Macaron Baking Class By lovely Aunty Yochana

Hey Hey! As promised, I'm updating on the Macaron Baking Class on the 21st december.

The "Shi Fu" of this class is none other than Aunty Yochana. She's a petite lady, very friendly and really generous to share her baking tippys and she really make sures we understand every single bit of things!

Hehe, so after leaving her house.. I'm so much richer (in terms of knowledge on baking)! I would love to join her class again!

Pictures time! (Million of thanks to evelyn for sending me the pictures!)

Aunty Yochana's hand at work! See those macarons? Each piece looks the same size.. My macarons are never the same size.. Hee

Macaron Tartlettes (before baking)... I especially like the tart base.. So buttery and nice!!

Macaron Tartlettes (after baking), these tartlettes are so tiny and prettyyy! They're nice to eat, difficult to do... Lots of effort required!

Aunty Yochana serve all of us high tea as well! And boy, her bakes are tasty! I love the chocolate truffle cake, durian swissroll and the christmas fruit cake! There are alot more, but I've a poor memory.. can't remember.. Hehe..

I look forward to more of her baking lesson!

Le Pasta... Special!

Well well.. this not a typical post of my bakes but rather, my main intention is to introduce all of you this fabulous stall! I mean, in order for someone to talk about your food, it must be really good or really bad, right? In this case, trust me, the food is YUMMY!


That day my sis, her BF and I pass by Bukit Timah Food Center, we decided to have our lunch there, and we tried LE PASTA.

It's located at Bukit Timah Market & Food Centre #02-158.

I tried this stall for twice.. And each time, the pasta dishes did not disappoint me!

I know from the young chef that he once work in a high class italian restaurant, and he operate this stall to gain experiences. I tried before the Truffle Scented Carbonara (actually my sis ordered this, but I took abt 1/4 of it), the chef uses truffle oil in this, and base on what I understand, I know that this truffle oil is an expensive stuff.. And I double check with the chef to see if I'm right, andbingo, I was told that he bought this small bottle of truffle oil for $20++.

Indeed, this truffle oil really spice up the whole pasta dish and brings the flavour to a higher level! Within this dish, there are egg, parmesan, bacon and truffle oil of course, and I really enjoy every bite of this dish!

Next up on the list, Frutti De Marie, I ordered this on the 2 diff occasion. It's actually a seafood base pasta and I like it because they have fresh seafood that's cook till perfection! It includes squid that are cooked till just nice not overcook (chewy, hard to chew), generous with the prawns, very big mussels, and lastly my favourite: Scallop! Yeah, some pasta stall (hawker) sells seafood pasta, but I never chance upon one that uses real, fresh scallop.

My sis's BF order Bolognese, I did not try that, but I heard raving reviews from him.

Lastly, we order 2 bowls of Home-Made Mushroom Soup, we was wondering if we'll be serve with canned mushroom soup (like most hawker western stall did). God, the mushroom soup is one of the best I've ever tried! Nothing like those canned ones! I can really spot and see chop-till-fine mushrooms in it! Absolutely delish! I like it very much, in fact, all of us love this and we slup it up with 10minutes? Then the chef's brother told us that this soup was sold in his previous workplace (italian restaurant) for about $15, and here, he only sell for $2.80! The chef's brother assure us that the taste of the soup with not be compromised at all.

I noticed that sliced garlics are added to the pasta. I wanted to pick out the garlic and throw on the table, but my sis asked me to try it, which I did.. The garlic taste is very subtle and not like what I imagined them to be... "smelly".

Extra toppings are available, starting from 50cents..
There are 3 choices of pasta as well, spaghetti, linguine and penne.

Maybe you would like to "preview" the menu first??

And overall, the rating for Le Pasta will be 8.5/10!

(I couldn't hide the fact that my stomach are growling now.. or rather.. whenever I think of Le Pasta's Pasta.. Hehehe)

And I'm terribly sorry that I did not provide any pictures.. Actually after I've ordered the food, I made a mental note to myself to remember the picture takings... But eventually when the food arrives right in front of me, I totally forgotten about the mental note, and attack the food like no tomorrow (cause they're too delicious.. hee). Lastly, lots of apologies for the lousy quality of pictures!

*Lesson learnt... mental notes are NOT work-able (for me)*

I promise, the next time I'm there, I'll take pictures of the foodies before attacking them.. Hehee!

My Chocolate Chiffon Cake

After finishing my going-to-due report, I decided to reward myself by drowning myself in preparing cake batter, suffocate myself with the fragrance of freshly baked cakes.. Nah, don't worry! I'm not torturing myself, in fact, I enjoy these process!

Shall share with you the pictures of this lovely chiffon cake!


I took this picture when the cake is still in the oven doing sauna.. haha

A slice of cake

Looks abit dense, but trust me, this cake is soft, fluffy and nice!

I find that this arrangement looks like a face! Can you spot the eyes and the mouth (or rather beards)?

I bake the divided the chiffon into 3 smaller pans as I don't have the big chiffon pan, so I utilised the 2 mini chiffon pan from daiso.

Sharing with all of you, this recipe:

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
  40g cocoa powder (I use 20g hershey's, 20g Valrhora)
  130ml water
  130g sugar (I reduced to 85g)
  ¼ tsp salt (I add only a pinch)
  150g cake flour
  1 tsp baking powder
  85g corn oil
  
  4 egg whites
  90g sugar1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Methods

1. Sieve all dry ingredients together.
2. Add in the egg yolks, water and sugar into the dry ingredients and stir till smooth.
3. Add in corn oil and stir till smooth.
4. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy and pour in sugar in 3 batches and beat for about 2 minutes till stiff.
5. Gently fold in egg whites into the yolk mixture and pour into a 23-cm chiffon cake pan
6. Bake at 175oC for about 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.
7. Invert chiffon cake immediately onto a wire rack and let it cool before removing it from pan.
8. Slice and serve.

I got the recipe from Here.

I didn't follow the recipe strictly, I add and minus base on my family preferences.. I add in a tsp of coffee granules (by dissolving it in the 130ml water). But I didn't notice the taste of coffee at all, I think next time I attempt this I will add in 1 tbsp, and a note to myself, I will add in some chocolate liquer into the batter on my next attempt!

By the way, I'm going to get myself a chiffon pan tml after school at phoon huat! Let's welcome more chiffon cakies!! Woo-Hoo!

I really enjoy and love chiffons to bits.. So nice and soft! And I find that stuffing myself silly with chiffon is much more guilt-free than cakes that uses butter, and my family all love chiffons!

School starts tml, and its back to the stressful, busy days.. Welcome reports and practicals!

I love my practical sessions, dealing with chemicals, viruses, bacteria and microbes.. But I totally hate reports that I'll have to pass up.. Imagin dealing with at least 4 (at least 4 pgs) reports per wk.. Gosh, don't wanna imagin that at all..

Alright, I'll have to chase away those negative thoughts and embrace myself to work harder!

First try.. MACARONS!

Attempt macarons for the first time ever! Actually baking macarons was on my list for the longest time ever, but didn't manage to pluck up the courage to try as I've heard too much of the failures.. Therefore after going to Aunty Yochana's macaron class, I stop procastinating, and get started on MACARONS!!

Went to get the basic stuff needed for macarons!

After baking macarons, then I understand how joyous and how depressing it can be.. My virgin try turns yield half good and half bad macarons. Half of the macarons cracked, espcially the chocolate macarons, crack like nobody's business whereas the pink macaron fare slightly better, less cracks and more prominent dainty feets.

The bad macarons

And the good macarons!

I stayed vigilant by the oven, spotting for feet, for cracks and for everything that could possibly happen to my babies... Therefore when I spot the ugly crackings, my heart sank, and after I spot the crackings, I started search for the good macarons among the bads, when I spot some good ones, I get so happy again!

Haha, so whenever a batch of my babies in the oven baking, my mood tends to fluctuates up and down..

I totally forgot to take a picture of the good-and-bad chocolate macarons, because by that time, I was too tired to do so.. Spend a total of 5hours in the kitchen baking them..

When it comes to baking.. I tends to work like a snail in the kitchen and to add on, the macarons need to be rest..

I prepared the macaron shells on the 25th, then I pipe the fillings on the 26th as my sis's bf requested some for his function, and some macarons was given to B's family as well. Hope they like it..

Some of the ugly macarons went into my stomach. Never judge a macaron by it's appearence! The macarons might look ugly, but definately delish! Once you start poping, U can't stop!

I sandwich chocolate macarons with peanut apricot buttercream, combination might be weird, but personally I think that the peanut and apricot goes well together!

The pink macarons was sandwich with sesame buttercream. Personally I adore the pink macarons! Ain't they beautiful? (I've a soft spot for pinky stuffs!)

11 macarons went into a beautiful box, and was given to B, and he likes it!

As from what I understand from Aunty Yochana, cracking might be due to over-resting of the macarons, which happens in my case.. I rest the macarons for 45-50 minutes? I rest the macarons and meanwhile I do other things, thus it cracks...

Next attempt I shall pay closer attention to them!

Note Note: Goodbye Bakerzin (selling each macarons for $1.50)! Welcome to homebaked macarons by yours truly!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Ho Ho Ho HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS to all! Wishing all of you a blessed christmas!

Credits goes to... My Oven!

Without this lousy, but still work-able oven, I wouldn't be able to carry out my bakings and to indulge in my baking therepy..

This oven was built into the kitchen cabinet, in fact the whole kitchen was designed and built by the contractors, so when my dad bought the house, everything was fix nicely..

So I always has this mindset that this oven is for free.. Hahaha!

Anyway, if I were to be less picky, I consider this oven serving it's primarily function well. It's idiot-proof and really user friendly, just turn on the timer and the temperature, then off you send your bakes in.. *that's what I did*

I mean I don't understand what it meant by fan-based type etc.. I just use the most simple mode.. But nevertheless, my bakes still came out good and edible without being burnt.

Enough of those lengthy wordy tortures, showing you my humble oven:

Brand: ELBA

Interior view, I think it dn't have any fan in there.. *most likely?*

The Knobs..

Actually, I prefer those type of oven where you can key in the temp digitally.. Which I believe it to be more accurate. Maybe next time when I've my own home sweet home, I shall buy one big one so I can bake alot of things at a time.. Save money, save time!

HAHA!

Making my own Buttercream

Made my own butter cream today! It's my first try actually.. learned it during the macaron class, this butter cream is rich and nice!

I got the recipe from Aunty Yochana, and I do half of the recipe.

BUTTER CREAM

Ingredients

200g sugar
30g water
140g egg whites
300g Butter
300g Magarine (I use marianne, from sunlik)

Method

1. Boil sugar and water till thick but flowy
2. Whisk egg whites till fluffy, and pour in the hot syrup
3. Continue whisking the egg whites till cooled
4. Slowly add in the butter and magarine. Beat till thick and fluffy.

As I ran out of butter, so instead of using 150g of butter, I use only about 100g and top up the rest using magarine, it does not affect the taste much, except it's a wheeny bit salty.. I guess it must be due to the salted butter I'm using..

I have to made this in advance and store it in the fridge, this is to save myself from working extra hard on the 25th Dec as I will try to make macarons on that day!

Getting Ready..... To bake.... MACARONS!

Ok, finally after so long of procastinating and thinking if I should try macarons (the "in" thing now) I finally decided that "Yes, why not learn something new?"

So.. I sign up for Aunty Yochana macaron class! I attended the class yesterday and yes, I love her class, so informative and fun! Learn alot of things and got alot of tips from her as well! She's a lovely lady!

But too bad I haven't got the pictures from a fellow student, I promise, I'll post the pictures straight away upon receiving them!

So, after the macaron class, I went to Sunlik today to get the ingredients for macarons!

I bought icing sugar, butter, magarine, almond meal, color powder and cocoa powder!

So yeah, I shall post up the pictures after trying the macarons! *Cross fingers* Hope it turns out well and pretty!

Constant wishlist....

Christmas is just round the corner, I wish for all my "wants" to come true!

B has given me my X'mas prezzie, a silpat mat, which is reallllyyy useful to me, and yeah, when I received that gift, I was literally jumping up and down, down and up.. beaming with joy!

But apart from silpat mat, there are other things which I want as well... *Equally useful to me*

So 1st up on my list:







kitchenAid!! it's every baker's dream to own one of these beauties! Apart from pleasing my eyes, its really useful! Using this KitchenAid, will make every creaming session a happy one!


Ahem** Trust me, I won't be picky at all! If someone buy me this, I won't be picky with the colours! But if its in RED or PINK will be good! My fav colours!


*Oh gosh, "they" are really so beautiful*



Down the list, its:

Woppes, the picture seems to be quite small... But this is a digital weighing scale! Moreover, its a pink one!

This will be extremely useful as well! It helps me to measure ingredients thats required in 2g? 1g?

Usually I avoid such recipes, imagin how on earth am I suppose to measure out flour that in 2g, using those normal type of weighing scale.. the minimal is 10g...

So yeah, this will be useful as well... I'm those practical type of person, I don't wish for things that I've no use for.

On a side note, if someone sells KitchenAid to me at 100++ bucks, trust me, I'll buy it! *Fat Hope* (But I doubt there's anyone that would do so..)

Oh Santa, please grant me my wishes!!

Yoghurt Coffee Cake

Hiyee! Back in action again after hibernating for a long time! That day I've a sudden craving for some coffee, but at the same time, I want to stuff myself silly with some cakes.. So I came up with Coffee + Cake... And Tadah, COFFEE YOGHURT CAKE!

Like I mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of butter or margarine, therefore I use yoghurt and kick the butter aside.. But I couldn't provide the recipe for this Yoghurt coffee cake as I did this cake base on agar-ation, and I forgot to jot down the recipe.. =P

I'm too absent-minded for my age.. (Signs for aging?)

Well, anyway, this cake is quite moist and smell very nice! When its baking, the whole kitchen was filled with coffee scent, which makes me drools more! Moreover, this cake is not to sweet, which is good..

Based on what I did, the recipe yields about 10 muffins, and I alone polished off 2, my helper ate 2 as well, my mum and sis both ate 1 each. And the last 4 mini caffeine booster was given away to my granny. My mum commented that they love this as the coffee scent is really strong and enough to give them the caffeine boost! Hahah!

Cinnamon Teacake

During one of the weekend, I went over to B's granny house to visit her. B's grandma is a jovial, caring and friendly old folk, which I like very much! Very nice to chat with and talk to!

So I bake her a Cinnamon Teacake, which I reckon this cake will be a hit among old folks. I particularly like the Cinnamon smell, very nice! My sister love this cake as well, she use to make it so often, at least twice a week (can you imagin that?) for family own consumption.

But after her short term passion towards baking wears off, I "took over" all the equipments and bakewares that she bought and this recipe as well.. And ever since then, whenever I'm visiting any folks or relatives, I usually tends to bake this recipe, because it's love by all!

CINNAMON TEACAKE

Ingredients

60g Butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g caster sugar (I use brown sugar for better flavours)

1 egg

150g self-raising flour

80ml milk

10g butter, extra, melted

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Cinnamon sugar

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp gound cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 celcius. Grease deep 20cm round cake pan; line base with baking paper.
2. Beat softened butter, extract, sugar, and eggs in a small bowl with electric mixer till very light and fluffy; this process takes about 5 - 10mins (depending on the type of mixer used).
3. Using a spatula, gently fold in sifter flour, cinnamon powder and milk. Spread mixture into prepared pan.
4. Bake cake for 30mins. Stand cake 5mins before turning the cake top side up onto wire rack. Brush top with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon powder. Serve warm with butter.
5. For cinnamon powder, just mix the caster sugar and ground cinnamon.

I top the cake with sliced almond to beautify the cake, and to add the extra crunch to the cakie.. Actually, I like mine serve with lots and lots of cinnamon sugar, makes the cake extra fragrant!

I find that the cake actually looks like Huat Kueh, because it has a big big smile. The cake is soft and moist, which goes well with a cuppa of hot coffee!

Bento #1

I prepared a bento box to fill my stomach, and I incuded all my favourite foodies in the bento box!

I like food that please my eyes! I mean I don't arrange my food like above for every meal, but at least I don't like my plate to be messy with food dumping on top of rice.. Ok, except fried rice, I love fried rice!

So anyway, I shall name the contents of the bento box one-by-one starting from the top right hand corner, in a clockwise motion:

-Blanched french beans top with half a prawn, Blanched beanspouts top with half a prawn.

-Hard boiled egg, cut into a smile-y face.

-Boiled fishballs skewered using cutie toothpick

-Lettuce tossed in salad cream, tomatoes, blackpepper as seasoning and with even more prawns.

This bento box is definitely loaded with fibers and proteins! I'm a prawn lover, cereal prawns esp! But at the same time, prawns are loaded with cholestrol too, sigh.. So I'm limiting myself to the amount of prawns I can eat. *control control*

Another of my favourite will be beanspouts a.k.a Tau Geh, cheap and good! Whenever my mum cook beanspouts, I'll definitely be the one that polish off half a plate and still yearning for more! After doing a search online, apparently beanspouts contains pure form of vitamin A, B, C and E, in additon to that, it also contains an assortment of minerals, like calcium, potassium and iron! A big packet of beanspouts only cost you 50cents? So indeed it's cheap and good!

So after polishing off the bento box, I ended up with a protruding belly.. And its an indication that my stomach is overloaded with food..

*Self note to myself, next time pack a smaller serving of bento box!*

Egg-y Tart-y

Burp Burpsss...

Woppes, sorry.. just gobble up 2 egg tarts before posting.. hehe.. Yeah, right, made egg tarts today (actually yesterday too).. So I shall post up yesterday pictures..

I was comtemplating between 2 egg tart recipes, because I like the tart recipe of the 1st and the egg custard of the 2nd, so in the end, I combine both recipe and came up with:




















I use the tart recipe from:

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2008/01/egg-tarts.html

And the custard recipe from:

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2006/09/egg-tarts.html

Both of which originated from Aunty Yochana website, I did some changes here and there to suit my family's tastebuds. I prefer the tart recipe because it uses less amount of butter.. My family and I are not "good friend" with Miss/Mr Butter.. But sad to say that, in baking using butter is inevitable. You want a rich taste, use butter, if not you will have to compromise with the taste..

Thus, in summary, the below is the recipe I used to make these egg tarts.

EGG TARTS

Pastry Crust

100g Butter
40 icing sugar
1 egg
20g milk powder
220g plain flour (I use 200g top flour)
20g custard powder
1/2 tsp vanilla essence


Egg custard

280g fresh milk
160g sugar (I use only 85g of icing sugar)
3 eggs
1tsp rum (I omit this)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

(Tart)

1. Beat butter and icing sugar till well mix. Add in egg and vanilla essence and mix till combined.


2. Add in the sifted flour, milk powder and custard and mix till a pliable dough. Rest dough for 10minutes and press the dough into tart mould.


3. Bake the tart shell for 10 minutes at 175 celcius.
   

(Egg custard)

1. Heat milk and sugar together till sugar dissolves.
   
2. Cool down the milk and whisk in the egg mixture. Do not whisk till frothy.
   
3. Add in the vanilla essence
   
4. Sift the egg custard and pour into the tart mould and bake at 175 celcius till set (no longer wobbles)

I took about 10 - 15minutes to cook the egg tart till set, but this baking time may vary with different type of oven.

The egg tarts are very well-received! I gave some to my granny and my aunty commented that this egg tart is even better than the neighbourhood bakery stall she use to buy from! To me, this is very encouraging and will push me on to bake more stuffs! So happy..!

The egg custard is very smooth and silky.. Not too sweet as well.. very nice!!

And the tart case is crispy and very fragrant!

I packed 4 egg tarts and give away to my driving instructor as I have a driving lesson with him on that day.. Hope he enjoy it as much as I do!

Another happy stuff is that I finally got my silpat mat! This item is on my wish list for a long time, so today I finally got it! Though it is more on the expensive side, but I believe its worth it.. because I want to venture out in making macarons! One of my constant cravings.. Nutty taste, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.. Yumms.. Making me hungry!

A Blackforest cake for a B'day boy

September 11, a day that some people will never forget.. (due to the attack of the twin towers)

However, this year september, 11 is a special day for someone special..

Its B's birthday.. so I created a cake for him.. He really like chocolates very much, and almost immediately BLACKFOREST CAKE flash across my mind, so without any procastination, I lift my butt off the comfy chair and search online for Blackforest cakie..

I got this recipe from "Do what I like" @ Kitchen Capers Forum.

http://wlteef.blogspot.com/2005/04/black-forest-cake.html

When I saw the picture of the cake florence created, I was so amazed! absolutely stunning! Just like what we will get from those secret recipes, breadtalk etc.. So yeah, a picture determines the birthday boy's cake.. Keke

Presenting to you, this lovely recipe:

BLACKFOREST CAKE

Ingredients

(A)

4 egg yolks

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp rum or kirsch (I use my Sis's chocolate liquer)

40g castor sugar (I use icing sugar)

(B)

5g cocoa powder

85ml warm corn oil

(C)

135ml warm water

(D)
125g cake flour
1/2 baking soda
1/2 baking powder

(E)

4 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

50g castor sugar

(Fillings)

15 fresh cherries pitted and halved (dried with paper towel)

25 canned pitted sour cherries halved drain well

500ml whipping cream whipped with 2 tbsp icing sugar

100g shaved Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate

10 - 12 Fresh whole cherries with stems for decoration/maraschino cherries with stems

Methods

1. Mix ingredients (A) well with a hand whisk.

2. Stir cocoa powder in warmed oil until dissolved and pour into yolk mixture.

3. Stir (C) into yolk mixture.

4. Sieve ingredient (D) and stir it into yolk mixture.

5. Whip egg whites in a clean mixing bowl until big bubbles are formed. Add in the cream of tartar and whip until white in colour. Add in sugar over 3 times and whip until egg whites is stiff. 6. Pour 1/2 white into yolk mixture and blend well.

7. Pour yolk mixture into the remaining egg white mixture and blend well

8. Pour batter into clean baking pan and bake at 175C for 45 minutes or until cooked.

9. Invert cake and leave to cool. Then cut cooled cake into 2 or 3 layers.

10. Whip the cream with icing sugar until stiff.

11. Add pitted fresh and sour cherries into half portion of the whipped cream.

12. Sandwich the cake with (11).

13. Frost the cake with the remaining half portion of whipped cream and decorate as appropriate with chocolate shavings and fresh whole cherries

I prepared the base cake around afternoon before the night I do up the decorations, this allow the crumbs to settle, and when you slice the cake into 3 individual parts, the crumbs will not fall off.. And a prettier cut as well la..

So after all these hardwork, I came up with this cake:

I did not decorate the cake with marashchino cherries because I couldn't find them at the AMK Phoon Huat, and not wanting to run around the whole "little red dot" (Singapore) for the cherries, I settle for strawberries and Rochers.. The rochers was quite a hit, guess they like the rochers.. Strawberrie wise, quite sour..

Non-dairy whipped cream was used to deco the cake as well, I prefer non-dairy over dairy whipping cream. Because I tends to overwhip the dairy whipping cream and "transform" them into butter.. *Sobs*

Just simply no luck with dairy whipping cream.. So whenever any recipe calls for dairy cream, I'll substitute it with non-dairy ones, the taste will not be compromised (according to my tastebuds) =p

Oh ya, I also used the heart candies to decorate the cake... add on a sweet and feminine touch.. Keke. The side of the cake uses chocolate shavings.. Done by yours truly.. Well, I really dislike making my own chocolate shavings, cos they tends to melt quite fast in hot weather, and resulting in a gooey mess..

Anyone has any idea to make my "Chocolate shaving journey" a less tedious one?? Please tell me! TIA!

Taste wise, I think it might be due to the chocolate liquer that I used, the chocolate scent is strongly enhanced, and the cake is spongy soft! Another point to add, the cake is not too sweet, which makes it even more appealing to me.

*I love desserts, but I don't have a sweet-tooth. Weird uh?

Well anyway, the cake was quite well received by all those who tasted it, and of course, the Birthday boy loves the cake as well! So overall, its worth the hardwork! As I greatly appreciate it when people enjoys my bakes!

Hmm.. Stay tuned, I'll be back with more stuffs!

My "good pal"

Alright, this is not related to bakes and foodies.. But to introduce myself a wheeny bit, I'm a avid dog lover (Trust me, any kinds of dogs!). Well, so I myself got a dog as well, a Jack Russell to be precise, 7 year old this year.

Base on what Chinese thinks is that 1 year of dog is equivalent to 9 human years, so can you imagine, how old my dog is this year? Doing your mathematics correctly, he is 63 this year (Even older than my papa!).

Now, without further adieu, let me proudly introduce my best pal, RUSKIE!

Alright, this is a major identity crisis... Ruskie is a guy...

Suntanning out there..

Where's my newspaper??

Ruskie loves durians, just like all Singaporeans, although ruskie is an Austrian!

Tada! Show you my butt... Woof Woofs!

Ruskie can be quite picky about food, in terms of expensive or cheap food... He loves strawberry, fish, pork, broccoli, apple.. many more... But he totally hates bread, unless it is tuna bread (with real fishy smell) and cannot consume any chicken.. else he will be a Mer-doggy (merlion) the next day! Lastly, he don't like cornflakes as well..

To make this slightly related to cooking and baking, ruskie loves to eat my bakes! Esp those buttery cakes, pandan chiffon cakes, Orange cake! Hmm.. on a side note, this means that my bakes are good! Remember I mention ruskie is a picky eater?

Okie, that's all for today's update.. need to tuck in soon..! And I'll make sure the next post will be non-dog related!

Peanut Butter Cookies

This peanut butter cookie is a melt in the mouth cookie! It is a fragrant and most importantly, a simple recipe to start with!

When I was baking this, my neighbour actually smelt the peanut scent.. She told me afterwards when I treated her the cookies..

Go ahead and try it, its yummilicious!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

225g peanut butter (Smooth or chunky)

150g plain flour

1 cup brown sugar ( I use caster sugar)

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Methods

1. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius.

2. In a large bowl, mix sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla essence till well combined.

3. Gradually add in flour and mix till combined.

4. Use hands to roll out a tablespoon of dough into a ball, place on baking trap and flatten it slightly using the back of the fork.

5. Bake for 8minutes and cool for 5minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Tada, easy recipe right? Easy and good, definitely gonna stay with me for life!

First Blog Post

Hello all, this is my first blog post! I'm very excited as I'm embarking on a journey to bake more stuffs and to try more new recipes!!

I love to bake very much, it is an interest developed when I was in secondary 4!

I can still clearly remember how my cake turns out to be kueh (being over ambitious, I tried to make Banaba orange muffin), how chocolate cake turns out to have plastic smell, and how cookies becomes stones (extremely bitter at the same time).

But luckily, I still manage to make some decent chocolate chip cookies using betty cocker's premix.. =p (W/O screwing it up)

Nevertheless, I try here and there and manage to at least bake some edible foodies...

So being a novice, I'm still learning and hope all the shi-fu(s) out there in the cyberworld can guide me along... Much much much appreciated!