Ladybug Steam Cake

I finally managed to try out making some steamed cakes last week. It has been on my to-do list for a long time. I'm sharing the recipe at the end of this post. :)


My not so nicely drawn ladybug steamed cakes. -_- I had no brown colouring at home and I ended up mixing in too much cocoa powder to get a darker shade of brown. I guess I wasn't thinking then, ended up with a very thick batter and had problem drawing. So, if you are thinking of doing the same, do add in the cocoa powder sparingly.


After the two badly done ladybug cakes, I decided to just draw polka dots instead, since that is way easier, lol. :)


I've updated the recipe in this post, did some trials and amended the recipe. I've also decrease the quantity as I felt the previous recipe yield too many cakes.


Please note that this cake is not as fluffy as your usual cakes, it's slightly denser than baked cakes. They are best eaten warm. In terms of taste, the ones I made using pancakes mix will be tastier.

LADYBUG STEAM CAKES

Ingredients:
200g cake flour
2 large eggs, room temperature
120ml fresh milk, room temperature
2 tsp baking powder
100g castor sugar
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
red colouring
brown colouring

Method:

1. Whisk egg in a mixing bowl, add in sugar and whisk till sugar is dissolved.
2. Add in milk and vanilla essence, whisk to combine.
3. Sieve over cake flour and baking powder, whisk to combine.
4. Add in vegetable oil, stir till mixture becomes smooth.
5. Scoop 1 tbsp mixture into piping bag.
6. Scoop 4 tbsp mixture, mixed with brown colouring and put into a piping bag.
7. Colour the remaining mixture red and put into a piping bag.
8. Cut a small opening in the end of each piping bag.
9. Fill cupcakes liners till about 80 per cent full with red mixture. Draw a half cross with brown mixture, add dots on both sides. Fill upper part with brown mixture.
10. Make 2 dots with white mixture and fill inside with a brown dot.
11. Steam on medium high heat for 15 minutes.

Ladybug & Caterpillar Toast

Sharing another toast idea, this time I made a ladybug and caterpillar. :)

Bread is lightly toasted with cheddar. Ladybug and sun are tomatoes. Caterpillar is made from edamame.


Flowers are made from corn, peas and coriander. Lastly, hearts are cut outs from ham. I used egg for my next art toast, made one of my favourite character, will share it tomorrow. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Trudeau Fuel Salad on the Go Container Review

I'm reviewing Trudeau Fuel Salad on the Go container for today. It's a good size container, designed for keeping your salad fresh and crisp. And it serves this function that it is designed for very well.


It comes in 2 colours for the lid, red and green. It's ideal for any cold salads, like the usual green salad, pasta salad, etc. It's made with eco-friendly and BPA free materials and comes with a five year warranty.


It has an ice pack that will attached on the cover together with a dressing container. :) Love this clever design. The ice pack will keep cold for 4 hours. I tried packing a salad for myself and it was still cold when I had it 3 hours later. I was too hungry and did not get to test it out till 4 hours.


The container is of a good size and you can pack in quite a lot.


Love the built in salad dressing container as well. I'm into light salad dressing these days, so a little lemon juice, vinegar and sugar is good for me. :)


This was salmon salad which I packed the following day. Just roll up the salmon slices and you get salmon roses. :)


Ladybugs on my salad on another day. Nah, they are only tomatoes. :P


The boys do not eat their veggies raw, they still can't get use to the taste. However, I found a good use of this container for them. It's perfect for soba as well, the dressing container can contain the soba sauce and the ice pack will keep everything cold. :)

Ladybug Bento

Ladybugs for my boys' bentos today. :)


The ladybugs are made out of rice, coloured with beet powder. The boys had onigiri, panko chicken, broccoli, golden kiwis and strawberries. :)


Spot the tiny ladybug pick! :)


And ladybugs sandwiches for them to bring to School.


There's grapes and panko chicken hidden under the sandwich. :)


Panko chicken salad for my lunch. :) The chicken was just seasoned with salt and pepper, then pressed onto panko and pan fried. I skipped the usual flour-egg-panko dipping step to save time.


Tried colouring my bread with these butterfly pea flower yesterday. Not as blue as I would like it to be, but the colour is quite pretty. :)

Ladybug Bento

I love the colors of these cherry tomatoes, today I used them to make ladybugs. Only problem is the boys do not like them, IT ate half a tomato yesterday with this "painful" expression on his face. lol. LT refused to have any. Today, they both fed the tomatoes to me. Yes, they just took the tomatoes and pop them in my mouth. Haiz. The making kids take food they do not want through Charaben never worked on my kids. :(


Bento for LT, with egg/ebikko rice, tomatoes (which I ate!), cola wings and golden kiwis.


Bento for IT, same food as above.


This is the Cola Wings in their Bento, cooked with Coca Cola, will share the recipe at the end of the post.


IT bento for School, with Nutella crepes, grapes and marshmallow. I made ladybugs out of fish sausage here, since he does not like tomatoes.


Ladybugs Bentos! :)


Smoked duck crepe again for my lunch. :)

COLA CHICKEN RECIPE

Ingredients:
12 wings
5 slices ginger
3 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1 can coke

Method:

1. Heat some oil in wok (or pan), saute ginger until fragrant.
2. Add chicken wings, saute and continue to cook until lightly brown.
3. Pour in the seasoning and coke. Bring to a boil and continue to cook for 20 to 25 minutes, uncovered, or until sauce thickens and chicken wings are carmeralized. Add more water if necessary.

Note: You can also substitute chicken with pork ribs. And you can also substitute soya sauce and wine with Hoisin sauce.

Ladybugs

I've been wanting to get a small capacity double tier lunch box for them. That's because everytime I packed noodles, their normal lunch box is too small, I ended up with not much space for the sides and fruits. I found these pretty lunchboxes at Sanrio, sugar bunnies for LT, he likes them. IT does not like girly stuff, but he's ok with little twin star, coz there's a boy.

Stir fried Udon for them today for lunch. I cooked some miso udon for IT to bring to school. I packed it in a thermal flask for him and it was still warm at recess.


IT's bento, he's ok with this coz there's a boy on the lunch box.


LT's bento


IT's bento for recess. This one is slightly more filling than his usual snack bento.