Cupcake Experimentation: Horchata

Sometimes working with a box cake mix can lead to great things. Examples: cake cookies (yes I've seen it), cupcake bites, and even Horchata cupcakes! I recently bought horchata mix from the mexican market near my house but I've also bought it from Whole Foods, which is probably easier to find for most people. It just a powdered mix that you can add to water or milk to make a quick cup of Horchata. Anyway, it inspired me to make these cupcakes but I didn't want to whip up a whole batch of homemade cupcakes on an experiment, so I used a cake mix as a base and added things to it. I'm not going to provide the recipe because they still aren't perfected to a tee yet, but I will provide descriptions as to what I did to give them their flavor.

Horchata Cupakes: For these cupcakes, I used started off with a white cake batter and mixed in the horchata mix powder, extra cinnamon and some ground almonds (to add texture and because almonds are traditionally served in horchata). I topped the cake with cinnamon whipped cream, clear sprinkles, and extra cinnamon. 

The verdict?

Horchata: B -

The cake turned out a little dry for my taste. It wasn't parched per say, but I just love, love, love super moist cakes. I think this was due to the almond meal. I did love the texture that the almond meal added but next time I should add less flour if I plan on adding meal. The cinnamon flavor was definitely present but horchata flavor itself was not. Maybe I should try actually using real horchata like chockylit did here.

FFF (Friday Flickr Favorites)

Oh, pretty, pretty Tartlette: the queen of beautiful food and beautiful photography. I always wonder how she does it... hopefully it won't remain a mystery for too long!

You can check out the rest of my favorites here.

The Easiest Vanilla Custard EVER + Fruit Tart

For Easter, my sister, my mom and I decided to make a fruit tart for the family. Usually my small family is always in charge of the larger family get-togethers. Our family is ridiculously enormous; I have two aunts, five uncles, plus ALL of their kids (and there are a lot, trust me)... and that's just my mother's side of the family! But I wouldn't have it any other way, I love being surrounded by aunts and uncles that treat me like their own and joke around with me about random things. Our family is so tight knit that we try and see each other every Sunday of the week. Can you believe that? A huge family gathering once a week? Most families I know only meet once a year! I love my family more than anything in this world.

Anyway, my mom makes the lunch while my sister and I make the dessert. Fruit tart. It's a classic dessert that we, Vietnamese eat on special occasions such as birthdays and such. We decided to take a stab at it and it turned out pretty well! The pastry didn't crisp up as much as we would have liked but fresh fruit is always delicious and pairing it with a light cream didn't hurt either. It was definitely beautiful, at the very least! 

An assortment of fruit, prepped and ready to be arranged:

Glazing the fruit tart:

Fruit Tart with French Vanilla Custard

Yields: Enough for a crowd

Recipe slightly adapted from here. 

Printable Recipe

1 package of puff pastry, thawed

1 - 2 tbsn. sugar

2 large boxes of french vanilla pudding

2 1/2 cups of whole milk ONLY, no substitutions!

1 1/2 cup of heavy cream

4 kiwi, peeled and sliced

2 mango, peeled and sliced

1 package of strawberries, washed and hulled

1 package of blueberries, washed

1 can of longan or lychee, drained

1 can of mandarin oranges, drained

1/4 cup apricot jelly

Remove the puff pastry from the package and lay out. Brush water on the edges of the pastry and fold each side 1/2 an inch forward to create sort of a crust. Brush the "crust" with a little more water and sprinkle with sugar. Use a fork to dock holes into the bottom to allow the steam to pass while baking. Bake according to the directions on the package and let it cool completely before assembling the tart. For the custard, mix the 2 packages of pudding, the milk and heavy cream together until it begins to thicken, about 8 - 10 minutes. Let refrigerate for about 10 - 15 minutes. Spread this mixture on the puff pastry and then top with the fruit. Bring the jelly to a boil in a small sauce pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. After it is completely melted use a pastry brush to dab it over all of the fruit. If it gets too thick to spread again, add 1 tbsn. of water and re-boil. Enjoy!

We made my dad a small chocolate custard fruit tart because he's picky! I just melted about 2 tsp. of chocolate and whisked it into about 1/2 cup of the vanilla custard. Easy as that, and tasty too!

Tailored Tuesdays

Hello gorgeous!

1. Moschino "Bow neck trench"

2. Stella Mccartney "Sequin tank dress"

3. Miu Miu "Python shoulder bag"

4. Giuseppe Zanotti "Gladiator platform sandals"

5. Alex Monroe "Twisted twig hoop earrings"

all images can be found at net-a-porter.com

Easter Lunch

What did you eat for Easter? Well, this is what we ate: spring rolls. We had little burners all throughout our long tables and filled them with thin cut beef, sliced onions, squid, and shrimp. Then we took our moist rice paper and filled them with the mixture, fresh mint, lettuce, and rice noodles. And to top it off, dipped them in some fresh Vietnamese pineapple sauce. I love my sauce with a little hot sauce (Siracha), yummy! Oh yeah... and my grandma made her famous egg rolls too! These are a must at all of our family get-togethers.

For dessert, my mom made this absolutely DEEEEE-licious "tat" or jello. The night before, she opened up 9 whole coconuts and took their juice, mixed it with sugar and this special gelatin that she bought from Vietnam from her recent trip. Then on the top she added a layer of fresh coconut mixed in with coconut milk! The jello was soft and super jiggly, unlike most traditional "tat" which is more firm and hard. I could just imagine eating this every day for the rest of my life! So fresh and perfect on a hot day. My mom has already asked her friend to express ship more of this special gelatin to us ASAP!

Wat Thai New Years Festival {Los Angeles, CA}

The Wat Thai New Years Festival is an awesome place to get your hands on some authentic Thai food, if not the best! Be sure to go here if you are around the area. My favorite is the beef salad, tangy, fresh and delicious!
The best thing about this festival though, has to, has to be the sticky rice with mango. It's one of my all time favorite desserts, but here, it's especially good. One, because it's authentic, from Thai ladies themselves, and two, because it's fresh! You can see the ladies cutting the mango right in front of you and the rice is just perfect, sweet but not overly so.

Yelp

Choux Pastry/ Cream Puffs

For Easter, me and my sister decided to make something different than our usual chocolate chunk and banana bread pudding. Although it's totally delicious and our family always begs for it, we felt like making a new tradition. Finally, after much recipe searching, we decided on a simple fruit tart with vanilla custard. Using the leftover custard from the tart, I decided to make cream puffs too. They are incredibly simple, way more simple than I ever could have imagined. Making them happens very quickly so you have to prepare yourself for some quick movements and have everything mise en place (or "put in place").

Fresh vanilla cream ready to be filled into lovely cream puffs:

For some reason my cream puffs came out kind of flattened, but I realized that I read somewhere in some recipe that you should prick the cream puffs in the middle of their baking time to allow steam to escape. Oops... no matter how flat they turned to be, they were still incredibly delicious!

Choux Pastry/ Cream Puffs

Yields: about 16 - 18 large puffs

Original recipe from Closet Cooking, which can be found here.

Printable Recipe

For the pastry:

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 cup water

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

1/4 tsp. sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup all purpose flour

5 large eggs, room temperature

For the vanilla custard:

2 large boxes of french vanilla pudding

2 1/2 cups of whole milk ONLY, no substitutions!

1 1/2 cup of heavy cream

Fresh out of the oven:

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to a rolling boil in a large pot. Reduce the heat to medium and mix in the flour, stirring constantly with a spoon until the dough starts to come together. Continue stirring the dough in the pan for another 2 - 3 minutes. The dough should be smooth and soft now. Pour the dough into a bowl and begin to add the eggs, one at a time. At first, the dough will begin to separate but as you keep mixing it should come back together. Immediately shape/ pipe the dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets and bake for about 5 - 7 minutes (depending on you oven, mine tends to over bake). Then, quickly use a toothpick to prick each cream puff to allow the steam to escape. Next,  slip the handle of a wooden spoon between the oven and its door to keep the door ajar and bake for another 5 - 7 minutes. Next, rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back then continue baking for another 6 - 8 minutes until they are puffed, golden, and firm. Let them cool completely before filling them. For the custard, whip everything together until pudding has become thick, about 8 - 10 minutes.

NOTES:

* Once you pipe the dough it can be frozen for later use. Just pipe the dough and slide the baking sheet into a freezer. Once frozen, you can re-pack them into freezer bags. They can be kept in a freezer for up to a month. They will be baked in the same way, just add a couple more minutes to the baking time. 

* Cooked choux pastry (unfilled) can keep in an air tight container for 3 days and can be frozen for up to three weeks

FFF (Friday Flickr Favorites)

I guess it's a pink friday today. I adore the picture below, its my favoritist of the favorites!

"The happy cupcake face" by Right Moon

You can check out the rest of my favorites here.

Goodbye Cupcake Bites!

One of my favorite co-workers is leaving me for greener pastures... and I am sad, really sad actually. Whenever you see my page filled with new cupcakes and baked goods, it's usually because I am making them for Kayla. You see, I don't actually eat anything I make/ bake. Of course I nibble along the way because I have to make sure they taste good but I don't actually make them for the purpose of me eating them. Everything I make is usually for other people, and it's what I love to do. Kayla LOVES eating what I bake, and I LOVE to bake for her. A symbiotic relationship at it's best. 

A cross-section of a cupcake bite: creamy, chocolate-y, delicious!

Chocolate Cupcake Bites

Yields: about 40+

Recipe/ idea can be found here.

Printable Recipe

1 box of devil's food cake

1 tub of cream cheese frosting

candy melts (color is your choice)

Bake cake according to the directions on the box. Once completely cool, use a fork to break up the cake into tiny crumbs. Add 3/4 of the frosting and mix well. If you want the bites to be more moist, add the rest of the frosting. I found that 3/4 was sufficiently moist for me. Next, use your hands to fashion appropriately sized balls for your mold.

There are two methods in which you can cover your cupcake bites. You can use candy molds (which can be found at Michael's) or you can use a mini cupcake pan lined with mini cupcake liners. For both methods, spread melted chocolate on the bottom and edges of the mold, then immediately drop an appropriately sized ball of cake. Stick in the freezer until the chocolate has hardened, about 5 - 10 minutes. Next, remove the molded chocolate from either the candy mold or from the cupcakes liners. Dip the tops into another color of candy molds, sprinkle with sprinkles/ jimmies/ whatever and then wait for them to harden once again. And you are done! Enjoy!

The invisible bowl of cake crumbs and cream cheese frosting:

A sea of rolled cake balls:

For some reason this did not work! When I made my dark chocolate peanut butter cups the chocolates came out so easily, they just popped! But I couldn't even pry these out and I ended up chipping the tray so I gave up.

My solution? I spread the melted chocolate onto mini cupcake liners and set them in their mini cupcake pans, plopped a cake ball in and let them harden in the freezer. They ended up being bigger than Bakerella's bites but they were semi-easier to extract. Once they hardened I just peeled off the liners, and they were set. 

I dipped them in both pink and blue melted candy melts and then topped them with sprinkles galore! 

I made little labels with goodbye messages for Kayla. CUTE!

Tailored Tuesdays

Tips to wearing boyfriend jeans successfully:

a. Wear heels to lengthen your legs, if you can handle them, which I definitely cannot.

b. Add feminine pieces to counteract the boyish part.

c. Be extra careful in wearing them if you are short!

d. Do not double duty on bagginess, i.e. wearing a blousy top or oversize items.

An example of such above:

1. Fendi "Ruffle front top"

2. Current/ Elliot "The boyfriend jean"

3. Lanvin "Satin platform sandals"

4. Roberto Cavalli "Large stone ring"

5. Christian Louboutin "Maykimay strass clutch"

all images can be found at net-a-porter.com