Chocolate almond cupcake

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I never like muffin. But I always like cake. And I think something as small as muffin is easy to bake and easy for my consumers, so I started looking into cupcake. I got a book of cupcake recipes with more than 100 recipes. Jayden was attracted by the book when he saw it. He loves the book. Almost every night before we settled everything and went upstair, he would pick up the book and ask me about the recipe, one by one. Little that I know he was trying to understand each of them better so that he can choose the one he likes. At the end, he chosen chocolate hazel cupcake.

I have all the required ingredients except hazel nut powder. But I have almond, which was bought for chocolate almond stick, another order from Jayden. And I feel the texture will be very plain if I use powder instead of the real nuts. I decided to use almond.

Jayden was very excited when I announced "Mummy is going to make your chocolate almond cupcake!". He gave me a big hug and said 'Thank you mummy!' with a touching facial expression, so drama! Of course, he is still too young to differentiate between hazel nut and almond, or to remember what he ordered was actually chocolate hazel cupcake instead of chocolate almond cupcake. The key word for him is only CHOCOLATE! 

The preparation is quite similar to muffin and very easy. It took me less than an hour to complete everything, including baking. Jayden is always very helpful in kitchen stuffs and was with me all the time, witnessing every steps I took in realising his order from picture to real cupcake.  

Ingredient A

125g butter

100g brown sugar

2 eggs (beaten)

Ingredient B

130g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp chocolate powder

50g almond chips

Ingredient C 

60g chocolate chips

1. Beat butter and sugar of Ingredient (A) until smooth. Add in eggs slowly.

2. Mix in Ingredient (B), mix well.

3. Mix in Ingredient (C), mix well.

4. Spoon fill 3/4 of the paper cups.

5. Bake at 150 degree Celsius for 20-25mins 

6. Cool cakes

Remember to always preheat the oven before baking, and use your instinct to decide whether to bake longer or shorter than the given instructions. You can keep the cupcakes in room temperature (consume within 1 - 2 days) or in fridge. You get to taste the almond covered by melted chocolate chips if you keep it in room temperature, or the harden chocolate chips if you keep it in fridge. I like both.

Little grapes family

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do... An octave of grapes, ha!

Cute little grapes family we found from the bag of grapes we bought from morning market. Jayden always picks the smaller grapes and leave the bigger grapes for us. He claims that baby should take baby grapes, daddy should take daddy grapes and mummy should take mummy grapes... What a cute idea!!

Ice cream puff

Jo came to me one day after his daily release session, with newspaper in his hand (ew...). 

"Dear, why don't you do this instead of muffin or cookies??"

I took a look, a recipe for ice cream / cream puff. This is something Jo likes. I kept it one side, but still toying the idea of baking chocolate almond stick for Jayden the coming weekend. Ever since I found myself pregnant and started experiencing morning sickness, my mood and momentum for baking has reduced. Now that my morning sickness is slowly fading away, I thought I should bake chocolate almond stick because it was something I wanted to do the most prior to all these. Most importantly, it was something I promised Jayden earlier. 

Come to Saturday night, I changed my mind. The ice cream puff is something much easier and less preparation needed compares to chocolate almond stick. While Jo and Jayden were washing my car, I thought I should bake some ice cream puff for them as a reward. 

My good looking puff, yeah~

Checking out the fridge, I have everything I need: butter, plain flour, water and eggs. I pre-heated my oven while cooking some of those items. Yes, we need to cook some of them and not just bake. There isn't much mixing or measurement involved. The whole process plus cooking prior to the oven is less than 30 minutes. Another 30 minutes for baking in the oven.

Puff smell spreading through the house... and it is really very easy to make! There is also recipe for ice cream in the same newspaper. But I keep the job easy. I just asked Jo to get those ready made ice cream from supermarket, and, we are done!!!

We have three flavours: chocolate ice cream puff, vanilla ice cream puff and strawberry ice cream puff. I personally prefer chocolate and vanilla. Yummy~~~

My first baking experience - Raisin Muffin

I never like muffin but my first attempt in baking starts with muffin. Well, I can explain this. It is actually a matter of convenient and easiness. It doesn't need perfect or accurate measurement or a mixer, and my friend claimed it is VERY EASY! I thought I should start with something that is VERY EASY to build up my confidence in baking... so... ya... let's start with muffin :)

I was very excited back then. I dragged both Jo and Jayden to the bakery shop to buy all the required ingredients. I may look I know a lot in front of Jo, but I was totally lost the moment I stepped into the bakery shop. It is a big bakery shop with not very helpful shopkeepers. And maybe they have too many pro-baker customers that they expect I am also one of them. I basically had to go round and round the shop just to find things and make sure what I found is what was listed in the recipe because I had no idea at all how those things look like. Still, I managed to get my shopping done, phew~

Next is the baking itself! It is actually VERY EASY, thank goodness!! It is just like one of the masak-masak time we had back then, mix everything and that's it! With most of the time spent on measuring all the ingredients, hand mixing itself only takes less than 20 minutes...

 

BEFORE: Just put it into the over. To decorate a bit, I put raisin and chocolate rice on top of each muffin.

 And in the oven for about 20 minutes...

AFTER: Ta~da~~~ Hot yummy raisin muffin.

It looks nice and taste nice too. As it is for own consumption, I have put in a lot of flax seeds and raisins. Jo and my mum complained too many raisins but Jayden finished the whole thing himself! Well, I just have to say I can't please everyone but I think it is a good try! Yeah!

My PilloPet

My PilloPet has been introduced to the market quite sometime ago. It is known for bringing smiles to faces of all ages, provide comfort by combining the security of a stuffed animal with the functionality of a pillow...... Well, it is just another soft toy to me, nothing special at all except for its expensiveness!

And guess what, I have two My PilloPets in the house now! Not that I have changed my perception nor I have become more generous to spend on not one but two another 'normal' soft toys... I got it for FREE!!! Yes, I got TWO My PilloPets for FREE!!! They are free gifts I got by procuring another stem cell storage program for my second one. And for those who don't know, yes, I'm pregnant! 

It is still another normal soft toy to me, but I think it meant something different to Jayden. He already has a few soft toys which he treats them as his sleeping mate. He will pick one of them before sleep every night. Each soft toy takes turn every night, Jayden sounds like those emperors during the ancient time... ha! Now, he has got a new sleeping mate, and a real big one!

One thing cute about My PilloPet is that it comes with a birth certificate, and some Fairy Agreements: 

1. I will love and care all the animals in the world

2. I will love and take care of My PilloPet

3. I will sleep with My PilloPet

4. I will bring My PilloPet along when I go t ravel or on a road trip

5. I will share my happiness and sadness with My PilloPet

Jo made Jayden swore and read out all these, and Jayden promised he will follow these agreements. Jayden is cracking his head to name his PilloPet, for which has to be filled up in the birth certificate. He named his elephant soft toy as Phant-Phant, penguine soft toy as Guine-Guine, so I expect him to call it PoPo because it is a Hippo PilloPet. And true enough, he wants to name it as PoPo but rejected by Jo. He then thought of calling it NiNi or DanDan... but all got rejected by Jo again, haha! 

Jayden with his PilloPet and PilloPet birth certificate