Cupcakes for My Niece's 1st Birthday (A Children's Cookbook Recipe!)

CUPCAKES NIGHT 2!

Over the weekend, my sis, qiqi and I baked cupcakes (again) to celebrate xiaoyu's 1st birthday :) The recipe was taken from Children's First CookBook by Annabel Karmel.

Making cupcakes...
First heat the oven to 180°C or 350°F. Then prepare the following.

• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125 g sugar
• 125 g butter
• 125 g raising flour
• chocolate chips

This makes about 30 small cupcakes.

From previous experience, the cupcakes were too sweet and greasy. So we tweaked the formula a little - reducing both sugar and butter - to suit our taste preferences. (experiment with the right amounts for yourself!)

Mix all the ingredients together!

Add in some flavor! We threw in some chocolate chips, but raisins or blueberries would work too.

Lay out paper cones onto the tray and fill each cone to 1/2 or 2/3 the capacity. Put in the oven! Bake for 18 to 20 mins. (watch out for the color yourself!)

Meanwhile, prepare icing...

• 25o g icing sugar
• 125 g butter
• 1 tsp water
• coloring

Again play with the proportions to get the right taste.

Baking for kids is simple. Just mix everything up and add any coloring you would like! We had green and pink. Then put the icing in a corner of a small plastic bag. Cut off a tiny corner.

Ohh the cupcakes are almost ready!

Remove the cupcakes from the tray and leave out to cool down. (IMPT or your deco will melt!)

Making our second batch of cupcakes.

Ta-da! We wrote HAPPY 1st BDAY XIAOYU! on the cupcakes!

Next morning on webcam...

Opps, qiqi already started feasting on the cupcakes!

So good to see her again, she has grown so much and very talkative now! (keeps saying "da-da-da") I miss carrying and napping with her :)

Singing a birthday song for xiaoyu... Wah she was all ready to cut her cake!

Ok, no more talking. Just eat ;)

NEW Cheap Eat near HDB Hub

Lunched out today with wx at Toa Payoh Central, and found a new Chinese food store called Origins (aka 元庄). It's right behind the row of shophouses facing the HDB Hub/SPH Buzz pod. Features Laksa, Curry/Vegetable Rice, soups and desserts! Not bad and is cheap.

We ordered:

Hainanese Curry Rice - curry chicken, cabbage, bean sprouts plus a sunny-side-up. This is so-so.

Katong Laksa - Tastes quite good, my favorite. :)

Watercress Soup - Okay. A good amount of ingredients used, but I would prefer using ribs than chicken feet as the soup base. :x

Beancurd with Ginko Nuts - The beancurd is not bad, but ginko nuts were a bit "old" (not soft enough) and not fresh.

Almond-flavored Soya Milk - Not too sweet, which is good. A little bit dilute, but still much better than what we can get at most hawker centers these days.

All for under $15!

Rating: ★★★ for the laksa!

NEW Triple Prawn Burger!!

Went to J8 to pay my Singtel bills after work today, and bought MOS Burger back for dinner. Try their latest addition:

TRIPLE PRAWN BURGER!

Three deep-fried prawns topped with XO and tartar sauce plus shreds of lettuce.
Ermm didn't look as glamorous as this eh?

IMO not really worth the 40cents "upgrade" from my favorite fish burger. Although the prawns were fresh, I couldn't taste much of the XO sauce which was also a highlight of this dish.

Rating: ★★

Nevertheless, MOS Burger remains to be one of my favorite burger place locally! A little small portioned and expensive, but love the fat fries, croquette, and minestrone soup! (I give high ratings to those :D)

& Oh! New Scallops Rice Burger... wx might just like it :)


PS: MOS Burger needs delivery service in Singapore :x

Office Tea-time with Cute Cupcakes!

Yum yum yum~ Don't know where exactly these came from, but we've had a nice little tea-time (minus the tea) in office yesterday!

A whole box of cute and soft chocolate cupcakes. :D
(Someone ninjaed one before I took the picture T_T)

A poodle. (or sheep?)

A bear.

A butterfly.

Which is your favorite?
I like the poodle most. :)

The deco tastes a bit like dough but is candy sweet! And the chocolate cupcakes (base) were made just nice - not too sweet, soft, and not too dry either. Truly delicious! - I sneaked one out for wx in the end. hehe

PS: Gave me some ideas for next cupcakes session with my niece... :p

Feifei Wanton Mee @ 72 Joo Chiat Place

I think no Singaporean who enjoys good (& not necessarily expensive) food would not know about FeiFei Wanton's Mee (aka. 飛飛雲吞麵). But beware, because like other food chains, not all Fei Fei outlets taste the same or as good.

I was highly recommended by wx to this particular 24-hour outlet at 72 Joo Chiat Place. I finally went with rather high expectations. :)

Rating: ★★★ to ★★★★

This was my type of noodles :) and FeiFei takes pride on that being handmade. The wonton was superb! Soft, thin and smooth skin, and makes a *slurping* sound when you eat it!

Disappointment #1: Noodles were not as QQ as I thought. :x

Soup! wx was telling me how you need to finish your noodles before going to the stall front personally to get your soup. The case here is, soup is not served with noodles by default. You need to ask for your soup. Wow (so dao), I thought the soup must be DA LEET!

Disappointment #2: And a rather big one. The soup was...tasteLESS. :o

Well, at least this side dish (prawn roll) was pretty good. I would visit again for their silky wonton skins but skipping the soup part hehe :D

Personally, I think I'm quite picky with the type of wonton noodles that I eat. The HK style (noodles and sauce) is just not my type! My favorite wonton noodles still remains - after my visit to FeiFei - to be in Malacca. :p & The closest version found in Singapore so far is either FeiFei's or Pontian's. But I'm not a fan of Pontian's fried wontons. Well, rather subjective pertaining to the style of wontons, noodles and sauces for different individuals.

PS: Not sure of the location in Malacca, will update later once I ask my parents. Photo first!

Last eaten: Jan '09