Feisty Zaria

Happy New Year to everyone.

Ever since we gave Zaria the barista title, she makes coffee or tea for me daily.

Yesterday after breakfast, I asked her for my cup of coffee as usual. Zaria said later. And repeated her 'later' for the next 1hr and eventually did not bother to even reply when I asked about my coffee.

I lost my patience and went downstairs, to see her lying on the sofa reading.
Me : From 9 till 10:30 I asked for my coffee, and you kept saying later, and then didn't even answer me any more! Today is my 1st day of work, you are still on holidays, and you can't even make your mom a cup of coffee? Do you have anything to say?
Zara : Sorry ma, what do you want ma? Do you want me to make a cup of coffee or tea for you?
Zaria : ....
Me : Ok. For lunch, I'm not cooking for you, and Auntie (our helper) cannot cook for you too. You go and figure out what to eat. There's lots of cereals and milk.
So I made my own coffee, and thinking Zaria will come over to apologise; but instead, she went to our helper and asked, "Auntie, do we still have mee sedap?"
o.O"

At 12pm, she boiled a pot of water herself, cut opened a pack of mee sedap, and made herself lunch!!
o.O"

While I was eating roast chicken sandwich, and fried button mushroom with Zara at the same table with her, I asked "You can have some if you say something to me."
Slurping her noodle, she said, "Even if I say sorry, I don't really mean it, so what's the point of saying it."
o.O"

That's my 8 year old alright, feisty, independent, non-complying.

Chocolate Coated Butter Biscuits for the Neighbours

My daughters wanted to distribute biscuits to the neighbours for Christmas, so I baked some heart shape butter biscuits for that purpose.

Since I have some cooking chocolate at home, I dipped half of the biscuit in melted chocolate as decoration and also stuck ice cream sticks in to a couple of them (it was difficult to stick sticks into the biscuits as they were going soft very quickly even though I'd refrigerated the dough to harden it) which the girls then called them lollipop biscuits.

♥Butter Biscuit ♥
adapted from Baking by James Peterson

You'll need :

2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
268g butter
1 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk

Method :

1) Mix the flour, baking powder & salt in a bowl.
2) Cream the butter with sugar and vanilla until fluffy.
3) Beat in the egg and egg yolk.
4) Sift the flour mixture over the butter mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon until it's well combined and there's no loose flour.
5) Roll the dough between baking paper into a rectangle about 1/8 or 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate until cold.
6) When dough is cold, cut it into desired shapes. Put the biscuit on baking paper in a tray and refrigerate.
7) Preheat oven to 325F (160C).
8) Bake biscuit for 15 to 20mins until very pale brown.
9) Let cool until set then transfer to wire rack.

To coat the biscuit with chocolate:

1) Heat a pot of water on low heat.
2) Cut desired amount of chocolate into pieces and place in a bowl.
3) Put the bowl of chocolate into the pot of simmering water, and melt the chocolate
. 4) Dip the cool biscuit (whole or partially) into the melted chocolate and leave the biscuit on wire rack or baking paper to allow the chocolate to harden before storing.
The girls help to distribute the chocolate biscuits to the kids around the neighbourhood, and kept the 'lollipop biscuits for themselves.