My bakes (part 1)

Wah! It has been some time since i last update my blog and the no of visitors has increased by double!! Altho i haven't been updating my blog... but i have been constantly taking foodies pics with my hp camera. Hmmm... Abit pai seh sometimes... i got to take a quick snap before i drew curious and stupid stares from the waitresses/diners/shoppers/passer-bys. Hence, my foodie pics usually turned out to be blur or out of scope.

Alright! my foodie fans! i'm back again! But for these two posts... it's on my bakes... so no need to prepare tissue to wipe yr saliva... maybe shld prepare pails to puke cos my bakes are not exactly very "pretty". But the taste is not that bad! (can lie abt the taste even it is so-so only... cos u guys cannot tell from the pics) -_-""

My Bakes (Part 1): THE MEGA EGG TART

This mega egg tart is abt 12inches in diameter (did we break the Guiness record?). It was baked to this size to serve as Jing Yng's birthday cake. She is an egg tart lover! The hardest part in the baking of an egg tart is the crust... my past cursts(flaky or hard) always turned out to be either too thick or uneven. So we, the lazy bakers, decided to use the ready-made crust (graham crust, used for cheesecakes) from Liberty Supermarket. It's strawberry in flavour with a little bit of lemondae smell... Lesson learnt: Not all cursts are the same! If the label said it's for cheesecakes, then it's for cheesecakes.. Don't use it to bake egg tarts.

The egg custard in the middle was nice but the crust was really quite off. My friend even found it taste like detergent(cos of the lemonade). Then we were wondering whether we had accidentally spilled detergents into our custard mix.

Take a look at the picture on the right... Looks not bad huh? that slice the kinfe was holding onto... that size... yes... i ate that whole slice... eerr... -_-""

Altho my past cursts were thick and hard... but at least it taste better than detergents =)

Cookout 2 (With the hockey girls)

I would like to extend a Big Thank You to my fans who have been visiting this blog... it has just passed 200 viewers! (or did i myself make-up 50% of this nos? hmmm) Anyway, this post should have been up 3days ago... i spent 1hr on it but the moment when i clicked "Publish post", an error page occured! I almost fainted... luckily sugar level high after eating so much during the cookout.

Where can you go on a public holiday? With choking haze outdoors and choking pple indoors... Cookout will be the best activity! It's cheap, fun and allow u to interact with your friends(unlike movie & shopping)! We spent less than $10/pax for the amt of food u're going to see later.

I love the hockey girls!! Hello guys out there, we all can play sports and cook k (进得了厨房，出得了厅堂）... But anyway, who cares abt guys... we have so much fun ourselves =)


Dish 1: Potato Salad (on the right)
Chef behind the scene: Debbie
Abt this dish: Consists of potatoes, ham, pasta, mayo, cashew nuts and bacon bits.
Verdict: 5/5!
Comment: Damn nice la! We ate until there were only few cashew nuts lying around! This potato salad can easily beat those from NYDC and Swensens!

Dish 2: Spagetti
Chefs behind the scene: Me, Ruying[turn on the stove (cos i'm scared of the fire) and stirring of the sauce] and Debbie(cut the sausages and mushroom)
Abt this dish: Leggo sauce+mushroom+sausages. Reason for using leggo sauce: cos there's a promotion... if not we'll get Prego.. But then, it's not bad at all!
Verdict: 4/5
Comment: Very nice! The portion left is lesser than the amt in the picture! Yummy! Simple but nice.. and i guessed it's much healthier than creamy cheesy sauce


Dish 3: Brownies+ Vanilla ice cream
Chef behind the scene: Juliana
About this dish: Angel Food's brand Brownies (On budget so we never get Betty Crocker's) + Magnolia's ice cream (jul wanted Ben & Jerry tho)
Verdict: 4/5
Comment: The brownies are very chewy... worth trying if u're on a budget as it's abt $2+ cheaper than Betty Crocker. Julie initially wanted to eat only, but this idiot-proof recipe should be no problem for her! And she did a good job! =)

Dish 4: Crabmeat Sushi
Chef behind the scene: Yuhan and I (assistant helper)
About this dish: opps... got to ask yuhan abt the recipe... It's given by her granny, taught by her granny's church friend.
Verdict: 5/5 for taste and 3/5 for looks (sorry H, i got to be a lil honest... if not no1 will read my blog)
Comment: Yuhan and i have reached the conclusion that it's justifiable to pay 55cents for those sushis at cold storage or Carrefour. Making sushi is damn tedious!! Poor Yuhan took the sacrifices by eating all the spoilt ones (spolit as in the rice fell out, whole thing crumbled, too salty etc) The amt of spoilt sushi she ate can summed up to one bowl of rice!! But the taste is great! Anyway it ends up the same in the stomach.. so who cares abt the presentation...

Dish 5: Extra dish-- Scrambled egg+sausages+mushroom
Chefs behind the scene: Ruying and Debbie
Abt this dish: This dish wasn't originally in the menu... but we had too much mushrooms and sausages leftover.. so we decided to cook up another dish. Wanted omelette at first but no cheese.. so jus anyhow cook lor...
Verdict: 2.9/5
Comment: Not too bad... eggs not salty enuff. But smart idea from debbie... And it's good that we don't waste food ya =)

I love cookout! It's really a good time spent with yr friends! We can continue to be each other's guinea pigs to brush up our skills b4 cooking for the someone special in the future... jus in case that person run away after testing our food....

Al-Azar Prata

Bella and I were delivering Ngoh Hiang to Pastor's house at KAP. When u're around that area, how could you give the pratas there a miss!?!? We were initially afraid that the prata uncles will be away celebrating Deepavali instead of flipping prata... Indeed, Al-Ameenz prata uncles went to celebrate Deepavali... Fortunately, Al-Azar prata uncles prefer to spend their Deepavali flipping pratas.

I ordered the same prata as the one i ate at Alif Prata @ Bukit Gombak- Prata cheese egg. As you compare the picture with my previous post on Alif, this prata appears to be much smaller, but thicker. I actually prefer this to Alif. Scroll down to see the oozing-cheese prata...




Whoo- la-la~~ Can u guys see the cheese oozing out? I tried my best to squeeze out more to take a nicer picture... but i can't wait to eat them.. so these are the best shots b4 it was gone in 5mins. The cheese at Al- Azar is much nicer than Alif. But BEWARE of their milo!!! It's super duper sweet!!! Pls tell them to make it less sweet when you order... i guess they poured half the container of the condensed milk in it! Almost fainted when i drank my first sip... i had to ask them to add water to dilute it.

Happy Deepavali to all Indians!! I love to eat your food!! Pls get back to work tmr!!!

My Bakes: Banana Cake

After several attempts in convincing others that i have the culinary/baking talent, i finally sort of succeeded... maybe abt 40% la. The product this time was banana cake. I have finally decided to use the bread machine, which i bought like 3 months ago, before it starts to bake spider webs inside.

The recipe was taken from http://thelazychef.wordpress.com/. The ingredients are ( in the photo). How to start? Measure everthing according to the recipe and pour everything into the bread machine and let the bread machine do all the work for you!!

However!! There was a sudden blackout! My main power tripped! I guessed we were over-using the power supply. Luckily it had finished the kneading the process... so i got to take the pan out and put into the oven for 1 1/2 hour of baking.

And the final product looks like this....

This is the first time my product turns out to be edible... History shows that most of them usually landed up in the dustbin instead of stomach... Let me show u a failed banana cake done by me in the earlier half of the year

This ugly banana cake looks fine... looks only ( actually looks ugly also). The outside is chao ta... so hard.. the inside is still moist.. unbaked... i forced abt 3 slices down my stomach b4 throwing it into the dustbin. Another taster of this cake is my little sister... she is my guinea pig... poor gal. She likes my bake... even the failed ones... 年少无知。。。

Alif Prata

Roti Prata-- used to be the indian version of Western pancake but recently, the creative indians have mix and match different ingredients into it such that it's become a Western pizza. Whoo~~ I jus love prata... To me, a good prata muz be crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Most pratas fulfil one yet not the other. Some are so crispy that it can be called prata biscuits instead. Some are so soggy and doughy that u can chew until your jaws drop. Sigh~ Why are the good food all so oily and fattening?? Can someone pls come out with a low-fat prata?? Indian uncles, can u all please lessen the amt of oil, you all like trying to act cool by splashing the ladens of oil onto the pratas...

13/10 friday: Finally get to catch up with my longest friend (since pri 1), Xiao xin, for a prata breakfast at Alif Restaurant ( Opp Bukit Gombak MRT station; beside McDonald). She ordered a beef murtabak (pic above). I like fat roti prata... fat as in the size, not fattening prata (pratas are all fattening anyway). Murtabak is diff from prata as there are meat and onions wrapped inside. Normally, it comes in chicken, mutton or beef. Hence the size of murtabak is always bigger than prata.

As for myself, i ordered an egg+cheese prata. Not too bad, but i felt that the one at Al-Ameenz is better as the size is bigger and crispier. Al-Ameenz has a greater variety of pratas and drinks. Two of the special drinks there are Milo Godzilla and Milo King Kong! Milo Godzilla is milo+whipped cream+Ice Cream. Milo King Kong is the bigger versoin of Godzilla i think. As for me... after a sinful prata... i guess a cup of normal ice milo will do =)

Cookout!

Haiz.. Was busy cooking and preparing. By the time i was ready with my hp camera, half of the food was gobbled down by my guests!!! And all the initial layout and presentations of the food was gone... the presentation looked too ugly... hahaha.. i managed to take one picture of Rachel's creation- tomato cheese with basil leaf & cheese. It's yummy! JY swallowed it in one mouth... i got to take at least 5 bites.. That's how big his mouth is (hmm.. i hoped he is not reading this blog.. hehehe)

My konnyaku Jelly

i wasn't of much help at the cookout- i was i/c of washing the plates, passing the cutleries, opening the packets of milk and cheese. But i did prepared a dish the day before the cookout! Mummy taught me how to make the Japanese konnyaku jelly.. okie la, quite easy to make... unlike my baking products... which i have yet succeed so far...

I have no pictures of other food... but basically we had creamy mushroom spagetti/fusilli; tomato cheese w basil leaf; konnyaku jelly; pepperoni pizza (i made it!! As in i was the one who heat it up); sara lee strawberry swirl pound cake; boiled brocolli (sth green and healthy); mum's fried fritters, crabmeat and hotdogs; sprite; henekkien.... that's all i remembered but my guests were all bloated at the end of the day =)

Where have the Tim Tams disappeared to???

Tim Tam seemed to be disappearing from major supermarkets in Singapore!! I was searching for my latte and mint tim tams (which previously were available at Clementi Ntuc)... Went to Carrefour, Cold storage, The Market Place etc but to no avail...

No choice but to head to Candy Empire...
The Tim Tam family are basically all gathered there! They have the latte, mint, double choc coated, chewy caramel, blackforest, truffle, orignial, classic dark and mix flavours pack!! But what caught my eye is the new Tim Tam Pink Wish!! These biscuits were filled with gooey strawberry flavored toffee. I was too broke to buy two packets hence i sticked to my latte Tim Tam

Another product caught my eye as i was about to pay for my Tim Tam... You always get to see something familiar, yet not so familiar in candy umpire...

This Kit Kat cookie dough costs abt $2.50 per bar... i think i will prefer Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream =)