Wake Up and Smell the Cake

Bought yet another baking tin. Hurhur. But this has been long outstanding. Bundt pan! Yippee! But I didn't get my pretty pretty Heritage Bundt Pan that I really really want cos that's really ex, like $90+ or something. Anyway it wasn't found at the shop I went yesterday. Soooo. Yesterday I was out and about in town for work related stuff, and my last stop was at Raffles Hotel which is GORGEOUS by the way!! It's like a mini botanic gardens in a hotel! Not to mention the classy vintage British decor! Anyway. My main point is, Raffles Hotel is beside Seah St which is!!! Where!! SunLik is located! Like FINALLY I get to visit that little shop tucked in the middle of a whole row of pubs. I read that that's the place to get good chocolate. Oh no! I just remembered I should have gotten Dutch processed cocoa there! Urgh. Anyway. I browsed around, and I found a Bundt pan! But only one design. Pictures courtesy of SunLik Trading . It is the classic Nordic Ware bundt p

Finally finally went to Daiso!! Wanted to go there for ages already! The first thing I came in, went to the cooking section. Found my ramekins! But they're not white. Oh wells. Can't be choosy for $2 ramekins! There were white ones, but super small white ramekins. And pie tarts too! Oooh so tempting! But I don't know when I'll make tarts hurhur. Actually I'm still thinking what I should bake using these ramekins. I remember having one of those "I wish I had ramekins right now" moments but I can't remember when. Maybe when I was making lava cake . Daiso is evil. It's so cheap you just feel like coming back again! Oh and did I mention there's a $2 weighing scale?! Measures up to a kilo but that's quite alright for baking isn't it! I mean, $2!! Dirt cheap lah. Not sure about the accuracy though. Didn't do much cleaning last weekend, very much spent lazing around at home just like what weekends should be like. I love being at ho

I know I still have yet to blog about Langkawi, maybe sometime over the weekend. Here's a simple post for today, what I did over the weekend. LOTS of cleaning but still lots more to go, and a bit of shopping ;) My baking splurge for Sunday! Baking chocolate, my cook's measure (finally!), pandan paste, gelatine (got the halal nod from Husband hurhur), roti kirai mould and kuih bakar mould. Contemplated on getting vanilla pods but I resisted. Kuih bakar mould, heavy and rough material. Bought this upon Husband's request. He loved his grandma's kuih bakar which she cooked over the stove with something like this, so I'm on a mission to replicate it! :) There's a heavier mould, made of brass and is $55 but I think I'll try this out first. Fishing out the clothes that Junior can't fit anymore. The drawer was getting too messy. Junior's old shoes. Who says guys can't have many shoes as well?? Hahahaha. And here's my little angel with

Last day of my week's leave yesterday, and since there wasn't much in the fridge/ larder, I decided to make bread pudding for breakfast. BUT. Husband didn't want bread pudding for breakfast. He says it's dessert. Ah well. Same recipe as before , only this time I used a loaf pan instead of my 9 inch square pan and I used sliced white bread, about 8 pieces? I could fit all the liquid in the pan yay! Baked in 25 minutes. Easy peasy :) Forgot to include raisins though! So as a last minute desperate attempt, sprinkled them on top. Haha! Was delighted that I could get the crunchy crust by using normal sliced white bread, I thought I could get that only with french loaf. Can't wait to eat it again tonight!

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

Other Half got for me a stand mixer yay! ♥ Not a fancy schmancy one, no metal bowl. Just a basic mixer. One which I think if Junior were to use and spoil it, I won't mind. HAHA. I wanted to get a Philips mixer but I got Kenwood instead. Have yet to unwrap it haha. Now I can whip cream and eggs! Frosting here I come! But before that... My first experiment shall be Marble Cake using Optima Flour ! Or if I'm feeling adventurous, Chocolate Banana Cake , something which Other Half would very much prefer. Heh. Here's to many more cakes! :)

So today was supposed to be day 3 or 29 but I overslept. Bummer. Junior has been disturbing my sleep a lot lately. He doesn't really sleep in the day, and at night, he can wake up every hour, sometimes a few times in an hour. Long gone are the days I had uninterrupted sleep. Yesterday Other Half wanted to eat lemak cili padi again after my successful lemak cili padi tenggiri attempt . Haha. But he wanted to cook it this time round, so I can attend to our little mister cranky and feed him dinner. I prepared all the ingredients, cut them nicely and put into bowls for him to cook. This time round I added more red chili cos I wanted to finish them and they weren't hot anyway so might as well. And more cili padi too!! Other Half prefers to blend everything, easy peasy. I on the other hand, prefer to tumbuk the chili using batu lesung just like my mum does it. To me the flavours kinda disappear when you blend. Hence more chili? Hahaha. So I let Other Half cook, and he wanted t

Day two, insyaAllah. This time I planned my sahur earlier and with more food and water! Muahaha. On the day I decide to fast, there's free good food. Like epok-epok my colleague brought. And new tidbits from another colleague. And sandwich and suji from the wife of yet another colleague! Drools. But I get to eat the suji at least! She brought these cookies for me yay! Hmm does that mean I have to bring something in return? Such a nice lady, I have yet to meet her! :) My eyes are dry, from the lack of sleep. Woke up at 5am and didn't sleep back. And at night Junior didn't really want to sleep. He kept waking up after like 10 minutes of sleep between midnight and 1+am, finally slept after singing to him. He's getting VERY active too! Cannot sit still! So adorable, such a handful! Husband says he's not a handful, he's two hands full. Hahahaha ♥

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,

So yesterday we were on half day cos Husband wasn't feeling too well. Went back, and felt like pre-Junior days. Even so, I have become so accustomed to Junior, I kept expecting to hear a baby crying. Hahaha. While Husband was resting... I baked! And did laundry. I can never resist doing laundry when I see the sun shining so brightly. Husband almost forbid me to do laundry, saying I need to rest too since I'm fasting, but in the end he gave in. Teeheehee. I tried Ultimate Chocolate Cake by Angela Nilsen from bbcgoodfood.com. I am on the hunt for awesome chocolate cake recipes! I planned to do the ganache but have yet to do so cos I ran out of chocolates haha. You can refer to the website for the original ingredients, but below is what I actually used (some measurements are different cos I don't have weighing scale and proper measuring instruments). Ingredients: 200g good quality dark chocolate = I used 2 bars of Hershey's (finally finished using them!) one 60% o

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.