15 Sept 09:爱心晚餐 ~ Dinner for my Girls & Me :D

Strawberry Jam by ME :D

Again... being an ADDICT to FoodGawker, I was eager to make my own fruit preserves.... just like the rest of the people there ;->

Commercial Jams & preserves are really far TOOOOooooooo sweet for a "almost-diabetic" person like me :P But I do love jam with chunky strawberries.... I have new experiment to do ;-)

As most FoodGawker-er r in not Asian, my 1st task is to find Fruit Pectin here in Singapore... I went Cold Storage @ Holland Village. But with disappointment, "Sure Boh" :P No "Sure Jell"! LOL.....

Luckily @ my 2nd venture @ Market Place, Tanglin Mall, I found it :D ~Happy~:D

As stated in the Sure-Jell packaging instructions, I need to store the Jam in pre-sterilized containers and it can last to up to a year in freezer! SO, am I going to buy some new Jam Jars to store my new experiment?? ....And I dug thru my cabinets and found this great solution :D I have a full lot of Abundant AVENT milk bottles & Sterilizer, retired from service some time ago!!

Ingredients (As stated in Sure-Jell Pectin Recipes) Yield: 1-litre of Jam

• 300 gm Strawberries
• Juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 350 gm sugar
• 1 packet "Sure Jell" Fruit Pectin
• 250 ml water

Method

• Wash and sterilize the containers using for storage
• Cut & crush strawberries using finger, fork, whatever u wish... but do not puree in blender!
• Mix crushed strawberries with lemon juice and set aside
• Stir the whole pack of Pectin with sugar thoroughly.
• Stir in water. Bring water to boil, stirring constantly... for further 1 minute, remove from heat
• Stir in Strawberry quickly into the above... continue to stir for another minute.
• Pour into pre-sterilized containers, leaving 2cm space at top for expansion during freezing
• Let it stand at room temperature for 24hrs until set.
• Refrigerate up to 3 weeks or Store in Freezer for up to 1 year!! (Thaw in refrigerator for usage)

And there is my happy Strawberry Jam inside the AVENT bottle... going into the freezer tomorrow and is going to stay there for a while.

Cointreau Chocolate Shot

I was so very addicted to http://www.foodgawker.com/ these few weeks... very much attracted to this group of blogger who are cyber cooks/bakers/wonderful photographers!! They are simply sssoooooooooo inspiring! I love the Daring Baker contest and the fantastic pictures those participating bloggers had submitted.

During my frequent flying years, I had collected bottles and bottles of so many liquors and liqueurs.... I quit Alcohol after becoming a mum and those nice bottles are now being chunk away in my cabinet... and YES! I need to get rid of them... but in good use...

Inspired by Tramie's Kitchen, I did the below concoctions, hoping to KILL "that person" as he is creating too much nightmares for me for the past whole week =X

My Husband was playing Resident Evil day & nite!! Those irritating sound of hitting the keyboard and the screams from the game is SO TORTURING!!!!!! I shall KILL him with ALCOHOL 1st... But wonder if these 5 tbsp of Cointreau can dis-coordinate his fingers & brain???

Ingredients:

• 100ml HL milk
• 150gm Valrhona Chocolate (i use 70%)
• 3 whole eggs
• 3 tbsp Corn starch
• 30gm SCS Butter
• 5 tbsp Cointreau

Method:

• Double boil over medium heat, melt chocolate in milk.
• In a bowl, whisk eggs & corn starch together well.
• When the chocolate milk starts bubbling gently, slowly pour it into the egg mixture, in a thin stream while constantly whisking the egg mixture.
• Whisk constantly until mixture thickens.
• Drop in the butter, continue to stir until it melts.
• Take it off the heat and stir in Cointreau.
• Cover with plastic wrap directly pressed onto the surface so it doesn't form a skin.
• Chill for a couple of hours, Decorate & Serve.

**Cheers**

Teachers' Day Presents ~ Flowers & Hearts decorated Cookiezz

Continuation from my posting on Monday... Those Chocolate Chips cookies r being decorated as follow :-D

On Tuesday nite, Nyx told me she want to give her teachers FLOWERS wor :( But my cookies r already baked! HOW??! Then I persuaded her we still give flowers, together with my cookies... so I did flowers decoration on cookies :D ... and finally, but very 勉强ly, she agreed :(

4 in a pack for each teachers

Packing time... All go inside zip-lock bags as soon as the fondant r "glued" on the cookies... else they go 漏风very fast =X

Finally done @ 0130hrs this morning! Total: 21 packs of 4s = 84cookies!


Tired... sleeping time....z.zzzz.zzz..zzz.

Chocolate Chip Cookiezz ... for Teachers' Day Celebration this Friday

Yes! COOKIES again......... I baked almost 4 jars of cookies today. Decoration works start tomorrow.... I plan to give my gals' teachers a pack of decorated cookies each as a token of appreciation... They took care of my gals while I experiment with my hobby @ home :D

Simple Cookie Ingredients & instructions as below:-

• 350g plain flour
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1tsp salt
• sieve the above dry ingredients altogether
  

• 250g butter (Fairprice or SCS Brand)
• 120g brown sugar
• 1 tbs vanillin powder
• cream the above using electric mixer till fluffy

Combine the dry ingredients to the creamed, wet ingredients until just blended, then stir in

• 120g chocolate chips
• 120g chopped walnut or any nut of your preference

Wrap the above dough with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 180 d.c. and Roll out dough to about 0.5cm thickness, cut out to your desired shape; Bake on ungreased baking sheet @ 180 d.c. for 15mins; Remove from oven and leave on tray to cool for at least 5mins before transferring them to the cooling rack. Make sure cookies are completely cooled before keeping them in air-tight container for storage.

My Humble Equipmentzz

My friend Gina asked me a good question few days ago.... "so did u upgrade your baking equipments after all these baking-craziness??!??" haha! I almost redo my whole kitchen like Lifeng:P but I didn't in the end... as I still have not figure out how to live without a kitchen for 1 week... and how to live with 1 week of mess.. and how my dogs go toilet?? etc...etc... :P so wait till I figure out how 1st lah :D

I started this baking hobby since last September... I dun have much fancy equipments... Just my $24.90 Morries brand mixer from Shop&Save supermarket and this Ariston oven left behind by the previous owner of my flat... as it was fixed with the kitchen cabinet.

See, all the markings on the oven panel are gone... I "agar-agar" re-labelled them when I moved in the flat 2yrs ago.

Whenever my dad come by my place, he always asked me if I use "that oven"? I said to him"NO leh" for more than 1yr... He kept repeating... "你要用leh!不然会坏的leh!" Ok..Ok! I promised him I will use it....

Then after my baking-craze started, I've abused it totally :D Now, whenever he call me or visit me, he always say "又在做cake arh??" Think he regretted what he had repeatedly asked me to do! haha!

Strawberry Fingers

I frequent Anne's shop @ JB ~ Bakewell to stock up my baking ingredients & gadgets. Last week when I was at her shop (again:P) she taught me how to make the standard Strawberry fingers, which she said it was a very popular snack in Malaysia recently... everyone is making this cookie! Okie, I bought a pack of bread crumb, strawberry melts & strawberry fingers pre-mix and try try lah!

Anne's Version:

After the cookies r made & cooled, dipped with the strawberry melts, sprinkle some bread crumbs...

My Version:

1) same as Anne's method, pipe very fine zig-zags with white melts over the bread crumbs.

2) cut cookies into shapes of candies or ribbon... dipped with strawberry melts, pipe little white and blue dots, decorate with mini silver beads sprinklers

And YES! Dipping cookies with candy melts or melted chocolate is fast and easy compared to the flooding method, using royal icing :D This saves lots of time and prevent the cookies from 漏风during decoration.

More cookies...

And I bake and decorate more cookies today :D

Stained-glass effect on Cookies

Been wanting to do this for a while... but was searching around for "Fox" candies... finally found them @ Giant... This morning I tried and kind of succeeded... although my glass is abit small... will try bigger glass effect next time round :D

Welcome to the World of my Cookie Cutters :D

Ever since my baking passion started last September, my baking gadgets just kept growing... It started with those baking tins for cakes... now, its the cookie cutters... suddenly I realised I need to organise them oredi as I dun remember what I owned?!? Did I buy too many?? haha! 那里买得完的？

I started my collection from those mini shapes plastic cutters.... and they just grew...

I bought this set from a Spotlight sales last year and I dun have a chance to use them yet ;P

And I become an ADDICT to cookie cutters after seeing Mong's collection =x Me and Lifeng started buying more and more from www.bakersdreams.com & www.kitchencapers.net

生日快乐 cutters from JB :D

...and here r my collection of plungers :D

And I did organise them well here :D

Blueberry Cheesecake

I was reading Catherine Lau's Cheesecake Seduction before I go to bed last nite and wanted so much to make a cheesecake this morning when i woke up... After marketing @ NTUC, I was supposed to bath my 2 dogs... instead, I started my cheesecake experiment...

I didn't really follow the ingredients stated as I dun have digestive biscuits at home.. so I used watever I had in my baking cabinet...

The cheesecake turned out well, tasted good except for my very 失败 "self-invented" cake base :( I should have crush them into "powdered form"!! NVM... I learnt something again :P

see... the base is breaking up!! :'(

Ingredients (My version):

Base
60gm Butter
60gm Feulletine
60gm Nestum flakes
60gm Corn flakes, crushed

Filling
500gm Cream Cheese
80gm Caster Sugar
50ml Lemon Juice, Strained
1 tbsp Lemon Zest, finely grated
1 1/2 tbsp Gelatine Powder, dissolved in 100ml water
500gm Nestle All-purpose Cream

Topping
1/2 tbsp Gelatine Powder, dissolved in 50ml water
200gm Blueberry Pie filling

Method

Base

• Melt butter in a pan over low heat. Stir in all crushed base ingredients, Fry until fragrant.
• Pressed into a greased 23cm springform cake pan with the back of a spoon.

• Cover cake pan and refrigerate for at least 30mins.

Filling

• Beat cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice and zest until smooth. Pour in gelatine and mix until combined. Blend in cream
• Pour filling on biscuit base. Cover cake pan. Refrigerate for at least 6 hrs before removing from pan.

Topping

• Dissolve gelatine powder in water, mix together with the blueberry filling. Stir over low heat until mixture combined.
• Pour topping onto cake. Cover and refrigerate until set.

I think the above ingredients actually make a very thick cheese topping... Eat liao sure very "gelat one" ... so I tought of dividing the cheese filling into 2 portions and top up another layer in different flavour... but then, I was lazy... so I did the rest as per below:-

Yes! I bought another batch of plastic cups from Sheng Siong (again! :P) this morning... and very eager to fill them up with something. And I think this mini blueberry cheesecake in jelly cup oso not bad hor?!? ;-P ...At least the base won't break apart ;-P haha!

All cookies done for Nyx's Party tomorrow

Mission completed :D All set for tomorrow's Party

05 Aug 09: Cookie Art by ME ;-)

Very fast after my cookie decoration workshop @ Mong's last week, I'm so eager to try out this new skill I learnt...

These colorful tulips R cookies!! 美不美？

国旗国旗我爱你。。。and I think I never love my 国旗this much ;P
these r the 国旗cookies ordered by Nyx for her National Day Celebrations @ School this Friday ;-D

04 August2009: Peach Jelly

I found these jelly cups from Seng Siong yesterday.. only SGD3.00 for 16 cups! So today I made this batch of jelly for my gals :-) Not bad looking right? Do they look like those Marigold jelly selling @ econ minimarts?

But mine have bigger chunks of fruits :D although they r only canned peach slices :P

Online shopping for my hobby :D

I'm getting more 走火入魔 into my baking hobby... and an addict to Fondant modelling :P I had been searching around for nice impression mats but those out there for fondant are too expensive and designs are too limited... so I divert my search to clay crafting tools which I think fondant and clay are similar stuff and their tools should be similar too...

I found "Makin's Clay" impression sheets on the web which is quite popular in the US for clay crafts but its not selling in any of those crafts shops @ Bras Basah :( So tempted to buy from Amazon.com as its only USD2.56 per pack and some more, buy 2 get 1 free! but shipment back to SIN is at least USD19 lor :( no choice, I bought locally online from www.tinkleartncrafts.com which is a clay crafting studio @ SGD9.00 per pack... heng, I grab the last pack of SET B meaning I'm now the owner of all 5 sets :D

I oso bought a set of Christmas novelties cutters and mini star, heart and circle plungers for my future cookie & fondant experiments :D

See... so tiny!! exactly what I had been searching for.. baking suppliers dun make plungers this size!

30July09: Cookie Decoration Class @ Mong's place

I attended this Cookie Decoration Class today @ Mong's place... See these cookies I decorated? So pretty right? ...My preparation work for next week's project... Nyx ordered a batch of cookies for National Day celebration at her school next Friday...

Princess Cupcakes

I printed some extra icing images for my girls....
Pretty princess on cupcakes....

Cinderella for Nyx & Snow White for Tessa

Nyx brought these for breakfast on 16Jul, Thursday

Dessert for Tessa :D

15 July 2009: Princess Rapunzel & Ben10 Cupcakes

Nyx's best friend in school, Ketian's Birthday is just 2 days from hers... just like any 6yrs old girls... they r all crazy over Disney Princesses fairy tales and they want to own whatever princess they come across...

I was having breakfast with Ketian's mummy last week and she wonder where to get a Birthday cake for Ketian with Princess Rapunzel?? As this was quite a old release from Disney Barbie collection, its rather mission impossible :-( Then I play hero again lor :P I volunteer to make birthday cake for Ketian, using icing image... but I will do only on cupcakes as to my experience, the icing images on cakes cannot be cut, so, the tiny piece of icing on cupcake go straight into the mouth :D

That evening, i spent almost 3hrs surfing the net, searching for Rapunzel images to be crop out so I can submit my order to B-I-Y.com for printing.... they need 3 days advance order for the images and so suay, the person was on leave... so I can only collect my icing on Saturday, 11Jul.

Then i copied and crop these pictures as my icing images.

14 July 2009: I started baking the cupcakes and mixed color to the butter cream as Sally (Ketian's mummy) ordered KFC meals for the class Lunch... and I need to deliver the cakes by 11.30am on 15 July.

Cupcakes hot from the oven

Colorful butter cream icing

There they go inside the pipping bags

Fondant fun... Pretty flowers & leaves...

(1st time trying out my plunger tools bought from JB) :D

I creamed all the cupcakes before I go to bed... then before I sleep, hubby asked me what decoration I'm doing for the Ben 10? I told him I'm pipping a ring of green and yellow stars around the icing images. He said boys dun like stars! Then he showed me a picture of the Ben10 watch he downloaded from web.. he said I should pipe a ring of Black icing instead =x

Then I get off the bed, took out my fondant tools and made these "watch rings"!! Have green and yellow light some more :)) haha! Not bad leh! Then I go back to sleep.... around 1am!

and Princess Rapunzel goes on the cupcakes

I think I got addicted to fondant... they created much better effects compared to butter cream

And there they go inside the boxes...

And they r delivered to the Birthday girl in school.... Sister Keyu & Ketian... Mummy Sally busy distributing KFC Kiddy Chicky meals to the children...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ketian.... ;-)

Lovely "6" candle from Daiso :D