Pistachio cake

I was mesmerised by the simplicity of the ingredients and of course, the nuts.

It uses olive oil instead of the butter.



However, because of that.. the cake isn't that fragrance.

Me no like.

I still like butter better :P



Next time if i were to bake this again, i would substitute the olive oil with the butter for sure.. and also, be less generous with the nuts too.

Heh.

Beep's 1st birthday party

It was my 1st time organizing a party for the kids.

The 2 elder boys never had one before. Usually, it'd be celebration with the in laws and that's it. But for beep's 1st birthday, i itchy backside went on to organize one and i'm sure glad i did :)

As the party started around 2.30pm, it meant tea party. No real food. Just finger food and all.

The kids

I like having not too many people in parties. Nice, cozy and comfortable. I'm not so much of a social butterfly. In fact, i don't really know how to socialize. In some ways, i think i'm very much of an introvert :P

Beep and i :D

For the party, i only invited 2 close gfs over + their brood.

It may sound very few but when they were all here, gosh... it was worst than pasar malam! Lol.

But i like.

The gang :)

The food that i prepared with 2 helpers :

Fish ball, cherry tomato, ham, cucumber + fish ball skewers

Sausage roll - the shortcut way :P

Fondue!

The cube cake that went into the chocolate sauce, marble cake which the gfs ta pao back - everyone loves it!

Besides the food above, we also have the boring ham and cheese sandwich :P

Last but not least, pressies for the birthday boy!

Simply lovely ...

And the gfs didn't only gave pressie to the birthday boy, the mommy also have! *yay*. So nice of them. Heh.



2 of the items were lugged back all the way from the UK ;)

Thank you Angels *muaks*

All in all, it was a happy happy day for all. It was a blast =)

It's hard not to love him!

He may be the middle child but i don't think he would get that middle child syndrome.

Because i love him to bits and pieces.

He is really my sticker.

Video-ed by the husband. Do turn on your speakers ;)

Among the 3 boys, he is the stickiest to me. Not sure about the baby though.. coz he's still so little.

People love him because he is he.

Mature [when his classmates are sitting down on the floor for story time, he actually paced around them with his hands behind like a principal!] yet naive [that silly boy.. he actually hides back the same place his brother hides just because he couldn't find his brother there! lol].

Adorable and cheeky at the same time.

And he doesn't give a damn if you don't like him when he says he doesn't like you. He only cares if the mommy dislikes him. But he says it in such a way that it is hard for you not to like him further! :P

p.s : see what i mean? He is so Shin Chan! Bottomless as usual.. :D

My 1st attempt at pineapple tarts :)

I have never wanna attempt making pineapple tarts because of the tedious process.

But mainly, because i'm not a fan :P

However, this year.. for no apparent reason, i just wanna try making them. You could say it's for the CNY spirit. Or probably i just wanna bring back my childhood memories and also for the boys' memories too.

I remember my mom used to make the bee hive [not sure what u call it in chinese] and all sorts of keropok whenever CNY nears. I also remember going into the kitchen, stole them and ran into the bedroom to eat. Heh.

So for the boys.. i would love them to remember me as the mommy who bakes near CNY... all kinda goodies and yummy goodies too to be exact. Goodies that they will always remember fondly till old. Goodies with the distinct taste and texture that no money can buy.

As if! Me and my wishful thinking as always :P

Anyway, the tarts....



Bone breaking hardwork for more than half a day!

The tedious part is rolling the dough into thin small lengths, which explains why you don't see this 'design' outside. Only homebakers would attempt this as far as i can tell.

If not for the 'X', we could have wrapped up 2 hours early.



As for the filling, i loveeeeeeeeee it!

For a non-pineapple-tart-lover, it's quite amusing that i could like it. Heh.

I think it has a lot to do with the sourish taste. I used a non-ripe pineapple + a ripe one. Also, it's moist and not too sweet, unlike the ones they sell outside.. which are pretty sweet, not sourish and can be quite drying too.

Because of the successful filling that i did, i couldn't wait to make the tarts.. i was so excited you know! Lol.

In total, i managed to churn almost 6 tubs of pineapple tarts.

1 for myself, 1 for in laws and 4 for my mommy. Yupyup.. we'll be hitting the road again in a while, after much persuasion from the sisters :)

AND THEN.

This morning..

sobs..

sobs..

SOBS!!!




The beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep threw all of them to the floor!

He climbed onto the table top and threw them 1 by 1 onto the ground with much strength. 99% have broken 'X'.

The tarts break very very easily. Because the texture i made is those melt-in-the-mouth sort. So, it's extremely fragile.

Helper re-arranging them again but discarding the X bits and the bad ones [mostly into our own mouths. Heh]

Then we decided we would make do without the X top since most it are broken. What a waste since the tough part lies right there :(

Oh well.. mil told me to look at the bright side. At least, the baby didn't fall down from the table and hurt himself which is true. That would be infinite times worse than having broken-ugly pineapple tarts..

And hence, from 4 tubs, it's down to 3 tubs for mommy. Thank goodness i gave mil hers last night *phew*.

As for now, no more pineapple tarts for the notti beep! :P

Hb's special birthday cake

I have quite many overdue posts that i have yet to post and this is one of them :P

Hb's birthday cake which i baked a day after beep beep boop's birthday.

I actually brainstormed quite a bit to make something special for the husband. As the hb likes chocolate cake a lot and he loves my chocolate truffle cake, i decided to do a little adaption to the truffle cake.

This is what i came up with :)



I also made the chocolate '#' myself!

Not too bad aye?

Because i didn't have the normal chocolate that is meant for chocolate moulding/shaping, i used my ValRhona 55% chocolate to do it. Yes, it is possible b.u.t it will melt very quickly in our tropical weather.

Right after i took an exact 4 shots, the # started to bend foward. Heh. Good for me though, coz it went straight into my mouth there and then :P



What i did to the truffle cake :

. add a layer of feuilletine on top of the bottom sponge for the added crunch
. add whole roasted hazelnuts in between the 2 sponges in the chocolate truffle layer
. last but not least, lots of roasted almond bits to my top chocolate truffle layer

Sliced [psstt : i made the diamond shape chocolate myself too! ;)]

Side view. See the whole hazelnut at the bottom? *drool*:P~

Up close : fr bottom - chocolate sponge, feuilletine layer, chocolate truffle with hazelnuts, chocolate sponge again, chocolate truffle with almond bits.

Guess you can tell i'm a total nuts freak by now aye? :P

So how do we like the cake?

Let's just say.. i didn't even wanna share it with my in laws! Heeee.. we had the whole cake ourselves, 3 adults + 2 children but consumed mostly by adults. Very greedy me >.<

Edited to add : 2 tbsp of rum were added to the chocolate truffle too!

Monday blues no more~

Between hb and i yesterday.. closed to noon time - sms while i'm driving. Very bad i know but i only do so when it's safe eg ; red lights :P

Hb : with kids now?
Me : not yet. Just got the car [from servicing]
Hb : busy today?
Me : very. why?
Hb : Got time to hear me say something?
Me : [oh shit.. doesn't sound good. Heart starting to beat faster. Could it be.. that?!?!] sure. call me in 10 mins time. call house phone
Hb : no need to talk over the phone
Me : then? sms?
Hb : I love you.
Me : [stunt.paused.absorbed.smiled] :O

As for the rest of the day, i was almost grinning from ear to ear!

For the record, i couldn't even remember when was the last time hb said that to me! It has to be eons and eons of years ago.

Definitely a beautifoooooooool Monday morning for me :D

Not a hickie!

Stop staring already!

The 3 small red patches on my neck are not hickie, aiyoh!!

They are eczema, which i never had before in my entire life. Not only on the neck, even the corner of my right eye also kena which resulted me getting red eye twice :(

They aren't healing, in fact.. they're getting itchier and itchier.

It's rather embarrassing to have the boys' teachers looking at neck, the car service advisor stealing glances at them and even my god-sent-helper confessed that she initially thought i had a wild night with the husband! *smack forehead*

I so need a dermatologist now, before CNY comes!

No go

The husband prefers me to not sell anything at all.

If really want, he would like me to bake and give the cakes to family, relatives, friends or the needy instead :)

Edit to add at 5.31pm :

Just read today's paper. Such a pity that home bakers who used to sell their goodies to public are not able to do so now because i would love to purchase some homemade cookies this coming Chinese New Year definitely. But now it's restricted to friends/family only.

And that also means i won't be able to sell anytime i like too! *boo-hoo*

Just to add..

that if the feedback is good, the sale will be on. Will decide sometime next weekend ;)

And meet up on the weekend and sometimes weekdays in town area is not impossible.

If you are the east, you can collect the cake from my sister in law's salon which is near Katong Mall.

On top of that, delivery to 1 destination will be absolutely free if you place an order of 8 cakes [auspicious number again! :P ]or more.

If you are not comfortable to leave a comment, email me! at maameemoomoo[@]gmail.com

I'll be very glad too :D

Gold Bar anyone?

When i was a little free the other day, i baked myself an orange and lemon cake.

My first reaction after i unmould them was 'woww.. it looks like a gold bar!' and it really does i tell you.

Couldn't get the colour right! Me want new cam cam! >.<

This is really my kind of cake.

I will never ever get bored with it at all. I can even eat the whole loaf! It's my absolutely favourite.. butter cakes. What's more, orange and tangy lemon flavour...

Simply heaven.

When i had my first bite right after it came out from the oven, i really thought i could fly. It was very very good.

Indescribable is the word.



And then i thought 'why not make this my Chinese New Year bake project?'.

I'll call it Gold Bar!

Pretty auspicious for the festive season give-aways don't you think so?

So i talked to a 1-2 close confidantes and they were like, good idea! But the problem is where do i start? How to find customers?

Advertising in the forum is a no no because forums don't allow it.

My blog isn't a food blog. It's a personal junk blog actually. Lol. Hence, i never wanna advertise it at all. In fact, i don't even leave any link to my blog in the comments i have made in floogers, gfs, anons' blogs.

BUT.

That doesn't mean i don't welcome you the readers hor. In fact, i am already feeling slightly weird and abit conscious knowing there are as many as 100 readers [okay, i don't really keep track but it's roughly there :P ] per day reading my blog but hardly any comments!

In case you do not know, i enjoy reading comments quite a lot. Grin. They keep me going :P



Anyway, back to my CNY sale.

So, what do you think?

Should i go ahead?

Will you buy?

I actually baked 2 loaves very recently as a present to sil. I tied them with bright red ribbons and they looked pretty awesome. The peeps went 'whoa'. Grin. Too bad i didn't manage to take any photos as i was rushing out for the salon opening ceremony, an unofficial one.

The feedback i got was very encouraging hence, me wondering about it.

So yeah, will you buy for your own consumption? Will you buy to give away to family and relatives?

And if i do sell, i would be selling for $16.80 - auspicious number! :P

It's a 9" x 4" loaf cake by the way, made with top ingredients eg ; lurpark/president butter, huge fresh eggs from Lim Chu Kang (definitely pricier than NTUC's) and most importantly, made with lots of love too. Heeeeeeeeehehhe :D

Will appreciate all comments. Do leave one please!

Ari-gato!

p.s : sil's new salon is located near Katong Mall, just a few shops away. If you like to try out new good stylist, do give them a try! ;)

Looking for such tops...

I know this has been in the scene for quite sometime already but being me, i'm just realised i like it now. Heh.

Mainly because i got myself a pair of full length leggings yesterday :P

The top i'm looking for [with the tight band-looking-thing at the bottom too!]



If you have seen it anywhere, do let me know yeah? :D

Thank you soooooo much in advance!

Amazing

I have been feeling a bit under the weather lately.

Yesterday because i had a chance, i took the opportunity to chant for 20 minutes at mil's house, unknowingly. Usually, it is just 5-15 minutes the most.

I chanted while pouring my woes out to the One.

I had never done that before.

I was so emotional that i almost cried. I never knew through chanting one could feel that way at all. I've heard about it though but never gave it any thoughts at all thinking it was pretty impossible until yesterday.

I asked for a sign.

And a sign i got.

Believe it or not, on the very same night!

I received a mass email from a gf [whom i haven't been really keeping in touch with] with a link which t.o.t.a.l.l.y answered what i asked for.

Simply amazing.

Last night, i slept very well.

Something i had not been able to do for the past few days.

Grand Marnier orange muffin with chocolate chips and cranberries

I've been extremely busy these few days!

And i think i will be even busier for the next 2-3 weeks :P

But. It is happy busy. Busy clothes shopping actually.

Not for me of course but for the boys. However, in between.. i do sneak in a couple of minutes for myself to look see look see whenever possible. Grin.

Anyway, last week i baked some muffins for a gathering with the gfs.

You know, i think to date.. i feel muffins are the hardest thing to bake. You must never over mixed them or else, they'd be as hard as rock.

Fortunately, i remember the no.1 rule very well and although the muffins weren't as yummy as i had anticipated.. they weren't hard, unlike my 1st experience quite some time ago.



The lighting was really bad when i took these pictures so you can't really tell what's in them. Basically, as mentioned in the tittle.. it has got chocolates and Grand Marnier soaked dried cranberries in them.

For myself, i find them okay, not too bad. Not to say super yummy nor yucky at all. Somehow, i actually feel they were pretty healthy in fact!



Initially i was so worried about the muffins' appearance [they weren't pretty at all!] that i almost refused to bring them for the gathering.

Because i didn't have much time left for another baking session, i had no choice but to pack them along.

But guess what?

The girl friends liked it!

Either that or they were being very very nice to me. Ha! :P

Bad mommy!

*ahem*

That's me.

I've been teaching boy1 quite a bit these days and boy, i am very bad.

I am very very ashamed of myself you know.

I've been impatient. Very. I mean, how could he not understand?

Proper nouns and common nouns. Give examples.

Cannot?!?!?!

And the rotan 'sits' right in front of him *hide*.

Sigh.

I can just imagine the boy's fear whenever i say homework time! [he told me so during normal conversation time] I am so very terrible :(

And and the thing is, i don't even remember knowing what were proper nouns and common nouns when i was 9! *runs away*.

Me must change.

Me will change.

Poor boy1.. for having me as his mommy.

Double sighs :((

Mood : terribly upset

No.1 birthday cake

Inspired by my family friend's dog, a Dalmatian no less :)



Beginning of the year spells h.e.a.d.a.c.h.e for me usually.

2 of my boys' birthdays [the old old one and the baby] are in January, on the 8th and 9th to be exact!

However, it is the baby's cake that i'm getting headache at. The old man's cake can anyhow decorate or even no decoration also can but never for the little one. Oooppsssss~ :P

Moreover, there will be a small party for him so all the more stress! Heh.



As i couldn't find any cute no.1 cut out for the cake that i wanna make, i actually cut it out myself freehand with no guide or whatsoever just like that using 2 cakes, a 7" square cake and a loaf-looking cake which i anyhow agar-agar hoping the cakes will somehow form a number 1, which fortunately they did :D

Like i mentioned earlier, i decorated the cake the way it is because of the Dalmatian i saw and played with. Initially i had no idea how to decorate the cake though the number.1 shape is already there but when i saw the dog.. it was *ting*ting* in the head.

Simple but adorable.

So i thought why not?

Then i don't have to brainstorm anymore come January :P



Nevertheless, i was worried mad because the whole idea seems good and workable in the head but when it comes to really doing it, i have no idea how it'd turn out as i have no prior experience in decorating using melted chocolate on fresh cream + the number 1 shape might not be achievable.

And we're talking about having the cake for a party on the very day itself that i'm decorating it.

Pretty brave of me isn't it? Heh.

But worst come to worst, i'll just drive down to Bengawan Solo to buy one! No biggie actually :P

Anyway, the cake i used is Japanese Souffle Cheesecake, which i had baked before quite sometime ago because it is truly very yummy [in my opinion that is :P].



The cake tastes pretty much like Ichiban Boshi's cheesecake but very slightly heavier. I don't like it too light because i won't know when to stop eating.

Slightly heavier is good. At least, i can feel it is there. Heee..

All in all, i must say i'm pretty pleased with my end result of the cake. But there is something, or rather 2 things that bother me slightly when i was working on this tiny project of mine.

i - the cake's baking time turned out to be 2 hours instead of just 1! So 2 cakes = 4 hours. Imagine my horror! Till now, i still do not know why it took 2 hours per cake when previously it was just an hour.

ii - the colorful sprinkles' colour ran! within an hour after throwing them on. Why oh why?!

Now now, i'm really dreading for March to come. Headache ah!!!

But happy headache though. It's the only time of the year where i can and will challenge myself ;)

超級星光大道總決賽 - 林宥嘉 (b)

My 1st toy boy :P

I've never liked or rather idolised a guy/ man who is younger than me before and he's the first. Lol.

I thought his voice was bloody awesome.

I'm mesmerised.

Totally.

Somehow i prefer this lad better than the crowd's favourite, Aska.. who has got hb as his fan already.

Birthday dinner => instant noodles?

Sort of.

Because that was what the pig requested for this year as his birthday's dinner today.

Usually, we'd go up to the in law's place for a mini celebration but this year, our 1st year actually.. hb wanna stay at home due to the late working hours.

It's that time of the year again. Clearing the year-long-kept-precious. Heh.

Big abalone for the adults and the tiny one for the kids :P

So last week, i opened 1 can and cooked it with the exact noodles and exact style i cook today. Hb loves it, which, is why he requested for the same dish again today.

The instant noodle

Of course it is not really that instant noodle noodle.

The similarity ends at the noodle used.

For the broth, i used ikan bilis [as usual], accumulated prawn heads and the abalone broth itself that comes together with the abalone in the can. (no salt needed)

And oh, some wolfberries too!



As for the rest of the ingredients used, it's no secret at all.. as you can see from the above picture :)

(the usual minced pork, sliced mushrooms, prawns, egg, fishballs, vegetables and sliced abalone)

The instant noodle :P

You know, my 2 boys who usually need an hour to finish up their dinner actually finished their noodles within 10 minutes. No kidding here!

Hb and i were amazed to no end :P

It is really good. Trust me!

Go and try cooking it yourself. Hope you will love it as much as we do :D

Anyway....

Happy 35th Birthday to my pig! :*

May you .... *toot*toot*toot* [censored! *ahem* for some reason]

Oink oink :@

The sweetest thing

These days, whenever i hear this song 'The Sweetest Thing' playing on the radio.. i'll think of beep because he is really the sweetest thing ever.

The clip below was recorded by the husband on the first few days after we came back home from KL.




psssttt : he knows he's being filmed hence the very shy and conscious face! Tak boleh tahan.. Heh :P

It's Beep's 1st birthday today! :*

And he hasn't taken his first baby step [read : walking] yet unlike his 2 other korkor who started walking on the day before their 1st birthday but i am not complaining because i much prefer beep to crawl a little longer before he starts to walk. Good for the brain they say...

The birthday boy is currently taking his nap... i can't wait for later!

*off to decorate the cake*

Keeping my fingers cross that it'll turn out okay as i've planned! [the cake decorating that is]

I am gonna resist!

It's driving me nuts.

I can't seem to find a cute number 1 that i can copy or print out.

With only 2 days more or rather 1 day more, i am very tempted to just pick up the phone and dial the number.

Worse come to worst, i'd just cut free hand? >.<

My bad.

Very last minute decision and planning.

Tomorrow's gonna be a mad mad day for me. Hmm.. actually, this whole week's gonna be a mad mad week!

Green tea cuppies II

Something baked for the family when i went back early last month :)

Green tea cupcakes with green tea cream cheese frosting

It was quite a disaster.. heh.

The cake was not as nice as the first time because i somehow beat all the eggs together instead of doing the usual because i was pressing for time!

So the cake was very muffin like instead of light, fluffy and to-die-for.

Quite an embarrassment i must say.. but i still gave the bestie some!

I am shameless :P

AND sadly, the family dislike cream cheese frosting, just as i had expected! But i couldn't do buttercream frosting fearing that they will not be able to withstand the long journey.

Another cake i did was chocolate yogurt cake with lotsa walnut which i LOVE to death [a recipe which i thought of myself! :)]. Unfortunately, i didn't manage to take any pics of it.

In 2008

i will ..

. be a kiasu mommy - go full force in tutoring boy1 to prepare him for primary 1 next year

. not blog so much anymore

. bake less too, probably once a week and if i do bake, it'd be something simple because time is awfully precious now especially beep is coming to 1 year old soon and the boys are really growing up!

. definitely go for a well deserve holiday by end of the year

. climb a mountain

. earn a Padi license

. have a 4 digit saving [yeah believe it or not, that is how poor i am :( ]

. have a new husband! *oh yeah!*

i hope to ..

. hold my full head stand [minus wall now which i managed to do it at my first attempt!] longer

. do a perfect split

. lose another 2 kg! *as always!* :P

. have more arm strength