side note: orange leaf yogurt

OH and i forgot to mention

*drum roll*

my family opened an Orange Leaf Self Serve Yogurt!

1143 Story Rd

Ste 190

San Jose, CA 95122

(408) 289-8123

www.orangeleafyogurt.com

Hours:

Mon-Thu, Sun 10:30 am - 11 pm

Fri-Sat 10:30 am - 12 am

Come Visit US!

There are 16 different flavors, over 32 toppings, and just 30 cents an OUNCE! (super cheap)

strawberry mascarpone whip cream macaron

one of my customers told me she had checked this blog, and had not seen anything new!

i was sad to say, i had nothing new to report :/ only because i get the usual requests for my red velvet cupcakes, and they look the same ... every single time.

BUT a girlfriend told me: "tonight i wish for linda to make ugly macaroons." Only because i told her no one had any orders for it and that unless she paid for the order, she would get free ugly ones HAHA ... luckily for her, i felt nice and wanted a challenge~

I love pink, and honestly, i don't know why i haven't done a strawberry cupcake yet. I guess macarons just make it that much cuter with pink and strawberries :]

I have to admit, i messed up my first batch for the mascarpone cream, so i had to go back to the store to get another. I over whipped and it curdled, it looked really gross! So i had to add heavy whipping cream, mascarpone cheese, and strawberry extract ... then at the end i had chopped up strawberries folded into the cream! YUMMY!

BONUS: boyfriend left his nikon d40 in my trunk, so i made good use to take some awesome pictures my cute macarons deserves :]

whipping my 3 day aged egg whites (yes, i had to age them!)

piping the rounds, and leaving it out for an hour to dry, so it forms a shell

its a miracle! they have little feet - success!

this makes me think of love. it is adorable!

yummy!

My Business Card

Please Order From me ... I will not post the back because well I am too lazy to censor out my phone number, but it is as cute as the front ;)

I would love to bake for you :D

valentine's and other misc updates

My cousin took some "nice" pictures of my goodies on valentines (you know, the kind that uses like a realllllyyy fancy camera with some awesome lens to take small aperture pictures, and makes it all artistic?) ... But i feel like i should share some of my mediocre pictures anyways

i had an order of cupcakes for saturday, and i did a swirl for the frosting instead of my normal spatula frosting technique. i've been worried that i wouldn't have enough frosting to do it, but alas, it does sufficiently frost 24 red velvet cupcakes ... just not hopeful for the carrot cupcakes (where the batches vary depending on how much apples and carrots i decide to slice and shred). I used some sort of Ateco Tip (I have a mix of wilton's (due to michaels, sur la table) and ateco (crate and barrel, william's sonoma).

oh and it took me 10 hours of slaving baking/chocolatiering to prepare for valentines ... i love my boyfriend so.

my white chocolate shell for my chocolate ganache and milk chocolate bottom (i ran out of white chocolate to complete the shell.. hahahahahaha oops! actually i later found out that i had a stash of white chocolate set aside for this, instead i forgot and used milk chocolate -te he he he :[

my brownie pop: bittersweet chocolate and milk chocolate (i liked my first trial better, i used white chocolate and milk ...) GUITTARD'S CHOCOLATE FTW!

truffle making, it is MESSY (left: ganache ball, right: milk chocolate to coat)

dipped brownie pops in milk chocolate and YELLOW sugar sprinkles but it does not show up at all .. but gives this nice texture when you're eating the brownies, a crunch!

truffles in cocoa nibs(valrhona) and cocoa powder (whole foods)

u know macarons are a pain, and when you ACCOMPLISH such a masterpiece, who wants to think about the cream filling, i sure don't. instead i improvised: whipping cream, powdered sugar (to stabilize) and NUTELLA. who doesn't love nutella? TELL ME! but its tricky, must be eaten within a day or two of being put together, otherwise ... its a disaster, just kidding - eatable but not the best it can be.

aren't they so chubby and cute? ... fyi, as i started to whip the cream, i THEN realized that this will fall flat after a few hours! so i frantically searched online to find ways to stabilize it ... turns out you can do gelatin (which i had, but no time to do it, since i already started whipping), or the cornstarch from powdered sugar can help. so thats why my consistency is off, overbeaten, overloaded, and not prepared :/

voila - the basket. don't judge the cider, we love apple cider only because we don't have a developed wine/champagne/alcohol taste yet ... YET! (the boxes with pink bows: my individual macarons)

cousin and his wifey working their magic. she said the cloth shes holding is about a pound ... she had to hold it up for awhile, working out and working - what a great concept

intermission: my mom loves floral arrangement. we got a deal on these, $3 a branch, yes $3 a branch. HA!

done and complete (if you're vietnamese, you will notice the CHA on the right ... it was tet on sunday(feb 14)!

don't they look just lovely? *swoon* so soft and fluffy ... CHOMP!

digital scale + brownie pops

i had two failed attempts, in one blasted day, for french macarons. Did it deter me from retrying? almost, yes. i realized the "i <3 macarons" was flawed in it's measurements and units of measurements. Considering i was making FRENCH macarons, i should have known better than to use american standard units for measurements. I had to use the digital scale. My new found love: Salter Designer Digital Scale. thank you william's sonoma. and thank you boyfriend, for buying it >:)

if we neglect that i was actually suppose to measure out 125 grams of almond flour, then we can sit and be amazed in it's beauty. (tricky thing with scale is, the weight fluctuates if you are in between! so stand still and wait for it to stay put with a number)

The last of my baking with obsolete measurements. A practice run for my brownie pops. Though i am not too found of the HEIGHT and shape of the brownies (i want to achieve a more round, bon bon like shape), it will do for now.

Did you know making these suckers are tad bit tricky? you have to bake it a certain time, then pop in the sticks, and bake it some more so the brownie will adhere to the stick. BUT if you put it in too early, your stick will fall over, and the brownie will be destroyed. You could do it the lazy way, and place some candy melts to the stick and then attaching to the brownies. Er, of course i wasn't aware of the stick dilemma, and did not prepare candy melt ahead of time. shame on me.

Anyhow, I used white and bittersweet chocolates in this recipe, and as my first go for brownies, it went quite well! (No, i did not intend to make milk chocolate by combining the two, they just happen to be the chocolates i wanted to use... )

Note to self: DO NOT ADD ANY SUGAR NEXT TIME. i used such rich and delicious chocolate, sugar was definitely not necessary at all.

Question: How do you make the brownies NOT as sweet, given that the main component is chocolate, and only chocolate basically? Hrm.

oh, do you like my new tag? it was just delivered right before valentine's :) my other one says "from the kitchen of"

gum paste flower and carrot cupcakes

I had to part with a dear co-worker (hopefully, I'll still see her around) loved my carrot cupcakes! So the super-nice-awesome person I am made cupcakes for her going away. 6 normal sizes for her and her hubby and 12 minis ones for her two kiddos. I was tired of my pearls and white sprinkles as decorations, so I finally experimented with gum paste - now my creativity will be endless! More gum paste art work to come! HOORAY! Now if only I could ice my cupcake in a perfect dome every time, I would be the master ... jk :]

3 grated carrots is a lot of hard work ... lots of elbow work!

to get perfect size cupcakes all the time, use ice cream scoops in different sizes!

gum paste dries out quickly, so only take a bit at a time, and put the rest under saran wrap. place your finish work into an air tight container, and when you need to dry it, place it out on parchment paper for a day

you can place beads into the center of your flower with assistance from royal icing to glue them on

voila - the big cupcakes

mini cupcakes in their mini tray :]

Homemade Pizza

Anyone can call for pizza delivery or even bake a frozen pizza, but is that really cooking? In college, that was cooking, but now life after college it is SOOOOO not. Pizza dough is nothing hard at all, very easy and quick considering you just need the dough to rise for about 30 minutes ... its simple, quick, and delicious.

Simple Pizza Dough

1 batch can makes 2 pizzas, depending on size and thickness

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

1 cup warm/semi hot water

2 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons white sugar

Tools

Half-pan baking sheet

Roulpat - makers of Silpat, just helps with rolling the dough out

Kitchenaid Stand mixer with Dough hook

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F, move rack to 2nd lowest rack

First, add the yeast and warm water in a small bowl, and let sit for about 10 minutes, it gets really suddy, and dirty looking - like muddy water! But it is safe to use for food ... ha ha ha

Combine your salt, sugar, bread flour, olive oil, and yeast solution to the stand mixer and .. let it rip! just enough to combine, dont over mix ... you can let the dough get caught up in the hook = done

cover the dough with saran wrap and let sit for 30 minutes to rise double it size. I moved it near my heater .. hahaha

Flour your roulpat enough to make it less sticky, also flour your hands before you reach into the flour.

Split the dough into two parts, for two different pizza, unless you like super thick huge pizzas ...

The texture of the risen dough is really awesome, its so airy and soft!

You knead the dough in circular motions, and all sorts of things you want ... may not be the correct technique but hey, my dough turned out fine!

You can roll it out to make sure you get the shape you want ... I make rectangles because i want to utilize my baking sheet space.

You then add the pizza sauce (homemade or pizza sauce can) and the cheese.

Brush the edges with some olive oil.

Pop it in the over for 10 minutes to prebake the dough ... to make sure it has a crispy cooked texture.

After 10 minutes, you take it out and add your sliced onions, peppers, etc and pepperoni, meats, et al and bake it for about 20 minutes

Note: if you plan on adding basil or cilantro or any leafy fresh veges, do it after you finish baking! or your leafy greens will wilt ... and look sad.

pizza #1: green peppers, red onions, olives, bacon slices, pepperoni, mozarella

forgive me ... we were too hungry to even think about taking a picture!!

Pizza #2: BBQ chicken (chicken breast cooked in a skillet, then later sliced up and tossed up with a little bit of BBQ sauce), cilantro, green peppers, red onions, mozarella