it was claire's birthday so i tried this new recipe for lemon "surprise" cake from a children's cookbook from england. all the photos in it were hazy and gives one kinda a feeling like u're in dreamland or something. like everything is so cozy and warm.

as usual, i beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

then added the lemon juice. the recipe said to add the juice of two lemons..and since i was using the bottled lemon squeeze..i didnt know how much that was so i only put 4 tablespoons. i should've put more coz the cake didnt take lemony enough.

then in went the flour and baking powder.

the "surprise" was spposed to be the mixed fruit coated with butter and sugar but this actually made the cake too sweet for my liking.

and here's the finished product. not very pretty but her student said it tasted good. hope he wasnt lying!

actually it wasnt too bad except for the too sweet part and the lack of lemony flavour. the texture was really good as it was moist and crumbly.

Meringues

I'd never made meringues before but i love them!! the first time i tasted one was at Tassie when Leslie used to make them. they were so pretty...billowing white "clouds" of sweet/crunchy/chewy mouthfuls. at a bakery in Marsfield i had a pink meringue caterpillar. But somehow it wasnt so hot in malaysia.
but recently i had the lemon meringue pie at Delicious by Ms Read and remembered how much i love meringues!!
however if you're not a sweet toothed person, you'll hate them. Im sure gavin would hate them!
found this recipe from martha stewart for cranberry pecan meringues, i substituted walnuts and mixed fruit.

first i measured the fruits and nuts

then comes the fun part! i beat the egg whites with the vanilla and sugar until soft peaks form

then fold in the fruit and nuts


then i dropped big tablespoonfuls on a tray and baked them for 2 hours!

the result was a nice crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside sweet flavourful puff!

unfortunately i am a sweet toothed person and this was just too irresistible for me and i ended up eating 4 at once! when i only meant to "taste" one! oh dear. but it tasted so good and the texture so nice and chewy and it was like a blast of vanilla and fruit flavour with each bite.

Baked Blueberry/Strawberry Cheesecake

A baked cheesecake with a biscuit base and blueberry pie filling as the topping

Price: RM45

im always on the lookout for ice cream so i found this new place in alamanda, putrajaya. it's DQ which i think stands for dairy queen [so it must be a spawn of the old dairy queen ice cream chain]

here's its regular vanilla cone at RM 1.15

it was only so so. the ice cream had a nice texture but tasted bland. and the cone was horrible! it tasted dry and chewy [like it had "low foong" alreadyyyyyy]

i think..... i'd prefer mcdonald's vanilla cones to this.
they have other things too that might make this place a good place to hangout since it's relatively reasonably priced. warning: blurry pics ahead

here's a poster for their blizzards which look very much like mcflurries with oreo/smarties bits in it. [i think my mcmind's been macdonalized!]

somehow i get the feeling that it's very american. here's the poster for their RM6.90 "moo" lattes. perhaps i'll try them the next time around. they have other interesting things like hotdogs, nachos and "branded" juices. dont ask me why it's branded!! but each "juice" has a name. "julius" is one of em!

this week being a super food fest since the boyfriend is home for a holiday..thought i'd blog a bit about the great food we've been having.

today we had really yummilicuios sarawak laksa at nam chuan in lucky garden, bangsar. no picture though...coz i was too busy stuffing my face to bother about snapping a pic.

but here're some from sushi king last night:

the sashimi was okay but not the freshest it could've been.

fried octopus with mayo. it was only so so. crispy..but flavour wasnt anything special. tasted merely of flour and pepper. [it wasnt japanesey in flavour]
the tofu was a disappointment...deep fried pieces of tofu... that would've had crispy skin except that it was drowning in a weird brownish oily liquid.

next up: IKEA's cafeteria. i've always loved eating here and the "daim" cake is the BEST!! i had fish n chips [simple but yummy]

the boyfriend had to have his meatballs and opted for chips instead of the usual boiled potatoes. he agreed with me that berry jam+beefballs= wrong

we had drinks at happy cafe in happy garden afterwards...[cheap beer] i had a [non-alcoholic] blueberry smoothie [would've been really yummy except for some weird red hard seeds in it..i dont think they're blueberry seeds though!]

On to subang jaya. the coffee at "old town white coffee" cafe in ss15 was.......REALLY REALLY SUPER KAO!! [thick] some people like it that way but it was too "powerful" for me. i couldnt finish it. and it...is perhaps the reason im still awake at 1.12am right now!! [sheesh] however the boyfriend seemed to enjoy it. by the way, this was the place where i was conned into paying RM4.70 for a pathetic bowl of maggi mee with one sprig of bokchoy an half a slice of processed offcuts ham. but, it has nice ambiance and with free wi-fi i suppose the place has its fans.

at some nasi kandar masakan melayu place in sunway [dont rmbr the name] they had really good ikan pari curry [that rhymes!] and chilli fried okra.

i had the nasi patayya [that wasnt very impressive]

but this chicken soup [sup ayam] was good. it was fragrant and slightly spicy and sourish and had nice pieces of chicken/celery/onions in it.

ok that's allfor food fest. more tomorrow. i need to go to the gym.

Chocolate Cake

Our neighbour wanted a plain chocolate cake with no frosting [less calories that way I suppose!] so mum decided to decorate it with some red candy hearts instead. it looks quite pretty i think.

Plain Chocolate cake
Price: RM30


we had dinner at dusit thai last night, in pyramid. the ambience is pretty good, with table or floor seating [quite cool, when you sit on the "floor" there's actually a hole in which you can put your legs into, and cushions to sit on and you get to eat off a low table]
I got too busy eating to take anymore pictures so here're just two of the dishes:
a squid salad [it was so hot that i gagged and chocked after eating a bite that must've included some cili padi slices and i could feel my whole face/throat burning up and my esophagus got sent into spasms] but i suppose it IS yummy if u like things spicy.

and chicken tomyam soup.

Butter Buns

The prospect of making bread seemed daunting at first for most! but it's rather rewarding. Mum likes to make her own pizza dough and during the 90's there was a wave of "bread machines" that took malaysia by storm. soon after a lot of children had to endure "high fibre" breads that tasted like....uh... shredded wood.

anyway.... here're some butter buns, they're soft, fragrant and tasty little things.. with a nice..sweetish but savory flavour.
I think they'd be good for children's snacks, or for tea...or for light snacks after some home cell meeting...

Price: RM 8 for 2 trays of mini buns.

please give at least 4 day's notice