Enjoying Summer Bounty with Summer Fruit Crumble

Just when I am about to post about summer fruits, summer is officially over. While East Coast is hit by hurricane Irene, and Texas and other states are scorching hot, weather here in northern California is great as usual, about 80 F constantly during the day, and low 60's F at night. This is exactly why people love California, cool and gentle breeze, not humid and not dry. Perfect.

Meyer Lemon Tart

Ah.. finally this post is up!!

Every year around Spring time (it is kinda late this year), I am always loaded with a whole bunch of meyer lemons, mostly coming from neighbor's tree, friends, and also from my coworker's too. The coworker has a meyer lemon tree that is producing all year around (yup, I now now where to get my source all year!).

Randomness: Blue Macaron Wedding Favor, Little Girl's Birthday Cake, and Sadaharu Aoki's Macarons

Just wanted to say a quick hi and to let you guys know that I am still alive here.

Summer has always been a really busy time for me (and everyone). I was in the middle of house-moving these past month, some weekend trips in between, and a-week-long vacation (it was GREAT!) and they're pretty much eating all of my time and I hardly have time to bake as weekend is pretty much the only time I could bake. Other than that, I have no internet connection at home for almost a full month, didn't realize how important internet is until it's gone.
I didn't realize how much baking stuff I have until I have to pack them, I have at least 15-20 big boxes easily for tools and ingredients!!!!

Spring Cleaning Part 1: Cassis Chocolate Cake

I opened my freezer a few weeks ago and started listed out what pastry "leftovers" I have in there. You can bet that I have different flavors of joconde, baked cheesecake, mousses, some sponge cake layers among other common things such as frozen berries that I froze last year (red and yellow raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries), as well as frozen purees (passion fruit, guava, apricot, cassis, mango, etc), cherries. That's a whole lot of stuff! I can make half a year worth of desserts without having to buy most of the ingredients. And now that Summer is here, I have to start "cleaning" them up so that I would have space for a new stash of every fruit I can find in farmers' market.

Old-Fashioned Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins

I might not have blogged about this one particularly simple cake (I might have posted some pictures in the past though) but that doesn't mean that this cake doesn't deserve a highlight and its own blog post. This humble banana muffin in particular is very special to me and it goes back to my early college days in TX.

I started baking at the last year of my college days I think. I was more of a cooking type of girl, Indonesian home-cooked meals, Chinese, American, Italian, a little French, and for a student, that was something. I never really interested in baking world until I met this little sweet cake. I was at my friend's house for a bible study and she just made this cake. She served it right out of the oven and it was love at first bite, I immediately asked for the recipe. She got the recipe from a missionary and she's been using the recipe ever since.

Celebrating Friendship

I have known my friend, N, for no less than 9 years I think. We went to the same college in Cupertino, we go to the same church, we hung out and laughed together, we stayed up late together, usually it's me making a cake, and her helping me making little fondant figurines, we get very excited over food, and many many more. She is the type of person who can bright up your day instantly, she's always full of smile in any circumstances, always willing to help, very kind-hearted, there is no single negative thing I can think of when I think of her.

Cakepops for M's Baby Shower Favor

I can't believe it's May! I wonder where did time go. I have been out of town for the past two weeks, and before that, I was also out for a few weekends, life's been really crazy. A little warning, this post might be more of an updates rather than cake in details :)

I started this draft about a month ago or so and yes I know I have not been very proud of myself in keeping this blog updated as often as I wanted to. I had to keep changing the content as the week passed by because so many things are happening. In fact, I was writing part of this post on my "vacation" somewhere in Prairieville, Louisiana where thunderstorm and wind warning are so common. Yup, that's right! I went away from the beautiful California to Houston for a few days to visit my sister, then off to Louisiana, for a good reason. In a way, San Jose reminds me about the long hours at work and thinking about that is exhausting sometimes. So, it feels really good to be away from that at least.