Tuesday, March 31, 2009

My Very Own Chocolate Cake



Ingredients:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water

Procedure:
Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt in a bowl
Make a well in a center of the flour mixture. Add egg and sugar
Add vanilla and mix briefly
With a mixer running, slowly add the oil until incorporated
Add water and mix briefly
Batter should be fairly thick and a rich deep brown
Oil baking pan or use baking sheet (as I did) and place batter on the pan
Steam for 25 minutes in a medium high heat
After 25 minutes, let cool then serve

What's good thing about this recipe is that it does not require oven so this can be done by people without big oven like me (as I only have small oven). I have also melted a chocolate bar and make it as frosting on top of the cake. Then I decorated with strawberries, cake flowers and chocolate chips. If you can notice, I put stars on the cake with initials "JR" as I make this cake for him. Hehehe!

That's it and if you have time, you can try this recipe. Finish product tastes yummy and you can give it to your special someone like I did!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Choco Mousse and Baby Red

Jay-ar bought me a food processor! How cool is that? Hehehe! I was trying to beat egg whites/creams manually (using whisk) but to no avail so he decided to buy me food processor. Today, I made a chocolate mousse. It taste yummy! It is now in the fridge and hoping that it would set properly. For lunch, we will be having steamed tilapia and of course, I will use my new food processor for the stuffing. I'm loving my new kitchen gadget.


*How to make Chocolate Mousse*

Ingredients:
2 eggs {separated}
50g cocoa powder
4 tablespoonful of warm water
1 tin Nestle Cream (170 g)
2 tablespoonful sugar

Procedure:
Mix the cocoa and sugar with water to make paste
Add the egg yolks
Beat mixture until creamy
Add Nestle cream
In another bowl, whisk egg whites until stiff then fold into chocolate mixture delicately
Pour into container then chill

It is that simple! I just put some strawberries on top for decoration. Hehehe!

* * *

My sister Yeng already had given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl this morning. Both my sister and her new little angel are okay now and just taking rest at St. Luke's {baby's name is Red - short for Renei Danielle}. I'm glad they are both okay... Next up, it's my turn and hoping also that my baby and me will be okay. I know God will take care of both of us.


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Childbirth

I will be giving birth to baby Kylie more or less than a month from now. To prepare myself for it, I tried searching for videos from the internet for me and Jay-ar to see what to expect from the big day! I saw this video from the net and I honestly don't know what to feel. It really looks painful from the video but I am still not scared. That's because I need to be brave for me and for my baby. Oh well, just watch this video and see for yourself.

Caution: It is a very graphic video of childbirth

http://www.hip-chick-pregnancy-guide.com/childbirth-video.html

On Baking

One good thing of having a lot of extra time in your hands is you get to try a lot of new things that you haven't tried before. For me, I tried doing some simple desserts. I have tried for the first time making a Leche Flan. I can say it was successful. Aside from messing up with the steamer at first, everthing else went okay. It looked like Leche Flan and it also tasted like one so I guess I can say that I did pretty good for a first timer. Hehehe!
Though I wish I could say the same for the 2nd dessert I tried to make, which is Brazo de Mercedes. It was going smooth at first then I forgot to grease with butter the aluminum foil I used to cover the baking tray. As a result, half of the merengue (made from egg whites) was stuck in the aluminum foil. So I only got from the foil half of the merengue which was very thin.

I think I am not going to try doing Brazo de Mercedes again in the near future. Making the merengue was very difficult as I was only using a whisk instead of an electric mixer. Can you imagine, I was whisking the egg whites for 30 minutes already and I still cannot get the consistency and texture that I wanted. My arm was killing me already. But after 30 mins or so, I got enough bubbles to use for the merengue. Even though the Brazo de Mercedes attempt was a disaster, the finish product was still edible. Hehehe! It definitely did not look like Brazo de Mercedes but it 'somewhat' tasted like one. Hehehe! Well, I learned from my mistakes and I know what to do the next time I tried doing it although as I have said, it won't be so soon.

Race to Witch Mountain


Jay-ar & I got to watch the Race to Witch Mountain movie last weekend. I can say I enjoyed the movie although there were few parts that I did not like that much. One that I can distinctively identify was during the last part wherein the protagonists were in the spaceship and they were being shot by their enemies and the "aliens" used their extraterrestrial power to block the bullets from the gunshots. Well, I just thought that the effects were not that good. For that part, it didn't look like a Hollywood movie. But aside from that and few other minor comments, it was okay and worthwhile to watch. Go and see for yourself.

More Baby Stuff

Baby Kylie is so lucky and blessed. She won a baby showcase from Avent! Just kidding but I can also put it that way. Jay-ar's friend from London was so generous enough to send us these baby stuff for baby Kylie. We received the two-box package last week and I was so thrilled when I saw the baby things inside. Thanks to Dudon for all these baby stuff!