Outfit of the Day

Top from HK, Wolford tights, F21 belt, Mia ankle boots, both Jcrew necklaces

An outfit to match the weather.
Going to Paris next month... I would like some restaurant recommendations!!

Outfit of the Day

Jcrew bow cardigan, Jcrew tissue tee, F21 zip up skirt, Zara leggings, Vivienne Westwood x Melissa shoes.

I had Jcrew ballet flats on yesterday on our food adventure. My dad asked me why I wasn't wearing heels. LOL

Taking New Direction

Banana Republic Jacket, H&M top, Jcrew Ankle Cords, Jcrew Necklace, Forever 21 belt, Mia boots, Sephora by Opi Polish in Domestic Goddess

While my own site is still in a year long construction, I am doing what I truly wanted to do - combine fashion and cakes into one blog.

Fall is my favorite season. The stores are so exciting to step into! Boots, jackets, accessories, oh my! The silhouettes are much prettier and sophisticated as opposed to summer comfort dressing. (Not that you can't look chic during hot days) The options we have for Fall are so much more exciting though!

My Memorial Day BBQ Cupcakes

I designed my own dot com on Illustrator back in September. The designing was a cinch. It took me two weeks to fiddle with the visuals and graphics and 10 months to get someone to bring it to life. A little patience goes a long way in getting the right person to do it. I finally found someone who thinks this will take him less than a month to put it together and says its EASY.

Hopefully, my next post will be on my new site!

These cupcakes were made for various Memorial Day weekend BBQ's. I molded the chocolate onto molding pans. It was so hot in my apt, that they were sweating out of the fridge. I filled the center of the top of the cupcake with cream cheese buttercream with a large star tip and piped around the edges with a small shell tip. It was a challenge since I had to keep refrigerating the buttercream every 5 min! But only 2 tips required to lure even Marie Antoinette!

Sees Easter Candy Cakes and Cupcakes

About a month ago, I was contacted by Sees Candies based in San Francisco, California to create an Easter project using Sees special Easter candies. Not knowing what the parameters of the project were, I conjured up this grand master plan overnight with my friend over at EATMEOUTTAHERE. We decided to create something easy for the lazy baker who wanted to bring something showstopping to Spring or Easter parties.

My friend here at EATMEOUTTAHERE and I met through this very same spot - the blogging world, just days under a year ago. We discovered what a small world it was when we found out that we had mutual friends. Not long after daily food conversations and getting each other into addictions, we became real life friends. I asked her to collaborate with me on this project because she is really just an amazing person with a warm, fuzzy heart. This was a perfect partnership. She has an excellent pastry background while I am trained to design.

So here we were, on a chilly New York Saturday morning, just a few days after the official start of the Spring season. The grass in her back yard is still a little crisp brown from the Winter season, but almost eager to turn green for the start of Spring. We unpacked the box of candies from Sees. We received Easter Puppet Canes, Chocolate Butter Eggs, Springtime Truffles, Jelly Bird Eggs, Milk_Chocolate_Eggs, Molasses Chips, See’s Toffee-ettes®, See’s Almond Royal®, and Hollow Eggs with a White Chocolate Baby Chick!

I remember when I was a little girl, my grandmother would buy me these lovely Easter hats, dresses and mary janes. After Easter Sunday service, we would get painted hardboiled eggs that lay a-top lots of stacked thin paper zigzagged to look like grass or birdsnest. Well, we didn't use paper. We dyed some coconut flakes green and toasted the other half. We also crushed Toffee-ettes and mixed it into the buttercream to fill the cake. And you see, the rest is all up to your decorating liking. We used all Sees Easter candies for decoration. They add so much life and color to any cake or cupcake that you don't know how to spruce up. The arrangement is all up to you! No matter how it is composed, the colors and taste will really make your dessert party dish a hit!

Visit http://www.sees.com to get your Easter Goodies. Even if they aren't for Easter, you can get other items to incorporate into your cakes or cupcakes as fillings and toppings!

Chinese Fortune Cake (Fatt Goh)

The other day, I called my mom to ask her if she or any of her friends knew a good fatt goh recipe. Every Chinese New Year, I get goodies from the Joy Luck Club such as pieces of Chinese New Year cake, taro cakes, steamed white sweet cakes, turnip cakes, and so on and so forth. She replied saying to me that no one ever makes fatt goh's anymore. They just buy them.

I never buy such things from the Chinese market because

1. The canary bird color really scares me or whatever funky 80's colors they come in.
2. They never taste the same as the way my dad used to make them (he misplaced the passed down recipe)
3. Chinese old ladies in New York are rude as hell. Chinese New Year mean 1000 times more of them at the grocery store.

It was really hard to find recipes for Chinese fortune cakes via Google. It was like digging for one specific word in a 500 page book. I called my dad to ask him to think REALLY hard about how he used to make them. Every Chinese New Year, while my mother made fancy dishes like pig's knuckles, whole steamed fish, whole chicken, and vermicelli with 8 treasures, my dad would be playing around in front of the steamer with his PJ's still on. In the morning, my mom would be preparing for "tuen neen fan," where our family would gather on the eve for dinner, while my dad was making fatt goh's for me and my brother for breakfast. My dad told me what the basic ingredients were and how the consistency should be. Simple! Fresh rice flour, light brown sugar, water and baking powder in a watery batter. I just had to find a base recipe close enough to adjust the proportions of each ingredient. After making them a couple of times, I finally got them to split into 3-4 corners. And boy, do they remind me of my Chinese New Year's at home in New Jersey with my family.

Chinese Fortune Cake (Fatt Goh)
makes 12 cakes

380 gr rice flour* (see note below)
230 gr dark brown sugar (light brown sugar is ok too)
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon baking powder

Place a wire steaming rack in a wok with water filled only to the height of the steaming rack.
Bring the water to a boil over high heat.

Heat the brown sugar with water in a medium pot over medium/low heat just until the sugar dissolves, mixing frequently. Let the mixture cool for 5 minutes and mix rice flour and baking powder into the pot. Fill the batter to the top of a glass teacup or a cupcake pan. Do not use paper baking cups or they will spread outwardly instead of pushing the batter up to split.

Set the cakes on a glass plate (if using glass teacups) and carefully put into the wok or steamer. Put the lid on and steam for 25 minutes.



*Fresh rice flour could be bought at Chinese specialty stores. It's called jeen mai fun. There is a dingy store, Fong Inn Too on the east side of Mott St between Bayard and Pell that sells fresh Tofu pudding and all sorts of other things. They sell fresh rice flour there.
If you can't find the fresh one, it is fine. You can also buy the packaged ones sold at every Chinese supermarket. It usually comes in this not so neatly package where your hands (and clothes and everything else) get all gross and floury by the time you walk out of the store. It's a clear bag that has red printing on it. It says rice flour on the package in English.

I Heart Coconut and Pandan Agar Agar

When I was in kindergarten, I remember winning an award for having the best penmanship. Til this day, I write microscopically. My handwriting is very controlled because of the instruments I use. I like writing with regular Bic pens rather than fancy ball point pens. Bic pens have a slower grip onto paper, while ball point pens are smoother and have less control on paper.

You must be wondering what any of this has to do with the recipe on this post. Well, agar-agar is to Bic pens as jello is to ball point pens. Agar-agar is one stiff jello. I am familiar with it only by eating Vietnamese rainbow ice. It's like a crunchier version of jello and usually less sweet. I used a Nordicware mini cake pan as molds for these cute little jellos and unmolding was a cinch. Because they were so stiff, I was able to use a tiny steak knife and poke it out without any visible imperfections.

Marinating the pandan leaves with coconut cream was delightful! I couldn't keep my nose out of the pot. Once the mixture is poured into the molds they begin to harden up immedietely without refrigeration.



Coconut Cream and Pandan Agar-Agar
Recipe found here

Ingredients:

400 ml coconut milk (preferably coconut cream)
400 ml water
100 gm sugar
4 tsp agar-agar powder
Pinch of salt
Pandan

Method:
1. Combine all ingredients in a pot & bring to a slow boil.
2. Remove from heat; add a little coloring & pour into mold. Chill before serving.

Next time, I think I will add some fruit into them!