Ice John's World

Christmas Snowflake Vanilla Pudding Raspberry Cake

2011-12-26T08:53:00.003-06:00

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!

Thanksgiving Cakes

2011-11-29T15:55:00.003-06:00

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 made two cakes for the Thanksgiving. The first one is a pineapple carrots cake with cream cheese frosting: very moister, tasty and solid. It had one pound of the carrots in it so the whole cake had to weigh about 10 pounds! The second one is a gluten free pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting as well. It has cinnamon, all spice, clove, nutmeg, and pumpkin. Very tasty as well! Of course, I also made an apple pie but I left it in the oven to cool and completely forgot about it! Unfortunately, I did not remember it until 2 days later and it went straight to garbage can. The temperature has been dropped to freezing point and there was even some snow flakes in the air yesterday. The winter is coming....

More Autumn Colors

2011-10-06T14:34:00.005-05:00

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.

Instead, I walked around work office and took more beautiful autumn colors around work office. So many colors under the sunny sky and warm weather (70'F, that is, 20'C). It is just a beautiful day today!

Autumn Colors

2011-09-30T12:49:00.002-05:00

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!

Smoke In The Air By Wildfire From Minnesota

2011-09-13T16:12:00.003-05:00

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.

You can see a satelliate picture here.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes and Margarita Cheese Cake

2011-07-13T15:54:00.004-05:00

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.

It was the birthday for my nephew and twin nieces on this past weekend. I made these cute cupcakes baked right in the ice cream cones. Topped with either vanilla or chocolate frosting or both! Decorated like the real ice cream! Kids love them!

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!

Memorial Day Weekend Cakes!

2011-05-31T15:37:00.002-05:00

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!

Travel Travel More Travel

2011-05-20T15:13:00.001-05:00

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!

Gluten Free Cream Cheese Oats Cranberry Bar

2011-03-19T14:00:00.003-05:00

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!

Long Winter

2011-03-10T08:57:00.002-06:00

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 teachers union busted policy passed last night in Wisconsin capitol. More messy political fight ahead for lots of people in this state for sure. So it is indeed a bad winter after all.

Lemon Ginger Cake

2011-03-06T17:39:00.001-06:00

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!

Hawk Came To Visit

2011-03-03T08:34:00.003-06:00

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).

Sunny Bitterly Cold Winter

2011-02-10T07:26:00.002-06:00

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!

Happy Rabbit Year!

2011-02-03T13:26:00.002-06:00

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 Gorgim told me, we would need lots of bunnies to stay warm!

It says people born in the Year of the Rabbit are articulate, talented, and ambitious. They are virtuous, reserved, and have excellent taste. So hope that 2011 will be a year with taste and no more bad economy!

Blizzard Chinese New Year Eve

2011-02-02T08:54:00.003-06:00

Today is Chinese New Year Even but we are still in the middle of big winter blizzard. The wind is 40 miles per hour (64 km per hour) and snows keeps coming down. We are under "civil danger emergency" in Wisconsin. All major highways, airports, schools and stores are all closed. The snow is already 5 feet (150 cm) high up to my chest outside and the wind and snow are still going.

Red Bean Year Cake (Nian Gao) 年糕

2011-01-25T09:03:00.003-06:00

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 mainly made of glutinous rice so it is actually gluten free. There are many different kinds of flavors of year cake. It can be sweet or savory. I always use my family's recipe to make this sweet brown sugar red bean flavor year cake.

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.

Chinese New Year Fa Cake 發糕

2011-01-23T10:49:00.005-06:00

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...

p.s. Forgot to explain what Fa Cake is. It is a dessert usually made in Chinese New Fa means rise and expand in Chinese. It is very important to have the nice cracking on the top of the cake to make it look like a flower. It also means prospering or becoming rich. The bigger the crack is, the more fortunate your family will be in this coming year.

That's the reason why Fa cake is very popular in Chinese new year and is treated as a fortune cake.

Foxes Come To Visit

2011-01-09T10:57:00.002-06:00

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!

2010 Christmas Cookies Plus Bonus Cookies: Orange Pecan Cookies

2010-12-24T15:30:00.004-06:00

Merry Christmas! Here is a bonus cookie: Orange pecan cookie. This is actually my second favorite this year. This one has grange juice, orange zest and chopped pecans on the sugar cookie based dough. Very intense flavor.

There is actually another pecan sugar cookie made this year but it was all gone before I could take pictures! That's everything of the cookies this year. Wish you have a merry Christmas and happy new year!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 11 & 12 - White Chocolate Cherry Cookies And Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

2010-12-24T08:41:00.003-06:00

Happy Christmas Eve! Here is the champion cookie this year, "White Chocolate Cherry Cookies"! Shortbread kind of cookie. The perfect combination of cherry flavor and not too sweet white chocolate. I did not expect that the maraschino cherries would make such a nice tasty cookie but they did! Beautiful and great taste! One of the best cookies I have ever made!

Next one is the "Double Chocolate Mint Cookies". If you like girl scout mint cookie, this one is your heavenly gift since it is much better than girl scout one! 3rd place in this year's Christmas cookies. The wonderful chocolate based dough plus the semi-sweet chocolate bits in the cookie and super minty flavor make this one instantly crowd favor!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 9 & 10 - Cardamom Snaps And Lemon Ricotta Cookies

2010-12-23T09:40:00.004-06:00

Happy Christmas Eve's Eve! We are almost done with all holiday gluten free cookies showdown here! :) Number 9 is the "Cardamom Snaps". It is not only a new recipe but also a new spice that I would like to try. Cardamom usually is used in the Indian cooking. It has a fragrance between ginger and cinnamon. This cookie is a combination of ginger snaps and molasses cookies. It tastes very much like ginger snaps but with something different that you just cannot catch what it is. :)

Number 10 is " Lemon Ricotta Cookies". This one is adapted from the Foodnetwork Giada's recipe. It has such a strong lemon taste in cookie itself that I don't think the lemon glaze from the original recipe is necessary so I eliminate that. The ricotta cheese and the gluten free version of my rice flour mixture makes this cookie has the texture like pan cake actually. :) Very tasty but it seems to expand too much during the baking. Another one might need more work to make it perfect for the gluten free version.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 7 & 8 - Chocolate Scotcheroos And Kitchen Sink Christmas Cookies

2010-12-22T09:17:00.006-06:00

Good morning again! Snow finally stops and I am running out of butter, eggs and condensed milk to complete the rest of the cookies. Got to go shopping! It is never easy to adapt the usual recipes to gluten free but it is worth the efforts when the final cookies come out just right and nobody can tell the difference. Sometimes, the gluten free version is even better! Here are the next two Christmas cookies! Both are gluten free as well. The first one is the "Chocolate Scotcheroos". A new recipe I adapt from this year's local gas/energy company annual cookie book. It is basically an alternated version of rice crisp treats. Cook the sugar with corn syrup first to make the base syrup then add the peanut butter and rice crisp cereal. Pour, or rather say push since it is a super sticky mixture, into a 9x13 baking pan to let cool. Then, spread a layer of melted semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch on the top and the "Scotcheroos" is born!

The next one is "Kitchen Sink Christmas Cookies". From the name, you can guess the original recipe is basically to throw all leftover ingredients from other baking/cooking tasks together to make this one. It has sugar, brown sugar, eggs, crisp rice cereal, flaked coconut, rolled oats, and toffee bits. It has lots of tasty ingredients but the result is really not what I want. Very bland to my taste. This is my least favorite within all 12 cookies I make this year. But to be fair, I never really like oatmeal cookies since I think they are very bland. It actually taste much better once the cookies chilled in refrigerator for a day. Again, some of my local Wisconsin friends love it very much and tell me that it is what the oatmeal cookie supposed to be. Aw, well, at least, somebody would eat them!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 5 & 6 - Chocolate Marbled Banana Bars And PB & J Thumbprints

2010-12-21T09:28:00.005-06:00

It snows again! It is white outside everywhere. Definitely will be a white Christmas but it also means nasty road and air conditions for those have to travel. Fortunately, I have started my holiday vacation so I can bake more cookies indoor instead. :) OK, let's come back to my 12 days of Christmas cookies. The time is running out now so I have to do a double-cookie post everyday. Here are the next two Christmas cookies! Both are gluten free as well. The first one is the "Chocolate Marbled Banana Bars". Another new recipe I discover this year and it is one of the all time best I would say! If you love any kind of banana and chocolate combination such as "monkey chunky ice cream", this bar cookie will make you feel like that you are in heaven! The wonderful sugar cookie dough base is divided into 2 parts: one is mixed with smashed ripe banana and chopped pecans, the other is mixed with melted semi-sweet chocolate. Then, both doughs are placed in the baking pan in layers to create the marbled effect. The texture is more like cake and the taste is wonderful. Heavenly banana chocolate cookie!

The next one is another new recipe (surprise, surprise), "PB & J Thumbprints". This one actually does not turn out to be as good as I hope. However, it is still a great taste peanut butter cookie. It just needs more tweak to make the texture right for the gluten free version. The peanut butter sugar cookie base is just a little bit too crisp for my taste. However, some of my friends love it! So I guess everybody has different taste. I decide to use the raspberry jam to fill the thumbprint part to make it stand out more compared to the strong peanut butter cookie base. It is a much better combination with peanut butter than other flavor of the jam. Nevertheless, it is a good looking holiday peanut butter cookie.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 3 & 4 - Coconut Candy Bars & Oatmeal Cream Cheese Butterscotch Bars

2010-12-19T10:33:00.007-06:00

Happy holidays again! Another cold and sunny day! Today is the last Sunday before Christmas so all the crazy shopping crowds have been out on the road to pack all the stores in order to get the holiday shopping done. Of course, Packers game today too! Here are the third and fourth cookies for the 12 Days of Christmas cookies! All gluten free too! The third one is the "Coconut Candy Bars". This one is a new recipe I try this year and it instantly becomes the crowd favorite! Original recipe has the graham crackers and almond base crust but I have to adapt it with special gluten-free flour mixture with toasted pecans. It then covers with a layer of coconut and sweetened condensed milk mixture. Then, another layer of chopped toasted pecans. Then, a whole layer of melted dark chocolate. Wish you could witness how fast people gulp those bars down!

The next one is another new recipe, "Oatmeal Cream Cheese Butterscotch Bars". This is another super delicious one if you like cheese cake and butterscotch flavors. The crust tastes like the nice shortbread. The cream cheese layer is flavored with lemon juice/zest and sweetened condensed milk flavored cream cheese. The interesting thing is that you cannot taste the sour lemon at all. It work perfectly with the cream cheese and not too sweet. Then, the topping is delicious oatmeal and butterscotch crumble mixture. Another party crowd favorite!

12 Days Of Christmas Cookies 1 & 2 - Double Vanilla Delights & Chocolate Pecan Bars

2010-12-17T16:29:00.005-06:00

Happy holidays! It has been cold and snow here in Wisconsin recently. The temperature has dipped down to 5'F (-15'C) and windchill -5'F (-26'C). Snow and ice everywhere so it definitely will be a white Christmas. Work has been very busy so I barely can find time to make the cookies and post here. Anyway, here are the first and second cookies for the 12 Days of Christmas cookies! Especially, all these cookies are gluten free! The first one is the "Double Vanilla Delights". It has the wonderful texture like Mexican wedding cookies with chopped pecans. The frosting is made with fresh cooked vanilla bean mixture. It is a vanilla heaven!

The second one is a new recipe that I want to try this year, "Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars". I always like pecan pie but it usually is too sweet to have more than one piece. This cookie bar version of the pecan pie keeps the same sweetness and texture of the pecan pie with the good sugar cookie base crust. In addition, it adds semi-sweet chocolate chips on the top. Yummy!

Deer Hunted

2010-11-29T16:10:00.003-06:00

It is still the deer hunting season in Wisconsin and co-worker got a big doe. It still sits on his truck on the parking lot at work now. Hope that all my blog friends in USA had a good Thanksgiving. I made several desserts for the Thanksgiving and I will post them soon.

Pumpkin Streusel Cheesecake Bars

2010-11-16T16:59:00.005-06:00

Time passes fast and it is almost the end of autumn. Most of the trees have completely lost all the leaves and the weather forecast predicts that it might snow a little this week. It should not be a surprise since it is almost the time of Thanksgiving here in USA.

Since it is the season of the fall and pumpkin is the main theme for the fall, I decided to make some desserts with pumpkin. The base of this pumpkin streusel cheesecake bars can be made with gingersnap cookie and oatmeal cookie mix. However, I decided to make it completely gluten free by using rice flour, tapioca flour, and corn meal mixed with chopped pecans, brown sugar and butter. The cheesecake filling has pumpkin puree, cream cheese, pumpkin pie spice, eggs, rice flour, and skim milk. I reserved part of the base to use as the toppings. It turns out great! The crunchy toppings and smooth cream cheese plus the graham crackers kind of the base make this to be one nice autumn dessert!

Halloween Cupcakes!

2010-10-30T18:40:00.003-05:00

Happy Halloween! It has been a long time since I got time to post anything here. The work gets so busy that I barely have time to do anything else. The autumn actually is almost half way through and most of the trees have lost leaves.

Just made this cupcakes for my nieces and nephew for Halloween! German chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Decorated them like mummy, big eyes and nightmare ghost! :) Happy Halloween!

Back From The Trip Home

2010-09-27T10:19:00.008-05:00

I cannot believe that it has been almost a month since I post last entry! This blog has become monthly event now! :) I have been very busy on traveling for both fun and work. I went back to Asia to visit my parents. It was great to spend some time with my family again. We even went to ride the Maokong Gondola. It was a long ride since the total length of the gondola line was 4.03 km (2.504 miles). The whole line had 4 stations and it was like a shape of number "7". So that means there were a spot that the gondola had to do a 90 degree sharp turn. It had been reported that the gondola system had some problems since its opening in 2007 but our ride went smoothly and was quite enjoyable. We enjoyed the view and the sunny weather.

It was also very nice to spend the Mid-autumn festival with them. It has been a long time since I went home during that time of the year. The weather was just too hot and humid for me. It was sunny and around 95'F degrees (35'C) and almost 90% humidity all the time. I could not stop sweating even just walked for 5 minutes outdoor. The good thing was that I got to eat lots of delicious moon cakes with all the nice interesting new flavors and I gained several pounds! :) Oh, and I saw these beanie babies machines all over main shopping centers back home. People were really into them and kept trying their luck but very few got anything. :) And it surely is a big weather change when I come back to Wisconsin, US since the temperature changes from 95 degree to 45 degree (35'C to 8'C). Fall is definitely here now. Yawn! And wish my jeg lag goes away soon!

Viva Las Vegas

2010-08-20T10:10:00.003-05:00

Life has been so busy recently that I barely have time to update my blog! The summer is short on the north here in Wisconsin, USA so we have to make the best use of the warm weather while it still lasts. As a a matter of the fact, some plants/trees have started to lose leaves even though it is still around 80'F (25'C). That's most likely due to the gradually shorten daylight. We went to visit Las Vegas last week to get away from all the work stuff and run into the heat! LOL. We stayed at the brand new hotel/casino, "Aria" in city center at Las Vegas. It is a very modern design building. As you can see from the picture, the roof of the lobby almost looks like a UFO at night time. And we were so lucky to encounter one of the few rainy days when we got there. Talking about luck.

Besides the usual casino tour, we also went to visit the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was the 10th anniversary of the place but everything inside was almost exactly as I visited it 10 years ago. Quite a waste of money to me since there is nothing new to see. At least, they still have those big jellyfish! If you have never been there, it is still a place worth visiting, especially, for kids. We also went to see the Circus de Soleil show, "Le Reve" at Wynn. It was very good and had some amazing stage designs. But overall, it was not as good as the other show, "O", since both were using water as the main components. Overall, it was a great vacation. Now, back to work! :)

Gluten Free Chocolate Ganache Cake

2010-07-29T09:34:00.002-05:00

It will be my best friend's birthday on this coming Sunday so I made this gluten free chocolate ganache cake for him. It is a 2-layer chocolate cake covered and filled with chocolate ganache. The cake is based on a recipe from Ina Garten. I made several changes to adapt it to be gluten free and more moisture. Of course, the secret ingredient, brewed coffee, definitely makes this cake even more chocolaty!

There was a big flood caused by record rain here in Milwaukee last Thursday night. You can click the link to see some slide show of the flood. It flooded most of the main streets, highway, houses and created a big sinkhole in the middle of the road with a car falling in it. My basement got flooded as well and the cleaning and drying work are still on going. It is really tiresome to go through this again. Aw, well, forget about it and let's go eat some cakes instead!

Three Kids Birthday Treats!

2010-07-12T17:26:00.003-05:00

Busy busy summer days! After hosting an out-of-town friend on last Thursday day night, I had to use my Friday night and Saturday to make 3 birthday treats for my 10-year-old nephew and twin 8-year-old nieces for their birthday party on this past Sunday. Their birthdays are just one day apart so I really had to work hard and almost no weekend! One of the twin girls wanted a cake so I made this circus tent cake. It was a pineapple cake with grape jelly filling and lemon frosting. It had roof and windows made of fruit roll-up candies and door and chimney made of chocolate bars! The cake was moisture and delicious!

The other half One of the twin girls just loves anything purple. So I made this palm size of chocolate chop cookie with a big two-tone purple vanilla frosting rose for her. The rose petals contain 2 shades of purple colors. In addition, she also wanted lemon sorbet so I made that too!

The boy wanted a big chocolate chip cookie cake as the one he saw in the bakery store. So I actually went to the bakery section in the grocery for some research. I ended of making the classic toll house chocolate chip cookies in 8-in round pan size. Of course, this one was made in my gluten free version. Lots of desserts for everybody in the kids birthday party and it was a success!

July 4th Celebration Desserts

2010-07-06T14:37:00.003-05:00

It was a nice July 4th long weekend in USA. The weather was wonderful, sunny, hot but with breeze. Did lots of yard works, watched fireworks and parade. In addition, we had some friends and family coming to visit for several good meals. I made 2 desserts to celebrate the Independence Day weekend. The first one was a strawberry cranberry pie since it is the season for fresh strawberry. In order to make it gluten free, I had to make the pie crust from scratch. It is actually a shortbread kind of crust, which holds all the liquid from cooked strawberry and cranberry very well. I used the frozen cranberry to add some tangy to the sweetness of the strawberry. The topping was made of oatmeal, rice flour, butter and sugar. It turned out to be a great pie!

The 2nd dessert was a gluten free version of pineapple upside down cake. The base was the stored bought yellow cake mix. The topping was the caramelized pineapple with cherry. It was just OK since the cake was a little bit dry. I used to add instant pudding mix or sour cream to improve the taste and texture but decided not to this time. And what a mistake I made! Will not repeat that mistake again! Overall, it was a great weekend! And there were so many fireflies outside in the garden at night time to make it look like small fireworks in the yard! Hope that all my US friends had a great 4th of July weekend too!

Eight Treasure Rice For Dragon Boat Festival

2010-06-20T20:24:00.007-05:00

The summer is here finally and it was Dragon Boat festival on this past Thursday. That was one of the three big festivals for Chinese besides Chinese new year and moon festival. Usually, Chinese people make bamboo leaves wrapped rice dumplings to celebrate the festival. But I decide to make this beautiful and delicious "eight treasure rice" dish instead since I do not have access to the bamboo leaves here for rice dumplings.

The "Eight Treasure Rice" dish is usually made in Chines New year. It has sweet rice, sweet red bean paste inside, and six kinds of candied fruits to make it "eight treasure". It is a famous sweet Chinese desserts. Sometimes, it is translated as "eight treasure rice pudding", which is very strange to me since it is nothing to do with the soupy kind of pudding. This dish is best served in warm. Yummy! Besides the food, my busy summer volunteer season for American Red Cross as a first aid provider has started as well. So far, I have not treated any victim with serious injury yet. But I think that will change when the big 11-day music festival in Milwaukee, Summerfest, starts on this coming Thursday. By the way, happy father's day to all the fathers in US today!

Memorial Day Desserts!

2010-05-28T16:44:00.003-05:00

It is Memorial Day holiday! So we need a cake! This is a very delicious moisture gluten free cake. It is yellow cake based with French vanilla pudding mix added to the cake batter. Then, lots of thin cut Fuji apple pieces were added. Once the cake was done and cooled, a caramel glaze was drizzled on the top of the cake. Can you say yummy caramel apple? :)

Of course, with the weather gets so hot, who would not want some homemade smooth sorbet? So I used up the fresh strawberry and mango in the refrigerator to make these nice sorbets! Cold, smooth, and full of fresh fruits taste. Once you have the homemade sorbets, you will never want to buy it from the stores! Hope that everybody has a nice weekend!

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T19:48:00.002-05:00

Hope that all the moms have a happy mother's day today! My mom lives far away on the other side of the earth so I cannot spend the day on celebrating this holiday with her. But I did try to send Mother's day cards and call her in advance to let her know that she's always on my mind.

Since I just came back from a work trip from Florida, I did not have time to make a cake for my best friend's mom and sister in the Mother's day. I decide to make this gluten free lemon bar adapted from Ina Garten's recipe for them instead. It has the zing of lemon but neither too sweet nor too sour. And it has wonderful nice crust made of butter, sugar and gluten free flour. I am happy to see that both ladies love the bars very much! Hope that you have a great Mother's day as well!

Lemon Raspberry Cake With Lemon Whipped Pudding Frosting

2010-04-26T13:25:00.004-05:00

Where did the time go? Cannot believe that I have not post for almost a month. I had a good birthday party celebrated by my friends and family earlier in April. For once, I did not have to make the cake! LOL. Just kidding, I actually enjoy make different kinds of cakes. In addition, spring allergy hits me in full speed this month that I almost sneeze and have itchy eyes every day. But it is still nice to see flowers and green leaves everywhere. I also have been very busy on teaching CPR/AED pro as a volunteer instructor for Red Cross.

Now let's come back to cake. :) Yesterday, I made this 3-layer lemon cake with raspberry jam fillings cake for my niece's birthday. The frosting was made of instant pudding, milk and cool whipped. It was very light, delicious, and not too sweet. More like the European or Asian pastry. The only problem was that the decoration writing bled out all over the cake. I was worried if the usual cake frosting would work as writing on the pudding frosting and my worry became true. Oh, well, at least, everybody loved the taste of the cake.

Easter Desserts

2010-04-03T13:49:00.002-05:00

The weather was beautiful in the past two days. It was even the record high in temperatures 2 days ago. It is surely nice to enjoy the 80 degree (25'C) sunny days in early April. Of course, it goes right back to 40 degrees (5'C) and rains whole day long.

The short warm weather does boost all the plants and flowers to grow. All trees have leaves and there are Daffodils, Hyacinthe, even Tulips blooming everywhere. The crocus have almost done with blooming. This also means that the allergy season has come back as well. It is no fun to sneeze and have itchy eyes all day long.

Got invited to Easter dinner tomorrow so I decided to try make 2 new kinds of desserts for it. Both are gluten free version so nobody is going to have problems to eat either.

The first one is the "coconut pecan oatmeal cake". The cake part contains both gluten-free flour mix and oatmeal with cinnamon and nutmeg. It has a nice spiced cake taste and very moisture. The topping is made of brown sugar, pecans, shredded coconut, milk, and butter. The topping is applied after the cake is done then the whole thing is put into broiler to caramelized the topping.

The second one is the "apple rum cake". This one is more like a loaf cake. It has chopped apples, raisins and rum in the cake mixture. It actually does not taste that much of rum in the bread since most of it has been absorbed in the raisins. And the chopped apples give it a better texture and fruity taste. However, personally, I prefer the coconut pecan oatmeal cake more since it has that feeling of "comfort food" for the holiday. Hope that everybody has a nice Easter day week and don't eat too much chocolate eggs or jelly beans!

Palm Leaves Weaving

2010-03-28T21:31:00.004-05:00

Spring is finally here! Today is just a beautiful sunny day with breeze and the temperature is around 60 degrees (15'C). Lots of flowers such as Crocus have started to bloom and the Daffodil and the Tulips have started to grow leaves and flower buds too. Today is also Palm Sunday and my best friend's mom got palm leaves from her church and asked me to help weave them based on an old instruction she got from a book. It took me about 40 minutes to learn and get it done! They turned out great and almost look like wheat! Hope that the nice weather stays since you never know in Wisconsin this time of the year.

Spiced Apple Cake

2010-03-18T11:17:00.003-05:00

It was St Patrick's Day here in US yesterday and it was green dress everywhere (including me!). The weather is incredibly nice, sunny and around 60'F (15'C). It is usually still around 32'F (0'C) this time of the year so we are lucky this year. So I made a gluten free version of spiced apple cake. It is more like a coffee cake. The cake base contains cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and chopped apple. The cake is topped with very thin sliced apple and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Once it is fully baked, it has a layer of nice cinnamon caramel with apple on the top. Yummy!

Lemon Maple Rice Pudding

2010-03-08T09:13:00.004-06:00

The weather finally starts to get warmer and maybe spring will be earlier this year. Of course, there is still ice and snow everywhere. I made the lemon maple rice pudding for Oscar watching last night again. This yummy rice pudding made of maple syrup, lemon zest, eggs, rice, raisins, and nutmeg. The custard like of topping and texture makes this the best for spring dessert or side dish. The maple syrup provides the rich sweet taste instead of plain sugar. And I am happy that Sandra Bullock won best leading actress. Her performance in "The Blind Side" was just great! A great movie worth watching!

Silver World

2010-02-22T15:21:00.003-06:00

It comes, it wanders around and now it is gone and leaves a silver and messy wet world here. I am talking about snow as you have guessed. :) Got several inches (10 cm) last night again and it was a mess for the morning commute to work. Finally, I got to relax for several days after the last trip back from Florida and ate all the year cake and "Fa" cake. Sometimes, I just appreciate the peaceful life.

Happy Tiger Year!

2010-02-17T13:57:00.001-06:00

Happy Chinese New Year! It's Tiger Year!

2010-02-15T19:24:00.004-06:00

It was Chinese new year yesterday and this post was supposed to come out yesterday. However, I got stuck at Atlanta airport on the way back from Florida last Saturday so I really did not have the time and energy to complete it yesterday. After spending 14 hours at the Atlanta airport and being re-booked 3 times to different flights and been told 4 times of gate changes, I finally could get a flight to a small town, Appleton, Wisconsin (2-hour north of Milwaukee) that night. Otherwise, I would be stuck there for another 48 hours and the airline would not pay for meals or hotels since they claimed that the delay was caused by the "2-inches" (5 cm) of snow. What a joke for most of us live on the north that experience several feet (30 cm or more) of snow all the time in the winter! Anyway, I finally got home around mid-night on this past Saturday and I just did not have the energy to post until now. :)

Good thing is that I have already made both the red bean year cake and the brown sugar "Fa"cake (means prosperous) before I left for Florida one week ago. The year cake is made of glutenous rice flour, red bean, and brown sugar. After steaming it for about 30 to 40 minutes, it came out just right and had the beautiful color. The "Fa" cake is made of baking powder, rice flour, and brown sugar and went through the similar steaming process. The cracking on the top of the "Fa" cake is very important since it looks like the smile and means that the business and the fortunate in the upcoming new year will be wonderful! Since my "Fa" cakes all have nice looking cracks. Hope this will be a great tiger year!

Cold Rainy Days In Florida

2010-02-09T14:27:00.004-06:00

I have been in Florida since this past Superbowl Sunday night for work. Thought I could escape the snow storm on the north but all I got here so far was cold or rainy days. It was pouring rain all day long yesterday and finally the sun comes out today. But it is very brisky, windy and the temperture is just 30 degrees (-1'C). Guess I should not complain because at least I do not have to shovel 14 inches (36 cm)of snow!

Cold!

2010-01-29T10:59:00.003-06:00

It is so cold today even with all the sunshine! It is only 1'F (-17'C) outside and windchill -9'F (-23'C). I really want to wrap myself like a mummy before I go outside. Guess the winter is still here!

Long Winter

2010-01-12T10:52:00.004-06:00

Finally, it is getting a little bit warmer today after the long stretch of cold. It has been under 8'F (-15'C) for almost 3 weeks now and it finally gets up to 20'F (-7'C) today. Everything is covered by snow and ice. Very beautiful under the clear bright cold sky. Too bad that it is just the beginning of a long cold 2010 winter.

Happy New Year 2010!

2009-12-31T09:50:00.000-06:00

Wish all my friends here happy new year 2010!

Christmas Cake

2009-12-26T10:41:00.003-06:00

Hope that everybody has a wonderful Christmas weekend so far. I made this Christmas cake for family. White chocolate cake with cranberry filling (cook down cranberry with brown sugar, clove and cinnamon). Frosting is white chocolate vanilla frosting.

Also made some cute bears as cake tops with marzipan. They are the size of a ketchup bottle cap as you can see in the picture!
By the way, this cake is a 4-layer cake with 3-layer of cranberry fillings. It was a success for sure!

2009 Christmas Cookie Tray

2009-12-25T10:49:00.002-06:00

There you go! All 12 cookies plus one bonus German Kebkuchen bars! Merry Christmas!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 12 - Coconut Marmalade Crescents

2009-12-24T18:58:00.002-06:00

It is Christmas eve and we have heavy rain after snow this morning and it will all turn into ice tonight. Would be terrible to drive tomorrow! Here we save the best cookie for last: coconut marmalade crescents. This is a cream cheese based cookie. Dough contains cream cheese, rum flavoring and coconut flakes. Once the cookies have been baked, they are frosted with glaze made of orange juice, apricot preserve and powder sugar. Yummy! Happy holidays, everyone!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 11 - Peppermint Snow Cookies

2009-12-24T09:02:00.003-06:00

It snows several inches here last night but fortunately nothing too dense. But it is going to turn to rain this afternoon and it might be all ice tomorrow. Yikes! To reflect the beauty of snow and ice, here I present the peppermint snow cookies! It is based on snowball cookies (Mexican wedding cookies) but without powder sugar. Both cookie dough and red color icing have peppermint extract. And the cookies are sprinkled with crushed peppermint candies. It gives a sense of cold in this cold weather!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 10 - Caramel Dove Chocolate Bars

2009-12-23T07:40:00.003-06:00

Snow and ice are coming tonight so I'd better get all baking done! Here is one for all the chocolate addicts!The cookie base is a shortbread dough. A layer of toasted chopped pecans is added. Then, it is covered by a layer of caramel topping. Sprinkle a layer of semi-sweet chocolate chip then it goes to oven. At the same time, I then melt Dove silky smooth dark chocolate on a double boiler. Once the cookie is done baking and cool several minutes, pour the melted chocolate on the top of it and smooth the surface. Refrigerate overnight and cut into bars the second day. Super strong chocolate will any chocolate lover swoon!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 9 - Double Vanilla Delights

2009-12-22T10:20:00.002-06:00

It starts to snow again and another round of blizzard is on the way from west coast to here! Hope that the weather will not cause the problem for everybody who travels during Christmas. Here is another new cookie I made this year, "Double Vanilla Delights". Good vanilla beans are the main ingredient in this cookie. The vanilla bean is mixed with chopped pecans in the melt-in-your-mouth feeling dough. I made the frosting by cooking the half and half cream with whole vanilla bean then mix with powder sugar. If you love vanilla taste, this will be a heavenly cookie to you!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 8 - High Tea Lemon Cookies

2009-12-21T08:46:00.003-06:00

Happy Monday before Christmas! This is one of the most delicate cookies I have ever made. It is covered by a layer of delicious lemon frosting. The cookie is just melt right in your mouth. The secret of this cookie is the big amount of cornstarch in the ingredients. Its bite size just makes this cookie even more delicate. This cookie is mainly for afternoon tea party but I think it works just well for Santa with a glass of milk!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 7 - Dried Fruit Cookies

2009-12-20T18:41:00.003-06:00

Definitely not the nasty kind that is hard enough to be used as weapon! This one has figs, chopped pecans, candied cherries, and raisins all soaked in sherry for flavor. This is another cookie that gluten-free tastes better than flour version!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 6 - Golly Polly's Doodles

2009-12-19T19:41:00.002-06:00

Holiday is coming and I am running behind the schedule of these 12 cookies! Here is another new one I tried to make gluten free this year, Golly Polly's doodles. It is an interesting cookie but also takes quite some works to make/ The outside layer is chocolate dough mixed with some peanut butter. The inside filling is peanut dough. Then, you wrap the chocolate dough around the peanut butter ball to form the cookie and coat the final ball with a layer of sugar. It smells just wonderfully when it is baked. If you like peanut butter, this is the one you will enjoy!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 5 - White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

2009-12-17T08:31:00.003-06:00

Worked whole night last night and have not slept for almost 25 hours no but got to get everything done before the end of year for work. Here is the white chocolate and raspberry cookies. The simple sugar cookie dough mixed in with melted white chocolate to increase the flavor. After baking, put raspberry jam on the top and decorate with splashed melted white chocolate.

This gluten free version of the cookie is much better than the flour version since it is more chewy than hard. I package this kind of cookies with the chocolate thumbprint from yesterday and make beautiful holiday gift for my co-workers. Isn't it a quite nice looking Christmas snacks? :)

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 4 - Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

2009-12-16T10:03:00.002-06:00

Here comes a new fancy new recipe I tried first time. It is a cream cheese unsweetened chocolate base sugar thumbprint cookie with raspberry jam on top. It takes quite some works to make the dough, roll into small balls, dip in the sugar, thumb push a hole in the middle, put on the jam, and bake. But the result is great! It is soft and chewy inside and light crisp outside and the taste of chocolate and raspberry jam match wonderfully!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 3 - Raspberry Chocolate Cookie Bar

2009-12-15T09:52:00.002-06:00

It is a bright sunny day today but that can be deceiving! It is actually freezing cold. The average temperature now is only 5'F (-15'C)! Bundle up or stay indoor! LOL. Continue the holiday cookies baking marathon. This is another back to basic cookie recipe (man, I watch too much "Barefoot Contessa"). It has a shortbread base mixed with chopped pecans. We then add a layer of semi-sweet chocolate followed by a layer of raspberry jam, then, another layer of shortbread/pecan/oatmeal topping! Can you say yummy! :) By the way, I made this one gluten free too!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 2 - Million Dollar Cookies

2009-12-14T07:21:00.002-06:00

The weather outside frightful, and we have lots of cookies to bake for. Quite Christmas scenes already. It is so cold that all snow on the ground freeze to rock hard ice. Here is 2nd day of Christmas cookies, Million dollar cookies. It is a delicious traditional sugar cookie with additional chopped pecans and sprinkled with sugar. Flour version is a little bit crispy and gluten free version is a little bit chewy inside. Both are great with a glass of milk!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 1 - Cherry Date Snowball Cookies

2009-12-13T09:46:00.002-06:00

Cookies time 2009! 12 Days of Christmas cookies number 1- Cherry Date Skillet Cookies! Complete gluten-free made of rice crisp! With dates, cherry, coconut and vanilla, sweet and tasty!

1 Degree Outside and -21Degrees Windchill!

2009-12-10T07:15:00.003-06:00

After the big snow storm yesterday, now it comes the bitterly cold. It is only 1'F (-17'C) outside and the windchill is -21'F (-30'C)! Why do I have to go to work today? Sigh, guess I have to stop whining since this is just the beginning of the long 6-month winter.

You Cannot Believe It's Gluten Free! (Red Velvet Cakes)

2009-11-25T14:43:00.008-06:00

Finally, no more traveling for work for several days. I got to make the long-delayed Red Velvet cake based on a friend's recipe. However, it is using the regular cake flour so I converted it to the gluten-free version. As matter of a fact, I made 2 red velvet cakes - one is gluten free and the other is the regular cake flour version. Both are filled and covered with cooked butter cream frosting.

Both cakes taste wonderfully! I cannot believe that one of them is gluten free! LOL. I also make some changes of the frosting. The original recipe calls for butter but I do not like the greasy taste of the butter so I substitute with "You cannot believe it's not butter". It turns out great! It keeps the same smooth texture and rich taste but less greasy and fat! Really a great cake! Thanks for the original recipe, Tommy!

Since it is Thanksgiving tomorrow, I have to make the family favorite Dutch Apple pie for the family dinner tomorrow, too. It has the gluten free topping as well. Yummy! Happy Thanksgiving!

Wrap Up Work In Florida

2009-11-20T07:43:00.003-06:00

Don't mean to desert this blog for so long and I wonder if I still have any reader left for this blog. :)

I have been in Gainesville, Florida for work since the beginning of this month. It gets to so busy that sometimes I even forget to eat dinner. The only plus thing about working down here is the nice warm weather. It is still around 75'F (22'C) during the day time. There is an empty slot next to my workplace as the extra parking as shown in the picture. It is right next to highway so it has this Mac sign which I always walk by during the break. Finally, all the work is done and I am ready heading back to Wisconsin to bravely embrace the cold! LOL.

Halloween Spider Cupcake

2009-10-30T15:35:00.003-05:00

The weather outside is nasty but Halloween is almost here. I finally got a day off after all the work trip so I stayed at home and made these devil food chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting. They are decorated with vanilla frosting spider webs and Skittles spiders! I think my nieces and nephew will like them when I bring the cupcakes to their house before the trick-or-treat. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Spider Attacks!

2009-10-27T14:51:00.004-05:00

Finally came back to Wisconsin for my last long Florida trip. The weather is definitely cooler up here. All the leaves have changed colors and it is really pretty this year, gold, yellow, red, orange, and green everywhere. Halloween is coming on this weekend so there are Halloween decorations everywhere.

Somehow, giant spiders on the house seem to be the fashion this year. There are so many of them around my neighborhood!

Kanapaha Botanical Gardens

2009-10-19T10:12:00.006-05:00

It is another working trip down to Florida. The weather down here is just wonderful, sunny, 70 degree (20'C). Since I missed all the autumn colors on the north, I decied to take some time off on this past weekend to visit the local famous Kanapaha Botanical Gardens before the crazy Florida Gators vs Arkansas football game. One of its signature plants is this giant Victoria water lilies. Look at the size of the leaves and you would know why Amazon people used to put kids on the top of it! The most amzing thing is that they actually grow the water lily as annual from seeds every year in that garden!

Kanapaha Botanical Gardens is a 62 acre facility developed and operated by the North Florida Botanical Society, a non-profit educational organization. It is comprised of 24 major collections including Florida's largest public display of bamboos and the largest herb garden in the Southeast of USA. My favorite parts of this garden are water garden, herb garden, bamboo garden and rock garden, of course. If you look closer in the picture on the left, you will find out that it is not a falled trunk but a bending flower stalk due to the heavy flower heads! It was surely good that I visited thos garden on this past Saturday because I ended of working the whole day on this past Sunday. After all, it is a work trip.

100 Days Of Holiday Cookies

2009-10-07T14:19:00.001-05:00

Is there a such thing as too early to prepare for holiday cookies?

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake - Gluten Free

2009-10-06T12:13:00.002-05:00

Finally, I am back to Wisconsin after spending 2 weeks at Cleveland for work. However, it is the same crappy cold and wet weather. I don't mind the cool weather but really dislike when it rains in the fall. It knocks down all the beautiful leaves before we get to enjoy the autumn scenes. Since it is raining outside, I decide to test the Betty Crocker Gluten Free cake mix. If you have family and friends who are allergic to gluten but really like the cakes and brownies, this is something you must have then! I used the yellow cake gluten free mix as the base and made this delicious banana chocolate chip cake wit run syrup. It is a little more dense than the usual cake but much more moisture! Really delicious! You now should be able to find either gluten free yellow cake mix, chocolate cake mix and brownies mix in your usual local grocery stores. Give it a try!

Moon Cake And Autumn

2009-10-01T08:48:00.005-05:00

This coming Saturday will be the annual Moon Festival again! It also means that fall should be in full swing now. Went to the Cleveland Chinatown and bought some moon cakes. Most of the moon cakes have the salty egg yolks which I really do not like. I still remember to get spanked by digging yolks out of the moon cakes and throwing it away when I was a kid since egg yolks were the expensive part of the moon cakes. So I bought the kind with only lotus paste in the moon cakes. That small piece of moon cake costs almost $5. The package is just too beautiful to eat and I suspect half of the cost goes into the package instead of the real cake.
Hard to believe that it gets quite chilly here in Cleveland too. And almost 60% of the leaves have changed the color if they were not knocked down by the heavy rain and gusty wind early this week. By the way, I found this in the Chinese supermarket! What a surprise! It brings back so many childhood memories. The economic condition of my family was not too good when I was young. We could not afford to buy any candies and snacks. But my mom would always try her best to get something besides the daily meals for us. This was one of the snacks we ate. Mom boiled them and we would wait anxiously next to stove for them to be done. And we were so happy to eat them. It brought us more joy than going to the theme park or having all the candies. It is amazingly how simple and cheap things could bring so much fun back to those poor days.

Rain Rain CLE

2009-09-26T20:22:00.007-05:00

The weather has been gloomy since I got here one week ago. It got worse today and became pouring rain. This work trip has almost eaten me alive so far. The temperature has start to drop and it shows on changing trees leaves to different shades of red and yellow. Fall is surely on its way. I got to visit Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and Museum at Cleveland downtown lakefront on this past Wednesday. It was a good surprise to find out how nice it is of that area next to Browns stadium. It is almost like a smaller but cleaner version of downtown Chicago. The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame building itself is also an interesting structure. There were several catering banquets going on during our visit there on a weekday night.

I got to listen to one of the feature presentations called "From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen". It talks about how Bruce Springsteen created most of the songs in his first and second albums. They played different stages/mixes of the songs such as "Born in USA" and explained the lyrics changes as well. It was really well done and interesting. Of course, I spent almost an hour on listening to music jukebox of songs for all previous Hall of Fame winners, especially, the early influence ones from 40s to 60s. Quite a treat.
That was pretty much the only fun thing I did so far this week. Fortunately, my co-worker took me to Chinatown area in Cleveland downtown to have a nice dim sum lunch. That was really a bright spot in this bad weather day!

Hello, Cleveland!

2009-09-20T21:50:00.003-05:00

Travel time for work again! Hello, Cleveland, Ohio! Got to Cleveland this afternoon and picked up my rental car at Hertz. They gave me a HHR, not a bad car at all. I was surprised how cloudy it was here. Aw, well, at least, it was not cold!

A Flock Of Wild Turkeys

2009-09-09T08:51:00.003-05:00

Labor weekend has past and usually it means that summer is over. Fortunately, we still have nice sunny and warm weather so far to make up for the cool summer this year. Apparently, a flock of wild turkeys feel the same way and wander just outside my office to pick up seeds dropped from the bird feeder on the trees. Some of them were so curious about their own reflections on the window and they even pecked on the window while we stared at them inside! Of course, they got so scared when my co-workers decided to stand up from his seat to take a closer look. :) Made some more pies, cakes, and ice cream on the Labor Day weekend and I will post pictures soon!

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Raisin Bread

2009-08-31T07:36:00.004-05:00

It is so chilly recently that some of the towns in Wisconsin have already got the first frost! It is only the first day of September!

I have got a bread maker machine for a long time but I always use it to make the dough for some pastry. Recently, I got a new recipe for a yeast bread so I decide to give it a try to make the gluten-free cinnamon raisin bread on using the bread maker. Since gluten is very important to make the bread to rise with the yeast. I was really curious how it would work for the gluten-free version. It turns out great! The bread is much denser than the usual white bread but equally delicious.

Deer At The Parking Lot

2009-08-21T14:14:00.005-05:00

Where did the summer go? Hard to believe that it is almost the end of the summer. Have been quite busy with lots of things. I went to the annual Wisconsin state fair last week and was grossed out by all the fry food on the stick. Can you believe that they even had a fry bacon covered by chocolate on the stick this year? Disturbingly bad. Besides that, we finally get some rain. It has been a dry summer and most of the lawn is yellow due to the lack of the rain. Work has been very busy and quite some late night. While I left one of the local hospital for work around 7pm yesterday, we noticed a bunch of deer hanging around the parking lots. There were 3 bucks and 2 does. Each buck was at least a 8-point one. I waved at them and they all just ran away. Guess the summer is coming to an end and the hunting season will start soon! And it will be the volunteer working time for Mexican Fiesta on this coming weekend!

My Kind Of Work Environment Hazard

2009-08-05T09:30:00.004-05:00

This is the kind of work environment hazard I have to prepare to encounter all the time...

Gluten Free Raspberry Ganache Pie & Lemon Cheese Cake

2009-08-02T10:40:00.008-05:00

Today is my best friend's birthday so I make these 2 delicious desserts for the birthday party. It seems that I am making cakes all the time in the summer! The first one is the gluten free raspberry ganache pie. The filling is made of semi-sweet chocolate, whipped cream and raspberry jam. The gluten free crust is basically gluten free version of crumbled Oreo cookies. The cold and not very sweet chocolate filling is the best during the hot summer.
The second one is the lemon cheesecake. Besides the cream cheese, it has sour cream, instant lemon pudding and French vanilla instant pudding. The crust is made of rice flour mix, finely chopped pecans, sugar and butter. The cheesecake is fluffy, light and very tasty. The vanilla actually make the lemon flavor tastes even more rich. Yummy summer treats!

Space Shuttle Cake

2009-07-23T16:44:00.003-05:00

Cake time again! Time to celebrate 40th anniversary of human landing on the moon! Actually, no, this was the cake I made for my 9-year-old nephew's birthday. Vanilla cake with vanilla cream frosting and lots of Skittles! The boy surely liked it since he ate almost 2 big pieces of the cake! The weather has been nice so far and just hope that the summer will not stay longer.

Hamburger Cupcakes

2009-07-13T08:23:00.006-05:00

Another cake post! Guess even the dogs on the plate like them! It was the birthday party of my twin 7-year-old nieces on this past Saturday. There were about 10 kids in the party so I decided to make these fun looking hamburger cupcakes. The buns were vanilla cake and the meat patty was dark chocolate cake. Of course, the ketchup, mustard and lettuce were red, yellow and green creamy vanilla frosting.

I also sprinkled sesame seeds on the top to make them look even more like the real hamburger. And it surely was a big hit in the party. Of course, there were some kids immediately scraping off the sesame seeds off the top. Guess not everybody like the sesame seeds. I got some big hugs from the kids to thank me for making the cupcakes for their party. It was a happy Saturday!

People Camp Out For Fireworks Tonight

2009-07-03T14:38:00.003-05:00

The big July 4th US bank fireworks is going to be held tonight from 9pm to 10pm. The one-hour event is going to fill with music and sparkling fireworks. The fireworks is held at Veteran park at Milwaukee lakefront. This is the only day of the year that the city allows people to camp out in the park and watch firework. People have started to set up the tents since 7am this morning. There are usually 200,000 people in this event every year. However, it has been very cloudy and might rain tonight. Wish that the rain holds off so we can enjoy the fireworks tonight!

Wings Over Waukesha

2009-06-22T15:22:00.004-05:00

The summer is finally here! It has reached 90'F (30'C) today, heat wave! There was a small air show, "Wings Over Waukesha", in a local small city, Waukesha, Wisconsin. There were about 10 to 15 small airplanes, including some WWI and WWII airplanes such as Beech T34A, North American T28, P51, T6, Lockheed T33, etc. Of course, the main one was the B17. There were also some army ground jeep and hummer with machine guns for everybody to look at. After being in several big airshows and having seen SR-71, F14, F-15, F-16 and F-22, Thunderbirds and Blue Angels before, this was quite a small and a little bit boring airshow. But there were tons of people there and almost nowhere to park. However, for a free event, it was actually fun and I think lots of kids did enjoy the show with their fathers in the Father's Day. Hope that you all had a great Father's Day as well!

Garden Tour And Graffiti

2009-06-16T09:47:00.005-05:00

Finally, the summer warm weather is here after the long nasty winter and chilly spring. All the flowers are blooming like crazy. My family is visiting me now so I took them to the local botanical garden which was famous for the several acres of Peonies they grew there on this past Sunday. The weather was just perfect, sunny and around low 70'F (20'C). There were hundreds of different kinds of Peonies blooming. It looked like a colorful flower river in the garden. We had a nice picnic in the garden as well.

And all the summer festivals have started since this past weekend as well. However, it also means the school is off and lots of boring kids start to wander on the street in the late night and cause some damages. My condo building just got a big ugly graffiti on the entrance wall, which is 2 floor high. Someone climbed to the 2 floor high fence next to wall in the late night and spread-painted some stupid nonsense words. It has never happened in this good neighborhood before and it is too bad that the security camera did not face that direction to catch the video of who did that. The condo association has hired contractors to clean it but they just could not completely remove it. I guess that's the downside of nice summer weather.

Tour Dennis Sullivan Schooner

2009-06-07T16:13:00.004-05:00

Just got back from the free on-deck tour of Dennis Sullivan schooner. The Denis Sullivan, a 137-foot re-creation of a three-masted, 19th century Great Lakes schooner, was built in Milwaukee and launched in autumn 2000. It was the first tall ship built in Wisconsin in more than 100 years, and it sails as "Wisconsin's Flagship". Schooners were developed in the United States in the early 1700s. The word "schooner" may be derived from the term "scoon," an old-fashioned expression meaning "to skip a stone." It spends most of the time sailing all over the sea but always comes back to Milwaukee shore for the summer. It is always interested in getting to see all the equipments on the ship. It was a nice tour if the weather could corporate a little bit with less wind and be warmer (only 45'F - 7'C)!

Chilly Spring

2009-06-04T10:48:00.003-05:00

It has been a chilly spring this year so far. The temperature is still around 60'F (15'C) during the day and 40'F (4'C) at the night. This causes some strange growing patterns of lots of flowers. Most of them have grown enormous amounts of leaves in a short time but the flowers seem to have rot or wilt problems. Fortunately, it is sunny most of the time so it is actually great. The geese babies around the work have grown like crazy! They are almost twice bigger than they were merely 2 weeks ago. Their parents just guard them everywhere and several families actually wander around to find the food, etc. Not a bit of afraid of human beings at all!

Back To Wisconsin - Spring Is Here

2009-05-29T10:33:00.007-05:00

It has been a while since my last post due to my trip back to Asia. I have flown thousands of miles in the past 3 weeks back and forth between US and Asia. And all the hassle in Asian airports for the H1N1 passengers check made the trip even longer to reach almost 35 hours each way. On my way to Asia, it took almost 2 hours after my flight landed at Tokyo-Narita airport to have the fully medical staff on board and take the body temperature of all 300 something passengers. The same process was repeated when I waited at Tokyo for the flight back to US. the same airplane was from US and needed to deplane all the passengers from US first so we could board and head back to US. For the same reason, the flight was delayed 2 hours or so and we completely missed the connection flight when we finally got to Minneapolis. I saw these interesting battery powered toys at the Tokyo airport as shown in the picture. Their head will slowly swing around and sing music.

The real strange thing is that it seems that the rest of the world are treating this H1N1 like the death plague but nobody seems to care back to US. Anyway, it is quite a different scenery to come back to Wisconsin after spending 2 weeks overseas. All the trees have leaves and there are flowers blooming everywhere. Of course, that just means the bad allergy is back and big time of sneezing. There are even lots of new geese hatched and walk around the parking lots. They are really cute until they start to grow up and poop everywhere.It looks that lots of people had a great Memorial Day at Chicago. Too bad that I was adjusting the jet lag and could not go to meet some bloggers I have communicated on line for a while. Aw, well, maybe next time!

Lemon Pudding Cake For Mother's Day

2009-05-05T10:08:00.004-05:00

I have been back from Hawaii for almost a week now. The weather change between the hot sunny Hawaii and cold wet Wisconsin on the top of all pollens cause me to have the bad allergy. At least, the spring is finally here and all the flowers/trees are blooming (hate the pollens!) Mother's Day is coming this weekend so I made this lemon pudding cake for my best friend's mom and sister.

It is yellow caked based with vanilla pudding mix in the cake. The filling is lemon pudding and the whole cake is covered with a layer of the lemon pudding then another layer of mixture of cool whip and vanilla frosting. Yummy!

Morning Bird Visit

2009-04-21T16:05:00.001-05:00

Morning Bird Visit
Originally uploaded by icejohn2

It seems that the birds here in Hawaii are compeletely not afarid of human beinigs. I have lots of birds landing on my patio every morning and even try to come into the room. There are pigeons, Finch, and some other kind of birds. And they even sat on my feet at one point!

Hawaii Sunshine And Beach

2009-04-18T23:26:00.001-05:00

Bathing in the Hawaii warm sunshine on the beach under the blue sky and next to the blue ocean. Not to think about anything but just relax.

Hawaii!

2009-04-18T01:41:00.000-05:00

After the 15-hour long trip, I finally got to Honolulu, Hawaii this afternoon. Tired like a dog but great ocean view from the hotel room.

Long Work Day

2009-04-13T20:21:00.004-05:00

Nothing is better than 3 scoops of Ben & Jerry ice cream under 80s warm sunshine after a long 12-hour workday. But that was 3 hours ago and it is pouring rain, lighting and thunder outside with the severe weather warning.

Birthday Drawing From A Friend

2009-04-10T08:47:00.002-05:00

It is nice to have some friends to remember my birthday. I got a virtual gift on LJ from Cory. In addition, I got this nice hand drawing birthday picture from Joel. Really nice! :)

Big Layoff At Work

2009-04-03T10:35:00.004-05:00

Here comes another round of layoff in this bad economy. Almost half of the people at work were told that they would lose their jobs in phases before the end of this year. Most of those are the manufacture jobs and all those people have been working very hard and even sustain the mandatory overtime during the weekends and holidays in the past 6 months. It is really hard to see your co-workers crying at the cafeteria, calling their friends and family on the phone with depressed voice after this kind of bad news in the gloomy economy condition.

Spring? What Spring?

2009-03-29T10:31:00.003-05:00

It dumped almost 7 inches snow in the past 12 hours. As you can see, the weather changes from 60s spring to 30s winter again. Sigh...endless winter?

Warm Spring St Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T12:50:00.002-05:00

What a nice warm day today! It is about 71'F (20'C) outside and everybody is wearing the short sleeve summer clothes! Hope that spring is really here since it still can snow in this area even in May. Had a nice walk outside after lunch. It has almost been 6 months since we have such a warm sunny day. Happy St Patrick's Day!

Moving Away Party Chocolate Cake

2009-03-14T15:28:00.002-05:00

It has been a long time since I made a cake due to my non-stopped traveling for work schedule. Finally, I got to stay at home for a while and got invited to my best friend's moving away party. She and her husband and the new born baby are going to move to Indiana soon. She was the first fried I made in Milwaukee and we have known each other for a long time. We were all so young back. It is hard to believe that she is going to move away. I surely will miss her.

I made this moisture chocolate cake with chocolate pudding mix in the ingredient last night. It was a 2-layer cake with the the chocolate ganache (whipping cream) for frosting and the filling. It was then decorated with white chocolate lace and some 3D crowns. The white chocolate really became solid very fast from the melting stage so I had to work fast. Of course, some laces were broken so I had to remake some.

I like the look of this cake and just hope that the 3D crowns or laces would not break during my driving to the party tonight!

Watchmen

2009-03-09T12:59:00.003-05:00

Finally, it is here. After reading all the buzz on line and refreshing the memory by watching the motion comics, I finally got to see the movie version of the "Watchmen". Of course, the lousy rainy, snowy, and cold weather outside did help make more people go to see the movie. The first positive thing I would say about the movie is the incredible works that the screen writer and the director did. I cannot believe that they almost pack all the important details in the movie! If you have read the comics, you would appreciate the good works the movie does by organizing the complicated characters and plots into a 2 and a half hour of movie. And they did such a good job that even the people who have not read the comics should be able to follow it without problems.

Since "Watchmen" is more like a murder mystery with all the "batman" super heroes as the main characters, it is not the easiest movie to understand. It is not one of those no-brain summer explosion X-men kind of movies. By saying so, it does not mean that the special effects in this movie are not good. As the matter of the facts, the special effects are amazing and I specially like the way the change the look of the glass castle on the Mars. Anyway, it is definitely a movie worth of watching. The only warnings are the male front nudity of Dr. Manhattan and the graphic violence of broken body parts. Not a movie for kids.

Watchmen Motion Comics And Facebook

2009-03-03T14:23:00.002-06:00

Back to the cold and snowy Wisconsin again after spending a month on working in Florida. Almost forget how nasty the winter is up here. I finally decided to jump in the Facebook trend. And there are so many bloggers there I have already connected. The only downside of it is that it is too time consuming. I also started to watch the "Wathcmen motion comics". It is very interesting not only because the "Watchmen" comics but also the way it is made. I have never seen anything like it. It is between the animation and the paper comics. For example, the characters one scene is just like the paper version of the comic but his hair was moving with the wind! Really cool stuff! Now it is time to go back to work. By the way, happy square root day!

Bye Bye Florida

2009-02-26T15:50:00.002-06:00

Finally, at day 28, I have completed the project in Florida! I have been here so long that most of my local co-workers thought I had relocated down to Florida. Well, the nice warm weather is surely nice and no more plowing the snow and driving on the dangerous icy roads. However, at the same time, the warm weather also causes the pollen allergy comes back earlier down here. Also tried to enjoy nice warm sun in the north central Florida during the lunch break. All trees are all covered by the Spanish moss here. Quite an interesting scene.

Went to a new local Singapore restaurant and ordered my favorite Singapore fried rice noodle with shrimp, chicken, and beef. The curry tasted great in the noodle with a pot of jasmine tea. Good meal. Well, I am just ready to go home tomorrow and jump right back to the cold and snow! LOL.

Grinding Day Continues In Florida

2009-02-22T07:35:00.005-06:00

I was back to the grinding mill in Florida after only spending 3 days at home in Wisconsin. Today is day 5 non-stop working day even though it is the weekend. The project is in the crunching time so I just have to bite the tongue and keep going until this coming Friday when it hits the deadline.

The only good thing is the warm weather down here. So far, it has been 60'F (15'C) in the daytime and 30-40'F (-2'C-5'C) at night. It feels warm to me but all the local people are complaining about the cold. I just jokingly call them wimps. :) I could even get some Ben & Jerry's ice cream (strawberry kiwi, mango lime, and chunky monkey) and enjoyed it outside while locals hid indoor and shivered.