Merry Christmas!

A quick card for a Christmas gift. Gotta work on my lettering for next year. Maybe I'll make it a new years resolution... :)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

A Little Christmas Baking

Blackforest cupcakes with fresh whipped cream topped with crushed candy canes. Yum!

Origami Butterfly

I am away from home for a month on an elective and so I am not surrounded by my usual diversions. I brought a pack of origami paper as entertainment for my down time. So far though, this is all I have produced. Simple but pretty. :) 

Adult Lettering Workshop

One-off paint nights and paint classes seem to be pretty popular these days. I haven't really been that interested though since I have all the supplies at home to paint if I wanted to; I didn't really see much point in going out and paying $30 to do something I can already do at home. However, while on an elective in Kingston, I decided to venture out to a class mainly for the chance to socialize with some of my work colleagues. We had an hour and a half to illustrate a word. Their sample was a cheery 'hello' surrounded by flowers. I decided to try something a little different and so attempted a more conceptual piece. It's bleaker but was aiming for something with more of an emotional impact. I have to admit that I am not crazy about how it turned out...but I don't regret giving it a shot. After all, experimentation is what art is all about. The one advantage of these classes that I can see is that for people like me, it motivates you to actually DO art instead of always putting it off.

Unfortunately, the canvas is not stretched so I will have to do it myself if I want to hang it. I'm not sure I do at this point but that could be an interesting project in itself. 

In the end, I had fun and enjoyed an evening out getting to know some new people - well worth it! 

Science and Sparkles

Since I'm in the thick of my busy final year of residency, I'm only able to do papercrafting on a need-to basis these days...so I'm trying to manufacture more need-to situations. ;) 

My friend, Amy, got a full time teaching job a few months ago and so I volunteered to make a card for our Career small group to sign and congratulate her. I had a small bottle of glitter that I had been saving since high school and it was great finally coming up with a way of using them. 

A very simple design, the lettering needs work but overall, it was great having an excuse to pull out my supplies again. :)

Black Forest Cupcakes

The sour cherry crop this year was not as plentiful as in previous years but I still had enough to make a few batches of cherry filling. With a more limited cherry supply, I decided to be ambitious and try my hand at making Black Forest cupcakes. I've never made stuffed cupcakes before so I wasn't sure if the filling was just going to sink to the bottom and end up being soggy. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my technique of layering cake batter, then filling and then batter again actually worked. I whipped up some cream and shaved a Lindor chocolate on top for decoration and then voila! Looked good and tasted good too! The only thing I think I'll change is that next time, I will add a bit more rum but otherwise, I count this experiment as a success. :)

We start with fresh picked cherries. It's a fair bit of work but incredibly satisfying to harvest your own fruit.

I pitted about 8 cups of cherries by hand. A pair of headphones and some pop music is recommended.

Flour, sugar and cornstarch made up the dry ingredients. Pretty simple.

Then you cook everything.

Lovely, bright red cherry filling - yum!

The tricky part about layering batter-filling-batter is trying not to make a mess.

I've learned over time how much to fill the cups so that my cupcakes are not overflowing.

I was quite proud of myself that the filling worked!

After that, the rest is just decoration. :)

Not bad for our 100th post, eh? Yep, that's right - it took three years but we've finally broken the 100 mark. Time for some (cup)cake to celebrate!

Conference Swag!

Conferences are great opportunities to learn and to network but I can’t deny that one of the things I like about them is also the variety of conference swag. Biomedical and biotechnology companies give out a lot of quality office supplies and other knick-knacks and I’ve found that with a few well-placed stickers, this stuff can look quite cute and pretty too. 

Before...

After! Of course, their original purpose of advertising for the company is lost but...oh well. ;)

This was one of my favorite notebooks. Doesn't it have a lululemon inspirational feel?

Really, this was the only word missing. :)

For the Love of Carrot Cake...

I have noticed lately that all my posts currently involve some form of food. My papers and punches are collecting dust as I’m spending more of my time in the kitchen with friends. Food is something that brings people together and I find it interesting that during a recent conversation about my friends’ dream homes, every one of them wanted a large kitchen island as a hub for entertaining.

This rather interesting creation should have been posted a long time ago. My friend Casey’s birthday is on Valentine’s day and he once jokingly told us that in the past, it was difficult to find friends to celebrate with him because so often, they are out with their significant others. Well, our church fellowship group was planning on meeting up that weekend to watch sports anyway so Amy, Emily, Tim and I decided to bake a cake to celebrate him gaining another year on his dish. ;)

This carrot cake recipe has been described as “the best carrot cake I have ever had” by more than one person. It was also an excellent way to put more vegetables in the diets of the guys of our group.

Since the gathering was in the evening, our plan was to bake the cake in the afternoon and bring it out as a surprise. Unfortunately, we were off to a slow start and so had barely managed to finish the baking portion before Casey arrived. The assembly and decorating of the cake is a comedic story involving a cramped laundry room, a mess of icing and multiple attempts at breaking away from the group without being noticed.  Oh the things we do for our friends… J

We got this recipe from here. I'm sure this is not going to be the last time we make this!

Match Day! (Belated...)

Match Day. Two words that strike both extreme anxiety and excitement in the heart of any graduating medical student in Canada. After months of labouring over application forms and sweating at interviews, it’s the day that you find out what residency program you have been matched to.

This year, it was March 2nd and my friend Nissi, decided to congratulate all her friends who matched with this creative and cute little gift:

My match day was a long time ago but she decided to make me one too to thank me for giving her all the cardstock that she used for this project. (I saw it on sale at Michaels and just couldn’t resist!) Her calligraphy is beautiful and whenever I see her work, I want to take up lettering. Maybe one day, I will actually follow through…

Deluxe Cake Pops

Mmm...four chocolate cake pops with caramel chocolate filling served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce, caramel sauce and topped with pecan nuts and a crispy wafer. It's a fancy restaurant dessert that didn't have a name but boy, did it taste good! :)

Panna Cotta

It's been a crazy busy week at work and when I came home on Friday, I had zero motivation to do anything medicine related. So I decided to make some desserts instead.

Panna Cotta is an Italian desert of sweetened cream thickened with gelatin. I made mine with a hint of coffee and a splash of Tia Maria. Nothing like sugar and dairy to make a person feel better. :)

How Long Does It Take To Make A Chocolate Covered Pretzel?

Answer: Depends on who is making it.

And if it's Emily, Tim and me then the real answer is: a lot longer than it should.

After much debate about how to best melt the candy and some trial and error...we finally read the box. Things went much easier after that.

We eventually did get the knack of it though and produced thirteen beautifully festive pretzels.

Thanks to Emily for providing the ingredients and Tim for the photography. As for me, I just got sprinkles everywhere! :)

Happy New Year, everyone!