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.

Della's Birthday and Some Chocolate Cake


Apology for the rather long break on posting, I was out of town for the past two weekends. I had a chance to go to Napa two weeks ago with a few girls, it was a beautiful day, a bit chilly still but quite warm under the sun. It was nice to get away from everything, from work, from chores at home, from baking, from everything and just enjoying the view. Fortunately, we are all foodies, so it was only natural that food was one of the highlights of the day, lunch, dessert, ice cream, dinner, wine, it was all good.

Jewelry Party Dessert Table


San Jose is cold, wet, and windy at the moment. Definitely the least favorite weather of mine, it makes me want to curl up in bed and not doing anything. The fact that I still have to get up in the morning and go to work is really not exciting. I am longing for the warm weather even more than ever maybe.


Remember when I said I made a few dessert table in the midst of all the chaos that's been happening? This one was made about three weeks after the previous one. It was a smaller dessert table with about 80 desserts total for a jewelry party, four different types for yet another event by Le Amour Events. The theme color for the party involves white, green, and brown, so I tried to come up with a menu that showcases these color scheme.

Dessert Table Menu:
  1. Tropical fruit cheesecakepops
  2. Tiramisu verrines
  3. Salted caramel macarons
  4. Green tea eclair with chocolate glaze


It seems like each dessert had its own challenges, I didn't know what happen, it just did. I've never made cheesecakepop before and let me tell you, it is so much harder to shape up compared to regular cakepops. It was expected really as the texture of cheesecake is soft, it helped a little after a quick trip to the freezer, but it was still difficult. I might go crazy if I was making hundreds of them.


I was also having trouble with the macarons, completely not expected. You see, I always make a schedule, detail plan as to when I need to make certain component, when to decorate, when to buy ingredients, etc. This is very important because my free time is very limited and so everything needs to be planned well, especially in this currently impossible schedule, and I really didn't account for failure at all!. It was raining non-stop here for days or maybe even weeks, I really forgot when was the last time we had sunshine (a bit exaggeration here). To my surprise and disappointment, the first batch of the macaron failed, all of them. The macarons on the first tray looked like an exploded volcano, the others had uneven feet, and all of them weren't as crispy as the ones I made in the past. I would blame it on the humidity from the rain.

I was shocked, alright. Didn't quite believe what had happened, it also happened in the morning before I went to work, which then left me thinking for the whole day what could have gone wrong and how I can find the time to make another batch. Somehow I managed to bake another batch, and the same thing happened! Although this time was slightly better, but I still couldn't help but thinking what have I done wrong. I only needed at least 18 pairs, or 36 individual shells and fortunately I did. I wasn't completely satisfied with the texture and all but I was so glad when I heard that everything turned out great, what a relief!


I made tiramisu hundreds of time before, I know the steps, the measurements and everything by heart so the chance of I messed it up is pretty small. What I didn't know is that I could be so tired that I miscounted the glasses. I needed 18 but I only had 16! I don't know what I was thinking but long story short, I had to make another batch to account for the other 2.


I definitely learned some lessons from this dessert table, one of them is that always take into account some failure in your schedule, very important, so note to self, don't do everything at the very last minute.


All in all, everything was done on time and that I did manage to take a few pictures, not that great but better than nothing. And what makes it all worth it is that everyone is pleased with it :)

I feel like this post has a lot of complaining, please don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the process of it, I guess I was just making a note to myself of what's not to do in the future :D. Ugghh... and I really hope this weather can change soon and then comes Spring, cannot wait!

Onto the giveaway winner now. The winner is ...... (drum roll please) Hengky in San Jose, according to random.org. Congratulations and enjoy! I will send you the detail of the gift card shortly.
Thank you to all who participated.