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My girl went to Maggi excursion before the holiday in August. It is really a good exposure for the kids to visit Maggi Masak-masak studio. Organised by their pre-school, each child only has to pay Rm10 and they get a good experience on the hands-on pastry making.

Luckily each kid only brings back 2 very tiny dry puffs and not those drooling-fattening ones. Otherwise I’ll need to pop a few of my supplement to help me burn fat in my fatty tummy again.

Each child wore back a red apron and brought back a bag of Maggi goodies (packs of cooking ingredients to please their mummies). QQ mentioned that they were served with yummy chocolate cakes, nuggets, biscuits and  little Milo packs as their morning snack. Not bad for a RM10 paid right?

Beware when you handle hot oven. Although we are covered by the rv insurance, I always make sure that my kids are away from the kitchen when I bake.

When I saw my chiffon cake mould this morning, I just realise I have not been using this to make chiffon cake for many years.  See below for orange chiffon cake recipe (thanks to Alicia). Am surely going to try again using it to make soft cheese cake

Ingredients
A- 6 egg whites, 1T cream of tartar, 4oz castor sugar (takde castor, so i blend normal sugar)
B- 6 yolks, 6T sunquick, 6T oil, 4oz self-raising flour

Method
1. Cream B well in one direction
2. Beat A until stiff (high speed). Slowly add in sugar once egg white formy. Must ensure container very clean.
3. Fold B into A slowly, making sure the mixture does not collapse.
4. Bake in preheated oven (+ chiffon tin) at 160C for 30mins till lightly brown. Change to 180C and bake till golden brown.

Went out to get some baking stuffs just now but did not have a good trip as I witness a bad accident which involves a bike and a lorry. That incident really did not look pleasant. I hope the rider would get help from the San Jose motorcycle accident attorney for claim in his badly damages caused by the other party.

Quick shaken, I then quickly pick up my baking stuffs at the bakery in Kajang and manage to get the chiffon cake tins that i want. It’s a new place with quite good supply of baking stuffs. Got hold of a set of nice muffin paper cups too. So initially wanted to bake only chiffon cake today, but the mood of trying out baking in the lovely cup really irresistable, so i tried with my own modified recipe. Amount was cut down and estimated, so only managed 2 cups, haha…

Ingredients: Self raising flour, egg, vanilla essence, majerin, castor sugar, grated cheddar cheese, water, heartshapes toppings

Method: beat everything into the mixing bowl till light, slowly mix in water and flour. Beat till even. Pour into cups and bake at preheated oven at 180 celsius for 25mins.

My 3rd attempt making choux puffs few weeks back.

When I reached home, my mood was somehow spoilt. Not sure which part went wrong, the batter was too dry this time (probably less eggs used). I was so worried that they would not fluff up and rise in the oven. To my surprise, they fluffed up perfectly, once again. I guess we can never go wrong with the self-raising flour

Marinated wings are arranged on a tray of cut potato, carror, and onion chunks.

1st Birthday Platter for the neighbours

It has been exactly one year since we did birth announcements for our boys. In just a blink of eye, they are already crawling everywhere in the house, waiting for me to celebrate their first birthday.

Since we already did a mass celebration at hometown with family members with cakes and party, we only have a simple dinner at home on their actual birth date.

I marinated some wings (with mixture of oyster sauce, thick and soy sauce) and baked them in my oven. I even baked some small banana cupcakes (should have did some lil egg tarts instead) and did some red eggs, just for the sake of having fun. Since we had extra, I prepared a platter too, as giveaway to the neighbours. Just something so simple and nice

After a while taking a break in baking for the kids birthday, I baked again a few days back, just for the sake of fun. This time I made mini banana cupcakes, with my girl around sitting on the alleviated seat using the seat lifts so she could be tall enough to help me line the cups on our kitchen workplace.

Notice that my cakes do not fluff up? I probably adjusted the temperature in my oven too hot. Thus they ended up quite dry but crispy. Cute yeah, just great to stuff a few into my girl’s lunchbox the next day

I made butter cakes so frequently, but have not jotted down the recipe I used from Agnes Chang. Here is it, for Miche. (This recipe can 24 medium size cupcakes)

Ingredients

• 250g butter
• 200g castor sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1tsp vanilla
• 250 self-raising flour
• 4 tbsp milk (optional)

Method

1. Mix butter and caster sugar at slow speed till even (sugar not resolved yet)
2. Add egg one at a time and beat well before adding next
3. Add vanilla and mix well.
4. Divide flour by 3 portions and fold in flour (hand fold or use slowest speed mixer)
5. Finally add milk.
6. Pour into baking tin or 24 cup liners (1/2 full) and shake lightly to distribute bottom evenly.
7. For cake: bake at pre-heated oven @ 180 degree celcius for about 45 mins.
8. For cupcakes: I bake at 10 mins, then rotate them (inside out) and continue baking another 10mins till golden brown

2 reasons for my 2nd trial on the cupcakes decor:

To produce a tastier buttercream.

Instead of using only butter, I add 30% creamwell. Also use lesser icing (slowly add into the batter a little, at a time).

Recipe: cream well, butter, icing sugar, 2T milk, and few drops vanilla essence

1. Whisk creamwell (can get from bakery store) till white and light.
2. Add in butter and continue whisk till fluffy.
3. Add icing sugar little by little until it is sweet enough.
4. Alternate with milk, I estimated 2 tablespoon, just enough for 9 medium size cupcakes.
5. Add a drop of vanilla essence.
6. Pipe onto cool cupcakes.

Pretty pink and white icing with double hearts

To improve my piping skill

Not very satisfied with my previous cupcake decor, this time I try pipe out rossette icing instead. The tip is a little bit small, therefore I need to make many swirls ontop of another to get this result.

Quite presentable right?

I just love to bake. It is such a good destress activity and I hope I will not need any more hair loss treatments when less stressful.

By the layers of the pie, u can see it is, like WOW…..IT TASTE FANTASTIC !!!! This is easy to make as we can buy the pastry frozen easily from the market. I think I must stock up some for this coming weekend housewarming party at my friend’s place. Luckily she hired the moving services so everything is done quick in a short time. Ok, ingredients and method to make the above here:

Ingredients
4 red Fuji or Granny Smith apples (cut into thin slice), 1t lemon juice, 2T raisins, cinamon powder, 80g butter, 1/3 cup cornstarch

Method
1. Melt butter in pan, add in apple (sprinkled with lemon juice) and cook till soft.
2. Add in 1T sugar, raisins and a dash of cinamon powder.
3. Once about to ready, add in cornstarch (to make apple sticky)
4. Wrap with puff pastry (u can handmade or buy readily from bakery suppliers/Pampas puff pastry from supermarket).
5. Bake in pre heated oven at 180C for about 40mins (depends on oven type).

Tips: Instead of pan, use a rack to bake to allow air flow from bottom. Do prick pastry surface before baking.

Since young, I have great interest with everything to do with food (from preparing to eating). My mum wasn’t very much of a good cook, though I must admit I still love and miss her cooking (my childhood taste) nowadays. I have always love my grandma’s cooking, but I din have the chance to learn from her as she always finds that I was a nuisance in the kitchen when I tried to help (most probaly at that time I was too young to handle fire Now I have got all the time in the world to learn and experience. Hence , I decided to learn to bake. Picking up a good local baking book, and some ingredients (gosh, they are expensive !!), i decided to do a cheese cake. Thanks to my nanny, who has offered me to do my experiments in her house as she has all the baking accessories one needs. With a high enthusiam to bake, we decided to bake again last night. With the help of my brother, baking till washing is pretty fast. But of course we bake only a normal butter cake since it is already very late at night. Can’t wait to lie on my sleep number bed with a tired body like that..HAHA!