Italian night plus Tiramisu!!!!

Last night was Italian night. Azzurra was nice enough to fulfill my wish of learning how to make the authentic Italian tiramisu as well. I had been bugging her to teach me how to do it ever since i found out that tiramisu originated from Italy, like 3 months back. ok.. i'm slow. but at least, now i know that tiramisu is from Italy.

anyway, here's a detailed recipe guide along with pictures!!! hur hur.. i think i just went crazy taking photos last night.

ok.. firstly, all you need are 3 eggs, separate them: yolk and white, into different bowls. add three tablespoons of sugar to the egg yolks and mix/stir till the sugar melts.

THE thing that is used to make tiramisu cream is this. Mascarpone, 500ml. it's some kind of fresh cheese that is tasteless and VERY creamy. it's also what makes tiramisu fattening.

when the sugar-eggyolk mix is done, add the mascarpone.

meanwhile, the egg white is to be whisked till fluffy!!!

done with both? mix the fluffy egg white together with the mascarpone, yolk and sugar. be careful!! u have to be gentle, to make sure that the fluffy egg white does not 'collapse'

after that, u're done with the cream! just leave it at one side...

hur hur. guess what is this??

Espresso 'machine'!

haha.. i was such a suaku. It was the first time i saw this 'machine'. Or rather, i saw it before, but didn't know it's used to make the traditional italian espresso. i was so fascinated and excited. i think azzurra and anna thought i was crazy.

well, next up, u have the biscuits! they have to be this shape, and can absorb liquid easily.

dipping the biscuit into the coffee

then u put it in the box/form.

first layer!

after that, u put the cream, and then biscuit then cream until u are satisfied with the height of ur tiramisu OR ur box can't take it anymore.

we did three layers!

and when u're done with the last layer of the cream, sprinkle cocoa powder over it! we didn't have cocoa powder, so we used chocolate flakes instead.

TADAH!!!! Tiramisu is done!!!!!!

we had extra cream.. so we decided to make one more! the biscuits fitted the box just nice!

and we now have the baby tiramisu done too!!!

there u go! mama tira and baby tira!

the people behind the scenes: Me, Anna, Azzurra and Francisca! with our tiramisu!

After Tiramisu making, we had dinner. And needless to say, we had pasta with a special sauce with complements from Azzurra's mother.

The three of them were insistent that Barilla, the pasta brand, is the BEST pasta brand from Italy. we have it in singapore too!! maybe can go conduct a test/survey next time.

Within 15 mins, u could smell the wonderful sauce. dinner was fantastic.

After which, we had dessert!

It was a wonderful night spent with my three Italian friends.. AND!!!! I am so going to make Tiramisu when i go back to singapore.

Module Mapping..... DONE!!!!!!!

finally, in week 7 of my semester here, i just received an email from the Lim Pei Ying, someone who works in NUS's Centre of Language Studies (CLS) saying that Frau Niemann, the person in charge of my German module mapping, has APPROVED my module mapping for one of the language intensive course to German 5. WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!

so happy.. finally. i went through almost 1 month to get information and waited 2 weeks for approval. patience pays off.. my module mapping is finally CONFIRMED and can be chucked away from my mind cos i finally have 4 courses for this SEP.

now, i just hope NUS allows me to take Leave of Absence for next sem, and that a kind company will be so nice to take me in for an internship. Applications are getting tiring. BUT!!! i'll hang in there. i know it'll pay off. just like module mapping. wish me luck!

New thing(s) learnt everyday.

i had an interesting class today for my course on Political Representation. Topic was on Lots and Election. Anyway, during the discussion, my professor asked if we could think of examples of democratic governments whereby it is usually 60% favourable to one party. i raised my hand and said 'singapore'.

his reply was 'but singapore is not a democratic society.' STUNNNN.. ok lah. my GK on singapore politics not very power. but singapore IS a democratic country right??? suddenly i felt so malu and ignorant.

Well, i asked him why he said that and he told me that in a survey based on Freedom found on http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=372&year=2007, singapore is considered partly free and hence, to him, not democratic.

Achso! (an exclamation used by Germans with the same meaning as OHHHHHHH!!!)
i learnt something new about my country today.

many many stuff.

hello everybody! it's been one week since i blogged... seemed so long ago. anyway, this post will be of very very very backdated stuff. only got the photos from azzurra and solene last week.

Towards the end of my September language class, we gathered at our teacher, Christiane's place one evening to watch a German film, Lola rennt. Here are some pics of my classmates!
(left to right: azzurra from italy, me, girl from Ukraine(i can't remember her name), and Zuzzana from Prague)

(left to right: Charlotte from UK, Gillian from Ireland, Olivier from France, Derenge from Turkey and Harry from UK)


Aideen from Ireland and Isabelle from Romania



and this is the whole class. the one standing is my teacher, Christiane. the rest have been introduced.


Okey! next up! I had dinner with Azzurra and she introduced me to some simple Italien cuisine. Gnyocchi! it can be prepared salty or sweet. salty, simply with butter and some cheese. Sweet, with some sugar, cinnammon, and cheese. even better. just add all together. it was nice!

chef azzurra


end product! simple, but filling.


Solene, my French friend, had her birthday on last Monday. I didn't know what to give her, so i decided to bake some cupcakes for her! ok. it wasn't from scratch.. but still, it's the thought that counts right??

it was pretty easy. just put everything together,

whisk for 2 mins

put in the form and decorate the way u want it.

and TADAH! ok.. it didn't turn out as nice as i wanted it to... a pity.


Well anyway, we had a surprise for Solene. Yuki, Sara and Eiko came down from Zurich to join in the party. They were from our IBH Summer Course and are now doing their course in Zurich. we met at a Cafe, and then proceeded to Solene and Joey's Place.





We had pizza and salad for dinner and didn't have enough fork and spoons. So Asami and Yuki had to eat their pizza with chopsticks.

all the girls


Asami, Sara and i stayed over at Joey and Solene's place.. and we had pancakes for breakfast!!! Joey made wonderful pancakes.. and the girls were happy eaters.

After much research, we headed for Appenzell, in Switzerland.

We were not fully prepared for the snow... it was FREEZING! but the scene was simply beautiful..

we found this place that made Appenzell cheese(it's rather famous).

We were too late for the whole cheese making procedure. The person in charge gave us warm milk.. it was the milk used to make the cheese... Simple satisfaction on a cold cold day.

we all took one photo here. Solene insisted we do so... haha

and there was a pretty horse which crossed our path.

the four girls on the street of Appenzell

After Appenzell, we decided to drop by St Gallen since it was on the way.
Solene started taking pics in the car... and so, presenting the driver, Joey!

The passengers: me, asami and sara

and the photographer, solene!

we were FREEZING in St Gallen. The temperature was like -10dC. The best thing to have in the cold weather was none other than Starbucks! We found warmth in it...

Introducing the new model for Starbucks, Joey!

and the terrorrist who dropped by.

the Starbucks sign was just nice in the centre..

with solene this time, but without starbucks.


Okey! i'm finally done! So many photos!!! but at least, it's all up already! didn't plan any travelling in November... it's passing very slowly. But it's ok! Christmas is coming soon!!!!! can't wait!!! Christmas market in Strassbourg, Christmas party, and then Christmas trip with xiaowen! To the rest who are fighting with exams in NUS now, jiayou!!!! Take care!