Portugese tart

Long time no see people.

I was busy with winter holiday, post holiday trauma, exam preparation, exam, post exam trauma and then life.  I promise you I will post more news, photos & etc.  Anyways, today, I am going to post about how to bake some nice Portugese tart.  I know it's weird, but I really fell in love with them and decided to bake them myself.  If it bores you, then just scrooooooll down very fast and see the end result and close the window.

Mostly photographs but please enjoy.  Post some photos of your tarts if you decide to bake your own.

Turn on the oven.  200 degrees Celcius

 Spread out cinnamon ground on cutting board so the pastry does not stick

 Place pastry on the cutting board and spread cinnamon ground on the pastry itself, both sides

 Roll it up

 Cut into 6 pieces

 Take each piece and press it with your thumb or fingers to make it somewhat flat

 Place them into the baking tray

 Gently press them to flatten them and put in the oven for 5-7 minutes

 They will be puffed up.  Use tea spoons to gently flatten them again.  Gently.

 Make your curd filling now :

1 large egg

Some lemon zest

1 table spoon of sugar

150 grams of creme fraiche

1 table spoon of vanilla paste or extract

whisk

Fill in to the baked pastry, DO NOT put too much fillings, as it will overflow.

Also, you must leave some space for sugar caramel coating.

 Back to oven for 10 minutes.

However, watch and check how fast the curd rises

 Take it out from the oven when the curd filling becomes fluffy.

Let it cool down

 Make caramel :

Pre heat your pan.

4 Table spoons of sugar

 Slice an orange and juice half of it into the caramel

* BE CAREFUL*

Caramelised sugar is extremely HOT.

It will burn you until it cools down.

 Let it cool down before serving

I didn't have enough sugar for the caramel....bummer!

FENDI Frenzy : Bag Colouring Competition for Bergdorf Goodman

A department store in New York, Bergdorf Goodman held a bag design competition called Fendi Frenzy in April last year.  The competitors had to come up with matching colours for each colour blocks used in Fendi 2Bag.  A graphic designer and a fashion enthusiast John Lee was announced as a winner and his design was included in Resort collection, exclusive for the Bergdorf Goodman.

I just love all the colours used in this bag.  The dynamic colour scheme creates an elegant mood without boredom, that any fashion forward shopper from age 20 ~ up can comfortably add this little piece to their bag collection.

I was just thinking that Fendi should consider giving their customers some colour customisation availability to play around like Anya Hindmarch Bespoke.

Chateau Mouton Rothschild : New label art work by Anish Kapoor

Long time no blogging!


I have been keeping myself quite busy with my university works and countless birthday parties, including mine!  


Anyways, today I heard the announcement of Mouton Rothschild's decision to work with a British sculptor Anish Kapoor for their 2009 wine label.  Below is the preview look of the label :

Like?  Dislike?

Scott Schumann AKA The Sartorialist

I just finished my report writing and dissertation proposal and catching up with latest videos and news.  Along with three Cartier videos I just posted, I found this nice video about Scott Schumann, the iconic blogger who is known as The Sartorialist.  The video narrates an interesting story of Mr. Schumann but the video itself is shot beautifully.  A MUST watch.

Cartier : True Love Videos

Recently, three videos were featured on Cartier's Facebook page as part of their latest advertising campaign and I think this is very clever because it's targeting three different generations using different videos.  Although I am not quite sure if the message will be well-received by the third (oldest couple) target customer group, due to the Age vs. Internet Tech. factor but at least it will seed the idea to those who are growing to be old (like the third couple).  Apart from the PR and marketing effects, I really like the short videos.  They are well performed with right music and right execution.  


Enjoy the videos :-)

Man Ritual : Shoe Maintenance

Yes.  It is that time.  Shoe Maintenance Time.

Tricker's Shoe Cream and Tricker's Shoe Polish for a pair of Tricker's.

I guess I should have taken some photos of 'before polishing'... errr perhaps next time.

Burberry : Bespoke Trench Coat

I think this is something all we have been waiting for. I am not particularly a Burberry fan but their trench coat is timeless classic. You must have one in your closet. 


 Anyways, some good news and bad news. 
 The bad news first. It's not bespoke. There is no legal definition of the term 'bespoke' but if something called bespoke service takes no measuring process, I don't think it should be called as a bespoke service. Savile Row is bespoke. John Lobb is bespoke. Sadly, Burberry Trench is not bespoke (to me that is). I would like to call this a customisation of trench coat. I think that's fair. 


 Now the good news. You get to choose style, fabric, colour, sleeve style (they offer studded sleeves!), belt, button and etc. The website is made of flash but not so slow to drive me impatient. Nicely built with few options to view different angles of the trench coat and the model, plus you can collar up / collar down & open / close the trench. Easy navigation, clear options, probably the best online customisation experience you will ever get. 


 Now, the price. This can be a bad news or not-so-bad news for some of us. This customisable trench coats are 40-60% more expensive than buying it offline. Now I don't follow Burberry so well to know all the available models and designs that they stock in Burberry stores, but (assuming all the online models are available offline too), if you are NOT customising it, it would be pointless to buy it online.

Now, go get it tigers :  Burberry Bespoke Trench Coat

Hermès : Window Installation of Tokujin Yoshioka

This brilliant window display was done some time ago (19th of NOV, 2009 ~ 19th of JAN, 2010) for Maison Hermès in Ginza, Japan(Architected by Renzo Piano in 2001) by Tokujin Yoshioka, a Japanese artist & designer.  I think this is one of the prime example of luxury brand utilising human sensorium in order to communicate with their customers.

Just brilliant isn't it?

Social Media Revolution 2011

Fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine, sort of shocked me.  So now Google owns No.1 and No.2 search engines??  Wow

Wooyoungmi : No. 51 Coat Donation for Art Against Knives

Paris based, South Korean label, Wooyoungmi, joined up with five creative Londoners to rework their classic 'No. 51 coat' for a charity auction at Selfridges. The likes of jewellery designer Jordan Askill, set designer Gary Card, menswear blogger Steve Salter, Selfridges menswear buyer Reece Crisp and Dazed Digital editor David Hellqvist will be collaborating on the project. The pieces will be exhibited at a special pop-up event in Selfridges, where 10% of the sales of the unchanged coat, and 100% of the five customised ones, will be donated to Art Against Knives, a charity using creativity to tackle the problem of knife crime amongst London’s youth. There will be an opportunity to own one of these five unique Wooyoungmi Collaborator coats with a live auction running on the Wooyoungmi Twitter space.

-Text from Dazed & Confused-

The auction will be closed at midnight of November 3rd, so make your bid before it's too late!