Barnyard Fun

I forgot to take photos of the cakepops from my nephew's birthday.  Luckily, my sister did...

The cows and chicken were made with vanilla cake and cream cheese icing.  The ducks were chocolate with cream cheese icing.  I had a harder time trying to get the consistency right for the chocolate cakeballs.  I found they were firmer than the vanilla ones but the yellow candy coating wouldn't cover it properly and the crumbs showed. So far I liked my cows and pigs the best!

I'm the boss, the CAKE BOSS...

My brother-in-law and his two brothers made a trip out to New York a few weeks ago as part of their Christmas present to watch the Canucks duel it out with the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders. They also decided at the last minute to hop onto a train to Ottawa to watch them duke it out with the Senators (lucky lucky bastards....)

Guess where else they decided to go on the whim!!!

Can't quite see it?  Let's zoom in a little bit...

Chris bought this chef coat for me from Carlo's Bakery! I squealed! Look how beautiful it is. I was so very jealous though that they actually went.  The boys went all they way to New Jersey to specifically see the bakery.  They bought some cannolis and a little fondant cake with bright purple and yellow flowers (if you watch the show, you will know exactly what cake I'm talking about because they've shown it on the show).  SO JEALOUS.  I've been told by all three brothers that the cannolis were creamy creamy goodness...ahhh, so jealous!

They didn't see Buddy, but said that his sisters were working the front counter.  Even cooler though was that they peeked in the back and saw the camera crews running around.  ENVY ENVY ENVY!  Did I mention that I was so jealous?!?

I told them that they should have snuck the cannolis for me onto the plane...hahah...

NOM NOM NOM....

I'm heading to New York in February for the Toy Fair with my company and if there is enough inbetween the tradeshow and our flight, then I am so going to Carlo's Bakery!  Most likely I will get lost and miss my flight, but I am so determined!

Cake Pops!

My brother-in-law gave me some really cute cupcake books for Christmas - on the gift tag it said because I was just "a wonderful Auntie Bich" (Bich being my Vietnamese name and what my nephew calls me). Yes, yes...because it was so hard hanging out with a 3 year old all year.... ;)

Anyhow, one of the books is called Cake Pops made famous from a Blogger named Bakerella. I have seen little ads for them online from time to time but never really looked at them until now.

These things are adorable. Absolutely A-DOR-ABLE....

If you haven't heard of them, it's essentially a little cupcake on a stick. But what makes it so fun and unique is the decorating bit. It's so simple but soooo effective!

So just last week, I decided to try my hand at it. I printed out the always predictable 40% off coupon from Michaels and hauled my little bum down to the store and into their baking aisle. I probably spent a good hour and a half there just looking around. It was so much fun - and for the record, has become my new favourite store!

What a great way to get the imagination going...

Cake Pops - Batch #1

Since I told my nephew, Tai, that I would make these for his birthday, I decided to do a test run first to see how difficult it actually was.  You know, have to impress the soon-to-be 4 year old...because he always has something to say about everything...  ;)

So, followed the instructions, and voila!

I didn't get a chance to decorate these ones.  I had difficulty coding the cake balls at first because the candy coating was really thick.  Trying to get one smooth dunk with them proved to be really challenging - as you can see with cake pop in front.  But, as I got to my last one, it did get better.  The one in the back right was my best one.  Since this was my first batch, I only did 1/4 of the recipe, which made 10.  I lost 4 of them to Jamie right away...

Cake Pops - Batch #2

The second batch was made a few days later.  I did some research and found that by adding some shortening or vegetable oil you can thin out the candy coating.  My cake pop book said paramount crystals, but I had no idea what that was, let alone where I could buy it...so vegetable oil it was!  And not to mention so conveniently in my cupboard.  =P

It worked great.  I improved my dipping method but for some reason I had issues keeping the cake balls on the stick.  I lost another 4 in this batch, but this time it wasn't to Jamie.  They either fell apart or fell completely off the sticks.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong...maybe more icing next time?

Regardless though, still very happy how these turned out.  Not bad, I think.

The faces are a bit lopped sided - but I blame my fat fingers trying to attach all the pieces together. It's a good thing I'm not a plastic surgeon.

Tai's 4th birthday party is this Sunday. I'm going to attempt to make some cows, chickens, and ducks. Stay tuned!

My Mentor - Marilyn

I've been taking some baking lessons from a lovely lady named Marilyn.

She's a regular customer of The Spotted Frog Furniture Company - a beautiful boutique furniture and home decor store in Steveston co-owned by my very talented sister. Marilyn would come in every other day during her regular walks to Steveston and we would casually talk about the little things: the weather, new products, Starbucks, Steveston gossip, etc. Eventually we started revealing more personal things about ourselves and "cute little Asian lady with fisherman's hat who comes in at store opening everyday" as I dubbed her in my head had an actual name: Marilyn.

She is one of the reasons I started this baking frenzy.

Marilyn is a professional baker who started off doing it as a hobby. She's retired now, but at one point she made many wedding cakes for several big hotels downtown in addition to teaching lessons straight out of her home. The story of how it all came to be totally inspired me to actively start baking. Experimention here, wedding cakes for friends there, one massive 800 pound commerical Mix Master appliance later, and she was a little fireball baker.

I have always loved the idea of baking. I've been watching all the cake decorating shows on tv for years but never did any of it myself. There were always excuses...the most predominant one being that I was too busy. And if I were to be completely honest with myself, I haven't been truly busy in months. I ran out of excuses so the only thing left to do was initiate it.

So, I sucked it up, put a smile on my face, excitedly clapped my hands (a quirk I do when I'm happy) and asked Marilyn if I was able to take a few baking classes from her. She was more than happy to.

My first lesson was Cranberry & Pistachio Biscottis. She choose to teach me these first because she thought it would be a great little Christmas treat that I could give away to everyone. With the bits of red and green in the biscottis alongside a warm cup of coffee or tea, it was perfect!

After my lesson, I went home, rolled up my sleeves, and had a wack at it.

I'm actually very surprised at how well they turned out. Like...really surprised. I dipped one end of them into a lemon icing which I thought was fantastc as it offsets the tartness of the cranberries. My only baking blunder was that when I cut them into strips, the top kept on cracking making it look really messy. But otherwise, I was very happy.

And because I was on a roll, I decided to make some shortbread cookies on the whim. This batch really shocked me too. They came out super soft and oh-so-melt-in-your-mouth. I drizzled a little bit of white chocolate on them to add some texture.

So with the biscottis and shortbread cooling, I decided to make lemon squares. All my ingredients were out already and I was totally on a roll!

These turned out okay. It was a bit on the sour side so I think I added too much lemon. But overall, for my first try and doing completely on the fly (haha, I'm so funny, I should write children's books), it was pretty good. 2/3 isn't too shabby. 4 hours of baking fun!

Parchment paper, by the way, is wonderful. It's so useful! I noticed Marilyn was using it during my lesson and decided to pick up a box not knowing how versatile it is. I used it to sift my dry ingredients on, cool my biscottis after diping it with icing, and made a little fancy piping bag to drizzle the shortbread. Such a handy little tool!

The importance of a good spatula...oh, and a rolling pin!

Baking Blunder #1

Apparently having a good spatula is very important. Who knew...

When I moved out last year I bought a lot of my kitchen gadgets at IKEA. The spatula was 99 cents and being the cheapo new homeowner that I was, I didn't hesitate to pick it up. 99 cents!

I made cookies a week before Christmas with one of my good friends. She's actually a Red Seal Chef, but baking isn't something she does regularly. She called me beforehand to make sure that I had all the right equipment and anything that I lacked, she made sure to cover on her end.

Cookie sheet, check! Cookie cutters, check! Scale, check! Measuring cups and spoons, check! Ingredients, check! Kitchen Aid, check! Spatula, check!

So here we are making our 60+ sugar cookies for Christmas. I borrowed my sister-in-law's Kitchen Aid thinking that I could be all fancy - afterall, I couldn't be utterly useless in front of my Red Seal friend, now could I? (That's a fabulous appliance, by the way...). But ooops, spoke too soon...

I'm dumping out our cookie batter from the machine with my dinky 99 cent spatula when it snaps in half and cuts my finger!

SO MAD! ANGRIFIED! And so begins my baking rage...

Do you know how embarrassing that is and how important it is with baking? It's so tricky manipulating dough and getting every last bit without one. Luckily my friend brought a backup scraper so it wasn't so bad, but still. You damn cheap IKEA product! I should have known better - especially after working there for 4 years!

So, I'm down a spatula and after letting the cookie dough chill in the fridge my friend casually asks, "You have a rolling pin, right?"

Damn. Epic Fail.

Two take-out bags of sushi for dinner, a quick run to Safeway, an $8.99 rolling pin, and 60 badly decorated sugar cookies later...we're done!

Because I had such an excess of cookies, I gave a dozen of the best ones to my contractors. Our bathroom got flooded weeks beforehand by our neighbour upstairs so they were just in the final stages of completion. They were a group of 6 Asian contractors, who didn't speak much English, completing 3 units simultaneously (yes, you read that right, 3 units...meaning the 3rd floor flooded into the 2nd floor, which in turn flooded us, the 1st floor). They stayed longer that night trying to finish the units before Christmas. I gave them to one of guys in my unit doing some touch up work and he was so thankful. Huge smile, so much gratitude. I told him to share with the men upstairs and he nodded. I could hear him make his way to the 2nd floor, open the door, mumble something to his team, and then I heard a collective cheer from them.

So cute. Collective cheer! They cheered for my badly-decorated, spatula-breaking, last-minute-rolling-pin sugar cookies.

Only old Asian men, I tell ya...

But seriously, such a fantastic feeling! I LOVED it!

Anyhow, a week later for Christmas, I got 3 new spatulas. (Thanks Leah, Kenny & Erin!)

I cheered. :)

When life gives you lemons...make some lemonade!

Yes, it's a cliche, but one that I strongly believe.

Add some sugar, and everything is so much more sweeter. Of course, getting to the point of actually pouring in that cup of sugar may be a struggle, but makes it all worth it in the end, right?

Thanks 2010, you have been filled with some of my highest and lowest memories: the catalyst for where I am today.

It's been an emotional ride, but now on to bigger, better, and sweeter(!) things...

Happy New Year!