Merry Christmas!!!

HOHOHO!!!

BLESSED CHRISTMAS FROM THE LABUNGS!!!!

No bake Oreo CheeseCake

No, no... I'm not becoming a cheesecake addict. Not just yet. Hehe... anyways, when I saw this, I immediately bookmarked it, as I thought is was pretty easy.

This is the end product - a beauty I must say.... heheheh... actually the top is just plain, but I dusted some cocoa powder on top (using a doily as stencils) - there, I gave my "secret" away... hehehe...


I actually had the ingredients for this ready when The Gang came over for Noel's birthday, but phew! I didn't have time to make it.

Not long after that, a colleague had to say goodbye and we had a small gathering. This was my chance to make the long awaited cake! Pretty daring don't you think? Making a cake 1st time and bringing it for a party - crazy would be a better word!

Here's the sides - quite thick for a 18cm container.

First, gotta make sure the mixing bowl and the cream is well chilled - this will make it beat up easily.

I only have a standing mixer (i.e. the mixing head can't be moved), so I have to tansfer the whipped cream to a bowl while I work out the other part of the mixture.

One thing interesting about this cake is that it has 3 layers. The first is with finely chopped up Oreos. Once that sets, a layer of large Oreo chunks are thrown in before a final smooth cheese layer is topped on it.

Here's the 2 kinds of Oreos.

The bigger chunks on top of the 1st layer.

And once again, the final product. Hehe... I love love love the doily design, so... please beg my pardon :)

And here's a peak at what we had during the farewell party - all of which, you had already known through my earlier entries :)

This will be my last entry on bakery this year... I'm off for a holiday and am truly grateful for the break (despite discovering a HUGE hole in my pocket!). I do hope that everyone will have a great Merry Making season - with the real Reason for the season always in everyone's heart!

Aaron and Hur needed....

Apa bahan doa ko Dy? I doa puasa for you k.... One of my Aaron & Hur asked without her knowing that I was struggling so much with the Planning for the year to come.

Doa utk u tis mrng... Another Aaron and Hur smsed me early this morning, without her knowing that last night I cried myself to sleep, stressed out by the Planning and Budgetting needed to be finalized and presented tonight.

It's a big day today, will need to face the Elders and lay out planning and budgeting for the coming year in the Ministry. It's the budgeting that I'm worried about. I pray that I can pass on the passion for the congregation to justify the $$ budgetted.

There must be a reason why I am put where I am. But I know I won't be able to do it alone. I need all the Aaron and Hur support I can get. Thanks for holding my hands and I go through this - you know who you are.

When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

Exodus 17:12

Kinokunya (??) Jelly

Kinokunya??? As in the book store??? Heheh... no.... actually it's Konnyaku, but everytime I want to say the word out, it becomes Kinokunya *blush*

Right, so on the last schooling day, Noel had a class party where everyone is supposed to bring something to share. After much dicussion between Mother and Son, we came down to the top 3 - Chicken Mayo Bun, Cupcakes or... Jelly. Then, he needed to sleep on it before deciding.

Next evening, as we sat for dinner, he gave his decision - jelly mummy. *heart leaped with joy - so easy!*. Then came the killer - BUT!!! - I want jelly like at Uncle Federick's house. *suffeeerrrr*. You see, the weekend before that we went to a colleague's house for "full moon" celebration. And there, we were served with Konnyaku jelly.

I have NEVER, EVER make this jelly before. Mainly because, it was something new (yes, I hate trying new things) and also, on the package, it says something-acid was part of the ingredient? I'm like - what?? acid??? hahaha...

Though I've never thought of trying, I still (typically) bookmarked a few recipes. So knowing Noel's love for mango, and since this recipe remarked "without the acid" - I was more than ready to give it a try.

Another concern - I do not have those mould for Konnyaku jelly! This is another reason why I've never tried this before - have to spend money on the mold! But then, I went ahead to buy - because I know it'll make Noel happy. And thinking about it, I too am happy that I did!

The jelly... they came out, oh so beautifully. I fell in love with them at first sight!

Noel was the benchmark for the taste of this jelly. He ate the first one, and after the first bite, he ran off from the kitchen table - I was thinking - OH NO!!!! he's gonna puke it out!!!! But no... he ran towards the shelf were we kept this...

And he said excitedly "Mommy, Mommy, taste like this!!!" Well, well, well.... to be compared to a fav is definately a winner :) If you'd noticed, the package no longer have the "mango" version. What's left are the laici version - the kids love it THAT much - so it's definitely a fav. We (the adults) loved this too and definately will keep on making (needless to say - it's so easy to make too!) I personally love it so much that I keep making even for day to day consumption :)

Then, Noel, staying true to our family's "let there be more than less" culture (especially when it comes to food) - said, one person should get two. The mango had yielded about 48 pcs - which is the exact number of classmates he has. Me, being the typical me, didn't want to make the same thing, so I made this as well.

Ribena is indeed very versetile. I've made Ribena Cheesecake before and now, this Ribena Jelly. This is refreshing and very cooling. One recipe yields only 24 pcs, so Mommy had to make 2 batches of this.

Both the mango and the ribena jelly had nata de coco in them. Noel helps me everytime there's a project for the class party. This is him, putting in the nata de coco into the mould.

And this is him wiping jelly mould for teacher's day in 2009 (he was in kindy)


And here he is cutting the jelly to make hearts...

He was cutting these...

To be part of the bigger jelly...

Hmmm.... I miss making jelly... I think I still have some nata de coco at home... I'll make the mango ones tonight!

Don't judge a book by it's cover...

These buns are so so so ugly, that I myself almost refuse to eat them. I've been wondering why why why the buns do not come out nice and smooth anymore these days... (I have since found the root cause for this error).
But this lead me to reflect how sometimes, we just simply refuse to try something just because of how it looks from the outside. I know I would have missed out on a nice, fluffy, soft bun (empty - that goes oh so sinfully well with butter!) if I decided not to try them. When I told my dad that they looked ugly - his answer was a simple "but they taste very good!"
Somethings or some people who crosses our paths, deserves a chance, without even considering how it appears to look on the outside. Something hard to be done, but well.... worth the effort I reckon. Who knows, there's treasures to be discovered!

Drum cake - the assemble

Gosh... we are finally at... Drum cake series - the finals!
The post on this cake has been taking forever to be done and over with! But then, it's good to document as the mind forgets... so bear with me ya!

Right, so it was 20th November 2010 - a day before Noel's birthday - the day we choose to celebrate on. Noel had VBS (Vacation Bible School) the whole day so that gives us a chance to do the deco on the cake.

This is basically what happened:

1) Took out and thawed all the frozen cakes.

2) Make Choc Ganache

3) This part is called "dusting". It's basically like plastering your walls before you put a good layer of cement on top - just to cover the flaws of the bricks. So on this part, just a small amount of ganache is spread on the cake. Very thin layer - you can actually still see the cake. This step is required to cover up any "dust" i.e. crumbles from the cake surface. After applying this layer - pop the cake into the fridge to harden the ganache - makes is easier on the next layer.


4) Application of the "real" ganache layer. Here's the part where the real layer is put on nice and thick. Spread well and pop back into the fridge.


5) As we wanted to make something similar to drums, mom had to do the piping of the lines around the cake. Why mom? Well, basically, because I never tried piping and "THE DAY" is not the day to try! And I have other things to make too (like jelly, buns etc) - hahaha... yeah, excuses, excuses... :P


Here's the "pre-assembled" version of the cake. Somehow I think it looks better? Must be the natural lights!


Oh, see that white stands? Those are actually akin to the stand people use for wedding cakes. Apparently, there's cheaper version - I got these at RM4.90 for 4 pieces.

Then, in order for it to "look" like drum stand - I wrapped it up with aluminium foil.

A couple of comments I got was:
1) Why didn't I use champaign glasses for the stand - the aluminium foil makes it look cheap - errmmmm.... I've never come across transparent drum stands!
2) Why was my cymbal - horizontal??? It should be 45degress slanted - yes, I agree, it should have been - but I must honestly admit - I don't know how to do it!
Well, I'm sure there's many more comments bottled up out of courtesy - but actually it's okay to comment so we can improve (and help others too) :)
It's been fun cracking my head on this project, but seriously, I doubt I'll be doing this again in the future!

Another mid-week break!!!!

So thankful that I'm living in Malaysia.... today's reason will be because there's so many public holidays!!!! :)

Can't wait for the long Christmas break! Below photo got nothing to do with anything... just reminds me of a holiday we took quite some time ago... Dad loves this place... I hope I can bring him there again soon.

The frosting - Choc Ganache

Part 4 of the Drum cake series
There were 2 type of frosting made for this cake - one the Choc Ganache and another - the butter cream. The Choc Ganache was for the overall and the butter cream is for the piping. I'm not too sure why I didn't take any photos of the butter cream process, so I'll only be talking about the Ganache. I reckong that's because Ganache was a scary thing for me in the past and I want to document this so this can help us; the new ones in the baking department :)
Here's what you'll need:
280 gms cooking / baking choc
1/2 cup cream (I use Paul's Thickened Cream)
What you'll need to do:

1) Prepare the ingredients - chop chop chop the choc into tiny pieces. You will need them to be small in order to melt it better. Throw in the choc into a bowl.

Heat up the cream till boiling point. Make sure you do not leave the fire, as with so little qty (only half a cup), it boils rather fast. Oh, make sure it's low fire as well.
Once it's boiled - you might wanna make sure that it's 100% boil, pour into the bowl with the chocolate and SSTTTIIIRRRRRR at lightning speed. You have to work fast on this, as you'll want the chocs to melt into nice liquid before the cream chills off.

Sorry for the blurry photo - this is to show you how fast I was stirring :) When I first made the Ganache long ago, I was afraid of stirring and I ended up with lumps here and there in the choc.



After stirring - you have yourself a nice warm bowl of ganache. Congrats!!! You made it!!!
There are a few styles you can use the ganache for.
1) Smooth flowing frosting - when the Ganache is still warm, immediately pour over cooled cake. You'll get a lovely melted coating which will flow to the sides. The trick is to pour in the middle and spread out to the sides.
2) Yummy chocolaty light filling - let the ganache cool and pop it into your mixer and beat till light and fluffy. You now can use this as the filling in between cake layers. Imagine - light and fluffy chocolate ganache topped up with freshly cut this slices of strawberry... YUMMM
3) Thick frosting - the longer you set the ganache aside (i.e. cool), the thicker it becomes. You can then use this to spread on the cake and make a thicker version of #1 above. Oh, but this step will not yield that "smooth" looking ganache I was talking about in #1.
Okay... right now, I can't think of anything else to write about for this Ganache (it's Monday morning - do you blame me??) Signing off with lots of love!

The cymbals - Butter Cookie

Part 3 of the Drum cake series

Cracked my head on what was to be the cymbals - I want the whole cake to be edible. So since there were request for butter cookies, I thought, alright, let's try to make a BIG cookie for the cymbals. I was afraid that they will break though...




I was hunting high and low for colours for the drums (original plan: black and gold sides). Apparently, most shops stoppped black colouring as it didn't become black with mixed with frosting. Another shop owner told me no one wants to eat black cake! Haha. Anyway... with my hunt, I came across these...


No, not magic portion #9.... heheh... Edible gold dust. I was looking for gold spray but well, gold dust is good enough. Really expensive! 20grms is Rm20.90. Just like "gold"!

The original plan was to mix the gold dust with the butter cream; which I did - but apparently, it takes A LOT of dust to make it golden (where-art-thou-Oh-Midas??). And the shop owner said to make it nicer, dust on top of the butter cream only piped on to the cake. I didn't want the cake to be messy with the dust everywhere, so opted not to do it. What I did instead was to dust the top of the butter cookies to make it shiny and golden like a real cymbal.

Too bad the cymbal was horizontal instead of 45degrees slanted so the golden colours were not really seen (yes, I had erm, not-so-pleasant comments about this - but I'll talk about it on the last part of this - the assemble).

The drum stick - Grissini (Thin Bread Sticks)

Part 4 of the Drum cake series

After successfully baking the big round butter cookie for the cymbals, the "genius" in me thought - hmmmm... perhaps I can make the drumstick using this dough as well! So shaped a pair.

Happy that they came out beautifully, I went to bed for the night. The next morning, I woke up to check on them - lo and behold! It snapped into 2 upon my touch!!! BOOHOO!!!! So before I went to work, I quickly shaped another 3 pairs, mom were to put them into the oven. Then at about 10am, mom texted me saying those too broke!!

Gosh, it was already Friday and I had limited time so putting my thinking cap, I tried to think of something else. Then I remembered seeing some hard bread sticks at a bakery and Mr. Google helped by giving me this. I happily copied the recipe; but really unsure if I have the time to bake these extra at all! Worst case, I could just rush out to the supermarket to get some Pretz, tie them together and make a pair of stick.

Well, in the midst of other things needed to be done, I thought to myself, I'll just give the recipe a try and see if I can come up with something from my own kitchen. Thank God, the sticks came out perfectly hard so I won't have to worry about it breaking. Now, truth be told, I have never tasted any bread stick before, so I have absolutely no benchmark when it comes to the taste. It's supposed to be topped with cheese or salt or herbs but I made them plain. I will probably bake this again (with the proper toppings of course), when I've got extra time in my hands.

Note: Apparently, these goes well with the chocolate ganache :)

Amazing Arrow Helicopter

Taking a break for the Drum Cake series to bring you this lovely entry *smirk*

What on earth is this??? This, my beloved, is THE Amazing Arrow Helicopter - a "toy" that we discovered accidentally last night. Hidden treasures, hidden pleasures happens when you least expect them (someone told me before that LOVE also happens when you least expect it - yeah, right).

Went out for dinner at Topspot last night, then onwards to Main Bazaar to find some fridge magnets. Glad that there's a souvenir shop still open at that hour! (around 9.15). On the way back to the car, the sound of sape playing at the opposite waterfront drew our attention and we cross over to see this guy street performing. At 9.30 pm! Sorry, really bad pix with the mobile without flash at a poorly lit place.

We hung around for a while, enjoying the beautiful chilly night and gentle lull of the sape. Then we moved on along towards the Astana just to enjoy the Waterfront. The DUN looks BEAUTIFUL with it's reflection in the river.

Then, suddenly, someone spotted some UFO in the night sky and marched as fast as they could to get to the source. That's when this was discovered.

It's kindda like a sling - but not with peebles at the end, but rather, a "helicopter"-like-wing. You point it towards the sky, pull the elastic band and shoot away. With the LED light attached to the bottom, it was so beautiful in the night sky and gosh, what pure, simple fun that was. I got a few more to bring back to Lawas - I reckon they will look beautiful in the dark kampung sky *grin*

Oh, forgot to mention that on the way to the Waterfront earlier, we saw Rapunzel movie poster and decided to call MBO to see if they have the show. And yes! They have it at 10.45. So after enjoying ourselves silly with the Amazing Arrow Helicopter, we went over to tHe Spring for the show.

It's a nice nice nice show. Still can't beat Princess and the Frog in my book, but the way the story goes was unexpected. Refreshing. Erm, no, won't do a review of the movie here, but now, I'm longing to have short hair like this

or rather... this...

But since I will never be as awesome looking as Meg or Rapunzel, I guess, I'll have to make do with my hair as it is now! Hohoho!

Togs, Dawn - Noel and I had an A.W.E.S.O.M.E., unexpected night last night. Thanks for the time and the impromptu-ness (yeah, I know, there's no such word) of it all - even if it means freezing oneself till death in a super cold cinema! *Lotsa Hugs!*

The tom toms

Part 2 of the Drum cake series



The right tom - tom: Steamed Choc Cake

I cannot rave enough about this cake. I've been baking it forever and it has never failed me.

I made this on the day before the party, didn't freeze it up and it's best completely cooled before frosting.

Here's another version of it made for a recent farewell party at the office.


Give this a try - no mixer / oven required! Super Easy, Super Moist, Super Chocolaty Choc cake!
The left tom - tom: Butter cake

Made this cake as part of the package as it's dad's fav cake. And since I will not need much, he can pretty much have more than half of the balance. I managed to get a taste of the cake with the ganache and I thought it was a good match. Dad prefers it to be on it's own of course!

note: Stay tune to the 2nd last entry of this Drum-Cake-Series for Ganache

The snare drum - carrot cake

Part 1 of the Drum cake series

I've baked another type of carrot cake before, which I truly loved, but that version crumbles very easily so the thought of perching it high on a stand makes me quite queasy. I had another version I kept in my "must do" folder, so decided to give that a try. And I am glad I did. The cinnamon that was missing in the 1st version made it oh-so-delish and being a cinnamon lover, the aroma of this baking was heavenly. I have always wanted to try cream cheese frosting, but since it's a set of same coloured frosting (i.e. Choc Ganache), I skipped the frosting this time.

Baked this cake on the Thursday leading to the birthday and froze it. Surprisingly upon defrost, the cake stayed really moist and flavourful. Since I only needed a small amount for the snare drums, I baked the remaining mixture as cupcakes. I so love the cupcake polka-dot liners! I've never baked in them before and I was pleasantly surprise that they were so easy to bake with and presentation was fab as well! Right out from the oven, the cake "felt" very wet (as if uncooked) and the cake got stucked to the liners. I immediately assumed the lines were hard to use! But the next day proved me wrong when the cakes came out beautifully in one piece after the liners were torn apart. I'll definately get more of these liners on my next visit to the baking store :)

Oh, please do give the carrot cake a try... It's so heavenly delicious! I will definately bake this again (together with the cream cheese frosting) once I muster enough will to grate oh-so-many carrots!

I am (Officially) Seven

I just realised that I don't have that many photos of Noel's 7th birthday. Perhaps I wrongly focused on the not-quite-successful birthday cake? I'd normally pass the camera to my brother, but don't know why this year I kept it in my pocket instead... So will have to make do with the few that I have. Popong - you got any photos to share with me? :)

Anyway, here's the cake...

The bass (kick) drum was a fruit cake (mom made this)

The snare drum was carrot cake

The right tom - tom was a steamed choc cake

The left tom - tom was a butter cake

The cymbals was a butter cookie

The drum stick were bread sticks (a.k.a. Grissini)

I'll run through the recipes throughout the week, so stay tune!

Note 1: Tengah mengalami kemalasan maksima to write up anything. But will push self. *will TRY to push self*

Note 2: After a week, Noel asked me - Mummy, why my drum cake didnt have Floor Tom and HiHat? (Aduhmak...)

K.N.I.F.E.

K – Know ye
N – Not
I – I
F – Feel
E – Excruciating pain

Was making some ganache using chopped chocs (will post about making ganache some time soon). Then Noel pointed out that the chocs was heart shaped. I didn't even realise this - it was not done purposely.


Sometimes it feels like this doesn't it? Words, actions, etc can pierce one's heart pretty deep. And the pain... ooucchhh....

I'mmmm dreaming of a whhiiittteee Christmassss

Yeah, yeah... the grass always seems to be greener on the other side, and home is best... I know, I know... but it ain't wrong to dream eh?

And right now, I'm dreaming off faraway lands, cold and chilly, off being huddled up against warm lights and the festivities warmth.

Of this...


Or this...

Maybe... one sweet sweet day.... Sigh... It IS okay to dream.... *while listening to Boney M's "The 20 Greatest Christmas Songs".

Images courtesy of http://www.centraleasteurope.com/offers/krakow_christmas_market.htm