Cream cracker layered cake

Last Friday I steamed cream cracker layered cake again, as my 6 years old daughter, May requested me to make for her as her birthday cake. I have blogged about it here. She really loves this cake. While my elder sister helped me to cut the cake and put it into container, May kept taking it and putting it directly to the mouth. My sister told me, May should be half full before we went out for dinner.

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 This was another type of steamed layered cake that all of us in the family like it very much.

Out of so many attempts, I still couldn't get a perfect layer. I still need to put extra hard work in the appearance of my baking.

This was one of the containers that we brought along to the restaurant. Other than the Horlicks Layer Cake, Cream Cracker Layered Cake is another cake that many would say nice.

I have previously blogged about the same type of cake here and here.

Ingredients:
250gm butter
170gm Castor sugar
200gm cream cracker
5 eggs, beaten
2.5 tbsp Milo

Method:
1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add the beaten eggs in batches and mix well.
3. Pour in cream cracker powder in batches and mix well.
4. Divide the mixture into half. Add coco powder too one of the portion.
5. Spread a layer of original flavoured batter in the baking tray. Steam for 5 minutes. Then continue with a layer of coco flavoured batter and steam for 5 minutes. Continue doing this with alternating flavoured until finish up the batter.
6. Test with toothpick and it should come out clean.

Again, I submit this entry to Bake-Along No. 25 1st Anniversary: A Layered Cake.

Horlicks Layer Cake

Many years ago, my best friend, Su In brought me some Indonesia layer cake which she ordered in Penang for her baby's full moon celebration. When I tasted it and I already fell so much in love with the layer cake. 

Ever since I start baking, I blog-hopped many cooking and baking blogs. I found some Horlicks Layer Cake recipes that looked somehow easy for me to follow.

 Horlicks Layer Cake (Original recipe is here, and the blog owner is actually referred to Wendy.)

• 225gm butter
• 70gm sugar
• 5 medium eggs, grade C
• 250gm canned condensed milk
• 120gm superfine/cake flour
• 100gm Horlicks powder

Preheat oven on grill setting, 160C. (Electric oven should be set to 200C)
Use a 8x4x4 inch square pan. Line bottom and grease sides. Heat up pan for step 8.
Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add in eggs, one by one. Beating well after each addition.
Mix in condensed milk
Sift flour and Horlicks together.
Fold flour mixture into batter.
Spread a ladle of batter evenly onto hot pan.
Tilt pan left and right to level batter. Grill for 9 minutes or until golden.
Remove from oven and press cake layer to remove excess air. (I am using a glass bottom to do this) Spread another ladle of batter over the cooked layer until all batter is used up.

The above all 3 pictures were taken during my first attempt. Though they didn't look as beautiful as I saw at other blogs. But, never mind, it tasted really good. The most important thing, my girls told me that this was the most delicious cake that I ever baked recently.

After baking the Horlicks Layer Cake with my halogen oven, I wanted to try steaming the Horlicks Layer Cake. I applied the same recipe and ingredients, I only changed the step from baking to steaming it layer by layer. This last picture was my steamed Horlicks Layer Cake. I don't know why the steamed layer cake wasn't looked as clear as the bake one.  Anyway, both baked and steamed Horlicks Layer Cake tasted really good. My husband preferred the steamed Horlicks Layer Cake, as he said that wasn't as heaty as the baked one.

I need to practise either baking or steaming this Horlick Layer Cake more, so that I can get a better looking layers. You should try this recipe, as it can surely guaranteed you a very well-tasted layer cake.

I am submitting this entry to Bake-Along No. 25 1st Anniversary: A Layered Cake.

Happy Birthday to Bake-Along, thanks to Frozen Wings, Kitchen Flavours and Baking for Happy Kids for hosting this very meaningful baking meme.

Two celebrations in one day

This evening, we are going to celebration our 10th wedding anniversary and also my younger daughter, May 6th year old Birthday.  We are having dinner of poon choi with my sister and my brother's family.

To May, though you are not my smartest kid and not my most beautiful kid, you are my sweetest girl. Mummy loves you always. Happy 6th Year Old Birthday to you.

May is so sweet that she doesn't want any bakery cake. She asked me to steam her favourite cream crackers layer cake as her Birthday cake. That's why I said she is my sweetest girl.

To my husband, the best wedding qoute that I like most after marrying you for 10 years.

There is no lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage. ~ Martin Luther

Long Ding Tea

April rang me from home, telling me that I have got a parcel delivered by Pos Laju. She asked for my permission to unwrap the Pos Laju envelop. Over the phone, she told me it was a rectangle box, which was nicely wrapped with a present paper. She also read to me the text on the box, "To Sheoh Yan, from S.H.A.U.N. and also a smiley face." Though, I am awaiting for a few parcels, I knew what it is from what my girl described. I asked her to hold on unwrapping the box until I came back.

Now I know Simple Person's name is Shaun. Nice name, I actually like this name, Shaun.

Two of them fight to tear off unwrap the present.

"What is this, mummy? Chocolate?"

"No, it is mummy's Green Tea."

I tried to google Kai Hua Long Ding(开化龙顶), and I am so happy to learn that this Chinese Green Tea is able to,

1. help boost morale

2. improve thinking and efficiency

3. reduce fatigue

4. antimicrobial, antibacterial

5.Weight loss

All these benefits are really beneficial for a full time working mother of 2 children, like me.

Thanks a lot, Simple Person of Simple Life. Only because I said in his blog that I like green tea, it is very thoughtful of him to send me a big tin of Chinese Green Tea, which I can last for probably a year. When you come to Taiping, I bring you to Casual Market.

Good and bad on my Mother's Day

There were something good and also something bad happened on my Mother's Day (actually we celebrated on Saturday). 

It has been a long time I didn't receive any flowers from my loved one. My husband is a very practical man. He will not give flowers on my birthday, Valentine's day and also our wedding anniversary, though I can feel his love and care to me everyday.

Saturday noon(Mother's Day eve), I suggested my two girls to use their pocket money and got a little sponsor from their papa to buy me a Carnation. They finally did, and I got my 2 long awaited fresh Carnations.

Picture was taken on the way back from the Mother's Day celebration lunch with my MIL. Till then, my mood was still good.

Saturday evening, we went to the mall and my husband wanted to give me a special Mother's Day treat. We decided on Kenny Rogers. At the mall, we bumped into April's ex-classmate. She was quite close to April at Primary 1. She has changed to a different school this year. Means, they didn't meet each other for almost half a year. I wanted her to go and say hello to her friend and her parents. She didn't want.  When I said good bye to her friend's parents, and I asked her to say good bye to them, she also didn't want. I was quite annoyed at her bad manners. I gave her a good scolding at the dinner.

Saturday night, April and May requested to watch a movie at 10.30 pm. I declined by giving them the reason of watching a movie at 10.30pm was too late. April reluctantly went back to the room and angrily slammed the door. Guess what? I grabbed my magic wand and walked into the room. Give her a spank on her legs, and she cried. Needless to say, my good mood was spoilt. 

I didn't expect that my Mother's day celebration would be ended with a spank on my darling.

Bake with 4 ingredients: Nutella cookies

Due to getting infected severely by baking bugs, and as well as getting influenced badly by peers, I decided to take the challenge of  Bake Along, which is hosted by Frozen Wings, Kitchen Flavours and Baking for Happy Kids. Since I am still a baby in baking, my baking age is only a few months old, the theme of 14 May "Bake with 4 ingredients" makes me thrilled.

I found the recipe through Google, and so far I have tried this recipe twice.

 My 4 ingredients are 1 cup Nutella, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup flour  and 1 egg.

My first attempt of Nutella cookies. It was over baked, so it was too hard to bite. You could also see that the sugar wasn't melted properly and it made the surface of the cookies coarse.  However, it tasted nice, so I mustn't give up trying.

In my second attempt, I got my 2 little helpers involve in the baking. 

When one sifted the flour, the other one whisked egg with sugar. This time, I made sure the sugar was melted properly.

Then, I added in Nutella and formed a dough.

Roll the dough on aluminium foil.

Cut the dough with cookies cutters, and bake the cookies in my halogen oven at 150C for 8 minutes only.

My second batch of the Nutella cookies were definitely looked better with pretty smooth surface. It was also not as hard as the first batch.
My 8 years old, April requested me to bake for her to bring to school at the year end term holiday tea party. I am just worrying that her classmates may need to pay a visit to the dentist after biting too many Nutella cookies, and I shall be blamed by their parents then. lol!
I believe, I still can make it better by making the Nutella cookies thinner and more crunchy.

I am so excited to see what other bloggers' recipe on Bake-Along No. 24 - Bake with 4 Ingredients.

My Mother's Day gifts

April greeted me with 3 Carnations, which she did with craft papers at her school just now. She said 3 Carnations means "I" "Love" "You" . Awww, how sweet!

 Later, May ran to me with a pot of flowers card that she made at school too.

When I read what May wrote for me, I feel so happy.

It’s the small things that they did that meant the most to me as a mother.

I stumbled upon a very interest link yesterday. I would like to record the top ten things children really want their parents to do with them here. It will be a reminder for myself and also all of you.

1. Come into my bedroom at night, tuck me in and sing me a song. Also tell me stories about when you were little.
2. Give me hugs and kisses and sit and talk with me privately.
3. Spend quality time just with me, not with my brothers and sisters around.
4. Give me nutritious food so I can grow up healthy.
5. At dinner talk about what we could do together on the weekend.
6. At night talk to me about about anything; love, school, family etc.
7. Let me play outside a lot.
8. Cuddle under a blanket and watch our favorite TV show together.
9. Discipline me. It makes me feel like you care.
10. Leave special messages in my desk or lunch bag.

To all mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day.

Bundle of joy

If you are Hayley's fb friends, you should know that she has delivered her little prince on 7 May.  It was actually 2 weeks earlier than her expected due date. We went visiting her and her baby boy on the next day.

We are happy to see her and her baby are all well.

Congratulations to you both and well done, Hayley. You and your husband are going to be great parents.

At night, I told my husband that I went visiting Hayley and her new born baby boy in the afternoon. I was teasing him by asking him, "Shall we try for a baby boy?". He said, "No, thanks! I am tired."

Lunch at Casual market

One day, if you come to Taiping, and you opt for hawker food at day time. Remember this Casual Market. You'll be shocked to see different stalls and you'll spoilt with choices. 

The Casual Market consists of the Halal section and the non-halal section. The Halal section is made up of stalls selling Malay food such as rice dishes, mee bandung and the mamak stalls selling nasi kandar, mee rebus/mee goreng and drinks.The non-halal section is where you will get a great variety such as Chicken rice, fried oysters, char koay tiau, hokkien mee, ice kacang, nyonya kueh and you just name it.

We were having our lunch there last Saturday. Let see what we ate.

Tower Ais Kacang  Char Koey Tiau  Mee Rebus  Teow Chew Koey Tiau  Curry Mee

When you are there, you must try Mee Rebus at stall 50, Teow Chew Koey Tiau at stall 78 and Wan Tan Mee at stall 74.

Address:
Taiping Casual Market
34000 Taiping
Perak Malaysia

More books to feed the book worm

I ordered and bought some books from  Odonata(红蜻蜓) again. I have blogged about the books that I bought at the first time here. 

This time, I bought 不速之客 The Visitor, 小铁盒 The Metal Box, 妈妈满分 Perfect Mother, 佳佳的秘密 Jia Jia's Secret and 大哥头与小妹头 My Best Neighbour .   Among these 5 books, 不速之客 The Visitor and 妈妈满分 Perfect Mother are actually the young adult novels, that means for older kids.

3 illustration novels and 2 young adult novels.

Not only April, I have also become the book worm lately.  I have finished reading all these books.

April loves reading these illustration novels, because the stories are always very interesting.

She reads while the TV is showing commercial advertisement .

She reads while waiting for ordered food. 

She reads while sitting on the throne. I forgot to snap a picture while she was on the throne.

To my surprise, she can comprehend those young adult novels as well.  

This morning, when I dropped her to school, she said, "Mummy, Papa said I am 'Ulat Buku' ."

Then I said, "Do you know what it means?"

She said, "Or course, I have learnt 'Simpulan Bahasa', 'Ulat Buku' is 'Orang yang gemar membaca buku.'. "

That's right, I proud to say that I grow a book worm, and not an Ipad worm.