Little Kim Turned 1 ( Mickey Mouse Clubhouse)

Raspberry and Peach Roll Cake

Summer is the time when we can enjoy many types of beautiful fruits, and using them to create pretty looking cum yummy cakes, bread, and jelly that suits our hot hot weather at this time of the year ( I think this is not the worst just yet). Raspberry is one of my son's favorite after strawberry. And I love them too! Our local super markets are having rather handsome berries lately and how could I not grab some for our treat?!

                      Cubes of yellow peach rolled in between the cream is absolutely delicious!
                 Though green kiwi may give a better color, but I don't find it as yummy personally.

Making vanilla roll cake can be boring, but if we add on some seasonal fruits may turn the cake around! How do you like the color combination for this roll cake?

If you are keen to try this out, please refer to here . just do without the green tea powder will do.

Paris 2012 Where the Holiday starts!

 Our holidays officially started, with Euro Disney ( according to my son). Well, I don't really mind that, as I will get to visit and enjoy the best Mille-Feuille which I have been missing a lot since our last visit.  I have yet to tried any other bakery has the same standard as this particular shop. It's near to the train station named Noisy- Champ. It's just three stops away from Euro Disney station. I am missing it already! Hubby was telling me, we might just skip Euro Disney the next trip since my son will be six years old, and he should have enough of Disney. The first thought came to my mind was, '' Oh no, how about my Mille-Feuille??'' As the area is not quite near to Paris central, it is quite costly to make a trip there just for a meal, and time is also another consideration.

The happy little boy getting his way down from the apartment, and looking forward to his Disneyland! 

         A place to visit before Disney. Had our late breakfast and packed our lunch from here too! The bakery had their new canvas shelter changed.....Orange is for summer!!

                                                 Can you spot my Mille-Feuille?

You will be spoiled by the choices.... They are not the most famous bakery, but they are definitely one of the best!

The lady( could be the owner) whom we met during our last visit, she's so helpful and friendly. She actually remembered us after one year! Really good to see her again.

               She let us try one of their new bread, which is a dark rye bread with nuts and sesame.

The MUST-HAVE - Mille-Feuille! As good as always......... and it's the best!!!!!!

Hubby's ham and Gruyere cheese cheese sandwich.

                                Welcome to Disney, and they are celebrating their 20th Birthday!!

Place La Concorde, the center of Paris where all the shopping and food paradise starts from here.....


I wanted to bring my boy to the garden nearby; Jardin des Tuileries for the popular pony riding. But this attraction was ceased about a year ago. A little disappointed though. However, the garden was a great visit for both adults and children, under a beautiful weather. After a slow walk at the park, we knew where we want to go for  lunch.....

La Duree it is!

                           Hubby's coffee, that he would not miss every time we visit La Duree.

                                  My marinated veal salad,company with crispy potato sticks.

                                    Foie gras with raspberry macarofon and toasted raisin brioch

                                                  Caramel and salt macaroon and Divin

The candles are as real as the those displaying on the pastry counter.

                         

                   For the fans of Chanel, this is the latest and biggest Chanel Boutique at Champs-Elysees. Even bigger than the flagship store at rue Cambon. Check it out ladies!!

Hello Kitty For Chloé

 Joyeux anniversaire !

Chocolate Sponge Cream Cake

After my last post, I hope I have helped some people out there to start a new and happy live. It was not my first post about leading a positive and happy live, but it'll be the last ( I hope). And now, we shall come back to our real happiness - Baking!! Shall the happy baking energy spread to the world and wish everyone the great live of all!
Well, pardon me if the cake slices are not STRAIGHT. Yes, it was a small accident while I was trying to transfer the assembled cake from the turn table to the serving plate, where the cake fell off apart!! I was like ''oh no...!!'' Anyhow, I still insist that I wanna post this 'leaning tower of Pisa'! Reason being, I put in quite a bit of effort to put the chocolate sponges together, when it is soft and got to arrange them in this manner, I am not going to try making another one! At least not for the next few days or weeks.

Whatever it may look, the cake was awesome. A reliable recipe that I will always follow.

                         Sandwich the layers with double cream brought from London, is another bonus!
As one of the standard items to bring back from London got to be their double cream. The real stuff will always taste the best. Missing the place dearly.
         

Recipe:

3 whole eggs
1 yolk
80g  caster sugar
15ml milk
65g  Top flour
8g  cocoa powder
20g  Unsalted butter (melted)
Few drops of vanilla extract

300g Double cream for deco. ( can be more if preferred )
30g caster sugar

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk all eggs and sugar over a warm water, till sugar dissolved.

2. move away from the warm water, and whisk batter till ribbon stage. Sift in flour and cocoa powder, fold into the egg batter carefully.

3. Mix milk , vanilla and melted butter together in a small bowl, and transfer a small amount of batter to the butter and mix well, then pour back to the main cake batter, then carefully blend them together.

4. Pour the cake batter into a 30 x 30cm Swiss roll tray lined with parchment paper, and bake in the pre heated oven at 200'c for 11 minutes.

5. Turn the baked sponge out on a wire rack, and let it cool completely. Tear the parchment while it's hot.

6. Decorate the cake as desired.

Jealousy, Hatreds, Holding on ( to sorrows) = illness

Have anyone out there ever heard that, all human illness are brought upon ourselves? I didn't know it too, till I started my parenting class and it makes a lot of sense in all ways. For example, people who has frequent headache / migraine, shoulders ache are due to stress, people who gets soar throat because they see things that they disagree, but choose not to voice it out, or not getting a chance to express themselves, people who always holding on to their past that is painful, full of sorrows, and keeping the baggage, or my teacher calls it ' Garbage' would eventually lead to jealousy, low self esteem. Then this will stays in his or her heart, that is where heart disease formed. As my teacher shared further, she also pointed out that people who are not in good shape, is all due to some kind of experience that they make themselves feel not worthy and started giving up on themselves ( without self realizing it) How scary yey?! So, I got to learn about this book by Louise L. Hey - Heal Your Body A-Z. It's about positive affirmations that could help us to heal our bodies with our positive minds. It says that, The mental causes for physical illness and the book actually provide all affirmations to heal ourselves. The author herself was a vagina cancer suffer, with her background that she was raped when she was 5. As this became a deep resentment in her life, it slowly manifested cancer in her vagina area. Given herself as a teacher of healing for several years, she was very aware that she was being given a chance to practice on herself! She made it! This goes to show that how powerful our mind can be.
It is either makes or breaks us!!! So, it is absolutely our choice to be what we wanna be!!


Why am I sharing this today, because I just met up with some friends ( they are my baking gang), one of them happened to share some sad stories of a friend of hers with us, and we all see that she brought it to herself and there are certain things she did was not quite agreeable among us. In lives, we all have our great pals and true friends, at the same time, we all have enemies too! It is absolutely not smart at all to show your enemies what you are thinking and how you feel at your current plight / position, by calling names, saying some childish remarks that hoping / thinking it would spike your enemy! By doing so, you are actually open up like a book, easily read, where you are telling him or her, how jealous you are, how unhappy you are, how displeased you are now! In fact, that could only make the person feels better, and he or she would just '' Ha ha ha...! he / she is still so upset over it! looser!!!" So, we gave some advice to her ( her friend) that just let it go, holding on to it, is not going to benefit her any bit, and will only lead her to more sorrows, knowing that there is no turning back! Chinese always has this saying '' 勉强没幸福''. Why not just save the time and effort and move on, have a new start in life! This lady friend is sure attractive, capable, and has no short of social network. And we are sure she will get this over pretty soon and shall see her glowing and happy as before. So, whoever reading this and sees me as your enemy, hope you are able to digest this. No point doing things that only showing your weakness, and it's never smart to make your enemy feels good!!

Get alive! may god bless you.

Coffee Buns once again

This is a bun that no one would say no to it. My son requested to have it for breakfast, as he likes the crispy coffee top on the bun. Ever since the outlets of Rotiboy closed down in Singapore, the only way to enjoy it, is to go all the way to Malaysia. So, I guess we have yet to be that crazy to do that just for the bun, I would have to make it myself!

Instead of using the yellow margarine  for the bun filling, I use butter. As we all know the taste of margarine is stronger( some people may find it more tasty), at the same time it is not good for health. So I will always go for butter. Glad the butter filling didn't leak during baking. And it stayed right in the middle of the bun. I like the marble effect of the coffee topping, I think it just look prettier!

Mulan Two Tier Cake

                                                  Happy Fifth Birthday to Chloe!

Paris 2012 Marché des Enfants Rouges and Weekends Flea Market

Bonjour Paris!

It has been exactly one year since our last trip to Paris (and London), and we planned our this year's at the same date, but this time we had a longer stay. With 'one stone kill two birds', we celebrated both mother's day and our anniversary during the trip. It's the best present to have definitely. I have been to Paris many times during my working years, and yet I never like Paris!! Never knew how to enjoy Paris a bit, besides getting branded staff. I would drag myself self for the trip, and looking forward to go home. But recent years, I started to LOVE this place. After our last trip, hubby and I actually miss Paris really badly. 

I am now looking forward to our next one, that will be a year later. Miss the beautiful blue clear sky, miss the taste of the wheaty bread, their food, their quality seasonal fruits and meat....... However, I am very guilty of not doing a proper homework for this year's trip, and we actually wasted a lot of time and missed some places where we wished to go. So, I think, to have our next one more fruitful, I will have to start doing homework NOW!! 

Another thing about this trip was also, I realized I am not fit for such a long trip, as I got my body aching pretty badly after this 3 week holidays. Or I simply not having enough exercise. So, I guess the next one would be good, just to stick to 2 weeks. But, I know I will be going to miss it a lot! The universe is telling me to go south of France next year, may be?

                                   First cup of coffee after we've checked in the apartment.

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A cosy apartment as home for 8 days. I especially love that mirrors design on the wall. 

Our apartment was located at the area of Marché des Enfants Rouges.

During weekends, there will be flea market, that sells all kinds of antiques, and it was truly an eye opening for us. Just outside the market place, there are a stretch of shops selling mostly food staff and kitchen ware. 

                                  A bakery along the street that has beautiful pastries and bread.
                Their authentic baguette was so good, that we could just eat it on its own, my boy was simply happy to just hold and chew on  that stick of baguette as we moved along.

                                                   I love this antique toy car.

                   These melon babies are sugary sweet and juicy! Summer time definitely the fruits heaven!

These raspberries are as big as strawberries or could just cover our whole thumps! They are sooo sweet!! My son could easily pop 2 punnets any time!

                                                       My 'Harvest' from the Marché!

 Our daily breakfast using organic eggs,smoked ham, fat and meaty mushrooms, sugary sweet cherry tomatoes and onion, wheaty french bread and my cup of tea. I am missing them badly!!

                                              A butchery we petrol all the time during our stay.

The French seems to like rabbit (stew)  I guess?

Who would miss this out?! Fresh sea caught fish and other seafood. They simply taste the sea of France!  

                                A shop selling nothing but all kinds of roses. They are so beautiful.

I love this particular stall which sells french antiques and old french laces. I was eyeing on that pair of laundry board. But I was 10minutes late......

                                    Wish I could bring them back- My favourite antique toy cars!!

                                                      Check this scooters out!!

When hubby saw me blogging about this, he said I am 2 months behind time! Hahah.... Hopefully I can finish posting this by mid of the month.