Flourless Chocolate Cake

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Another creation for labmates. There was a going-away party for one of the lab members and I decided to bake a flourless chocolate cake to accommodate a gluten allergy.

I think they were pretty well received. I got another compliment during the party-- I've been declared someone's favorite baker! Yay :]

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

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Having never had the summer staple of strawberry shortcake before, Sheetal implored (hah!) me to bake it for her so she could have a taste of America. Obviously it was quite flattering to be the go-to baker, but I wasn't quite sure how to tackle the subject-- I've only had strawberry shortcake (in all its delicious, fresh strawberry and light whipped cream goodness) once (Bakesale Betty... MMM). After some interweb searching, I came across a recipe that looked good and fairly easy to make.

Cupcake consists of the following: vanilla cake, strawberry geleé filling (basically a little bit of gelatin + pureed strawberry and diced strawberries) and a strawberry cream cheese frosting (yummy fresh strawberry puree that ended up making the frosting runnier than expected... quite a messy challenge to frost the cupcakes). I brought these babies to lab... and I think its undeniable that I am the CUPCAKE QUEEN. Bwahahah I have conquered the sweet-tooths in lab! Go me :]

BTW, the recipe was declared a keeper.

Lemon Tart

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Citrus-y, bright, and the perfect amount of tang balanced by subtle sweetness. This recipe is DEFINITELY a keeper. (I might be a little biased, as I do love all things lemon :] )



(Aside: I've made a huge mess every time I make this! Its very difficult to keep all the liquid for the tart inside the tart crust. I think this problem can be solved with the smaller tart shells I recently bought... fingers crossed!)

Orange Cranberry Walnut Bread

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The orange juice in this recipe provides just the right amount of moist, succulent sweetness that allows the bread to be semi-cake-y and the cranberries to plump up. My mom really liked this recipe. I found it to be a little too dense to be called bread. It's more of a bread/cake hybrid. But that's just a minor detail. Still good.

Pear Tart

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Problem: We had a ton of overripe pears (notice a theme?) that had to be used ASAP or they would end up in the garbage. Solution: Pear tart!

I had already tried out a pear cupcake recipe, so I figured it would be good to change it up and try something new. I found a recipe for a "rustic" pear tart (foodnetwork.com) that seemed to fit the bill-- nice and simple, and would use up all our excess pears.

The filling of this tart was really really good. It consisted of pears, some lemon juice (and some zest), a little bit of brown sugar, and a tinsy bit of cornstarch for thickening. MMM. I loved the tangy citrus paired with the sweetness of the pear. The dough/crust on the other hand, was not quite as successful. My parents said it tasted "healthy." Not a good thing. I wish it was flakier, but that would require more butter (this recipe only called for 4 tblsps). Next time... and maybe I won't use whole wheat flour either... heh.

French Bread

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No explanation necessary right? All I have to say is OMFG this was AMAZING. French bread is probably one of my fave breads. I love the crusty crunchiness of it. The french bread I baked was the perfect combination of crunchy crust and tender innards. MMM fresh out of the oven it was one of the best things I have tasted in a while. I gobbled one straight up as a "taste test" (slathered with my homemade pesto). The remaining loaves I saved to make lunch for myself and my parents-- PANINIS! :]

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

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An entire day dedicated to this versatile fruit (did you know there is a website devoted to bananas? See www.banana.com)


Yesterday my mom was complaining about how we had a ton of overripe bananas sitting around-- ripening too quickly to be eaten. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a banana-fest. So... here it is: bananas two ways.

My dad was been super happy that I've been on a bread baking spree recently. He told my mom that they didn't need to buy bread anymore because I could just bake something. So obviously the first banana product I made was banana bread with walnuts (my dad's fave nut). Super easy to make.


The second banana item I made was even simpler... single ingredient BANANA ICE CREAM. Whaaat?! Banana ice cream? Yes. It is soooo easy. Just slice up some overripe bananas and freeze:


After about an hour or two in the freezer, blend until... ICE CREAM!


My parents were amazed when I brought them scoops of the "ice cream" and told them it was made entirely of bananas. Nothing else. JUST BANANAS. So good. And good for you! I'm totally using this trick on little kids (and myself heh). Now if only all ice creams were this easy to make!

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

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After testing the waters of bread baking a few weeks ago, I decided to take the plunge and take on a more complicated recipe: cinnamon raisin bread. I guess another source of motivation is that its one of J's faves. Since he rarely ever eats any of the things I bake, it was nice knowing that this was something that had a high likelihood of being devoured by him.

The overall process was fairly similar to the rosemary bread. However this time I chose to do everything by hand instead of using a food processor. MISTAKE! Lesson learned... its much much easier when the dough is made with a power tool. Another difference was that I was much more tentative when tiptoeing into baking the rosemary bread-- I made a much smaller volume. This time around, I used EIGHT cups of flour (vs ~2cups). Anyway, much stirring/mixing/kneading later, the dough was ready to rest and rise.


After an hour of rising, I rolled the dough out so I could add in the cinnamon sugar. MMM all rolled up it reminded me of a cinnamon roll (something else worth trying to bake some time :] )
This step was trickier than I expected, and it makes me want a large marble countertop in my kitchen.


The dough roll was then cut into thirds, placed into loaf pans and allowed to rest for another hour to rise. I started to get a bit anxious at this point, so after loading up my two loaf pans, I turned the last third dough log into 4 individual loaves. These went into the oven first as sort of an instant gratification option (its difficult to feel very guilty about "tasting" one tiny dinner-roll sized loaf straight out of the oven...)


TA-DA! This was straight out of the oven. MMM. The bread was super tender, the raisins plump, and the cinnamon sugar a perfect amount of sweetness and spice to pair with the fruit and flour.


The final product all golden brown and buttered up. Delicious! The bread itself came out a little denser than I wanted, so next time, I'll just reduce the amount of flour I used. Overall, I'd say this was pretty successful... especially when toasted! MMMM. Next up, FRENCH BREAD!

Rosemary Bread

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I've been pretty busy the past month baking cupcakes and making candy. Now that its March, I really wanted to try baking bread. A long time ago my dad had impulsively bought a bread maker machine (which we never used). Now, years later, I finally worked up the courage to tackle this supposedly finicky, complicated baking art. WITHOUT A BREAD MAKER MACHINE.

I found a couple simple recipes online, and decided I really wanted to make a rosemary bread. Assembled all my ingredients, and about half an hour later, my yeast was bloomed, flour mixed, and dough was ready to rest and rise.


This was the result of an hour worth of rest on our dining room table. I wanted to take a picture of the dough without the plastic wrap on it, but unfortunately, my camera battery decided to die at that moment. Hopefully you can see that it is nice and puffy :]

One punch later, the dough deflated and was separated into two loaves. In the future, I will make a bunch of smaller loaves because I find that one large loaf is not quite as nice as several smaller snack size loaves. Anyway, the dough balls rested for another 45 min before going into the oven. The aroma of rosemary slowly diffused throughout the kitchen and made me feel all warm, fuzzy and full of anticipation as I peeked into the oven at my loaf.



Ta-da! The grand finale... (it is as delicious as it looks. Soft and fluffy, SO nommy)

Flavors of SPRING

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Decided to bake something light and delicious to reflect the transition of the weather from winter to spring.

Enter: PEAR cupcakes with ALMOND buttercream frosting and topped with chopped almonds. MM. Light, sweet, refreshing, these were a hit among labmates, classmates, friends, and family.

Yay!

MANCAKES

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Ever since trying Vosges' [Mo's Bacon Bar] in 2007 (NYC trip!) I've been wanting to pair smoky, salty bacon with something sweet. Given the recent baking spree, it seemed obvious that I should try to create something bacon-y in cupcake form.

Enter what I've dubbed MANCAKES. I decided to do bacon cupcakes two ways: a more "traditional" breakfast pairing of bacon and maple syrup, and a chocolate bacon inspired by Vosges.

Here is the batter for the Maple Bacon cupcake (to be topped by maple buttercream frosting). The maple syrup is direct from Canada!

Yep, those are bits of chopped up bacon (Tangent: Frying bacon is extremely difficult! I kept on teetering on the edge of burning all the bacon I fried. New found respect for people who can fry bacon perfectly.)

I frosted the maple bacon cupcakes with the aforementioned maple buttercream frosting (foreground) and topped the chocolate bacon cupcakes (with a hint of coffee to give more depth of flavor) with a bittersweet chocolate ganache.


I was a little worried about how the maple bacon cupcakes would turn out. Luckily, both mancakes were deemed a success (yay!) with the maple bacon cupcakes being a bit more bacon-y than the chocolate bacon. The sweetness of the maple syrup in the batter was fairly subtle, and the smoky, salty bacon bits, which were slightly chewy, really held their own. The maple frosting was pretty sweet, and the combination of cake + frosting in one bite really exceeded my expectations of tastiness. The chocolate bacon definitely was light on bacon flavor and heavy on chocolate. I would say that it is the easier cupcake to accept if you are suspicious of having pork products in dessert form. I enjoyed both thoroughly, with maybe a slight preference for the maple bacon because the flavor was so novel.

It seems like both recipes are getting calls for encores. WIN. :]

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

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Chocolate thumbprint cookies filled with a white chocolate ganache. Made these especially for Shiru... since he wanted a cookie with dark + white chocolate. Sadly, the cookie texture is not quite what I wanted (I overbaked them :( ) and the white chocolate ganache is a little runnier than I expected. But I think the cookie tastes pretty good. I added in some coffee + cinnamon to give the chocolate more depth of flavor.

Almond Brittle

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Tried my hand at brittle making tonight. So far, I count myself two for two in terms of candy making success. I hope I can extend my streak into the future!

IMO this almond brittle is the perfect blend of texture and taste. It is nicely crunchy/crispy, and the salted almonds I used work really well with the buttery sweetness of the hardened caramel. Its not too sweet, and has lovely almond flavor. YUM!

Salted Caramels

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The very latest in my recent baking/sweets spree. I decided to try my hand at candy making, and settled on salted caramels.


The recipe was actually really easy to follow, and despite not having a candy thermometer, these caramels still turned out extremely well-- my parents loved the texture (soft and chewy, but didn't stick to teeth). Unfortunately, they ended up a little too salty... so I'll adjust the recipe next time... or omit the salt entirely.

Some I wrapped up as is with waxed paper squares:


The majority I decided to dip into semi-sweet chocolate with the hopes that the sweetness of the chocolate would pair well with the saltiness of the caramel. Too bad the salt was still a little overpowering... but at least the end result was pretty and fairly tasty:

Peanut Butter Cookies

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Among other treats produced during my baking spree were these peanut butter cookies:


I decided to use two different fillings for sandwich cookies:
Chocolate Ganache


Honey Peanut Butter


They were pretty well received if I do say so myself. :]

Cupcakes!

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A recent baking spree produced the following:
Lemon cupcakes with Honey-Ginger Buttercream Frosting


Cinnamon Spiced cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting


Both were a huge hit with friends/colleagues. Personally I liked the lemon cupcakes more... they tasted like sunshine.

Panda & Monkey Cookies

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Since I don't really know what to get my relatives for the holidays, I end up baking cookies for them. This year, in honor of my grandpa turning 90, I decided to make monkey cookies (he was born in the year of the monkey). The panda cookies were baked on a whim.

Panda cookie: sugar and chocolate cookie dough wrapped in green tea cookie dough
Monkey cookie: sugar cookie dough wrapped in almond cookie dough; chocolate facial features

Spicy Brownies

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My first foray into spicy chocolate desserts. Mixed reviews-- some people liked the heat, other people thought it was too weird. I have since tweaked the recipe to include non-heat spices and less chili pepper.

Rocky Road Brownie Bites

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Self explanatory.

Green Tea Cupcakes

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With black sesame and buttercream frosting.

Pictured: Unfrosted & frosted versions.