Valentine’s Day Cupcake Bouquet!!

As everyone knows Valentine’s Day is just round the corner and it’s less than a month away!! Wanting to come up with a special Valentine’s Day cupcake, I started to search for something different. After much searching, I finally decided to do a Valentine’s Cupcake Bouquet. What is this you might ask, well.. in simple terms, it’s cupcakes that have been arranged to look like a bouquet of flowers. Cool huh.. haha.. Hopefully this will be a big hit come Valentine’s Day I think this is a really unique substitute for the usual Valentine’s Day cakes, sweets or flowers! This would also be totally suitable for girls who are weight conscious!! Think about it!! Instead of eating one whole big cake.. you have these little cupcakes which you can eat… if you are feeling greedy, eat more, if not just eat one! No mess and it’s so pretty. Furthermore.. they would be perfect to share with your loved one without having the need for forks, knives or plates! Perfect for a romantic Valentine’s Day celebration don’t you think?!

This was what the end product looked like… what do you think?..

I started off with a batch of petite strawberry cupcakes. After all it’s for Valentine’s Day and what’s more suitable than something pink!

This is my pink batter…

Once that was done… into the cupcake tray it goes…

Then into the oven these little fellas go… after 20 minutes, they were done.. and a perfect pink colour they were I set it aside to cool then started to mix up a batch of frosting. Going with the whole Valentine’s theme, I decided to frost the cupcakes in pink and purple… I know, I know.. totally sweety colours right… But it’s Valentine’s Day!! What other day of the year can you use such sweet colours right? :p

Anyway, I frosted the cupcakes so that they look like little roses and well.. arranged the cupcakes and did a little arranging and tada… my Valentine’s Cupcake Bouquet. Here are some close up shots

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Chinese New Year and Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year is just round the corner and everywhere I go I’m hearing all the Chinese New Year melodies being played.. Arrgghhh.. It’s starting to drive me nuts.. haha… I mean I love Chinese New Year and everything.. but hearing the same New Year songs being played over and over again is just mind numbing!!

All around Singapore the shops have started redecorating and stocking up to include all the Chinese New Year goodies like almond cookies, pineapple tarts (which by the way is my all time favourite!!), love letters and the sweet and juicy bite sized mini mandarin oranges. Of course, Chinese New Year is also nothing without barbequed pork or “Ba Kwa” and the usual assortment of sweets, chocolates and melon seeds. To me, Chinese New Year has always been a time where any diet I’m on gets thrown out the window and I get to stuff my face with the many little snacks that are always presented to guests in every household. Unfortunately… this will be the first year that I will no longer be receiving ang bao’s from my aunt’s, uncles and relatives.. sigh.. think all my aunt’s and uncle’s are probably heaving a great sigh of relief since 3 of us cousins have gotten married this year and negate the need for any ang bao’s to be given to us.. haha

Oh well.. small loss considering I’ll get to stuff my face with Chinese New Year goodies!!! Yummy!! I remember when I was little, every Chinese New Year my mom will go over to my maternal grandma’s place a week before Chinese New Year and they would make oodles and oodles of almond cookies… which I’ve always termed “Ko Ko Pang”. I never realised that the term Ko Ko Pang was only understood to be almond cookies in my family, until I met my husband, who had a totally blur expression on his face when I first mentioned it.

The whole story of how the name Ko Ko Pang came about started when  my brother, my cousin and myself were all very very young. As i mentioned above, every Chinese New Year, my maternal grandma used to make thousands of these little almond cookies and sell them to friends and acquiantences each Chinese New Year. As my mom used to bring my brother and myself to visit my grandma every Saturday, we would always be there when the almond cookies were being baked. Of course with the tantalising aroma’s of almond cookies being baked would drive all of us kids in a frenzy.. and we would eagerly await the individual batches of almond cookies as they came out of the oven. We kids probably resembled a pack of salivating hyenas, perpetually pestering my granny, my auntie and my mom for a taste of the cookies the moment they came out of the oven. Of course, we were never concerned with the fact that these cookies were piping hot and would burn our mouths if we even tried to eat one without waiting for it to cool. Arising from our impatience, my doting granny who speaks cantonese by the way would always sit me on her lap and pick up one of these delicious morsels and start blowing on it till it gets cool. As I was so young and couldn’t pronounce cold properly, I would always ask my grandma ko ko already? I.e. as in were the cookies cold enough to eat.. as such, due to this ritual of us kids always asking ko ko already, the name ko ko pang for these little almond cookies was born. Although my grandma has since passed away, her recipe has been passed down to us and every Chinese New Year, my cousin would always make a huge batch of these cookies to be given to each of our individual families for the Chinese New Year. Her kids have also started calling these cookies ko ko pang.. so it’s good to know that this small little name continues with tradition and the story of how it came about gets passed down from one family to another.

That’s my little trip down memory lane and now on to the good stuff of deciding what I should make for Chinese New Year this year. :p This is the actually the first time that I would have the kitchen all to myself, without my Mom’s constant nagging to get out of the kitchen when I was at home.. haha.. so I’ve decided that of course, I would definitely to make up a batch of almond cookies and my all time favourite pineapple tarts!!! Deciding to start with the pineapple tarts today, I started our preparing the pineapple filling and rolled out the pineapple filling into little balls that would be later wrapped in pastry.. hehehe.. don’t you think the mound of balls looks a little like piles of gold?

Once this was completed, I started on the delicious pastry that literally melts in your mouth… had to keep from drooling as I was making the pastry.. I couldn’t wait for the first batch of pineapple tarts to come out of the oven…

I had to rest the pastry for 30 minutes before I could begin assembling my tarts… so off I went to grab a quick lunch of pasta cooked with Campbell’s mushroom soup.. yummy…

After lunch, I eagerly started assembling the tarts.. and some long and back breaking hard work, I finally completed a batch that was ready to go into the oven.

As you can see.. I love the pineapple filling so I made the pastry as thin as possible.. hee hee. Once that was done, had to of course brush the tarts with egg yolk so that they would turn that nice golden brown while in the oven and then it was into the oven they went. As the tarts had to be brushed with yolk every 10 minutes, I literally hopped from foot to foot as I eagerly awaited the very first batch of tarts to hit the 10 minute mark.. Jasper my trusty little schnauzer was also a bundle of nerves, sitting quiveringly on my foot looking at me while I stared at the oven.. hmm.. maybe he was frightened by the thunder and lighting from the thunder storm rather than anticipating the baked tarts. :p

Well after brushing the tarts with the yolk several times, the pineapple tarts were finally ready….

Don’t they look delicious!! After 5 minutes of waiting time, I finally couldn’t wait for them to cool down anymore and finally picked one up and tossed it between my hands till it got cool enough to go into my mouth. Unluckily for Jasper but luckily for me.. I didn’t drop it :p

Oh god… yummy!! The pastry was just right literally melting in your mouth the moment you took your first bite uncovering the sweet, tangy and chewy pineapple filling…. heaven in a tart! Delicious!!

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