Holiday Inn a la Debi

We just had a very hectic and fun weekend hosting guests. My uncle and his colleague came from Taiwan on a business trip and stayed over this past weekend. I didn't want to disappoint them with my culinary skills, so I started practicing making puff pastry doughs days before they arrived. I was surprised at how simple it is to make pastry dough at home! Best of all, you can cut them the amount of butter that goes into the dough, and still have the end result tasting the same. I made a total of three batches with decreasing amount of butter in each batch. In the last batch, I used slightly over 1/2 of the butter called for in the recipe, and it was still great.

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.

Football and Almond Biscotti

I almost felt like I had a football overload because of the craziness of today's matches! First of all, Holland eliminated the 5-time champion Brazil. I always say statistics and history mean absolutely nothing in football because the teams don't play the same players that make the record. But when it comes to Brazil, I just feel that they will win just for being Brazil... just like Manchester United will win just because they are Manchester United. I'm talking nonsense here I know. Holland was my third favorite team coming in this World Cup just behind Spain and Argentina (though I'm having doubts about this right now). The Dutch squad can boast players of equal caliber as Brazil's in my opinion. I thought after the first half, they put in a very convincing win, and probably could've gotten a couple more goals.

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. 

Brown Butter & Sage Gnocchi

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!

I don't cook much, but once in a while for special occasion I like to kick my dad out of the kitchen and make something more "restaurant quality." And no surprise, it is another Italian dish. I honestly don't know to make a non-Italian dish.

Greeting Card Cookie

I felt inspired to post after such a long rest in April. Since I missed out my coworker's birthday last week, I decided to make some cookies for her. I'm not a very confident cookie baker since I never seem to get the temperature correct and always end up with burnt cookies. This time I actually tested out the temperature with 1 cookie and adjusted accordingly for the rest. However, decorating the them was the most fun. I even made some with my neighbor's children's names and gave out some to them.

Pain de Mie ( Pumpkin )

My baking seemed to take another halt this week and I was was worried that Stand-mixer Xavi needed its weekly tune-up. The Saleswoman at Macy's had warned me that many people purchase stand-mixers for decoration purpose, but these mixers are like cars and require periodic use. I didn't have any particular recipe in my "project" folder to try out at the moment, so I resorted to the fail-proof pain de mie and saved my dad another trip to the bakery.

Baked Orzo with Fontina

One thing that my mom always nags me about is the fact that I would buy a lot of ingredient for one recipe and fill the fridge with leftovers that I never use again. So for my previous recipe, Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables, I had to buy fontina cheese and smoked mozzarella. I really tried to buy only the amount I need so I would be left with leftovers, however the salesman mistakenly double estimated the amount I needed. Since both cheeses were pretty pricey, I really didn't want them to go to waste. Fortunately after a little search on the internet I was able to find Giada's Baked Orzo recipe that uses both fontina and mozzarella! I had to do a slight modification because the recipe uses fresh mozzarella instead of smoked version.

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.

Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables

Last Friday, March 26th, was my parents's 27th wedding anniversary. My dad wanted to celebrate it at his trusted Blue Mango Thai restaurant, but I had other idea. Being a vegetarian, it's difficult to find a good restaurant. And since we almost never go out to eat, I don't even know any restaurant that I would want to go. I suggested that I would cook instead. I saw this recipe while watching Giada's Everyday Italian last December with my grandma and have been wanting to test it since.

Spring Pasta Salad

If given the choice between moisturizer and foundation, what would you choose? I would go for the moisturizer without a second thought. It's too much of a hassle to put on makeup every time to feint a flawless skin. Besides, I have always been an advocate of beautifying skin from the inside. After all, isn't it true that you are what you eat? Such nonsense... Because.. if only the things that will make you look beautiful can also satisfy your cravings.. So for lunch today I tried to whip up something healthy, good for skin, and tasty all at once!

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.

Pain de Mie (Part Deux)

This has been the longest gap since I last updated. Work..paid or unpaid.. has been keeping me incredibly busy in the last few weeks. And my guitar practice takes up the rest of my free time, therefore I was left with very little time for baking. In fact, I just barely completed Daring Baker's March challenge yesterday... two days before posting is due! So stay tuned for the DB posting on the 27th! But here I bring you my second attempt at pain de mie.