New Year Cake (年糕) and Fa Cake (Steamed Cake)

It will be Chinese new year next Monday. And I have made the two kinds of traditional new year cake and steamed cake for the new year. The first one is the traditional Chinese new year cake (年糕) that my parents make every year. I got the recipe from my parents and have been making it for several years. It will bring good luck by eating the year cake during the new year because the Chinese pronunciation of the year cake is a homonym for "every year higher and higher". It is made of glutinous rice, brown sugar, and cooked red beans. After steaming the mixture and letting it cool for days to harden, you can eat as it is or pan-fry it. Yummy!

The second one is the steamed cake. It is also called "Fa" cake. The pronunciation in Chinese and Cantonese are a homonym for "Getting richer or get promoted". It is made of rice flour, brown sugar, flour, and baking powder. The crack of the cake on the top means that the exploration and explosion of the good luck in the upcoming year. So lots of businessmen really like to eat this cake in the new year. These cakes just bring back lots of my childhood memory.

My family was not in very good economic situation back then. We did not have too much but my parents always managed to give me and my younger sister a happy new year. It was the only time of the year that we would get to eat all the candies, sweets, fruits and delicious dishes that we did not get to taste usually. And we could watch all the TV we wanted. I got all excited when my parents started to prepare to make both cakes because it meant the new year would be coming and the school would be off. The kids nowadays are much luckier in having so many material stuffs but they seem to lose the pure pleasure of enjoying something. Well, it is time for me to enjoy the year cake!

12 Inches Snow And 12 Days of Christmas Cookie 4 - Mint Chocolate Rice Crackers

Have I mentioned that I am so tired of snow already? It's the biggest snow storm so far this year. It drops 12 inches (30cm) of the snow since midnight last night and still comes down more. You cannot even see the road on this picture anymore. It causes a mess on the roads and all local schools are closed. The police department asks people to stay at home and off the road if possible. Guess it will be another day to work from home.

Here is another batch of cookies I made. They are the rice crackers covered by mint chocolate and sprinkled with ground mint candies. So even the gluten-free diet friends can enjoy them.

Christmas Time Is Office Indulging Time!

Finally, we got the first Christmas gift from the vendors. It is a big 60oz glass jar of mixed-nuts. There are walnuts, pecans, almonds, and macadamia, all roasted with salt. Half of the jar has been gone in less 30 minutes!Talking about getting yourself some winter fat!

12 Days of Christmas Cookie 3 - Raspberry Chocolate Bars

This is my favorite cookie bar this year. The crust is made of brown sugar, vanilla extract, flour and oats. It is covered with a layer of semi-sweet chocolate chips then another layer of raspberry jam. Finally, the streusel made of the same ingredients as the crust on top. Yummy!

And it snowed another 5 inches (13 cm) last night and caused the usual traffic problem again this morning. The usual 30-minute commuting time became 1 hour. And the weather forecasts says that there will be another even bigger one tomorrow afternoon to Friay morning. It predicts up to 1 foot (31 cm) snow accumulation. If you like white Christmas, this will be your chance to visit mid-west!

Strawberry Cranberry Pie and Garden Hibiscus

Summer almost reaches the end and the weather just stays cool this year. The hardy Hibiscus in the garden is in the peak now. It is covered by almost 20 big white with pink edges 10" diameter flowers everyday. Each flower is the size of an 8-year old kid (measured with my niece's head. :) )

It is also the peak season of the fresh strawberry. They are in decent price and look so delicious in the store so I have to buy some. I remember that I still have some frozen cranberries in the freezer so I make this strawberry and cranberry pie with oatmeal/brown sugar streusel on the top of the pie. The sour taste of the cranberry counter balances with the sweetness of the sugar and strawberry. Yum! Have several big trips coming up in the next several weeks so I guess it will be a busy September for me. Just wish that the summer can stay here longer. Really don't want the bitter winter comes back too soon.

Christmas Cookies Gift

Merry Christmas! This is my Christmas cookies gift!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 12 - Thumbprint Cookies

This is the ultimate cookie gift I gave away this year. Seven different kinds of jams are used for this cookie: strawberry, raspberry, grape, apricot, orange, cherry, apple. The cookie itself is the nice pastry dough mixed with coconut flakes and chopped pecans/walnuts. It is pretty and tastes very good.

Well, this is the end of my 12 Days of Christmas cookies. Hope that everybody has a wonderful holiday season!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 11 - Mint Chocolate Cookies

This is not the average bland girl scout mint chocolate cookie. The fresh mint chocolate coating on the nice Ritz crackers and topped with the crushed peppermint candies almost make this cookie my favorite this year! And it starts to snow again outside. Aw, well, guess it will be a white Christmas here for sure.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 10 - Cranberry Squares

This is a nice cookie bar recipe that utilizes the cranberry. The crust is made of quick cooking, oats, flour, and sugar. The filling is made of the cook down cranberries and sugar. Good taste. Again, I did not have time to take the picture of this one so I used one of the picture from Kraft Foods, where I got the recipe from.

12 Days of Christmas cookies - Day 9 - Citrus Cooler

This is basically a sugar cookie brushed with food colored lemon juice/powder sugar mix on the top. Enjoy!

12 Days of Christmas cookies - Day 8 - Citrus Squares

Finally, it is the weekend. The weather is warmer (around 40'F) but very foggy. the visibility is so bad that you can only see about 50 yards away. The good news is that the snow starts to melt.

Since I had to rush to send all the cookies out to my friends, I did not get a chance to take the pictures of the Citrus Squares and Citrus Coolers. I used the pictures from the Food Networks, where I got the recipe from.

The citrus squares have nice cookie dough crust, top with a layer of raspberry jam, then add another layer of mix of eggs, sugar, sweetened condensed milk,lemon and clementines juice/zest. Very citrus if you like orange/lemon taste.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 7 - Peanut Butter Jelly Bar

The Whole 16oz jar of Skimp peanut butter used to form the dough and topping. And the filling is a jar of 16 oz grape jelly. Wonderful taste and it made the house smelled like heaven during the baking.

Due to the sudden increasing amount of tasks at work, I could post until now. That's the reason why 3 cookies got post in one day. I guess everybody just tries to finish all the work before holiday vacation. Do let me know if you are interested in the recipe of any cookie I post.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 6 - Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

You know what this is. :)

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 5 - Lemon Drop Cookies

Lemonade concentrate mixed in the dough with nutmeg/sugar on the surface. Soft nice cookie.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 4 - Anise Cookies

OK, apparently, I did not count the days correctly so I will have to post one more cookies today to make it on time for Christmas. Fortunately, the recent cold weather (only 10'F outside now! Cold!) actually helps make this cookie.

This is actually an old Germany/Italian recipe from one of my friend's great aunt. It has eggs, flour, baking zest, anise oil and lemon zest. Let it sit out and uncover in the cold environment overnight to form the glaze. I formed the dough and use a spoon to scoop and drop the small size of dough on the cookie sheet. Then, I put all the cookie sheets/cookies in my car and parked the car outside the garage over night in the frozen weather. On the second day morning, all cookies formed the glaze, then baked them in the oven at 350 degree for 15 minute. A really nice cookie for dipping in coffee or milk.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 3 - Chunky Chocolate Jam Bar

Here is the second bar cookie I baked so far. Flour, quick-cooking oats, coconuts and chopped pecans make the crust and crumble on the top. And the filling is a layer of raspberry jam over a layer of the chocolate chips. The combination of the chunky chocolate, sweet/tart raspberry jam and the multi-flavor of oat/coconut crust actually makes this cookie the crowd favorite so far.

I was actually a little panick at work today because I thought today was Tuesday. I still have not sent most of the Christmas cards. Guess I need to speed up!

As request, you can find the recipe of this cookie here. Have fun!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 2 - White Choc Sugar Cookie!

Did more baking yesterday since it snowed again. This is a sugar cookie with dried orange cranberry and walnuts, coating with the white chocolate! Not too sweet but tasty.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Day 1 - Lemon Cream Bars

It is snowing again outside today. On the top of the already accumulated 2 feet snow, it really makes a mess. And it's only early December! What a long winter this year will be.

Anyway, I have started to bake different kind of cookies for Christmas. Every year, I bake multiple kinds of cookies so I can send them as the gift. Here is the first one I make this year: Lemon Cream Bars.

The crust and top crumbles are both made of moisture lemon cake mix with crush walnuts and eggs. The filling is the mixture of lemon frosting, cream cheese and eggs. Bake at 350 degree for 35 minute until the top is golden brown and you get these delicious, not too sweet, very tasty bars. The bonus is that it makes the whole house smells very lemony and good.

Moon Festival And Moon Cake

It is the time of Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival) again. It happens on the August 15th using the lunar calendar, in other words, it is usually about the end of September. It is also called the mid-fall festival since it usually happens in the fall. This year, the moon festival is on Sept. 25 (this coming Tuesday).

The Moon festival is one of the three most important Chinese holidays besides the Chinese New Year and the Dragon Boat Festival. It has been celebrated since early 1300 before the Ming dynasty. It is also the time of the family reunion and the traffic is usually getting very busy. There are lots of legendary stories about the Moon Festival. The most famous one is about a queen who stole and ate the eternal life medicine from her cruel king husband and flew into the moon.


Besides the family reunion, moon cakes are the star of the holiday. Every store and bakery will put out boxes and boxes of moon cakes for sell. There are so many different kinds of flavors and crusts of the moon cakes to choose nowadays that even the most experienced food critics will have a hard time to choose.

Usually, I don't really like the sweet stuffs. However, I always have a sweet tooth of all the different kinds of moon cakes. My favorite is the pineapple flavor. The second is the red bean paste flavor. My least favorite ones are the moon cakes with salty egg yolk inside the fillings. It is really dry and not healthy anyway.

I always mail order the moon cakes from the Shengkee bakery in California. It was originally founded in Taiwan in 1964 and then opened up multiple chain stores in California around 1980. They only ship the fresh made moon cakes around the Moon festival. This year, I order 3 boxes of the moon cakes the Shengkee bakery again: one box of pineapple flavor, two boxes of assorted flavors (lotus, red bean, dates, plum, tea, walnut). They taste the best with a cup of hot tea. And that will my breakfast for the next 2 weeks!

Plum Berry Crumble

As promised, here is the picture of the plum berry crumble. There are plums, strawberries and raspberries topped with the streusel made of sugar, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon. and flour. Bake until the fruits are bubbling and the topping are brown. Not too sweet and very tasty.

By the way, I finally accept a new job offer and tomorrow (Monday) will be my first day at the new job. Hope that everything will go well there.