Random Pics.... Merry Xmas....

Oh, Xmas is over and now is counting down to New Year. 3 days left before Year 2007 ends and will never come back. Sometimes I feel sad whenever Christmas pass by as I will have to wait for another year to get the Christmas athmosphere, feelings and excitement. *sigh* Anyway, I shouldn't be feeling this way.

Here are some pictures of my mini Christmas Tree and some Christmas Dessert which I prepared for Doink. AS for the Christmas Dinner, just wait for me to blog about it next.

I bought this Christmas Tree 2 years ago and display it in my room. Hehe... And I also bought lights to make it look pretty and bright. Gosh, it's beautiful when I turn it on at night when I'm about to sleep.

My mini Christmas Tree

I placed a reindeer on my Christmas Tree as decor and the reindeer looks kinda lonely there. Hehe...

My cute little reindeer on the Xmas Tree

I wrapped some mini pressie to put under the Christmas Tree. Hehe... There aren't anything inside there. Anyway, I put Doink's pressie under the mini tree too to give it to him few days before Christmas as we weren't around Malaysia then.

Mini Pressie under my trees for display only *grin*

Here is a handmade Christmas card I made for Doink. I used to make a lot of cards for him every year when we first dated. However, as time goes on I ran out of ideas and in the end, I don't make cards that often. This year, decided to make a better card for him. Hmm, doesn't look that pretty. Well, will improve on my card decoration.

A Xmas Card for Doink handmade by Cutie

What did I give Doink? Haha... That's something for you to find out.

As for Dessert, here is the baked alaska with santa on top. Burned beautifully on top even though I don't have a blowtorch. Haha... I will have my way to burn my beautiful alaska. *laugh* My Christmas wish didn't come true which is to get someone to give me a blowtorch. *grin* Anyway, it's not really neccessary to have the blowtorch. I can just do it my way. Being me so rebellious in the kitchen, I can come up with some funny ideas to do things. *giggle*

Baked Alaska

After sprinkling some icing sugar, the baked alaska looks beautiful. Like Santa in snow. Darn, I forgot to put my reindeer there too. Hehe... I remembered my friend once told me back in UK that snows makes everything beautiful. Even a pile of rubbish will look beautiful when it's covered with snow. *lol*

Ta dah- Snowman covered with snow.

Here is another experiment dessert I made. It's Puff Pastry served with Peachy Custard.

Puff Pastry with Peachy Custard

I just bake the puff pastry and prepare the custardy sauce. I make it creamier a bit. Chop up some peaches and place it on top of the puff pastry and then pour the custard sauce over it. Sprinkle icing sugar. Simple to prepare and the taste is absolutely good. However, Doink and I prefer the Banana Crepe. Hehe...

I know it's a bit late to wish everyone a Merry Christmas now. Hehe... But who cares- Cutie, Doink, Teddys and Colonel Sanders are here wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hope everyone will have a great celebration. Hugz....

My cute teddies and even Colonel Sanders is in Xmas mood. *lol*

Sweet Tooth...

5 days to Christmas!!! Wooohoo!!! I just love Christmas and it's really beautiful to see all the Malls decorated with beautiful lights and Christmas Trees. Hehe... I feel like I'm in Wonderland whenever I'm at those places with Doink. Would like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas!!!

Alright, back to my kitchen experiment. I bought some bananas the other day as I thought of making some really good dessert for Doink. However before I go into the dessert, I have to let you know one of the simplest way to make a nutritious and delicious drink - banana milkshake. A great way to start your day.

First you need these 3 simplest ingredients: - 250ml milk, 1 banana and 1 tsp nutmeg (optional)

3 simple ingredients

Just blend all together and ta dah - Your yummy and full of goodness banana milkshake. Nutmeg add more taste to it and try it and I'm sure you will find that it taste nicer. If somehow you feel that it isn't sweet enough, you can add some sugar in it but I don't think it's necessary to do so.

Banana milkshake top with nutmeg

Now here comes the dessert.

It's banana crepe. I intentionally made extra slices of crepe when I was preparing the mille crepe so that I can prepare this yummy dessert for Doink to savour.

First I have to prepare the sauce. The sauce is very easy to prepare. Just boil milk, sugar till it thickens and then cut the bananas into slices and put it in the sauce when it's about done. Sprinkle some nutmeg in it, give it a stir and there you have your sauce. If you want to make it a little more sinful, add cream instead of milk.

Now get the ice cream and scoop into your crepe and wrap the ice cream. Drizzle the hot banana caramel sauce over it. Dust it with icing sugar and it's ready to be served. If you have some strawberries, put some on top of the crepe. *drool*

You have to serve this immediately as the hot sauce will kinda melt the ice cream. But it's all yummy... Taste really good. It's really easy to make and it takes you less than 5 minutes to prepare if you have your crepes ready stocked up in your fridge and this will definitely bring a smile to everyone who savour this especially to all the banana lovers.

Doink wasn't satisfied with one and he had 2 that particular night after dinner. And the next day he was asking for more. I guess I have to make more crepe to stock up in my freezer so that I can make more yummy crepe dessert for him.

Yummy Thin Crepes...

The first time in my life I actually tried Mille Crepe was when Jason bought it for me from Melaka. Doink and I fell in love with it. We just find the taste so amazing. After the first bite, you just want more.... However, I don't get to have it often as Jason doesn't come to KL often and what more that the Melaka Mille Crepe doesn't taste as good as it used to be as one the partners has left the restaurant.

And this is one of the menu that Doink has been requesting me to make but all this while I felt that it was tough to layer so many thin crepes and what more, I wasn't sure how to do it. So I went online to find recipes of it and to my surprise, I can barely find any recipes in making mille crepe. However, I decided to give it a try.

Making the crepes are pretty simple. However, for the first time making it, the batter was kinda thick so the end results was my crepe wasn't as thin as it was suppose to be. I stood by the stove, making each and every crepe one at a time patiently. I had fun making it that's for sure. Felt like a little kid playing masak-masak. Hehe... I sort of treat cooking at times like masak-masak, and when I do that, I will tend to enjoy my creation better.

Crepes

Of course I also have to prepare the custard sauce. It wasn't that tough to make but to make the thickness was a mess for me. I wasn't sure how thick it has to be and I was doing a rough estimation again. And ended up the custard was too liquidy. And I was frus. You will find out why later.

Custard Sauce before adding cream

Than it's time for assembling. Assembling was easy and definitely fun. However, due to the sauce being to liquidy, it was flowing through the sides of the crepes. Sigh... I got it done and just chuck it into the fridge. 5 mins later Jason called me up saying he is at the coffee shop waiting for me outside near my place. As I promised him that I will let him try my mille crepe, I didn't bother about letting the mille crepe to be fridge and took it out to let him try. By the time I brought it to him, it was sorta melting. Learned my 2nd lesson, not to let someone try your mille crepe which you just have finished assembling. *Banging Head* It was kinda discouraging when I pass it to him and I really felt like giving up and never make mille crepe unless some professional fella will come and teach me.

I told Doink that the mille crepe wasn't that good. But the next day when the mille crepe was cold enough that the creme didn't melt, it actually taste kinda good. And my confidence level came back.

So I decided to make my 2nd mille crepe the next day to prove myself that I can make one. This time I learned all my lesson and I made the batter thinner and ensure the custard is thicker. I fridge my custard before layering on the crepe. When all these are done, I fridge my mille crepe overnight. And the next day, that's the sort of mille crepe I was looking for. I made it. *jumping up and down happily* It wasn't as good as the Melaka one, but good enough to satisfy my taste buds. And I rather buy the ingredients and make one cake rather than paying RM9 for a slice of cake. Hehe....

Below are the end results of my mille crepe. The first one is actually my first experimentation. *shake head*

Custard flowing off my crepe

Here is my next experimentation.

A better mille crepe

I'm not saying mine is the best but at least it's a start from somewhere. There is still lots of improvements definitely. If I compare mine with Melaka mille crepe, it is still a long way to go but at least I sorta get the taste right. Just wanna say that don't let people's words to discourage you in anyway. Keep trying and believe in yourself. Hope you all have a beautiful week ahead. *hugz*

Beautiful Sweet Dessert

Doink has sort of been requesting me to prepare this sinful dessert for him for quite a while but I hesitated and instead I told him to bring me to Cameron Highlands to get the freshest strawberries and I will make for him. *cheeky me* However, I saw that Tesco was selling strawberries at kinda cheap price and they look kinda fresh, so decided to surprise him on Friday night. *smile* Well, can you guess what he requested?

He fell in love with the dessert when he saw it in Carol's Blog. To be honest, Carol prepares lots of beautiful desserts and I have learned a lot from her blog. It's actually Strawberry Pavlova. *oooooohhhhhh*

In the 1930's an Australian chef, Herbert Sachse, invented this dessert when a soft meringue cake was requested for an afternoon tea at the hotel where he worked. This meringue cake, with its unusual soft sweet marshmallow center and crisp crust is produced by folding a little vinegar and cornstarch (cornflour) into the stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar. Once the Pavlova has been baked and cooled, softly whipped cream and fresh fruits (kiwi, raspberries, strawberries, passion fruit) are mounded in the center of the cake.


Fresh Strawberries - Oooh... beautiful colour

Initially I didn't have confidence in making this dessert as I never try making a meringue and I was afraid that I might fail. Anyway, to my surprise I did it and I have to say that I'm very proud of myself. The only mistake that I learn from making this pavlova is that the next time I have to make sure the edges of the meringue are slightly higher than the centre. I want a slight well in the centre of the meringue to place the whipped cream, custard and strawberries so that it doesn't flow over the meringue like mine. *shake head*


Sweet yummy custard

Most pavlova recipe that I find online does not have added custard on it. But Carol gave me the idea of adding custard in between meringue and whipped cream. That's actually a brilliant idea and it somehow provide much more richer taste in it. I think if it's served with just whipped cream, it may get a bit sickening after a while. That's my opinion. Well, you can always opt to just put whipped cream. *grin*

Please do try and prepare this dessert. I'm sure you will make everyone very happy when you serve this yummy, sinful, pretty dessert. Hehe... Even to treat yourself with this gorgeous desseet, is just heaven.



To prepare the meringue
2 egg whites
3/4 cup caster sugar (reduce it if it's too sweet for your liking)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar or 2 tsp white vinegar
2tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanila essence

1. Preheat oven to 130 degrees celcius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer which is free of grease and water, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites with cream of tartar on medium-high speed until they hold soft peaks. Start adding the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks.
3. Sprinkle the vinegar and cornstarch over the top of the meringue and fold in.
4. Gently spread the meringue on the parchment paper, smoothing the edges, making sure the edges of the meringue are slightly higher than the center. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until the outside is dry and takes on a very pale cream color. Turn the oven off and let the meringue cool completely in the oven.

To prepare Custard (optional)
I used instant custard adjusting the recipe of my own to get a rich taste of the custardy flavour.

Whipped Cream Topping
200ml whipped cream - whipped it if it's in liquid form

Strawberries - 250gm

Top the meringue with custard, then with the whipped cream and decorate it with strawberries. Sprinkly some icing sugar over the top. It's ready to be served. *drool*



Tadah - simple, yummy dessert. Doink was really enjoying it a lot and he actually told me that he never had such yummy dessert before and this is probably the best dessert he ever had in his life. It really made his day. I told him that I might make it an effort to prepare this gorgeous dessert once every 2 months. Hopefully that's not too often at all. But I do enjoy making it and I enjoy just munching the meringue by itself. However, I think I might need to reduce the amount of sugar added. Never mind, I will prepare this again and make sure that I make it nicer and prettier next round.



Hope everyone had a lovely weekend and do have a great week ahead. As for me, I'm just waiting to cook Xmas Dinner soon. *jumping up and down excitedly* But I have a problem here, I don't know what dessert to prepare. *banging head* Gonna go bury my head in the recipe books to find out what to prepare.

Cupcakes Again...

It's cupcakes again. I know I have been blogging quite often on cupcakes but promise won't be blogging about it anytime soon again afer this one. So don't worry. Hehe...

This is another experiment batch of cupcakes which I made few weeks back. It's mango cupcakes. I did not use any essence for these lovely cupcakes but instead I used mango puree.


Looks like 'mah lai koh' (chinese kueh)

The cupcakes were beautifully baked and it was soft and fluffy inside. I did not expect it to turn out so good. It was all good even on its own. Great for breakfast or snack. Yummy!!!


Soft and fluffy

You can use the same recipe from the orange cupcakes but instead of putting oranges in it, you put about 1/3 cup of mango puree or you can choose to put 1 fresh mango which are chopped into pieces.

I made the cupcakes a little more interesting (also means more sinful *giggle*) I added jam and cream cheese to the cupcakes.

Stuffing it with strawberry jam

.

Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, dig a hole in the middle of the cupcakes and carefully scoop the blueberry jam and strawberry jam into your cupcakes. Than top it with beautiful tasty cream cheese. It's ready to be served. *drool*

More cupcakes!!!

Oooh, now I feel like making another batch of these beautiful cupcakes. Hehe.... Enjoy looking at the pictures (only) *evil*!!!