Koi Agar Agar

My heart just swells every time I look at these pictures. As you could have already guess, this was the special CNY dessert we did for a party last Saturday. Although our search for the ideal Koi mould was a disappointing failure, we improvised and the final product turned out pretty good indeed.

Now we did do quite a bit of research for this dessert. A search through google turned out images of koi agar agar that were rather dull in appearances, we were determined we do better. First up we needed the kois to look as life like as possible so a visit to the koi pond soon ensued. Oh ok, so that's just a phony excuse for a break but who cares, after that exhausting and, might i add, depressing koi mould scout, we needed one. So a good 15 mins was spent observing these lovely kois, the patterns of their scales, the colours and then it was back to the kitchen for us.

It was an intensive hour then as we laboriously added in the details of the individual kois. Of course there was competition. One of us even resorted to measures such as this:

" All my kois have a secret birthmark"

Her "secret birthmark" turned out to be little spots of black at the tip of her koi's tail, a move which she later discovered wasn't very secret after all. Competition or no competition, the kois turned out to be lovely and to our credit, very realistic looking. They look pretty standing alone but even more attractive arranged together. Needless to say, our dessert piece elicited a lot of "oohs" and "ahhhs", something which always makes our hearts swell. These were also some mean tasting kois. We always make sure that the coconut use for the our agar agar are the freshest in the market cause the difference in colour and taste is really quite obvious if one takes the time to notice.

Next up, we're preparing a little something for Valentine's day this Saturday: Cupcakes for our friends and family. I remember having gone cupcake crazy 2 years ago. I was quite taken by that charming little confectionery and the endless possibilities of how one can decorate it. We were whipping batches after batches of cupcakes, hoping to find a great tasting one.

But the problem with cupcakes is that seldom do you find one which taste as good as it looks. Believe me, there are bases for my assertion. Finally suspecting that perhaps its the cupcakes that we make that fails the standard, we proceed to once again do some market research. We ordered some from an online cupcake store and tasted some at a cafe known for their cupcakes. None of these impressed us much.

I still do hope to find a mean tasting one cause surely all these hype and countless websites dedicated to this pretty cake can only be proof of how delicious a cupcake can really be. So wish us luck tomorrow as we attempt to bake cupcakes again for the first time in 2 years!

-Rachel