it's real buttercream!!!

siewli & jericca : pretty ladies of pretty frosting

i really really (i mean really really really) love buttercream. and it's so frustrating as buttercream frosting is slowly disappearing as its cousin the light whip cream dominated the skinny world. today, i'm a very happy lady. not only i get to meet siew li and get to devour some delicious cupcakes with BUTTERCREAM frosting! aaaAAaaa.

to drool for : buttercream frosting cupcakes

go drool a little more here : http://www.prettyfrosting.com/

pyro musical competition & display : putrajaya 2007

wow! my very first photo shoot outing with my workmates!
well... at first i was rather disappointed as i left the shutter open too long for most shots. due to extremely slow write processing, i missed several nice bursts too. lesson learnt : switch of the nr to speed up the the write.after some post-processing, actually the shots that i thought was real lousy turn out quite ok. ^-^ the post-processing involved were just cropping and adjusting the shadow.

day1 [20070818] : ok. i did ooed & aahed as i love fireworks. as my excitement subsided, i realised that the 20mins display was ordinary. nothing extraordinary & the bursts were all pretty low too... then i just found out.... it's team malaysia...

spooky shots

artistically creepy photos, eh? actually the light source is from the infrared lamp i used for sore shoulders and back....

he's so naughty

oh no! vodka!'s is turning into a big bad apple... loads of ppl said that goldendoodles are non-aggressive, gentle dogs... oh noooOOooo. vodka!'s totally opposite that. since puppy he loves to chase and bite and nip and bite and nip.. especially at the ankle. thank goodness he grew out of nipping our ankles as we walk... well he sometimes still does when he's too excited. he loves to growl when he flew around like tin kau. it's actually very cute and comical until he start to give you surprised snaps... maybe he never have doggie playmates.... so he thinks he is one of us?

this morning he sneaked out as the gates were wide open. he was sitting and stayed until i vanished into the house then cheekily snaked out .... the more i shout "vodka! come back!" the faster he trot away from me... that's why i never... NEVER put him off lease... when i managed to catch up with him and tried to hold his collar... he GROWLED at me!! no manners. so i smacked him. and guess what... his skull like batu only.... i hurt my index finger and it swollen and turned blue black immediately. i think i must have hit the nerve or something cos it's not sprained.

to punish him, i whacked him couple of times with the rotan (which i guess felt like ant bites la) and tied him at a corner. ignored him for as long as i can (couple of hours) and fed him like late. immediately he turned into a lamb. but he is an actor...

so i thought he regretted his action.. but noOOOOooOO. he was back into his mischevious self again. when i was taking my bath, he chewed and broke my new hair band!! it costs me like 6.90!!! no wonder he rolled onto his back and acted cutesy pie when i came down to check on him. haiseh... what am i do to with him?

p/s : although aggressive at times... but i think he is like anjing lembut man.... he loves to nibble on hairbands, scrunchies, hairclips, etc...

moist neopolitan butter cake

so it’s time for another cake… and i had been yearning to eat some nice buttery cakes. for great butter cakes use the most expensive butter you can afford. farmcows/buttercups are what I can do with now.

as usual I tweaked the recipe i found online a little… cut out less than a quarter of sugar, increased the butter to 250g as the recipe used too little butter 185g only. and it’s a butter cake! the recipe calls for 3 eggs but 4 was used as the eggs i have was rather small. instead of making plain butter cake i decided to make it fancier by modifying it to neopolitan butter cake! so after batter is ready, I divided them to 3 portions one remain as original, added the chocolate ganache to one of the portions, while the remaining portions I added 2 teaspoon of strawberry essence and a tiny drop of red food coloring.

it took nearly 50 mins in 160c and phew!!! luckily neither the sides or top of the cake was burnt as some of my cakes tend to be. being a kanchiong girl, i decided to cut the cake while it was hot as i cant wait to see the colors inside. the top was crunchy but inside was soft and moist. it crumbed a little – not suppose to cut it hot J … it tasted … erm… not as good as i expected it to be. disappointed i was a little. something was missing…. the texture was off a little. however, vodka who was sitting prettily for the last 15 minutes lapped all the crumbs that mysteriously found their way to the floor cheered me up a little. at least he loves it. he was such a good boy sleeping patiently below the table while i was working with the cake and cleaning up. putting my disappointment aside, i let the cake to cool which i catch some sleep… lack of sleep lately as i was so hooked on the crime & investigation channel and tend to lose track of time.

much later… i dreaded to have another piece of the cake … afraid to face the fact that it didn’t turn out well… but i had too… else i don’t have anything to eat for dinner!! but.. but…but… it’s yummy! haha. it tastes very moist and buttery. however, the strawberry flavor too weak as the batter portion was too little compared to the chocolate and butter. i'll definitely make some more when mom’s back but this time without the strawberry part…

250g butter (room temperature)

3/4c sugar

1c flour

1.5c self-raising flour

4 eggs

3/4c milk

1 tsp vanilla essense

1 tsp strawberry essense

1 portion chocholate ganache

chocolate ganache:

2 tbs coco powder mix with enough milk

some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot 9 days old

i love cooking porridge and love them thick and very hot with slices of yewcharkueh. it's healthy, easy, fast and yummy. one of the easier to prepare is the chicken porridge. just boil water with uncooked rice and once boil throw in chicken meat (breast meat the easiest to work with and healthy too... but i love using chicken thigh ... got those fats which will definitely made the porridge yummier...). once meat is cooked, take them out to cool while continue to stir the porridge until think and nice. sometimes i add an egg in low fire so you can get stringy eggs in the porridge which looks lovely. peel chicken into strips and throw them back into the porridge. you can leave some to garnish. voila! it's done.

one of the variations i came up with during in one of those wuliao days is using the chinese herbs - yewsamchew (american ginseng roots - smaller ones) and keiki (gooseberries). boil the yewsamchew separately and pour the stock/essense into the porridge as the roots cannot be eaten (doesnt taste nice but i guess its no harm if you wanna chew them in your porridge). for the keiki, cook them with the porridge. i add some during the end of the cooking as i love the cruchiness and the sweet raisin-like taste. this porridge helps to cool your body (yewsamchew) and good for your eyes too (keiki). hmm... each time i cook this porridge i have this daejanggeum song playing in my head...

now i feel like eating porridge ... maybe will cook some seafood porridge later....