Winner of the Beebop Circus Giveaway!

I received some good news from work this week, so I thought I should share the love by announcing the winner of the one-month enrollment at Beebop Circus, worth a whopping RM 320!

Fret not - even if you are not the lucky winner, you can still bring your child for one FREE trial class, by just mentioning this blog. And if you decide to sign up after the trial, your child will receive a complimentary reward chart with a full set of shiny star stickers. (No child can ever say no to stickers!)

So... here goes. Lucky comment #4 gets the Beebop Circus one month enrollment!

The lucky mummy is Hana Haekal who wrote that she hopes to win this for her twins... (Twins!!!) Hana Haekal, I hope your twins enjoy the programme, which was recently voted as Best Active Curriculum by BabyTalk magazine. Congratulations!

Hana Haekal - email me your details please! *smiles*

Wordless Wednesday - Bloggerati?

Bloggerati?

Rice Cooker Banana Cake

Totally busted my trusty ol' rice cooker. How? Hmmm...  I'll save the embarrassing story, tapi senang cerita I was trying to kukus something, I was maid-less, and I was super malas to keluarkan the steamer so I decided to use the rice cooker steamer attachment instead. I'll spare you the gory details of what happened; but in the end, we were not only maid-less, we were rice cooker-less also.

Since Hubby and Aiden are hard core rice lovers, we needed to get a replacement rice cooker pronto. Funnily enough, hubby made an observation that throughout our 10 year of marriage, we've never bought a rice cooker before! Our first rice cooker was a wedding gift, then when that broke, Hubby's sister decided to give us one cos she received like three rice cookers for her own wedding.

So off we went hunting for our first rice cooker. I knew what I wanted already. Those high tech looking ones; squarish in shape, with lots of complicated buttons and a display panel. We walked into the mall at 1130am, and walked out at close to 10pm!!! I could barely feel my feet by then. Who knew buying a rice cooker was so complicated but fun!

So this was what we settled for. It can do so many things, the only thing it can't do is make Nasi Lemak when we say "Nasi Lemak!" Okay fine kidding. But seriously - it can cook flavored rice, sticky rice (pulut kuning anyone?), congee, porridge, soups, even bake a cake! It was also on offer, down from RM350 to RM299. (I guess we really splurged with this rice cooker. Thank goodness for Maybank card points.)

I've always been slightly skeptical about using a rice cooker to bake cakes. Googling online, you don't have to buy a special rice cooker that can bake cakes to actually make a cake. You can use common rice cookers too. But since I had that feature on my brand new "high tech" rice cooker, I was itching to give a try. Tried this simple no-fuss banana cake recipe from Wide Island View (link here). The only slightly messy bit was melting the butter, but other than that, it was an all-in-one-bowl kinda batter. (My favourite batter!) Popped it into the rice cooker, pressed the cake function and 45 minutes later, tadaaaaaaa a hot piping banana cake was served!

Here's the texture of the batter. And yes, I baked this at 9pm (so baddddd for my diet).

This is the top of the cake. Wait till you see the color of the flipped cake!

No Fuss Rice Cooker Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups enriched white flour

3/4 cups white sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 medium to large bananas)

1/3 cups softened butter

1/4 cups milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla essence.

1 egg

Cooking oil

Method of Preparation

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk until the ingredients are well mixed.
2. Next, add the bananas, butter, milk, vanilla essence and egg. These should be mixed until the batter has a uniform and thick, creamy consistency. You can also used an electric mixer (low setting). (I blended my bananas and melted my butter over heat. You can do it the natural way of mashing the bananas in a bag and waiting for the butter to soften with time.) 
3. Stir in any other ingredients you desire, such as chopped nuts or dried fruits. (I skipped this.) 
4. Coat the inside of the pot lightly with cooking oil. Paper towels help to spread it properly.
5. Now simply pour the batter evenly into the pot and start the cooker. (45 minutes on my rice cooker.) 
6. That’s it! After it’s done, pop the bread out onto a serving tray or plate and enjoy!

This is the flipped cake. Look at that beautiful brown top! *drool*

A close up of the outer texture. 

I was very happy with the end result. The cake was gorgeous and the bananas flavour really penetrated through. It was especially good piping hot. (What cake isn't?) Ian even had second helpings! I wish it was a bit more moist though. Need to tweak the recipe slightly - maybe add more butter or swap the butter for canola oil or slightly more milk?

The inside texture of the cake. Absolute yum!

So if you're dying for some cake and you find yourself without an oven, fret not because I have definitely proven that you can make cake using a rice cooker! What a piece of cake (excuse the pun)!

She's Back!

After a three week agonizing waiting game, numerous text messages filled with subtle guilt trips ("Budak budak rinduuuu sangat sama kakak!") and lots of sincere doas - my maid finally texted to say that she was at the Surabaya airport waiting to board her flight. *pheww*

Unfortunately, the drama didn't end there. Air Asia sent me a text message to inform that her flight was going to be late. Then later when we were already on the way to KLIA2, my maid texted saying that her plane still hasn't left! As much as I really wanted to believe her, of course there was this tiny suspicion that she was making it all up. Thankfully, half hour later, she texted again saying that they were boarding. *double phewww - sorry I didn't trust you Bibik!*

Given the circumstances, we estimated that she was going to arrive at midnight. We arrived at KLIA2 only to be greeted by a TBA note under the ETA time for her flight. The information counter at the front didn't have an answer and directed me to another counter at arrival hall. That counter then directed me to another counter at departure hall which then directed me to another counter at the Air Asia check-in. I guess persistence paid off because they actually called the flight controller who gave the good news that the flight had just landed. But in the spirit of Malaysia Boleh, when I walked down to the arrival hall; that TBA sign was still there, up until my maid walked out, tau!

(The minute I saw her walk out the arrival hall... rasa macam nak sujud syukur! Then later Ian saw my maid for the first time, he was like malu malu kucing, tak nak Kakak hold him; but whenever we ask - "Ian, where's Kakak?", he would point to her without looking at her, tapi senyum senyum simpul! Shooo cute!)

Arrived home close to 2am. I don't know whether it was the haze or just the excitement that my maid was home; but I started getting the cold shivers. The next day (yesterday) I had an early morning meeting and by the time the day was over, I had a full blown low grade fever. Ian was also nursing the leftovers of a high fever, and yesterday he celebrated my maid by bestowing upon her some projectile vomit plus a wet mattress. Oh my poor maid - I was so hoping to bring her out for some good food to celebrate her coming home, but it looks like all of us are landing with something!

Hope you guys are taking good care of yourselves and staying indoors to avoid the haze. Nursing a fever and a scratchy throat is no fun! Take care!