Time passes by ...

I bumped into a familiar face this morning at mom's place.

It was J, J's mummy.

Their family left for Perth, migrated over, in end 2007. And they are back for 3 months. Her children, the older boy was in Athena's class. And her youngest girl is now 4.

Time passes by so quickly, in a wink of an eye the children have all grown up and we have gone a little more brittle in our bones.

Okay! Come September must get the children together!!

Eclairs!

Finally did my eclair using recipe from this book. This book is my most treasured, it will be amongst all the books I have which will be passed down to my kids. Haha! My heirloom??

This is the most ley-chey's recipe. Must boil over every part - the dough, the pastry filling, the glaze. The whole kitchen's in a mess, normally I'd clean up the kitchen after my bakes but today... I filled KZ with one eclair to bribe her to help me clean the kitchen. I was so tired! But it's che-che's favourite so I might have to make them again.

Never mind that I promised che-che to help me, in the end I found that she was more of a nuisance than a help. She can't keep her hands still, while I'm doing something she messes up another then I have to clean up + scream at her. Argh! Kicked her out of the kitchen and asked her to wait for the eclairs. And I get an impatient girl who keeps bugging me. Argh!!!!

The dough, which I put in the mixer (thank goodness a little smarter today) after all the cooking over the stove
Piped out dough. Made them small but I don't have the right piping tip, will need to buy that correct one.
So かわいい!!
The pastry filling.
The girl snapped photos of herself while sitting on the table and watching me pipe in filling

This is taken by che-che. See her skills not bad huh? She's not sturdy in her hands only thus the blurry shots

Next time I'm not going to cut the sides. I'm going to pipe in from one hole. Guess it'll look neater then
Something's wrong with my glaze today. Duh! Not thick enough? Seems to have dripped to the sides, eeks! Must tweaked the recipe one day or .... chocolate sauce is the same as chocolate syrup right??
Anyway, I asked her to put the quinns on it and she gladly added so much.




I get the thumbs up from her and here she is licking the chocolates off her fingers.
My second batch which seems cuter in shape (like profiteroles) but I don't like the design on it. Hmm... next time can make Mickey Mouse head designs?? Siao eh...make own life difficult! I think it came out this way coz' I had to freeze these while I was baking the first batch + defrost awhile the dough changes shape

And the glaze seems more sticky and holds better

The outcome of my eclairs is far fetched from theirs in looks. But taste wise, it's good and the best thing is the filling is not that sweet and I get the nods from my "immuned to horrible taste bakes guinea pigs"
Thank you Pierre 师傅. Try out his book if you can, I can't remember if I manage to buy mine in Kinokuniya or online. This book is a must have for all chocolate fans. With 2 recipes attempts and nice taste each time, I'm gearing up for more tries on his other recipes (so blame me for my hyeractive children huh?)
The only setback on his book (I feel) is the very wordy sentences. I read until I go blur coz' I want it straight to the point kind. He's more lor-sor than me

Ps : Sis, I'll make one for the family another day

成功 or 失败? Definitely 成功!

cha-pa-lan

My cha-pa-lan blog entry. Haven't been able to update in quite a while, not that I'm not so enthusiastic in it - it's still my source of R&R. These days been busy in the day time to do anything, then can't seem to last later than 12pm in the night. Signs of ageing! Alot of stuffs hanging in the air, my side table has things stacked up which I need to do. Argh!! Worst than being an office worker!!

These days KZ helped to do up the kids meal. I feel so useless as a mother, I'm suppose to be the one preparing the meals for my kids with love and blah blah blah.... but it's been done by the helper.

Food : Just realised that che-che loves pumpkin now. Ehh......she changes her mind often so made full use of what she likes now and cook for her.

This lil' long hair girl is for che-che

Helicopter for mei-mei

On another day, two little dicky birds came by our house. One named Naughty Girl 1 (for che-che)

Another girl named Naughty Girl 2 (for mei-mei)

Che-che has to bring snacks everyday now. Not too sure if it's for all lower primary levels or just her level/class. Headache! KZ did this for her one day

Ah! This is what I tried my hands in one day, with parmesean cheese (che-che don't like cheese so trying ways to make her eat cheese). (what I did was I prepared everything except the frying part, asked KZ to do it. I'm not going to stand in the hot stove. I'm a tai-tai you know..... heehee!)

At first she didn't want to eat, after that she ate about 6-7 pieces. Mei-mei didn't touch it.

My kids are strange..........real strange. All kids love fried stuffs right? My kids don't really fancy fried stuffs, which is good/bad depending on how you see it. Eg. you get one kid wailing out loud "where's my food? I'm hungry" in the airplane when all children have been served their Children's Meal (and we can't order coz' she don't eat fried stuffs + western food). Good that they don't fancy coz' it's unhealthy food.

Books :
I was looking at ways to introduce science to the children. Of course there is this alternative with these, which I didn't buy coz' it's too expensive if I buy through Grade 6 + didn't want to have too much things in the house.
In the library, I found these : (if you're interested try to get hold of a copy in the library while I hang on tight to mine)

I haven't had the time to go through everything in the book, but I find this book sum up the following topics -
Forces and Motion, Sound and Light, Matter and Materials, Electricity and Magnets
This book is a much smaller book and with 700 experiments as compared to the above, you can imagine how small the words are. And how it can put you off reading. This book is basically for the higher grades but I think it's rather interesting to read and how you can experiment science with your child daily.
Give me a choice to choose between both books, I prefer the colourful, more pictures first book.

Day

I had a great day today.

I had the company of a lovely lady (no no.... I'm not a lesbian), I did major shopping (swiping the card with a huge amount. I wish I was out shopping for diamonds for myself but no....), it was a day meant for Me, Myself and I!

Met up with a long time good friend. KZ helped to pick the children up. I was suppose to pick che-che up after her gym. Turned out there wasn't any gym today and she's dismissed the usual time. Didn't have a choice but to choose my friend over my kids (bad bad mummy) coz' she took leave to spent time with this Ah-soh.

Prior to meeting her, I took the chance to bulk purchase the pastas for the kids. Popped by Art Friend in Ngee Ann City to look for my velcro dots but nah! wasted trip.

Went down to PS, had a really nice time chatting up with her; catching up with our lives (though she keeps herself updated thru my blog). Thanks so much for your time, W!

After our date, I tried my luck (again) in Spotlight for the velcro dots and finally their shipment came in. Yay! I dropped by 3 different shops in a span of less than 30 mins. Superwoman right?

Zoomed down to United Square to stock up on all their Vitamins in Vitakids. Spent a total of close to $500 which is damn ridiculous! All because I buy what I'm suppose to buy (eg. Multi-V, Artic Cod, DHA) but also I have to buy those I shouldn't (eg. vegetables) - when they can eat the fresher and clearly more minerals real vegetables!!! That should last me 3 months, until I stock up again in my birthday month. Yay! More discount!!

Of course all these are made possible with the help of KZ, who..... I suppose must have a hell time trying to control the 2 of them in the bus. Gave her more money to take the cab if she can't manage them but I suppose they'll end up on the bus coz' che-che been wanting to take the bus.

Racial Harmony Day II

Che-che's school requested all students to either wear "your ethnic costume" or home clothes today.

Che-che was so excited coz' she asked to wear her Yukata 浴衣 . Ehh.........she's not Japanese but who cares!! If Aricia can wear the Ao Dai, why can't she? Moreover this is like the only chance she can wear it.

At the school gate...........noticed nobody's as dressed up as her. To match the Yukata, she has to wear the wooden shoes (so worried that she'll fall in school. Asked KZ to help me pack a pair of shoes for her in the bag but she forgot. Thank goodness nothing happened in school)

Lunch

Lion - for mei-mei

Anpanman - for che-che

Racial Harmony Day

Aricia's school didn't celebrate but a few kids wore ethnic costumes to school.

She wore an Ao Dai - vietnamese costume. No cheongsam coz' will wait for CNY to buy.

So what is Racial Harmony Day? Click here

Sweet girl

For my lil' girl. She was so cute, when I asked for a photo of the 2 of them. She asked her che-che to pose "like this".

Aricia ate the Balloon "a" and "c". Apparently they welcome fondant, which I don't and had to remind che-che to 'not to eat too much'


I love you, Aricia!!

Preps

Started with baking on Thursday. Decided to try a basic Madeira, a firmer textured cake, which is suitable for sugarpaste icing.
I have no idea how much the cake would rise and since I didn't have a smaller pan, my cake turned out flatter. I also cut down alot of sugar considering the amount of sugar in the fondant.

Tired of the buttercream and I'm so inspired (but untalented) by Mel that I must copy her. Kekeke. So on Friday I prepared a double-portioned fondant.Trying everything for the first time in a slightly bigger cake... the designs in the books were so tempting but yours truly is so ... lazy; no patience; no time; so useless.

Saturday - You know that feeling when you feel like gearing up to do something with the big wow factor. And then you're hesitant coz' skills not good, then you gotta handle the kids. Duh!

Covering the cake seems so easy on books/videos (didn't do buttercream to spread on cake to do as adhesive. Lazy style - use Kaya spread. Heehee!) I cannot do it, I tried to lift up quite often to spread icing sugar on the table while rolling out, but as it gets bigger it gets more difficult. So many times it got stuck on table. When I estimated the size and think I'm ready to splat it on the cake, I had to ask KZ to quickly bring the cake to me (not enough work space coz' che-che was doing her work there as well) - as if I was doing a really BIG cake!!!

Very messy!
Aricia requested for balloons so it was too easy for me. I decided then to try to do a little girl. I thought I'd try a flat fondant design instead first. This design is from my book. Very easy for a dummy beginner. In this picture, the girl is holding onto flowers but I changed it to balloons.
The messy restricted working space
Used the edible pens to draw the strings. Didn't want to roll or to cut my scrapbooking ribbons.
Chose to surround the cake with ribbon coz' I was getting cross-eyed and needed to do a cover up for the messy sides