The Penang Story

Penang used to be the favourite destination of my family for most of our vacation since I was a wee kid. But alas nowadays a trip to Penang have becomed really costly. I dont understand why most pricing in Penang have increased so much? I love Penang and treat it like a second home but nowadays the hotel prices and the food prices have incresed so much. A normal hotel which costs around RM180 per night is now like RM 300 and those charging around RM300 have hiked up the price to RM 500 to RM600. Since my family always book about 3 rooms, we seriously cant afford the price. It comes to like RM900 just for a night which is ridiculous to pay for lodging unless of course we are the family members of the Prime Minister, which unfortunately we are not. I mean we havent like saved money in our piggy since young so yeah we cant afford it. So apart from lodgings even the food is nowadays extreamly expensive for example like Gurney Drive and other tourists attraction area. I also had this few run ins with local vendors who are seriously rude to the local tourists but they can be friendly to the foreigners namely the whites. So is Penang only trying to cater for the for the foreigners and not for the locals? I mean seriously with all these increase in price and all, locals can barely afford to go for holidays in Penang. We used to visit Penang like 3 to 4 times a year but now we can barely afford to do it once a year. Other than these complaints I have nothing else to say but I have only praises to sing about the cleanliness level and their cheap parking fare. I just hope these small issues can be resolved so that everyone can enjoy Peneng... I love you Penang...

Cupcakes anyone?

As a tribute to my reactivating the blog, I have decided to share the receipe for vanilla cupcake which I made for my 6 years old student. He is this cute boy of 6 whom I tutor in my part time. So coming back to the receipe:

Ingredients for the cake:
1. 175g castor sugar
2. 175g butter (at room temperature)
3. 175g self raising flour ( If self raising flour is not available, then simply use all purpose flour with 1and1/2 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt)
4. 3 eggs
5. 1 tsp vanilla extract
6. 3 tbsp milk
7. zest of 1 lemon

Ingredients for the Icing:
400g icing sugar
200g butter (room temperature)
any food flavouring or colouring you like
any cake decorations you can find

A small reminder to those making this cake, please reduce the amount of sugar if you are not into too sweet as I made this cupcake for the taste-bud of a six year old mind you.
So lets get started.

1. Add butter to castor sugar and whisk until light and fluffy. ( Thats why butter has to be in room temperature so it can be whisked easily using the electric whisk)
2. Add vanilla extract and lemon zest and whisk again. (you can even turn this into a chocolate cupcake by removing the lemon zest and adding in 2 tbsp of cocoa powder)
3. Add in one egg with  one tbsp of flour whisk it. Repeat for remaining eggs. this is done to ensure that the dough does not curdle.
4. Ones all eggs have been whisked in, add all the remaining flour and whisk lightly.
5. Line the baking pan with the paper 'cups' and divide the mixture equally in all cups ensuring the cups are only filled up to 3/4 .
6. Bake in the preheated oven at 180 C for bout 18 to 20 minutes 
7. To check if the muffins are done, simple insert a skewer into the centre of the cakes and pull it out. If it comes out clean then they are done.

So once we take the cupcakes out of the oven, lets settle them on a wire rack and let them to cool down. Now you have an option. If you are not into too sweet things as i said earlier on then leave the muffins as they are and eat it just like that. But if you are a sugar freak then lets move onto the icing and decoration.
For the icing we need to:

1.whisk the icing sugar and butter together in a mixing bowl at high speed.
2. Then add a bit of vanilla extract for flavour and any other food colouring you have (I used purple as it was my student's favourite) and whisk until light, fluffy and creamy.
3. Put the mixture into a piping bag and start piping your cakes. Remember be creative and have fun.

this is the finished version of my cupcakes

Hello Again!

After like almost a century (not literally speaking of course), I decided to browse and check out my old blog and what I saw gave me a mini heart attack. I was like 'what load of shit have I been writing?' Well I guess we can forgive me based on my age influence or whatever shit of an influence that was over me. Anyways coming back to my blog, I have reopened a brand new blog (yay!) and in this blog I am mostly going to write things which have touched my life, my experiences and of course FOOD! Nope I still have not given up on my food. It is still the love of my life. So expect some awesome receipes which I have decided to try first before I recommend it to you guys. As the title suggests, this blog is all about the things and people who have touched my life. Hope you enjoy.