(Taken by Market Hall in Rockridge)
And for dinner tonight, we cooked up a San Francisco favorite… cioppino! I can never say no to seafood! 😀
Kitchen Concoctions
Straight from Dan and Misono’s kitchen.
Macarons!
I am a huge fan of macarons, and haven’t been able to get enough of them in the past few months! It’s been said that the macaron is the new cupcake, now that the cupcake craze is dying down (even I had started getting a little tired of cupcakes, despite how much I love baking and eating them!) — and I admittedly have caught macaron fever. These delicate French confections are both eye-catching as well as palate-pleasing, and biting into one of those little sandwich cookies transports me to cloud nine! I love the light-as-air shells that yield to the generous dab of ganache — smooth, rich, and creamy — perfectly complimenting each other.
The thing about macarons, though, is that they’re pretty expensive to buy in bakeries (I’ve seen them go for $2-3 each or more), but they are also finicky little devils that are really difficult to make yourself! I asked my friend Stephanie (who is a seasoned macaron-making expert) for some tips before my first attempt at making macarons, and she warned me not to get discouraged the first few times because she says it literally takes most people 4-5 times to get a decent-looking batch! Truth be told, my first few attempts were complete botches — there was always something wrong with them, whether it was a cracked or splotchy surface, lack of pieds (feet), or being flat and sticking to the baking sheet. I grew more and more disheartened with each try and put off making macarons for a while.
I decided to rise to the challenge once again this past weekend, though, especially since my friend Tarrin had bought me a lovely macaron-making book for my birthday! I followed the general directions in the book and tweaked the recipe a little to add my own flavoring, to create these almond vanilla macarons with matcha buttercream filling! I’d say this is definitely my best batch yet — the surface is smooth, domed, and glossy, the feet formed well, and they have that airy crunch that I’d been longing to recreate. I’m feeling a little more confident now, and hope to try out more variations of colors and flavors! Oh capricious macaron, I have finally tamed thee!
Happy Birthday Dandroid!
Today is Dan’s 29th birthday, so show him some birthday love! I didn’t have to work yesterday, so when Dan came home from work, I surprised him with a German chocolate cake I had decorated with a birthday message I knew he’d love! For those of you who don’t know, Dan is a huge fan of the Android OS, and we’re usually a house divided because I’m a big fan and user of the iOS/Mac operating system, while Dan is all about supporting Android. For his birthday, though, I decided to set aside my loyalty to Apple for a day and decorate Dan’s birthday cake with the Android mascot and the pun-ny birthday message, “Happy Birthday Dandroid.” As I expected, Dan loved it — I caught his reaction on video, too!
Happy birthday, Dan! Thank you for being the best husband and father in the world to Mio and I, and for everything you do! Looking forward to all the new memories we’ll make together in the coming year, and beyond. 🙂
Holiday Gingerbread
I have been a longtime fan of the seasonal holiday gingerbread that Starbucks pulls out every year during this time. It’s a ginger flavored quick bread topped with cream cheese frosting and candied orange peel. I get seduced by it every time I go to Starbucks, but this year I decided to try recreating its heavenly goodness at home, as ordering it at Starbucks every time a craving strikes can get pretty darn expensive! A quick search online turned up this recipe, which is the one I used to make this gingerbread.
Here is the result…
The loaf came out pretty good, although it was definitely more dry than the original Starbucks version that I was trying to replicate. I’m a lover of anything topped with cream cheese frosting, though, so I had no qualms with gobbling it up!
Totoro Sugar Cookies
For the baby shower we threw for our friends Megumi and John last week, I tried my hand at making sugar cookies with royal icing for the first time! Because Megumi loved the film Totoro, I made Totoro cookies! It involved some research and preparation ahead of time, but it was a fun process and I wanted to make sure I document it!
A few people asked me how I was able to create the shape of Totoro, since it’s such a unique shape and it’s not like they sell Totoro-shaped cookie cutters just anywhere. This was the first major hurdle I encountered, but upon doing a quick search on Google, I found this awesome tutorial on how to create a custom shape cookie cutter — a Totoro one, no less! We grabbed a regular circle cookie cutter, and Dan shaped it into a Totoro shape for me with his tools. (I’m lucky to have a hubby who is very handy with tools and is always willing to readily lend a helping hand in all my crazy projects!)
Once the cookie cutter was made, I made the dough for the sugar cookies (supplied by my aforementioned sugar cookie expert friend Megumi!) and cut the shapes out, and popped them in the oven to bake. I literally squealed with delight at how well they came out when they were done baking!
While the cookies were baking, I made the royal icing and colored it using icing colors to get a bright shade of blue. (I considered making a blusih gray, but found it too hard, and thought the bright blue was more cheery.) Relying on Megumi’s tips on using the flooding technique for royal icing, I piped and flooded the icing onto the cookies, making sure to leave the stomach area un-iced, since I’d be filling that portion in with white icing later. After this first round of icing, I let them sit out to dry for 24 hours.
I also iced a bunch of baby-themed cookies: onesies and baby carriages, in pink and white!
The following evening, I filled in the tummy of the Totoros with white icing, and iced on the eyes, nose, and the blue markings on the chest. I also decorated the details on the onesies and baby carriages.
I’d definitely like to try making these again, as I’m sure they’d be a hit with kids! I’m also looking forward to trying other unique shapes and testing out new ideas for sugar cookies with royal icing in the future. Although it’s a multi-day process and decorating can be tedious, I love that there are endless possibilities in what you can create. I’m definitely hooked! 😀
