Signed up for a strawberry shortcake baking class last Saturday with the girlfriends.
Our workstation so cosy! We did everything from scratch, the class was fairly easy to follow!
After mixing our flour and eggs, we poured them into metal tins to send for baking.
The strawberries look sour cause some parts still green but it is actually very sweet! Don’t judge a book by its cover lol. The halved strawberries will go into the middle of the cake while the whole ones will be on top, so pretty!
Cake fresh out from the oven, the eggy smell is heavenly!!!
I love this turning cake stand!!! It’s super useful when decorating the cake
This French cream is recommended, didn’t know those cream on cakes are made from liquid cream whisked to perfection :) Creaming the cake looks easy but it’s really the most difficult part haha. The strokes and pressure used matters a lot!
Lianny very focused on piping the cake lol she’s our piping teacher. Piping is quite fun actually, like making the cream shit HAHA
TADAH our end product! Looks decent har! Very happy with it and the cake was polished off in 2 days by my family. My niece love it the most, I feel so appreciated lol. Pardon the ugly pic of the inner cake layer, dunno who take this photo one *coughs -bf- coughs*
Group pics :)
Anyway, oven is a must next time for all these baking adventures! And I am lusting after this red Kitchenaid cake mixer, it will look SO GOOD with my dream red kitchen ;)
Realized I have been in a very domestic mood lately, first cooking and now baking hahaha. What to cook or bake next? ;)
Was in the mood for cooking 2 weekends ago and roped in the bf to help. Decided to cook pasta as we have limited cooking time and looking for a fuss-free recipe. This is not my own recipe, you can find the original recipe here, I made some tweaks along the way due to lack of ingredients haha
Got our ingredients at cold storage as some of the items look exotic and I think my friendly neighbourhood FairPrice will not have them hehe.
Recommended Ingredients: (extracted from original recipe)
250g ham (of your choice)
120g shitake mushrooms (or brown mushrooms)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon chicken stock granules
1 cup liquid cream (don’t use milk, it’s not the same)
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons finely grated fresh parmesan cheese
200g spaghetti
salt and pepper to taste
chopped parsley to garnish
What I used:
250g honey baked ham --- recipe called for 1 cm thick ham but Cold Storage’s butcher on leave that day so we only have pre-cut thinly sliced ham to choose from -_-
5 medium-sized dried Chinese mushrooms --- I thought what I have at home is shitake mushrooms but it turned out to be dried Chinese mushrooms. Lol. Turned out a tad too hard =p on hindsight, should had used button mushroom instead
1 tablespoon minced garlic
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil --- Borges brand, very expensive though, $10 for 1 bottle =p for cheaper option, can get virgin olive oil but extra virgin olive oil is more flavourful and healthier
Swanson’s liquid chicken stock --- used this instead of solid granules as my mum swears by this brand and always have 1 packet at home. liquid version works fine, amount-wise agar agar just add a bit, too much will make the sauce too watery and salty
1 cup liquid cream (don’t use milk, it’s not the same) --- mine was not really liquid-liquid but semi-solid. I tried shaking the bottle but most brands are quite viscous so I just bought the brand (Bulla) that the recipe creator recommended. Bulla fresh cream comes in a cup form so no need to measure, just throw all in, my liquid chicken stock did help to make it more watery though
finely grated fresh parmesan cheese --- lazy to grate myself so I just bought pre-grated parmesan cheese, add as much as you like
200g Barilla Spaghetti N.5 --- this brand and pasta type is recommended for its texture
salt and pepper to taste --- didn’t add any salt because the ham itself is already salty, some ham can be very salty so take note! Test your sauce first before adding salt
chopped parsley to garnish --- don’t like parsley so didn’t add this
Cooking Time!
Cut the ham. We are not able to get 1 cm thick ham so we cut our thinly sliced ham into strips for easier eating instead of cubes. Use about 5-6 slices of ham to serve 2 pax.
Cut the mushroom into strips. We used dried mushroom so I had to soak them in hot water for 10 mins to soften them first. But, end up still not soft enough so maybe soak for 20 mins. No soaking required if using shitake or button mushrooms.
You can cook the spaghetti and fry the ingredients at the same time. The timing for both to be done is almost the same (10 mins) so you can save time if you do it simultaneously. Break the spaghetti into half so that it can all submerge in the water nicely. Add a bit of salt. We used about 1/3 of the box of spaghetti and managed to polish off everything =p Johnson is a big eater though hehe, his stomach is bottomless pit!
Add 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil to hot frying pan.
Throw in the ham when pan is hot and fry till golden brown.
Add the minced garlic to one side of the pan and stir fry it evenly before mixing with the golden brown ham. Add in the mushroom. Stir fry all ingredients till mushroom is soft. Add in chicken stock and the liquid cream. My suggestion is to add the liquid cream first so that you can gauge if the sauce is too thick and use your chicken stock to dilute it accordingly. Our cream is not liquid enough so we had a sibeh gao sauce. We can't use too much chicken stock to dilute it (will be too salty) so we added hot water instead.
Cook till mixture is bubbling. The longer it cooks, the thicker the sauce become. Hence, make sure your ingredients are already 7/8 cooked before you add in the cream so that you do not need to cook it longer than necessary.
Add as much grated parmesan cheese as you like when mixture is bubbling. Taste the sauce after adding the cheese to see if it's too salty. Add chicken stock if it's not salty enough. If it is too salty, add some sugar to neutralize it.
Drain your pasta and put it on a big plate. Add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and toss the pasta evenly so that the oil can coat the pasta.
You can then either pour the cream sauce on the pasta or throw your pasta into the pan with the cream sauce. Mix well.
Ready to serve after sprinkling grated parmesan cheese on top!
We got all this done in just 30 mins so it's a really good quick fix. And I think it's much healthier than fast food :) well done to my co-chef!
Cooking is really fun and I hope to share more recipes in time to come! :)
Bf is back from Vietnam! :D *cues huge-ass picture of him* haha
Last weekend was his company’s incentive trip, so shiok, air tix, lodging and meals paid for, I am so jealous! He flew on the day of our monthniversary, shiok la he, go have fun while I am stuck in sg. But I had a not too bad weekend without him as well =p I guess absence makes the heart fonder, but I will very much rather be the one jetting around and he stuck in sg HEHE. I am more wanderlust than him la!
We met up on Thursday night before he jet off and I got a surprise prezzie! Horoscope rilakkumas!!! They are so cuteee *squeezes* I cannot stop touching the Leo’s fur cause so soft hahaha… Saving this for the new house, wrapping them up until then!
Friday dinner was at Oosters, white wine mussels!!! Round 1 of drinks at Oosters before 2nd round with the girlfriends at Switch! the boscoli fruit beer and pear rekorderlig from oosters is good!
Surprisingly, Johnson’s friends agreed to join us at Switch even though they knew he is not going, we girls happily bypassed Johnson and arrange with his friends ourselves haha sorry baby~ But I am happy that his guy friends can get along well with my girlfriends *beams*
Switch is awesome as always. The live band was so good that night with our favourite singers and the crowd is more on that day, teehee. We even witnessed a surprise proposal! The sweet guy planned beforehand to go on stage and sing a song for his gf. After the song, he walked down and proposed to his gf there and then, the whole crowd was cheering. Awww very sweet when you see it in real life, I thought such things can only see from Facebook haha :)
And I managed to find Johnson’s belated V day prezzie last week while he is away! Have been searching on a few occasion but always went home empty-handed, I am really bad at buying presents. I’ve thought of a nice pen for his work but can’t find anything that caught my eye. He mentioned that he needed a more sporty watch as he keep scratching his more formal watch when he went for reservist in Jan. So my sis was at OG and saw some nice ones. She called me to drop by and this Nautica watch caught my eye. Just nice blue for police officer HAHA match his reservist uniform leh! He can now use this for police reservist every year and also for gym + sports *pats myself on the back* gave it to him when i picked him from the airport, yay surprise successful!
On the shopping front, me found a shop at lucky plaza which sells super cute polaroid films! A lot of characters to choose from, Garfield, Toy Story, Rilakkuma, Minnie Mouse etc., spoilt for choice. They are $15 per box, not much diff from online shops so I bought a Garfield! I love the rilakkumas but I still have 2 boxes of that at home. Hehe time to whip the polaroid camera out more often!
Me also lemming for this Melissa x Pedro Lourenco heels after trying it at Taka!!! Most likely getting the pink one, it’s so lovely! My soft spot for Melissa shoes really not good for my pocket haha…
Signing off with some cute drawings from HJ Story, have been following the FB page and the drawings are so cute!
