Busy Bee Cafe

As it’s really cold outside and Little Bee was very bored, I thought it was time that we bake something. Little Bee’s been watching ‘I Can Cook’ on the CBeebies website and I thought we could try one of the recipes from there.

Little Bee is not very keen on vegetable and if there’s a way to make her eat her vegetable, I’ll give it a try and see if it works so I chose to make carrot and squash cookies. Since Little Bee has watched that episode at least 10 times, she could tell me what to do… which she did with confidence.

And once the cookies were cooked… she took off her apron and went to play in the front room. I guess disguising carrots and squash into cookies did not fool her. *sigh*

The cookies are good! They’re not too sweet (maybe that’s why Little Bee rejected it) and was served with the roast dinner… and again Little Bee just had a bite but at least she ate everything else on her plate *sigh*

roasted butternut squash and grated carrot

Ingredients:

420g plain flour
180g butter (room temperature)
3tsp sugar
120g grated carrot
300g roasted butternut squash
sprigs of rosemary

1. Pre-heat oven at gas mark 6.
2. Put  the flour, butter and sugar in a bowl and mix together to make a crumbly texture. Add the carrot and squash and mix it into a ball of dough.
3. Divide the dough into 18 pieces (or more) and shape them into carrot shapes. Put them on a baking tray and flatten them down. Press the sprigs of rosemary on top of each dough and put it in the oven for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Little Bee’s creation ready for the oven

I didn’t listen to Little Bee’s instruction properly and the cookies were a bit thick. Next time, mama will listen properly!

As requested by Little Bee for her third party, I made it ghost themed for her to have with her friends in nursery…

So I made her ghost cake.

Some gingerdead men.

And party bags.

She won’t remember all these effort of course but for a few moments, she was happy.

Happy third birthday Little Bee… now, mama is going to rest until your fourth birthday is on the horizon.

Tomorrow will be Eid Mubarak. I miss the celebration atmosphere of Hari Raya in Malaysia. I miss the days towards Eid where I’d be helping my mom in the kitchen baking and cooking. I miss the anticipation of buying new clothes and waiting for the day to wear it. I miss playing fireworks with my cousins. My fondest memory of Ramadan moving towards the first of Syawal, is helping my late granddad lighting the pelita (lanterns).

So, today, on the eve of Eid, with You Tube playing all the Malay Eid songs from P Ramlee, Sudirman, M Nasir, Jamal Abdillah etc, Little Bee and I baked some tart nenas (pineapple tarts). I used to make this with mom. Unfortunately I don’t have the mould for it so I’m making tart gulung, where the pineapple jam is inside. Next year, I will make sure I have the mould so that Little Bee could do little designs on top of the pineapple jam like I used to. I’ll put the recipe up another time.

This evening I’ll make chicken rendang, nasi himpit, sayur lodeh and maybe if I have time, kuah kacang.

Selamat Hari Raya or Happy Eid Mubarak to all muslims around the world. Maaf zahir dan batin.

Little Bee has been ‘helping’ me lots in the kitchen.

Yesterday, she cut up the green beans for her bubur (Malaysian rice porridge) for lunch and then mix the ingredients for Thai fried corn patties for her dinner.

This morning, she helped me with making cookies. I found this recipe here… and it has no flour for Little Bee to mess. Perfect!

Ingredients:

260g creamy peanut butter
90g brown sugar
1 egg

1. Preheat oven at gas mark 4.
2. Put all ingredients and mix them well.
3. Make about 24 balls from the mix, put them on a baking tray and flatten them with a fork .
4. Place it in the oven for 18 minutes. When that’s done cool it on a wire rack.

Seriously… that’s it.

You could find this biscuit in several houses in Malaysia during Eid.

As you noticed, there’s raisin on to and some of you may know that I don’t like raisins… but it’s OK… I can just remove the raisins and keep them for Little Bee when I have some for Iftar

Ingredients:

200g butter at room temperature
1tsp vanilla essence
50g unrefined icing sugar
175g plain flour
50g corn flour
Raisins or any cake decorations you fancy

1. Preheat oven at 190C or gas mark 5.
2. In a bowl, cream the butter, vanilla essence and icing sugar.
3. Bit by bit, sift in the flour and the cornflour into the bowl and fold into the mixture.
4. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a start nozzle and pipe it onto a greased baking tray.
5. Put the tray in the middle of the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.
6. Take them out of the oven and cool them on a cooling rack.
7. Press the raisin or decoration into the centre of each ‘flower’.

Last week I made these. Unfortunately Bubba Bee could not help me as the recipe that I used from Joy of Baking, the dough was just too soft and it would have bee a bit too messy for her (meaning I will have too much mess to clean up). Yes, I did follow the instruction and put the dough in the fridge for an hour or so… but it still wasn’t good enough.

So, I will be experimenting a few more times before I put up the recipe and by then, it will be a Bubba Bee production.

This is a very simple recipe. I used dark chocolate drops and omitted any nuts so it is a safe biscuits to introduce chocolate to your one year old child… and as the biscuit is now approved by Bubba Bee, I can put it up for all to use.

Ingredients:

185g butter/margarine
70g molasses
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
375g plain flour
1 1/2tsp baking powder
100g dark chocolate drops

• > preheat the oven at gas mark 4/180C
• > beat the butter/margarine, molasses, egg and vanilla essence in a bowl until creamy.
• > sift the flour and the baking powder in and fold.
• > fold in the chocolate drops.
• > take a tablespoonful of the dough into the palm of your hand, make it into a small ball, press it flat and put it onto a greased baking tray… and repeat.
• > bake them for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
• > let them cool on the tray for a couple of minutes and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely… or have some with a cup of coffee when they are still nice and warm! Heaven on earth…