Candy Mould

Managed to squeeze in some time yesterday to drop by Phoon Huat in the evening. I though it was time to make an active effort to source for inspiration which, I must add, is a change from my usual passive "I'm thinking..I'm thinking...." (ala Night in the Museum style sourcing). Not that Phoon Huat is very inspiring since as far as I know, they don't introduce new products frequently but its so near to us and... *hangs head in shame*...I'm lazy to go far. 

 Yesterday proved to be our lucky day though, I spotted this incredibly adorable Garden theme candy mould by Wilson. Its absolute cuteness! Little red lady bugs, tulips, sunflowers, frogs and all things garden. I can already imagine how perfectly divine the red lady bug will look perched above a two tiered almond agar. Whooh! Can't wait, can't wait. I just HAVE TO try it out tonight. Bye bye procrastination! 

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I have been blog hopping recently to get some ideas for our agar agar and my head just hangs in embarrassment when I see all the great pictures posted up. Why can't I take great shots as well!?! Not that I do not have the equipment. In fact I do have a pretty decent camera sitting by my side, but the thing is there are so many mini buttons and scrolls for some many different function that an exasperated me will eventually rely on the handy hand phone cam to click away. My detractors will probably nod their sagely head and say "Not bothering to learn how to use is another instance of your pure laziness showing through" Pff, I bet they don't know how utterly incompetent you can feel when you have to resort to asking your younger brother how to educate you on the many fine knobs of the camera!

But that aside, the drool-worthy pictures featured in blogs such as happyhomebaking.blogspot.com and bakeat350.blogspot.com, are so inspiring that I being toss into a "I-Wanna-Improve-Myself" mode. Hand me the cam, show me the brother, I'm ready!

On another note, I found this picture of mini wedding cakes while surfing the web yesterday and it struck me how similar the cream colour of the cakes were to the color of almond jelly. Now, for the past weeks I've only been experimenting on our layer colour agar agar and have completely neglected the almond jelly. There's just so much to rave about it! And I'm not blowing my own horn. They really are great!

Our almond jelly recipe belongs to my darling Grandmother. Like all our agar agar, its very crunchy and brings back waves of nostalgia just sinking your teeth into it. I know what you're thinking! There's nothing really special about almond jelly, you say, we can find it throughout the island! Served at the end of wedding dinners, it is the dish that most guest will probably ignore in a bid to leave early to avoid the human traffic (very inconsiderate, might I add). But the problem with these ubiquitous almond jelly is that they're usually prepared with an instant jelly mix. The difference can be discern immediately. The finished jelly has a powdered consistency and a really strong dose of almond essence. Granny knowing that her grandchildren were adverse to the overwhelming taste of almond, made sure that the almond taste of her jelly hit the right notes; subtle but not verging on blandness.

Almond jelly just brings backs so many fond memories. I remember, for instance, when we were really little, my siblings and I were always ransacking through Grandma's fridge whenever we were at her home. We called it the "Barney Fridge". You know like the Barney bag? *cue song* When you look into the Barney back, what will you find today...lalala. The fridge was a treasure trove of goodies; bars of chocolates and Yakult and cakes stacked into all corners of the fridge, some hidden deep inside beyond the reach of our little hands On our lucky days, a bowl of almond jelly ready to be tuck into would be hiding in the fridge, waiting to be found. Ah, the good old days.

I can't wait to get started on reinventing the almond jelly. We will be true to the taste of course, but I'm thinking of making them into the shape of those mini wedding cakes in the picture, it'll be perfect for a wedding we'll be catering for in September! Must get to work immediately!

-Rachel-

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We delivered our new and improve Doll Agar Agar to birthday girl Sue yesterday. Well yeah, the improvement is not that obvious, in fact it takes careful scrutiny to realize that we have only just replaced the detested orange layer at the bottom to a sweet pinkish/purplish colour. Now half-Barbie is ready to paint the town red!

Whatever the folks might say, be it "Huh? Got change meh?"or "Where? Where? Change where?" and then "Chey!" when they find out its just the change of a single layer ( talk about positive encouragement),  I think its makes a whole lot of difference. The pink at the bottom just ties together the pretty shade of her top. But then again, I'm bias since I was the one who decided on the changes. Yay me!

With this successful delivery behind us, its time to come up with new ideas and that's exactly what I love so much about Agar Agar. Its versatility! It can assume almost any form, kinda like that shape-shifter dude from Supernatural (ok, bad example). We're coming up with a little something for Halloween this year. I know, its pretty early to plan but I just love Halloween so very much. Not because I get candy from Trick-or-Treating, hell no! Last year's experience had put Trick-or-Treating on my Top 10 "You've aged so get over it!" list. I simply can not bare the evil eye of old women when I reach my hands into their candy pot or sarcastic little boys when I attempted to stuff another Mars Bar into my pocket; "Haven't you already taken your candy?"he said. Did I mention they were LITTLE BOYS? Share, my friends, learn to share. 

So no indeed, I do not love Halloween for its Trick-or treating, I love it for the Supermarkets. Yes, the supermarkets and its shelves of chocolates wrapped in pretty orange, purple and black foil. The plastic Jack-O-Lanterns stacked beside the sweets. The monster sweets! The entire atmosphere! Its gets us here at CWl so excited that we're going to create a special Agar Agar piece for Halloween this very  year. We've already got ideas but of course, we're not going to share cause we all love surprises don't we? So watch this space for more updates :)  

-Rachel-

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