Horlicks Doggie Cookies

These adorable little doggies were done yesterday. It's another baking project for the boys. I just measured out the ingredients and gave them instructions on what to do. I did help them to shape out the dough into balls, they were not too good with that. :) Give this recipe a try if you are looking for holiday baking projects to do with your kids. I'm sure they will love this. :)


Their favourite part, decorating the doggies. :)


LT was quite fast with his decorations.


IT took longer, he was busy thinking of different ways to make his doggies. :)


They each had 20 balls of dough to decorate.


LT's doggies, before baking. :D


IT's doggies, before baking. :D


The doggies, after baking. :)


HORLICKS DOGGIE COOKIES

Ingredients:
180g butter, soften at room temperature
80g Horlicks
200g cake flour
25g corn flour
25g milk powder
100g chocolate chips
some chocolate rice
some Koko Krunch

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 140deg C.
2. Line baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
3. Sieve top flour, corn flour and milk powder.
4. Cream butter and Horlicks for about three minutes at low speed. Do not overbeat.
5. Put in top flour, cornflour and milk powder and beat for about one minute to form dough.
6. Divide dough into 10g each. Put three chocolate chips into each piece of dough and roll into balls.
7. Insert two pieces of Koko Krunch to form the 'ears', chocolate rice for the "eyes", and a chocolate chip in the centre for the 'nose'. Or just let your kids decorate in whatever way they fancy.
8. Bake at 140 deg C for about 25 minutes.

Mario and Luigi Bento

My boy had asked for Mario and Luigi quite sometime ago. But I've been putting it off because it will take me longer than usual to do. I am very glad I finally did them today, they were very happy to see Mario and Luigi in their bentos. :) This was done for their dinner, but it's not their complete dinner, as there was still a chicken leg grilling in the oven, which I've no space to fit in. :P


IT's bento, he likes Mario. :) In his box are multi-grained rice, grated cheese meat patties, broccoli and sausages. I gave him slices of grilled chicken leg and extra servings of broccoli and enoki in another bowl.


LT's bento, he likes Luigi. :) He's having the same food as IT in his box. He only gets slices of grilled chicken in another bowl. He does not eat much vegetables and he hates enoki. :P


Mario and Luigi bentos. Can you spot what's missing? I forgot about their eyebrows! lol. I only realised after uploading the pictures. Looks like I will have to attempt them again next year!

Happy Birthday To Me

It was my birthday last Thursday. :) LT wanted to bake a cake for me, but as Daddy was on leave to take us out to celebrate, we did not get to bake any cake. But he kept bugging me about it, so the following day, I allowed him to bake a cake for me. :)


I chose an easy fruit pastry cake recipe for him.


IT said he wanted to do his work instead, but he kept popping out to help LT. :)


Creaming the butter.


Cracking the eggs.


IT wanted to try too.


They poured in the batter before I had the chance to line the pan. :P


IT topping off with fruits. :)


IT left LT to finish off the rest of the fruit toppings. :)


The cake before baking.


My birthday cake after baking. :)

FRUIT PASTRY CAKE RECIPE

Ingredients:
100g butter, soften at room temperature
180g caster sugar
50g sour cream
3 eggs, lightly beaten, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest
210g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
500g fruits

Method:

1. Wash, cut fruits and set aside.
2. Grease (with butter) and flour the side of an 8" pan and line the base with parchment paper.
3. With an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and sour cream till light and fluffy.
4. Dribble in the eggs gradually and beat till incorporated in the batter. (The mixture may appear slightly curdled.)
5. Add vanilla extract and zest. Mix to combine.
6. Sieve over flour and baking powder and mix till smooth.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out the top with a spatula.
8. Arrange fruits on top, don’t press the fruits down into the batter. Decorate the fruits as desired.
9. Bake in pre-heat oven at 180degC for 60-70 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake. Cover the top with foil in the last 15 mins of baking to prevent the top from getting over browned.
10. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 5~10 mins. Unmold and transfer to wire rack to let cool completely. Dust the cake with some icing sugar if desired.

IT brought out his wallet when we went out on my birthday. He said he wanted to buy me a stalk of white tulip, my favourite flower. :)


Hubby brought him to 3 florists along the way but there were no tulips sold. So, I told him to just get me a white rose instead.


IT with his birthday present for me. :) Love it, my boy. :)


Thanks so much boys, for giving me the best birthday present and cake ever. :) Thanks for showing me boys can be just as sweet as gals. :)

Ship Ahoy Bento

It was a last minute decision to dress up their dinner today. I do not like to take photos of our dinner, as I am absolutely clueless about how to take photos under indoor lighting. Most of the time, I dislike how the photos turn out. So, I was rushing to complete the bentos before the sun set. :P I ended up with 2 sets of photos, I decided to take a set first before I go about frying the chicken cutlets as the sky was turning dark soon. :P


IT's dinner, or rather part of his dinner, coz I've yet to fry the chicken cutlets when I took this pic. :P


LT's dinner, they are having Japanese curry with potatoes and carrots. :)


LT's dinner, after the chicken cutlets were done. They sky was getting dark, so I bumped up the camera's ISO.


IT's dinner. I still prefer the first 2 photos taken under natural lighting.

Pineapple Tarts and Macarons

We've been lunching out everyday this week, I did not get to make any bento at all. So this is not a bento related post. :P I decided to do some baking with the boys yesterday as we were back early. They did almost all the work, from sieving the flour to the final step of applying egg wash on the tarts. I only helped with the weighing of ingredients, reshaping their tarts and the baking. They definitely had fun and were very proud of their tasty pineapple tarts.


IT sieving the flour.


Pouring in the flour in batches.


LT's turn.


IT's turn again, they kept taking turns.


Almost done. :)


What's next, Mum?


Creaming the butter.


Adding in the eggs.


Almost done with the dough. :)


They wanted to wrap the pineapple tarts.


But Mummy's not too happy with their pineapple tarts.


So I helped them to reshape the tarts. :P


Their first batch. I shooed them off to nap after this and I finished off the rest of the trays by myself. :P


The tarts all packed in jars. :)

I'm sharing the pineapple recipe below. I did not make the pineapple paste from stratch, I only did that once many years ago. It was too much work, so I always take the easy way out and buy packets of pineapple paste. :)


PINEAPPLE TARTS RECIPE

Ingredients:
400g Butter Salted
500g Plain Flour
4 egg yolk
4 tbsp Skim Milk powder
80g gm caster sugar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 pack pineapple paste

Method:
1) Cream the butter, vanilla & sugar
2) Add in the egg yolk and mix well
2) Add in the flour and milk powder, mix to form a dough
3) Divide the dough to 10gm each and wrap in the pineapple filling (8gm).
6) Brush egg wash on the tarts and bake at 170 deg for 20mins.


I kept the 5 egg whites leftover from the pineapple tarts and made marcarons today. I've not been making these tricky little yummies for more than 2 years. They did not look that nice this time. I need more practice! :)

What to do with leftover Bento food cut outs?

There might be some of you who are wondering what to do with those leftover cut-outs from bento-making. So here, I try to share with you what I do with them. The ideas might or might not work for your household, but I hope even if it is not practical for you, it will give you some ideas on how you can make use of your leftovers.

HAM/SAUSAGES - I usually throw these into my kids' fish soup noodles, and they have it for breakfast. I've also used them for pizza and pasta.

KAMOBOKO/CRABSTICKS - I use the left-overs in my soup and stir frys.

CHEESE - I keep the leftovers in an air tight box in the fridge. And I use them in sandwiches, omelettes, pizza and pasta. For pizza and pasta, I mix them with the grated cheese. I also stuff them in meatballs and meatrolls.

SEAWEED - This one is easy, my boys like to eat them, so they will eat up whatever is left after I am done with their bento.

BREAD - This is probably the food I get the most leftovers.I usually accumulate these in the freezer and use for bread pudding or french toast. Or I use them to make bread crumbs. Recently, a Daddy in our bento group shared with us how he toasted the leftover bread crusts with furikake. I tried it out and it was a hit with my boys. And if we are heading to the park, I will take a bag of leftover bread from the freezer and let the boys feed the ducks, fish and turtles.


Bread pudding from the leftover breads, I prefer to bake them in little ramekins, instead of one big tray.


This is a variation of the bread pudding above and this version is my boys' favourite, topped with raisins and strawberries. :)

BREAD PUDDING RECIPE

Ingredients:
Bread to fill 4 ramekins
1 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.
2. Break bread into small pieces into 4 ramekins. Drizzle melted butter or margarine over bread.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Pour over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped. Sprinkle with raisins.

This is bread spread with olive oil, and topped with furikake and grated Parmesan. The boys love this. I've come up with a milder version with italian herbs and grated Parmesan, they like that too. Yet another variation is bread toasted with sugar and cinammon powder.

Sometimes, I also 'cheat' by stuffing the leftovers in their onigiri, sandwiches and hiding them under their rice. lol. :P And if I'm feeling hungry, I do at times just eat up the scraps as I make the bentos. Please share with me what you do with your leftovers. :) I'm sure you'll come up with other great ways to make use of them. :)

Gingerbread Man Christmas Bento

It's the last day of School for LT today, and his Kindy is having a Christmas party to celebrate. I decided to make his classmates a simple bento box for the potluck. I also chose to do something easy for their lunch box today, as I was afraid I would not have time to complete so many boxes. :)

It's officially the start of the School holiday for my boys. It will be a 6 weeks break and they will only be back in School next year January. I will not be posting bentos on a daily basis, but I will try to do up some write-ups on my bento tools. And I will still try to share some bentos now and then. :)


LT's bento, strawberry jam sandwich, cheese, nuggets, golden kiwis and grapes. I made a smaller portion for their lunch today, as I am expecting LT to come home with some food from his School's Christmas party. :)


This is IT's bento, same food as above. :)


Gingerbread Man bentos. :)


These little boxes were for LT's Christmas party in School, each box has 2 strawberry sandwiches and 2 nuggets. :)


My lunchie, in the box are stir fried fish, prawn paste pancakes and egg broccoli. This is one of the rare fish dishes that I do like to eat. :P