We celebrated Malcolm’s 6th birthday last week
We bought him a cake to bring to school on Friday
I contemplated for a long time before getting one from a nearby bakery
A 2kg chocolate cake with loads of cream
A simple rectangular one which would probably cost less than 1/2 the price, if not for the digital print of his favourite heroic autobots on it

I managed to bake some mini chocolate chip cupcakes, wrapped them in nice cellophane bags and tagged each with a little thank you note
Lovely, yummilicious treats for his little friends in school

Because the little treats tasted so good
I decided to make a bigger version of it for his birthday party that weekend
He wanted something from Lord of the Ring, something that no known bakery in my knowledge makes

I was clueless, yet I agreed to bake him the evil tower

Lesson No. 1 - Never speak too soon or you disappoint a child what you can’t deliver

What followed next was many sleepless nights which gave me a few more strands of white hair
After many nights of researching I finally had a glimpse of how the cake should look like, BUT only in my head

I couldn’t afford the luxury of time to have a test bake
but I knew it had to be a 3 tier cake that would somehow transform to what he wanted
and all these had to be done on the day itself as I wasn’t sure how long the cake will last in this hot and humid weather
I was very excited
I have never baked a cake for such a big group and I wasn’t sure how everything will turn out

Lesson No. 2 - Never assume that anything mini can be morphed into something full scale

The day came, the first batch of cake came out just after midnight
It was beautifully baked
I was tired but relieved

I proceeded with the mixing of the second batch
Just before shoving it into the oven, I realized that the colour wasn’t quite right
Truth be told,  I had forgotten the SUGAR!
I thought by adding the sugar in the correct amount but in an incorrect sequence would be good enough to salvage the night
I was wrong

It took me more than twice as long to finally bake the 2nd batch
The inside of the cake just refused to dry
I knew something was wrong, I could have measured the ingredient wrongly

Lesson No. 3 - Never attempt to do Math in the wee hours of the morning when you are comatose

I couldn’t afford to go for another bake, it was past 2 in the morning
I decided to make do with what I had

The lower layer which was from the first bake tasted ok but the top layers which were from the 2nd batch tasted funny
With loads of fudgy chocolate and some dressing up, the flaws were concealed
We ended up with a cake that looked ‘dark’ enough to pass off as the dark tower
At least my son could tell what it was supposed to be
I couldn’t expect more

We couldn’t finish the cake but the kids were happy to eat what was served with lots of their favourite chocolaty snacks on it

Lesson 4 - If you ever end up with a bake that is less than perfect, go generous with the edible accessories

You can’t judge a cake by its look but with enough packaging and accessories you may be lucky enough to fool the taste bud

And with that, we celebrated Malcolm’s 6th birthday
Despite the heat and a not so perfect cake, we all had fun

Here’s a BIG THANK YOU to our friends who came to the party and celebrated the day with us. I am sure Malcolm will remember this day for a long long time

Chinese New Year is round the corner and I just realized that I have all kinds of new year goodies sitting in my kitchen cabinet, ALL HOMEMADE !
NON, il n’est pas moi
It’s my mum
She baked them ALL

She is especially diligent this year, after being freed from looking after her new grandson
Being tied down by my little baby for more than a month, she regained her freedom, as if newly found

But somehow, the preparation for the new year isn’t quite complete without having me to lift a finger

So today, while Malcolm was in school and while the baby was asleep, I decided to do some simple bake

I baked almond nut cookies, more like the chinese style
It was really simple and took me slightly more than an hour to mix, knead, mould and bake
I actually mould them while rocking Marcus in his stroller with my other hand

So without further ado, here’s the really-simple-no-brainer recipe for busy mums like myself

Chinese New Year Almond Nut Cookies

Ingredient
200 g diced almond
250 g plain flour
100 g icing sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
Slightly less than 1 cup of olive oil
1 egg yolk (for glazing)

Method
Mix all dry ingredient
Add in olive oil, in parts, while kneading
Pinch some dough and roll into a ball
Place on baking tray and slightly press on the top to shape it
Brush top of cookie with egg yolk
Baked at 180 deg celsius for 15 minute

Make 50

and here’s a couple of hearts to wow my husband this evening

Here’s wishing everyone a ROARing good year and have fun celebrating Valentine’s Day !

We were invited to a friend’s house for dinner.

With some help from Mal,

We dressed up an old biscuit tin

packed it with some freshly baked cookies

top it up with a little handmade card

I felt so happy and satisfied

I LOVE Christmas !

Malcolm turns 4 today. He woke up asking about his birthday party and was a little disappointed when was told that there wasn’t going to be a party for him this year. We could have invited some of our friends over but thought that maybe after 2 years of birthday bash in States, we shall have a simple one this time. It is one of those things that we wouldn’t want him to grow up taking for granted.

So instead, I baked him a cake, actually it is more of, WE baked the cake together. Malcolm helped to bake his own birthday cake today! Mixing, stirring, decorating and waiting patiently for the cake to ‘rise’. He couldn’t hold his excitement after knowing that I am going to give him a ’surprise’ rocket cake. Yeh, I know it is not much of a surprise. He had long figured that out since he was with me most of the time and had saw me pulled hair over how to turn a round cake into a rocket cake. We end up brainstorming together. A little flag I put up on the cake while he was taking his bathe was about the only surprise he got and he was quick to tell us that he loves it

We spent almost 1/2 the day making. Try mixing using a plastic rice cooker spatula and you will find out how much muscle strength was required. Measurement of butter, flour and sugar were purely based on estimation as we don’t have a weighing machine. Thankfully the cake turns out pretty well and we had gobbled up 1/2 the rocket despite after a heavy dinner.

I would personally prefer someone to surprise me with a birthday cake but Daddy consoled me that more importantly is that we all had fun. For me, I wish that this birthday will be another memorable one for him…

Before going to bed, he asked whether I could bake him a cake again next year… an airplane one!

crushing…mixing…

waiting…

decorating

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

P/s : thank you yeeyee and the gang for the birthday song over the webcam

Within 1 week at Auntie Shirley’s house, we had baked 3 pandan cakes and 1 batch of Rotiboy. We baked as if there is no tomorrow! The pandan cakes were ok, not as perfect as Auntie Jane’s . Thanks for Auntie Jane’s bread machine and the very thoughtful ingredients she had packed for us and brought over on the night before she depart for her vacation, I was able to try my hands on Rotiboy. oh man, it was very labour intensive! A lot of work, very tedious. The buns turned out ok but as usual not as perfect as Auntie Jane’s. I think we had enough baking for the time being and these will probably be my last bake in Arizona!

baking over a glass of sinful rootbeer float! can’t remember when was the last time I had that at A&W!

our 1st bake

our 2nd bake

here comes the bread machine
that makes them so curious!
our 1st batch of rotiboy, ok la, still edible

and for our 3rd pandan cake, thought the consistency of the egg white was puurrfect cos it can stand the ‘upside down’ test!

haiz! but the cake turned out the worse!
blame it on the wine!

taking turns to beat the eggs

Annie and Grace came over while we were baking some chocolate muffins. I was almost done baking all my muffins when I realised that I missed out the baking powder! Had to do another batch to satisfy myself! So the girls came just in time to join us for our 2nd round of baking. The kids had loads of fun taking turns (not all the time though) to help crack the eggs, beat the eggs, mix, stir and scoop.

full concentration…

making sure that the mixture doesn’t drip all over!

this is how I do it!testing the muffins with a satay stick
these are less than 1/2 of what we baked

Had always wanted to try making my own bread. Know that it is not so simple especially without a bread machine. Was flipping through some recipes and just couldn’t resist to try my hands on these Bacon and Cheese Rolls! Thought the kids will love them and also for me to overcome my fear…hahha…and venture into another new area of baking

I went through the recipe and steps…they look simple! Thought maybe I could finish in time for breakfast. HA! I was so wrong and far too ambitious! The most difficult part was for the yeast to react. According to the recipe, it should take only 10 minutes for the initial yeast mix to turn frothy, we took more than an hour! another 30 minutes for the dough to double in size, we took about 2 hours! and finally another 15 minutes for the rolls to rise, we took close to another hour! So all in all, we spent the whole morning and afternoon waiting and more waiting! We were supposed to place the mixture in a warm place…so guess what…we left the mixture right under the hot sun, in the backyard! hoping the heat could help speed up the reaction. So my bread was practically ’sun bathing’ in the backyard for the whole morning!

Another tough part about making bread without a bread machine is…the kneading of the dough was TOUGH! I basically use ‘cow strength’ to try to knead the dough till smooth. PHEW! Mal had his fair share of kneading the dough too…he was actually more like massaging the dough. hahah and was giggling all the way cos we found it so funny!

So finally at around 4 plus in the afternoon, the baking was done. The rolls smell yummy but I had tasted better bread and rolls outside. Not bad for a first timer I guess

Definitely room for improvement. Next time I shall be more generous with the bacon and cheese! and forget about making the rolls less sinful! cos that is all where the flavour will come from and the lesson learnt is …

Watch me!
this is the 1st time I am making bread
this is the way I knead the doughor should I say, this is the way… I massage the dough!
Mummy says, “Smack it!”“Squeeze it!”
and “Throw it!”
this is so ooo funny!
we made a total of 17 rolls
sunbathing the rolls
in the backyard!
before the oven
look how fat the bacons!
finally…
wanna try some ?!

Mal and I have been sick for the past few days. He was having fever on and off. His temperature hit his record high on Tuesday afternoon when it went up to 39.4. Surprisingly after 2 doses of medication, the fever went off and he could sleep through the night till Wednesday morning and was well the whole day until afternoon when the temperature went up again. Woke up at 4 am this morning to feed him medicine and after that both of us had problem going back to sleep. So finally we woke up at 5 am for breakfast! Tried to sleep again, but we finally gave up and began our day at 7 am. Brought him to see the doctor but wasn’t of much help as the doc did not even give him any medication. Initially the doc suspected strep throat as Mal complained to have some tummy pain and throat pain, but after taking some sample from his throat and did some tests, he concluded that it was negative and we were asked to go home without any medication. Not even fever reliever as normally people here self medicate. Medication such as fever reliever can be found in any pharmacies. Doc said that it might be some kind of viral infection and since Mal did not look very lethargic, according to him, monitoring his temperature should be good enough. So will see how it goes…

So we have been home bound for the past few days. The day can seem extremely long when cooped up at home and especially so when Daddy was not around. Did a bit of activity with ???’s activity book and to cheer him up a little, we baked again. On Tuesday, we baked his favourite pandan chiffon cake and yesterday, we baked some banana walnut muffin which he was only interested in baking and not eating! He went “iirrrk! don’t put the banana inside, I don’t like the smell!” when he saw me mixed in the banana!

thought Mal was too young for this activity book

Mal loves all the stickers inside the book

and can even do some of the activity inside the book like tracing lines and drawing lines with ruler to link up matching items (he sure looks tired, doesn’t he ?)

helping to lay the muffin cups into each holes

as usual…helping to beat the mixture (I knew from his super obvious double eyelid that he is running a fever again! Normally he will have small puffy eyes like Mummy! Poor thing…only can have Daddy big eyes when he is sick ! hahah)

oh it sure smells yummy…

but only smell…when it comes to eating…this is as far as he could go…just a teeny weeny bite from the toothpick!

picking up the muffins using the toothpick to pack them in the box (he looks as if he got lipstick on! it is plain dehydration!)

Many of us who hardly cook and never bake when we were back home were forced by circumstances to learn how to cook when we came here, and I don’t mean just normal home cooked food but serious Singapore hawker food, tarts and kueh and what have you. We craved for Singapore food so much that recipes of local delight are treated as ‘treasures’. Back home, I think I won’t even bother to take a second look at these books and when ?? was busy making all the tarts and kueh for chinese new year, I would rather be doing something else. Such kueh and tarts can be found from shops just a stone throw from every houses, and I guess alot of us would rather buy then to spend time making them ourselves.

But when we are here, we have no choice. You either spent nights craving and dreaming about your favourite food or just take up the challenge and JUST DO IT! So my latest endeavour was to make Png Kueh which I had been craving for quite a while now. Did not have the Png Kueh mould so I used the Ang Ku Kueh mould instead to make them. Brought over to Daddy’s office the other day while they had Lo Hei and the feedback I gained so far was quite good. I was quite pleased myself for a 1st attempt. Then again, beggars ain’t choosers…maybe we are just too desperate, who knows, if we are back in Singapore, the response might turn out very different!

p/s: Remember to show these pictures to ??!!! maybe she will want the recipe too


Here’s Auntie Jessica’s Teochew Png Kueh recipe

Filling
60g raw peanuts, boiled till soft
1-1/4 cup glutinous rice (sweet rice)
420ml water
1/4 tsp salt
10 tbsp cooking oil
100g dried shrimps, soaked & drained
10 pcs dried mushrooms, soaked, drained & diced
1/2 cup shallots, thinly sliced

1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tsp ground white pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Wash and soak rice in water for about 1 hr. Cook with water and salt.
2. Fry shallots in oil till golden brown. Remove shallots and leave 2tbsp of oil. Remove the rest.
3. Add dried shrimps and stir-fry till fragrant; Add mushrooms, peanuts, seasoning and fried shallots, combine well.
4. Add mixture into the cooked rice and mix well. Leave rice uncovered to cool.

Dough
300 g rice flour
75 g tapioca flour
40 g wheat starch (tang mien fen)
520 ml boiling water
4 tbsp cooking oil

Method:
1. Sift flours into a mixing bowl; Add boiling water and oil; Form a pliable dough.
2. Divide dough into small portions. Keep dough covered with a damp cloth.
3. Roll each portion into ball and roll out into a circle. Wrap some filling in the centre; fold up the side and put dough into the mould; Press the dough with your palm and finger to ensure the mould is filled. Remove kueh from mould.
4. Steam for 10 - 12 minutes.
5. Brush with fried shallot oil.

We had been snacking from the cookie jar faster than I could bake. Mal would usually ask for a cookie after his meal. He called that his dessert! He is entitled to have his dessert if he finished his food. The corn flakes rumbles were so easily to eat and addictive. Daddy almost finished all the rumbles over night! A few days ago, I decided to bake the challenging Pandan Chiffon Cake, both Daddy’s and Mal’s favourite! It will be my second attempt to bake a pandan chiffon cake. The 1st time was quite a disaster as firstly, the recipe wasn’t very good (ya..easiest to just blame it on the recipe :D) and secondly, I did not have the appropriate baking tin. After searching for a long while, I finally found the angle food cake tin, those ring baking tin with a hole in the middle, it was exactly what I need for the pandan cake. With Auntie Jessica’s new recipe in hand and the appropriate baking tin, I was so excited to try again.

So far, it was the most tedious cake that I have baked, as there were lots of things to mix and every steps have to be fast so that the chiffon cake will rise and the texture will be soft and spongy. Mal was a great help when I multitasked. He helped me beat the egg white while I mixed the other ingredients. He had fun making the pandan paste mix as it was so green, just like those paints he plays with. It took us about 2 hours, including the baking time. Finally the cake was out, it looked almost perrrfect! and we finished it within a day!

Chinese New year is around the corner but there is zero CNY mood here. Is only through emails from back home that I realised that CNY is just less than a month away! A friend asking for some chinese goodies recipe put me in the mood to bake again! this time…some CNY goodies.
So this morning before we set off for our wives’ coffee gathering, we had a quick baking session. We baked some corn flakes rumbles. It’s simple to make, just some syrup, corn flakes, butter and some nuts if u want will do the trick. We baked like 3 batches, packed them nicely in cellophane bags…ready to distribute to aunties that we will be meeting later in the morning. So glad that the response for the rumbles was so good and Malcolm was so quick to tell people ‘I helped Mummy make corn flakes cookies today!’ when actually they are not really cookies. Baking just never fails to brighten up his day!

So what have we been busy with for the month or so. It’s strange how the holiday seasons make me want to cook, bake and make nice food. We either eat them ourselves or with some friends. We had a small gathering on christmas eve where some friends came over for some home cooked food. We had chwee kueh, laksa and tao suan. All the local food that we were missing out here. Daddy took up the hefty responsibility of making the laksa…not from scratch…but from the Prima paste we got from the supermarket still it was rather impressive!
Then the other day, we baked some cookies to sell for fund raising. It was tiring but fun and satisfying. This time, I tried some new recipes. We had choco chip walnut cookies and vanilla raisins cookies with thick icing!
All these baking and cooking had kept Malcolm rather busy and it was more fun and merrier to share all these yummies with friends…especially during this holiday seasons. I guess being far away from home make us treasure such moment even more.

So here’s a clip of Mal baking to one of his favourite song…he calls it the Cake Song. Enjoy!

It has been quite a while since we bake cookies. One way to keep Malcolm happy at home is to occupy him with some household chores. Baking is one of the things that will keep him really really happy…cos he gets to
crack eggs
seive the flour
beat the egg and butter and sugar… not with his toy mixer but the Mummy’s REAL mixer!
gets his hands all dirty squeezing and rolling the cookie dough

He just woke up from his afternoon nap and baking cookies seem like a good idea since
Mummy had some craving
we got nothing much to do
all the mummies will be having a garage sales at Auntie Angela’s house the next day which is a Saturday while all the daddies were away…

so at 5 pm…we began our baking session. Hmmm…the cookies turn out quite well even though Mal did get on my nerve messing up with the cookies dough which I had rolled and arranged nicely. We end up having very late dinner as we were too full snacking on our freshly baked cookies! Doesn’t he remind you of Cookie Monster!