Living with Sarah

Aliyah invited her friends to hangout at our house today. Dengar cerita aktivitinya adalah main playstation dan penny board. Itu saja? So, I planned an activity which in turned benefited me :). I got them to bake a cake! Bukan apa, dah berhari-hari plan nak buat trifle. Tapi cakenya belum juga dibuat. Since ada 3 orang anak dara in the house, bagus juga buat kerahan tenaga. Builds character OK. So, I wrote the recipe on a paper, put all the ingredients on the counter, switched on the oven, and let them do the rest. Well, I did come down once to have a look. Quite resourceful kids. Pandai cari sendiri hand mixer (malas nak keluarkan mulanya). Turned up quite nice. A bit sweet for my liking but dah lama nak makan old school cake yang panas-panas...

Lepas balik from MAHA and had a good lunch of asam pedas kat Seksyen 16 Bdr Baru Bangi, we went back to my parents' place and terbongkang. Penat weh... Then at 5pm we celebrated Wana's birthday. Not many are around. Small celebration je. Birthday girl dengan cake yang dia mintak. Nampak macam puas hati. Miq the contractor and tourist guide baru bangun tido. Acara memotong kek.

I just finished making a birthday cake for Wana. Her birthday is actually on 30th but celebrating today. My anak-anak sedara dah tak nak beli kek kat kedai sekarang. Dok order from me. Tak cantik pun actually. Sebab "customizable" kot :). Wana ordered last month. Siap nak colour purple macam Abang Ijam punya wedding cake. And vanilla cake. So here it is... Not symmetrical and horrible writing. Lesson learned - next time must wear specs when icing cake. Akak rabun dekat lah uols. I sandwiched this cake with some icing mixed with blueberry jam.

A day of eating and eating excellent food. The pictures tell the story. Lunch lauk kampung - masak tempoyak ikan patin & ayam kampung masak lemak cili api by Abang Din. Know what, of all the trips we took to Kuantan, never ever did we eat ikan patin there. Sebab my BIL masak memang sedap, so we always wait for him to cook for us whenever he buys ikan patin at his hometown Temerloh. The verdict - tengoklah my father mencapai mangkuk lauk tu! Nurul cutting the cake. This is one of the best chocolate moist cake I've ever made I think - very high in cocoa & coffee, less sugar, very fluffy butter cream (thanks to Hubby yg sama tolong) with also less sugar. Acara buka hadiah. We all (us & my Kak Long) shared to buy Nurul MP3 player. Punyalah dia excited dapat! The kids kept on menempel onto Zura - their latest cousin. My mother got her wish - menyambut pengantin baru.

Just finish icing this birthday cake for my niece Nurul. The party will be today. Sekali dengan makan-makan menyambut Nizam & Zura. My mother dah 2 minggu sibuk nak buat this makan-makan sebab lepas kenduri hari tu ramai down tergolek with fever sebab penat sgt. Right now my Abang Din and Kak Long are cooking ikan patin tempoyak at my Mom's place. Sedapnya... They came back from Temerloh yesterday. Patin Sg Pahang. Tadi dengar kata tengah bersihkan ayam jugak. Sure ayam kampung masak lemak cili api tu. Today akak tak tolong masak ya. Penat lah. Datang makan je dan bawak cake. Chocolate moist cake. Nurul requested nak cake warna pink. Since some of us don't really like chocolate (yes, yours truly actually don't eat chocolate - quite rare for a woman huh!), I made another cake - carrot cake. Hubby yg request actually and dia dgn rajin tolong parut carrot and ice the cake with cream cheese topping. Wah, sudah pandai ya.

The months of preparation finally became hectic on Thursday. My Kak Long tumpangkan all the hantaran at our place - simply because we have extra room to lock. I had to be very careful and ensure the door to the room was close at all times. My Kiki the Cat can be very mischievous. The hantaran. Dark purple theme. That day my father pulak sibuk pegi pasar Tani to get stuff to cook on Friday. My sister and me were like - got time ke? Especially that it's a Friday the next day. Lunch was set at 12pm. And my father dah plan nak beli siakap (and me and my big mouth promised to cook siakap steam limau). But then, dah hajat orang tua, so ikut saja lah. We only got back home at night and I only got to start on my cake at 10pm. By the time siap, it was already 2.30am. Sambil buat cake, sambil buat translation work. My carrot wedding cake with cream cheese and purple butter icing. Ok la kan for an amateur like me.

It's not really a "party" party. Our last real party for her was years back when we bought her that Barbie cake. This is the usual, not planned makan-makan - I wanted to get Nizam to try the carrot cake I'll be baking for his hantaran this coming Friday. Might as well make one cake for my sayang daughter Aliyah Maisarah. So happen, my uncle came bringing his delicious laksa. So, we had a little early celebration. My father baca doa while the birthday girl looks at the cake impatiently. Bersungguh-sungguh potong cake. Makan time! Bakal pengantin buat aksi menyibuk. Makan my delicious carrot cake. Hehehe... sold out within minutes. I used to buy the carrot cake from my ex-colleague Marina. She then gave the recipe to me. Since then I buat sendiri. This is the recipe that tastes so much better than the one sold at Secret Recipe. Seriously. And Marina actually got it from a website. Happy Birthday my beautiful comel daughter! We love you so much!

Yesterday we had a small birthday celebration for Wani and also a meeting to discuss Nizam's wedding this coming 22, 23 & 24 Oct. Three straight days! Nikah on 22/10, celebrate belah perempuan 23/10 and finally on our side 24/10. Pengsan. Alhamdulillah, semua yang kena discuss dah didiscusskan. Everybody has been assigned with tasks. My task - I kena berlari-lari disegenap penjuru dewan untuk memastikan food cukup, tempat duduk cukup, kot-kot ada VIP kena bawak pegi meja and wherever possible accidentally drop my namecard di atas meja dengan harapan VIP tu interested nak beli company I, make sure the itinerary is followed, and all the other kuli work. Biasalah, kerja-kerja makcik pengantin. Hmm... anak sedara I yang dari kecik I dok jaga, dok gaduh dan membesar sama-sama dah nak kahwin... My father baca doa untuk birthday Wani. That's the cake I baked for her. Vanilla cake with cocoa cream and choc chips. I actually teraccident dropped this huge glob of cocoa cream on top. ...

Oven I dah start berasap balik. My nieces Wani and Nurul awal-awal dah start order birthday cuppies and cakes for their birthdays. Wani's birthday is tomorrow, while Nurul's is early next month. Yesterday night, after coming back from work, tak sempat nak rehat pun terus buat choc moist cuppies and vanilla with choc chips cuppies. No frosting. Wani order to take to school this morning for her friends. Tomorrow pulak kena buat birthday cake for her to celebrate with family. She requested for vanilla cake. Let's see... I'll either make lemon butter cream or simple chocolate cream. Masa Wani order tu, I jengilkan mata and said they will all cost her RM50! She mentally calculated, grinned and said OK. Yesterday when she came over to pick up the cakes, dalam tangan dah siap duit. Mesti duit raya tu! Alahai kesiannya anak sedara aku... I told her I was just joking. Free of charged. After all, my nieces are like my own kids. Instead of getting her own mother to bake her the ca...

It was Hubby's birthday yesterday. But, just like me last week, he was down with a fever. Pasal la tahun ni birthday disambut dengan demam. Dugaan tu... Anyway, Aliyah suggested we buy her Abah new koi fish. The one named Abah died some time ago, so we no longer have orange koi with black dots. Aliyah so wanted to buy the exact same one to replace the one that died. So very sweet of her :). She specifically told me to fetch her from school - not her Abah as usual. So, after I picked her up, we went to the fish shop in Seri Putra and got 3 kois. One diamond orange (sparkling) and 2 orange + white with black dots. I brought along a pink ribbon to tie the plastic - how la to wrap live fish? Back home, she excitedly called her Abah and showed the plastic with the fish. She named them - Coral (the diamond orange), Marlin and Nemo (the white + orange with black dots). That night I baked a vanilla cake and made the icing this morning - the normal white icing + some blueberry jam I found i...

A warm Happy Mother's Day wish to all great moms out there... - to my mother, my MIL, my sisters, my SILs, friends... Being a Mom is just great isn't it? My family celebrated ours yesterday. My Kak Long informed everybody (she is so so good at this - everybody will surely come!) and quite a good turn out. Except for my brother, Angah's family, the other siblings were there. I have not baked for a while, felt like baking, and actually baked 2 cakes - for Mother's Day and another one for birthday - my nephew Miqdam. The food. The birthday cake was chocolate moist with butter cream and chocolate chips all around. The Mother's Day cake was vanilla (actually this very simple cake recipe my mother used to make - quite a heavy cake but I forgot to buy butter for the cake, so had to make do with this recipe) with lemon butter cream (my specialty). Everybody said both were yummy... :). My Kak Lang made meehoon goreng and her yummy karipap sardin. Kecoh before the party start...

Have not been baking for quite some time. Too busy. Ada opportunity hantar cakes to a co-op pun dah dekat 3 weeks tak dapat nak try hantar first batch. But I'm saying Alhamdulillah all the way. Busy is good. Having 2 projects at the same time is good. Having people calling us asking us to do presentation is good. Dapat atau tidak does not matter (of course we try our best lah). Alhamdulillah again... However, today I abandoned all work and projects to bake 2 cakes. My sisters and I planned a get-together to celebrate Mother's Day and also group birthdays tomorrow. The cakes are my contribution. So today, Linda and I baked Carrot cake and Chocolate Moist cake. Not cuppies this time around, but round cakes. To tell you the truth, we are not qualified in baking. The only class we attended was this cupcake deco demo last year and the class sucked. We tested recipes from the Internet and some were given by friends (yang sure sedap punya). We learned from YouTube on how to frost and ...

Enter frame sekejap nak promote blog cupcakes: http://red-daisy-cake.blogspot.com. Harga boleh dirunding :)

Remember I said I was so inspired by my interviews with several people who have their own online business? I actually had an idea on an online store 2 years ago. I even drew up my own business plan. But it never materialise. And now, I'm actually reactivating the idea. The website is still being developed, I hope it will be ready come Mother's Day. Anyway, among the products for sale on the website will be cupcakes. Yes, we are still doing cupcakes whenever we receive orders, normally from my sister or close friends. Sometimes, when we are free (a.k.a. no work or project), we would bake cupcakes just for fun and get Hubby to sell them at his office. He doesn't mind especially that he gets sales commission. Not much but lepas lah duit toll and cigarettes. So, here are a few. My idea is for buyers to send the cupcakes as a surprise - birthday ka, anniversary ka, expressing love ka, nak say sorry for being a jerk ka, or just suka-suka... For cupcakes, we deliver to these areas...

We have been making cupcakes for sale lately. We even got orders for Hari Raya and a huge order for a wedding kenduri after Hari Raya. We are still perfecting the cupcakes - in terms of presentation. The taste is of course good. Well, that's what my daughter says... Latest one we did for my nephew Ejat whose birthday is today Hubby and my nephew Nizam brought this to their offices and were sold out within a few hours. Dark chocolate moist cuppy with butter cream and this heart-shaped chocolate on top, with a dust of cocoa powder. Another variety of the dark chocolate moist cuppy. Vanilla cuppy with lemon butter cream. The cuppy we'll be doing for the wedding kenduri after Raya.