And All That Jaaazz~

Choir is going… well, not that swimmingly. I’m exhausted from staying in school till 5 everyday. A lot of them are still unwilling to give their full commitment, even though the competition is next week. We have so much work to do. But I heard my old school is doing Phantom of the Opera. SO. KICK. ASS. That’s all I have to say on the matter.

MUET exam is on Saturday. We did a mock paper, and my Reading and Comprehension was utter crap. The problem with this particular paper is that you have to be thinking the exact same way as the person who set the questions. Otherwise, you have a tendency to get the wrong answer because you will interpret information differently. So I think it’s complete bullshit. I’m worried for all the papers. Speaking as well. My mock didn’t go so well. I got a low Band 5, because I stuttered and in general had no idea how to make my sentences flow.. It could be attributed to me just waking up before taking the test though. But overall, I got a Band 5 for my mock, because I got 19/20 for my listening. 8D I don’t think I will be so lucky in the real thing. Hopefully I’ll get a Band 5. Later on in my life I will consider doing IELTS.

Yesterday I baked a cake. It was really good. I decided to bake a lemon cake, since I bought two lemons at the supermarket.

125g butter
3/4 cup castor sugar
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
Enough milk to make 1/2 cup together with lemon juice
1 small lemon, about 5-6 cm in diameter

Prepare cake pan and preheat oven to 170-180 degrees Celsius.
Put butter, sugar, and vanilla essence into a bowl. Grate the zest of the lemon into the bowl with the butter. Make sure not to grate the white pith, as it is bitter. Cream the ingredients with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Add in the eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly after each addition.
Sift the flour once. To substitute for self-raising flour, use the ratio 1 cup all-purpose flour to 1 1/2 tsp baking powder. Squeeze the juice of the lemon, and add milk until it makes 1/2 cup of liquid. Let it stand for 5 minutes. This makes something like buttermilk.
Add half the flour and half the liquid, and fold it in. Add the remaining flour and liquid, and mix. Pour into prepared pan and bake in oven until done.

I really like the recipe. I used the butter cake recipe from Australian Women’s weekly and tweaked it. It tastes really lemony, and it smells very good. I used unsalted butter. Usually I use salted butter. I think it affects the taste. Well, success~

Okay. Now to do Physics report.