Mouse Baked Alive In Our Home-Oven!

Partially, this post belongs to the previous posted post. An unfinished ramblings of baking goods, celebrations and the past. Speaking of the past, the eve and the actual celebration of this year's Chinese New Year was not really enjoyable and does not seem to be one. That was the term where distressing news arrived; grandma with her badly infected ulcer needed to be warded and hospitalized. It's a pity to see such an old-aged sub-consciously mumbles about the excruciating pain she had been suffering since the admittance. With frail movements and a stop to pant for more air, that was painful to see. Even more painful to withstand. A tough woman as all I know, may god blesses her all the time.


The days were gloomy and the celebration was not happily celebrated. Thus, cookie-making were not as much as what we have for the last time. Only some of the favorites were there to entertain the guests and shall we say, us. Most of the time, we visited grandma and it's pointless somehow, for guests to come over. We've celebrated the new year with grandma, that's the least that we can do for her.


The truth is; that is the only time we sincerely had a talk or two with her. Her existence and consciousness was very much appreciated and that is the time when I, myself had realized that I couldn't care less to share my thoughts and days with her when she's all good. Pathetic. Grandma is now all good, though she might have some breathing difficulties at times. We were grateful to have her with us, knowing that part of her blood does run through our veins.


Apart from pooches and our personal ramblings, we do speak of rodents too. Since this year is the year of rodent and mouse, we get in touch with other bakers and manage to get a pineapple tart recipe, which will be in the form of prosperous rodents. The mouse-look alike pineapple tart were small, moulded in bite-sized pieces. The tart was not as great as we've expected. We wanted a smoother and milky texture; the one that melts in your mouth kind of tart. As lazy as we usually are, the pineapple fillings were bought from the bakery supplies. Not a wow-tart after all, since the fillings aren't home-cooked.


The other mousse-look-alike cookie that made into our list of new year cookies were the one on top (shot above). These babies were made out of butter, flour, baking soda, finely grounded almonds and orange zests. Orange zests were used to spice things up, we were afraid that the cookie tasted too bland, hence here goes the zests.


Moulded the dough into an oval shaped-cookie, stuffing in chocolate rice to resemble the eyes and the nose of a mouse and lastly, two almond flakes for the ears! The rodents turned out flatter than they do before they were trapped into the oven. And we've missed out their tails. Let's put it this way, we've actually docked their tails. Ouch!


Mom had her best cookie on the mill too; almond cookies and groundnut cookies. Thus, the cashewnut cookies does not leave far behind too. The cookie was a normal shortbread cookie with addition of grounded cashewnut to it.


The grounded cashews were lightly toasted to enhance and to intensify the cashewnut flavor. The surface of the cookies were brushed twice with beaten egg yolks after each of the cookies were decorated with halved-cashewnuts. We love the egg-washed cookie's color though - golden brown.


The one with great crunchiness all over were these home-baked melting moments (shot above). The other name christened to these babies were cornflake-cherry cookies. The secret to a melt-in-your-mouth cookie is a sticky dough. Too much flour will only lead to bad repercussion; hard as a rock cookie. The cookie was a simple shortbread cookie. After rolling a cookie dough approximately 1 tablespoon in size, we rolled it onto a bowl filled with lightly crushed cornflakes. This ends with the cubed cherry as topping.


The shortbread was so crunchy and melts-in-your-mouth at the same time, we went crazy over the dough and came up with a simple chocolate chip and butter cookie; chocolate chip crunch. The cookie jar which was the home for sheltering the choc chip crunch lasted for 2 days. Much were gone into our stomachs. It was very buttery and crunchy. This was one of our favorite cookie of all. Yum!


The same shortbread cookie recipe for used for the M&Ms choc chip cookies. The only difference were the additions of handfuls of M&Ms. But we found out that the M&Ms was tad hard after the baking session. But the cookie was still good.


We have so much leftover cereals - cornflakes. We bumped into our CNY book recipe, and land our hands on this (shot above). The cornflake cups were easy and doesn't involve much work. We replaced the golden syrup over honey. Yum! Oh yeah, last but not least, happy belated CNY. This is so over. Like the old adage goes, better late than never.

December Roundup - An Old Post To Date

We love December. Yes, we always do. Xmas, birthdays and long holidays, tell us, who doesn't? We were happy to find out that close friends were here to support us - financially. That's what we get when cupcakes and cakes orders flows in. The money were well spent though (and all gone, ahem) ! We've added a new book into our baking bookshelf; Pierre Herme's and Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Desserts, the book that we were dying to have since bumping into one through online. And we thought we would never ever lay our sweaty hands (and paws) on it since we've been asking about it from major bookstores. Lady luck was with us, we found the one and only piece in Border's after many trips to the other bookstores. Overjoyed. The book was great indeed. =)


1. Cupcake and cake orders. The money flowed in from orders; chocolate cupcakes and a key-shaped durian layer cake from Mandy. The cupcakes were plain Janes. Moist chocolate cupcakes filled with peppermint ganache and topped with simple buttercream flavored vanilla. The other batch were banana cupcakes filled with chunky banana fillings and topped off with the same buttercream as well. See the wordings? It was a painstaking session. Fatass piping skills were pretty - pretty bad.


On the same day itself, Mandy requested for a custom made cake; a key-shaped durian layer cake. Durians. We got to know that the week itself was not the peak season of durians, hence, ended up spending ka-chings from our latest paycheck. There were 4 vanilla sponge layers encased with 3 layers of durian cream. The durian cream were as smooth as what we have expected it to be, thanks to us, we've squash the durian pulps profusely for half an hour with our sweaty palms (or paws). Highly exaggerated...


The cake were then covered with unsweetened whipped cream and white chocolate shavings. And the number 2 and 1, made out of dark chocolate were placed on the top of the cake. The feedback of the cake were somehow better than the cupcakes, ahem. They love the durian baby. Yay!


2. Our first ice cream maker! We wanted a bread machine at first but Pa insisted to get the ice cream maker since ice cream make a better spoon-licking dessert where one can easily indulge in; compared to bread which needed loads of the ever rising cost of hi-protein flour. And a big thankyou to our fav man of the year, Pa, for the ice cream maker. =)


3. Baby Glider. On the same week itself, Pa got Kidd a baby glider. To be precise, a sugar glider. He even has his own retro pouch as his bed. A tiny velvet cloth, as his blanket to keep him warm and fuzzy. He was real cute and macho at times. And he loves marking his own territories, like how poochies mark them. Sweetest rodent we've ever seen. Unsurprisingly, he do glide! And the maintenance were pretty costly since he hates starchy fruits like bananas, apples etc; speaking of pureed fruit as heavy meals and honey as desserts. (*Grin*)


4. Cryshelle's 20th. A big thankyou to Crystal for what she had done. The night itself were great, including the girls who made the night even better; our besties Cryssie herself, Molly, Claudia and Cath! Cryssie were stunning. (*Nose Bleeds*) It was a fun and we were all happpppppyyy. =) Cryssie were celebrating her buttday on the night too!


We got her a white chocolate cake filled with roasted macadamia nuts on the other morning. Three layers of vanilla sponge filled with two layers of velvety white chocolate mousse and roasted macadamias. It was then frosted with whipped cream by Fatass Mich. There were flaws! Fine lines and tracks can be easily identified, though the process of smoothing the lines were done. It was then topped of with molded white chocolate flowers, which was pretty fun to mould if it's compared to mini roses. Happy Buttday Cryssie! We lap you!! =)


5. Churn baby, churn! Pistachio and chocolate mint ice cream came into our mind. We followed everything from the instruction book, only a few additions were made. A hint of light green coloring, generous amount of chopped dark chocolate and pistachio nuts, followed by a scalded milk boiled with a few sprigs of mint leaves. It was then topped off with a dollop of mint ganache and roughly chopped pistachio nuts. The ice cream turned out to be real yummy though it's not as creamy as we wanted. The ice cream maker was nonetheless a good churner. =)


6. Kids Give-Out. Kidd requested some cupcakes for his fellow friends. Since there's a need for us to walloped most of the ingredients from the refrigerator, we agreed to get these kids some cuppies for free. Like they say, sharing is caring, ahem. The cupcakes were chocolate mint cupcakes. The one with white chocolate curls were filled with chocolate ganache and topped with easily spreadable chocolate ganache. The other batch were frosted with swirls made out of chocolate whipped cream and lastly topped off with a peppermint stick. And we were real glad to know that the kids love these babies. =)

Hamstering Around

Hamsters are way too adorable to be dealt with. Speaking of which, dwarf hamsters were the cutest rodents which can be kept as domestic partners.


It'll bite, squeak and even bring you goodies whenever you're feeling dead hungry. To you humans out there, it's just the same old term which is equivalent to domesticated animals. We've been wandering to the pet shop most of the time; just to load the redundant dog pellets at home. Yes, what a meaty workload we have here. As lame as Fatass Mich can be, she got over her boredom by flashing her cheap ol handy cam phone to the lil cheesy cum skinny rodents.


Okay, my bad. This is not skinny, but fat enough to be paired up with Fatassy. BOL.


I'll be sitting in the near end corner while happily munching on a double chocolate walnut brownie, which turns out to be very chocolatey BUT dry to my liking, the grungy cam phone will work out its life battery.


Looked good, but the outcome was hmm... Tasted similarly like a choc cake though. No thumbs up!


The cam flashes its light to its fullest, making the shots uber blur. Low quality; to be exact and honest.


Some hamsties were sleeping soundly. Oh piggy...


Some were nibbling seeds.


And others were busy grooming themselves.


Some were vainly posing for the grungy cam phone.


While some others were touching and smelling one another physically and spiritually. Play safe, babies. (*Grin*)


While this one is the gayest hamstie I've gotten through the net. Humping over a real mouse. Static? Click here. (*Double Click*)