Q's Birthday

I had a very busy week last week. It started with a request from my daughter to have a birthday party like a friend of her had. A simple one would do. Ideally, a simple celebration on D day should be sufficient. But when I looked at the calendar, I know that it would not be possible, because her birthday falls on the same day when the final exam started.

Not to be demoralised by that, I planned an early birthday party. Still a simple one, though. I marked the calendar and invited some of her closest friends from school. Designed an invitation card with my niece and had it printed it at a very low cost. I also arranged to have an edible image for her cake decoration. A chocolate cake but not brownies, was the request from the b'day girl. Alrighty, deary!

And so I just grab the idea of baking a TCCC, that is a Triple Chocolate Caramel Cake of Teh Uceu that I had in mind for quite sometime. At last I had the chance to try it out. I decorated the cake with an edible image of Q with Hannah Montana background. Grabbed the idea from a kitchen forum, NCC. That is really helpful.
The verdict? Not very good for weight watchers, but a heavenly chocolate for chocolate lovers... I guess the kids can afford it. :))


For the goodie bags, I decided to have all home-made stuffs, that is decorated cookies and chocolate lollipop. But...because my time management was not that good, I ended up delegating most of the cookies decorating and chocolate lollipop to my sister and daughter and my kitchen assistant as well :) That is: I can't expect to have a result that I wish for...hahaha...but that's alrite, really. We had fun making all those things and the experience is priceless.


Happy Birthday my Little Precious Girl! Eight is an early number to begin your teenage life. Enjoy childhood while you can! Smoochy...smooch...

Black Glutinous Rice

A few months back I got some black glutinous rice powder from a relative from Jakarta. So I search the food blogs to find out about what it can be turned into. My choice fell on a few recipes, however, so far I have only managed to make a couple of those.

First choice was a Cotton Cake Roll, paired with coconut milk custard filling


Second choice was a Chiffon Cake. I made it when my kids were recovering from bad diarhoea, flu and cough after our trip to West Sumatra last July.


Amazing is...my son who's a picky eater really enjoyed both cakes. I wouldn't guarantee that he would show the same appetite if I cook the black glutinous rice traditionally.


30 Oct '10

Oh yes, I forgot to mention another type that I made with this BGR. During hari raya I made BGR Cookies mixed with sago flour. It was really awesome, and again, my son liked it so much! You can see the pic on my hari raya posting. The recipe? I got it from NCC mailing list: Semprit Ketan Hitam.

It's Official!

I just want to have a quick update before the date changes tonight. I would like to mark this very day as an official day for introducing my kitchen label: QnR Kitchen.

Today, in line with Q's birthday celebration with her close friends, I took the opportunity to introduce my label by putting it on decorated cookie wrappers.


More smart & fun -but serious- works to do, such as time management, planning, design improvement and so on. Any positive kind of support would be appreciated. Thanks for all family and friends that have supported my kitchen activity so far. I look forward to serve you all in a much better and improved way.

Brownie ala Fari

I am not sure how many trays of brownies I have baked since the day before Hari Raya. Even I didn't take any order this time round, but the amount baked was quite substantial. Put it on the table when guests come for Hari Raya visit, that would be the first plate to finish. Replenish it everytime and little would be left over.

In fact Brownie ala me is just the normal type of brownie. Wet and dense. I have made it year after year. Perhaps my hands and minds are so used to it and I do not look at the recipe anymore when preparing it. The comments I received so far is always with a craving sound, asking for more... ;)

But the silly thing is, I can't present a nice photo of it. All the while I can only remember to take picture of the full tray, right after taking it out from the oven. Afterwards, I can only remember eating and chewing the brownie. My kids love Brownie ala me so much, and I think they are so used to it until they can smell it even before the oven give any sign of doneness of the brownie.

One day, I will try to put up a nicer and more presentable pict for you to enjoy. In the meantime, endure with this one. :)

Hari Raya Aidil Fitri Syawal 1431 H - Sept 2010

A Glimpse of Its Preparations

Hari Raya was aroumd the corner. The last week of Hari Raya has always been as busy, especially in the kitchen.

I was quite determined to make something different from last years' hari raya. I made my own cookies this time round. The time and effort for
doing it really need some management more than baking cakes. But I was quite determined; managed to bake 5 types of cookies,
cheese stick (changed it to a horse n tractor shape);

Peanut butter cookies, which I did twice;


Sagu keju (cheesy sago) which was quite tricky but managed to get the shape in place;


Nastar or pineapple tart which is a hit;


and,
Sagu Ketan Hitam (black glutinous rice w/ sago) that made my hands quite stiff in the end :D

Well, you see, if you get the right consistency you will be able to squeeze it easily through a tip from a triangle bag. But if not, you will need some inner energy to get it out. But it was delicious...!!

D-2 (two days b4 hari raya) I made two types of layer cakes. Lapis Prune and Lapis Pelangi (originally Lapis Sarawak). I did the Pelangi first and it took me more than 4 hours including preparation.

The same day, very late at night I started cooking "Rendang". It is a signature dish from my ancestors in West Sumatra. The taste is very unique and so is the method of cooking it. Can you imagine standing 4 hours in front of the stove while stirring without a break for the first two hours? I have done it a few times though, and if last time I used to take turn with someone else, this time round I really did it myself. I stood and stir from 11 pm till 1 am all by myself. Continued cooking until the meats are tender before leaving it to continue a few hours later. Well, can't say 'tomorrow' though, because it was ALREADY the following morning :)). I went to sleep at 3.30 am, woke up at 5 for sahur (early breakfast before starting to fast). Then I continued to process the Rendang until it was dry enough.

You may want to ask, why does it take a long time to cook Rendang? Well, if you imagine, when I started I used 8 litres of coconut milk for 2 kg meat. The end result should be a dried and dark coloured gravy and meat cubes. Drying of the gravy can normally be done gradually, as how I did it. But I only paused when the meat are tender, so the following process was straight to drying the gravy. For me it took around 6++ hours to get the result I wanted.

And that's not all. After done with the cooking, I made two brownies. One for my MIL and another one for my hubby's uncle & aunt. When done with the brownies, I made my last trays of cakes. Two Japanese Style Cheese Cake of Yasaboga.
My hubby was quite restless, because I didn't seem to be ready for going for our last break-fast at my in-laws place. But I made it in time . Wow, such a 2-day marathon!