Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Baked this pineapple upside down cake quite some time ago (it's about a month ago if I'm not mistaken... yup! Been lazy and not updating my blog again...) as a Father's Day treat for David. Comment from him - yummy! hahaha... Was happy to see that he likes the cake. He eventually asked me to bake another one. But I wanted to try other fruits like peach, kiwi, or even dragon fruits! We will see how it goes... Stay tune... *wink*

As for myself, I like the cake too. The texture of the cake was very soft and I love the buttery and little bit of sour taste. I used the canned pineapple ring. Think it would be crunchier if I used the fresh pineapple. Will try to bake with fresh pineapple next time. I got the recipe from here. Their cherries were so "big" and could fill up the center of the pineapple ring. But those that I got here was so "tiny" and could not filled up the center of the pineapple! Got a comment from a friend saying that it looked like a "pimple"... (-_-)"... Anyway, what really matters is the taste right? hehehe....

I did some alterations on the recipe. So, here is my version of recipe. I used a 9" round baking spring form.

Ingredients:
butter (for greasing)
7 slices canned pineapple in juice (plus 3 tablespoons of the juice)
13 cherries
100 grams all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
100 grams unsalted butter (room temperature)
50 grams brown sugar
2 large eggs

Methods:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Grease the 9"spring form with butter.
2. Arrange the pineapple slices as in the picture. Or you can arrange them in your way as long as it covers the whole bottom of the spring form. Then fill each pineapple ring with a cherry, and dot one in each of the spaces in between.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix them together in a bowl.
4. In the mixing bowl, cream the butter and caster sugar till pale and fluffy. Then add in the eggs, one at a time. Mix well.
5. Add the flour mixture into the mixing bowl. Mix until all the ingredients as well combined. Then add the 3 tbsp of the pineapple juice that you reserved earlier. This will thin down the batter a little bit. Give it a quick stir and then pour the batter over the cherry-studded pineapple rings. Spread the mixture evenly to cover the whole spring form or all the pineapples and cherries
6. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
7. Run a spatula around the edge of the tin, place a plate on top and turn the spring form upside-down. Then you will have your pineapple upside down cake!

That's all for this post. Enjoy and have fun baking!

2013 Singapore Trip

Promised Samuel we would bring him to Universal Studios Singapore (USS) and Legoland during his school holiday. We managed to get the air tickets from Air Asia with reasonable price, which was around RM200/pax for 2 ways tickets, including luggage and meals on board.

22 May
David reached home around 4:30pm from his office. We made a move from home around 5pm as we worried there would be traffic jam as it was off work hour. Thank God the traffic was quite smooth and we arrived airport around 6:15pm. After we checked in our luggage, we went for some snack at McD. The flight was at 7:50pm.

Samuel was behaving well while on the plane. We had chicken tandoori and satay rice for dinner on the plane.

(Images from Google)

We landed at Singapore Changi Airport around 10pm and after claiming our luggage, hopped into a cab around 10:30pm and arrived our friend, Lily's house around 11pm. It was great to see Lily again after 2.5 years. She was our cell group member last time when David and I were working in Singapore. Lily and her husband, Ling Jie has 2 lovely children, Jonas and Belisya. Samuel gets along with both of them very well. :) Grateful of their hospitality during our 6 days stay in Singapore. May God continue to bless Lily and her family. :)

23 May
We woke up around 8am this morning but we didn't see Ling Jie as he already went off to work. We had breakfast together with Lily then we headed to Jurong East interchange and took a bus to Vivo City. From there, we took the monorail to Universal Studios Singapore (USS) at Sentosa Island. When we arrived at the entrance around 11:30am we saw long queues at all the ticket counters. Luckily we got our tickets online and we headed to the entrance and started our "adventure of the day".

Our first ride was the 4D movie. They were showing Transformer during our visit and Samuel was so happy with that as he loves Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime very much. It took us 1 hour to to queue for our turn. But it's worth it as it was really fun and Samuel loved it. Anyway, some thing "interesting" happened when we got out from the theater. The story goes like this... there were places where we could park our strollers as we're not allowed to bring the stroller in for the rides. When David parked Samuel's stroller at the "designated place", I asked whether there's someone there to look after all the strollers. He said no, but there's a CCTV there and if really got someone who wanna took the strollers, ours won't be their choice as there were other much "branded" strollers there. Well, unfortunately, when we got out from the theater, we couldn't find out stroller. I was like... I just can't believe that. We informed one of the USS "worker" and she called her "friend" to assist us to look for our stroller. And believe me, I was totally pissed and had no mood to go for any other rides. But the girl, Michelle was very helpful. She asked us to walk around the area and try to look for our stroller. Worst case was if we failed to "detect" our stroller, then we had to make a report at the lost and found counter. Immediately I shook my head... no no no... we're going to stay for 6 days and how could you expect us to bring Samuel around the city? CARRY him? ok, Samuel is not very heavy buy it's tiring ok? Ok... to cut the story short, we managed to get our stroller back... from a group of "a bu ne ne"... Michelle was with us when we "detected" our stroller parked in front of an Indian lady, with her son sitting on it, eating biscuits. Michelle immediately informed them that they should not take the stroller from the "parking area". If they really need a stroller, they could get it from the "renting" area, which was located at the entrance with a very big sign. David on the other hand, requested the boy to stand up, cleaned the stroller by brushing of all the crumbs from the stroller. I got Samuel onto the stroller and walked off. Anyway, Michelle gave us 3 express pass (yeah!) for the "inconveniences caused". haha... not bad.

The studios closed around 6pm, so we left the park around that time. Samuel fell asleep while we were on the way to Jurong East to meet up with our cell group friends for dinner. But he woke up when we arrived our destination. Had dinner and we went home around 9:30pm. Took our bath and knocked out around 11pm.

24 May
So coincidence that 三舅 was in Singapore too! I managed to contact him and told him that we were going to S.E.A Aquarium on 24th May so we met up there. He was in Singapore with 舅母，Victor and Heng Ying to celebrate 舅母's birthday. We arrived S.E.A Aquarium around 11am and I had never seen soooooo many people in my life. The workers told us we needed to queue for 3 hours to enter the "aquarium". In the end, we took 三舅's advice, we upgraded our tickets to "Premium" and we waited about 15mins to enter the " aquarium". Actually David got the tickets for USS and S.E.A Aquarium in a package. We added SGD15 per pax to upgrade our tickets. 15 mins versus 3 hours, SGD15x3=SGD45, worth it!

There were too many people at the SEA Aquarium, we left around 4pm to shop at Vivo City while 三舅and his family went to Sky Tower ride on the other side of the island. We then met up again to go to the Gardens By The Bay.

We arrived around 7:30pm and was told that the garden would close at 9pm. So, didn't take much photos. We had our dinner and simple birthday celebration for 舅母at the Irish restaurant there.

It was a simple yet joyful celebration. May God continue to bless 三舅 and his family. We had a great time.

25 May
We didn't go anywhere on our 3rd day stay in S'pore. After 2 consecutive days with lots of walking, we decided to take a break. We woke up around 9am and went for breakfast together with Lily, Ling Jie and the children at Jurong Point. Then all of us decided to go for pedicure and menicure, yup! including the guys! I signed up this pedi/mani at Nail Palace in 2006 and luckily there's no expiry for that. I could not recall when was the last time I pampered myself with this. Lily's sister joint us too and we had a great time... :) Then we went for a light snack and headed home around 2pm. After Samuel took his bath, we all went for a nap... :) We had dinner at home that night and after dinner, David and Ling Jie went for movie (Fast and Furious 6) where us, the ladies and the children stayed at home. Chit chatting with Lily and the children playing "cooking"... Thank God for the fellowship and quiet time.. :)

26 May
Met up三舅, 舅母 and cousins for breakfast at Yum Cha Restaurant (near China Town) as 三舅 they're leaving Singapore to go back to Klang that day. After breakfast, we went for a walk at the stalls at China Town and OG. 三舅 bought a very nice Tin Tin school bag and a t-shirt for Samuel! If you are not sure who is Tin Tin... Click here for a brief description about Tin Tin.

 

三舅made a move back to his hotel to get his luggage around 2pm as their flight was at 4pm. We then headed home.Took our bath and Luke came and picked us up from Lily's house as we're having dinner at his place. I baked some Hokkaido cupcakes at Luke's place. We didn't get any paper cup, so just bake those cupcakes in the muffin tray. They turned out quite nice. Ivy actually decorated them with some "stars"

Felt great to catch up with all these old cell group friends. So much to talk about and we had a great time! Looking forward for their visit to Penang. :)

27 May

We visited Legoland on our last of our holiday. We took a bus from Jurong East Interchange to Johor custom and changed another bus to Legoland. Arrived Legoland around 12noon and it was super hot! I could not recall any special incident on that day... what I remember was, it was so hot! So, let's just see the pictures taken.

We hang out at Legoland till 4pm then we took a taxi to the Johor custom. After that we took a bus back to Singapore. 

28 May

Our flight back to Penang was at 11:45am. Before we left fo airport, we had breakfast at Lily's house. Really grateful to her for her help and hospitality. We arrived Penang around 12:45pm. We went for lunch and headed home. 

It was a fun and memorable holiday. Thank God for this fruitful and joyful time.

Little update

Time flies, it's already May! Been quite busy since the beginning or May and I had no time to really sit down and blogged. Since I have a little bit of free time right now, let's do a recap on what had happened recently and basically this is what all about this blog ... count my blessings.

Malaysia GE13
I had never been very aware about Malaysia politic until this year! The 13th General Election really was an "eye opener" to me. The election was on 5 May and we flew back to Kuching on 4 May. I voted in Kuching, Stampin aread, where as hubby need to travel by car for another 4 hours from Kuching to his hometown, Sarikei to vote. Why was I suddenly so "into" politics? Well, what I can say is, I wanted a better future for my son... our only son. My vote counted when the party that I voted won the seat! As well as hubby's. However, the overall result was disappointing. I just couldn't accept all the "tricks" that the government used to win the election. I used to be proud as a Malaysian. But ever since the 5 May GE, I feel ashamed to be a Malaysian. Now I can only pray that, God will continue to look after Malaysia and has His eyes on all the leaders. I just continue to pray for a better tomorrow as I believe everything is in His hands.

Mother's Day
Samuel is 4, so by all means, I have been a mother for 4 years. Not an easy job... but I enjoy the every second of that as a mother. Looking at him, I have nothing but thankful to our Father in heaven. I thank Him for giving me this precious gift which I treasure so dearly.
"Father, I used to say Samuel is our son, he is ours. But slowly I realized that, he belongs to You. We are the keepers. You will look after him and provide him whatever he needs. So we don't have to worry. You teaches me to let go. You ensures me that he will be safe in Your arms. Lord, I understand now. Lord I surrender Samuel into Your all mighty hands because I believe You love to him is more than anyone else in this world, even more than me."
I see Samuel getting more and more matured each year and I feel really proud of him. I always remind myself to teach him to stay close to our Lord Jesus Christ with the hope he will grow up to be a God fearing man! May God continue to guide me and teach me to be a better mother.
Samuel and the rest of the children from Sunday School presented a song on the 12 May Sunday service in conjunction with the mother's day celebration and he made a card for us, Daddy and Mommy :)

Launched of our online bakery shop
I am glad to know Ai Leng. She is a SAHM like me too and she likes to bake too! She approached me one day and said that she wanted to create a page on Facebook to sell some of our cakes! I thought that was a great idea! So there we have it! Our very first online bakery shop ~ Blessings Bakery House. It was launched on 13 May. Feel free to click on the link and "like" the page! :) Pray that God will bless our business and may our business glorify His name!

         

Vanilla Sponge cake - 2 ways!

I made a vanilla sponge cake using a premixed powder for my sister on her birthday. I didn't finished the whole packet for her cake so today I made something out from the remaining cake mix.

Mini Vanilla Sponge Cake topped with Blueberry Jam

Sometimes I like to use cake mix cos it save a lot of time. According to the instruction printed on the box, I just need to add ovalette, melted butter, eggs and milk (according to the amount needed). Beat all the ingredients together (for about 2 to 3 mins, till the batter is fluffy). Then spoon the batter into the cupcake paper and baked in a preheat oven at 180C for about 20mins or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake to rest and cool for about 5 mins. Topped the cakes with some blueberry jam.

Spongy Vanilla Square with Chocolate Filling

Using the same batter as above, pour the batter into a 8" square pan (greased with butter). Bake in a preheat oven at 180C for 30mins or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake to rest and cool for a while. Cut the cake into squares, and half the cake. Pipe some chocolate frosting in the middle then combine the 2 layers back together.

Chocolate cupcakes

I have a very nice and friendly Indian neighbor. She is a SAHM too and she can cook very nice Indian dishes. I am so blessed to have her as my neighbor as she often cooks very nice curry and share with me. As in return, I will bake some cakes or cupcakes for her (she is a cake lover). She cooked some curry fish over yesterday and believe me, the curry was awesome!

Then I baked some chocolate cupcakes for her as her daughter loves chocolate.

Chocolate Cupcake
*makes 10 cupcakes*

Ingredients:
140g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar, sifted
2 large eggs
120g self-rising flour, sifted
2tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
1 tsp baking powder, sifted
2 tbsp milk (only if the mixture is a bit dry)

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180c. Line the muffin pan with muffin cups.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time. Mix until even.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder and cocoa in a bowl then fold into the wet mixture until even. Add milk if needed.
3. Spoon the batter in the paper liners. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 20mins, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cupcake to cool for about 10 to 15 mins before putting on the frosting.

Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients:
90g chocolate (melted and set to cool)
1/2 cup butter (either salted or unsalted)
1/4 cup icing sugar

Method:
Use a electric mixer, beat butter for about 1min. Add sugar and beat for another 2 mins. Lastly, add the chocolate and beat for 2 to 3 mins or until the frosting become glossy and smooth.

This is how the cupcakes look like fresh from oven.

 

After frosting and decorated with some chocolate chips.

Mango Cupcake

Hubby bought a few mangoes last Friday. Tried one on Friday night and it's a bit sour. Hubby requested to make something out of them... I had been wanted to bake some mango cupcakes for long already! I couldn't find any mango few months back till recently. Delighted when hubby request me to bake! Got this recipe from the net and here is the site.

Mango Cupcake
*makes 10 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup self rising flour (sifted)
1 tsp. baking powder (sifted)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (sifted)
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
2 eggs
2 tbsp. milk (if the mixture is a bit dry)
2/3 cup diced mangoes

For the topping: (I leave out the topping)
1 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled
2/3 cup mango puree
1/3 cup sugar

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350F/ 170C. Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until the sugar are dissolved.
3. Add the egg, one at a time into the mixture and beat well.
4. In another bowl, mix the flour and the baking powder together.
5. Slowly fold in the dry ingredients into the wet mixture and mix well. Then add the diced mangoes. 6. Spoon the mixture into the pan and bake for about 20 min or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

For the topping:
1. Beat whipping cream on medium speed for about five minutes, until soft peaks form. Add sugar.
2. Cut up your mangoes, remove all the skin. Then, use a food processor or blender to puree the mangoes.
3. Add the mango to the whipped cream. Keep refrigerated.

Celebrating Yao's birthday

Back dated post

My youngest sister, Yao came all the way from Kuching to Penang to pay us a short visit from 15 till 18 Apr. So coincident that it was her birthday on the 15th. So we celebrated her birthday for her in Penang. She was so excited, as well as Samuel as he was very close to this "yi-yi". Yao works as a hair stylist in a saloon in Kuching and the saloon closed from 15 till 18 Apr for its "company trip". All Yao's colleagues together with the boss flew to KL but Yao requested to come to Penang. Her boss was very kind to grand her her birthday wish. :)

15 Apr, Monday
Yao arrived Penang around 11:15am on 15 Apr. She had to wait for me at the airport for nearly one hour as I had to pick up Samuel first before I could go and fetch her. After I picked her up from the airport, we headed to Sunway Carnival for a simple lunch as we were going to Tao for buffet in the evening! As I mentioned earlier, it was her birthday! So, there must be a birthday cake right? I made a simple vanilla sponge cake, with blueberry jam filling in the middle and chocolate ganache. As I had very limited of time, so I used the pre-mixed sponge cake powder I got from a bakery shop. After I baked the cake, I cut the cake into half, spread thick layer of blueberry jam in between the cake, and then combined the two slices together again. Then I made this chocolate ganache by referring to here.

We went to pick up David from his company before we headed to Tao Cuisine. I was told by the waitress while I called to make the reservation that if we managed to arrive before 6:30pm, we were entitled for 10% discount. Unfortunately we didn't make it. Anyway, we had a great time eating there and we just love the cheese baked scallops! And the oysters, Oh and the sashimi... and many more. Oh, and they were serving durian ice-cream that night! mmmm.... irresistible!Didn't manage to take many photos during the dinner as we were busy ordering food and eating... :)

 It was a great fun. After the dinner we went home for cake cutting "ceremony" for the birthday girl.

16 Apr, Tue
After we sent Samuel to school in the morning, I brought Yao to the morning market as I needed to do some marketing. Then we headed home to prepare lunch. We didn't go anywhere till 5pm. We sent out car to polish at Sunway Carnival and waited there for David to join us for dinner. David arrived around 6pm and we headed to Sakae Sushi for dinner.

17 Apr, Wed
I applied a day off for Samuel from his kindy as Yao and I wanted to go shopping at Queensbay Mall! I made the move around 11am and went to have our early lunch first when we reached there. We had a great meal at Dragon-i then went shopping. Or... more like window shopping as both Yao and I didn't get anything special. I just got a few t-shirt from Padini Concept Store. Night time we went for lok lok! Yes! My favorite. We used to go to the stall at Chang Ling Park. We performed quite well that night... hahaha... averagely each of us had around 10 to 13 sticks. yum!

Yao only stayed for 3 days 2 nights as she had to get back to work on 19th. Samuel was very happy to see his favorite "yi-yi" and he did anything also want "yi-yi" to do with him. Like, sleep also wanted Yao to sleep together with him, even bathing also wanted the "yi-yi" to wait outside the bathroom... (-_-)" Samuel was sad when "yi-yi" went back to Kuching. Hopefully Yao can come to see us again soon in the future.

Ipoh ~ 2D1N Lost World of Tambun Trip (6 - 7 April)

Church friend, Sister Cheryl，旭云 and our family went for a 2 days 1 night weekend gateway at Tambun Lost World Theme Park. Really want to thank Sister 旭云 for getting the Groupon offer for this trip. It was quite cheap... er... about RM280 for 2 adults, including one night stay at the Lost World Hotel (breakfast for 2 was included), entrance for the parks and hot spring spa at night. Children's tickets needed to buy separately. We got Samuel's ticket through online at RM32.80 (entrance to the parks) and RM12+ for the night time hot spring and spa.

We started our journey from Cheryl's house around 7am. It was raining that morning (heavy rain I would say). But thank God for His mercy, no more rain after we entered the highway!

It took us about 2 1/2 hours to reach Ipoh. Ipoh is Ze-yng's (Cherly's husband) home town so he knows the place very well. He brought us to have breakfast at a coffee shop which serve very nice 云吞面 and 猪肠粉。 Sadly David and I were busy eating so we didn't mange to take the photos of the food we had. I only managed to snap the photo of the 猪肠粉.

All the children - Samuel, Vanya and Alisya were very happy and excited about the trip!

We had the famous white coffee and it was really good. Totally different from those that we used to have in Penang. We also had the 云吞面 and 猪肠粉.

We arrived at the Lost World Theme Park around 10am, got the tickets and started our fun time!

We spent most of the time at the Water Park. We checked in to our hotel around 4pm. Took a shower, the children had a short nap then we went for dinner at a very nice chicken rice shop. Highly recommended. The 河粉汤 was very nice, the chicken was not very oily, the tauge was very crispy and "fat"and lastly the fish + meat balls soup was awesome!

Onn Kee Taugeh

No. 48, 51, 53, Jalan Yau Tet Shin, 30300, Ipoh, Perak 30300

After dinner we went walked walked at the pasar malam and a bakery shop to buy some souvenir for David to be brought back for his colleagues. 

We woke up around 8am the next morning and went for the hotel breakfast and headed to 极乐洞 for sight seeing.

We checked out around 12:30pm and went for lunch before we headed home to Penang. The children were very tired after the 2 days trip. The princesses knocked out while we were waiting for our lunch at a yong tau fu shop. And Samuel fell asleep in the car.

 

It was a fun and blessed trip. Enjoy the bonding among the families. The children enjoyed the companion of each other. The laughter and sharing are the most valuable memory. Hope we can have another trip together soon. :)