Yesterday was over, A Shared Mission today

Finally, Hubby finished his last paper after nearly 2 years of hardwork. Am so glad he walked out of the examination building with a big smile on his face yesterday evening, a good sign that he has done pretty well and pass is 100% a guarantee.

No more Ps now. Only certification, chartered, or professional in our dictionary. Yup, the both of us will work hard and look forward to our chartered status in our own professions in three years time. So Gambate! An A plus E equals to AE or EA. Sounds so promising haha.

To celebrate Hubby's independence day, we invited some guests over for dinner tonight. My in laws' good friends, who had seen Hubby since he was a little boy. Would be a tight day ahead: Visit to market, visit to baking shop, souvenirs shopping (if time allows) and packing (flying home tomorrow!!!!Hurray!!) before helping out mom in law and Ah Yee with the dinner. Having predicted all these, i had actually finished my remaining baking business yesterday to save more time for the shopping today. Seems like i have a number of items to get for my VIPs back home, hopefully time is sufficient and there are exquisite things on display.

Here are two more items i made for today's occasion:

Same old cheesecake. Yes, you are right, i always serve baked feather cheesecake to any guests who come, simply because more people love cheesecakes than the number who hates, it's delicious and posh, and the baking process is too easy and time-saving. Moreover, cakes like this would do great as desserts, taken after a superfilicious meal and not too rich to cause ingestion or an over-eating kinda feeling. The texture is 'feathery and fine', very different from rich cheesecakes that would bring a 'too much cheesy' feeling' after 5 spoons.

The angel and devil (black oreo) in the middle.

My second dessert is more like a snack. Daifuku Mochis, my first attempt! (i actually messed up the whole kitchen with flour every where) Strawberries wrapped in tausa filling and glu dough. Not a very 'digestible' dessert, but i got to finish up the strawberries and wanted so badly to do something more 'Asian'.

My pretty ugly mochis

The Reds and More Christmas Colours Cups!

More reds reds and reds. Red is a beautiful colour isn't it? It's funny that i used to dislike red when i was a little girl, some mindset of mine that thinks red is only for girlies or mummy's girls (if you know what i mean hehe). Today, i have a new perspective: red makes my cakes look good!

Mom in law got me more reds today from her weekly grocery shopping:

The pretty strawberries (my third box)

Baby very reddish tomatoes

Another apple type, which i haven't figure what. Honey sweet and crunchy.

I woke up as early as 5am this morning, and couldn't put myself back to sleep. Seems like i'm having sleeping difficulty nowadays; i tend to wake up before sunrise regardless of what time i go to bed! Worst part is i'm not working, and i dun have to be up that early! Is that because i'm getting old? Hmm..couldn't be age, as Hubby who is 2 years older than me can sleep anytime anywhere for hours. Even dad in law can sleep as long as he wants! :-S

Oh well, forget about sleep, let's go back to the reds and baking business. Since i woke up that early today, i started baking right after breakfast even before mom in law returned from her shopping. So the reds weren't intentional, but co-incidental. Why? Coz i only had red cups and 2 additional green cups, and i had planned long ago to make cupcakes before i fly home. In the end, it's a Christmas colour gallery, red and green!!

Here they are, on the left is Chocolate Oreo Surprise Cupcake and right, Angelic Blueberry Cheese Cup.

I baked the Angelic cookies with the Piggies/Sows yesterday. Just an experiment to see whether home baked cookies would look good on home baked cakes.

These cupcakes contain oreos and cream cheese in the middle surrounded by nutella chocolate cake. Very rich and super fattening.

Oink oink Orange Sow Production Cake

Don't judge directly from the above picture, I didn't do pineapple tarts again but something indirectly related. Take a small guess? If you focus on the small oranges instead of the tarts, you may have had the answer. Or the above title may have revealed it all.

Yup, it's none other than orange cake of course, enriched with plain smooth low fat yogurt. I had specially baked the sow cookies on top for the cake, which was for no reason but some weird ideas of mine. Originally, my intention was to bake a normal butter cake, which is Hubby's most fave to show my support for his Tuesday's P2 paper (May God grant you lotsa wisdom and great favour with the examiner!) but miraculously, God just popped this idea in me and i didn't expect the look to turn out this way!

I name it the 'sow production cake', first, coz it reminds me of a pig farming project i used to work on last year, and last but least, 'productive' is a good word for Hubby, that prayfully his brain will be productive on Tuesday and long hardwork rewarded!

So here it is: 8 productive sows bearing oranges on each piece of cake.

Lazy but no choice, pineapple paste waiting in the fridge

The temperature dropped to below 0 oC today, and the wind was blowing very hard. Could even hear it now, creepy phuuu...lwwww.....and bang bang bang. Scary. Thank God the house is comfy warm, and my nice hot cup of coffee is just next to me. Still, i can't wait to see snow (without the wind) so that i can build my snowman and throw balls at Hubby like how we used to in UK. But i guess by the time it comes, i'll be back home sweating like mad di.

One good sign that outside is super COLD!

Winter is saying HI with a big smile!

Had wanted to bake pineapple tarts ever since i made the paste few weeks ago, however to be honest, i'm not so much of a 'cookie or biscuit' person coz i think they're super troublesome. Ya, they're easy, in comparison to cakes or tarts or bread, but somehow, for no particular reason, i think they're troublesome, especially those that need to be rolled and shaped or watsoever. So normally, unless a festive season is coming, or some kids had melted my heart, i will choose not to bake cookies!

This time, i've got no purpose. And that made me super lazy. No mood. Not chinese new year yet. During Christmas we don't serve pineapple tarts. I've got plenty of excuses not to make them yet only one excuse why i should make them and that is enough to initiate myself to work. I have to use up the paste before i fly home!

So here they are: the lazily made pineapple tarts.

And these 'shut up kitties'. (No choice since i don't have a pineapple/flower shape mould)

Pictures!

More pics: the cutie oval shaped orange tomatoes which mom in law had purposely bought for me. Hubby claimed good look but no taste. Kimmie's fave, especially the small tiny ones.

Hehe, met David and Joshua at the home church 'potbless' open house today. Thought i couldn't see them again before i fly home, was really a pleasure meeting these cutie pies.

Joshua and David

David was trying to avoid from being snapped. Shy shy i guess, but he was smiling all day long and that really melted my heart. So, forgiven!

And more which i took previously,

Second box of strawberries, also bought by mom in law for me. (I'm sooo blessed :-) )

I thought the super small apple (as big as a plum) looked very cute, so i took this pic to compare it with a normal size apple. (We've got more than enough apples for the winter!)

Neighbours along the small road leading to our house.


The Malaysian Embassy here.

Again? Seeing Double?

Had been an occupied day yesterday. Went out with parents in law in the morning to send these baked goodies to Hubby's cousin whose house was an hour drive from here. No special box or container, since we're all one big family, so mom in law suggested that i carry the tray housing the goodies instead (with cling film covering over of course). Transferred them to their cookie tin and got back my tray. Hmmmm..this is how i should do next time, otherwise many plastic would end up on ground (boy, how can I be so not environmental friendly last time?) Unless they are outsiders or dad's acquaintances.

Even managed to save one Angelic cookie for her

We were treated a heavy lunch by them, and then to body massage. Yup, i had my own feet, back and head massaged. So untypical me kan? Never had foot massage before until i arrived here. Very good, am starting to get addicted di.

I had actually baked a cheesecake before we left, early in the morning. The cake was meant for today, as the home church which we occasionally go on Sundays is having some sort of like a 'potbless' open house. Everyone is welcomed to bring a dish or something, and they will have a short bible study before the makan fellowship starts.

Quickly decorated the cake in the evening after we got home. Just right after the cake was 'done', dad in law called to ask if there's any cake or leftover tarts to be given to his business acquaintance whom he was having dinner with. Since we have given away all the tarts and nothing is left, i decided to let him have the 'just completed' cake (sincerely and willingly though with a heavy heart).

What else? Another cake mission to perform.
Thank God the night was still young. Took me less than an hour and half to whip, mix and bake and finally, the second cake was done. Here goes, i just decorated this morning, same effect and same look.

Two similar cakes in one day. Double.
My problem this time is the cakes were taken out from the oven too soon before they cld cool sufficiently in the oven. Consequently the upper crust looks like some old man's wrinkled face.

Thank you, thank you, I love them!

Thank you, thank you, i love them. These two different types of treat are given by Hubby's other Gugu yesterday and i was so happy i actually (and intentionally) snapped a picture of them this morning. "Ah Yee thinks i'm crazy sometimes, coz i snapped too many pictures and sometimes they don't make sense".

Let me explain why they are special: the one on the left is chinese cookie with pumpkin filling and the right is sesame cake with two types of filling, red bean and green bean. I find the cookie with pumpkin filling somehow very interesting, coz we normally have red bean, kaya, peanut, butter milk, dates paste or char sao or watever but never pumpkin. Most importantly, it was super yummy, and there are still at least 10 pieces waiting for us to devour! As for the sesame cake, it was like a whole chunk of red bean/green bean paste wrapped over by a thin piece of flour dough. The special part is the paste itself, which is different and you can actually taste the beans, unlike those commercial ones (good for nothing but sweet only).

I had a scrumptuous morning tea with my miniature cup of milk after all!

Of course, old typical me not only eat but bake. Same old thing again today; nothing fresh, nothing new, but some cheesy tarts which i've specially made for Hubby's cousin and her family. Since one batch of the pastry dough only managed to yield 12 medium tarts, so i had to bake an extra cheese cup with the extra cheese filling.

Blueberry Cheese Tarts

Chocolate Strawberry Cheese Tarts

The extra cup, i added oreo inside.

What i have made today