Birthday trip @ Gold Coast Morib, Sepang

Not my birthday, it was my hubby's. Wanted to give him a surprise by driving him to the destination blind-folded. During the journey I lost my way, my blind-folded man beside me told me how to travel back to the correct route! Nevertheless, it was still a birthday surprise for him :)

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Porridge

It's time challenging for a working woman to take care of household chores after her 9-to-5 job, let alone cooking dinner during working days. Cooking itself takes time, and preparing the ingredients too. I'm always searching for ideas on quick-prepared food for me and my husband.

I got the slow cooker porridge idea from some mommies' blogs. They have to take care of their toddlers (especially busy if they are not sleeping) and at the same time prepare porridge for them, have to make sure the porridge doesn't overflow or dries up/overcooked, and most importantly have to make sure they remember to turn off the stove when it's done. So boiling porridge in slow cooker with a timer solves all the problem.

 And I use this idea to get my dinner prepared when I'm out to work. 

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

I like baking chiffon cakes. While the cake is baking, I always look through the oven door every 10 mins, wishing for the cake to rise, rise, rise. When I take the cake out from the oven, overturn it on the table and look at it, I wish: don't fall, don't fall, don't fall.

But this time (this is my 4th or 5th time, lost count), it still falls. It's too heavy for a chiffon cake, and it falls out from the cake tin immediately when I overturned it to cool it.

Thankfully, friends and family who ate it still considered it nice :)

The cake fell off the cake tin, but still intact.

Big Bad Wolf Book Sale 2011

I thought this book sale is only for children books (that's why I missed the one last year), until a colleague told me it's for all kinds of books and her photos of purchase convinced me. More importantly, the prices are too tempting, ranging from RM5-RM25. I decided to go right after work.

The place is conveniently located near office, with highway free from traffic, we reached in 20 mins, and walked another 10 mins to reach the exhibition hall - impatient to wait for the feeder bus. It's a Monday, the hall wasn't as crowded as weekend. Books were nicely arranged in categories, and most of them were tidily-stacked brand new books. Boxes were provided as "shopping bag", I even saw a few pushing trolleys and luggage bags for their purchases. We were just strolling along each section, picking and flipping books that look interesting, nothing particular in mind. I picked a few books and proceed to the cashier, so nice to shop during weekdays, the cashier were quite empty.

Croquette (可乐饼)

I watched a cooking program on TV some time ago and this dish was introduced. It's very popular in Japan and Taiwan, especially among kids, I think because of it's crispiness.

I forgotten about it and only recently, when I'm out of idea what to make for a less time consuming dinner, I thought of it. I adapted the recipe here.

Shanghai mooncake

I made the lotus paste using Christine's recipe. I used white lotus seeds so the paste is fair in color. The texture of the paste is not so right. It's too dry to be considered as paste, probably because I cook it for too long. I like the taste, not too sweet, unlike the commercial ones.

I used SeaDragon's recipe for the Shanghai mooncake. I made plain and egg-yolk version, and everybody (who had eaten) prefers the egg-yolk version. The skin is a little too moist, it would be better if I can make it a little more flaky.

For the egg-yolk version, I used half salted egg-yolk per mooncake. The egg-yolk is pre-cooked in the oven, 180C for 10 mins. I topped it with some black sesame seeds for decoration, also to indicate it's egg-yolked.

After our lantern session, we had some mooncakes with hot tea.

中秋节快乐!

Jelly Mooncakes

I've made jelly mooncakes a few years ago, but totally forgotten how was it. This year I planned to try making it again since nowadays commercial mooncakes are getting too expensive.

I started with the simplest one which is jelly mooncakes. It actually should be called mooncake jelly because it's really just jelly, with the shape of traditional mooncake.

Simplest in the sense of ingredients and steps. The tricky part of making jelly mooncake is timing. Making the 'filling' at the center of the 'skin' requires good timing. Too soon (when the first layer of jelly not readily set), the filling will drop to the bottom of the mould - causing the 'filling' to be on top of the mooncake; too late (when the first layer is set and 'dries up'), the second layer of the skin will not stick to the first layer - causing the mooncake to split into half when done. This I learn from the hard way, trial and error to capture the correct timing.

Another miskate I made is didn't bring the liquid mixture to boiling point before taking off heat and pour into the mould, the jelly did not set, it remains liquid after refrigerated for one night.

I used the recipe from here. And modified it accordingly to the flavour/ingredient I like. The recipe is enough to make 6 'filling' jelly (I use muffin tray as mould) and 4 mooncakes.

A: 'Filling'
1 1/4tsp Agar-agar powder
40g castor sugar
100ml evaporated milk
200ml water
1/8tsp salt

B: 'Skin'
1/2 tbsp Agar-agar powder
70g castor sugar
350ml water
100g dragon fruit (blended)

'Filling'
Mix all ingredient A together and boil it, then pour the boiling mixture into the muffin tray. Let it set, to be used later.

'Skin' and assembly
B: Mix Agar-agar powder and castor sugar, then boil it in water with the blended fruit, scoop some boiling mixture into the mooncake mould, about 20% full, let it slighty set in room temperature, then place the 'filling' at the center. Pour the remaining mixture into the mould till full. Can poke a few holes in the jelly with toothpick to avoid the bottom and top part split off. Let it set in room temperature, then refrigerate it overnight.