More Chocolate Cakes

Well the weekend just past being a long weekend I was hoping to get some time off to lounge about and read my new O magazine, but it was not to be as on Saturday I had to cook for Iqah's birthday tea party plus do her cake. Iqah's cake actually is filled with chocolate mousse and is not as dense as my normal rich chocolate cake. On Sunday I had to a large birthday cake for Norah for her to bring to school tomorrow as well as for a family friend Iyah who celebrated her birthday two weeks ago ! But I promised her a Rich Chocolate cake so voila! Happy birthday Iqah, Norah and a belated birthday to Iyah. I was going to make 3 blueberry cheesecakes for a few friends also since I was on a roll!! skali...my oven broke down!! Aaargh! This is soo annoying. Some people from Mayer came by today and said some parts needed replacing but they were not sure if they had them?!! Does this mean I need a new oven? We will just have to wait and see I guess. If I do need a new oven for sure I will a need a huge bake sale to support the move! By the way chocolate cakes the size for Norah which is 14 x14 will cost $60 to order and the size of Iqah's cake which is 12 inches and around 5 inches high will cost $50 to order, 10inches cake will cost you $40 to order. E-mail me at jasminetaib@hotmail.com for enquiries.

I have posted some photos which we took in Singapore recently. There was an exhibition on Formula One cars by Petronas at the front of Takashimaya. Amin I think was hoping to try out the simulators but the queue was too long. Zahra my little shopaholic had a blast at 2 Toys R Us stores - one at Paragon and a bigger one at Vivo City. No I diidn't let her buy the Hanny Manny or Dora doll btu she only wanted a picture of her favourite cartoon figures! I quite like Vivo City as it reminds a lot of shopping centres in Europe, although the information staff were not helpful in explaining where the restaurants were located. We ended up going to one of the food courts on the top floor which had limited choice of muslim food only one Indonesian stall and one Indian stall selling admitedly very yummy briyani. After lunch we went one floor down and found one whole row of restaurants which we could have gone to!! Still we had a good trip to Singapore as always! I managed to stock up on my baking needs but prices were exhorbitently high! As for classes in decorating, this will prove to be difficult in Singapore as they do not really cater to clients with tight time schedule in Singapore, so it looks like Kl might be the better choice as they are more friendly in organising classes for overseas clients.

Selamat Hari Kebangsaan Brunei!

It's our 24th National Day tomorrow and there has been lots of flag raising and giving away of flags to put on your cars etc in th elead up to tomorrow's parade and presentation by youths and students on the Sultan Omar Ali field downtown BSB.
I still remember participating as one of the pom pom holders in the National Stadium on the first National Day celebration. Prince Charles was in attendance along with most of the Malysian Sultans and the Late King of Tonga! ( there was a rumour then that they had to make an extra big bed for him!)
Sadly I have no photo of the event though I am sure someone somewhere will post one up tomorrow! The field presentations and songs have not changed much and it really amuses my kids when I start belting out the patriotic songs! Still to most teachers it was a nuisance that we had to miss so many classes just to make sure we were perfect for the big day. I heard nowadays they only practice after school hours..rightly so tapi kalau miss class atu dulu-dulu siuk kan, and we still passed! Sadly as my kids are in JIS I don't think they will ever have the opportunity to take part in the National Day celebration unless someone in the board thinks otherwise!
Good luck to all those taking part and Selamat Hari Kebangsaan Brunei! Esok membuat cake bendera Brunei ku eh!....not! Sibuk ku kali ah membuat birthday cake Iqah. Besok malam tah menunjukkan gambar nya.

Hello from Singapore

Hello from Singapore! It's Zahra's birthday today and yesterday we went to Toys R Us to get her toys for her. Actually she chose them all but still insisted we wrap them up to surprise her in the morning! That's Zahra's for you and she even made comments like " wow! I really wanted this toy!" So the very dramatic!
Well we've hit the shops and did some major damage to my wallet! But I managed to find some really good cake decorating books at Borders, also tomorrow morning I am hoping to go to this shop that actually runs decorating courses here in Singapore called "Bake it Yourself " shop in Bukit Timah. Really looking forward to it. Fatin and Zahra have got most of what they came for and now are asking if we can go to a museum!! Hmmm we'll see!
Foodwise we haven't really gone to anywhere exciting just the normal foodstalls to get the mee rebus and sushi etc! I had really yummy blueberry cheesecake at the little cafe on the 3rd floor of Tangs today. Unfortunately my bliss didn't last long when Zahra came up and asked me to get her a watch !!
Will post some photos next week when I get to Brunei or if I can find the right wires in Amin's really messy laptop case!

Sports day and Cakes galore!

Hi people!

I know I am so lazy to update but I have been sooo busy with cake orders and now Chinese New Year is coming up I will be up to my neck with cakes orders for the next couple of days at least. Yesterday was Zahra's sports day and thank God it was indoors and not on the field. All the kids were cute running around doing the various races- egg spoon race, hula hoop race, sack race and 2 more races which I didn't have the patience to stay for! Everybody gets a ribbon after each race so there were no tears! just friendly competition! The PTCG asked if parents wanted to donate cakes for the occasion and I managed to whip up some blueberry yoghurt oatmeal muffins. Skali baru ku kan merasai satu habis tia! I lupa to gambar but my friends said it was nice and moist and ..very healthy one!

Anyway it's Adam's birthday today and his mum ordered chocolate cake and pavlova as well. Last week it was Serina's birthday party as well as Feisal's and Maria's birthday. We had a tea party to celebrate Feisal's birthday on the 27th with his side of the family, I made mee rebus tapi as usual my sis in law said it was not the same as the one she had tasted in Singapore! Maybe they use too much Aji No Moto in thier gravy that's all I can say!! Still I made Fiesal's favourite desert/cake a pavlova or baklava as he calls it!! Zahra insisted putting 6 candles on it for her! Andang nya anak ku ani tiap kali birthday mesti ingatkan birthday nya jua!

Anyway the next day we had a nother dinner birthday party to celebrate both Maria and Fiesal's birthday at my parent's house. Iman and Zahra performed a specially choreographed dance by Fatin for the celebrants and it was well recieved! For Maria and Feisal I tried doing a custard cream cake with mangoes and strawberries a bit like fruit flan, for them skali my amah liked ruined it when she angkat to mum's house so it ended up looking grosse partly because it was not set properly, tapi the rasa was quite nice. Next time mesti taruh overnight to avoid any mishaps barutah lawa macam bakerlyn stlye!

So anyway to my Chinese friends - Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Mari Memasak!

Zahra had a big moan the other day after school that she did not get into the cooking After school activity class( yes I am guilty I sent in the form too late!!). So I promised her we can do cooking at home and I even promised that she could crack the eggs and do the mixing etc!!( God I must have been delirious that day!)

So I decided to do chocolate muffins as they are so easy to do and does not require much mixing so it's ideal for the kids. They had a ball putting the mix into the trays as you can see from thier happy picctures! I think a lot of the mix ended up in their mouths too! So I left the house to pick up Fatin when the muffins went in the oven and by the time I got home all the muffins were gone! All claimed by Zahra and Iman! I had to literally beg her for the finished product as she claimed all rights to them and only she could decide who could have one! Iman took home or had distributed all her muffins. They obviously have no entrepreunerial spirit yet if not they would have sat outside the house selling these cakes to everybody( Fatin and Hazim had a habit of doing this before every holiday to get extra money!) Anyway the muffins were quite yummy and Zahra even took some to school the next day to show off her culinary skills!

Today Maria and I took the cooking thing a step further and we did small fairy cakes and chocolate cupcakes for Iman's bake sale at school tomorrow. This time it was a bit more complicated as the recipes required the mix to be beaten using a cake mixer. Of course everybody wanted a go holding the machine! Even Jack was involved! Still they all turned out great and we experimented using left over icing that I had in the fridge. My sister said Ka Wiz would only faint looking at the disastrous designs!! Never mind pokok nya we had a fun afternoon doing them and no doubt they will be hit at the bake off sale tomorrow. For photos go to Maria's blog as mine turned out blurry!

Happy Birthday Iman

It was Iman's birthday 2 days ago and yesterday she had a really huge birthday party. Well done Miah and Donncha for pulling it off..there were like 40 kids running in and around their house and all went well, all the games were played and best of all everybody got to hit the pinata. No doubt Miah will have full coverage of it on her blog. As always I was in charge of the cake and for the last few days I really didn't think it would work out but I tried and this was the best I could do considering the excruciating pain I have been getting from my bad back!

Iman's dad bought chocolate all the from Geneva to make his daughter's rich chocolate cake but I ended up using my own chocolate out fear that the chocolate that he bought was too bitter! I'll make you another one using the chocs you bought Donncha! Still everybody recognized the drawing as Dora although some compliments were better than others. The important thing was the cake was really yummy and most kids had 2 helpings which is a good sign! Happy birthday Iman!

Happy New Year!

Greetings people!! Or have you all given up on me ever blogging again!! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! and to all fellow muslims Selamat Menyambut Tahun Baru Hijrah!! I finally got off my lazy x@#*! and decided I must post something new on my blog as everybody else seems to have put lots of interesting photos and posts about their new year celebrations!

New resolution maybe, but for this year I have decided I will really get down to looking for more inspirations on cake decorations and perhaps go down to KL and do the Wilton decoration class... we'll see how this progresses. We have that flat in Datuk Keramat unutilised so maybe this year most holidays will be in Malaysia! Who knows maybe I will get to meet up with other fellow bloggers who so inspire me especially Ka Wiz! I didn't realize she posted a comment in my blog until today you can tell I am so baru at all this. Thanks Ka Whiz for dropping in and thanks for your advice on the cupcakes , will try it out probably this weekend. I also didn't realise another fellow blogger from Brunei, Sas who does not really know who I am, dropped me a note too. thanks Sas. Thanks also for linking me!!! So honoured lah tepaksa tah slalu-slalu me update blog ku ni! Your babu knows who I am just ask her ok! I love your blog your frank comments always make me laugh and that lamb you cooked for your friends in Melbourne looks really nyaman! Nanti minta recipe nya ah!

Well my son Haji Mohamed Fahamin finally came back from his month long Haj experience, tall, lean and arabic looking!! We were all happy to see him along with my parents who were full of praises for Amin! With his return the family is whole again and my number 1 critic and kitchen helper is back full of ideas as usual on how to cook things etc!! Oh and his mess is back too!

Well over the holiday period I did do a couple of cakes but recently I did these gems - mini pavlova and they were really light and yummy!! Normally I would do a huge pavlova with 9 egg whites (like the one in the other photo), but this time Mum had passed to me some whipped cream to use up quickly as it was near the expiration date so I didn't want to risk not having enough cream. So I did 6 egg whites and made 30 mini pavlovas. Unfortunately I ran out of strawberries and kiwi fruit so left about 7 pieces without any fruits but just cream... also kena whallop by Amin! You would think he would put on weight from eating all this sweet stuff but nooo! Anyway Pavlova recipes are all over the place and some call for the use of vinegar or lemon juice. Either is fine. But if you guys cannot be hassled to whip this up or give them a go let me know and I can do them for you at $1.50 each!! The big pavlova I sell for for $50.00 each!! Cheh! Tahun baru business mesti lah!!

Pavlova:

6 egg whites

12 oz caster sugar

2 teaspoons vinegar mixed 2 teaspoons cornflour

Fruits to garnish

whipped cream

Method:

Heat oven to 140C. Whip egg whites till soft peaks then add sugar 1 tabelspoon at a time. Laslty add cornflour mixed vinegar. Pipe or dollop onto well greased tray accordingly. Put into oven for 1 hour. Do not open door at any time or increase heat. Once done, leave to cool completely, then decorate accordingly!