DIY food

Done these over the last Sunday with my lil sis. It's awesome to do it with someone because usually I can't be bothered to make a mess out of the kitchen! It was meant to be her baking but ended up I kinda enjoyed helping her out... ;)

The cookies are amazing, the soft ones feel like the freshly baked Subway cookies, while the golden brown ones are like Famous Amos chocolate chips cookies! It's a little sweet, I hate adding the amount of sugar I'm instructed to on the recipes, next time it's wiser to probably gauge the amount of sugar ourselves.

I was doing the lemon sorbet myself with my lil sis taking the whole time just preparing the lemon zest. It didn't quite freeze that night, so I came home after work on Monday, mashed it up with a fork and then transferred it over to a box. Looks like I have bought it somewhere, isn't it! It's pretty sour, and just the way we like it! (Apparently, sorbet is also known as sherbet which is considered as frozen drink!)

Mummy's book

Finally... Sorry for being tad lazy, 'cos I've been wanting to tell you guys about this book. Procrastination got me lately especially when it comes to writing reviews (same goes for the movies.. bugger!).

YES.
APPLES FOR JAM by Tessa Kiros. Big kid cookbook for the adults. I call it "big kid" because this lovely mummy author created lots of recipes for her babies in this cookbook. It's such a lovely thought, very considerate and loving mum to have! Reminds me of mine, aww!

And so, I decided to test out one of her easier recipes which turned out to be not so easy. I guess the easiest thing still requires a bit of skills! LOL. But she did make it sound like a lot of things are actually a breeze to make! A must-have for mummies whom love their kids to bits, because it's full of little things you can even do for kids' parties... It's rated 5 stars out of 5 on Amazon, isn't it amazing ;) I know I'm not a mummy yet, but I love things made of LOVE :))

JAM SHORTBREAD. My Friday experiment, it started off pretty easy and quick, I managed to put the dough in the fridge within 30 minutes of starting. But the hardest part came when I had to lay the dough, roll it flat, apply the jam and add another layer on top. That was really tough, because that dough was sticky like hell! After putting heap and heap of flour, I managed to cover it nicely and placed it in the oven! I laid one side with orange marmalade, the other with champagne strawberry... mmm does it already sound yummy?

It does look pretty okay, but I'm not satisfied with the result. Part of it turned out pretty okay, part of the shortbread was too moist (I reckon it wasn't thin enough... mmm could it be something else?). My sister and mum sampled it and told me it tastes pretty good except for the fact that it's kinda moist! Argh! A 2nd try next time I guess... I've yet to eat the "dry" portion of it though.

Craving to bake is back

Besides Tiramisu, this is our 2nd italian dessert creation... pretty happy with it. Simple, tasty and doesn't cost a bomb to make - Meringues!

Caution: For people with sweet tooth.
(We already reduced the sugar by about 25%, and it's still sweet as ever!)

Pictures tell a thousand words, and I'm feeling a little creative with Photoshop... so here's a comic strip!

Bake, eat & play

Wai² has kindly invited me to her house for baking session! We have decided to make cookies, but I'm not sure what, so I just brought along some baking chocolate! In the end, we didn't make use of it but we ended up with some pretty decent cookies - 3 flavours. Sesame, Tea with jam and finally my favourite Oatmeal chocolate (cocoa).

It was fun and pretty quick. I think she has done it many times, so it was just a quick repetition for her. It was moulding the cartoon character faces onto the cookies that was a bit tricky (she hasn't done it too), but we managed to do that after a few different trials and errors. We had to freeze the dough before, so it makes it difficult, but without it gets too soft and sticky. So here's a peep at our end results!! I have shared them at home and will want to share some with my colleagues tomorrow:)))

I made Flapjacks (maple syrup, oats, raisins, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, desiccated coconut, etc) the other weekend and loved it, unfortunately it took a while to cool down before I could take them out in whole (cut pieces), ended up all in my friend's stomach now!! But I will want to do that again!!

After the baking, Wai² cooked us (the husband, me and BS) dinner - Japanese-style pancake (with seafood and one with additional pork). It was delicious, must be also due to the authentic Japanese ingredients!!! The seafood one was superb, had quite a bit and feeling really full. Alex, her hubby, also made us a banana, sesame and soya milk smoothie, which was awesome. I have been having too many smoothies... I'm ADDICTED!!!!!!!! Last week, I had the raspberries, blueberries with honey yoghurt!!!! Some weeks before I had banana oats smoothie. Okay, I'm going to make you guys drool at our dinner!!

We ended up burning all the calories playing Wii, which was hilarious... those movements we made with the controllers!! It did make us sweat, not sure if that was the weather or really those arm-swinging exercise!! I think we will do it again, that Monkey game has kept us very entertained.... I was winning at the hurdle game till BS decided to challenge against me and I practically lost all my energy by the end of the night... LOL. Good fun!

Chinese house party :D

Today's the 2nd day of Chinese New Year, and we have lots of visitors. It's almost like a house party. We have 4 families over today in my house, even though it is not that big, somehow everyone was very comfortable and enjoying themselves. I used to dislike it when I was young, I hate it when people visited, especially the kids because they messed my stuff up. But growing up changes one's perspective... I like it today, in fact, I enjoy helping my mum hosting and entertaining the guests - which are our relatives.

My mum is a marvellous cook and my cousin was just telling me right after lunch,"Your mum can cook so much better...!" I supposed he's comparing to his mum! LOL. Shssshh... It was a really good catching up time because I only get to see some of my cousins once a year or in many months. So much laughter, chat, leisure-blackjack-gambling, eating new year goodies and of course sharing stories of each other's lives. We have all grown up... and I'm actually feeling a little ashamed to be still receiving red packets but well I'm not the oldest (fortunately)!

One of my cousins, my age, has got married last year... and she brought her husband along on the first day of Chinese New Year. Then it came to us that a lot of us are still single or happily seeing someone new. It didn't give me the pressure because at the present moment, I have never felt happier since 2 years! I enjoy my life now as it is. I like the way I keep my options open and not put all eggs in one basket, because when it fell you're not going to lose just one, but all of them. Lesson learnt.

This year my mum and sister baked my favourite Chinese New Year goodies - pineapple tarts. They are the must-have for me!!! However it was their first attempt and it tasted good but not the best. Mum's version was quite identical to stones - hard! Sister's ones are softer but well still not quite there yet. My cousin actually did it with her friends and hers are real yummmmmmm... I mean it, just the way I like it. I was so tired that Sunday, I just didn't have any energy to bake, but I'm pretty sure I'll get my hands on it someday!

The last few pieces of the yum yum tarts...!!

Chick flick + 2 big men

Sounds exciting huh! Well, I caught 27 Dresses. Not a film of my choice but I definitely didn't mind catching it... so I went along with one of these men's choice. Isn't it surprising that a guy would propose to watch a romantic comedy?? Well, I'm not very sure but one thing I'm sure is this generation of men is getting weird!

Anyhow, it's a good laugh. Watching romantic comedy always (never fails) make me emotional, especially at the most touching part. Well, they are movies, they are written based on a script. It's like perfect, ideal and what can we expect in reality?? Very often, it doesn't come true or never gets close to that. So, anyway, it just makes me want to skip romantic films for a while... I do like them and films like Spiderman, I was a sucker for those. But now... I just like something different. A change of taste.


The other big man is a baker and does excellent cookies and tea biscuits. I was supposed to join the baking session but for personal reasons I couldn't make it. But this kind man has kept two of those for me, they were my supper last night and lunch today! Very yumm.... I have pictures (which I will share very soon when I get home and have them resized!).

The sour cream yogurt, onion and bacon with cheese tea biscuits are excellent - more cheese would have totally make a big difference and I do like those chives onions... They look like scones to me, just not as buttery, but still they are physically identical. I call them "butterless scones". The chocolate cookies are equally great and the smell of chocolate has numbed my sense of smell the moment I opened the Ziplock bag. OMG OMG. Crunchy and that sweet savoury Marzipan paste inside, my favourite (like one of my favourite Germany Ritter Sports' Marzipan chocolate). The only thing was that the Marzipan comes out as a chunk separately from the cookies, wonder if it could have been melted onto it?? But well, I'm not an expert in baking, so I guess need to find that out...

Pictures have arrived!!

Made for X'mas

With the new oven of course :))))

I baked this today

Carrot cake with walnuts and raisins. Bit of a task. A little too sweet. But goes well with a nice cuppa tea ;)
p.s: Picture does look a little too yellow because of the lightings.

Ü

Charcoal-Kokos-Kuchen

Baking attempt failed. Again. This is the second time the cake is burnt, worse looking than the charcoal.
The first time was the fruit pudding cake. Today is the chocolate coconut cake. I've to admit the first time was horrendous, the crumbles were black and it was difficult to separate from the fruits. This time, we went out for lunch, leaving the cake in the oven for an hour like it was instructed on the recipe. We came home to a kitchen that seemed to have underwent combustion. That heat and that smell, could suffocate. We opened the door of the oven, everything was pitch black. Ha ha. Needless to say, we got a charred chocolate coconut cake.
I was sulking. Of course, this time I prepared everything on my own, it's my baby cake. My creation! I want to save it... sobs sobs. Flo brought it out to the balcony to cool it down. I was not convinced it was inedible, so I brought a knife and cut beneath the burned crusts. There was light, it wasn't dead exactly.
I took it back to the kitchen, removed all the burned portion carefully. Oh, my lovely cake. We can still eat it. Yummy, chocolate and coconut!

p/s: title means "charcoal coconut cake"