Despedida

It is that time of the year again, as the end of the school year drawing closer a few of my daughter batch Parents already told me that they’re leaving Manila for good in Summer. Automatically I checked my schedule then pick up a day that a few of us could gather for lunch and started cooking. I believe in proper send off,  I remember vividly all of the send off party that my friends did for me in our previous postings,  one of  the best memories of the place that we used to call home.

For this particular despedida lunch I made Indonesian Oxtail soup with Emping Belinjo ( Indonesian crisps) with spicy home made chilli sauce on the side,  Roasted Chicken with Balinese sambal matah, roasted potatoes, steamed rice and chopped cucumber. my friend Khin brought delicious Thai Mango salad which is perfect compliment for the menu, unfortunately I forgot to take photo of my table spread! Nevertheless I did remember to take picture of the desserts, I baked chocolate cake with chocolate drip, vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and strawberry dipped in chocolate.

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Farewell Dani and Pipin, wishing you and your family all the best for your new adventure, thank you for the good times and may our paths crossed again someday xoxo

Nastar

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Christmas cookies and happy hearts, this is how the holiday starts

PS. Pineapple-filled cookie (Nastar) is one of the classic popular cookies baked during Christmas and holiday season in Indonesia.

PPS. The first batch of these cookies didn’t last long in our home, nom nom!

Spasibo

Chocolate Drip Cake

It means “Thank You” in Russian.

My very first chocolate drip cake, I’ve made it for my daughter Gymnastics Coach farewell party. Loving the glossy result of the chocolate ganache, very pretty! Will try it on cupcakes one day soon.

Do Svidaniya Coach Mariya ❤

Summer Baking

Little Miss loves Anzac biscuits ever since she learned how to make it as part of her year group school activity during their World War 2 topic (she told me that before being named Anzac biscuits, these biscuits were said to have been called Soldier’s biscuits being Oats as the main ingredient, along with the other ingredients – sugar, flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup and bi-carbonate of soda – were used because they would be able to withstand the long journey via ship that the biscuits had to make to reach the troops).

Knowing her love of anything with chocolate I decided to tweak the original Anzac biscuits recipe by using coconut sugar and adding dark chocolate chips in it.

The result? Can’t keep them long enough in our home, the Anzac biscuits jar is running low so fast that Little Miss requested to bake it every other day.  She even agreed to bake it under my supervision, love it!

Kisses

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My current baking obsession, Meringue Kisses! They are sweet, crisp and light which made it so irresistible. I’m working on a few different flavours these days (and eating them too!) so watch this space xx

Easter Baking

In between swimming training, rubik cubes playing, art colouring and book reading, Little Miss and I managed to bake some Chocolate Cookies and Banana Bread today. I still remembered vividly all those time Little Miss helped me baking Easter cookies in Jakarta, Bangkok and Shanghai, it was so much fun but lot’s of patience (and cleaning) required. Nowadays I just made the dough and she’ll take over the rest (including cleaning up!), lucky me.  This time around we skipped the royal icing on the cookies (too time consuming) so sprinkled confectioner sugar it is. We had warm cookies before hitting the gym and fresh banana bread for breakfast tomorrow, happy days!

Spring Meet

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Its a wrap! BSM 3rd Gymnastics Spring Meet 2017 was a great success, over 300 athletes competed in MAG level 1-2 and WAG level 1-3, everyone had a great time! My Gluten Free Brownies and Brookies table did awesome, my better half was working his charm and all baked goodies were gone before noon. My daughter did a brilliant assistant judge duty, such a productive weekend for our family. I must admit though, it took me a week to recover from planning the Spring Meet as part of the Lions Gymnastics Committee AND baking for the competition day. Oh, almost forgot, the sweetest part of the competition was seeing my Cupcakes Frenzy logo pop up on the screen among the rest of the sponsors for the whole day, YAAYYY!

Last but not least, thank you to all committee members, AGP kiddos & Parents, BSM Team & Parents, generous Sponsors and all Coaches, WE DID IT!