Japchae

So I'm steering away from sweets in this post but I think that you'll like it (crossing fingers).  So for Memorial Day my family had a small barbecue.  We made galbi (korean short ribs), potato salad, thai chicken satay with peanut sauce, garden salad and japchae.  Some of you are probably thinking, "what the heck is japchae"?  Japchae is a Korean noodle dish.  The noodle looks like glass noodles, but it is actually a sweet potato starch noodle prepared with lots of vegetables.  I recently learned how to make this, so like everything else I am new to I make it a lot.  Luckily the family loves it!

Ingredients:
1 carrot, cut up to match sticks
1 small onion, sliced
1 package of button mushrooms, sliced
2 green scallions cut into 1" pieces
2 cloves of garlic
1 bunch spinach, blanched
1 package of potato starch noodles
1 tbs roasted sesame seeds
Sauce:
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs sugar
1 tbs sesame oil
Dash of fresh ground black pepper
(Give or take, just season it the way you like)

Directions:
1. Stir fry the carrots and onions in a little sesame oil and a dash of salt.
2. Do the same with the mushroom and scallion, then spinach, garlic and sesame seeds.
3. Boil the noodles in a pot of water for exactly 8 minutes and no more, just 8 minutes.
5. Put all the ingredients for the sauce together in a separate pot, cook until sugar is dissolved.
4. Rinse the noodles in cold water then and drain.
5. Mix the vegetables, noodles and sauce all together over the stove until heated through,  then enjoy!

Macaron Recipe

Piped Macarons

I think the key to successful macarons is to prep everything ahead of time.  I usually have a mental check off list and it goes a little something like this:


Preheat the over to 310 degrees.  Measure out all my ingredients:
3/4 cup almond meal
2 large egg whites, aged
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup fine sugar


Prepare my piping bag.  Line my 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Have my food gel ready at hand.  Make sure that all my bowls and mixer are free of any oil residue, trust me this is necessary ( boil your beaters in water if you have to).  Separate my egg whites the night before.


Directions. 
1. Sift almond meal and powdered sugar.
2. Beat egg whites until stiff while gradually adding fine sugar.
3. Gently fold the mixture into the egg whites 1/3 at a time.  Add any color food gel at this point.  I usually use Americolor or Wilton.  
*Do not mix, beat, stir or whatever else that does not mean fold because they will not have feet.
4. Fill the piping bags with the mixture, it'll seem a little thick but it's okay.
5. Try to pipe dollar coin size circles as identical as possible.
6. Bake for 16 minutes give or take a minute or two.
(I usually don't wait for a "skin" to form and it still turns out good.)


Once the shells are done, you should be able to slide it right off the parchment paper easily.  Allow the shells to cool then it's time to pair them up add a filling of your choice.  Fill it with pretty much anything you want.  Caramel, preserves, nutella, ganache, cream cheese, custard, buttercream, anything I tell you.  So get creative!  Oh yeah store them in an air tight container for 2 days in the fridge before you eat them or give them away because then you'll get the right texture.  Crunchy and chewy all in one bite...If it doesn't turn out the way you want it to please don't give up because once you get it right, it'll all seem so easy, easy I tell you.  Let me know how it goes!  Good Luck ^_^

Macarons Galore

French macarons, not macaroons.  Not the cookies with coconut shavings, but the ones with the filling.  When I first discovered that people  were willing to pay $2 for a cookie the size of an Oreo I was like huh?  What made this cookie so special?  I could see that aesthetically it was beautiful and such an adorable treat to have, but I continued to question what made this cookie so special still?  So one day while I was at Santa Monica, I saw a place that sold macarons so I HAD to try one.  I ended up buying a dozen just because they were so pretty and I wanted one in every color and flavor they had to offer.  So like any other treats or dessert that I have tried I had to look up the recipe and make it.  I think like bread I failed the first dozen times or so, but hating to waste egg whites and especially almond meal I gave up...for awhile.  After much research and reading all the blogs that offered tips and recipes I made another attempt and tada I had feet!  Anyone who has made macarons knows what I am talking about when I said that I had feet.  Long story short from that point on I was able to make macarons with feet every single time =) I eventually learned to make caramel to fill my macarons.  I have filled them with:

• Caramel
• Salted Caramel
• Raspberry Preserves
• Green Tea Ganache
• Chocolate Ganache

I now know why it is so expensive and truth be told it is because of the almond meal.  I have resorted to even blanching my own almonds,  manually removing the skin and then grinding it; even then it is still kinda expensive.  However, even with that said there is no stopping me from making them.  Now I just gotta find someone to eat them! 

Until next time!

Cake Pops!

My very first attempt at editing pictures =)

I still have a long way to go and lots to learn.

Appreciation

Secretary's Day, oops that 's not pc so let's try that again: Administrative Professional's Day. 
These were the treats I made for the 2 secretaries at work.  They are definitely hard working ladies, so I wanted to show them my appreciation.  I usually will swing by Starbucks and buy a gift card and a mug, but after a while it gets kinda boring to receive/give the same gift every single year so I decided to get creative knowing that the ladies have sweet teeth (haha that just looks & sounds funny trying to make it plural, I don't even know if it's correct).

I do not own anything fancy to hold my cake pops in place, so I usually take a cereal box and stab holes in them.  It's not pretty, but hey it's free, nothing beats free.  When the cake pops dried I tied a ribbon to each them that matched the ribbons I used to decorate my white cake box.

They were able to spell their names out with the sugar cookies.  One left her name out on her desk for display for the entire day and the other ate most of it by the end of the day.  

I packaged everything pretty nicely completed with beautiful ribbons and tags, but as a rookie a mistake I made was I did not take any pictures!  

After a Long Day

 After a long day at work the best way to wind down is to bake because I find it very relaxing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way, although my sisters would beg to differ. Throughout the entire day I kept on asking myself what I would bake when I get home.  A chiffon cake?  Bread again? Cupcakes?  Pound Cake? Cake pops? Heck if I had the time and I would have done it all.  So what did I end up baking? Drumroll please.....cake pops AND chocolate cupcakes.  Like I said, I tend to get carried away.  


I started off with making red velvet cake pops.  I'm not a red velvet fan myself, but I know that it is the flavor of choice for many.  I used my Bella Cucina cake pop maker.  I enjoy using this handy appliance because I find mixing cake and frosting is way too sweet for my liking; plus the benefit of using this appliance gives me perfect balls that look uniform.  I dipped my pops in melted white chocolate and decorated with a variety of Easter sprinkles that I bought from Target (my favorite store and anyone who knows me will confirm this as a fact).  Which I will share the ingredients at a later time.  Then off to cupcakes.

Once I finished my cake pops I started on my cream cheese frosting for the chocolate cupcakes.  I used the following recipe for my frosting:


4 ounce cream cheese
5 tbs unsalted butter room temperature (or your frosting will be lumpy)
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs cream


Using a hand mixer I combined all the ingredients until smooth.  I stored the icing in the refrigerator to stiffen while I baked my chocolate cupcakes.  I used the following recipe for my moist chocolate cupcakes:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup baking cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Cream sugar and butter together until fluffy then add egg and vanilla.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda together in a mixing bowl.  In a separate bowl combine the liquid ingredients.

3. Slowly add the 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the creamed butter.  Alternate between the dry and wet ingredients.  

4. Fill the baking cups 2/3 full and bake for about 22 minutes.

5. Frost when cooled and *decorate.

*I decorated with a flower made earlier during the week from leftover royal icing and stored in an air tight container.

Dinner Rolls

So when I learn something new I have a bad habit of making it over and over again.  I'm not too sure why that is the case.  It could be because I:


1. want to perfect it, 
2. am excited that I learned something new or, 
3. want to make sure that I truly know how to make it versus getting lucky that time around.


I will usually make it to the point where my family members are nauseated merely by looking at it or will simply refuse to eat it...not because it tastes bad...or at least that's what I tell myself.  Anyhow, with that said, I made bread again but this time in the form of dinner rolls.  The dinner rolls came out SUPER SOFT kinda like the ones you find at the asian bakeries.  
*All my pictures are unedited and it's not because I think I'm a badass, truth be told I just don't know how...yet or ever.

The recipe I used:
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp active yeast (dissolved in 1/4 cup of warm water + 1tsp sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs oil
3 cups bread flour
Directions:
1. Combine all the ingredients in a bread maker and set it on dough mode.  
2. Once dough has risen in the dough maker, divided the dough in 12 equal balls and place on    
    baking sheet.
3. Allow double in size and at this time preheat the oven at 350 degrees.
4. Bake the rolls for about 20-25 minutes.


Before baking I brushed my dough with different flavors to see which I would like.  I used condensed milk on 4 rolls, butter on 4 rolls, butter and sugar on 4 rolls and I left the last 4 plain.  My niece preferred the sugar one, but hey she's only 2 1/2 years old!