baking biohazard

baking biohazard. baking: big hazard!

does the kitchen god/goddess exist(s)? don't answer, that was rhetoric.

i spent most of the day helping mummy to make pineapple tarts (apologies for the lack of photos, but i still am without camera). the weather was fairly warm (there were some clothes out for drying too). at the end of the day, there were lots of egg whites leftover (since the recipe only requires egg yolks) from six seven large eggs. the ultimate question was: to bake meringues or macarons of the egg whites?

of course, meringues are the simplest (only two ingredients, excluding flavouring and colouring) so it came to my mind first. although kclee suggested macarons, i doubted my skills as i made no prior preparations (more ingredients and more time consuming, but i have both). i was also told that macarons are best made in cool weather, and i used the warm weather as an excuse to NOT choose macarons. XD

delicious omurice 「おいしい・オムライス」

こんにちは、ご主人様、お嬢様。

good afternoon, my master, and my lady.

お元気で すか？

how are you?

今日はオムライスを作りました。

today i made omurice.

食べたいですか？

would you like to eat?

お楽しみください。

i hope you will enjoy it.

ありがとうおはようございます！

thank you very much!

note: i was waiting for my phone to recharge after i made the omurice because there was no battery to use the phone camera. so the tomato sauce and chilli sauce started to bleed off the omelet by the time i was ready to take photos. sorry for the sloppy pictures!

Strawberry Cake

i made a strawberry cake for a birthday celebration last weekend. XD mind you, i wanted to try strawberry-flavoured Adabi cucur at first, but the recipe at the back of the flour packet has instructions for muffins, so instead of deep fry (too oily), i chose to bake (my specialty)! if not for cucur flour, i would have made the cake from scratch since i rarely use ready mix. *show off*

wait, you don't believe there is such thing as strawberry-flavoured cucur flour from Adabi? well,  i had to look twice at the supermarket shelf at first too. have a look at the following photos!

all that is well, ends well

this week had been unpredictable, i think. there weren't many events that happened, but those little moments were the ones that matters and left a big impression on me. perhaps it was because of the absence of english language classes this week? ^__^;;;

let's talk a little about food today! i am starving for supper~ plus, it has been half a years since i last wrote  my monthly food theme.

it's sem break! day 22

happy mid-autumn festival~ it is sometimes shortened to "lantern festival" or "mooncake festival" etcetera. where do these people get their ideas. tsktsk. anyway, the actual festival was yesterday, but i was busy eating mooncake, so i am sharing the home-made snowskin mooncakes i mentioned here today.

home-made pandan snowskin mooncakes with white lotus paste filling~

these few were dotted to separate them from the ones with fillings mixed with kuaci seeds. yes, i wanted the plain filling all to myself. hahaha~ of course, i am only joking - you know that, right?

a day in september seems to be incomplete without a parcel from somewhere. so click the jump to continue reading if you have not tired from my month-long shopping craze. includes something from AFAX too~

april food theme: rainbow muffins!

the moment i saw this extremely colourful cupcake photograph (which i did not know what was it called), i set it as my desktop wallpaper (which is now lost due to pc being reformatted), and wished for one day that i will learn how to bake it. and, one fateful day i was browsing cupcake-baking videos on youtube, i stumbled upon the rainbow cupcake recipe - oh, joy!

this time, i did not pick up a new recipe, instead i used the tinkerbell cupcakes recipe (also found on youtube) combined with instructions for rainbow cupcakes.

home-made pancakes and banana bread pudding!

oh, no. i guess i am no god (nor good) at recipes from scratch. i googled for the most basic recipe for pancakes and this is what i achieved.

i waited nearly an eternity at the pan frying the pancakes on each side to get that smooth chocolatey brown, but it seems that i managed to achieve as much as prata or roti canai cousins.

march food theme: bento!

okay, actually i did not bake anything special this month so i decided to show the bentos i made last month up until first week of april. i used the blue double decker container i bought from Daiso~

apparently there is an art to making bentos. the simple rule is 4-3-2-1. that means 4 parts rice (carbohydrate), 3 parts protein (fish, tofu), 2 parts vegetables (vitamins and fibre?) and 1 part "treat" (dessert or something sweet or savory).

the first one here i prepared rolled egg omelet (decorated with animal theme picks) with rice and mixed veggies! after skipping out on making bento for a month, this was as far as my skill took me. haha~ as for the cute mini green bear container, it contained thousand island dressing that i poured over the mixed veggies.

blueberry birthday cake & home-made pan mee! (and some pizza..)

terrasmark's birthday was in february, and his best buddies were all hyped up about celebrating his birthday (albeit coming up with one too many foiled plans, haha~). so i volunteered to bake terra a birthday cake.

each one of us had our own ideas of how to celebrate it, and honestly, last minute arrangements were never far from our plans!

i nearly failed to bake the cake as i found out there was no more flour in the kitchen on the day! OH NO! luckily i had time to go out, buy some secret ingredient (okay, one of them was a jar of blueberry jam) and bake the cake - just before the guys arrive, and off we went with terra.

motr took the chance to hose out as much whipping cream as possible from the spray bottle, after terrasmark blew the candles out.

february food theme: CNY cookies and pretzels

here is something to share with everyone from my Chinese New Year (although february was two months ago!) bake out. =)

first up, traditional pineapple cookies! mummy and mizuiro made the upper design ("pineapple roll" style) and i made the lower design ("pineapple flower" style). they were among the fastest to disappear from the table during CNY!

january food theme - cupcakes & cake!

a fortnight ago, melc and i were baking some fairy cupcakes and a fairy cake at my place. the recipe is fairly simple (search "tinkerbell cupcake" in Youtube) and, so basic that you can modify the recipe to your liking as you experiment with time according to your preference.

but most of all, our mission was to learn how to decorate using marshmallow fondant~ it was one of those recipes i read up from Hugbear's Baking Mum blog. here are our results!

christmas bento!

well, i know it is really late or way too early for christmas, but since i was in the mood to make a christmas themed bento, i packed this away for lunch (the day after i made the bear bento) to class.

i wonder when will i make the next one! i have yet to make the Orange-kun bento~

5-minute bento! featuring shirokuma-chan~ (white bear)

a couple night before, i was browsing for marshmallow fondant decoration ideas for cupcakes. somehow, bento photos got in the way and i was immediately distracted!

i browsed through many, many Flikr bento pools, and i was really inspired by everyone's creative bento sets!  oh, also tutorial pages like Blur Mommy's Kooky Culinary. the next thing you know, opportunity strikes.

i was early (finally) to carpool with my friend to campus, so i decided to make the best out of two items that inspired me most the night before:

5-minute chocolate cake & babykins!'s bear bento!

there wasn't much time to make a fancy bento like most people who makes bento do, so i decided to try a 5-minute bento box!

december food theme - cookies!

okay, it was not an official monthly rule from anywhere. i just thought that it would be a propriate to bake some cookies for the last christmas~

on the eve of christmas, i return home and the house was silent but i could smell hot charcoal from my neighbour's brand new red medium-sized barbeque pit. feeling alone without the presence of a good tv movie to watch, i saw a cookie-baking recipe book misplaced on the hall table. i quickly flipped through, and vowed to bake the simplest recipe i could find in the book!

november food theme - cheesecake!

one day, zend sent me a photo of his double Oreo cheesecake. the next thing i know, i want to make one too!

i went online to find a good simple recipe which contains ingredients which are familiar to me, and i found it at Hugbear's Baking Mum blog. in fact, it was a non-bake Oreo cheesecake! how cool is that? *happy*

it took a while before i gathered the ingredients, with mummy sponsoring me, here are photos as results from my very own Oreo cheesecakes! yes, plural - coz i made a square one due to too much cheese filling. lol.

a series of food reviews!

be prepared! your hunger will strike! your mouth will water! and you will want more!

since i have been skipping ACG event on and off recently, allow me to write up a few separate food reviews to merasuah you all to quit complaining why i am not updating. hahaha~

first post of the day: my cooking skill! it has improved and i find cooking a fun thing to do - and i am especially happy when people like my home-cooked items. let's start with the most recent one:

cheesy baked potato boats with sausage coins - (i should call it "pirate ship & the buried treasure"!) the secret in this recipe is stabbing your potatoes before baking, and using a LOT of cheese in the second bake! (it takes 2 hours of preparation and baking time, so it is definitely delicious!)

stabbing the potatoes is said to allow steam to escape from the potato while it is baking so that you get yummy crispy skin! i am guessing the steam trapped inside the potatoes will make the skin soggy or less crispy to eat.

Confessions of a College Girl.. III

alright, this is the last part of the three-in-one-day august blog entry: Confessions of a College Girl at the end of Semester One. yup, the previous unpublished posts left in draft mode are integrated in here too, if that's what you were hoping for.

STOP! first, an unfortunate announcement. (please re-read that line with deep expression.) first, an unfortunate announcement. i can no longer access the internet from home coz the line has been disconnected. sponsor me wi-fi or something! therefore, resulting in me adopting the college computer lab as my second home. afterall, the next time (and onwards) i will be blogging, chatting, emailing and surfing the net from the lab. D:

(of all times, it had to be at the start of the month (september) when i go college least. i have only five days of examinations this month. next semester begins on the second week of october! i dont know to cry or rejoice. seriously.)

5 august: what a moody start to the month. i was tired, exhausted, sometimes bored and emo. at least it didnt last long, before i resumed some enthusiasm and energy.

8 august: an interesting point to add is the new blogger profile search. back when i first saw the profile pages, i thought they linked one interest to another's. but they don't. yet. took them a long time to iron out the details. well, i did some clicking (interest: cosplay) and found myself with a couple local cosplayers namely eclair and lissa. if im not wrong, i should have exchanged a few words with eclair in TCC forum while no doubt lissa was the mikami teru i met at taylor's anime festival last month.

12 august: wouldnt you believe it, dad, mizuiro and i treated ourselves to pizza hut's dip-licious sausage bites with bbq-flavoured cheese dip for lunch. (stepadoo and i treated ourselves to pizza hut's dip-licious cheesy bites last month.) i was dying for some mood booster and if the pizza hut flyer said cheese is a good mood booster, it had better be. well, it did work better than chocolate. come to think of it, i haven't had chocolate waffle in a long time. (long=several weeks)

14 august: i stepped on the weighing scale and noticed i gained a little weight! but still underweight for my height. today, my first chance to be yukari - missed! i was told that from my measurement, i was "too slim" or something. i also peeked into august issue of seventeen (magazine that melc introduced to me) and read that gemini's horoscope predicts that i "will meet a guy who i want to spend time with on 18 august" to the extend that i might accidentally ignored my friends. hey, that's comiworld!

16 august: bad luck! yesterday, my college tag went missing! not only it had my student ID, it held my LRT month pass and bus tickets and timetable. lucky i had some helpful friends from class who were commuting home the same way.. and found a second but dirty copy of my class schedule (which i am thankful for being a packrat) at home. fortunately, i found the tag today - or there goes the part of my allowance (for gashapon and stuff) on train tickets.

17 august: good day. i was informed of a local modeling agency ad somewhere in campus, i dont know what to think of it so i gave them a call. (i guess if the first fashion design student who asked had chosen me to model, i'd be screaming CAROLINE!!) later, stepadoo's dad treated us at hilton hotel lobby, as he made us meet at kl sentral. i ordered chocolate mudcake (that minori was ever craving about) and sparkling water. mmm.. moar choc~!

25 august: melc called again today! ^__^ she's happily working away at starbucks - when the last time she phoned, she was filling up an application form. btw, send me some starbucks coffee chocolate, melc!

28 august: yeay~! second shot at modeling for a fashion design student, jacklyn. i survived the 5-inch heels and took a liking to it and her one-piece at the end of the presentation. also, i found out that they were being judged to select three for a national-level fashion design competition in conjunction with independence day! jacklyn's design is pending as one of two under consideration to be the third entry (two have already been taken up.)in the evening, i went for a movie with stepadoo at times square - evan almighty. then, met kenji and yori at mid valley in the same evening. yup, you read it right - times square and then mid valley. i have been to more places in one day, but kenji would probably laugh and said no way i cant top him. =_=" btw, dear yori and kenji, you have no reason to fear my hairdo - i was modeling for jacklyn (refer photo above).

29 august: cooking monster. i dont get it, i could cook well when i had 'home econ' aka kemahiran hidup classes in lower secondary school. but now i can only go as far as appetizers/snacks without ruining it (i make yummy pizza bites XP). i dont know what to say to dear guru, kenji, about the cod/dory and potato croquettes, and fusili pasta. after lunch, i dont really have an appetite to eat like i did for the past month. for example, i skipped supper even if i woke up (or rather, was awaken by a phone call) past midnight with a grumbling stomach. hear me: i still wont give up cooking!

31 august: aw great. guess what? it was fine a couple of days ago. but yesterday, i noticed that i couldnt make any phone calls from "my office phone" aka the-phone-that-nobody-uses-other-than-internet-purpose-so-it-is-my-private-line. goodbye, internet. cheers. here's to me taking full-fledged advantage of the college computer lab. instead of spreading the word (online messenger aka chatting) on malaysia's 50th independence day, i watched fireworks at midnight yesterday from the high-ground split-level playground near home, with several of mizuiro's classmates too. ironically, there goes my internet independence - day 2.