Wake Up and Smell the Cake

Start of a new year! My little boy is in K2, and princess is starting school, same place as her brother. Over the weekend we made cupcakes for a get together and for some at home, since Husband loves red velvet cupcakes. Used a repeat of this recipe , cos since Husband doesn't like change when it comes to food,  I won't google for a new one. Plus I could get like 30 cupcakes per batch! But I didn't manage to make proper frosting since: I didn't have enough icing sugar. The ants in my house are amazonian ants. They went into the supposedly air tight container and ate my icing sugar. Happily eating my icing sugar. Luckily I have some left in another packet, but wasn't enough so I ground some normal sugar to top up. Was supposed to buy mascarpone cheese but Friday plans changed, so could only get cream cheese. Frosting didn't turn out as light. Hence, sinful. Frosting wasn't enough for all! For the first time, I don't have enough frosting! Even

Husband is away, thankfully not a lot of times this year. I have not blogged for ages!! I have also not been cooking or baking much, just the usuals so nothing new that I can post. Finally my princess wants to help me bake. We made oreo cupcakes, which after baking was yummy, but the day after, a bit dense. But the office people finished them up anyway! Oreo Cupcakes 250g butter 1 cup sugar 4 eggs 2 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 10 oreos (with cream) crushed Chocolate chips I let Princess mix them all up, no 1 egg then mix then another egg method. Didn't even bother to sift the flour hehe. Turns out okay! Maybe next time I can cut 1 egg and add milk instead for softness? This is more sinful (250g butter!!) than the Oreo Muffins , maybe I shall stick to the other recipe instead and omit the baking soda. Also, some of the cupcakes were dripping with butter oil! I drained them with kitchen towel. If they were just a cake block, the base would be real

It's been ages (in my definition) since I last baked, what with the 3 weeks in UK and the prep weeks before that. I wanted the kids to help out in some way, so I enticed them by making pokeball frosting, and also using hundreds and thousands sprinkles. I made the cakes on Saturday evening, a simple whisk using my Kenwood and a repeat of the Moist Banana Cake with Yoghurt though I substituted yoghurt with milk + cream + apple cider vinegar. The cake batter is a lot, I got 15 cupcakes + 1 Hello Kitty cake. We frosted 9 cupcakes as pokeballs, and the rest with the balance of cream cheese frosting and added hundreds and thousands. My frosting wasn't stiff enough and I wonder why. Maybe I shouldn't have added the lil bit of whipping cream. I used 125g butter + 250g cream cheese + about 3-4 cups of icing sugar. Maybe I should reduce the butter next time. Junior did the black lines on the pokeballs, he didn't want to frost the red (pink actually) and the white. He al

Yet another dessert to clear the fridge, banana oat crumble. Crumble, pies, cobblers are the best way to clear fruits! These used so little flour! Banana Oat Crumble 4 -5 bananas, sliced into circles 1/4 cup flour 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 cup oats Sprinkle of cinnamon powder 4 tbsp butter Chopped walnuts Chocolate chips Put the sliced bananas in ramekins, I used 6. Add in the walnuts. In another bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon and oats well. Add in butter. I find that using hands is the best, and after all you're going to sprinkle them over the bananas. I added in chocolate chips last, cos I forgot about it, and seems like it was a good thing too so it can hold some shape! Haha. I'm using Aalst chocolate, which is yummy but way cheaper than Ghirardelli or Valrhona. Husband approved! Cos it has chocolate chips -_-" Yesterday Junior did the first part of his holiday project, which is to cook something healthy and document in a scrapbook.

Made apple cobblers instead of the usual apple muffins, because I wanted to try something with less sugar/flour and more apples. I made 6, using my Daiso ramekins that rarely come out of the cupboard. Surprisingly the Husband said it's yummy. Took the recipe from the first website I came across, food.com . Apple Cobbler 4 apples, peeled and diced 1 cup flour 1 cup sugar (can reduce) 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder 1 egg 1/2 cup butter, melted Cut the apples and coat them with the cinnamon powder. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar and egg together. Sprinkle the flour mixture on top, then pour the melted butter over. Bake for 30-40 minutes until top is browned and crispy. On hindsight, if the butter was mixed with the flour mixture, I suspect it'll be fine too. Somehow I feel like it's missing something. It's sweet, but not lemak. Not like pie. Maybe cos there's too much sugar. Maybe I'd prefer an apple pie crust instead.

Yesterday I was on a cooking frenzy, and I stopped short of making apple cobblers. I'll do that soon! I'm expecting it to be better than apple streusel pie. I made ayam sambal, though still didn't quite get the same taste as my mum's, but almost there. That was settled in the morning. And near lunch time, I made homemade chicken nuggets for my kids. Have been wanting to try this because I've read reviews saying that kids love homemade nuggets, and also we had them on the island hopping trip in Krabi recently.  Was also a good opportunity to clear the fridge! As usual. Haha. That goes to show how much stuff I buy but don't actually have full purpose for them. HAHAHA. Homemade Chicken Nuggets 1/2 kg chicken breast 1 cup panko breadcrumbs 2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan 1/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp salt (or more, depends) sprinkle of pepper & smoked paprika 1 egg Pound the chicken breast slightly so that the meat can cook quickly. Slice thinl

Repeat recipe: Tyler Florence's Banana Muffins I've been wanting to make banana muffins over the weekend to use up the leftover bananas and yoghurt sitting in the fridge. Finally got some time yesterday night. My little girl sorta helped, it's not always that she wants to bake! I have lots of chocolates here and there and I can't possibly eat them all. Here I've used up 24 mini Toblerones muahahaha. I still have another 2 bags of mini Toblerones though! I don't know why but they don't taste as good anymore. I'm quite picky with chocolates these days. A sign that I'm getting older, plus I don't want to waste calories cos it's so hard to burn! Speaking of burning calories! I've been getting comments that I look slimmer, or that my face is slimmer now (must be the tudung) but honestly I feel the same. I still have babats and my flat tummy target is far from achieved. But at least my butt doesn't jiggle as much when I jog, cos tha

Hari Raya is coming to an end! FINALLY! But one thing I'm proud of this year is that I didn't get frozen fried satay. I whipped up dishes on my own! Plus I didn't bake too much cookies. Just the right amount. I had a cookout for last Friday for Husband's students and I had planned to make hummus, keema and spicy chicken with chappati and wrap. Cooked like 1.5kg of mutton keema and 1.5kg of chicken and they were all snapped up! But my hummus was too much though. I used a third and froze the rest. Even using a third was a lot! Yesterday I made shepherd's pie for my sister's birthday. Pretty fast too I might add. I love multi tasking in the kitchen, but I need to do it alone. Proud of the fact that I cooked these with lots of agaration and still turned out fine, but still have many things to learn along the way! Like cutting the potatoes first before boiling. Unless you have too much time to wait for the potatoes to cook through fully. And never ever add s

Haven't posted for so long! Not that I haven't been cooking, but all aren't new recipes. This year I made 1 less kuih compared to last year, since I'm always the one finishing these cookies. So it's the usual Almond London, Kuih Tart and Chocolate Chip Cookies. Last Saturday was my little girl's second birthday. We made no big celebration, just us 4 at home with a little Hello Kitty cake :) I made the cake on Saturday morning, before we went to the swimming pool. But cos I couldn't wait for the cake to cool, I left it in the pan and when we came back, the bottom sides were sticking to the pan noooooo. But I oiled it already :( So here's the outcome. Sigh. Whipped some whipping cream to cover it up, but after 10 minutes on medium-high and still no peaks and we had to go Raya visiting already, so I left the whisk, bowl and cream in the fridge. Whipped it again (about 7 minutes on speed 4 out of 6 on my Kitchenaid) at night and YAY! It worked!

These days we are blessed to get a whole day to ourselves for the weekend, and the Husband isn't too busy lately. I've been bringing breakfasts to work, sometimes lunches too on gym days, and Sundays are the best days to prepare make ahead meals. I'll usually marinate some chicken, or cook something to reheat in the mornings before going to work, or if I'm REALLY lazy I'll just let it thaw to room temperature before eating hurhurhur. When I first began to bring meals, I'll be wasting lots of ingredients, like salads (I can't finish off that whole head of lettuce eating wraps) or I miscalculated the amount of meat I'll use, or rice or other things that accumulated in the fridge because they're not fresh anymore. These days I try to manage better, and thanks to Google there's so many recipes you can make out of leftovers. Like just now I found that you can make yummy rice pudding out of leftover rice! Okay next project! Yesterday I manag

I made a batch of double chocolate banana muffins to clear my yoghurt and overripe bananas and I used a recipe I've tried before, here . 1 ½ cups self raising flour (if not then add 1 tsp of baking powder & baking soda each) ½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (Valrhona) 1 egg, well beaten ½ cup yoghurt 1 cup granulated sugar ½ cup canola oil 1 ¼ cups mashed, ripened bananas (~3 large bananas) Semi-sweet chocolate chips These are really good! Easy and yummy, very chocolaty! I also made sausage aglio olio with bell peppers, mushrooms and cili padi of course, for this week's packed brunch. Remind me not to buy sausages again, even if they're gourmet. The amount of fat that was left after cooking was just scary. Not to mention they harden when cooled. I managed to scoop out the excess oil, but the veges were already coating in them. Oh wells. Lesson learnt.

Back from the long weekend! Spent two days fully at home, cooking and baking. So happy. Day 1 was sindhi briyani and Almond London . Day 2 was ayam lemak cili padi and a batch of almost Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies , but I split the batter into 2: hazelnut, white chocolate, cranberry combination and hazelnut, dark chocolate chip combination. I made the cranberry ones first, they taste awesome. But after I ate the chocolate chip one, say bye bye to cranberry! Nothing beats chocolate. And the white chocolate chips somehow dissolved into the batter, melted. What to do, it's just white chips from Redman. I should try a better brand instead.  Happy new year indeed!

I have wanted to try a pasta alternative for my packed breakfast cum lunches, and I've always wanted to try couscous cos it looks so intriguing - grainy yet looks like mashed potatoes. Another reason for cooking couscous is my leftover chicken stock from the Hainanese Chicken Rice. I need a reason to use it since I have painstakingly strained it (though not all) and it's not easy to get homemade healthy halal chicken stock. I hate those chicken cubes urgh. Also my chicken stock has pandan flavour huahuahua. I didn't realise couscous is so easy to prepare! Way faster than pasta. Boil 1/2 cup of stock, turn it off, add 1/2 cup of couscous and wait for 2 minutes. Add lil bit of butter and fluff it up and it's done! 1/2 cup can make both my breakfast and lunch, cos after adding stuff to it like chicken, vegetables etc, it really becomes a big portion. If only The Husband would like to eat such things hahaha. Yesterday I did couscous with shredded black pepper chicken

We spent the whole of Saturday at home, just us. So I decided to cook chicken rice after being inspired by my friend who attempted it the weekend before. I followed the recipe from Steamy Kitchen because of the very detailed method and pictures. I didn't have sesame oil though, but drizzling the cooked chicken with light soy sauce gave the chicken rice effect! Haha Chicken rice flatlay! For the Chicken: 1 whole chicken Salt 4 inches ginger, cut into 1/4 inch slices 2 stalks green onions, cut into 1 inch sections (both the green and white parts) 1 teaspoon sesame oil (I used light soy sauce instead) Pandan leaves Rub salt all over and in the chicken. I bought a whole chicken, with most spare parts already taken out and skin on. The chicken was pretty clean, but if it's not then exfoliate it with the salt rub.  Stuff the chicken with the spring onions and ginger. Completely submerge the chicken in a deep pot of room temperature water. Turn on high heat u

So today is Day 2 of Junior's K1. His session is 4 hours, with a break for snacks i.e. breakfast since he doesn't want to eat before leaving the house. My parents will nag at me for not giving him breakfast but he doesn't want to eat! Yesterday I gave him nutella sandwiches, a little extra than what he gets during nursery. He finished all 4, which is about 2 slices of bread. Today I packed for him fish finger burgers. Airfried fish fingers sandwiched between white bread, no edges. Gave him 2 slices of bread and 3 fish fingers in total. I added a teeny bit of light mayonnaise and thai chili sauce for some flavour. My mum said he didn't finish it, only ate 1 set. Sigh. Not sure what to give him tomorrow. Maybe nutella sandwiches and fish fingers without bread? It's so hard when children are picky! And especially when they don't eat eggs! Oh wells I'll see what other ideas I can come up with. 

Yes I finally made them! I thought I'd take about 2 days but I finished them in the morning. That's pretty quick! Got up early to do the pandan cupcakes first, no one to disturb me. Decided to make the frosting before storing the cakes since I had the time. Recipe adapted from here . Pandan Cupcake 125g butter 2 eggs 150g sugar 200g self raising flour 3 tbsp homemade pandan extract 80g coconut milk +20g water Coconut cream cheese frosting (aka experiment) 250g cream cheese 120g butter Finished off my icing sugar, probably 3/4 cup Splashes of coconut milk Grated coconut Some gula melaka syrup Cream the butter and sugar like the normal cake method. Add eggs one by one until batter incorporated. Add in the flour and milk mixture in a flour - milk - flour sequence. Since I didn't use any green colouring, my cupcakes turned out pale green. The top is more brown that green too. Made holes using a knife and ate all those cut out pieces huahuahua. That

Have been away so long! It's been the long weekend but weird enough I didn't cook, except for the normal cook for kids. I did do lots of laundry, and in between made some oreo muffins and kuih bakar, same recipe as before . Oreo Muffins 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup milk 1/3 cup sour cream 1 egg 1/4 cup butter, softened 20 oreo cookies Chocolate chips Could have reduced the baking powder by a bit, since I have tasted slight bitter taste in some of the muffins. Or I might have not mixed well. The muffins the next day taste better. I have some more oreo cookies, enough for another batch. Would probably bake and bring for family gathering this weekend! No pictures! Again, haha.

The little one woke me up just after 4 for milk, and at that time I didn't feel sleepy at all so I played games on the phone and got up at 5 to make today's breakfast and lunch. It was clear-the-fridge aglio olio! Sadly some of the mushrooms have gone bad, but I managed to salvage some. I also have cauliflower, capsicum and fried chicken to clear. For a portion of 2, the following ingredients were used: 4 cloves garlic, minced 3 cili padi, sliced 1/2 capsicum, sliced Whatever mushrooms I had 1/2 floret of cauliflower 2 handfuls of shell pasta (HA HA lazy me used hands as unit of measure) 2 cooked chicken breast, sliced Extra virgin olive oil for dressing In the interest of time, I boiled the cauliflower in the same water as the pasta. Cauliflower was cooked first, taken out then pasta goes into the boiling water added with salt and oil. I also pre-fried the capsicum in a little oil, mainly cos I fried the whole capsicum and set aside half for another day. In

When Husband's not around, I become more hardworking HAHAHA. I clean more, I cook more. Saturday I made lontong goreng tomyam for breakfast, and yesterday I made my first ever chicken rice. I even have ingredients to make aglio olio, which I think I'll make either tonight or early tomorrow morning for breakfast. The lontong goreng was a pure experiment, no inferences from recipes and all but it turned out good. Not sure if it's something Husband would eat haha! Lontong Goreng Tomyam 1 packet lontong instant Adabi, cut in cubes 4 tbsp tomyam paste 2 eggs, pre-scrambled Handful of mushrooms Chicken breast, sliced Coriander leaves (I didn't have lemongrass or lime leaves) 1/2-1 tsp salt Fry the tomyam paste in some oil, then add the mushrooms and chicken to cook them. Add some water so the paste doesn't dry up. Add in the scrambled eggs then the lontong cubes and fry until mixed well. For yesterday's chicken rice, I adapted slightly from a reci

Husband's gone for 15 days. Third time in two months, or 22 out of 60 days. That's a whole lot of days. I usually stay at my mum's when the Husband isn't around especially for long periods, but I decided to stay on our own, and this will be the longest ever with him around. So far I've managed well, though I feel I should be bringing them out more on weekends, but I am just occupied with basic housework stuff. This weekend I shall make an effort to bring them to see Elmo and Cookie Monster. Haha. The day he went off, he wanted to eat some homecooked meal, and requested for rendang. I already have a rendang recipe from my mum , but we tried the minang version, provided by my friend. I tweaked it a bit, but I will show you the original recipe as well. Rendang Minang original version 1kg beef 1 litre pati santan 2 tbsp kerisik 1 pc asam keping 2 tbsp gula melaka 2 daun kunyit sliced thinly 3 tbsp cili kisar Ingredients to blend: 10 red onions 4 clove