Wake Up and Smell the Cake

We're going to Langkawi this Friday till the 7th, and Husband has a conference to attend from that Friday till Monday. Bummer. Anyhoo. It's back to honeymoonland! With a baby. No scooter rides there! Or... Can we? Hurhurhur :D Ahhh Langkawi :) We loved our stay there. Very laid back, and our stay at Sheraton was awesome. Humongous rooms! Okay back to present day. I have yet to pack! How much diapers would I have to bring omg! And clothes! I do think I'd have to wash some? Games! What should I do with Junior when Husband's away? I need to keep him entertained and brain stimulated. But almost everything he sees and holds, he wants to put them in his mouth. No sandy beach for him then. And the hotel we're staying in for the first three nights giving me the creeps. The name sounds nice - Awana Porto Malai. But the reviews ! Omg the toilet reviews! It's disgusting. Like moss-gross. There's picture evidence too. How can they not scrub their floors once in a ...

Jackfruit with hazelnut chocolate, you say? Yes why not! For nutella is the best frosting in the world for lazy bummers like me! Goes awesomely well with butter cakes. Besides, I hate the buttery feel from buttercream. Have yet to try a frosting I like.

Jackfruit Cupakes - I know they don't look pretty. Made them yesterday morning for my breakfast! Once again it was a case of husband-not-at-home-to-prevent-me-from-baking scenario. Baked, cleaned all before he came back! :D I had leftover jackfruit (nangka not cempedak) and so I thought why not bake it! Was quite surprised that there are some jackfruit cake recipes out there hahaha. So I took this one from foodlovepassion. It was also my first time using my stand mixer! Yay! Ingredients 50ml butter, melted 2 eggs 1 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda 1/4 tsp cream of tartar 2 1/2 tbsp sugar 125ml mix of low fat milk + thick cream (clearing off leftovers) 4 pieces of jackfruit, cut into pieces (because I was lazy to blend) Baked at 170 degrees, 22 minutes. I halved the recipe and got 7 cupcakes. Though maybe could've been 8 if I didn't overfill them hurhur. Out of the oven! Urh unpretty. Hahaha Overspill of batter oops! Lo...

No particular occasion, but I made pineapple tarts!! Heehee. I forgot how much salt to put, so I just made a guess and it didn't have a salty taste. Could do with a bit more salt. But better to be unsalty than salty! Yesterday was a mad dash. By the time I could start baking, it was almost 3pm. I quickly mixed the ingredients and cleaned up along the way, and started cutting out the cookie shapes. I didn't have enough pans to make all pineapple tarts at one go, had to reuse my big circular tin. That sorta delayed the process. But I was done by 6.30pm! Was amazed at my speed. And with my eagerness to fill the tarts with loads of pineapple paste, I realised halfway that there wasn't gonna be enough. Haha! Hence the last few pieces had a leveled filling only, no heap. I love my pineapple tarts. I know I know I'm not shy about it. Haha! But most importantly, Husband loves it :)

Gonna be on half day tomorrow cos I'll be expecting a delivery. And we all know what happens when I take half day! I become a superwoman housewife ! Haha! I have planned to, in those few hours: Do laundry (hopefully the sun shines brightly so my clothes can be dry) Make pineapple tarts for Husband Change bedsheets (and wash them too if possible, but highly unlikely) Pineapple tarts are gonna take me quite some time. It's been almost a year since I've made them! Hope I haven't lost touch. Husband's really looking forward to his favourite cookies. It is almost impossible to make them with Junior around. Speaking of Junior, he has been waking us up at 3am for the past two nights, and refusing to sleep back! Yesterday he was awake for one and a half hours, the night before was three whole hours!! Faints. But I am quite amazed that I'm actually not that sleepy in the day. Weird. But that doesn't mean you can do it every night, young man!!

On half day = baking opportunity! :) I've already planned to make bread pudding with the leftover French loaf. While Husband went out to get breakfast, I quickly whipped up bread pudding and by the time Husband got home, pudding was already in the oven, all utensils and bowls washed. Like it never happened :D Amazed with my speed! Haha! I wanted to try my own bread pudding recipe, and with a general idea of the ingredients from allrecipes.com , I made my own. Ingredients Half a loaf of French loaf, about 15cm long 2 tbsp butter 2 cups milk 1/2 cup brown sugar 5 tbsp condensed milk 3 eggs 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 small box of SunMaid raisins Tear bread into 2 inch squares and put in baking pan. I used 9 inch cos I didn't have a slightly smaller one. But I recommend using a smaller pan. Whisk butter, milk, sugar, condensed milk and vanilla essence in a bowl. I heated the bowl using double boiling method cos I wanted the butter to melt. Before adding in eggs, cool t...

Ah. My iTunes brought me to Hoobastank's From The Heart. Reminded me of those days I'd drive my dad's (ah beng) car to school and blast the speakers with my awesome Hoobastank CD. I really really love the songs on the CD! I got it because of their popular hit, The Reason. Didn't regret buying! Haha. But I'm quite disappointed with the lead singer's inability to sing their songs live. Can't reach some of the high notes. Bleah. Oh well. In baking news, I am craving for rich chocolate cake. As per my previous post I ran out of castor sugar, and so I'm contemplating on (finally) using my Optima flour since it already has sugar. But I haven't found a rich chocolate cake recipe using Optima flour. I could improvise, but I don't know if it'll work. Maybe I'll work with a small amount first. Hope to try today, unless my boys wanna sleep early. Or maybe I can try these Triple Fudge Oreo Cookies or Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies . Interesti...

So yesterday night I got bakin'! I really really wanted to try my new mini loaf pan . It is perfect! I buttered the sides of the pan, and the cakes could be removed very easily! Love it! I didn't realise it was so pricey, when I was washing the pan then I saw the price tag - $28. T_T I know I know, I bought without checking the price haha. It was a good bake yesterday. I finished my cake flour, finished my sugar, and there are points for improvement. While I was preparing the ingredients, I realised I was short of sugar. The horror !! The recipe called for 1 and 3/4 cups of sugar but I only had half a cup! So I added in half cup condensed milk. And then I realised something, whenever I use condensed milk, I shouldn't have added vanilla essence. Happened before with the Condensed Milk Cheesecake . Gives an overpowering taste. I think if the vanilla was reduced, it would be perfect. Another thing I noticed,I didn't really taste the cheese! Haha! Maybe it's suppos...

I have to curb my expenditure. I can go on and on with buying baking stuff. Yesterday I went to Kitchen Capers after a forced U-turn from going Bake King at Haig Road. Someone made me fuming mad and I sooo wasn't concentrating on where I was going, I missed my exit to PIE. And then I made one heck of a reroute, I ended up at Balestier Road and I went Kallang Bahru instead. No matter, cos I wanted to go to Kitchen Capers some day anyway. I got my mini loaf pan, baking paper, heart shaped springform pan, cupcake paper cups in baby blue with white polka dots! Oh and something I couldn't resist - Miffy cookie cutter yay! Can add on to my Chip & Dale cookie cutters hurhur. My Miffy cookie cutter and mini loaf pan. That's my measuring cup duckies set I bought from gmarket which I collected from the post office few days ago. Sooo cute! Actually there's still loads of things I wanna get, my list can go on and on. But these will do from now. I shall ban myself from bu...

"Hi my name is Far and I'm a bakeaholic." I can't believe this. I'm having withdrawal symptoms from baking. I haven't baked in about two weeks now and I am itching to bake. I have been trawling food (particularly dessert) blogs, always looking for recipes, looking at lipsmacking cakes that just screams out EAT ME. It doesn't help that I have a new stand mixer that I have yet to try, and ingredients on standby: loads of unused Hershey's chocolates waiting to be chopped/melted, a whole pack of Optima flour in addition to other opened packs of flour, 12 eggs waiting to be cracked and whisked, two little cartons of heavy cream, two (or was it three?) packs of cream cheese, and three packs of butter! Gasp. I do have lots of ingredients hahaha. Oh and I have a box of instant brownie mix too. So to tame - yes, tame, not satisfy - my baking addiction, I decided to make sago gula melaka last Saturday night. That too, after a looonnng ponder of whether I s...