Cupcakes for Chinese New Year

Here are the CNY cupcakes again. It took me longer time to prepare three boxes of the CNY cupcakes, much longer than I would expect, so I didn't really have the energy and time to take that many pictures of the cupcakes.

The best of Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is here! The first day of the year of the Ox will be officially here in precisely 40 minutes. I've been baking pineapple tarts and pineapple tarts for the pass one week since I was back from the trip. I am really glad that the pineapple tarts I made were not too bad and they do have their fans, but we are facing a short supply at home. There have been some increase in orders hence not enough pineapple jam. No, I can't get pineapples in the market as you know, pineapples are actually one of the popular or shall I say must have items for CNY. Besides, making pineapple jam takes hours and I'm not about to spend so much more time in cooking up more.

Pineapple tart has always been something that reminds me of CNY. Used to. Now a days, I can actually bake them whenever I like instead of waiting for CNY. Anyways, I decided to limit pineapple tart baking to only CNY and Hari Raya.

Mandarin oranges also give me the feel of CNY a lot. We used to have cartons and cartons of oranges in the house and they will be gone before the end of CNY. I used to have a lot of visitors, relatives and friends to the house. Lately, CNY has been quite peaceful, with only those few relatives visiting and since we are now very weight conscious, we actually don't eat as much as last time.

And yes, we will always have one or two "kat chai" trees in the house (tangerine). Loads of red decorations, lighting and all types of cookies.

One of the major topic nearing CNY I notice is actually traffic condition. Me being a KL girl had never needed to experience travelling hours to get back to hometown. But I've colleagues and friends around me who'd told me how many hours they spent in the jam just to get back to home for the reunion dinner.

CNY is actually about reunion; about the feeling of togetherness and closeness when each member of the family takes a break from their duties and lives, to be back to where their roots is for this special moment to celebrate a better year to come.

It's not about how much money you give your parents, it's more of how much time you can spend with them (for those who stay away from their family). It's most of the time not about how much wealth we have (of course we want loads of wealth lah) but it's more of how healthy we can live. So, take good care of yourself and your health k.

On this special occasion, I wish you happily and safely united with your loved ones. May you have a super fit year of the Ox with great success, good health, loads of wealth and total prosperity! Have a great celebration and Gong Xi Fa Chai!

红豆沙汤圆

This was the planned dessert for CNY 年初一dinner. Red bean soup with tong yuen (glutinous rice ball). However, I made another cake last minute because mum was apparently expecting a cake. If I had more time, I would have made the chocolate cake, but since it was really last minute and I only had less than half a day, I only made a butter cake with butter icing and lychee.

The sticky glutinous rice ball

The cooked tong yuen

Tong yuen with sweet red bean soup

For my neighbours

Last weekend was quite hectic, with heavy baking, continued on Monday with the icing of 3 cakes. Though extremely sleepy, but managed to snap some photos of the making. These cakes were my mum's "order" (which I kept forgetting to include in my schedule) and it was her gifts to our neighbours.

I think these cakes are the closest version of the "giant muffins/ cupcakes" as mentioned by the Cupcake Queen Jr. Haha... Happy Chinese New Year!!!