Funny looking 15th anniversary cake

My husband and I are not the type who celebrate anniversary or birthdays. But this year as I was bitten by baking bug and i decided just for fun to bake a chocolate cake and would try to decorate it. I found the recipe here Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake. I never decorated a cake before so i found out that i am lacking creativity ha ha ha....so ended up with very funny looking cake. But i like the texture of the cake, not dry but not so moist either. A good cake for decoration and nice tasting too. Sorry that the pictures were not very good as the battery of my digicam went dead. I got to use my crappy handphone camera. Could not delay the cutting as my in laws happened to drop by. I did not used the original icing as called in the recipe, i just used fresh cream and a little bit of my chocolate buttercream icing for the filling and the brown flowers on the cake.

I just whipped a bit of butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder for the filling and whipped the fresh cream to ice the outer cake.

Simple lunch for the kids.....

I am touched by a bug of flu since yesterday. Kinda irritating with stuffed nose, headache and coughing. Still wanted to go to the kitchen but did not feel like being in there for long. And I decided to just make hot dog rolled in bread for the kids. What i did was just roll the bread around the hotdog, dipped in the eggs and rolled the bread on the breadcrumb and fried in oil....while doing this i got an idea that these rolled thingy would be good as finger food for a party if i slice the fried rolled into 1 inch thick and just put the toothpick on each cut...should be good with tomato ketchup or chili sauce...what do you think??

Ramadhan is around the corner....

Soon fasting month will be here. Tepung pelita has always been my personal favorite during this holy month. I used to buy RM2.00 of these sweet thing almost every other day throughout the fasting month. But now I had tried to make these i think would make my own in this coming fasting month. Thanks to http://www.freewebs.com/recipe2u/kuihmuih.htm, for sharing the recipe and the how to

TEPUNG PELITA

Bahan-bahan:
1 cawan tepung beras
1 cawan gula
5 cawan air
4 sudu besar tepung beras(ratakan)
1 biji kelapa diperah jadi 4 cawan santan
4 helai daun pandan dimesin dgn sedikit air
sedikit kapur dan sedikit garam

Caranya:
1. Tepung, air, gula, air daun pandan dan air kapur dibancuh hingga sebati.
2. Perah santan, masukkan tepung yg 4 sudu tadi dan garam. Kacau sehingga sebati dan ketepikan.
3. Masakkan tepung yg diadun dan kacau hingga masak dan berkilat.
4. Bila dah masak masukkan dalam acuan.
5. Masak santan yg diadun tadi dan kacau sehingga pekat.
6. Angkat santan dan curah ke atas tepung yg di dalam acuan tadi.

Cute fruits tartlets.

I have seen this cute little fruits tartlets in many many food blogs and sites. I was wondering if I could make these tiny little things and wonder how the taste would be like. I also got my youngest son to prick the tart base with a fork. He was so cute when doing that and gave 110% concentration to ensure he pricked the tart base evenly ha ha ha...poor kid. I had got good response from my 3 boys and their cousins, and i have to agree with them. These little things are quite yummy...


Sweet Pastry
200 gm butter
100 gm icing sugar
1 egg
420 gm flour

Custard
100 gm instant custard
200 gm cold water
100 whipping cream


For pastry, beat butter and sugar well, add in egg and lastly add in the flour. Press the dough into the tart mould, cut the extra dough at the edges with pastry cutter or knife. Prick the dough a few times with a fork and bake at 170C for about 15 minutes or until the edges lightly brown.

For custard, measured everything in a bowl and beat until stiff but do not over beat. Pipe the custard into the baked tart base using star nozzle. Arrange the fruit cuts as you wish.

Happy Birthday Son...

My eldest boy was borned on 17th August fourteen years ago. He was an easy baby even when he was still inside me. I did not have morning sickness and my unusual craving was only Big Mac Meal value. Ate that unhealthy thing almost every other day throughout my pregnancy. And until today i cannot bring myself to eat that damn thing anymore ha ha ha..... He is as tall as i am now at 14. Asked what cake he wants for the birthday and he said blueberry cheese cake with no fancy decoration as he knows i cant decorate anything even if my life depended on it.....

The recipe calls for fresh blueberry but being where i am , its not something available all the time, as such i used blueberry topping. I got the recipe from Food Network site here; Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars.

I pray for many more birthdays for him and he ate almost half of the cake at one go...

Butter Cookies anyone??

I browsed the net yesterday and found one butter cookies recipe in one of the blog. Her step-by-step pictures showing how to pipe the dough and putting on the cherry/jam on the piped cookies made me wonder if i could make them too. I never baked butter cookies or piped cookies before. Looked through the recipe and all ingredients were all in. Then i read TWB.
I almost cried as some fond memories rushed in. Nuraina's posting also inspired me to try this recipe as the rain started so early in the morning, just nice after i dropped my kids at school. I got the recipe from here:- Butter Cookies at http://myperiukbelanga.blogspot.com/

Ingredients:-
500 gm unsalted butter
200 gm icing sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
650 gm all-purposed flour
50 gm milk powder
Strawberry or other favourite jam
Piping bag with star nozzle

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 150ºC.
2. Sift together flour and milk powder, set aside.
3. Beat butter and icing sugar with electric mixer until pale.
4. Add in the eggs, beating well after each addition.
5. Add in salt and sifted flour into the batter. Fold in with plastic spatula in one way turn, not too long or the dough will stiffened.
6. Put into a piping bag with star nozzle and pipe it on a lined tray with 3 finger spacing.
7. Drop in your favourite jam on top and bake about 20-25 mins or until golden.

So, in the cold rainy morning i baked butter cookies. It came out really beautiful and so delicious, i was smiling from ear to ear.

Note: I got ambitious and put the dough almost full in the pastry bag i ended making a mess of my kitchen table. It was difficult to press the dough out when the bag is full. Lesson learnt ha ha ha ....

Today's lunch of Coney Dog - 14 Aug 2007

Something simple and fast for lunch. I adapted a bit the recipe from below link to suit the boys taste which is hot and spicy...

I need
250 gms minced meat - i used chicken as the store ran out of beef
2 big onions finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 tablespoon of blended dried chilli
1 cup tomato sauce
1 cup water
black pepper
salt
2 tblspoon of cooking oil - i used olive oil

Heat the oil, sautee the onions, garlic, chilli for a couple of minutes, add in the minced meat and stir thoroughly, add in the water. Add in the tomato sauce, black pepper and salt. Leave to simmer until all the water dry out. Boil the hot dog for 2 minutes in boiling water, take them out, slit the hot dog bun in the middle, pour like 2 - 3 spoonful of the coney sauce and enjoy them dripping out on to the chin.....

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Coney-Sauce/Detail.aspx

Simple yet yummy lunch menu

As i said once in my earlier posting, as much as i love cooking and baking i do not believe a need to slave hours in the kitchen to serve good food. That is why i just love simple and delicious dishes. But do not be surprise though rendang to me is simple. I will share why i said that in later posting and share the Negeri Sembilan style of rendang my late mum version. For now here are the recipes for yesterday's lunch.

Sambal Udang / Chillies prawn

500 gms prawn- to your preference to how you want to peel the prawn, i peeled the prawn naked for the benefit of my 2 younger boys.
1 big onions - sliced
5 shallots - pounded
2 cloves of garlic - pounded
1/2 inch shrimp paste - i pounded the shallots, garlic and shrimp paste together
3 tablespoon of blended dry chilli - again your prefrence to how hot you like your sambal
1/2 cup tamarind juice
3 tablespoons cooking oil
salt to taste

What i do with these,

Heat up the oil, fry the prawn and sliced big onion for 2 - 3 minutes. Add in the pounded ingredients and the blended chillies, leave to boil and lastly add in the tamarind juice and let it simmer for awhile and put salt to taste

Masak Lemak Putih Labu / White gravy pumpkin

1/4 from whole small pumpkin - chopped about 1 inch thick
100 ml thick coconut milt
100 ml water
2 onions - sliced
1 tablespoon dried shrimp
1 piece tumeric leave - roughly shredded
salt to taste - i used coarse salt

Put all the ingredients in small pot. Let it simmer but stir occassionally so that the coconut milk do not curdle. Turn off the fire when the pumpkin getting soft.
Telur Dadar Hancur / Mashed Omellet?(My baby boy's term)

3 eggs beat with 2 onions sliced and a pinch of salt. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil and pour in the egg mixture. Turn the omellet after a few minutes and just chop the egg with the laddle.

Enjoy these with hot steaming rice....yum yum

Chewy Chocolate Chips Espresso Cookies

Baked 2 batches of these last week. I just love the smell in the house when these babies were in the oven. These are more for us adult who love coffee. These cookies are my personal favorite. I like my cookies crunchy but those who like them chewy just reduce the baking time to 10 - 13 minutes. I have gotten this recipe somewhere from the net but i just cannot remember from where, apology to the recipe owner for not given due credit to you. Do drop me a note if you happen to stumble here.

Here is the recipe:-

Ingredients

• 227g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 200g light brown sugar
• 100g granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 410g all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp ground espresso bean ( i used Nescafe Arabica )
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150 chopped walnuts (toasted)
• 300g semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line two half sheet pans with parchment paper. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, coffee, baking soda, and salt until evenly distributed. Set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter at medium speed for 30 seconds using the paddle attachment. Add the sugars and continue to cream at medium speed for 3 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one by one and the vanilla extract to the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.
4. Mix the flour mixture with the butter mixture on low speed unitl the mixture forms into dough. Do not overmix otherwise the cookies will be tough.
5. Gently fold the chocolate chips and walnuts into the dough by hand using a spatula.
6. Form the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls and place on the baking pan. Alternatively, you can use an ice-cream scoop of 1 1/2 inch diameter to divide the dough. I prefer using 2 rounded spoon.
   
7. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes. For chewy cookies, the key is to avoid overbaking. When the side of the cookies are set but the center is still soft, the cookies should be removed from the oven. Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes. The heat from the pan will continue to cook the cookies. Slide the cookies with the parchment paper onto a cooling rack and cool for 10 minutes.

Cookies, cookies, cookies everywhere.....

Baby: Mama, mama tak takut ker kena makan dgn cookie monsters?
Moa: Aahhh?
Baby: Tak der la baby tengok banyak nyer cookies, nanti tiap-tiap bungkus cookies tu jadi monsters and makan mama nanti.
Moa: (Burst out laughing...ha ha ha...)kalau each packets jadi monsters habih la mama

One of the conversation i had with my youngest boy yesterday. He had been watching me baking batches of cookies and must be wondering why as Raya is still a long way to go. First two batches the boys would come and ate a few pieces but after yesterday i guess they gotten quite sick of eating the cookies....
Quite awhile since i last updated this blog, been buzy baking cookies as I had agreed to be involved with charity drive in Petaling Jaya this coming weekend. I will be selling 2 varieties of chocolate cookies and some muffins and cupcakes. Anyone of you staying around the area do do drop by at this charity event here, Bangunan Dato Sri Lim Bock Seng, SJK (C) Sg Way on Sat-Sun, 11 - 12 Aug. from 10 am - 6 pm . If any one of you wants details for this event email me at this address zaitgha@gmail.com.

Poppy seed muffins with lemon glazed

A dear friend sorta invited me to her sister small birthday party. I do not know the sister well enough to give her a gift, do not know her like or dislike. But I do know she likes good food. So I decided to bake something to bring to the party and I felt like trying new recipe. I browsed the net and from my favorite site 'Joy of baking', I saw a picture of this gorgeous little muffins, my mind was made up. I checked my stock in the kitchen and good enough I did not have to go out as everything the recipe calls for is available in my kitchen. And this morning the hubby felt like bonding with the boys, he told me he would send them to school on the way to the office. Aaah.....nice i said to myself. I went back to bed for awhile and got up just after 8.00, washed my face and started to bake the muffins. Forty-five minutes later I took out the muffins from the oven and it turned out just beautiful.




The recipe is here:-http://www.joyofbaking.com/muffins/PoppySeedMuffins.html.

Ooohhhh......baby

He is so adorable when asleep but wait when he is at the most talkative mood....remember the volvo advertisement in Astro, the daughter and father scene and the girl in the baby seat...he is worst than that.....and the questions that he asks, can be killers at times....

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Missed the kitchen after a few days out, I decided to bake my boys' favorite chocolate chips cookies. I packed some for someone whom I hope to see if I made it to KL soon.....The name of these chocolate chips is rather big uhh!...but so far out of the many recipes of this cookies, I always find this one is the best received by kids. There are two ways of approaching this recipe. I found out that some people like their cookies crunchy and some like them chewy. All depending on how long you put the cookies in the oven. If you want them to be crunchy like my kids do, bake them for about 13 - 15 minutes, but if you want them chewy, 10 minutes will do the trick. Some people recommended the use of ice cream scoop for evenly size cookies but the cookies come out rather big for my liking. I prefer using small rounded teaspoon for the job. Here is the recipe and you can find it here too:-http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies/Detail.aspx


1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon hot water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips ( i only use 1 cup )
1 cup chopped walnuts (macadamia nuts are lovely too)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175C or 350F
2. Cream together the butter, the 2 sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water. Add to the batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased tin.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes or until edges are nicely brown.
4. Enjoy