Kueh Bangkit

This is one of my favourite CNY cookies, a must have during Chinese New Year. I have been going crazy abt it this few week. I had been busy baking it and nothing else. Batch after batch but all were getting worse. The best batch was given to my friend M. It was for her to thanks her for the Jam she did it for me. Other than that it’s either taste it had a too much floury taste or something was missing. I change the brand of coconut milk/cream, the flour and even the receipt… still the same problem, there is always something missing.

I’ll try to prefect it and post the idea recipes for you. But at the meantime try out Baking mum’s one. http://bakingmum.blogspot.com/2008/01/kueh-bangkit.html

 

Tonic, tonic, tonic.

Since the kids are well and no longer coughing or whatsoever. I started preparing to strengthen their body and lung about once or twice a week, I was introduced months ago when they were coughing that this herbs are meant for strengthen their lung. Thus upon recovered I started the tonic to strength their lungs.

 

You can get the pre-packed at Bees Brand medical hall. They are selling it @ $8/packet.

 

I also got for them cordyceps 冬虫夏草 to dbl boiled them with pork loin for the kids to drink too. Hope they will benefit from it and be strong and healthy for the Japan trip in Dec

 

 

 

 

 

Italian today?

Instead of going out for Italian food, we cook it ourselves. I always like to have different type of cuisine once or twice a week.

Today we decided to have fruits salads, Pizza and pasta linguine and mushroom soup.

A party, An Oven, and a meet up all in 1 day.

It was the long weekend. We went marketing in the morning after packing the foods up and clear the stuffs; we head down to my grand nephew 1 year old birthday party. We hang around there till abt 5pm then left for our dinner. As Carine still had to study for the coming exam thus was she was stuck at home with my SIL to do her revisions. While the twins and helper went off with my sisters for their dinner.  My Grand nephew.

 

After dinner, Hub, Glen and I went window shopping at Central Mall at Clarke Quay. I didn’t thought of getting any stuffs thought I’m aiming for an oven for the past few days as my old one was half down cos one of it thermostat was not working already. I was looking at Rowenta as I heard good point abt it but they are way off my budget. While at the mall wasting our time I went to Harvey Norman for a look. The 1^st thing was to look at the vacuum cleaner as ours was down suddenly in the morning. I got the hitch the wire came loose but I haven’t had the time to take a look as we were rushing for the party. So we just get the price and worked abt it tomorrow. (Btw it was true, the wire came loose. I had to cut the wire and reconnect it to the plug and it works fine after that.)  

 

Since I was there I went to check out their oven section and viola I found the one that was within my budget and it was also slightly bigger in size (34L). The price was the main attraction. The usual price was $243 but they was selling at a steal of $120+. I immediately went over to hub side to ask for “permission” and “help” cos I need him to carry it to his car.

 

As it was the long weekend and we had nothing much on after shopping, we thought we may as well meet up with the group at the same time check out the next travel place and the next Bday celebration arrangement for the month of Nov.

 

We met up quite late as one of them got travel fair to attend. The place we went for our supper was at 126 (try make a guess where this place is) @ around 10.20pm. The 1st to arrival was RN and M followed by us and then was M, D, J n RA as they need to search for a parking space. Not like RN so daring, park at the place we had the most expensive Durians in this whole wide world with 3 cars all kana with a $70 traffic tickets. Another surprise was M the 10pm Cinderella was there too for this met up.

 

Since RA and J need to work the next day, I thought we would be dispersed after supper which ends about 12am. But oh no they all still had the mood and energy for singing thus we head down to the latest Party World @ Liang Court to Sing K till 3am.

 

Meg had improved a lot from her previous tried out as she had gone to sing twice on her own. While me and J will always be the GA listeners but we do sing for the fun of it. Hub had improved too but not sure it’s due to the beer? I’ll check it out the next time. While D was quite then usual maybe due to her she was on another session till 10 am from the previous night. Too tired or stone to sing much. R n M n R is still the same… good singers.   

Cheese cakes

I did cheese cake again. It had been a while for me to do baking already. I feel like eating cheese cake for quite a while and the cream cheese was brought abt 3 weeks ago. But I was either busy or not in the mood for baking. Since today Hub was not coming back for dinner, I’ll have some spare time to do baking after dinner. Thus I decided to give it a go since I’ll not be working tomorrow too.

Here are the cakes. One is with Blueberries and the other is w chocolate digestive biscuit base.  

3 cups chicken for dinner.

I got some chicken wings over the weekend for this week marketing.  While watching a show yesterday night over Ch8… I told Hub maybe we do Honey Bake chicken for next day.

But end up I decided to do something different. That’s 3 cups chicken. Using the recipe I got from Baking Mum @ http://bakingmum.blogspot.com/2007/06/three-cups-chicken.html 

It tasted not bad but a bit salty but with rice is nice. Hubby said still room to improve it. Maybe will do it again in a few weeks time.

What’s for dinner?

We had Japanese food yesterday for dinner.

Japanese Pancake (Okonomiyaki!)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bedLxM4LfXQ&feature=related or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUHy0A1GF0&feature=related I followed a bit here & there but add some 3 tablespoon of tapioca flour.

 The mixture inc: cabbage, dried prawns, prawn, bacon bits.

 Pan frying mixture top with Ham.

 Kids can’t wait… tasting it b4 I can get a shoot. Verdict: Very good.

Mushrooms Miso Soup with Tofu

Rock Melon Sago for Dessert

My Onde onde.

I love onde onde especially those with the gula melaka juice oozing out. Thus after reading Teni’s blog I decided to give it a try. I did it years ago but it didn’t turn out well. The other recipe if not wrong need me to boil the dough first then rolling again to fill the gula. So must be step not done properly thus out of shape w the gula oozing out.

This time round I used the recipe from Teni’s, it’s a breeze in doing it. I did some changes like using my hand mixer to form the dough instead of kneading. I used 2 drops of pandan paste to enchance the colour, The balance pandan juice pour into the boiling water and also by using a digital weighting machine which was a great help. The Weight of each small dough is 12g.

I brought the digital weighting machine quite cheap from Yahoo Auction @ only $28 for a up to 5kg weight. Phoot Huat selling a smilar kind for abt $35+ to $40+. 

Here is my Onde Onde. I given 6 to my SIL and another 6 to my neighbour and we left a handful. The best to eat it while it’s cooling down. It was so so delicious. Mmm….  

BTW a big Thanks you Teni for your recipe.

 

 

 

 

 

My Pandan Chiffon Cake Craving.

I took a bite of the Pandan Chiffon my Sister In Law brought during my dad’s 100 days ritual. It was for those members that haven’t had breakfast or hungry thus was left at the table. So during one of the rest time I open up to pinch a bit to taste. Wow! It taste so soft and cotton wool and kind of melt in the mouth kind. End up I took the whole piece. That’s when I started to have my craving of Pandan Chiffon cake.

So the next day I decided to do it. Though I did Pandan Chiffon b4 but the texture is different even though it’s soft and I didn’t used coconut milk for mine. But this time round I want the same that I ate yesterday. I went to the net to search and found this: http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/2006/03/pandan-chiffon-cake.html I do read her blog on/off but I forgot abt it. Thus I get set to do it.

I went to supermarket to get coconut milk and Pandan paste as my just run out. I forgot abt cake flour thus I used self-raising. Thus the 1st 2 it taste a bit off. I did it again today instead of my sewing. This time round I went out to get my cake flour and it kind of improve but I used half of all ingredients cos I decided to do a smaller size cake. But the taste is there but still miss the cotton kind of feeling.

Anyone know how to get the right texture right? I really like the one I ate that day! My bakery down stair don’t sell so nice one and the last time I found one that taste as good was at Bt Panjang. So unless I want to travel down to Clementi whenever I had the craving. sigh…

Here is the cakes and I brought another “Oven” over at auctions @ only $30 BN since my oven thermostat went haywire. I try it out instead of my oven and the cake was not so dry up as compare when I’m using my oven.  

An 11th hour Birthday Cake

Carine’s classmate Henry was celebrating his birthday at school today. Carine asked me 1 week b4 hand to help her to do a choc cake for her friend. I told her I have to see how as I’m not sure will I be working a not and will I have the mood to do it at the 1st place too. Since I’m awoke this morning since 6am due to do half boil eggs breakfast for Glen n Carine and again at 7am for hubby. I can’t seem to fall asleep again. My helper can’t cook half boil eggs even with the container I brought long ago, thus is mine job to do it. I already coach her a few times but to no avail.

Since I can’t sleep, I decided to do the choc cake for Carine. I brought a packet of M&M chocolate for myself the night before but end up using it for deco. The bottom I used colors marshmallows. I cover the cake with choc from Carrefour, the cake was also choc sponge and deco w choc. Thus it’s should called… a triple choc cake.

The funny part was, I pack it with BreadTalk cake box instead of those I brought from Phoon Huat cos theirs are too big for the cake. My helper told me she was so happy when she came back from school to collect the cake, she was beaming from ear to ear. 

Here is the cake… Look nice right but I can’t taste to know how good it’s a not. Sigh…