Snow Day:)

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When life gives you a snow day, you make CAKE!

The first thing I saw this morning. My face = ^o^

The wishing and hoping, the praying and dreaming for the first snow day of the year paid off! Quite honestly though, I probably wouldn't have had stepped outside into the snow even if there was class today. Heck, the whole state should have shut down. Who in their right minds would want to go into the wind and snow?

I sprinkled the top with a bit of sanding sugar for a little sparkle!

I must admit that indeed it is was pretty outside this morning and throughout the afternoon. Beautiful snowflakes clinging onto the window as the wind swirled the rest of the snow throughout the air. Still, I wouldn't go outside into the winter wonderland. Instead, I slaved over the oven to make an ombre cake! I contemplated the color for a while. One sister wanted pink, the other purple, and I wanted blue... The difficulties of opinions!

I went ahead and took another go at the Magnolia vanilla cupcake recipe. Past experience has led to dense, dry, flavorless cake. This time I used the last of my cake flour and I do believe that resulted in success. The cake is moist and fluffy! I'm embarrassed to even say I disregarded this recipe!

Ooooo! I LOVE the hues of purple<3

Excessive use of food coloring disturbs me, and yet I think there's a level of whimsical appeal that you can only achieve with well, red-90 or yellow-06 dye. The cake is a lovely gradient of purple, but my finger tips are stained blue and red. My thumb looks like I have frost bite because it's so blue. However, that would never be the case because let's stress again that I'm not going into the blizzard. Next time I play with coloring, I will wear gloves!

Nothing too experimental here today. Check out the Magnolia Vanilla Cake recipe here (you may want to substitute all the flour with cake flour instead), and the tasty vanilla buttercream here. Enjoy! And for those who were fortunate enough to bum around like me today because of the blanket of snow, let's raise our glasses of hot cocoa and relax for the rest of the weekend. 

Matcha Castella

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Such a simple sponge cake, and yet so tasty. I made this on wednesday morning out on a whim because who doesn't have cravings for matcha castella cake? 

Just me? 

Well then...

The weather was gloomy, so I had to turn on the putrid yellow light in the dining room. Unfortunately the cake is gone, and thus I cannot take advantage of the beautiful natural lighting today.

If you've ever made sponge cake before, this recipe should be easy to crank out, however if the method daunts you then a few tips would be to whip up the egg and sugar mixture longer than you think you really need to. I also advise keeping the bowl over the simmering pot of water while you whip. This base has to be thick and sturdy enough to withstand the flour that you are going to beat, not fold, in. Be sure to whip on the lowest setting of your mixture as well to ensure a fine crumb in the final product. I was impatient, and went straight to medium high speed, so look at those giant air bubbles! I cannot take credit for this recipe, so check it out here, and for the half of the recipe I used, I added 10 grams of matcha to the flour mixture (roughly 1 tablespoon) and cut down the honey to 1 tablespoon as well.  

Enjoy!

Ispahan Cheesecake

Pin It I have been M.I.A for so long. Honestly speaking, I completely forgot about this blog and its existence. I forgot how soothing it is to blog about the food I bake and the endeavors I take... albeit at the cost of studying for class. My resolution for the year is to earn that 4.0 I miserably watched trickle through my fingers last semester. Oh how I loathe you AP Physics! Redemption. It is the mere motivation that will propel me through the challenges I will have to combat this year. I WILL win the war this time!

After a recent calculus discussion, I have developed a hate for those who cannot properly use the phrase "a lot" and rather omit the space and write "alot". Typing alot on my laptop is difficult because it is auto-corrected to a lot. So why do people continue to struggle with this? Well there is a hilarious website that you guys should check out. My favorite cartoon has to be the one with the baby. Click me!

My mom's cousin and her family from Australia came to visit us this friday, and I must say, I indeed have no identity. I drove up my street and this mysterious car was parked in front of the garage. After parking on the curb, I walked up to the front door and almost did a face plant. I have know remote clue how I did not see the three pairs of shoes in front of me. I could have avoided tripping and falling into the brick wall to save myself. Maybe I'm just prone to accidents. Anyway, I open up the door and this elderly man looks at me and mumbles, "Who is that?" Well sir, I should be asking who in the world you are! Then my dad assures him that I am not a stranger mistakingly walking into another person's house, and then the elderly man sighs with relief, "Oh, là con út!" (Thank you google translator!) Literally that just means, "Oh, the youngest!" I have no name. No one in my extended family calls me by my name. I will forever be deemed, the "út". Sadness.

Now finally onto to this jewel. I'll take you step by step through each layer! It was heavily inspired by renowned pastier Pierre Herme's ispahan dessert.

The run down:
A tart raspberry glaze, a lychee mousse, a rose raspberry jelly, a white chocolate vanilla bean cheesecake, and a Nilla wafer almond crust.

It sure took me a while to whip up this cheesecake due to the several components, but it was worth it! Things were made a bit easier by me using some almond flour I already had on hand, but my only advice is to use quality ingredients. Though the lychee may be an exception, because anything from a can is generic in my opinion. I really liked this cake because it turned out so pretty, but I do have to say I dislike the raspberry jelly layer. It is too "jelly-ish". I used Pierre Herme's raspberry jelly recipe that he uses in his ispahan macarons, but I guess it does not meld well with the other textures of the cake. If I ever made this cake again, I would most definitely cut back on the gelatin for that layer.