my baking diary #25 butter cookies, #26 chiffon cake and award!

Many thanks to Edith from Precious Moments and Nancy from Bake for a Queen who passed this lovey award to me... this is my first award! and it motivates me to bake more and keep up this interest of mine!

Here are the rules to abide for accepting this award :
1. Post linking back to the person that gave you the award.
2. Share 7 random things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered blogs.
4. Drop them a note and tell them about it

7 Random Things about Me...
1. I love 'My Melody' character from Sanrio, hence my blog name... Though a fan, i don't (and can't afford to) collect lots of MM stuff... But knowing my likes, friend and families usually get me MM related stuff for birthday, X'mas etc... :)


2. I move on from hobby to hobby rather fast! Reading is one of my hobbies which i never grow out of - i will tend to buy books whenever i step into Popular (now its recipe books!). Other interesting hobbies include collection (unopened) tissue packets with cute and pretty packaging, cute characters plasters (and i still have them though it way past their expiry dates!), and phone cards (those in sets) versus the boring stamps, coins etc (hope i don't offend any of the readers!). I still have these items with me though i am not adding any more into my existing collections... The most recent hobbies prior to baking was Gashapon (turning capsules and collecting those keychains, mini toys and whatever) and accessories making/beading... i am still doing accessories/beading stuff like figurines etc from time to time... I have this whole trolley of beading materials i bought (and they do cost me a bomb if you were to add up everything!) and lots of those japanese beading books... I tend to 'invest' alot whenever i pick up a particular hobby... The newest hobby? Yes, baking! Hope this will last (and i am guessing it will!)


3. Can i add on additional hobbies as another random item? Other hobbies includes paper crafts (i bought this set of alphabets and those cute puncher!), cross stitching, reading and collecting comics books etc... Basically, i am a 'craft-y' person... Hence, like to prepare handmade gifts for birthdays, X'mas etc...

4. I always have an interest in baking ever since home economics classes in secondary school, but the home oven at that time wasn't working, so no chance to bake... I am glad i can now get an oven and more baking tools now that i am financially independence (this explains why i feel that my baking hobby will last long)!


5. I like Harry Potter - both books and movies... I read the books countless times, and at least watch each of the movie at least twice (if not more!) and am looking foward to the last one which will be release in July 2011!

6. I love to shop online - clothes, cute stationaries, baking stuff etc...

7. I ran out of random items about me though i think there could be more (but i don't know what to write!)... If there is anything in particular you wanna know about me, ask me! Haha

I find it difficult to pass this award to 15 recently discovered blogs - most of the blogs i am following seems to have been awarded recently... and mainly, there are more than 15 blogs which i recently discovered and i am still discovering many more lovely blogs...

~above updated 4 Apr 2011~

following up with my last post, my boss came back from his business trip, which means more work for me (in terms of more meetings, appointments, etc)... hence, did not have time to bake after a long working day... was staying late in the office rather frequently, so even on weekends, i need to spend more time catching up on sleep, spending time with dear, getting errands run... so again, no time to bake... i could only read up on other blogs in between travelling from place to place, or when i have that little time during work... seen so many nice bakes, but i can't do any... and i totally missed the March Aspiring Bakers! Did not manage to submit any post for that! Will make it a point to do something for April Aspiring Bakers!!!

#25 Butter Cookies

last week, i baked continuously for 3 evenings, all for my dearest niece, YX's, 3rd birthday... i do feel kinda guilty for only making butter cookies for her party favour, when i made butter cookies and horlicks doggies for XH's 1st birthday... but i din have much of a choice, was too tied up with work... and although only butter cookies, i had to forgo at least 2 - 3 hours of sleeps for that 3 days to bake for her!

i used the butter cookie recipe from Cathy... it's really a breeze working with this recipe coz the dough does not require any chilling before you can cut it into your desired shapes, and does not stick to the rolling pin!

after doing it for 3 continuous day, i can almost memorize the process (coz i prepare and weigh all ingredients for 3 batches on day 1).

But as these cookies were for YX to bring to childcare for her schoolmates, i reduced the sugar level a little more, and also, i used those edible sugar decos to top the cookies...

Butter Cookie (recipe from Cathy's Joy)

90g Butter
75g sugar (i reduced this to 70gms)
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (i used vanilla essence for 2 batches of cookies, and orange essence for 1 batch)
135g plain flour
45g corn flour


1. Cream the butter and sugar together for one minute.
2. Mix in egg yolk and vanilla essence (or orange essence).

3. Stir in plain flour & corn flour. Knead briefly.
4. Roll out the dough (i find that rolling between 2 sheets of baking paper is easier to handle the dough) to about 2-3mm thick and cut into shapes with cookie cutters.
5. Bake at 180°C for 15mins.

This recipe is definitely a keeper, and i will be doing it soon to try my new Rilakkuma cookie cutters!

#26 Rainbow Chiffon (again!)

yes, its rainbow chiffon again... i dun seem to get sick of this, and i found this rather easy to bake... hence, on a friday evening where i got to leave office early (erm, early in this case means leaving on the dot, able to catch company bus and reaching home before 7pm provided i dun spend too much time doing retail therapy at Phoon Huat!!)... so my mum asked me if i am baking tonite, my reply was "do you want to eat chiffon cake? if yes then i bake lor".. and with my mum's reply, here's the chiffon cake for breakfast tomorrow :)


You can get the recipe here, or the orginal here... it's up to your own to decide what colours go into the chiffon... for mine, i chose yellow, green, purple and pink... I bought mango and lychee flavours from Phoon Huat sometime back, and hence added some into the yellow and pink coloured portions... the mango fragrance was rather strong when i was mixing the batter, but after it came out from the oven, it was not as strong...

the top of the cake seem to sunk down - was this because i unmould it when it was not really cooled down yet? and also, i wonder why my chiffon doesn't have the brown crust around the cake which i seen on other blogs... anyone care to advise why?

and working with a bigger pan is much more difficult then the smaller one, hence the batter wasn't that even... but taste wise, still ok lah :)

work has been really stressful recently, like what i mentioned in my earlier post... hence, what's the best remedy to destress? Retail Therapy!! But recently, my retail therapy does not include clothes, shoes or bags... but instead, its all about baking, baking and more baking!!

these are the newly acquired stuff, tools, ingredients... which includes silicon mould - for madeleines, donuts and a silicon baking mat! i also got this thing for cookie cutters... haha, just can't resist buying cookie cutters - rilakkuma, princess tiara and a whole box of 100 cookies cutters which include shapes, alphabets etc... the lastest latest item acquired, is the I Love Macarons recipe book by Hisako Ogita! Tapped on Sis's order and got this from Amazon.com... Flipping through the pages, the macarons are really cute and pretty... I am going to bake more butter cookies so as to get egg whites to do my macarons!!

i went to a baking class on monday with my friend, D. we got the voucher from insing.com sometime back in Feb for this baking class at Paisley & Cream for only 50 bucks! we had initially planned to go for the class in eary Mar, but due to my work commitment, could only attend the class during end-Mar.

During the class, we learned to bake vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, and do chocolate ganache and buttercream frosting... it was really fun decorating the cupcakes! So much fun that i decided to bake the cupcakes this weekend, and to make sure i really learned the techniques of baking as well! so, lookout for my next post ya!