Recipe: Melon Bread

Ready for the oven.

Done! Looks like I already ate one.

Crap picture quality, because I was baking them at night... but when were my pictures ever of good quality?

For those who don't know, melon bread doesn't actually have melon inside of it. It's just some bread with a cookie dough on the top with a pattern cut into it which resembles the surface of a melon. Yeah.

I had originally planned to make it earlier, a few days earlier to be exact. In fact, I made the cookie dough on that day I originally planned to do it, but after finding out the scale we had sucked, I opted to wait until I could borrow my friend's scale instead. Sure, even though the measurements for the cookie dough is also given out in grams, I just searched up how much the weight of so and so equaled in cups.

I could've done the same for the bread, yes, but since it was my first time ever baking bread, I didn't want to take any chances. I at least wanted to achieve a texture similar to Chinese bakery bread: soft and light.

None of them actually turned out as golden or as melon-bread-like as I wanted. I think the former is due to our pale North American eggs compared to the bright orange yolks of Asia. The latter is due to not enough cookie dough and thus the pattern being destroyed during the second rise. Yup, I learned a lot, at least. Some other stuff I found out along the way was:

• There is a "keep warm" setting on my oven and it's very useful for rising.
• You really need to coat your finger in bread flour to check if it has risen enough, otherwise the dough would just stick to you.
• I mess up a lot if I don't check the recipe frequently.
• If your bread dough is too sticky even after kneading forever, adding in some more butter helps wonders.

Ehh, too lazy to paraphrase the recipe, so why don't you just check out the video yourself?

Planning to make more soon while I've still got my friend's scale. Hopefully it wouldn't have that salty tinge next time.

Would you like some logos?

I think out of all the courses I'm taking so far this semester, graphics is probably my favourite. I like my prof, the concepts are easy to understand, what I learn is useful, and I like our assignments. Well, no surprise being interested in the arts, right? Good thing I decided to put it in my schedule. I wanted to give myself an easy course to ease my way into uni, you know?

Anyways, our first assignment is to make a logo for a fake company. Keyword: fake. Whereas other people were doing things such as book stores and bubble tea shops, my partner came up with a bomb shop. And that was that.

We were only supposed to have three drafts max - and for both of us - but I went out of my way to double that number.

It's supposed to be a grenade with a turtle shell pattern on it.

Originally, it was going to be a bomb with it casting a shadow of a skull on the other side. Later on, I started liking the clean lines of just a rounded shape, as opposed to adding a fuse on top so I left it as is. I thought the star would just be cool to add in.

There's a (lame) Yu Gi Oh 5Ds reference in the name.

One of my favourite designs. It'll look nice paired with the bottom one.

This could be like on a t-shirt or something.

And now playing around with something a lot more simplistic.

Which one of these speak "bomb shop" to you?


Made in openCanvas.

More creeper sketches

It kinda sucks drawing on the Skytrain because I don't take too well with motion sickness, drawing in a bumpy vehicle is difficult, and usually, there are either too many or too little people on the Skytrain to draw. Usually, I end up drawing the back of someone's head, which isn't exactly the most interesting thing to sketch. If I'm lucky, there'd be an ad with someone's face on it.

At least ads don't move.

 And now some stuff for school. Learning how to do some technical sketches. These are a lot more interesting than my assignments (practicing how to draw straight lines without a ruler, for example).

The best part is the dog.

That's the floor plan of my living room on top, and some business card concepts for another class. And a fat croc.

A poor rendition of my lovely Samsung Galaxy, and a better rendition of my hand.

Like how I'm totally not listening to my prof and instead writing this? Priorities.
(This lecture hall is really really cold. Why is that?)


Drawn with pencil in sketchbook.

Recipe: Angel Sponge Cake

Angel cake. Note: it's not the half-eaten on in the back.

No, it's not angel food cake, but this is angel cake - search it up, or, for the lazy people, click on the links. Though calling this an angel cake wouldn't be completely truthful either, because the only resemblance between the two are the colours of sponge I chose to make. I wouldn't know how angel cake would taste, either, because I've never had it. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to taste like strawberries, vanilla, and "orange".

Anyways, if you were normal, you wouldn't have a cake everyday. And I wouldn't bake a cake just for the hell of it either. Nope, it was my mom's birthday, and I remember the last time I made an awesome cake, she asked for one too. Well, that time has come, but I think I like this one better.

Why? Well, for one, I switched from genoise to actual sponge cake this time. I've been avoiding it though because I hate separating eggs. But because I did, it rose beautifully. Emphasis on the beautifully part.

Cross section

...or at least, every layer minus the bottom layer (AKA the "Fruit Loops" layer - guess what that tasted like) did. Once you break those yolks and it gets into your whites, it's all over. You're better off redoing it.

Angel Cake
Based off this recipe.

• 2 eggs, separated
• 1/3 cup cake flour, shifted
• 1/3 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of cream of tartar
• For vanilla
• 1/3 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• For Fruit Loops
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1/3 tsp orange zest
• (Yellow food colouring)
• For "strawberry"
• 1/3 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 cup strawberry puree
• 1/2 tbsp milk
• (Red food colouring)

1.  Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and line your pan(s) with parchment paper.
2. Beat the yolks until its thickened and lightened in colour. Gradually add sugar then flour. Finally, mix in any extracts, liquids, zest, or food colouring you plan to use.
3. In a separate bowl with an electric mixer, beat egg whites until white and frothy. Add the salt and cream of tartar and continue to beat on high until it starts forming stiff peaks.
4. Swiftly fold in the whites. Don't mix too much.
5. Bake for 40 minutes or until it slightly springs back up when you press the center.

I don't actually recommend trying out the strawberry flavour combo, because you can't really taste the strawberries. But apparently the texture is really good.

Notice the other cake in the background of the first picture? That was due to dad taking "no duh" - as in, "No duh, that cake is for her birthday" - for a simple "no". Figures, I shouldn't have expected so much from a parent. On the bright side though, the cake sucked, and that made my cake, in comparison, so much better. You know what this means? I just beat out a professional bakery!

Foodie post

Lasagna

Banana pudding with chocolate shavings

Pics of my dinner I made like a week ago or so because my parents were going out and I didn't feel like eating anymore take out.

Is this really worth a post? Well, I made it, so it does in my book. I'm especially proud of my lasagna because I made it from scratch with no help from a recipe (besides the baking temperature and time), and because of that I didn't see the part where you're supposed to cover it in tinfoil. Woops.
And I found out the hard way that unless you pre-boiled them, you should end in a layer of sauce instead of noodles. They came out way way way too tough, but because they were covered in cheese, I let that pass.
Still yummy, though. Made the sauce from scratch too, and filled it with lotsa meat and not that many vegetables. This is how unhealthy children make their food.

I'm still eating the leftovers. No complaints!

As for the pudding, yeah, I found a recipe. Tasted yummy, though... to me, anyways.

Drawing in moving vehicles is hard

 Not many people on the Skytrain today, or at least, many people who were sitting in front of me. The people who were had their backs to me and kept shifting, so I shifted my focus to things like the pictures on ads and even the seats.

Maybe I should bring my shades next time I'm drawing people on the Skytrain so they don't know that I'm staring at them.

I felt like drawing some more on campus because I had an hour to kill and my laptop was dying.

Drawn with pencil in sketchbook.

I am not a creeper

I just like drawing people chilling in front of me. Nothing wrong with that, right?

 It was a good thing I decided to pack my sketchbook today, because I was stuck waiting in the Skytrain station for 45 minutes so I could pick up my psychology textbook I had ordered. Not only was I not bored with the time I spent sitting there, I felt like I'm one step closer to improving (or at least, in my head).

Hell, I might as well spent my half an hour commute to school doing this. It's generally pretty empty on the Skytrain  and bus that early in the morning, which can be a good or bad thing.


Drawn with pencil in my sketchbook.

Five colour fairy

A fairy

A friend challenged me to do a speed paint only using a colour palette chosen on Kuler. I've used the site before, but only for web designing purposes. I've never used it as a colour scheme, so it should be interesting.

I picked Lemon Meringue Pie in the Sky, because I thought the teals were befitting for a fairy. Why a fairy? Because that was also suggested to me.

Since the colours were limited, I did something new and made a new layer for each colour. Then I assembled all of them on top of one another. Wished I used more of the purple though, because that's what really gave the colour scheme its pop.


Made in openCanvas.

The last drawing of the summer

Two old OCs.

School starts again tomorrow (or today, really) and like all monumental events in my life, I like to mark it off with a drawing. I thought it was also only befitting that I revisit some neglected OCs with a medium I haven't used in a while. Of course that'd I know it's not much, but it's not like I have the time to complete a full blown CG in a couple of hours. Plus, just something about the feel of a pencil that can't beat a tablet pen.

Now, if I can direct you to the time stamp, you can see how I'm currently majorly screwing myself over right now. With that, I bid thee fair well.


Made with pencil on plain ol' printer paper.