Wake Up and Smell the Cake

Been a long while since I blogged. Made red velvet cupcakes for sister-in-law's birthday yesterday! Decided to try a different recipe, one which doesn't use butter. Reason being I didn't want to wait to thaw the butter hurhur. Anyway below will be a whole lot of buttermilk recipes cos I have a carton of buttermilk. Haha. Went to Universal Studios before that, with my family. There were too many people cos there were 2 family days there, one my dad's and another is a big shipping co. The waiting time is seriously crazy. We gave Transformers a miss. It rained too, in the afternoon. Thank goodness we weren't at at queue for outdoor rides. Anyway not much time to blog so here's the red velvets! It's a really moist cake, I read the reviews and some people found it too oily but I think it's perfect cos I hate dry cakes. I came across this when I was googling for "red velvet cupcakes oil". The tips were good, and turns out it's Paula Deen'

Was randomly looking for Casey Abrams' performance and I came across his album songs instead. Exciting!! The first song I listened to, Hit The Road Jack . Omgomgomg it's a collaboration with Haley Reinhart! Another of my American Idol faves! Haley & Casey should do a duet album. Haha. Anyway that song is like the best evaaa. Best version at least. Okay I'm totally sold on this album. It's good ol' jazzy stuff that makes you all fuzzy inside. Ordered one via fishpond cos I'm lazy to go to a CD shop. I thought of buying from iTunes but it's always nicer to physically own an album so I placed an order for a CD. I can't remember the last time I bought a CD haha. Can't wait can't wait!

No bakes last weekend boo. I happily took out my butter and cream cheese with this cream cheese butter cake in mind but then I realised. I have. only. TWO. eggs. Baaah. So back into the fridge they went. I did find eggless chocolate cake and brownie recipes but didn't bother to do any. It was quite a packed weekend with raya, cousin's engagement and a little bit of work yesterday, and to top it all off, dear Junior decided to wake up at 4am this morning all fresh and happy. So I did laundry & ironing while he was awake. He only slept back at 6.10am and as much as I wanted to sleep back, it was a bit too late. Darn. There was talk of school for Junior and those montessori of sorts, Husband is convinced Junior needs school once he's 18 months old but I'm kinda refusing it. If the purpose is for the activities then I think we can have our own little school at home. I refuse to pay for something which can be done at home. It's like going to a baking school t

New addition to the work table! Parfum! Using bamboo scent we bought from Taka, I can't remember the brand. The Husband was compelled to buy from this auntie cos she gives good customer service. She can even guess what kind of scents we like, and she's almost correct all the time! This was a bit pricey, 60 bucks per bottle, and we bought the refill as well, $40. An impulse buy for me, cos it was The Husband who wanted it and on the spot I took one as well haha. But now my nose is half-stuck. Bleah. Made brownies last Friday. Was on childcare leave, my poor baby was having fever. I managed to cook too haha. Made nasi goreng for myself with leftovers on Friday, and spaghetti goreng yesterday! I is amazed with what I can do when I have no menu restrictions. So for the brownies. It was the first time I made brownies from scratch! Yes! I've been too reliant on brownie mixes haha. This time I tried a safe bet, Nigella's everyday brownies. It didn't need any mel

I went to the gym yesterday! 2nd time. Last Friday I just followed my colleagues out of curiosity and then they got me to do some stretching exercises which are no joke by the way!! My legs were so sore I really needed to take full care when bending my legs! And that too, I did in my jeans. Haha. Wasn't dressed for it but oh wells just gave it a try. So yesterday I joined them again, this time I brought proper clothes and shoes and I was all psyched to get myself in shape! It was also my first time on the threadmill hurhur I know so suaku right. I don't go gyms and when I do jog (not run), it's at the park near my mum's house. And me and my lack of balancing skills, I was kinda scared so I held on to the handles when I started for the first 5 to 10 minutes or so. One good thing about the threadmill is that you have to force yourself to keep up with the speed. If you're in a park running, then you will tend to slow down or walk and that kills momentum. I didn't

I made curry puffs last Saturday. Wasn't much of a success, Husband didn't gobble them up and now I am eating the final one. Haha. In my opinion though I think it's a decent start. It's my first time making them on my own. The filling was good, but the dough sadly I forgot to add salt and I could have made the dough thinner. I always forget the salt. Or even if I do remember, it's so scant that Husband thinks I didn't put any at all. I'm not a big fan of salt anyway haha. The curry puff was filled with boiled potatoes, minced meat and quarter of a boiled egg. Below is the recipe for the filling: 6 medium potatoes, boiled, peeled & diced 5 boiled eggs, cut into fours 400g minced meat (I like lotsa meat in my curry puffs) 1 tsp salt (too little I guess?) 2 medium onions, sliced 1 tsp ground black pepper 1 1/2 tsp chili powder 6-8 tbsp curry powder? I didn't measure About 15 curry leaves I had some filling leftover, but I guess if I

Finally baked today yippee! Made pandan muffins this morning, cos muffins are the fastest and easiest way to get your baking craving fixed. And I can bring bring these muffins to work too for snacking. I got the original inspiration from My Muffin Lab , but I made my own adjustments. So here's what I used against what is the original recipe: 2 cups cake flour (2 cups self-raising flour) 3/4 cup sugar 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (NA because they used self-raising flour) 2 eggs 200ml Kara coconut cream (1/2 cup coconut milk + 1/2 cup milk) 1 cup canola oil (3/4 cup vege oil) 2 tsp pandan kaya paste (1 tsp pandan paste) Mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl and the wet ingredients in a big bowl. Surprisingly the coconut cream and oil mix together very well! Haha. Add the dry ingredients into the large bowl and mix only till combined. Transfer to muffin cups (abt 2 tbsp of batter per cup), I got 12 muffins! Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 27 minutes. Ahhh so prett

I wanna bake  I wanna bake  I wanna bake! Didn't bake at all last weekend even though I had three days, and now I'm itching to bake though it's gonna be a busy weekend. Hmm. There's just too many things on my to-do list that I can't decide if I wanna make cocoa brownies or pandan cheesecake or pandan muffins or red velvet cupcakes!! Of course the easiest and fastest is the first option but I do love pretty red velvets. Options options! Sigh. Okaybyebye. Oh before I go, here's Junior! He doesn't really like bananas anymore, current favourite fruit is plums and grapes. And thank god plums are in season!

Hello hello! Dropping by for a short note on blueberry muffins I tried last Sunday. Although the recipe is To Die For Blueberry Muffins , I think the other blueberry muffin recipe has a more muffin-ish top, this was more cake-like. But I can't deny this is healthier because it uses milk instead of sour cream. Haha. No photos! Here what I used, note it defers a little from the original recipe: 1 2/3 cups flour (because I wanted to finish the whole packet) 3/4 cups + 3 tbsp sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1/3 cup vegetable oil 2 eggs 1/2 cup milk 1 cup blueberries Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl, and the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until combined, transfer to muffin cups (I got 8) and bake for about 25 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius. I'm finally finishing most of my baking ingredients, time to get new ones!! Plain flour's cleared, brown sugar, walnuts. Now I shall aim to clear my optima flour and co

Had a superb weekend which means I'm sooo having the Monday blues. I love "just us" weekends. Husband had to attend a two day convention but skipped some sessions. Me and Junior was at home the whole time except Saturday afternoon where we went for early dinner and walked around Vivo. Vivo was quite an experience hahaha. I know it's family and children friendly but Junior wasn't keen on walking around on his own yet so we didn't really take note of such places until last Saturday. We have tried to let him walk around but he was choosy with the places. We first went into Toys R Us to get him warmed up, and warmed up he was! He couldn't wait to get out of the stroller! Once out, he happily roamed free, trying out this toy and that, wanted to make friends with GIRLS omg Junior you're too young, and when we carried him, he wanted to be put back down so he could walk. We literally had to scoop him up, hold him tight because he was squirming around

I went KL a week ago for a work conference invitation. I was just an observer, so it was relaxing for me hehe. Free trip! But it was a dreaded trip. Because for the first time ever, I was going to leave behind my precious breastfed (albeit partially) baby, and that is heartwrenching for both baby and mother. I don't know how heartwrenching it is for baby but definitely for mommy! I have become so used to the pattern of cuddling him while feeding him to sleep, then I get sleepy too from all those sleepy hormones released while breastfeeding, and bedtime for me is 10-ish. But being away from baby, I couldn't sleep! Like really tossing and turning on the bed. Both nights I slept after midnight, close to 1am. It was tiring. Pumping was okay, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to pump, wasn't really sleepy after that. It has been ages since I can't fall asleep quickly. The conference was good, food's good. Food's almost always good in Malaysia haha! I

I have three green apples leftover (granny smith? Can't remember) and what better way than to turn them into apple cake! And it was the best fruit-to-cake decision thus far. There was a weird one I tried before, jackfruit cupcake and I have some longans at home and I'm thinking of some longan dish but since longans are more difficult to pit, so I left it as that. Anyway! Apple cake. I was in the kitchen and lazy to google some recipes, so I checked my two cake recipe books and settled for apple cake by Tish Boyle. The original recipe has more spices and maple cream cheese frosting which would be ultra yummy but I skipped that. I didn't follow the batter-making process either, I just added as I go. Apple Cake/Cupcake 150g butter, softened (recipe says 116g but I was lazy to accurately measure) 1 cup brown sugar, compressed 4 tbsp sugar (I added cos I thought the batter wasn't sweet) 6.4 oz flour (I used 6-ish, 7 not very sure)  1 tsp vanilla essence 1 ts

I have lots of things to blog about! I hope I can write them all. Trip to KL and first time away from Junior Chocolate Okay scrap. Husband just asked me out for a short date and I ditched blogging. Haha! But just to remind myself, to blog about: trip to KL and being away from my two boys chocolate banana cake that would've been better without the banana, sadly. Haha. Is Neil Armstrong really Muslim? Cos it seems like a rumour only. And now he's gonna be "buried" in the sea? Oh wells. It's one of those stories that you heard when you were young and stuck to you for life. There's staff Hari Raya dinner today!! We can bring family members, and I'm so excited to hear many of my colleagues bringing their kids! Yay! I wanted to bring Junior too, I really do! But maybe we should just go as a couple so we can eat in peace, enjoy the night and then steal some babies. HAHA. Okay back to work!

We met a young boy at one of the houses we visited few days ago, and ohmy GOD how drama mama is that boy! I tell you if his mum wasn't there I'd go up to him and give a good pinch on his arm or thigh or whatever. A slap would be appropriate too. So this is what happened. My little boy is still learning to play with others, at 1 year 2 months he's not much of a social butterfly. But my in-laws do train him by playing with his five month old cousin, so far it's been good. Kids that age don't share toys or even worse, get jealous and do evil stuff but Junior can pat his cousin's head when we told him to "sayang-sayang adik". Sometimes it gets violent too like a slap hahahaha but he's a boy. Anyway! So at that particular house, there were other toddlers as well, but Junior was very quiet. Takes after his mama you see, not a social butterfly. He liked this toy school bus and took it so he could spin the tyres. But at this particular instance, J

It's raya!! A bit more on that when I have transferred photos from my camera, but for now! Cake! I decided to make lemon bundt cake last Friday while we were also in the midst of sprucing up the house for Hari Raya. I have been itching to make a cake for the longest time, and I have my cake flour and all ready to go. I had lots of cake choices because of my neverending baking ingredients, I could make blueberry cake, or marble cake, or just plain butter cake, or butter almond cake, but in the end I settled for lemon bundt because of my leftover lemons from like ages ago. I was surprised I could still use them! One had been zested and was sitting in my plastic container and somehow the lemon juice was still in there somewhere, and another hasn't been zested so perfect! I dug up my previous bundt recipe , and here's what I used this time round: 3 cups cake flour, sifted 2 cups vanilla sugar (normal sugar would be sufficient) 250g butter, softened 2 tsp baking powder

Raya's coming! And the Raya Grinch is back! Seriously. I can't remember the last time I was sooo looking forward to Hari Raya. I look forward only to food and yummy cakes and kuih which I will eat at one corner sitting quietly by myself hurhur. But this time round I'll have an 11.7kg toddler to handle. I do hope he won't be so cranky. Anyway! Here's what I've been up to lately. Took Friday off so that I could have the four day long holiday dedicated for baking. Thursday was pineapple tarts at my mum's cos there is no way I'm gonna do tarts on my own with a baby to handle. We managed to make two batches for my mum's household and mine. Friday and Saturday was spent on Almond London, for three households. This, I did on my own and I literally spent the entire day on them cos every half an hour or so Junior wants my attention. I managed to get him to sit quietly for a bit, but as expected no one activity lasts more than 10 minutes, so he was off aga

I am so freakin' sleepy. I have a presentation later. I can't be sleepy. I can fall asleep anytime now. On a lighter note, tomorrow is the last work day of the week yippee!! Argh I'm in such a blah mode today. I made chocolate chip cookies last weekend, and I was kinda disappointed. Maybe I should have baked longer. The cookies were not that crunchy. Argh I'm still sleepy!!

I have bookmarked two recipes for hari raya cookies! Pandan thumbprint cookies and chocolate chip cookies . That is on top of suji, my personal preference, and almond London, Husband's personal preference. If I'm ambitious enough I'll do pineapple tarts, but there's a biggg inertia for that. Haha. Now I have to plan my schedule already! Oops looks like I have to start this weekend?! Maybe I'll start with suji and almond balls for almond London. Those should last longer than the rest, provided the cookie monster (read: me) practises self control. I think I'll make pineapple tarts after puasa ends. HAHA. For our own personal cookie stash ;)

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

Warning: sorta religious post ahead. HAHA. I know, even I am not used to such things :D Came to work and they're playing Quran recitation over the PA system. Weird much. It's almost 9 already! But I'm looking forward to tadarus later, if there is one. Yesterday I joined in and I'm ashamed to say that I'm such a lousy Quran reciter. Shame shame. Made so many mistakes. But thankfully the other colleagues were encouraging. Truth be told, since I've moved out of my dad's house, I haven't really recited Quran much. I know I know, what a setan I am. Hah. So I think I shall start again. I need such pushes. Today is quite the "Islam" day. Not only am I psyched to recite, I'm also looking forward to Happy Hour. Instead of the usual games & sports, for Ramadan, they have organised for us Quran classes with Ust Zulkiflee Bachik. Yay! Looking forward to that :) Today is day 5 of Ramadan. Alhamdulillah fasting has been easier than expected f