Gong Xi Fa chai cuppies

Happy 16th Anniversary

what was I doing 16 years ago? There were no Tsara', no Ameer, nor Batrisyia. Just me and my other half. This date, 7th February 1994, at a small mosque in Kg Bt . 8, was the date he said" aku terima nikahnya........."Sah? sah! with just one lafaz. the date my eldest sister said to me, " Zue dah jadi isteri orang, it's a new responsibility" and sixteen years on, I am still carrying this responsibility as best as i could,

sixteen years later, the day began with any other days, sending the girls to school and i was doing my daily chores of..the usual , when suddenly the bell rang and my hubby's staff was standing outside the door with this beautiful bouquet. no wonder it was raining, I was going to get flowers from my hubby!:-)

well....he's not the flower person but occasionally I would receive them from him, sometimes with other things too....hint hint.....no, just the flowers will do. it works every time, I guess I'll cut this entry short because there's so much that I want to say but maybe those words are only meant for him, and him only. Auw shucks, i still want to say this though, chan rak ther, mon cher, you know how i feel about you , it has always been, it had been and always will be.......the day you stole my heart, sixteen years ( plus six) ago , it still hasn't returned to me and I certainly don't want it back. I want it to remain where it is.....snuggled closely and warmly with yours, forever, insyaAllah.

abang, 'Happy 2nd wedding Anniversary'wajik

sweet for my sweet,
sugar for my honey

but this sugar is not for honey but from honey/hani.....
my first experience with wajik. No, No, No,, i didn't make the wajik, or nasi manis to the Kelantanese, i wish i could but I couldn't. since Hani requested something other than cake for their second wedding anniversary, and asked me if I could make wajik and I told her that I knew someone who could make it or pulut kuning and i could order them for her if she like.Fortunately, my neighbour, who's always been my ketupat and rendang maker for raya , lives just a couple of houses away from ours, so I just gave her a call and voila! i got a plate of wajik delivered to my doorstep and the rest was up to me to deco and box it nicely to be delivered as a wedding anniversary gift from a loving wife in Penang for her hubby dearest in Kg Hilir in Kepala Batas , Alor Star.

Why wajik? Because it was her acu bek's favourite. But how to deco this sticky, sweet smelling wajik? I got the wajik at around 9 am and Hani told me that her hubby was leaving for Penang soon and I had to think fast. took the bottle of red heart shaped sugar deco and started arranging them as the border and took a bottle of the silver dregees and arranged them one by one outlining the white heart cut out fondant and voila! wrapped the box with black and white polka dot ribbon similar to the one glued to the foil, and paste three red hearts on the ribbon too. By 10 plus I was already on my way to deliver it with Batrisyia accompanying me.

Batrisyia, as usual gave her words of approval after seeing the deco
and kids don't lie....

I still remember hani's first order,last year, a surprise birthday cuppies for her hubby, black and white and a touch of purple, so this time, i still use black and white but with lots of red, red hearts as hot as the fire and passion of their romance.

Happy 2nd wedding anniversary to this sweet couple.Hopefully your marriage will last forever and will celebrate more anniversaries and birthdays together, forever and ever.

My first ....chicken pie

is this how a chicken pie should look like? i dunno and it made no difference to me cos no matter how ugly or how nice it looked like, I couldn't be happier! my very first, my very own chicken pie! thanx to yus who made me do this, if she had not asked me to make one for her, i wouldn't have done it. making 'Chicken pie' would still be in my 'To Do List' along with 'tiramisu, trifle, apple strudel ' and a lot more other recipes which I had been wanting to try.

not only that, the night before I was going to make my first chicken pie, while I was resting after almost half a day at the clinic and was watching my fav TV channel 'AFC' , the show started with Jamie 'Naked Chef ' Oliver was on and guess what? He was going to make pastries, sweet and savoury pastries! just my luck!

one thing he said that i wouldn't forget was, he didn't make his own puff pastry! so I guess that could save me the trouble of making the puff pastry, just use the ready made bought from the store.Perhaps one of these days, Iwould still try to do my own puff pastry, that would be a real challenge. I did almost xactly what Jamie did, left the excess pastry hanging by the edge and fold it back later into the lid with the criss cross pattern before glazing it with eggwash.

I made the second one for us since I had never made one for the family .

Tsara' was the first person to eagerly cut the chicken pie. I did have my first bite too and it tasted as a chicken pie should....( i think ) There were a few versions which I found on the net but yus requested for the one with chicken and potatoes just like the fillings for currypuff so, I browsed into Rinnchan's fotopages ( cos I knew that she has many fantastic recipes , thanks Rinn, for sharing with us )

perhaps I would try the other version, the one with cream of mushroom, button mushroom and celery, some other day ( the big question is: WHEN? )

that's what home cooked meal is all about, ugly but pleasantly yummy!therefore, do not judge a book by its cover, I mean , the pie....the chicken pie..... Thanx again yus for making this happen. hope you and the family, enjoyed the chicken pie with the oreo chocolate cheesecake . I was overwhelmed with the chicken pie that I had forgotten about the OCC but of course I didn't forget to make it.thanx yus for your continuous support.

2 MCBs and BCT, pliz...

Aunty,nak tambah satu lagi MCB, that makes it 2 MCBs and one set BCT. Aunty...OMG! I am so ancient! nasib baik tak panggil 'Makcik' , lagilah....:-)just kidding Areena. aunty is just fine.

Areena'a order on behalf of her officemates.

packed and ready. Thank you dear for introducing this MCB to your friends.Hope they will enjoy it too.

Happy 'Power Puff Girls' 5th birthday Ain Athirah

A father every child would love to have. Why? Every time when his children celebrate their birthdays, they would get not one but more than one cake and brownies with walnut is a must. Who am I referring to? None other than the "Brownies man" himself. I do hope that he wouldn't mind me calling him with this nickname:-)

normally, for the birthday cake itself I would make chocolate moist cake, but this time, he wanted to try something different, so instead of chocolate or vanilla, I suggested orange cake and he said that he'd love to try it, At the moment I only have one recipe using orange which was called 'Eggless Orange Cake' which I had tried before and I hope they would like it too..

glazed with white buttercream and hand drawn Power Puff Girls with colourful piping jelly with pink basketweave pattern on the sides with a touch of some small green blossoms.

PPG vanilla cupcakes

before..plain bake cheesecake.

after..with blueberries.....

before..brownies with walnut.

after.....still brownies with walnut but with ganache deco.Thank you to both Din and Mrs for your continuous support and wishing Ain Athirah a Happy 5th Birthday, semoga menjadi anak yang solehah.

jez for makan2 again for anna

barely a week , (I think about 3 days ago,) from the previous 'jez for makan2' cuppies, ana ordered another set, even after they had the fruit cake for her mum's birthday. 'Flattered' is the word but flattery will get us nowhere, right? Glad, happy and satisfied, just a few vocabularies to describe the feeling of knowing that someone out there appreciates what you are doing

no specific theme cos jez for makan2, just gave a few cuppies a swirl, topped with yellow fondant flower and red heart sugar, basketweave pattern on a few others and made four roses and sprayed it with the new cololur powder that I bought recently.

Thanks ever so much for your continuous support Anna. Happy eating and enjoy the cuppies.

Thank you...for fixing it!

Two MCBs for separate group of people.One for the guys fixing her car and the other for her office mates, as a thank you .



she just wanted a simple 'THANK YOU" on the MCB

this one is
'orang lidi' fixing the car...very the cartoon......

plus 25 pieces of blueberry cheese tarts, one box for her own personal indulgence and the other for her office mates .

Thank you Areena and your mum for your endless support.Hope you and your friends will enjoy the MCB and BCT!

tutti frutti again....with daisies

yup, another one of my fruit cakes with fondant flowers, this time , white daisies which I had been wanting to do for quite some time. Simple, yes, but, to me it is very sweet...not too much, cos sometimes ...less is more....with simple white and yellow ribbons to complete the look.
.

I am still overwhelmed by ana's comment on the fruit cake that I made for her FIL's birthday about a week ago and this time she wanted fruit cake too for her mum's 60th birthday.

This is what she wrote to me about the fruitcake that I made for her FIL ;

"sis, my fil suka sgt n terharu. dia kata for all diz while, xpenah pn dpt cake buah yg cntik mcm ni. "

For her mum, this time, I just made grass from green buttercream for the border and using brown fondant as the fences with simple white and yellow blossoms on the sides.

Thank you anna, for again trusting me with this cake for the special people in your life. I have made oreo chocolate cheesecake, cuppies for her hubby- twice, cuppies for her Kak Teh in KL, cuppies for makan2, Fathers day cuppies and recently these fruit cakes, plus the BEN 10 cuppies for her friend's brother's birthday and the jez for makan2 cuppies which she ordered in between her orders .

"Happy 60th Birthday anna's mum, i haven't met this lady but I am sure she's as sweet and as pretty as her daughter. semoga panjang umur dan murah rezeki.

S.O.S.... we need cuppies for this event

a few samples made for the girls. but don't think they would be needing them cos it tuned out that Amy had been making and decorating cupcakes at home.

She wanted plain chocolate and vanilla cuppies but with icing ( separately)because they , Amy and her friends , wanted to deco the cuppies themselves.Therefore, preared the buttercrem with five different colours complete with nozzles ( I gave what I had with me at that time because this was rather last minute request and the shop was closed) plus extras and I also gave them ( more extras , freebies) a few sprinkles too ( hundreds and thousands, silver dregees) for them to play about with .

Drove to Kuala Nerang very early in the morning. When we , my daughter and I ,reached there, Amy and her friends were busy getting their stall/ booth ready for the " Hari Usahawan " for the students of Kolej Mara thruout the nation. Amy and her sweet and nice friends were from Kolej Mara Banting.

I hope you and our friends had fun time decorating the cuppies and made good sales on them.Wish I could stay longer and visited the other booths as well but I had to rush back to deco my other cakes for that day.

Thank you Amy and friends, wish you all the best in everything you do.

plain bake cheesecake

plain, bare, but promising.....thankfully, once again, it rose to its occasion and didn't fail me.( almost gone when I called to find out how it was, everybody likes it, she said ).

woke up that morning, that was the day before and saw this sms in my hp, "dik, nak plain cheesecake nak ambik ptg ni blh?"

less than an hour preparation time, another hour left in the oven and four to five hours chilled in the fridge , by seven o'clock, it was in the box and to be enjoyed by my'sis' and her brother in law's family who's celebrating his birthday. she purposely didn't want any writings on the cheesecake.

thank you kak tuni, my 'sis', not just for this cheesecake, but for everything......

white and apple green hantaran cake

I always like making wedding cake, daunting as it may, simple it may be , but the effect to me is big. seeing the final result sitting there on the table waiting to be taken away by its rightful owner was just blissful.

soothing white with a touch of green apple for the ribbon.I tried to make and follow as closely as possible th edemands and requests by my customers. They wanted a mixture of 'merisek cake' and 'iza's wedding fondant cake', with the beads border, the silver dregees scattered, plus the love scattered on the base with just simple white flowers.

pearl like beads..checked

silver dregees...checked

green apple ribbon..checked

love shaped fondant scattered on the base..checked

I guess, i had done as requested, all hand made, except for the flowers, beautiful as they were, but I am not going to take credit for that.....

five pleats with a pair of white butterflies, symbolising the couple...

e just wanna see how it would lilke on the 'bekas hantaran'. I was a bit nervous about making this cake because this lady booked the order since last year. Earlier, she wanted a songkok shaped cake but she finally changed her mind and decided to have a simple with minimal flower cake instead.

Thank you so much Kak Ani for trusting me with your anak saudara's wedding hantaran cake. Selamat Pengantin Baru to the newlyweds.

she's flying to down under......

just found out the good newz but was unable to make it, hubby and the kids went over and so I decorated these 16 cc with very simple deco as buahtangan for his nephew who's leaving for Down under to further her studies.

All the best and jaga diri baik2 di tempat orang.

jez for makan2...

no need to deco, this is jez for makan2, just like the 'mengaji is fun' cuppies, a very simple request from this sweet ana,but we want it tomorrow, boleh x? kalu x leh pun takpe.....

25 pieces of s size soft blue and yellow vanilla cuppies with buttercream deco; white simple drop flower and small purple swirl deco with a touch of green leaves with small silver dregees scattered on the sides.

thank you ana, once again for your continuous and never ending support.

sabar menanti....

saat itu akan tiba jua,, insyaallah...,

15 years ago...on 24th january

t
don't have to guess what's inside, the drawings on the cover of the box drawn me to buy it as a present for my daughter's 15th birthday on 24th january 2010. Three books in one box, by the same author, the same author who wrote 'The Devil Wears Prada', which I had seen the movie and I have yet to read the other two novels ( which had not been made into movies yet ), that is after my daughter had read them, they are her books after all, so mama kena pinjam dengan dia lah....

no celebration ,
Reading was and still is my passion but I just haven't got the time to do that at the moment, the books that I am into right now is by Debbie Brown or Martha Stewart or anything related to baking and cake decorating, no more Sidney Sheldon or Stephen King, neither Jeffrey Archer nor Danielle Steele.

Tsara' and her baby sister, batrisyia.
Tsara', our firstborn. All my three kids have the same due date, 19th january but none of them were born on that date. Tsara' was late by a few days, so was Batrisyia but Ameer was three weeks earlier which made him a December baby instead of January. I gave birth to all three thru normal deliveries, alhamdullillah but Tsara' was the most difficult , perhaps it was my first experience or rather my lack of it and she was rather big, 3.4 kg, for my petite figure ( barely 40 kg before my pregnancy).despite several ups and downs that we went through in bringing her up, alhamdulillah she grows up to be a big and healthy kid, in fact, much bigger and taller than me, now.

Happy sweet 15th birthday to Tsara', we love you unconditionally, stay focus this year, okay cos you have a big exam coming up.luv ya....

Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah...Today In history...

........ at Zue's Oven in Alor Star, that is. Somebody came to be my first student here in Alor star. My first actual student was my sister whom I shared the how to's of making MCB in Kota Bharu last December.



My Srikandi friend, a Johorean but resides in Seberang Jaya, an Engineer by profession but deep inside, a baker and cake enthusiast and her passion brought her all the way to this humble place of mine to learn a thing or two about nozzles and buttercream. Not that she's new in this field, oh no, she isn't. She's made cupcakes, she's been to several other classes too but all she requested from me was ; - to learn how to make the MCB, how to make roses from buttercream and how to make a doll cake. So I told her, just come as she is, no need to bring anything, all would be provided for, insyaAllah.


This is the lady who said the magic words that prompt me to start doing this .She's also the same lady who gave me sleepless nights the past couple of days:-) thinking of how to conduct the class, can I do it? Can i 'really' do this?Am I ready for this challenge?What if.....and all those big '?' and uncertainties were answered yesterday, 23rd january 2010. Alhamdulillah, the day went well.



We started the day with some catching up with the latest news while having nasi dagang which I bought from the market that morning for breakfast.We are secondary school mates, though we went separate ways after the SPM, we somehow managed to stay in touch till now. whenever there are school reunions or gatherings, be it School dinner or Back to school Program, we tried to make it to the functions as much as we could, for old time sake and to cherish the sweet and beautiful memories that we shared at our old school.



there's no mistaking that this lady knew what she was doing.! Just look at how she held the piping bag and drew those fine lines.



tickle...tickle....The Doll...getting dressed...














making sure every single blossom is filled with the silver dregee.









make an upside down U , go up and down, up and down,voila, slowly but surely and eventually, you would get a rose and practice makes perfect.

for a first timer, she did it pretty well.. I had just found out from her that during our secondary school days. we used to draw posters, etc and competed among us of whose drawings would be posted on the board. the three of us, this lady, myself and another mama baker. Frankly this period of my life was totally out of my mind , to my surprise I couldn't recall the event, nor the drawing room located between the teachers' room and our sewing room.I couldn't even remember my arts teacher! the age is really creeping up on me!

with the nozzle 104and proper techniques, you can create roses, rosebuds and sweetpeas, and techniques was what I shared with my friend.

We stopped for a while for lunch, one of the 'lauk' was 'ayam masak minangkabau' which I made especially for her that morning. We both learned that recipe from our school and this dish has become a favourite in this household and she did mention to me a couple of months back that she'd love to have this ayam masak minangkabau if ever she decided to come to Alor Star, and today is her lucky day!

how beautiful she looked in this pretty pink and purple dress, all done, hands on from rolling the fondant to the small flower on her dress and her head, by this mysterious lady....

big red ribbon with purple flower , trailing at the back

Mission accomplished., she said. I am satisfied and I am happy with the result.

Wait a minute, is it "The End'? we have seen the cakes, the how tos, but we haven't seen the lady who had completed the mission? I am very sorry but she chose to remain a mystery and I have to respect her request. It's for me to know and for you to find out....:-)

thank you so much dear friend for making it possible for me to take the first step, the step to open up my doors for passionate, cake decor enthusiast, for me to share some knowledge and techniques. This was my first experience and I am sure there are plenty of roooms for improvements on my side.Watch out Seberang Jaya, here comes the Engineer with new skills up her sleeves...

It was a fun and enjoyable first experience for me, a little bit nervous too, I do hope she's got what she came here for

hope your daughter will get a beautiful Doll cake for her ninth's birthday next month, more beautiful if not as beautiful as this one.

Ayana is One

Yany made this order last December. I knew that it was a difficult task to deco oreo chocolate cheesecake but as usual I would agree, taking it as a challenge everytime and this time the result really surprised me. It was unexpected, in fact I din't know what to expect at all.All these deco were made just hours before Yany was supposed to collect them.
It's Batrisyia's birthday that day.After having spent about half an hour at her school, taking photos of her, sharing her birthday cake with her friends, we came back home and then only I deco the ice cream green tea which I baked last nite.Once that was done, i began to deco this OCC.While thinking of ideas, I munched on some of the oreo cookies and that's how the idea came about.

ayana is One , with fondant aphabets on oreo cookies

oreo chcoclate cheesecake , as it is.

chocolate cupcake covered with fondant with one candle for a one year old Ayana.

"mama, look! she's blowing the candle!"

rolled the fondant into a ball shape because my intention was to make a ball with lotsa colours. Put the blue and green strips around it when suddenly my eldest daughter said, " mama, that looks like a face"

yeah, you got that right, so instead of making a ball, I decided to change it into this......cute little eskimo tanned like doll ( with no hands!!!!, actually her hands are in the sweater, since it was so cold there, she hid them inside her blue sweater!

this idea of arranging the alphabets on oreo cookies came out of nowhere...why haven't I thought of this before?this is an oreo chocolate cheesecake after all!

Yany also ordered ice cream green tea but with fancy characters and shapes, so that's how the teddy, ice cream cone and xmas tree came about instead of its normal square shape with white chocolate and toasted coconut on top.

By 4 pm ( yany was supposed to come at 5.30 pm ), I took the OCC from the chiller and started grating cooking chocolate on top and later sprinkled with some cocoa powder, then the alphabets were arranged on top. The mini cake and that cute girl in blue were left outside.. oh no, they couldn't go into the fridge because they were made and covered with fondant.

Yany came with hubby and baby ayana, such a cute bubbly and talkative ( baby talk )one year old gal. hope they'll have a wonderful time for the celebration the following day.

thank you yany and hubby for this trust. Happy 1st birthday Ayana. May you always be a bundle of joy and happiness to your parents.

late last night, I received an sms from yany, a very sweet comment:

"Salam kak zue, party dh abis lewat ptg td & skrg 'bteri' sy dh flat kemas rumah td. Seperti slalu hsil air tgn kak mmg meletop! Ramai yng memuji sedap sgt! Tq kak zue"

thank you thank you yany.....

Batrisyia is 6

turning back the clock

21st january 2004, drove the car myself to see my gynae for my appointment because hubby was in a meeting,feeling rather upset and uncomfortable because my tummy almost touched the steering wheel for I was in my final stage of pregnancy. didn't bother to find a proper parking space , just parked my car by the road side in front of the clinic, because thot I was going in just for a short visit , but it turned out differently.( and I got a summon for that! )

Everything was fine, said the doctor. You could deliver now if you wanted to , he said
No thanx Doc, I would wait for it to come naturally, with the water break and everything.My first child was overdue by almost a week and needed to be induced, my second one was three weeks early and so I wanted this one to be normal.
Ok, it's your call but before you leave, I'd like to make another ECG test to see how the baby was doing.
We went upstairs and we did the ECG and the result wasn't so encouraging, I didn't know what happened but my baby's heart was weakening. Doc said that I had to deliver now for the baby's sake and so I was detained ( so to speak).Called hubby and broke the news. Meeting or not, he came straight to my side....aaaaa itu cinta , bukan....hehe...

This was the reason why I wanted to wait for the normal pain of delivery and not by force ie by induction. With the liquid injected into me to quicken the process, i had to endure such excruciating pain.Even with hubby by my side, it didn't help to ease the pain away.

After some pushing and some squeezing ( of hubby's hand on my shoulder), I was pushing and so was he.....that explained the pain in my shoulder the next couple of days, not because of the labour but because of his squeeze....hehe.....urat bersimpul-simpul, said my umi who came looking after me during my confinement.



After some pushing , out came this 3.2 kg beautiful baby girl but slightly weak and she needed to be put in the ventilator and she only came home after three days. she had to be kept under Doctor's supervision for proper monitoring.

the many faces of Batrisyia ,being bundled in a towel after her bath, perhaps this one was after confinement because her hair has grown a lot since we shaved all.
Batrisyia in an airport trolley, Batrisyia with her first two front teeth ( as I am writing this , her two front teeth are wobbly and just waiting to fall off )We can't go to the dentist today dear cos the clinic is closed on Friday, hope you can wait till sunday , okay.....) and Batrisyia among the toys, she looked like a doll herself, in that basket......

This pic was taken a couple of months back, she and Willie, the kitten, still small then.

Batrisyia and her beautiful locks





Batrisyia, the roller blade queen of the house.

Batrisyia and her piping jelly drawing.

just a small note of what happened six years ago, she's now six and always a joy to be with.