White Chocolate Raisin Cookies II (The Christmas Version)

How was your Christmas? Mine was spent indulging on my nephew's toes. No, not really. I'm just best buds with him right now.

Anyhows, everyone on blogger-sphere is doing some sort of Christmas cookie and I wanted to join in the fun too.

A while ago when I did a white chocolate raisin cookie recipe- it was crunchy, but somehow lacked in the looks department. I like cookies in any manner- as long as they're freshly baked. Psychologically they taste better, I like tasting them while they're still warm and soft from the oven and harder when they cool. And, the house smells divine.


This time I wanted a soft-melt in your mouth sort of recipe, trying the slice and bake method.

White Chocolate Raisin Cookies II (Christmas Version)
adapted from Women's Weekly Cupcakes Cheesecakes Cookies


250g Butter softened
1/2 cup Icing Sugar
2 cups(300g) Cake Flour (you may use plain flour, just that I didn't have any on hand)
1/2 cup (75g) Rice Flour**
1/3 cup (50g) Cornflour
2 tablespoons Milk
1/3 cup (50g) Raisins
200g White Chocolate Couverture chopped
100s & 1000s for decoration


1. Beat butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Sift the 3 flours. Add raisins and white chocolate. Stir into butter mixture in two batches.
3. Add milk.
4. Knead until smooth. Divide mixture in half and roll into 25cm logs. Wrap each log with baking paper, sprinkle with 100s & 1000s, roll the log and refrigerate until firm (approximately 1 hour).
5.Preheat oven to 150C fan forced and line baking trays with baking paper.
6. Cut logs into 1cm slices and bake for 20 minutes.

*Note: I'd omit the icing sugar if I had the 100s & 100s sprinkles next time.- I thought it was a tad too sweet.

**I ran out of rice flour and used glutinous rice flour instead. Worked out fine.This is great for storing in the fridge and baking when you need it.

I think I found the perfect recipe for Chinese New Year.

Mrs Incredible

Part of being a domestic goddess and incredible wife is saving money- on things like wrapping.


Ok, I completely made that up. I'm just stingy and not willing to spend dosh on dodgy looking Christmas wrapping paper OR buy beautiful wrapping paper at exorbitant prices.

So guess what I did? I mean, this tops the list of stingy- but it works. Especially when you know your recipient is no Martha Stewart and keeps wrapping paper for recycling.


Wrap the present in plain white paper, graffiti design it, tie a ribbon...TA DAA!! Its easier than stamping and you could write any ala carte message on it. Super. Done in a jiffy.


Note of Disclaimer: Please don't use such wrapping advice if your recipient is super sensitive about wrapping. I think this wrapping method only works for spouses.


Ps. I once heard of a man who asked for his gift balloons to be wrapped. Who wraps balloons? I mean fully inflated balloons!! Wrapped!! Seriously?! Please don't be that man. I beg you.

Where Frosty Doesn't Come

It's hard to resist Christmas. I'm living in a place where Frosty would melt in two seconds and there'd never be a white Christmas, but I just can't help but enjoy the happy spirit- that, or I look forward to new years - I haven't quite worked it out yet.

H and I had a cuppa at Starbucks. If my sister read my blog, she'd snicker 'Neh, over-rated coffee.' Which to some extent I agree. In my mind [ and note I'm no coffee connoisseur], the best coffees are from kopi-tiams. The Asian scaled down version of Western cafes and coffee is filtered through coffee stockings. They're strong, bold and plain old kopi- coffee. No frills. Real deal.

But then again, I guess places like Starbucks offer frilly coffee- by that I mean whipped cream, caramel lattes, hazelnut flavours and so fourth. Being a foodie, I can't help but try new flavours. Things that could potentially excite my taste buds and make me go oohhh!. Its the whole coffee and cake phenomenon, the commercialised chill factor and cashing in on events like Christmas.

And I fall for it. Bad. I go to Starbucks for exactly all those frilly bits. I get sucked into having things like toffee bits on top of my latte. Apparently a limited edition Christmas drink.

Yes, these toffee bits that delicately lay above the foamy cream.

And I totally lose myself when there's chocolate- this case, Caramel Chocolate Cake. The exact piece I forced H to share with me- just so I dont feel as guilty. We succumb to the chocolate sensation, the flavour gently melting in our mouths silencing us for atleast a few minutes.  Ahhhh....

Merry Christmas everyone!

When Thomas is part of my Vocab

Recently I've befriended a pretty wicked bunch. I've never met anyone like quite like them.

Thomas. Percy. Ernie. Bert. Jeff. Yes, all introduced by my 2 1/2 year old nephew. I now know that Thomas the Tank Engine is blue,

Percy is Green,

Bert-the egghead is significantly taller than Ernie and Jeff, well..he's the purple Wiggle.

Oh! And I go to sleep singing Toot toot Chugga Chugga Big red car..and I wake up seeing The Big Red car thrown in some odd manner around the living room- evidence my nephew was there the day before.

Then I see my nephew and start acting like a monkey, throwing my arms around to make him laugh, squishing my face together just to get a reaction and wave 'hi' [complete with flabby grandma arms] like a imbecile. And just when I think I've got enough of his attention, he kisses me, I go all gooey inside and start acting like a idiot all over again.

Kids. Hmph.

So slow, so me, so sorry.

Nearly a year after I've gotten married and I still haven't written my thank yous. Well, does writing 4 cards and figuring out I'm not writing anymore count? I do plan to mail them, I promise. But by the time it comes to you, it's most probably my anniversary. I know, my bad.

I've got a annoyingly organised friend who always manages to write her thank yous within a few days- I even told her not to give me a thank you for her baby's birthday since I haven't given mine -which are long overdue. These type of people should be sent to the moon, they're not suppose to live with normal people like me. Serious. They make me look bad.

It took me 9 months to make my photo album! - thats basically getting pregnant and giving birth - just that I gave birth to a book. And the only reason I gave birth to the book was because there was a enormous discount for photobooks, otherwise I may of been able to get literal-ly pregnant twice over.

Anyhows, a few years ago I did a photobook from a online shop- program. I loved how easy it was and how professional it looked. I decided to do another one for my wedding album. One that I could personalise and wasn't too bulky to carry around. I learnt that lesson from my pre-wedding photo album- it was too bulky and heavy that I haven't opened it up since our wedding.

I like coffee-table type books. They're convenient for handling and storage.

I went with Photobook.my this time. Boy was I impressed.

Bound nicely..

The colours turned out how I imagined..

Layouts could be formatted any-which-way..

And it's totally personalised.

Adding to this, I had a great discount- followed by great service and it was mailed promptly. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to document their special moments. I've even thought of collecting great recipes in such manner.

If you're interested, pop over to www.photobook.com.my- and if you type MYHOLIDAY40 you get 40% discount!! Just to re-assure you- I don't get any royalties, I'm just a satisfied customer whos finally done her wedding album.

One Life

I first heard of World Vision in primary school. Those days, there were seniors who did the 40-hour famine and collected donations. Then I heard of child sponsoring and got to understand more about helping people in poverty and injustice.

A few days ago, World Vision did a great exhibit called One Life Revolution promoting the knowledge of AIDS/HIV and child trafficking. You can read more about it here.

It's a great exhibition providing a interactional experience. Visitors get to walk through on a specific child's life narrated through photos,scenes and audio castings.

Without giving too much away, I experienced the life of a Cambodian girl named Srey Mon. She is HIV positive, but lives a better life today due to World Vision.

And here's my brother-in-law, volunteering for the One Life exhibit- walking around giving free hugs amoungst other things. Aww.

If you would like to know more or show your support, visit www.worldvision.com.my (or any other country).

Tres Leche..I think.

Is it morally wrong to give chooks their own by-products?

Like..if I bake a cake, the cake has eggs and assuming (and I do mean assuming...) the cake was a flop and I fed the chook the flop-cake, does that make me subject to Greenpeace? I mean, the chooks loved every bit of it -I swear! They ate, they chirped,cockadoodled and did their birdwalk thing, so I'm sure they're happy and all. Really.

Because I made Tres Leche Cake. Well, I think I did anyway. Because I've never eaten it before, just that it looked like this-

image from www.thepioneerwoman.com

... sounded great and appealed to my brain..my tastebuds...whatever.

But err..mine looked like this-

... tasted like a sweet omelette and was loved by chickens. The cake rose, fell, got drenched in the milks, went totally overboard in the sugar department and was thoroughly enjoyed by chooks.

And I'm sorry I just spoiled your appetite for the week. I really thought long and hard about whether such photos should be posted on my blog. I did. Really. And, I'm sorry. 

Its all sounding a bit wrong. But I think I've totally got the recycling thing going. I mean, chicken- egg, egg-chicken..bleh....you know what I mean.

Free Range?

My mum's currently rearing some chooks.  5 to be precise. Its pretty nifty I reckon. It's our say against those farming battery chicks.

The chickadees don't have a coop or anything. So they're pretty much free range and organic- no awful stuff like growth hormones or unknown injections. Well, technically they're not 100% free range,because err...they are attached via a nylon string. But I don't think its anything that concerning, they still get to run around a fair bit..

So much so that one decided to go totally free range..it escaped the mighty strings and err..decided to find another abode amoungst my mum's mango trees. Its the one that got away.

I say chooks are a snobby bunch. They always give me their rear end. Like Blackie here nearly always goes the opposite direction. Hmm..I wonder why?!

I haven't worked out the names for them yet..but we have quite a bunch of hot chicks.

2 Weeks 'Til Christmas

Hey, where did 2009 go?

Ahh..but its the spirit of giving.. and if you're anything like me that scrunges on things like gift tags (you can always save the dosh for the pressies)..here's a few simple ones I did over lunch. Nothing elaborate, just print them onto A4 paper-card/coloured/plain and cut on the lines. Done.

Merry Christmas!! ..I've been good all year!

Oh My!

5:00am- I haven't woken up this early since..I got married? And it feels mighty good.

I went to sleep the night before at Fat Cat time. Actually, is Fat Cat still alive? - You know, the big cartoon feline with red overalls that appear (or shall I say appeared) on Channel 7- when I was a kid ofcourse.

I only did something constructive for my tummy though- which meant eating at the morning markets. Ahhh...rice noodles and a freshly brewed cup of coffee. Aroma Love! I could get use to this!

And just incase you're wondering, I haven't been taking much photos because
a) H nicked the camera for his outstation trip last week, and:
b) I'm still lazy!

Could I tempt you with this?

Kamo Shio-Grilled Duck

Or this?

Soft Shell Crab Handroll

Or possibly this?

Touzani- Pork

Some soba perhaps?

Ume Ten Soba

More soba?

Oyako Soba

And finish off with green tea ice cream and mochi?

Because if you're anything even remotely like me, looking at these photos will make you salivate. Reminsce about the abundance of tastes and textures, and then think 'Darn, why I can't I be in Singapore right now?'

And just incase you happen to be there, I ate like a glutton at:

Shimbashi Soba

Paragon, Level B1

Singapore