Meatballs

raw meatballs

cooked ones

raita

A move away from my usual baking stints, I had some inspiration to make some spiced infused meatballs, loads of cumin, ground chilli, onions, garlic and parsley. Tasted pretty decent, eaten with some warm tortilla and raita. It was nice but as usual, don't really enjoy food if I cooked it myself.

New Additions

Milkshake, the "Cliffhanger"

My cute little hamsters, their names from left, Oreo(grey), Milkshake (white) and Muffin (gold). The liveliest hamsters ever, can't stop climbing and running around. Incredibly cute. Only thing, last night my husband and I were in for a hamster chase when one of the attachment to the cage broke and all 3 hamsters had a good time running around the house. Thank God, the doors were all closed, so it took only a few hours to get all of them back into the cage. They were super hungry and thirsty, munching away at their cornflakes.

A tribute to Glam Cupcakes!

My friend who ordered the Glam Cupcakes had forwarded me a picture of the cupcakes arranged for the hen's night. The bride-to-be was thrilled!! I am so glad!

chocolate banana

I overestimated the amount of batter required to make the glam cupcakes. It was timely that one of our friends brought over a comb of ripe bananas. INstead of making the usual banana walnut cake I decided to layer some banana in between the chocolate cake mixture and top it with a slice of banana. It turned out looking nice, with the top banana being slightly caramelised. Yum!

Glam Cupcakes

So one of my friends is planning a hen's night. And so she had ordered 1 1/2 dozens of glam cupcakes. It was so much fun making cupcakes and I hope her friends enjoy eating them as much as I had making them. Moist chocolate cupcakes topped with buttercream.

Meet Muffin

Yesterday, my husband surprised me with a hamster, a pet I had wanted for awhile now. I have decided to name his "Muffin" and today we are going to get him a companion.... can't wait.

Cappucino Anyone?

Over the Chinese New Year, I had plans to bake numerous types of cookies and cakes, howover I only managed to experiment with this cupcake, coffee flavored cake topped with a luscious melt-in-your mouth white chocolate topping. Not bad not bad, I quite liked it.

Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies

Time and time again I am lucky enough to bump into people who are willing to share their secret recipes with me and this is one of them. Although the texture of the cookies can still be worked on but they taste absolutely fantastic!

Coffee Swirl Cheesecake

I am not a great fan of coffee on its own but I have to admit that there is something attractive about coffee with cakes. Of course coffee as a drink has a large fan club on its own, from Starbucks to Ipoh white coffee, they all have their fans. I hope this coffee swirl cheesecake with its rich, and creamy cheese with a tinge of coffee ribbons will attract its own fan base...

Forgotten Carrot

Finally back to Ipoh for the Chinese New Year break. Was looking at my picture folder and found pictures of a yummy carrot cake that I baked for Mother's day in 2006. I totally forgot about it and am thrilled that I have pictures of it:)

Chocolate + Strawberry

My favourite combination as posted in my previous blog. The combination is irresistible! Nothing satisfies a chocolate craving more than some dense, moist chocolate cake and some strawberries:)

A play with colours

Same recipe but a different look. A play with colours on the fruit tart, the earlier post features the same tart with rambutans, strawberries and grapes, and this one a more vibrant combination of fruits. Another pic below :-

berries + planes

Finally I have succeeded in making my aeroplane cookies. My initial batch of green tea shortbread was not successful as it took way to much time freezing the cookie dough and with our weather, the dough thaws too quickly making it really difficult to cut out the shapes. This new recipe that I found is tried and tested in Malaysian weather and it turned out beautifully! Strawberry almond cookies with chocolate topping.

child's play

berry planes

my cookies

The humble banana

Banana Cake has been under-rated. All the more if it is paired with a light cream cheese frosting and plenty of walnuts. Baked this the other day for an order. I hope they like it as much as I do. My whole kitchen was filled with the fragrant smell of ripe bananas!

VIVA ITALIA!

What am I on about Viva Italia? What is so Italian about the fruit tart? A friend of mind decided to have an Italian themed dinner and she had made a request for the fruit tart to be made of the colours of the Italian flag......... ahhh.... now you see.

Well this is also one of my personal favourites. Light and yet fulfilling, cream cheese never fails!

Wedding Cake

A different perspective of the cake. I have never dared to take any orders to make a wedding cake with fondant for anyone and I thought what an opportunity my wedding would be to let me experiment working with fondant.

I cannot say the the process was effortless however it was worth it as I could not bare to have the plasticky cake provided by the hotel. This is just a simple butter cake but it turned out nice. Not perfect but nice enough. Regretfully this was done at the last minute and the fondant was not as smooth as I would have liked to be. I had to also say "No" to having a whimsical cake as it would have taken me too much time being the bride and the baker at the same time. Nevertheless I am satisfied:)

Thank You Boxes

Thought'd I'd post of picture of our "Thank You" boxes. Here it is...

little packages

So my younger sister brought back these lovely pink M&Ms and some cupid mix M&Ms which I had requested for the wedding. However, knowing that these M&Ms are such a rarity and also, most people would not have noticed that they were not- ordinary M&Ms, decided that I would only give them to people who would appreciate it.

I dug out my origami book yesterday and with the help of my husband ( who I discovered is very talented in paper folding) we managed to make these little gift bags which were perfect for the M&Ms. OOooooo how nice if these were made for the wedding.

Cupcakes..cupcakes

Carrot walnut cupcakes

Moist chocolate cupcakes

It is 2 weeks since our wedding and it is always nice to be able to make pretty things for people who have helped out during our wedding. I baked this over the weekend and packed them into boxes with a thank you note. It was nice being able to do this as my initial plans to bake these as wedding favours were shelved.