Hello Kitty

Somehow my October weekends have been filled with activites, including a short trip to Hong Kong. It was a good holiday, though I was a tad disappointed with the baking tools they have to offer. I visited at least 3 baking supply shops but I came out empty handed. Nothing I can't find here at a much cheaper price ;p And the shops were not easy to locate!

Finally a long weekend came (Deepavali) and I specifically put in my diary that I MUST use the cute Hello Kitty cutters I bought from Japan 4 months back.

And I have not baked this carrot cake (hubby's favourite) for years - time to practise :)

Beautiful orange batter ready for the oven.

Watching the cakes rise in the oven is therapeutic, and of course the cinammon aroma was uplifting :)

Nice golden brown carrot cupcakes ready to be decorated.

Making fondant was the most difficult task in the process. I was sweating buckets and the fondant just refused to leave my fingers alone no matter how hard I kneaded! ;p



Other than that, everything was a breeze... but due to the humid weather, I had no choice but to wake up at 6am to decorate the cakes so that I can bring them fresh to the office for my colleagues (yoga students) :)

Hello Kitty in a box :)

Lessons learnt:

1) The cupcakes for this recipe must not be put in the lower rack as they tend to dry up at the bottom quickly.
2) The base fondant for the Kitty should be thicker and wider to cover the cupcakes completely.

Not entirely satisfied with the results, I tried another carrot cake recipe the following weekend and I think it was fabulous! Did not decorate it though, purely for R&D purposes ;)

Chocolate Hazelnut Mooncakes

It's mid-Autumn festival tomorrow.

Somehow after tasting homemade mooncakes, I can no longer look at commercial mooncakes in the same light again.

They are always very sweet and oily, perhaps that helps them to preserve longer.

And they cost a bomb. For no good reason, except for the beautiful and colorful packaging.

So this year, despite the tight schedules (with a new niece and all), decided to get mom over to teach me some skills in making mooncakes.

It's actually pretty simple if you buy the lotus paste filling. Next year, when I have more time, I'd like to learn to make the lotus paste.

So this is how a mooncake is produced:

First, knead the dough for the skin till it's soft and pliable.

Next, make a ball with the 3oz filling, and wrap the dough around it evenly.

Dust some cocoa powder over the ball, fit it tightly into the mould.

Tadaa! It's ready for baking.

Final results after some egg wash and 30 minutes in the oven.

Verdict: Somehow I have very high expectations for my own products. I actually think we can do better than this! The skin felt a little biscuit-like instead of having the melt-in-your-mouth texture. Maybe that's how it's meant to be? I don't know. Seriously can't remember how it's supposed to taste/feel like since we only eat this once a year ;p

Will do better next year.

MJ Cake

MJ is my nephew's idol this year - he has different idols every birthday, from Pokemon to Spiderman to Barney to Naruto to Ben 10... but this year somehow he was very impressed by MJ's songs and dance, especially Smooth Criminal, AFTER MJ's death ;p

We decided to get the yummy chocolate indulgence cake from Secret Recipes, however as you know, they don't offer fancy designs.

But we know how important it is for kids to have a nicely designed birthday cake - regardless of the taste! To make him happy, I decided to try my skills in "drawing" MJ on his cake for him with piping jelly.

He was happy :)

Weekend Project

Right after the first batch of visitors (MIL, UIL, AIL) left my new house earlier this month, I spent the entire day working on 2 cakes that I had always wanted to try.

Strawberry shortcake with gooseberry (physallis) garnishing

The cake recipe was light & fluffy but I would try a rich dairy cream in my next attempt. I really miss the strawberry shortcake sold at Opera cake house in Hartamas – it was PERFECT, but they have since disappeared :( I need to find a richer cream to enhance the flavour of the cake and strawberries.

Yoghurt Cheese Layer Cake

This is a really time consuming project, although the end results look beautiful. However, as I could not find the right tool in KL and had to make do with my freehand cutting, the triangles were not symmetrical and hence didn’t stick too well :( Well I was really daring to pick the most difficult design as my first attempt haha… And yeah I would definitely try again and make sure this time it sticks! But honestly, layer cakes are so darn unhealthy – the amount of butter and egg yolks that go into it would terrify you!

Alternative Therapy

Decided to try a cheaper alternative on my leg injury. Went to see a sports injury masseur and I seriously think that guy is sadistic…

He just kept rubbing real hard on the parts/veins that hurt most, and told me that he could feel blockages and that was the way to unblock them.

Trust me no words can describe the pain… perhaps it’s like labour pain? (Not that I have experienced it before haha…)

That was the longest 10 minutes in my entire life and I swear, if he had given me a stick to bite I would have crushed it into pieces. But I was a tough girl. I didn’t not scream a bit, though I tried very hard to restrain myself from giving him a kick in his face when the pain was unbearable!

The results: Big patch of bruise on the back of my knee. It’s been 5 days now and it’s still pretty unsightly.

(Gosh... looks like elephant leg! Must be the angle ;p)

But I do feel better now. If it improves I think I’ll go back again… I mean for less than half the price of what the chiropractor charges, the pain is worthy ;p

First Class

One word – satisfaction…

After the long hiatus, I still have not lost “it”. I’m truly happy :) and they seemed to enjoy the class too, though they suffered some body aches the next 2 days! Hehe… I am a sadistic teacher!

Thanks to their prana, I felt so refreshed and confident again. Hope the leg recovers fully so that I can go back to my advanced practice, can’t let my skills stagnate if I want to be a good teacher.

Namaste.

Teaching again!

I have been offered an opportunity to teach again! I’m actually very excited about it, although I had a 11-month hiatus. Gosh hope I have not lost the “touch”. The good thing is they are beginners so they would probably not know if I fumble. And the best part is, I didn’t need to promote myself, but they found me on Facebook hehe… The down side is, they are my colleagues. To be honest I don’t really want my employer and colleagues to know too much about my personal life. Oh well… we can’t have everything in life.

Thank goodness my leg is getting better and I feel comfortable with the basic poses. Just hope two evenings in a week is not too tiring for my old bones!