Aspiring Bakers #28: Chicken Feast (Feb 2013)

农历新年即将到来，相信家家户户都会准备大鱼大肉。所以这一次的 Aspiring Bakers 我决定来个鸡的盛宴。邀请大家分享各家拿手的鸡的料理。为什么指定是鸡肉呢？因为这次我又回来主持AB，而我又超爱吃鸡肉，所以想学习烹煮各式各样的鸡的料理。不管是中式西式马来式，不管是蒸煮炒焖烧烘各类方式，都一律欢迎。请大家献上您家的拿手好鸡，过个大肥年！

注1：只限主菜。不接受蛋糕甜品。
注2：鸡肉必须是唯一的肉类食材，不可有其他肉类加入。鸡肉必须是主要食材，可以加入其它蔬菜类。
注3：参加方式如下。

Hello everyone, I'm back hosting for Aspiring Bakers again! The Snake Year is coming very soon! I'm thinking what themes I can do for this Chinese New Year as we had already done My Favourite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) and Auspicious Dishes for CNY (January 2012) before. I'm sure many families will be cooking lots of special dishes for CNY, so I decide to have a "Chicken Feast" this month. Why chicken? Because I'm a chicken lover and I hope I can learn a lot of new chicken dishes from our bloggers. So everyone please share with us your best family chicken recipes!

Who can join?
Everyone! (if you do not have a blog, just send me a photo and recipe of your dish)

How to join?

Step 1 :
Cook a chicken main dish, in the month of February 2013.
1. All cuisines and cooking methods are welcome.
2. It must be a main dish. Desserts are not accepted.
3. Chicken must be the only meat ingredient. Other meat like pork cannot be added.
4. Chicken must be the main ingredient. You can add other vegetable ingredients to your dishes.

Step 2 :
Post it on your blog between 01 February 2013 and 28 February 2013.
Your post must include the recipe or link to the original recipe. If you are using a recipe from a book, please include the title of the book too.
Any entries that are posted outside the date range will not be accepted.
Any entries that do not include a recipe or link to the original recipe will not be accepted too.

Step 3 :
Please mention that you are submitting your post to Aspiring Bakers #28: Chicken Feast (February 2013) hosted by SSB of Small Small Baker and provide a link back to this post HERE.
Entries will not be accepted if the above is not included.

Step 4 :
Email to smallsmallbaker@yahoo.com.sg in the following format:

Your name or nickname:
Your blog name: (omit this if you do not have a blog)
Name of your bake/dish:
URL of your post:
URL of your photo (one photo for each entry):
(alternatively, you can attach your photo in your email, preferably less than 500kb).

Please use "Aspiring Bakers #28" as your email subject. You may submit more than 1 entry.

The roundup will be posted on 01 March 2013 (extended to 10 March).

***
If you are interested to find out what's on the previous Aspiring Bakers #27: Through Thick and Thin - KUE LAPIS CLASSICS (Jan 2013) entries, hosted by Sam of Sweet Samsations, see the roundup HERE (Extended to 17th Feb!).

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New Year New Resolution: Charity Bake Sale

It's almost 3 weeks into the brand new year! Have you done anything to achieve your new resolutions?

It's time for me to do something that has been on my mind for the longest time. I'm doing a mini charity bake sale for this CNY. It's a very last minute decision. As I can only start baking in February, I have just 1 week to bake, and just me baking & no helper, so it will be a very mini mini bake sale. :)

So, here are the 4 cookies that I will be selling. Actually, they had all (except 1) been posted in my blog before. :) But if you don't have time to make cookies this year, you can try mine. ;P

My signature Cashew Nut Cookies 

Crunchy and nutty

* Container full: $8.00

Pineapple tarts

Buttery and melt in mouth

* Container full: $8.00

German cookies 

Buttery and melt in mouth

Choose

- chocolate marble

- green tea marble

- red yeast marble (pink)

* Container full: $6.80

Very chocolate cookies

Crunchy and chocolatey

* Container full: $6.80 (~25 pcs)

Please note that this will be the container I'm using (picture in Very chocolate cookies)

Top diameter 11.5cm, Height 6.5cm

Baking schedule as follows:

2-3 Feb: Pineapple tarts

4-5 Feb: Cashew nut cookies

6-7 Feb: German cookies

Very chocolate cookies, upon request.

Confirm your orders before 25 January. Quantities will be very limited (less than 20).

Email to: smallsmallbaker@yahoo.com.sg

All to be self collected from my place at Toh Guan Road (near IMM). No meeting up and home delivery.

***

For every container of cookies sold, 

I will donate $1 to "Singapore Buddhist Free Clinic" 

which provides subsidized TCM for the needy and sick elderly,

 through sggives.org charity donation portal.

***

First time selling my homemade cookies. Please support!

** Update (22 January) **

Order closed for charity bake sale.

As I have exceeded my target of 20 containers. 

Thanks everyone for the support!!!

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8 December 2012 - Legoland Malaysia (Part 1)

I want to end 2012 with a very fun post!

I went to Legoland Malaysia on 8 December 2012 with my family. We went on a tour package that picked us up at Jurong East at about 8.45am. By the time we reached Legoland, it was already past the opening hour at 10am.

Legoland is larger than Universal Studios Singapore. The park is divided 7 themed zones. Due to the crowd and the long waiting time for queues, and also that the place is really large with many rides and activities, we missed 2 themed zones - Land of Adventure & LEGO Technic - entirely.

** The Beginning **

The Beginning is the area at the entrance where there are shops and The Cafe for western snacks. After you walk past The Beginning, you can choose to go left or right. Families with children are *recommended (see note at the end) to turn right towards LEGO City as the rides are more suitable for young children.

As we turned right, we saw this amazing Christmas Tree made up of Lego pieces.

** LEGO City **

Here, my nieces immediately queued up for the Junior Driving School (for 3-5 yrs). For kids older than 6 yrs, they can go for the Driving School with bigger driving area with traffic lights too.

The Boating School is a popular ride with never-ending queue, so we missed it. And they went to The Shipyard which is a playground for children to run around. Note that there is a playground at each themed zone which I like and find it very special. Kids who are not going for the rides can have a place to play and adults can take a rest too. Opposite The Shipyard is the Market Restaurant a good place to have your meals.

Next, we went to take the LEGOLAND Express train which brings us for a scenic ride around the park. The queue is long but the train comes quite frequently and can take in quite many passengers so the waiting time is ok. We also took the LEGO City Airport ride (no photo), which is a spinning ride and you can control the height of the plane. Nothing much actually.

** Imagination **

By then, it was already past lunch time, so we skipped The Land Of Adventure and cut across the Miniland to the Imagination zone for lunch at Pizza Mania.

Outside Pizza Mania, the Imagination zone is lots of fun with many LEGO structures for photo-taking.

But of course, the kids are more interested in this DUPLO Playtown. Let me warn you, if you let your kids enter, it will be very difficult to get them out. Cos it is a very large and sheltered playground with lots of playing area to run, climb, slide and crawl!! It's ok, adults can rest here and away from the sun or rain. It's a bit hot though. There's also another mini train ride the DUPLO Express (no photo).

We finally persuaded them to leave the playground. We wanted to go up the Observation Tower but the queue was scary. The LEGO Studios 4D show had super long queue as well. No choice, we had to miss it and escape the heat at the air-conditioned Build & Test where the kids can build cars to see if it can go fast and build a building and test if it can withstand a simulated earthquake.

** LEGO Kingdoms **

When we finally reached LEGO Kingdoms, it was already 4pm plus. No time! So we split. My older niece went to ride The Dragon rollercoaster and my younger nieces went for a kiddy horse ride. the Royal Joust. We also ride the Merlin's Challenge, a high speed carousel, quite fun to me, at least not as scary as rollercoaster which I won't take. Haha!

Time really really flies here. It was already 5.30pm, and we had 1 hour left as we need to catch our coach back at 6.30pm. We went to the Miniland, a must visit to end the day. I took many many photos, so I shall save everything about the Miniland on my next post.

So to sum up, the kids and me too, enjoyed Legoland very much. We were lucky to have a nice hot weather without rain. Time is really not enough to explore the whole area. I have a feeling that the rides here are pretty short. We need to queue many minutes just for a short 1-5 minutes ride. I think rides at the Universal Studios Singapore are longer and more enjoyable to me. And a *note as stated above, if I were to visit again, once I enter the park, I will go straight towards IMAGINATION to go up the tower and to the 4D show which I really wanted to try. :(

A Happy New Year to everyone!

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Merry Christmas with cutout butter cookies!

I have been busy recently with a major spring cleaning to get ready for a repaint in the house in January. So there is not much chance for baking from now till end of January maybe.

But I really want to make use of my new cookie cutters. :P So since it is school holidays now, and my nieces still want to make some Christmas cookies on their own, we make these Christmas butter cookies together for fun.

All these cookies are made by them, with some help from me. I must say they did a great job (they are only 3 years old)! It helps that the cutters are extremely easy to use and the recipe from HHB is also very good as the dough is easy to manage.

Cutout Butter Cookies

Ingredients (about 35 pieces):

100g butter, softened at room temperature
80g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
180g cake flour
20g corn flour

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar till fluffy.
2. Whisk in egg yolk.
3. Fold in sifted flours. Knead to form a dough, wrap and chill for a while.
4. Roll out the dough and cut out cookies with cookie cutters.
5. Bake at 175 deg C for 15 minutes till light golden brown.

Recipe adapted from: HHB

Here I wish everyone:

Merry Christmas and a great year in 2013!!

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Homemade Soymilk with Joyoung

I got my Joyoung soymilk maker finally, with help from someone who went for a trip to China recently. The model we got is DJ11B-D30D. Actually, I'm still quite confused about all the different models. As long as it can make soymilk, I'm quite satisfied. :)

This model belongs to the 植物奶牛 series, a newer model with latest grinding technology and the soy milk produced is extremely thick and appetizing (a reader told me about this). It has functions like dry beans 干豆, soaked beans 湿豆, grains 五谷, juice 果汁, jam 果酱, milk tea 奶茶 and easy washing 轻松洗. It doesn't have rice paste 米糊 but can use grains 五谷 for this. It also doesn't have cream soup 浓汤. I must find out how I can do it.

Before I got my soymilk maker, I saw this book "十三亿人都在喝的神奇养生豆浆" selling at Popular bookstore with discount for members, so I bought it. I will be referring to this book very frequently for recipes using Joyoung maker.

Here's my Homemade Soymilk 黄豆豆浆 using Joyoung for the first time.

Homemade Soymilk 黄豆豆浆
Anti-oxidant, anti-aging 抗氧化，抗衰老

Ingredients:
80g soybeans
15g sugar

Method:
1. Soak soybean overnight, remove membrane/skin, rinse a few times till clean.
2. Add the soybean into the maker, fill water up to 1000ml mark.
3. Select soaked bean function and start. It takes only 25 minutes.
4. When done, filter the soymilk. Add in 15g sugar, stir till dissolved and serve!

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Bake King Open House Demo Classes

Bake King had celebrated their 60th anniversary over the last weekend and I attended 2 of their open house demo classes.

I signed up 2 classes that interest me very much. One is the Chocolate Hokkaido Cupcakes, where we learnt how to bake the chiffon cake and make the pastry cream from instructor Gina Tan. You know I'm very much a chiffon cake fan and it's great to learn more about it. The cake is delicious!

The other is the Ribbon Fondant Cake. I have always wanted to learn more about making fondant cakes but very hesitant to try out. Really learnt a lot from the experienced instructor Tricia Tjhin. See how beautiful the cake is!

I also received their 60th anniversary recipe book and an apron. Plus I got to enjoy a few desserts. It was a very fun day! Thank you Bake King!

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M&M Cookies - blogging from mobile

This post is entirely created from mobile phone using blogger app, including taking and editing the photo too. I wonder how it will appear on the screen. As I do not have access to a computer now until I get a new one, I'm relying on my phone for everything. Since some things cannot be done using a phone, please forgive if I did not reply here or my fb.

Back to this M&M cookies, they were baked for little kids graduation party for gift exchange. I like them nice, buttery and crunchy.

Ingredients (about 40pcs):
110g butter
70g sugar
50g egg
200g cake flour
4g baking powder
M&M chocolate

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar till fluffy.
2. Whisk in eggs.
3. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder. Knead to form a dough, wrap and chill for a while.
4. Take 10g of dough. Roll round and flatten slightly. Press in M&M.
5. Bake at 180 deg C for 15 minutes.

Recipe adapted from: Lucky Inn

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