Making Orange Butter Cake @ Bakerzin Kids

Heard some good reviews on the baking workshops at Bakerzin Kids and decided to sign up the children for the Orange Butter Cake baking session about 1 month ago. The workshops are usually in hot demand and parents have to sign up their kids about 1 month in advance (can do it online).

The baking session is held at a workshop located within the Bakerzin Outlet at UE Square (81, Clemenceau Avenue, #01-15, Singapore 239917). Each baking session lasts about 1.5 hours.

The children were excited when they arrived at the workshop as they were greeted with tables filled with colorful spread of ingredients and kitchen tools. But before they began, they had to put on their chef hat and apron as well as wash their hands (If not, there will be no takers for their cakes :-P).

As the children worked through the baking session, the Chef from Bakerzin patiently gave his instructions and ensure that the children understood the procedures. He was assisted by helpers (in green shirts) who led assistance to children who had difficulty especially if they were first timers.... like Joann and Jayden :-)

The children first, sifted the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, they beat together butter with sugar and orange zest until creamy. Added the eggs, one at a time. Stirred in the vanilla extract. Next, using a spatula, they folded the flour mixture into the butter mixture and stirred in the cream until well-mixed.

 

Now, the children divided the batter evenly among the muffin tins.

 

Once ready, the batter in the muffin tins were placed in the oven for about 20 minutes (preheated to 180 Degree Celsius).

Joann and Jayden were truly enjoying the workshop! Next step, was to prepare the sugar decorations for their orange butter cakes.

The cakes were ready! Final step - decorating the cakes! The smell of baked cakes was making me hungry :-P

 

The cakes are ready! Any takers?

As a whole, the children enjoyed the workshop and have been asking for more since they returned home. Besides the cakes that they made, the children were also given the Bakerzin chef hat, apron, workshop graduation certificate, photographs, receipt sheet and reward cards. You can enjoy a $8 discount when your child brings along the issued apron and hat to the next workshop.

The remaining workshops in January 2011 are almost fully booked. I am waiting for the February schedule to be released at Bakerzin's website. If anyone interested, we could arrange for our children to participate in a workshop together? 

Fun Games for Family

As parents, Aileen and I believe that play time as a family is a great way to build bonds with our children as well as letting them learn as they play. In this post, I will share two of our favourite indoor games - Monopoly Junior and Jenga. 

The Monopoly Junior is a simplified version of the popular board game, Monopoly, aimed at children. It has a smaller, rectangular board and instead of being based on street names, it is based on fun fair to make it more child-friendly. While the rules of the game remain unchanged, the game is simpler e.g. the currency is in denominations of $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5, each house is called a ticket booth, the chance cards are worded with simple English that a 5 years old could read, etc. 

The Monopoly Junior is a great game for the children as they learn to count the dollar notes, the number of steps to take based on their dice throw, read the chance cards by themselves as well as learning to be gracious when lost in a game.

Another game that the children love, is Jenga. Jenga is a game that tests one's physical and mental skills. During the game, each player takes turn to remove a block from the tower and balance it on top, creating a taller and increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses. The loser is the person who makes the tower collapse. 

At home, we play a simpler variant i.e. taking out a block at a time without toppling the tower. In this game, the children get to train their motor skills as well as finding creative ways to remove the blocks e.g. by tapping with finger nails, using a block to push out another, etc. You can devise your own variants of the game such as removing only specific color blocks, removing two different color blocks at one time, etc. After each game, the children get to count the number of blocks that they collected. It is a simple way to let them practise their math too.

These are fun games that you can buy from major toy stores. I am currently scouting around for more fun board games in Singapore and online. Will update this post with more recommendations. Have a great time bonding with your children!

Few Hours @ Terminal 3, Changi Airport

Decided to bring the children to Terminal 3 to chill-out this afternoon prior to church service in Singapore Expo. We had not been to T3 for some months and were pleasant to see some new play areas for children.

First, at basement 2, there is a new kid's corner where parents can let their legs take a break by letting their kids watch their favourite cartoons from Cartoon Network. This spot was great for Jayden as he was able to enjoy his favourite cartoons such as "Batman", "Ben 10", "Speed Racer", etc.

As we walked further down in basement 2, towards the food court, there were some fun hands-on exhibits, courtesy of the Asian Civilisation and Peranakan Museum. There were geometric games, puzzles and embossed printings to help visitors understand more about the Asian and Peranakan culture. Joann and Jayden enjoyed playing the puzzles and making embossed prints.

Thereafter, we proceeded to 3-Top (level 3) for some window-shopping. Just when Jayden was getting restless, we saw a little playground where he could just have some fun while I popped by next door for a Celio sale, yeah!

The few hours at T3 was sufficient for us to chill-out - the children had some fun while Aileen and I had a little shopping and coffee break. The airport is currently revamping their viewing gallery to Changi Aviation Gallery which provides a new aircraft viewing experience. If you are looking for a good place to hang-out with your kids for 2 to 3 hours, the airport is a good bet.