When Ali is at daycare...

I have so much free time that I don't know what to do.  Actually, that's not true.  There is a list of things that I want to accomplish this month and I am quite behind still.  And I really have one and a half weeks left!!!  Oh no, what to do!  Gotta power up the engine a bit and start being more productive!!!

One of the things that I really wanted to do is to learn how to make cakes.  I tried making a cake for hubby (boyfriend, back then) and it was a complete failure.  Ever since I learned that one of my students' mother has a talent in making cakes, I asked if I could be her apprentice for a day, just to learn a couple of things.  She is SUPER NICE and is really helpful in guiding me in this cake hobby of mine.  First, she showed me her moon cakes.  Gosh, it looks just like the big shops!! 

The cake I learned about is mousse cake.  Mrs. Gu is so nice that she made a cake early in advance so I can learn how to make the mousse when I was there and she showed me how to make the actual cake too on the spot!

My "sifu" working hard in the kitchen:

The mousse needs to be set for a day before we can do the decorations.  Mrs. Gu gave me a lot of tips and my first "demo" cake turned out pretty well!

A cross-section of the mango mousse cake:

Mrs. Gu insisted that I brought home both cakes.  So I practiced making my own blueberry mousse and it didn't turn out as well as I hope.  But for a cake dummy like me, it turned out better than I anticipated.  At least it tasted okay.  Oh well, now that I know what to do, I am sure the next one will be a lot better!

The only problem with me learning to make cakes is that my husband and I don't really like desserts.  Trying to get rid of the cake is a major problem.  Gotta take a little break from this before I make another one!  Too much cake!