Chinese New Year Bento

And so I did ended up making another two more foodart for Chinese New Year last Friday. I've no time to make anymore, so I guess these will be my last set of Chinese New Year foodart for this year.


Wishing everyone Gong Xi Fa Cai with this Chinese New Year bento. :)


Ingredients used to make the girl were rice (coloured with some ketchup), nori, egg sheet, ham and bubu arare (rice puffs on her hair). The horse was made from bread spread with nutella and peanut butter.


I've to confess my original idea was to make the horse as another foodart instead. I was lazy and decided to just combine the horse into this bento.


This toast is inspired by my newfound love for the cheongsam. I was never a fan of the traditional cheongsams but recently, the modern cheongsams I found are so wearable, I don't mind wearing them every day. I posted a photo of two of my favourite modern cheongsams from my recent loots, you can check it out on my instagram (@bentomonsters) account if you are interested. Ingredients used for this toastart were ham, egg sheet, nori and strawberry.


I'm taking a break from foodart and blogging for the upcoming New Year holiday. I'll be back again next week. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Seal Sushi

I saw two cute deco sushi idea on Pinterest a while back. The first one is seal sushi, which I am sharing in this post. I've yet to make the other one, hope to get it done after the Chinese New Year holiday.


There was no tutorial available online, but it did not look too difficult, so I just went ahead and tried. Still much room for improvement, but I guess it ain't too bad either.


Served the meal with some pork cutlets and salad.


The greyish portion is rice mixed with grinded black sesame. Other ingredients used were nori and sakura denbu.

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Piggy Donut

I had wanted to do up this post last Friday, but I ended up catching up on my Kimchi drama instead, oops. -_-


I made these piggy donuts during the school holidays.


They are strawberry glazed baked donuts. Details were drawn in using chocolate. There was some problem with my white chocolate pen though, the chocolate did not come out smoothly, I think I probably kept it for way too long.


These donuts were really mini. I have not used my silicon donut mould for a long time and had totally forgotten how small the donut was. I am sharing the donut recipe at the end of the post. I do have another donut recipe that I usually use, you can check it out HERE. I forgot to buy buttermilk, so I tried another recipe instead.


The inspiration for the donuts were from this shop called Floresta Nature Doughnuts in Japan.


We managed to pop by a branch on our recent trip to Japan last December.


I love the Kitty donut, will have to try making it next time. :)

STRAWBERRY GLAZED DONUT RECIPE

Ingredients:
100g cake flour
20g sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten
80ml milk
35g melted butter

strawberry glaze:
4 strawberries
1 tbsp strawberry jam
1 tbsp milk
1-2 cups icing sugar, sifted
pink colouring (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. 
2. Lightly coat your donut pan with cooking spray or butter.
3. Sift cake flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Add milk, egg, butter to mixture in step 3, whisk till incorporated.
5. Fill batter into a pastry bag. Snip off one corner, pipe batter into donut pan. Fill each mould till 3/4 full.
6. Bake donuts for around 8 minutes or till an inserted skewer comes out clean.
7. To make the strawberry glaze, puree strawberries with 1 tbsp strawberry jam.
8. Pour into a bowl and mix in milk.
9. Slowly stir in 1 cup of icing sugar, adding more till you reached your desired consistency. The more icing sugar you add, the thicker the glaze. 

Note:

• As the strawberry glaze is rather sweet, I've reduced the amount of sugar in the donut recipe. Please increase the amount of sugar if you are using chocolate to glaze instead.
• If you are not happy with the natural pink colour, you can add in some pink colouring in step 9.  

Snoopy Chinese New Year

I'm not sure if this is going to be my last Chinese New Year foodart. I do have some ideas but somehow, I just do not feel like making them, ended up making some other stuff instead.


Happy New Year greetings from the Peanuts gang. :) It is auspicious to wear red and bright colours during Chinese New Year. Chinese also set off firecrackers on New Year's Eve. Firecrackers are actually banned in Singapore for security reasons. However, we are always in Malaysia on New Year's Eve, so my boys get to see firecrackers and play with fireworks there.


Ingredients used to create this foodart were rice, tomatoes, nori and egg sheet.


A toastart version with Snoopy and Woodstock decked in their Chinese New Year costumes.


Ingredients used for this were quail egg, strawberry, corn and nori.

Where to get same items used in today's post:

Line Brown Bear Pancake

I'm sharing yet another foodart from last month. Another simple creation using pancakes.


I made Brown from the LINE application this time. LINE is an application you can download in your handphone for chatting, there's also a LINE camera application that you can use to edit your photos and add in cute graphics.


I added in some cocoa powder in my usual pancake mixture to get this brown shade. Details on Brown's face were simply drawn in using whipped cream and chocolate.


If you want something easier, you can just make Brown's face too.


I served the chocolate pancake with chocolate syrup, yums. :)

Where to get same or similar item used in today's post:

Quail Egg Penguin Yakisoba-Pan

I made yakisoba-pan for my boys' lunch last week, decided to do a quick decor with some quail eggs. I made them into penguins. They are super easy to make, took some step by step photos on how to make them.


I've the yakisoba recipe HERE if you need it. My boys call it yucky soba, that was what it sounded like to them when I first introduced them to the dish, lol. In case you are mistaken, yakisoba is not yucky at all, it's yummy and my boys love it.


Did you notice the fishing pole? The penguins are fishing and I think they caught a fish, lol.


To make the penguin, you need a hard boiled quail egg. You can use chicken egg too to make a bigger penguin. Cut out seaweed as shown in picture, it's easier to fold in half to cut.


Fold back the seaweed in half and cut out half a heart shape.


Here's roughly how it should look when opened up.


Spread on some mayo so that the seaweed can stick onto the egg.


Wrap the seaweed on the egg and wrap with cling wrap to secure.


Add on corn using pasta.


I used this puncher for the eyes. If you do not have one, you can also use a sharp tipped scissors to cut out. Alternatively, you can use black sesame for the eyes. Dab on some pink decor gel on the penguin's cheek. You can use ketchup to replace if you like.


You can also add in feet for the penguin using corn.


The completed penguins. I will probably be making similar onigiri versions too. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post: