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Like A Boss, I should add

For someone who absolutely loves her red velvet cupcake, I’m surprised even though I’ve had a love affair with those red suckers for a long time now, I’ve never once attempted to make it!

A shame really esp since I love it so much. Maybe coz I already know, no matter how much I try, I would probably never bake it better than my two go-to places for kick-ass red velvet which can be found at Upstairs Café in Subang and of course Just Heavenly!

But on Saturday, I decided to just brave it and at least try to make it once to see how it would turn out. Mind you, it’s also been a few weeks since I baked anything but surprisingly I was not nervous at all. Worse case scenario, I would just throw everything out I told myself.

I came across a blog with the recipe in malay (credit to nani rostam’s blog!) . Everything was based on weight, and since I didn’t have a weighing scale I converted everything to cup form.

Here’s the recipe – it may look like a lot of work but is’ not. I did everything quite fast.

All translated for easy reference

Step 1: Mix 250ml evaporated milk mixed with 2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar (works as buttermilk I believe, if you’re feeling rich, you could always buy a box of buttermilk). Add in 4 tablespoon red coloring. Mix it, then keep aside. Do take a moment to marvel at the redness in the bowl though.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, mix 2 cups of wheat flour (tepung gandum), add in one tea spoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoon cocoa powder and mix it all.

Step 3: Mix 2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar with 1 teaspoon soda bicarbonate, watch it sizzle in front of you and wonder if that’s suppose to happen. The answer is yes. Keep aside

Step 4: Beat 3/4 cup of butter, add in 1 cup brown sugar followed by ½ cup castor sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence and then beat in 2 eggs. Finally add in your flour mixture and alternate it with the milk + coloring mixture. Beat until soft. Final step is to add in the vinegar with soda bicarbonate mixture, beat it a lil more and then arrange in muffin liners.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 160 degrees. I SO love how they look so even, my cupcakes rarely turn out this pretty okie. I used the big muffin tray simply because eating mini sized red velvet is truly a sin and waste of time.

After 20 minutes. I spent at least 10 minutes just ogling at them.

Perfections *strokes red velvet cupcake*

You can also choose to make your icing before hand or after. I chose after coz I wanted to wait for my cupcakes to cool down. I didn’t use the icing recipe provided by that blog. Instead this was something the hubby’s aunt told me about and because she makes really good red velvet, I decided to follow her recipe.

It’s basically a one to one recipe where you beat cream cheese, butter and icing sugar! It’s that simple yet so good.  I added in some vanilla essence. Try to use unsalted butter if possible. I used some cheapo butter coz we couldn’t find decent one (damn you Giant), after beating up everything, chill it in the fridge for a while.

And here comes the funny part, do not laugh at my icing skill (or rather the lack of it). The first time I did it, the icing recipe was soo bad! And while this time around, it was good, let’s just say I need to work on my icing skills la ok? Shitty icing skills aside, even I am impressed how good these babies turned out.

Some chocolate sprinkles to cover the cacat-ness

My pretty babies in a glance – each uniquely designed, lol. Make no mistake, this recipe can make up to 6 BIG muffins, and about 15 medium ones.

Mmmm MY red velvet cupcakes! My cousins and aunt popped by my mom’s place that night so I used them as my guinea pig and the results: let’s just say everyone said it was so good (including my mom!), but of course someone did say my icing skills could improve, lol.

Can you see how moist this baby is? You can always chill it and eat it the next day and it will taste EVEN better! Hubby and baby absolutely loved it as well. Overall rating for this recipe, I do give this an 8 Score of 10 is reserved for my two favorite go-to places for cupcakes coz I do realize they probably took years to perfect their recipe

And here’s a photo of the hubby’s cooking on Saturday night – he did it all by himself and made us quesadilla, it was surprisingly good.

Of course random photos taken over the weekend – am beyond stocked that my little girl is allowing me to do up her hair these days. I actually went to stock up on hair accessories on Friday.

I call this the Boo from Monsters Inc inspired hair! When I told her she looks like Boo, she went ‘WHAT BOO?’ and that made me laugh so much so I had to show her some clips from Youtube and let’s just say she believes she’s Boo right now, hehe.

And this was taken right before BabySis Birthday celebration @ Aria! I tied her hair up with 2 clips at the side and it stayed on for a longgg time until after dinner that is. Can’t have em all but at least she’s happy with mom touching and playing with her hair now. I cannot believe how grown up she looks as well, sigh. More photos to follow of course…..and believe it or not, I only paid RM10 for that dress

Now go try that Red Velvet Cupcake recipe! Wonder what I should whip up next to challenge myself, hmm….

Whenever I subscribe to a new beauty box, I always believe in giving them a good 3 months to decide if they are worth continuing with. Usually if the boxes are good in that 2 months I’m subscribed to, then I’ll consider carrying on with them to see how they fare in their future boxes. I do give a one month leeway for a less than stellar box coz I do believe every beauty box deserve a chance and sometimes, with the current competitive market, its just difficult to get good sponsorship.

Again this box was sent to me by Vanity Trove for review purposes so a big thanks to VT.  After taking into consideration everyone’s reviews/comments on their March box, it’s pleasing and comforting to see how VT has used it to pull together a better box this month!

Again, loving the drawer type of box.

Below are the overall contents of the box – see anything you like?

They went with a The Shower Of Summer Theme for April.

Here are just some of the product listings that can be found in this month’s box. With the longer brochure, you bet this month’s box is actually filled with lots of goodies  Did you happen to subscribe by any chance?

First up is the Oriks Gemstone Nano Platinum Aqua Watery Cream, which works as a moisturizer that smoothens wrinkles, tightens pores and brightens complexion. And it’s interesting to note that there are 90 types of natural minerals to boost skin vitality and protect it too.

Total Retail for a 50g bottle is RM398 – expensive stuff for sure.

There is no mention of this mask in the brochure so I take it its an additional gift – a Diamond Platinum Mask by KilaDoll.

I was quite impressed to see Clarins in the box this time around. In it came 5 sachets of Intensive Brightening Serum which helps to achieve fairer and healthier skin. With this brightening serum, skin looks fair, even and translucent with a rosy glow. I do believe this is a newly launched product as well with a 30ml bottle costing RM295.

And as a further treat, housed in the box is a pretty 50% off voucher for any face or body treatment at Clarins Skin Spa in KLCC. Nice one seriously! Coz if you check out their website, you’ll know how expensive these treatments can be.

This month I do believe they were giving out different type of perfume samples in each boxes and I got the Narciso Rodriguez which I previously got in another box. I do love this perfume but not to the point where I would want to buy it.

Nevertheless, a 50ml EDT will set you RM278 poorer and the 100ml goes for RM378. Again, expensive stuff that VT has managed to pull and put into the box.

And then finally rejoice, a FULL size product in the form of Perkins Nail Wrap! I’m more of a mani-pedi kinda girl – the real thing but I do reckon this will come in handy on days when I”m too lazy to do a mani. I love the color I got. And there are actually 21 glamorous designs uniquely made in Korea. I wonder if they can be used for the feet, hmm.

Each Perkins Nail Wrap comes with 20 strips and retails for Rm39.90

And if that’s not enough, VT included another FULL SIZE product in the form of Kate Eyeshadow DB! It comes with two shades which can be used individuality or mixed. You can create a third color by mixing the two shades for a beautiful gradation. I reckon this shade would look lovely on tanned skin.

The retail price of this baby is RM49. Bear in mind, VT box is only RM50 now so if this month’s box doesn’t scream VALUE then I don’t know what is

You can tell how intensive the colors will be on your eyes.

Overall, VT’s April box gets a HUGE thumbs up from me. I would certainly raise both my thumbs for them if it wasn’t for the fact I had to use one hand to take this photo  Last month’s box was less than stellar but like I said, always give a beauty box at least 3 months before deciding coz you never know how awesome the box next month will be and true to that, VT has proven my point well. Absolutely in LOVE with this month’s box and I can only foresee VT doing well in the coming months. They definitely are focusing on medium to high end products which I”m sure will please their subscribers.

I should have put the Perkins Nail Wrap on my nails don’t you think?

Do check out their website: https://www.vanitytrove.com/my

And like their Facebook page too: http://www.facebook.com/VanityTroveMalaysia?fref=ts

Each box cost RM50 going forward (a RM10 drop in price from their previous RM60 price tag).

What do you think of VT’s April Box? Impressed much? I certainly grinned like a gibbon when I received the box and saw the contents. Good job VT, now keep it up ya  :lol:

Two easy peasy home-cooked meal that I made over the weekend and would like to share today. Not saying its necessarily healthy stuff but it’s definitely easy, yummy and can beres in less than 30 mins!

I was getting bored with the usual cream and tomato sauce base pastas so I was thinking how to make it different.

Then one word came to mind: BROCOLLI! Actually that word is always in my head coz we use it to threaten Sairah a lot. So that’s how this creamy broccoli sauce pasta came about though if you google it, there are already tons of different version.

But here’s mine – inspired by Sairah’s arch green nemesis

Ingredients:

Penne pasta

2-3 tablespoon butter

Half chopped yellow onions

1-2 chopped garlic

One box whipping cream – I use Paul’s

One small bunch organic broccoli florets – reserve half and half

5-7 basil leaves

Quarter packet of parmesan cheese (I usually use the small packet that’s either red or yellow that can be found in most supermarket, can’t remember the name but it’s only RM5)

Pepper

Half cube of chicken stock

Preparation:

Cook pasta until tender, set aside. In a pan, fry onions and garlic with butter until aromatic. Add in whipping cream, Parmesan cheese, half of the broccoli florets, chicken stock cube and let it simmer until broccoli is soft. Add in pepper. Turn off the pan after a while and let it cool off. Put into a blender, add in the basil leaves and pulse it a few times. Pulse it and don’t puree it.

Meanwhile in the pan used to make the sauce, just sauté the remaining broccoli florets and that is done purely for texture purposes so you can get the crunch from the broccoli. Add in the pureed cream sauce. Taste to see if you need more parmesan/black pepper.

Should look just about like this. Does not scream entirely sexy (then again nobody finds broccoli sexy) but it will in a minute.

We had some left over chicken fingers from Popeyes so we reheated it. But if you want, you can saute up your own chicken or use chicken ham which will go beautifully with the dish. Promise.

Mix up your penne into the batter so the sauce gets acquainted with your pennes Still doesn’t look so appetizing yet right?

That’s when you as they would say ‘plate it’ and wala.

Is it somewhat desirable now? Maybe not to broccoli haters but it was yummy and I cannot believe how easy it is to make it.  The hubby whacked the entire plate and went for seconds!

And then I had the light bulb to make some home-made burgers! I read somewhere there’s nothing like making your own patties coz it gives you so much satisfaction. Totally true! I skimped through my old blog post from years ago and noticed this recipe so I decided to give it another round and made some modification. Haha imagine, modifying your OWN recipes!

Home made Burgers with Fries

1 tray of Minced Chicken – I used the frozen Ayamas one coz I couldn’t find the fresh one. It makes 6 patties.

6-7 smashed Hup Seng / Jacobs cream crackers (secret ingredient, jeng jeng jeng).

½ tablespoon sugar

A dash of Worchsiter sauce

A dash or two white pepper

½ chicken stock granules

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 tablespoon cornflour

½ chopped  yellow onions

Butter-head lettuce leaves, cleaned

6 medium size burger buns

Cheese

Sauces – chili & Sarawak black pepper sauce

This is how you do it:

First place the minced chicken in a mixing bowl with broken crackers. Add  sugar, pepper, chicken stock granules, curry powder and coat meat well. Stir in chopped onions, cornflour and mix with your hands until everything is smooth. At this point I have to say, the mixture does smell quite wonderful but eating raw meat is a big no no. I’m most certain of it.

Feel free to add in more curry powder and chili if you prefer a slightly spicy version.

Then divide into 6 round portion and shape into patties. Flatten it and make it to the size of your burger buns. Let it marinate while you arrange your butter head lettuce leaves, and cheese on your burger buns.

But before that, don’t forget to grill your buns up a lil. No pun, I swear. You could butter it up if you want But the husband prefers it without any so….

Try to look for quality buns, ours was a lil flaky.

Fry those home-made chicken patties up and flatten it out more.

And as they say it again, plate those suckers up! And yea I know my patties are a little small -tersilap bajet!

Sauce it up with some sexy chili sauce and black pepper sauce for that kick.

Mmmm home-made patties which were GOOD! So good that my toddler ate one whole burger to herself okie! It was her first time being introduced to burgers too. So happy it was a home-made one

Serve with oven-baked fries (tons of black pepper on it coz husband went a little crazy with it) and tada – you got yourself a lovely meal peepz.  Hubby whacked not one but TWO burgers to himself and then like a greedy pig said I should make and freeze those patties up so he can take it to work for lunch. I told him there’s Ramly’s frozen burgers for that, heh

And totally unrelated – whatcha think of my minty pastel pedicure shade? Not sure if it goes well with tanned skin but I LOVE it. And I should add, those Clarks sandals – only cost me RM80

Okay, that is all!

I somehow forgot to update about this but a few months back, my darling girl decided to become girly by embracing her dresses, hair accessories and all things girly. I’m not sure if its just a phase but I’m happy nevertheless. Let the shopping begin!! I’ve seriously not bought her any dresses in a LONG time okie.

There was a time where she rejected her dresses and would scream whenever I try to put on anything remotely girly on her. In the end, we resorted to mostly two piece clothes and worst still, she would insist on picking out what she wanted to wear and that would be mostly t-shirts, clothes used for home! Dressing her up then was truly a nightmare. Now I know how my parents must have felt when I was in high school and only wanted to wear baggy clothes like a boy. After I hit college and transformed into being more feminine, all I ever wanted to wear were body-framing clothes to show off what my mama gave me and back then I was a mere size XS/S so whenever I tried on clothes I would pray they would not be loose (the tighter the better of course, heh) but NOW, I pray they would not be tight just so to  hide my fats so yes now I”m back to baggy clothes. Circle of life and story of my life eh. Please tell me you can relate!

I digress.

So you cannot tell how it was a total hallelujah moment when she actually let me put on the hair clip on her and let it stay on her head!

*que hallelujah song* – see siap with a girly pose.

Of course,  she also had to take it one notch higher with her sunglasses! So these days, whenever we all get into the car, she automatically reaches for my old shades (which she claims its her anyway - nothing more annoying than having a toddler scream out and say ITS MINE to things that don’t even belong to her, lol) puts it on herself before saying ‘mommy, daddy….please wear your glasses’ –  I mean she treats it as though putting on glasses IS as important as putting on our safety belts. And if we don’t wear it, she’ll kick up a fuss so yes the 3 of us always travel in the car with our shades on

Free dance moves for Coffee Bean patrons.

Having a moment with her daddy

Which includes trying to pinch his nipples, heh.

After our coffee break, believe it or not, we went to an accessory shop and madam actually picked these out on her own. We had so much fun browsing and picking things out together *awesome mommy-baby shopping moment*

And now whenever we go out as well, she’ll say ‘I wanna wear pretty dress’ and its funny how there are times I”ll have to tell her she can’t wear a dress just because the occasion doesn’t call for it.  Irony irony.

Anyway, since my bestie came back from the UK, we met up a few times and these photos were taken on her last outing with us. I’m surprised how Sairah was so comfortable with her and gave her all these poses. I didn’t even have to put in much effort coaxing her to pose.

Her trademark Princess Sairah smile

As usual, finds joy in putting stickers on mommy’s hand.

Cheeky extreme!

My big girl feeding herself some romali roti like a lady. And best part is, she didn’t spill any curry on her dress, double joy.

Nah.

Peekabo.

Step aside Marilyn…

Sairah with Aunty Wylane her personal photographer for the night.

And my favorite of em all….aight, we had dinner then went for coffee, what’s next people?! The night is still young folks!

Thank you Wylane for the awesome photos. We miss you already! And I really do wonder if its time to take her back for some castings. We stopped doing that a while ago due to having better things to do with our time (if you’ve been for castings you’ll know how LONG the wait can be and I don’t have the patience for it) but maybe just maybe, we should start again.

Either way, my girly baby is BACK and I”m loving every moment of it!

Picking up where I left off from our Hello Kitty adventure in JB a few months back – we also made a visit to The Little Big Club.  It TOTALLY makes sense to also pay TLBC a visit esp when it’s located one floor above Hello Kitty.  Of course, parents will only boys would probably see fit in visiting TLBC alone and not together with Hello Kitty.

The warm welcoming sign.

Not sure if it’s just me, but TLBC screams BOY because besides being almost blue everywhere, they cater mostly for boy cartoon shows. But it’s still worth a visit esp since they have awesome kiddie rides for the little one.

That place is further split into two levels – first floor for Meet & Greet of the characters while the second floor is where the fun stuff is.

Naturally we proceeded to the second floor first And I cannot emphasize how awesome it is to go there on a working weekday because there wasn’t a single line for the rides and we went on it a few times maximizing what we paid for our tickets.

Thomas The Train ride….just a simple circling the train track ride, went on it twice regardless.

There’s also a bumper car ride for the kids – too bad Sairah is too young for this.

Bus ride shot taken from our Ferris Wheel ride.

Naturally the little one was very keen so we ended up in the bus ride

The view from our bus going up and down. I’m super impressed with Sairah too that despite the ride going  a little fast, she was soo happy and wanted to go again. I have a lil thrill seeker here who loves such rides and I”m 100% convinced she got it from her mama

It almost looks like a Hollywood set don’t you think?

Her absolute favorite was this helicopter ride (I serious believe they have other proper names for each ride but I didn’t bother paying attention), and we went on this not once, not twice but about THREE freaking times all so we could see a smile on her face.

Buckle up…safety first!

Captain Sairah ready to steer us away to greater heights.

Are we ready to take off Mummy? Good, suck in your tummies please, we’re about to take off and I need this ride to be as light as possible!

Do check out the video here, and yes I know, I sound a little too excited in it but what the heck, there’s a kid in all of us

Cheeky kiss for Daddy so she could play longer on the second floor.

Madam walking towards the mini Ferris Wheel ride.

Up up up and away we go…

Lost anneh waiting for God’s knows what.

After getting our money’s worth, we proceeded to the lower level.

Angelina Ballerina room…

I LOVE how there are ballerina costumes provided for the kiddies to dress into and jump on stage. But I cannot imagine how chaotic this place will be when it’s peak season with every kid screaming their head off wanting to get into that outfit.

WTF is this overly-pink shiatz? Quite frankly, I think she would have been more happier on the second floor me think.

Isn’t this the cutest sight with all the other ballerinas in pink? Every girl was doing their own thing yo!

Ok mom, take it off, I dance freestyle damnit and not ballet.

Meet & Greet session in progress. Naturally the entire room was filled with GIRLS and more girls!

Bob The Builder.

PINGU! Was one of my favorite place too coz they had like a mini game room.

Aight kiddo, show me what you got!

And Mommy scoreeees!!! Such a bad-mommy moment I swear – my poor baby looks so confused but whatever I WON

I know whack-a-mole but whack-a-Pingu?? Hmm..but regardless, if you look at Sairah’s points, they seem to be higher than her dad’s…so am not sure if my 2 year old plays like her 35 year old father or if her 35 year old father plays like a 2 year old. You decide!

And of course, one of her absolute favorite and as she calls all play centers - ’Jungle Gym’. And technically she’s right, it can be get very jungle-y in these play centres sometimes with certain type of kids around.

After spending a good 3 hours we finally made our way to Johor Premium Outlet just to look see.

We were SUPER impressed by the layout coz it seriously reminded us of the outlet stores you see in the States.

Except, when I went to the outlet store in Vegas, I managed to get some Calvin Klein bra for a mere USD5!! I tried to see if my RM15 could get me anything here but NOPE. I didn’t find the prices here particular cheap and neither did any of the brands/item on sale were appealing so I only went home with a bottle of Purelogy shampoo for half price

Hubby on the other hand did some shopping for jeans.

We also drove into Singapore for a day trip the next day after our Hello Kitty / TLBC adventure.

Lunch break with our Diva Baby – am too cool for Singapore y’all. And to be honest, I didn’t find Singapore particular exciting – it somehow didn’t appeal to me no matter how many people have raved highly about the shopping and Singapore itself. I do give props however for being a clean city.

@ Orchard Road.  Singlish is not a very sexy language when spoken too loud esp when wearing skimpy clothes. Then again neither is manglish but whatever la brader, I”m bias, heh.

We were SO thankful she sat quietly on her stroller which we’ve not brought out in the past one year okie!

Oh lookie, me feeling like a baby again! My baby has grown so much I tell you.

One day one day that will be ours. But yea we were glad to be out of Singapore after a few hours.

Saying bye to our trip to down south!

And yea this is what the car looked like the entire time – filled with baby toys/books/diaper bag, anything and everything so that she would stay put for our 5 hour drive.

But overall, it was a good relaxing  holiday despite the long journey.  I’m not a huge fan of travelling long distance by car but for the sake of Hello Kitty and The Little Big Club visit for my precious Sairah – this momma sucked it in and went with the flow and I highly recommend both these places if you have a toddler. They will love you for it and talk about this trip for months!