This Time Onwards

There was a time when we lived life the way we wanted it to be.
There was a time we could bathe in peace.
There was a time when we ate at places we fancy and had slow unhurried meals.
There was a time when we watched movies holding hands and whispered sweet nothings.
There was a time when we drove from place to place for leisure and sales.
There was a time when we had dreams, likes and dislikes.

Then came along some magical beings called our "children" and everything started revolving around them.

This time onwards we live life the way we think will be best for our children.
This time onwards we bathe with a live audience everyday.
This time onwards we ate at places that are child friendly and have to "speed eat" every meal. (Most of the time, we don't really remember the taste of what we ate but we remember if our children enjoyed the meal.)
This time onwards we watched movies placing our hands on our children's lap watching animations all the time and whispered to them not to ask questions aloud.
This time onwards we chauffeur children from classes to classes not mentioning the prior long waiting list and registration required years ahead.
This time onwards we have to nurture our children to understand the meaning of having their own dreams.
This time onwards, we became PARENTS.
- Poshpearl

Oven baked crispy seaweed popiah skin! No oil used!

So we like these seaweed popiah skin but the idea of frying really turns me off, especially when I think about the amount of oil used. So I decided to used my trusty oven instead to do the job and the effect is just as crispy and no oil needed at all! So there's no after oily taste in the mouth! 

My kids love it and after eating their hands are still dry and clean.

We also made it into sticks because my kids love eating biscuit sticks so the idea of making these into sticks as well makes it more appealing to them! 

My elder daughter was also very helpful to help me to peel the popiah skin and this helped to speed up the process.

Hope your family will like this healthier recipe too!

Ingredients

Defrosted large popiah skin

Large seaweed sheets (those for wrapping sushi rolls)

Egg white

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius.

2. Spread out a piece of popiah skin and apply egg white sparingly to make sure there is stickiness for the seaweed to adhere to.

3. Place seaweed on top and adhere firmly.

4. Apply egg white sparingly to make sure there is stickiness for the second popiah skin to adhere to.

5. Place the second popiah skin on top and adhere firmly.

So now you should have one seaweed sheet sandwiched between two popiah skin. 

6. When your desired number of pieces are ready, use a pair of scissors to cut them into long strips.

7. Bake for 10 minutes or so, checking to see if it's crispy before removing. I checked by breaking a piece. If it snaps immediately, it is definitely crispy and ready!

8. Let them cool completely before storing into airtight containers! 

Inspiring Yummy Mummies 

Poshpearl

Recipe: Rainbow bread rolls!!!

Rainbow Bread Rolls

This is one beautiful recipe I will keep on making with my daughters! I found this recipe online and I modified the recipe by using French sea salt, 1cup bread flour and 2 cups all purpose flour and making it into rolls n reducing the baking time plus applying egg white wash on it before baking.

Recipe modified from http://recipesweet.net/rainbow-bread/

Ingredients
1 cup fresh milk plus 1 egg yolk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 packet) active dry yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted French butter, softened
2 teaspoons French sea salt
Pink, yellow, green, violet and blue Wilton gel food coloring
Egg white leftover for egg wash before baking


1. In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together flour, sugar and yeast.
2. In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk milk and egg yolk together and microwave this milk mixture for 40 seconds just to warm it up.
3. Add butter and salt to warmed milk mixture and stir to combine.
4. Using dough hook and stand mixer knead on medium speed or by hand on a lightly floured surface, knead dough until it comes together and is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes with stand mixer or 10 minutes by hand.
5. Divide dough into 5 equal pieces; place each piece in a small bowl and cover with a tea towel or cling wrap.
6. Use a clean toothpick to dip into each color you want And smear just a little (1 drop at a time) IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DOUGH BALL And use your both hands to knead from outwards in to prevent the color from  contacting your hands and make sure the color is evenly kneaded in. Add just a little plain flour if you want to reduce the stickiness from your hands.
7. Shape dough into a ball and return to its bowl. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough, dyeing each a different color.
Go in this sequence: pink, orange, blue, green, violet from
Light to dark so that even if the colors transfer it will not be affected.
8. Cover bowls with a tea towel or cling wrap and let rise until doubled, about 30-35 minutes for Singapore's climate.
9. When dough is risen, punch down dough. 

Remove the dough you want to start with and place on a lightly floured surface.

Dust your rolling pin with flour and roll each dough ball  into a thin layer from middle to outwards motion.

10. Sprinkle a little water and rub with your hand to let each layer adhere to one another better. 

After stacking  do use the rolling pin and roll it out thinly again.

11. Sprinkle a little water and rub on top of the stack and roll as tightly as you can.

12. Slice the roll into 4-5 parts.

13. Preheat oven at 180 deg Celsius.
13. Proof with cling wrap until size double, about another 35 minutes.
14. Apply egg white wash before baking.
15. Bake the rolls for 15minutes and reduce temperature to 150 degree Celsius for another 3 minutes.
Use a skewer to pierce through to check if it's done. There should be no raw dough attached to it and should be clean when cooked through.
16. Place on a cooling rack to cool and slice with a bread knife to see the beautiful cross section!

Ideas for serving:
With ice cream !

In your child's lunch box, serve with cheese/ ham/ jam/ butter, whatever your child likes!

As a burger!

Hope your family will enjoy making and enjoy doing this recipe!

Inspiring yummy mummies
Poshpearl

Super easy 3 ingredients Chinese New Year goodies recipe! Seaweed wrapped Dried Cod fish

Hi everyone! It has been quite a while since I have had time to do some serious baking... And to kick off this year's baking, I made this super easy but addictive snack for Chinese New Year and it's addictive too!

The simple dried cod fish, seaweed and egg white makes this a yummy and easy snack for anyone to prepare and mostly importantly, there is nothing much to prepare except to cut and wrap and it's oven baked! No frying needed! Suitable for busy people, I find this snack making very therapeutic too!

The end product is this bunch of crispy seaweed and crunchy dried cod fish which is too good to stop at one! Hope your family will like it too!

Ingredients:
Dried cod fish fillet
Seasoned ready to eat seaweed
Egg white

1. Preheat oven at 140 degree Celsius.
1. Take 4 strips of cod fish and cut into half to get 8 strips.
2. Use seaweed to wrap tightly around the dried cod fish strips and seal the seaweed with egg white. 
3. Bake for 15 minutes.
4. Remove, cool and try not to finish them before you store!

Enjoy!

Inspiring Yummy Mummies
PoshPearl

Quinoa salad

Quinoa salad is a light and refreshing edition to any dinner table and enough to be a light meal replacement on its own. Besides, this recipe can be done under 25 minutes!  

And the benefits of quinoa are amazing! Click on the hyperlink to check it out! 

Hope your family will enjoy this super easy and yummy recipe! 

Ingredients:

Group A:

1 cup quinoa 

2 cups water 

Group B:

Steamed prawns 

Steamed peas

Steamed white corn 

Diced raw red pepper 

Group C:

1/2 tablespoon of French butter

1 generous pinch of truffle salt or fine sea salt

1 generous pinch of dill 

 Group A:

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and add 1 cup of quinoa.

2. Cover and cook for 20 minutes on medium heat or until water has almost been absorbed.

3. Remove from heat and cover for 5-10 minutes then stir through.

4. Add Group B, Group C and quinoa in a big mixing bowl and mix well.

5. Best served warm! 

Inspiring Yummy Mummies 

PoshPearl 

Ariel Pull Apart Cupcake cake for Trinity's 4th birthday Recipe!

One year has past! Trinity has turned 4! I still remember when she requested for a "Princess Watalala cake" last year. She meant Cinderella. And she got it for her birthday. A fondant handmade Cinderella cake done by me. A first attempt. 

Of course by now, she can pronounce every Princess name accurately and she specially requested for an Ariel cake this year. 

Her school said that it would be better to have cupcakes like I made last year as it is easier to serve the children. So I decided to make an Ariel pull apart cupcake cake! This is my first attempt and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with the final results!

This cake is requested, suggested, baked, partially assembled and partially Frosted by my 4 year old Trinity. She said she wanted to have pink and purple cupcakes with pink and purple frosting and Ariel on top with pink and purple candles. You get the girly drift. 

Yup so we did it! Here's the final results:

Tada! Trinity and all her girl friends at school were thrilled! 

The recipe is modified from Panya's Palette. 

(this

Recipe makes 12 standard cupcakes. I tripled the recipe to make 55 cupcakes.) 

Ingredients:

165g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

120g sugar

1 egg

80g veg oil

160g milk

Pinch of salt

1. Mix the sugar, salt, oil, milk, vanilla and egg together until sugar is dissolved.

2. Sieve in the flour, baking powder and baking soda  and whisk till smooth.

3.use a clean toothpick and pick up the amount of wilton gel food coloring you like. Add to batter and whisk till you get your desired color. 

4. Pour into a 7 inch round cake tin or cupcake cases and bake at 180C for 20-25mins.

5. Cool before decorating it. 

I made poodle balloon sculptures for the entire school, make about 50 of them. 

Trini adds the pink batter on top pf the purple batter. it is easy for children to work with batter using either a squeeze bottle or a piping bag. 

Tada! Fresh from the oven! 

Now to make: 

American Classic buttercream frosting

The original recipe uses lots of sugar ratio of butter to sugar is 1:3! It's too much for us to take so I cut it down by half and put it in the fridge before using so that it is firm without being too sweet. 

Ingredients:

(this recipe can frost 46 mini cupcakes)

2 cups unsalted butter (soften to ice cream like texture)

3 cups icing sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon sea salt 

2 tablespoon milk 

Stand by 2 cups Additional icing sugar to add 

1. Place soften butter in mixer. Use paddle attachment and beat till creamy.

2. Add icing sugar, vanilla extract and milk and continue beating till you get the desired consistency. Add more sugar if consistency is too soft and add more milk if consistency is too sift. 

This is my darling Tiffany who stayed up to make the frosting with me as she was waiting for me to nurse her. She is such a darling! I prepared the frosting one day in advance and thaw it 2  hours before using. You can leave the frosting in the refrigerator for a maximum of 1 week before use. 

Now to assemble the cake you need to cling wrap Ariel really well so that she doesn't get dirty and to make her tail and top, you need this amazing fruit roll ups which can be found at NTUC FINEST Woodgrove branch. You need about 3-5 pieces. It is easy to work with but the weather in Singapore makes it melt, tear and stick very easily so you do need  someone to hold Ariel for you while you wrap the fruit roll around. 

This is Ariel in Cling wrap and the "fruit roll ups" unrolled and how the packet looks like. 

Now assemble the cupcakes in any way you like and cut off the tops to make it even for frosting if needed 

This is the skeleton of the cake before slicing off the tops and before frosting.

To frost:

Use the buttercream and spread over the cupcake using an off set spatula and   Feel free to create the waves by moving your off set spatula in a circular motion. 

Pipe the borders in another color to give a better definition. 

I chilled the cake over night and worked with the rest of the details on the actual morning. It makes the buttercream firm up and easier to transport to the school. 

 For party favors, I made poodle balloon sculptures, About 50 of them and Trinity patiently drew eyes for every poodle! (almost! She gave up after doing about 40 pairs of poodles eyes at 10pm) 

hard at work! 

So we reached school and everyone was happy to have their Ariel cake and also the poodle balloon sculptures that Trinity gave out!

This is a great surprise for the children who are used to getting goodie bags. They got really excited and the teachers wrote their names on it to prevent conflicts.

After her teacher shared the timeline of her life for the past 4 years, she was invited to do the birthday walk to mark her turning of 4 years old. There were 2 other boys who had the same birthday month as her and they celebrated on the same day with their own cakes and goodie bags so you can imagine the joy on every child's face! 3 cakes to eat and 3 party favors to receive! 

As usual, the serious looking face when she is in the limelight...

Giving out balloons to everyone. 

Happy children makes all the effort worthwhile!

Trinity and Tiffany eats the birthday Cakes! 

Outdoor time!

Look at the strong Rambutan tree in Trinity's school! 

Tiffany looking for fallen rambutans.

 Tada! Mummy look! I found one! But it is time to go home! 

----------------------------------------

Praise Jesus for your strength to carry me through this 2 days of party preparation! Trinity and Tiffany enjoyed themselves tremendously!

Hope you will try this recipe for your child soon! If you have a son, I would suggest you to top with a car with an action figurine or transport with blue and green frosting! 

Inspiring Yummy Mummies

PoshPearl 

Savoury spring rolls

Simple fillings for spring rolls which are addictive. One of each is definitely not enough! If you are preparing for a party, make sure you make lots and lots of it! 

The healthy twist in eating these shallow fried delights is to wrap them in lettuce and cucumber and provide extra fibre and crunch. I made about 30 of them and they got wiped out within minutes by my family and I. Absolutely simple but delicious!

Spring home brand spring roll sheets with egg

Avocado rolls

Ingredients

Avocado roll filling:

Diced avocado

Finely chopped shallots 

A dash of salt and pepper

A dash of cayenne pepper

A dash of dill

Combine and set aside.

Muah  Otah is an Asian seafood fillet that is slightly spicy and very flavorful. Usually made with fish, but I got the one that has prawn in it as well. Besides using it for spring rolls, it goes really well with Nasi Lemak, a malay coconut infused rice served with peanuts, fish and otah, as well as in buns, or to use as as a filling for omelette. 

Muah otah rolls

Muah otak rolls filling:

New moon brand  muah otak , steamed and sliced thickly.

Cheese frankfurter rolls 

filling:

cheese frankfurters steamed.

 Slice each frankfurter into 3 equal parts. 

Points to note:

 

1. To seal the spring roll fillings, make sure the spring roll sheets have been fully defrosted to prevent breakage. 

2. To seal the wrappers, have some corn starch mixed with water to make a thick solution. 

3. Use healthier oil such as Soya bean oil or rice bran oil for shallow fry till golden brown. 

4. Wash and prepare Lettuce and Japanese cucumber for wrapping the spring rolls.

Steps: 

1. Wrap the fillings in the wrappers and seal up with corn starch.

2. Heat wok in medium heat Until oil is hot.

3. Shallow fry placing the rolls with the sealed ends facing down to prevent the filling from coming out. 

4. Shallow fry both sides till golden brown.

5. Drain oil and serve with Lettuce and cucumber.

Inspiring Yummy Mummies 

PoshPearl