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Time passes fast! The summer suddenly arrives and it has already almost in the middle of the summer now. I have been a bad blogger here but it is so busy always in the summer since everybody here wants take advantage of the short warm days.
It was the birthday for my nephew and twin nieces on this past weekend. I made these cute cupcakes baked right in the ice cream cones. Topped with either vanilla or chocolate frosting or both! Decorated like the real ice cream! Kids love them! 
For the 4th of July weekend, I made an interesting cheese cake that features triple-sec, margarita mix, and tequila, condensed milk, cream cheese and whipped cream in the filling. Then it is topped with triple-sec, margarita mix, and tequila frozen gels. I got this recipe from the great ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
mort_83 . And it is really great! Cool and tasty, best for the hot summer!
Memorial Day Weekend Cakes!
May. 31st, 2011 03:54 pm
It has been a long time since I post some baking stuffs here! This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend in US. And it was also the starting of the gardening season for this part of the US. There were so many people crowded in all the garden centers and nurseries to buy plants, trees, and flowers to plant in the yards/gardens that it was not even funny. 
Of course, there were also lots of parties and activities going on since it was a 3-day long weekend. Besides, the weather was finally nice! I had a baking festival going on to prepare cakes for several occasions. Here are the 3 cakes I made, all gluten free! The first one was the mini-banana bundt cakes with lemon glaze. Very moisture! 
The 2nd one was the sour cream spiced chocolate cake. This is a very nutritious cake that contains 6 eggs and lots of sour cream. It is so moisture and the combinations of coca and ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and salt are just great. The 3rd one is the strawberry cake with the cream cheese frosting. Since it is the strawberry season, I just had to incorporate the fresh strawberry puree both in the cake and the cream cheese frosting. Very yummy and fresh! 
Finally, the spring seems to be on the corner! It is sunny, warm and the temperature is about 50'F (10'C). Most of the snow has gone and the crocus in the garden has started to bloom! Amazing! Well, I decided to make this new recipe, "Cream Cheese Oats Cranberry Bars". It has 4 layers of goodies. The base crust and the topping crumbles have oats, cinnamon, and nutmeg and my special gluten free mix. The 2nd layer is the combination of cream cheese, sweetened condense milk, orange juice, and brown sugar. The 3rd layer is the cooked cranberry with orange juice and zest. The cranberry layer is spooned to drop in cream cheese layer to create marble effects. The final product is just a beautiful and tasty spring dessert!
Lemon Ginger Cake
Mar. 6th, 2011 05:41 pm
What to do on a sunny but cold winter weekend? Baking! Lemon ginger cake! It has fresh lemon zest, lemon juice, ground ginger, candied ginger, cardamon, and sour cream. Just the right sweetness, moisture and yummy! And it is gluten free!
Red Bean Year Cake (Nian Gao) 年糕
Jan. 25th, 2011 09:29 am
Continued the Bunny year Chinese new year goodies baking marathon, here comes the red bean year cake (Nian Gao) 年糕. This is another traditional popular Chinese New Year dessert. It is mainly made of glutinous rice so it is actually gluten free. There are many different kinds of flavors of year cake. It can be sweet or savory. I always use my family's recipe to make this sweet brown sugar red bean flavor year cake.
It is considered good luck to eat year cake during Chinese new year. The word 糕 (Gao) means "cake" is identical in sound to the word, 高 which means "high". Therefore, it is going to raise oneself higher in each coming year by eating year cake. The cake batter is mixed and put it in a big steamer to steam until it is done. Then, the cake will stay in the refrigerator for several days until it is a little bit dry and hard for cutting. We usually either eat it just the way it is (my Mom would definitely disgree about this way!) or dip it in flour/egg batter and deep fry it. It is good either way. Chinese New Year Fa Cake (Fa Gao) 發糕
Jan. 23rd, 2011 10:57 am
It is so cold outside today again! It is only 4'F (-15'C) and windchill -25'F (-32'C) even though it is bright and sunny. Chinese new year is just around the corner (February 3) so it is time to make some Chines new year Fa Cake (Fa Gao 發糕). This year, I decide to make some changes instead of the tradition brown sugar flavor. I ended of making the chocolate and cherry cranberry flavors besides the usual brown sugar. The chocolate ones turns out so good that my local American friends just cannot have enough of them! My personal favorite actually is the cherry cranberry one. The dried cranberry just adds so much texture and different layers to the taste. And the red color is definitely good for Chinese new year. Now it is time to go to make the year cake...p.s. Forgot to explain what Fa Cake is. It is a dessert usually made in Chinese New Fa means rise and expand in Chinese. It is very important to have the nice cracking on the top of the cake to make it look like a flower. It also means prospering or becoming rich. The bigger the crack is, the more fortunate your family will be in this coming year.
That's the reason why Fa cake is very popular in Chinese new year and is treated as a fortune cake. (Fa
Merry Christmas! All my Christmas cookies are gluten free. Here is a bonus cookie: Orange pecan cookie. This is actually my second favorite this year. This one has grange juice, orange zest and chopped pecans on the sugar cookie based dough. Very intense flavor. 
There is actually another pecan sugar cookie made this year but it was all gone before I could take pictures! That's everything of the cookies this year. Wish you have a merry Christmas and happy new year!
Happy Christmas Eve! Here is the champion cookie this year, "White Chocolate Cherry Cookies"! Shortbread kind of cookie. The perfect combination of cherry flavor and not too sweet white chocolate. I did not expect that the maraschino cherries would make such a nice tasty cookie but they did! Beautiful and great taste! One of the best cookies I have ever made!
Next one is the "Double Chocolate Mint Cookies". If you like girl scout mint cookie, this one is your heavenly gift since it is much better than girl scout one! 3rd place in this year's Christmas cookies. The wonderful chocolate based dough plus the semi-sweet chocolate bits in the cookie and super minty flavor make this one instantly crowd favor!
Happy Christmas Eve's Eve! We are almost done with all holiday gluten free cookies showdown here! :) Number 9 is the "Cardamom Snaps". It is not only a new recipe but also a new spice that I would like to try. Cardamom usually is used in the Indian cooking. It has a fragrance between ginger and cinnamon. This cookie is a combination of ginger snaps and molasses cookies. It tastes very much like ginger snaps but with something different that you just cannot catch what it is. :) 
Number 10 is " Lemon Ricotta Cookies". This one is adapted from the Foodnetwork Giada's recipe. It has such a strong lemon taste in cookie itself that I don't think the lemon glaze from the original recipe is necessary so I eliminate that. The ricotta cheese and the gluten free version of my rice flour mixture makes this cookie has the texture like pan cake actually. :) Very tasty but it seems to expand too much during the baking. Another one might need more work to make it perfect for the gluten free version.
Good morning again! Snow finally stops and I am running out of butter, eggs and condensed milk to complete the rest of the cookies. Got to go shopping! It is never easy to adapt the usual recipes to gluten free but it is worth the efforts when the final cookies come out just right and nobody can tell the difference. Sometimes, the gluten free version is even better! Here are the next two Christmas cookies! Both are gluten free as well. The first one is the "Chocolate Scotcheroos". A new recipe I adapt from this year's local gas/energy company annual cookie book. It is basically an alternated version of rice crisp treats. Cook the sugar with corn syrup first to make the base syrup then add the peanut butter and rice crisp cereal. Pour, or rather say push since it is a super sticky mixture, into a 9x13 baking pan to let cool. Then, spread a layer of melted semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch on the top and the "Scotcheroos" is born! 
The next one is "Kitchen Sink Christmas Cookies". From the name, you can guess the original recipe is basically to throw all leftover ingredients from other baking/cooking tasks together to make this one. It has sugar, brown sugar, eggs, crisp rice cereal, flaked coconut, rolled oats, and toffee bits. It has lots of tasty ingredients but the result is really not what I want. Very bland to my taste. This is my least favorite within all 12 cookies I make this year. But to be fair, I never really like oatmeal cookies since I think they are very bland. It actually taste much better once the cookies chilled in refrigerator for a day. Again, some of my local Wisconsin friends love it very much and tell me that it is what the oatmeal cookie supposed to be. Aw, well, at least, somebody would eat them!
