Life is like a layer cake

Was so glad when the layers came out almost evenly!

Life indeed is like a layer cake - just when you thought the first layer was good, comes the 2nd layer - even better than the first, then comes the 3rd layer, well, it can be a bit bitter or tasteless, but when you put them together, then, you get blown away by how incredible the taste is!  

Putting in the 2nd layer - the cream cheese

No matter what age we are at, life will bring more surprises for us and in the end, we will be amazed at how everything turns out for good.  We just have to hang in there - holding fast to God and to one another.  We just have to continue to encourage one another to "eat on".

With his new favorite cake

Baked (or rather, steamed) this cake for Hari Raya recently - loved it so much (as in so easy to make) that baked this more than once to give away.  And because Noel almost wallop the cake at my Aunt's place (which we gave to her) - I baked this again for him.  Got the recipe from Dapur Tanpa Sempadan - check out the recipe here.

Because I can (and because I'm a freak in a way) - I measured the mixture to make sure the layers are equal.

I'm sure this cake is nothing new, and many of my friends made this before - another classic case of me being "late in catching the craze".  Oh well, better late than never so they say!

This is how I steam my cake - to make sure water does not drip on the cake - use a muslin cloth (i.e. lampin)

Have a great week ahead mates - let's hold on as we "eat on" in our lives!  Jiayou!  Aza Aza Fighting (Updated to Aja! Aja! Hwaiting - on the advice of my *clever-er friend :)!!)

Pink Ombre Cake

When I first saw this gorgeous cake, I was soooo.... in love.  It was so sweet, dreamy - just the kind that would fit into a fairy tale wedding.  But it needed a special befitting occasion to make this and since none was coming up for my side, I quickly enticed Merl (hi Merl :D) to give it a go.  Little did I know, my chance was coming up too!

A pastor invited us for his family's thanksgiving dinner and one of the reason of the dinner was to celebrater his + wife's anniv.  So I quickly grabbed the chance to make this cake!  And receiving the pix from Merl, it was a sealed deal for me!  Here goes - a series of photos - I took lots - coz it was really special and beautiful for me! :)

The different layers and shades of pink

Now stacked up together - from the darkest shade - all "glued" with Swiss Buttercream

Crumb frosted - ready for the roses to be "planted".
The beauty of this piping is that, the basic frosting layer doesn't have to be nice and smooth - perfect for lazy me!



With the white roses... I thought it looked sooo... "wedding-y" already!



And now, with the pink roses added - OH!! Even more befitting for a wedding!



I love how it looks under our fridge light :)  I left it there for a while as I needed to make a new batch of buttercream



And now.... it's completed!



And from the sides...



And from the top....
Please bear with me.... lots pix! haha



And from another angle....



Rows upon rows of sweet roses...



Looking all dreamy and sweet "resting" in the fridge



And I was glad that the Pastor's family decided to share the cake with guest present that night - not because I wanted to eat the cake - but because I wanted to take the photos of the insides!

Verdict?  I didn't use the recipe as in the link, I just used my trustworthy butter cake recipe and it turned out perfect.  Everyone expected the cake to have strawberry flavour because of the colour - but nah... didn't want flavoring in the cake.  I did (and still do) wished I had lemon at home when I was baking it though, so that there's hints of lemon.  Unfortunately, I didn't.    But it was still nice and buttery.

While piping isn't my greatest skill - but I was really happy how this one turned out.  And... I simply love having a Lazy Susan while decorating - it made life Oh! so much easier!!  Thank you Lazy Susan, you aren't that lazy after all!

The cake on my Lazy Susan... ready for frosting and deco!

I'm soooo.... glad that I made this cake.  My arms now hurts from the many hours spend piping, but it was well worth it.  This cake - like the checkerboard cake took a few days to complete (as least a couple of days), but it's great that you get to bake the cake a day ahead - so it's all settled and ready to be frosted on the next day.

Looking forward to Noel's birthday - gonna take up the Rainbow cake "fever"!

Have a great, dreamy, sweet, lovely day peeps!

Oat Groat

Oat groats are a whole grain that can be used as a breakfast cereal - Wikipedia

I have no idea when I started liking to a verge of loving oatmeals - but I do. I love them sweet, I love the savoury and now, I love them as cookies! I made a batch of Oatmeal Raisin Cookie "sample" for CNY - trying to tap into a percentage of health concious buyers and I feel in love with these. Crunchy, chewy with a lovely touch of cinnamon, these even smells like Famous Amos to me, but hey, it's so much healthier! Love love... I'll bake another batch soon for sure!!

Lemon Butter Cake

I blame it on my parents. I blame it on the way I've been brought up. I blame it on the satisfaction it feels when the deed is done. You see, I have been brought up with the idea that when someone gives you something, it needs to be reciprocated - a container is never returned empty, a favored always returned, a treat always countered.

So when on one sweet day, whilst standing at the PA&AV crew console area (where he memang always hang out - the only kid there), Noel was given a lemon, this "teaching" was passed down to him too. He's got to "give back" to the lemon-giver. Well, shhh.... don't tell Noel, but actually, I was just looking for reason to make this recipe! So on a Saturday, Noel got down to business. He was incharge of shifting the flour and grating the lemon zest.

The cake was baked and left overnight, as it said to do in the recipe and I made a small cupcake just to try (incase it didn't taste nice enough to give away!). To my horror, my cupcake tasted so sickly sweet. However, it was so wonderfully lemony that I risked giving it away anyways. So mom cut the cake beautifully into 3 portions and I packed them for Noel to distribute. We didn't want to give a big portion to just one family (what if they don't eat simple butter cake? what if they don't like lemon? blablabla), so packed to give away some to other "PA/AV crew family" as well.

With 3 portions, I actually had 1 pack extra and since I was busy and couldn't find any other family to "deposit" the cake to, I brought back one pack and it became my personal office snack time treat. Boy, oh boy!!! Was I glad on my decision to give the cakes away anyways coz it.was.heaven. Fresh lemony tartness countered the just-right-sweetness and the crunch of the lemon zest on top of the cake made the cake burst with lemon flavor with each bite.

The families we gave the cakes to were pleasantly surprised and send wonderful texts indicating how lovely the cake was. The problem is.... I've now received a few packets of coffee from them as thanks and me being me, I'm now scratching my head for the perfect coffee bake!!!

Chicken Pie

It's funny how a certain thing must taste as our mind thinks it must taste. How a certain mashed potato should taste, how a certain bbq rack of rib must taste, how a potato salad must taste etc... to me, even Christmas has it's certain unique "taste"! One day, the "taste" of Chicken Pie was so strong on my tongue that I had to run out to the place known best for it's Chicken Pie in Kuching - Aloha delicatessen during lunch hour and gobbled up one immediately in the car. But sadly, despite being really good, the pie didn't meet the "taste" that I had in my mind.


So, woo to me, I had to make the pie myself.... I've been longing to make this for ages, but, the pastry puff dough part put me off. I knew that there's ready-to-use pastry dough easily available but being the typical baker I thought I am, I didn't want to succumb to using this easy way out. Ya, ya.... very action I know ;)


Given that thought, when I saw Jane churned out beautiful puffs, I quickly put aside my baker pride and quickly grab the pastry puff and made these right away. Well, right away after figuring out how to use the puff pastry dough that is!


Apparently, ours didn't come with a plastic separator in between the pastry sheets and ours turned into a big slab of dough! so some rolling was needed (along with lots of head scratching trying to figure out the dough). But we ended up with some gorgeous scrumptious chicken pie that tasted the way it should (in my mind that is!)


We had about 12 chicken pies to last us for a couple of days and though it was great, I think it will be a while before I use the other slab of dough now stuck in my freezer ;)

Blooming in the garden...

Had actually wanted to post this last week - but blogger was acting up (at least over at my side it was :P).

Anyway... am having some great fun with piping lately... and this is what I piped for my classmates and some single mothers / mothers whose kids are far away two Sundays ago. Not that I'm into the cuppie craze but this was still fun to do.
The BM side of the church had our Parent's sunday celebration yesterday so this post is aptly timed don't you think? :)

HAPPY MOANDAY PEEPS!!!!

Satisfying Stay-at-home Saturday

It's been quite a while since I last spend my whole Saturday at home, doing whatever homely thing I want. So to be able to do so last Saturday is a miracle in itself. Mom and Dad was gracious to offer to take Noel to his swimming session so I had the morning to clean, sweep, sweat, all in my own company.

Started the day with cleaning the house, then work out with Paula Abdul, then to the waste of that hour workout, went for the long-craved laksa (thanks to someone who mentioned over and over during the weak that she's gonna cook her own laksa! hehe!) Then bought ingredients to bake some goodies. All these places are in the proximity of home so "going out" doesn't actually count. Back home, the little one came home from swimming hungry so made sandwiches and salad for the family's lunch.

I then prepared my No bake Chilled LemonCheese Cake and once that was done, and the kids were in bed for their nap, went to get goodies for our long awaited pre-Parent's day bbq dinner. What? Parent's day? Ya.... in our church and thus, in our home, we combine Mother's Day and Father's day = Parent's day :) Began preparing/marinating and since we're going to have a rather heavy dinner, my SIL and I decided to go through another hour of Paula Abdul. All of us, SIL, mom, Noel, Del and myself got going with Paula while Dad was preparing the fire outside :)

Bro was at the hockey stadium so while waiting for him to come back, I baked another batch of carrot cake!! Ya, ya, so much for not wanting to bake till there's someone to grate the carrots for me! But these were for my classmates and I plan to pack some for some mothers who I knew were alone (children are all away from home) and for a few single mothers as well.

Then it was dinner time!!!! :) The food qty was just nice; gearing more towards seafood - too bad no pix to prove that we weren't gluttons this time :)

After dinner, came the frosting of the cuppies - which i'm totally crazy about now :) Will that mean I'll bake more carrot cuppies? Not for now unfortunately! Maybe some other cuppies with different frosting :) The mothers to whom I passed the cuppies to were really pleasantly surprised and my classmates loved the cake.

Ended up having a really late night but I must say, that it was definitely a Satisfying Saturday.

Note on 9th May: Forgot my photos at home so will upload the photos tomorrow 10th - please do come back :)

Carrot cake (again)

I. HATE. GRATING. ~big fat fullstop~

So, I get my helper to help me grate.


Hehehe... just kidding, he only grated the last stick :)

A colleague's birthday is coming up this Saturday, so we're having a simple cake cutting gathering today. I fall back on tried and tested recipes most of the time and I know that this cake would work well.

Another reason I chose this cake was because I was TOTALLY disappointed with the carrot slice in Secret Recipe - supper I had with a good friend after disasterous Thor! The slice had lacked the depth, the cinnamon, the moistness and the frosting was sickly sweet!

This cake again, did not dissapoint me... It smelled wonderful in the house whilst it was baking. I love the frosting on this one... Not sweet, beautifully cheesy to complement the moistness of the cake.

! baked 1 small portion for the "birthday cake", then baked the other half in cupcake liners to make it easier to bring to the office to share. Then I baked another batch for the family. Oh, and this is my first try on piping too! Doesn't look as good, but still, acceptable bah lah kan?


Will definate bake this again (wait till my helper is strong enough to grate 4 full cups of carrot that is! Haha!)

Chocolate Cravings....

Because I've not updated this space for ages....

Because I need to show that I'm still alive and kickin'....

Because today is a Moan-day (hey, this is the day especially made you'd say - yes, yes, I know!)

Because we all love chocolate....

Because choc is supposed to make us happy....

Because we need to be "happy" on a Moan-day...

And just because... Hehehe... berapa banyak because la....

OK, here's a very special bake... I don't really favor baking layer cakes because it takes ages, but I will still bake it on request. My first time baking this Kek Lapis India was last Hari Raya when Ms. Bestie requested for it. Believe it or not, I didn't even taste even a bit of the cake (talking about big faith!!). But she loved it (YEAY!). And so did her sister-in-law (double YEAY!).

Recently, her SIL had a craving for this cake (the little one in her tummy craved for it, la). So, though she was in Bintulu, she requested that I send over the cake via bus. So I got busy busy happily. This is an... expensive and rich chocolate layer cake... lots and lots Cadbury bites (no cheating... this cake calls for Cabdury, so Cabdury it is!)

I used the chocolate rather "sparingly" (yes, yes, lokek I know), but then this much is really enough to bring out the chocolaty taste... Normal process... put the mixture and layer with chocs... over and over again...

And here's a baked layer... Yeah, a bit burnt :P opppssyyy!

I just realised I didn't take the photo of the completed cake... hmmmm... oh well... there's always a next time right? :)

Anyways, once again, with my super confidence, I didn't taste even a bite of the cake. And off it went to Bintulu to satisfy the little baby... and satisfied was the Mummy :)

And for a moment, the world seems at peace.

Missing a part of me...

I miss this...

And this....



And this...

But my lethargy is still getting the best of me.... Sigh...

And oh dear... it's March already????

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!