It has been a long time since I post some baking stuffs here! This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend in US. And it was also the starting of the gardening season for this part of the US. There were so many people crowded in all the garden centers and nurseries to buy plants, trees, and flowers to plant in the yards/gardens that it was not even funny.
Of course, there were also lots of parties and activities going on since it was a 3-day long weekend. Besides, the weather was finally nice! I had a baking festival going on to prepare cakes for several occasions. Here are the 3 cakes I made, all gluten free! The first one was the mini-banana bundt cakes with lemon glaze. Very moisture!
The 2nd one was the sour cream spiced chocolate cake. This is a very nutritious cake that contains 6 eggs and lots of sour cream. It is so moisture and the combinations of coca and ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and salt are just great. The 3rd one is the strawberry cake with the cream cheese frosting. Since it is the strawberry season, I just had to incorporate the fresh strawberry puree both in the cake and the cream cheese frosting. Very yummy and fresh!
Merry Christmas, everybody! It has been a while since I post anything here due to my trip back to Asia to visit my parents. Of course, the weather is quite different between south Asia and here in Wisconsin on northern America. Frost and snow winter has arrived for sure when I come back to here. Since I was short of time, I did not get to make too many cookies. I made this Snowflake cake instead. It is a vanilla cake with vanilla pudding mix in the batter. The frosting is the French vanilla pudding with cool whipped so it is very light and not overly sweet. The filling is the tart raspberry jam. 
The decoration is lots of snowflakes made of white chocolate. It takes a while to make those but definitely worth the efforts. The cake was a hit yesterday in the Christmas gathering. Everybody loves it! Even my picky 9-year-old nieces and 11-year-old nephew ate several pieces! The cake was gone in no time! Happy holidays!
This is a long overdue post and I cannot believe how long it has been since my last one! Is there still anybody reading my blog at all? It was the Thanksgiving weekend last week in US and every family was cooking a big meal for friends and family. Of course, people had to eat a lot in order to go shopping on Black Friday! LOL. 
I drove all the way to the gym during the lunch time today. When I got out of my car and was ready to grab my gym bag, I found out that I left my gym bag at home! So no gym workout today. 
Summer has passed so fast that I feel that I did not even get a chance to enjoy any of it. Part of it is due to my several weeks of work trip down in Florida. However, autumn is my favorite season. All leaves have started to change colors and it is really beautiful. The temperature drops to around 40F degrees (5'C) to 50F degrees (10'C). Autumn is definitely here and it is time to bake some apple desserts! Expect some bakery posts from me soon!
Due to the cold front, the smoke of the wildfire in Minnesota gets to blow hundreds of miles down over to SE Wisconsin area. The sunny sky becomes like a cloudy day and you can smell the buring in the air. Of course, I just had to go outside to jog and get my nose and eyes all irritated.
Time passes fast! The summer suddenly arrives and it has already almost in the middle of the summer now. I have been a bad blogger here but it is so busy always in the summer since everybody here wants take advantage of the short warm days.
For the 4th of July weekend, I made an interesting cheese cake that features triple-sec, margarita mix, and tequila, condensed milk, cream cheese and whipped cream in the filling. Then it is topped with triple-sec, margarita mix, and tequila frozen gels. I got this recipe from a LJ blogger friend. And it is really great! Cool and tasty, best for the hot summer!
Cannot believe how long I have not post here. Still around and read posts but just no time to post. Just went to Montreal Canada. Nice city and super friendly French Canadians!
Finally, the spring seems to be on the corner! It is sunny, warm and the temperature is about 50'F (10'C). Most of the snow has gone and the crocus in the garden has started to bloom! Amazing! Well, I decided to make this new recipe, "Cream Cheese Oats Cranberry Bars". It has 4 layers of goodies. The base crust and the topping crumbles have oats, cinnamon, and nutmeg and my special gluten free mix. The 2nd layer is the combination of cream cheese, sweetened condense milk, orange juice, and brown sugar. The 3rd layer is the cooked cranberry with orange juice and zest. The cranberry layer is spooned to drop in cream cheese layer to create marble effects. The final product is just a beautiful and tasty spring dessert!
Just when we are ready to welcome spring, it snowed again. This time, it dumped almost 5 inches (13 cm) of heavy wet snow and made a big mess everywhere. Guess winter will be here for a while. The same frozen winter situation for the Wisconsin politics. The 
What to do on a sunny but cold winter weekend? Baking! Lemon ginger cake! It has fresh lemon zest, lemon juice, ground ginger, candied ginger, cardamon, and sour cream. Just the right sweetness, moisture and yummy! And it is gluten free!
It is already March but there is absolutely no sign of spring at all. As a matter of the fact, several waves of snow storms are on their way to this region in the next several days. Talking about the long depressed winter. Within all the frozen and white ice and snow, a hawk flew to the tree branch outside the office and wandered around for a while. We have a bird feeder around that area so it must be coming to see if it can grab some birds as food. Unfortunately, most of birds had escaped so it just sat there for a long time and left with empty stomach. Wish spring comes soon (actually, not for another 2 months).
It has been bitterly cold recently. It is windchill -25'F (-31'C) ouitside now! And it is only -8'F (-22'C) without wind even though it is so sunny! Come on, let's make it even colder! My, this winter is showing its power!
It is Chinese new year today! This is the year of rabbit. After the blizzard dumping 5 feet (150 cm) of the snow on the ground here yesterday, it is bitterly cold today. The temperature drops to 0'F (-18'C) and windchill gets down to -15'F (-26'C). Like 
Continued the Bunny year Chinese new year goodies baking marathon, here comes the red bean year cake (Nian Gao) 年糕. This is another traditional popular Chinese New Year dessert. 
It is considered good luck to eat year cake during Chinese new year. The word 糕 (Gao) means "cake" is identical in sound to the word, 高 which means "high". Therefore, it is going to raise oneself higher in each coming year by eating year cake. The cake batter is mixed and put it in a big steamer to steam until it is done. Then, the cake will stay in the refrigerator for several days until it is a little bit dry and hard for cutting. We usually either eat it just the way it is (my Mom would definitely disgree about this way!) or dip it in flour/egg batter and deep fry it. It is good either way.
It is so cold outside today again! It is only 4'F (-15'C) and windchill -25'F (-32'C) even though it is bright and sunny. Chinese new year is just around the corner (February 3) so it is time to make some Chines new year Fa Cake (Fa Gao 發糕). This year, I decide to make some changes instead of the tradition brown sugar flavor. I ended of making the chocolate and cherry cranberry flavors besides the usual brown sugar. The chocolate ones turns out so good that my local American friends just cannot have enough of them! My personal favorite actually is the cherry cranberry one. The dried cranberry just adds so much texture and different layers to the taste. And the red color is definitely good for Chinese new year. Now it is time to go to make the year cake...
Happy new year! It has been snowed more this week. Two foxes decided to come to play around outside my office! I have never seen live foxes so close before and it was really cool! They were actually more orange even though people called them "red" foxes! Hope that everybody has a wonderful year 2011!
