The Cousins Are Back

*Backdated post. The cousins left at time of posting*

Amber's cousin sisters, the 3 cheh chehs from Melbourne were back for a visit recently. These lovely cheh chehs are of the closest age to Amber, with Sharlene, the youngest, being 7 years old, Rosalyn 9 yrs old and Natalie, 13 yrs old.

I arrangeda get together for my family at our home. My eldest brother and his family visited us whilst we were in the midst of moving in last year and it was messy and chaotic. Now that we've settled in to our house, we are ready for a party !

Here's a glimpse of the girls and my nephew :

Sharlene and Rosalyn working out.. (harder than me..lol !)


Rosalyn, Sharlene and Natalie with Amber



The girls with Ah Keong Kor-Kor

Sharlene brought lots of books for Amber and she reads to her..

Amber and Sharlene. Everywhere they go, Amber will hold Sharlene cheh-cheh's hand.

Best of friends after few hours of 'warming up'

A party is never a great party without good food :

On a closer look :

Roast pork (sort of my 'chiu pai choi')

Curry chicken

Mushroom chicken feet.

We also had lots of food, we had meesiam, yam rice, layer cake, shrimp sauce chicken wings, radish cake and jelly for desert. It was a LOT of food. Big brother said the amount of food we had could easily feed another 10 guests or so.. :D

A party is never complete without good wine right ? Hubs fished out something he bought recently, a Chilean Cab Sav :

Big brother brought a good wine, all the way from Australia :

Cullen Cab Sav.

Good food, great company. Nothing like having a good time with family. I hope with bro and his family can make frequent trips home every year. Amber remembers the cheh chehs this time and keep talking about them, and wants me to 'chor chor aeroplane' to Melbourne to visit them :)

My Little Baking Assistant

Guess who kept me company while I baked my kueh lapis ?

No prizes... hehehehe

Here's my little assistant, Amber...


From assembling the ingredients..



To 'ironing' the cake...



layer by layer.. patiently


In between, she monkeys around.

Till the end of the bake, she helps me scrape of the sides and wallops them.

BTW, she lurves layer cake. She calls it :

The put in put out put in put out many many many times cake

The so many time eh cake...

LOL.... she wondered why I had to make 'so many layers' and why it takes so long. Never mind, as long as she likes it, I'll bake for her .. :)

Indonesian Kueh Lapis - The Ultimate Patience Test Bake

I am very happy with my recent bake of Indonesian Layer Cake. Also known as kueh lapis legit, kuih spekok, specot or Kek Jawa. I'm into Indonesian bakings now, I just love their rich and generous (not to mention fattening too) ingredients. Hubs, father, brother and the rest of my family loves my layer cake too.

It all started when my blog reader, Linda Phua from Malacca challenged me to bake a kueh lapis and fruit cake and another friend Josephine Ng sponsored me the iron flat gadget to 'iron' out cakes and icings. I searched for a few recipes from the internet but failed in the first 2 attempts (cake too dry) then Linda sent me a recipe by Amy Beh, which was a great success. Cake was moist, fragrant and yummylicious. Thank you Linda, below is a proof of the successful recipe and I can wait for YOU to try it too !

You can get the recipe here

Here's a few snippets of my bake process and may I suggest that you get a friend to accompany you while baking. It's a long tedious bake and best to have a chilled drink and chit chat with a good friend while waiting for those layers to brown, patiently.

BTW, I took 3 hours to complete the cake.


Assemble all the ingredients first to make sure you don't miss out any items.


Above is the flat iron thingy. Helps flatten and makes the cake neater

Flour, mixed spice and baking powder

Beat egg yolks until creamy and pale consistency

Egg white

Beated till stiff

Mixed spice. I mixed half of this n cinnamon powder (cinnamon powder is cheaper and I have plenty..)

The first layer of the cake

The cake, completed. Cut away the sides. Remember to cut a nice straight line.

I think I made 17 layers in total, multiply by ard. 5-7 minutes per layer, that explains why you need patience to bake a kek lapis... lol !

Kek lapis is best eaten in small and square pieces, like this :)

Biting into the dainty pieces was worth every effort of my 3 hours slaving in the kitchen.

Of Tiger Balms & Buttock !

I keep a jar of Tiger Balm in my car. Amber was toying it with, to my annoyance. Opening, closing the jar.

I screamed her to stop. I warned her if she ever gets tiger balm on her hands and touch her eyes, it'll burn 'lat lat' and I can't help her.

Why this is Tiger balm ?

Because Tiger Balm is 'lat lat'

Why Tiger Balm 'lat lat' ? Chuoh Moi ? (chuoh moi means 'why' in Hinghua dialect)

Because it's hot. Close it and put it back.

err.. Why is Tiger buttock 'lat lat' ?

LOL !!! When I said tiger 'balm', she thought it was tiger 'bum'

She must be wondering why tiger's buttocks are 'hot' in nature. LOL !

Kofuku @ Best Western Seri Pacific

BIL #2 celebrated his birthday last Saturday @ Kofuku. This is our second time here, first was hubs birthday this year and now, 7 months later, the food selection is still the same. Quality has somewhat dropped since our first visit. Is it picky me or did the quality of food deteriorate ? Everytime I find a hotel buffet nice and go back for the second time, it's some what different . LOL !


Since it was raining, our little miss insist on her 'mini strawberry umbrella' from Cameron Highlands and hubs was crazy enough to walk in the rain with her, next to the hotel pool just to play with the umbrella, tsk tsk.. father & daughter.. both of them do things which are so beyond me...

Kofuku.. though oriental cuisine, they serve mostly Japanese buffet spread

Her so-little selection of food. No amount of nice food will tempt this little miss.

She likes kueh lapis tho'.. peeled and savoured layer by layer. Here, ,she places the kueh lapis and said "Papa,, you see, my tongue!"

Her favourite, ice cream.. but wait till you see what she does with it :

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Mash and melt it all up, really not appetizing at all but that's how she likes it. haih..

Fashion ala Cambodia

Kakak pinned up Amber's hair liddis :

Which I really appreciated. She kept Amber company while I did my baking. Amber liked her new hairstyle.





I thought her hairstyle looked like some reptile's tail. LOL !!!

But I like her hair pinned up. I like to touch her forehead.

Then in the evening, kakak did another version :

I like this one better. Kakak said in Cambodia, they like to style up their hair like this, esp for weddings and festivals

I teased Amber. I said.. wei... girl.. you look like Princess Cambodia.. she laughed !

Home Grown Organic Ladies Fingers

Sis gave me some home grown ladies fingers (Okras). She has a dozen or so plants at home and BIL painstakingly guards the plants like babies. He keeps a close watch and picks the insects each evening and have never sprayed a single drop of pesticide on his plants.

This variety is lighter green than those we get from the supermarts


Very long too.. more than a foot !



Except this mini curly, didn't make it out from the cocoon. lol !

I fry with garlic, homegrown chilli padi (from sis' garden) and belacan.

Yum yum !

Gao Gei Choy - Boxthorn leaves

My favourite dish. Mom used to cook this quite frequent.
This vege is best eaten with ikan bilis soup or stir fried in egg sauce. I like it with soup, makes a nourishing and satisfying dish

Gao Gei Choy or Boxthorn leaves. I've heard it's very for the eyes (improves vision, maintain vision, etc) but I don't really know why or how but I reckon it comes from the same family as boxthorn/wolfberries, chinese gei chee, the red seeds that resembles mini raisins. Even wolfberries are known as a supplement for eyesight, so I should think boxthorn leaves and boxthorn fruit, by namesake, is somewhat related .



Careful when stripping off the leaves, thorns lurking from the sides.



Strip them off the leaves.

Stems discarded.

Boil a pot of ikan bilis soup, throw in the vege, fishballs and turn off fire, add egg.

Voila ! A bowl of steaming hot soup, excellent dinner dish, especially on a rainy day !