Cookies cakes and etc

Those closer to me would notice that I've taken up baking a lil more seriously as of late. Attempted and experimented with few new cakes. Have also started small scale business for cookies/cakes (my customers being my colleagues. Hehe). It's a great boost to confidence as well as to experience and skills now that I've been baking far more often than I used to. Starting a proper business may not be too difficult and too far off afterall (I hope). Baby steps. At least I've started walking.

On another topic, have also recently secured a job in Melaka. In other words, I'm finally going back and QJ couldn't be happier. It also means it's back to me cooking and you on the dishes allrite dear? Kekekekeke /ebil. Huge change, hope everything works out allright.

Now if only the jam would ease and I can get home sooner. I'm freezing and starving in the bus and I've got a tonne of baking to be done by tmr, in time for colleagues celebrating Deepavali! XD

Some of the things I'll be working on tonite:

Jam tarts

Moist chocolate

Midnight Chef in Me: Scones

I have the tendency to somehow, one way or another start baking/cooking around midnight. Be it cuz I had a nap right after work, or that I got too distracted with some shows I've been watching on my PC. Yesterday was no exception.

Thankfully, scones are really easy to make and it took less than 15 mins before it was ready to be popped onto the oven for baking.







15 mins in the oven later and voila. 'Supper' if you will. Glad my first attempt of scones turned out well but I suppose the recipe was rather foolproof. Hee!






Best served with Devon clotted cream and jam, or lemon curd (will attempt this weekend or so).

Some other bakers advices that to enjoy fresh scones, freeze the dough for the leftover scones and only bake them when you want to eat them. I reheated mine in the oven (put them in closed container and sprinkle a lil water) and they turned our warm and fluffy, but I don't suppose they'll taste that great after more than 3 days. I'll see how my frozen batches turn out ;)

Plain Scones By Amy Beh from Kuali.com

Ingredients

375g self-raising flour, sifted
1 1/2 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
50g butter
180ml UHT milk
(I add in 1/2 tsp vanilla essence)
125ml water (won't use all. I used only very little)

Method

Put sifted flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Lightly rub in butter. (i took a little bit of the flour and put into blender with cubed frozen butter and blended until they look like rough breadcrumbs. then pour mixture into flour mixture)
Use a palate knife to stir in milk. Add just enough water to mix until a soft sticky dough is formed.
Turn out dough onto a lightly-floured tabletop. Quickly but lightly knead dough until it is smooth. Flatten out dough evenly to about 2cm thick. Use a 5cm round cutter to cut out the dough into rounds.
Place scones in lightly-greased baking pans. Brush scones with a little milk and bake in a preheated oven at 240 ºC for 15 minutes. Serve scones with a jam of your choice.


Makes about 10 scones depending on thickness and size

Video and recipe from Joy of baking: http://joyofbaking.com/scones.html

Caking spree

Aunt and my 2 elf-assistants. Cake was not disastrous eventho they kept bugging us to 'help' us.

I've been on a cake making spree lately. Spent last weekend making Black Forest and Moist Chocolate Cake. Both turned out pretty well, especially the moist choco cake considering it was the first time I attempted this recipe taken from a magazine probably older than I am. Hee!

Mini-black forest cake for myself

Sis liked the Black Forrest cake (it all kinda started from her, the whole caking adventure) and this 4th attempt turned out pretty well and QJ absolutely love the moist choco cake. Happy to say that I've started very small scale sales of these 2 cakes. Hopefully this will bring to further culinary career path/business. Hehe.

Yummy moist chocolate cake. Really not bad for a first attempt.

Now I better start jogging again least I gain back the weight I've lost with all the desserts I have in my fridge. Kekeke.

Cake 'sweating' in the damp room right after taking it out from the fridge. Eek!

Peekaboo!

Here's a cutie pie. Born to the family on Father's Day. Quite the bundle of joy to spend time with, my niece.

Greenies

I would fork out RM10 for the damned bitch but would think once/twice/trice when splurging on some nice lunch at werk, cuz she knows how to steal my heart.

Can't wait to see her tonight.

The iPhone Blogger app

So Blogger's finally got their own iPhone Blogger app...which is great. But I really wish they let me type with the horizontal keyboard instead of the tiny vertical one only. Urgh. Well, it's not like I blog much these days anyway haha!! We'll see if this'll make me blog more often. :P

Here's a pic we took from Tokyo Street, Pavillion, last weekend during my epicly long vacation with QJ

Thank you (for the safe ride)!

I rely on public transportation, mainly the bus, rather heavily. Sometimes it's out of convenience, sometimes out of financial reasons, sometimes out of necessity. I rely on the local bus to get home from work. Fortunately for me, I live in Penang...and there's Rapid Penang. I can't praise them enough for their awesomeness and efficiency. There might be a lil minus points here and there...but overall relying on their service daily, I'd say they are the best public transportation in Malaysia. Perhaps even beating KL's services. Heck, they have an iPhone app to track their busses' ETA. How cool is that?

There's my reliance of services of the local bus, and there's my reliance of the services of the inter-state busses. Since QJ is in Melaka and I'm in Penang, both of us travel a lot. And the busses can't seem to scare me enough whenever they hit the headlines on the front page. So everytime I travel I make sure I go on a reputable company...and I pray I'll open my eyes and I'm at my destination...in one piece.

Which is why everytime that I do get there safely, I can't help but smile and say a lil prayer of thanks. And everytime I get off the bus, I make sure I convey that feeling to the one who stayed up overnight (or be alert throughout the journey, for the daytime drivers as well as for those local bus drivers) to make sure we got to our destination safely.

"Thank you!" or "Terima kasih :) " ....I'll say. As much as I'm groggy or if the bus was too freakin cold or the passanger next to me snored throughout the whole trip, I'd try to remember to thank the drivers. Hardly anyone ever thanks the driver when they get off the local bus but I feel they do deserve the thanks. Afterall, those simple 2 words are pretty effortless and free, but I'm sure it'll make those drivers smile when they hear it (eventho they don't always show it). And hopefully if I do it often enough, others will start saying it too.

So try to make it a practice. Next time, and every time you get off a bus, thank the driver.


p/s: Koff koff. Exceptions are made for those crazy drivers who drive like idiots, and those that for some reason drive like its their first day driving a vehicle and making everyone on the bus late for work.
pp/s: Part of the reason why I wrote this entry is because QJ complained there's cobwebs here. Ha!
ppp/s: QJ played tourist last Monday and even he approved of Rapid Penang... /snickers. LOL!