Banana Cake

17 Nov 2010

After the pizza lunch, I decided to bake Banana Cake with Jaselyn. Since I do not have a daughter, I do not mind having my niece to play "masak masak" with me. Glad that she loved it too.

This is my new found, favourite tea time cake. It is Banana Cake, recipe from The Star Online Kuali by Amy Beh.

This cake is lovely. The first time I baked it, my family just loved it. So did Jaselyn and Darren. We love the nice aroma from banana which blend so well with lemon zest. It is easy to bake and full of goodness and nutrition.

I would suggest to use ripe banana as it adds sweetness and nice banana taste to the butter cake. Remember to eat the cake warm too (warm up for 10 seconds in microwave).

This is the link to Banana Cake by Amy Beh at the The Star Online Kuali.

Enjoy it! Be my guess.

Ham Bacon, Sausage Bacon and Hawaiian Seafood Pizzas

17 Nov 10

I've tried making pizza twice at home. I enjoyed making pizza as its easy to make and my family enjoys eating pizza fresh from the oven.

Today is Hari Raya Haji and also the first day of school holiday. Jaselyn and Darren came over to our house to play with the kids.

I obtained my pizza recipe from The Star's Kuali by Amy Beh. I could make 3 pizzas (2 big and 1 medium) from the ingredients given.

Ham and Bacon pizza with parmesan and cheddar cheese.

Sausage and Bacon pizza with parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

Hawaiian seafood with tomato sauce base and mozzarella and cheddar cheese topping.

I made these 3 pizzas for lunch and they were all finished by 2 adults and 3 kids. The vote is for the cheesy pizzas ... sausage and ham with bacon pizzas.

Strawberry Pavlova at The Food Studio, Amarin Kiara

16 Nov 2010

Electrolux has been running the promotion "Unleash the Chef Extraordinaire in You" since May 2010. I've since invited a few friends who had bought houses and would need to furnish their kitchen with kitchen appliances.

The funny thing is I've never made it myself to any of the cooking classes conducted at The Food Studio for the last 6 months until I knew there would be Strawberry Pavlova class on 16 Nov 2010. Despite I've been baking Pavlova several times and the good feedback that I received, I had never seen how its been done and how it looks like, except from magazines and internet.

There were last minute cancellation by participants just a day before the class and hence, I invited my best friend Christina and Hubby to come along for the Pavlova class.

The Food Studio is located at Amarin Kiara, Mont Kiara, a freehold semi-detached house development nestled on a hill over-looking Mt Kiara and next to Kiaramas.

The Food Studio kitchen equipped with Electrolux home appliances.

Christina and Hubby chat with the chef and owner of the cooking house, Paul Neukirch before the class commenced. Hubby was talking to Paul about oven, its temperature and oven cannibalisation.

Paul explained to us the menu and ingredients for Pavlova and also the baking method in details.

The making of caramel ... butter, sugar, orange juice with blackberry.

During the class, Paul shared some baking tips. For making meringue, we should use room temperature eggs so that they would rise easier. The bowl used to beat egg white must be clean and with no old stain.

Meringue ... 4 eggs white, icing sugar, corn flour (for stabilisation) and white vinegar (to retain moist inside the meringue). Bake at 110 Celsius for 1.5 hours.

To decorate the mini pavlova, whip whipping cream at high speed. Spread whipping cream onto the meringue and decorate with strawberry, raspberry, blueberries, caramel and mint leaves.

The one on the left was decorated by me and the one on the right was decorated by the chef, Paul. I still need lots of improvement.

This mini pavlova is yummy ... crispy on the outside, moist in the inside. The sweet taste of the meringue and whipped cream goes very well with the citrus taste of strawberry, raspberry and cranberry.


Photos for the album. 7 of us attended the class which started at 10am and finish at 12.30pm.

We had a good chat with Paul on his culinary profession, Michelin starred restaurant and his upcoming HD cooking show on AFC, Astro.

By the way ... this is the first time Hubby and I attend baking class together.

Happy Halloween

31 October 2010

It was a hectic weekend ...

On Saturday, I brought Jaden to check out Krista, sent Jared to music class, groceries shopping, brought parents for Japanese dinner and followed with Glitz & Glamour musical show at KLPAC.

On Sunday, it was Jaden's school concert in the morning and followed with Halloween party in the afternoon. I didn't get him any special costume for the party, just dressed him up in black t-shirt.

Not sure what they were looking at, but they were surely gorgeous.

The kids learned to make pumpkin lanterns.

Jaden refused to have his lunch after his school concert. As such, he was very hungry at the Halloween party. Its good to watch him eating by himself and had so much appetite to eat.

Kids were also given bag to collect "treat or trick". Our dining table is full with snack, sweets, biscuits, etc collected from Students Day on Friday, school concert and this Halloween Party.

Simple and nicely done Halloween Party.

Jaden 1st Day in Kumon

25 Oct 10

I remembered that we signed up Kumon Maths for Jared four years ago when I was pregnant with Jaden. How time flies. Today is Jaden's 1st Kumon Maths day.

Last Saturday, we brought both boys to Kumon centre for Jaden to get familiar and comfortable with the centre. He told us he wanted to learn Kumon English but Teacher Jennifer recommended us to start him with Kumon Maths while we do English reading with him at home.

Today is also the day that Jared starts his Kumon English. After attended the Kumon ASHR ceremony in Putrajaya few weeks ago, Jared's motivation level increased by many folds. He told us that he wanted to do Kumon English too.

Hubby and I discussed and think that the timing is right for us to send Jared for Kumon English. He used to be good in English that he finished the entire Peter and Jane books while he was in Kindergarten and now he is in Chinese school. In addition, Jared can be more discipline in getting himself ready for Kumon classes after his school, rather than lazying around, watch TV and wasting time.

Jaden's special classroom.

There's only 2 students in the class which is good. The teacher can focus on these 2 students which still require lots of guidance.

Jaden reading numbers on the card.

Jaden looked at picture and read out the number of objects on the card.

Matching number on magnetic board.

Jared played puzzle while his teacher marked his exercise sheets.

Reward for being a good boy! Aeroplane sticker from Teacher Jennifer.

Jaden's Kumon bag and his very first Kumon worksheets.

Singapore Flyer

7 Sep 2010

Ai Ling works with OCBC and she got for us complimentary tickets for Singapore Flyer.

Singapore Flyer is the world's largest observation wheel, standing at 165m, the height of a 42 storey building and it is 30 metres taller than the famed London Eye.

After dinner at Raffles City, Hubby drove to Raffles Avenue and by the time we got into the capsule, it was 9.30pm.

A view of the Singapore Flyer's capsule.

The Singapore Flyer In-Flight Compass

Hubby teaching the kids how to read the In-Flight compass.

Enjoying Singapore magnificent cityscape during the 30 minutes ride.

Thanks to Ai Ling once again for the complimentary tickets and lovely evening.

Universal Studios Singapore

6 Sep 10

We had buffet breakfast in the Festive Hotel and the restaurant was packed. We were told that we had to queue to get a table for the buffet breakfast. After the long queue for hotel check-in the day before and the many more queues to come in Universal Studios, I wasn't prepared to queue for my breakfast. I was furious and made a fuss about it. I must had look very upset that the waiter quickly got us a table, without having to queue :)

The Universal Studios Singapore opens from 10am to 7pm. After experiencing long queue for hotel check-in, we kinda expected lots of people in Universal Studios and decided to be early to beat the crowd. We were at the entrance at 10am sharp!

Our first stop is at Madagascar. There was queue to take photo at this stop and so did we. They did allow us to use our own camera and video cam but Hubby still buy and paid S$12 for the instant photo taken by them.

Then, we went for the King Julien's Beach Party-Go-Round carousel ride, go up and down, round and round with the Madagascar characters.

Our next stop is at Far Far Away. Jaden wanted to ride the "Enchanted Airways" (junior roller coaster) but Jared and I were not up to it.

There was a long queue for the ride.

Jared resting on stroller and playing with our new video cam while waiting for Hubby and Jaden.

Hubby was thrilled by the ride but Jaden was very cool about it.

Thereafter, we watched Shrek 4-D Adventure movie where we can see, hear and feel the action right from our seat to join Princess Fiona and Shrek in a fairytale adventure. We felt in our face water splashes, spit, air blow, etc. There's two types of seats to choose from ie the moving and the non-moving seats. Highly recommended to watch this 4D movie.

As we walked out from the theatre, there's the "Magic Potion Spin", a ferris wheel for children but all 4 of us were in the ferris wheel. Nothing great, can give a miss if there's a long queue.

We had our lunch at Goldilocks Fried Chicken. Luckily, we were there at about 12pm. As we bought our food, sat down and eat, there were lots of people came in for lunch. Lunch came to S$26.20 and as we had S$15 meal vouchers from the Universal Studios tickets, we only paid S$11.20. It's good to have these vouchers as we were paying in Singapore Dollar, not Malaysia Ringgit.

After the lunch, we wanted to catch the Madagascar Boogie! show at 1pm.

Waiting for Madagascar Boogie show under the hot sun. It was a hot afternoon! Thank God that we brought stroller, caps and sun glasses.

The popular "Move it Move it!"

After the show, there's photo with the casts session. We took this photo using our own camera. After the photo session, as we walked away, we were approached by the Universal staff who showed us our photo taken by them. Again, Hubby bought the photo for S$12, the same photo as above. Why it is so hard for man to say "No, thank you."?

Our next stop was at The Lost World. We didn't try the popular Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure as there were long queue and the waiting time was almost an hour. I would suggest this station as the first stop at Universal Studios and be there at 10am to avoid the crowd.

We tried the Dino-Soarin and also catched the Waterworld death-defying stunts, explosions and thrills of "live" water show at 2pm. After the show, I wanted to take Jaden back to hotel for his afternoon nap but he chosed to follow his Daddy. As such, we continue and move on to "Ancient Egypt". We didn't try any rides here, except for photos taking.

We took a slow stroll and stopped at Sci-Fi City and tried the Accelerator, a madly spinning on whirling twirling attraction.

At New York, we experienced the Lights, Camera, Action! hosted by Steven Spielberg with special effects of major hurrricane hitting New York City.

From New York, we moved to Hollywood to catch 3.45pm stage show Kowabunga Kove, the wackiest, kitschiest, campiest beach blanket singing sensation.

After the show, sligtly passed 4pm, we had our afternoon tea at Mel's Drive-In. We had brownies and iced milo.

We heard street entertainment by The Rockafellas and returned to New York to catch the B-boys. It was a good and entertaining show with participation from audiences. Jaden was too tired and slept on the stroller and missed this show.

When we walked back towards Hollywood, there were Character Meet and Greet by the walk of fame ... Marilyn Monroe,
Charlie Chaplin
Woody Woodpecker

We also watched the infamous Universal monsters in a rock-n-roll musical at Pantages Hollywood Theater at 5.30pm.

The kids were bored and tired while waiting for the last show that we wanted to watch, Donkey Live at 6.15pm at Far Far Away, which we've missed earlier on. Donkey Live is a sing along with Donkey in an interactive live show.

As we were leaving the Universal Studios, we saw this nice castle that we've missed and took several nice photos. It already passed 6.30pm and there were not so many people left in the park.

We left Universal Studios at 6.45pm. We never thought we could last this long as we were thinking of going back to the hotel for a rest at 2pm and go back to Universal Studios at 4pm. The afternoon tea of brownies and iced Milo helped and of course, it was good that Jaden had his nap on the stroller.

Things that I would suggest for Universal Studios:

1. Be there early
2. Bring stroller (for those with kids);
3. Bring caps, sun-glasses and mineral water
4. Plan your trip. Browse through Universal Studios website and have some ideas of what are the things that you wish to do / cover, depending on interests and age.
5. Collect the stage shows, street entertainment, character meet and greet schedule and circle the shows time
6. Go for early lunch ie before 12.15pm to avoid crowd

As we stayed in Resorts World Sentosa, on the following day, we stopped by That's a Wrap and bought some souvenirs and these t-shirts (S$19.90 each) for the boys.Luckily, we went back and take photos at this famous spot again.
Overall, we had a good time in Universal Studios Singapore. It's better than expected and not as crowded as we thought it would be. I like it for being new and the good customer service.