My eldest princess is now 8

Yaya turned 8 yesterday. We had a small family celebration, started on the eve of her birthday by going to the cinema to watch "Despicable Me". It was one great movie, even adik was laughing loudly in the cinema (dah la suara dia memang besar...hahahahah). Yesterday, I baked yaya a choc cake (I just bought Coles' choc cake premix), and cooked her favourite chicken rice for dinner.  I just realised I baked her the same choc cake when we had her 1st bday celebration in Brisbane, that was for celebrating her turning 5, 3 years ago. Same cake, same plate, but yaya looked a lot of different in that two years.Ohhh she has lost that baby look, dah besar dah dia....I am practically holding my breath when I wrote this sentence..........................................
and now exhaling....

Her 1st and last birthday in Brissy

And yesterday, as I have wrote on Sunday, we had a visit from the rental agent with some potential tenants that will take over our rented unit in November. And this morning, I received a call from the agent informing me that there will be another visit tomorrow evening. Alhamdullillah, Allah mudahkan cari replacement. InsyaAllah.

Ok I need to post some pictures for the love ones at home to see yaya bday celebration in FB. Daaa...

yours truly,

She is Two

Alhamdullillah, thirah is two years old today. The chocolate cake that I baked yesterday is for thirah's birthday. And because of this special day, we took the kids out for some splash at South Bank Parklands.

Happy Birthday Thirah. Mama and Babah will always pray for the best in your life, and may you will always be bless with good health and prosperity

For the chocolate cake recipe (Ms Taj :D), this is from kak Hanieliza's collection, please follow the link. Sorry la den barred dari copy text kat blog nie. Cake dia memang sodap...cuba laaa...

KEK COKLAT

Bahan A

250 gm butter

250 gm gula perang atau kastor

4 biji telur gred B

1 sudu kecil esen vanilla

250 ml susu segar

Bahan B [ Ayak ]

290 gm tepung gandum (I used self-rising flour instead)

50 gm serbuk koko

1 sudu kecil nescafe instant

1 sudu besar baking powder (omit this as I used self-rising flour)

1/2 sudu kecil soda bikarbonat

Cara

1. Butter dan gula dipukul sehingga kembang.

2. Masukkan telur satu persatu. Pukul lagi. Masukkan esen vanilla

3. Masukkan Bahan B yg telah diayakkan berselang seli dengan susu segar.

4. Kacau rata dgn senduk kayu.

5. Masukkan dalam loyang yg telah dilapikkan kertas dan bakar dalam oven yg telah dipanaskan suhu 170'C selama 45 minit atau sehingga masak.

6. Sejukkan dan hiaskan dengan topping coklat.

Coklat Topping

1 cawan susu pekat

60 gm butter

50 gm serbuk koko

1. Kacau secara double boiler sehinga larut dan sejukkan sekejap.

2. Tuangkan atas kek dan hias mengikut kretibiti sendiri

yours truly,

dapur ku berasap kembali

Salam kengkawan and friends,

How is the first week of the new year so far? Good...alhamdullillah. We too had great days so far, hopefully the rest of the week will be the same. However, the weather in Brisbane was the opposite, been raining and cloudy for a couple of weeks now. We only had a sunny day last Saturday.

OK OK...am not good at making introduction. So lets cut the story ya... with the kids back with us, my so long partially occupied kitchen now fully functional. Errr actually it started the same day my sistah and family arrived. And now I have a kitchen helper....opppsss helpers (thirah can help a bit) to help me with the washing and cleaning, well I just trust them with a small job. Nothing over special, except for some dishes that I have never try before.



Bubur asyura, as requested by yaya. She said to me one day,"Mama, masak la bubur macam wan"....errr bubur apa tu...so I went on the internet, and visited my fav internet chefs. I got this bubur asyura recipe from MamaFami's. I boiled some salted eggs to go with the bubur, and since atang is not a fan of any type of bubur, I prepared beef in soy sauce (daging kicap) for him. Thirah will just made do with anything :D

One day I cooked nasi ayam. Got some leftover chicken and chicken soup. So I just boiled a pack of compressed rice (nasi himpit/kampit). Shredded the chicken, lettuce and pour the soup over the cooked compressed rice. Kira ala-ala soto laaa....hehehehe

And tonite, out of ordinary, I was in the kitchen again, preparing for a special day. I baked my first chocolate cake. Baked this with love....hahahaha... for whom ya.... I shall not reveal that now.... tungguuuuuuu

Whatever it is, the kids are happy. And I couldn't be better.

yours truly,

Serawa durian..yup in Brisbane

But no.... it is not me who prepared it (rasa nak pencen dari jadi tukang masak, sape cakap tukang masak kereja nya enteng)....ahahhahahha... The serawa durian was given by our good neighbour, to be eaten with glutinous rice (jiran oghang utagha Malaysia you :D).



So in return, as usual, I baked banana cake for atang's snack, and sent a plate of banana cake to our good neighbour with some prawn sambal with petai.





yours truly,

I baked "Marble Cheese Cake MamaFami"

My baking project last weekend was......





For recipe and instruction, please visit MamaFami's blog.

My outcome was not like Mama's ...but the taste overcome the look...ahahahha... a little too sweet for me, you can reduce the sugar from the cheese ingredient a bit if you like.

yours truly,

Cupcakes based on Mak's simple cake

For the makan-makan thing. I decided to make some cupcakes, based on Mak's simple cake recipe, with buttercream frosting. This is my first time in making the frosting, and also first time in using and playing with the piping bag (my latest toy :D). For ages I have wanted to experiment this frosting activity, most of the encouragement came from reading 'online chefs' websites that I visit regularly. And also from Iza's blog. I even asked her for the frosting recipe. To Iza, thank you very much for making my dream come true ...ahahahhaha... I saw your effort and talent, and that pushed me in doing this. But doing something like yours, that remarkable birthday cupcakes for your husband, would need more dedication laaa..... it would take me years to achieve that...maybe not at all..ahahahhahhaha (apa yang aku merepek nie)

After asar, around 5pm I start preparing the cake mixture. Finish baking and frosting at around 9pm. And here are the results



I prepared double amount of the mixture because I thought for one mixture, I will get about 40 mini cupcakes. It turned out, I have ran out of the mini cupcake casing (100 in one pack) before I finished all the mixture. So I put the left over mixture in a loaf pan, and baked it.



The frosting, manis sangat la to me. And it was not the consistency that I want. I was looking for finer textual, and shinier. This one, I can still feel the sugary textual when i rub it between two fingers. And it harden once settled. Iza....what went wrong?

Nevertheless, am so happy with the result. No wonder people can get hook baking and icing the cupcakes ya.... wink wink

Yummy and easy Banana cake

Banana cake is one of my favourite cake since I was small (susah kalau citer dengan orang yang suka makan nie, almost everything I like and my favourite :D). I can eat one small loaf of banana cake (yup, a loaf, about the size of 2 Gardenia's vanilla bread sit side by side) in one sitting, and I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But that was a long time ago. La nie, am watching what I am eating.

Though it was my fav cake, I have never try to bake it. Mak did baked banana cake, once or twice, but have never share the recipe with me (well, I didnt' really want to know how to bake it before). A couple of months ago, a friend of my, Kak Su, shared banana cake with us (the research student) at the office. It was so delicious. So I made a point to ask her for the recipe. And she gave me this website for the recipe. The recipe is so simple, it took me just 15 minutes to prepare.



Ingredients:

4 ripe bananas (I used 5, have actually mashed 4 bananas and I thought it was not enough)
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups of self-rising flour
1/4 cup of corn flour
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of oil (I used canola oil)
1 tsp of sodium bicarbonate (I omit this one, didn't have any in the kitchen)
a pinch of salt


Method:

1. Beat the egg and sugar until soft and light
2. Mix in the mashed bananas
3. Then mix in flour, stir and later mix in the oil
4. Put the mixture in a baking tray
5. Bake the cake for 45 - 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted and came out clean






Try it...

p.s. To date, I have baked this cake twice, because atang love it so much :D

A must try : Marble Chocolate Cheese Cake (Kak Hanieliza recipe)

I believe "cooking is the best therapy". Often during weekend, feeling lonely at home, I will get emotional easily. So I decided, why not try a new recipe to pass the time. I have a long list of wanna-try recipes from the web. I normally visit Kak Liza's fotopages (but it is no longer available for public, and kak Liza has created a blog to publish her recipes), Kak Ida's fotopages and MamaFami's fotopages. I have tried some of their recipes (there is an entry on how I baked a cheesecake in this blog), simple recipes but the outcome is sooo satisfying.

Last week I baked Marble Chocolate Cheese Cake (from Kak Liza's fotopages). I just found the same recipe on MamaFami's fotopages. And believe me, it is a must try recipe.


Here are the ingredients (am so lazy, so I just copy and paste the recipe from MamaFami's) :





Ingredients A :

180 g butter
20 g cocoa powder (I used 2 heaps of tablespoon)
170 g castor sugar
3 eggs
120 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Ingredients B :

250 g cream cheese
60 g castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg

Method :

1. Sift self-raising flour, baking powder and cocoa. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add in eggs (ingredient A), one at a time.
4. Add in the sifted ingredients and mix well.
5. In another bowl, beat all ingredients in B till light.
6. Prepare a 7" tray, line with grease-proof paper (I used a medium size round springform pan). Pour in one part of ingredient A's mixture into the tin. Spread evenly. Then pour the whole ingredient B's mixture on top and spread evenly. Finally pour the balance of ingredient A's mixture on top and spread nicely to cover the whole area.
7. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 160 C for 1 hour.



Yummy :p

Mak's 'simple' cake recipe

I recently baked a cake for al adha celebration (in addition to the oxtail soup) and brought it to the office to share with collegues. It was Mak's recipe, with no specific name, and we usually called it simple orange cake. I once baked it for thirah's nanny and wrote about it in this entry, but no recipe attached (Ani the nanny are now safely back in her home town, Lombok, Bali....we sent her off last Sunday, so sad and mandom watching the family leave).

The cake was one of the qualifying cooking evaluation that Mak had tested on me (ala kira pass masak utk survive laaaa). Mak is particular when it comes to cooking and cleaning. I remember in my adolescence years, everytime when Mak started cooking in the kitchen, she would called out to me to help her, eventhough I was in the middle of my school work, or practicing the organ. No compromise. Sometimes it did got irritating, and many times I walked into the kitchen with the long face and stomping my feet, showing resentment. And Mak would always said this in response, "Mak buat nie is for your own good" (her exact word). Mak was actually trained that way by her mother (my grandma) when she was young, far younger than me when I started training by Mak (and only using the 'dapur kayu').

But soon I get used to it, and it taught me a lot about discipline and at the same time I learnt to cook. It was hard at first (hard when you not agreeing to it that kinda feeling), but I never regret it. In fact, I will do the same way with my daughters.

Ok back to the purpose of this entry. One of my best bud requested the recipe. And am delighted to share with you the recipe.

Mak's simple cake:

Ingredients:
6 oz of butter
6 oz of caster sugar
6 oz of self-rising flour
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional. couldn't find non-alcohol essence in Brisbane)
1 orange (squeeze the juice and strained. 'sagat' the orange skin for frangrant, sikit udah) as
alternative, you can use about 1-2 tbs of orange juice (agak2 la ye)

Method:
1. Beat the sugar and butter until soft.
2. Break 1 egg, and beat softly. Then break another egg and beat softly. Repeat this
until all eggs are gone.
3. Then pour in the orange juice and the orang skin and the essence.
4. Mix in the flour, a little by little (and make sure you are mixing it in one way, and always anti- clockwise)
5. Forgot to mention, you need to preheat the oven (eheheheh).
6. Baked for 1 hour (it depends on your setting). I set my oven at 180deg, fan-forced.
7. After 1 hour is up, test the cake by inserting a butter knife in the middle of the cake. If the knife come up clean, than the cake is cook.
8. Let it cool down a bit...and then.... apa lagi..makan laa (I like to eat it while it is hot).


(gambar recycle)

Yummy...

p/s: Saya aritu guna 1 block of butter, which is 250gm. 250gm = 8 oz. Timbang gula n tepung sama ngan sukatan butter. Telur tu kurang kan 2 biji (8 oz butter = 6 biji telur).

A cake for a friend

I just finish baking a simple cake for a friend. We are going to visit her this afternoon (actually as soon as I publish this entry). She was Athirah babysitter, and since we got back to Brisbane, we haven't visit her. She sent a sweet delicacy the first day we arrived here, last week.

I have something to give her, for remembrance. She and her family are going back to Bali, Indonesia, for good.

Just a simple orange cake.

That just took half an hour to prepare. And 1 hour to bake. Oh the cake sunk in the middle a bit. My mistake, I adjusted the temperature will cooking. Silly me.