Put bag down. Remove groceries from shopping bags and place onto appropriate shelves of pantry. Open fridge. Arrange selected ingredients into a neat row on island top. Recipe. This wasn’t in the least robotic movement but rather quick chop-chop actions executed with precision — a race against time!

After some weekend shopping in town and an iced tea with a book whilst waiting for Mum’s Japanese lesson to end, I was all geared up for some intensive kitchen affair. Let’s just say I devoted about 5 hours in the kitchen today to prepare pudding and the best Sunday roast I could ever offer all in the spirit of the blessed Sunday. To add to that, I’m officially off my office attachment and this breath of fresh air (not that I didn’t enjoy the overall experience in the office and meeting my fellow colleagues) has suddenly infused my muscles with more energy and I don’t feel the least tired after dishing up, cleaning up, washing up. Pimm’s and iced lemon tea was a fantastic idea as well — bet that really gave me quite the energy boost for the afternoon. Roast dinner was pretty good. I think I might’ve outdone myself, this time round cooking the carrots under the chicken to cook in the chicken’s onion, garlic, lemon and rosemary-infused juices. The cajun-spiced roast potatoes were just beautiful, considering I used U.S Russet potatoes and the roast vegetables were all nicely golden-brown and sweet from the over-onion-age. The gravy was made from all the leftover scrapings off the roasting tray, white wine, Worcestershire sauce, freshly ground black pepper and some cornflour.

Well, what comes next you would know is something green. I think right about now, someone would be just bouncing off the walls wanting to tell me to stop this matcha obsession. Gee. You’re totally right. I mean like how much of my life can this humble green powder actually take up? Plenty; and only a wally brain would want to forsake this lovely ingredient.

It seems that matcha is no longer the rave. To me, (since green tea has always been around in this country and Japanese influence since before independence - hey, we were under the Japanese Occupation) it’s less a rave now but more evidently a part of our lives and culture. You see O-cha shops everywhere offering green tea lattes, matcha ice cream and beautifully presented sweets and puds (this I can’t resist). Ceremony-grade matcha and tea ceremony equipment seem to be readily available. Everyone on the street talks about it — sometimes in one of those wide-eyed, amazed fashion and sometimes in that motherly you-should-eat-your-greens,-it’s-good-for-your-health way.

I’m still on the lookout for a near-authentic Japanese teahouse so I can pick up some tips and proper skills (not to forget I need to return to a Chinese teahouse to brush up on my amateur tea-making skills — gosh am I so lacking). While that has yet to happen, I spend my time basking in the fact that I can enjoy matcha and green tea and all my other favourite teas to maximum satisfaction. Ever since there was that Daring Bakers’ Opera Cake event, I was so tempted to try my hand at it. Of course, I didn’t have much time to spare for an opera cake — what with the joconde, buttercream, ganache, sponge and glaze layers. It is a lovely French sweet I’d love to stuff my face with; a solitary affair, preferably in the dark and soundproof room but when it comes to making it, I would really give a word of warning that my lazy ass will never agree to such culinary commitment.

On that note, my white chocolate ganache failed as well. Let’s just say I’d blasted the radio and got a little carried away with my whisk and singing as I rocked my lungs out to the sounds of 3 Doors Down to the point where my heavy cream started to split and curdle like there was no tomorrow. God, it was beautiful. The ganache was such a mess I had no choice but to title it ‘White Chocolate Cream’ or would ‘White Chocolate Melty Mush’ be more apt?

Because I was a little strapped for time and I knew I wouldn’t have the patience to stand about all day in the kitchen taking care of cake layers and cream layers, etc. I decided to stick to a sponge layer and “ganache” (lol, I giggle) and a simple plum wine glaze. That chopped things up easy peasy for me and didn’t require much brainwork. In fact, if you’ve stuck with my blog long enough, you realize when it comes to cooking, strangely I hate to think much. It’s awful how lazy I get when it comes to cooking and blimey, I call myself a food-lover and ultimate baking fan. The horror, the horror (of my true personality, that is).

This recipe is quite a mess as I’ve taken bits from Kevin’s Green Tea and White Chocolate Opera Cake recipe. I drooled over this quite a bit and really fancied having a slice of it myself. I’m afraid I haven’t really done this recipe justice but the results weren’t too bad. All the flavours were great. The sponge cake could definitely have been a little less rubbery and fluffier but heck, pudding definitely wasn’t the star of the show tonight. The plum wine glaze was good. Sexy. You couldn’t really taste much of it since I only used 2 tablespoons of it (didn’t want to mislead people into thinking I drink in the day — although I did) but the smell of it as you stirred the warm cream was nose-orgasmic, would that be the word? Anyway, there was always Mum’s frozen Daifukus after the cake to sweep up whatever bits were found wanting and sweeten up the tastebuds the right way up. No biggie.

Matcha Layer Cake
Ingredients

3 large egg whites (room temperature)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 cup almonds (ground)
1 cup icing sugar (sifted)
1 tablespoon matcha
3 large eggs
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
green tea sprinkles, for garnishing

(directions are taken from Kevin’s Closet Cooking blog)
Line a 12 1/2 inch by 15 1/2 inch jelly roll pan with parchment and grease it with butter.
Beat the egg whites in a bowl until they form soft peaks.
Add the sugar and beat until the peaks are stiff and glossy.
Beat the almonds, icing sugar, matcha and eggs in another bowl until light and voluminous.
Add the flour and beat until the flour is just combined.
Fold the meringue into the almond mixture.
Fold in the butter.
Pour the batter into the pan.
Bake in a preheated 425F oven until lightly browned and just springy to the touch, about 5-9 minutes.
Run a knife along the edges to loosen the cake form the pan.
Cover the cake with parchment paper, flip and unmold the cake.
Peel of the parchments paper flip and cover the cake while it cools.

White Chocolate Cream
Ingredients

180ml heavy cream
120ml heavy/whipping cream
2 tbs butter
7 oz/200g white chocolate, chopped

Place chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl.
Heat heavy cream and butter in a heavy-based saucepan on low heat until it just starts to boil. You can tell when it starts to bubble around the edges of the pan. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Leave for 30 seconds then use a wire whisk to whisk till smooth. Set aside to cool a little.
Save half of this mixture for the glaze.
Whisk 120ml cream till it forms stiff peaks then fold into cool ganache mixture.

**don’t know if this will work for you — mine pretty much turned into tasty mush LOL. I don’t usually make such terrible mistakes. Man. Blame the rocker in me. Jokes.

Plum Wine Glaze
Ingredients

White Chocolate Cream mixture
2 tbs umeshu/plum wine

Whisk ingredients together and set aside.

Sugar Syrup
Ingredients

1/4 cup golden caster sugar
1/4 cup boiling water

Dissolve sugar in water. Set aside. This will be used atop sponge layers when assembling the cake.

For instructions on assembling the cake, please click on the link above before the recipe which will take you to Kevin’s blog for better directions. Mine was a very haphazard, freeze and slab on freeze and slab on event. Not exactly a method with finesse.

No matter. I’m still in a fine mood and I’m off to watch the telly. It’s the beginning of another week tomorrow but I’m pretty excited to begin work at The Flaming Queen. Selling candles at Palais Renaissance — gosh that’s well luxurious!