Okay, if you read my other-personal-slash-diary blog, you'll know I've gone crazy these past two weeks with cooking.

Thank goodness I took heaps of photos; because a little bird told me people like graphics rather than straight out paragraphs of endless words in a blog. Prepare for a long post.

To be honest, when making cakes from scratch, they taste better, you can experiment more, and they sometimes last longer than packaged cakes.

But I really don't have a lot of time to start at the basics, so I make do with those packaged cakes!

First up: Chocolate Fudge Brownies (my favorite)

I was making this with my sister, last last week, and I think it was the brand White Wings . I followed the instructions and all but used a tiny bit more water, and a little less oil. We're talking ml's.

I do change recipes around a lot, which occasionally ends bad but there is nothing like experience, right?

And so now I have a pretty good picture of what I'm doing in the kitchen. I mean, look how it turned out?

For the frosting, I was more on the buttery side than the milk, in fact, I tried limit the milk down as little as possible because I hate sloppy icing. It puts me off cake.

I also learned that time from a family friend how to make shaved chocolate-really easy! And it makes the brownies look de-li-cious.

  
TIP: Do not make the icing until the cake mixture has fully baked and has cooled down, or the fats in the butter will start to separate from the water in the butter and you get this frothy vomit looking icing. This goes for all icing. Frosting is the same.

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Next: Hazelnut Macaroons

I believe this is the first time I've ever seen someone able to package the ingredients for macaroons-desperately tricky to make and disastrous should you get it wrong (hence quote from Harry Potter) but surprisingly these ones turned out pretty good-for a packet and for a first timer. According to the people who ate them, of course.

Then after I matched each to a size similar to its own, I waited till they cooled down, and made sure the chocolate wasn't too watery after the first one pooled everywhere. And the chocolate might look dark, but it was definitely normal-bad-for-the-heart type chocolate.

[HOVER MOUSE OVER PHOTOS FOR CLEARER PICTURE]

Anyway the brand was of course by the famous Donna Hay who has one of the best cooking shows. A picture of the packet, and the end result ill post on my other blog because I want to be keeping this post less than 3 pages, people :P

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Another: French Vanilla Cupcakes and Meringue (with strawberries on top ;D )

I frankly don't remember the brand of this that I bought but the meringue wasn't part of the recipe, I just added it and the strawberry idea to it. The French vanilla tasted really nice and light and fluffy, so the cupcakes turned out similarly. I recommend though, a cake would be better.

For the meringue, all you need is 5 tablespoons of white (caster) sugar, and two egg whites. Then whip it up with a hand worked beater or electrical. This makes a small-medium bowl full, and if you want more, double each of the ingredients. For a bit of flavor, I added 1/4 Ts of vanilla essence (3 drops) and if you like, you could add lemon juice (lemon meringue obviously), coca powder, Etc.

Yum, yes? I love making things look fancy. I then of course proceeded to shish-kebab the remaining strawberries and dip them in the left-over meringue.

Some other things I love cooking a lot:

Okay, I hope you all enjoyed this post, my next will be out around next week Friday, and it will have my secret Oreo recipe >< ! It was inspired by a friend of mine and motivated to be for another's birthday.

Without further ado,

Cat -xxx-