Moved to http://larry-chan.livejournal.com

Sorry to some people who commented on some of my posts but I did not approve the comments but I do read them. Thanks:)

Finally, it is over!

I had been feeling worried for weeks or months for this practical examination. This year, the theme is to prepare a meal for children in a day nursery, not only that, we have to calculate the total amount of nutrients in the meal we are going to prepare and see if it fits into the RDA (this part of the coursework made me stoned and stared blankly to my coursework for a period of time).

I spent lots of money on the ingredients, plates, garnishes and decorations as I got no clue how do I create a food that appeal to children, this is a real challenge for me. I admit I did not practice much that was why I was worried during the practical examination.

When the exam starts, I kept on asking myself if I can finish 7 dishes in 2 and a half hours as I did not practice everything at once to calculate how much time I need.

Honestly, I think I did badly for my practical examination!

Menu list:

Breakfast - Scones with strawberry jam and Strawberry Apple juice
Lunch - Train rice with vegetables and egg pinwheel, wanton soup and fruit salad
Snack - Fruit tarts and Chocolate milkshake

Breakfast

Lunch

Snacks

Saw many students with awesome dishes and all I could do was envy ~_o.

You might be curious about the whole view of all the dishes..

I really love the Scones! ;P

Not baking or cooking anything recently but I bought a recipe book from Bakerzin! :P Went with Fadfad and Amirah to cycle and I brought my camera as usual.. =P

Had fun and on 8th May was Amirah's Birthday, wish that she enjoyed her 16th birthday!







I am just too lazy too type and I did not know that Xanga (for normal users) has a limit of number of photos to be uploaded and now I have to upload all my photos to blogger, time to get use to it. Will be practicing my dishes for practical exam soon because my practical exams is on 22nd May and I'm going to buy plates/bowls and equipments for my practical exam presentation. :P I really got no idea how to decorate my dishes that appeal to kids.. I mean.. like as if the day nursery really calculate the nutrition value then served to the kids, I bet they just cook and throw the food to them and did not bother about the nutritive value of the dishes they eat!

Oh yes, I bought some icing and decided to try it on my cupcakes. I watched some videos on youtube showing us how to ice a cupcake and they made a nice pattern easily and I tried out many different patterns and they look horribly done LOL.

Took me so long to type out this post as I am too lazy to upload all the pictures to Xanga.. :(

Went over to Ms Angelia's house with friends for the BBQ and everyone was having fun! Before the BBQ, I actually woke up at 4am to prepare the ingredients for the cupcakes as I will be baking cupcakes for them (I was afraid that some weird-shaped cupcakes may turned out.. so I woke up earlier to prepare). After baking the cupcakes, met up with Xinyi to pay for the course fee for the baking lesson but we have to wait till July.. :( I am going to search for more baking courses from other companies. :)

These are the cupcakes that I baked (Oreo cupcakes), I baked another batch which is Vanilla ones and they tasted good when they are fresh from the oven but I am not too sure how it like after so many hours later.. :(

They were starting the fire for the BBQ later on.. :)

Some of my classmates were playing in the pool already..

:)

They were trying to do a backflip hahaha

Posing for the camera

I was just walking around to take pictures whatever I see..

I think this is my best shot..

"If only I can have so many friends..." by Jia Sheng

Eating time! :)

The food!

I went back to the function room and some of my classmates were asking me to help to take photos as they claimed that I was 'learning' how to take photographs (LOL).

She hate this shot tho, I like it. :)

Last but not least...

MODEL!

I baked another type of cookies with a different recipe from the previous one.

Ingredients
(makes about 24 cookies)

115g butter, softened
90g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g plain flour
85g plain or semisweet chocolate chips
85g baking M&N



Method

1. Preheat oven to 180degC. Line baking trays with parchment paper.
2. With a wooden spoon or electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture turns pale and fluffy.
3. Beat in the egg gradually. Mix well after each addition. Add in vanilla extract, mix well.
4. Sift the flour over the mixture, fold in with wooden spoon or a spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips and M&N.
5. Drop tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough onto the prepared baking tray. Leave some space between the cookies to allow for spreading. Flatten each cookie dough slightly with the back of a fork, keeping the shape as even as possible.
6. Bake for 10 mins or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

The inner part of the cookie is still quite flat compared to what I searched online.. :(

I had NAPFA today and it was taking up lots of time when I can bake something.. When I reached home, I did not bothered about the time and just baked the cookies that I planned a few days before.

I had fun baking these boys and girls but the only thing that made me laughed at myself was, the head or the limbs were broken when I tried to pick it. :(

If you can spot the one without hands and legs.. :P

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened at room temperature
70g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
180g cake flour
20g corn flour

Method:

1. Sift cake flour and corn flour together and set aside. Line baking tray with parchment paper, set aside.
2. With an electric mixer, add in sugar to the butter in 2 ~3 additions and cream till the mixture turns pale and fluffy.
3. Add in egg yolk and mix well.
4. Add sifted flour mixture in 2 ~ 3 additions, stir with a spatula to form a soft dough.
5. Place dough in a plastic bag and flatten with rolling pin.
6. Refrigerate the dough for about half an hour.
7. Remove dough from fridge. Roll out dough on slightly floured work surface and cut out with slightly floured cookie cutters. If the dough appears to be a little to hard and breaks into pieces while rolling, leave it at room temperature for a few minutes. The dough will soften up and can be rolled easily.
8. Bake at pre-heated oven at 175 degC for 15 ~ 20mins.
9. Let cool and store in air-tight container.

Recipe taken from: HappyHomeBaking

The original recipe stated 80g of caster sugar but I recommend 70g as I find it too sweet (according to my family too). Like always, I took lots of pictures even though these are just ordinary cookies.. :P

I am going take up baking courses soon as I am going to call them tomorrow to register and I hope the class is not full yet..

Hope you'd enjoyed this recipe if you are using it! :)

Had our annual cross country at Bedok Reservoir!

The only thing I did was taking photographs of my classmates and I did not run! Most of my classmates ran for this event but I am the only one who is quite useless haha.. Sorry! I took lots of pictures but I decided to upload the main pictures only. I think this is really the only year I really had fun in a school event, everyone in the class is very cooperative and cool and they did their best in their running.

The group picture of the main runners! :) Thank you!!

Somehow, they formed a circle and decided to massaged each other!

I brought an umbrella as the announcement said that it may rain in the afternoon and advised us to bring our own umbrellas but I am the only one who brought such a big one and end up, Jeremy and gang were playing with it..

Jia Wei wanted to take my umbrella to run to block the sun (but my umbrella is transparent), anyway, he's already black.

I love this class a lot better than the previous years (even though the only thing I did was taking pictures)! I really wish this year's Sports Day will be the best!

I feel that whether you won a prize or not, it does not matter because you guys did your best and even meet up to practice running before the actual day. Thank you!

Actually I was very troubled where should I stand because I want to take pictures of my classmates receiving the prizes, or else all the photos I took previously are all wasted! After thinking for about 10 minutes, I decided to stand infront of the "stage", then can get better view what!

Let me present you the prize winners (not according to ranking):

You can view the full album for this if you are a friend of mine in Facebook.

Thank you to everyone in 5A1! :)

Did I mention I made a birthday cake for my brother's birthday on 27 February? The sad thing was, I was rushing back home after buying the ingredients and made a cake and when everyone came back from work, almost everyone asked about the cake but none of them actually took the initiative to take it out and the next day, I ate the cake at least.. 3/8 portion. Now I know why bakers/chefs are all obese. :O Am I one?

Pretty high these few days at home (only when I am facing my computer) as there were 2 PVs out by Arashi and some funny videos that I am very addicted to them even till now..

This PV is the theme song for Ohno's drama, 歌のおにいさん,

曇りのち、快晴

Today, the 26th of February is Tommy's birthday, as well as Firdaus but he is celebrating with his family. Actually, I planned to make some cookies for them as I bought the cookie mould and I was getting all excited as I learned how to make royal icing to decorate the cookies but on Wednesday (which is yesterday), I realised the icing taste weird and too sweet and end up not using the idea of baking cookies for them.. So I end up baking cupcakes for them.

When onto the yacht and started walking around taking pictures with Jia Wei because he cannot sit still and need to keep-on-walking-around-to-be-happy type.

So...
Daniel, Jeremy and Jia Wei took a group photo since they were sitting together happily.

The guy in the middle was cursing me before I took this picture even though he was smiling so happily.

I went to the 'head' of the yacht and I immediately requested Jia Wei to sit on that thing and bluffed him that he looks cool sitting there (so he eventually went).

Lots of people were behind the shots and they were laughing at him.

He did not want to let people see his black socks (underneath) and that is the reason why his leg is posing in such a weird manner but well, I will still disclose his secret here. :P

He is acting to think something.. (he always likes to do that)

Took another group photo (without me) when we went into the yacht.

Friends were playing with the coffee maker and were complaining about how bitter/sweet their coffee was.

The 'living room'

Went to the master bedroom and they were discussing about '...plan A and plan B' even though I don't know what plan they were talking about. The lightings in the room is not very nice. :(
Oh, the birthday boy got no idea about this (that we are on the yacht to prepare for his birthday).

Had lots of laughther in the room like.. crushing Xiao hei (Orh Ji Tat) and Jia Wei.

This picture was taken through a window in the master bedroom.

At about.. 9pm, the birthday boy arrived and we sang the birthday song for him and I gave the cupcakes to him (very weird hor give cupcakes, sian). Today was very enjoyable and cool.

The guy in grey is the birthday boy!

I need to start tagging people in these pictures (Facebook) but it's not working!

Made fruit tarts today!

I am only left with some strawberries, blueberries and plum fruits! Kiwi is out of stock today.. *must be got discount, then all the aunties go buy*

The pastry looks stupid, I know....

Short Crust Pastry
120g plain flour
50g fat
2 tablespoons water

Method
1. Sift flour into mixing bowl.
2. Rub in the fat using finger tips till the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Mix in the water with a palette knife or a knife. Stiff dough consistency.
4. Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead lightly. (Do not overhandle)
5. Use as desired.

Custard filling
1 level tablespoon custard powder
25g sugar
150ml milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
12g butter

Glaze (optional)
1 level dessertspoon instant jelly powder
65 mls water

Garnishes
Few strawberries
Few blueberries
Orange-fleshed honeydew

Method
1. Roll out dough to slightly less than 0.5cm thickness.
2. Preheat oven 190 degrees or Reg 6.
3. Cut with a fluted cutter or line-boat-shaped patty tins with pastry. Prick the base with a fork.
4. Bake "blind" (meaning: without filling) for about 20minutes till golden brown.
5. Allow pastry to cool.
6. Prepare custard. Blend custard powder with a little milk. Add sugar, vanilla and the rest of milk. Cook and stir all the time till mixture boils and thicken. Stir in butter. Pour into tartlets.
7. Fill tartlets with custards and fruits. Decorate!
8. Prepare instant jelly. Pour carefully over fruits. (using a teaspoon)

This recipe is also another recipe from the book my teacher sold to me.
Buy already of course must make use of it mah!

Blame on myself.. bake 4 tarts only, end up taking so many pictures of it. >.o

(above) Oops.. I forgot to remove my roller (as seen in the picture) :P - and I used a smaller silicon mould to bake it. The only problem with this is that, I got no more space to decorate! (how do I present them to children???)

Overall, I like my fruit tarts especially the custard filling, not too sweet and not too bland! =)

Kind of excited for tomorrow since there will be Mathematics tution! Hope everything will be fun! ~.o