Doggie Biscuit

Its not the first time I use this recipe, but the 2nd. The first time was a long long time ago. I wanted to bring this biscuit home to malaysia for my little niece and also to find something for my kids to do, so I decided to bake these cute looking biscuits and ask my kids to decorate them. My friend, upon hearing this, like to bring her kids over to "participate".

So here is part of the end result.

I baked double the recipe, because I like my friend to bring home a recipe's portion, but now I ended up with quite alot still at home. The ones in the pictures are done mostly by my friend. Very creative. Those done by the kids .... erm ... :-)

The mixing part is so easy with KitchenAid, keke. Anyway I think this recipe can be done manually by hand too.

The kids enjoyed themselves for a while, but they are too fast for my small oven, and I did not want to use too many trays, so I rather them go play then sitting around the table with oily hands.

So can you find snowman, kitty cat, rabbit, bear bear, etc among the lot?

The recipe can be found at Happy Home baking's website.

狗狗餅可愛嗎？就是因為它可愛，所以想做些拿回家婆家哄小孩，順便我家哪兩個小瓜也可以參與一份。我朋友也乘假期帶孩子來湊熱鬧。圖片里的餅餅是出自我朋友的巧手。蠻容易的，現在就去動手做一做吧。請從這兒查閱食譜。

Questions that needed answers

Am copying a recipe down because am thinking about doing it. A question just pop into my mind. Can most batter wait? What do I mean by that?

You see, mine is a small oven that can only fit in a tray of twelve mini cupcakes nicely. What happen if the recipe I am following can make more than 12 ? Should I half the recipe, or should I get two trays? If I bake one first, can the batter wait? Will the waiting time allows chemical reaction to take place within the batter? I am sure some batter can survive the waiting time, some cannot. But I wouldn't know what can and what cannot.

So how?

Busy but not with ...

Sigh, this time of the year, not busy with my hobbies (unless you call tidying up the household is a hobby of SAHM?) but with spring cleaning. I still bakes, but it is just the same old stuff that use to fill the tummy.

Next year, my son is going to P1, so he has used some letters beads to make his teachers these handphone straps. Of cos, he only did the pattern planning and stringing part while I crimp all stuff proper for him. I hope the teachers are happy.

Black and white

Have not been baking for a long time .... cannot remember for wat reasons .. but here I am, with two recent bakes done last week and last last week.

The first is an easy Banana Chocolate cake from 手拌式蛋糕by Kevin Chai. I had very ripe bananas (so ripe that they fell off from the "don't know what to call". :-) . I am not sure if I failed or suceeded (but I baked it more than the time required), because the inside of the cake is so moist (or should I say wet) that it almost look like mud cake, or those super fudgy brownie? You see and you tell me.

The cake rises very well in the oven and it requires "tent-ing". However, after I removed it from the oven, it sank after a while. As it is a loaf cake, and I do not have a oven thermometer (my oven is very temperamental, haha) so I am worried that it will not be baked. With the aluminium foil tent, I purposely let the cake bake another 15 minutes more than the required time, so I hope the "wetness" is normal. Anyway my kids love the cake, I do too.

Look at that sunken "face".

Shortly after this bake, I remember my parmesan cheese is expiring soon, so I dig out the recipe that I had prepared long time ago ( I knew I would not be able to finish that tub before the expiry date). I followed the recipe and has Mini Cheese cupcake done with my girl in a morning. Pretty fast and fuss free, but the recipe isn't really complete because I did not jot down the temperature that I should bake the cupcakes in, so I just use any reading. Anyway, the parmesan cheese has passed its "Best Before" date (not expiry date), but I still went ahead to do it .. and eat it too! Its yummy, but oily. When they are in the oven, there are already alot of oil oozing out. My kids also love these and requested me to bake again. Look at the molehills.

and this "sunflower"

and the yummy inside.

I think I should learn from Happy Home Baker .. use more pictures, less words, esp when my command of english isn't very good. Now I am so tired to write in mandarin .. so this post will not have the mandarin part.

Here is the recipe.

Banana Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

90g SR flour, 90g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, 170g butter

1 tbsp corn oil, 150g chocolate

100ml hot water, 80ml milk

170g brown sugar, 3 eggs

200g banana flesh (sliced)

Method

1. Grease and line 10cm by 32 cm (4 by 13 inches) baking tin. Preheat oven to 170 degree celsius.

2. Combine flours, baking powder, soda and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl.

3. Melt butter, oil, chocolate, hot water and milk over low heat. Remove from heat, combine with brown sugar and eggs.

4. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture together with banana slices until well blended.

5. Spoon batter into prepared tin. Bake in oven for 40 - 45 minutes or until cooked. Stand for 10 minutes and turning on to wire rack to cool.

6. Decorate with decogel, banana slices and chocolate chips.

I have forgotten where did I get the mini cheesecake recipe from, so if anyone wanted it, do email me and I shall share it with you.

Now I really need to zzz...