Sweet Chat with Book Authour and Amazing Artist, Jessie Oleson Moore

I lose count of how many times I have told people how much I love Jessie Oleson Moore.  We first met at her former art gallery and shop in Seattle few years ago; and I could say that, she is ONE OF THE KINDEST PERSONS on earth!  I have been a devoted fans of her blog, CakeSpy ever since then.

Couple years ago, Jessie Oleson Moore wrote this most amazing and creative recipe book:  CakeSpy Presents: Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life.  I bought it and have been loving the book; the recipes in the book is so easy to follow and extremely innovative. The ultimate success of her first book was leading her to prepare the second book, the Secret Lives of Baked Goods.  I have not bought this new book yet, but definitely put it on my TO-DO list.  Here is a sweet chat between Jessie and I about her new book and some of her future new projects:

1)  Your first book was such a great hit. Did it give you any pressure of preparing your second book?
Interestingly, my first book didn't figure much into the experience of the second. I think this is probably because they are SO different. I did feel more insecure at points about my writing, though, because the first book had just headnotes and the second actually required paragraph structure and storytelling rather than just telling about the recipes. It was almost like writing another first book!

2)  Tell me and our readers a little bits about your new book and how did you come up with the idea of the theme?
I've always thought that foods taste better with a backstory. You know, grandma saying that she won grandpa over with her apple pie, or something like that. I thought that by choosing the stories behind well-known baked goods that are accessible to everyone would be a fun and engaging theme--especially for those who, like me, can read cookbooks as if they are novels!

3)  Do you have any book tour/book signing in California?  If yes, when and where?
I was in San Francisco last month, at Omnivore Books and Book Passage, respectively. Though it's not specifically a book event, I will be at the Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles this summer and will be selling books at the event.

4)  It looks like you travel quite a lot for your passion and work, is there one place in the world you desperately want to check out?  And why?
If I could make myself a traveling machine that transported me free of cost to anyplace, I'd choose Vienna--I think of it as a pastry Mecca.

5)  Do you think the doughnut trend will overtake the cupcake craze?
These things come in cycles. Yes, more doughnut shops are opening and it makes for good press and a new "it" baked good (fried good?) but really it amounts to the same thing: sugar is tasty and we want it. Same thing, different delivery method. But am I eating more doughnuts as of late? Heck yes.

6)  Do you have new projects coming up?
I am working on a pitch for my third book right now!

7)  Do you have any artists (could be a chef, pastry chef, writer, illustionist, fashion designer, etc) you want to pair up with to create something amazing?
If I could conjure up a dream team of people to work with RIGHT THIS INSTANT, it would be: Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, They Might Be Giants, Stanley Tucci, and  Dorie Greenspan. Why Stanley Tucci? Why not?

8)  Any new sweet artworks you would like to share with us?
Did you know that I did all of the illustrations in my new book? It's rather a different style for me and I'm quite proud! Here are some examples in my book:

Food is fake, but art is real.

Peter Anton (born 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American artist and sculptor. His primary subject matter is food with an emphasis on chocolates and other sweets. He creates giant realistic sculptures and is best known for his "bigger than life" boxed chocolates.

Anton treats his food artworks very seriously.  His beginning process of creating his artworks is to eat, smell, feel, study and dissect a new food over and over again in order to hyper-familiarize himself with the new subject. He then begins the long and tedious process of sculpting, carving, sanding, painting, and construction of his mixed media works.

I am sure his artworks could certainly fool you when you first look at it.  Even just looking at the pictures, I really want to lick the box of donuts or touch the giant ice cream.  However, his artworks has bigger meanings than just being looking real. Anton emphasizes:

In my sculptures I like to alter and overstate foods to give them new meanings. I have an innate reverence for the things we eat. Food brings people together and there is no better way to celebrate life. Through the use of humor, scale, irony, and intensity in my forms, the foods we take for granted become aesthetically pleasing and seductive in atypical ways. I like to create art that can lure, charm, tease, disarm and surprise. My sculptures put viewers in a vulnerable state so that I can communicate with their inner selves in a more honest and direct way. I activate the hunger people have for the things that give them pleasure and force them to surrender. The sensual nature of the works stimulates basic human needs and desires that generate cravings and passion. 

Duanwu Festival (aka Dragon Boat Festival)

Finally finally finally, the Memorial weekend will be here this weekend!  I am of course beyond excited to have some time off to rest and most importantly to celebrate me and my husband's 3th wedding anniversary.  One of my favorite Chinese holidays is also fall in May too.  Today, I am going to introduce this holiday to you and also the food/dessert we usually have for this special occassion.

Duanwu Festival, also known as Dragon Boat Festival and the Double Fifth, is a traditional and statutory holiday originating in China and associated with a number of East Asian and Southeast Asian societies. In Mandarin, it is known by the name Duānwǔ Jié; in Hong Kong and Macau, by the Cantonese name Tuen Ng Festival; in Hokkien-speaking areas, by the names Gō͘-go̍eh-cheh/Gō͘-ge̍h-choeh (五月節) and Gō͘-ji̍t-cheh/Gō͘-ji̍t-choeh (五日節). In 2008, it was recognised as a public holiday in mainland China for the first time since the 1940s. The festival has also long been celebrated in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. Equivalent and related festivals in Asia include the Kodomo no hi in Japan, Dano in Korea, and Tết Đoan Ngọ in Vietnam.
The festival occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar on which the Chinese calendar is based. This is the source of the alternative name of Double Fifth. In 2011, this fell on June 6. The focus of the celebrations includes eating the rice dumpling zongzi (Chinese: 粽子; pinyin: zòngzi), drinking realgar wine xionghuangjiu (Chinese: 雄黃酒; pinyin: Xiónghuángjiǔ), and racing dragon boats.

(Source from Wikipedia)

The typical Zongzi -
the savory one on left (the white one) and the sweet one of  right (the yellow one)

OK, enough history, let's talk about food.  Chinese tamales, aka Zongzi are the "official" food for celebrating this holiday.  My grandmother used to make her own back to the days when she was young.  There are savory and sweet tamales - the savory Zongzi usually contains Chinese preserved meat, dried scallope, dried mushroom and meat (usually pork) (pan fried with soy sauce before wrapping).  The sweet one usually made with red bean and dip in white sugar or syrup.  My grandmom only made the savory one at home because the sweet one would take her ever more hours to prepare.  The sweet one also known as alkaline water (kee-chang) tamaples.  Why?  Because there are only two ingredients are used for making this tamale. Glutinous rice and alkaline water. If you want your dumpling to be smooth and springy, you need to be willing to live dangerously for one day a year and add a pinch of borac acid (also called “peng seh“).  I have been living in the states for closed to 12 years; unfortunately, I have never seen this tamale sold at any restaurant or store yet.  I wonder if it is because the borac acid is banned to use in food here.  Anyway, if you are lucky enough to find all the ingrients and would like to make your own, here is the recipe I found online.

Guess what, Starbucks in China just came out a set of Zongzi as their seasonal item this May (see pictures above).  They are a kind of fusion Zonzi mixed with western ingridents and Chinese concept.  Very creative and very pretty dessert, Bravo Starbucks!

(All pictures were found from Google Image)

Sweet "Supplies"!

I made these cute sweet treats bookmarks
for all my lovely cousins last Christmas

I love baking; I also love crafting and art too.  Last year, I made these very cute sweet treats bookmarks for all my lovely cousins as Christmas's gift.  I know it's nothing expensive, but I crafted each of them from my heart with my two hands. Besides my cupcake business, I also made matching party supplies and paper crafts for engagement and wedding pictures.  Here are few projects I did last few months:

 This sign is great for engagement and wedding pictures

 Helped my friend to cut the letters to a birthday's banner for her son.

This powerful couple will make your engagement pictures and wedding pictures extra cute and sweet.

A one-year-old baby doesn't know how to tell you she is one yet! 

But a sign could=p This sign is great for baby's invitation or thank you card.

If you need any party supplies, please let me know.  I sell them on my Etsy Shop.



My Pet Peeves

I love cupcakes, either the ones I made or the ones made by other bakeries.  However, I do have my pet peeves about eating cupcakes though.  And I would love to share what they are here:

1)  Overly sweet frosting - Need I explain more?!
2)  Too much frosting - I know a lot of bakeries charge close to $4-5 for a piece of this sweet treat.  In order to make their customer to think they spent their money wisely, they just pipe the frosting as tall as they could to make the cupcake looks bigger.  Balance is the key, OK?!
3)  Cupcake got burn on the bottom of the "cupcake top" - and this is one of the main one among all 3.  A lot of bakeries they over pour the batter into the pan.  When the cupcakes baked in the oven, they rise and the "cupcake top" (you know what muffin top is, cupcake top is the same thing) got burnt a little on the side and the bottom.  You might not notice and question what I am talking about, check the pictures below and you will get what I mean (PS. I didn't make the cupcake in the picture=p).

Cupcake top...

...got burnt

Happy Birthday, Kayson!

Over the weekend, I made some cupcake pops for my best friend, Ashley's son. I planned to make him little something for his birthday for a while.  I know he likes candies and everything sweet. Ashley told me that every time he went to Starbucks with her, he was telling her how much he wanted the cake pop from the Starbucks.  Based on these two clues, cupcake pops and a jar fulled of Easter's M&Ms will make his birthday even sweeter.

I am glad to see his smil-y face when he received the gift. Even better, I got to see him ate them and enjoyed them; that's priceless.  He is one of the coolest kids I ever met.  He is so beautiful inside and out, I wish he would never change.  Happy birthday to you again, Kayson; Carmen and Chris (he kept asking me where my "boyfriend" [aka my husband] is) love you!

PS.  If you want to send something sweet and special to someone you love, contact us today.  We could craft and design some beautiful cupcake pops or cake pops/balls for you and the one you love=)

Baklava Recipe

Due to my background of growing up in a multi-cultural town and the love of traveling, I always enjoy trying out recipes of different countries and/or regions.  In the process of preparing the dishes or deserts makes me understand more about the culture of each country.  Beside traveling, making food is a great way to learn more about other countries. 

My parents started taking us to travel when I was just a little kid.  We have been so many wonderful places (Greece, Turkey, Egypt, England, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Portugal, France, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, portion of Mainland China, and America [of course], etc) throughout the whole world.  I feel so lucky that I got to see so many different things (good and bad) in such a young age; it surely opened up my mind and sights to think outside the box and learnt the best from other countries. 

Just a few weeks ago, I had an itch of trying to make a famous and popular Mediterranean dessert - Balkava at home.  Believe it or not, this dessert is so easy to make and is additively delicious.

Recipe (adopted from All Recipe.com)

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough (from the frozen section of the gocery store)
• 1 pound chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds or pistachios)
• 1 cup butter (melted)/PAM
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.

2.  Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan.  I used my new Ninja blender/juicer/food processor.  I will tell you more about how much I love about my Ninja blender later.  It is a great piece of tool to add to your kitchen=)

3.  Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets deep.

4.  Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You may cut into 4 long rows the make diagonal cuts. Bake for about 50 minutes until baklava is golden and crisp.  (The blodded and colored note is very important!  Once you baked it, they are very hard to cut.  So DO remember to cut it before putting it in the oven.)

5.  Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

6.  Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool.

Pulling it out from the oven when they are golden brown.

Pour your honey sauce on it immediately

Serve in cupcake papers.  This freezes well.
 Leave it uncovered because it will get soggy if is wrapped up.





Have a "Sweet" Chinese New Year

First of all, Happy Chinese New Year!  I wish everyone will have a great "dragon" year.

Chinese New Year Eve family dinner
from my friend's picture on facebook

My highschool's frined New Year Eve's dinner
with her in-laws

My friend's back home was having
some great food with her family on New Year Eve.

As many of you know that Chinese like to eat to celebrate major festivals.   Most of the dishes we made for the new year celebration symbolize good fortune and good health.  Chinese like playing with words and symbols.  Often homonyms (words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings and characters) are used.  Names of dishes and/or their ingredients, which will be served sound similar to words and phrases referring to wishes expressed during the Chinese New Year, while other foods hold a symbolic meaning (source from One World - National Online). 

Different styles and prints of red pockets/red envelopes
(Picture from Google.com)

"Full Box"
(Picture from Google.com)

As a kid, Chinese New Year was fun because the parents usually have the first 3 days off (official paid holidays) and the family visit different relative's house during the first 2 days of the new year (in Chinese tradition, each family should prepare a full box of different goodies (we call this box "Full Box" meaning full in every aspect the upcoming year) to welcome their guests.  They could be candies, roasted seeds, sugar covered lotus seeds or lotus wheels, etc.) and on the top of eating, the kids or people who are single receive "red pocket/red envelope" from elders and/or married couples. 

My grand mom got up very early (about 4-5am) the first day of the new year.  She got up early to prepare the dough for making sesame seed balls (Zeen Doy) and Chinese sweet empanadas (both usually filled with sesame paste or redbean paste).  My sister and I helped my grand mom to roll the dough and stuff the filling inside the sesame seed balls or the sweet empandas.  It's so fun to watch my grand mom putting the balls and the empanadas in a big hot wok to deep frying these goodies. 
 

Cantonese style nian gao
(Picture from Wikipedia)

 Another very common sweet item we eat during Chinese New Year is nian gao ("nian gao" is a homonym for "higher year." The Chinese word 粘 (nián), meaning "sticky", is identical in sound to 年, meaning "year", and the word 糕 (gāo), meaning "cake" is identical in sound to 高, meaning "high".).  Nian gao is prepared from glutinous rice.  Different regions in China have their own version of nian gao.  Since I was born and raised in Macau, and we got influenced by the southern portion of China, I am more familar with the version of nian gao served in Canton.  Below is the information I found from Wikipedia:
The Cantonese nian gao is usually sweetened with brown sugar. It is distinct with a dark yellow color. The paste is poured into a cake pan and steamed once more to settle mixture. The batter is steamed until it solidifies and served in thick slices. It may be eaten as is. The nian gao becomes stretchy and extremely sticky. It can also be served as a pudding flavored with rosewater or red bean paste.

Pan-fried nian gao
(Picture from Wikipedia)

The next stage is optional as it can be pan-fried afterwards,often with egg, to make (煎年糕, jyutping: zin1 nin4 gou1; pinyin: jiān nián gāo). When fried it is slightly crispy on the outside, and remains pasty on the inside. During Chinese New Year, it is cut into square pieces and served along with similar cake dim sum dishes like taro cake and water chestnut cake.

You are so "charm"ing~

We went to the outlet mall in Las Vegas last week during our vacation.  I saw couple very cute cupcake charms for the Juicy Couture bracelet at the Juicy Couture outlet store.  I was so tempted to buy one of them (the cupcake in the oven one), but I fingured if I bought the charm, I also needed to buy the bracelet and other charms too.  And it all added up pretty pricy.  So end up, I didn't buy it, but I would like to share the pictures I found online with everyone here.