My Little cupcakes

Look at what I can do? I made these for Hazel who ordered them for her gathering of friends and the cupcakes below I did for Intan to share with her family who seem to love these little beauties. A box of 49 mini suspcakes cost $13 but the slightly bigger ones with chococlate ganache or M nMs cost $18 (36 pieces in a box) After a while they are quite fun to do although at first it was hard to conjur up nice designs.

The children ofcourse prefer the chocolate covered cupcakes and my little Zahra would ony pick the M n M's and lick off the icing!! E-mail me at jasminetaib@hotmail.com if you guys are interested. I also do Birthday cakes of different sizes and variety of styles with prices starting from $35 upwards. Another favourite are these mini pavlovas. They are available for $1.50 each. Really light and yummy. The large pavlova which is about 16 inches will cost $45.

The New GIANT Hypermarket

The easter holidays are almost over, as usual the kids are eating their way through whatever is in the fridge, cupboards and the pantry! So much so that my normal once a week shopping routine has had to be broken and today we finally made it to the new hypermarket Giant at Tasek Rimba. After going past it for several days and waiting for all the long Queues of cars going in to die down, we finally made it and even found parking quite easily.

So what's the big deal? It's a new concept of shopping in Brunei everything on sale under one roof, although their range of shops could have been greater rather than just the normal selling hairstuff for girls, tudongs and kains. For kids there is one play area in the middle which is quite full right now because of the school holidays. The seating area for the foodcourt which hosts around 6 or 7 stalls seems quite limited. But there are other eateries such as KFC and Jollibee and another Malaysian Food Outlet selling roast chicken for $14 per chicken!!

Yes so the place is huge and some items are cheap and the range of goods on offer especially Malaysian made products is quite tremendous, but.. I don't think it will beat Supasave in any way for Australian or UK products. Even their vegetables and range of fruits at 2.30pm today were looking a quite sad and very layu! So Hua Ho and Pasar Burong will still be a necessity. From time to time their offers might be worth a visit, Their beef products did not impress me at all, Supasave still a winner in that area nor did their bakery were on par with that at Suapsave, obviously it caters for the masses being a hypermarket but I have seen better Hypermarkets overseas. For now it will be a novelty to most and parking will be scarce for the next week or so, but most of their prices are at the same range as those offered by the other supermarkets. Obviously for us the consumers it will be good as there is now more competition and better prices all round.

Air of Change?

I have been mulling over how to change my blog as to whether I should commercialise it more to get proper (?- meaning other than family members) customers for my cakes or whether I should create 2 different blogs ie one for family news and general thoughts etc and another one for recipes and photos of cakes etc. But... at the end of the day my laziness has won over me and you know what, I think I should just improve this blog site instead so as not to confuse firends and create unnecassary waste of time for me also in updating 2 blogs ..eski banar jua kali tu ah kan ada 2 blog satu sudah payah-payah!!.

So I am in the midst of compiling my Blog Phlet as Ka Whiz calls them or a slide show of the cakes I have done and I will attach prices to the pictures. It's taking a while because I am not terribly good at downloading photos and arranging them if anybody is using a simpler method please do share your trick of the trade.

As for family news- the family all trouped down to the Empire Theatre last Saturday night to see Amin take part in the 10th Anniversary musical Gala. The show was very well put together and performed brilliantly with not just orchestra performances, but superb singing and entertaining dancers! It was nice to see familiar faces of friends of the children showing off their talents! Amin was part of the drum line and percussion team for the Orchestra and Jazz Band. He practiced real hard for the show and was so happy to be involved after all he is one of the original students of JIS having been there since the school was set up in 1997. It was particularly a proud moment Amin especially as his Grandpa was guest of Honour last Saturday. I could not get up close to take photos of Amin as we were quite high up and he was way at the back with the other percussionists. There have been some photos posted in http://www.ranoadidas.com/ though for those who missed the show though sadly there none of the drumline or percussionists!

I have also been following avidly the political developments in Malaysia considering my first thesis was on the disunity within BN and UMNO in the late 80's. It has taken 20 odd years for that disunity amongst party leaders and racial discontent to finally reach the grass roots level and cause such an upset in the elections. What an election! Despite what we see or hear on the general media, where everthing is ofcourse very pro BN,there were indeed rumblings of discontent on the internet via blogs etc for the last couple of years already, so you could say the oppostion had a head start in their campaigning!!..some views were indeed very radical and I myself did not really believe that the bloggers could have caused such an upset but maybe Malaysians were fed up and not contented with what was going on around them and their daily lives. It will be interesting to see now how things will develop in the opposition led states and how BN will reshape itself after this. Whatever it is I hope all goes well!!

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!