Double Chocolate Layer Cake

I made this cake for my sister and my birthday. My sister is pretty picky about chocolate cakes and this cake hit the spot. It was extremely moist and the frosting is by far the best I've had. The only thing is the cake is only as good as the quality of chocolate you use. I used Scharffen Berger chocolate in the batter and Scharffen Berger and Ghirardelli Chocolate for the frosting (it was just too expensive for me to use all Schaffen Berger).


I made white chocolate mousse to put in between the layers but I didn't make it early enough to allow the mousse to harden up. I had to scrap it all off but as you can see, I couldn't get it all off.

You can find the recipe here.

"Cinnabon" Cinnamon Rolls

I’ve been reading the Daring Bakers blogs and their recent challenge was to make Cinnamon buns. I’ve made cinnamon rolls before but they were a disaster, extremely dry and it had an “eggy” taste. I didn’t even take a picture of it, that’s how disappointed I was. I got the recipe from the Food Network after watching Alton Brown’s episode of The Dough Also Rises. This time around, I decided to look on Recipezaar.com. The reviews for this recipe were really good so went to the market (again) and got all the ingredients. I got started and realized I forgot the milk =/ and made another trip. *Sigh*

This recipe is a winner! I followed the ingredients but the cooking time the recipe called for was too short. At 20min. the dough was not all the way cooked. So I put it back in for about another 10 min. I inserted an instant read thermometer and took the buns out when it reached 180˚F. The recipe I used the first time said to take out the buns when it reached 190˚F but that resulted in dry buns. The frosting was delicious!

You can find the recipe here.

Grapefruit Yogurt Cake

I was reading Fanny’s Blog and found the recipe for Grapefruit Yogurt cake. I've never made a yogurt cake but her picture and description intrigued me. I knew I had to make it. This was also the first recipe I'd seen for grapefruit. I followed her recipe exactly except for the size of her pan. I didn't have a 7½" pan so I used an 8½" pan which is why my cake turned out flatter then hers. I got a little impatient waiting for the grapefruit juice to soak into the cake so I made a number of holes. Next time, I'm going to try and be more patient =] The cake was just lovely; very similar to my Blueberry Cake, dense but still very moist. I'm going to make this for my sister, who loves grapefruit. Even Mr. Cutie Pie liked the cake.

Blueberry Coffee Cake

This is my favorite cake I've made so far. It was dense and moist. It didn't have a heavy butter flavor and the brown sugar topping was nice and crispy. When I visited my sister in Baltimore, we made the cake into muffins and they turned out just as good. For some reason, I like the cake after it's been refrigerated. My sister doesn't seem to care either way.

I can't remember where I found the recipe. I just saved it on a word document, so when I find it I'll let you know.

LA Tofu Festival 2007

Tofu Festival vendors

YAY! I finally got to go =] but the bigger yay was that I got my carnivorous Mr. Sweetie Pie to take me. It was such a HOT day, seriously 100°F. If you know me, you'd know that I hate the heat and I get grumpy too =/ But Mr. Sweetie Pie was such a great sport but he didn't want to eat a thing; he did hold all the food for me to take a picture though.

more vendors

Pad Thai with Tofu

This dish was probably my favorite.

Curry Tofu

This was my second favorite but still really good. The curry was a Japanese style curry and the faux meat had great texture and taste.

Tofu Bibimbap

The vegetables were fresh and crispy.

Earthen Restaurant

1639 S Azusa Ave, Hacienda Heights, CA, 91745 (626) 964-1570

My sister and I went to Earthens for lunch and ordered green onion pancakes, sautéed vegetables, and tofu with mushrooms. The pancakes were a bit oily but the seasoning was very good. I loved the vegetables, they're my favorite kind of vegetables though (it was sautéed with garlic). The tofu with mushrooms weren't special. I would recommend coming here for the pancakes. I had tired their vegetable dumplings once and it had way too much pepper.

Little Boy Cookies

Little Boy Cookies

This time while I waited at my friend's house for bowling league to start, her little boy decided that we should decorate some cookies.

The little boy decorating them

And here he is putting the faces on the cookies. He actually wanted to make pirate cookies but since we didn't have enough time before we went bowling, he used M&Ms.

Rib Eye Roast

For Mr. Cutie Pie's birthday I made him a Rib Eye Roast, tater tots and for dessert, a Dove Ice Cream Bar (cause his parents already got him an ice cream cake). I've made a roast once before and it was more "medium done" than "medium rare", which is the way Mr. Cutie Pie likes it. This time around, I made sure to get the right cut of meat and took the roast out 10ºF before it reached the desired temperature for "medium rare" (145ºF). Since I don't eat meat I can't tell you how it turned out but Mr. Cutie Pie (and his dad) assured me it was very good.

Rib Eye Roast
Ingredients
4 to 6 lbs of Rib Eye Roast (I got a 5 lb roast which included 2 bones)
5 cloves of garlic cut into slivers
Salt and coarse black pepper
Instant read thermometer

Instructions
About and hour before roasting, remove the meat from the refridgerator and let it get to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350°F
Make small slits all over the rib eye (about 7) and fill each slit with a few slices of garlic. Season liberally with the salt and coarse black pepper. Pleace the rib eye on a rack set inside a roasting pan and roast for about 2 hours to untill the thermometer inserted into the center of the meat registers 135ºF for medium rare.

Remove the meat to a platter, and tent with foil to keep warm and let it sit for about 15 min. still the thermometer reads 145ºF.

You can make a sauce with the drippings in the pan by adding wine, beef stock and some seasoning (such as fresh thyme leaves).

Thyme Au Jus
2 cups red wine
4 cups beef stock
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves.

Place the roasting pan on top of the stove over 2 burners set on high heat. Add the wine to the pan drippings in the pan and cook over high heat untill reduced, scrapping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the stock and cook until reduced by half. Whisk in the thyme and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Cookies

M&M and Chocolate Chip cookies

Since Mr. Cutie Pie doesn't like a lot of sweets, chocolate chip cookies are just about the only thing I know he'll eat for sure. A lot of the cookies I've made in the past have been too flat for my taste. The perfect cookie size and texture for me would be fat, soft and chewy. I usually followed the recipe on the back of NESTLÉ®TOLL HOUSE® Morsels packages but the cookies were too thin for me. I've also tried Alton Brown's recipe for The Chewy cookie and although it was chewy, the cookies were still too thin.

I wanted cookies like the ones I bought from Campitelli Cookies . I finally found the recipe while looking through Mr. Cutie Pie's mom's cook books. I didn't have a lot of unsalted butter (less than ⅓) so I looked for cookie recipes that used a combination of butter and shortening. The whole recipe needed ⅔ butter and ⅔ shortening so I just cut everything in half. The recipe also stated that for a rounder cookie, add another half a cup of flour. The resulting cookies were exactly to my standards. The only difference I would make next time would be to make the cookies bigger.

Reese's pieces cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies
⅔ cup shortening
⅔ cup butter or margarine, softened (I used unsalted butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs (room temperature)
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
12 oz semisweet chocolate pieces (1 ½ cups)

Heat oven to 375°F. Mix thoroughly shortening, butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. (For a softer, rounder cookie, add an extra½ cups flour)

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (if you're making large cookies, bake for about 12 minutes but do not over bake). Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet.

About 7 dozen cookies.

Southern Biscuits

After making the Buttermilk Biscuits, I was a bit disappointed in the taste so I decided to make Alton Brown's Southern Biscuits and his had a much more buttery taste and a flakier texture. I think the reason why the Southern Biscuits rose nicely was that the biscuits were placed just touching instead of a an inch or two apart.

Buttermilk Biscuits

I got the recipe for these buttermilk biscuits from my newly purchased Baking Illustrated - Cook's Illustrated. I've made two other thing (Classic Brownies and Boston Cream Pie) using Cook's Illustrated recipes and wasn't thrilled with the results. This time around, I'm sad to say that I had similar results; perhaps I just have too high a hopes for Cook's Illustrated.

Rich Marble Pound Cake w/ confetti icing

I was over at a friend's house waiting for our bowling league to start so I decided to bake something. I was flipping through her many cake and dessert books and trying to match what she had available in the fridge for me to use and decided to make this pound cake.

She didn't have a stand mixer but she had a hand held mixer. The directions for the pound cake was to use a stand mixer with the flat beater adjusted on

Ingredients
3 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 granulated sugar, divided
1/2 cup natural (not Dutch-processed) cocoa powder
6 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 large eggs
1/2 cup whole milk

To make the cake: ~haven't been back to her house so can't complete the instructions at this time~

Hot Vanilla Souffle

I've always wanted to make souffles because of the supposed difficulty involved in making sure they rose properly. Turned out it didn't take much, just don't open the oven door. This is because a sudden exposure to cold air could cause the souffles to collapse. I got this recipe on Food Network.

baking in the oven and rising nicely

We had to go to the gym from an hour so by the time we got back, they collapsed =/ Souffles will only hold their shape for about 20min so it's recommended to eat them asap.

my collapsed souffle

my collapsed souffle w/ chocolate sauce

Chocolate Chocolate Cake Cookie

Boston Cream Pie

Classic Brownies

I discovered Cook's Illustrated at the gym, of all places. I wanted some reading material while I ran so I dug through the pile of magazines and found the March & April 2004 issue of Cook's Illustrated. The recipe for Classic Brownies, Not Cakey, Not Fudgy, Just Right caught my eye. On a previous Saturday I was over at a friends house making cakey brownies, since this was the way Ben liked them. The "brownies" turned out to be more of a chocolate cake. This time around I wanted brownies just as the title promised, Not Cakey, Not Fudgy, Just Right.

The tester cut back on the usual 2 sticks of butter to 1 and half sticks for less greasy brownies and used cake flour (which is milled from softer wheat that all-purpose flour and contributes less protein, or gluten, to a recipe) to produce a less gritty and finer-textured product. One of the goals the tester set out to do was to pump up the chocolate flavor and she did this by increasing the amount of unsweetened chocolate instead of combining chocolate and cocoa powder because increasing cocoa by small amounts did not add much to the chocolate flavor.

The resulting brownies had an extremely intense chocolate flavor. Anyone that knows me probably knows about my obsessing with chocolate (especially dark chocolate) and even at my level, the recipe's chocolate flavor was just too overpowering. The recipe called for 6oz. of unsweetened chocolate so while at the grocery store I picked up 2 bars of Ghirardelli's 100% unsweetened chocolate. I'll probably substitute some semi-sweet chocolate for the next batch.

Texture wise, it was melt in your mouth goodness and just as promised wasn't too fudgy or cakey =] If you do refrigerate it though, make sure to microwave it for about 13sec. or else it'll feel like biting into a block of fudge. I did add one adjustment to the recipe, I sprinkled some chocolate chips on top (what?! I can't help it).

The Stinking Rose

55 N La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211 (310) 652-7673

I love garlic and this place gives me just the right fix...but...now that I'm a vegetarian I haven't been back there.

They've got really good garlic starter breads and if you want even more garlic, they have a minced garlic and green onion sauce you could use. I've gotten their FORTY CLOVE GARLIC CHICKEN (roasted on the bone) which was really juicy, their NEON RAVIOLI (w/ garlic basil Alfredo sauce) which was really creamy and delicious. Their DUNGENESS KILLER CRAB wasn't fresh when we got it but their GARLIC ROASTED PRIME RIB is really good. After the meal they bring you little candies that are suppose to help hide your garlic breath but they really don't work (tastes good though)

I love all their quirky decor too. They've got garlic in almost everything there, they even sell garlic condoms. It's also very romantic so bring your special someone

http://www.thestinkingrose.com/

Lascari's Italian Deli & Restaurant

14104 E Lambert Rd Whittier, CA 90605 (562) 698-5899

Good Italian food! The last time I came here was for my sister's bday meal with the family. The starter bread use to be better, now it's sour dough (but I guess it's good if you like sour dough). I always get their FETTUCCINE ALFREDO w/ extra broccoli =]. Their meals come with a small salad which is always fresh.

From what my friends say, their LINGUINE and CLAM in their white wine garlic sauce is really really good. They also have PRAWNS and MUSSELS which are suppose to be good too. They always have specials so be on a look out for it.

They have another location in Brea across the street from the Brea Mall in the plaza with Jamba Juice. I've never been to that one so I don't know if there's a noticeable difference.

They aren't open on Mondays (which I've had to learn the hard way =/)

http://www.lascarisdeli.com/mainmenu.htm

Lu's Garden Restaurant

17289 Colima Road, City Of Industry, CA 91748, (626) 964-5709

Good food but also very very oily. The porridge that comes with the meal is really good and it has chunks of yam in it. It's a good place to come for lunch but it gets really crowded and can be difficult to find a place to sit. You don't have to know Chinese, just point to what you want. You stand in line, pick three dishes, find a table and they'll bring it to you.They do have a number of vegetarian foods here so that's a plus for me.

Mystore Bakery - Cafe

17521 Colima Rd., City Industry, CA 91748, (626) 912-9729

A little bit more expensive than JJ Bakery and pretty similar in taste. This place has been around for just as long time but no one seems to come here as much. They've got similar items. I think their bread is just slightly softer than JJ Bakery and they've got some really good TARO CAKES =] yummy in my tummy.

They also have an assortment of cookies (mostly American types) which JJ Bakery doesn't but they don't have as many individually slices of cakes.