Chocolate Macarons

Every bakers one time or another go through a macaron craze phase. I did for a whole month in 2009. Since then, I have cut a short break with this decadent French treat. Then few days ago, with some egg-whites, almond flour and sugar, I was back baking macarons... but with confidence this time. I've come a long way as a baker since I started this blog a year ago, and have learned a few tricks about whisking egg-whites to perfection. With the perfect egg-white and some nicely grounded sugar, macaron is a piece of cake.

Apfelstrudel: German Apple Strudel

Uff. I want to say sorry to my apple strudel because my dreadful camera skill is not doing any justice to my baking. I guarantee you this is a lot more appetizing than it appears. And that's not meat in my strudel... So my love for all things Deutschland continues. I'm learning the language as well, piano piano as the Italians would say. I came across this recipe many months ago on tastespotting, and have wanted to try it out for a while. I'm not usually a fan of baked fruits, especially pies..yucks, but I am more forgiving when it comes to apples. Or maybe it was the puff pastry that appealed to me, or the fact that it is German. In any case, I was glad to have made this dessert as it is not too sweet, and very delicious.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Valentine's Day.  I am getting a fantastic present from myself, and I'm constantly checking the UPS tracking... it is supposed to be delivered on the 23rd!

Ginger Milk Custard and Happy 2Ö11

It seems like my writing muse was left behind when the new year came. Actually, that's not really true, I was just overcame by laziness these days. It really takes effort to upload photos (and some editing... ) and to write something to go along with the photos. I applaud those bloggers who update daily. All of my favorite winter holidays have passed, but luckily there is still the lunar new year on Feb 3. In fact, I am particularly excited about this new lunar year because according to my dad, my luck will take a turn for the better. Apparently tiger year is not a good year for rat...

Blog 1st year anniversary

Last year on this day, Dec. 29, I started this blog after watching the movie Julie & Julia. I was ambitious, and I wanted to update everyday with my bakings. While that didn't happen, and despite taking several long breaks, I am very proud of what I have done with this blog. One year and over 100 posts on foods, life, and football. I can see from my postings how far I've grown in terms of my culinary ability. Brava!

For now, stay tuned for the recipe for the photo above.

Swiss meringue buttercream

These cupcakes were made in November in celebration of Yulee's birthday which I never got around to make a post. I have only made cupcakes a handful of times before and they were all before my great culinary breakthrough. I'm not a fan of the traditional buttercream which is literally butter and frightening amount of powdered sugar. I like whipped cream frosting, but it is difficult to keep outside the fridge for too long. I've used nutella before and just sprinkled some chopped almond. It was quite good, but is limited in flavor creativity. So I'm very happy to have found a new alternative that actually doesn't taste like sugar! Be warned though, it is still extremely high in butter, which makes it tastes oh silky smooth.

Christmas in a basket Teil II

I'm here to reveal the final two treats in my treat basket for the gift exchange: truffles! While some cookies are dubbed with the names Christmas cookies, it is the truffles that usually flood your supermarkets during this season. Last Christmas it took us a whole month to gobble down 3 delicious boxes of fine Belgium chocolates.

Sun Pastry 太陽餅

I really don't know what these are called in English or how to properly translate the name into English, so I went for a semi-literal translation. When my uncle and his colleague Peter visited a couple of weeks back, Peter brought us a box of 太陽餅. My dad shared half of the box with my aunt, and ate about 70% of the rests, even the non-vegetarian ones. Imagine the shock on his face when I told him the non-vegetarian ones were probably made of port fat. My mom ate about 3 and I only ate one myself and was pretty mad at him for eating the rest. To satisfy my craving, I decided to look up the recipe and make them myself!

Christmas in July

I'm overdue for another update! The longer I'm keeping up with this journal the more respect I have for those serious bloggers who post daily because it really is a difficult task to come up with anything worth reading.

I have sadly bowed out of the Daring Baker community simply because I could not keep up with the monthly bake with everything that is going on right now. Though I have to admit the lack of world cup has returned some valuable time back to me. I am still baking, but without pressure.

Daring Baker Challenge: Piece Montee

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I failed at the building the structure for a true Piece Montee. I even built a cone made out of carboard as the center, but couldn't pile the individual puffs on top of one another. I also didn't make the honey or chocolate glaze as "glue" because I was too tired and frustrated by the end of my third batch of pate a choux. 

Financier

I just love the looks of French pastries-madeleines, macarons, eclairs..just to name a few. French pastries are elegant, fancy, and absolutely complicated to make, which is probably why they are so intriguing to me. I love new challenges to find recipes that are "gift-worthy." I love tiny and fancy things as opposed to bulky and plain -- talking purely about aesthetic. The recipe I'm presenting here today is called Financier. Financiers are little French teacakes with an almondy flair. They are mostly baked in small rectangular molds that shaped like bars of gold.

March Daring Baker Challenge

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

It's that time of the month again! The reveal date of the Daring Baker challenge... and I am one day belated yet again. I only finished this month's challenge last Wednesday after much doubts about my ability to complete it. For some reason this recipe really intimidated me, so I tried to put it off as long as I could. I was intimidated by the seemingly complex steps necessary in yet another layered dessert.

February Daring Baker Challenge

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

I've made tiramisu many times in the past, but I've always used store-bought mascarpone cheese and lady finger. This month's challenge required that we make both mascarpone cheese and lady finger from scratch. I never knew that it was possible to make cheese at home! 

Vanilla Eclair

I don't think I have mentioned it yet, but I have picked up a new passion-- guitar! I'm not going to lie, my passion stems directly and 100% from my obsession with Green Day. The first and only time prior that I've touched a guitar was back in college when my dorm friend let me borrow his guitar to try. Then, I learned to read the tabs and tried my hand at "Good Riddance" for the first time. The phase didn't last long enough for me to even learn the first measure of the song. But this time around, after about 3 days of playing, I can strum the whole "Good Riddance" without the music! I'm currently borrowing my guitar from my cousin Edward, but I really hope I can get my own in the future. I have my eye set on seagull's acoustic!

Tomorrow, mom's friend's coming over for coffee, so I was assigned the task to make desserts for the occasion. I've longed to try Eclairs for a long time, because in my mind, it is one of those fancy french pastry that would break one's wallet. A bit of exaggeration.. regardless, it's fancy. But the appeal of Pierre Herme's recipe gave me the confidence to finally try it!

Macarons

Lemon Curd

Tiramisu

 

Lemon Tart from Tartine