Last week, we had a connecting4 meeting over tea and apple streusel bars, the spicy flavor of Michael’s homemade chai tea coupled perfectly with my homemade dessert. I will treasure these summer days with Michael and my lovely sisters.
~check out the recipe below!
The office is on its way to completion. Since our last update, we’ve finished:
1.) painting the chevron wall design
2.) cleaning and organizing the cube shelves (which we will hang like the ones sketched in this blog post)
3.) spray painting the bottom of the shelves (GOLD!)
4.) buying a gorgeous nickel-plated lamp from IKEA
5.) organizing the decoration pieces we will be placing/hanging around the room.
Check out all the planning and work we’ve put into it at Office Project 01 and Office Project 02!
This is the cake I made for Jessie’s Birthday this year. I will just admit straight out that these pictures look like they could be used in a post titled “What Not To Do When Photographing Cake.”
1. Do not take pictures in direct sunlight.
2. Avoid late-evening-lighting because its likely your image will be dark and blurred.
3. Take pictures of your cake “before” you dig in, blow out the candles, and remove candles (leaving horrible little holes in the icing!)
On the other hand, however, the actual cake was deliciously moist and chocolatey. I used the same espresson glaze in January’s cake for the icing, with a white chocolate mousse on the side. Again, I apologize for not showing this cake in its full glory, you’ll just have to experiment with the recipe below and make a beautifully decorated cake to redeem this one 🙂
<Cake Challenge Series: is a collection of posts which document the cakes I bake each month. More specifically, I have a goal this year to bake at least one (hopefully spectacular) layer cake each month, and photograph/post them here. I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I enjoy baking these delicious desserts!>
Other Cake Challenge Posts:
January
February
March
May
Chocolate Cake
2 1/4 cup flour
1 cup unsweetened coacoa powder
2 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cup hot coffee (strongly brewed)
2 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise (sounds weird I know, but this is the secret ingredient to SUPER moist cakes!)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 3, 9-inch round cake pans, line each with parchment paper (cut to fit the bottom of each pan).
2. Sift together all dry ingredients (first 6 ingredients listed)
3. Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring milk to a simmer by heating it in a small saucepan over the stove. Pour hot coffee and milk over the chocolate creating a mocha mixture. Let sit for one minute then whisk to combine.
4. In a mixing bowl beat eggs, mayonnaise,and vanilla together until smooth then add sugar to the mixture. Alternate mixing the dry ingredients and mocha into the egg mixture until smooth. Divide batter into cake pans.
5. Bake for 25-28 minutes. Once cake pans are withdrawn from the oven, let cool 10-15 minutes before removing cakes.
White Chocolate Mousse:
4 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1 egg white
1 tbl sugar
1. Melt white chocolate and 1/4 cup of the heavy cream in a double boiler. Be careful to avoid overheating the chocolate or it will seize. Whisk and set out to cool.
2. In a mixing bowl beat the remaining 3/4 cup of cream until soft peaks form. In a separate bowl whip egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form.
3. Fold the egg whites into melted white chocolate (make sure the chocolate is cooled). Finally fold the whipped cream in, as well until just combined (err on the side of under-mixing)
~enjoy 🙂
Today was step two of our shopping experience- FABRIC MARKET! Maddie joined me on the trip, which transformed the errand from a chore into a delightful outing 🙂 After 8 hours of searching through rolls of fabric, I pulled the prettiest yellow-gold fabric topped with a sea-breeze-blue pattern. It brightens the office significantly, and adds a bit of color to contrast the simplicity of the furniture and wall color.
We’ve also begun measuring, sketching, and taping the soon-to-be chevron designed wall. I’m thrilled with the way its looking so far 😉 According to the pictures below we will be painting the thicker stripe white, that way the colors (taupe&white) will not contrast each other too dramatically creating a harsh feeling in the room.
Check out all the new update of our Blog Office here! or see all the planning that went into it at Office Project 01.
Michael and I “broke ground” today for the blog office reconstruction!
The morning hours were spent making donuts for Jessie and Maddie (before they left for school), office hours working on the blog, and brain stroming sessions with Michael. Then, at around 11:00 a.m. we embarked on our shopping adventures; searching for paint, mounting materials, fabric etc.
Later tonight we will begin the mounting and spray painting process, keep a look out for updates on our progress!
(below are some interesting marbles we discovered on our walk 🙂
Check out how far our Blog Office has come at Office Project 02 and Office Project 03!
Why am I posting the May Cake Challenge installment in the middle of July, you may ask? Will “better late than never” cut it? Between Jessie, Maddie, and Michael I am reminded “daily ” of my absence on Connecting4. sorry about that.
This is my real answer to the question above;
While traveling this summer, I realized how much I miss being in the kitchen, baking sweet treats for my family. It is this desire that inspires me to finish these unfinished posts. I find that interest is followed by desire to perfect skill, which pushes one not only forward but backward as well. I want to go back and refine, improve, and polish original works. Hence, although my plan was to post this in May, I am checking off old tasks and moving forward.
I encourage you, as well, to pull out dusty dreams and aged ambitions, review, rewrite and keep creating!
<Cake Challenge Series: is a collection of posts which document the cakes I bake each month. More specifically, I have a goal this year to bake at least one (hopefully spectacular) layer cake each month, and photograph/post them here. I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I enjoy baking these delicious desserts!>
Other Cake Challenge Posts:
January
February
March
April
As most of you know, this is my summer home (in America) to visit relatives and friends. Since I arrived in Seattle almost two weeks ago, my schedule has literally overflowed with various visits, events, meals, tiring unpacking & repacking my suitcase, stressful airport adventures, road trips etc. Here are some snippets from the last two weeks.
After 26 hours of traveling I made it to Washington DC (!!!!) and enjoyed a lovely week with my Mom and old friends.
Flying out of DC, we made our way to a beach house in Galveston, TX to enjoy time with extended family. Speckled trout fishing, boat riding, fish-fry dining, crab hunting, sun bathing, salt-water swimming, etc. made for an exciting week.
It was 35 degrees (95 degrees Fahrenheit) today, and I needed something to cool me off. This Watermelon Pink Lemonade just what I needed- it’s the perfect remedy for a hot summer day!
(Recipe at end of post.)
The best part of this frosty snack is after you drink the lemonade: eating the watermelon. The fruit will absorb the pink lemonade and you get incredible sweet and sour flavored watermelon cubes.
I’ve found that using chop sticks is an easy way to eat watermelon. This pink set matched so well with the color of the summer cooler.
This drink is perfect for summer BBQs, children’s birthday parties, and even garden party events.
Did you know that Jessie and Maddie are born exactly one week apart (with 2 years in between)?! The month of April is crazy with Birthday frill, delicious cakes, lovely packaged presents and rainbow colored balloons. We celebrated Jessie’s Birthday on Saturday (although her Birthday is really the 13th of April) and I enjoyed a day (of much needed rest) spending time with my adorable Birthday sisters. Suffice it to say, I satisfied my baking crave by baking every single thing possible within a span of two days.
I fried cake donuts (sweet) while Maddie cooked egg boats (savory) for Jessie Saturday morning. My advice to you, “save donut boxes!” — reuse them when you feel creative enough to make your own sweet-dough desserts!
Guess where we got the ingredients to make this delicious (literally to die for) dessert? My cousins sent them all the way from AMERICA! Of course they do not sell chex cereal, chocolate chips, OR powdered sugar in a typical Chinese super market so this was an especially delectable (and rare!) treat for Jessie.
Smoothies for an afternoon refreshment (YUM!), nothing more to be said.
Vanilla cake, swiss meringue butter cream, whipped cream and strawberries were the building materials for this cake. I “almost” slacked on my goal this month because I was SUPER busy finishing school work before spring break while at the same time getting ready for (guess what?!) a trip to Hong Kong! YES, I am visiting Michael in Hong Kong over the vacation! I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks, and finally I’m here (arrived this afternoon). I will be posting pictures of our adventures this week as Michael gives me a glimpse of his life here at HKU.
Anyway, back to the cake. It was Megan’s Birthday yesterday and I really wanted to make something special for her. That, and the goal that I made for myself this year was persuasion enough for me to stay up until 2:30 am Thursday night baking this cake. I was exhausted Friday and although I don’t know how that affected my performance on the 3 exams I had that day, in the end I felt quite “accomplished.” You can find the recipe for both the cake and icing at sweetapolita, an amazing cake baker’s blog (I substituted the white chocolate icing for swiss meringue buttercream but you can find recipes for both on this blog).
I experimented with photoshop for a while, toying with these photos, so don’t be surprised if there are different styles of editing below!
<Cake Challenge Series: is a collection of posts which document the cakes I bake each month. More specifically, I have a goal this year to bake at least one (hopefully spectacular) layer cake each month, and photograph/post them here. I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I enjoy baking these delicious desserts!>
Check out January and February’s cakes too!
