Lemon Pound Cake

My maiden attempt at lemon cake!

I've always wanted a recipe for a lemon cake. It's just one of the standard cakes you get at almost every German potluck. 

Hence, when my friend brought her home-baked lemon pound cake for playgroup the other day, I simply had to try her recipe, especially cos it tasted SOO good and it was from Martha Steward!

This recipe is superb! The cake is so light, fluffy and moist. I've not tried any other lemon cake recipes, so I can't tell if this is the best recipe, but it's definitely very good!

The preparation is not the fastest though, cos you'd have to mix the dough by adding one egg at a time. But other than that, we were so satisfied with the recipe that we ended up baking it twice in a span of 4 days! 

The original recipe stated that recipe is enough for 2 cakes, but we found that it was more suitable for 1.5 cakes. We like our cakes big you see. 

A word of caution though. The baking time varies. The first time I baked the cake, it ended up perfect. However, the second time I baked it, the bottom part got burnt - which could be because we over-heated the oven to begin with or perhaps we accidentally placed the cake directly on the bottom of the oven instead of putting it on the last rack. 

In any case, the next time we bake it, we would simply put the cake in the middle of the oven and watch the cake after about 40 minutes to ensure that the top does not get burn. 

The original recipe states all the ingredients in the U.S. cup system, so I've taken the liberty to convert everything to the metric system. 

Ingredients:-

Small bowl 
- 190 grams Buttermilk
- Fresh lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
- Lemon zest (from 3 lemons), finely-grated

Medium bowl
- 420 grams Flour
- 1.5 tsp Salt
- 0.5 tsp Baking powder
- 0.5 tsp Baking soda

Large bowl
- 225 grams unsalted Butter, softened
- 400 grams Sugar
- 5 large Eggs

Lemon glaze
- 250 grams Icing sugar
- Fresh lemon juice (4 tbsp) 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius, with rack in the middle. Line baking tin. 

2. In a small bowl, combine buttermilk, fresh lemon juice and lemon zest. 

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

4. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy with an electric mixer.

5.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 

6. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in three parts, alternately with the buttermilk mixture in two, beginning and ending with flour. Beat until just smooth (do not overmix). 

7. Place batter in baking tin and bake for 50 minutes or until done (check by inserting a toothpick in the center and see if it comes out clean). If cake is browning too quickly, cover with aluminium foil. Cool cake completely before glazing. 

8. Prepare lemon glaze by mixing icing sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Adjust the consistency by either adding more lemon juice or more sugar. Glaze should be thick, yet pourable. 

8. Glaze cake with lemon glaze. Let it dry (about 30 minutes) before eating.

Adapted from original recipe here.

German strawberry cake

Straight out from the pan

You know how it is to FINALLY do something that you've been wanting to for the longest time? 

That sense of accomplishment and "Yes! I've done it!" top of the world feeling?

Oh yeah. That's how we felt recently when hubby and I made a strawberry cake together straight out from his mother's recipe. 

It was sooooo good that we both went straight for seconds. 

Another best part of it? This recipe is so simple that one can simple store the ingredients for the cake in the pantry for a long time and take them out to satisfy the cake craving.

It's light, fluffy and oh-so-fruity. One can use fresh strawberries or simple substitute it with canned fruits like peaches, raspberries or whatever your heart desires. 

It has an airy, vanilla-flavoured base, topped with a layer of pudding, followed by strawberries covered in a layer of jelly. We used Dr. Oetker - the leading German brand for baking condiments and we're never disappointed with the results.

Enjoying the cake with a Nespresso Cappuccino

 Ingredients for the cake base:

- 1 tablespoon cold water

- 100 grams Sugar

- 100 grams Flour

- 4 tbsp Oil

- 3 Eggs

- 1 Packet of Vanilla sugar

- 1/2 Packet Backing Powder

1. Mix everything together with a hand mixer until smooth. 

2. Bake in a baking form (28cm) for about 15 minutes at 160 degree celsius (fan-forced) or 180 degree celsius (normal oven).

3. Once base is done, let it cool. 

4. In the meantime, prepare the vanilla pudding according to the packet instructions. Spread the vanilla pudding on the cake base.

5. Arrange the cut strawberries on top of the vanilla pudding.

6. Prepare the jelly according to the packet instructions and spread it on top of the strawberries.

7. Allow the cake to cool / refrigerate it. Enjoy! :)

The pudding and jelly packets that I used

Ham and Cheese pastry

A friend commented once that my recipes tend to be pretty tedious and time-consuming. Hence, I'm posting this entry to prove that I do make easy recipes too.

This recipe is a.w.e.s.o.m.e for parties or as a contribution for a potluck. It takes 5 minutes tops to prepare and is guaranteed to a be a hit with your guests! Plus, living in Germany, this recipe is superb because the ham and cheese is out-of-the-world here.

Ingredients:-

- A packet of puff pastry (Blätterteig)
- A packet of ham (about 6 slices)
- A packet of cheese (I used gouda)
- 1 egg yolk (beaten)

1. Pre-heat oven to about 200 degrees

2. Spread out puff pastry and place a layer of ham followed by a layer of cheese on it

3. Roll the entire thing length-wise and cut it into thin strips

4. Lay the strips facing upwards on a baking sheet and coat the top with a beaten egg yolk

5. Bake for about 20 minutes or according to the instructions of the puff pastry. Enjoy!

 Before baking

 The final product

Best Banana Chocolate Chip Cake Recipe

Alright, so its unfair to make that claim since I obviously haven't tried every single banana cake in the world. But this recipe comes close! I baked this cake to thank the youths for helping us with moving our belongings last week.

I've been buying bananas since they are such a great source of food when I'm hungry and have no motivation or energy to cook.

Bananas are loaded with potassium, fiber and vitamin B, which is good for a boost in energy. Eating a banana on the go buys me time to think about what / if I want to eat something for my lunch / dinner. As a teacher with irregular working hours, I find that carrying a banana in my bag helps me to tide me over my hunger pangs.

I must say though, bananas don't survive very well in a woman's bag. The skin gets bruised easily and what looked like a fresh banana when I first put it into my bag, quickly turns in a badly-beated up, black, squashy thing.... I heard about a "banana holder" invented just for this purpose though.

Anyway before I divert, the flip side of buying bananas is that they don't have a long shelf life. I find myself in a position when I have to either eat over-ripe bananas or try to make something out of them.

I hence googled "best banana cake recipe" and found this one which I have since adapted. :) It tastes awesome! Moist, dense and rich with a chocolatey after-taste. Definitely worth trying for you banana lovers out there!

Ingredients:
- 125 grams butter
- 100 grams sugar
- 3 bananas (250grams)
- 1 packet of vanilla sugar (about 10grams)
- 2 to 3 large eggs (total weight of about 120grams)
- 100 grams Buttermilk
- 215 grams flour 

- 2 tsp baking powder

- 0.75 tsp salt 
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Some chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 150 degrees Celsius fan-forced.
2. Grease a 22cm diameter cake pan, including the sides (I used a 25cm cake pan and it tasted just as great)
3. Mix butter, sugar, banana, vanilla and eggs in a food processor
4. Add buttermilk to mixture. Combine.
5. Sift flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda together in a large bowl.
6. Add flour mixture to food processor and mix until combined
7. Mix a handful of chocolate chips into the batter
8. Pour batter into cake pan.
9. Bake for about an hour or until a skewer of knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean
10. Leave cake to cool. Before serving sprinkle some icing sugar. Enjoy!!!!

Tried to take some close-up shots of the chocolate bits

Post note: I had 6 bananas, so I baked 2 cakes. The first one with chocolate chips in a round pan and the second one with Nutella in a cake loaf pan. My verdict? Forget the chocolate chips and just use Nutella instead! A rectangular loaf pan suits this cake better too. It tastes beyond awesome!!!!

White chocolate and raspberries Muffins

Our church is fairly big - with over 4,000 people visiting the 2 services every Sunday. Hence one usually only gets to know others by being connected to a cell group.

A cell group is an informal gathering of people once a week, during which different topics from the Bible are discussed, with the main intention of getting to know God more and grow deeper in the word. 

Over the past 3 years, we´ve had the opportunity and privilege to lead a group of young people every Tuesday. They are the sweetest people ever and we look forward to seeing them every week. They´re sorta like our spiritual children. :) 

Once in a blue moon though, we have a regional church service instead of a cell group. This is so that people who live within close proximity would get to know each other. We would have potluck together, for which everybody would have to bring some finger food. I used to fret over what to bring, since I didn´t cook when I first came to Germany in Aug 06. Now I just make whatever comes to my mind with the mindset of "If nobody likes it, I can still take it home and enjoy it myself". :)

I´ve been wanting to make these muffins for the longest time, since seeing them on Karen Cheng´s blog. However, each time I bought the white chocolate, my hubby ended up eating them up first before I could get down to baking them. Finally when I decided to bake them, guess what? I couldn´t find the recipe! AND I couldn´t find them on Karen´s blog any more. Hence, I had to google for a recipe and ended up with a brand-new recipe, which was cool too, because this recipe is butter-free.

My pinky girly muffins before putting them in the oven. Can you see the huge chunks of raspberries inside? Ooh Lala.....

The final product! Don´t the colours look so unique? Brown crust, pink raspberries and vanilla white chocolate.

Moist on the inside and crispy on the outside, they tasted awesome! I got rave reviews for it and one friend even suggested that they tasted like ice-cream!

White chocolate and Raspberries Muffins

2 teaspoons lemon juice

250ml milk
125ml oil
1 large egg / 2 small eggs
300g self-raising flour / 300 g all-purpose flour + 1 tsp salt + 2 tsp baking powder
150g  caster sugar
200g white chocolate chopped into small chunks
200g berries (I used raspberries, but you can mix strawberries and raspberries)

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 degrees Celsius fan-forced).

2. Line 12 holes of a muffin pan. I found this recipe makes about 14 - 15 muffins.

3. Whisk lemon juice, milk, oil and egg in a medium bowl until well combined.

4. Place self-raising flour, caster sugar and white chocolate in a large bowl. Stir to combine.

5. Add berries. Gently stir to combine.

6. Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stop stirring once the ingredients are combined (do not over mix). The batter should be quite wet.

7. Divide mixture evenly between muffin cases.

8. Bake for about 22-27 minutes until done. A knife inserted into the centre of a muffin should come out clean.

9. Serve the muffins warm or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar if desired. They are at their best on the day they are baked.

Store muffins in an airtight container. Muffins can be reheated in the microwave. Suitable to freeze.

Adapted from: www.exclusivelyfood.com.au

3 more days to skiing and I sooo can´t wait! Woo hoo! And got the all-clear today from my bladder infection! I´m SOooo happy! One victory on the health front!

Cinnamon Rolls

Ok, I know Christmas is over but cinnamon rolls are an all-time favourite. Actually anything with cinnamon is always welcomed!

Can´t believe how easy it was to make them this time round. The last time I tried it, about 2 years ago, the flour was unmanageable and they didn´t look pretty at all (here).

This time round, I decided to do my research, compare recipes, read comments and finally ended up with this recipe, which is pretty straight-forward and easy. :)

Rolling and cutting the dough. Don´t the rolls look so fricking neat?

Placing them on a greased baking sheet

The finished product. And yup, they taste just as nice as they look.

Homemade cinnamon rolls

2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

1 cup warm milk (40 - 43 degrees)

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast into warm milk set aside.

1/2 cup sugar

75 grms butter, melted

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

4 cups flour

In a large bowl, mix together sugar, butter, salt and eggs. Add dissolved yeast and milk mixture. Add flour and mix well.

Using a kneading machine, knead the dough until it is smooth. Continue by using your hands to knead the dough into a large ball. This will ensure maximum airyness of the dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until dough has doubled in size.

On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 50cm x 40cm rectangle, approximately 1/2cm thick.

Left: Can´t wait to dig in! See that look of anticipation on my face?

Filling:

1 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon

75 grms butter, softened (room temp)

In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Spread softened butter evenly over surface of dough, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Working from the 50cm side, roll dough down to bottom edge.

Cut rolled dough into 12 slices. Place slices 6 at a time in a lightly greased baking pan. Cover and let rise until rolls double in size (about 30 min).

Bake at 205 degrees C, for 10 - 15 min or until light brown on top.

Icing:

115 grms butter, softened (room temp)

50 grms cream cheese

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

While the rolls bake combine all ingredients. Beat with mixer until fluffy. When the rolls come out of the oven, coat each generously with icing.

They taste awesome with our Nespresso Cappuccino!

Oatmeal Chocolate and Raisins Cookies

How was your Christmas? Mine was awesome! Had 3 guests over from Singapore and everyday was lovely! Went to the Christmas markets, ate a lot, opened a lot of presents.... can´t believe the week just passed like that! I have lots of photos to process, so before that, here´s a superb recipe for cookies! Easy as pie, chewy and delicious. Only tedious part is perhaps the rolling of the dough into balls.

How do you like the 2 shots? Belinda taught me how to use the macro function on my camera - focussing on the foreground and blurring the background. It´s so fun and the photos turn out so artistic that I´m definitely going to experiment with it more often.

This recipe yields around 150 medium-sized cookies. Great to wrap in transparent bags as small gifts or just to eat it yourself!

Ingredients:-

- 500 grams softened butter

- 200 grams castor sugar

- 400 grams brown sugar

- 4 eggs

- 1 tsp vanilla sugar

- 500grams flour

- 400 grams blended Oatmeal

- 1 tsp salt

- 2 tsp baking powder

- 2 tsp baking soda

- Chocolate bits from normal chocolate

- Raisins

1) Cream butter and 2 sugars. Pay attention not to make it too dry. Mixture should still be a bit wet and sticky.

2) Add the rest of the ingredients

3) Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet

4) Bake 10-15 mins at 180 degrees

I made 3 different types - Raisins, Chocolates, Raisins and Chocolates together. My fave has got to be the last one.

Mixed Berries Muffins

I baked these muffins last Monday since my hubby had his first home-office day.

Have I mentioned how much we both LOVED spending the day together? It was awesome! He worked on his computer while I prepared brunch with scrambled eggs, muffins, German sausages and orange juice.

I´m not a morning person so we usually have breakfast separately on weekdays and even on weekends, we hardly do breakfast as I wake up in time for brunch.

Hence, it was a real treat for the hubby and he was so excited about it that he "boasted" about it to friends even before Monday! **Poor breakfast-deprived hubby"

Recipe for Mixed Berries Muffins
375grams flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
4 tsp ground cinnamon
250ml milk
2 large eggs
240grams butter (softened)
300 grams / 1 box of mixed berries – blueberries, raspberries, strawberries (frozen)
300grams sugar

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Paper line 20 muffin cups
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon together in a large bowl.
3. Add the milk, eggs, butter. Stir quickly and combine. Add the berries and sugar, stirring quickly again just to combine
4. Spoon into cups, fill almost to top. Bake until brown and crusty, about 20 minutes. Test to see if its done by inserting a wooden stick to see if it comes out clean.

Absolutely delicious and it tastes nice close to Christmas when everything begins to smell of cinnamon!

Banana muffins

We´re back from our Nice trip! It was awesome! Lots of photos to sort out... will try to do them tomorrow.

I baked these muffins a while ago and since a friend of mine asked for the recipe, I decided to put it directly on my blog.

Banana (walnuts / almonds) muffins
110grams butter
200 grams sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
3 ripened bananas
180 grams flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional)
1.5 tsp cinnamon powder
2 eggs
100 grams walnuts / almonds

1. Blend all ingredients together
2. Fill paper muffin cups with batter
3. Bake 20-25 mins at 180 degrees celsius

Yields 17 medium-sized muffins. Enjoy!

Pandan cake success

We had a church service-cum-lunch today and I tried making Pandan cake again after my last attempt (here) .

This time I used all the ingredients that Cynthia so kindly sent to me from Singapore - namely Pandan Paste, Pandan essence, cream of tartar and sponge cake stabilizer.

I also tried a new recipe, using 6 eggs instead of 4 eggs in the previous one. Apparently, the more eggs you use the more difficult it gets to handle the cake.

So I guess the fact I could use 6 eggs and the cake came out great, shows that my baking skills are improving! The taste was much stronger this time, the green colour came out and the cake was way firmer than the previous time.

At first I thought the cake would be a failure when the top cracked, however upon Internet research, I realized that it was really quite normal.

Here´s mixing the batter and all the different ingredients that went into the cake

Just before it entered the oven....its green!!!

The cake is its entire goodness! It didn´t break up, was soft, moist and airy! Just right for a great pandan cake! I think the appearance could be improved, but tastewise, it was awesome!

So firm, it can stand on its own in single pieces...woo hoo!

The cut-up slices topped with icing sugar...a western addition to this Asian cake

Recipe for Pandan Cake
- 6 egg whites
- 125g castor sugar
-1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- 6 egg yolks
- 100gm sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar
- 5 tsp corn oil
- 1/2 tsp pandan paste (I used 1/4 tsp, but felt that the pandan taste could be stronger)
- 1/2 tsp pandan essence
- 1 tbsp sponge cake stabiliser (optional)
- 100gm thick coconut milk
- 140 grams flour + 1 tsp baking powder

Instructions:
- Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius

- Whisk egg whites, sugar (125gm), cream of tartar in an electric mixed until stiff (doesn´t fall out when you turn the bowl upside down)

- Whisk egg yolks, sugar (100gm) and vanilla sugar until light and creamy. Add in corn oil, pandan paste, pandan essence, thick coconut milk and sponge cake stabiliser. Mix well.

- Stir in sifted flour (twice) and fold in carefully and gently to mix

- Pour egg yolk mixture lightly into egg white mixture. Mix evenly with plastic spatula

-Pour batter into an ungreased 22cm tube pan.

-Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until cake is well browned and stick comes out clean when inserted into cake

-Remove cake from oven. Invert pan immediately. Leave to cool, then remove cake from pan with the help of a thin-bladed knife.

- Top off with icing sugar (optional)

It was such a success that other than the one piece I tried at home, there was nothing left after the lunch today. I expected that people would be cautious about trying it since it was green, but my friends really liked it! :)

Keen to try? Let me know how yours turned out! I´ll try out another pandan cake recipe sometime this week and will compare both.

Oh, I´m on a one-week break from work because I´ve got a throat infection, that resulted from having a cold and slight fever 2 weeks ago. My voice has been very unstable. When I don´t talk, its ok. However, after 3 hours of consecutive teaching, my throat starts to hurt and I´ve been popping tons of throat drops. So doctor says I shouldn´t talk much for 1 week, have my antibiotics and rest. Yah...so I´ll have to figure out how to entertain myself for 5 days without talking!!! Any ideas?

Yellow Pandan chiffon cake

I went crazy last week. To be precise, pandan-cake crazy. I had this sudden desire to have pandan cake and the madman fanatic determination to "get it right". Hence, there went hours of research, looking at recipes, comparing recipes, reading comments and learning from peoples' mistakes etc. These efforts did not prevent me from having the sorrow of my first two cakes "exploding". Ok, sounds funny, but it really exploded! The whole cake rose so much that it overflowed the cake tin and there was a huge air bubble on the inside. It was brown on the outside but moist on the inside and not at all "airy".

Ok, fine.... so I didn´t have all the ingredients. I didn´t have "cream of tartar", "sponge cake stabilizer" and "pandan paste". All the essentials ABCs of a pandan cake. I squeezed the pandan juice out myself straight from fresh pandan leaves. Unfortunately, the green colour was no match for the yellow from the egg yolks. My first "semi-successful" pandan cake turned out yellow, but at least the texture was there....soft, airy and "chiffony". And of course I had to forget to add the "pandan essence" so the flavour wasn´t strong enough. Nevertheless, I was so relieved and happy that I finally found a recipe that worked (with my skills, oven etc.) Yup, I had to change recipe and adjust proportions before having a cake that didn´t explode! Shall wait for Cyn to send me the pandan essentials and try it again with all the right ingredients....should be better after like my 10th pandan cake attempt. Oh and for those who don´t know, pandan cake is like 9 egg whites and 8 egg yolks, plus coconut too! So next time you wanna gorge on these goodies, think again! Each slice is like 1 egg!

Fun with baking - Laugenbrot

I had a mini-baking session at my home last Friday. It was such a wonderful and fun time with a few friends whom I simply got together, even though some of them don't know each other. I cooked lasagne (from scratch), which tasted awesome, albeit a little watery - not my fault, I followed the recipe....will have to decrease the liquid next time round. Yah, I figured out that since all of them worked except for me, I could simply cook dinner for them and then we could have a baking session.

Prayed that it would turn out to be an enjoyable evening and it turned out exactly that! We were laughing so much! Over various stuff, over the baking experience for each person and we arranged to have a movie night 2 weeks from now....wow, I'm glad that I have a certain plan to entertain myself on Friday evenings when Stephan is busy slogging away in his tax advisor's course. Poor hubby, God bless him and keep him and help him to persevere until the very end. Amen!

In the meantime, I shall put on my creative cap and think of various ways to occupy my time without burning a hole in my pocket....Some photos of our Backen-und-Spass Abend.....For more photos, go here.

First, you need to knead the dough
Everybody had their turn with rolling the dough into balls
That's Gabi (in black) our teacher inspecting the breadrolls

Into the oven!

Waiting with anticipation for it to be baked


Tata! Our babies!

The baking group! That's Kristian (the only guy), Gabi (face covered), Miriam (extreme right), Geli (rolled eyes)..... Wow, such a fun, young group! So glad that we had such an awesome time this evening and I'm so looking forward to even more superb times together

Let the creative juices flow......

Left: That´s what Stephan left on my table on St. Nicholas Day. Apparently its a tradition that children get sweets in their shoes. I thought it was so sweet! Except that I can´t eat the chocs! My throat hasn´t been really good these days. I´ve been MIA, as you can see from my blog. Reason being that I´ve been doing all sorts of fun Christmas stuff! Boy, I´m like metamorphosizing to a stay-home wife! Firstly, I´ve been baking all sorts of stuff! Getting inspiration from my friend´s blog, I´ve baked tartlets, cookies and muffins - all in two weeks....poor Stephan, he´s been eating all these butter-loaded goodies. Of course, I share my joy by giving them away to friends. Ok, I shall post my long-awaited photos! Enjoy!

Banana walnut muffins with Cappucino - superb for a cold winter

Lime Tartlets (even though Stephan says it doesn´t taste much of lime, but the tarts were yummy!)


Mountain of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, thanks to the incredibly huge portion from the recipe

Also, I went shopping at Ikea with my german friend, Anja to decorate my house! Since I´ll be having a birthday party and a Christmas party at my place, Stephan and I decided that it would be a good idea to get a Christmas tree (we didn´t have any last year) and also invest in some start-up Christmas decoration. I´m so thankful for the help I got, Anja is like so super gifted in decoration. My living room is decorated in shades of blue, silver and green now. I like it when a place has a colour theme so that things look like they belong there and not all funny shades of colour all over the place.

The lovely centrepiece on my dining table

My mini-trees on the window panel, those ribbons are meant for the hair actually

My Christmas tree! Its real BTW. That´s why I have a pot. Its been up since 1st Dec. A compromise btw Stephan and I, since ppl in Germany put up their trees on the 24th and ppl in Singapore put them up end of Nov.


This hanging twig is real too. Anja came up with the idea of making my place look dreamy, like a white Christmas....so what do you think?

What else - hmmm, I went for my first-ever pyjama party last week too. One of our friends turned 22 (young, I know...) and he decided to have a pyjama party! It was really funny seeing the youths in their sleepwear. Stephan really wore his pyjamas...that´s one thing that I really like about germans, they are very "gung-ho" to wear stuff according to the themes.....

Oh and to top off the whole thing, I hand-made my own Christmas cards this year. It just started off with me buying some nice paper (to save money, cards here are like 1 or 2€ each, and if I send overseas, I´d be forking out 3 to 4€ per card?!). Anyways, ya I had some paper and bought some silver stickers to decorate. Ended up with 20 cards in different styles and colours...so cool! Alrighty, I still haven´t started writing any cards yet....still not sure if I wanna send the cards to Singapore or the easier way, send the cards to ppl in Germany and e-cards to the ppl in Singapore? A bit mean lah..... but hey, I don´t get many cards from Singapore either ok......

Hand-made cards.... any orders?

Yup! What do you think? Am I a creative person? I took a D-I-S-C test before and being a high "I" person - which means initiative, people-oriented, popular, I should be quite creative actually...I guess my studies in Accountancy wasn´t the best decision eh....Stephan´s mentor was pretty shocked when he found out that I studied Accountancy cos he could tell that I was a high "I" person....What on earth do "I" people do actually?