Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Chocolate Fudge Cake

It's Sarah's 2nd birthday and now that she is old enough to have favourites when it comes to eating, the menu will have to be filled with her favourite things.

First up, the all important birthday cake and its no contest that it will have to be a chocolate cake. That was the easy part, the hardest part was deciding what shape and theme it would be. Since she practically eats and breathes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, it did cross my mind to make a Mickey cake but in the end I decided to bite the bullet and go for the whole thing. So after a few weeks of looking a MMCh cakes, my head was spining and I practically saw Mickey and co everywhere I looked but I digress so back to baking and cooking. After having spent a fortune on ready rolled icing, I was raring to go, unfortunately the little lady did not go to bed till 11pm, which meant I could not start till then. So it was in the middle of the night till the early hours that I was crafting away in the kitchen and guess what, there is a certain peace to the stillness of the hour which made it very pleasant to work.

My biggest challenge to date

The sliced cake ..yummy!

Closeup on the front door detail

My shaky attempt at writing

 

The uncovered cake

The bits n pieces prior to assembly






Vegetarian curry puffs

After a curry puff experiment as short while ago to find a pastry that I like, I  was armed and ready for the next call for fingerfood. It came in the form a farewell for 2 fellow Malaysians. These were made using a sort of hybrid between the spiral curry puff and the normal curry puff skin. As for the filling, on the recommendation of Keep learning keepsmiling, I used a mix of the Scotty brand baby potatoes and the normal potatoes. The result was light crispy and flaky skinned puffs with fluffy potato filling...yumm!

The hybrid skin was flaky and melt in the mouth

The fluffy filling, fragranced with curry leaves ... yum!

Rhubarb and Orange crumble

In trying to keep up with the abundance of rhubarb from the garden, we have another rhubarb dish. This time it is the good ole crumble, admittedly I'm not a fan but the classic must be attempted and attempted I did! Eaten with a large helping of custard ...errr, store bought I'm afraid as the crumble was made late at night and I was not going to be stirring the pot making custard. Next in the rhubarb series I think will be a jam, that way, I can use up more of the rhubarb.

Pre-custard, photos with the custard made it look rather unappertising

Rhubarb and Almond tart

The rhubarb plant in my garden was flourishing and it was time to get eating rhubarb, I chose a rhubarb and almond tart recipe from a new cookbook I got rather than the usual rhubarb crumble which does not tickle my fancy. It turned out quitely lovely as the rhubarb was poached in sugar water to rid them of the tart taste but only till just tender so they still hold their shape after baking which gave the tart a lovely texture. The almond sponge was just the right partner in taste. To bring it all together, the tart is best served with cream or icecream but  I only had evaporated milk which sort of worked too! In fact I liked it so much that I made again in a couple of days as a get well soon gift for a friend who injured her ankle.

Tender rhubarb encased in almond sponge...delicious!

The uncut tart, a little singed on one side as I had to
attend to the toilet needs of the little one

Elderflower Jelly with Summer Fruits

This time round, it's cooking for a friend's birthday BBQ and the weatherman says its HOT, HOT, HOT!! So time for something light and refreshing and what could be more refreshing than nicely chilled jelly with fresh fruits in it? However, after rumaging through my larder, I found that I've run out of my 'ready made' jelly mix. Deep breath and dive into Google to search for jelly recipes. Since its for a friend and her guests, I choose failproof Jamie's recipe but in a moment of bravery decided to make some tweaks to make it suitable for kids. So a quick 5 minutes for make it and pop it into the fridge, with all fingers crossed, I went to bed. The next morning, as early as 6am I was up to check if they had set and tasted fine. I can safely report that my 6am Jelly breakfast tasted sublime :)

Elderflower and Promegranate

All packed and ready to impress

Belacan fried chicken

It's our last pilates class and we planned to have a potluck lunch after the class, so once again my head is spinning trying to think of something to cook. Since this group is not keen on spicy food as well as there will be kids, it had to be something without chilli. The day before the potluck, I was at the supermarket, wandering the aisles for inspiration. I ended up with chicken wings and some odds and ends and no ideas! 

There's a saying that when you are stuck for answers to sleep on it. Sleep on it I did, and I got up half an hour before the alarm clock wnet off with belacan chicken in my head! Problem solved, I had chicken wings and the other ingredients were staples in my storecupboard...err, I did have to do a run to the shops for oil though..but to cut a long story short, I happily contributed my belacan fried chicken wings to the potluck and even the 5 year old girl loved it, and I was then christened the 'fried chicken wing auntie'!



Dried Prawn Sambal Buns

When the ladies agreed to a picnic, it was time to get cooking but because it was a picnic I had to think of something that was easily portable and won't require too many eating utensils. Since I was baking bread again recently, I decided to go with buns filled with something.... the something took a long time to materialise, at one point it was sambal ikan bilis, another, it was chicken curry then it was sambal udang kering (dried prawns). These 3 were going round and round in my head. I had no clue where I'd stashed the ikan bilis and was not up to rumaging around my larder, so that was out. I was too lazy to get to town to buy dried prawns so that was 50/50 ... chicken curry, I can get all ingredients from the local super market so it was looking like a winner. However, come the day before the picnic, I found myself going in and out of asian grocery stores hunting for dried prawns...it is was to be sambal udang kering!

6:00 am goes the alarm on picnic day and I was up and the dough of the bun got going in no time. Next the sambal, with the help of my processer, in goes all the ingredients, a couple of whizzies later, all was fried up and ready for the buns... all was going like clockwork except for the fact that it turned out to be quite a cold morning so the dough was taking its time to rise...oh oh! The buns were baked down to the wire, car engine was already revving when they were still in the oven! Needless to say, we made it to the picnic and had a lovely time!



The buns on display

Makan Makan

Cinnamon buns

This particular baking is done in memory of my grandmother who passed away this month at the age of 94. I remember the days when she used to look after me, she would go to the market in the mornings and come back with a few of these buns. These are treats for herself. The recipe used is Japanese sweet dough with the addition of raisins and honey, just the way Amah used to like it!