KookyCulinary

It was truly a food fest over the Thanksgiving holidays. I think I gain a few pounds just over those few days! Help!! How do I lose weight fast???
Anyway, for Thanksgiving day, we went to a potluck. I made Yong Tau Foo but was in such a hurry that I forgot to take photos. It’s the same as the one that I made before here.

The next day, we did a Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce & bread.

Day 3 was another potluck. DH made Hokkien Mee. Since it was a last minute decision to cook this, we didn’t have the fat noodle, so we had to use another noodle that I had in my freezer. That’s why it doesn’t look the original but it definitely did taste like it.  

Thanks to everyone for all your nice comments about my cake. *blush* I will do a detail post on the cake and the recipes soon. Right now, I am still trying to recover from Thanksgiving hols. Too much food & shopping!! So for now, just a bento that I did sometime ago.

Char Siu Bao (No, I didn’t make this. It’s leftover from our dimsum lunch.), carrot & dip, apples on a stick and laffy taffy for a treat. If you are wondering why carrots again, it’s because it’s my girl’s favorite veg. She loves to munch on it.

The party’s over and my little one is now 3 years old. She is growing up too fast! *sniff sniff* Anyway, back to the party, I know you all are waiting to see the cake, right? hehe…

TADA……. What do you think?

Front View:

Back View:

I almost forgot to take a photo of the inside of the cake till it was half gone. The cake is vanilla chiffon cake with white chocolate strawberry mousse. I used mousse which is a little sour from the strawberries instead of buttercream inside because buttercream would have made the cake too sweet.

Like my roses? :) I made this out of sugar paste. I was trying to figure out where to put the candles. So I made these roses to hold the candles.

Everything on the cake is edible except the bow on the doll’s head and the doll body, of course. I tried to make a tiara but my fat fingers would not allow me to make something so small!! But luckily I found Lil’ C’s ponytail holder to be a perfect fit. The doll’s dress top, roses, flowers, and the letters were all made of  sugar paste. Surprisingly the kids loved the alphabets. They were fighting over which alphabets they wanted to eat!!!

Overall, I was very happy the way the cake turned out and most importantly, Lil’ C loved it.

Wow, I guess the cake was too easy to guess huh? Yep, I will be trying to make a princess cake. My little girl is into her “I’m a princess” stage now, so I decided to indulge her and make a princess cake. Hopefully it will turn out nice.

Many people have asked whether I have taken a baking/decorating class before and the answer is no! I am hoping someday I will but so far I have never taken any classes. Everything I’ve done is all self-learned. My daughter’s cakes are my experiment grounds. So far, I have decorated less than 5 cakes. In fact, The Pooh cake was my 1st ever attempt at cake decorating (well, not counting the practice piece I did 2 days before doing the Pooh cake).  Then for Elmo cake, it was my 1st attempt at fondant.  I will blog more about this later.

For this princess cake, I am trying out sugar paste craft. This is the result of my attempt! What do you think?

I use cookie cutters to cut the flower and just roll a little ball on top of it to make the center.  It was a fun first try. The hardest part was the trying to get the sugar into a pliable dough. The kneading really took a lot of strength! But once it’s a dough, it’s just like playdoh. It can be made into any shapes imaginable!! Will try to see if I can make something else other than a flower. FYI, I almost failed art class in high school!!! hahaha……

I love to bake. If only I don’t have to worry about gaining weight, I will probably bake a lot more. I have baked a lot of things including cakes, cookies, pies and many more. Usually I like to try new recipes but there are some recipes that I call my standby recipes. Those are the favorite recipes that I use all the time. One of them is the oatmeal raisin cookie.

This oatmeal raisin cookie is very easy to make. It requires 1 cup flour, ¾ cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ teaspoon baking soda, 1 ½ cup oats, and ½ cup raisins. Sometimes I will add chocolate chip or nuts in it too. Just mix everything together using a mixer, and then using an ice-cream scoop, drop 1 spoonful at a time on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for about 8 – 10 min and it’s ready.

This is my little girl’s favorite cookie. Usually I try to make them often for her because it is one way for her to eat more oats too. Unfortunately, my little hand mixer does not handle this cookie very well because the oatmeal mixture can get a little too heavy for my fragile little mixer. I really wish that I have 400 watts Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer. It is so tough that it can mix up to 9 dozen cookies. This Eclectrics® Mixer has up to 12 settings to ensure more mixing flexibility and precise control. With its huge stainless steel locking bowl, I will be baking up a storm in my kitchen. I am definitely going to add the Hamilton Beach® Mixer to my Christmas list.

Sorry for the lack of update lately. The last few weeks has been a little crazy and so will the next few weeks. I haven’t been cooking much lately. We have been eating out so much that I think I should start doing restaurant food review!! Even if we eat at home, it’s usually sandwiches or one dish meals. I still have some old photos that I need to post but haven’t been able to find the time to edit them. Soon, I hope!!

Anyway, one of the thing that has been keeping me busy is that my little one will be turning 3 this weekend! So I have been doing a little experiment in the kitchen, testing out her birthday cake.

For her 1st birthday, I made a Pooh cake

For her 2nd birthday, I made an Elmo cake

Guess what she’s having this year? This is a sneak preview.

This is not the actual cake. I’m still experimenting with the cake. Not too happy with the way this cake turned out. Maybe it’s because I’m not used to using the mold. Will have to try out another recipe tomorrow. So any guesses as to what cake this will be???? :P 

Bento #6:  Turkey & Cheese Croissant (Croissant is from Costco. I’ve never gotten around to making my own croissant. It’s a lot of work. Maybe someday I will when I find the time!!), grape tomato stick, and homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie 

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One can never have too much nasi lemak, right? I think this is one dish that I can never grow tired of because you can always play around with the sides. You could have it with chicken, rendang, fish or just plain rice with sambal. What is your favorite Nasi Lemak combination?

If you are interested, the recipe for the Nasi Lemak sambal can be found here.

When I was in college, I used to love going to Red Lobster. FYI, Red Lobster is a US chain of seafood restaurants. However, my reason for going there is not for the seafood but it’s for their cheese garlic biscuits. They were so good!! After college, I did not go to Red Lobster much since their food is so-so but I really miss the biscuits. Finally I found this copycat recipe that’s pretty good. The end result is pretty close to Red Lobster’s.

For those that have been to Red Lobster, I know that you are saying that it looks nothing like the biscuit there. Actually it’s because I decided to use a small ice-cream scoop to form the cookie, that’s why they look like little balls instead of the normal big chunky biscuit. :)Recipe can be found here