Carrot Sun Flowers Sandwich Cookies {Sun Flower Petals Water Color video}

I apologize if the quality of the sun flower petals painting images are a little washed out. I am still learning on how to shoot a video. This is very new to me. From what I have seen I know that the light is shining to the object very brightly, that is why it washes the image slightly. I should close the curtain slightly or put a light bouncer next to my hand when painting.

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I brought these Sun Flowers from New Hampshire trip. I knew I wanted to cook desert with edible flowers. 

This time of the year  is the peak of summer  when  most edible flowers are not around any longer.

So these Sun Flowers are perfect to make cookies. I adapted the recipe from this book called 

"Cooking with Flowers"

The bitterness of sun flower petals is the perfect combination to  the sweet and spicy of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger taste of these cookies. The crushed pineapple adds sweet, moist and tangy flavor to these desert.

Just like original Carrot Cake; eating it with Sun Flower Petals Cream Cheese Frosting is even better.

:Recipe:

Carrot Sun Flowers Sandwich Cookies

~ 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

~ 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

~ 1/3 cup sugar

~ 1 egg plus 1 yok

~ 1 cup grated carrots

~ 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

~ 3/4 cup rolled oats

~ 1/2 cup sunflower petals

~ 1 teaspoon baking powder

~ 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

~ 1/4 teaspoon salt

~ 2 teaspoons cinnamon

~ 1 teaspoon ginger

~ 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

~ 1 can crushed pineapple, drained (optional)

~ 3/4 cup walnuts (optional)

~ 1/4 cup raisins (optional)

~ 2 cups sunflower frosting (recipe below)

1. Preheat oven to 350 deg. F Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In the bowl of a food processor, process melted butter and sugars for about 1 minute. Add egg and yolk and process again.

3. Place carrots in a bowl. Add flour, oats, sunflower petals, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Fold in butter mixture. Stir in optional mix0ins like pine apple, nuts, and raisins, if using. Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes.

4. Drop a tablespoonfuls of cookie dough 2 inches a part on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs clinging to it. Let cookies cool on baking sheets until they reach room temperature.

5. Drop a dollop of frosting on half the cookies. Sandwich with the unfrosted cookies.

Flower Frosting

~ 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

~ 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted plus more to taste

~ 2 tablespoons milk

~ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

~ 1/2 to 1 cup flower petals

Put all the ingredients in the bowl of a mixer. Beat slowly at first, to let the confectioners' sugar start to absorb, and then increase speed to medium high, beat for 3 to 4 minutes until no lumps remain. Taste and beat in more confectioners' sugar, if desired.

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Happy Baking!

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2 Tiered Naked Butter Rum Cake With Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Why is that my heart skip beats when I see those pictures of 'naked cakes' on Pinterest? {here}. I know! It is because like seeing a beautiful woman with natural beauty, flawless skin and just a lip gloss of a make up. Don't get me wrong; we women love seeing beautiful women, right? May be we just simply admiring her beauty steeling a glance from a distance.  Or maybe because this cake is a 'without trying so hard to look pretty' cake. Therefore this cake reminded me a lot to those women; no make up, no covered icing or fondant showing bare skin with effortless elegance and beauty.

I found that this cake is very easy to do and to decorate. It is a 'Butter Cake Mix' cake. The different is that I put a little bit of rum in it. And ohh....it is so delicious and just melt in your mouth when eating it with the fresh  fruits {strawberry, blueberry} and lemony cream cheese frosting.

You do not have to be extra careful to decorate either. Just put any kind of fruits and flowers; guarantee it will look beautiful. On this cake I particularly want to put tiny white flowers with berries on the cake. And I do not know what flower are those. The only thing is that when you want to put cream cheese frosting after you cut the cake in half; you might want to smear a lot more, much more! As you can see on the pictures, mine is not enough and therefore it does not show but a thin white line. You want it to be dripping a little bit on the side to make it even more delicious and inviting. Other than that I am very happy with the look and the taste of this cake.

::Recipe::

Butter Rum Cake With Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

~ 1 pkg Butter Cake Mix

~ 1 cup water

~ 1/3 cup melted butter

~ 3 eggs

{mix according the package's instruction}

~ 5 tbsp rum. I suggest put less first since you might not like the taste of a strong rum in the cake. Then you can always adding up if needed.

Mix rum into batter. Pour in baking pans. And bake at 350 deg  for about 30 to 39 minutes. (Depending the size of the pan). Let the cakes cool for about 1/2 an hour.
Note: If you are going to make 3 tiered cake then you need two packages of Butter Cake Mix. If it is like mine (these are small by the way) you need little less than one package. I used the whole package and discarded the remain of the batter.

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Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting.

~ 11 oz. cream cheese, softened

~ 2 cup powdered sugar {I put less sugar since I prefer less sweet of frosting}

~ 1/2 tsp vanilla

~ 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

~ 3 tbsp lemon juice

Using electric mixer; mix all ingredients for about 2 minutes.

Cut both cake in the middle horizontally and spread some of the cream cheese. And sandwich the cakes together. Spread more cream cheese on the very top and decorate with berries and flowers your choice. 

Happy Baking!

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Made From Pinterest

Moist chocolate Cake + Rose Custard

It was all started when my Indonesian Facebook friend who lives in France posted a picture of her Chocolate Cake with Custard.

I wanted to try it out so I asked her for the recipe. She immediately sent the recipe through Facebook. I had chocolate cake before and I also  had custard before but not together. I thought this would taste delicious  and need to try these together.

I wanted a very moist chocolate cake for this recipe. So I searched through Google and found this incredibly moist chocolate cake from Foodess. It looks  very easy and I was tempted to try it out. And for the custard; a 'rose' custard came into my mind. Why not! Let's try it with rose water. Rose and chocolate; sounds divine and decadent.

Let's see the delicious 'Moist Chocolate Cake with Rose Custard'.

And she was right! This cake is unbelievably moist. I never had cake this moist before. And the combination of strong chocolate and sweet rose is  melting slowly in your mouth with the soft sweet aroma of rose tickling your nose. I love this cake very much especially with rose custard! My husband Steven rejected anything chocolate lately because of his diet regimen but he could not resist this cake. He had 2 pieces already just this afternoon.

Recipe can be found on Foodess blog. But I am going to write it down for you below.

Moist Chocolate Cake

~ 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

~ 2 cups granulated white sugar

~ 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

~ 1-1/2 tsp baking soda

~ 3/4 tespoon salt

~ 2 large eggs

~ 1 cup buttermilk (or put white tbsp white vinegar and let it thick for about 5 minutes)

~ 1/2 cup butter, melted

~ 1 tbsp vanilla extract

~ 1 cup hot coffee (or 2 tsp instant coffee in 1 cup boiling water)

1. Preheat oven to 350 deg. Grease and flour two 9-inch baking pans (or line with parchment paper circles) and set a side. Note: I used only half recipe and used only one 7" round baking pan.

2. In a large bowl and using electric mixer; mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla extract and beat until smooth (about 3 minutes). Remove bowl from mixer and stir in hot coffee with a rubber spatula. Batter will be very runny.

3. Pour batter evenly between teh two pans and bake on middle rack of oven for about 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean with just a few moist crumbs attached.

4. Allow to cool 15 minutes in pans, then run a butter knife around the edges of each cake. Place a wire cooling rack over top of each pan. Wearing oven mitts, use both hands to hold the racks in place while flipping the cakes over onto the racks. Set the racks down and gently thump on the bottom of the pans until the cakes release. Cool complete before handling or frosting.

Rose Custard

 ~2 cups of milk

~ 2 tbsp cornstarch

~ 1/3 cup sugar

~2 eggs, lightly beaten

~1 teaspoon vanilla substitute for 3 tbsp rose water

~a pinch of salt

1. Have eggs ready in a bowl, and set aside where it will be within reach.

2. Using a whisk, combine milk, sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan over medium heat on stove top. Allow milk to scald (heat to the point when tiny bubbles form around edges of pan). Whisk occasionally to prevent cornstarch from clumping on bottom edges of pan.

3. Remove milk mixture from heat, preferably to a burner that's turned off.

4. Mix about 2 tablespoons of scalded milk mixture into eggs using whisk, then introduce eggs into milk mixture in a slow stream, whisking milk mixture constantly. Add salt.

5. Immediately return pan to heat and whisk gently until custard thickens, another two or three minutes. Do not allow to boil. (If you find that you have egg white strands in custard, feel free to pass it through a fine mesh sieve into a different bowl now.)

6. Remove pan from heat and let it cool for about 10 to 15 minutes then drop in 3 tbsp of rose water; stir.

~~~oo00oo~~~

Happy Baking!

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Lavender & Ginger Macarons

My apology if I, once more time post macarons today. A few days a go I baked these cookies 3 days in a row. All together I baked 6 batches of macarons. As mentioned before {here} I failed baking these macarons last winter so these time I really enjoyed making them as they came out looking pretty. And I want so badly to give some of these macarons to Dr. Chang (Artery Specialist) and his staff. So here they are.

My husband 'Steven' loves the chocolate and the coffee flavored macarons very much. He begged me to get rid off these macarons as fast because he can't help himself to have these macarons every night knowing that they there. So tomorrow I must bring them over to Dr. Chang's office, before they are gone. I hope they will like them. Also I know a lady who loves these macarons very much so I am going to drop by at her house to give some to her as well.

Do you see  the soft interior with chocolate ganache filling and the crunchy skin?   I admit although they are delicious it is one of those things that you can only eat 2 at a time {may be 3}and you will not want to eat it again for a few days. Good thing is that it is good to freeze in a freezer for up to about 2 weeks. It tastes better as you freeze them but before eating you must leave them out in a room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes. Hhhmmm.....it tastes heavenly so good. 

Some people a little intimidated on making these macarons. The truth is they are very easy to make. I failed miserably 7 times before I got a perfect macaron first time I tried.

::Recipe::

Lavender Macarons

Recipe (here) except put 2 tsp crushed lavender flowers on the meringue and a drop or two of violet food coloring.

Ginger Macarons

Recipe (here) except put 1-1/4 tsp ginger powder on the meringue.

 

Chocolate Ganache filling.

 ~ 5 oz. bittersweet baking chocolate chips

~ 1/4 cup milk 

~ 1/4 tbsp. butter

 Steam all ingredients together in a heat proof dish  until chocolate melted. Cool slightly.

Sandwich cookies together.

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Happy Sunday Everyone! 

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Back in Baking MACARONS {Lemon Macarons}

I can not tell you how happy I was when saw these pretty little things came out from the oven looking like macaron I used to bake.

I baked many macarons before {here, here and here} and always came out pretty. Last winter  I tried baking these pretty cookies and I think I wasted almost 20 eggs and a lot of almond meal; all cookies came out  ugly without feet and flat just like balloon looses air. Yes, after almost 20 eggs I gave up and  told myself that I should stop trying to bake these macarons and just wait until spring time. I think it had something to do with the temperature of our home at the time. I knew that during winter we like to turn up the heat very high, as a result the cookies was never came out perfectly as it should. As we all know macarons made out of egg whites and egg whites can be deflated when the room temperature is not right.

Without changing the method; this time and as you can see below - it came out very nice. We did not turn on the heat as the weather was  sunny and cool yesterday; therefore my macarons looks so pretty.

Today I made ginger and coffee macarons. I have been wanting to give some of my macarons to Dr. Chang and his staff. Dr. Chang is Korean so I think it is best to make a ginger and green tea flavor for him. Dr. Chang and his staff are always very nice and kind to me. I thought one day I will drop by at his office with box of these pretty little cookies for them.

Do you remember the daffodils I brought to New York from Vermont? {last seen here} Now they are perfectly bloomed. I deliberately made lemon flavor macarons because the color is yellow as I wanted to photograph them with the daffodils plus this is the first time I baked macarons since the disaster last winter so I just grabbed what ever flavoring I had and put yellow food coloring and lemon food flavoring. 

I am so over joyed right now and I think you will see many more posts with  macarons in the future.

Do you see the little ceramic flower boy on the right? I picked him up at a local antique store in Vermont. The owner of the store gave me a few things for free because I bought quite a few from him. And this little ceramic flower boy is one of them. His price was USD 2.00 and now he is mine!I think he is adorable!

::Recipe::

Lemon Macarons

Recipe (here) except put 1/2 tsp lemon food flavoring on the meringue and a drop or two of yellow food coloring.

For the filling.

You can pretty much put anything on the filling like chocolate ganache, here I put Fig and Hazelnut Jam and in the future I am going to make Lemon Curd (bought in a store) mixed with cream cheese. It is entirely up to you. I have read on Martha Stewart magazine that the filling does not have to be the same as the flavoring of the shells. It said; it will create an interesting taste when combined two different flavoring together.

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Thank you for looking!

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