Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

I am in the mission to bake chiffon cakes these days. I have this recipe, looks very yummy, using cream cheese as base. Before embarking on this, I also read up a lot about the do’s and don’ts in baking chiffon cakes. So I though I’m all ready to bake, and with full confidence, I bought a 25cm cake tin, gave it the start last week.

Alas! Turned out, it is not as easy as I had thought!

First attempt, it rised so well, and I was soooo happy, until it cooled upside down for 3 hours… then I realized it was a complete disaster.

From The Suzette

Second attempt, I adjusted the oven temperature. Someone mentioned that he uses fan force for the first 10 min, then switch off the fan for the rest of the baking time, so to guarantee high heat in the beginning. So I followed. It turned out rised toooo high in a short time, the top part over baked. To be more accurate, the entire outside ‘crust’ over baked and fell off from the inside (like a thick buffalo skin peeled off).

From The Suzette

And the inside was actually quite okay, with the right texture.

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So, I thought, maybe I should just go back to the way of my 1st attempt, and just bake a little longer. So I did it with my 3rd attempt. Same way, extended 10 min from 45 min baking time to 55 min. Looks 100% perfect inside the oven, rised beautifully, smells wonderfully. But when removed from the oven, I dare not see… the sides shrunk, so I knew the cake is collapsing. When removed, look at the groove. Like a volcano hole…

From The Suzette

When sliced, it is like my 1st attempt, only slightly fluffier… It was like semi pancake. Wahhaha!

From The Suzette

So, I gave up. Friend suggested that I should try other recipe now. So, I switched to my ‘final target’ (yes, I was thinking once successful this will be the ultimate one that I will make) –> Pandan Chiffon Cake. This one need a lot more eggs and need coconut milk and pandan leaves. In short, more costly. But I gave it a try.

This is my 4th attempt…
WAAAHHHH!! I nearly cried. Again, it collapsed so much after removal and cooled upside down. The center became so dense, and because it uses more flour than the previous recipe, it was hard to the touch. Even Isabel also could feel the difference and questioned me. For this one, we had to throw away part, as we couldn’t finish in 2+ days. At least the cream cheese chiffon cake was soft enough and delicious even I failed, and we could finish in less than 2 days each.

Look how ugly the cake was:

From The Suzette

From the ‘top’ you won’t see how the bottom has collapsed, but when sliced you can see, how dense the center was:

From The Suzette

It was a complete failure again.

So, I did my 5th attempt yesterday. I remembered in my 4th attempt, I had thought the meringue was well beaten, but when I was pouring into the yolk batter, it was not stiff enough, a little runny. So I thought that is something I could do better this time. I really beat the egg until really stiff peak (was also very worried to overbeat it). Then folded in, everything seem perfect.

It rose very beautifully in the oven, nice aroma, beautiful color, etc… My hope was high. Then I removed the cake from the oven, turned upside down to cool… Out of sudden, the cake fell off the pan, dropped onto the table top, the tin flew all directions…!

Well, despite the falling off issue, the cake turned out to be the perfect one! Nice color, no dents at the sides, didn’t collapse much (except those that were torn when it fell off), and the structure holds through the next day, very moist inside and fluffy. It is finally successful in everything… had it not fell off the tin.

From The Suzette

So, what could have caused it to fall off then? I looked back at all my steps, and then realized that… I had miscalculated the time! I wanted to bake for 55 min, and I did 50 min only! I read somewhere on troubleshooting – the 1 possible reason why it falls off, is because under baked. An additional 5-10 min would have solved the problem.

No wonder, the sides all look not enough caramelized. (see pic below)

From The Suzette

Then I wanted to do my 6th attempt, now I know that I almost got everything correct now. I bought all the ingredients, and just before begun, I realized the cake tin SPOILT! All because of the fall, it knocked itself out of shape. It cannot contain any liquid in it. Everything poured in, comes out immediately. Sob! I have to invest in another pan again. Okay, enough said, I’m going to the shop now. Update again later!!

Yesterday, I bumped into Ian’s classmate, and I casually asked about the homework. She said, apart from practicing the Chinese calligraphy, there is also a weekly diary 周记. My eyes nearly popped out. And I quickly asked and confirmed, it has been started since first week of school, and never failed.

I was sooooo disappointing, coz Ian is obviously lying to me again about his homework.

Since first week, I have been asking him about this weekly diary homework, coz it used to be part of it last year. He blatantly told me there is no such homework this year, even though under the same class teacher.

4 months ending, 16 weeks passed by, and he managed to get away from this, without even been detected by the teacher and his month, ME.

I am really furious. I checked his homework book (a notebook that marks down all homework, signed by my helper – whom I asked for help, the same girl who told me about this). I really don’t know why this diary is not included in the homework book. I now start to feel this helper is not diligent enough, but who else I can turn to? Troubling people to check my son’s homework list everyday and still complaint people not diligent enough? I dare not to complain, else I will even lose this final check I have on Ian.

AARRGGHH!!! I am so annoyed and so furious. I made him did all the 16 entries yesterday, but with such short timing, the quality was horrible, and I have no eyes see.

I just hope he hands in the diary today. If he doesn’t, I don’t know what I will do. What can I do??!!!

Yesterday morning after sending my children to bed, I decided to go back to sleep. In order not to disturb DH, I went to sleep in Ian’s room.

Well, I have successfully trained him to make up his bed every morning before he leaves his room. So this is what I saw. Very neat bed, with his bolsters and tortoise arranged properly. Ya, he is still so attached to his tortoise. I think it has been 6 or 7 years already, and this tortoise has shrunk so much, still his favorite!

From The Suzette

And then, as I was moving his stuff away, so that I could sleep on it, I found this!!

From The Suzette

Look at the hand of the tortoise! Hahahaha! He made the tortoise hug/hold his smelly bolster exactly the way he likes to do himself. Yes, this smelly bolster was his first, and has accompanied him for 9 years already and is still his favorite. This boy is always very sentimental…

I haven’t told him that I discovered this. Will show him this post and see what he says. Hahaha! :p

Recently I’ve been planning for the year end holiday with my family. Our plan was to leave as soon as the school holiday starts, but after further contemplation and discussion, we have decided to skip the last day of school, so that we could depart on the Friday, so we could enjoy the weekend to the fullest.

After buying our tickets and all that, today I talked to Ian and Isabel about our holiday plan. The moment I told him about our plan to skip Friday school, he seems to be upset and told me that he wishes not to skip any school days, coz he wants to keep his record beautiful.

Then, he told me, there was a day, his class teacher (who has been teaching him since standard 1, and now he is in his standard 3), brought up the subject of absenties. And she specifically mentioned Ian as a good examples for all the students. She said that he has never been absent from the school, except for a day in standard 1. That was during the 1st day of school exam, when I sent him to the school despite him complaint about nauseous. He threw out in the school, and I had to pick him from the school, and subsequently the next day he had to rest at home on MC. Apparently teacher saw his effort to stay in the school and is commendable!

So, he wishes that he could still go to the school on the last day, that we don’t make him skip the school.

Oh, what should I do? I’ve already bought the tickets lah! Maybe send him to the school, take attendance, then pick him after recess? I like to keep a good record too, as I used to have when I was in primary as well… ^_^

A few years ago, my neighbor’s son came to my house to play with Ian. Half way through, he suddenly had nose bleeding. Well, I NEVER had nose bleeding before, and no one close to me have had it too. I didn’t know how to handle it, and I was quite panic. When I rang his mom, she sounded so cool and said that the son knows what to do. Apparently it is very common to him, and he is kind of used to it.

Seeing that, it inspired me to do a research on nose bleeding for its cause and its treatment.

Now, looking at it from a hind-side, I think God wanted to prepare me for what is to come…

Just few months after that incident, my own son started to have nose bleeding. Being well equipped with the knowledge, I wasn’t panic this time, and I knew exactly what to do. Ian, on the other hand, was also well prepared since I talked about it aloud before, and he captured the essence of it.

That first episode of his nose bleeding was last year, and it only re-occurred many months later. But this year, it became more frequent and more drastic, that it terrified him (not me, though).

Okay, from what I’ve learnt, there is nothing to be worried of nose bleeding, unless it doesn’t stop after many rounds of attempts to stop it. Apparently there is nothing alarming about nose bleeding, except that the blood scares most of us, coz it is BLOOD! :p

When one has nose-bleed, the common practice is to tilt your head up, but that is WRONG. On the contrary, he should keep the head low, to prevent the blood from flowing to the mouth, coz the blood tastes awful and can clog the way. Trust me, Ian had it once, it back flown and filled his mouth – until many hours later he still felt yucky and couldn’t eat his breakfast.

When keeping the head bow, one should also pinch the soft part of the nose, to help stop the bleeding. Breath through mouth during this period. Do that fo a few minutes, and see if it stops. If not, repeat.

At the same time, ice compress the back of the head (above the neck). My neighbor said ice compress the forehead, maybe that works too. Can try both.

Last week, Ian woke up and screamed in the toilet. When I rushed in, I saw the whole sink was filled with blood, fresh blood and still dripping from his nose. Ya, it was like a faucet didn’t close properly, water still dripping out, but in this case it was blood. He has been pinching his nose but just too much. We had to use ice and keep pinching for 5 min, about 3 times. His bedsheet was full of blood, and the floor too. It twas the most terrifying episode so far. But the bleeding stopped after we applied ice to the back of his head. During the same incident, he has had the blood back flew to his throat. I think either the blood was too much, or it could have started when he was still lying in his bed.

Since then, everyday he asks for prayer for his nose, and a little discomfort in his nasal passage, he would be terrified and suspecting he has bleeding again.

Last Sunday, he played with a friend, and the friend hit his head (not meant to be in a harmful manner, but playfully) –> right after that, his nose bled again.

Guess it was too much for him to take on, twice in less than a week. Ah, pray for his nose to be okay again.