Animal Palz Mini Sandwich & Egg Press

Aiks. I have been lagging again. I have so much to share, yet so little time to blog. 

After long wait, here comes Animal Palz Mini Sandwich & Egg Press. One of the cutest and must have sandwich cutters for all bento mamas! 

This set of sandwich cutters are way more functional than you thought! It is capable to make cute sandwiches, be it sealed sandwiches or non-seal sandwiches, your call! Make cute hard boiled egg, cookies, vegetables and even acting as food cup! One of the bento mama even use this as rice mould! How creative! You can look at it here!

This was what I did with the cutters. 

It is a very simple fruit jam sandwich for my little girl. 

Lunch Punch Review & Giveaway

I have been wanting to do this giveaway last month, but I am just so busy that I have no time to write. Finally, the internet at my home is up! And I finally can blog. :)

The Lunch Punch team generously sent me a set of Sweet sandwich cutter and a set of Match & Munch cutter last August. I have Match & Munch set in my kitchen cabinet, so, I will be reviewing Sweet set in this post. The extra Match & Munch will be giveaway at the end of the post. 

Lunch Punch series have total of 5 different designs sandwich cutters, and each of them are really cool design. Sweet, sandwishes, vrrrm!, critter cutters and match & munch. The sweet set comes in so timely as I can use them to make cute sandwich for the kids in my daughter's school during her birthday celebration in school. 

Each set comes with 4 different cutters for you to play with. For this sweet set, they have cupcake cutter, birthday cake, gumball and ice cream.

I used this set to make 15 sets of bento for the kids in school. They are very easy to use and really saved my time in the morning. Imagine I need to prepare 15 set of sandwiches in the morning. 

The cutter is so easy-friendly to use, and the size of each cutter fits most of the bread perfectly. Fyi, I was using local brand Gardenia white loaf bread. Besides, it is dishwasher safe, BPA free, PVC free and lead free too! It is also made of FDA certified food-grade plastic and the packaging are 100% recyclable. How environmental friendly it is! Super like it! :)

This is how I make the cute sandwiches. Place your favourite shape cutter on top of a piece of bread and press on it to cut the bread. The bread may stick on the cutter. Turn to the back of the bread and use your finger and lightly press the bread onto the the cutter to get the imprint. Repeat this step for another piece of bread and now you have two cute shaped bread. Spread the fruit jam on your choice on a piece of bread. I used margarine and no sugar strawberry jam. 

Sorry that I did not have time to take step by step photo and the not so nice photos, as I was rushing to prepare all this before 930am. I need to send them to school before 10am. 

These were what I prepared for the kids in school. A simple bento which includes homemade chocolate muffin, homemade panda cookies and also a cute shape sandwiches. Besides, I also packed mini raisins and Appeton Vit-C pastilles for the kids to substitute the junk food. A sticker puzzle as a little gift to them as well. :) 

Now, it is time for giveaway. As said, I have extra set of Match & Munch to giveaway. 

To enter the giveaway, you are compulsory to complete the first 4 steps. Please do come back again daily to earn extra entry by share the giveaway in your facebook or instagram. Invalid entries will be disqualified. 

The giveaway is opens internationally and it closes on 15 October 2013.The winner will be picked randomlu using Rafflecopter widget and the winner will be announce on 16 October 2013. I will contact the winner through email and he/she has 48 hours to reply my email. Failing to do so, a new winner will be picked.  Please do check back this post for the winner after the giveaway closed. Good luck!

While if you are interested on where to get the lunch punch sets, Bento With Yenn carries them. =)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bread Pudding

Many asked, what do I do with my leftover cut-outs bread from my bento. So, I am just sharing what I do for my left-over cut-outs bread today. In the beginning of my bento journey, which started last year, I would usually kept them in airtight container. My maid would usually ate them as breakfast. But my maid had left us middle of last year, so no one consuming the leftover bread then. My parent in law will occasionally toast them in the oven and have it as breakfast too. Now, I keep the leftover bread in the freezer. I will use to make bread pudding, as breakfast or tea break. :)

I bake them in a oven safe glass tray. You can use little ramekin if you have. :)

Ingredients

the leftover cut out bread
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbs melted butter
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
Some raisins (optional)
Some chocolate chips (optional)

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees.
2. Spread the cut out breads into the tray. Drizzle melted butter over the bread.
3. Combine eggs, milk, sugar, ground cinnamon and vanilla extra togather. Beat until well mixed.
4. Pour over the mixture over the bread. Make sure the bread is well covered and soaking up the egg mixture by using a fork to push them a little.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.
6. Sprinkle with raisins and chocolate chips.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been baking this recipe since end of last year as the recipe never fails me, and most importantly, everyone loves it! My little girl, kept asking one after one once it was out from oven. I have to stop her as it is very heaty to eat right after baked. So, I am going to share the chocolate chip cookies recipe today! 

Ingredients

(yield about 24 cookies)

115g unsalted butter, soften at room temperature

115g caster sugar (I reduced to 110g)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp pure vanilla extra

175g plain flour

175g plain or semisweet chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate chips)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line baking trays with parchment paper.

2. Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until the mixture turns pale and fluffy.

3. Beat in the egg gradually. Mix well after each addition. Add in vanilla extract and mix well.

4. Sift the flour over the mixture, fold in with spatula or wooden spoon. Fold in the chocolate chips.

5. Drop tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough onto the prepared baking tray. Remember to leave some space between the cookies to allow for spreading. You can flatten each cookie dough slightly with the back of a fork, keeping the shape as even as possible. But I prefer uneven or rough texture cookie, so I just leave it like that. 

6. Bake for 10 mins or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Happy baking! :)

Panda Cookies

I have been wanting to make panda cookies for quite some time but I dragged until now. Guess it is perfect time for me to bake for the kids in my daughter's school for her birthday celebration. I was indeed very excited to bake this cute cookies as I never try baking cartoon cookies before. But to be honest, it is quite time consuming to bake this cute panda cookies. =.= End up, I kept my leftover dough in the fridge for next day baking (I baked at night and it took me more than 2 hours to complete 45 cookies!). So you may want to consider to reduce the ingredients into half if you would like to try this recipe.

The essential thing that you need for this panda cookie is definitely the panda cookie cutter. You may get them here, or here. 

So, here are the ingredients you need:-

180g plain flour + 20g corn flour (A)

150g plain flour + 20g corn flour + 30g good quality cocoa powder (B)

200g butter, soften at room temperature

160g castor sugar (I reduced to 150g)

2 egg yolks

panda cookie cutters

Method:-

1. Cream the soften butter and castor sugar with electric mixer, by adding in the sugar in 3 additions, until pale and fluffy.

2. Add in egg yolk and mixed well, one at a time.

3. Divide the dough into two mixing bowl. Add (A) to one of the dough, and (B) to another dough. 

4. Mixed well with spatula and form a ball with your hands and put the dough into large ziplock bag each. Roll them a little using roller and keep them refrigerated for 30 minutes.

5. Take out the dough, roll them and cut using the panda cookie cutter.

6. If the dough appear hard or breaks easily, leave them awhile in room temperature to soften it a little. 

7. Place the cutted dough on the baking paper.

8. Bake at pre-heated oven at 170 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Nigella's Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

I have been looking for an easy and yummy muffins recipe for quite some time. I am a newbie in baking and I need easy but yummy one, so I can bake some for my little girl's birthday (and I did it!)

I blog hop a lot of baking blogs and I noticed that, Nigella's chocolate chocolate chip muffins are found in most of the baking blogs. Aha, I must try then too!

When I was going through the recipe and methods, I found that it is really simple and easy! What I love the most of this recipe is, electric mixer is not needed! Woohoo, less one thing to wash and clean. :p Simply mix the wet and dry ingredients, and mix them well. 

My first try on the Nigella's chocolate chocolate chip muffins. Hubby's colleague commented a bit dry (I guess I accidentally reduced the vegetable oil) and MIL commented not so fragrant (probably no butter involved in this recipe). The rest said good! 

I tried again a day before my little girl's birthday party at home, this round, tasted so much better. No dry and the texture is so right, fluffy and moist. :)

Guess the second round was better, as the muffins left no more after the party. :p

As it is super easy recipe, I baked them again for my little girl's birthday party celebration in school. Baked for the kids and the teachers. =)

So now, let's try to bake on your own! =)

Ingredients

250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp best quality cocoa powder

175g caster sugar 

150g chocolate chips (save 1/4 chips for sprinkling)

250ml milk

90ml vegetable oil (I used sunflower oil)

1 large egg

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 deg C.

2. Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, sugar and 3/4 of the chocolate chips into a large bowl and mix well.

3. Pour all the liquid ingredients to another large bowl and mix well.

4. Mix the dry and wet ingredients togather with slow and gentle strokes. Stop stirring once the last traces of flour disappear. Do not overmix. A lumpy batter will ensure the muffins stay moist and fluffy.

5. Spoon the batter into paper muffin cases.

6. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 chocolate chips on top and bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are dark, risen and springy.

Enjoy, and tell me after you try! 

Happy baking! :)

Updates!

Hello! It takes me forever to update my little humble blog. :p I was so busy for the past two months. Busy in the preparation of moving to a new place. As we had limited funds, so, we tried to DIY wherever we can. After so much preparation and hardwork, we finally moved and settled in last weekend. In fact, I have so much things to share, so much things to blog. Allow me a little bit of time, I will update one by one before my memory fade. 

Just to share, a little thing I did for my new place. =)

Bento No# 131: French Toast Bento

This post has been sitting in the draft for quite some time and I only realised today. :(

It has been quite some time I did not make french toast. So, I made mini shape french toast end of last month. I checked back the time stamp, I made in the past 10 days. LOL. 

Since I making mini french toast, I packed few flower shape french toast to my girl's snack box. I don't know if she likes it as she usually rejects bread. End up, she only took one piece of mini flower french toast and the rest untouched. :( As usual, she will finished all her fruits. 

This is my mini flower french toast bento for that day. Also packed red dragon fruits for myself. Teehee. My favourite fruit. :)

I made heart shape french toast for hubby. Hehe. The extra eggs goes to his snack box as well. :)

Happy Birthday to Bento With Yenn

Yay! I am actually busy with work, but I am stealing a bit of time to blog. Just wanna to make a shout out. Bento With Yenn is one year old and therefore, an awesome deals are going on now, precisely, TODAY!!

Many ask, how do I celebrate my birthday then and what do you received as birthday gift? Honestly, when one grows older, especially with family and kids, I least expect something for birthday. Of course, I do hope for surprises, but nahhh...all of us are busy with work, new house stuff, etc. So, let it be. We have dinner date after work yesterday. That's all and I am happy. =) At least I had a quiet and peaceful dinner yesterday. What about birthday gift? I expect nothing, honestly. I know well that our bank accounts are almost emptied now because we are setting up our new home. He said, the HOME is my birthday gift this year. And, I accepted it. =) Our HOME is almost done but we can't move in until the chinese ghost month is over. I am OK with it, at least I have more time to clean, arrange and decor the house nicely and neatly before I move in. 

Happy birthday to me, and happy birthday to Bento With Yenn. =)

Bento No# 130: Tuna Pasta Bento

Malaysia and Singapore were shrouded by teribble haze since last week. It started in Singapore where the Air Pollutant Index (API) spiked up to 400 and followed by few cities in Johor, and last weekend, the haze came to Malacca. It was really bad during weekend, the API was shoot up to as high as 400 and the schools are ordered to close today. So, my little girl is staying at home with her grandma today. My eyes was dry and itchy for past few days and I have to rely on moisture eye drops all day. We wore mask when we are need to go out. I hope the haze will go away very soon. 

So, today I'm going to share with everyone, simple tuna bolognese pasta. 

I cooked hello kitty tuna bolognese pasta for myself. This bento was made last month. Also pan-fried prawn gyoza for myself. Extra golden kiwi in the small diablock lunch box. 

Hubby prefers spaghetti than farfalle or those hello kitty shape pasta. So, I cooked angel hair pasta for him. 

I am sharing where you can get similar items that I used in this post :)

BentoUSA

  

Bento With Yenn

Bento No# 129: Cinnamoroll Bento

Finally, I managed to source all the cute character lunch boxes, such as Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll, Tomica fire engine, Tomica police car, Winnie the Pooh and Rilakkuma! They are really cute! :)

So, I picked Cinnamoroll bento box for my little girl. :)

I'm sure my little girl does not know about Cinnamoroll, but it's ok. Mommy seems to admire the boxes more than the little girl! LOL.

I packed her favourite chocolate love letters and golden kiwis. A simple snack bento that cheered up the little one. :)

I am sharing where you can get similar items that I used in this post :)

BentoUSA

   

Bento With Yenn

  

Bento No# 128: Hello Kitty Bento

Hello! I am in the mood of catching up my outstanding bentos now. :)

So, today gotta share with everyone the bento I made last month! Yup, last month! Hehehe.

It is another hello kitty bento, for my little girl. :)

I packed golden kiwi, honeydew and koala bear's strawberry biscuits in the Hello Kitty bento box from Trudeau Corp. Both golden kiwi and honeydew were cut using small hello kitty vegetable/fruits cutter which I bought recently from Japan. Yay! 

Here the close up of the snack bento box for my little girl. :) Opps, I also packed a kiddo pack chocolate drink for her. :)

Have a great day! :)

I am sharing where you can get similar items that I used in this post :)

BentoUSA

Bento With Yenn

Bento No# 127: Farfalle Pasta Bento

Another outdated bento to share today. :)

I love pasta and I guess the only thing that I can cook now besides instant noodle, fried eggs stuff, is pasta. :p

Simple bolognese sauce farfalle pasta. I sprinkled some chia seeds on top. I love the diablock silicon baran as it makes my lunch box colorful and pretty! I packed the leftover honeydew in small diablock lunch box. 

I packed honeydew (cut using Funbite Cube iT) and also sugar crackers. My girl does not likes bread. She prefers biscuits or crackers. I am quite surprised when I found out that she likes this type of crackers. You know, those plain crackers that we use to dip into coffee or milo and eat it as breakfast. 

A closer look of the cube honeydew. 

I am sharing where you can get similar items that I used in this post :)

Bento USA

   
    

Bento With Yenn