Reunion of Old Friends

Thank GOD for a wonderful time last weekend reuniting with two groups of old friends; one from my secondary school days and the other from our previous church.

My secondary school friends and our spouses met for steamboat last Saturday at Vincent's lovely home. We have known each other for about 33 years and thank GOD we are still in touch all these years. We had a great time reminiscing found memories with lots of laughter our friendship of 33 years.

Last night, it was the gathering of the ex Galileans. Majority of us have left our previous church and are now serving in other churches. For Peter, he knew this group of church friends when he was in the Children's Fellowship. As for me, I joined them when I was a teenager. We are grateful to have the opportunity to meet again, thanks to Louis and Christine who had graciously opened up their home and organized the reunion.

We are grateful that GOD has been with us all these years and even though some of us are going through tough times, we know that GOD will see us through because HE is a GOD Who never change and HE never fail. We know we can trust in Him.

Who gives the sun for light by day?
The moon and stars for light by night?
Who stirs the sea that waves may roar?
The Lord of Hosts is His Name.

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
He strengthens the weary, gives power to the weak
He will uphold you with His righteous right arm

The Lord of Hosts is His Name.

Sourdough Starter and Bread

These 2 huge loaves of Sourdough Bread just came out of the oven. Thank GOD it is a success! This is the first time I made my own sourdough starter (even though the first batch did not work out, the second batch turned out well.) I asked the LORD to please turn the culture into sourdough since He turned water in wine and He did ;)

I have not tasted sourdough bread before and I always hear others say they are delicious. Now that I have tried and tasted it, I agree :) I did a barter trade with Annabel - I gave her a loaf of my bread in exchange for one of the best minestrone soup I have ever tasted. So satisfying - time for a nap ;)

This morning I took out a cup of the sourdough from the fridge. It has been "chilling" for the past few days. I found a simple sourdough bread recipe from the Internet and I dumped all the ingredients into the bread machine, pressed "dough" cycle and went to do my BS homework.

This was how the dough turned out after 20mins of kneading.

I did not do much to the dough, just "punch" it after the "dough" cycle and divided it into two portions.

After resting for about 1 hour, it more than doubled in size. I placed some walnuts onto one of them and the other I left it as it is. Baked them in a 200 degrees C oven for about 25 mins.

A sourdough culture is a mixture of wild yeast and lactobacillus bacteria living in a mixture of flour and water. Over time, the culture will tend to become a mixture of one of three wild yeast strains, and one of five different lactobacillus strains. It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast does not produce comparable results. In comparison with yeast-based breads, it produces a distinctively tangy or sour taste, mainly because of the lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli; the actual medium, known as "starter" or levain.

This is my first batch of sourdough starter which has gone bad. On day one the starter was bubbling quite well and I thought it was okay. Unfortunately a bad bacteria got into the starter on day 2 thus causes the layer of water in between it, thus producing a bad smell - like vomit. I had to discard the two bottles and make a new batch below.

Sourdough Starter Recipe

1/4 cup water

3/8 cup wheat flour

Mix the two ingredients together and cover loosely with a hand towel.

Set it aside in a warm (not hot) place for about 12 hours. Take a look at your starter after 12 hours to see if it has started bubbling. If not, give it a stir and leave it for another 12 hours. After 24 hours, "feed" your starter with 1/4 cup of water, 3/8 cup of wheat flour. Continue to "feed" your starter every 12 hours. After the 3rd feed, remove about half the amount of the starter before adding the next round of water and wheat flour. After the starter is active for about a week, you can keep it in the fridge and continue to "feed" it once every 2 weeks or so.

Fondant Cupcake Class

Last Saturday I attended a Fondant Cupcake Class. This is my first cake lesson thus far in cake baking (besides the one I did at Home Econs during my Secondary School days). This is also my first experience at handling fondant. I won a S$80 voucher through a contest and I only needed to top up S$20 to join this class. Thank GOD for the opportunity to learn how to make Fondant Cupcakes at such a small cost :)

I met a church friend there who also won a voucher and selected the same class. We had fun decorating the cupcakes. This two-tier heart-shaped cake with the roses was the first one I made. I had this for tea yesterday.

This was the last one I made out of the four you see below. As there was not much time left, I did a very simple one. Peter ate this and said it was quite nice :)

VDay Slices

Valentine's Day is here again so I thought it would be nice to bake the above VDay Slices.

Come to think of it, I only bake this recipe once a year but this year I shall be baking it four times for 4 special groups of sisters and brothers in Christ who have been serving faithfully in the area of their ministry.

If you would like to make this VD Slices for your friends or loved ones, here's the recipe:

Wash clean and dry some Strawberries. Cut them into halves.

For the base, you would need 300gm of finely crushed Oreo Cookies and 150gm melted butter. Mix them and press the mixture onto the base of a 10" x 10" tray. If you do not have a glass tray, a normal baking tray is fine. Refrigerate it for about 20mins.

Excuse the direction of the photos. I tried to rotate them many times but have not been successful. For the filling, place about 2 1/2 tsp of gelatin powder in 150ml boiling water. Stir till the gelatin powder has been dissolved. Beat 250gm of Cream Cheese with about 70gm of sugar and 1/2 tsp of vanilla. Then add the gelatin syrup into the mixture. Pour the cream cheese onto the Oreo base and place the Strawberry halves partially submerged into the mixture.

Refrigerate for about 2 hours or until the mixture is firm.

Dissolve a box of Raspberry flavoured jelly crystals with 150gm boiling water and 100gm cold water. Cool the jelly syrup and slowly spoon the syrup over the cream cheese filling. Refrigerate overnight before cutting.

A side profile of how the tray of VDay Slices should look like.