The baking session

I took a day's leave from work today. My friend KN and her three children were coming to our home for a baking session today. Her children (DT, ST and GT) are Da's and my godchildren. DT is 9 years old, ST is 7 years old whereas GT is 4 years old.

In preparation for today's baking session, I had prior to today been trying out some recipes to see which recipe would be easy enough for children to attempt. If the final product was not satisfactory, it stayed in our home. If the final product was satisfactory, my colleagues at work were given a treat the next morning. *grin*

When I got up this morning, I started making some preliminary preparations. As my breadmaker machine takes 1 hour 40 minutes for a "dough" cycle, I started preparing the dough for sausage rolls. Shortly before KN and the godchildren arrived, I separated the bread dough into 8 portions and rolled each portion into a ball. As for the sausages, I took out the cheese sausages that I ordered through my colleague recently.

I also boiled and mashed some potatoes, with the intention to let the godchildren try their hand at making potato bread. The small bowl that you see on the left in the photograph below is 1/2 cup of the water that was used to boil the peeled potatoes.

As I was hungry, I baked a carrot and orange cake. I could not wait for the cake to cool thoroughly before I sliced the cake (I was hungry!). As such, a few of the slices broke as I was slicing the cake.

Ding-dong! My baking friends had arrived. I asked DT whether he wanted to make sausage rolls and he grinned in reply. The three godchildren took turns rolling out the dough, placing the sausage in the middle of the dough, cutting slits at the side of the dough and arranging the strips of dough criss-cross.

Ta-da! Beautiful sausage rolls, fresh from the oven.

While waiting for the sausage rolls to cool down, GT could not resist playing peek-a-boo with KN.

Time for a test bite of the sausage rolls. Each godchild tried to select the sausage roll made by him/her respectively. I wonder whether they managed to identify their own sausage roll..... *grin*

In the meantime, I took out from the oven an apple and carrot cake that was baked in a bundt pan. I had some difficulty unmouding the cake and ST offered to help me.

Here is the apple and carrot cake. I managed to take a few photographs before ST decided to recreate the cake into "stir-fried apple and carrot cake". If your curiosity is whetted by what I just said, do have a look at the photographs in the slideshow at the end of this post.

For the effort that the godchildren put in so far, the sausage rolls, the carrot and orange cake and the apple and carrot cake were packed into containers for them to bring home later to show their po-po (grandmother) what they had been up to today.

Beep-beep-beep! The beep sound coming from my breadmaker machine signalled that the "dough" cycle (for the potato bread) had been completed. The dough was turned onto a floured board before the godchildren kneaded the dough by hand for a few minutes.

As DT wanted to bake a pizza, the potato bread dough was placed on a baking tray (instead of a loaf pan). The godchildren spread out the dough in the baking tray before covering the tray with a cloth for the dough to rise for another hour.

While waiting for the pizza dough to rise, we drove to my favourite coffee shop at Jalan Tua Kong for lunch. However, as it was already 3 pm, the stallholders told KN that they had finished selling their food for the day. As such, we went to Hans Cafe & Cafe House at Marine Parade Central instead. While waiting for our respective main courses to arrive, the godchildren enjoyed some soup of the day (mushroom soup) and garlic bread.

DT predicted that his main course would be the last to arrive. He was correct! He had ordered spaghetti de rebus with prawns. When his dish finally arrived, we were impressed by the presentation of the dish. The spaghetti noodles were accompanied by several large prawns, hard boiled eggs and tomato-base sauce.

After lunch, we adjourned to NTUC Supermarket at Marine Parade Central. As the godchildren wanted to bake a Japanese-style pizza, we bought a can of sliced button mushrooms and a can of tuna (in olive oil). Back at our home, the pizza base was first spread with tonkatsu sauce before the godchildren arranged the mushrooms and tuna on top of the pizza base and topped the pizza with seaweed, grated mozarella cheese and bacon bits.

ST opened a box of ferrero rocher chocolates and GT could not resist the temptation to place the golden tape (from the chocolate box) on top of KN's hair as decoration.

A slice of freshly baked pizza for you?

While the pizza was still piping hot, the godchildren started picking at the toppings. Yummy!

While ST enjoyed some mixed berries yoghurt, GT helped to slice the pizza using a pizza cutter.

Here you go... the goodies that the godchildren brought home today.

Did you have fun today, kids? Godma enjoyed herself and it was a pleasure to have your company today. Love, love, hug, hug....