~ t w i s t e d ~ a n g e l ~

The Unis and colleges semester break had started. Siblings are home. Noisy. And it doesn’t help when everyone loves talking (and shouting). Air dalam kettle tak sempat sejuk. Even the ice cubes maker can’t catch up with the free flow of food and drinks. Washing machine.. Sikit hari lagi overheat la kot.

So last weekend we did something to amuse ourselves even more. Gingerbread cookies

I bake the cookies and let them ice it. I contributed a few. The cookie mixture itself was nice and perfect, although we ran out of molasse. Knowing molasse is not that easy to find here, I swapped with maple syrup. As I said just now, the cookies are nice, smelt so good out of the oven. I had to keep everyone’s hand out of them while waiting the cookies to cool and harden to be iced later.

Here are our works. Not bad kan?

The thing is, after we finished icing every cookies, nobody wanted to eat them anymore. Too cute to eat! Next time buat buruk² sudah.

Updated:

Lenny asked for recipe. The thing is I’m not articulate like Lenny, who could enslaved herself baking layered cake. Like, LAYERED CAKE?! Hehe. And i’m not into measuring ingredients yang kena exactly measured with measurement yang pelik². Like 416gram of flour, whaddeheck? Or 385ml milk. Sheeshh.. Adakah memasak satu chores yang perlu menyusahkan diri sendiri? Pakai je measurement cup, kan senang. And if it needs to be weighted, round it to easy number la. 500gm ke, 400ml ke. Why make your life miserable?

So here’s my version of gingerbread cookies. Easy peasy.

Ingredients:

½ bar butter (1 bar normally weighs 250gm, ada yang 235gm also)
½ cup confectionary sugar
1 egg
500gm flour
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground all spice (you can alternate with any of these combinations: ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground nutmeg. budget² la jadi 2 tsp altogether)
1 cup maple syrup (most of the recipe you found will ask for molasse, you can alternate with 1½ cup brown sugar too. But i like maple syrup better. The fragrant complements the spices very well)

Instructions:

1. Sieve flour + ground ginger + ground mixed spice + baking soda together. Leave aside.
2. Cream butter + sugar
3. Add egg. Add maple syrup.
4. Add sieved ingredients to batter sikit-sikit. Fold with spatula, don’t beat.
5. Leave in fridge for couple of hours. I left it for a night (doesn’t make any difference).
6. Preheat oven to 180°C.
7. Roll the cookie mix until about ½cm thickness. You may need to spread some flour on top so it won’t stick to the rolling pin. But I just used parchment paper.
8. Cut with cookie cutter.
9. Bake for 8-12 minutes, ker 15 minutes entah? Aku bukak je oven tu, rasa la dengan jari. But it also depends on the thickness and size of your cookies. You get the drift.

Cool the cookies on wire rack. Then come the fun part. Ice!

Icing

250gm icing sugar (250gm kot? because i emptied half pack of 500gm pack)
milk (water also can)
almond essence (vanilla/butter also can)
coloring

Sieve icing sugar. Mix with few tablespoon of milk. Add few drops of almond/vanilla essence. Divide into separate bowl. Add coloring. I use ordinary plastic bag to pipe. Cut a bit a the corner. Have fun!

*You can also use buttercream frosting, but I prefer something that will hardened so I can stack them on top of another (for storage purposes).

a.k.a. Lifestyle Diva

Saya ingin menjadi Domestic Goddess kerana:

1. I want to send my offspring (if I ever plan to have them la) to school, tution, mengaji, music class, art class (or any class I approved) myself. Sometime back I hung out with couple of friends and at one time I heard the son crying out for the maid (which was not there) instead of the mother. Beep beep! Red alert for me. That’s it. If not ready, tak payah.

2. I can never be like my mother. She was a full-time working mom, with 5 children. We had a maid, but we never ever ate anything except my mom’s own cooking. Even the maid was not allowed to cook rice. Before she went to work, she would cook the breakfast and lunch meal as well. Complete and healthy meal pulak tu, not just some prepacked Brahim’s rendang or nuggets. She went out for work before 7am, what time did she wake up to do all the cooking? I don’t know.

3. I want to spend my time doing bling bling, I know I have a knack in that. I’m the only one who didn’t complain and could painstakingly worked hours on mosaic and collage artsy fartsy stuff.

4. And papercraft! I miss doing papercraft When was the last time I made someone a card? Even the boyfriend was given bought cards. When I was in Form 3, before PMR me and my buddies made lots of Good Luck card to give out to friends. I made around 100 kot. Giler banyak, saja nak carik excuse tak nak study. M*mory Lan* cards were like miles huduh card nye. I have boxes of colorfull cardstocks, or we always call it ‘kertas timbang’ aren’t we? fancy punchers, fancy scissors, colorful pens and markers, giltters, stickers, ribbons and crystals. I should start somewhere soon. I notice there’s trend of scrapbooking nowadays. How can they call it SCRAPbooking when all the embellishments are mostly sold in packets? It beats the purpose of SCRAPbooking lah. Page border pun kena beli siap ke? Gedik.

5. And no, I don’t want to be involved in home business ke aper. Be it cooking or beading. Its gonna bring me into the same shithole again. Work stress works at home too. I want to do something at my own time. Not because someone wants it at specified time and date. Customers are like bosses too. Although what I’m doing at work now is considerably well-liked by me, and the chance I’m able to do it from home is pretty high, but the company policy is NOT.

6. I want to take more pictures (but not wedding).

7. I want to clean and deco my own house.

8. I want to run errands and do my shopping during office hour. There are less people at the malls and I get time to socialize with other hawt goddesses.

9. But above all, I hate to wake up early in the morning. It’s not that I want to wake up at 12pm ke aper, I just feel fresher if I can wake up at 7.30am. My sleep cycle is always fixed, I even wake up around 7.30am on weekends and long holidays. Tapi kalau bangun pukul 7.30, how do I get to the office before 8.45? Getting myself ready pun took me 45 minutes.

What always happened now, I took naps during lunch hour under my office desk (sort of nak replace sleeping time aku rugi tu), which I never like it because afterwards its gonna mess my hair. I did feel fresher afterwards but I feel selekeh rambut dah tak cantik.

Jadi, baru² ini saya telah menanyakan the boyfriend tentang idea bernas ini.

Me: I ada idea best. Nanti I nak berenti kerja and jadi Domestic Goddess?

Him: Hmmm.. Okay. I can afford you, but I can’t afford your shopping habits.

Nevermind, forget it. Just, F-O-R-G-E-T it.

Apsal kalau Valentine’s Day sibuk sana-sini kata haram celebrate such day? Reason being, Valentine’s Day diasaskan oleh orang² kafir. That love should be celebrated everyday. Bla bla bla..
Tapi kalau Mother’s Day, nobody said anything (as far as I’m concern la). Mother’s Day is not originated from the Muslims too. Originate from the Christian juga. And you don’t have to wait for this particular day to show your love and appreciation to your mother. Right?

So sukahati aku la nak celebrate any day at any date at my likings. Spare me from those emails please.

Anyways, Selamat Hari Ibu. I call my mother ‘Ibu’. Which I don’t find many of my friends calling their mothers ‘ibu’ too. Which is nice.. Because it sounds very motherly yet respectful to me. Eh chup, Mysara and Yongster call their mothers ‘ibu’ too..

Muahahaha… Yang tak menang tu, mintak maaf la ya. I’m just adding my shoes collection. Hope you don’t mind