Ling's Passion

50th Birthday Cake

2011-11-30T20:29:00.000+08:00

I was all excited over the making of this cake. Why so special you may asked. This cake is special as it is for Amy whom I have known for a long long time; more than 25 years. I met her through hubby and then she met her hubby through my hubby. We even got married in the same year. We both have only daughters, she has 3 and I have 1.

During courting days, we went for countless double dates together. We spent long hours on many Saturday nights in PJ Hilton yakking over unlimited free coffee refills. Yes, those were the days when most hotels served unlimit refills for coffee. I supposed with so many people like us who took advantage of the hotel atmosphere, hotels have not choice but limit the refill of coffee to only 1 these days.

We even went for holiday trips together to Langkawi, Cameron Highlands, Genting Highland and Singapore.

As we progress in life, we found similar hobby and interest. We both love to bake. So it was no surprise when we both signed up for the same Wilton cake decorating course organised by ICAC. Our plan is to sell cake when we retire.....ha..ha..ha...

Being a cake decorator herself, I was a little apprehensive when the time comes for me to make her birthday cake. I wasn't sure will the cake be good enough for her. I felt relieve when Amy's daughter, Monica gave the thumbs up when I sent her a picture of the figurine to be placed on the cake......phew.

This is a 2 tier cake with the lower tier in chocolate cheese swirl and the top tier in Orange poppy seed cake. Both the top and bottom tier were covered with fondant. The figurine is also made of fondant. I attached bead to the end of flower wires to place on cake top to create an explosion effect.

Pavlova

2011-11-23T21:39:00.001+08:00

Pavlova is a true devil in disguise. Innocently healthy, displaying lots of fruits but under these fruits are tons of unhealthy calories. But who cares, we often tell ourselves we don't eat this everyday. Indulgence once in awhile is acceptable (wink). I am one of these people...ha..ha..ha..

My maiden pavlova turn out better than I expected. Besides a little sweet for my taste, the other set back of this recipe is the baking time. Though the recipe stated the baking time as 1 hour, I had to bake mine for almost 2 1/2 hours to get the right colour and texture. Will reduce the sugar to 1 cup the next time I bake this, otherwise, this is PERFECT as a dessert after a good meal or as a replacement for birthday cake as what my colleague and I did. The birthday girl was pleasantly surprised coz' we noticed she was grinning from ear to ear.

To the birthday girl.....Happy Birthday, Hami. We enjoy your company as much as you enjoy this pavlova.

Ingredients

4 egg whites

1 cup of castor sugar

1 tsp vinegar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp corn flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Whisk egg white until stiff.

3. Then gradually add in sugar; a tablespoon at a time and beat well after each addition.

4. Whisk for 10 minutes after adding all the castor sugar.

5. In a small bowl mix corn flour with vinegar, vanilla essence and 1 tablespoon of egg white mixture.

6. Add mixture to remaining egg white mixture and beat for 5 minutes.

7. Place mixture on a tray covered with baking paper, spreading mixture into desired shape.

8. Place tray in the oven and turn the oven temperature down to 100C.

9. Bake for approx 2 1/2 hours.

Topping

Whipped cream and fruit of your choice.

This is what the pavlova look like before dressing up.

Angry Bird Cake 1

2011-11-13T17:31:00.006+08:00

The Angry Birds phenomenon has grown big enough that people from all walks of life are aware of these little, well, angry birds. This is definitely not surprising as shopping complexes are packed with these birds in various sizes. Besides owning the plush toy, you can also get them on t-shirts, slippers, hats, pencil cases, etc. Some people may not know the origin of these Angry Birds: they are based on an electronic game where they have to rescue their eggs from pigs. Imagine that, pigs stealing eggs.

To be honest, I wasn't at all that surprised when a friend's friend called to request for a cake featuring these birds for her son's 6th year old birthday. I've been wanting to try my hand on making Angry Bird figurines. I mean, not that I play the game or anything. ;P

The cake made was chocolate cheese swirl and covered with buttercream icing. The figurines were made from fondant. As for the rest, I will let the photos speak for themselves, courtesy of Sydney.

Fishing Boy

2011-09-18T13:21:00.003+08:00

I love this cake. It is colourful, full of life and reminds me that I need another holiday. I am thinking of holiday all the time...ha..ha..ha... I had such a jolly good time making this cake especially the fishes.

The most difficult part in making this cake is moulding the figurine. The first figurine that I made has a hunch back because it was left to harden sitting without any support. The second one, which is the one on this cake has a funny looking right hand. I moulded the hand leaving it to dry for last minute fixing thinking that by doing so I will be able to fix it together with the fishing rod. How wrong was I, little did I know that once the hand has harden it is almost impossible to keep it glued to the body. Eventually I had to make a new hand and it didn't quite match the position of the body.

The fishes are individually moulded and I used dental floss a for fishing line. At the end of the fishing line is a sword fish. The sword fish is a special request from the birthday boy.

With the amount of fun I had in making this cake, you can rest assurance that I will be making more of such cakes.

Transformer : Optimus Prime

2011-09-10T13:24:00.001+08:00

Of late I am into making birthday cakes for kids. How I love to see the delight in their eyes when these kids see their cake for the first time. These expressions are priceless. I now I understand why parents go through thick and thin just to get cakes of their kid's choice. I must confess that I failed miserably in this aspect. In the past (before I embarked on this cake quest), when it comes to Sydney's birthday it is the usual off the shelf cake from bakery. Nothing fancy, just a cake with her favourite character drawn on mostly using coloured piping gel. If only I could turn back the clock, I would love to see her expression when presented with a 3D cake of her favourite character.

This cake for my colleague's 7 year old son in conjunction with his Transformer movie party. This is a butter cake decorated with buttercream. What I like about this cake is, it has very few colours. Though few colours yet no compromise on the outlook of the cake. When it comes to children's cake, I prefer not to use too many colours. The least the better.

Lightning McQueen Car

2011-08-01T10:02:00.002+08:00

This cake was requested by a 5 year old boy for his birthday and yes, his name is Jonathon. I subtly included his name on the road sign.

Where cars are concern, boys will always be boys regardless of their age. The only different is that as they grow older they are more certain of what they want. My BIG boy at home who is 50 is still into cars and specifically Volkswagen models.

Whimsy 21st Birthday Cake

2011-06-08T14:06:00.005+08:00

About a month ago I was requested to make a cake for my friend's niece who is celebrating her 21st birthday. I was given a picture of a cake to follow. The cake in picture is not the usual buttercream cakes that I used to make. This cake is much bigger, covered in fondant and decorated with orchid flowers.

I must admit that I felt intimidated at thought of making fondant flowers. My past experiences with fondant have not been a pleasant one. My previous fondant flowers took ages to dry and when it started raining, they went limpy again. So this time I decided to cover the cake with fondant but use gum paste instead for the flowers. However, I had not previous experience with gum paste. So I SOS my Wilton instructor, Jo for help. She was very helpful and even provided me with the gum paste recipe which can dry within a day.

Armoured with the lessons I learnt from Wilton and Jo, I set out to make the cake. I started by making the flower buds and left them to dry for a couple of days.

Once the flower buds have completely dry out, I painted them and set to make the petals.

Then followed by the rest of decorative items.

These 'stars' took me 3 attempts to make before I got them right. The first 2 attempts failed miserably.

Here you see me putting final touches to the cake.

Phew...finally the cake is done.

This cake weigh more than 6kg and I had to bring my muscle man, hubby along when delivering the cake.

This was the picture given to me.

Photo courtesy of Sydney.

Tortoise Cake

2011-05-10T19:12:00.002+08:00

Daughter, Sydney has been commenting that I always make the more or less same design kind of cakes. Well, I am aware of that. And I must confess that I like routine. Feels very safe in familiar surrounding and feel insecure when placed in new territory.

Therefore, I told myself that I need to get out from daughter's label of "more or less same design" and venture into something more challenging. So when BFF (best friend forever) requested for a tortoise cake, I said OK!

A Rose Bouquet

2011-04-03T17:13:00.003+08:00

This is a cake request by my friend for her mother-in-law's birthday. This is a orange poppy seed cake covered with buttercream. The roses were individually piped and place on the cake.

Old folks are great to have around. They eagerly fill in when help is required. Many times I envy my sister who stay close to my parent's house. My mother will take on the role of supervising my niece and nephews when my sister needs to take off. I often wonder what my mother-in-law will be like if she is still alive. Will she be as eager as my mom to care for the young ones. I believe she would.

But sadly I never had a chance to get to know my mother-in-law. She passed away when hubby was 6 years old. She died of post surgery complication in remover of gall blader stone. Hubby too could hardly remember her except that she is very strict and fierce with her kids. Who wouldn't be when you have to take care of 5 active boys ranging from 1 year old to 9 years old.

My mother-in-law has a beautiful name; Violet. My father-in-law once told me that she was his first and last love. They both met at school, she was studying in Convent School while he was in the boy school across the road. According to him, it was love at first sight the grew to a full bloom love. I believe him as we found her photo still kept in his wallet when he passed away. And that was almost 20 years after she died. May they rekindle their love in heaven.

Heart Shape Birthday Cake

2010-11-20T18:15:00.006+08:00

This cake is specially made for my friend whose parents were celebrating their birthday together. They are well into their eighties and as both of them do not know their actual birth date since it is not stated on their birth documents, they decided to pick the same date for their birthday. Aww.....this is such a sweet and loving gesture.

This cake really surprised me, seeing as I'm not actually psychic enough to know the outcome beforehand. Thanks to my friend who knows exactly what she wanted for her parents' birthday cake, she made my job all the more easier.

I recieved an SMS regarding the cake 3 days before DD (delivery date). I honestly didn't think I was gonna pull it off. However, she told me it was going to be a simple cake and there was nothing to stress over. How could I say no? I did not regret at all.

Isn't it amazing how two people can be together up till their 80's? The compromising, the arguements... Love truly does conquer all.

Thanks to Yin Yee who knew exactly what she wanted. This orange poppyseed cake was simple yet elegantly designed with buttercream roses and shell borders. Btw, the wordings were provided by Yin Yee in English and I got someone to pen them down in Mandarin as my Mandarin is half past six.

Choc-cheese Brownies

2010-10-05T22:30:00.000+08:00

My pile of work is yelling out to me. I am all stressed out. The weather is no better. It has been raining cats and dogs for many days now. I needed a break, I needed to bake something to distress. The next thing that came to my mind is this superb choc-cheese brownies.

Choc-cheese Brownies

For brownies
125g butter
125g dark chocolate
175g castor sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
120g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For cheese topping
250g cream cheese
1 large egg
50g castor sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice

1. Melt butter and chocolate in the microwave oven or over a pot of boiling water.
2. Leave to cool slightly and stir in sugar and vanilla essence.
3. Then stir in eggs, one at a time until well combined.
4. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder.
5. Pour into an 8 inch square pan.
6. Drop spoonful of topping onto the brownies mixture.
7. Run a knife through the mixture to give the swirl effect.
8. Bake at 180C for 30 to 35 mins.

Cheese Topping
Beat cream cheese, egg, castor sugar and lemon juice until smooth.

Golfer's Cake

2010-08-16T10:30:00.003+08:00

This is one of the few cakes that I thoroughly enjoy making. This cake brought back memories of my early golfing days with hubby. Hubby spent endless weekends try to get me interested in golf even though I am hopeless at sports. Eventually he gave up coz' chasing a ball under the hot sun wasn't my cup of tea.

I can never forget my most embarrass moment on the golf course. Being a first timer on the golf course, I was thrilled. Thought I could finally joining the golfing club. But my dream shattered when I miss the ball at tee-off. And that was last straw since then I did not play any golf anymore.

Back to this cake, this is a cake requested by my friend for her ardent golfer hubby. Instead of the usual golf bag and clubs, I though a landscape of golf course would be a good change.

This is an orange poppy seed cake covered with buttercream.

Homemade Granola

2010-08-01T22:21:00.003+08:00

Do you face the problem of not knowing what to do with leftover, especially dried fruits and nuts? It could be a few pieces of pecan nut from the pecan pie you baked or dried fruits from the Christmas cake you baked.

I often encounter this problem; a handful of raisins or a tablespoon of cranberries or a few nuts from the previous bake. As these leftovers are often not enough for the next recipe and to buy somemore would mean there will still be some leftovers.

I recently found the solution to my problem - Homemade Granola. This recipe not only solved my problem but also provided a healthier breakfast in comparison to store bought cereal that is full of sugar. Besides that, granola is a much healthier snack as opposed to potato chips, chocolate and candies; just to name a few.

Granola make a wholesome breakfast when served with cold milk. These can also be used as topping for ice-cream or yoghurt.

Homemade Granola

(adapted from Joy of Baking)

Ingredients

3 cups old fashion roll oats

1/2 cup almonds, chopped (or any nuts of your choice)

1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds

1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup dessicated coconut

1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp corn oil

1/2 cup maple syrup (or 1/4 cup maple syrup plus 1/4 cup honey)

1 cup raisins (or any dried fruits of your choice)

1. In a large bowl, pour in all the dry ingredients except the raisins.

2. Give the mixture a good stir then pour in corn oil and syrup.
3. Toss together, making sure all the dry ingredients are coated with the liquid.
4. Spread onto a lined baking pan measuring 9" x 13".
5. Bake at 170C for about 30 - 40 minutes or until golden brown, stirring occasionally to ensure mixture browns evenly. (The browner the granola gets (without burning) the crunchier the granola will be.)
6. Leave to cool before mixing in the raisins.

Note
(i) The granola will still be soft and sticky when removed from the oven but it will become crisp and dry as it cools. Stir while it is still warm to break up any large clumps. Once the granola has completely cooled, store in airtight container.
(ii) The raisins and nuts can be replaced with dried fruits and nuts of your choice.

Pineapple Cup Tarts

2010-07-28T23:13:00.001+08:00

If you are like me, love pineapple tarts (rolls) but hate to go through the motion carefully rolling each pineapple roll. Here is the solution - Pineapple Cup Tarts.

I found this recipe in Betty Saw's Cookies Galore. Not only is this easy to make but looks pretty, too.

Pineapple Cup Tart

Ingredients
250g butter
120g icing sugar
250g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
pineapple jam - rolled 1/2 tsp each into balls

1. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.
2. Fold in the flour and fill a piping bag fitted with large star nozzle.
3. Pipe rosette into small paper cups and place pineapple balls in the centre.
4. Bake at 170C for 20 mins.
5. Cool and serve.

Chicken Varuval

2010-07-03T20:29:00.006+08:00

In Malaysia, we are fortunate to have a variety of Indian food. Besides having large restaurants that serves a banquet of Indian food, there are also many smaller Mamak (Indian Muslim) eateries that serve paratha and a variety of light snacks.  Amongst all the Indian food, my favorite dish is Chicken Varuval. The chicken is full of flavour from the spices used in cooking this dish.

I have wanted to cook this dish for as long as I can remember. But I feel intimidated when it comes to cooking with spices.  I have very little knowledge of spices and do not know how to use them to enhance and compliment the flavour of a dish.

Recently a friend of mine, Veron from Frigglive came to my rescue. She not only shared with me her recipe for Chicken Varuval but also cook some for us to savour. It was scrumptious. Below is the recipe from Veron.

Chicken Varuval
Ingredients
3 chicken maryland, chopped into bite size
2 stick cinnamon, 1.5 inch each
3 cardamons
4 cloves
2 star anise
1 bombay onion, sliced
1 sprig curry leaf
2 medium size potato, cubed
2 medium size tomato, cubed
1/4 cup of green peas
3 tbsp curry powder (I used Baba curry powder for meat)
4 tbsp chilli paste or chilli powder
1/2 cup water
Approx 1/4 cup of cooking oil
Salt and sugar to taste

Blend together and mix with curry powder and chilli paste/powder
1 bombay onion
2 cm ginger root
3 pips garlic

1. Heat oil in wok and saute the spices; cinnamon sticks, cardamons, star anise, cloves and curry leaves until fragrant.
2. Add in sliced onion and saute for 1 minute.
3. Then pour in the blended ingredients and fry until the oil slightly separated from the curry mixture.
4. Stir in chicken, potatoes and tomatoes and give it a good stir. Cover the wok and turn the heat down and allow chicken to cook for 2 minutes, stirring every now and then.
5. Add in water and let the chicken continue cooking till the meat is tender. REMEMBER to stir the chicken every now and then. This is to ensure the chicken don't get burnt. More water, a little at a time may be added if the liquid dried up too fast.
6. Once the chicken is cooked, stir in the green pea and heat through.
7. Serve with either rice or roti paratha/canai.

Superman Cake for Fathers' Day

2010-06-21T22:09:00.000+08:00

This is the Fathers' Day cake that I baked for Fathers' Day celebration in church. What could be more ebb than a Superman cake for Fathers' Day. This Superman image of fathers stem from the close relationship that I shared with my dad. He is my Superman as he has always been there to share my problem, give advice and provide support in time of need.

This is a chocolate marble cake decorated with buttercream. The Superman image is a pre-printed image on sugar paste which I bought from the baking supply shop.

On a separate note, I didn't realised that I have been away from the blog sphere for such a long time. A check on my last post showed that it has been more than a month since I last posted on my blog. My work has taken over a large part of my life. It is times like this that I wish that I am old enough to retire and concentrate on things that I love to do. There are tons and tons of things that I have in mind to do when I retire but the top of my list is to try out all the recipe books that I have collected over the years.....

Financier or Friand??

2010-05-12T13:05:00.009+08:00

I was surfing the Internet looking for ways to use up the leftover egg whites and chanced upon this recipe. Some called it Financier while others called it Friand.
The pineapple rolls I baked for Chinese New Year left me with lots of egg white. I have been keeping them in the in the freezer till now. I was told that egg whites can be safely freeze up to 3 months. As the end of 3rd month is fast approaching, I thought I better find ways to use them. That's when I came across these two petite cake recipes that called for the use of only egg white.

Both the recipes are quite similar although both bearing different names. One is called Financier and the other is Friand. This is what I found when I do a search on Wikipedia.

A financier is a small French cake, often mistaken for a pastry. The financier is a light teacake, similar to sponge cake, and usually contains almond flour, crushed or ground almonds, or almond flavoring. The basis of the cake itself is beurre noisette (brown butter), egg whites, powdered sugar and flour. Financiers are often baked in shaped molds. The name "financier" is said to derive from the traditional rectangular mold, which resembles a bar of gold. Another theory says that the cake became popular in the financial district of Paris surrounding La Bourse du Commerce (the former name of the Paris stock exchange).

Financiers are often served topped with whipped cream, berries, or other fruit, and served accompanied by ice cream or other frozen confections. Financier pans are traditionally rectangular; however, other shapes are not uncommon. Financiers are somewhat similar to madeleines.

The friand pastry, which has become popular in Australia and New Zealand appears to have been based on the French financier; however, Australian and New Zealand friands typically have additional flavorings such as coconut, chocolate, fruit, and nuts. Australian / New Zealand friands are also baked in oval shapes.

Since both seems to be quite similar I decided to use the following recipe.

Blueberry Friand

Ingredients
90g egg white (3 egg whites)
90g ground almond
30g plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
90g butter, melted
some blueberry filing for topping

1. Sift together flour, ground almond and icing sugar.
2. Lightly whisk egg white until frothy.
3. Stir in melted butter.
4. Fold in sifted flour, ground almond and icing sugar.
5. Fill mini cupcake tin half full with batter then top with 1/2 tsp of blueberry filing.
5. Baked in oven preheated to 180C for 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Cool completely before dusting with icing sugar.

In conclusion, the name of this little cake is immaterial when the taste speaks volume of itself.......

Chocolate Whisky Cake

2010-05-01T15:33:00.001+08:00

Couple of weeks ago, on one fine Sunday afternoon hubby annouced that we have been invited for a birthday dinner. The second part to the annoucement is, hubby has also told the organiser that we will be bring a cake for the birthday boy. The birthday boy is non other than one of our home fellowship members, Nathaeniel.

Though I love to bake for friends but 3 hours to dinner hardly give me any time to purchase baking ingredient let alone bake a cake. With no time to spare for shopping, I'll just have to make do with what I have in the fridge.

Fortunately, I always stock up butter, flour and eggs. I also found a packet of cocoa powder at a desserted corner of my fridge. With these limited ingredients, I baked a Chocolate Whisky Cake. But to be technically correct this cake should be called Cocoa Whisky Cake instead of Chocolate Whisky Cake.

When baking cake, I usually used the fan force setting. Though this function baked 2 trays of cupcakes evenly without having to swap midway of baking but it causes my large cakes to crack on the top. I was told that for large cakes, I should use the top and bottom heating element setting instead. If you have a secret to avoid cracked cake, please share with me.

Chocolate Whisky Cake

Ingredients
200g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
250g butter
4 eggs
180g castor sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp whisky

1. Cream butter and sugar till pale and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs, one at a time and mix well after each addition.
3. Fold in sifted plain flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
4. Stir in whisky.
5. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 170C for 45 minutes.

Popovers

2010-04-18T22:15:00.002+08:00

It is amazing how a flat pancake batter can puffed up so high under tremendous high temperature. This is the science of cooking which I find difficult to comprehend.

Popovers are but a pancake batter baked on high heat. The high heat forced the batter to puff up and that's when you get popovers.

Popovers are usually served with the cordiment served with pancakes such as butter, honey and jam. But that doesn't mean you can serve them with a stew or even curry.

Popovers
(recipe adapted from Julia Child)

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 cup full cream milk
½ tsp salt
3 eggs
2 tbsp corn oil

1. Sift dry ingredient into a mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the centre and pour in milk, egg and oil.
3. Mix all the ingredients together using a whisk.
4. Strain the batter if it is lumpy.
5. Pour batter half full into lightly greased muffin pan or paper cups.
6. Bake in oven pre-heated to 220C for 15 to 20 minutes until the popovers are puffed.
7. Reduce oven tempreture to 180C and continue baking for another 15 to 20 minutes.
8. Serve immediately or risk loosing their puffinest.

Note
1. Do not open the oven door until popovers are puffed up.
2. Popovers are at their puffiest and tasted best right out of the oven.

Boiled Fruit Cake

2010-04-11T17:05:00.001+08:00

Fruit cake often reminds me of the festive celebration of Christmas; the need to plan in advance. From buying of gifts to what cookies to bake and who to invite for Christmas dinner. Preparation of fruit cake is the same. The dried fruit need to be soaked in liquer for days, baked for hours and days of waiting in anticipation for the cake to mature.

But there is this fruit cake that can be prepared and baked within hours. This is non other than boiled fruit cake. The difference between boiled fruit cake and baked fruit cake is, instead of soaking the fruits in liquer to soften they are boiled in water. Besides that, boiled fruit cake can be consumed immediately, no waiting time is required.

Though boiled fruit cake doesn't keep as well baked fruit cake, there is no compromise inthe taste. In fact, I prefer boiled fruit cake as the liquid that the fruits are boiled in further enhance the flavour of the cake. To give the cake a kick, I added rum. Rum and dried fruits seems to pair so well that you can tell usually tell when one is missing from the other in a fruit cake.

Boiled Fruit Cake

Ingredients
(A)
500g mixed fruit
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
250g butter

(B)
3 cups plain flour
2 tsp mixed spice
3 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup rum (optional)
4 eggs

1. Bring ingredients (A) to boil and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes and leave to cool completely.
2. Add in rum, if using.
3. Stir in beaten eggs.
4. Fold in ingredient (B) that have been sifted.
5. Pour into baking pan lined with greased proof paper.
5. Bake in oven preheated to 180C for 45 to 55 mins or until skew comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake.

Note
1. Rum can be replaced with brandy.
2. I used two 3.5 inch by 8 inch baking pan.
3. The fruit can be increased to 750g if desired.

Wedding Cake Demo @ Cilantro

2010-04-07T22:50:00.004+08:00

When Dave of Frigglive informed me that there will be a wedding cake decoration demonstration in Cilantro Culinary Academy on 3rd April 2010, I was thrilled. I have been decorating cakes for awhile now but lack the courage to attempt wedding cakes. I need to booze my confidence and hopefully by seeing how it is done will help.

Cilantro Culinary Academy is culinary school providing professional skills and vocational training in Culinary Arts at Foundation, Diploma and Advanced Diploma levels. Housed in a 4 storey shop lots, this culinary school is located at USJ Sentral in Subang Jaya, Selangor.
Ms. Suzy Teh, the Marketing Executive was already there to meet us when Veron from Frigglive and I arrive. The wedding cake decoration demonstration was scheduled for 4.00pm. Since it was still early, Suzy gave us a short tour of their kitchens. The kitchens were impressive with well equipped facilities and gadgets, besides looking sparking clean. She even introduced us to some cute looking chefs.

When we got to the cake decoration demo kitchen, the session had already started. The chef was working on covering the last tier of the wedding cake with fondant. The wedding cake consists of 3 tiers measuring 18, 14 and 10 inches respectively.

After covering the cake with fondant, she proceeded to colour a small portion of royal icing with green and another portion with pink. The royal icing was made by stirring egg white with icing sugar. She also demonstrated to the audience how to fold a triangle paper into a piping bag before filling them with royal icing.

Once she started piping on the cake, there was no turning back. She just went on and on from one motif to another. Her piping skill was excellent and her work is so tidy and neat. The 3 cakes were decorated with frills, flowers, leaves and etc in no time.

Within an hour, she completed the decoration of all the 3 cakes. Then she cleverly stacked the cakes up with wine glasses. This make the wedding cake looked so elegant.

She puts on the final touch with store bought flowers made from gum paste.

I had a great time and managed to pick up some pointers from this demo. Besides that, we were given a goodie bag each with discount vouchers and also a piece of Cilantro’s signature Sesame Cake. The Sesame Cake tasted yummy.

Cilantro Culinary Academy is located at:-
No, 1-1, Jalan USJ Sentral3
USJ Sentral
47600 Subang Jaya
Selangor
Tel. +603-8023 0555

Butter Cookies

2010-03-07T23:10:00.000+08:00

There are some cookies that never get out of season when it comes to Chinese New Year. One of them is the faithful peanut cookies that appear in many household year in year out. The other cookies that have the same good fortune is Butter Cookies.

Who can resist a sweet buttery cookie with its melt in the mouth texture. Butter Cookies are easy to fix up. All you need is flour, icing sugar and of course butter. As the key ingredient is butter, a good quality butter will make a difference. After my terrible encounter with Anchor Butter (in my previous post), I decided to use SCS butter for these Butter Cookies. And they tasted heavenly.

Butter Cookies

Ingredients

250g butter

70g icing sugar

200g plain flour

50g corn flour

1. Cream butter and icing sugar till slightly pale.

2. Fold in sifted plain flour and corn flour.

3. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle.

4. Pipe cookies on lined baking tray.

5. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 170C for approximately 15 minutes.

Note - Cookies should not be golden brown but be slightly pale in colour after baking.

Raisin Cupcakes

2010-02-23T20:28:00.003+08:00

What is the next most appealing snack for tea time besides scones? It has to be butter cakes. For me, tea is incomplete untill or unless scones or cupcakes is served. The aroma of coffee mingled with butter in the air is what makes tea time so appealing. I often wonder why it is still referred to as Tea Time when in most instances coffee's presence is more prominent in comparison to tea.

To make good scones and butter cake, you need good quality butter. But sad to say that the butter that I relied upon all these years for tasty scones and butter cakes have failed miserably. The butter I am talking about is Anchor Butter.

The recent batch of Anchor Butter that I bought is of such inferior quality. Instead of thawing at room temperature, it literally melts down. No, I am not joking. It MELTs so badly that when I cream the butter and sugar together, the mixture liquidate instead of turning into a glorious fluffy mixture. It appears that the butter has more oil than milk solids. I am not being bias, there are some members of the Malaysian Cake Decorators Club who also faced the same problem.

So, it was time for me to move on and switch to another brand of butter. The switch was a sad moment as I have been an ardent fan of Anchor Butter since it was introduced in Malaysia way back in the 1980s. It was known as Fern Butter then and it only cost RM1.79 per block of 250 grams.

Whatever the change may be, life goes on. Except, what am I supposed to do with the 30 odd remaining blocks of Anchor Butter sitting in my fridge....(sigh).

Raisin Cupcakes

Ingredients

250g good quality butter

170g castor sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

250g self raising flour, sifted

80g raisins

1. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence till smooth and fluffy.

2. Beat in eggs, one at a time until well mixed.

3. Fold in flour and raisins.

4. Using an ice-cream scoop, scoop batter into papercups.

5. Drop a few more raisin on top of the batter.

6. Bake at 170C for between 15 and 20 minutes.

Green Pea Cookies

2010-02-18T23:59:00.003+08:00

Another type of cookie that is easy to put together is Green Pea cookies. I have never heard of Green Pea Cookie until last year. All of a sudden, almost all the household I visited during CNY last year served these cookies. Subsequently I found out that this recipe came from Alan Ooi's New Year Cookies cookbook.

These cookies are slightly different from the usual cookies that are sweet and loaded with sugar. The green colour of these cookies also make them stand out when serve amongst the usual pale looking cookies. On top of that, the salt in the cookies contributed to the unique flavour of salty-sweetness.

The green peas used for this recipe have been pre-fried and milled. This is available from speciality shops that sell products used for baking.

Green Pea Cookies

Ingredients

130g green pea flour*

100g icing sugar

1/4 tsp salt

150g plain flour

100ml groundnut oil (peanut oil)

Sift flour, salt and icing sugar into a mixing bowl. Then slowly stir in groundnut oil.

While stiring, bring mixture together to form a dough. I prefer to do this using my hands.

Roll dough between 2 plastic sheets to 0.5cm thickness. Cut dough to desired shapes using a cookie cutter.

Arrange cookies on lined baking tray and bake at 170C for 10-15 minutes.

Cookies should not be brown but slightly pale in colour after baking.

*If green pea flour is not available, replace it with ready fried green peas available from supermarket. But mill the green pea finely before usage.

Chinese New Year Celebration

2010-02-14T11:26:00.000+08:00

Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival was celebrated on 14 February 2010 this year. This is the most important celebration amongst the Chinese. It is also commonly known as Chinese New Year in Malaysia. Chinese New Year festival begins on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar and ends on the fifteenth day. The fifteenth day is called Chap Goh Mei.

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions.

Preparation for Chinese New Year includes thorough cleaning of the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hope of making way for incoming good fortune. Decorating the house with ornaments that signify happiness, properity, wealth and longevity. Shopping for new clothes to start the new year and preparation of food stuff.

The most significant event is the reunion dinner held on the eve of Chinese New Year. An elaborate meal serving all sorts of meat, seafood and vegetable is prepared to be shared with the entire family. Family members travel from near and far to just to partake in this last meal of the year.

The Chinese New Year day starts with children wishing their parents a healthy and happy new year. In return, the children are given money in red paper envelopes, called angpow. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile; forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.

Wishing all my friends "Gong Xi Fa Cai"

Almond Cookies

2010-02-11T12:48:00.001+08:00

The couple of weeks before Chinese New Year is a crazy baking time for me. With a 9 to 6 job, I only get to bake either on weekends or on week nights. There aren't many weekend to consider if you wanna have freshly baked cookies. So the next alternative is to bake on week nighs after work. As I finish work quite late usually around 8pm, I can only start baking at 9pm and often finished off past mid night. Though tired but the joy of seeing cute delectable cookies that melt in the mouth is indescribable. This is one of them; Almond Cookes. This recipe is adapted from Alan Ooi's New Year Cookies cookbook.

Ingredients
125gm ground almond
180g plain flour
100g icing sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
130ml corn oil

Egg Glace
1 egg yolk

1. Sift ground almond, plain flour, icing sugar, baking powder and baking soda into a mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the centre of flour mixture and gradually stir in the corn oil.
3. Combine ingredients together to form a dough.
4. Scoop level teaspoon of dough and roll them into balls.
5. Dot the centre of balls with egg glace using the round end of a chopstick.
6. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 170C for approx. 15 minutes.
7. Let cookies cool completely before packing them into container.

A Bed Of Roses

2010-01-31T22:00:00.000+08:00

Year end not only a season for festive celebration for me but also many birthday celebrations. Besides making hubby's birthday cake, I also make a birthday cake for my lady boss. She is the first and only boss whom I share a close friendship with. She loves all things pretty and she loves butter cake with buttercream icing. What could be more pleasurable than baking for those who enjoy my cakes.

Though a little late but better late than never.

Happy Birthday to you, Lynn. May God grant you what your heart desires.

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

2010-01-08T13:49:00.023+08:00

Last month was hubby's birthday and since sweet buttercream is not something he drool over. I decided to make him something close to his heart; a cake make with chocolate.

I came across this Steamed Moist Chocolate recipe some years ago when I first started serving the Internet for recipes. I Immediately took down the recipe when I found out that this cake is steamed and not baked. Although steam cake lack appealing in looks but it certainly make up for taste. In the past I had tried steaming butter cake and it turn out to be delicious.

Without any reservations on the cooking method, I proceeded to work on the cake. Though this cake may not be as appealing in looks as other cakes that I have made but it certainly is delicious and hubby can vouch for it.

Cake

150g unsalted butter
170g fine sugar
200ml evaporated milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
125g plain flour
70g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Fill steamer with enough water and bring to boil.
2. Combine sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla essence and butter and cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved and butter has melted. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
3. Stir in beaten eggs.
4. Place sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda into a large mixing bowl.
5. Stir egg mixture into flour and mix well.
6. Pour mixture into a greased 8 inch round baking pan and loosely cover pan with a piece of aluminum foil.
7. Steam over medium heat for 45 minutes.
8. Check if cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake. If skewer comes out clean, it’s cooked. If not, steam for a further 5 minutes.
9.  Cool cake in pan before turning out for frosting.

Chocolate Fudge
35g cocoa powder, sifted
50gm corn flour, sifted
1 cup evaporated milk
2 egg yolks
175ml water
120g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g unsalted butter

1. Place all ingredients (except the butter) in a bowl and cook over a pan of boiling water until mixture thicken.
2. Remove fudge from heat and stir in butter.
3. Leave fudge to cool slightly before pouring over cake.
4. Chill the cake in the fridge before serving.

Upright Bear Cake

2010-01-03T22:23:00.001+08:00

While the whole world is busy preparing for Christmas on Christmas Eve, I was busy making this cake for a friend's daughter. Not that I am complaining, in fact I rather enjoy spending a day away from work just indulging in what I love most.....baking and decorating cakes. I can't explain how but the squeezing of piping bag does help me to relax.

This cake has a round base with a bear and 2 doggies sitting on it. The round base cake is baked using a 10in round pan while the bear is cake baked using a bear mould. The bear is attached to the cake using spagetti. The 2 doggies are made of fondant. The biggest challenge in decorating this cake piping on the upright bear. As the piping has to be done at 90 degrease, the icing does not stick properly on to the cake.

Christmas Cupcakes

2009-12-30T23:21:00.000+08:00

Christmas falls on the first day of the last week of the year. With one last week to go before the year comes to an end, it is a good time to reflect on our personnal accomplishments, shortcomings and plan for coming year. For those of us who work hard through out the year, this is the time to take things easier and recharge to gear up for the coming year.

Since I was on leave for a couple of days, I decided to take on an order for cupcakes by a friend. What could be better than being paid for doing the things one enjoys.

The theme is Christmas. Christmas isn't Christmas without christmas tree, snow man, santa claus.....and..... these cupcakes.

Cream Puffs

2009-12-13T22:39:00.002+08:00

Cream puff is one of its kind of pastry where the preparation process incorporates both the cooking and mixing method. The pastry used in making cream puff is call choux pastry. Choux pastry is prepared by pre-cooking the flour quickly in boiling water mixed with melted butter, sugar and salt. After which, eggs are incorporated to create a smooth and firm mixture. The cooking process caused the starch in the flour to break down and swell resulting in a smooth and firm mixture rather than the usual dry, crumbly mixture which many pastry are made.

Ingredients
1 cup water
100g butter
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain flour, sifted
3 large eggs

1. Place water, butter, sugar and salt in a sauce pan over moderate heat and bring mixture to a boil.
2. Add flour all at one go and stirr vigorously until dough forms a ball and comes away from sides of pan.
3. Transfer mixture to a mixing bowl and let it cool for 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time and mix well after each addition.
5. Spoon pastry into a piping bag fitted with large star piping tip and pipe pastry on baking sheets.
6. Bake in oven pre-heated to 200C for 5 to 10 minutes, until pastry puffed up.
7. Reduce heat to 180C and continue to bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Remove cream puffs from baking sheet and leave to cool before filling them with custard cream.

Custard Cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp flour, sifted
1/2 cup milk
1 egg yolk

1. Mix 1/4 cup of milk with flour and set aside.
2. Place the other half of milk (1/4 cup), butter, sugar and vanilla essence in a sauce pan and cook over moderate heat until sugar has dissolved.
3. Stir in the milk and flour mixture and continue cooking until mixture has thicken.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk.
5. Leave custard to cool before use.

Note
- 1. The purpose of reducing the heat while baking cream puffs is to ensure the centre of the cream puff is properly cooked.
- 2. To avoid a layer forming on top of the custard , place a piece of cling wrap on the surface of custard before leaving the custard to cool.

Traditional Crumpets

2009-12-08T22:20:00.005+08:00

As I was going through my collection of cook books over the weekend, I came across one that I bought many years ago from a secondhand book seller in a flea market. The cook book is by Delia Smith and it was published in 1977. The name of the book is Delia Smith's Book of Cakes. Most of the cakes featured in her book are of the English variety. After going through the cook book, I decided to try out one of her many recipes - Traditional Crumpets.

Crumpets are a type of pancake made from batter using yeast as the rising agent. They are round in shape and have a distinctive flat top with many small pores and a slightly spongy texture. The batter is cooked in a round metal crumpet ring on a griddle. Traditionally, crumpets are eaten with butter.

Since I do not have a griddle or round metal crumpet ring, I decided to cook them in my non-stick pan using egg rings.

I have adapted the recipe by reducing the yeast from 1 tablespoon to 2 teaspoon as I do not like my crumpets to have strong yeast taste.

Ingredients
1 cup warm milk
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp dry yeast
1 1/2 cup bread flour
1 tsp salt

1. Mix milk, water, sugar and yeast and set aside for 10 minutes or until frothy.
2. Stir in flour and salt and leave to proof for approx. 45 minutes or until double in bulk.
3. Grease the inner sides of some egg rings and heat up a non-stick pan.
4. Place egg rings on non-stick pan and reduce heat to medium.
5. Into each egg ring, scoop 2 tablespoon of batter.
6. Cook for about 4 to 5 minutes until small bubbles appearing on the top of crumpets start to burst.
7. Turn the crumpets over and lift off the egg rings and cook for another minute.
8. Remove and serve immediately.

Note : I serve my crumpets with butter and honey. Any leftover can be frozen and toasted before serving.

Croque Madame

2009-12-03T18:31:00.004+08:00

I came to know about Croque Madame from a friend who is back from a tour to France. Out of curiosity, I did some googling and found out that it is basically an open sandwich with the usual stuff like ham, cheese and egg but with an unusual name.

This is how Wikipedia define Croque Madame - A croque-monsieur served with a fried egg or poached egg on top is known as a croque-madame.

A croque-monsieur is a hot ham and cheese (typically emmental or gruyere) grilled sandwich. It originated in France as a fast-food snack served in cafes and bars. More elaborate versions come coated in a Mornay or Bechamel sauce. The emergence of the croque-monsieur (and variations) is mirrored by growth in popular fast-foods in other countries.
The name is based on the verb croquer ("to crunch") and the word monsieur ("mister")—the reason behind the combination of the two words is unclear—and is colloquially shortened to croque. While the origins of the croque-monsieur are unknown, there are many speculations on how it was first originated. The croque-monsieur's first recorded appearance on a Parisian cafe menu was in 1910. Its earliest published use has been traced back to volume two of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (Ala recherche du temps perdu) (1918)."

This is my version of Croque Madame.

Ingredients for Bechamel Sauce

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp plain flour

1 cup milk

2 tsp mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a sauce pot. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in milk and bring to bubble, then reduce the heat. Add in mustard, salt and pepper. Stir till well combine and slightly thicken.

Ingredients for 2 sets of Open Sandwiches

2 slices of white bread

2 tbsp butter

4 slices of ham, shredded

2 slices of Gouda cheese

2 eggs

1. Apply butter on one side of the bread and set aside.

2. Heat a non-stick pan and fry the 2 eggs separately.

3. Remove eggs from pan and transfer bread with buttered side on non-stick pan.

4. Top with a slice of cheese, shredded ham, bechamel sauce and egg.

5. Cover and let sandwich heat through till cheese has melted.

6. Serve hot with more bechamel sauce if required.

Creme Brulee

2009-11-30T11:18:00.008+08:00

When it comes to bringing food for potluck; or pot bless as we Christians call it, my usual take is to bring desserts. In comparison to main course or dishes that can only be prepared just before serving to ensure food quality is maintained, cold desserts on the other hand can be prepared in advance. Like the Creme Brulee I prepared recently for a get together, not only can they be made in advance but only required a minimum of 5 ingredients. However, the challenge is in ensuring that the custard is not overly baked. The trick is to remove the custard while it is still wobbly.

In the case of Creme Brulee, you can even put on a show by up playing the caramelising of the Creme Brulee in the presence of the host and guests. Like for instance torching them with your eyes blind folded???

Below are some Creme Brulee waiting to be torched.

To caramelised the Creme Brulee, you don't really need an expensive professional blow torch. Any blow torch will do as long as it is handy and save. You don't want to blow up your host's home, right? In the absence of a blow torch, an oven toaster is the next appliance that you can used.

This is the blow torch that I used and it cost only RM25. As to how save this thing is, the host's place was still in tack when I left. Whatever happen after that is not my fault.

Creme Brulee ready to be served.
Ingredients

4 egg yolks
1/4 cup castor sugar
500ml thick cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
brown sugar

1. Scald the cream and vanilla extract over low heat until steaming.
2. Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until well blended.
3. Whisk in 1/3 of the cream quickly to avoid curdling, then whisk in the balance of cream until well mixed.
4. Run the mixture through a sieve to remove any residue.
5. Pour mixture into oven-safe ramekins and place them in a baking pan.
6. Pour boiling water into the pan about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. (this method is known as water bath or bain-marie)
7. Bake in oven pre-heated to 150 for between 25 to 35 min. Custard is cook when the centre is still wobbly. Chill custard for at least 2 hours before serving.

Topping
1. Sprinkle the top of custard with a thin even layer of brown sugar.
2. Burn the sugar with a blow torch until it begins to caramelise.

Note : If you do not have a blow torch, you can grill it in the oven or oven toaster.

World of Pokemon

2009-11-27T17:01:00.016+08:00

School is finally over for the year. The last few days of school saw many parents with kids attending pre-school busy preparing goodies and stuff for their children to share with their school friends.

Same goes for my friend, Marianne whose son was attending final year of pre-school. By the way for those of you who are like me attending 1 year of pre-school was already a bonus, children these days attend up to 3 years of pre-school. It is either the parents are too busy to coach them at home or they are afraid that their children might lose out with the high standard demanded by parents themselves.

Marianne wanted some cupcakes for her son to share with his friends in school before the final term comes to an end. She requested for Pokemon. What are Pokemons?

Since Sydney, my daughter wasn't a great fan of Pokemon during her growing up years I had very little knowledge on what these little monsters are and what they look like. This is what I found from the Internet.

"Pokemon are fictional creatures in another universe that are captured (using a Pokeball of some sort) and raised by humans to battle and protect them. Each Pokemon has a different ability and type (Dark, Electric, Psychic,Water, etc.) and there are over 400 species (Raichu, Jirachi, Charizard, Mew, etc.). Some people use Pokemon to battle while others care for them as pets. A person who uses Pokemon to battle is often referred to as a Pokemon trainer, as Pokemon are creatures which can also grow (in levels), evolve (change form to become stronger) and develop in skills (which transfers to their types of attack).
Many things have come from the creation of Pokemon - including a trading card game, an anime television series and many video games. These have all been very successful and have made Pokemon popular all over the world.
The original idea for the Pokemon game came from a young man (Satoshi Tajiri) who wanted to invent a game that involved trading insects - as was his hobby. "

With these details and the websites provided by Marianne, I made these Pokemon cupcakes for her son.

This is the only pokemon I know; Pikachu.

Cinnamon Kisses

2009-11-19T22:04:00.004+08:00

These are the Cinnamon Kisses that I baked after tasting Ginger Kisses from New Zealand. [Edit : These are not cookies, they are sponge cake sandwich together with buttercream). A friend of mine gave us a packet of Ginger Kisses when she came back from her holiday trip to New Zealand. These Kisses has texture like sponge cake instead of usual crispy biscuit. It is soft and full of flavour from the ginger and cinnamon powder with the smoothness of cream sandwiched in between. These Kisses were an instant hit with Sydney.

After much persuasion from Sydney to bake some for her, I decided to comb the Internet for the recipe. Finally, I came across this recipe and decided to give it a go with minor changes. Since I do not have ginger powder, I decided to replace the ginger powder with cinnamon powder and call it Cinnamon Kisses.

Ingredients for Kisses
150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

110g butter

60g caster sugar

1 egg

2 tsp honey

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp hot water

Ingredients for Filling

30g butter

120g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp boiling water

Method for Kisses

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, spices and set aside.

2. Cream butter, sugar and honey till light and fluffy, then mix in the egg.

3. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients.

4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and add to batter.

5. Scoop small teaspoonfuls of the mixture on baking trays.

6. Bake in oven pre-heated to 180C for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.

7. Cool completely before apply filing.

Method for Filing

1. Cream butter, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth.

2. Slowly stir in boiling water a little at a time until mixture is very light and creamy.

3. Pair up the cinnamon kisses and sandwich them with filling.

Note : Remember to make more than required. These are so good that they finish real fast.

New Blog Template

2009-11-15T23:15:00.005+08:00

Finally, the 3 columns template that I so desired for my blog is now up and running. I would like to record my thanks to Tracie of Bitter Sweet Flavour who has graciously help by guiding, downloading and sending the XML file to me.

However upon receiving the file, I was still unable to open it. After much research done on the Internet, I realised that I need to download the XML Marker. I am usually very careful in downloading any files from the Internet due to passed virus attack on my notebook. But this time round in desperation, I downloaded the XML Marker without a second thought. Like a kid with a new toy I was try out all the various templates and finally settle for this one.

Though I manged to install the template that I wanted but there were quite a fair bit of administration required to re-organise and re-link all the links that I had. I was ecstatic when my new blog template went live at 2am this morning.

So Tracie, thanks again for your great help.....muak...muak...muak

Soft Baked Eggs

2009-11-13T02:48:00.016+08:00

On days that I do not work, I love to have a good breakfast at home with my newspaper next to me. When it comes to breakfast I think I am one person who is easy to please. All I need is soft boiled or baked eggs, toasted bread and a good cup of coffee. With a simple breakfast like this, I will be smilling from ear to ear for the entire day.

This is one of the easiest breakfast that I love to prepare. It is called Soft Baked Egg.

To prepare this breakfast, what you need is a ramekin, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of cream, 2 tablespoon of grated cheese of your choice and pepper to taste. No salt is required as the cheese is salty enough. You can either bake this in the oven or oven toaster. I prefer oven toaster as no pre-heating is required. This is what it looks like before going into the oven toaster.

Besides having eggs for breakfast, I also add them to my instant noodles. That is another story all together for another post. But for now, I would like to share this Soft Baked Eggs that I had this morning for breakfast. With a little planning I managed to cook the eggs, ate it and still be in time for work. This is how I did it.

7.10am - get out of bed, brush teeth and shower.

7.30am - prepare the eggs and pop it into the oven toaster set for 7 minutes. Change into working clothes.

7.40am - remove baked eggs from the oven toaster and pop in 2 slices of bread. Put on make-up

7.45am - remove bread from oven toaster. Continue with make-up

7.50am - sliced bread into fingers and make a 3 in 1 coffee. Enjoy breakfast.

8.10am - leave for work

See what I mean when I say this is one of the easiest and now it has been proven to be one of the fastest breakfast as well.

Disaster, Disaster, Disaster.......

2009-11-12T12:47:00.004+08:00

Aarrr... I was trying to modify my blog to look better and see what it did to all my links!!! It deleted all my existing links. In trying to recover these lost links I reverted back to the previous template. But damage has already been done beyond repair. Now I will need to painfully re-link all my past posts and also my fellow blogger friends.

This is certainly one motion that I can do without had I been thinking before acting. Sigh....how often I did things in a haste and regret terribly after that.

However, this will not deter me from seeking the 3 columns template that I so wanted for my blog. Guess just need to be more careful and read all instruction before proceeding with the next step.

In life, how often we make mistakes. Some are reversible but most are not.....like THIS ONE.

Non-Bake Oreo Cheesecake

2009-11-10T21:38:00.010+08:00

One of the cakes I love to serve on hot sunny days besides icre-cream are non-bake cheesecakes. These type of cheesecakes are chilled before serving instead of the usually baking. It has a layer of crust made usually of crush cookies/biscuits mixed with melted butter. The filling is a combination of cream cheese and whipped cream. With a tinge of lemon juice, the tartness of lemon juice balance off the richness of cream cheese and cream to make this an appertising dessert. Gelatine is usually added to keep the cake firm and holds it shape especially in our hot and humid weather. The amount of gelatin can be adjusted according to your preference. The lesser the gelatin the softer the cake will be.

The above is the Oreo Cheesecake that I made for our home fellowship meeting last Friday.

For crust

120g Oreo biscuit (without the filling), crushed

60g butter, melted

Mix crushed biscuit with butter. Press on the base of a 20cm springform baking pan. Leave to chill in fridge.

For filling
2 tbsp gelatin
1/2 cup water
250g cream cheese
300ml whipping cream, whipped
150g castor sugar
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
4 pieces of Oreo biscuit (without filling), crushed

1. Mix gelatin with water and microwave for 1 minutes, until gelatin dissolved. Leave to cool.
2. Cream cream cheese with castor sugar and lemon juice until smooth.
3. Add in cool gelatin mixture and mix evenly.
4. Stir in crush oreo biscuit.
5. Pour filing on prepared crust.
6. Chill cake till set before serving.

Note : For a softer cake and ice-cream like texture, reduce gelatine to 1 tbsp.

Record Player Cake

2009-11-01T14:38:00.007+08:00

I recently made this cake for my father who celebrated his 72th birthday. This design is from the book called Planet Cake.

During my father's era; in the 1960s and 1970s, a record player was the only gadget used to churn out music other telecast from radios. I can still remember the record player that my father had. It looks like a brief case that can be detached into 2 halves. One half is the turntable and the other half is a speaker. To churn out music, a record (know as LP for larger record and EP for smaller record) was placed on the turntable and a stylus with a needle at one end bearing a tip made of diamond was manually placed on the spinning record. Special care must be taken when placing the stylus on the spinning record as any scratches with damage the record.

I can still remembered those nights when my father used to sit in the dark enjoying his music. I often wonder why my father listens to music in the dark. It was only much later that I realised when you utilised all 5 senses the quality of the message received will be compromised as each senses will give you a different perception. However, if you were to only focus on a single sense at a time, the quality of message received is much more intense.

I can see that my father was very pleased with his cake though he isn't one who freely express his feelings. However, my nieces and nephews were at loss as to what gadget is this. Can't blame them as they were all from the era of CDs, MP3 and iPods.

Coming back to the making of the cake; the biggest challenge was to mould the stylus. Initially, I tried by covering a flat piece of fondant over a wooden chopstick. But the stylus looks bulky and clumsy sitting on the record. Eventually, I decided to use a same wooden chopstick but this time I only covered the both ends with fondant. And with that it looks a lot better.

Adventure with Figurine

2009-10-15T13:21:00.016+08:00

Some friends have been enquiring why haven't I update my blog for a long time. Logical thinking tells me that I should give them the most convincing answer such as my cat died, my dogs ran away from home or I have been chased out from the house. But of course all these are not true. The real reason is I have been getting lazy and once laziness sets in, it is so difficult to get rid of it.

Of late, I have also spent quite a fair bit of time catching up on my reading and watching movie series on DVD. For a romantic at heart like me, what could be more appealing than books by Judith McNaught. I think by now, I have bought most of her books. Her best books are those on historical romance.

And it was not surprising when I jump into watching Tudor when hubby brought it back one day. Who could have more romance in his life other than King Henry VIII who has 6 wives. Went to the extend of denouncing his religion in order to marry one of them (Anne Boleyn) and thereafter beheaded her.

After finishing my books and Tudor, I am now back to reality of life. Recently, I tried my hands on figurine and this is how it turn out. Next time instead of modeling fairies, I may try my hands on those handsome and pretty casts of Tudor....(wink).

Paratha Sausage Rolls

2009-07-24T13:04:00.006+08:00

I love to blog hoop and check out what other bloggers are up to. And sometime back I came across this fast and easy to prepare snack. Since then I have been churning batches after batches to feed unexpected guests and little friends.

These paratha sausage rolls are really easy to make. The required ingredients; sausages and ready made frozen paratha can be bought in advance and kept in the freezer until it is time to make them.

To make these rolls, slightly defrost the paratha and cut into quarters. Wrap the sausages with the paratha. Make 2 small slit on paratha to give it a gourmet look. Bake for 30 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 180C.

Mmmm......can't think of any other snack that is as fast and easy to prepare. Importantly, tasted yummy too.

Sweet Dinner Rolls

2009-07-05T22:40:00.004+08:00

I have been making dinner rolls for many years but somehow I can never get my dinner roll to taste like those served in the restaurant. The ones served in the restaurant are flavourful, soft and fluffy.

After many attempts, I finally came up with my own concoction that are close to those served in the restaurant. These dinner rolls keep well and are still fluffy the next day.

Here is my recipe:-

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups bread flour
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup warm milk
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp yeast

1. Place ingredients according to the instruction of your bread machine.
2. Select Dough Cycle.
3. Upon completion of the cycle, turn dough on lightly flour surface.
4. Divide dough into pieces weighing 40g each.
5. Roll each dough into a ball and leave to rise until double in size (approx 30 to 45 minutes depending on the weather)
6. Glace the dough with egg wash (I glace mine with milk)
7. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 180C for 10 to 15 minutes.

Note : These dinner rolls are best eaten warm. Any leftover can be frozen and reheated in the microwave oven.

Rich Chocolate Brownies

2009-06-28T11:03:00.006+08:00

Though having dolled up cupcakes sure impress one's guests. But the process of baking and decorating the cupcakes does require a lot of time. And time, I certainly do not have. As such I often look out for simple, fast desserts that I can make ahead of time.

In my quest for the perfect dessert that meets my tight schedule, I chance upon this brownies recipe. Not only it is fast to make but also freeze well. To further cut short the process of cleaning up, I line the baking pan with aluminium foil large enough to wrap whatever leftover for freezing.

Whenever I need to serve dessert within short notice, all I need to do is thaw the brownies and warm it up in the microwave oven. Alternatively you can defrost and warm it up in the microwave oven. Then serve it with a scope of ice-cream top with honey, walnut, strawberry jam.......whatever you have in the fridge that creates a contras to the dark colour of brownies and pale colour of vanilla ice-cream. Believe me, your guests will be stunningly impressed with your ability to dish out such a sumptuous dessert within minutes. Mine always do.

Here is the brownies recipe adapted from Betty Yew's Kitchen Secret.

Ingredients

125g butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted

4 large eggs, beaten

1/3 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

150g dark chocolate, chopped

75g chopped walnut

1. Melt butter and stir in sugar and vanilla essence.
2. Mix in cocoa powder and stir in the beaten eggs until well blended.
3. Fold in flour, chopped chocolate and walnut.
4. Bake in oven pre-heated to 175C for approximately 40 minutes.

Note : I usually double up the recipe and freeze the balance for unexpected guest.

BBQ Nite

2009-06-11T10:31:00.022+08:00

I am on LEAVE for a week.....yippee. School holidays are here and my parents are in town with my nieces and nephews. They usually put up with me whenever they are here in KL. But this time round my parents, nieces and nephews are putting up with my brother who has recently moved to a bigger house. We got some plans lined up and one of them was a BBQ dinner.

My sister-in-law cooked her ever popular Vinaigrette Pork Trotter and mum cooked Acar (Asian Vegetable Salad). The Vinaigrette Pork Trotter was so popular that I did not get a chance to take a picture before it disappear. But I did managed to take a picture of the Acar.

Brother working hard at the BBQ pit to feed us.

I was busy taking pictures.......

and posting with my nieces and nephews.........*wink*

Here is mum and dad enjoying a pot of Chinese tea with hubby.

For desserts, the kids had chocolate fondue. The fruits and marshmallows disappeared before I could get hold of my camera.

We had a great time together with all the family members. Such occasions rarely comes as my parents and sister reside about 200km away. That's the reason why I look forward to their coming to spend time with me and my family.

Cupcakes Ready To Go

2009-05-24T21:43:00.005+08:00

Been a while since I last made cupcakes. Fortunately we have writing materials such as pen and paper or even computer to help record what memory may fail to remember.

Chocolate Eclair

2009-05-19T22:05:00.003+08:00

I often wonder what the world would be like without desserts. No ice-cream to chill down, no Tiramisu to tease the taste bud, no creme brulee for Christmas and no chocolate cake to drown one's sorrows. To watch such a world goes by would be like watching a silent black and white movie; with no punch line nor colourful scenery.

By now you should have guessed that I am a dessert person. I love my desserts no matter what shape they are. Recently, I saw some chocolate eclairs in a bakery shop and it brought to memory those chocolate eclair days shared with hubby on our dates. We used to pop by the bakery of a supermarket by the name of Kimisawa along Old Klang Road to get our weekly fix of chocolate eclairs. In the 1980s there weren't as many bakery selling chocolate eclairs as today. These days we are spoil for choices.

To reminisce the good old day, I decided to bake some eclairs. The paste used to make eclair is call the choux paste (pronounce as "shoo"). The uniqueness of choux paste is created when the flour is cooked in the water and butter mixture. Cooking of the flour caused the starch to break down and swell, developing gluten.

These eclairs that I made are filled with whipped cream and top with chocolate ganache.

Ingredients
1 cup water
100g butter
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain flour
3 large eggs

1. Bring water, salt, sugar and butter to boil, till butter has melted.

2. Give it a good stir and add in all the flour.

3. Turn down the heat and stir the mixture vigorously until it comes together like a dough.

4. Transfer to a bowl and cool for 3 mins.

5. Add eggs, 1 at a time; beating well after each addition.

6. Spoon paste into a piping bag fixed with large star nozzle and pipe on greased baking tray.

7. Bake in oven preheated to 200C for 10 mins, then reduce temperature to 180C and bake for another 15 mins.

8. Cool eclairs and fill with any filling of your choice.

Dinner in a tiffin

2009-05-09T08:06:00.003+08:00

Since the beginning of this year, my work load has increased tremendously due to the change in areas of focus in the centre that I work. With a new boss, realignment is inevitable. However, this comes with a price and the price is longer working hours. Though I look forward to new challenges but there is a compromise on areas of interest. Such as my family, my blog, my baking and cake decorating adventures.

This is the reason for my infrequent update and absenteeism from the blogging world. I guess infrequent update and absenteeism is still not as bad as having to wait till 9pm or 10pm for dinner. My 2 poor family members; Sydney and hubby have been doing just that. They will wait for me each day to reach home before we go out for dinner. Home cooked food on a weekday is a luxury at this moment.

In order to have dinner at an earlier and more regular eating hour, I decided to cater for dinner. The catered dinner consist of 3 dishes. These dishes are packed in a tiffin and hubby will pick up the tiffin from the caterer on his way home. Sydney has been appointed the office cook for rice (meant to call her the rice cooker but sure sounds like a pot) at home.

This is how the food looks like in the tiffin. A little pathetic was hubby's remark.

I sincerely hope my working hours will be back to normal soon so that I can start cooking for my family again.

Orange Butter Cake

2009-04-26T20:59:00.007+08:00

When I baked this Orange Butter Cake yesterday, I did not intend to post it here. This cake was made in a rush in between appointments. With minimum time to spare, decorating it was never in my mind. Hence, this was served as it is this morning for our after service coffee fellowship in church.

Despite being done in a hurry and with no decoration, this cake tasted wonderfully good. The orange juice and rind gave a nice balance to the richness of the butter cake. To make this cake, I used a pound cake recipe but added in 1/3 cup of orange juice and rind from 1 orange.

Recipe for pound cake:-
250g butter
180g sugar
250g self-raising flour
4 large eggs
1/3 cup orange juice
rind from 1 orange

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs, 1 at a time and mix well after each addition.
3. Stir in orange rind.
4. Fold in flour alternate with orange juice.
5. Pour into a well greased 8 inch square pan.
6. Bake in a preheated oven of 170C for 30 - 45 min.

Ho Chi Min City Tour

2009-04-05T20:32:00.000+08:00

Should anyone asked me to visit Vietnam 5 years ago, I would have given them the cynical look. VIETNAM of all places, you must be joking. Who in their sane mind would want to visit a war torn country. However, after my first visit to Hanoi 2 years ago, I just love Vietnam. I love the higher spending power of Ringgit in comparison to Dong; their local currency. I love the food and most importantly, I love the simplicity of life there. It reminded me of my hometown 30 years ago. Sadly, having lived in the city for the past 25 years has yet to convert me into a city girl. I still miss my hometown very much. Guess deep down I am still the plain Jane from a little town known as Teluk Intan (previously known as Teluk Anson) in Perak.

Recently, I was on a holiday trip to Ho Chi Min City (HCMC). This is an all girl sight seeing and SHOPPING trip. Who said you don’t need a break from your family. Who said family ain’t stressful. They are when you have an energetic hubby who can't stay at home, a lawyer in the making daughter who rebuts to every single statement made and 3 dogs as part of the family.

Well, lets get back to the trip and not to divulge too much on family members. Who knows? I could be sued 10 years down the road for misrepresentation.

As I was busy with my work, my friends did all the planning including booking of air tickets, hotel and even came up with a list of places of interest together with a daily itinerary.

This was what greeted us when we arrived late in the evening.

Next morning we immediately book ourselves on A Day Tour. One of the places we visited is Cu Chi Tunnel. This used to be a war zone hideout for the local soldiers. The entrance to the tunnel is extremely narrow and not visible.

Some of the traps used during the war together with the sandals worn by the local soldiers.

A city scene during the peak period is full of motorcyclist. Come to think of it moi was once like this weaving the streets of Teluk Intan on a Honda C70.

See they even have a petrol kiosk that looks like the one I visited back then to fill up on Honda C70.

To fill our stomach we had.......

Spicy Vietnamese Noodles

Minced meat on sugar cane served with rice paper

Broken rice with pork chop

and more food...............

As for shopping, we spent most of our money in this shop. The cashier was busy punching the cash register with all the items we bought.

For sure, a trip to Vietnam will not be complete without Vietnamese coffee.

Finally, with a heavy heart we bid Ho Chi Min City adios and headed for the airport. We will definitely be back not too long in the future.

Prawn Noodles

2009-03-01T20:36:00.014+08:00

We had this Prawn Noodle for dinner tonight. This is Sydney and Hubby's favourite noodle. This noodle usually cost quite a lot when eaten in a restaurant as large fresh water prawns are expensive. Since I have some leftover large prawns from Chinese New Year (CNY), I decided to give this a try. Surprisingly my first attempt turn out to be quite tasty.

You may wonder how I keep my prawns fresh for such a long since CNY is was month ago. Well the trick is to submerge the prawns in fresh water and freeze them until cooking time.

To prepare this dish, you need a good chicken stock. As I do not have chicken stock, I used Maggie Chicken Concentrate stock from the bottle. I dilute 1 tbsp of chicken concentrate to 2 cups of water to get 2 cups of chicken stock. Honestly, I prefer this to chicken granules as this gives a more natural flavour.

Here is my recipe for this prawn noodle.

Ingredients

2 rolls of fresh egg noodles (wanton mee), unroll and deep fry in oil for a few minutes till lightly brown and crispy.

2 large prawns, sliced into halves

1 small bunch of spring onions, cut into 1 inch length

1/2 inch ginger, sliced

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp corn flour mixed with 2 tbsp of water

Sauce Ingredients

2 cups chicken stock

1/2 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

Mix sauce ingredients together

1. Heat cooking oil in a wok and saute ginger and the white stem of the green onions.

2. Add in prawn and fry till the prawns turn pink.

3. Pour in sauce ingredients together with spring onions and bring to boil.

4. Add in corn flour mixture and when the gravy thickens turn off the fire and stir in the eggs.

5. Pour gravy over the noodle and serve immediately.

Bear in Pink Tutu

2009-01-15T13:24:00.004+08:00

It is a wonder how time flies without me feeling or noticing it. It feels like yesterday that we were discussing about Christmas plans and now it is almost 3 weeks into year 2009. The dregs about new years are, I am officially older even if I don't feel it. The consolation is, I am not alone. Everyone else is also aging regardless whether they are new born babies, teenagers or already in their mid life.......*wink*

I started this year with a Bear in Pink Tutu cake for my friend's daughter.

I hope Year 2009 will allow me more free time to test out recipes from my years of collection and grant me more creative juice to create memorable cakes.........*wishful thinking*.

Christmas Cupcakes

2008-12-21T18:41:00.015+08:00

Although Christmas is just a few days away, we still have not make any preparation for Christmas. Least of all bake any cookies or cake. There are a few reasons to this.

One of the reason is, I won't be taking leave from work from Christmas till New Year like how I used to do in the past. There are just too much work to complete in preparation of the new challenges that comes with new year. The second reason is; my parents, siblings and their immediate family will not spending Christmas with us. My brother's family is in Ireland and sister's mother-in-law just passed away recently. Therefore her family will not be coming to KL to spend Christmas with us. The third reason which is the main reason is, we are reorganising our house by putting in more cabinets for storage space. But up till now the installers have yet to complete the job. My house is in a mess with stuff all over the place. I am skeptical that the installing of the cabinets can complete by Christmas. Hence, this year we shall let the Christmas tree take a rest.

Having said that, I did bake some Christmas cupcakes for a friend for her get together. Amongst all the designs, she like the Santa Claus best.

As for me, I like the Snow Man. I guess it is because I have never seen a real Snow Man before and often wonder what it feels like to build one in the cold winter.

As for Christmas Tree, Christmas Garland, Christmas Stocking and Candy Cane, they are available in KL.

This is what they look like when put together.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.........

2008-12-17T22:10:00.007+08:00

What have I been doing lately? I have been mall hopping *he..he...he*. I just love the month of December. There is no other festive seasons so well celebrated in Kuala Lumpur like Christmas. No matter what religion we are we all join in to celebrate Christmas in our very own way.

Shopping malls have taken Christmas to a different height by promoting Christmas through Year End Sales. Prices of goods are slashed to attract consumers to purchase in spirit of sharing the joy of Christmas.

I just love to visit the mall during this time of the year simply to enjoy the Christmas decorations put up in the malls. Sometimes I feel like I lived the entire year in waiting for the arrival of Christmas. This is true in Christian faith as we Christians live in preparation of the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ; our Saviour.

I have take some pictures from my mall hopping outings to share and these are some pictures taken from KLCC.

The much talk about 'Singing Christmas Tree' at Pavilion. But the carollers weren't there to sing when I was there.
This are some of the Christmas decorations at Sunway Pyramid.

Wishing all my blogger friends out there Blessed Christmas and Happy New Year. May God bless you with peace, joy and good health.

Little Cuties

2008-12-11T09:03:00.011+08:00

Make these cupcakes for a friend's son sometime ago. But did not get to post them till now. I was having problem locating the pictures. With me clicking and clicking away with my camera, I often find it challenging to organise those pictures that I have taken. I recently bought an external hard disk and hopefully with this hard disk I'll be more organised.

His mom told me that he like very FIERCE fish. So I try to create something fierce for him.

Besides the fierce fish, I also created something more children friendly creatures such as bear and bumble bee.

I've Been Tagged!

2008-11-30T20:11:00.008+08:00

I have been tagged by Ganache-Ganache to pen down 7 facts about myself. Well here goes:-

1. I love to sleep. I need at least 7 hours of sleep each night.

2. I am a great fan of Korean series. This is the only activity that can keep me away from my sleep.

3. As long as I can remember, my dream is to own a bakery shop.

4. I am obsessed with cook books. I buy and read them like how I would study a reference book.

5. My store room is over flowing with cake pans and cake decorating tools.

6. Though hubby has been keeping dogs since we got married, I never like any of them until Jeanie came into my life.

7. Most of my salary is spent on buying kitchen appliances.

Besides being tagged, I have also been passed this award by Simply Sweet Home.

I would like to pass on this tag and award to:-

Little Corner

Cooking Momster

Nasi Lemak (Coconut Cream Rice)

2008-11-16T20:32:00.016+08:00

Nasi Lemak is a one dish meal that is eaten by many Malaysians. Primarily this is eaten for breakfast, but this is served through out the day by many restaurants here.

I must admit that when it comes to nasi lemak I am really hopeless. My last attempt ended with a pot rice with floating coconut cream. By right it should coconut cream infused rice. Since then I have given up trying.

Recently, we had a DeepaRaya (short for Deepavali and Hari Raya) celebration in the office and one of my colleagues cooked a pot of heavenly tasting nasi lemak. From her explanation, the process doesn't seem so difficult. Therefore, I brace myself for another attempt of nasi lemak. Though the outcome is not as good as my colleague's but I am quite happy with it.

Ingredients for Nasi Lemak
4 cups of rice
200 ml of coconut milk (I used the Ayam Brand coconut milk as shown below)
1 tsp salt
4-5 screw pine leaves (pandan leaves)
4 slices of ginger
water

1. Wash rice and place it together with ginger, screw pine leaves and salt in electric rice pot.
2. Pour 50ml of coconut milk on to rice and top up with enough water (as per manufacturer's instruction).
3. Set rice to cook.
4. Once all the liquid is fully absorb, stir in the remaining coconut milk.
5. Leave rice to continue cooking until the cooking cycle is completed.
6. Fluff rice with a pair of chopstick before serving.

No nasi lemak is complete without Sambal Ikan Bilis (anchovies). Here is a recipe I learnt from another colleague who cooks fantastic tasting sambal.

Ingredients
100g dried chillies,
2 medium size bombay onions, blended
1 medium size bombay onions, sliced
1/2 square inch belacan (shrimp paste)
2 tbsp tamarind pulp diluted with 1/4 cup water, strained
2 tsp salt or to taste
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil
1/4 cup of fried ikan bilis (anchovies)

1. Cut dried chillies into 2 cm length and boil them in a pot of water for 15 minutes.
2. Drained chillies and blend.
3. Heat oil and fry blended onions until lightly brown.
4. Add in blended chillies, sliced bombay onions and shrimp paste, fry till oil floated to the top of chilli mixture.
5. Add in fried anchovies, tamarind juice, sugar and salt.
6. Bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Besides Sambal Ikan Bilis, I serve my nasi lemak with Spicy Fried Chicken, hard boiled eggs, fried peanuts, fried anchovies and sliced cucumber.

Strawberry Shortcake

2008-10-27T09:46:00.009+08:00

When I first started cake decorating, I had BIG dreams. I wanted to do cake sculpturing, transforming all things into cakes and creating out of this world designs. In pursuing this dream, I not only get professional help but also ended up buying lots of cake decorating books. I was very charged up........until I realised how much time is required to create a good cake *sigh*.

After so many months though I still have that dream (in smaller scale now), but the reality is I prefer to decorate character pan cakes. Character pan cakes are cakes baked using moulds shaped from popular TV or movie characters. After baking these cakes, what is required is to decorate them with various colour icing and...viola..the cake is ready.

I guess the reason why I like making these type of cakes is not much brain juice is required. Moreover the decorating part helps me to relax after a day's hard work. I supposed this is very similar to how most parents calm their toddlers down by getting them to colour characters from a Colouring Books.

Recently I had a request to do a Strawberry Shortcake cake. I was very excited, like a toddler being given a Colouring Book with a set of colour pencils.

And out of all the character pan cakes that I have baked thus far, this one is my favourite as it has my favourite colour........PINK.

Cupcakes for Marianne's Birthday

2008-10-21T18:33:00.000+08:00

It is amazing how time flies. It seems like not too long ago that I made Beach Theme cupcakes for my dear friend, Marianne's birthday. And....this is the time of the year again. This time round I decided to make a Garden Theme cupcakes for her.

In the past, when I tried making fondant figurines and objects, they never turn out the way I want them to be. They usually are soft and limply even after leaving them out to dry for a couple of days. This time round I decided to add more gum paste to the fondant and I must say that it gave better result. At least the figurines and object were able to dry out completely even in our humid weather.

To add a little sparkles to the cut out hearts and butterflies, I painted them with edible silver powder mixed with Vodka.

VW Outing to Fraser's Hill

2008-10-05T19:47:00.020+08:00

Hubby : Wanna go to Fraser's Hill during the Hari Raya break?

Me : What's the occasion and for how long?
Hubby : Its THE Gathering of VW (Volkswagen) fans for a night of fellowship on Fraser's Hill.

Me : The Gathering...Fellowship? Ya, would love to go.

My imagination quickly took a spin when hubby mentioned the word Gathering and Fellowship. These 2 words reminded me of the movie - The Lord of the Rings. If I am not mistaken the 1st sequel is called The Fellowship of The Ring. For a moment I wonder whether is this gathering was going to be as glamorous or not.

Well, it wasn't glamorous, so to speak. But we did have a lot of fellowship and fun. All of us went there with our VW cars. It was such a pleasant surprise to see various model of VWs; Golf Mark 1, Golf Mark 2, Corado, Golf Plus, etc. There were a few of them who came in their Golf Mark 1 Cabriolet and seeing them driving around with the hood down is just fantastic. That's when we really regretted not driving our Golf Mark 1 Cabriolet there.

As usual, when VW fans (I mean the guys) get together they speak nothing but how to modify their VWs from the bonnet to the engine and even wheels. It is amazing how these people never get tired off talking about the same topic over and over again at each VW gathering.

Besides the fellowship and VW talk shop, we also did some sight seeing. This is the Rest House at the Gap, on the way to Fraser Hill which was closed for renovation.

The weather on Fraser Hill was fantastic. It was cool and breezy, nothing like the hot and humid weather we get in KL. This is the picture taken from the balcony of our apartment (Pine Resort).

This is the Guthrie House. Look at the amazing colonial architecture.

Here's our dog, Jeanie enjoying her afternoon nap in this cool weather.

Overall, this trip was very well organised and it was a good break for all of us. Even our dog Jeanie agrees. :) Bravo to the organiser, looking forward to many more outings like this. So, Mr. Organiser when is the next outing and where to?

Blog LOVE Award

2008-10-03T22:10:00.007+08:00

I want to thank Little Corner for sharing this lovely award with me. This is such a lovely award and what the world need most now is LOVE.

(Pls. don’t remove)Credits: Elements/Paper by Dani Mogstad/ Layout by JennyLRules:
1. Don’t remove the credits when you post the image2. Please link back to the person who tagged you and pass this tag to many of your friends3. If you have more than one blog, please post this to all of your blogs so your other blogs can be listed to the master list too.
4. Remember to come back here at A SLICE OF LIFE (pls. don’t change this link and leave the exact post url so I can add you to the master list to help increase our rankings and improve our Technorati Authority. 6. Spread the BLOG LOVE FEVER!!

BLOGGERS:1.Jenny Said So2.Simply Jen3.This and That4.Bargain.Sales.Deals.5.A Slice of Life6.Aussie Talks7. When Mom Talks8. Me and Mine<9. Creative in Me10. For the LOVE of Food11. Little Peanut12. Pea in a Pod13. It’s Where the HEART Is14. Around the World15.SugarMagnolias16.kathycot17. buhay misis 18. when mom speaks19. walk on red20. kathycot cooks21quicker822. Eds Mommy Life23. My Precious Niche24. Just Me.. Eds25. Can of Thoughts26. Designs By Vhiel27. Vhiel's Corner28. Anything and Everything in Between29. Good things in life...30. Precious Moments..31.Beachlover 32.beachloverkitchen. 33. Little Corner of Mine 34. Ling Passion.

Now I'm going to spread the Blog Love to these wonderful bloggers from all over the world:

1. Cooking Momster

2. Bento Pet

Beautiful Site Award

2008-09-17T21:24:00.003+08:00

This Beautiful Site Award is passed on to me by Beachlover's Kitchen. I want to thank her for having such high regards for my blog. But, I must confess that my blog is not half as beautiful as some of the blogs that I have visited.

So I shall pass this award to Cooking Momster who has a beautiful blog.

Sexy Cupcakes

2008-09-15T22:31:00.000+08:00

Having worked in the same company for the past 17 years, I have many friends. Though some of these friends have moved on to new ventures, we still keep in touch. We will occasionally meet up for dinner and catch up on old times.

We met up again on Saturday for a dinner at a Japanese Restaurant. Prior to our meeting one of them asked whether can I make some kinky, sexy or naughty design cupcakes for her hubby's birthday. She will then pick up from me when we meet for dinner. I told her I have been wanting to try out such design cupcakes but have not had a chance.

So with great enthusiasm I made these cupcakes for her.

Lemon Poppy Seeds Cupcakes

2008-09-10T21:10:00.001+08:00

I have been defeated!!! The flu bug, soar throat and cough won't leave me alone. I must be such a comfortable host....(aarrr). Though generally I am a hospitable person but my hospitality only extend to the human kind.

First, it was the running nose, then soar throat and followed by cough. Even though I have recovered from the earlier 2 but the cough just refuse to get any better. I have been coughing for almost 3 weeks now. This has not only affected my sleep but also completely drained me of my energy.

I was not prepared to bake any stuff until I am fully recovered. But the lemon sitting in my fridge has been crying out to me..........please, please eat ME! I realised that if I do not use it any sooner, in no time it join the rest of perishables in the garbage bin. In order not to waste any food, with or without energy I decided to bake some Lemon Poppy Seed Cupcakes.

By adding Poppy seeds they gave the cupcakes extra texture. With each bite it feel like I am eating caviar..……..oh, my imagination must have gone wild (not my fault this must be the flu bug)

To make the cupcakes more appealing, I decided to decorate them with some flowers made from royal icing.

As for the recipe of the cupcakes......

Ingredients
250g butter
200g castor sugar
4 eggs
250g self raising flour
1 1/2 tbsp poppy seed
rind and juice from 1 lemon

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs; one at a time and mix well.
3. Stir in lemon rind.
4. Fold in flour alternate with lemon juice, ending with flour.
5. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 170C.

Web-by Cupcakes

2008-08-25T22:00:00.007+08:00

I often wonder why we are only given 24 hours a day. Why not 36 hours or better still 48 hours. Not sure about others but 24 hours a day is really not enough for me. With my full time job I hardly have time to do the things that I love.

If only I have 48 hours a day, I would love to try out all the cake recipes that I have from the numerous recipe books I have collected over the years. I would love to spend more time decorating my cakes with elaborate themes and designs. I would love to blog my challenges and success more frequently. I would love to spend some time catching up with my favourite Korean series. I would love to read those books that I bought but still left unread on the shelves........this list can go on and on. But at this present moment all I can do is only to dream about it as I do not have 48 hours a day or neither can I afford to quit my job.......*sigh*

However, over the weekend while attending church camp I learnt that this is an age old problem. Even God who loves His creations did it over 6 days instead of within seconds or minutes. May be God also faced the same problem as me *grin*

Coming back to the cupcakes above. These are cupcakes for my friend's son who celebrated his birthday last week. Due to time constraint, these were baked and decorated on Thursday after work. Despite the rush I am glad that my friend is pleased with them.

Durian Cheesecake

2008-08-09T20:09:00.006+08:00

Durian is the king of fruits in Malaysia. Most Malaysian will claimed that this is the best fruit amongst the countless varieties available here. This fruit has a creamy texture and its fragrance lingers on long after the fruit has been digested. Good quality durians are usually sold by the roadside stalls and many Malaysian do not mind setting aside their elegance to eat durians in a squatting position at these stalls. Same goes for Hubby and Sydney. But as for me, you will never catch me at these stalls eating durians either dead or alive. I must confess that I am not a durian fan.

Sydney has been bugging me to make Durian Cheesecake after tasting one made by her friend's mother many years ago. She even boldly asked her friend's mother for the recipe. Somehow I never had the opportunity to make one or to be honest refused to even attempt since I do not like durians *selfish*.

Last week, my babysitter gave us some very good quality durians which Hubby and Sydney could not finish. After some persuasion from Sydney I decided to try out the Durian Cheesecake. I must admit that durian and cheese are like a marriage made in heaven, this combination tasted just divine. Although I may still not like durian as a fruit but I certainly don't mind having Durian Cheesecake.

This recipe that I used is by Catherine Lau and was published in Flavours Magazine (Sept - Nov 2001) but I have made some changes according to the ingredients that I have.

Base

200g digestive biscuits

50g cornflakes

20g brown sugar

125g melted butter

Filling

500g cream cheese

80g castor sugar

20g honey

10g custard powder

50g cornflour

4 large eggs

350g durian pulp

120g whipping cream

To assemble base

1. Put all ingredients except butter in a food processor and process till fine.

2. Pour the processed ingredients in a bowl and stir in butter.

3. Grease the side of a 23cm springform and line the base with aluminium foil.

4. Press mixture evenly and firmly on the base of cake pan.

5. Keep in the fridge for 30 minutes.

To prepare filling

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor and process until mixture is smooth.

2. Pour onto prepared base.

3. Bake at 150C for 1 hour or until the cake is firm in the centre.

Note - I prefer using food processor for making cheesecake as less air is incorporated that will result in lesser crack on the cake.

Fried Hokkien Mee Hoon (Fried Vermicelli)

2008-08-03T20:47:00.012+08:00

After church this morning, we headed straight to the shopping malls as most of the malls are on sale. Though when we left church it was almost lunch time, we weren't hungry as we had a substantial brunch after the service. I must say that we certainly are fortunate to have so many ladies in church who are fabulous cooks. Each week they will take turn to prepare breakfast for the congregation.

By the time we had lunch it was almost 3.oo in the afternoon. Since we were all tired by the time we reach home and not that hungry, I decided to prepare a light meal for dinner. Hubby requested for Fried Hokkien Mee Hoon. The one thing I learnt about frying tasty mee hoon is, you must allow the gravy to be absorbed by the mee hoon. By cooking it this way, you not only get tasty mee hoon but the mee hoon will retain its long strand without breaking up too much.

Ingredients

200g mee hoon, soaked for 10 minutes

100g prawns (without shell)

120g pork belly, sliced

a bunch of choy sum

6 shallot, sliced

60ml cooking oil

Sauce Ingredients

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

1/4 tsp salt

a dash of pepper

1/2 cup water

Garnishing

Omelette made with 2 eggs, shredded

1. Heat oil in a wok and fry shallot until light brown. Remove and set aside.

2. Fry pork belly till lightly brown.

3. Add in fried shallot and prawn and stir fry for 1 minute.

4. Stir in vegetable then pile mee hoon on top of vegetable.

5. Pour in sauce ingredients; do not stir, cover and turn the heat down to minimum.

6. Allow mee hoon to slowly soak in the gravy for approximately 5 minutes.

7. Give mee hoon a good stir, cover and continue to cook on minimum heat for further 5 to 10 minutes until mee hoon is cooked.

8. Serve garnish with shredded egg omelette.

Banana Cupcakes

2008-07-30T22:50:00.010+08:00

These are the Banana Cupcakes that I made for our home fellowship meeting tonight. When I first started baking I have many failed attempt at making banana cakes. Either they turn out extremely dense or extremely dry.

When I chanced upon this cupcake recipe from the Crazy about Cupcakes book, I was a little skeptical as this recipe has milk in it. I always thought that mash banana by itself is already moist enough, why the milk then.

Honestly, I did not have much faith in this recipe. But surprisingly these cupcakes turn out not only moist but also fluffy and nice.

Here is the recipe that I have adapted for sharing:-

Ingredients

225g butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 large eggs

2 large bananas, mashed (approx. 1 cup)

1 3/4 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Sift all the dry ingredients and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence till light and fluffy.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time and mix well after each addition.

4. Stir in mashed bananas.

5. Fold in the dry ingredients alternate with milk ending with the dry ingredients.

6. Fill paper cups to 3/4 full and bake in oven preheated to 180C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Vegetarian Pasta

2008-07-23T20:34:00.009+08:00

Though most of the time Hubby, Sydney and I will have dinner together, there are times like tonight that hubby can't join us for dinner due to work commitment. Since there are only two of us, I decided to make a one dish pasta meal. As this is a last minute decision, I only had what's left in my fridge to rely on.

I usually use spaghetti for this dish but this time round I substituted it with Angel Hair pasta. Reason being, Angel Hair pasta cook much faster. It only required to be boiled for 2 minutes (quicker than instant Maggi noodle). This brings back memories of how my mom used to comment that I always look for the shortest way possible to get things done. Her rational is lazy people will find quick way out. But in this modern day, this is called process improvement and I like to think that back then I was already practising process improvement *wink*.

Ingredients
150g Angel Hair pasta
1 capsicum, roasted, skin removed and sliced
5 fresh brown mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp chopped local celery
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
dried chilli flakes to taste (I replace with ground paprika)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
salt to taste
grated Parmesan cheese

1. Boil pasta according to instruction provided on packaging.
2. Heat olive oil and fry garlic for 1 minute.
3. Stir in mushroom, capsicum and celery.
4. Add in pasta and some of the leftover water used to boil pasta.
5. Add salt and ground pepper and stir fry for 2 minutes.
6. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Spicy Prawn Chilli Okra (Ladies' Fingers)

2008-07-12T09:05:00.008+08:00

This is one of my favourite time saving dish. It is Okra with Spicy Prawn Chilli. This dish is really fast and easy to make with the help of Tean's Spicy Prawn Chilli.

For this dish, I used :-

10 okra cut into 1.5 inch length
water to blanch okra
2 tsp soy sauce
1-2 tbsp Tean's Spicy Prawn Chilli

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Blanch okra for 3 - 5 minutes
3. Dish okra from water and top with soy sauce and Spicy Prawn Chilli

Below is the the Tean's Spicy Prawn Chilli.

This Spicy Prawn Chilli is made up of ground chillies and dried prawns fried in oil till crispy. It can also be served as a accompanying sauce for noodles or rice besides using this as topping to flavour vegetable or soy bean curd.

Racing Car (NASCAR)

2008-07-03T20:51:00.010+08:00

Most of the time I like to be in the comfort zone doing things that I am comfortable with or confident in. But occasionally I will take up challenges to see how far I could go. Many times I am amazed with the results that I could attained when being challenged. I think the 'daredevil' in me stems from the 'I dare you' statements that my friends and I used to challenge each other with in school. Looking back now, I believe it is these occasional challenges that had help built my character and make me what I am today.

Recently, I took up another challenge. This time is to bake and decorate a racing car cake for my friend's son who is turning 4. Sport cars are his favourite and he could practically draw any sport car that he see with all the intricate details such as spoiler, skirting, fender, bumper and everything that comes with that.

So for his birthday, his dotting mother requested for a chocolate butter cake with buttercream for her darling little boy's birthday party to be celebrated in the kindie.

Enjoy the cake, Justin and Happy Birthday.

Fancy Cupcakes

2008-06-29T20:47:00.010+08:00

When I first completed my Wilton Course, I was so charged up that I bought most of the required tools. I anticipated then that I will be baking and decorating lots of cakes. How wrong was I. I guess I was kidding myself thinking that I have all the time in this world to bake and decorate cakes. In reality, I do not have that much time to indulge in my interest. In order not to forget what I've learnt, on and off I'll bake some cupcakes to practise my decorating skill.

Recently I bake some cupcakes for decorating after a long break. Initially, I was a little clumsy with the piping. However, after a few disastrous attempts I am glad that I am still able to create some decent looking cupcakes. Here are picture of some of the more presentable ones.

Spicy Fried Chicken

2008-06-24T14:19:00.014+08:00

I spoke a little too soon sometime back when I wrote in my blog that eating out in Malaysia is still cheap and affordable. However, this has not been the case since the recent increase in petrol price by 40%. Generally, prices of most goods have gone up quite substantially. For instance a bag of 10kg rice that used to cost RM20 is now close to RM40.

Under such circumstances, we have decided not to eat out so often. Therefore, I am back to my dinner cooking routine again.......(sigh). Will have to comb through all my recipe books for quick and simple dishes to satisfy the hunger of Sydney and hubby who awaits patiently each day for my return to prepare dinner.

Here is one such recipe that I improvise and name it Spicy Fried Chicken.

Ingredients

6 chicken wings

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp curry powder for meat

Oil for deep frying

1. Marinate chicken wings with salt and curry powder for at least half an hour.

2. Heat oil and fry till crispy and chicken wings are cooked.

Note : I used chicken wings as they cook faster than chicken drumstick and I marinate them in the morning before I leave for work.

Cream Scones

2008-06-17T21:14:00.009+08:00

Scones are one of my favourites when it comes to tea time. It is easy and fast to make. Most of the time all the ingredients required are readily available as these ingredients are essential to our daily life. A batch of approximately 10 scones can be churned out within minutes. Due to my tight schedule even on weekends simple recipe such as this one is highly appealing to me.

Most of the time I used milk for my scones but so happen I had some leftover cream from the recent batch of quiche that I made. Therefore for these batch of scones I used cream instead. I must said that scones made of cream are richer in taste and the texture is finer than those made with milk.

I served my scones with whipped cream and strawberry jam. The cream melted a little due the the hot weather and my short cut in not whipping the cream well. Nevertheless it still taste yummy.

Here's the recipe for the above scones :-

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp castor sugar

A pinch of salt

30g butter

3/4 cup cream

1/4 cup water

2 tbsp raisins (or more depending on preference)

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.

2. Add sugar and rub in butter to resemble bread crumbs.

3. Add in raisins and make a well in the centre.

4. Add in cream and water.

5. Mix quickly using palate knife to form a soft dough.

6. Knead briefly using only fingers until smooth.

7. Flatten dough to 2 cm thickness.

8. Cut with 5 inch round cutter.

9 Baked in oven pre-heated to 200C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Chocolate Marble Cake

2008-06-09T20:57:00.012+08:00

Last Thursday and Friday were great as I was on leave and spent most part of the days lazing around doing nothing much but watching my favourite Taiwan soap opera - The Prince who turn into a frog. I am not shy to admit that at this age (neither that young or ehm....old) there is still this little girl in me who enjoys a good fairy tale story with happy ending. I hate the reality of life which is full of broken marriages and relationships.

Since I was on leave there were no excuses not to bake something. But as most of my time was spent watching the Taiwan soap opera and since the show was quite interesting, I didn't want to spent too much time in the kitchen baking. Therefore I decided on this Chocolate Marble Cake that is really fast to prepare. The entire preparation only took me about 30 minutes and when 30 minutes was up I was able to continue with the show while waiting for the cake to finish baking (cheeky grin).

Here's the recipe for Chocolate Marble Cake:-

Ingredients
250g butter
250g self-raising flour
200g castor sugar
100g semi sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
4 large eggs
1/4 cup milk

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Mix in eggs, one at a time.
3. Fold in flour alternate with milk ending with flour.
4. Divide batter into 2 portions and stir melted chocolate into one of the portion.
5. Spoon plain cake batter into greased cake pan.
6. Spoon chocolate mixture over the plain cake mixture.
7. Swirl batter with a spatula to create marble effect.
8. Bake at 180 for 40 to 50 min.

Blueberry Muffin

2008-06-05T09:35:00.007+08:00

Muffins are little treats that I usually whipped up when I am hard pressed for time or when I have to feed a zillion people. Simply because these little morsels are not only easy but also fast to make. Furthermore the taste can be varied by adding all sort of fruits and nuts.

To make muffin is as easy as 1, 2, 3. No kidding. All you need to do is (1) put all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl (2) mix all the wet ingredients in a jug (3) stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Opps.....may be not 1, 2, 3 but also (4) fill up muffin pan and bake for 15 - 20 mins.

Here are some blueberry muffins that I baked for a quick Sunday breakfast. The muffins were topped with blueberry pie filling. Below are the muffins ready to be baked.

Dry Ingredients
120g castor sugar
275g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs, lightly beaten
250ml milk
125g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla essence

Braised Fish Head (Hoong Siew Yee Tau)

2008-05-25T20:33:00.009+08:00

The last 3 weeks have been extremely busy for me with tons and tons of office work to complete. So much so that I do not have time to cook for my family. We have been eating out most of the week nights. Thankfully eating out is still affordable in this part of the world.

Finally, I had some time today since it is Sunday and we do not have any dinner plans. Hence, I decided to cook one of hubby's favourite fish dish. For this dish I used a large head of red snapper. I prefer large fish head as it yield more meat. Since the fish head that I bought was quite big, I only used half for this dish.

Ingredients
600g to 700g fish head cut into 8 pieces
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
corn flour
oil for deep frying
100g pork belly, sliced thinly
1 stalk leek, sliced
2 dried mushroom, soaked and sliced
4 baby corn, cut into half
8 button mushroom, cut into half
2 inch carrot, sliced
5 slices of ginger
3 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp sesame oil

Sauce Ingredients
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup water

Corn flour mixture
1 tsp corn flour
1 tbsp water

1. Clean fish head and season with soy sauce and pepper for 30 minutes.
2. Lightly coat fish head pieces with corn flour and deep fry till golden brown.
3. Drained and set aside.
4. Heat wok with both cooking oil and sesame oil.
5. Saute garlic and ginger for 1 minute, then add in pork belly and stir fry until pork belly is cook and lightly brown on the sides.
6. Add in dried mushroom, carrot and leek, stir fry for 1 minute.
7. Then add in corn and button mushroom and stir fry till well mixed.
8. Springkle cooking wine around the food directly on the wok, then stir in sauce ingredients and bring to boil.
9. Add in fish head and simmer for 3 minutes.
10. Thicken with corn flour mixture and serve.

Note : pork belly can be replace with roast pork for a more flavourful dish.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

2008-04-30T22:23:00.008+08:00

In line with the Statement of Gratitude of the tag in my previous post, I baked these Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream for a home fellowship meet of a close friend, Philip. We had known him for many many years and he has been such a great friend. He is one friend who had always been there for us when we needed help.

I recall many years ago when I was a new mother and hubby was away on business, he was the first person who came to my rescue when my house was flooded. I was staying in a single storey house then. Seeing the entire house covered with more than 6 inches of water with a toddler who could barely walk I was at a total lost. Fortunately, he was there to help me elevate some of the important stuff that could be damaged by the flood water. He accompanied us till the water subsided and help me washed up the house that by then was covered with a layer of thick mud. I am forever thankful for having such great friend.

This cupcake is made using my previous Magnolia Cupcake Recipe and the recipe for lemon buttercream is as follows:-

Ingredients

90g butter

250g icing sugar

3 teaspoon lemon juice

lemon zest for decoration

red heart candy for decoration

Bake cupcakes and leave them to cool to room temperature before icing them.

To prepare icing, cream butter, icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth and creamy. Pipe in circular motion from outer ring of cupcake ending in the centre using a large star nozzle. Decorate with lemon zest and red hear candy.

Tag : Life is Full of Gratitude

2008-04-27T21:48:00.007+08:00

My new found friend Little Corner passed me this tag. I supposed all of us one time or the other will have someone or something to be grateful and thankful for. I am of no difference. At this point of my life these are my statements of gratitude.

I am grateful to God who has provided for all my needs.
I am grateful for a loving husband and a wonderful daughter.
I am grateful for my parents who have brought us up well.
I am grateful for my siblings who are always there when I am in need.
I am grateful for all the friends that I have who shared my ups and downs.

~Start Copy~
In order to be able to achieve and maintain happiness we need to, actively, be able to do two things: Complain and then let go (Dump the baggage, the roadblocks to happiness.) Express Gratitude (The open expression of gratitude promotes happiness.) After all everyone has something to be grateful for and/or something to complain about. If you would like to share, please follow the appropriate link and do so: “Are You Grateful?”, “Complain Complain Complain.”

Add your name to the current List of Contributors:

Contributors to "Are You Grateful?" & "Complain Complain Complain" are: 1-Attitude, the Ultimate Power 2-Max 3-DianaCA's Metamorphoses 4-Mental Poo 5-My Thoughts 6-Baba Doodlius 7-Wake Up America 8-Life is a Roller Coaster 9-Life and Me 10-pinay mommy's love blog 11-My Happiness Haven 12-And Life Goes On for a Filipino Mom 13-Blessed Sanctuary 14-Expressions And Thoughts 15-Memories by Jenn 16-Reminiscence of My Adventures 17-In the Life of Mne 18-Juliana's Lair 19-Pinay Wahm 20-Lucid Creativity 21-Winged Words 22-Irresistible Fascinations 23-A Little Time 24-See Me For What You Will 25-Greatest Reviews 26-ETC ATBP 27-Gandacious 28-We Are Family 29-Journey to this thing called LIFE 30-http://www.rajeshrana.net/ 31-http://www.rajeshrana.com/ 32-BaReFooTeD Me 33-Uncomplicated 34-Points of View 35-Pride & Prejudice 36-Colorful World 37-Nora's Notes 38-A Daily Walk With Bill & Gina 39-Strange but True 40-Everything Under The Sun ( Beth Rebokon ) 41-Kaleidoscope 42-Fil-Oz Blog 43-http://oscar-vg.blogspot.com/ 44-Comedy Plus 45-Blogging by Sandee 46-Soul Meets World 47-Mae's Memoirs 48-Beyond the Rave Reality 49-Amori, poesie, arte, chat by Hanna 50-Attached at the Hip 51-Carver's Sight or is that Site? 52-Empress Reviews 53-Simple Pleasures In My Heart 54-Lourdes' mia 55-A Grateful Heart 56-Majorsleepyhead 57-Scrappy n Happy in Ohio 58-CHOC MINT GIRL 59-Extraordinary Things 60-ZOOROPAZOO 61-BeNolSatuEm 62-As The World Turns 63-Your Caring Angels 64-Life Is Wonderful To Know Everyday 65-Sugar Magnolias 66-Little Peanut 67-Creative In Me 68-Me and Mine 69-Pea in a Pod 70-the diary of the Pink & Brown Wedding 71-good thoughts, good trades, good life 72-My Blog - all things me 73-Rainbows 74-Little Corner of Mine 75-Me, Myself and I 76-My Planet Purple 77-Amel's Realm 78-A Handful of Surprises 79-A Detour 80-Something Purple 81-Vanity Kit 82-Are You Grateful? 83-A Simple Life 84-BlogTips.Com 85-Balitang Kalye 86-Mariuca 87- Emila Yusof 88-A Total Blog 89-My Life in this Wonderful World 90-MommyAllehs 91-Things That Suck 92-A Mother's Stuff 93-Princess Vien 94-My Inner Thoughts Revealed 95-Roxiticus Desperate Housewives 96-Apples Of The Eyes 97-Nita's Random Thoughts 98-Nita's Corner 99-Thomas Digital Services 100-A Mother's Thoughts101-Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta 102-My Perfect Escape 103-Vanidosa. Marie 104-Confessions of a Supermodel Wannabe 105-Lynda's Loft 105 - Ling Passion ~End Copy~

Now that I have completed, I shall pass this tag to:
The Caked Crusader
E's joie
The Sugarcrafter

Coconut Macaroons

2008-04-20T21:53:00.017+08:00

As the world of gourmet goes Oooooo....and....Ahhh over Parisian Macaroons, hubby also wanted his fair share after hearing so much from me. But then, when we came across some pictures of Parisian Macaroon, he remarked that those were not the ones he wanted. Phew......what a relief. These little babies are not only delicate to handle but also skill testing in bake them right. Which I must humbly confess that up till now I have not gathered enough courage to attempt at baking them. Perhaps one day, when the the need arises I will surely give it a go and will definitely share my adventure here.

Since it wasn't Parisian Macaroon that hubby was referring to, as a dutiful wife *grin* I went through my entire collection of cookbook. Eventually I managed to find what he wanted, it was non other than Coconut Macaroon. Fortunately, I was quick in snapping some photos. Otherwise there won't be any left as hubby finished all of them in a single sitting. Verdict : DELICIOUS.

Here's the recipe:-

Ingredients

2 eggs, separated

pinch of salt

1/2 cup castor sugar

3 cups dessicated coconut

Beat egg whites and salt till soft peak form.

Beat in egg yolk, one at a time.

Gradually add in sugar, beat until sugar is dissolved.

Fold in coconut.

Using a tablespoon, spoon mixture on baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 150C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Leave to cook before removing from tray.

Note : These macaroons will only crisp after cooling down.

I've been tagged for a Six Word Memoir!

2008-04-20T17:13:00.005+08:00

I've been tagged by The Caked Crusader who has a lovely and interesting blog awhile ago to do this meme thingie. But due to the instability of my internet connection I was unable to complete this tag until I got my modem fixed over the weekend.

So here my Six Word Memoir.........

Perfecting cooking skill......life long challenge

Rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog (and include a visual illustration if you’d like).
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I’m tagging the followings to participate in this meme:

Little corner
Cooking Momster
Saucing Around
Big Boys Oven
Beach Lover

Spicy Tuna Quiche

2008-04-13T22:06:00.007+08:00

We had our Ladies' Fellowship meet in church last Saturday. As usual such meeting can't do without food. So I brought along a Spicy Tuna Quiche. What to do, we are Malaysians after all. According to some of my foreign friends, we Malaysians eat all the time. The first timers to KL whom I knew were amazed at the variety of food we get here.

I must said that this Ladies' Fellowship meeting was the most fruitful one that I've attended so far. Fruitful in the sense that we are finally doing something more significant for the community. We have decided to start a charity drive to support some of the extremely poor families that my church member through Malaysian Care (Prison Ministry) is currently working with. Though our small church is now supporting 2 families there are more out there in desperate need for help. Most of these families have at least one member in prison and usually is the father. The wife and young children are left to fend for themselves.

In our effort to start this Charity Drive, we appeal to our church members to either donate in kind (basic essentials, used clothing, used household items, etc) or cash. The cash collected will be used to purchase basic needs for these families. I come to understand that most of these families have only 1 main meal a day. How sad that some times we waste food without having second thought.

Coming back to the quiche, I can't recall when was the last time I made one. I must confess that I hardly bake quiche as both hubby and Sydney are not great fan of it. I often wonder whether is it because I am so bad at making quiche or simply because they had poor taste. The response I get from the ladies after tasting my quiche concludes that both hubby and Sydney has poor taste *grin*.

Here's the recipe for Spicy Tuna Quiche.

Ingredients for crust:-
180g plain flour
90g butter
3-4 tbsp cold water

Ingredients for filing:-
1 small onion
1 red chili
1 tbsp spring onion
1 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 a canned tuna in water (340g per canned)
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
3 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

For crust
Sift flour into bowl, rub in butter and mix with water to form a pliable dough.
Cover and refrigerate for 30 mins.
Roll out pastry to line a 24cm flan tin.
Bake blind (line pastry with grease proof paper and top up with uncook beans or rice) for 10 mins in oven pre-heated to 180C.
Remove beans/rice and grease proof paper and bake for further 10 mins.

For filing
Heat a pan with hot oil and saute onion and chili. Remove from heat.
Stir in mashed tuna and spring onion.
Scattered cheese evenly on baked crust then follows by tuna mixture.
Combine eggs, cream, milk, salt and pepper; mixed well.
Pour mixture into pastry case.
Bake for 30 mins or until golden brown.

Naughty BOOBs Cake

2008-04-07T21:49:00.004+08:00

For my colleague's BIG 40th birthday, a few of us gathered together and decided to get her a naughty cake. She has been passing remarks and implying that she would love to have super size boobs with cleavage. After much thought we decided on a Boobs Cake. It was unanimously agreed that none other than moi will make the cake. As I am the only one amongst them who has ventured into cake baking and decorating.

Since my graduation from Wilton, I have not have many encounters with fondant. Even though I have been baking quite a lot lately, especially cupcakes but all the people that I baked for prefers buttercream. I supposed fondant is still relatively new in this part of the world.

Thus far, the only elaborate design that I have made with fondant is my Wilton Course 3 graduation cake. And that was pretty easy as we have instructors to guide us through. When I had to decorate this Boobs cake on my own it was quiet a challenge. Firstly, it was about getting the colour tone right. Then it was the care required to ensure that the workmanship is neat and looks real.

I must admit that I wasn't quite happy with the end result as it wasn't as neat and pretty as I had imagine it to be. But I am glad that despite the imperfection, the birthday girl is overjoyed with her cake.

Perfect Blend of Friendship Award!

2008-04-05T22:26:00.003+08:00

I would like to thank Little Corner for this lovely award. How very true that TRUST, KINDNESS, HONESTY and CARING makes a perfect friendship blend. Though this award reflect the 'blend' of friendship in various cups but I like to think of it like 3 in 1 coffee; all in one cup. Friendship is like coffee to me. I need a cup coffee each morning before I can start my day.

And now, I would like to pass this on to:-

The Caked Crusader

The Sugarcrafter

Eat First Think Later

You Get What You Give

All About Yum

Fancy Pansies

2008-03-31T22:32:00.006+08:00

This is going to be a short post since it is almost 11pm now. To some the night has just began. But for me whom known to my friends as sleeping beauty, I need to be in bed by 11pm. Any time pass this hour may unveil a different me..........cranky and short tempered. So to save my reputation, I shall make this a short post before the other side of me is reflected here........*cheeky grin*

I have been decorating my cupcakes with a lot of roses, stars and swirl flowers. This time round decided to do some huge pansies. These are for my friend's sister's birthday. Aren't they lovely.......

Cupcakes adapted from Magnolia Bakery

2008-03-24T21:01:00.010+08:00

Magnolia Bakery, as most people know is a renown bakery in New York that popularised cupcakes and gave them the same glory as gourmet cakes. I often wonder what their cupcakes taste like.

When I stumbled upon this recipe from the Internet; supposedly released by Magnolia Bakery, I just need to give it a shot. Well, I must say that I wasn't disappoint at all. In fact, I like the texture of the cupcake very much. It is soft and fluffy somewhat like a sponge cake. The only set back about these cupcakes are they are a little too sweet for me even after reducing the sugar by 25% (1/2 cup). The next time I bake them, I will surely reduce the sugar further to 1 1/4 cup.

For those who would like to give this cupcake a shot, here's the recipe :-

Ingredients

2 3/4 cup plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

250g butter

1 1/2 cup sugar (original recipe - 2 cup sugar)

4 large eggs

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth and fluffy.

Add in eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition.

Fold in flour alternate with milk; ending with flour.

Fill paper cups with cake mixture to 1/2 full.

Bake at 170C for 15 to 20 mins.

Braised Chicken with Raisin Wine

2008-03-21T09:05:00.007+08:00

Yesterday was a public holiday in Malaysia and this is in celebration of Prophet Mohammad's birthday. Since I do not have to work and have some time in hand, I decided to cook something different for a change for dinner instead of the usual quick stir fry dishes that I dish out within minutes on working nights.

I opt for the Braised Chicken with Raisin Wine since my mom gave me a bottle of raisin wine that she made herself. In the absence of raisin wine, it can also be subtituted with rice wine.

Here's the recipe :-

Ingredients

500g chicken (I prefer chicken thigh or drumstick)

3 clove garlic (chopped)

5 slices of ginger

5 dried chinese mushroom (soak in water till soft, remove stem and cut into half)

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

1/2 cup of water

Marinade
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar

Seasoning
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup of raisin wine

Mix chicken with marinade and leave a side.
Heat cooking oil and sesame oil in a wok.
Fry chopped and ginger in hot oil until fragrant.
Add in chicken and fry till the juice has been sealed in.
Then add in mushroom and stir fry for 1 minute.
Pour in seasoning and water, bring to boil and let it simmer ill chicken is cooked and tender.
Serve hot with rice.

Tag : What Do You Think About Me

2008-03-20T09:59:00.004+08:00

This time round I've been tagged by Cooking Momster to do a tag on what do I think of her.

I have known her only for like a month and though we have not met but I must say that she is a great listener or MSNner. So Cooking Momster if there is any of my opinion that does not jive with who or what you are........please don't get angry, ya.

Here's what I think of you:-

A) LIST OUT THE TOP 5 PRESENTS YOU WISH FOR :-
1. A tour round the world with my family
2. A well equip kitchen with enough storage for all my baking tools
3. A slimming package to shed 10kg of my weight
4. A opportunity to act as San Mei in the Korean Drama 'All About Eve' with my favourite Korean actor - Jang Dung Gun *wakie...wakiee.....Ooops I must be dreaming*
5. Lots of time in hand to try all the recipes in my cookbook collection

B) THE PERSON WHO TAGGED ME IS: Cooking Momster

C) YOUR 5 IMPRESSIONS OF HIM/HER:
1. Good listener
2. Friendly
3. Expressive
4. A loving mother
5. A hardworking person

D) MOST MEMORABLE THINGS HE/SHE HAS GIVE/DONE FOR YOU-invited me to MSN with her even though I do not know her.

E) THE MOST MEMORABLE WORDS HE/SHE SAID TO YOU- too many to quote

F) IF HE/SHE BECOMES YOUR LOVER, YOU WILL- not possible, I am happily married. Moreover, I am a STRAIGHT.

G) IF HE/SHE BECOMES YOUR ENEMY, THE REASON WILL BE- at this point in time can't think of any reason that will lead us to be enemies.

H) PASS THE QUIZ TO 5 PEOPLE THAT YOU WISH TO KNOW HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT YOU - not many bloggers that I know, furthermore had already tagged all of them. Will give this a miss.

Tagged : Before I was a Mum and Award!

2008-03-16T21:54:00.008+08:00

I've been tagged by Little Corner sometime ago but I must admit that I'm not very good in keeping up with this tagging game *guilty-guilty*. I'm thankful that despite my snail pace, I'm still being remembered by her. This is how this tagging works.

The rule to the e-mail was that, once you have been hit, you have to hit 5 pretty Moms, including the one who thought of you today & sent it to you. The idea is that if you get hit again, You will know you are really pretty!

So I thought lets just turn this into a tag instead. But that “hit” part won’t work very well in a tag. So instead of giving a “hit” to the one who tag you, you add your name at the bottom of the tagged persons list, and without bumping the person at the top or bumping anyone off and let the list grow. Hit 5 pretty moms on your list to let them know they are pretty!

Before I was a mum; I hardly cook at home we eat out most of the time.

Before I was a mum; I love to go to the mamak store for supper late at night.

Before I was a mum; I didn't like babies.

Before I was a mum; I was never this hardworking (always take life easy)

Before I was a mum; I used to make last minute travelling arrangements.

Before I was a mum; I wonder when will God bless me with a kid.

The first chain of tag:

1. Lovelymummy
2. Pek Imm
3. Momisodes
4. Ling that’s me
5. Janicepa
6. AnnieQ
7. Allthingspurple
8. Montessorimum
9. clumsy mommy
10. Sandra
11. KittyCat
12. VivianZ
13. Sweetpea
14. Sasha
15. Giddy Tiger
16. Wen
17. Jo-N
18. Janice Ng
19. ViEmwk
20. Little Corner of Mine
21. Ling's Passion

I would like to tag the following pretty mothers:-
Cooking Momster
.......er.....can't think of anyone else as most of them have already been tagged.

I would like to also thank beachlover for this wonderful award and may there be peace on earth.

I totally agree with her 'peace above love', but then again you have to love in order to find peace. If everyone can 'love thy neighbour as thyself' ( Leviticus 19:18) as the scripture says, there will not be wars in the world.

I would like to pass this Peace Award to:-

1. Saucing Around

2. Cooking Momster

Ooops.....just remembered that I've one more tag to do. This time round I've been tagged by Cooking Momster.......but will have to check out what's it all about before I can proceed. So watch out for it if you would like to know me better *cheeky grin*.

Strawberry Jam Filled Cupcakes

2008-03-12T22:12:00.013+08:00

Cupcakes, although we love them very much but since started baking for friends, we have been loaded with 1 or 2 of those extras from each batch of baking that over a period of time it no longer is a pleasure but a pressure to finish them.

So for a change, I decided to bake some cupcakes filled with strawberry jam. Strawberry jam is the only jam that never cease to appear in my fridge. I readily have them to please my occasional crave for scones which I think must have been acquired along with the English that I learnt from England during my school days. I must say that where scones are concern, I am as arrogant and proud of them as the British. My hubby can't stand the way I insist on how a scone should be splitted into half and only served with whipped cream and strawberry jam. If only clotted cream is readily available.............

Back to the cupcakes. Although in this instance I used strawberry jam, but any other jam will do according to individuals preference. As for the cupcake, I used the easy and quick Madeira Cake recipe.

Ingredients

250g butter

4 large eggs

160g castor sugar

250g self-raising flour, sifted

1 tsp vanilla essence

Strawberry Jam

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence till light and fluffy.

Mix in eggs, one at a time. Beating well after each addition.

Then fold flour into cake mixture.

Fill paper cup with 1 tbsp of cake batter and make a small well in the middle of the batter.

Spoon 1 tsp of strawberry jam into the well.

Cover the jam with another tbsp of cake batter.

Bake in oven pre-heated to 160C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Note : Cool cupcakes completely before serving as the strawberry jam is burning hot immediately after baking.

Cupcakes for Wedding Ceremony

2008-03-08T13:48:00.013+08:00

Cupcakes undeniably have been much sought after for any and every occasion. I recently received a request from a friend for cupcakes for her neice's wedding. These cupcakes are to be served during the wedding ceremony when the bridegroom come by to pick up the bride.

When I asked for details such as colour theme, design, etc. Non was given. Either I am so good that my friend trusted my choice of design or they don't want to be disappointed in case I can't meet their expectations. I wish to believe the earlier *cheeky grin*.

Here are the cupcakes that I made for this joyful occasion.

My BREAD Story

2008-03-03T22:10:00.003+08:00

If you asked me which of my kitchen appliance serves me best. Without hesitation, I would say is my breadmaker - The Sanyo Bread Factory. Why? It has over the past 10 years taken not only the hard work of kneading but also the time keeping from me in churning out fresh good loaves of bread. Today, I can no longer live without my home made bread as I am so dependant on it to start my day. Besides my usual morning coffee *grin*, of course.

With breadmaker, all you need to do is to pile the ingredients in the pan provided according to the manufacturer's instruction. And......viola 3 hours later you get freshly baked bread. Some breadmaker like mine also has a delayed function. Which means you can put all the ingredients in the pan provided and set the time that you want the bread to be ready. I usually set my bread to be ready by 7am the next morning so that I get to wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread. It would be perfect if this is coupled with the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

For the above loaf of bread, I used the following recipe from Betty Crocker's Best Bread Machine Cookbook.

Ingredients

1 cup plus 2 tbsp water

2 tbsp butter (room temperature)

3 cups bread flour

3 tbsp milk powder

2 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp active dry yeast

Place all ingredients in breadmaker pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Basic/White cycle. Remove bread from pan immediately after the baking has completed and cool on wire rack.

Tagged : 10 Things about Ling's Passion

2008-02-25T23:05:00.004+08:00

I got tagged again and this time by Little Corner to do this meme : 10 things about me.

1. Ling's Passion loves to : buy cook books.

2. Ling's Passion hates to : do house work.

3. Ling's Passion loves to : watch TV food channel.

4. Ling's Passion hates to : do ironing.

5. Ling's Passion loves to : bake more than to cook.

6. Ling's Passion hates to : wash the toilet.

7. Ling's Passion loves to : cuddle her daughter who is bigger and taller than her.

8. Ling's Passion hates to : to watch horror movies.

9. Ling's Passion loves to : watch Korean soap opera.

10. Ling's Passion hates to : hang around strangers.

Now that I am done, I would like to tag:

Cooking Momster
Beachlover
Play play in the kitchen
Daily Affair

Please don't forget to link back to me, ya.

Curry Chicken

2008-02-24T18:21:00.018+08:00

I was invited by Big Boys Oven for a bloggers get together. It was really an honour since I am a newbie and Big Boys and the rest have been in the scene for so long. Initially, I wanted to bring along my signature cupcakes. SIGNATURE because I have baked and featured them in my blog for umpteen times. But on second thought, how can I bring cupcakes to a get together where the hosts are expert in the field of baking and desserts.

Therefore, after much thought I came up with Curry Chicken and Homemade Bread. For now, I'll just post the recipe for Curry Chicken and save the recipe for bread that is much easier with the help of breadmaker for another time.

Marinade together:-

1 whole chicken (approx. 1.5kg)

1/3 cup of curry powder for meat

1 tsp salt

Marinate chicken for 1/2 hour.

Blend together:-
10 chillies (150g)

15 shallots (250g)

6 pips garlic (50g)

20g belacan (prawn paste) - optional

Other Ingredients

1/3 cup cooking oil

2 stalk of curry leaves

1 piece cinnamon stick

2 star anise

2 stalks of lemon grass

1 piece of dried tamarine

7 medium size potatoes - cut into chunks

Coconut milk extracted from 1 coconut

salt to taste

Heat oil in wok until it is hot.

Fry curry leaves, lemon grass, star anise and cinnamon stick briefly.
Pour in blended ingredients and fry using medium heat until oil floats to the top.

Add in chicken and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.

Mix 1/3 of the coconut milk with water and pour over the chicken. Ensure water is enough to cover the chicken.

Bring to boil and simmer until chicken is cooked and potatoes are soft.

Pour in the balance of coconut milk and add salt to taste.

Bring curry to boil then immediately turn off the fire.

Curry Chicken is another versatile dish. It can either be served with plain rice, bread or as topping for noodles.

For those who would like to know how the night goes, please check out All About Yum.

Cinnamon Rolls

2008-02-19T17:40:00.008+08:00

Chinese New Year (CNY) and its unlimited supply of glorious food has spoilt us much. We have been having dinners after dinners. These dinners started even before the CNY celebration and mostly with friends or family members. We have been eating so much that my dad commented that my entire family has put on weight. This includes my dog, Jeannie who has been travelling around with us.

So, I decided that it is time to go back basic and baked some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Making cinnamon rolls is quiet an easy task for me as my breadmaker does most of the work. All I need to do is to roll up the dough, slice it up and bake them.

Dough

3/4 cup of 1 large egg + water
1/2 cup milk

80g butter

1 tsp salt

3 2/3 cup bread flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/4 yeast

Filing

60g melted butter

1 tbsp cinnamon powder

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup raisins

Glaze

3 tbsp icing sugar (according to taste)

1/4 cup drinking water

Place dough ingredients in the bread machine according to the manufacturer's instruction.

Set bread machine to dough setting.

When cycle completed, remove dough from bread machine.

Punch down dough and roll into 12x16 inch rectangle.

Brush with melted butter but leaving 1 inch boarder without butter.

Mix together brown sugar and cinnamon powder and springkle it over buttered area of dough.

Then scattered the raisin on top of the surface covered by cinnamon mixture.

Roll dough up tightly like swiss roll and cut into slices of approximately 1 inch thick.

Place cinnamon rolls in a greased 9x13 inch baking pan, leaving enough space for them to rise.

Leave cinnamon rolls to rise for approx. 45 minutes or until double in size. (I usually speed up this process by placing dough in my oven preheated to 60C).

Bake at 190C for 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove from oven.

For glaze, mix together icing sugar and drinking water. Brush the glaze mixture generously over the cinnamon roll while it is still very hot. (This will keep the cinnamon roll moist and since it is moist it will reheat better in the microwave oven).

Awards Awards !!

2008-02-14T13:33:00.018+08:00

The Chinese New Year holidays have been such a good break for me that getting back to my normal routine was an uphill struggle. I have been living the life style of oink-oinks (piggy); though not glamorous but thoroughly enjoy doing nothing but just eat, sleep, eat, sleep..... more eat, sleep.....for the past few days.

Even though I have been awarded by my fellow blogger friends, I was just too lazy to start my computer and get going to receive these awards (sorry folks). The other thing that has delayed this award receiving ceremony is my ignorance in how to link back to the friends who have graciously passed me these awards. I still do not know how to link it back NEATLY just showing the blog name instead of the weblink. Would appreciate if someone out there could teach me how to do this right. It is times like that I couldn't deny but had to agree with Sydney that I am still somewhat quite ZERO where cyber world is concern.

I would like to thank Little Corner (http://belachan2.blogspot.com/) for this Nice Matters Award,

and Play-play in the kitchen (http://playplayinthhekitchen.blogspot.com/) for this Forever Friendship Ball.

Hi pals, sorry for taking such a long time *feeling guilty* but I do greatly appreciate these awards.

Due to my delayed action most of my other blogger friends (though not many) have already been awards by others. Therefore, I shall pass these 2 awards only to 3 other people instead of 5. They are :-

Fer

The Sugarcrafter

The Caked Crusader

Should there be any friends out there whom I have left out but would like to receive these awards, please do drop me a line.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

2008-02-10T17:29:00.001+08:00

Wishing all 'Gong Xi Fa Cai' and may the year of the Rat brings good Health, Wealth, Peace and Joy to you and your family.

I know, I know this greeting is a little late. I must confess that this delay is due to my own ignorance. My plan to get this post published on the eve of CNY has backfired on me badly. Just like all SMS's, I thought it would be so spot on to publish just before midnight. There goes my plan when the internet connection at my in-law's place failed. The next thing that came to my mind was to do it at my parent's place the following day using my brother's Blackberry. Guess what??? The connection was so bad that it took me ages to log on . So, I had to wait until I get back to KL before I can publish this post. I supposed this is not too late since today is still within the 15 days of CNY celebration. Better late than never......right?

Ling's Passion

50th Birthday Cake

Pavlova

Angry Bird Cake 1

Fishing Boy

Transformer : Optimus Prime

Lightning McQueen Car

Whimsy 21st Birthday Cake

Tortoise Cake

A Rose Bouquet

Heart Shape Birthday Cake

Choc-cheese Brownies

Golfer's Cake

Homemade Granola

Pineapple Cup Tarts

Chicken Varuval

Superman Cake for Fathers' Day

Financier or Friand??

Chocolate Whisky Cake

Popovers

Boiled Fruit Cake

Wedding Cake Demo @ Cilantro

Butter Cookies

Raisin Cupcakes

Green Pea Cookies

Chinese New Year Celebration

Almond Cookies

A Bed Of Roses

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

Upright Bear Cake

Christmas Cupcakes

Cream Puffs

Traditional Crumpets

Croque Madame

Creme Brulee

World of Pokemon

Cinnamon Kisses

New Blog Template

Soft Baked Eggs

Disaster, Disaster, Disaster.......

Non-Bake Oreo Cheesecake

Record Player Cake

Adventure with Figurine

Paratha Sausage Rolls

Sweet Dinner Rolls

Rich Chocolate Brownies

BBQ Nite

Cupcakes Ready To Go

Chocolate Eclair

Dinner in a tiffin

Orange Butter Cake

Ho Chi Min City Tour

Prawn Noodles

Bear in Pink Tutu

Christmas Cupcakes

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.........

Little Cuties

I've Been Tagged!

Nasi Lemak (Coconut Cream Rice)

**Strawberry Shortcake**

Cupcakes for Marianne's Birthday

VW Outing to Fraser's Hill

Blog LOVE Award

Beautiful Site Award

Sexy Cupcakes

Lemon Poppy Seeds Cupcakes

Web-by Cupcakes

Durian Cheesecake

Fried Hokkien Mee Hoon (Fried Vermicelli)

Banana Cupcakes

Vegetarian Pasta

Spicy Prawn Chilli Okra (Ladies' Fingers)

Racing Car (NASCAR)

Fancy Cupcakes

Spicy Fried Chicken

Cream Scones

Chocolate Marble Cake

Blueberry Muffin

Braised Fish Head (Hoong Siew Yee Tau)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

Strawberry Shortcake