Never in my life had i so much trouble making cookies !! Seriously .. these little suckers are pretty , but they’re among the hardest cookies i ever had to make !! I remember the first time i made them was about a year ago , and that too took several attempts to get it right . I never had them ,  i never made them , they’re not so popular among the Midwest i guess .. unless you live in the city .. i know for sure the bakeries around the suburb don’t sell these kind of cookies LOL So since yesterday i’ve been struggling with these cookies .…

Never had a peach cobbler before , and lately i’ve been buying lots of peaches . I grilled them and it was delicious , last night i asked my husband if we should grill the peaches or try to make peach cobbler . He never had one either .. so he said why not trying something new . I did .. it was super easy and turned out to be delicious .. rich dessert .. and i happened to have french vanilla ice cream on hand . I made the ice cream the day before .. so it was perfect !!! Unfortunately the picture doesn’t do any justice .. and…

Yummy grilled peaches , so easy and delicious . I think it tastes really great even without the cream , but then again i am not a cream cheese person . 2 ripe peaches 2 tsp. canola oil 1 tbsp. of honey 4 oz cream cheese 1 tsp. lavender / rosemary 1 tsp. lemon juice Toss the peaches with honey and oil , heat up the grill to medium hot , and grill the peaches . Mix the cream ingredients and refrigerate for an hour . Once done grilling , refrigerate the peaches for an hour  , and add the cream . Decorate with fresh mints .

When i used to live in Indonesia , we had this street vendor selling bakpao , or , steamed buns , that has so many different fillings , such as pork , chicken , or red beans or yellow beans . My favourite was always the yellow beans . Few days ago i learned to make the fillings for chinese pastry , or kue pia . And it reminds me of home .. and so , i thought last night .. why not trying it for the steamed buns . Although this is using lima beans .. it still tastes delicious , i am sure we can always use the…

I’ve used this recipe few times , and i think it’s one of the best cheesecake recipe out there . I never failed making this , even the very first time making it few years ago . So , couple of nights ago , i was looking for something to do , it was a busy day but , for some reason i just wanted to keep going and going .. yes , it’s like that energizer bunny .. LOL . Originally i was going to make Chocolate Babka .. but then my son said , why not cheesecake . I thought .. sure , why not cheesecake ?? Got…

I have 3 overripe bananas , nobody likes eating overripe bananas . I hate to throw them away , i ended up making banana bread . Banana bread is one of those things that is super easy to make , basically you have all ingredients on hand . I usually make the banana bread the healthy way , no sour cream , nor buttermilk , no butter , just vegetable oil and other normal ingredients for banana bread . But this time , i used butter , and well .. there is one good thing in the ingredients , the greek yogurt . Result was amazingly light banana bread and…

Ever since the farmer market opened this year , last april , i’ve been buying plantains a lot ! This time , i tried grilling it , since the weather is warming up , and instead of baking it like i did the past few times , i decided to have it grilled . Everybody said that frying it is good but trying to avoid more fatty stuff , we thought grilling is the best . Not only it’s healthier but it’s also brings out the best taste in it . Although this recipe below is not quite the healthiest choice , but if i had to eat it plain…

Opera cake is a french cake , and i should have left the french cake baking to the french . I just slaughtered the cake .. LOL , anyway , it took about 3.5 hours to make this cake , to think that it’s only 10 minutes of baking .. it’s kinda ridiculous , isn’t it ? Although , you can always make them days ahead , there are few steps that can be made ahead . The coffee syrup , and the coffee buttercream can always be made a day ahead . That would save your time tremendously . I would leave the ganache and the sponge cake on…

I was wondering when i found this recipe in my Bon Appetit book , i bought this book few months ago , it has tons of recipes , from cakes , cookies , ice cream to pies . I’ve tried some of their recipes and they’re delicious . One day i ran across this recipe when i was browsing through it , and i thought what the heck is hot milk cake ?? Why do they called hot milk cake ? Well for a good reason , it literally uses hot milk , and the hot milk is poured into the batter . Now come to think of it ,…

Tonight we tried a new recipe from Ben and Jerry ice cream book that i bought the other day . Instead of choosing ice cream , i decided let’s just try making sorbet , we bought lots of strawberries earlier anyway from the grocery store , why not putting them to a good use . The recipe only calls for half a pound , not much at all , but it makes about 1 quart of sorbet . Sorbet is made from fresh fruits , sugar and water , no milk and no heavy cream involved . But i guess if it’s Americanize sorbet , it would be involving milk…

Over the weekend i ordered ice cream maker, it’s Cuisinart newest model , forgot exactly what was the series number . But i remember over the christmas , William Sonoma had a christmas sale for that ice cream maker , the price was pretty good , almost like 50% off or something . But i didn’t get it on time , i didn’t get to read the email on time , so it was too late to order it . So , last week i decided to look this up , and i ended up buying myself an ice cream maker . The package arrived yesterday and i washed the…

I made this quick and easy dessert over lunch today . I just wanted to use the shortcake that i bought from the store few days ago , since it’s been sitting there without anybody eating it . I’ve made the custard the other day , was going to use it for eclairs , but i think i’ve been making too much stuff lately for our little family . One can only eat so much , right ? So , everybody can make this , i use the pretty glass for this , just pull apart the shortcake or even angel food cake from store would work just fine ,…

One of my favorite cake of all time . When i was younger , my mom used to bake this cake a lot . The smell of the butter being baked in the oven was so good . To bring back memories , i had asked my sister the recipe for this cake , since i believe she was the one who gave my mother the recipe . ( She went to culinary school ) So , this afternoon , i decided to make butter cake , this cake is so easy to make , yet , they’re so moist and rich . Most of you have the ingredients that…

This st.patrick’s day cake is so easy to make . I’ve modified them , by using a cake mix . According to all the people who ate the cake , it’s very delicious and they wonder what the secret ingredients was , some asked if i added nutmeg , or hazelnut in there .. LOL . But my in laws had them , 2 slices each , then my husband had 2 slices too , and a friend of mine at the gym also had 2 slices , and everybody said it’s delicous . Yet , if they only knew , it was so easy to make .. everybody can…

  Made this birthday cake for our neighbour the other day . Originally i was going to make chocolate cake , but obviously i changed my mind at the last minute . Ended up with making strawberry cake , just 2 layers of strawberry cake , with dark chocolate icing in between , and then white chocolate whipped cream on the icing all over the cake . I have to say that i never worked on whipped cream icing , i usually just use french butter cream icing , or chocolate ganache icing . Doesn’t mean i never used whipped cream , i’ve used it for cakes few times ,…