banana cake

whew~ did quite abit of grocery shopping today. bought tons of stuff at cold storage to prepare for my banana cake, honey baked chicken and cheese baked rice. the list includes shredded cheddar cheese, honey, fine sugar, whole chicken, green and yellow pepper…. when the bill i was a bit taken aback. cost like 80bucks in total. the 2 glass baking dish cost 18bucks already.. ex man. 

decided to bake a banana cake after my pandan chiffon cake stint yesterday. glad it turned out good. the outside was crispy and the inside was moist and fluffly. hmm i would give it a 7.5 out of 10. i did a slight mistake though. i blended the bananas thinking it would be mashed. it turned out to be banana smoothie instead. lol. if not the appearance of the interior would have been perfect liao. its supposed to be yellowish with blackish streaks like what u see in cake shops. i think my banana smoothie was oxidized hence the brownish color. lol

a neighbour walked past my place and commented that the smell was good, lol. with things going well, im gonna churn out more cakes in future. maybe i can add choc chips and make it a banana choc chips cake. sounds yummy isnt it? haha cant wait to try it soon.

banana madness

yoohoo~ this shall be my breakfast for next few days.

 

pandan chiffon cake

yoohoo~ baked a pandan chiffon cake successfully on my maiden attempt. all thanks to the wonderful recipe from bakingmum and my newly bought tefal oven from courts. seems like i made a good investment.

the recipe was quite easy to follow. took me like one hour before i placed the end product into the oven. was quite elated when the cake turned out to be decent. the cake was soft but it was a pity the middle portion were still a bit moist. perhaps a little more baking would have made the whole cake even more fluffy and well raised.

recipe: http://bakingmum.blogspot.com/2007/11/pandan-chiffon-cake-ii.html

hey not bad!

decent tasting

introducing the new Tefal Activys. tada! hmm.. no place to place my oven. so its placed in this awkward postion…

just tot i would include some pics for the cake i made last week. 2nd attempt at oreo cheesecake. turned out to be firmer and had a nicer appearance.

im going to attempt to cook up a feast on sun with my new oven. thinking of preparing honey baked whole chicken, cheese baked rice and cheesy mashed potato. sounds like lots of fun but hard work as well =]

 

ice cream galore~

met up with victor, kenneth and weifen last sat at shaw towers. victor introduced me to this ice cream outlet shop named tom’s palette. been there once and tried their rum & raisin. not bad. ordered my 1st cup of chocolate banana and granny’s favourite. heavenly sia i tell u.  the rich taste totally blew me away. granny’s favourite has got dough bits inside and its somewhat like a handmade version of ben & jerry’s ice cream.  chocolate banana is a delightly combination of as the name suggests – choc and bananas!

after my 1st cup, i was instantly addicted. decided to go ahead with my 2nd cup of rum & raisins and buttered pecans. buttered pecans had this hint of salted butter. i find the rum & raisins a bit too overwhelming with its rum flavor. couldnt quite make out the taste of raisins. there was this flavour which was totally unforgettable when i tried. it was lavendar flavour. its like spraying floral scented air freshener into ur mouth. found the taste a bit too strong and somewhat too artificial for my liking.

choc banana +granny’s favourite

tiramisu and i cant rem

rum & raisins + buttered pecans

simply irresistible!

nice selection!!

we went ahead to the pasta place when kenneth and weifen arrived. tried their seafood alfredo. nice! the whole meal cost me 11 bucks with no GST and no service charge. quite money for value i tot. very imptly, the pasta is cooked al dente (meaning with a chewy texture) and the seafood ingredients are   cooked just nicely and not overly done.

seafood alfredo

seafood marinana

 

haven quite played bowling for a while. alvin came down to join us after his movie. hmm, guess i still maintained my standard even though i haven been consistently playing it. but somehow i feel my posture is quite poor,  leading to slight back ache after 2 games.

this is how a pro poses

uncle mo’s style

kenneth’s unique sliding style

 

 

oreo cheesecake stint

baked my 1st oreo cheesecake like 2 weeks ago. haha this entry came a little late..surprisingly,everything went quite smoothly when i was mixing the ingredients and following the recipe. all thanks to florence’s recipe found on her blog. the cake turned out creamy and yummy. sure gave me quite a bit of confidence for my subsequent attempts.

baking sure is fun.. gonna try out new flavours in time to come..

‘oreo cheesecake flavoured ice cream’

tada! yummy looking oreo cheesecake

one more slice please?

 

hong lim market

it was my 2nd visit to hong lim market yesterday. the last time i went i remembered ordering the prawn noodles. yummy~ hong lim market has 2 prawn noodles stalls on the 2nd level and if im not wrong both of them are equally good.

this time i ordered wanton noodles from this rather appealing store. i noticed that business was brisk so i decided to try it out. Kh ordered bak chor mee from this other store which had recommendations from the press.

the portion of the wanton noodles was rather big, cos i asked for it to be 3bucks instead of the normal 2 dollar portion.  what i liked about the wanton noodles was the soup. the soup is one of the tastier i ever tried. many a times noodle stalls owners will neglect the quality of their soup, but definitely not this stall.  the soup has a sweet taste instead of the usual msg salty taste we commonly come across. . a problem i find with most wanton mee would be that the char siew is cold and unappealing, in some cases it is close to tasteless. however, the char siew given was tasty and they gave generous fillings for the wanton.

bak chor mee on the other hand tasted pretty normal even though they had press recommendations. after the meal, i bought a curry puff and a yam puff from this curry puff store. the curry puff tasted decent. its had a fragrant curry smell but i tot they could have added more chicken meat. the yam puff tasted better than average. what i like is that the crust carries a sweet flavour to it and it tasted like the cny new year goodies kok zai.

i’ll be back again for more good food~

piping hot curry puff

tasty yam puff 

delicious wanton noodles 

wanton noodles: 4 out of 5

curry puff: 4 out of 5

yam puff: 3.5 out of 5 

 

moon pies

i happened to walk past this pastry shop named lecafe near Selegie tao huay store like one week back. this was the second time i took notice of this shop. my curiousity got the better of me and after some hesitation i decided to buy a box of 8 moon pies which cost me like $10.50? can’t quite remember the exact price, but its somewhere about there.

yummy looking moon pies

being the pratical person i am, i immediately calculated the cost of one moon pie, which is like $1.30. the price was somewhat comparable to a donut, i thought. after tasting one of the moon pie, i felt that the price was totally worthed it.

the 1st flavour i tried were the lotus and coffee pies. the coffee pie filling was of the right sweetness, and the chewy fillings exuded a subtle coffee taste. pretty decent i thought. the best part of the moon pies was the crust. it tasted like that of pineapple tarts, has this slight salted buttery taste and melts when you place it in your mouth. the lotus filling was smooth and the 1st thing that came to my mind was wow! it actually was able to satisfy my picky palate. On the whole, the best thing i liked about these moon pies is that they still taste fresh when u heat them up after reaching home. the moon pies are also capable of making one feel full, and i felt like i had a heavy breakfast after taking 2 moon pies for my morning meal the next day.

the whole box of moon pies came in 7 different flavours. there was the traditional lotus flavour, yam, green tea, savoury, coffee, sesame and pandan. from these flavours, i would say lotus tasted the best. if ever i have the chance pass to pass by this pastry store, i would wanna buy a box of moon pies with lotus, pandan and yam fillings. yummy!~ hmm, comparing this whole box of moon pies to a decent box of traditional moon cakes, i would say moon cakes would be given a run for their money. well i always felt that moon cakes are way overpriced!

website of lecafe: http://www.lecafe.com.sg/moon_pies.htm