Unboxing Philips noodle maker

Finally got down to blowing the dust off the Philips noodle maker that hubby had bought during a Philips staff sale event in Dec 2014 (did I ever mention half my kitchen appliances are from Philips cos he has a friend working for Philips?)

The unit came with the basic cut moulds for 

A) Angel hair/ Mee Kia 

B) Penne
C) Spaghetti/ Yellow noodles
D) Fettuccine/ Ban Mian

Our first round was disastrous as I was happily admiring the machine at work after pouring in the flour and water, when hubs popped round and asked why I did not add an egg. I had quickly browsed through the instruction manual and only breezed thru the table showing the difference in ingredients for egg vs normal plain noodle. I remembered the liquid measure was different for egg, and ASSUMED it was simply the original amount for plain water, with an egg added in. So I just quickly beat up an egg and added it into the mix before the kneading cycle ended. 

THAT WAS THE MISTAKE!

What originally looked like breadcrumbs texture ended up like a thick sticky muffin batter. I tried adding in more flour but still couldn't salvage it. I had fitted the thinnest cut disc, and the extruded noodles looked like extra-strength electrical wires (you know, those that coil around each other, forming one thicker band of wires?). Hubby tried to manually knead the dough we dug out of the chamber, by hand. and tried extruding again, without much success. But we still managed to cook them anyhow, and ate them for lunch. They were pretty decent, and chewy....

And that is why this post is on "unboxing" rather than the final product. Haha.

Bye MBP, Hello Mac Mini

I had been using hubby's Macbook Pro for a while now, and it has been "degrading" somewhat. I was facing problems like slower speed (which was to be expected), unusually hot surface (the internal fan was probably broken), and a totally dead touchpad (which wasn't a problem since I was mainly using it as a desktop and used a separate USB mouse anyway).

Purchasing a new Mac-based system for use as a desktop had been on my mind for quite a while. I had put off the purchase for a couple of IT fairs/expos by now, and I was getting a bit more fed-up with the performance lately, as the surface was getting really hot, and it shuts down on me without warning.

I decided to just get a simple replacement, looking for size rather than portability, since I didn't have a real need for a portable machine. After some online (and store) research, I decided to get the Mac mini since I was still more accustomed to the Mac (rather than Windows) interface and programs.

It was the weekend of the quarterly IT fair, but there are usually not any good discounts offered for the Mac family machines. Thus I got the Mac mini from Challenger, where I could chalk up membership points and see what other discounts they could offer. We managed to get a good offer on software.

For the other hardware, it was all bought from COMEX 2015 at Suntec. YX followed us rather obediently (although she did grumble a bit about the walking and the crowds) as hubby helped me select and purchase a suitably-sized (and priced) monitor and keyboard.

Bye MacBook Pro (Top picture), Hello Mac Mini (bottom picture)

My buys - Cake turntable

I finally got my hands on a more proper cake turntable! 😋

I was using an improvised one for a couple of months, using a small/short plastic turntable from Daiso that was merely 1-2cm high, and slapped on a nonslip mat between that and the cake base cardboard. 

Airfryer grill pan

I had been getting quite frustrated with the splattering of oil when preparing stovetop shallow fry dishes, and was looking to make better use of the Philips Airfryer (at least cleaning up was easier!)

So I searched around the usual retail shops for the Airfryer grill pan (an optional/additional attachment for the airfryer) as well as online, and managed to find an online seller in qoo10. Together with the cart coupon and other discounts, this grill pan cost me S$40.40, including delivery.

It has been a good experience thus far, as cleanup is easier, compared to the airfryer basket. I also use this pan when cooking foods placed in ramekins and baking trays, so placing and removing is easier and safer (it is pretty hard to remove a hot ramekin from the AF basket, esp. with oven mitts)

 

German cookies for Teachers Day presents 2015

Hands getting itchy again, so I decided to be ambitious and bake some homemade cookies for YX's teachers. Decided on the german cookies that I had been thinking of making since Chinese New Year, but never got round to baking. I had to bake earlier as her centre is having a scheduled holiday the day before the MOE school holiday on Friday. 

I used the recipe shared in the Facebook group, Bakingscorner, and the original recipe is from bakingtaitai. I followed the ingredients list accordingly, and made two batches, one original and one green tea matcha flavour. 

My experience: 

1. I found the dough to be very soft and wet. It was suggested that if the dough was too soft to handle, we could chill it. I thought that would also help while waiting for the oven to be ready, so I placed a tray of shaped dough in the fridge. They ended up having tiny beads of condensation on them, which were visible after baking. 
2. Also, based on the recommendation size of 8g per piece, my cookies came out being quite big (after expanding in the baking process). For subsequent trays, I reduced the size to 6g each for a more manageable bite-sized portion. You can see the difference in size in the second photo. 
3. The picture below shows the matcha flavoured cookies sticking more to the baking paper. Perhaps I did not bake them long enough. (I used the lower end 12 min baking time as I was worried they would be burnt and take on a brownish hue.)

After the cookies cooled sufficiently, I packed them (VERY CAREFULLY) into disposable plastic boxes I had bought from Phoon Huat. I alternated the flavours by layer, and laid each layer on the only doileys I had on hand (5.5 inch round ones leftover from CNY baking). They fitted the boxes perfectly, as you can see in the picture below. 

I ended up having quite a lot extras since I made 2 batches. But I was worried about saving them until Sunday for her church school teachers, and next monday for her music class teacher, so I decided to just let her have all the boxes for her teachers in LifeJourniz. 

Original Recipe Source is http://bakingtaitai.blogspot.sg/2014/06/german-butter-cookies.html.