Learn2Bake Club

31st March is a special impromptu day. Why?
Somehow, over the FB messages, me and 2 other online buddies who love baking, we created our Learn2Bake Club in Facebook! It all started with Cynthia suggesting it....then it all happened in a day! Yeap, a day = today!

We ding-donged emails throughout the day, from naming our little humble club to the rules and privacy settings. And I have just created this lil logo for it :D....waiting for approvals from both my peers. I just feel that any club, like any human, needs an identity, a 'face'......


Quoted from the club's FB page:
"This is a club for anyone who would like to learn to bake. Each month, we will have members suggest what to bake for that month (1-2 recipes each month). Recipes, ideas and tips will be contributed to help each other grow from there. The challenge of the month will be revealed on the 1st of each month, and the posting of your work will be on the 28th of the same month.All are welcome to join this club!"


So do you bake? You like having baking peers? :D Coz if you do, you're most welcomed to join all of us in our lil Facebook group here!

Organization tips!

What are you working on right now? Well, I am reorganizing my super messy and unorganized 'studio', trying to make it look as close to acceptably cute as possible, but then.....the downside is, I still can't get rid of the Lorenzo king sized bed that F.I.L gave us for our wedding (which is now a guest bed that's hardly used btw).......and this bed alone has taken up 30% of the entire room....sigh! :(

Days ago, I came across some cool and frugal tips on art supplies organization HERE!.....

Now...while I do not have that cute scary looking owl on top of my newly installed IKEA shelves, nor do I have that vintage chest of drawers.....I do have the clip-hanger like the one seen here....I also do have plenty of plastic storage boxes...and the BEST tip in this 'picture' would be the overhung glass jars!!! I think this is a brilliant and smart idea...especially if you have buttons and small stuffs to store and always can't seem to find them fast! Now I have asked my mum to help me collect small jars alright... :D

I do silently hope however.....SOMEHOW....my 'studio' will turn out NOT BAD!.... :P
Stay tuned! I am very excited to find out myself!

of cupcake and polkadot!

and so it is 'decided' that Kyra is mummy's CUPCAKE while Maia, mummy's POLKADOT! They both like their pet names very much funnily.....and both cupcakes and polkadot are truly few of my favourite things in life!

A DATE for Lunch With Family!

My aunt and family from Sibu arrived yesterday. So we are having lunch at my place today, mum cooked her yummy fragrant melon rice while I made soup and dessert....and then bread...that was supposed to be for TEA......(all became LUNCH! LOL!)

How shall I call this soup? I simply created it out of the 'ingredients' I had in fridge....made of CELERIES + BROCCOLI + TOMATOES, plus cream!
le cebroto soup then! LOL! Lame, I know.....but nevermind...it's a weekend! YAY!
Tried making it both pleasant to the eyes and mouth.....

Here's a HEART-y soup for you!
And a POLKADOT-y one......
Then while we had lunch, my FIRST sour dough cheese bread was baking in the oven....and it came out looking like this! YUMMY! It has cheddar slices on top with sprinkles of sugar!
And they tried a bite...then two....then a few more cuts out of the lot....haha...
Then they added margarine spread on top of the piping hot bread....YUMMMM......it is savoury, no kidding! Has just the right amount of sweetness, saltiness and nice texture.
I already knew it's not gonna be my last time making this....
The two babes wanted to have more too!
Then it's DESSERT time....
Yes, I know this pink cupcake looks exactly the same as the one I made for Kyra's birthday celebration @ school, but wait......
It has a twist to it! YEAP!
This time, the cupcake has melted chocolate filling inside :)
Good news for chocolate lovers, like err....ALL OF US?

I really don't know when will be the next time we have a sit-down meal and good time with my aunt and family again......but I do hope it won't be too long.....
So we'll all have another excuse to whip up a storm! in the kitchen that is! :D

Bday Cuppies For Her Mates :)

Kyra's birthday fell on Tuesday 23rd March, a school day. Thus, I made birthday cupcakes for her to celebrate it with her classmates during their break time. Here's TWENTY THREE rich chocolate and carrot cinnamon (NUT free coz it's better to play safe, plus, my own kid is allergic to nuts!), with baby pink frosting and simple black fondant alphabets with inverted dots!

These somewhat looked like one of the felt cupcakes I made her the other day,
the one with pink ribbon 'swirls' on top! Coincidence really!
To be honest, this is my CURRENT favourite cupcake combination. It may be simpler than those fancy fondant covered ones but taste wise, it's awesome!!! It's non-dairy fresh cream frosting in PINK, on top of the soft yummy cupcakes! Not too sweet like buttercream, yet light enough to complement the cake well! I know this coz i had to TASTE one.....this a.m i 'stole' one as breakfast already :D

"K" is for KYRA!


The homemade goodie paperbags,
containing 2 cupcakes + 1 fruit pudding + 1 cracker for each of her friends at school!
This round, she wanted it to be POCOYO instead of HELLO KITTY!
So I did it in 5 colours of the POCOYO & FRIENDS' characters......

It amused me to see how the kids enjoyed their cupcakes! And just look at the mess they made, and happily too!






After my birthday babe handed out all her goodie bags,
she whispered to me
"Mummy I love you!"
and hugged me in her class :)

Kyra's 4th Birthday Party

Okay, WARNING! Plenty of photos ahead.....(I love blogs with plenty of photos, don't ya?) :D

It all started with this! Rich chocolate cupcakes made with lots and lots of melted chocolate......
FOURTY, yes, 4.0. birthday cupcakes decorated in PINK coz Kyra requested for PINK HELLO KITTY theme! There's PINK GEL, PINK SUGAR, PINK FONDANT ALPHABETS, PINK CANDIES on top of the chocolate ganache here!!! Yumm....my!!!!
Just for fun....I 'studded' the otherwise ordinary baby pink alphabets with 'black diamonds' (metaphorically speaking of course)........using black edible gel for that funky un-baby-ish look! She's 4 years old already, funky is legit for this age, no? :D

And the MAIN BIRTHDAY CAKE!
A Hello Kitty who wore pink polkadot jumper and pink flower on her head!
Holding red heart-shaped balloons, which is actually the exact balloon shape that we used for her party really.....coincidence!
And here's the recipes for the cake + chocolate frosting!
and I won't forget to add that it's very delicious...so you should try this recipe some day!
And this is US. Too bad we didn't have more snapshots! But the bday girl was very happy that night.....VERY VERY happy.....even my Godma noticed!
SEE? She's thrilled...in fact, even before the day of the party actually!!!
This is birthday babe with her fave aunt (sis#2) and all the presents she got!
All the presents are great and the babes love it, thank you very much relatives 'sekalian'! :D
So great they could not help but start a band right away! LOL! Here Maia is playing the drum while Kyra's on maracas shakin' away! It was a lot of fun when they opened the presents....a lot of laughters.....
You see how matchy matchy the presents are????
It's as though they knew her mummy's makin her a play kitchen and they coordinated!
Perfect coordination, I'd say!
Water pot, fridge, bday cake, stainless steel pots n pan.....perfect for her new kitchen!
The ultra inexpensive birthday banner in PINKs and HELLO KITTY.....something simpler coz I was really rushing her birthday present the past few days before the party by the way...(the kitchen).


The morning after! :)
Their fave aunt came and they 'officiated' all the presents!

Oh dear! Kyra looked like a butcher in the market in this shot! HEHE!
That's a dress I made for her a few months ago but it was a little too long then.....
The red piece is a play apron I made for them, each babe has one.
Little sis just lovesssss the drum super duper much! Isn't she a cute little drummer girl in pink here!? She's pink from dress to drum, gosh!
The two sisters sharing their happy moments......

All I can say is, a smaller intimate birthday party like this is wayyyyy better than a big grand one.
I get to enjoy every single minute without having to worry if I left out a guest on the deck or something........and things are more casual and fun too! Even the birthday babe approved!!!

And if birthday babe can read this many years down the road,
mummy would like to wish you
HAPPY BIRTHDAY (of course!)
a lot a lot of joys in your life
and hope that you'll always be in the pink of health!
And you truly are a great and understanding kid!
Always!
AMEN to that!

Home-'baked' Felt Cupcakes

After making that play kitchen for Kyra, I sorted through their toy foods...and realized there're everything from meats to veges and even snacks, but no CUPCAKES!!! She should have cupcakes to bake in her new swanky oven....so I googled and found this felt cupcake idea....and thus......this!

Now there's chocolate cupcake with strawberry cream, vanilla butter cupcake with fondant flower, cream cheese cupcake with choc ganache and orange cream, peppermint cupcake with choc ganache and strawberry, carrot cinnamon cupcake, dark chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream! Now who wants one!!!??

Tiny oven mitts for tiny baking hands!

A Handmade 4th Birthday Gift: Play Kitchen for Kyra!

Last weekend, remember I mentioned here we were doing a family weekend project? Well, it's finally completed, just in time for Kyra's small 4th birthday party yesterday evening. Basically 80% were done by yours truly :D, did I mention I loved loved loved our Living Skills class back in secondary school many years ago? Yeap, I still do, obviously! (Just the practical part though, not theory)

So here you see, I used the leftover plywood from our Headboard Project, very minimum if you ask me. I had to maximize the entire piece to create a play kitchen that's big and tall enough for Kyra to last her playing time for the next few years, maybe? LOL! Photos below will help you browse through the entire process......

LET's BROWSE!!!!

Made of 18mm thick plywood of good quality, and solid 'Selangan Batu' for some parts, also from the same headboard project. The hardest part would have to be cutting out the BIG HOLE for the 'basin' manually, using that tiny thin ruler-like saw and drill!

This (below) is the 'OVEN' door, seen here, I was starting a hole to cut out the little 'window' for the oven! Also not an easy thing to do, especially when you do not have gadgets or cool tools to do it! The most 'hi tech' tool I used for the entire project would be this BOSCH drill (also not mine! LOL!, it's Godpa's).....

Tadaaaaa!!!!! Birthday babe could not help but lurve the play kitchen.....the best thing is, while I was doing wood filing, sanding, sawing.......she would run to me and hug me, and tell me "MUMMY I LOVE U!", or "THANK YOU MUMMY".......isn't that sweet and so priceless?! :D
She did that more than 5x in a day! hahahaha!

She just could not help playing with it a bit while I took five!

Before painting could be done, I filled up 'holes' and joints with instant wood filler....wait for the filler to dry and harden before sanding it down! After I sanded down the entire thing, I painted it semi-matte white, also using leftover paint.

For the 'OVEN' interior, I sprayed it silver....good thing I found a lil bit of paint in storage room! And yeap, that's baking paper you see there...hehehe.....last minute improvisation.


ALL DONE FINALLY!!!!
After 4.5 days of hard work.
Seen on top of the kitchen are all the birthday gifts that Kyra got from relatives, and to my delight, their gifts seem to coordinate perfectly with the kitchen!
In the oven are felt cupcakes and pie that I made at the very last minute for Kyra 2 days ago, will write about it soon! Stay tuned for that one! :)
The other side of this kitchen island is for storing all their toy 'appliances'!
See the Hello Kitty toaster, rice cooker, blender, cake mixer and weighing scale?
The babes got these from relatives for their birthdays last year!
The side of the kitchen, with hooks for keeping all their mini kitchen stuffs organized!
Here they can hang oven mitts, grocery bags, aprons and such!

That silvery thing is actually a remove-able LED light, it will light up when you press the middle button! Cool little thing that hubby bought out of his impulse-buying spree at the hardware, but he never found a use for it till now.....so, there you go! :)

Kitchen Design & Details:
***In case you're wondering why I designed the kitchen to be an island styled counter,
well let me tell you, we have let the TWO babes try out IKEA's mini play kitchen that's RM390,
and both seem to fight for 'cooking' space! So this is the main reason I did the 'island kitchen', so both babes can play together without fighting, hopefully! Furthermore, with my limited wood pieces, I cannot possibly make a longer wider single sided kitchen too anyway! :D



KITCHEN 'FEATURES' & cost breakdown:

Ultra modern hobs made with IKEA Panna coasters : recycled! Thus RM0
Basin = stainless steel bowl: RM8
Water tap from our basin at the back which is already leaking anyway
Plastic knobs from hardware store & other hardware stuffs: RM30
Real stainless steel mesh that got turned into the 'oven rack'
Acrylic piece for the oven 'window' courtesy of Sis#2's supplier
Stainless steel handles ie. IKEA Lansa N! : RM35
IKEA Rill caster wheels: RM19
Wooden hook set (on the side): RM20
Hot pink curtain found at 100yen shop: RM5
Curtain rod system: RM16
Wood filler so the kitchen will be smooth and hole-free: RM8

TOTAL COST: RM141 only (approx. USD40)
+ PLENTY OF "I LOVE U" and "THANK U MUMMY" hugs from Kyra while mummy was making it :D....that is priceless alright! :D
And honestly, though it's not lightweight works, I really felt a huge sense of joy making this, and even more so after seeing the outcome.