Dinosaur Themed Birthday Cake

Posted March 20th, 2014 in Food | 2 Comments »

Dinosaurs on cake

As my son is currently crazy about dinosaurs, it was no surprise he requested a dinosaur birthday cake for his 3rd birthday.

I’m sure a dinosaur shaped cake covered with colourful sweet icing will excite him, but I still feel uncomfortable with these Western too-sweet-treat :{ I love Japanese cake and I’ve been baking Japanese style cake for his birthdays, so I decided to make one again for his 3rd birthday.

To make it more appealing to him, I put some dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs (Easter eggs, actually lol) on top of the cake.  The cake consists layers of sponge cake, whipped cream, and lots of fresh fruits as usual.

Chocolate dinosaurs

 

I started making dinosaurs few weeks ago.  It’s made of chocolate and it can be kept in the fridge for a long time once it’s made, so at least one thing is done in early stage it gives me lots of relief.

If you love drawing, you will love the process.  Of course you can create anything rather than dinosaurs!

It’s pretty easy and you’ll just need chocolate (dark and white) and some colouring.

Here is how I made these dinosaurs… ↓↓

Firstly, print out an image of what you want to draw.  An image with simple lines and not too many colours is a better choice.  You can draw the image from scratch if you’d like.  Remember, the image will be reversed once the chocolate is set – so if you are writing any letter it has to be reversed to a mirror image.

Once you have a clear image on nice clean paper, place a piece of baking sheet on top.  Staple the paper so it won’t move.

Chocolate dinosaur making 1

Secondly, melt dark (or milk) chocolate on a plate or small cup over hot water bath.  Using a skewer, just like a pen draw the line according to the image.

Let the chocolate set in the fridge.

Chocolate dinosaur making 2

Thirdly, make coloured chocolate.  Melt white chocolate in a place or small cup.

If you decide to make green colour, I found Matcha green tea powder works the best when mixing with white chocolate.  For other colours like red or yellow, if you happen to have some colouring powder (e.g. jelly powder) I think it’s easier than mixing with liquid colouring as chocolate and liquid don’t really get mixed well.  Too much liquid colouring will curdle the chocolate.  So, if you are working with liquid colouring make sure you start with a super tiny bit of drop.  Mix with melted white chocolate, and add some more until it reaches desired colour.

Make few colours according to your image.  I made green, yellow and red (pink).

Carefully, spread the coloured chocolate over the image.  Be careful not to move the chocolate line you drew.  (I do sometimes…)

Let the chocolate set in the fridge.

Chocolate dinosaur making 3

Lastly, melt white chocolate in another plate or small cup.  Spread to cover the thin area or all over the image.  Let the chocolate set in the fridge.

Once the chocolate is set, carefully remove from the sheet and flip it over.  Now you have a cute image to decorate your cake 🙂

Chocolate dinosaurs

 

TA-DA!!!

The green dinosaurs’s dots look like they’re bit melted when spreading green chocolate :p  But still look good aren’t they?

birthday-cake

I made this Japanese anime character “Anpanman” for my son’s 2’nd birthday.

IMG_6004

Another dinosaur for my friend.

truck

A truck for a 3-year-old boy.

a

 


Nijino-kai Sunday Market

Posted March 13th, 2014 in Perth WA | No Comments »

Nijino-kai

 

“Niji No Kai” is a non-profit Japanese volunteer organization in Perth, and they are holding a stall at the Karrinyup Swapmart on Sunday 4th of May!

All the money raised at the market will be used to help providing assistance to Japanese people of all ages who live in Perth area.

If you have anything at home that are not in need or would like to give away, please donate them to “Niji No Kai”!

☎ 0403 530 928
E-mail : [email protected]

 

Or if you’d like to participate, please come and see what’s on sale at the market.

When: Sunday 4th May, from 7:30AM

Where: the undercover parking area in the north-east corner of the Karrinyup Shopping Centre

 

 


Monggo Indonesian Restaurant

Posted March 6th, 2014 in Eat out in Perth, Perth WA | No Comments »

Monggo

My sister-in-law visited us from Jakarta over the last weekend and we took her to Indonesian restaurant Monggo on Beaufort St, Mt Lawley for dinner.

In Perth I’ve only been to Sparrow in Northbridge (more than 8 years ago!) and Bintang Cafe in Victoria Park for Indonesian food.  On Monggo’s website the menu looked pretty good and more “formal” type compared to other two. Their menu had almost all the basic Indonesian food I could think of (and something more), and the naming “Jimbaran Fish” and “Serabi Bandung” recalled the memory of my trips to Indonesia over the last decade.

Inside the restaurants I could tell all the staff are Indonesian.  They were very friendly.  The table setting and decor looked pretty.
We ordered Kepiting Soka (crisoy soft shell crab),  Tumis Sayur (stir-fried vegetables), Ayam Rica-rica (slow-cooked chicken dish), Jimbaran Fish (grilled Barramundi fillet), and Beef Randang Kapao (beef curry).

photo 3-2

photo 4

 

I thought the pricing was bit expensive considering the size of the dish.  My husband and I are big eaters so we were little disappointed when the dishes came to our table.

All the food were very delicious though.  Because we had 2 kids we ordered Chicken Rica-rica MILD (instead of HOT) but it tasted still great.  I loved Tumis Sayur – the texture of the vegetables were just right!  My husband wanted to order Bebek Betutu (Ubud’s famous duck dish) but sisters didn’t want duck 🙁  I miss Ubud!!  Thinking to going to Bali again this year.

 

Serabi Bandung

Coconut Ice Putar

 

For dessert, we ordered Coconut Ice Putar (homemade coconut ice cream in a young coconut shell) and Serabi Bandung (Pandan-coconut fluffy pancake served with syrup).

I just noticed, the Serabi Bandung was supposed to be 3 pieces of pancakes, but we got 4.  Maybe it was because all our party (except 2 including me) were Indonesian?  We also got this caramel popcorn for free as well. ↓

 

photo 5-1

 

The Pandan-coconut pancakes were good, but I loved Coconut Ice Puter!  I was imagining it’d taste something like the coconut ice cream you get from any  shops here but it didn’t.  Rosy colour (aroma of rose … Pandan?) with the texture of half ice cream half shaved ice.  Open the lid of young coconut, and scoop the ice cream with fresh coconut meat…  Yum!!

 

Coconut Ice Putar

photo 4-1

My husband has a sweet tooth and he loved it.

Monggo website

You can browse their menu here. (download the PDF)

 

photo 5-2

HIRO

By the way my son turned 3 this week.  I put his photo with a message from us on the newspaper in japan. 🙂  I love you so much and hope you stay like this (a round boy with big smile) forever!!!  xxx