Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Yesterday, I had such great time baking and decorating these sugar cookies with colorful royal icing. The beautiful colors really brighten up my routines. Obviously, this is the first time I used royal icing on cookies.

Yes, I know! It’s not Christmas season yet. I was just practicing my raw skill of decorating cookies. It was like kids having fun with play dough and painting on cookies…. I felt like a little girl, enjoying myself thoroughly…………Thanks to youtube videos that coach the decorations step by step!

KitchenAid Stand Mixer

KitchenAid Stand Mixer - Artisan

Side View

Whole Meal Loaf

English Cottage Loaf

Last week, I was offered to try out a demo set mixer by KitchenAid. I chose to make bread dough as this is the ultimate test for a good mixer. I was very impressed by the performance of this mixer. Now making bread dough is easier than before. I would definitely upgrade my current mixer for KitchenAid in the near future.

Those who are interested to buy a mixer, I would strongly recommend KitchenAid. You can check the details at their official website below:

www.heritage-appliances.webs.com

Camera on strike!

My poor camera is on strike. It's now at the repair shop. I hope it will not cost me too much to repair. Maybe it's time to start learning using Nikon D60 from my boys, but it's just too complicated for me. I do hope my Cannon 5IS can be repaired soon.

Btw, this picture was taken by Ben using Nikon D60... very nice! but I still like my Cannon :(

Best Ever Sponge

3 Egg Sponge

Ingredients:

½ cup castor sugar

¼ cup corn flour

¼ cup plain flour

¼ cup self-raising flour

Methods:

Have eggs at room temperature. Beat whole eggs in a small bowl with electric mixer until thick and creamy. Add sugar about 1 tablespoon at a time, beating each addition until sugar is dissolved .

While eggs and sugar are beating, prepare a deep 20cm ring pan by greasing evenly and dust with some flour; sift dry ingredients together 3 times, to aerate and mix the flours.

When sugar is dissolved, transfer mixture to larger bowl; this makes it easier to fold the dry ingredients through the egg mixture. Sift the flours over the egg mixture, use a spatula to lightly fold the flour through. Heavy handling at this stage will give a flat tough sponge.

Spread mixture evenly into ring pan and bake in moderate oven for 20- 25 minutes. When cook, turn sponge immediately to wire rake to cool.

(Recipe extracted from” The Australian Women’s Weekly- Cakes & Slices”)

Light Snack

I like to prepare this type of sushi for lunch. It's light and tasty. Today, I left out raw salmon and crab meat but replaced with canned tuna with mayonaise. It's simply sushi yummy!!!

More family favorite! Fresh Buns....