Beatty’s Chocolate Cake by Ina Garten

We love chocolates. Chocolate cake, biscuits, snacks, candies, you name it. As long as it has chocolate on it, specially if its dark chocolates, we devour them to bits. We prefer it over fancy flavours, just simple and classic chocolate.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 

Hope you all enjoy this holiday with family and friends!

Bibingkang Pasko / Christmas Rice Cake

I remember when we were young; my family would go Christmas shopping at Cubao COD mall. It was a nice place to visit during the holiday season because of their yearly Christmas play that uses animatronics. It showcases different themes and Christmas stories every year. They started to stage the Christmas shows in COD Avenida, Manila on December of 1957. But when they closed the Avenida branch, they transferred the show to COD Cubao, Quezon City.

Nama Chocolate aka Royce' Chocolate

Christmas season is a joyous event back home. There are reunions, Christmas parties, gift giving and abundance of really good food. But the prelude to parties and reunions are also one of the moments in my life that are truly exhausting. 

Where to buy affordable Christmas decors in SG

It's that time of the year again that I feel so overwhelmed over stuff I would like to have to make our home more festive (that is if budget permits). And since Singapore is not that into the Christmas holiday mood that much, buying holiday decors is a tough one. Good thing there are a few stores that capitalizes on Christmas decors at affordable prices. Here is a list of the ones I visited.

An Accidental Banana Chiffon Cupcake

Singapore is a very warm and humid place that when I buy bananas they would often go ripe after a day or two left on the table. In order to waste not, want not, I freeze the over ripe ones until the day I need them.

New gadget Thermapen and an Update

Finally my new baking toy has arrived, my new Splash Proof Super Fast Thermapen! You see, since the oven gasket got busted, I have been looking for the best cooking thermometer. Then I found this article from thekitchn. The thermapen was the perfect thermometer for me since I am an impatient baker. Having a super fast accurate (at 3 sec woohoo!) gadget would definitely help me have consistent results when it comes to baking.

Late Post: A DIY Jake and the Never Land Pirates

picture taken from http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Jake_(Pirate)

My Toddler is so into Jake and the Never Land Pirates from Disney Junior. He totally forgot about Thomas the Tank engine (which was his favorite for almost 2 years!). Every time he sees the Jake and the Never Land Pirate show is about to start or coming up next on Disney Junior channel he would freak out. Every. Single. Time. And so, I had to record all episodes that he liked so that I have it anytime he asks for it (which is almost ALL the time).

To indulge him on his birthday last September, I made him a Jake costume. We have tons of clothes for donation and I just used a couple of them and sew them together. I cut and pinned the pieces for about an hour, sew the entire shirt for almost 3 hours (I'm just a newbie on this so pardon the roughness the seams and cuts).

Since I didn't have enough time (I made the shirt 4 days before his big day), I was only able to sew the shirt and just use his own blue shorts. But ain't it grand? My boy was so excited when I finished it that he wore his Jake shirt for 3 consecutive days and on the day of his birthday (yeah I had to wash and dry it every night!). And he even wanted us to call him Jake every time he wore it. Adorable! 

Well as they say better late than never. So Happy birthday to our little ray of sunshine! Hugs and kisses from Mom and Dad! We love you!

Whole Wheat Loaf bread

Have you ever had a memory of waking up in the morning and the first thing you smell was freshly baked bread? Or the aroma of cookies right out of the oven upon coming home from school? Well I didn't. Instead at home we have delectable mouth watering aroma coming from the kitchen that my Mom cooked. The thing is, no one in the family bakes. Cooking blockbuster home recipes, yes we have lots of them plus a whole lot of good cooks in our clan. From my Mom to my Grandma to my Aunts and cousins. But baking, not one. Our baked goods were from the neighborhood bakeries, or from tin cans bought from the grocery, or from distant relatives who can bake.

Vanilla Cupcake with Blueberry Buttercream Frosting

I have been dying to try out a simple cupcake or cake recipe. It's been my dream to make a perfect vanilla / white cupcake or cake. I believe that if I have a perfect simple vanilla recipe then every other cake or cupcake that I would bake in the future would be a snap (just indulge me on this hehehe).

Walnut Butterscotch Chocolate cookies

There is only one thing in life that you can control and that is oneself. The rest, I believe is either you nudge it to you by pushing or away by pulling. You either accept or ignore otherwise anything in between is just a waste of energy.

Mini Tuna Turnover

I have been in love with puff pastries since French Baker introduced affordable artisan breads and pastries back home eons ago. And now that I am trying to practice and learn more about baking I thought of making puff pastry as a rite of passage from being a novice baker to being a faux expert.

Rustic Mushroom Paté

Back home, September 1 means it is officially sane to insanely countdown the days before Christmas day. Yup! 115 days before December 25, you can hear some radio stations play every now and then Christmas jingles, shops starts to sell Christmas decors and people starts to list down their gift ideas and some even as early as now shop for their gifts. Talk about being in a festive mood!

6 times and out of luck

The Pandesal recipe I used before was a perfect one for my family that I have done another variation of it. I tried baking it with no breadcrumbs and less time in the oven by a couple of minutes and it yielded soft buttery dinner rolls. And we so loved it that it is bookmarked already for future buns and rolls.

Danish Shortbread or Butter Cookies Take 2

After this, I told myself I'd settle for the tin canned biscuits for the time being. But I never did get to buy one because I found this recipe which got a lot of thumbs ups and I was itching to try it.

So last Friday, Toddler woke up earlier than usual and since I was done with my to-do list for the day, we made Danish shortbread or butter cookies. And since Husband was at work this was another one of those Mom and Kid thing moment.

A challenging weekend part 2

A challenging weekend part 1

This weekend my Husband and I challenged ourselves by baking and cooking 2 recipes at the same time. These are pandesal and a steamed pork bun (siopao) which we have been craving for weeks. We've decided to take these up as both recipes involve the same base ingredients and procedures [mixing-kneading-rising-cutting] in the preparation of the dough.

We were banking on my new KitchenAid (KA) for this experiment and also wanted to test a few items like:
(1) the Mayer representative said that the stand mixer model I have can knead dough at max speed of 4.
(2) bread making efficiency as we'll have the KA to do the heavy lifting (kneading) for us.

Jumbo chocolate chip cookies to celebrate Sunday family time

The heartbreaking baking episode of Thursday & Friday was totally forgotten last Sunday. You see, my ever supportive Husband bought me a new toy. I am now a proud owner of a Kitchenaid 5KPM50! Even the Toddler who loves to help me when I bake was grinning when we went to Mayer in Plaza Singapura to buy my KA. When he saw the colorful mixers on display he said "Yehey mixer!" I just love my ever supportive family. :)

We were not meant to be friends

I've never been a fan of fondants. It's like eating a spoonful of sugar in one bite.  I held off trying to make fondants because of that.I just don't really get it. I love sweets but I told myself I draw the line on making cakes with fondants. And to top it off making one is  like a big task I wasn't sure I can handle. There's the humidity and heat factor plus the skill in handling one is so daunting!

A homey sweet dessert called Bibingka

Its been raining almost every other day in Singapore so I decided to prepare Champorado last Thursday to ease homesickness. This project had me end up with 2.5 kilos of glutinous rice overstock as there were no smaller packs available at the grocery. I hate it when ingredients go to waste so I decided to make use of the leftovers and prepare "Bibingka/Biko" last Sunday. I think this as perfect homey food during my rainy week.

A cake to sweeten up the Toddler's day

photo courtesy of the Husband

Last week was a stressful one for us. The Toddler was sick for 5 days (he never got sick for more than 3 days!). It was a hellish week! It all started Saturday early morning. He got a fever of 39°C so we stayed at home hoping it was just the usual fever. But on the night of the third day his fever was still 39°C and up! So we rushed him to the E.R. Good news was that all his tests were normal and it was possibly just a flu that will last 4-5 days. And it did! By the morning of the fifth day he was no longer sick. Thank God!

Paella: A Labour of Love

There was one family reunion when I was still a kid, New Year's day lunch, that I remember so vividly. Lots of laughter and stories. Playing with kids around the house. And more so of this dish that I ate for the first time. It was a sticky and yellow-coloured rice with shrimps and bell pepper and sliced eggs. They called it Arroz Valenciana. I liked it so much that when we went to a Spanish restaurant to celebrate a special occasion, I tried to order their Paella Valenciana thinking it was the same. But upon tasting it I knew it was so different. The very rich flavoured rice, the soccarat or toasted rice at the bottom of the pan, the variety of seafood and the smell of it! Way better tasting, yum! When I got older I found out that Arroz Valenciana is like the low down version of Paella Valenciana. It uses glutinous rice, turmeric to make the yellow hue and sliced eggs as garnish. So if we do eat out at Spanish restaurants I made sure to order the paella valenciana or seafood  paella.

Cookie disaster

It was a lazy Sunday at home and we didn't set any plans for the day. Since I've got some spare time (and I've got new baking toys!) I decided to try to bake butter cookies. Been wanting to bake some after our stock of the store bought danish cookies was depleted some weeks ago. I didn't want to buy more until I get to try baking one from scratch. And anyway, I wanted to bake my first ever cookie.

I looked for an easy peasy recipe and found this. With just 5 ingredients I figured what could go wrong eh? So I used her recipe as a guideline.

Butter Cookies
adapted from Justonecookbook
  1 1/2 cup plain flour
  1/2 cup sugar ( I didn't have white sugar so I used what I have, the unrefined brown sugar)
  6 tbsp or 3/4 of a stick of butter
  1 large egg
  1 tsp or 5 ml of baking powder
  1 tsp of vanilla extract (optional)

Baking supply store in SG: Phoon Huat

Right after the disappointing visit to B-I-Y, I called Phoon Huat near Bugis MRT to check if they've got the rolling pin and mat. When they said yes, we went straight to their store because I don't want to go home empty handed. That was how sad I was.

Baking supply store in SG: B-I-Y

Me and the husband went to B-I-Y store in Bukit Timah to buy some baking stuff around 3 pm last Saturday. I was so excited because this link said they had a whole range of Wilton products and when visiting their website I get giddy because they seem to really have all the things I need. I don't like buying things from different stores. I'd rather pay a little extra if they've got everything.

Free blog templates

Several years ago, I used to have a blog which I kept for 3 years. And then I got busy with life and all that I neglected it and eventually deleted it. I used to try to personalize it by editing the layout all by myself. I learned a few tricks on how to edit in HTML. But I eventually forgot all about it.

Since I'm starting a blog again and wanted to personalize it, I searched the internet on how tos and I stumbled on Leelou Blog free templates! They have tons of free designs for you to use! So try it! Thanks Leelou Blog!

Project Cakes and Mom

When I was still single and living with my parents I wasn't into cooking, doing diy stuff or ghadd forbid even sewing. My mom was the chef, the tailor, she was our Martha Stewart at home. Our Dad was our Mr Fix it Felix jr. He'd try to fix everything from light bulbs to washing machine. Me and my siblings would just assist them and critic their projects and mostly just do the household chores.

Fast forward to today, I now have my own family to take care of. I love baking, testing food recipes, doing diy stuff and even sewing! It's now my turn to be our home's Martha S.

My goal is to become the best Homemaker this family will ever have. I invite you to come and take a sneak peek in this wonderful life of mine: Cakes and Mom