Finger food: Tuna and potato croquettes

We had half a can of tuna left from dinner the other day and figured we’d whip up some finger food for the bubs (and us too, since we usually love eating his food!).

Easy finger food: Tuna croquettes - micheleng.com These tuna croquettes are easy to make and require ingredients that are probably in your pantry already…. 

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Decorating cupcakes

I haven’t had time for much craft but realized I’m slowly channeling my need to create towards food!

It was my mother-in-law’s birthday a while back and I tried my hand at making cupcakes. I’d always wanted to try my hand at making fondant decorations and this was a good opportunity. After all I figured it’s just like clay, no?

fondant flower Okay, turns out it’s dries much faster than what I was used to, but the cracks also make it look more natural (or maybe I’m just creating excuses)!

I made the flower in the same way I make paper flowers – start with a small bud piece around a toothpick, then create slightly larger pieces to wrap around the bud in a clockwise or anti-clockwise manner (it doesn’t matter as long as you keep it consistent). There are probably a lot of tutorials around, but feel free to let me know if you need more directions in the comments below ;)

For the small flowers with the orange centre, I got them in a pack at the local baking store and sprinkled them randomly around the cupcakes.

yellow fondant flower cupcakes It was definitely far from perfect – it being my first time baking cupcakes in over a decade, and my first time EVER working with fondant and icing! I probably should have done more research but it was a last minute decision to make it. But practice makes perfect I guess!

For those who love baking and decorating, here are some of my favorite places for inspiration:

I am Baker – Simply perfection when it comes to beautifully decorated cakes and cupcakes and lovely recipes too.

Detoxinista – My husband tries to eat healthy (and thus me too, by default) and there’re lots of yummy but healthy recipes here.

Chef in Training – Simple, easy-to-follow recipes with lots of useful tips.

I probably haven’t done these sites enough justice with my short descriptions, but click on and you’ll see!

Have a great one ;)

Celebrating the lunar new year with some koi jelly

For everyone celebrating the lunar new year, here’s wishing you a year of abundant grace, love, wisdom and growth.

The eve of Chinese New Year is when we have reunion dinners with our families and I decided to contribute some agar agar and konnyaku jelly for dessert. (This is after my siblings pretty much vetoed a lot of food suggestions I offered to bring for the meal – as it turns out, no one ever says no to dessert!)

My mum had a koi fish jelly mould and so I decided to try my hand at making these jelly desserts in the shape of koi fish. I ended up going to get smaller moulds too just for fun!

It was a bit scary as I was making jelly for the first time ever and half kicked myself for deciding to take on a more ambitious project instead of making regular agar agar jelly in a container with no additional colours.

Thankfully it all worked out… Phew!

This was the large koi jelly:

koi jelly agar agar But I really loved the smaller ones:

koi jelly agar agar
koi jelly agar agar
koi jelly agar agar … 

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