Anyone used to getting recipes from Internet, cook books, etc will be faced with various unit measures. Be it in cup, grams, ounces, pounds, etc. etc. Here are a couple of conversion measures which I find useful:
Butter
1 cup = 2 sticks = 8 ounces = half pound = 227 gram
Tips: Most butter is sold in 250 gram pack. If you need 227 gram pack, buy Anchor butter.
Flour
1 cup = 100 gram
Your cake has a bulge in the middle and it could even spot a nasty crack? Hmm.. cake with a stretch mark ;o)
The answer lies in the raising agent used. Baking powder will no longer be active when the temperature hits 90 degrees. As the outer circle of the cake gets hotter faster, it will stop raising first. The middle will continue to rise and cause it to bulge.
How to stop this? Few things you can do:
Thanks to johnny ong i found out that Nokia is conducting a recall on their batteries “BL-5C battery manufactured in Japan between December 2005 and November 2006.
Quickly made a check on my old phone and saw that it was a BL-5C! Luckily mine was a later batch 0670400382066 
If you do own an old Nokia phone model, do check out his post Life’s Happenings: Now Nokia is Conducting a Recall for more info
Not all of us have time to shop and cook daily. A piece of cabbage may be resting for a month in the fridge before being cooked. But after a couple of weeks you will find that once fresh cabbage is now covered in black mold or worst, all squishy … yuck!
How to keep the vegetable fresher longer? Simply store them in aluminium bags.
Where to get them you say? Well, just recycle your old aluminium wrapping bags from snacks like Nachos, Cheezels, Twisties or ground nuts. Any of these aluminium bags would do. Just place your vegetable in these bags and tie them up. Your vegetables and fruits will stay fresher longer.
Silverware and our wonderfully moist weather don’t seems to get along well. Even after polishing, it only takes a few weeks before the spotless silverware becomes stained again.
If you are like me, I hate polishing! What can we do? Well, just wash your silverware with toothpaste. Just rub the silverware with a damp soft lint cloth and toothpaste. Then wash it as usual and you will have spotless silverware. To protect them from staining, you may place them in clear plastic with silica gel packets.
Toothpaste will also work with your jewellery. Use an old toothbrush and clean your gold jewellery to make them shine like new.
125g self raising flour
125g wholemeal flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup natural yogurt
1 tbsp honey
Glaze mix:
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp milk
Preheat oven to 210 degrees. Grease baking trays with melted butter. Combine milk yogurt and honey in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until well combined.
Sift flour, wholemeal flour and salt into a mixing bowl, returning flour husk to the bowl. Add yogurt, milk and honey into flour mixture and mix lightly with a flat-bladed knife, to form a soft dough.
Add more milk if necessary. Knead dough briefly on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Press out dough to 2cm thickness.
Cut dough into rounds using a floured 5cm cutter or cut into squares using a floured knife. Place scones on prepared trays. Brush scones with honey glaze. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until lightly golden.
To prepare glaze: Gently warm the milk and honey in a small saucepan, stirring gently until well combined.
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my verdict: its a bit too dry and hard for my liking… maybe its because its got no butter in this recipe… overall in taste… its like a crunchy crust wholemeal bread… taste and smell good… my maid walloped 6 pcs…. so i guess it was nice guaaaa…
Oily food always seems to escape onto the wall of the microwave oven. Leave them there long enough and it will harden. How do you get rid of those stubborn stain and the smell?
Try placing a cup of water with squashed lime or lemon and turn it on High for a minute. Leave the cup in the microwave oven for half an hour. The vapour from the lime or lemon should remove the smell as well as soften the hardened oil and fat stain. Just use a damp cloth with some washing liquid to clean the inside of your microwave oven.
Got that lovely fruit cake recipe but when you try making it, the fruits or nuts just sink to the bottom? A couple of tips to ensure that your fruit cake has its fruits in all the right places:
To ensure greater success to your baking story, ensure that the oven is at the right temperature before placing the mixture in. The mixture should also not be too watery as it will then be easier for the fruits to sink. Good luck!
* Picture of ENO extracted from GlaxoSmithKline website.
Getting those unsightly weeds and lalang growing around the house? To get a bottle of Roundup or herbicide may be overdoing it. What you need is a kettle of hotwater, one 150gm packet of Ajinomoto (or other brand of monosodium glutamate) and a bottle of vinegar. Mix them up in a pail and pour it over the weed. In about 3 to 4 days, you will find them drying. This is a lot more environmentally friendly than your herbicide.
Caution: Don’t over do it. Any small plants may also be affected if you allow the solution to drip or sip over to them.
Leave your furniture too long on the rug (or carpet) and you end up with flattened pile. All you need to do is get a 50 cents coin or a spoon and rub its side on the flattened spot. The flattened pile will soon be restored. Probably not 100% like new but it will remove the unsightly flattened patch.
