Happy Winter Solstice - Black Sesame Tang Yuan (芝麻湯圓)

Today is Donzhi (冬至) Festival or Winter Solstice.

Scientifically From Wikipedia it means : The winter solstice occurs exactly when the Earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. Though the winter solstice lasts only a moment in time, the term is also a turning point to midwinter or the first day of winter to refer to the day on which it occurs. More evident to those in high latitudes, this occurs on the shortest day and longest night, when the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest.

For Chinese, this is the day we grow older and get wiser. And as a reunion dish, in most housewhole, we would either make our own tangyuan(湯圓) or glutinous rice balls; or buy the ready made ones.

I have mine made at home, so the girls can take the opportunity to participate in making the little balls as well.

I mixed some ground black saseme, small amount of black sesame seeds (to give it some crunch), sugar and some vegetable oil to make the filling.

I just mix it according to my taste. It'll become a very crumbly paste.

Then I roll about 1 tsp of the filling into balls, put them into the freezer for about an hour to harden and make them easier to wrap with the dough later.



♥Recipe and Method to Make Tang Yuan or Glutinous Rice Balls dough♥
(Make 20 small balls and 35 big balls with fillings)

1) Add 2 cups of glutinous rice ball with 1 cup of water and 2 tbs of sugar

2) Mix until the it becomes a soft dough.

3) Pinch half of the dough and drop it in boiling water to cook. The dough will rise when it's cooked. When the dough is still hot, mix it with the rest of the dough and knead until a smooth dough is formed.

To make the balls, take enough dough and roll into a ball, press it down with your palm, put a ball of sesame paste into the centre, gather the sides and pinch away access dough. Roll it to a ball.

You can either immediately drop the tang yuan into a pot of boiling water to cook soon after you made them, or place them on a floured plate and cook them in a batch later.

To make the soup, boil a pot of water with brown sugar and a smashed piece of ginger, we added screw pine or pandan leave just to get the extra flavour.

Happy Winter Sostice to everyone!
冬至快乐!

Butterfly Butterfly Happy Birthday

Lee Yen celebrated her daughter's 1st birthday last month, and she ordered cupcakes, and biscuits as party favours from me, all with butterfly theme.

I was under some pressure when I knew she was getting a party supplier to help her with the theme. Luckily she was very easy to work with, and she told me not to stress out as it's just a small party.

In the end, her party supplier could not help at the very last minute, and she did everything on her own. You should see what she did for the party, and maybe she can be a party supplier herself.

For me, the difficult bit was the decorated butterfly biscuits. 20 of them, all different designs but with the same colour schemes.

These biscuits were pretty big, about 8cmx10cm.



I made some smaller minimally decorated flower biscuits, these would taste more like butter biscuits, and crunchier compared to the fully decorated ones.



Each party favour comes with 1 big decorated butterfly biscuit.

Accompanied with a couple of small minimally decorated flower biscuits.

So if you want to eat some and keep some, you can do so.

And these are the cupcakes for her Butterfly theme party.

I don't think anybody really likes the taste of fondant, but fondant does make very beautiful and durable decorations. So in this case, we combined tasty butter cream frosting, with a fondant topper. We got best of both worlds!

It was a pleasure to be part of this beautiful birthday party.

Gifts to Teachers In School - Christmas Tree Biscuit

Yesterday marked the last day of school for my children, it's also the last day of kindergarten for my eldest, as she'll be entering Primary 1 when school reopens.

Both girls spent 2 years in their current school, and because their school has very low student teacher ratio, they have been very close with a few of their class mates as well as teachers.

Two days before the last day of school, my eldest wrote some cards and gave to a few closest friends, writing down my phone number, and telling them she loves them, and they'll be BFFs (Best Friend For Ever).

I'm not sure about her, but I was feeling rather sad to see her say good byes to her BFFs; none of her classmates are going to be in the same school as her in Primary 1. To me, it's like an I-May-Not-See-You-Again kind of good byes. I'll definitely try to organise some play dates, so that they'll get to see each other and enjoy each other's company again.

As for the teachers, they have taught her to be responsible, confident, and out spoken. I just hope the primary school we're sending her will not reverse all these efforts.

As a token of appreciate, I baked some biscuits for all the teachers in school, since every one of them have either taught my eldest or my youngest.

I made them Little Christmas tree biscuits which have been decorated just a little.

They are good to be eaten, and they keep rather well too. I packed them in twos, and got the girls to distribute them yesterday.

My eldest will definitely cherish her time in the school, and I hope she and some of her friends, will be true BFFs.