About

Hello! I am Foodie Baker and nice to meet you! I am the baker, the cook, the author, the part-time photographer (my husband X takes most of the travel photos), and pretty much the slave behind Foodie Baker.

Update 2023: I’m not very active on the website these days due to my career, and am more a tiny little bit more active on my Instagram page (@foodiebaker)

My Baking and Cooking Journey

My interest in food runs deep since young – my maternal grandparents, my aunt (my mom’s sister) and my mom are awesome cooks and they can always whipped up a feast effortlessly. My maternal grandparents lived in Malaysia, so we would return to visit them during festive seasons, their birthdays and school holidays. During those visits, my breakfast was always two soft-boiled eggs (freshly laid by the hens my grandmother reared) and milo, a malty, chocolate drink. My grandparents would also choose a few chickens for a feast and I would be there helping to pluck out the feathers.

However, I didn’t have a chance to cook until I was 14, because of a “tragic accident” in the kitchen when I was young. At that time (I don’t remember when), my mom asked me to crack an egg for her (when I was pretty young) – and instead of cracking the egg into the bowl, I cracked the egg onto myself, and subsequently onto the floor (don’t ask me how I did it). Needless to say, I was banished from the kitchen ever since.

So when I was 14, my mother bought home an oven and a round cake pan to bake a butter cake. I was already a glutton then, so seeing how a simple combination of flour, eggs and butter can churn out a delicious cake got me really excited. I was also having Home Economics lesson in school, where teachers taught us how to bake and cook, which boosted some of my confidence. I baked my first bake (not sure why my mom let me but she did) – a chocolate oatmeal cookie for my tuition teacher to thank her for helping me with my maths. I still remember her saying that the cookies were delicious and that I should open a café in the future! And just like that, baking became my passion and hobby.

Internet wasn’t that readily accessible that time, so my main source of recipes were from cooking shows (my favourites are Jamie Oliver and Nigella) and the cookbooks in the public libraries. I would sit in front of the TV, ready with paper and a pen, to write down whatever Jamie or Nigella said and did (I only realised many years later that those recipes are actually readily available on the Internet). I poured over numerous cookbooks, jotting down the recipes that I want to try in notebooks. And when internet became more accessible, I followed numerous food bloggers religiously, bookmarking every recipe I liked.

I baked as often as I could (most of my allowance goes into baking equipment and baking ingredients), many times they were flops, sometimes they were average, sometimes they were delicious. I love to share the successful bakes with my family and friends – it’s so rewarding seeing them liking what I bake!

My love for cooking came much later, mainly because there was no need for me to cook at home as my mom cooks for us everyday. When I entered university and started staying in a hostel, I used that opportunity to learn how to cook.

The Blog

I decided to start a food blog in 2008 as I wanted to share the food that I love with everyone around me, and I was inspired to be like the authors of many other wonderful food blogs that I’ve followed over the years. The blog was originally at WordPress.com (foodismylife.wordpress.com), and when I decided to shift it to my own domain in 2013, I realised that foodismylife.com was taken, so I came up with a new name – Foodie Baker, and after some hiccups and revamps here and there, I finally settled down with this current design in 2014.

Now, not only do I want to share the food I love, but also to encourage people to cook and bake at home. I’m no culinary expert, but I just want to prove that without a fantastically big oven and a branded mixing machine, yummy cakes and crispy cookies can still be whipped up in an un-air-conditioned, small home kitchen. Of course I do have dreams to get the fantastically big oven (2015: Woo hoo! Now I have one!) and a branded mixing machine (2016: Thank you Kenwood for making my dream come true!), but so right now I’m pretty much contented with what I have right now (I think. Haha.)

Travelling