Made: Red Velvet Cupcakes for Christmas

Forgot to take more pictures so I've only got this dissected picture from my iPhone.
Recipe is from Joy of Baking, but I cannot remember what adjustments I made to the sugar quantity.... only remembered I reduced red colouring to 1 tablespoon.
Stuffed it with blueberry jam too, so that the cupcake will be cone-like and I can pipe green frosting to make it look like a Christmas tree.

Handmade Christmas Gifts

Wanted to do a lot more but I have no time.
So I just have to make do with simple crafts like the apron.
Afterall, the kids are all at the age where they want to cook and bake.

Aprons for S, D and the cousins

Mummy and daughter aprons for a friend and her daughter

Something manly for her boy - I am sure she wouldn't approve of pink and ruffles

Celebrating his new independence

Got him a new highchair - a "Big Boy" one.
The wooden kind without seatbelt nor arm rest.

Tang Yuan with peanut filling for 冬至

Made them.
Love them.

Best Orange Butter Cake ever

This is my favourite orange butter cake, adapted from The Little Teochew's blog.

For my own convenience and future reference, I have put up the recipe here.
That is because I tend to put in 195g of butter instead of flour... for whatever reason, I really don't know.
S says it's because Daddy and Mommy have exchanged memories.
She says Daddy has taken Mommy's memory and vice versa.
Would that explain my recent confused state of mind?

Orange Butter Cake
adapted from The Little Teochew

Ingredients:
170g butter, softened
150g sugar (I reduced this from 225g)
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 tbsp orange zest
195g all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 tbsp whole milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy.
4. Beat in orange zest and eggs.
5. On low speed, add in sifted flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with milk and ending with flour.
6. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 40mins.

May the Force be with you!

This is where the preparation begins... on the drawing paper.

Chocolate ganache over a simple chiffon cake.

Star Wars cupcakes - characters made out of marzipan.

Lovely pictures thanks to I.

Made: Yuan Yang Pizza

Made this yuan yang pizza for dinner... messy stuff for kids but fun though!
Green part is adults' one obviously :)
The other side - the Hawaiian - is the little girl's.
The boy simply doesn't eat any bread.

Cranberry Hearts

It's that time of the year again... yes, another year has passed!
S will be going on to K1 next Monday...

Here's some cranberry hearts for her teachers and classmates to 分享....Thanks for a fantastic year!

P/S. I'm not sure if I have written 分享correctly, but believe me, I am trying to brush up on my Chinese!

Recipe from Florence's Do what I Like

Mahjong Chips

What do you do when your mum does her spring cleaning for renovation and passes you a bunch of mahjong chips?
We turn them into counters ala Montessori style.

Pineapple cupcake

Look at all that oil!
No, it's not the recipe... it's me.
I misread the butter amount in the recipe (have been thinking about my cranberry hearts. that's why).
After 10 minutes in the oven, the cupcakes started oozing out oil and I knew something must be wrong :P
Still, for this mistake, the cupcake tasted really nice and the Boy ate 4 in 2 days!

Recipe from HappyFlour

5-minute Artisan Bread Every Day?

How I was looking forward to having artisan bread every day!
And only in 5 mins! From this magical book.
Alas, my dream was shattered when my bread turned out like this:

Hard, rubbery and so salty that I thought I made the dough from seawater!
What happened to all those great reviews online?

Or maybe it's just me?
I'll be giving it another try... does anyone want to help?

Hakka Xi Ban

I'm Hakka, but have never seen this before in my life!
Saw this on Wendy's blog and decided to try it.
I asked my friend who is a Malaysian Chinese Hakka to try it and she says it tastes like the real thing in JB :)

Surprise for breakfast! Baked Eggs...

I gave S a surprise for breakfast today... yes, she was so amused by her "heart" ramekin.
And under the soft curds of eggs, she had more surprise... sliced sausages!
She wiped up every last bit, together with the homemade bread.

P/S. I didn't arrange the yolks like that, but they wouldn't cooperate by going further down the ramekin in a random pattern. I was probably too ambitious in stuffing the tiny ramekin with sausages and lots of baby spinach.

A day to celebrate!

I've been trying to toilet train D, but to no avail.
Partly due to my lack of time and commitment.
And partly due to D not being ready yet.

Tonight as I was latching him to sleep, he suddenly said "Pee Pee".
I took off his diapers and he did a good long one in the toilet bowl!
After that, I praised him and told him he should do the same to inform me before he poops the next time.
Within 10 minutes, he told me "poop poop".
Now I really think he may not really want to poop, but I had to give him the benefit of doubt yeah?
Afterall, I am trying to toilet train him.

We got out of bed and I put him on the toilet bowl, after which he simply chuckled and chatted with me in the toilet, sigh.
There were many more "poop poop" requests that night, but I just pretended to sleep.

So much for toilet training :)

Made: Ang Ku Kuih

S has been asking for ang ku kuehs, but our favourite stall in Alexandra is never opened on Sundays.
And when we finished our lessons on Saturdays, they're always sold out.
So I attempted to make our own ang ku kuehs.
Even though I never liked ang ku kuehs (I will ONLY eat the ones from Alexandra), I thought this one is pretty good when freshly made.
S also helped to make her own "red tortoises".
You can guess from the picture which one is hers :)
Recipe from Florence of Do What I Like.

Before steaming, I though we were going to get pink ang ku kuehs!

I even told S I must have gotten the wrong food colouring.

Thank God the kuehs came out red!

That's S enjoying the fruit of her labour!

Dinner Rolls

These dinner rolls are pretty good.
I might have not proofed them well or overbaked them, cos they were a little hard on the outside.
Plus, I obviously don't know how to shape them properly.
But still, they were good!
Recipe from Happy Flour

Made a mental note that I can get the kids to shape their own buns next time.

Orange Butter Cake

Lovely orange butter cake for tea

From The Little Teochew

I adjusted the sugar amount to 150g.

Happy Birthday David!

Happy Birthday my little man!

You've suddenly grown up - you've have stopped your biting (more or less), your roll-on-the-floor tantrums and you're speaking a lot suddenly!

May you be happy and healthy forever!

The boy is crazy over Bob at the moment.

Singing his birthday song.

Sister and cousins wanting to blow the 2 candles.

R preparing the handmade aeroplane pinata.

Kids getting ready to stuff their bags with the chocolates.

Blueberry Yoghurt Butter Cake

One of the best butter cakes I've ever had.
Not that oily and heavy at all.
Recipe from Cook.Bake.Love

Snippets from Perth

More to come.... but I need some time to consolidate my pictures from 3 cameras :)
Just these 2 for an appetizer for now.

A crying S because a duck pecked her hand

Now who didn't listen to the daddy when he told her not to stretch out her hand? :P

When D gets excited, he bites! Anything!

Orange Muffins

My little man loves his oranges.
So does my little princess.
Since R is flying off early tomorrow morning, I thought I'll make some orange muffins for their breakfast so breakfast time might be less stressful.
Of course I am also excited about my new oven :)

These muffins can be a little puffier, I think.
I guess they are a little sunken because the power supply tripped without me knowing.
And all because I stressed up the power supply by using the kettle at the same time!

Recipe is from here
Since my egg is small and orange juice is just a little short of half a cup, I reduced the flour by 1/4 cup. Also reduced sugar by 1/4 cup.
Turned out really soft and fluffy with a mild orangey smell.
No hassle of grating orange zest too!

Homemade Scone with homemade jam

OK, the scone didn't turn out like what I expected.
I had wanted British scone, but I think the recipe was the American type.
Still, the kids love it, especially with the homemade strawberry jam...
yep, we lugged 4 punnets of strawberries back from Perth, but unfortunately, most were spoilt and good ones were only 1.5 punnets.

MADE: Fox-inspired dress

Saw this dress at Fox which S quite like.
But the seamstress in me reckoned I could try my hand at it :)

Churned this out in a night.

Changed the skirt to a "paper-bag skirt" style.

So now she thinks her mummy can make anything.

She is asking for gloves like Cinderella's.

In this weather?!

My New Toy

No, not D's stinky bear!

But this baby below.

Look what this baby can do!

My point and shoot would never be able to capture these.

Thanks to R for my advanced birthday present :)

Battle of Hoth

R's new toys... to be inherited by D in future :P

MADE: My first backpack

Fell asleep just like that!

This mommy has been busy shopping at People's Park Complex for fabric these few weeks.
On one of these occasions, I didn't realise he's fallen asleep while I was carrying him in a sitting position.
He was slouched over and I thought the sun was bothering him... till a security guard laughed and pointed out to me that he'sfallen asleep!

What was she doing?

She must have been testing out my camera on the iPhone:)
I've got tonnes of these pictures!
And not much memory left on the phone:P

Typical morning with Mommy

Carrying Mommy's shopping bag after having his Babycinno