Happy Valentine's Day!

triple chocolate mousse cake

Happy Valentine's Day! Last weekend we had a Valentine's Day dinner at my in-law's house and I wanted to make a special dessert just for the occasion. I decided to make this triple chocolate mousse cake I saw on the i-heart-baking blog. I had to search a little for the recipe but I found Ina's chocolate cake recipe on the foodnetwork website and the mousse recipe from annie's eats blog. Using a triple heart cupcake stencil and red sugar sprinkles I decorated the cake with some valentine decorations.  I found the little cupcake stencils (packet of four different patterns with hearts and valentine sayings) in the dollar section at Target.  The only problem was I couldn't keep the sprinkles from getting everywhere...so it turned out a little messier than I had hoped. Overall, the family got the picture and the cake was divine. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Chinese New Year Cake

 chinese new year cake (nien-gao)

Every Chinese New Year we have this dessert called "nien-gao".  It's a chewy sweet dessert that my mom would slice into thin strips, dip in egg and pan fry to get a nice crispy layer on the outside and a gooey warm center. The "cake" is made out of glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, coconut cream and water and steamed instead of baked.  I really wanted to learn how to make it this year since I've really only watched my mom make it before.  So I called her up to get the recipe and to my suprise she and my oldest sister came over and helped me make it!  

"Nien-Gao" recipe:

1 pkg.  glutinous rice flour

1 lb.     dark brown sugar

1 can    coconut cream

1 cup    water

For the batter, mix all the ingredients together and it's best to use your hands to mix it and make sure there are no clumps of sugar and flour. Lighly grease a round cake pan (I used 2 small 3.5" springform pans to make mini ones, but if you use a springform pan be sure to wrap the bottoms with foil to avoid leakage). My mom usually uses an 8" round cake pan. Pour the batter through a sieve as you pour it into the pans to ensure all the clumps are out.  Put the pans in a steamer for 20 minutes for the mini ones or up to an hour for an 8" pan (or until a bamboo chopstick/skewer comes out clean). Let cool and garnish with sesame seeds and a dried cranberry (or traditionally a dried date).

When fresh it's soft enough the just slice up and eat as is.  But after it's been in the fridge and hardens up a little, it's great to slice up and pan fry. My mom would always dip it in egg (and traditionally I believe this is done) but I found that with a non-stick pan it's fine to just leave out the egg.  I love it this way! It's so simple and I'm glad I got to learn how to make this special dessert with my mom and sister.

Happy Chinese New Year!

red bean french macarons

For Chinese New Year I wanted to make something a little different and special. I decided to make red and white french macarons with Chinese characters on them and fill them with red bean buttercream. My mom helped me write the Chinese characters.  She was so fast and writes so well, probably because I can't read or write...just decent at copying. The characters on the red macarons (from up, down, left, right) say "Sun Nin Fay Lok" (Happy New Year) and "Gung Hay Fat Choy" (Best wishes and Congratulations. Have a prosperous and good year). The characters on the white macarons say "Fook" (Happiness). 

Happy Chinese New Year! Wishing everyone good health, peace, and happiness in the new year.

Baby Elephant Cake

front side view

 

top view

fondant elephant and balloon

My friend asked if I could make a baby cake for her son's first birthday...and of course I accepted! The theme was baby elephants and the colors were blue and grey. I based the design on the invitations which had a little elephant holding a balloon with a "j" for Jacob on it and a poka dot background. I thought it was so cute and it'd be perfect to try to mimick onto the cake.

First I wanted to make a cake that was baby friendly and found this vanilla cake recipe from "Momtastic's Wholesome Baby Food" website. I used two mini 3.5" springform pans to make the cakes, trimming off the tops to make the top flat. For the elephant I rolled out blue fondant and used the mini elephant cookie cutter from the Wilton Noah's Ark set I had (see the "Animal Cookies" post).  For the ear I just used the back side of the cookie cutter to cut a little ear and used a knife to cut a small thin tail. For the balloon I rolled out green fondant and used the back end of a piping tip to get a nice little circle.

I made vanilla buttercream frosting and frosted the entire cake with a thin crumb layer to set overnight before I put the final coat of buttercream on.  This keeps the cake moist and makes it so much easier to get a nice smooth finish. Using a size 1 wilton round tip I piped the string to the balloon and a "1" on the balloon. I decided to put a "1" on the balloon instead of the "j" since I'd be putting his name on the cake. Using a size 10 wilton round tip I piped dots around the bottom of the cake to make it look more finished and adding a decorative touch. I then tinted the buttercream grey (using a little black food coloring) and piped "happy birthday jacob" on it. 

The cake turned out so cute and my friend really enjoyed it...Jacob enjoyed destroying it too!

Fruit Tart

strawberry & kiwi fruit tart

For Christmas I wanted to make something different because I figured we'd have plenty of cookies and pies. I decided to make a fruit tart with strawberries and kiwi for the festive red and green colors...just wish the strawberries were more red. It's tough this time of year.

I used Martha Stewart's strawberry tart recipe but added chocolate ganache as a bottom layer before adding the cream cheese filling.  I've used this recipe before and I just love it.  The crust is lovely, buttery, and shortbread like.  I thought the chocolate would add another little something special, because who doesn't love chocolate.  But, as it turned out, the chocolate ganache ended up taking over the cream cheese and fruit flavors.  I think I made the mistake of using dark chocolate and maybe using too much ganache. Next time I'll try using semi-sweet chocolate and just a thin layer of the ganache.  Overall though, everyone seemed to enjoy it. 

Go Ducks!

UofO french macarons

Happy New Year everyone!

Today the (University of Oregon) Ducks are playing against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.  For the big game I wanted to make a special little treat.  At Christmas I made the peppermint macarons (see the "Christmas Macarons" post) and my dad had the great idea of making them yellow and green for the Ducks! There are quite a few Ducks in our family and my parents were heading down to Pasadena for the game.  So, I thought I'd make these macarons for them to take down for the game. 

I used the same recipe I've been using for the macarons and just like the peppermint and snowmen macarons I divided the batter and colored one batch yellow and the other green. Using green edible marker I drew an "O" on the yellow macarons. For the green ones I used black edible marker and wrote "Go! Ducks" on them.  All the macarons are filled with dark chocolate ganache. These were really fun to make and I hope everyone enjoys them.

Go Ducks!

Update: The Ducks pulled through today! It was a tough game but in the end we "won the day". It's a good day to be a DUCK!

Reindeer Cookies

  peanut butter reindeer cookies

ingredients for reindeer assembly

I saw these really cute reindeer cookies from the bakergirl blog (via pinterest) and just had to try and make them.  But I do have a confession, I didn't use her recipe. I used bettty crocker's packaged peanut butter mix (semi-homemade for a girl with time constraints).  Next time I will try her recipe though because I found the cookies didn't hold their shape as nicely as hers and weren't as smooth.  Nevertheless, they tasted just fine.

To make the faces I rolled the dough into approxiately 1" balls, pinched the bottom half of the dough ball and then flattened it a little with the palm of my hand.  I baked them according to the package directions and once I pulled them out of the oven (while they're still warm) I assembled the antlers and face.  I had some trouble finding the mini m&m's but found a bottle at Walgreen's.  The only problem was when I opened the bottle it was all red and green mini m&m's.  I needed mini brown ones for the eyes, but I was able to use the regular sized ones. I bought the larger bag of m&m's but there were only 9 red ones in the whole package, so there were a few with green noses. I did run out of brown ones too, but luckily I still had some reese's pieces from when I made the turkey cupcakes (see the "Happy Thanksgiving!" post).  The reese's pieces are a shade lighter than the brown m&m's but probably only I could tell the difference.