Banana chocolate chips cup cake

These were the best cupcakes that I ever made with my halogen oven. I proudly said so, as I love the taste and the texture of these cupcakes

This time I referred to Sonia's blog. She made 10 cupcakes, I used only half measurement for the ingredients and made 5 cupcakes only. Bake with my halogen oven at 160C for 20 minutes.

Talking about my halogen oven, my guinea pigs colleagues were suggesting me to buy an electric oven after tasting many of my failure attempts. They would inform me excitedly whenever they saw ovens on sales at Tesco and Giant's flyer. So far I got to know that Panasonic oven is RM89 at Tesco and Elba oven is only RM79 at Giant. My husband too, wanted to drive me to Giant to grab one, but I stopped him. I told him, "Buy the normal oven already, my halogen oven will be at no use then. " . That's why I am still baking with my halogen oven.

I decorated the top part with melted chocolate bar and butter.

Special thanks to a mummy blogger who keeps her wings in the freezer. She wrote to me and  told me that I need to be more patient when beating butter and sugar, whisking eggs, and finally folding in flour. 

Till then, I have a long weekend before I come back to blog sphere again.

Cooking mama day

Weekends are my masak masak days. Just last Sunday, I whipped up 3 things for my family. My husband was still cooking lunch for us, as I  went to gym on Sunday morning. I couldn't come back on time to cook lunch.

So right after lunch, I steamed and mashed some sweet potatoes. Mix it with flour and sugar to form a dough. Divide the dough into halves. First half was to make sweet potatoes balls and second half was to make sweet potatoe balls also. Please feel free to click on the below button to see what I had cooked up like storm in the kitchen on last Sunday.

  

I rolled the dough to make equally big balls.

 Heat up oil for deep frying.

 Ta Da...

 I cut down in sugar and flour for my girls to take as afternoon snack.

 Then, they helped me to roll some big and small balls.

 Boil the balls in a wok of hot water till all floated on top of the water.

 Put the balls into the sugary soup that I had prepared earlier.

 After cooking all the sweet potatoes balls, it was time to prepare for dinner.

 Deep fried chopped garlic in hot oil.

 Put in fish balls, fish cakes and chicken meat.

Ta Da...our Sunday dinner was Cooking Mama's fried pan mee and sweet potatoes balls soup.

Drink for better eye sight

I am a contact lens user of short sighted vision for more than 10 years. Recently I noticed that I have a hard time to read newspapers, SMS,  ingredients and instructions that printed on packing papers, boxes and bottles. I need to remove my lens only I can read those tiny words. I suspect that I have got Presbyopia. It also means that my short sighted has reduced.

During a casual chat with a China lady, whom I met in the gym told me that red dates and wolfberries drink are very beneficial to eyes. She said that if I could drink this everyday, I should see some improvement on my eye sight.

Therefore, I try to boil this super power drink for myself every alternate evening. Then, I pour it into a thermos and bring to work to drink in the morning.

I believe one will only see the effects of wolfberry after a substantial period of consumption.

Health Benefits of 1/4 cup of wolfberries

Circulation	Improve circulation.
Eyes/Vision	Improve eyesight.
Fertility	Boost sperm production.
Immune System - General	Strengthen the immune system.

Nutrients

Calcium	72 mg	6%
Fiber	4 g	16%
Iron	1.8 mg	12%
Protein/Amino Acids	4 g	8%	Contain 19 amino acids, including the essential amino acids.
Vitamin A	8500 IU	170%
Vitamin C	12 mg	20%

Health Benefits of 10 red dates

Blood

Increase absorption of iron into the blood.

Nutrients

Boron	N/A	N/A
Calcium	43 mg	4%
Fiber	7.1 g	28%
Manganese	0.3 mg	10%
Potassium	732 mg	21%
Vitamin K	59.5 mcg	74%
Zinc	0.4 mg	3%

Batik Cake

Batik Cake is the only snack that I baked and my girls are asking for it again and again.

I got the ingredients and the step by step of instruction from here.  I used only half of all the ingredients, and replaced the Marie biscuits with cream crackers.

100gm Milo, half can of Sweetened Condensed milk, 2 eggs, half teaspoon of vanilla, and 75 gm margarine.

I broke 2 pieces of cream crackers into 4 and placed into the pan as the bottom layer, which had earlier lined with non stick baking paper.

Whisk beaten eggs, milk and Milo until everything blended well . Cook it with margarine in a non stick pan over medium fire until thick and grainy.

Off the fire and pour the mixture onto the cream crackers. Break and put another 2 to 3 pieces of cream crackers on top of the mixture, and again layered it with the mixture untill all used up. I used only 9 pieces of cream crackers for this much of ingredients.

I forgot to fold the the baking paper on top, and to press down and compact the cake. That's why the top surface of my Batic Cake didn't look so smooth and nice.

Anyway, my girls enjoyed this batik cake very much, may be because it tastes like chocolate waffle biscuit and it is sweet.

p/s: I like cream crackers in Batic Cake, as it gives a little bit of salty taste in this very sweet Batik Cake.

Things we did on the public holiday of Perak Sultan's Birthday

Perak Sultan's Birthday was the holiday that I looked forward since the CNY break, and I have missed Pertabalan Agung off day on 11 April (p/s: my company has changed the off day to 30 April. )

I have so many things planned to do on this day. It was not a very relaxing day for us, but it was a very fruitful day for us.

In the morning, after sending my two girls to table tennis training, I went to the gym with my husband.

After lunch, I  prepared and designed a few cards which I had earlier got the ideas from Internet. We wanted to make Mother's Day card, Teacher's Day card and Father's Day card for April to take part in the card making competition at school

 I outlined and cut the cards, then I let the girls write and decorate the cards themselves.

 "Tea is for teacher", obviously these are the cards for Teacher's Day.

 I let May make one Yellow tea cup card for her kindergarten form teacher as well.

 This window card is the Mother's Day card. They used finger prints to decorate the card.

 I used the old lacy scarf to make the curtain and ribbon.

This camera card is for Father's Day. I used a jar lid to make the len.

Tell me, Tea Cup Teacher's Day card, Window Mother's Day card and Camera Father's Day card,  which card is nicer?

When we have finished all the cards, the girls went playing badminton outside the house with their papa.

While they were playing badminton, I stole some time to do a simple baking.

I got the Batik Cake recipe from Table for 2... or more (Wendy). I replaced the marie biscuits with cream crackers, and used only half measurement of all ingredients. My girls love it very much, but it is too sweet for my liking.

We retired to bed quite early that evening.

Meme: Most frequently heard compliment

Hi folks, this my first meme (tag). I hope you folks can give me your support and respond to the meme if it has spreaded to you. It will be fun to see all your answers to the meme.

Here it goes,

what is my most frequently heard remark?

My answer,

in my 39 years, I heard these the most from my friends (especially new friends) and relatives.

1.You are very tall.

2. How tall are you?

3. Why you so tall one?

4. Does your husband taller than you?

5. Can you play basketball?

So, my responds to all the remarks above regarding my height are always,

1. Smile smile.

2. 173cm or 5 feet 8 inches.

3. Don't know, perhaps it is the gene.

4. No, we are almost same height.

5. No, I can't. (Then, they sure say, "Wasted la!")

I received Happy Blogger Award from Amelia last week. Thanks a  lot Amelia, for thinking of me.

Here I would like to pass this meme and this award to 5 people as below.

1. Amelia's De-ssert (Amelia)
2. From TAIPING with LOVE (Yvonne)
3. .:: Hayley & Herself ::. (Hayley)
4.Angeline's Side of Story (Angeline)
5.Home is where the heart is... (Merryn)

Hope to read about what is the most frequently heard remark of yours.

May at her 5 years and 11 months

My number 2, May is turning 6 next month. I noticed that I seldom blogged about her. Sometimes she is being cheeky, playful and stubborn, but most of the time she is quiet, shy and timid. Many people said May is demure, all because she never a center of attention.

When I randomly checked on her homework last week, I found her art drawing booklet. She drew a picture of me holding her hand. Both of us were wearing dress, she was with her hair tied up nicely and me was with my short coloured hair. As usual, we smiled. This drawing is beautiful.

I realised that she loves holding my hand. When outside, she is the one holding my hand. She will never walk far from me, unless I ask  her to go with her papa. When at home, she loves giving me a bear hug from behind out of a sudden, though she can only reach my buttock. She is sweet.

When the pair of shoes that she wore to her kindergarten had broken, we bought her the school white shoes. Since then, she is washing her own white shoes, and she is good in the job.

Lovely Sunday lunch

I love weekend. Because, I got to eat a hearty lunch which cooked with lots of  love. See these pictures below. Click at the radio buttons to view my lunch on Last Sunday.

Dish1  Dish2  Dish3  Dish4  The Chef

p/s: Special thanks to SK for the interactive post tutorial.

Chocolate cupcakes

I would like to thank all your valuable comments and support that you folks dropped in my earlier post on making cupcakes. Thanks for sharing your experiences, thoughts and knowledges on baking cupcakes.

Thus, I was getting ready with more flour, sugar, eggs and other baking ingredients, as I was not too sure of how many attempts I might need to go through before I could announce to the world that I make it.  

Next, I made sure that I equipped with more "ka chang" (baking tools) .

Again, I utilized my daughters' tuition hours to play "masak-masak" in my kitchen. If failed, I could throw it away and quickly whipped up some pancakes. If succeeded, then my daughters could take chocolate cupcakes as supper. 

This time I followed this recipe. I mixed all purpose flour and self raising flour in 50:50 ratio. No baking powder. I baked 8 cupcakes only. Due to the first 3 bad experiences, which all the cupcakes rose in the middle like volcano, I tried to use bigger cup and fill up less batter in each cup. I also tried to lower the temperature to 125C and bake it slower for 25 minutes in my very strong halogen oven. 

 Finally, the cupcake didn't look like volcano, but it looked more like earthquake.

Anyway, I still have room to improve to become better and better. I am not upset. Many told me so, it isn't me not good, it is the halogen oven. Thanks, you folks are so best.

Happy Birthday 8 year old, Princess April

8 years ago, she was a very beautiful baby. I loved her, immediately she was placed in my arms.

6 month old.  Every time I walked with her, people turned heads to look at her. I was a proud mama then.

1 year old Birthday celebration. My precious baby is 8 on 10 April. Time flies, my first born is 8 already

Since her Birthday is on school day, we celebrated in advance on Saturday.

My 6 year old, May gave her jie jie a handmade Birthday card.

She read the card from May.

Present from her grandma.

Looking at the card from Aunty Su In (mummy's best friend in Penang) and her family.

Presents from Aunty Su In.

Present from grandpa.

Ice-cream cake.  5 Disney princesses cake decor from Aunty Yvonne.

Make a wish. She said that she has 2 wishes. First wish is to rear a puppy when she is 10 year old, but she wants to keep her second wish as a secret.

Huh! 8 year old already has a secret. Then, what will happen when she is in sweet 18? Wipe sweat. Cold one.

Cutting cake.

April, May and grandparents.

Her presents.

Card from May to April. I wonder why May drew a bird kissing her big sister.

To April,

With every passing year you grow naughtier, smarter, cleverer, more beautiful, more caring, more fun,  more mature and more wisdom, and you have always made us proud. We wish, hope and pray that you get whatever you wished for all your life. Happy Birthday princess. We are proud to have you as our daughter.

Mummy and Papa