Fella's Birthday Dinner

I didn't make a cake for my fella's birthday. One, I didn't have time. Two, since moving to our own place, I didn't have time to buy bakeware (used to pau all Mom's bakeware + oven when we were living at my parents!). Three, I only have a teeny round electric oven which I got by redeeming Bonuslink points.

So anyway.. I just made him dinner. The menu was: fresh onion soup (with invisible cheese toast), steak with creamy turmeric sauce with creamy potato salad and banoffee pie for dessert. The reason the cheese toast was invisible was because I didn't have time to make it because we were trying to catch The Amazing Race Asia at 9 pm (So romantic, kan?). In the end we managed to miss TARA, but made it for 24, so all was not lost :)

Anyway... I forced the birthday boy to take photos of only the main course, so enjoy!

My Fella :)

Today is my hubby's birthday. We've known each other for about 10 years, and been married to 7 of them.

Yep. Seven years. Unfortunately, we haven't been blessed with any little ones, though that's in my prayers everyday. (But that's a different story). So instead, we've spent these years learning about each other and loving each other either more, or in spite of what we've learnt. Heh.

What I love about my fella is that he gets me. He knows me and he surprises me when I think he hasn't been listening. We think the same things, we finish each other's sentences and we voice each other's thoughts. And though we spend nearly every minute together, there are still things to talk about, and stories to share.

I'm blessed to have my fella in my life. And I hope he feels the same way about me too. (Sidenote: Yang, you'd better!!!)

I love you, yang :)

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

My Mom, and her favourite pastime, before the era of the blog

Today is my mom's birthday. Due to the fear of repercussion (heh!), I shall not tell you how old she is, but just tell you that she looks younger than her age.

My mom is the kind of person I hope to be, but have yet to be. And don't even know if I can be half the person she is today. Sure, I blame some "quirks" on my mom, i.e. the short eyebrows and the tummy rumblings when I don't eat at the desired time. Not to mention the sudden leg cramps at night (yep, Mom, I inherited that as well). But all things considered, these "quirks" are special because these are things I share with my mom. OKlah.. unfortunately all my siblings inherited the short eyebrows thing, so note to all, if in doubt as to whether we're related, just look at our eyebrows.

I am lucky to have a mom like mine. She always had time for us, even at the peak of her political career, and boy, did she have patience, even when I threw up all over her at the beginning of a long flight to US when I was just a wee 2 year old.

At an early age, she and my dad introduced us to our love of food, books and travel. And normally we'd do all three at the same time. When we were in US, I remember my parents being the ideal hosts. Everyone congregated at our house, and birthday parties and gatherings were the best. Everyone loved my Mom's cooking and relished at any excuse to go to our house. (I wish I knew people like my parents when I was studying overseas!).

My parents loved to pack us up and drive everywhere whenever they could. My siblings and I are fortunate to have travelled so much in our lifetime, which is a big thanks to my parents. They always found a way to take us somewhere, even when they were earning teachers' salaries. Even now, we make it a point to have a family holiday once a year.

My mom did it all. She is a great wife, a great mother, a great Opah, a great daughter, a great sister, a great teacher and a great leader. I only hope one day I'll be able to be like her. In the meantime, I'll just invest in eyebrow pencils to make my brows look longer.

Happy birthday, Mak!

The Dino..It Attacks Again!

I made another dinosaur cake for my friend, Pye's son's 2nd birthday party. I thought I'd colour it a Tiffany blue, and cut Sugus sweets in halves as spikes on its back & tail. Wanted to use Hershey's kisses, but decided the plain chocolate colour seemed too dull. The cake was chocolate. The legs were pure fondant.

I should learn more about dinosaurs. Don't think my dinosaur existed in real life! To all you paleontologists & dinosaur enthusiasts, please don't send me hate mail.

Busy Busy Bee

This was a Bumblebee cake for my friend, Sally's daughter, Ika Bee. It was a chocolate cake with frosting, with Rocky chocolate sticks as antennae, and paper doilies on sticks as the wings. My only regret was not being able to find black food colouring in time, so my bee had brown stripes instead of black.

Oh.. Bumblebee as in insect, and not the Transformer robot.

Cicakman! Sort of..

Here's my version of Cicakman for Sofea, Renny's niece's birthday. I made an orange butter cake this time. The eyes are half-Oreos, and the teeth are marshmallows. Jokingly told Renny that my Cicakman needed some dental work..

Dinosaur Attack!

This cake was for my friend's son's 4th birthday. She let me have full reign so I decided to make a dinosaur for him. As usual, the spikes were the first to go. They were full sugar, so parents, I apologise for any sugar rush your children may have had! Next time, I'll try Hershey's kisses for a more interesting twist.

I let the fondant dry a little, so as to make the skin look more authentic & wrinkly.

Cake No. 2

This cake was for Elijaz, Elixir's twin brother. His is a firetruck. It's supposed to be bright red, but I didn't put in enough colouring and it became a bright pink firetruck. I put in Oreo cookies as tyres and Smarties as lights and adornments. Guess what the kids took first-the cookies & candy of course! Luckily I managed to take photos of the cake before the party.

Cake!

I love cooking. I don't do it as much as I would like to (mainly 'cos I'm too lazy!) but I have tons of recipes everywhere around me. I'm lucky that my fella loves my cooking and is a fair critic. (Sometimes too downright honest though!) However, his comments do help and he is supportive of my tendency to overly modify recipes from their original form.

I've recently started making 3D celebratory cakes & muffins. Most recently I made a few cakes for a few birthday parties and I thought I'd post some of them here.

The one above was for my nephew's 1st birthday party. My sis has twin boys, and I made separate cakes for the both of them. The one up here was for Elixir. I originally wanted to make a bumblebee for him, but I went slightly overboard and decided to make him a cake called "Hobbit Fishing at the Shire".