Another year flew by and so much had happened during these times… Went through months of lockdown; adapted to the new working environment; dazed through hundreds of online Team calls; forged new relationships with new people; rethought my careers path, enrolled to a new university course; felt the highs from the Tokyo Olympics and explored parts of this amazing world I have never encountered before… Going to a new year of my life, I feel like I am certainly turning over a new leaf. 🍀
There are many future plans I would like to share with you all, but I shall keep things under wrapped for the time being as the dusts settled. Meanwhile, I thought a new biscuit selfie profile pic is in order to celebrate the beginning of yet another chapter! 😉 The background is in light of my trip to Paris a few years ago – the stunningly bright Eiffel Tower under the midnight sky was a memory I would never forget!
These times in quarantine had really allowed me to sit down and reflect on a lot of things in my life. I do believe sometimes we do take things too easily for granted. I am even thankful just being able to sit on my bed now and watch TV most days. 😂 Lately, I have been in touch with my inner child self again and started picking up things I enjoyed doing when I was a kid, whether games or animations. I do miss those times back then. Sometimes, it’s just easier to be young and worry-free, don’t you think? ❤️
When I was younger, one of the things I was absolutely obsessed with was dinosaurs. 🦖🦕🦖🦕 (I am sure many of you here might feel the same as me! 😂) Literally any TV/movies/documentaries/books about dinosaurs I will be on it! (Disney’s Dinosaur back in 2000 was one of my favourite movies back then! 🎥 Don’t know how many of you remember that film? 🤔) And for any dinosaur fans out there, here is my Jurassic volcano chocolate cake surrounded with shortbread biscuit dinosaurs! 🌋🌴 Also gave me a chance to do my favourite caramel sugar work. 😉
And now I am enjoying sugar like every other child! 🤣🤣
As Peter Pan once asked, ‘Would you like an adventure now, or shall we have our tea first?’☕️ I certainly like to explore new places, but obviously with the coronavirus pandemic, things have to be put on hold. With the extension of the lockdown announced (which I very much approve of), I do wonder how long it will take for the days to go back to ‘normal’ again? As much as I want to go back outside, I do find it surprising and also upsetting that a handful of people are still ignoring the social distancing guidelines and going out regardless.😕 I appreciate that many are struggling with their mental health at the moment. For me, keeping myself busy with things I enjoy and taking time to relax is the best way to stay sane in these difficult times.
I remember, when I was a child, I used to be able to play games and reenact many ‘little adventures’ with the toys that I had – could literally do that for hours until I was all tired out! 😂 So sometimes I wonder what has changed for me as an adult? Have I become more of a realist, more materialistic, or just simply lacking in imagination? I guess it is true what people say– when you are younger, happiness was such a simple thing. I always say as a person grows, you learn. However, maybe this is something adult me can learn from my childhood self. Life can certainly be very simple but happy at the same time.❤️
Since last week, I have been taking part in the Lockdown Bake Club event on Instagram, which is overseen by Bake Off star Briony Williams. (I really encourage for you all to go and check it out there!☺️ Jt was just so much fun! And to see my painting cake unexpectedly ended up winning was a happy surprise. Not that I am showing off haha…!😂) This week’s theme was biscuit building. To be honest, anything such construction-based is really out of my comfort zone. However, feeling a bit inspired by my ‘little adventure’ thoughts, I thought I will give it a go. (I was also running kind of low on ingredients, so I decided to take a more monochromatic approach.) The biscuits I used were shortbreads and decorated with buttercream, icing and colours.
Blue shed by the golden city 🌊🌊Heading out to adventure 🐶
Given biscuit building is not my strength, I was quite pleased about how it turned out. 😂 If you are interested, go and check out #lockdownbakeclub on Instagram! There are so many beautiful bakes there that are blowing my mind! ❤️❤️
Just a very quick Happy Easter from me! This Easter Sunday may be very different from those in the years before, but I hope everyone is still enjoying a restful Sunday at home! ❤️ (I certainly have been lazing around at home watching movies after movies lol! 😂)
Thought I will use this opportunity to share the Easter egg cookies I made last year. These cookies were made with Mars Bars and seasoned with salt to give a salted caramel-like feel to them. 😋 They were then decorated with coloured icing and Smarties – a chocolate feast indeed haha! 🍫🍫🍫
Are you too enjoying many chocolates and sweets right now? 😉
Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! 🎄❄️💫❤️❤️ It’s so nice to be back home in the holiday, isn’t it? (I certainly am, since I am posting this whilst setting up a bath lol! 🛀)
Hope you all are enjoying your holiday, and I am sorry if this post dampens the festive mood for you but I have thought long and hard before writing this… My break didn’t start off well when I found out three days ago that my family home was broken into. Losing valuables was one thing but I am just glad that no-one was hurt. However, I am upset by the fact that someone feels they have the rights to violate the place that holds so much happy memories to me. Here I am, a few days later, taking a picture of this cake at the exact same spot where it was broken into… I still feel a little uneasy around the house, but hopefully over time it will heal. ❤️ Though I am not going to let this stops me celebrating Christmas with a smile on my face! 😊
So happy with how this cake turns out ‘cause I’ve never done something like this before! The cake is just a simple vanilla sponge covered with a smooth whipped cream, and topped with flakes of chocolate. However, the iced biscuits are actually shortbreads as my family and I are not particularly fond of gingerbread, so I made a break away from the tradition lol. 😛 (A tip: Make sure to always rest the shaped biscuits in the fridge or freezer before baking. This is to prevent the butter from melting too fast during baking so that the biscuits don’t lose the shapes you probably spent some time painstakingly trying to cut out! 😂)
Can’t wait to be binge-watching Christmas TV all day tomorrow! Merry Christmas and best wishes to you all! 🎅🎄❄️💫🎉🎉🎊🎊👏👏👏
A very big LATE Happy Halloween to everyone here! 👻🎃🕷😂😛😁 (I was absolutely swamped by work this past week, but you are now probably getting very sick of hearing this by now lol!) I hope that you had a chance to celebrate this fun festival. From all those scary costumes to sickly parties, there are many things I enjoy about Halloween, but one of my favourite things, of course, is doing some ‘scary’ baking for it. I didn’t manage to find time to do that this year though, but I thought I will share my Halloween bakes from last year. 😉
These Halloween 🎃👻 coconut biscuits are vegan and made using dairy-free margarine. I adapted a recipe from the allrecipes UK website for the biscuits. (This is the link👉 http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/33572/vegan-coconut-biscuits.aspx) The icing is made from icing sugar mixed with coconut milk and food colouring. It’s a very straightforward recipe that I was able to whip up before a Halloween night out, and it was fun to able to enjoy these snacks (with some booze of course haha!) before hitting the ‘haunted’ city. 🌃
Though baking wasn’t on the card this year, I still got to celebrate the festival last night attending a ‘Twisted Circus’ event in Clapham. Didn’t manage to drink much this time, as the price tags were super high! 😅 But it was still a good night out! 😉
Tango's Baking 