Baking Day

Lately, I have interest in baking and my friend, Li has offered her place for me to bake. Well, she can bake very well and can guide me along :) For 2 consecutive weeks, we had baked 10 chiffon cakes and more than 60 pieces of cookies. What a great attempt and effort! Luckily, Li assisted and helped me along the way ~ especially all the washing was done by her..haha! Thanks Li ^0^ Here are the photos taken during our baking process.

Here are the ingredients for our chiffon cakes ~ The oranges and lemons for our Golden Citrus Chiffon Cakes are missing in the photos as we keep in the refrigerator.

These stuff are for our cookies.

Phew! This egg separator is really a helpful tool as it makes
less messy job for separating the eggs.

Just a note to all, the eggs must be fresh or else the yolk
just leaks in together with the egg white.

Ta ta! Finally we have the egg white and yolks separated ^0^

We are preparing the mocha coffee mixture for our chiffon cake. However, we do not really like this packet of mocha coffee powder that we bought. There's creamer in it so the cake is not very fragrant. We recommend to use Robert Timms Granulated Coffee / UCC / Nescafe.

Here I put the corn oil to the mocha coffee mixture. The cake which we baked
using corn oil does not taste as good as the one using vegetable oil.

Next putting the egg yolks into the mixture bowl.

Electric Hand Mixer to beat the egg white till it's fluffy and stiff

I must get the correct texture and my hand is tiring :(

Mixing the mocha coffee mixture with the flour.

After that, mix it with the foamy egg white mixture (meringue)

The mixture is all done up and we can now carefully pour into the cake molds.

Hehe! a cracked cake ~ that is the bottom of the cake..we will just slice it off.

Letting the cake cool down...can't wait to see the texture @.@

TA-TA ~~ That's our mocha coffee chiffon cake ^.~

I am so anxious to taste my cake ^0^

Same baking steps for this Golden Citrus Chiffon Cake ~
except the ingredient changed to oranges and lemons.

A zesty flavor chiffon cake :)

This one for my parents ~ they love it :P

Black Sesame Chiffon Cake ~ Not very fragrant as we do not have time to ground the black sesame seeds into fine powder form. Or else, I guess it will turn out tastier.

Cocoa White Chocolate Chips Chiffon Cake
~ my colleagues like this ^.^

My 1st time baking cookies ~
Organic Wheatgerm Cranberry Blueberry White Chocolate Chips Cookies.

These healthy cookies turn out very big pieces and yummy too :)
Texture ~ Crispy outside and Soft inside.

These nicer cookies made by Li as the other batches of the cookies that
we earlier baked were badly done but they are still EDIBLE ^0^
~ I would not post the bad cookies shapes here :P

Well well, anyone interested to order for our chiffon cakes now ~ hehe!

Birthday Makes Me HaPpY ^o^

What an awful feeling on a Monday and moreover it was my birthday! I was running down with a fever, had flu and bad cough so I had no choice and took a day off from work. Felt so lethargic and helpless~ Sob Sob :( After a day rest, I returned to work the next day and I was surprised and blessed with lovely gifts. Thanks for the funny and warm birthday SMSes that all my friends sent to me.

Birthday Blessings Instead of counting candles,
Or tallying the years,
Contemplate your blessings now,
As your birthday nears. Consider special people
Who love you, and who care,
And others who’ve enriched your life
Just by being there. Think about the memories
Passing years can never mar,
Experiences great and small
That have made you who you are. Another year is a happy gift,
So cut your cake, and say,
"Instead of counting birthdays,
I count blessings every day!"

By Joanna Fuchs

Chinese New Year Goodies ^___^

One more day to go and that will be our Chinese New Year (CNY)
~ Wo0OHO0o

Here's showing some of my CNY yummylicious goodies which I bought and received from my friends and colleagues.

Kueh Lapis ~ A difficult recipe to bake as there are multiple layers.
Very time-consuming as each layer has to be baked separately.
This is the original version. There are others with prunes or apricots.
Doesn't it look similar to Baumkuchen? Kueh Lapis has a much stronger taste
as there are spices and a little rum/brandy to add flavor to the cake.

This Kueh Lapis cake is dense and spongy.
Sedap! Yummy!

I bought this Bee Hive Cookies from Home's Favourite.
The ingredients for the cookies are eggs, flour, sugar and coconut.
Very crispy and not very sweet.

These are Love Letter Cookies ~ the original version is the rolled type
but the one here is folded and which is much simpler to do it.

Shrimp Rolls ~ mini spring rolls wrapped with chili shrimp.
Alternatively, it can wrap with pork floss which is not spicy.

This is one of my favourite CNY goodies ~ Kueh Bangkit
which you should expect to taste the coconut fragrance and
the cookies should melt in your mouth. The ingredients are tapioca flour,
eggs, margarine, sugar, pinch of salt, coconut milk, pandan leaves.
The challenging part of baking these cookies is frying the tapioca flour
with pandan leaves. One must handle the heat well and fry till its fragrant.

Almond Cookies ~ The almonds are not finely grounded.
Therefore, the cookies are light and crunchy with the almond bits.

These are the Close-Face Pineapple Tarts ~
the pastry is buttery and soft that melts in your mouth; and
the pineapple jam filling is delicious ~ sweet + sour.

These are the Open-Face Pineapple Tarts ~
same pastry texture as the close-face pineapple tarts
but this pineapple jam filling is little moist.

These 2 sets of cookies which I ordered online from Yokebakery.
On the right hand side of the photo, that is the Pistachio Snowballs Cookies.

Yipee ~ I have almost recovered from my flu and
I hope to taste 1 or 2 pieces of my CNY goodies before they are all eaten up T__T

Guess I will be offline for a few days so wishing all of you
A Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year!

Skinny Pizza @ Raffles City

It was my 1st visit to Skinny Pizza and the 10 of us were there to celebrate a colleague's birthday. The restaurant is located at the basement of Raffles City Shopping Centre. Crowds were already queuing outside. After which the entire restaurant was filled up and started to get a little noisy.

Just a reminder to make a quick decision on your orders as the pizzas and soups that we wanted to order were run out :( Besides those pizzas and pastas shown below, there were also Clams Spaghetti Aglio Olio and a trio trays of mashed potatoes, french fries and grilled corns *v*
I had forgotten to take photos.

This was an appetizer ~ Oops! I'm not sure what was that ~ hehe :)
I think it tasted like baked pumpkin ^.~

This was half a meter of spicy chicken sausage ~ nicely grilled ~ After I had my 1st piece, I'm addictive to it. I should not eat more as I'm still have not fully recovered from my flu.
Oh the other half meter was pork sausage and I didn't take a photo of it :(

Their signature Squid Ink Pizza ~
The squid ink crust was so0O thin and crispy. Just like crackers!
Taste not too bad :P

Generous toppings ~ grilled squid and lot of salad leaves.

Smoked Turkey Swiss Pizza ~
See I purposely made the photo smokey and soften it ^0^

I actually prefer this Smoked Turkey Swiss pizza than the squid ink pizza.
It was much tastier.

This Chili Lobster Pizza was so yummy ~
the meat is moist and the chili just spiced up this pizza.
It would make one to ask for more servings :P
The crust is not cracker as the pizza base tasted like potato.

Tiny bits of Caviar on my piece of lobster pizza ^.~

Lobster Linguine ~spicy as tossed with black pepper and also
served with crab meat. The lobster meat was nicely cooked and succulent.
The linguine was perfectly done. I like this pasta a lot ~
My throat started feeling dry and sore but I just could not resist and ate more.


Well, a few more days to our Chinese New Year ~ I must recover fast and enjoy this festive season but I do not think I can eat those yummy goodies ~ sob sob T____T

Hokkaido Ramen ~ SANTOUKA 山頭火

I have always wanted to try Ramen Santouka since I heard good reviews on their springy noodles and rich tasty tonkotsu soup base. The restaurant branch at The Central is small so there is always a long queue. Luckily, I was there early for dinner and no queue started yet :P

Nice colorful ramen set selection

Great view from the restaurant where opposite is Clarke Quay.
It's beautiful especially when lights up at night

Hmm, which set should I order....

While waiting for my ramen set, let me snap a view of Clarke Quay.
It's a cloudy day :(

Our order came fast. いただきます~ Itadakimasu ^.~

Look at my Miso Ramen ~ I like the rich and flavorful mix of pork and miso broth.
The char siu is so tender and tasty ~
Although there is some fatty portion, I just couldn't spit it out as
it is delicious and melt in my mouth ~ 美味しい!
Not forgetting my favorite bamboo shoots too ~ さくさく !

Tori Kara-age ~ Chuncky pieces of Tori Niku (Chicken Meat)

which are well marinated; the meat is juicy and tender.

Ebi Tempura ~ fresh prawns!
Egg mayo sauce is served to dip with the prawns and veg ~ うまい!

Rich aroma of the pork broth which makes me enjoy my ramen very much (^_____^)

Well, after writing this post, I have craving for ramen tonight ~ hehe!