I'm a full-time mummy

Hello!

My name is Benjamin. At 18.5 months old, I might be one of your youngest fan - for now.

Btw, I love guitars!

When my daddy went to buy his own accoustic guitar, mummy and I tagged along and I was so amazed at the many selections of guitars there.

Yes, I might be in my jammies, but it's the passion and talents that matters right?

Every morning after I wake up, I'll bug the daylights out of my mummy to play your song, "Say" then I'll grab my guitar and pose like you.

And sometimes I hum and sway along to your song.

Sometimes I pretend as if I'm singing in front of a big crowd in one of your awesome concerts and I'd be generously granting encore requests from my imaginary fans.

Sometimes I just sit around and strike my macho pose like how you do it.

I know I'm still a toddler and my interests changes really fast.

So while you are still at the top of my favorite stuff, I just want to dedicate this post to you.

Thank you for your awesome music!

Love you (for now),

Benjamin...

About a month back, I posted a funny pictorial guide on "How To Exercise Your Toddler's Brain?"

(which Ben has since rarely does anymore... Sigh...)

Now please feel free to go check out the videos on how I got my toddler to exercise

(the rest of his body... )

which later turns out to be tiring for me when Ben got his momentum up

and he goes on running non-stop...

What a day!

Here's wishing you all a happy and relaxing weekend!

(*P.S: You'll also be able to view other videos of Ben at my Youtube channel as well)

I love cheese and Domino's Pizza had this dish called 'Breadstick' which I would order whenever we get pizza delivered to our home. So after mulling for a while and getting bored with baking muffins (and relying on pre-mixes), I decided to take the leap and do something new... 

Hence, this is my 1st attempt of making: CHEESE STICKS.

I baked this on Sunday 12th Sept and the recipe was adapted from Sara Lewis's "Healthy Home-Made Food For Babies & Toddlers" book. In case you're wondering why is my measurement so weird (such as 88g of flour), this is because I halved the actual measurements (to reduce risk of failure hahahaha...) and I rounded up the measurement. So the actual recipe can be for 175g of flour but mine has been revised to 88g of flour and so on.

PREPARATION TIME: LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR

* About 10 minutes to mix & knead dough

* 10 minutes for baking process

Ingredients / Tool Required:

* 1 egg (at room temperature)

* 88g plain/all-purpose flour (I used wheat flour)

* 38g butter (a bit chilled)

* 58g grated Cheddar cheese

* A bowl to mix ingredients in

* Kitchen scale

* Baking aluminium foil the size of wire rack

What to Do?

* Place the flour into the bowl, add the butter and rub in until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

(The fine breadcrumb look after you rub in the butter with the flour)

* Stir in the grated cheese.

* Reserve 1 tablespoon of beaten egg and then stir the remaining into the pastry mixture.

* Mix to a smooth dough, adding water when necessary.

(The dough... strong smell of cheese at this point...)

* Knead lightly and roll out on a floured surface to a rectangle shape.

* Brush the remaining egg on the top of the rolled dough.

* Cut into strips and place on the baking sheets/tray, spaced slightly apart.

BAKING PROCESS

* Pre-heat oven at 190℃ for about 7 minutes (although the recipe stated to pre-heat at 200℃)

* Set oven to 190℃ and bake for 10 minutes until golden brown.

* Loosen from but leave to cool on the baking sheets/tray.

(Note: Suitable for freezing up to 3 months in a plastic box, interleaved with baking parchment)

THE RESULTS

REACTIONS FROM MY "GUINEA PIGS"

* Test subject 1 (aka me): "Hmmm... taste so-so (this is because I'm comparing it with Domino's Pizza's cheesesticks) although it does taste better after you had a few sticks."

* Test subject 2 (aka Ben):(See pictures below)

* Test subject 3 (aka hubby): "Delicious! If served with Domino's Pizza's tomato sauce will be awesome! Can fight with their breadstick seriously!"

* Test subject 4 (aka MIL): "How come no taste?" (You have to excuse my MIL's reaction as she used to be a nose cancer patient and after radiotherapies, she lost part of her hearing and taste senses)

So there you go.... my 1st CHEESE STICK attempt!

Overall, I'm happy with this attempt - at least, I'm trying out something different from the usual muffins that I made and it's a small step in baking with real ingredients and not relying on pre-mixes.

And I'm getting tired of hearing my MIL telling people I can only make this food because it's taught by my SIL - somehow I feel she's always trying not to acknowledge that I can make good food too... probably scared of the competition hehehe... So now, she cannot tell people that I'm able to cook this only because it's taught by my SIL because it's not!! Muahahahaha...

To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!

Brought to you by:  Mama Baker wannabe aka