In the past, every Lunar New Year, my mother would surely bake some festive cookies for the family. Being her key assistant cum tester, I had the least interest in making peanut cookies. To-date, I still find them neither tasty nor appealing in looks. Hence, they never make it to my “to-bake” list for Lunar New Year. As they say, never say never. I had a change of heart recently and decided to bake...

  Most kids love cookies – my son included. But, he often gets a nose bleed if he eats them too often. For this reason, I seldom offer him cookies. Lately, a recipe with flower shaped cookies in a cookbook caught his attention. He was so amazed with its appealing appearance that he kept pestering me to bake some for him. Of course, I was quite reluctant initially but finally relented as the recipe sounded...

  Hi everyone, we are nearing the June school holidays! So, what have you planned for your children for this month-long holidays? For me, I intend to engage my son with more cooking/ baking activities. My son loves playing the role of “master chef” and is always finding ways to make my kitchen his playground. During our past culinary adventures, we had so much fun and happy moments.   Cooking/...

I must confess that I got hooked on baking cookies recently. After making sesame crisps and cornflake cookies , I can’t stop thinking of what to bake next. On the other hand, time is running short as we will be heading back to our hometown early to celebrate this coming Lunar New Year festival. Luckily, when I was browsing through my favourite “100 homemade cookies”cookbook (孟老師的100道手工餅干),...

Chinese New Year is approaching and it’s time to bake some festive cookies to share with your loved ones. Last year, I made my favourite pineapple rolls which may be considered tedious and time consuming by some. So, for a change, this year I picked a super-easy, kids-friendly cornflake cookies recipe for sharing. These cookies are not only popular among Chinese during Chinese New Year but also among Malays...

Sesame seeds are not only rich in magnesium and copper but also a good source of calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin B1, zinc and dietary fiber. Besides that, they also contain lignans, including unique content of sesamin, which are phytoestrogens with antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. Among edible oils from the six types of plants (sesame, groundnut, cottonseed, sunflower, corn and olive),...

“All I want for Christmas is my gingerbread man cookies!!” That’s my son’s wish for each Christmas. In the past, I would buy it from the bakery shop to save the hassle. But this year, I decided to make them by myself as I find it easy to do. Most importantly, mother and son had a whole load of fun making them together!! Originally I planned to make gingerbread much earlier. Unfortunately, both my...

Have you ever heard or tried Danish butter cookies before? During my childhood days, they are regarded as the most premium cookies (at least to me) as not all households could afford this luxury product. Occasionally, we would receive a tin of assorted Danish butter cookies from visitors as gift. For me, the arrival of this “extra-ordinary” treat brought lots of joys and excitement. Out of politeness, I had...

  Come every Lunar New Year, you will find pineapple rolls/tarts being sold like hot cakes here in Singapore and Malaysia. It ranks top in the list of popular baked pastries among Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese celebrating this festive season. While they come in many variations (and ranges in taste, texture, and sweetness), we can simply place them into either the open, closed or rolled types. The...

  “LEARN, TOUCH and TASTE” are the three key steps I strongly recommend parents to follow if they want to get their kids to love food. Of the three, “TOUCH” is considered the most challenging. With the thoughts of all the potential mess and disaster kids can create in the kitchen, most of us parents would cringe at the idea of letting their kids help out in cooking. To me, much of that can be avoided...