Christmas Baking

I remember the smell of my mom's kitchen when we were baking cookies for Christmas. Andy Williams, Karen Carpenter or Boney M could be heard while we were rolling and pressing. Those were the good old days.

Nowadays, I have a small kitchen and a tiny oven. But I still love baking for Christmas. And my 3-year-old daughter seems to enjoy it too.

Here are some snapshots of the Christmas goodies I made in my lil' kitchen.

2008

Chocolate Crinkles

Mini Gingerbread Men

Cinnamon Sticks. These really are a favourite among many.

Orange Shortbread

Peanut Butter Cookies



2009

 

2012

I became a busy mummy after giving birth at 2010. So, no baking for Christmas. Or least no photos, until last year. Here's what I made.

Christmas Log

 

2013

These are some of the stuff I made this year. The rest are the same as what I've made before.

Gingerbread people again. This year, they've grown bigger and sexier!

Well, that's all folks. Here's wishing everyone happy baking and a very Merry Christmas!

Black Sesame Ice Cream

The nice thing about making your own ice cream is that you can have the flavours that you can't find in the supermarkets. Black sesame is one such example. I've had it at gourmet restaurants but never found it anywhere for sale.

Black sesame also has many health benefits. One of them is to restore and maintain black hair. This is a motivation for me of course, since quite a few strands of grey are sprouting from my head!

That aside, this is a lovely recipe. It turns out soft with a nice nutty flavour. It's something different that's really worth trying. So here's the recipe for you (no ice cream maker has been used in creating this dessert):

A Mickey Mouse Cake for a Big Girl

We had a small party to celebrate our daughter being a big girl. Not birthday party but a weaning party. Yes. I shall elaborate on that no further. Unless, of course, other moms are interested to know more.

Anyhow, she wanted balloons, party hats, presents, party packs and a pink cake with Mickey Mouse.
It was quite fun actually, getting all these stuff ready.

As for the cake, I've always wanted to try making buttercream icing toppers. So this was a good opportunity to give it a go. I'm happy to say that it turned out quite well, though it could've been neater at the top. It was good enough for me, especially since it got a "Wow!" from Emma.

I came across the method for making buttercream icing toppers from this blog. The cake is a Orange Poppyseed Cake. I won't be posting any recipes since they can be found at the links.

 

Here are more pictures of my baby all grown up! (Hugs and tears from mummy.)

 

 

Testing out her new crayons, trying to colour the minions "pink", which is her favourite colour.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's another close-up of the cake:

 

Mango Peach Ice Cream

We had a short holiday in Bali recently. It was lovely to ride around Ubud, especially around the countryside. What was surprising however, was the number of gelato stalls around. My daughter had a grand time trying out the variety of pink "ice cream". Yes, she only wanted the pink ones.

This is her, enjoying her strawberry sorbetto.

She still wanted ice cream when we got back to KL. So I made a batch of fruity ice cream.  Made from fresh mango and canned peaches, it has a slightly tangy taste which we both love.

 



 

This ice cream can be made successfully without an ice cream machine. Here is a recipe:

Mango Peach Ice Cream

Ingredients:
1 can evaporated milk
1/3 cup castor sugar
1 mango
2 canned peaches (4 halves)

Instructions:

1. Chill the milk in the fridge overnight.

2. Pour the milk into a large mixing bowl and whip until fluffy (about double the volume).

3. Add in sugar and continue beating.

4. Place the bowl in the freezer for an hour.

5. Puree the mango flesh and peaches with a small amount of the syrup from the can .

7. Pull out the bowl from the freezer and whip for 1 minute, adding the fruit puree.

8. Refreeze and whip again after about an hour . Repeat 3 to 4 times.

9. Place in a container with a lid and store in the freezer.

10. To serve, remove container from the freezer for about a minute before scooping.

 

Enjoy!

A Jungle Themed Birthday Party

Earlier in the year, we had already decided to celebrate our daughter's birthday in some jungle or park. This was because our apartment is too small and McDonald's is too urban. A princess theme didn't suit our girl either as she was more the Dora Explorer type. We love nature, so we thought we should have her birthday party outdoors.

 

 

Here's the cake. It's a marble cake with buttercream icing, chocolate butterflies and royal icing flowers. It's a shame that I don't have a good quality picture of it.

 

 

 

And as per Chinese customary practice, I made birthday eggs except I made them more colourful instead of just red.

 

In spite of a few annoying incidents, the event turned out great, especially for the kids.

 

There were party bags, party hats (matching theme of course) and lots of food from everyone.

 

Just to share, the items in the party bags were:

• mini jelly
• sweets
• wafer
• water gun
• bubbles
• stickers

I also painted the kids hands with henna, the girls anyway. 

 
 

 

Here's the birthday girl playing with her water gun:

 

Some of the boys and men attempted fishing. The mummies were mostly just chilling out and watching the kids.

 

Right after the birthday song and candle blowing, the kids immediately ate all the flowers and butterflies from the cake!

 

Looking back, I'd really like to thank everyone for a memorable day. We had lots of fun. Here are more snapshots...

 

Okay, I guess that's enough pictures. Here's the recipe for the cake:



Chicken Rice, no MSG

I guess this will be a short blog.
My daughter said "Mummy I wanna eat chicken rice" and I said "Okay".
It's easy to find chicken rice at the kopitiams right? But it's also relatively easy to make it at home. The best advantage of the home cooked version is of course, having it without nasty flavour enhancers, a.k.a monosodium glutamate or MSG.

Chicken rice without MSG? Does it taste okay? I'd say it's much better than okay, it tastes great!





 

 

 

Emma waiting for her soup

And here's the recipe as how I did it (I thought the conventional way of writing a recipe might be a bit boring):

All Natural Red Velvet

Although I don't understand why, there seems to be a craze over red velvet cake. I mean, it's just red colouring in a cake right? But a trend is a trend. And many, like me, can't figure it out.

Anyway, I've tried making them at home, without the red colouring, and without much success either. I'd have a nice red batter but end up with a dull brownish cake.

So it was a nice relief to find a simple, workable recipe from PlayingWithMyFood. I made some slight modifications, of course, and they still turn out great.

.

 

 

Recipe:

1 medium red beet 
About 1/2 cup water
1 tsp vinegar
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt

 

Steam beet until soft, but not too long or the colour will fade.

Cut the beet into small cubes and blend with enough water to get 1 cup puree.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

Whisk together beet puree, vinegar, sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla in a large bowl.

Stir in the flour mixture a little at a time.

Spoon batter into muffin cups.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes.

 

And here's how it looks like, topped with cream cheese frosting, on the hands and mouth of my little helper.

Yums!