reflections on a tuesday morn, before the madness begins

http://whitecoatrants.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/two-wolves/
Click on the above link, read the story of the Two Wolves.
Stories like these feed the soul... at least it does Mummyji's.
It takes an immense deal of patience and discipline though, to ignore bad wolf and feed only good wolf... Bad wolf bugs, tugs and gnaws at one's heart and disrupts one's inner peace when there are inconsiderate and assinine people around. Ask Mummyji, she knows only too well. The world has too many of these - Evil people with no consideration or respect for others, who takes others for granted and destroys their peace, who oversteps boundaries because their eyes are only too full of their selfish selves....

But Mummyji shall persevere, good wolf will prevail within Mummyji, insya'allah.

Deepa-Raya in CHIJ

Mummyji offered to bake choc chip cookies for the babes' Deepa-Raya food sale in school on Monday.

Z hard at work, getting even mounds of dough onto baking sheet.
We baked a batch on Saturday morning, after which mummyji packed them in 3's into fold-top Glad polythene sandwich bags. Intended Selling Price= $1/pack.
There were 22 packs, not enough for both babes. (We might have had more packs if S didn't keep munching)

S, the cookie monster!
Anyways, Mummyji then baked another batch the next afternoon.
The 1st batch of cookies was chewy, and the 2nd really crunchy, even though Mummyji followed the exact recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. Oven temperature was kept constant at 180 to 190 deg C, that's for sure, as Mummyji's now got an oven thermometer.
Perhaps it's the creaming of the butter? Mummyji's observed that the 1st batch's butter was creamed to a runny consistency while the 2nd's was thicker.... We'll just have to bake another batch to find out!


All packed and ready to go!


Z waiting at our stall for the girls to come down to the canteen for their recess...Check out her home-made sign!

She decided to lower our price of $1/pack of 3 large cookies to 80cents, cos one girl came along and exclaimed, "One dollar?? I have only $1.50..." and walked away despondently. After we'd slashed our price, and after several packs had been sold, the very same girl came back and happily bought 1 pack. She even asked Mummyji, "is the price lowered so more people can buy?" Hmmm....


And here's a pic of the refreshingly light and incredibly fragrant orange-cranberry muffins Mummyji baked for breks. Mummyji decided to bake these since we had some lovely oranges and it's been a while since we've had orange-cranberry cake. Daddyji's off to Paris for his business already, and so muffins would be the easiest breks since Mummyji's preparing it alone. (Usually mummyji'll do the espresso for us n milo-cinno for the babes, while daddyji did the toast and such.)


Finally, here's a beautiful sign from the Almighty...

Rainbow over Shaughnessy..

It's been quite a tiring week, with many things on Mummyji's mind... and so, this was like an affirmation that He makes all things beautiful, in His time... like a rainbow after the rain..
Incidentally, Mummyji proudly showed this scenic picture to the family & friends, and all would go, "Wow, rainbow..."
but not the nephew, Ivan...Mummyji showed him the pic, and he stared and squinted at it in mummyji's k800i for a hard and long minute, then proudly answered, "Your house!"
hahahaha, funny little boy..

FOUND!!

Can't believe the old astigmatic eyes, but mummyji's found the missing spidey cake pic!
And long after it's been digested, haha..
well, at least there's evidence.. ;-p

merde!!

ARRRGH!!!
Mummyji baked a modified brownie cheesecake yesterday, and piped over the top in melted dark chocolate, a huge spiderweb... was quite worried that the piped chocolate would just spread all over the cheesecake layer, but it didn't and the web was cool..
and when the cake itself was cooled, mummyji piped in a rather fat-looking spider in a corner (to mask some cracks in the cake's top)... mummyji'd baked it for the babes cos they're getting kinda excited about halloween this week..
BUT ALAS! the one and only picture mummyji had taken of the cake is nowhere to be found in the memory stick of her K800i!!
IT IS GONE....
the cake's been cut up for dinner, after our sumptious dinner of rack of lamb with aglio olio angel hair, and lots of caramelised spanish onions and feta crumbs served atop a bed of butterhead leaves..
sigh..
no picture of the Spideycake left..
ARRRGH!!
guess there's only one thing left to do.. bake another one soon!!

a couple more pictures

Happy 11th Birthday, S!!

Eid Mubarak

Eid light-up in #344


Birthday breakfast cupcakes on 11 Oct 2007 @ Sahuur

the birthday girl

the other girl whose birthday we celebrate 3 days later

more cupcakes

Z's birthday cake, covered in chocolate ganache, encircled by sliced strawberries, decorated with white chocolate-covered raisins, and milk chocolate buttons

Happy 10th birthday, Z!



S's birthday cake, frosted with swirled white chocolate, with dark and milk maltesers... (no fruits please, as requested by the birthday girl)

Eid present from the best hubs in the world



Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin

too sweet cake

This is the cake which mummyji baked on sunday. It looks vaguely like a wedding cake, no? Mummyji's been telling everyone she's practising for the babes' wedding.. much to their chagrin, squealing, "What?! Mummy, we're not getting married now, we're still kids!" Hahaha, ok, ok, Mummyji's simply practising to bake both of them their birthday cakes.
Mummyji bought this heart-shaped pan last month to bake special cakes for the special ones in her life, so the babes' birthday cakes had to be heart-shaped, no?
And since both of them are in their anti-pink, eew-so-girly phase, the frosting could never be pink, much as mummyji wanted it. It wouldn't really do to have a blue heart, so mummyji decided on a white background with blue trimmings.
The cake was baked using a sponge recipe, with cocoa paste added. The middle sank somewhat, and mummyji sliced the cake into 2 layers and sandwiched them with melted chocolate/butter/whipped cream. The rest of the whipped cream with icing sugar went to coating the exterior. Then Mummyji whipped up some buttercream icing tinted it blue, then piped it along the bottom edge and top outline as trimmings. The result? An almost-wedding cake! Quite messy cos it was actually melting..
and quite disappointing too, cos all that icing it was engulfed in made the cake really really hyperglycemic sweet.
Lesson learnt? Mummyji shall coat the birthday cake with chocolate ganache, and possibly decorate with white chocolate trimmings. No point making a fanciful-looking one with all those super-sweet icing which we all scraped off before eating the cake.
But, mummyji has to say, it is rather pretty to look at, isn't it?