Pierre Herme's Cheesecake

I cannot tell you how many cheesecakes and it's variation I have been baking during my baking life. I don't think I have one go-to recipe for cheesecake as all of them seem to be really good (it's hard to go wrong with cheesecake). If I have to pick one, it will probably the mascarpone cheesecake, but it is also neck to neck with Alain Ducasse's cheesecake. Needless to say, I am still very open in trying out great-looking cheesecake recipe when I see one, especially one that's from Pierre Herme's book, Pierre Herme Pastries.

Foret Noir

Or what we call Black Forest Cake. I made this cake a few months ago, one of the first cakes I made after I got back to the States. I've made my fair shares of black forest cake in the past, but they are all different. See this, this, this, and the first one I made in college (using canned maraschino cherries. Yikes!).

Key Lime Pie Bars

Tomorrow is Independence Day holiday. It sucks because it falls on the middle of the week this year, so no trip planned for this time. Besides, the weather is now a bit odd. I would expect mid 80s to low 90s by this time of the year but it has been staying around 75 F - 80 F, at the most. For some of you it might be the perfect weather, and it is, but I just want a few hot days and cool breeze at night. Here in northern California, no matter how warm the daytime is, you will most likely need a jacket at night.

Mariee

The weather in San Jose has been scorching hot lately. I am not complaining really, in fact, I LOVE it! I began to open the window in my room when I sleep at night. My next door neighbor whom we share a fence with, has jasmine plant spreading along our side of the fence facing directly into my room and I love the smell. I just love this time of the year.

A Remake of Ambroisie

This is the latest cake I made. I decided to post this first instead of the previous ones because I had the pictures ready to go for this post.

So I was in my team's staff meeting a few weeks ago, and all of a sudden, I was wondering about my teammates birthday. To me, birthday is important and I would feel bad if someone had a birthday I didn't know about. The least I could do is to congratulate them. Well, after asking around, we all found out that there are 3 May's babies within less than a week from each other, it was my boss' and two of my teammates'. So I decided to make them a cake.

Passion Fruit and Raspberry Tart

Life has settled down to a routine lately since I came back. The bf has been overseas for more than a month, and I am not sure when he is coming back. So I've been using the extra time to bake and make desserts quite a bit. I miss traveling and wish I can do more of that this year, especially now that I still have a valid US entry visa for about 9 months left. Summer is here (or almost) and everyone seems to be in a traveling mode, and so do I. My next trip will be during memorial day weekend down to Louisiana to visit the bf's family and hopefully it won't get canceled last minute due to work (which has happened a lot before)

I Am Back

I looked at the date of my last post, it was December 1st, 2012. Five months. It has been that long.

I went to China for 4 month starting early December and I was back early April on business assignment. I was originally scheduled for two months but one thing lead to another and I was there for four months. I wouldn't say that it was all nice and smooth trip, in fact it was quite challenging due to not being able to speak the language (despite my appearance and being Chinese myself). I had culture shock and homesick for the first month I was there, but fortunately, everything seemed easier after.