Birthday Sushi Cake

Sorry, not much updates because I've been spending whatever free time I have reading Harry Potter, lol. Finally started on the series, after putting off for years. The books are really quite captivating, I keep asking IT about the characters and spoilers in the book.

Baymax Sushi Birthday Cake

IT turned eleven at the beginning of last month. It has been an extremely busy few months for him since school started, he's been telling me he feels so tired almost every weekday. He can finally take a breather after today, I hope next school term will not be as busy for him.

Totoro Birthday Sushi Cake

It's LT's 7th birthday last week. He is growing up so fast and yet he is still very much our baby at home. I have been worried about whether he can cope in primary school, but he has done surprisingly well so far, which is a huge relief for me.


I made a Totoro sushi cake on LT's birthday. I'm not sure if you can tell, but it was a super rush job making this. I had not much time left, as I was baking his birthday cake before this and it took longer than I planned. -_- This was not the original idea, I ended up making a simpler version instead. I was so tempted to remake this the next day, but I stopped myself as it would have been meaningless as his birthday was already over. My boys thought it was nicely done though, which is a huge consolation. I think I will most likely remake this again next year.


The cake was rice stacked with smoked salmon and ebikko. The roses were rolled up smoked salmon. Totoro was made using mashed potato, did not have time to mould them nicely, hiaz. :( I also cooked LT's favourite fried chicken that day, did not have time to arrange the food so I left it out of the picture.


Birthday cake requested by LT, he chose the picture and I got it printed on an icing sheet.


The cake is a strawberry shortcake which my boys always order on their birthday without fail, lol. You can get the recipe HERE, I always use back this recipe that they like.


LT also requested for cookies to give his classmates and teachers, so I baked butter cookies for them. Butter cookies recipe can be found HERE.


I used some of the birthday cake batter and whipped cream to make some rose cupcakes.


I've always wanted to make these, surprisingly these roses were rather easy to pipe. :)

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

Birthday Bento

It was IT's 10th birthday last Saturday. As his birthday falls on Chinese New Year this year, and we were not in Singapore, we had an advance celebration for him instead.


I made a Rilakkuma sushi cake for their dinner. This is a remake of my creation last year, click HERE to see the previous version. I will probably be making the same sushi cake again for LT's birthday, might replace the characters with Totoro then.


I cooked his favourite fried chicken and fries for dinner.


Here's how I layered the sushi cake. I used a removable cake pan for the sushi cake. Any round container will do too, but a removable cake pan makes it easier to remove the sushi cake after you are done.


I lined it with cling wrap and added in sushi rice.


Then, I layered with smoked salmon, another layer of rice and topped with ebikko. You can do more layers, I added on a layer of shredded egg for the sushi cake last year.


Rilakkuma and friends are made using mashed potato.


I baked a strawberry shortcake as requested by IT. It's my boys' favourtite cake and they always ask me to make one for their birthday.


I've shared the recipe previously, click HERE for it. This time, I used frosty whip, instead of whipped cream. This powder based cream is quite amazing, taste pretty nice too.


IT says he does not want a cartoon cake this time, he wants it to be decorated with strawberries instead. I did an awful job on the frosting, as usual, but thankfully, it did not look too bad upon completion.


IT when he was around 3 months old. Time flies so fast! He's already 10, and it also means I've been a Stay-at-home mum for 10 years. That sounds like such long time and yet it feels like it was just yesterday he was a little baby. He's still the sweetest boy (to me only, for now, lol), he still kisses and hugs me. He's really sensitive and is always the first one to notice and ask what's wrong whenever I'm sad. It's been a blessed 10 years, and I hope we will always remain as close as he grows up. :)

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

My Favourite 13 of 2013

Happy New Year! May your 2014 be filled with health and happiness. I will be sharing my favourite 13 creations for 2013 in this post.

I found it really tough narrowing down my bentos to my favourite 13, I have way too many favourites, lol. I ended up choosing one from each month instead. I tried to choose those creations that I like but are less popular, hope you enjoy looking through them. Just click on the images below to link to the respective blog post.


Panda inari sushi bento


Bees in love bento for Valentine's Day.


Hen and Kiiroitori in bunny suit for Easter.


Girl painting a rainbow fruit plate for Earth Day.


Piggy sushi cake for LT's birthday.


Mashed potato cat catching fish in soup.


Sleeping Snoopy toast.


Penguins and Igloo lunch.


Astro boy bento


Bear pulling a pumpkin home in his wagon during Autumn.


Pumpkin and ghost sushi for Halloween.


Kiki from Hayao Mayazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service


Very easy piggy burger.

My bento friends from Bento Bloggers & Friends are also sharing their favourite 13 from 2013, click on the image above to check out their awesome creations. :)

Strawberry Cheesecake in a Jar

It was my birthday last Sunday, my boys wanted to bake me a cake last Friday as we are hardly at home on weekends. I decided on a no bake strawberry cheesecake, something really easy, so they can manage. I'm sharing the recipe as some of you have requested for it, you can scroll down to the end of this post for it.


This was the cake they made, they did almost all the work. I only helped them to prepare the strawberry sauce.


They kept eating the digestive biscuits as they were grinding them. -_-


They did make a mess filling in the jar, so I had to clean up the jars before they could top up the strawberry sauce.


However, after they were done, they were shocked to learn that this was my birthday cake. They said this does not look like a birthday cake at all, they wanted to bake a cake filled with whipped cream and strawberry. -_-


They ended up baking another cake that night. :P


I did not have any strawberries left, so they filled the cake with peaches instead. The bunting was done by me, I added it on the following day. :)


My birthday cards and flowers from my boys. They drew identical cards this year, lol.


Yay, they bought me more flowers this year. :)

STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE JARS

Ingredients:
150g strawberries, chopped
3 tbsp sugar
75g digestive biscuit
25g unsalted butter
250g cream cheese, soften at room temperature
50g icing sugar
140g low fat yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Heat about 1/2 of the strawberries with castor sugar in a pan over medium heat till all the strawberries have broken down. Add the rest of the strawberries and cook for 1 minute. Set aside to cool.
2. Crumb digestive biscuit using a blender.
3. Melt butter in a microwave or over a pan. Mix butter with digestive biscuits crumbs. Spoon the mixture equally into 6 small pudding jars. Lightly press down. Chill in fridge.
4. Blend cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla essence using a blender till smooth and creamy, around 3 minutes.
5. Add in yoghurt and continue to blend for another minute. Spoon mixture equally into the jars and leave to chill in fridge.
6. Top with strawberry sauce and serve.