蓝莓优格牛油蛋糕 Blueberry yogurt butter cake

I am back with baking blueberry cake. This time I used yogurt to do it. This blueberry cake is special request from my son since he didn't get to help me doing the blueberry scone cake. So he wants me to do another blueberry cake with him and with his help. I am so glad he willing to help, to me is like another special moment we shared together.

This cake is also my mil's favorite cake. :) she did ash me for the recipe, but all the blogs online mainly English. She has to rely on nieces to help to translate. I was thinking of asking my hubby to help, but he always miss something in the recipes. I remembered giving him a simple recipe for apple popover since I wake up late. The recipe turns out to fail coz he missed out milk in the recipe. He watched me doing this before, but he just dun remember. We have to retry it the next day. Guess everyone has it owns strength. :)

Ingredients:
(A)
125g butter
1 cup sugar (80% filled)(about 160g-170g) - I reduced it by a couple of tablespoon sugar and it turn out just nice.
(B)
3 eggs
(C) – sift together
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
(D)
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp lemon juice (optional)
(E)
1½ cups frozen blueberries (do not thaw)

Method:
1) Beat (A) till creamy and fluffy.
2) Add (B), one at a time, mix well before each addition.
3) Fold in (C) alternate with (D) in 3 to 4 additions, beat till just incorporated. Do not over mix.
4) Pour the 1/3 batter in a greased 8"x8" glassware. Arrange 1cup of blueberry on top. Do not press. Put in remaining 1/3 batter and arrange the rest of the blueberry on top. Lastly cover with the rest of the batter.
5) Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 50-60 mins or until a skewer inserted and comes out clean (mine was cooked in 60 mins). Cool on wire rack.

The cake tasted so good fresh from oven. It still taste fresh after overnight in refrigerator. What I love about this cake is it is moist, yet buttery, not too sweet. I am glad my son, my hubby, my mother in law and my best friend wai Yee loves it.

Good time spent with friends

I was cleaning up some of my hard disk space by moving photo to network drive. There were photos that I took since I bought my first digital camera. It was fun reviewing back those old photos, it brought back a lot of good memories to me.

One of the photo album I love was our trip to PD back in 2004. Can't believe that it was 10 years back. It was the first time we had a trip together after we graduated from secondary school. We never have overnight trip when we were in secondary school as we were all girls and having a trip with all girls will be dangerous according to our parents. So PD trip was really our first trip and almost all of my friends were able to join.

I think Yen Ping was the one suggested this trip. She and ah Man put a lot of effort in making this trip happened. They helped booking the apartment, arranging transportation and even preparing foods.

We reached there about evening time. We had steamboat for dinner and had some red wine as well while playing cards. After that, we were drank and I forgot how we managed to squeeze in the 2 rooms apartment and slept.

The next day, after having breakfast, we headed to the beach for banana boat and taking pictures. We had a lot of fun playing the banana boat as the boat brought us to the middle of the sea and had a sharp turn that made everyone fallen into water. We have a lot of laugh as we were accidentally touching each other butts while trying to get back to the boat. :) We left after having a quick lunch at the apartment. It was a short trip but we had lots of fun.

I really missed those fun time and wish we can have more trips like this. But as we grow up, got married and entering parenting stage, making time for a trip like this becoming more difficult. Anyway, I am grateful that we at least experience it once and I really treasure the moment we shared. I miss you gals very much!

Steamboat dinner

Beach at night.

Apartment room

Ready for the beach activities

More beach photo. We love taking photo!

Banana boat

Trying to get back to boat

Blueberry Streusel Scones

My mother in law recently visited us and she will stay with us till December this year. I wanted to cook or bake something for her while she is here. From her last visit to US, I found that she loves blueberry pastry. So I decided to bake this blueberry scone for her. This recipe is super easy and fast.

I got the recipe from joy of baking but making a little changes to reduce the sugar. The top of the scone is crunchy and sweet, while the scone itself is soft.

Scone ingredient:
2 cups of all purpose flour
1/4 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoons of salt
6 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter (cut into small pieces)
1 cup of fresh blueberry or frozen blueberry (do not thaw if use frozen blueberry)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 cup of milk

Streusel topping ingredient:
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/8 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoon of cold butter (cut into small pieces)

Scone:
1. Whisk all purpose flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together.
2. Cut butter into small pieces and blended into mixture above. The mixture will look like coarse crumb.
3. Fold in blueberry.
4. In a separate bowl, lightly beaten the egg. Add vanilla extract and milk. Pour this into flour mixture and stir until the dough comes together. Do not over mix the dough or the scone will turn out tough.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly flour surface and pat the dough to a 7 inch round. Use knife to cut it into 12 portion.

Streusel topping:
1. Mix flour and brown sugar together. Cut butter into small pieces and add to the mixture.
2. Top scone with streusel topping.

Preheat oven at 400F and bake for 18-22 minutes or until nicely brown.

Fresh from oven

Shortbread cookies

I have been a lazy bug for months for not updating my blog. I still bake once a while, is just I am so lazy to take photo. I don't have phone or tablet with high resolution camera and hence still need to use DSLR to take picture, load it in computer and then upload it in my blog. This process kind of take time and every time I think about it, I surrender. 

Recently my son started to show interest in helping me and my hubby to do all tasks from housework to gardening, baking and even washing dishes. It is really fun to involve them in the process as they will learn more. Of course, don't expect them to do a very clean job. The most important is they enjoy the process, have fun and learn something. 

One of the very first baking I did with my son was making shortbread cookies. I let my son help me with putting the ingredient in the mixer and turning on the mixer. He will then sit besides the mixer and watched how the ingredients get mixed up and of course asking thousands of questions. After the dough was made, I divided it into two portions. I mixed one of the portion with chocolate. The dough was quite soft and needed to put in refrigerator for a while before we can shape it. 

I have a few cookies cutter. I let my son used the easy one which is a star shape and a gingerbread man shape. When he cut the dough with gingerbread man cutter, he told us that gingerbread man will run away from oven and will chase by chicken and cow. Both me and chun were puzzled. We not really understand what he was talking about and we also realized that we both didn't even know what gingerbread man story was. 

While my son and my hubby making the cookies using cookies cutter, I played with mixing two colors dough. I  used to see checkerboard cookies in bakery shop and always wondering how to do it. So I tried to roll 2 logs of different color dough and then stick them together. Putting the, in the refrigerator to make the dough harden before cutting it. The color looks good when I cut it. I then tried out some others way to mix the two colors dough. 

We had a lot of fun shaping and decorating the cookies. Making cookies is really a good family activity. My son really excited when seeing the cookies is baked and immediately ate them. After baking with him for the first time, he told me that I need to wait for him to bake next time and cannot curi-curi baking while he is not around. :)

That night, I did a quick search online to see what gingerbread man story was about and finally I know what my son was talking about. :)

Recipe for shortbread cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) I unsaltedbutter (soften)

1 and 1/2 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 cup of corn flour

1/2 cup of sugar (I reduced this a little bit as I don't like the cookies to be too sweet)

1/4 tsp of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Steps:

1. Cream sugar and butter until smooth.

2. Add vanilla extract and salt.

3. Slowly add in flour until well mixed.

4. Divide the dough to two portion. Add melted chocolate, chocolate powder and sugar to chocolate dough.

4. Put the doughs in refrigerator for 30min before shaping it.

5. Bake in oven at 350F for about 10 minutes or till the cookies lightly browned.

shortbread cookies

2013 to 2014

Today is the last day of 2013. 2013 has been a very challenge year for us. I am thankful to have my hubby and my lovely son by my side going through a very tough year.
People said this year new year celebration is very special as we going from 2013 to 14 together and in Chinese it sounds like 一生一世. This year I only wish to spend this special moment with my hubby and my son. I want to be with you both 一生一世!
Happy new year everyone, wish all of us have a better, greater and healthier year ahead!

一個罐子跟兩杯咖啡

Someone shared this to me recently. It is a very meaningful article and hence putting this here in my blog to remind myself. It is true that we have been busy for whole life, but are we focusing on the right priority in life? Family, health and loved one are more important than work, house, car or tiny little things in our life. But somehow we forgot about this and tend to spend time on things that less important or not urgent...

這一天的哲學課，教授站上了講台，他卻不發一語，只是從講桌底下拿出了一個空的美乃滋瓶罐。

接著他拿出了一袋高爾夫球，他把整袋的高爾夫球塞進了美乃滋空罐裡；然後教授就問學生同不同意這個罐子已經是滿的了學生們當然是同意。

接著，教授又從桌子下拿出了一杯小小的鵝卵石，他慢慢地把鵝卵石往罐子邊倒邊搖， 不一會兒所有的高爾夫球間的縫隙，竟也都填滿了鵝卵石。

這 時，教授又問學生同不同意，這個美乃滋罐子已經是滿了？學生當然是同意。可是，話才剛說完，教授又從講桌底下拿出了一杯細沙子，教授又用同樣的方法，邊說 邊把沙子填滿了鵝卵石之間的小縫隙。教授又問了大家同不同意？這回罐子是真正的滿了？同學說應該是全滿了，沒有空間了。

想不到同學才剛答完話，教授又從講桌下拿出了兩杯咖啡來，開始徐徐地往美乃滋罐子裡倒，直到兩杯咖啡全部到進罐子裡，一滴也不剩。倒完咖啡後，教授笑著對同學們說：『現在的美乃滋罐子才是真正的滿了啦。』同學們也跟著笑了起來！就在整個教室的歡笑聲裡！

教授說話了：『你們知道我今天做這個表演，是要告訴你們什麼嗎？我是要用這個美乃滋罐來告訴你們一個道理，一個關於我們一生的哲理。這個美乃滋空罐就是我們的人生，高爾夫球就是我們生命中的一些大事情，例如：上帝、家庭、小孩、朋友、健康，還有你的摯愛。

生命裡沒有那些小鵝卵石或沙子是沒關係的，可是要是缺了這些大事情，我們的生命根本沒有意義。小小的鵝卵石就是我們生命中的其他的事情，例如：工作、房子、車子等等東西。至於那細沙子就是我們生命中的小事情，那些細微不重要的瑣事。

今天我的表演...如果是一開始就先把細沙子灌滿美乃滋罐子，那就根本沒有空間好放入高爾夫球跟鵝卵石同樣地，如果我是先倒鵝卵石，那也是會沒有空間好給高爾夫球。
我們的生命就是這樣的，如果你盡是把寶貴的時間花在細微的瑣事上，你就不可能有時間去處裡重要的事情。

所以，我們該多花時間去注意那些，會關係到我們快樂與幸福的事情，多跟我們的小孩一起。多去陪陪我們的父母、祖父母，多些時間給家人！多注意自己的身體健康，不要擔心家事做不完，不用擔心房子還沒粉刷，不要擔心花園還沒整理，我們會找到時間來做這些事情的！先多花些心思在那些重要的大事情上吧！

生命只有一回，我們把事情的輕重緩急跟優先順序弄清楚，生命才會有意義 ,教授說到這裡，有個同學舉手了...教授，那兩杯咖啡又代表著什麼呢？

『我很高興你問這個』教授回答道：這兩杯咖啡就是要告訴我們，不管我們的美乃滋罐看起來是裝得多滿，我們總是可以有空間跟朋友一起享受杯咖啡的！

我們的一生似乎總是這麼的忙? 那麼多的事情要處裡，似乎是一天的 24 小時總是不夠用？如果你還是這麼想的話，想想『一個美乃滋罐子跟兩杯咖啡』的故事吧。

I miss Oregon

We recently relocating to California for temporary and have been here for almost 2 months by now. One day when I was driving back to apartment, I suddenly missed the rain. I haven't see any rain in California since we were here. I used to hate Oregon's rain especially during fall and winter. I described that period as 'darkness' because the day is short and it always cold and wet outside. So I love late spring and summer as the 'darkness' is over and I will have sunny as well as dry day. Surprisingly that I miss the rain in Oregon now!

I miss my kitchen too whenever I read people's blogs on cooking/baking. I miss my kitchen appliances like bread maker and mixer. There are so many recipes I wanted to try out, but I only have a few basic kitchen gadgets and ingredients here since we will be here for temporary and wanted to keep everything as simple as possible.

Chun and I always joke that we both are "kampung" people since we love country style life compare to city life.  We prefer a slower pace and more relax life with a lot of greenery and friendly people. I remembered when my brother in law who staying in LA visited us in Oregon 6 years ago, he described Oregon as enchanted forest for vampire (that's why Twilight was filmed here) and he felt like sleeping all the time because of the cloudy, rainy and colder weather. Haha... California is more crowded. More people, more cars and more houses every where. It reminds me of Penang because there are so many apartments here and cars parking on both road sides due to lack of apartment parking. House price here is also crazy like Penang.

I used to think Oregon has too much rain and wish I could have a California weather in Oregon. But now, I think I can give up the sunny weather for the rest of the goodness in Oregon. Oh Oregon, I miss you so much!!!