I didn't expect to find such a wonderful thing!

We left 443 for Pasir Mas at around 7.30 on Saturday.  Boleh tahan jugak jalan nya.  Masuk kampung keluar kampung.  Masuk ladang keluar ladang.  But it was nice for a change. One thing I noticed was, pergi mana2 pun mesti jumpa MRSM. The one in Kuala Lipis is practically in the middle of nowhere!

We stopped for a toilet break at RnR Gua Musang and continued to Pasir Mas.

Arrived at the wedding venue at about 2.30 p.m. Ingatkan we would be among the latecomers,  tapi rupanya masa tu orang tengah ramai. It was scorching hot. The food at the kenduri is soooo sedap! And the shaved ice is probably one of the best I've tasted, Alhamdulillah. 

We left Pasir Mas after that for KB pulak.

Dah lama tak letak gambar.. ;)

The boys,  right before we left 443 for KB.

We decided to take the kids for a road trip to East Coast for the Merdeka long weekend. It's been a while since we took them anywhere (the usual excuse : Adli kecik lagi, it would be too much to handle semua2 etc, hehe). So since Adli pun dah setahun, we thought it's high time.

We left home after Isyak on Friday and spent the night at 443 so that we could leave really early the next day for KB.

It's the first day of toilet training Muiz.  I've been delaying it sebab rasa tak sempat and tak larat and tak sanggup nak deal with the mess.

It's only 10 a.m... so far so good. Hope it's going to be a successful day. Amiin.

I've decided to make this blog private, at least for the time being. I've been wanting to write, I feel like I have so many things to write about but there are times when I don't want my thoughts to be read. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it doesn't really matter. Does it?

I sent my phone for repair today. Pecah seribu when it slipped off my hands early yesterday morning. Ada hikmahnya lah agaknya. Maybe I've been a little too attached to my phone that it has to be taken away. This is a little hard for me to accept... But who am I kidding? That's the truth.

Naturally I feel a little lost today. Terasa sunyi semacam. Terus rasa nak menulis. Padahal iPad ni dah lama tak dipegang.

Spent a little time with Afiq & Mariessa today as well. Sekolah kebangsaan cuti lagi for CNY while kindergartens tak cuti. I wish I could spend more time like this.. Dilema ibu anak 5 lah ni. Kesiannnn yang besar2, Mama asyik busy dengan yang kecik2. Hopefully there'll be more opportunities like this in the future InsyaAllah.

Cukup lah dulu for a comeback entry kan. Let's hope there's more to come.

Afiq gave me these for Mother's Day today. Well actually he gave one for me and one for Shahril. I am deeply touched particularly because he has been very careful with his pocket money this year. When he started Year 2 this year, he had RM 4 in his wallet and that RM4 was actually fom last year's pocket money.

Ever since he started school I made sure he brought 'bekal' to school every day. For me, It's more about instilling the habit than saving money. Last year he would normally spend RM 1 of his pocket money on (sweet ) drinks.

When he started Year 2 this year, I told him that it's ok if he wants to spend money once in a while on anything that he likes, but not everyday. To my surprise, the first month of school went by without him spending a single ringgit!

The only time he used his pocket money so far, was to contribute to his class collection of money to buy a gift for the Headmaster when he was transferred!

Then a friend came to visit last month, and gave Afiq RM5 'duit belanja'. Even then, he had somehow managed not buy anything.

Last Friday, I had to wait a few minutes longer than usual when picking him up. He got in the car and apologized. (I didn't realize the wait, to be honest). But I asked him the reason he felt he was late anyway. "Abang pegi kedai buku tadi, Abang beli sesuatu untuk Mama. Ahad ni kan Mother's Day.. Abang ada surprise untuk Mama!"

I choked.

Afiq, I hope you'll grow up to always be thoughtful like this. Please know that it doesn't matter what it is that you buy, and it never will... but it's your thoughts that really count. They may seem small to you, but moments like these mean the world to me. There will never be a day in my life without my do'a for you. Semoga Allah sentiasa menjaga hati, menguatkan iman, melindungi Afiq dari apa jua kemungkaran. Doa Mama semoga Allah melimpahkan rezeki, memanjangkan umur dan semoga kita sentiasa dalam rahmatNya. What a fine man you will be, sayang. InsyaAllah.

 

I found this recipe in my quest for ehem, healthier food. The best thing about this is, it's so simple to make and is just sooo delicious, I foresee myself making this again and again as I think this is quite perfect for Afiq's bekal to school. Oats and dates, nutritions wise.. Do I need to say more?

 

Got the recipe from here

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour*

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup quick rolled oats

1 package (8 ounces) dates, chopped - about 1 1/2 cups of chopped dates.

1/2 cup brown sugar - I put less than 1/3 of a cup

1/2 cup granulated sugar - - I put less than 1/3 of a cup

1 egg

1 1/4 cups milk

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl; add sugar.

Stir in oats and dates.

In a separate small bowl, beat egg with milk; stir in melted butter and vanilla. Add to flour mixture and stir until evenly moist.

Pour mixture into a greased 9 X 5 X 3-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 55 to 65 minutes ( I baked it at 160 C for 60 minutes), or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in center. Once the loaf has cooled, wrap and store overnight for best flavor.

 

Note: although I have reduced the sugar used, I would have liked it better if it was less sweet still. So the next time I make this, I'll reduce the sugar even more and probably add more oats.

 

The before picture

 

Once it's out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I first wrote this on Afiq's birthday, which was on April 16th. Every time I try to write something so close to my heart, I find myself lost for words.
------------------------
Afiq turns 8 today, Alhamdulillah. How time flies, it surely doesn't feel like it has been 8 years since I laid eyes on him.
OREO CUP CAKE
From Ita Masam Manis
250 gm butter
1 cwn gula
2 cwn tepung naik sendiri - I used tepung kek
1 sudu kecil baking powder - tepung dan baking powder diayak
4 biji telur
1 sudu kecil esen vanilla
8-10 keping oreo - kisar halus
Campurkan oreo dan kacau rata.
Tuangkan adunan dalam paper cup. Susun atas tray
Bakar dalam oven dgn suhu 170C selama 10 - 15 minit atau sehingga masak.

* Note: Since I used this recipe to make a cake instead of cupcakes, the method I used is slightly different:
Pukul butter dan gula sehingga kembang. Masukkan telur satu persatu. Masukkan esen vanila. Masukkan tepung. Bakar dalam oven pada suhu 170C sehingga masak.

Note: the first time I made this cake I used 2 x 7 " pans. It took around 45 minutes since the cake was quite thick. This morning I used 2 x 9" pans instead and it took around 30 minutes.

For the buttercream, I used this recipe from here: buttercream
BUTTERCREAM
250 gm butter
250 gm krimwell
125 gm gula icing
200 gm golden syrup
Pukul butter dgn krimwell hingga putih. Ayak gula dan masukkan ke dalam butter dan pukul hingga licin. Gunakan speed perlahan.
Bila sudah licin masukkan golden syrup dan pukul dgn speed laju hingga adunan putih dan creamy.
Note: I also added a cup of crushed Oreo to the buttercream.


Alhamdulillah, the cake turned out very very good! It was so good that Shahril told me I should bake it again when we had a small makan-makan just 4 days after I baked the first one!

Alhamdulillah, once again it was a huge success. It was so good, my sister-in-law wanted to order it for her birthday in August! Alhamdulillah.I was so busy being a host, I didn't get to take lots of pictures.

I am really happy with this cake. I have baked quite a number of cakes, and I am not really a cake person, so my expectation of a cake is rather high. This is the first cake I feel confident enough to sell, so when a few friends asked whether they can order this from me, I gathered my guts and said yes.
So the very next day after we had our 2nd Oreo Cake, I baked this for a dear friend.


Alhamdulillah. I hope this will be a blessed new adventure for me.

The actual intent of this post is to test an app I just bought called Blogsy.

Muiz was obviously not as excited as I was at Yummie. He fell asleep 10 minutes after I stepped into the shop. :)

* Can't imagine what it would be like without my Snuggbaby.

 

We celebrated Shahril's birthday a few days earlier since we were at my MIL's. Shahril wanted a simple cake, so I made this Victoria sandwich cake.

The recipe is from:The Kitchen Guardian

250g butter, leave soft
250g caster sugar, I used 220g because I added golden syrup - me too
5 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp golden syrup
2-3 tbsp milk
280g self-raising flour

Method
Preheat oven at 170C.

Cream butter and sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. I used my wooden ladle! Add eggs in three additions. Lastly add srf in 3 additions, fold in milk until incorporated.

I used 3, 7 inches round cake tins...and I liked them! Bake for about 30 minutes until golden in colour.

Let cool and sandwich with Raspberry jem, and sprinkle sugar on top!

* I don't have raspberry jam, so I used strawberry jam instead.

The verdict: in my honest opinion, the cake is pretty ordinary. It's basically just a simple butter cake albeit a little dense which I think is from using the milk and golden syrup. But, here's the but: what makes it really special is the jam. The tangy and sweet strawberry jam brings the best out of this cake.

Everyone loves this cake. The kids, the elderly, everyone Alhamdulillah.

I've heard about donat kentang quite a while ago. A colleague raved about how good a donat kentang tastes. I remember looking for the recipe, but I was turned off by the fact that it requires 4 egg yolks to make!

I totally forgot about it after that, until recently when I was about to bake a cake for Mariessa's birthday celebration at school. The cake recipe calls for 5 egg whites and I wondered what I could use all the egg yolks for. Started googling and came across the donat kentang again. I was thrilled, like finally, I have a good reason to try it!

Of course, there are a lot of variations of donat kentang recipes on the net, but this one seems to be the most talked about. You can google for 'Donat Kentang Fatmah' and see just how many people have tried this recipe.

I got mine from This blog

Donut Kentang

Bahan-bahan
500 gram tepung berprotein tinggi/gandum - I used tepung gandum
50 gram susu tepung
11 gram yis kijang - I used instant yeast (mauripan)
200 gram kentang, kukus, haluskan dan dinginkan - instead of kukus, I just rebus 2 medium size potatoes. Lenyekkan and biarkan sejuk.
100 gram gula pasir
75 gram mentega/marjerin
½ sudu kecil garam
4 biji kuning telur - I had 5, so I just threw all 5 in. Why waste, kan? Hehe
100 ml air sejuk dari peti ais

Cara-caram
Dalam mangkuk besar, satukan tepung gandum, gula, susu tepung, yis dan digaul rata.

Masukkan kentang halus, kacau rata dahulu sebelum dituang telur dan air sejuk. Uli hingga rata dan setengah elastik.

Selepas itu, baru dimasukkan mentega dan garam, uli terus hingga menjadi elastik. Rehatkan selama 15 minit.

Bahagi doh kepada 50 gram dan dibulatkan licin. Rehatkan lagi selama 15 minit sehingga mengembang.

Buatkan lubang di tengah tengah dengan gerakan memutar dan segera digoreng dalam minyak sederhana panas sehingga berwarna kuning keperangan.

Angkat dan toskan. Tabur dengan gula kaster atau hias dengan coklat.

** What I did was, as always, I just put everything into the bread maker. I have to admit that I have some doubts I the beginning. The dough looked keras (in the beginning) and it looked as if the bread maker was struggling to knead. I contemplated adding more water but I decided to wait. Lucky I didn't, because after 15 minutes of rest after kneading, the dough was just perfect. In fact, when I was taking the dough out of the bread maker, I was really surprised at how soft and yet firm the dough was. Must have been the butter and the mashed potato. A nice dough to work with, really.

By the way, the bread maker takes one and a half hour to finish the whole process. The first half hour is for kneading and the hour after that is for the dough to rise. I let this dough to rise for only 15 minutes as I was pressed for time - I started the whole process at 5 a.m and I need to have the donuts ready before Afiq leaves for school at 6.45 a.m. Instead of shaping the donuts 'manually', I use the donut cutter.

This recipe yields a lot of donuts - 28 large ones in my case ( it depends how big and thick you make it). So I keep half of it frozen after frying it lightly. Oh and the most tricky part of the whole process for me is actually frying the donuts. I started with medium heat and even then the donuts turned brown in a split second.

After tasting this donut, I honestly think the 'regular' donut will seem very plain and boring. Hehe.

Now that I'm staying home, this is one of the luxuries I get to enjoy more;

Watching my child(ren) sleeping.