Seriously the best blueberry muffins!

 

Blueberry muffins recipe from :

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/best-ever-blueberry-muffins.html#tabbox

Reduced sugar to 150g

Double choc muffin

 

Double choc muffin https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/chocoholic-muffins.html#tabbox

Reduced sugar to 200g

Choc chip muffins

Choc chip muffin from 

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/chocolate-chip-muffins.html

Reduced each of sugar type by 25g each

Coconut Biscuits just like in my Secondary 1 days

I suddenly thought about the coconut biscuits we made during our Home Econs class back when I was 13, but since I no longer had my Home Econs text, I used my daughter’s and adapted it from there.  Tasted exactly like what I made years ago!  And David made it the traditional way, with a wooden spoon and no beater whatsoever :)

My adaptation:
100g flour
100g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
3tbsp desiccated coconut
1 tbsp beaten egg

Cream butter and sugar with wooden spoon till pale.
Add egg and mix.
Fold in flour then dessicated coconut.
Bake in preheated 180 degrees C oven for 20 mins.

* Mine was turning brown at 15-min mark, maybe because my oven is hotter than normal.
Will make it a point to reduce my temp to 170 degrees C next time.

Best idiot-proof sourdough ever!

This is the best and easiest sourdough ever!
I usually halve the recipe and bake two loaves out of the half-recipe.
If I’m not going to bake the second loaf immediately and only has time to bake it more than 16 hours later, I’ll stuff it into the fridge immediately after final shaping.

Recipe from Susan of Wild Yeast Blog - the Norwich Sourdough
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/my-new-favorite-sourdough/

Half of the above recipe that yields two small loaves
Starter: 180g
Warm water: 300g
Bread flour: 450g
Rye flour: 60g
Salt: 11.5g (about 2 teaspoons)

Method:
Mix and autolyse everything for 30mins, except 20g of water with the salt dissolved in it.
After 30mins is up, add the salt mixture and knead on dough hook till almost windowpane stage.
Put into oiled container for bulk fermentation for total 2.5hrs - at 50min and 100min marks, do stretch and fold.
After 2.5hrs is up, divide dough into two and shape.  Then leave on table to rest covered for ten minutes and put into banneton or mixing bowl (I use mixing bowl as I don’t own a banneton).  Put into a large plastic bag and clip tight.

Baking time:
Score proofed bread, put into claypot and spray with water.
Cover claypot and bake for 20mins in 240 degrees Celcius preheated oven (lowest rack).
Then take out the bread and bake for another 15mins in 220 degrees Celcius oven.
Turn off oven heat and leave bread in half-opened oven for another 5 minutes.

Gabriel’s first mission is a brownie adapted from this recipe:
https://thegingeredwhisk.com/mega-chocolate-sourdough-brownies/

 I reduced choc chips to only half cup and valrhona cocoa to 2 tablespoons

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup  bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)
• 90g unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 whole eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 cup 100% hydration sourdough starter discard, room temperature
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a large bowl over a boiling water bath. Stir constantly. 
3. Turn off the fire and whisk in the sugar. 
4. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking to combine each addition.
5. Sift the cocoa powder over the chocolate and stir to combine.
6. Add the starter and stir gently to mix. 
7. Place the batter into a 7 x 7 square pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Lovely crispy top fresh out of the oven.  After one night in the fridge, it was really fudgey!
This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Gabriel is alive!

Gabriel is alive and out of ICU after 6 months of hibernating in the fridge 😀

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Made this Pandan Chiffon from Kitchen Tigress' blog.
Reduced the sugar to 70gm in total, and cake still taste just as good.
I also reduced my coconut milk to 50gm and added pandan juice to make a total of 95g because I felt that my pandan juice were not fragrant enough... maybe they were too old?
Of course I had an easier way of squeezing out pandan juice from the leaves without water... with the help of my super juicer!

Meanwhile, if you are at her blog, check out her other entries as she dissects recipes from some recipe books.
They're wicked, and never fails to give me a good laugh!

David sleeping alone

Me: Will David sleep by himself in your room tonight? David wails: Noooooo.... I am scared of the raining "goong goong"

Cinnamon Rolls

Did you know cinnamon and honey is good for health?
From Arthritis to cholesterol levels and even heart disease.
I'm not sure how true this is, but it's good to indulge in a low-sugar wholewheat cinnamon roll once in a whille.



Before proofing


Final product

Recipe from Florence's blog
I used 160g bread flour and 50g wholewheat flour to make up for the original 210g bread flour.
Also reduced sugar to 30g.

Rapunzel Jewel Cake

The oven's dead, and I am into steaming now.
I adapted a recipe from Alex Goh's Magic Steamed Cakes book and sneaked in some purple sweet potato since the kids wouldn't eat sweet potato.

Fluffy and soft!

The Baobab Tree

I chanced upon this book in the library while waiting for our food at Jack's Place Bukit Panjang Plaza.
I thought it was really apt for the little girl who is going through her "It's not fair" stage.

At the end of the story, the kids line up to be turned upside down like the Baobab Tree's fate and they really get a good laugh out of that.

Term 1, 2012: Origami

Some of her works in school this term.



For those who are interested in origami, this is a great site with videos on how to fold the origami items.
http://www.en.origami-club.com/

Future Architect?

Swimming

An award for the little girl

We enrolled S into a swim class as she asked for it.
However, on her first lesson, she didn't want to join the class.
I imagine it must be quite intimidating for a 5-year-old to go into the pool without her mummy and daddy... and to the constant barking of the instructor.

So R and I decided to work on her basics, just to get her to be more confident.
A google showed up this website USwim, which teaches parents how to teach their kids to swim
We followed some of the steps, and got her confident enough to dunk her head into the water and do her confidence jump.
I also came up with the idea of an award in the form of a certificate.

It also helps that "gong gong" speaks very loudly, so I simply explained to her that the instructor really didn't mean to yell all the time.
It's just that some uncles speak very loudly, like her "gong gong" :P
This worked too, and she gamely joined the class during the second week.

She's now into jumping into the water all by herself and kicking/paddling about 1.5m towards R. She doesn't know how to coordinate her breathing yet, so she does this with her head in the water the whole time.

Sharing a bottle of chocolate-flavoured goat milk at Hays Dairy

Thomas toddler backpacks all out of stock?!

You wouldn't believe that all the Thomas toddler backpacks are sold out at the few Kiddy Palace outlets that I went to.
Had no choice but to make the little boy a backpack to go to school!

For the boy

Made this for the girl last year

Murder She Commited

This was what I did to my oven.
The day before, I was trying to tidy up the kitchen so my part-time helper will have an easier time.
As I was putting the tupperware into my oven, an image of the melting tupperware flashed across my mind.
I told myself "Don't be silly. Of course I will check the oven before I turn it on."
The next day, as I was getting ready to bake my cheese bread, I checked the oven and saw that all was clear.
BUT I didn't notice a tupperware cover that slid under the rack and was resting on the bottom heating element.
As I was preparing the batter, I smelled some horrible chemical smell and this was what happened.
I was pretty shaken by the whole accident... even more after R showed me that night, this video on why we should not pour water on kitchen oil fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecvG7sb4H4M
Afterall, petrochemicals in the plastic could be considered as "oil"?

An acquaintance told me to use flour.
A Google on the effect of flour showed is just as scary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tduy1zU0L-Q

I guess the best would be a wet cloth.

My Breakfast Kaki

This is my breakfast kaki for the last 1 year.
I'm going to miss him when my little man goes to school next Monday.

Breakfast is not always in such posh settings of course.
It's usually the chai tau kuay or bak chor mee in the market.
Otherwise, it's just a simple breakfast at home.

I want wife

The first time he said this, R told him he will have a wife when he is older.
He seemed frustrated with our answer and showed it by yelling "I WANT WIFE!" and kicking away.
How can being single at this age cause such frustration?

It was only later that we realised he meant "I want to drive."
Isn't he much happier in the pictures below?