Wake Up and Smell the Cake

So I finally did something with the speculoos spread. Made it into a cheesecake with the biscoff biscuits as the base! As usual I engaged my little boy for some help. I let him beat up the biscuits in the ziploc bag and he loved it so much! He said he was very excited hahaha. This recipe was a campak2 recipe, I based on a few websites I saw, and pretty much used whatever I had in the fridge. Speculoos Cheesecake 30 biscoff biscuits, crushed 25g melted butter 2x 8oz cream cheese 3 eggs 1/4 cup yoghurt 1/4 cup thickened cream 300g speculoos spread 150g sugar Add melted butter to crushed biscoff biscuits, then transfer to an 8 inch springform pan and flatten to make the crust. Use a mixer to mix the rest of the ingredients together, then pour into the pan and bake for about 50-55 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius. I was supposed to use a water bath method but my oven can't fit the 9x13 inch roasting pan hurhur. It turned out fine, with some cracks near the sides,

I have been on and off work this past week because we were cleaning our home to make way for baby before fasting starts. We've managed to clear loads of stuff and made way for new wardrobes for the spare room (for Husband's long coats etc) and for the kids' room, and got brand new airconditioners for all the rooms! Ka-ching. Our home is all set now, minus the dining table which is still a hand-me-down. Oh and our bed could do with a change too but that can wait. Did some normal cooking and a little baking over the days, made bread pudding and this time round it turned great cos I soaked the bread in the custard for almost an hour. Soaking it prevents the crust from being too hard when baking. Oh and I attempted apple spring rolls too! I think I prefer banana chocolate spring rolls instead. Here's the recipe: Apple Spring Rolls , recipe from Crazy Mom Cook 6 small apples, peeled and diced 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/3 cup brown sugar 2 tbsp butter 2 tsp orang

Going for a short getaway to KL this weekend with colleagues! 3 families consisting of 6 adults, 4 children. I have trouble thinking of what things to bring for the trip. When Junior was younger, there was so much prep! Extra clothes, cooking porridge in advance and freezing them, bringing milk and my breast pump just in case, bringing all sorts of toys and books to keep him entertained. Ah yes porridge. I was am one of those mothers who must make sure my child gets good nutrition, but somehow along the line Junior developed a liking for only the usual chicken porridge with carrots and broccoli. No salt too. So wherever we went, I was sure to bring containers of porridge along. My son didn't like to be hungry and can turn into Hulk for not having food on time (like his mama too haha). I remember cooking in advance, freezing them, putting in freezer bags and thawing when it was time to eat haha. Nowadays I don't have to cook porridge, but it can be quite a hassle to thin

It's been ages since I've last updated! Recently we went to Dubai on a multi generational trip, 4 generations in total! It was a good holiday and loads of unexpected shopping but what matters most is that we spent family time together. Junior has also made some progress in his speech, saying one syllable words like cat, sleep, eat, egg, come on his own. We're so delighted to see him attempt to speak. He also attempted to count one to ten with the guidance of the husband. And we're happy to announce, we're having another Junior! :) I'm halfway through the pregnancy now. This pregnancy is more eventful than the previous, with me being rushed to KKH for abdominal pains at the end of 1st trimester for exerting myself too much, and recently the doctor said the baby is too big and I could have gestational diabetes. So now I have to really monitor my diet. Will only know the results in the next check up in May. Reading up on GD is scary. Anyhoo!! This year is re

My parents are home! Yay! My mum is still sick though hope she gets better :( The welcome home asam pedas was a success! I realised I didn't have to go all the way to Geylang Serai market on Friday during lunch to get ingredients cos I went to the market to get fish and Chong Pang is pretty self sufficient anyway. It wasn't really cheap at Geylang either! Oh wells. Lesson learnt. This is my second time making asam pedas using the recipe from the Malay Heritage Cooking cookbook. I made some slight changes like the method. Asam Pedas Ground paste: 50 dried chilis, cut into small pieces & soaked in hot water 70g belacan 5 onions, sliced 15 gloves garlic 2 1/2 ginger Asam pulp, 200g soaked in water (but I didn't use all) 3 stalks lemon grass, bruised 2kg ikan kerisi (about 3 tails) Laksa leaves (daun kesum), about 30 leaves Lady's fingers, about 30-40 Salt 1 1/2 tsp Sugar 2 tbsp Prepare ground paste in a blender to form a paste. Heat oil in a

It has been a roller coaster of a weekend! We finally went for Junior's hearing test and thankfully he did not need to be sedated cos he sat like a good boy listening via the earpiece. Thank God. Went home, cooked lunch of our version of ayam masak merah. I still can't get the gravy texture same like my mum's. I wonder why. Makes me feel like getting a handheld blender and blend the onions etc. Later that evening, was part 1 of project caterer for SIL's house: making brownies. I decided to add in a little twist and include red velvet swirl brownies too, but because it's a bit more tedious, I only made 2 batches. The normal cocoa brownies I made 4 batches and sprinkled with lots of chopped almonds. I used a cocoa recipe from ovenhaven . Below is the recipe: Cocoa Brownies 1/2 cup butter, melted 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (not dutch processed) 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup flour 1/4 tsp salt Melt the butter, add in sugar and

Whoever does work today is not normal. Haha. Eve of a public holiday yet no half day oh the pain! Saturday my siblings came over for lunch, and cooking was yet another diner dash. On the menu was daging masak merah and very simple fried cabbage. Butter cookies was supposed to be an after-lunch activity but it was changed to butter cake because of lack of time. I also had to go to the post office to get Junior's books that arrived but were too big for the mail box. Maybe I should have one big mail box outside my door and ask the postman to deposit it there instead. The queue at the post office was so long! When I came at about 10, I was like 60th in queue?! So Junior and I went to get some groceries while waiting for our turn, and when we came back, the number only moved up by 20. Damn. By the time we were done and back home, It was 11.30! Not enough time to cook the meat! Thankfully Junior explored his new books on his own quietly, so I had time to cook. Multi-tasked: frying

TGIF! I'm so happy with my two hour lunch break :) Went to JEM to get gifts from Chomel for the interns whose last day is today. They made for us shepherd's pie, cupcakes and each person our name in Arabic calligraphy. So sweet! See! Really nice right! My table's in a mess right now but I'll find a place to put this! Today is a day of gifts. The Husband received the cufflinks I surprised him with (posted to office address haha), me receiving interns' gifts and I went shopping! Blessed Friday indeed :) I roamed around alone because I need some me time. Happens once in a while, when I get overwhelmed with many many things. Bought 4 t-shirts from Uniqlo because they have buttons!! Yay for breastfeeding mothers! And why buy one when it's only $12.90 each! So I got pink, yellow mustard, dark grey and purple. I also bought 2 brooches for myself from Chomel. Was browsing through for the interns' gifts (I looked at practically all brooches, some more t

Report of Saturday morning's cooking: double chocolate banana muffins, sayur asam jawa and fried chicken! Simple pleasures of food and finally one where there weren't leftovers. I need to manage my portions haha. I was under the weather - and still is - so lunch was simple. I used a ready made paste from Serambi Botani for the sayur asam jawa I bought when I was in Bogor. I just added in corn, long beans, carrot, cabbage and loads of peanuts! LOVE peanuts :) The vegetables made the soup sweet and yummeh. I tried the soup before the vegetables were cooked, and it was yuck. Tasted too much of asam. Once the flavours from the nuts, carrots and corn blends together, it was just what I needed for my throat. Made a quick spice mix of ground cumin, coriander, paprika salt and pepper for the chicken marinade before frying them. Soup + fried chicken + hot rice = yummy homemade meal. I made the double chocolate muffins earlier with Junior. I was craving for double choc muffins,

Heloooooo!! I know it's been ages since I've updated, there's still our family's umrah trip to talk about but I'll just do a random update here. You see, my brain is kinda fried for the day after three whole days of figuring out the stories behind certain numbers and accounts. It's tedious and frustrating at times because you can't get the whole picture due to some missing pieces. So, I'm going to spend the rest of the day clearing up, writing the to-do list, and some other menial work. We've to prepare our house for a small shoot on Sunday, and nothing's been done! Today we plan to vacuum, lay out the carpet, rearrange the sofa (on normal days it's just against the wall for maximum space), dig out whatever little ornaments that can be used for decoration (we don't have that many). It's going to be a long night! Kuih-wise, I've pretty much settled on my kuih list. Made two batches of kuih tart at my mum's last week (o

Back to work after the long weekend! Three day weekends are perfect, aren't they. Love spending time with our family :)   Last Friday the SIL came over to make rainbow cake for FIL's birthday. All set for white cake recipe which I have never tried out before, and frostings which we have never tried before too - Nutella frosting and swiss meringue buttercream. I was and still am afraid of frostings. Can never get them right. I hate the thought of having too much butter, of eating just butter and sugar, so I always resort to cream cheese frostings with highly reduced sugar.   But SIL doesn't want cream cheese frosting, so we tried out something else. I didn't want plain buttercream cos butter + sugar is just yuck. So I chose swiss meringue buttercream, which apparently is lighter cos it has egg whites.   It was my first time making a white cake, the batter looked really pale because of the absence of yolks. The cake turned out great, but if I were to repeat

Good "Monday" to everyone. So glad it's a short work week and Monday Husband is back! YAY! :) I love my colleagues. Last Friday was really TGIF, with a wonderful lunch and grocery shopping included. Haha. What was supposed to be just getting a box of oranges ended up with at least $30 worth of groceries per person. I got the Bisquick mix too, to make pancakes since I've read that it's almost similar to McD's pancakes. I made two batches over the weekend, the first time was really good and the second time was a little runny and I couldn't make thick pancakes. 1 cup of Bisquick (+ 1/2 cup milk + 1 egg) is enough for a hearty breakfast for 2. I still have more left, so I'm gonna make some for Husband when he gets back. I also made strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting on Saturday, and rocky road brownies yesterday but the recipe is different from my clear-the-fridge project last week . This time round I used a best cocoa brownie recipe with mo

While waiting for Husband to end his meeting, I shall blog. We're going Toys R Us later to look at, well, toys. HAHA. Feeling under the weather a little, my throat felt weird yesterday afternoon and when it was night time I felt like I was swallowing a golf ball. Very painful. Now it's much better, with slight fever, am thinking if I should go to the doctor or not. And the office is freezing cold!! These people aren't wearing any jackets or anything either! It's already midweek but I'm gonna blog about the weekend haha. Made butter almond cake for dearest Husband who has been complaining I have been baking everything under the sun except his favourite, and on Sunday we had family day by the work place! It was fun :) Games, mingling with staff, and Junior had his first sea play. Haha. He wasn't quite fond of walking on sand but he really loved to be in the sea with his daddy. Thank goodness the weather was alright, not too hot and no thunderstorm. It did dr

Weekend was filled with cooking! Okay I cheated on Sunday cos we went my mum's house to cook haha, but Saturday itself was tiring enough! Invited in-laws ++ over for Husband's famous chicken rice and I made sago gula melaka. MIL made sweet sour fish too which was yummy! We wanted to make stir fry vege but at the last minute our stove's spark wasn't working!! Like wth! Oh wells. Luckily the chicken is all cooked! Maybe I'll make the stir fry today for sahur. So after 2 pots of rice, two kilos of chicken fried, three times of boiling sago, 5 big bottles of bandung, we ended up with one messy kitchen but it was all worth it! I am so fortunate to have a husband that cooks well :) Then we went to Geylang after that. Ha. The mandatory, not-my-fave-place-to-visit bazaar. And time flew while we were there! We didn't realise it was almost midnight! Poor Junior fell asleep in his pram :( I wasn't in any shopping mood at all because I was worried about Junior. Any

I am so so sleepy. Junior woke me up at 4 plus this morning and he didn't want to sleep. He only slept back at 6, which was already too late for me to go back to bed!! Here's some photos from the last few days. This is my mum's cabinet door that Junior dislodged. Don't ask me how. We're still puzzled. If he were an Avenger, I think he's The Incredible Hulk.  We had a wonderful family time weekend, just like how weekends are supposed to be like. We could tell Junior was enjoying his weekend too. This was at John Little Expo. Junior loves to sit at the empty racks cos he can crawl round and be free to move. He didn't want us to carry him away either! And I managed to find work clothes that are cheap (read: $15.90 only!!) and breastfeeding friendly!! The only downside is the dresses are long. Like below the knee long. Reminds me of my very kental days in secondary school where my uniforms were always oversized thanks to dad. Haha. And this foll

Yup that's right. Together with my sister-in-law, we made red velvet cupcakes. The first time I made them was with my FFLs at the Pasir Ris branch. Hurhur. I can't remember which recipe we used cos I wasn't the one choosing it, but I know it was on epicurious. It was quite tedious, the recipe method was kinda lengthy. I remember there's mixing of cocoa powder with water, and then mixing was in batches or something, and we used a whole lot of colouring! Like two bottles! The cupcake wasn't that special, and it had a weird taste from all that colouring. I thought I'm never gonna make red velvets again since there's nothing special about them. Then my SIL wanted to make some cos she and her husband love red velvet. So okay, I went on the search for the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe, and I'm proud to say I am the queen of recipe googling!! Hahahaha. I came across this super moist red velvet cupcakes from The Alchemist, and it was amazing!

So the four day weekend has come and gone. Way to fast! Sadness. Day one was quite fruitful yet packed. Morning I did laundry (I think? I've done laundry waayyyy to many times over the weekend I forgot!) and entertained my chubbycheeks. Afternoon we went to fetch in-laws and had lunch at Sabar Menanti which somehow wasn't that good on that day for some reason, and then sent them somewhere. Then we went Mustafa's which was kinda crowded and then to my mum's house to rot and celebrate Brother's twenty-fifth birthday. Sister made hazelnut cake and yes! She bakes! Hahaha. Hazelnut cake with Smuckers chocolate syrup and crushed roasted hazelnuts. Yumyum. Day two was spent at FFL (YK)'s home, made opera cake and had Indian food for dinner. Husband had a meeting most of the afternoon, bummer. I didn't really take part in the baking cos I was babysitting, how to babysit and make a cake?! Actually I can, I've been doing it all along but that's at home,

Weewoo we're going Langkawi this March!! :))) It'll be our second family holiday, and the first airplane ride for Junior. He'll be eight months by then, should be okay for him. I have to think of activities for him on the plane, and on the trip too! Unless he sleeps through the flight. Hahaha. Today is the first of twenty-nine days I have to pay back for fasting. And at 9am I was so freaking hungry my stomach keeps growling very very loudly. Oh God twenty-nine!!! *faints* The last time I fasted was like a year and a half ago? Hahaha. That is looonnggg . I hope my milk supply won't dwindle. InsyaAllah.

Baby overdose yesterday!! Visited Adri to see his newborn, and also meet colleague's baby girl! Babies are just so cute. Can't wait to see mine :) You can just stare at them the whole day, watch their movements, watch them sleep peacefully. I asked Other Half how come babies are so cute, and he said if they weren't, people might not take care of them. True hor. Even so, there are heartless people who throw their babies in dustbins. Urgh. Yesterday we went crazy shopping for the new room! Got this play mat for the room and I think it's just so cute! It's even more exciting than buying the very long outstanding coffee table and TV console. Haha! The house is still so bare. Have to do something about it soon! More shopping -_-" Oh wells. At least bonus came at the correct time!

I am very happy today I don't know why! I wanna start this marketing pay per use scheme with my mum. Suggested by my sister. Haha. Since we're only cooking for two, with some days I don't even know if I'm cooking or not cos Other Half knocks off late from work, raw food goes to waste. Like the other time I bought too much tahu, tempe, fish and some other stuff which don't have long or freezable shelf life. It's a pity to throw them away, but they can't be rotting (literally, hurhurhur) in the fridge for so long. For things that can only be bought at wet markets, I've asked my mum's help to get them for me and I'll collect them after work. Today I've requested for ikan bawal and/or ikan cermin. And my mum went to buy both. I know she will cook the rest, so might as well just tompang and take some. She buys onions and potatoes at 5kg packs too, maybe I can do that with those. Speaking of which! I've run out of onions! My mum's