19 June 2015

My selfie stick purchase

Finally got down to buying a selfie stick (from qoo10). The purchase came in via normal mail safe and sound, and looked sturdy.
I made the mistake of opening the package in front of YX, and so she was bugging me for it the next few days once she saw it.
Here are some pictures taken by her.

17 June 2015

Home Bakes - Hershey's Perfect Choc Chip Cookies

My niece wanted to prepare some cookies to gift her school CCA seniors, and so we tried a recipe taken off hershey's website.

We experimented with the size stated in the instructions ("rounded teaspoons" of dough) as well as the easier-but-larger size using my small ice cream scoop.

Verdict (which I could predict anyway): the smaller cookies tended to be more crisp, and larger ones had softer centres. At least that was the case on the actual day of baking. We will have to wait a few days to see if the flavour and texture changes after some days of storage.

11 June 2015

Our first SEA Games experience

YX was getting excited about SEA Games after her childcare arranged for them to attend one of the tennis matches (held at Kallang Tennis Centre) on Tue, 9 June 2015.

Thus I searched around and decided to bring her (& my nieces/nephews) to the Singapore Sports Hub today when there were non-ticketed events (Athletics) going on.

We boarded a direct bus from home (196) and alighted at the People's Association bus stop along Nicoll Highway before walking towards the #SeaGamesCarnival.



It was pretty sunny whilst we roamed around the carnival areas. As usual, it took quite a while (and many, many prods) to get YX interested and brave enough to attempt some of the simple games at the carnival.


She enjoyed the 'Pool Soccer' and 'Hockey Golf' games best. While we were waiting for the older children to queue and complete their games, I half-cajoled, half-dragged her to the other end of the carnival to look at the "Rocky Mountain", Art & Craft, and "Giant Slide" games. She managed to obtain 5 stamps on her carnival card to happily receive her redemption items and a lucky draw chance.


It was then time for lunch before we explored the rest of the public areas. The sports hub library was quite crowded with carnival-goers, mainly families and students. The projector screen was showing the Men's water polo match and so we sat down and relaxed to watch while the heavens opened and poured rain for a while.

The hubby and eldest niece went shopping for SEA Games T-shirts, and we watched a skipping-rope competition before we decided to leave. Hubby had to go home pick the car and I was to bring the children back to my parents' place, where we have our weekly dinner gathering.

On the way back to the bus stop, we passed by the National Stadium again and decided to spend some time watching the ongoing Athletics. YX was clearly excited from the experience, this being her first time in an actual sports stadium, watching live sports events.



Above: YX and my nieces and nephews, when we were waiting in queue to get into the National Stadium.
Below: Just before we left the Stadium for home.



Above: The SEA Games participating nations flags and the SEA Games cauldron, against the Tanjong Rhu backdrop.

04 June 2015

Family birthday-JS's cake - Disney princesses

I was put off preparing buttercream and/or fondant cakes for a while as my family was not too keen on the taste and high butter/sugar content of these decorations. But as I re-started my baking habit in May, I started to hanker after those beautifully decorated cakes again. I remembered that I had once bought a set of plastic Disney princess 3D cake toppers at YX's insistence some years back, only to realise that I had not put that expensive purchase to good use yet.

My niece (JS) birthday was coming up soon in mid June, so I whatsapped my sister to ask what the little gal preferred. Apparently her current favourites were Frozen, Ben and Holly, Peppa Pig. I had made a Peppa Pig cake before, and JS would be having a Frozen-themed cake for celebrations in her childcare, so I decided to use the 3D cake toppers and try my hand at fondant again.

I baked the sponge cake layers using a sponge cake premix (the Prima brand 'Optima' flour) on Tuesday. On Wed, I whipped up half a batch of Mousselline Buttercream (recipe from 'The Cake Bible') to fill and cover the sponge layers. I was deciding between this and the sweeter / more-likely-to-crust normal buttercream, and eventually decided on this as the temperatures were soaring these days (34 deg Celsius in the afternoons when I'm doing baking/ decorating). I remembered that fondant cakes weren't supposed to be refrigerated so I needed an icing that could hold up at room temperature.


(Top: baked 2 pieces of 8x5inch sponge cakes.
Bottom: I wanted a square cake, so I split one of the cakes and joined together. 
And filled and frosted together)


***
COVERING WITH FONDANT
(Top: sides of cake covered with store-bought white fondant. Top of cake covered with green fondant which I coloured using Wilton's gel -blue and yellow. Looks like I need to work on joining the seams, which I had hurriedly pinched together while the buttercream was 'melting' underneath
Bottom: Green buttercream leaves to cover the ugly seams)


***
ADDING FLOWERS AND "TREES"
With the "defective" areas settled, it was time to add the frills. I placed the toppers and estimated the space that would be available for the other 'garden/flower' decorations.

28 May 2015

Watched "神鵰俠侶(2014)"



Hubby was watching this some time back and asked me to download the videos for him. Our "watch youtube on TV function" wasn't working (our TV is not "smart" enough... heee....)

This is one of my favourite Louis Cha dramas, but I didn't jump on the bandwagon with hubs as I was watching my Korean dramas then.

This series is now playing on Channel 8, so I started watching on TV (and finished watching on Youtube).