I decided not to do a deadline. At some point I’d like to do a standing page on previous food themes so I can continue to update and share some recipes around that theme. After my Eggs post recap, I thought to myself, “I don’t want to stop sharing recipes about eggs.” A few days later, I made shakshuka. I have to admit, it was not the best shakshuka recipe but I will continue to find a good shakshuka recipe even if April is long over.
So rather than being bound by deadlines, I’ll continue to share some egg dishes just as I want to share some recipe wins around ice cream and festive dishes. But also I do enjoy recap posts because I get to reflect on the past month through food. Plus I think it is fun to focus and explore on a certain food or theme for a month.
Anything with strawberries are hit and miss with me. I like fresh strawberries, but I am not a fan of strawberry flavor such as strawberry ice cream, strawberry candy, strawberry milk, etc. because the flavor tends to come off as artificial. I ask “did they really use strawberries?”
I think I was just being funny when I decided February’s theme would be around foods shaped like rings. Valentine’s Day is in February, so there are engagement rings. And the Olympics happened this month, so there are the Olympic rings. I think I was just being goofy at the time. But I have to say, I had a lot of fun than I expected exploring this shape. I did have bagels, but I did not find any true ring-shaped ones. Or maybe these bagels were so big, it was no longer ring-like. I did not get a chance to make any ring-shaped food since my donut mold was in a box as my kitchen cabinet had to stay empty for the majority of the month.
Happy Autumn! For the Apple theme for “Eat Around the World“, I made a cake! The occasion was me and my sister’s birthday. Of course it is very like me to make my own cake even if my friends and family have insisted they’ll get me a cake for my birthday.
I got this recipe from Fearless Fresh. My first thought was there’s fruit and oats — is it breakfast? I made a few modifications to this recipe:
Oh dear…this theme might be a little challenging for this *points to self* home cook. The ingredient for September is apples!
There are so many kinds of apples. In fact 7,500 cultivars of apples. I recalled in my last job, I was naming these types of apples to a coworker (jazz, mountain rose, opal, macoun, winesap, jonathan, jonagold, etc.), he thought it was making it up. When it’s apple season, I try to buy and try as many cultivars as I can (as my grocery budget allows). Apples come in all types of colors (inside and outside), tastes, and texture.
I think I wanted to do an Eat Around the World blog challenge because I wanted an excuse to make foods I normally do not make. Take this matcha cake for example — or any cake in general. So far a lot of the foods I shared around the theme of celebration have been foods made by others like this wedding cake or this croissant. As someone who calls herself a home cook, I wanted to show something I made.
This past Sunday was Father’s Day and I wanted to take the opportunity to make a cake to celebrate my husband’s first Father’s Day. I normally don’t bake cake because it looks intimidating, it looks like it is a lot of work in terms of time or resources. But also I feel like if I have to make cake, it needs to be for a lot of people. I don’t think I would make a cake for just me and my husband.
This matcha cake is coated in what was suppose to be white chocolate whipped cream that turned into white chocolate buttercream. I whipped the heavy cream mixture for too long. I should have caught it when it started looking like stiff peaks. Anyways it’s all good. Maybe my mistake is an excuse to try again :-).
The recipe for the matcha sponge is from Delish.com. The whipped cream frosting is from Carve Your Cravings. It’s not as intimidating as I thought. The ingredients for the matcha sponge are ingredients I already had at home — yup, including the matcha powder. Instead of using a round tin, I used a bread loaf tin to bake the sponge. I made the sponge on Saturday night to let it cool into the following day. From there, I sliced the sponge in half and made the frosting. I chose white chocolate whipped cream because I did not have any cream cheese on hand.
Things I would do differently the next time I make this cake:
put fresh strawberries or pistachios in the filling or on top
make them into cupcakes or donuts!
stopped whipping the cream when it gets to stiff peaks
cover the cake with whipped cream frosting with touch of maple syrup
“Eat around the World“ is a monthly writing/photography challenge where I invite people to share a dish around a theme, ingredient, or technique. June’s theme is “Wedding Cake…and other Celebratory Treats.” All themes are open to interpretation. Cooking skills are not required to participate.
“Eat Around the World” is a monthly photo/writing challenge combining the love for food and travel. Share a dish based on the featured monthly prompt. The prompt could be around a particular dish, an ingredient, or a tool.
Welcome to “Eat Around the World” — a new blog challenge…or is it a blog party? A blog potluck? A blog potluck is fun to say so I am going to stick with that.
This is the first post to kick off what I hope is going to become a long-running series where I invite the blogosphere to share their food around a certain theme each month. I wanted to combine my love of making food, eating food, dining out, and traveling. You don’t have to be a home cook to participate. In fact the inaugural theme is wedding cake and I don’t know many people who have actually made their own wedding cake.
I chose to make it monthly because that’s my bandwidth. But I am hoping I can challenge myself to attempt to make some of these foods throughout the month. Please bear with me since it is my first time doing anything like this.
To participate, please submit complete this brief form for review — this is to ensure that the people participating are well…real people. And it be populated on this sheet. Also, please pingback to this page. At the end of the month I will do a recap post.
The deadline to submit your responses is June 30th at 11:59 PM EST.
If you have any tips on hosting a blogshare (blog potluck), please let me know! I greatly appreciate the feedback!
On to the theme of wedding cakes (and other celebratory treats). I chose wedding cake because June is peak season for weddings. Ironically, I do not like a lot of wedding cakes, especially the ones covered in fondant. Also, my wedding was not in June, it was in October.
The wedding cake is the center piece of any wedding reception. Cutting the wedding cake is its own event on the wedding reception program while the main course and hors d’oeuvres are just something to keep the guests from not being too hungry. I’ve seen some stunning wedding cakes — they almost look like sculptures. But when I look closer and see the cake is covered in fondant, I am immediately turned off. I find fondant barely edible. You’ll probably find me tearing the fondant out as soon as I get a slice.
When it came to my wedding, I did not want to spend a lot of money on a cake that was unpalatable because it was covered in fondant. I get that fondant makes the cake looks prettier, cleaner, and more polished. I understand fondant is all about the photos, not about how it tastes. But sorry, I actually like to eat food in general.
We decided to do a small two-tiered cake and have a dessert bar of cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, and dulce de leche cookies. The cake was made by a friend. She did a vanilla cake with strawberries and cream filling. The cover is vanilla buttercream. Another friend of ours made the cake topper. The cupcakes and cookies were from Porto’s bakery. The vase, cake stand, and pastry covers were from me. The event venue had wooden crates. Though it’s not pictured, the boxes for people to pack their desserts were from Michaels.
I was surprised how incredibly inflated the prices were between a wedding cake versus a regular party cake when looking around for bakeries. The cake could serve the same amount of people, but the wedding cake price would be at least double (or triple) the price of a regular cake. Since I did not have it in my heart to lie that I wanted a cake for a really large party, I thought to look for other creative measures by asking a friend to make a small wedding cake and do a dessert bar of our favorite treats.
Here it is, our wedding cake and dessert bar on a budget.
Our vanilla wedding cake with strawberries and cream filling with vanilla buttercream
I recalled when planning for the wedding, I wanted to have a cookies-only bar. I spent my time researching recipes but did not have any time recipe testing. I spent a lot of time DIY-ing other details for the wedding such as the invitations, centerpieces, table cards, etc. I was DIY burnt out from the wedding. A few years later I did have an opportunity to do a cookies bar for a friend’s wedding. I was so enthused to contribute the moment she told me about her engagement.
Share us your wedding cake — whether you were the bride, groom, or guest! Or was there no wedding cake and you served donuts? Or share with us other celebratory treats from around the world — whether it’s celebrating a birthday, promotion, a new home, graduation, paid off your credit card debt, etc. because honestly there are many other milestones worth celebrating. You can pingback to this post or submit your post on this this form. The deadline to submit your responses will be June 30th at 11:59 PM EST.
Sugar brings happiness. Eating it once or twice a week in a dessert, that’s what life is about. There is nothing wrong with it.
Adriano Zumbo
One of my favorite things about travelling is eating pastries and desserts — it’s always on my travel itinerary. This is from a pastry shop in Rome. Feel free to pick one — or pick them all!
Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)!
Grab a cup of coffee and share with us! What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans? Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?
Wow, it just occurred to me this is the last weekend of 2020. What am I doing this weekend? Well two of my friends and I are doing the first ever cookie swap. We agreed to meet at my house to swap our cookie boxes and have lunch. It is different from years past where we had much larger gatherings and everyone brought their own food. We would eat, chat, do a White Elephant gift exchange, and play games for hours until it got really late.
The rules of the cookie swap are simple: bake up to three different types of cookies and each box must have a dozen. We also agreed on a theme and we decided to do travel theme. Actually it started with one of my friends who said she was planning to make some Mexican cookies and it sparked an idea to do a travel theme. It is fitting since we all like to travel and we have not been able to travel anywhere this year.
My cookie box theme is New York City and I based the cookies off of my time there. The first cookie on the top row is the Black and White cookie. This cookie can be found in NYC delis. The dough is cake-based and so soft. For this recipe, I used store bought frosting instead of making the frosting — I did not have time to practice it. I did not have buttermilk, so I instead mixed 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar.
Top: Black and White Cookie. Bottom (from left to right): Cuban Sugar Cookie with Passion Fruit Jam, Compost Cookie (inspired from Momofuku Milk Bar)
The next cookie I made (with the assistance of my nephew) is a Cuban Sugar Cookie called “Torticas de Moron.” It is a sugar cookie with a lime twist. I made this cookie because when I was at NYC, my friend and I would eat breakfast at a local Cuban café almost every morning. I could not find any guava jam in any grocery store. To substitute I used passion fruit jam. I enjoy making this cookie and would like to try it with dulce de leche and eventually guava jam if I could find it.
The third cookie is the Compost Cookie based off of the cookie from Momofuku Milk Bar. I remembered the first time I had the Compost Cookie, it was so unusual to have potato chips, pretzels, coffee grounds, chocolate chips, and butterscotch all in one cookie. What I did differently was skip the graham cracker crust recipe and instead crushed the graham crackers. I guess I was tired trying a new recipe just to only used 1/2 cup of graham cracker crust for the cookies. What would I do with the rest of the graham cracker crust? Of course make pie, but I think I’ll take a short break from baking desserts.
I have plenty of cookies leftover after baking for most of the day. I have plenty to give. Here, have one or some. Do you have a cookie recipe? Comment below!
For other plans for the rest of the weekend, I am working on my 21 for 2021 list. I am also working on writing a reverse 20 for 2020 list, reflecting on all the things I did this year.
Pinterest is awesome, but it can also drive me nuts!
On my Pinterest page you’ll find I have a Pinterest board for everything from outfits, hiking, travel, books, productivity, drinks, cooking, home decorating — there are so many possibilities. Pinterest has been a wonderful way to get inspired and exchange ideas across the internet once you get past the ugly fact that that dream wedding or bathroom you saw on Pinterest is a staged photoshoot. Also realize that the model wearing that outfit you were eye-ing is not a real person (unless you are 5’10 and 120 lbs). I tell myself these pins are only aspirations, not expectations.
Then there’s the other ugly part: Pinterest can also be a big mess. Some people may not anticipate projects require a bit of work and you willing to invest in some time. If you do not have those intentions when approaching a project, that’s when Pinterest fails come in. I’ve had my fair share of projects from Pinterest that got awful. I attempted yarn balls — the results were pretty good but it was a messy, messy project using A LOT of glue resulting in glue everywhere in my apartment. So I moved on. It was not the project for me.
However once in a while, I do find myself with pin wins:
A rose apple pie I make in the fall (the original). Yes, this is a dish I make regularly. I’ve done both fresh and baked apples and they come out wonderful. I am looking into other twists — maybe add berries or more crumbles just to twist things up.
A pinecone cheese ball (original). I made this last year for my work’s tree trimming party. The theme was pinecones and my coworker wanted to see someone make a dish like the original pin she saw. I took up on this challenge. I included the pine sprigs like in the original and I added my own touch for color by adding persimmon chips. I also baked the the persimmon chips too.
Top flavor, Matcha – The best green tea flavor I’ve had in a while!
Bottom flavor, Mozarella – I thought there was going to be mozarella cheese in this ice cream. I was wrong. Some of these flavors are based off of Tokidoki characters like Mozarella and Latte. The mozarella flavor reminded me of stracciatella with chunkier chocolate pieces.
Kiddos Creamery
818 N Pacific Ave
Ste J
Glendale, CA 91203
Eat, Play, Live 