Wedding vows

Wedding vows 

14 June 2020

I, take you, to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part. 

Wedding vows need not be fancy. Wedding vows, did you truly think about the meaning when you said it? Did you truly understand what you are promising?

Wedding vows are effortless to uphold when you first get married and when you are in love. And that’s how you feel when you have to say them for the first time. Sure, of course, needless to say, obviously. But that’s not when the wedding vows are needed. It’s like something in the pocket, that you invoke when things are not good. 

Marriage, I have learnt, takes effort to maintain. Love will not be there all the time. Care and concern, yes. Sometimes they get muddled up with love and you forget which is which. Arguments will come, it is even likely that you might fall out of love and hate each other’s guts. And that, is the time when the marriage vows should be invoked. That is the greatest purpose of marriage vows. For it is when it doesn’t come naturally, that you remember once a upon a time, that you made a vow, not a simple promise, but a vow, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish. 

This is where I think the Christian faith has done a good job. There is pre-marriage counselling, there are guidance in the bible to cherish and respect your spouse. Now I’m not a Christian but it doesn’t stop me from recognising the good things of different religions. When you get married, you may not have been matured enough to appreciate what a marriage is all about. You need guidance. Whether it comes via religion, family, culture or any other means, if more people have such guidance, then there will be happier marriages, happier children, happier society. 

Regardless of when you realise the true purpose of what you have subscribed to, it is never too late to start appreciating and executing your vows. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Christianity or not, the truthfulness of the statement cannot be denied. No grudges, no keeping of records. Everything takes two hands to clap. Just do what you think is right, and hopefully one day, the marriage vows will go back to an effortless state, until death do us part. 

Easy eggless alcohol-free Tiramisu

My mom's 79th birthday was approaching and we were going to celebrate it at my brother's house. And this time she requested a homemade instead of store-bought cake! What a surprise, considering my mum is the most fussy food critic I have ever met. She must have been impressed by my chocolate banana cake!

Anyhow I was lazy yet I didn't want to disappoint my mum, so I thought of Tiramisu. As usual The Baking Biatch came to my rescue (or rather I went to her blog for help). Her recipe is so simple and delicious. I made some tweaks cos' I really wanted an easy way out, also made a chocolate version for the kids. Both were good.

Edit 16 May 2020: 

We are 3/4 into SG circuit breaker because of Covid-19. I bought tiramisu ingredients because Luis brought up a couple of times that I said I would teach him how to make this dessert.

When reading this post I realised that this was the last birthday that we celebrated for my mother. I’m glad that I documented it. 

Anyway after reading all my sad posts about my mother I decided to clean up this page since the original instructions/ingredients were too much. 

 This was the tiramisu that I brought to my mother’s house to celebrate her birthday. Very ugly but I’m keeping the picture here for remembrance. 

 

Recipe adapted from: http://www.thebakingbiatch.com/2013/06/eggless-tiramisu.html

Makes 2 tabao kind of containers. Make sure to use the tall type because 3 layers reaches the brim. 

Otherwise just use any other containers. Just note that this recipe below uses about 48 fingers, which means about 24 fingers per container. There are three layers and because the container widens at the top, I used 6 fingers on the first layer and by the third layer I used 8 fingers. 

But it’s no problem if you use other containers. Before you start you just need to line your first base with fingers to count and gauge how many fingers you need and how many layers you can make. 

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

I made one coffee and one non-coffee container of tiramisu. Total two containers. 

Coffee: 

- 2 packets of Nescafé cuppucino, Make into 2.5 cups for one container worth of fingers. 

 

For non-coffee:  

- I used milo kosong and hot chocolate before. Whichever you like. Also 2.5 cups for the other container of fingers. 

 

Cream mixture:
- 500g mascarpone cheese

- 10 tablespoons whipping cream

- 4 tablespoons icing sugar (I used non- dairy cream which is already sweetened therefore 4 tablespoons of sugar is sufficient)

- 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

 

Sponge base:
- 45 lady finger biscuits

This is from Cold Storage, there are 60 fingers inside so you will have excess. 

Others
- Roughly 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

 

HOW:

 

1) Make the coffee and milo, pour each into a plate that is big enough for dipping. Let them cool down. 

2) Whip the whipping cream until you get stiff peaks

3) Put the mascarpone cheese into a big bowl. Use a spatula and mash it to make it soft-ish. Add icing sugar and vanilla essence. Mix with spatula till well combined.

4) Add the whipped cream to the cheese mixture and mix well. 

Get all your ingredients together. Now you are ready to assemble. 

5) Dip a biscuit into the coffee and turn it around in the coffee once then remove swiftly to put into container. (It won’t be soft yet but resist the temptation to roll more times! I tried rolling 3 times and the end result is a soggy tiramisu cake.) Repeat till you complete one layer.

6) Spoon 2-2.5 tablespoonfuls of cream mixture on top of the first layer and spread evenly. Not too much else you don’t have enough cream mixture for the other layers. 

7) Sift cocoa powder on top of cream. 

8) Repeat 5-7 two more times. As the container widens towards the top:

First layer: 6 fingers, 2 heaped tbsp of cream

Second layer: 7 fingers, 2.5 heaped tbsp of cream

Third layer: 8 fingers, 3 heaped tbsp of cream

9) Chill in fridge for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.