Baking Diary: Melt-in-Your-Mouth Salted Egg Cookies

I have been told that any food that is made with salted egg yolks has been the latest in-thing in Singapore and Malaysia these days. Hence, I have been seeing food like salted egg yolk potato chips from Singapore, salted egg yolk fried chicken and salted egg yolk fried mantis shrimp from night market! No doubt that the list will go on and on. 

So, I decided to make something with salted egg and salted egg cookies successfully attracted me. Sweet, buttery, a little salty and melty... Ops! In this post, I'm going to share my experience on making this yummy one. 

Firstly, the ingredients needed are:

• 4 salted egg yolks 
• 125g salted butter 
• 40g castor sugar 
• 20g icing sugar 
• 180g all purpose flour 
• 20g corn starch 
• ¼ tsp baking powder 
• ¼ tsp salt 
• 1 egg yolk 
• 1 tsp milk (optional)
• Handful white sesame seeds 

Firstly, separate egg yolks from the salted eggs then carefully place them on a metal plate. Then, steam them with boiling water in a wok for 15 minutes. 

You will be able to see these shiny ones if the salted eggs are fresh. 

After 15 minutes, take them out from the wok and smash them into crumbs with a fork.

Then, start making the dough. Beat the butter with a mixer until it is fluffy. Next, add castor sugar and icing sugar into the butter then beat it well. 

After that, sift in the dry ingredients, which are the flour, corn starch, baking powder and salt. Slightly mix the mixture with a spatula. 

Then, stir in salted egg yolks to form a crumble mixture. Fold the mixture with a spatula as well to gather the crumble to form a dough. 

Tada... The dough is ready. Wrap it with food cling film and chill it in the fridge for half an hour. 

The dough is ready to roll after chilling! Roll the dough to 0.5cm thick and cut it into flower shape with a cookie cutter. The dough is pretty easy to handle and there is no problem at all rolling and cutting the cookies into shapes. Place the flower pieces on the baking tray neatly. 

Lastly, glaze the surface of the pieces with egg yolk. You can add a teaspoon of milk to the egg yolk to make it smoother. Then, sprinkle some white sesame seeds on top to add fragrance to the cookies. 

Bake it in a convention oven with fan force at 170°C for 15 minutes-20 minutes. 

Tada... It's time to enjoy these melt-in-your-mouth salted egg cookies now. This recipe can bake around 80 pieces. Every mouthful of these salted egg cookies are so yum that it is very hard for us to stop munching these... So within one to two days, all these cookies are all gone! 

 

I had received a lot of good comments from friends and relatives. So, if you wanna find something to do during this MCO period, try making these and you will not regret! 

Home Away From Home: Three Different Hostels in My Degree Life

Time flies. It's already the third year of my Bachelor degree studying actuarial science and finance. I have changed hostel three times in as many years, and this gave me the chance to experience different kinds of living environment. All of them were private rooms. Hostel is usually a place where you stay when you are away from your families for studies or work . You need to be stronger and more confident than before when you are staying on your own.

So, let's start with my first hostel. 

Room 1: The Warm Room

My first hostel during my first year was a room in a double storey terrace house. There was a big window which I could feel the sunlight in every morning. It was furnished with a bed with bed frame, a desk, a wardrobe, a three tier drawer, and an upright lamp. One of the advantages of this room is that the room has an attached bathroom. I could use the bathroom freely and i didn't need to walk out from the room when I need to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. 

   

The plus side of staying here is that the maid will come to clean our rooms once every two weeks, including the bathroom.

Having an electrical stove in the kitchen allowed me to prepare some simple meals.. 

 

A mirror selfie with my favorite cardigan!

Room 2: The Memorable Room

Next, my second hostel was a room in a condominium unit sharing with my friends. This room was air-conditioned, slightly bigger and furnished with a bed with metal bed frame, a big desk and a wardrobe. I brought two 3-tier wooden racks to help organize my books, accessories and skin care products. My friends and I had to clean the unit by ourselves as we did not have any cleaning service. 

 

 A selfie taken on my bed. Teehee :)

I like this hostel as there was a living room, a dining area, a kitchen and a laundry area. My life was more sociable as I could stay in the living room to play games, do revision and complete assignments with my friends at night. There was a small television in the living room. 

The gas stove in the kitchen allowed us to cook meals together. 

My friends and I also organized a steamboat party and invited some course mates to share the fun with us. That was a memorable one. 

Room 3: The Superior Room

My current hostel is a room in a three-storey student hostel unit, a more 'high-class' one. This unit is newly renovated and the furniture are all new. It is also air-conditioned. There is a kitchen but I rarely cook because I am currently busy most of the time with my thesis and events in university during my last year. 

 

There's a dressing table and a half length mirror in my room. I like to organize each pigeon hole with same theme of cosmetics, skin care products and accessories. 

 

There is a corridor between rooms. My window is facing the opposite room when there are no curtains. 

 

The bathroom is nice and with new and modern design. The heaters are centralized. So, it's just like a hotel!

There is a sky garden with nice view for the residents to do laundry and relax. There is also a study corner in the sky garden. These are the reasons I like this hostel so much!

In conclusion, I have three different experiences of hostel staying in my university life. Each of them has left me with a lot of different sweet memories. The midnight group studies, the late night parties, the challenging game battles, the endless talking, fighting, shouting and laughing. These are memories. These are unforgettable hostel stories. These are the best part of my life. 

Outfit Sharing: CNY 2020

Finally it's time for Chinese New Year, a meaningful season for reunion. From head to toe, all clothes and accessories worn on New Year's Day should be brand-new. Some people still wear traditional Chinese clothing like qipao, but many people, like me, now wear regular, Western-style clothing like dresses, skirts, pants, and shirts on Chinese New Year's day. Most of the girls celebrating CNY will plan what to wear for CNY. 

I received a suggestion from my friends that I am more suitable with light colored clothes due to my light skin color. Hence, I planned to go for light colors this year as I don't like black color too. 

I would like to introduce two main characters of my outfits this year. 

The first one will be white lace sneakers, the best suited shoes for wherever you're going. Try to pick shoes in a color and style that complements your outfit. I had picked this type of sneakers which is comfortable to wear and matches all my outfits well. 

The second one is white sling bag with gold chain. The big ribbon bow with gold buckle in front is the signature of the bag. The volume of the bag is just nice. It can fit my phone, purse and some simple cosmetics such as lipstick. 

So, let's start with my daily outfit! I will just share my outfits during the first three days in CNY! 

Day 1: Parisian style - Romantic green doll dress

I am easy to get interested with dolly things recently, so I was attracted to this avocado green colored dress on the first time seeing it. Yea, I like princess sleeve the most! The ruffle design on the collar and sleeves brings the uniqueness to another level. I had made some small curls at the bottom of my hair so that my hair is straight on top and curly on bottom. This outfit is suitable with light or simple make up. I didn't apply any eye shadow but just a thin layer of eyeliner. A small thoughts: candy coral colored lipstick matches this outfit the best! 

Matching it with a white beret hat brings out some Parisian smell. I had chosen white color for my hat so that the color is consistent with my bag and shoes. 

I'm going to share some techniques in wearing a beret hat. 

1. Place the beret on your head with the rim about a half-inch to an inch off your ears and 3/4 of the way up your forehead. The back should come down to the back of your neck but fit comfortably.
2. Tuck in the brim. Push the brim up and under, pulling the edge fabric down and over it so it does not show. The brim is very small and located on one side of the beret’s edge. 
3. Position the beret properly. 
4. Adjust the beret until you find an appropriate balance and look. Tile the beret until you feel best. Pulling the beret down farther over the ear simply creates a more dramatic look, but it also makes the beret look flatter. Pull up on the top of the beret to reduce the tilt and gain a fuller look.
5. [Optional] Secure the beret to your hair. Use a bobby pin to make sure it does not move. Berets are notorious for sliding around and if it is loose-fitting, or you have full hair, don’t wear a beret without pinning it to your hair. This results in constant adjustments that can ruin your look.

Besides that, I matched my outfit with a pair of long pearl earrings with zig-zag patterns. Pearl accessories look very old-fashioned and will add years to your look, however some creative designs on them will turn them modern and girlish. 

In conclusion, the outfit in Day 1 gives people a romantic and soft feeling, which is very different with normal CNY outfits. 

Day 2: British style - Vintage Red floral dress

Floral dresses are a wardrobe staple season after season. I like this red floral wrap dress so much because the v-neck and tight waist design makes me look slim. 

A small technique when wearing this outfit is to apply red color on your lips to sharpen your face figure. I would like to introduce matte red eye shadow in this make up, such as Innisfree My Palatte My Shadow #Matte No.43. Don't forget to apply an obvious eyeliner and darker eyebrow.

I applied big, loose curls on my hair so that it suits my dress well. Then, I clipped up one side of my hair with a rectangular pearl hair clip, bringing out a little vintage taste. 

Next, I matched it with a pair of white flower earrings. There are some pearls dropping down in the end and make it so special. 

In a nut shell, this vintage-feeling dress would be the perfect contrast against white lace-up sneakers. Mix-n-matching vintage and new accessories is probably the easiest way of beginning to work vintage into your wardrobe, as well as a simple way of taking a very special, fancier vintage piece and making it more wearable for day.

A Special Day in My Life: My 21st Birthday Party

Hey, I'm back!

Throwing back to 30 August 2019, it was my 21st birthday party.

The actual day falls on 3 September but I had to celebrate it earlier as I was going to have my internship starting from September. Teehee :P

After setting the theme as rose gold and flamingo, I came up with the invitation card.

This invitation card was designed using Canva, a user-friendly designing website. I had picked grey-white marble as background to make the overall design more elegant. 

With the help of my boyfriend, I had picked Victorian Garden Tea Room & Cafe as the venue of the party. I fell in love with the place right away as soon as I stepped in. 

Source: Victorian Garden

Designed with the elegant Victorian style, this place provides a very cozy feeling to the guests. The person-in-charge is very friendly, I was impressed by their patience while assisting me in organizing this party. 

I am really grateful to have my boyfriend and my sister who had put a lot of efforts in the decorations of my birthday party. All the accessories were bought online from Shopee. I love the design a lot. Thank god that I had a chance in my life to have this kind of party with such wonderful decorations. 

My birthday cake was customized from iCake Penang. I requested for fresh cream on my cake instead of fondant icing because I dislike the taste of the icing. 

Moving to the F&B part, after discussing with the person-in-charge, every guest in my party was served with a main course with two sides and free flow of simple green salad, classic potato salad, wild mushroom soup, quenching drinks, tropical fruit platter, creamy cheese tarts, indulge cake slice, chocolate brownie booms and more. 

Talking about my appearance, the dress I wore during my birthday party was purchased from an online shop, Femay's Couture. You may search for it via this link: Femay's Couture. The puffy sleeve of this dress brings out the princess feel. I love it so much!

My hairstyle was designed by uncle Desmond, our family hairstylist since I was young. 

Not to forget the last part, I was very satisfied with the door gifts given to the guests. 

The pretty marble triangular boxes were bought from Shopee as well. Guess what's inside the box? There were Hershey's chocolates, Japan Meiji candy and coating biscuit! I would like to thank my sister for the homemade almond hugging bear cookies and heart shaped chocolates. 

That's all about my 21st birthday party. Lastly, I would like to thank every guest for sharing the joy with me on that day and the most important ones, my dad and mum for giving me the financial support so that I can be a princess for one day. Haha :)

Okay, i will end this post with a group photo with my church friends. 

Full video: Lydia's 21st Birthday Party