four days ago, I had an exceptionally lovely Friday. Fridays aren't bad at all, but this was really good.

 There are times where I fail to realize the amount of people who show care and concern for me, and while it can be quite shallow to come to this realization only when surrounded with friends and given tangible signs of affection, that fateful Friday was one where I was practically showered with love from some of the people who mean a lot to me, and I witnessed acts of sincerity, passion and simple love, and that very day, I was reminded of how blessed I am and have always been. 

And I would like to take you through my day, though I think this is more for my own archival purposes; /because does anyone really care when we ask one another "so how was your day?"/


My day started out with meeting Ragini for the sole purpose of eating the Tom Yum Crunch meal at KFC - well of course, apart from catching up - but yes our main activity was to eat the tom yum flavoured fried chicken. 

I've previously had a bad experience to do with trying out new flavours of KFC chicken but I love Tom Yum, so why not? It exceeded my expectations and I love how it wasn't insanely spicy, which would have overpowered everything. 


We were full, and satisfied and I was definitely inspired by Ragini's jogging adventures (of which I proceeded to work on it a couple of days after meeting her - yes I've been jogging too!) and so we decided to walk it off and headed to the rooftop garden. 

And that's when my selfie stick came in handy - the photographs turned out pretty cute and I'm glad I have them for memory's sake. 

When we felt like the chicken has been partially digested, we made our way to Starbucks to take advantage of the last day of the 12 Days of Christmas offers and we purchased the very lovely Christmas drinks I used to be obsessed with. 

I got my favourite Christmas drink ever, the Cranberry White Chocolate mocha - it's not very popular with most of my friends, for reasons I don't understand but I go crazy over the semi-tart cranberry sugar bits. Ragini got the Toffee Nut Latte, which is my least favourite Christmas drink. 

They tasted like Christmas, which I love. We bumped into Sarah and her CMPS team there too, 

We sat at Starbucks and finished our drinks before parting ways. I handed Ragini a Christmas card and I absolutely didn't expect it but she handed one to me as well, together with a wrapped present, which startled me but I appreciate the gesture so very much. 


I proceeded to find Sarah within the mall (turns out she was still sitting at Starbucks) and we walked around for a bit before heading to Tanjong Pagar. 

Oh, yes. And I met Mr Ginger then, who is very delicately hand drawn and coloured in a bright yellow and he made me feel very loved. 


Not long after, we found ourselves in a quaint little empty café and while the food was quite disappointing, the platter of fruits we got was refreshing and I really hope that the café gets back on its feet and that the owners don't make too huge a loss.  


After a while, we made our way to a museum - the one with the red walls - and they were having a night flea market event featuring artists that make their own products and it was all very exciting. 

And, we bumped into Shermaine, who just came back from Vietnam that very day but was there to check out the wonderful plethora of products on sale. 


I was drawn into a couple of colourful and adorable cards on display and the stallowner (and illustrator of all the cards) emerged from behind them, asking me if I wanted to know the backstory of any of the cards. 

I pointed to a few of them that looked interesting and he very patiently explained them to me. It was absolutely eye-opening to see how people get inspired by things and experiences around them but even more so, how bits and pieces of their lives were something I could relate to so easily. 

He was extremely friendly and when I purchased three of the cards - for $5 - he packed them into a nice brown paper bag and slipped it two stickers that said "I want you to be happy" because "your smile can change the world" - so much positivity, it's truly inspiring :-) 

I requested to take a photograph of him and his pieces, and the resulting photograph is above. 

Also, I learnt from his namecard that his name was "Iron Loi" and found him on Instagram as well. 


The passion he had for his art was overwhelming and it made me very, very happy. 

The card I'm holding on my right hand (the card on the left) is about how people tend to wear masks of happiness when they go out to conceal their true emotions and the other card is on chasing our childhood dreams and keeping to them even as we grow older. 

It's funny how I feel very strongly for the former and perhaps he does too, which is exactly why he drew the card in the first place but the thing is that despite feeling such emotions, he still portrays a very smiley version of himself to others, which in turn made me happy and that was so apt in my life because that's exactly what I do too but I realize that by exuding positivity - whether real or fake - it can actually impact someone else and that's beautiful. 

The drawings struck a chord in me and I was so glad to find out that my post on Instagram attracted a couple of my followers to check him out as well, and follow him - I honestly never thought people would be impacted by something they casually saw on their feed and it made me feel very overwhelmed at how people actually do care about the things I have to say and share with them. 


The other shop that really attracted me was one called "JUJU Kendama". Yes, it shares the same name as I do but I wasn't just drawn to it by that - believe it or not, I've always wanted a kendama to train myself and my patience and the scene is really growing in Singapore. 

I had a chat with the personable stallowner and I couldn't help but ask him, "why Juju?", afterwhich he said its actually his own nickname that his grandma gave him - I didn't reveal that I shared the same nickname as him and I regret it slightly but meeting him already brought a lot of joy to my day. 

I was so close to getting my kendama from him but it was a tad pricey so I decided to pass but I've made up my mind, that the next time I catch his pop-up store, I will. 

On the way home, my journey was filled with witnessing bite-sized pieces of love and care, starting from a young girl who gave up her seat to an elderly woman, a Caucasian man who hugged his daughters in such an endearing manner and made them so happy even though it was already very late and he was probably very tired, and the same man also blew a kiss to another baby and witnessing moments like that gave me a warm feeling in my tummy. 

My final encounter was as I was walking home - I saw a young woman carrying a baby and I said "hi" to the baby and the mum was very willing to let me interact with her child. I remember thinking to myself , "wow, children really do break down walls between strangers" - as much as I don't particularly coo over them like some do. 

And that was my Friday, it was one happy Friday filled with lovely, joyful things. 


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Yellowcard Back In Singapore

Saturday, December 13, 2014

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Two days ago (10 December 2014), Yellowcard, a pop punk band, held their second concert in Singapore at The Coliseum at Hard Rock Hotel - the first was in 2012 - and Ailica, Ben, Tiffany and myself managed to get free tickets so we decided to go, even though none of us actually know the band/ heard their songs before, apart from Ben who appeared to know all their songs. It was quite funny how the rest of us scrambled to listen to their songs before attending the concert so that we would have a more meaningful experience. I had the impression that I needed to know the songs of singers before I could have a good time at their concerts but Yellowcard proved otherwise - they managed to hype the crowd up and they played songs that while I couldn't mouth lyrics to, made me party along, albeit semi self consciously. It was a great night with company that are more likely to be studying in school or cleaning flats of elderly rather than in the middle of a mosh pit at a rock concert, which made everything really entertaining. 


The three of them were an hour late for our planned dinner and apart from Tiffany who had a legitimate reason, the other two are not forgiven (heh heh). With the spare time, I walked around Vivocity, which was very nice though and I visited Toys 'R' Us which made me immensely happy - it's so different visiting it after having worked there though - so their late arrival can be counted as a blessing in disguise. We also got Tai Parfait which is the Japanese pancake shaped like a fish, which I've been meaning to try for the longest time, so that was pleasant. 

Qt 3.14s with my fish! :-) I got the plain soft serve with caramel sauce, and my fish had matcha filling in it, which was really good - it was a lot better than I expected, although my ice cream fell from the fish's mouth - I caught it with my fingers though, and put it back on the fish, which was undoubtedly a funny sight. 

Not so qt HAHAHAHA well 


On the way to Sentosa on the Boardwalk, we approached a girl to help us take a photograph but it ended up being the most awkward situation because she couldn't really use it properly and the terrible lighting made my camera lens unable to focus on us, and thus the camera refused to take the photo no matter how long she held the shutter release button. It finally worked and the photo actually turned out quite nice but strange - it's the one directly above this paragraph - Tiff's eyes aren't open and I look super small compared to all of them which is not the case at all in real life. Thank you stranger, for trying your best though :-) 

It actually got really exciting when we were there, except that we weren't allowed to bring in a lot of things like cameras and bottled drinks and we had to rent a locker to put all our belongings in. That really freed me and I think not having to carry all my baggage really allowed me to enjoy the concert even more. I would have been too preoccupied with trying to take nice photos of them otherwise, which could ruin the entire concert experience. Now I know, and I am glad. 

We tried to get another stranger to help us take a photo, this time with more success :-) He took a couple from various angles (even squatting down!) which we really appreciated - I love people like that. 

And another! :-) 


It was really funny how before the concert even started, we were already tired and Ben kept complaining how he felt old amongst all the people there, which is really ridiculous considering we were probably one of the youngest there. The opening act featured a local band and I really enjoyed their performances and but the bass was so incredibly loud I couldn't hear anything the lead singer was saying, and thus didn't have any luck even catching the name of the band. It's a real pity though because I would love to go for their gigs if they do have other performances locally. Even Google didn't manage to help me with that, but I'm really hoping for more people to write about the Yellowcard concert and perhaps mention the name of the band that opened for them. 

Throughout the concert, I was laughing and going a little crazy because of how weird the entire situation of the four of us being in the middle of a rock concert was. Ailica asking, "Is this Yellowcard?" when the local band was on stage almost made me roll on the floor in stitches, though I may have been trampled on if I actually did. 

There was a long delay though and we could tell that the opening band was trying to stall for time, performing a lot more songs than was expected of them. Even after they've left the stage, Yellowcard didn't take the stage immediately which left a lot of the people there a little restless. When they finally came on, the energy was just infectious and the excitement from the fans caught onto us. 


This is my first real rock concert - I didn't even go for Rock Out by Raffles Rock as I was busy cycling overnight - but it was an amazing experience. While I don't have anything to compare it to, throughout the night, it was difficult not to dance and scream and sing along (I caught on to some of the repeated lyrics) despite not being a real fan and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

Being in the crowd was already tiring and I cannot imagine being the band - the amount of stamina they must have, rocking out and singing really well and having to hype up the crowd - it was insane. Plus, the amount of jet lag they must be suffering from, travelling from one country to another back to back and giving their all every single night. It was incredible, to witness the amount of sheer passion they had for their work, for their art - it transcended through their music and I'm so grateful to have felt something like that. I think the beautiful thing about lesser known bands (though Yellowcard is actually pretty famous, by the looks of it) would be that what truly keeps them going would solely be passion and wanting to share their work with others, and that's wonderful. In the (not so exact) words of Tiff, "I don't know if I'll be able to find a job in future that I enjoy doing so much". 


The crowd that night was pretty insane, with a lot of people crowdsurfing and moshing with one another, so much so that security personnel had to step in and control the situation. It seemed to me that a lot of people were drunk and I could smell alcohol everywhere. But really, the biggest concern the four of us had on our minds was whether our "hearts were going to pop out from our chest" or going deaf because the music was insane. It would be really hilarious and a tad embarrassing if fellow concert-goers overheard our conversation so it was peppered with "shh, don't say so loud" and it made me laugh a lot.  


It was a really a night I don't think I'll forget for a long while, I had the most likely yet endearing company and the band was quite spectacular and really managed to hype the crowd up extremely effectively and delivered a great show. They have won a new fan over and that's even when I don't particularly like the rock genre. Undoubtedly, all members of the band were really cute especially the lead singer Ryan Key and even if they couldn't play good music, I might have enjoyed the eye candy (heh heh). 


As they were taking a group photo with their Singapore fans, we realized that we wouldn't ever be in the photo so we turned around and took our own selfie instead :-) 

And here's us together with Tessa and Jia Qian who were at the concert as well :-) 

Also, fun fact: the entire time during the concert, I kept thinking of a cup of iced Coca-Cola and I had an image of the ice dropping into the Coke like in advertisements. But when we finally got it after the concert, it fell short of expectations and I was thoroughly disappointed. We discussed Habitat for Humanity for a while before rushing to catch the trains home. Thank you guys, thank you HFH and thank you Yellowcard! 
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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Sunday, December 7, 2014

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Hello friends :-)

It's been a really, really long time since I've posted a recipe on this space - the last one was in January! That's nearly a whole year, but it's not because I've stopped baking or anything (my Instagram speaks otherwise) but perhaps my own standards just became higher and I decided I should post a recipe only if it's something I'm truly proud of, and would love people to try. This year, I became really conscious of sharing my bakes with others because my own family continually criticizes every single thing I bake, not caring about how I felt at all. Constructive criticism is alright, but they simply tell me to "stop baking", "it's horrible" and other such things when I don't actually think it's all that bad. My confidence in baking just plummeted, which is probably exactly what they wanted because I have a feeling they said all that to make sure I wasn't going to pursue a career in baking in future. 


While it definitely did bother me and I ended up throwing a lot of my bakes away which is a typical response from an angst teenage girl, I realized it wasn't the right thing to do at all and I was being sorely immature. Why should I allow myself to be easily stopped from doing what I love? And so I continued baking, and I think their "feedback" actually made me continually strive to improve my baking, and I really wanted to prove my own family wrong. 

It was #GivingTuesday five days ago, and I wanted to do something for strangers but I was unwell and couldn't go outside. So, I baked a cake and cut slices of it to give to my neighbours and it was a lovely experience. One of them even exclaimed "oh my, it looks so professional!" which made my day, considering all the criticism I've been receiving. My parents were quite surprised I was confident enough to give the cake to others, and so they tried it and they actually liked it, not without saying I made a wrong decision to combine chocolate and peanut butter because the flavours didn't work together. Then again, chocolate and peanut butter are flavours that match perfectly, evident by the popularity of peanut butter chocolate cups - what's there not to love? They are just nitpicking in my opinion. And with that, I bring to you the recipe I adapted from Brown Eyed Baker for a: 

PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CAKE 


Ingredients (for the chocolate cake itself):
1. 200g all purpose flour
2. 130g cake flour (or you can just use all 330g all purpose) 
3. 450g granulated sugar (original recipe called for 600g but that's way too much)
4. 130g cocoa powder 
5. 1 tablespoon baking soda 
6. 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
7. 1.5 teaspoons salt 
8. 3 eggs, room temperature 
9. 355ml buttermilk, room temperature (I didn't want to get buttermilk specially so I just combined 355ml of regular milk with 1.5 tablespoons of white vinegar and let it stand for 5-10 minutes before using it, it'll create the same reaction you need with the baking soda for fluffy cake) 
10. 355ml strong black coffee, hot
11. 180ml vegetable oil 
12. 4.5 teaspoons vanilla extract 

This chocolate cake is by far the best and my favourite chocolate cake recipe - the cakes are super moist, the chocolate flavour really stands out because of the coffee added but don't worry there isn't any coffee taste at all and it's just an all around brilliant recipe. It's insanely simple as well; just wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another, combine it all together and pop it in the oven! 

1. Preheat your oven to 175 degree Celcius. 


2. Combine all your dry ingredients in one bowl (basically the first seven ingredients as listed above - flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt) 


3. In a separate bowl, mix all your wet ingredients together 


4.. That would be your next five ingredients - eggs, buttermilk, coffee, vegetable oil and vanilla extract

Whisk! 


5. Combine your dry ingredients with your wet ones 

My bowl was way too small, so I took out a gigantic pot to properly mix everything together

It would be good to use an electric mixer at this point for a really smooth batter 


6. Grease three cake tins (or if you're like me, grease one and do this two more times later on) and pour your batter (make sure it's evenly separated into three portions) and bake each cake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes - mine took 32 minutes. At the 20minute mark, rotate the tray in the oven and bake till the end. 


7. Pop them out and let them cool on a wire rack - mine turned out cracked which was strange because all my ingredients are room temperature, but that's fine because they'll be covered in frosting anyway 


Ingredients (for the peanut butter frosting):
1. 200g powdered sugar 
2. 375g peanut butter (I used chunky)
3. 7.5 tablespoons butter (I like using salted, because it balances out the sugar) 
4. 1 teaspoon milk/ vanilla extract 
5. 50ml heavy cream 


1. Whip the butter till its light and fluffy 


2. Add the peanut butter, milk, and powdered sugar and whip it more


3. Add the heavy cream and yes you guessed it, whip it but don't overbeat or it might split 

And finally, the last component of the cake before assembling the entire thing together - the chocolate ganache! 


Ingredients (for the chocolate ganache):
1. 150ml heavy cream 
2. 3 handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips - I didn't measure at all, it's not very necessary 


1. Heat up the heavy cream to a light simmer 


2. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips and let it sit for 5 minutes before stirring it 

Mmm smooth ganache

And now for the fun (or tedious, depends on the kind of person you are) part! :-) The assembling process - it's pretty self-explanatory through the photos so I won't give specific steps  

Trim off the domes 

Splotch!!!!

Spread!!! 



Pour the ganache directly over the top, or you can choose to do what I did, which was to pour it into a ziplock before snipping a small hole and dripping it carefully at the sides for a more detailed effect 

Then fill the top in!

And there you have it - a chocolate peanut butter cake with chocolate ganache over the top. I'm not a master decorator and in fact I find it very difficult to properly frost cakes - cupcakes are the easiest - so I like how the ganache covers up the uneven parts and yet makes it look quite impressive. 

Yum yum yum 

So glad my slices came out pretty cleanly, and the three layers are super evident! It made me super happy :-) 



And the slices went into boxes to distribute to neighbours! :-) 

I love how this cake isn't super sweet and the sponge itself is actually light, balanced out with the rich and creamy (and slightly salty) peanut butter frosting and super smooth chocolate ganache. This was truly something I was proud of baking and I do hope everyone tries it - it takes a bit of time and patience but the recipe is essentially still a simple one and the result is definitely worth it - level of satisfaction is really high and the cake is also photogenic. 
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