5 Grace Rocks!

Well, that's according to Melody. She ask me to do cupcakes, but I heard it wrongly. I heard "Cake". She wanted fondant cupcakes this time but I didn't have the time to mould each figurine for her. And with a full cake, its too heavy for her to lug it all the way from ground floor to 4th floor.

So I baked a Double Chocolate Cake and had it covered with fresh cream that was tinted purple. The cream was also flavoured with Jupe Blueberry concentrated paste. It smells and tasted really nice.






Why purple? Its her favourite colour and Blueberry was her favourite flavour too.

The rocks are chocolate pebbles. I had intention to do a 2 tier cake for her as there are 39 students in her class! But realised she may not be able to carry the cake there. So in the end, the 2nd tier cake(a smaller one) was decorated and given to my neighbours downstairs who had 4 kids. 2 are still little ones, 2 are in their late teens.

These white baby Polar bears are sugar icing from Germany. Aren't they pretty? You can get them from KC store. Its S$7.50 per set of 6 bears.




And my wish for all children today:

Happy Children's Day..enjoy your kid-hood till it lasts. :)

Roses are Red

I created this cookie just to show customers who frequent our store what they could use the Jupe concentrated fruit pastes for. It was such a hit..many bought the pastes and tried baking at home.

The cookie was also a delight with vegetarians as there was no egg used in the recipe. As Deepavali is coming next month, this would be a delightful cookie to serve family and friends during the Festival of Lights.

Enjoy!


Rose Cookies
Recipe by Gina Choong

Ingredients
250g Butter(Salted)
400g Self Raising Flour
150g icing sugar
3 tbsp Jupe Rose Concentrated paste
6 pcs dried rose buds(soften in warm water)

Method
1. Remove leaves, stalks from rose buds, peel and separate rose petals.
2. Melt butter in microwave oven for 1 min till liquid.
3. Add icing sugar, rose paste and stir to mix.
4. Add flour, rose buds petals and mix till it forms into a crumbly dough.
5. Scoop using a cookie scoop and place on baking tray.
6. Bake in preheated oven 180C for 15 mins.
7. Remove to cool before storing.

Notes
Dried rose buds are purely for decoration only. You can omit it. It will not alter the final taste of the cookies.

Work or Play?

When I used to work for others, it was just purely work, work and more work. Occasionally I enjoyed what I do. Provided my bosses appreciated the work hours and time put in. Some days when things don't turn out well, bosses aren't the nicest people around, they are quick to put the blame on us. That's when work is no fun anymore.

Come to think of it, since I left school in 1982, I have been working for others in various companies. While some are fun work, others are monotonous. The need to work was just to earn money, supplement family income and to have money in CPF to get a house. Years later, it was just to cure that need of climbing that corporate ladder.

Thank God, He provided me all of these. My last job was a senior position in a large MNC. With much accomplishment in my career, I decided to give up everything and quit my job. That was in June 2003. Since then, there's no looking back.

Over time, I got bored at home..literally doing nothing except to go to school with Melody and fuss about her going to Primary one back then.

Then I decided to learn about web design and started a new hobby..Cooking and Baking. I created a website called Kitchen Capers and hosted an online discussion board(forum) with it. It was just to share recipes that are tried and tested and proven to work.
Over time, I moved on to teach cooking and baking, before long, I started KC online store last year to sell bakeware and paper ware.

This year, Kitchen Capers Retail started with just a dream, lots of hope and lots of love from my hubby dearest. He feels that I should have a real shop than an virtual shop.

Ever since we started the shop, friends have ask me about life ...was it all work or was it all play?

Its definitely all PLAY now. Why? Because each time when a new shipment of goods arrive, I literally jumped for joy. Its like opening a present (except that I had to pay for it first..!)

This week, I had cookie cutters arriving from USA. And some exotic stuff from different places too. Its fun when you enjoy your work. Its passion that keeps you going too. I look forward to waking up early each day. Its been 4.5 months now...though I have not taken a day's rest, I don't feel stress or drained or tired. In fact, I felt more lively than ever. Going to work now is like going to play.

Here's some of the stuff that came with the post man yesterday:

Bamboo Charcoal Powder

There seems a craze about this ingredient that is used in baking breads. Personally, I do not like anything that is BLACK in colour that is edible. The colour puts me off. But hubby ask me to try it in bread making. Just to see how it tasted like and maybe to run a short demo on its usage outside our store.

I started to look around for a local supplier who import this in. And I found one.

Its now repackaged for sale at my store at 40g for S$9.50.


As of now, I have 20 bottles left..already sold some 8 bottles.

Here's a link about what it is all about.

And here's fellow blogger's take on using it to bake a black bread.

I might just as well try it on a cookie. I won't have time to fuss about proofing and waiting for bread dough to proof over time.
See how..maybe next week.

Of Pumpkins, Asian style

I have been invited by Cold Storage Singapore to do a LIVE Cooking demonstration outside their store next month. The theme was Halloween and the most important ingredient I had to use was Pumpkins.

This is what I will be doing. No recipes now. That's copyright to Cold Storage Singapore. But do come to the demo and get a copy of the recipes and watch me in action!

4th October, Sunday
2 pm to 3:30pm
Cold Storage Gourmet(Guthrie House)
1 Fifth Ave Guthrie House #01-05 Singapore 268802

View Map by Streetdirectory.com

Pumpkin Spiced Rice by Gina Choong



Pumpkin Custard by Gina Choong


No pre-registration needed. Just come early and reserved your best seats in front!
See you there..watch out for the full advertisements on Straits Times a week before the event!

Sinful rice

Well, we are not much of mooncake lovers or eaters. Actually, we prefer to eat the salted yolk that is buried inside the moonies. So hubby thought it would a wonderful dish if we use it to cook fried rice.

This is just try out recipe as no restaurants we knowed of have done this. Surprisingly it was good. Although very unhealthy as I had to use as many as 4 yolks to get that taste. Otherwise, its good to indulge once in a while.

Enjoy!

Salted Yolk Rice
Recipe by Gina Choong


Serves 4 persons
Ingredients
4 bowls of cooked rice(overnight)
2 pcs of chinese sausages(sliced thinly)
3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
4 salted egg yolks
200g bean sprouts(remove roots and bean on top)

Method
1. Remove egg yolks and wash away the salty whites. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat up wok with olive oil and add sausages to stir fry till cripsy brown.
3. Remove and set aside.
4. Leaving oil on wok, add raw yolks to cook. It will look foamy like soap bubbles, use the spatula to press and break the yolks.
5. Add cooked rice, and stir fry to coat rice with yolk flakes.
6. Add bean sprouts and rest of the ingredients to cook on high heat for 5 mins.
7. Dish out, serve hot with freshly cut chilli or coriander leaf.

yums!