Teo Chew Porridge Set

This Teo Chew porridge set is one of my favourite dishes I cook occasionally especially when the weather is incredibly warm and humid. The Chinese believe that plain porridge could lower your body heatiness. It really helps to quench your thirst on a hot summer day.  

I like to make use of the left over cooked rice boiled to plain porridge. The 2 dishes are:
1) Salted preserved vegetable fried with sliced pork and garlic; and
2) Fried egg omelet with preserved salted radish.
A complete 2 + 1 dishes will be ready in no time.

Chicken Baked Rice with Cheese

2-Tier Fondant Cake Project

Happy Birthday Kyannda!!!




Last week I had another opportunity to test my skill of making fondant cake. I have never made any 2-tier cakes before. There would be about 50 - 60 ppl in the party and a 2-tier cake would be a better option than one big 1-tier conventional cake.


Kyannda is a beautiful young lady who is 14 years old and she likes pink. I found a book titled "Glamorous Cake" from the Library written by Eric Lanlard who is a famous pastry chef and his cakes are really beautiful. He has this light pink 2-tier cake with only simple decoration of white blossoms of 3 different sizes. Humm... I think this should not be so difficult to make. All I need are some blossom cutters which I didn't have at that moment.


So my home work was to go round Phoon Huat and BIY to hunt for these blossom cutters. To my disappointment, all were sold out and I only found the small size cutter. I bought it after all, cox I could never succeed without these cutters.


I planned to pipe the wording and make all the little blossom flowers 3 days ahead of her party (which was held last Sat 4 Oct). I would then bake 2 cakes the day before. She likes chocolate and her mother like cheese. So I decided to use chocolate cake and fill it with cream cheese icing. Finally, I would smoothen the whole cake with chocolate butter cream icing before covering it with the pink fondant.


I assume chocolate and cheese should blend well. I had never baked chocolate cake before ;> and I only rehearsed the process in my mind without testing it.... when I think back now, it is quite risky!


It went well on the 1st day when I piped the wordings and prepared the blossoms and butterflies etc. I also prepared the chocolate butter cream icing.


Although I expected things might not be all smoothly executed in the process, it turned out to be disastrous on the 2nd day as I baked the chocolate sponge cake. It failed to raise according to my expectation. I had to discard everything and immediately searched for another reliable chocolate cake recipe to bake 2 cakes... I was crossing my fingers... Luckily, I managed to patch up the mistake and have 2 cakes by midnight... phew!!... At that point, I wasn't sure if the cakes would taste good. The texture is a bit hard ... I had no choice but to use them the next day.





On the actual day (Sat), the 1st thing I did was to prepare the cream cheese filling before assembling the cakes. Gladly, Shanice volunteered herself to stay home (the 2 mei mei went out with daddy to zoo) and gave mommy a helping hand. So she helped whisk and prepare cream cheese butter cream. The next step was to smoothen the cake surface with chocolate butter cream icing. This is the part that I'm not confident in due to my lack of experience. I bought a turn table to help me in this but still, any imperfection like holes, uneven surface will mirror onto the top layer fondant. I just tried my best to make the cake surface smooth.


Another big hiccup: on Friday, I went to Phoon Huat and bought some baking materials and an extra pack of ready made fondant. On Sat when I was putting my baking stuff together, getting ready to start the last phase of works, to my horror, I couldn’t find the pack of fondant and I later discovered that I had left it at the cashier counter. It was one and a half hour prior to my scheduled assembling time. Oh no.... so my helper had to rush out and collect for me.... Well, a blessing in disguise, I could take a break and could do nothing but rested and enjoyed my lunch with Shanice.


At 2pm, I started assembling the cake. It was not easy to stack up a heavy cake without messing up the fondant laid on the 1st tier. Shanice kept asking me from morning why we still had not started putting the blossoms onto the cake. So after a few hours of anxious waiting, she was excited in helping mom glue a lot of flowers onto the cake. Although the cake turned out to have more flowers than what I planned to, seeing her eagerness and attention spent on this project, I must restrain my comment and let her participate in it rather than keep telling her "NOT this, NOT that".

It took us 3 hours to finish decorating the cake. It looked good and not bad at all. Taste good also. I put less sugar in the chocolate cake because the sugar paste is a pile of "sugar". It should compensate the sweetness as a whole. Christine is right. She commented that you should eat the cake and the cream cheese with the sugar fondant in one mouthful. The taste blends well. But I feel that I can further improve on the texture of the chocolate cake as it is a bit hard. Also, if there is one more layer of cream cheese butter cream, that will make the cake taste perfect.

My mission accomplished and here I wish Kyannda enjoy herself on the party night and wish her remain pretty always. Happy Birthday!!!

Pistachio Cookies

As the name suggests, it is a ordinary butter cookies coated with crashed Pistachio Nut and sugar. I made it for my girls to hand out to her Sunday school teachers on Teachers' Day. Got this recipe from Agnes Chang's cook book "I CAN BAKE". I added more sugar content and switched plain flour to cake flour. Process is easy, but you need to wrap up in cling film like a sausage and chilled before I can coat it with nut, cut and bake them. Extra paitence required.

Thick and buttery cookies that melt in the mouth will soothe the craving of those who love butter cookies. The unique flavour of pistachio nut gives a strong identity and turns it to an extraordinary butter cookies.

It is troublesome to have the pistachio nut opened one by one.....worth the effort though. Shanice later complained that her fingers hurt... poor girl. She patiently accompanied me in the kitchen and open the nuts one by one. She did that for more than an hour. She also helped to crush the nuts after removing the shell. However, she enjoys participating. She's also proud of her result (not forgetting munching and happily feeding her daddy with the nuts like feeding zoo animals at the same time ;> ).

These scrumptious cookies were nicely picked in Hello Kitty bags and she proudly told all her teachers and friends that she helped in baking these when she handed them out.

A wonderful weekend which I can do what I like and bond with my girl at the same time. "One stone kills 2 birds" hah!

Not only that, I received a call from one of the teachers the next day and she wants to order 2 jars of 30 pcs cookies from me as a gift to her friends. At the end, she ordered total of 6 jars from me (Thank you Mrs Chen). Ha ha, these small gesture brought me some surprises after all.

It has been a year

Time flies! Today is my 1 yr anniversary of becoming a homemaker. As I ponder and stock take of what I've done for the passed 1 year, "Thank God" are the words that I'll say. He has been the one who's our provider in many areas. I'm still learning many things as a homemaker. As my children grow, I'll need to learn to deal with them every single day and learn how to be patient and love them with all my heart. Although, sometime I fall into a trap of dilemma... on one hand you want to be with your kids, on the other hand, fatigue and anger may set in as they may not behave the way you want them to. You would want to say "leave me alone"... I want to have some "ME" time. Feeling guilty and selfish is a constant struggle in my spiritual journey. May God forgive my short coming and teach me to do things with all my heart.

I'm someone who can't sit still at home nor can I "Ta Han" the household chores and stuff like that. I don't want to "work" but not actually want to be "bored" at home. My answer to this question 'If I am given the choice, do I want to work?" is always a firm "NO". Not facing the "month end closing" nor the stress from work is really a relief. Gosh! During those times, I was really being torn apart. Tough to be a working mom though... need to take care of the office tasks and need to worry about my girls. Having time to think of some issues that you'll never have time to think in the past is also a great blessing. You feel that you've entered into a different dimension now and it isn't like what it used to be. May be I am just contented to be a simple mother who sometimes frantically yell at the kids and hears my voice echoing back... life has been ordinary but fulfilling and it is really full of joy and laughters.

I never thought that I was able to survive it after being a career woman for more than a decade. Thank God once again for my three beautiful princesses that always throw me big hugs, cries and laughters. My dearest supportive husband is also on the thanking list although I feel helpless sometimes seeing him face stress at work. All I can do is cook him good meals, hoping that he can enjoy this simple pleasure after a stressful day of work. It is really a dream that we can start our own business so he can quit..... Let's wait and see. (Dear, you may need to wait long long, but it is on my list!!!)

Although I miss my boss and beloved colleagues who had always been my buddies while I worked. Well, I think I gain more than I lose..... never regret quitting my job and spending more time with my family.

My friends will scold me when they read the first para complaining above: "You can always catch your quiet morning newspaper break at a shopping mall or shopping for grocery and food for the week". Most importantly, now I have more time to find "solace" in the kitchen cooking my favourite stuff... ;>

Mango Cheese Cake

Mango Cheese Cake

I have another good reason to try out another mango cheese cake recipe: My girls' God Mom's Birthday on the 28th of Aug.

I digged through my limited cheese cake cook books collection and managed to find a German cheese cake recipe as the guide for my trial. The book suggested using Mascarpone cheese and I added more personal touch and more ingredients like mango puree, diced mango. I lastly put a layer of mango puree gelatin on top to prettify the cake. I did this cake with 100% effort and love. It has to be perfect all the way, so I baked the crust as well.

God Mom commented: "can sell". I hope she said that not because of my hard work and out of courtesy :> she's always a woman of truth. She worked in 5-star hotel before and she knows how's their pastry taste like...high end taste leh!

To be honest, I'm quite happy with the result. Surprisingly it is not cheesy. It is a very light, smooth and refreshing cheese cake, most suitable for summer. It comes with a subtle mango flavour, and not to forget the layer of mango gelatin that boasts its identity. Its presentation is also to my satisfaction - less is more, simple is elegant. Wording... yet to improve although it is better than what I did the last time (I wonder why my white chocolate can't be hardened??? I used those off the shelf white chocolate bar and did lots of pattern but none of them can stand in room temperature... so can only put some of them flat on the cake).

I wanted to take a photo of Diana with the cake for this post but she refused. So my eldest girl, Shanice, volunteered with great enthusiasm, presenting this cake to her beloved God Mom.

Happy Birthday Diana!!

Mango Cheese Cake

This cake cost HK$ 180. My brother bought it from a small cake shop located in the eastern part of HK island (Chai Wan). It is run by a pastry chef who worked with many famous hotels before.

It is costly as this cake only weights about 500gm or less, but my verdict: worth paying.

At first taste, it surprised me with its rich mango flavour and the very smooth texture. I thought it is a mango mousse cake because it is a non-baked cake with very yellowish colour. As you eat on, you'll think maybe they used mascarpone cheese as normal mousse cake never gives u this kind of silky texture. Its smooth texture really helps enhance the substance of the cake. Big mango cubes are used in the filling too. The decoration its simple and elegant too. It is a simple delight. Only one comment... I always like cakes with crust crispy texture but this is a little soggy.

I may try to make this cake. Let's see if I'm right about the ingredient...

Multi Tasked Baby

A the end of Jul, my no. 3 Shannea and I visited my family back in HK. I spent some quality time with my friends and my loved ones.

Shannea is a cheerful and playful baby. While we're there, she could skip her meals and focused on only 1 thing: PLAY. At times, she only took, say, 1 sausage for her dinner. As I knew she'd recuperate well when she's back home, so I took it easy and just gave her as much milk as she wanted.

Below is a video clip taken after a 2-hour swim when we had our afternoon tea. While my nephew helped to feed her, Shannea was so tired and hungry and she decided to meet both desires at the same time. She struggled to finish a bowl of noodle while she tried to catch some sleep. It was really funny but my hubby thought it kinda cruel... Oops!! Caught red handed in a child abuse case.

Bento Set Lunch

4 Bento Sets

A friend of mine ordered some bento lunch sets on 2 consecutive days. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to test out my process flow on how to produce 16 bento sets within 1 and half hour each day.

I proposed beef stew and chicken chop for day one. On day 2, they will have chicken stew and Pork chop. I cooked beef stew a day ahead. With some help from my helper like cutting potato, carrot, chopping garlic, I thought it would easy.

I discover that as I take on different assignments from friends, I learn different lessons along the way. One critical area is time management and planning skill. It is very important to set aside time to plan for your recipe and jot down ingredient and plan out exactly how you are going to execute each and every step involved. Without this, your time estimation to complete the task will go badly off target. This is especially critical if you need to adhere to fixed delivery time - for this case, lunch hour at 12.

Making money out of it is not the main concern for these assignments although I have to commit a lot of "overtime" in my kitchen and it is tough working in the kitchen. I never regret taking on any of these assignments. They help me discover my love for cooking and my passion towards cooking just grow stronger each time. Every new recipe has its own uniqueness and there is infinite creativity in exploring and presenting it.

I have one regret though: I discover this passion a little too late or I could have seriously thought of taking this as my profession and career.

Chocolate Macaroon (Attempt 1)

I have too much egg white stored in my fridge, left over from chiffon cake and mango pudding making. I usually have trouble making use of left over egg white and I feel very guilty if I just pour them into the sink.

So die die must make something out of it... Macaroon is the best choice as I have yet to try it out.

Look at the result of my first attempt and you'll know I have failed. I am kinda used to the feeling - this is a normal learning path. One of the distinctive feature of Macaroon is their frilly feet. Those are absent from mine. I'm not sure why. Also the surface is supposed to be smooth and flat and yet mine look like volcano after eruption. And the belly button makes it look like a hazel nut rather than a macaroon...

My first attempt is not all bad though as the chewy texture and the rich semi sweet dark chocolate filling helps bring out the great chocolate aroma. Taste not bad at all.

Never mind, I'm sure I'll always have egg white left over and I will try again. Meanwhile, need to ponder why my macaroon looks different from others.....

Egg Cheese Bacon Pasta

Learnt this from a Italian cook book and it is super easy to cook. The total process and cooking takes less than half an hour.

First, cook pasta with boiling water with some salt.

Next, use a big serving bowl, beat 3 eggs with lots of Parmesan cheese. If you prefer saucy pasta, add some fresh cream.

Then wash and cut some vegetables of your choice. My choice was mushroom and sweet pea. Sizzle veg, meat in a frying pan with olive oil. Do not forget to add some garlic too.

Lastly, toss the hot pasta into a big serving bowl with egg batter and cheese mixed well with fried bacon, pork and veg. Simple and easy!!

My little Angel's Birthday

Shannea is 2!!!

There are 2 important persons in my life who were born in the month of July. My little darling Shannea is 2 years old on the 16th and hubby's birthday is on the 21st.

Helen gave me 4 trays of fresh blue berries, more than enough to make this blueberry cheese cake. My husband always asks why I don't make a "normal" looking cake. So I must comply to his request on his birthday. I cooked the blueberry into syrup and added some gelatin to help it set on the top of baked and chilled cheese cake.




Although I'm quite happy with the look of the cake, I must practise more using chocolate to pipe wordings. It is quite tough coz I let the moist get into the melted chocolate and it became hard for piping. I discarded 1/2 packet of the white chocolate to get these result. The names are barely readable. They kinda ruin the cake, my hubby says... Also the wordings are too big. Wanted to write "Shannea 2, + Daddy" but ended up "Shannea 2 Daddy" humm...



I make the cake with "LOVE" and here I wish them "Happy Birthday".

Oh, I also have some extra cream cheese to make these beautiful blueberry cheese tart.

Crazy about Durian

This time round, I was crazy enough to haul 1 big basket of durians home all by myself. I think there were at least 20 over durians in it - small ones though. To make durian paste, I had to open them one by one and removed the seeds. Luckily my helper likes durian and we together completed this tedious task.

The durian paste is more than enough to make 50 durian puffs. I could even make another durian cake - shown in the photo below. It is meant for Joshua's birthday on 13th Jul and for my youngest angel on 16th Jul. I volunteered to make this cake which was unveiled when Joshua's family was having a house warming gathering in their newly renovated home on Friday.






Quite fun to make the ducklings and the hippo head. The texture of the durian puff looks like real muddy pond and it matched the theme well. It is fun to make this cake.




P.S My hubby tells me stop buying durians for a while. He has developed in the past weeks a phobia of eating durians.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANCINE