Happy Birthday Singapore!

Today is Singapore's 44th birthday. I didn't do anything dramatic for the occassion. Kitchen is closed today. Just a quiet day spent with my kids. I enjoyed watching them sleep, sneak a few kisses here and there. Holding them and playing games together; contentment and bliss. While we curse and cuss about the discontentment we feel, everything from government, policies, ERP to price hikes in hawker centres and our Kopi-Os; take a moment to count our blessings as a Singaporean. I am thankful for the stability and security it offers to my kids and that each child has a chance to basic education. Equal opportunities for men and women who are willing to work for it. Clean water and electricity is accessible to every home. Sure, it is not the most perfect place in the world but it is the only home I know. Happy Birthday Singapore and thank you for all things that I have always taken for granted. I didn't bake anything special, just a couple of birthday cakes I did for the past 2 months (I think). Enjoy the cake walk.


















An experimental piece. Not as perfect as I would like. I had a hard time damming up the sides with whipped cream.























Dora and Boots, hand drawn.



















Princess Belle, hand drawn. The chocolate I used for the hair was too dark. Should have lightened it up with some white chocolate.



















An all time favourite for mahjong kakis.





















Particularly liked this Doraemon. So round. Hah!

Fluffy Pancakes

Am guilty of spending too much time on Facebook with my new found farming ambition. I have 5 or 6 virtual farms, imagine that! But really, it's my real plants that needed tending. They are all not growing well due to my neglect. I hope I will be able to find time this weekend to have them fixed. That's after spending some baking time with Ah Girl. She's been sulking about not being able to bake cookies with me.

Anyhow, I would like to share this lovely recipe which I tried out at Kitchen Capers, provided by Carrie. The recipe yields really soft and fluffy pancakes. I have had my share of tough pancakes, some with strong soda bicarbonate aftertaste. These are really good! Some compared them with MacDonald's Hotcakes. I'm not sure as I haven't had Hotcakes for quite some time. But, homemade is always best. You know what goes into them and you can pair them up with stuffs you like. I used the Salted Caramel which I made previously and bananas. My kids ate them with honey. I believe they will taste great with blueberries too; they are in now.

I re-shuffled the sequence of the ingredients slightly.

Fluffy Pancakes
Ingredient
100g Self Raising Flour, sifted
A pinch of salt

75ml milk
2 Egg Yollks
1tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2Egg Whites
2 Tbsp caster sugar

Some butter for greasing

Method
1) In a mixing bowl, mix sifted flour and salt together. If preferred, you can whisk the flour in the bowl instead of sifting.

2) Using a measuring cup, measure milk, add egg yolks, vanilla essence and oil. Stir well. Make a well in the center of flour, pour in the mixture and stir into a smooth batter with a whisk.

3) In another bowl, whisk egg white with sugar till stiff. Stir in 1/4 of the egg whites to the batter to lighten it, then fold in the remaining egg white carefully till incorporated.

4) Heat up a non-stick frying pan (low heat), grease lightly with butter. Drop a small ladle of batter (depending how big you want your pancakes to be) in the pan. Flip the pancake only when bubbles appear. Fry till golden brown. Serve hot with fruits, jams, honey, maple syrup etc.

*Note : Batter should be thick.

**Note : Recommend to double the recipe. The pancakes will not turn hard even when cold.

じゃね～～

Attack Of The Clones

Elmo (and some Sesame Street buddies) clones, that is. Why do kids love Elmo so much? Was he your favourite character when you were kids? Got to find a way to get better pictures. My dining table isn't the best place due to the lighting. Friends suggested that I should just let the pics do the talking when I ran out of words. So here they are. Hah. Mind clouded with too many stuffs.


















Small Elmos.



















Big Elmo.


















Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird.



















Close-up on Big Bird.