Bakery/Pastry

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Puffy Powdered Pillow

OMG. I’m telling you out of my last shred of conscience and humanity before I turn Paula Deen. If you like fried dough. If you have a weakness for doughnuts. If exercising self-restraint over hot-and-crispy-exterior-with-chewy-center things isn’t exactly your forte. Or if you value any possibility to a) find a mate, b) keep a mate, c) or simply to be able to fit into ANYTHING ever again. Pack your knives and go. Because this recipe is up to no good. Run. RuN. RUN!

The rest of you, follow me into beignet Mordor with no return.

01.15.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Snacks

Slice of Bonci’s

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I assumed that by the time this post is published, the world has crossed into the year 2013. So happy new year, guys. I hope that against all odds, fireworks were ~~blocked~~ enjoyed, champagnes were ~~spilled~~ popped, strangers ~~fought~~ kissed, and resolutions ~~dismissed~~ fulfilled. But truth be told, I am never one to celebrate the fact that another year has eloped with my remaining inventories of collagen, and as far as a new “symbolic reform” goes, I never understand why I have to wait for December. Who’s got time for that? The hope of a new beginning must start now if not last minute, so it could get killed before noon the next day. Last night I said “ENOUGH!” to my thighs and tonight I have lychee gummies on my night stand. Efficiency.

01.02.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Nanny-Bribery Icebox Pear Bars

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Tuesday was Lady and Pups’s first X’mas! And we just got back from a lovely week in Rome to spend the holiday with our kids (I assume that the away-for-days part was all forgiven once they smelled the salami treats in the luggage)… And yes, we went to Rome. Oooh stawwp it… but if you must know, it was pretty awesome. As I sort through digital-piles of photos in order to share that fantastic trip with you, I’m going to let you in on a little secret on how to have care-free, long vacations when you have 3 dog-children to care for – bribing the doggie nanny.

12.26.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Salted Duck Yolks Cookies

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Have I raised any concerns yet? More so, concerns for my husband’s ever-expanding belly (those poor poor pants…). ANOTHER salted duck egg recipe? And this time in COOKIES? AND I thought this is a good time to bring it up just after I drenched this blog in cholesterol and now THEN-SOME? To be clear, if you were the very honest people who gushed how lucky my husband was for all these foods and whose smiles now start to crinkle… (firmly pointing my finger towards an ambiguous direction) I gave them all to Jason’s colleages who gave them a nice home. But I can’t expect this level of superior self-restrain from you because quite frankly, this cookie is fantastic.

12.14.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Tough Crowd Longan Cake

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I’m always puzzled where people get their optimism from. I have this friend. She’s a walking team of cheerleaders in a single unit, comes with flowers and sunshine with balloons and all that stuff. If you feel like a worthless piece of sxxt, I’d have you call her so you can feel like a brand new piece of chocolate nougat instead. Or a cat like a tiger and a chicken like a peacock… always the brighter side of life if you know what I mean. In all honesty, I’m usually extensively annoyed by such characters whom I call the self-hypnotized with false expectations. But the exception is that I ADORE her because she seems so genuinely living, breathing and walking in her bubbling enthusiasm and positivity 24/7, that even a light-sensitive vamp-downer like me can’t seem to dampen her spirit. How does she do that? She will forever be a mystery of nature to me. But hey, this is my blog and I’m only bringing her up so I can talk about myself.

12.03.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

X’mas Blend Coffee Bars

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OK I’m a repeat offender… it seems like we have barely gotten over Thanksgiving (based on numbers on the scale) and I’m AGAIN already talking about the NEXT, EVEN-BIGGER-ER holiday! What’s wrong with me? Am I the only one who feels sidetracked… distracted… by establishments on almost every corner in New York and even some in Beijing that I find it difficult to focus? Because my year’s-biggest-holiday-state-of-mind is not kick-started by the official ending of Thanksgiving. Or by the emergence of the frightening, steroid-pumped displays of lights and reindeers on neighbor’s front lawn. Instead in my mind, the X’mas season is announced officially by no other than the worldwide Starbucks and the appearance of their exceedingly adorable X’mas cups!

11.25.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Not-a-Muffin Amaretto Financier

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“My colleagues loved those mini muffins…”
“There are NOT muffins! They are FINANCIER with a silent R, as in FRRRENCH!!”
“I know financiers. They’re rectangular. That’s not financier.”
“…. don’t comment before you GOOGLE! I’m getting Jiaozi a new daddy.”

OK, that pretty much sums up my recent mental-stability. But in my defense if I may, a word on why I go a bit nuts when my slightly-retarded-in-the-kitchen husband (but otherwise awesome) tries to give “input” to my cooking given that another (and so many others like it) conversation took place just the other day:

“Hey, can you do something with that tomato?”
“What tomato?”
“THAT tomato that’s being sitting on the counter for days!”
“You mean… the pumpkin?”
“…. oh…”

So you see? How can I take cooking advice from a man like that? PS: Jiaozi is my Maltese!

10.30.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Apple++ Muffins

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Have I become unintentionally popular among neighbors? It can’t possibly… I never join the gathering-in-the-lobby-making-small-talks group. I give dirty looks to kids on their bikes who, I believe, aim to kill me or at least rid me of one leg. My french bulldog is notorious for bolting out of nowhere and mugging children’s soccer balls (ANY balls, really…), scares them off like scattering pigeons, and afterwards I return the balls with a thick coat of her extra-slimy saliva. My maltese attacks people, period. My youngest, adopted mutt likes to jump on people after snacking on… sh… poo. So like I said. It can’t possibly.

10.13.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Got Nothing But Time

The Dreamiest of Dreamy Milk Toast

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OH boy, do I have a sob story for this one. Well, not of me growing up with Hokkaido milk toast of course (If you love bread but don’t know what it is, I feel truly sorry. It’s the dreamiest loaf of toast you could dream up.). Those were only fond memories, VERY fond memories like – me standing in the bakery, staring and chuckling like an idiot at the milk toasts on the racks why because they were also smiling back at me, and couldn’t stop myself from poking them with my fingers – kind of memories. The sobbing part is how I got to successfully making them in my kitchen, which was a road paved with disappointments, heartbreaks and betrayals (supposedly-trusted recipes out there…how could you?). Let me just start by saying that on Sep 19th at 10:45 pm, a loaf of bread died of a gruesome death on my kitchen counter. And at 4:30 am the next day, another one followed.

This is how I killed them and atoned for it.

10.04.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

As Promised – A Better Brioche

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I should’ve known. I shouldn’t still be surprised after all these years. OOOF COURSE! What other secret weapons do professional bakers hold against us besides their senseless guilt towards adding a couple sticks more of butter into everything? It turns out I too, can bake an obscenely rich, absurdly moist and stringy brioche at home if I just blindfold my conscience, steady my shaking hands, and let go of ALLLL THAT BUTTER into the mixer while shaking off the image of cellulite-on-the-beach in my head. Steady now, Mandy. Steady now. The road to greatness isn’t without sacrifice…

07.30.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Got Nothing But Time, Meat

Fancy a Meat Pie?

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What I have hea is a rawther nice British meat pie (This is OBVIOUSLY accent, not typos… don’t be an arse about tit). Eva since I overcame my fear in baking (sort of…), I admit that I’ve gone a bit bonkers! What to pie next? What to pie next? Out of all the brilliant recipes out thea, this one has somehow stick. For one it looks bloody delicious, absolutely pukka! And second I believe it’s pure fate. First I saw it on the tele when they were talking about British street foods, and then a magazine featuring the exact same thing LIT’erally fell on my lap. Two makes it a sign.

…Is it as difficault to read as it tis to write in a Brit accent….? I have new found respect for Lindsay Lohan. Oooh sod it! I give up…

06.29.2012

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Got Nothing But Time, Sweets

Forgive Me I Have Pie-d…

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The only equivalent comparison in life to this would be: In our last two years in New York when we were practically cast out of Manhattan by elitism (FINE, high rents) and moved to… Jersey City where there was a most pathetic looking, hicks-Ahoy karaoke bar right around the block. With more conviction than I withheld on my wedding day I said to Jason, “IF we EVER raised even the SLIGHTEST idea of walking into this place, it is THE moment that we’ve been “Jersified” and must pack up and move back in the city immediately!” We survived Jersey and never did walk into that karaoke bar. But instead THIS happened here. My cue that says I have been in YET another dump for far too long that – I – made – a – PIE!!!

06.07.2012