Carefree Cupcakes

Hello there! Thank you for visiting my blog, if you've been following this little blog of mine, you'd probably notice that there are more posts on cupcakes of late. It's not that I've not been cooking dinner at home but a few cupcakes orders have taken up most of my evenings. And lately, the requests for the designs have been more and more challenging. From dragons to Ben 10 to Totally Spies. Oh my! I am very excited yet the little voice inside of me seem to snigger, "Dragons?! Better not let it turn out to be a flying worm or something!" But those orders are for a much later date, sometime in April. So I'll have time to do my research.

Just a fortnight ago I did a simple and no-frills cupcakes for a couple of hometown friends. One's for Albert & Jacq's lunch party and the other a belated full moon treat for Fabian & Felicia's colleagues. There were no particular theme requested, all Jacq asked was for some flowery designs. So I cut out a few types of flowers & butterflies in soft pastel colours, in an attempt to create a garden like feel. As for Felicia's I decided to go with a soft swirl sprinkled with orange sugar crystals, which would compliment the yellowish tinge of the zesty buttercream (her cake of choice was orange poppyseed).

5 simple designs for Albert & Jacq

i used 2 different tips for the swirl, the one in the middle is Wilton's no. 2D which creates a soft fold swirl and another huge numberless one (kinda like Wilton's 1M), which I got from a local baking store that produces a sharper sundae like swirl

a combo of vanilla & orange poppyseed cakes

Orange poppyseed cake with zesty buttercream for Felicia & Fabian

And since I had extra batter, I decided to bake it in smaller souffle cups.

And since I had extra buttercream, I tried my hands on the rose swirl too.

After a few tries, I almost got it! Yippee!

And those were the last simple and carefree orders I made before the most challenging one came up. I mean, it was really a good experience but the drama that unfolds with it! I shall let you in on that one in my next post. Until then, take care and again, thank you for visiting my blog :)

Udang Asam Belimbing

Well! It's been a while since I shared a recipe with you. So here's one of my old time favourite. A very simple Peranakan dish that requires minimal ingredients but produces a whole lot of flavour. You'll find this dish a winner if you dig the 3 S's; sweet, sour and spicy :)

Ingredients:

• 200g fresh prawns, off with the head! or leave the tail on if you fancy
• 1 tbsp tauchiu (preserved soy bean paste)
• 2-3 fresh green chillies, halved lengthwise (try to retain most of the seeds for that extra zing)
  
• 3-4 belimbing asam/buluh, quartered lengthwise (for best description of this starfruit like plant, please check out this fantastic link)
  
• sugar to taste
• 1/4 cup water
  
• 1-2 tbsp oil for frying
  

Method

1. Heat oil in a wok.
   
2. Add in tauchiu paste, green chillies and belimbing asam, stir fry till fragrant. Careful, the pungent smell of the fried chillies might just make you sneeze :)
   
3. When tauchiu paste starts to 'clump' (that's when the vegetables start to wilt too), add in prawns and give it a good stir, followed by some water and sugar.
   
4. How sweet you want the dish to be depends on you. For me, I like a good balance of sweet and sour. So I normally add in about 1 tablespoon. But then again, it depends on how sour the belimbings are. So do the taste test before adding more sugar.
5. Fry for another few minutes and you're done!
6. Serve hot with white rice.
   

Fresh green chillies are normally not overly spicy but they add that nice pungent flavour,
a few bird's eye chilly would definitely turn the heat up

We had this dish with herbal corn soup and stir fried spinach, wholesome goodness I tell ya. Do try it soon!

Project V-Day 2009

Happy Valentine's! So how did it go? Got cramped up in over-crowded restaurants, paid big bucks for flowers or got all hyped up for the much anticipared Rihanna concert but finally told that it's been cancelled? Yea, I know. It's disappointing....but hey, I heard that the organisers are trying to get it re-scheduled so look on the bright side. And oh, btw...I did none of the above :)

I've been diligently stuck at home, working on some orders for Valentine's cupcakes (as mentioned in my previous post). Went over board with all things lovey dovey, my teeth ache by just looking at them.

Toppers were made with fondant and gumpaste while the cake came in a choice of 2 flavours; vanilla with vanilla buttercream or orange poppyseed with zesty buttercream. All and all, it took about a week to put everything together; from designing to shopping for materials, to moulding, baking and decorating. Of course, the baking and decorating bit was completed on the eve of Valentine's. Wanna make sure that the cakes are as fresh as possible.

Let's take a look at some pictures shall we;

this is Wilfred, he's the centre piece

he's also the delivery teddy, see the box of candy and bouquet of roses in his chubby arms?

and here's Wilfred again, taking his rightful place

the cuppies comes in a box of 6,

2,

or 9,

this set comes with an embroidered gift tag, a lovely little cupid lollipop holder

my sis made it, you can check out more of her creations at

http://www.thread-n-needles.blogspot.com/

The first 2 boxes went out on the eve of Valentine's eve (that makes sense?..lol) and the rest were delivered the following day. A big thank you to all, especially to those who placed their orders. I really hope you guys like them and that it'll add a little sparkle to your special day.

And oh if you're wondering what I did for Valentine's, nothing out of the ordinary really :) Although JL's around, we did not go out to celebrate. Hmm let's see; breakfast was supposed to be pan mee at SS19 but the queue was too long so we had mixed rice instead, delivered a box of cuppies to Sweet after that, then we headed to a workshop (my car decided that she too wants a Valentine gift, so I got her a new battery), went home and found out that the toilet is stuck, got that sorted, went out again to the supermarket to stock up on baking supplies, got home and cooked a simple dinner of teochew porridge and then called it a night. Ordinary, but pretty eventful nevertheless :)

V Day project - WIP

Hello folks! Yes.....I'm still alive and kicking :) Although, I still feel unwell at times, must be from my recent bout of food poisoning during Chinese New Year. Damn those peanuts, shandy and sunflower seeds...

Anyways, here are some pictures of my Valentine's Day project. *drum roll* Presenting V-Day ......blueprint!


I can just imagine you guys saying 'What?!!" Lol...Sorry people, I got to wait till after V day to put up the finished cuppies. Let's not spoil the surprise for the recipients, shall we? :)

I am making boxes of 6s and 9s, with different designs in each box. Took me a while to put the final designs together. And yes, even with sketches to follow, I made some changes along the way. I stuck to 3 colours, pink, red and white. And a fat, cuddly teddy bear will make its way as the centre piece. I can't wait to put them all together! 

Chinese New Year 2009

Kong Hey Fatt Choy! Time flies, it's already the 6th day of Chinese New Year (not to mention the last day of the first month of the year!), I hope you had a fantastic one! This year, my family & I gathered at my sister's place up north; 8 grown ups and 1 super energetic toddler all cramped up in her cozy little apartment. And truth to be told, this is by far the best Chinese New Year that I have ever had. All we did was eat, snack on peanuts and sunflower seeds, drank Kickapoo and shandy, played poker and took turns entertaining the little princess. My goodness, she sure has LOTS of energy than all of us combined....on second thoughts, I think we are the ones who are getting old. I used to be the baby of the family and I'm hitting 30....go figure how old the rest are....lol!

It's been a very refreshing CNY this time around; no temple hopping (back home, my parents & I would go to about half a dozen temples in and around the city on the 1st day of CNY), no visitors (we've got no guests to entertain here at my sister's place) and no home made traditional cookies (pineapple tarts are my mom's specialty). 

However there are traditions can't be missed. We had an energetic, tummy stretching reunion dinner (steamboat this year) and mellowed down to a more relaxed session in front of the telly while waiting for the clock to strike midnight. And oh boy, when the clock struck twelve, the firecrackers madness began! My fellow Chinese here sure are festive! On and on distant bangs were heard followed by occasional mini explosions that made us jump in our seats. We also managed to catch a short display of fireworks beyond the many high rise buildings. No pictures taken though; too engrossed to grab our cameras.

I also managed to whip up some cupcakes upon request by my sister. She started buying cakes for CNY two years back, check out the pics.

the one on the left is from year 2007 and the right 2008

Truth to be told, I just can't stand having non-edible stuff on cakes. 

Look at the plastic cherry blossoms! tsk tsk....*shakes head disapprovingly*

It's my mission this year to keep up with this new tradition of hers. I couldn't bring along too many of my decorating tools with me as I'll be taking the bus back to KL. So I managed to come up with 6 very simple designs; a goldfish, a moo cow, firecrackers, mandarin oranges, pomelos and cherry blossoms. (I still think they're not festive enough....perhaps better designs next year)

the auspicious 6

green juice pomelos

happy (punk?) goldfish

succulent mandarin oranges

fiery firecrackers

This Chinese New Year was certainly different but in no way less enjoyable. After all, it's the company that counts :)