Chap Ngoh Meh

And just like that, it's over.

Our favourite time of the year has come to a close. On the bright side, it's the start of a brand new year! And may the year be a great one for one and all!

Since my darling Er Jie prepared our opening ceremony dinner, I volunteered to prep the closing meal. Damn hero. And I confidently hehgeh-ed my day away too and only started prepping at 3:30pm (dinner was sposed to be 6!). Anyways, with some help from Mumsy and the help, we pulled it off (albeit abit late).

On the menu:

Chili Crab

Sambal Prawns

and Honey Baked Wings

And now it's time to finish up those CNY goodies and get back to work!

Love,

Phillie

Experimental Things

How time flies eh, cough cough a bit, and it's Chap Ngoh Meh already! Hee!

Anyways, cos my sister has to go away on a work trip today, we decided to have an early Chap Ngoh Meh lunch, so it's really more a Chap Si Eh Kua lunch, if you know wot I mean! It wasn't really planned, and since Mom's out of commission and the sister's busy packing, I volunteered to whip something up.

Yet another one of my experiments, but it wasn't all too shabby..I think. Heheh..

Presenting, my Bacon Cheese Chicken with Tomatoes and Basil (from our lovely garden)! Everybody jiak!

(Please excuse the peechurgraph cos it was taken with the phonecam)

Love,

Phillie

i LOVE breakfast!

woke up today with the craving for blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs. i think it's cause i went to the restaurant called "food for thought" that day with donzie and their pancakes looked divine. for you guys who don't know me, i am one of those people who believe that i can make anything i like to eat and crave for. hahaha... like what i said in my previous post. "why buy when you can make it yourself!"

so i set off to make yummy buttermilk, blueberry pancakes, i am not much of a carbohydrates girl but i actually ate one and the half of these damn pancakes. they were very fragrant and with the maple syrup. SHIOK! the scrambled only has one egg yolk, i only add it for color. whoever that likes unhealthy food might not enjoy some stuff i make cause i always think of nutritional value. it's still yummy! who is not shy? ME!

i'd have another thing to say in a very not shy manner, they had red velvet cake at this restaurant and mine is definately better! don agrees! hehe... i will make phillie go with me next time and she can tell you what she thinks!

gong xi gong xi y'all....

so i set out to make the red velvet and devil's food cake from the magnolia recipe. i have a feeling this one is not as good as the other one cause nobody went, "this is so good!!" after they took the first bite. SO! my next attempt will be to use this cake recipe with my cream cheese icing. i REALLy liked the fluffiness of the cake, this cream was troublesome and didn't turn out the way i wanted, damn the singapore humidity!

as for the devil's food cake, i still feel it should go with ganache. the cakes was yums! but this chocolate buttercream is too sweet! actually i used recipe from another recipe. mixing it up buut alas! i will just try it with different frosting till i perfect it.... more to come folks! i now just need to find people to test and give them to.

Embracing the New Year!

From both of us at TSK, here's wishing yall a very Xin Nian Kuai Le!

HUAT AH!

Love,

Karen & Phillie

For the Days Before CNY

This is the plan; even though I'm swamped with work, fairy god-daughter's return and mad "lou hey" thing on friday night, I am going to attempt to make, Red Velvet cupcakes (new recipe), Vanilla cupcakes, Devil's Food cupcakes AND oatmeal, almond & raisin cookies!

I think I have gone mad, but like Phillie says, "I have faith in you!"

So dudes, wish me luck! I can do it!

Tarts R' Us!

More Chinese New Year posts! Can you tell we love CNY??

Anyways, my 3rd time making Pineapple Tarts. You'd think it gets easier, but nooo. It's still tedious! It did however get a wee bit faster tho! The 1st time I ever tried making it, it took me about 12 hours to make about 100 tarts. The 2nd time it took me about 8 hours, and this time, only 7 hours! Still time consuming if you ask me, considering how some cookies only take an hour or so, from start to finish! Buuuut...this post is about Pineapple Tarts, so let's focus!

Here's a little secret, I really am not a big fan of Pineapple Tarts (yes, I know, I'm a failed nyonya). I don't hate them, but I won't actually buy them! But I do love making them because the people I love, love 'em...and that's reason enough!

Presenting, Pineapple Tarts 2010, before:

Fresh out of the mould, and eggwashed, about to be chucked into the oven

And after:

Taken out of the oven round 1, pineapple added, crosses added, eggwashed again, oven round 2, and Voila!

Yall have yourself a very Happy Xin Nian!

Phillie

Cashews Cashews!

I always thought Cashew Nut Cookies were difficult to make (read:leychey), and because I'm lazy, I never really bothered to attempt. But since it's Chinese New Year (yay!), I thought I'd be adventurous.

Thanks to Google, I found a recipe that looked simple enough! And so, my very 1st attempt at Cashew Nut Cookies!

All prepped and about to hit the oven:

All baked and ready to be consumed:

Ok I have to say it was nice, but I think I can do better. I promise the next time, I will use a better butter! This was truly experimental and I just used whatever I had at home! Lurpak is on sale now! Yayness! *grabs shopping bag*

Phillie

i'm here to stay!

so i'm back, from outer space..... yeah shanghai was my outer space. since i can't blog, google, youtube, bake, facebook... yes i know all technology stuff but still! it still feels a little like outer space. now that i am back, i can start to cook and bake and hopefully that makes many people very happy.

since it's my first day back, i obviously haven't baked or cooked anything yet so i will post something i did a couple of months ago.

they are these really pretty colorful cupcakes that my niece begs me to make all the time. "i want the pink color ones." this is actually my favourite recipe for vanilla cupcakes. even the frosting is yummy eventhough singapore is always too humid for it to hold. but we have to make it work if we wanna sell them right?

my next attempt will be to make what my friend calls "banoffee pie", it sounds super yummy, banana and toffee pie. it's gonna be super fattening but hey since i don't really eat what i bake! i'm safe! good luck pals.... hahahha.... i am so evil.