Organic Oatmeal Bread

I am not a fan of oats and wholemeal breads. I prefer white breads, probably I prefer not having foods which will drop crumbs all over the place. Somehow, they make me feel very dry, and together with cereals drinks, they fall into my category of "unpreferred foods".

So last week, when I baked wholemeal bread, it was not for me. It was mainly for my dad. I know he likes them. He buys 1 or 2 loaves every week. But I told him I would bake a loaf last week, so he did not need to buy.

This bread is partly organic. Why partly? Which part? Only the flour part. Not all other parts.Organic foodstuff are much more expensive, everyone knows. For our own consumption, it is fine. I hope my diet will eventually be at least 50% organic one day. I do not really like my foods processed extensively, and full of pesticides etc.

Does this contradict my love for baking? Baking is not really the healthiest sometimes. Hmmm.....but what's life without some sinful stuff sometime? Besides, I've got a sweet tooth :P

In any case, I usually try to reduce the "chemicals" in my baking. I tend to add less baking powder, baking soda and less colouring than what is required. I shun recipes which calls for emulsifiers and stabilisers. My theory is, if I have to add all these stuff to my food, then I might as well go to the shops to buy them, what will then be the purpose of homebaked?

Oops, sorry I've digressed, back to my bread. This recipe did not require very long proving times, and like all breads, they are best eaten fresh from the oven. I do not know of anyone who can resist the aroma of freshly baked, warm bread. Verdict of this wholemeal bread? It's superdelicious...just because it's baked by me, hahaha! Don't you just feel so happy when you know your family is eating bread without excess chemicals and preservatives? I do.

Check out the recipe here.

I Scream, You Scream.....Old Fashioned Vanilla Ice-Cream!!!...with Oreos

Did I mention that I had graduated? I have attained my certificate for Wilton Cake Decoration Course 1! I'm really happy about it! This week I will be starting Course 2, so at least I can maintain the momentum.

Today, I made my first attempt at making ice-cream! I had extra egg yolks from making meringue buttercream and I had been wanting to try this ice-cream recipe for some time, so everything just fell nicely timed.

For a better vanilla flavour, I also used my first real vanilla pod. Well, I had always been using vanilla paste or extract. I bought this pod because I wanted to try my hand at making my own vanilla extract, but I never got down to it. This has now been put to good use.

I do not have an ice-cream maker, so I have to do it the old-fashioned way (the recipe is named 'old-fashioned' anyway!). It's not difficult, although it takes some patience to churn it every now and then. I added 3 Oreo cookies which I had been wanting to get rid off. It's just not my habit to chomp down 3 biscuits out of meal times, and I cannot only have 3 biscuits as a meal, so those poor fellows have been waiting to be eaten for weeks...or months. So now, I get to have Cookies N Cream ice-cream!

The end result? Creamy and smooth ice-cream with nice taste of vanilla. I love to see the vanilla seeds inside, just makes me feel like I am getting the real thing. I now feel the usual ones sold in the stores taste pretty crappy in comparison, unless you get some of the more expensive and better ones.

The recipe is simple and it is here. The only thing about it is, use the best ingredients you can find...good vanilla, good cream, fresh egg yolks. Why? Because that's the whole point of making your own ice-cream isn't it? Otherwise, you might as well go to the store and grab a tub.

Enough said, my ice-cream's melting...I gotta go!

 

Recently, we added a (power) blender to our kitchen inventory because the Signifant Other wants to make some smoothie. So we bought one, which according to the salesperson, has the most powerful and sharpest blade in the market. Ok. The next time this laptop crashes on me, I'm gonna throw it into the blender.

I was excited that we can make soy milk with it. Alright, it's not new, but it is to me! The pack of soy beans I have finally can be put into use. For every 125g of beans, I need to add 1 litre of water. I happily told dear that we do not have to buy soy milk anymore. It is so cheap to make our own and 500g of beans only cost a dollar. Which means for 40 cents, we can make 1 litre of soy milk. Right? Wrong.

I only ended up with 2 glasses of soy milk. The rest of the liquid just went to blending and ended up with the residue. Perhaps I did not sieve thoroughly too. In any case, I happily gulped down the soy milk, the smell of the beans and the goodness is irresistable. Those that we buy are really no where near. I'll make a second attempt soon and try to squeeze more out of my 1 litre of water.

In the afternoon, we went to watch THIS IS IT - the latest Michael Jackson movie which opens in cinemas yesterday and we had bought the tickets as soon as ticket bookings were open a few weeks ago. It shows clips from his latest rehearsals before he passed away. I had wanted to watch the very first screening but I had my cake decoration class, but that doesn't matter. Go and watch guys. It was just like watching his concert. I remember earlier this year, when I heard that MJ is making a world tour, I told dear we had to go and watch no matter how expensive the tickets are. His Thriller and Billy Jean acts never fail to impress me, and of course the rest of the songs too. His movements are so crisp and sharp, yet so fluid, it's simply perfection in caps. I had the urge to go pick up some hip hop moves after watching the show, but I shall stick to my pilates class first. All the dancers go through pilates too anyway :p 

I remember a cookie I made. It wasn't initially made with MJ in mind. I was thinking of the intials of my friend and her hubby. But after watching the show yesterday, I was a little filled with sadness and nostalgia. It's hard to believe that he is history already. MJ, this is for you. With love.

Random ramblings

I've been attending Wilton decoration course for the past few weeks. I was a little apprehensive about the course because I have already acquired self-taught piping skills. But I wanted the certificate, so after much thought and contemplation, I went ahead.

I already knew most of the piping basics in the past, through trial and errors, lots of research and through the godsend Youtube. But the course is good to correct some of the mistakes I make or to make me more aware of some important points to note. I was particularly looking forward to piping a rose. Seeing how roses always look perfect on Wilton website make me drool. I had tried it on my own before and got quite a good result. However, the Swiss Meringue buttercream I used was not stiff enough to stand tall and high like Wilton's. The class buttercream recipe provided to us for piping the flowers did not yield the same results. And the class buttercream tasted....not suitable for my palate..and many others'. For one, I do not like to put shortening into my body. Swiss Meringue buttercream will taste real nice, but it will not withstand our temperature. We really cannot have the best of both worlds isn't it? That leaves not much choice but to make roses with royal icing or fondant.

I am honestly, pretty disappointed by how my roses look today as compared to the ones I taught myself  by watching Youtube. Not that I am saying the course is no good though, don't get me wrong. My instructor reminded us not to get too distressed when we do not achieve perfect roses. Well, my fingers are cramped from the squeezing the stiff buttercream already, ok, I accept that the world is not perfect. Wilton's buttercream roses have "perfect" as their middle name and that probably does not belong in our normal imperfect world.

On a happier note, I bought some new stuff after class today. Went to a place which sold lots and lots of ribbons and they were so pretty! I saw how a simple ribbon can make a whole lot of difference to a plain looking box and thought I should try someday. Hope I don't get caught on a ribbon bug and stock up rolls and rolls of ribbons from now on.......

New paper liners as well....in polka dots as well....though polka dots and pink colour have never been me! As far as fashion is concerned, I do not have a single pink clothing. I'd rather fuschia. But these were seriously hard to resist.

Now...off to find some recipes to use that polka dot paper liners...

Cream Puffs with Chocolate Pastry Cream

What does going to Pantry Magic mean to you? For me, it's feels exactly like a 5-year old kid going to Toys R' Us, there is so much to play with! And going in also means spend, spend and spend. I see the colourful silicone baking tools and colourful melamine mixing bowls and just drool. What's the fascination over pots, pans, baking trays..which I have and see everyday? I don't know. The grass is always greener on the other side. I am a big sucker for nice (and sometimes expensive) kitchen stuff. Even if it means not owning them, I have to look at them. I can go to a department store and look at the expensive pots, knives, crockery for the umpteenth time and not get tired of them. But I told myself I do not need a sixty bucks mixing bowl. Therefore, todays's trip to Pantry Magic was a highly disciplined one. I went in without a shopping list, which was very dangerous, but I managed to spend only a little.

I was in high spirits, and still am. My mind is still at my niece's birthday party over the weekend. I reckoned that during parties, anything bite-sized moves the fastest ( at least I personally would rather grab bite-sized food than hold a plate all the time). Moreover, she already had a birthday cake so I decided to make some bite-sized cream puffs filled with chocolate pastry cream.

I had initially wanted to make eclairs. Well, the pâte à choux is the same anyway. But somehow, when I made them into eclairs, the centers did not dry out 100% and my piping skills sucked. They did not look as nice as I wanted them to be. So I made a second batch of the pastry dough and made them into small cream puffs, or also called profiteroles.

The pastry dough was easy peasy. Initially, the instructions for the pastry cream did not go well into this little scatterbrain of mine. I had to read it over and over and over again and all I got was "pour into here...and then pour into there...and then pour in here again...". But once I got into doing it, I wasn't that scatterbrain after all.

The recipe that I used was not the same as I had used in my first attempt. This time, both the pastry and cream recipes are from Pierre Hermé, one of the most famous pastry chefs in the world. It was one of the Daring Bakers' challenges (which I have been dropped as a member since I did not follow their baking schedule), you can do a google search and find it on the blogs of numerous Daring Bakers. I did some slight tweaks on the recipes to suit my guests' palate and my oven's cooking time. I also did not do the chocolate glaze as the Daring Bakers, I used my own recipe and squeezed them out of a squeeze bottle.

Two people found the pastry cream a little too sweet, the others all said they were delicious! They also look a lot better than my first two attempts on cream puffs. This recipe is a keeper!

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Chiffon cakes.

My family is not a big fan of them. Simply because even after eating a few slices of chiffon cakes, they feel like they have eaten nothing.

Me? I like them...even though I have to agree that chiffon cakes cannot seem to make me feel full. I've always wondered why chiffon cakes are usually the cheapest cakes sold at local bakeries. To me, they are the underrated ones. They are not that easy to master and they use a lot of eggs, yet they are only worth two bucks.

A few years ago, I made my first chiffon cake attempt. I remember I bought a pack of pre-mix since it was my first try. I had actually contemplated a long time before buying because it required something like 8-10 eggs? Eventually, I decided to risk 10 eggs. It turned out disastrous. At that time, I did not know how the egg whites are supposed to be. I remembered the batter was still very liquid when I poured it into the pan....and slowly, the batter seeped through the bottom of the pan and made a mess of my oven. It was a nightmare. That sort of gave me a phobia and put me off another attempt for several years....until this year.

3 months ago, I finally plucked my courage for a second shot. I found a recipe for Lemon Chiffon Cake which required much less eggs. It was a good try. The cake was yummy, in fact I would say honestly that I prefer it to this chocolate one below, though this is also yummy. The only problems were (1) my pan was too big for the recipe, thus my cake was not that high and (2) I did not manage to get a good shot of the cake. Therefore, I did not blog about it.

I got the recipe for this cake from a fellow blogger's blog. Generally it was nice, but I think I still prefer chiffon cakes to be pandan flavoured, and I think the amount of baking powder used could be reduced, since there are 4 egg whites. My guinea pigs said the cake was soft and fluffy enough but everyone prefers pandan flavour. It is just like a default flavour for chiffon cakes.

The cake turned out very high, because my pan was a little too small this time. The pictures managed to hide a few cracks but it was a satisfied and good attempt.

My next attempt will definitely be pandan flavoured.

Banana Muffins, Cheese Muffins and Me

Can I share a little secret with you? Despite starting this blog for more than 2 years, embarking on numerous baking "projects", feeding my family with the results of my experiments, attending a good number of classes, there are many times I am still not totally confident of myself and the things I bake. Honestly.

I do put in my best effort whenever I try something new, because I know that if I don't, what comes out from the oven most likely will end up with the trash. Many times, the things I bake are totally edible. In fact, some taste really nice. However, there will be just that something I am not pleased with.

For instance, I might have come up with something that tastes nice, but I do not feel it totally looks nice to me. By nice, I refer to the kind of standards that draws people to look and buy. I think my stuff looks home-baked, which honestly, may not really be that bad.

And there are times when something looks nice (!) but the taste is forgettable, or unforgettable for the wrong reasons. Even though the guinea pigs in my family might give really positive comments, I tend to tell myself they are just being kind with their words and they do not want to hurt me with the truth.

Last week, I finally pluck up some courage and gave my friends some muffins I made. Of course, those were recipes I had tried before, but I added cheese for the first time in one of the recipes....so, it was still something new I was totally anxious to have their comments. They said nothing the same night I gave them the muffins...and nothing the next day. I thought they must be having a hard time trying to think how to word their comments without making me sad. They finally told me that the muffins were generally good, other than some slight tweaks required. Phew!

I was particularly pleased with the picture I took for the banana muffin. Now that is a little confidence booster. I looked through my old blog posts and couldn't believe that I had not shared the recipe because the recipe is a really good one (perhaps I thought my old pictures looked too awful and couldn't convince that the recipe was good). I have more than a handful of times ( I just did not always blogged about it) and the results are consistently good. Now that I think I have a more convincing picture, I have added the recipe to My Recipe Blog.

As for my cheese recipe, I basically used my Basic Muffins and added a small cube of cream cheese inside. I also switched to using a better quality Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Paste instead of cheap vanilla essence (I know..I was cheapo) and there is such a great difference! On its own, I can taste the bourbon and in the muffin, I can see little black specks of the vanilla seed ( I hope they are not specks of dirt in actual fact haha...).

Jammy Doughnut Muffins

After being absent for the past 2 months, I am back with the SSB bake.

This month, we are baking Jammy Doughnut Muffins. I did not know what the word "doughnut" is doing in there initially, but after taking a bite, oh....I know!

It does have a texture that is a little wee bit like doughnuts.

The recipe calls for the mixing wet and dry ingredients together method, which I am quite afraid of...because although it sounds easy, it is even easier to overmix and get a tough muffin.

Secondly, the jam has to be in between the mixture. I worry that it will result in undercooked muffins like my Lemon Curd Muffin. To overcome this, I fill the muffin tin 3/4 full of muffin mixture, add 1 tsp of jam, and then add 1 tbsp of muffin mixture over it (instead of 1/2 muffin-jam-half muffin again).

I omitted the topping because I did not want the extra sugar and butter intake though I think it should taste better with it.

If you want to try the recipe, it is here

I turn 30!

I had problems loading the Blogger page last night, so this post is a day late.

I turned 30! Ooops....but I see no need to hide my age.

Unlike most years, I did not take the day off from work. A few of my colleagues bought me small pieces of cake so that I can go home and share them with my husband. Perhaps they think I would be embarrassed at having to stand in front of a group and blowing out candles...which is true, I would indeed be embarrassed.

The cakes were small tiny versions of tiramisu, black forest and mango cake. They looked small, but they were the perfect size for a late night supper (since I had a satisfied dinner with my husband). So last night, I stuck a little candle in one of the cakes, sat in front of it, made a long wish, and blew out the candle.

No matter how I made myself feel, I could not feel as excited as I was young. I thought of the years when I would look forward to my birthdays, because I would celebrate at my aunt's house, and she would cook lots of nice stuff for everyone to eat. And at my own home, my parents would get me a cake and we would all go out for a nice dinner (we still do dinner now, but less the cake). Classmates and friends would give presents and birthday cards (in paper form, not in email or sms) and I would go home and read them over and over again...even if most of them contained more or less the same words.

Yesterday felt no special than other days. I received many birthday greetings - through email, sms, facebook...most of them from people I hardly know. My mobile phone service provider was the first to send me a birthday greeting, and I received many from websites which I do not even remember joining as a member. Most ridiculous of all, I receive a greeting from some birthday websites, reminding myself of my birthday. It's funny, what kind of world are we entering??

Yo hooo!

Hi people!

Wow, I did not realise I had not blogged in more than a month. I am still alive and kicking! :)

I had not been baking much, except for a first try at making chiffon cake, which was motivated by a fellow blogger. It turned out well, thank goodness. However, I am not posting here yet, as I am dissatisfied with the colour of the picture.

You see, I bought a new camera. I know, there are tons of post-processing applications to correct the colour, but I am want to avoid that while I am still undergoing the "getting to know you" period with my beloved DSLR. It makes my heart beat faster everytime I think of that handsome machine... :p

And, on the homefront, I am a little more busy these days. Do keep coming back! I will keep my posts up to date soon! :)

Now, off for a short long-deserved vacation!

Lemon Curd Muffins

The round up for the month of May at Sweet and Simple Bakes is Lemon Curd Muffins.

I have my own Lemon Curd recipe, but for this bake, I decided to use the recipe that the ladies have provided. It tasted just as good!

One thing to note about the recipe though, is that I found 120ml of lemon too much overall. I had some left which I did not want to pour back into my jar in the fridge, so I spooned it and ate them on its own...yummy!

I am not sure if I did everything correctly but when the muffins were out of the oven, the insides were still a rather wet, because of the lemon curd inside. I filled my muffin cups this way: muffin mixture-lemon curd-muffin mixture, and it didn't seem to work well for me. Perhaps I understood wrongly? Probably if I try this recipe a second time, I would bake the muffins on their own first, and then squeeze the lemon curd in through a nozzle after they have cooled.

The coating was nice though. Initially I was afraid that the sugar coating will be too sweet. However, when paired with the tartness of the lemon curd, it was perfect.

Unfortunately this time round, I am the only one eating the muffins. Dear is not a great fan of lemon, and my other family members are not fans of muffins with wet insides.

Nevertheless, I think this recipe is a keeper, just that I have to work on the centers of the muffins! Do try the recipe here.

Mother's Day - Mango Mousse Letdown

It is a Saturday morning at about 6 am right now.

On normal weekdays, I would probably need a bed full of nails to get me up from it...nowadays, I have the habit of pressing the snooze button on my handphone alarm every morning. Is this a sign of getting old (lack of energy)? Yet on a weekday morning like now, my mind is so active I have trouble sleeping. This is the second time it has happened. I hate it totally, aarrrrggggh!

I decided to catch up on my blogging and post some long overdue pictures, hoping that you guys out there still remember me! The past few weekends had been a little busy with family BBQ, watching numerous movies and my usual pilates classes.

Some time back, I was looking forward to this year, because I will be turning 30! The big three! You know how female magazines publish articles which make you feel like turning 30 is the greatest thing in life...a woman in her 30s is a confident, sexy woman, blah blah blah. I think that worked on me. I was looking forward to the big 3....until lately when I think I really see changes.

My skin is getting more sensitive than ever, giving me rashes everywhere, probably due to hormonal changes? I am beginning to consider "upgrading" all my skincare products to the anti-aging range. I used to like my freckles but now, but now I feel I am beginning to look like a strawberry...and I've never seen a more obvious effect of gravity in any of my science lab classes than on my body. That's not all, sometimes I feel like having a kid!

Now that is something. I do not always come across as someone who loves kids, not screaming kids especially. I used to glare (with my goldfish eyes) tell off ill-disciplined or screaming kid in public...and probably even glare at their parents for not discipling them. But I have enough incidents in my life to tell me that karma will befall me, so these days, I am more tolerant, as I am afraid I would be glared at in future hahaha. But honestly, I am beginning to realise it really isn't easy being a parent at all.

A few weeks ago, it was Mother's Day. Some cynical people would say that this day is a commercial gimmick, every day should be Mother's Day. I agree to some extent, but then again, it is a good excuse for people like me (who does not openly show my appreciation usually) to do something for the great person who has always put us in priority.

Since mangoes are in season now, I made a mango sago dessert which my family likes about 3 weeks back, and also decided on making a mango mousse cake for Mother's Day. I had planned to make it a surprise, since my sister told me not to make any cake, we will go out for a celebration meal instead.

The net came in handy and I saw a recipe on a fellow blogger's blog which received many comments how good the cake looked (on hindsight, none of the comments were on the taste)

I replaced the sponge cake recipe with my own (since hers contain some ingredients which I would prefer not to use). For the rest of the cake, I followed the recipe exactly and made the cake the night before Mother's Day.

The cake tasted so bad I almost wanted to cry. I was truly disappointed. For this cake, I was ripped off by the mango seller, bought a new cake ring and larger tin, spent many hours on it and yet the end result is probably the worst I have ever made, in terms of taste.

I could not figure out what went wrong because the ingredients and instructions were followed exactly. Perhaps it was the recipe? I'm not sure. For this reason, I will not list the recipe here, I do not want you guys to try it and turn out to be a flop as well.

My mother was happy to see the cake, but of course, no one could be so untruthful to say that it tasted good. I told everyone to scrap off the mousse, and we ended up eating the sponge cake only. 2 slices of the cake were still in my mum's fridge a week after Mother's Day (and I went to threw it away), so you can imagined how much we enjoyed it.

Our celebration meal also did not happen because my father was unwell, and we had to drive down to his office to pick him and his car. So, instead of jostling with the crowds at restaurants, dinner was a simple affair at our favourite hawker center where he can have some bland and healthy fish soup, while I chomped down a bowl of prawn noodles with huge prawns.

Nevertheless, here's how the mango mousse cake looked. The words on the candy say Happy Mother's Day in Chinese.

Vanilla Cupcake

It has been uncomfortably hot over the past few weeks! There is nothing I felt like doing except to soak myself in the bathtub until my skin creases (a pity I do not have a bathtub actually). Wherever we went, it was humid, and we get hot and sticky all over. Yucks, it doesn't feel good at all. For this reason, I did not step into the kitchen very much. Most of the time at home was spent hiding in the aircon room, either facing the computer, the TV, a book or on the bed.

Just a few days ago, I suddenly remembered the bake for April at Sweet & Simple Bake is Vanilla Cupcake. Great idea, it's a classic and always a hit. I realised the recipe is the same as the one we had done for Halloween. But no problem, I don't mind doing it again since I enjoyed them the previous time. I decided to keep my vanilla cupcakes real simple.

Firstly, my family members do not like stuff which are overly sweet. So, I replaced the frosting recipe with some Swiss Meringue Buttercream I have, which we find less sweet. I also used soy milk in place of regular milk.

Secondly, unlike me, they do not like cakes with too much cream on them. Instead of doing a swirl on the cupcake, I only added a small amount of buttercream on top. This also managed to hide the fact that I am not good at making swirls...and that I actually do not have enough buttercream to cover the tops of all the cupcakes! :)

It was wonderful. With a cup of iced chocolate, it was simple, comforting and satisfying.

My Daily Bread

If you want to see a different side of me, just throw me in front of a lizard, or throw a lizard in front of me and you will see a side of me you have never seen before. Beware though, for if you do either of it, I will know you are not a friend. Don't start telling me how good these creatures are, that they eat mosquitoes etc. I can give you many reasons why they should be extinct, and moreover, I can kill mosquitos between my fingers.

It is a fear I have, that I myself do not understand. I become the most paranoid, most irrational, most jumpy, probably most irritating (since I will keep calling out to you for help) person you will see. The fear gets into me more as I age by the day. By next year, I predict I probably would have quit my job to live in a vacuum. I wonder what's with me..it seems I encounter these creatures more than anyone else. Perhaps I'm always on the lookout for them, that's why.

Once, I was home and met my neighbours who were about to go out. I saw a creature (I'm not even spelling it! It makes my hair stand) on my door and no matter how I stamped my feet, it would not go. I must have looked like a moron, standing a meter from the door, stamping my feet and not daring to open the door. I smiled sheepishly to my neighbour and said there is a creature and I am afraid. Without another word, the kind uncle went to my door, and tried to catch it! It ran and so did his hands! I have never seen such quick hands! He grabbed it in his hands and threw it down the chute! Oh my hero!

My mum is a great woman, she is the one who catches these awful creatures for me, before I start screaming and losing sleep over them. 2 weeks ago, she went on vacation. I happen to go to the bathroom one day and saw 1 squashed between the sliding doors in the bathroom. I ran out immediately. What I had intended to do in the bathroom was no longer important. I did not think my dad would entertain me like my mum, so I did not tell him. I simply asked him if he was ready, so that we could leave for work together. I thought I acted like normal, but he saw something in my face (perhaps I turned pale!) and asked me what it was. He picked it up that night and threw it away. Phew!

My husband is another hero. We had 2 encounters in our home with these creatures. On both occasions, he swiftly came to my rescue. Last week was the worse. One morning, I saw the poo of the creature on the plastic bag which contains my breakfast....and the bag was tied in a knot! The poo was small, but it could not escape my eyes. I threw it away, I'd rather go hungry without breakfast. I had the nightmarish encounter a few years back when a creature was sharing my bread. The next morning, I had a bad feeling and did not touch the bread at all...second day without breakfast. My hubby woke up, ate his breakfast and found a creature sharing his breakfast...though the bag was again tied in a knot! Good thing for my intuition. Third morning, I went without breakfast again...I switched more lights than usual and did not even dared go near the dining table. Fourth morning, I had a pleasant surprise. As I was brushing my teeth in the morning, my hubby woke up (he usually wakes up a few hours later than me), made me a hot drink and made me breakfast! I was so touched I almost did not want to go for work haha! For the past few mornings, he did the same! If he were to say our wedding vows again, it probably should go like this.

I, Bimmer Saviour, vow to take you, Bimmer, as my lawfully wedded wife, even when you turn into the most irrational human being on earth when you see a lizard. I will try not to laugh at your expression whenever you spray cans and cans of insecticide, lizard repellent, lizard exterminator and whatever anti-lizard products. I promise not to stop you, not to scold you, even if it means I need an oxygen mask. I promise that I will protect you whether in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, in joy or sorrow and to comfort you, which includes chasing away, killing, or by any other means, getting lizards out of your world. With this ring (and ten boxes of lizard traps), I wed you.

Now, for in celebration of these 3 important, heroes in my life, I made these bread. My dad and hubby love them. I don't know about my neighbour since I did not give him any, oops.

Doesn't see any link? Bread is the most important food in my life. Almost 365 days a year, I eat bread for breakfast. They give me the energy to start my day. I only need a slice with margarine on weekdays, and probably slightly more interesting on weekends. I can eat them everyday, and still think they are nicest thing around. I can eat bread for lunch and dinner. It is my comfort food.

My heroes are equally important to me. They literally helped me to move on (otherwise I would have stay rooted to the ground until the lizard finally crawls away). I may seem silly, but their small gestures have really meant a lot to me! To my heroes, these are for you!

P.S. Oh man, what a lengthy way of showing what I have baked. I'm not posting the recipe again since this is not the first time I made these breads.

Lazy Weekend

Today is a lazy Saturday. I did not have a good sleep last night, so we decided to laze at home instead of going out and joining the crowds.

The weather was erratic, a moment very hot and humid, yet the next moment, torrential rain fell. It left us feeling uncomfortably hot and sticky and restless, so we hid in the room with the aircon switched on. Ironically, when it rained, we felt cold in the aircon, so we switched it off. But the moment we did that, the sun was up and out again, just like playing hide and seek.

With the whole day at hand, there was time to bake some bread so that I can have them for breakfast for the next few days.

For our dinner, we went to the supermarket this morning and bought 2 crabs. Ever since I attended the cooking class to learn how to cook crab, I have not had the chance to put what I learnt to use. Theoretically, I knew how, but when it comes to putting it in action, I am not sure if I remember all the steps correctly.

Anyway, I turned 'murderer' just now. We had some difficulty, and both dear and me were struggling with the crabs, one of which was a fierce fighter. I used my silicon tongs to grip it, but its claws gripped even harder and pierced a small hole in the silicon!

When we finally 'silenced' the crabs, we were sweating! I looked at the poor crab and wondered whether they will still be my favourite food in future.

My plans was only a simple and lazy one. To boil the crabs, and then use the stock to cook instant noodles, and then add the crab in again. I used spicy flavour instant noodles and it turned out really nice! Each of us had one crab, and the crabs only costs us $10. If we had something similar outside, we would have to spend at least $25 for 1 crab. Hmm...yummy! When we finished dinner, I was certain that crab is still my favourite food haha.

Next time, I will try cooking with vermicelli and XO, just like the ones being sold.

My 100th post - Chocolate Banana Layered Cake

Hi!

You might have thought that this blog is dead because I seemed to have abandoned it. The truth is, after I wrote my last post, I realised that was the 99th post, which makes this the 100th post!

I was cracking my head how to make it a little more special, it took me quite a while to reach 100 posts, and there will be more to come! Then I remember there is an important day in March. So, I decided to coincide my 100th post with my post on the cake I made for dear's birthday.

I decided to make Chocolate Banana Layered Cake. We like the one from the eatery Secret Recipe, so I tried to imitate it, though mine still looks quite far from it. As you can see, the layers are not equal, and the bananas were beginning to look like they were too heavy for the sponge.

I covered the whole cake in Chocolate Buttercream, and then followed by a layer of Chocolate Truffle Icing from Donna Hay's recipe book. I did not make the whole cake in a single day, but all in, I spent about 5 hours on it. The chocolate truffle icing was delicious and the cake tasted better than it looked. I'm glad the birthday boy liked it and he had 2 servings of the cake at one go :)

I'll be sure to make it again and take a nicer picture next time! :p

Banana Chocolate Bread

After missing out on the previous 2 bakes from Sweet and Simple Bake, I'm back in action for January's bake! What a better way to start the year with the most wonderful combination - banana and chocolate?

I almost forgot about the bananas I bought...and in the end, I could only use half of them, as the other half of the bunch had began to rot.

As I went through this recipe, I was a bit unsure...at the part on adding the butter and rubbing it in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Maybe I am too narrow in my knowledge, isn't this supposed to be for pastry making? Nevertheless, I followed the recipe exactly, except that I had to half the portion (since I did not have enough bananas). The other change I made was to add extra chocolate chips.

The fragrance of the banana filled the kitchen after half an hour, and by the time it was almost cooled, we just had to take a slice.

Mine turned out a little too moist and crumbly, other than that, the taste was definitely awesome.

Go on, give yourself a little banana treat today, the recipe is here.

Chinese New Year - Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year is here again! It is the period of eating, eating and eating!

2 weeks ago, we had our Reunion Dinner session 1 with my aunt's family. Then there was another session with my own family, and another session with dear's family.

On the second day of CNY, my family went out for a good lunch, almost bursting our stomachs. Straight after that, we travelled for about 30-40 minutes to my cousin's place, and ate like silly again. That was early dinner for me...and about 10pm, dear and I went out for supper...my favourite cheese and mushroom prata.

Of all the CNY snacks, I usually have these few - kueh bangkit (MUST be melt in your mouth type), pineapple tarts (homemade from my aunt), peanut puffs (homemade from my other aunt). Kueh Bangkit and peanut puffs shall be my trial items next year.

This year, I made peanut cookies and pineapple tarts. Up to the week of CNY, I had been making these 2 items for consecutive evenings. They never seemed enough. I had a list of people I want to give them to. It was over ambitious again, because my oven could not handle that much. As I baked, dear ate and ate. To his dismay, I had to tell him not to eat any, otherwise I would never be making enough...and he had to eat the "rejected" pineapple tarts, those which failed my QC and did not look nice enough to be put into jars to be given away.

For pineapple tarts, as I made them over and over again, I got better and faster. Some people leave the tops empty, and some use a tiny cookie cutter to make some cutout like flower shape etc.....but they all look kind of naked to me. As far as I remember, the pineapple tarts I have been eating from young (made by my aunt) always have these handmade crosses. Moreover, I like the imperfect look (some bigger, some smaller) of homemade stuff, it smells of home....rather than factory made tarts which weigh and look all the same for every piece. Haha, that's an excuse for myself for not being able to make every tart look the same. :P

Since this is the first year I make pineapple tarts, I decided to use store-bought jam. I do not want to waste time cooking the jam and then end up with failing in making the crust. There are many many recipes out there for pineapple tarts. Some use milk powder (I do not quite like the smell of milk powder), some use cornflour, some use rubbing in method, some use creaming method...The first recipe I tried was too flaky. I then tried this second recipe which did not use milk powder or cornflour but turned out very good, so I am sticking to it till I find a better one. Now that I have found a good recipe for the crust, I can try making the jam next time.

My First Award!

Ann from A Delighted Foodie has graciously honoured me with the Butterfly Award to me and I am totally ecstatic! I am speechless, but I am really happy.

Thanks Ann!

I am passing this award to...Florence of Do What I Like and Happy Home Baker!

Baking for Christmas

Ok, I had been feeling lazy to write about what I have done, but it doesn't mean that the lazy spell has gotten into me for a long time!

In fact, the weeks before Christmas, I was busy like a dog. I took part in a charity bake for mentally handicapped children, which a fellow visitor to my blog has informed me about. It took me quite a while to think of what to bake, considering my (limited) resources in terms of oven size and time, not forgetting that the stuff must be able to keep for some time since I have to bake a few days in advance. But it was the first time I was doing something meaningful with my skill and it gave me immense satisfaction.

Finally, I decided to make my Christmas cookies again, yes, the same ones I made last year for Christmas. How boring....and when I decided on it, I can't help but realise that it was 12 months ago that I last made them!!

My little oven can only handle 6 big-sized cookies in each tray. For consecutive nights, after I return from work each day, ate dinner and showered, I would be baking, decorating, washing and packing them individually. In fact, I was so hyper I could not sleep, and I woke up early next morning to continue. I made 60 cookies and passed them to the lady who is so supportive of my blog. It feels funny at first for me, to meet up with a person whom I had only knew online, but the meetup was very pleasant.

At the same time, I had to finish making some more peanut cookies and pineapple tarts, for a colleague who was leaving the company.

Not forgetting that I had great plans for Christmas. I had planned to make eclairs, log cakes and baked chicken for christmas lunch when my friends come over. In the end, eclairs were left out of the menu, but I made 3 log cakes - one for my parents, one for dear's mum, and one for our christmas lunch. I like the log cakes. I think most local bakeries have swiss rolls covered with cream and decorated into a log cake. Mine was not from a sponge cake recipe, it is more dense and chocolatey. I had tried the recipe on its own a few weeks back just to make sure that I find a nice recipe for the log. I am sure there are many great ones out there, but I used this one and I hope you like it too! I have added it to my collection of recipes in my recipe blog.

We also had chicken wrapped in bacon for lunch and everyone was polite enough to finish everything on their plate whether it was nice or not. Frankly, it was the first time I cooked for 6 persons, and I was really excited about it. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.