Weekend Snapshots

Creperie by South Kensington tube station

Manolo Blahnik's tiny flagship store on Old Church St, Chelsea

A beautiful terraced house that will require more kidneys than I can afford to give up

Last Saturday, I hitched a ride with a friend to London and spent a few quiet hours strolling the streets, food gazing, talking to strangers (the result of working from home and never having an opportunity to verbalize one's thought), reading a book at a cafe, people (and shoe) watching, admiring charming townhouses and calculating how much a kidney is worth these days. 

I pinch myself every now and then, to remind myself how lucky I am to live so close to London. Far enough to appreciate the countryside and not feel overwhelmed by the fast paced city but close enough to pop over whenever I get the urge to.

After being nearly driven mad by a child who kept haranguing me to bake the Pandan Chiffon cake, I decided to give it a go. It's a fairly common cake in Malaysia with its airy, sponge-like texture along with the aromatic pandan (screwpine leaves) and coconut flavor. My sister bought the cake tin and paste for me a few years ago and I finally got around to using them for the very first time yesterday. It's actually fairly easy to bake so if you're keen to give it a go, here's the recipe.



Well, since the oven was still pretty hot, I decided to bake a Victoria Sponge as well. We had to forego dinner after a cake gorging session. After much googling, I found out that you could make your own self raising flour by simple adding 2 teaspoons of baking powder per every 150g of plain flour. Pretty neat, huh?