I have two aunties – one long hair, one short hair. The short hair aunty is an active member in Women Executive Committee at community centre, where they plan activites and programmes to build strong bonds among women. Every month, the committee members will gather for meeting and each of them have to bring some food to share. So ever since I got an oven last year, my aunty has been constantly asking me to bake some cupcakes for their meeting.

This is a good exposure for me because she usually needs about 20 cupcakes so it really test my skills and time management. But things are not that rosy sometimes, especially when the cupcakes I baked are not of a liking for the aunty. Or, when I try to disobey her instructions and tried baking a big cake for her instead of 20 cupcakes, we usually end up in an unhappy situation.

A few days back, Aunty requested me to bake cupcakes again. So I baked the most common and well liked flavour – pandan coconut cupcakes! The pandan plant outside my house is going botak very soon and I reckoned that I would need much more this time. So I took short cut here by using the pandan paste instead. I really salute my grandpa because he is seriously very good at portioning the batter into the muffin plate using the ice cream scoop. If it was me, I would have dirtied the whole muffin plate already.

RECIPE – PANDAN COCONUT CUPCAKES
Adapted from In Love with Cakes, by Alan Ooi

INGREDIENTS A (makes 12)
200g plain flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

INGREDIENTS B
4 eggs
180g caster sugar
100g corn oil
50g desiccated coconut
1/2 tbsp pandan paste
1/8 tsp apple cider vinegar

FROSTING
300g unsalted butter
180g icing sugar
1/2 tsp pandan paste

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius.

2. Blend A in a mixing bowl till well combined. For Ingredients B, first beat the eggs in a mixer. Slowly add in sugar and beat till well combined. Add all other ingredients.

3. Add  B into A and mix well. Spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes till cooked.

4. Beat butter and icing sugar till fluffy. Add in pandan paste and mix well.

5. Fit piping bag, spoon in frosting and pipe on top of cupcakes. Sprinkle some desiccated coconut over cupcakes. Enjoy!

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Since I am at the topic of cupcakes, I wanna show you guys my cupcake nails which I did a few days back. I was introduced to PRETTIFY ME at Concorde Hotel & Shopping Mall so I requested to do some food art on my nails. My manicurist, Joan, fulfilled by dream by giving me little 3D cupcakes on my nails. She is very talented! I am so so so happy with my nails and I feel like eating them!

It is so difficult to take my own nails, I think I do better at taking food photos. But the more I look at my cupcake nails, the more I love it and can’t help but to take more shots of them. If I can eat them, I will probably start with the macarons, then move on to the one with chocolate cream on top. Slurps!!!

They are having promotion now from 5 Nov to 4 Dec 2013! Gelish manicure with nail art for $70* with classic pedicure for $30. Promotion is applicable only from Mon to Wed 11am to 4pm. *Terms & Conditions applies*

Prettify Me

Concorde Hotel & Shopping Mall #02-64
Tel: 6735 7728