Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Salted caramel + cream cheese frosting + dark chocolate cupcakes to celebrate a lovely lady's birthday earlier this week. Happy birthday, Liz!

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs with chocolate ...does that make them mini eclairs?

Carrot Cupcakes

For Rei: raisin-free carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

and topped with carrot hearts!

Holiday Baking

I was a busy baker during the holidays, but not so with the blogging...

Rum-soaked raisins, apricots, cranberries...

...to make Panettone, my mom's favorite bread (recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)

Blueberry coffee cake (recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book)

Cranberry apple butter jam cookies (I used a shortbread cookie recipe with a quick cranberry apple butter reduction for the filling) (photo: Jessica)

Maple pecan oatmeal scones with a maple syrup glaze (photo: Jessica)

Cream scones with dried cranberries, made by my sister Jessica (photo: Jessica)
(both scone recipes are from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book)

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for being home and being able to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for my family.

I like fruit that still has the leaves attached =)

Frosty cranberries from the freezer

This became cranberry-persimmon sauce (recipe from Once in a Blue Moon blog)

OM NOM NOM

My brother joined us for dinner via Skype (he was still at school).

Garlicky green beans amandine

2 lbs green beans, trimmed, washed and blanched

A handful of sliced almonds

A small pat of butter

6 cloves of garlic, minced

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Toast the almonds in a hot skillet. Add the butter and stir until it smells good and nutty. Transfer the almonds to a plate. Pour some olive oil to the skillet and when it's hot, throw in the garlic, stir for 30 seconds. Add in the green beans, sprinkle some salt to taste, and cook until done. Mix the almonds back in and serve.

Pan-roasted asparagus with Parmesan cheese (recipe from America's Test Kitchen Complete TV Show Cookbook)

Mandatory gravy - this is the only thing that I did not make (gasp! it's from Trader Joe's)

My mom made pan-fried yellow fish

And she also made sticky rice - oh so delicious! This is a must for our Thanksgiving dinner, every year.

Mashed potatoes - it's relatively healthy, but still nice and creamy, with only 2 tablespoons of butter, milk, and sour cream (this recipe came from the ATK Best Light Recipes cookbook)

Wine-poached pears for dessert (recipe adapted from Angela's Food Love blog)

Instead of the mascarpone filling, I mixed together a cup of rice pudding and a spoonful of honey and folded it into some freshly whipped cream.

That's it! I think this was my longest post yet.

Salmon Cakes

Pan-Fried Fresh Salmon Cakes -- with Parmesan cheese!

(Recipe from The New Best Recipes)

Mango Mousse Tart

A mango mousse tart for my mom - happy birthday, ma-ma!

Mousse recipe adapted from Passionate About Baking

I found that the ratio of the mango mixture and the cream was best left up to personal judgement since the 2 mangos I used yielded a lot more puree than what the recipe intended.

It's super fun making the wavy design on top; all you need is a toothpick!