Soccer cake!

For Shuoze, who celebrated his 6th birthday in school.



Initially, he wanted a 3D bus cake which i agreed.

But after following me to Phoon Huat the other day, he insisted to change his bus cake to a soccer theme cake instead. Of course, i gladly obliged. It means less work and super easy for me :P

So basically, the boy picked the deco, and i planned the rest eg; the green grass, the flags and also the sandy soil.


Though easy, the boy loves it!!

He thinks a world of it. And most importantly, he thinks his mama rocks big time. Grin.

As for the cake, i did the norm. Moist chocolate cake which all kiddos like. One can never go wrong with chocolate cake with the kids.

Some pictures taken in school during the celebration.

Boys and i :)

Sz and his classmates

Sz and his class teacher, Mrs Vijay

Sz and his didi

Last but not least, little beep waiting for his 2 korkor at school :D

It was a happy day for all of us :)

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 =)

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!

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 ;)

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!

Berry-ugly-misu

My bestie's ugly cake.. *hide*

Berrymisu

But i'm so lucky that bestie loves it! *phew*

This cake is from the kitchen disaster's entry which i did last week.

When bestie first saw it, she squealed in delight, saying that i lied to her.. what ugly and all?!?! But but, it is not that nice, if you look hard at it. The sides and all.. sigh. I already tried my very best to smoothen it and did lotsa 'patchwork' too, patching the holes here and there.. oh well.

If only i had a 7" springform tin!

How it looks inside, pic taken at bestie's place. Everything was done in a rush- slicing and photographing. Too bad no visible blueberries in the cream for this slice together with the strawberries and raspberries else it would be so much prettier!

Nevermind.. the most important thing is that the birthday girl loves it :D

Berrymisu : similar to tiramisu but instead of using lady's sponge fingers, it uses sponge cakes. In between the cakes, there is cream cheese + cream with alcohol and a generous amount of mixed berries - raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. The sponge cakes are also brushed with alcoholic sugar syrup for more zing..

Then bestie, an Indon Chinese also took the opportunity to talk me into collaborating with her to open up a dessert shop cum coffee place in a garden setting. Actually, she has telling me about it for sometime already but i'm pretty hesitant. Not because i don't wanna work together with bestie, don't get me wrong here.. in fact, i think she's the most fantastic person i could think of to work with. She's soft, extremely creative, very nice and she's willing to listen and give in. Not those die-die must follow my way kind.

I'm hesitant because of the commitments. The long hours and the efforts. If i'm single, i'd say bring it on, man.. but now with 3 + 1 extra baggages, it's rather hard. I can't bear not seeing and be with the boys for that long. Moreover, i really enjoy what i am doing now too. Grin.

Plus, i don't think i'm not that good yet.. if we do open one, it would really feel home-made instead of poshy posh. Lol.. Me no standard yet ah, in my opinion :P

So, what is there for me in the future?

I've already thought long and hard about it but that will be in another post, when i'm more 'eng'. Right now, it's baking mini cupcakes for the boys' party tomorrow! :)

Cookies and cream cheesecake

I've done quite many oreo cheesecakes (be it baked or non baked) before but nothing like this one i've made recently.

It was a pretty interesting one as it requires white chocolate too!

It was my first try and i have no idea how it'd turn out and guess what i promise? As a birthday cake to my sil's bf!

Imagine if it came out looking horribly ugly or taste ultra yucky? I would be cursed! Heh. I did say i was a pretty daring person didn't i? :P

Anyway, here's the cake..

Cookies and cream cheesecake

So pretty yeah? :P [pardon the bad lighting!]

Because it was my first attempt, i have no idea how sweet this cake would be. Even though i did reduce my sugar, it was still pretty sweet for my liking. But that was it. Otherwise it was a puuurrrfect cookies and cream cheesecake :)

I'll be baking this cake again very soon, to get the perfect amount of sugar needed *wink*

Bad kitchen day

Last thursday was an extremely busy and tiring day for me. It was my fil's birthday. I decided to bake fil a mango mousse cake after receiving 5 ripe mangoes from mil but mainly because i wanna try it after much raves from some floogers :P

Decorated using some what-is-left-in-the-fridge-and-snacks-cupboard-presentable bits :P

Heh.. ignore the messy mousse! I was too, too tired to beautify it and don't laugh at the anyhow piped fresh cream at the bottom! It was an impromptu design where the pipe followed wherever the hands went when the mousse didn't manage to cover the last quarter of the cake :P

The day started at 7am all the way till evening. It was that hard a work. Unfortunately nothing went right.

First, it was the sponge cake. When i took it out from the oven, the baby started crying. By the time i went back to the cake, it sank. But luckily the spong cake was meant to be in between the mousse so it didn't matter that much. However, that somehow put a dent onto my jolly mood.

Then, the cupcakes. I wanted to make orange butter cupcakes for the boys' teachers during the meet-the-parents-session the next day and also a very nice girl at Amore as a token of appreciation. But. First thing i did was to mix up the ingredients during the creaming and mixing stage. This resulted a slightly heavy, dense texture instead of the expected soft and light cake. Sigh :(

From there, i proceeded on with the mango mousse. I over beat the whipped cream! *sobs* Instead of the mousse texture, i got the whipped cream texture *sniffs* :(

So what we were eating in the end was actually mango whipped cream cake, not mango mousse cake.

Aiihhhsss... :P

I don't hate it or like it but others were quite taken by the cake except the fussypot hb who thought the cake was so-so only. Somehow, i think the cake will taste real good if i were to do it correctly. Which i hope i will tomorrow. Heh.

Apart from the cupcakes and the mango whipped cream cake, i also did mango pudding [this was an exception from my bad kitchen day though. It was good! Similar to those served in Crystal Jade/East Ocean Teochew Restaurant. At least something went okay. Grin] and mini mango whipped cream cake in cups.

Mini mango whipped cream cake

But that was not the end of my bad kitchen day. My dreadful day ended with dreadful buttercream. Again, due to some distraction (think i was in the midst of stirring the mango pudding ingredients in a saucepan on the stove), my buttercream was over beaten. It turned watery. The pink colouring which i intended to use was finished up by my confinement nanny and she didn't even inform me!

In the end, i ended up with pandan flavour buttercream?

Hope and pray that the recipients don't dislike it as much as i did. Hehe..

I was too tired to re-bake the cupcakes and re-do the buttercream, which i wanted to initially. Dislike giving others something which isn't up to my standard.

My atrocious cupcakes

Because of the watery buttercream, these were the only designs i could pipe out *hide face in the bag*. So ugly! LOL.

There you go, the tale of my very bad kitchen day...

Actually there are more but me ain't gonna bore you with the little details. Writing this post is no fun at all. Haha..

Blessed

Guess what?

An angel sent me a bag for my birthday this year. Totally didn't expect a bag! What a coincidence too, since i was posting about bags early this morning.

Received the parcel a couple of hours ago and here it is, the gold/orchard colour Naraya tote. So girlie. Love it! :)

What may be even more surprising is that i don't even know the angel personally! She is someone who reads my blog since almost a year ago. Never had i known anyone who would do this, really. A girl that is! At most, it was birthday cards together with bookmarks from my cyber friends. That was almost a decade ago. Furthermore, they were not girls but guys who used to fancy me *ahem*ahem* :P

Thank you imp.. U got me speechless at your generosity and gesture *muaks* :*

And the other bag is from my bestie, Jeannie who sent it to my house personally on my birthday.. And she knows how much i loved it! Used it on the very day itself! Heh.

Ahhhhh.. I feel so so blessed =)

I don't have many friends here but i have a few very very very good friends. That, to me is more than enough already.

Not too bad afterall..

Because i wanted to doll up a little today, i went for pedicure yesterday.

It was my first time there.

I didn't take up their package even though i quite enjoy it. Mostly because i don't usually go for pedicures. The last time i went, it was exactly 1 year ago :P

But, do you know what i got after my session after filling in my particulars just because i was nice enough to give my feedback voluntarily about the seating position and so happened that the lady boss was there to overheard me and even adjusted them on the spot before asking me to try the seat again?


Red wine manicure & pedicure worth $126!

Reason given was : It's your birthday tomorrow! Heh.

Apart from the above incident, my girl pals were so sweettttttttt to me as well. I never told them that it was my birthday today, not wanting to trouble anyone to get me pressies or buy me cake or hold a dinner just for me. Paiseh lah.. :P

But it was such a coincidence that the girls planned to have dinner yesterday and when they did find out it was my birthday today, they got me a yummilicious cake! Not only that, Celest even got me a pressie, in such a short notice! I was pleasantly shocked of course. Who in the world wouldn't yeah? It was a lovely lovely necklace.

Lovely isn't it? But it looks even better in real life. Thank you Celest! :D

Thank you girlies.. for the dinner, for the cake, for the thought and most importantly, for your friendship. Love you all! *muaks* :*

Can't wait for Phantom tonight!

Malu!

As usual, when the credit card bill arrives, i'll be the first one to scan through the bill.

This morning, after i realised that the bill has been left unopened for 3 days (was too tied up lately), i decided to open it to double check.

As i go through, i saw this.

26 APR FAREASTFLORA.COM $80.24

My heart skipped a beat.

Hb bought me flowers for my birthday!!

You see, i've been telling hb upfront that i want a rose since 3 weeks ago, almost everytime when hb goes grocery shopping but he never buys it. I specifically asked for 1 rose, not more than that. Like any other girls, i love flowers! But i don't like the price that comes with it. With that kind of money, i could have gotten myself 2 good cook books *wink*.

However, i still like to receive them. Be it 1 or many. To get a win win situation (not spend so much and yet still get flower), i opted to receive only 1. Lol :P

So yeah, i was excited, happy, so over the moon, exhilarated and thrilled to bits upon seeing that albeit i said i only wanted 1 rose. But i was also disappointed because i got to find out earlier before the flowers arrive. You see, i love surprises!

After that, i decided to get in touch with hb about it, over sms.

Me : Lousy la u. Your surprise is no longer a surprise already.
Hb : What surprise?
Me : Flower lo
Hb : No la. Not getting flowers la. You cute. Ha ha ha
Me : Already saw the credit card bill ah

Hb called after that..

Hb : Hello
Me : Yes? So what time is delivery? We need to go out now.
Hb : Really lah, it wasn't for you. The date was around 3 weeks back right?
Me : Yeah but i know you ordered earlier.
Hb : Ha ha ha.. really really. Not for you.
Me : Okie lo. Not for me lo. Then who was it for? (still thinking hb trying to play pretend)
Hb : It was for C, the Esso engineer who was warded then. Remember?
Me : (WHAT? Oh no! Really wasn't for me. Hb isn't lying afterall! My heart stopped beating literally) Ohh.. hahahahahahahahhaah
Hb : You pig la you.. I'll pretend this whole thing never happen ok to save you from embarrassment. Hahahaha...

For a while, we were laughing hysterically over the phone then i pressed the red button. My eyes got hot and in less than 2 seconds, my vision got cloudy and blurred.

Honestly, i didn't know why. Not sure if it was because of embarrassment or disappointed.

After another 10 mins when i was already driving, i received sms from hb again.

Hb : You blushing furiously already?
Me : More like heart broken
Hb : He he he.. Your birthday this year not good la. Since thurs want to order, the earliest can send is 14. Today worst, 15 then can deliver
Me : Yeah
Hb : Because of mother's day ma

I stopped replying after that.

Because i got quite upset.

But on another hand, i was quite glad that hb didn't buy me flowers afterall. Now i can get 2 good cook books with the money saved or start another shopping spree online! :)

Oh well.. women.. sometimes we can't even understand ourselves yeah?

Didi's birthday celebration II

More cakessssss... :P

Another very, extremely, very last minute cake. As for the design of the cake, it was done anyhow. Grin.

Lemon chiffon cake topped with white chocolate ganache mixed with lemon zest

Top view

See what i mean by that 'peace' sign? Ugh! :P

My one and only photo with the birthday boy this year. The husband was carrying the sleeping baby in the balcony. So, not able to take photo with us :(

I'm so late!! Gotta run.. Going to salon to do hair colour now. Will reply the comments later! ;)

Didi's birthday celebration I

I've got 2 birthday boys in the month of March. Instead of making only 2 cakes, i had to make 4, 1 for school and 1 for family, for both the boys.

Totally ran out of idea on what decoration i should do for didi's cake. In the end, the inspiration came right before i dozed off on the night before.

Thank god the boy liked it. The birthday boy only got to see the cake on his birthday day itself, in the class together with his classmates because everything was too last minute :P

Smiley star with little stars around it :D

With fanciful marshmallows at the side and M&Ms for a more vibrant feel

D-o-n-t ask me why the 'peace' sign for every single photo they take.. I've no idea either :P

Cake cutting time!

Flavour -> chocolate sponge cake with blueberry inside