Baking Adventure: Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes (鳳梨酥)

One of my favorite Asian sweets is Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes (鳳梨酥). For those of you who don't know, Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes are nothing like the traditional cakes we see in America. Instead, they're more like a thick, rectangular (or square) cookie with a shortbread crust enclosing a pineapple paste/jam filling.

Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes

For the longest time, I wanted to make them from scratch but could never track down the metal pineapple cake molds/rings in America. Fortunately for me, my former college roommate went to Taiwan to teach English right after graduation. Before she returned home, she asked if there was anything I wanted from Taiwan. I knew it was a long shot, but I asked if she could get me some pineapple cake molds and she totally pulled through! This adventure is dedicated to her because she made this possible! <3

Baking Adventure: Chocolate Truffle Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

Prepare yourselves, Adventurers! Today, I present my ALL-TIME FAVORITE CHEESECAKE! Over Valentine's Day, I created a Chocolate Truffle Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake. Yup, that's right! Chocolate, strawberries, AND cheesecake! Talk about the ultimate Valentine's Day dessert for your loved ones!

Chocolate Truffle Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

This cheesecake had chopped up chocolate truffles and a strawberry swirl heart pattern that was just perfect for the occasion!

Strawberry Swirl Heart Pattern on Cheesecake (Before Baking)

The pattern didn't hold up as well after baking, but it still tasted delicious! Just like chocolate-covered strawberries with cheesecake! Seriously... BEST. CHEESECAKE. EVER!

Strawberry Swirl Heart Pattern (After Baking)

I made the Strawberry Sauce a night before baking the cheesecake so I wouldn't have to worry about cooling the sauce. This cheesecake was also made with less sugar because my family doesn't like desserts that are overly sweet and I knew the chocolate truffles would add a lot for sweetness. Feel free to add more sugar if you want though! The tartness from the strawberry sauce balanced with the sweet chocolate and rich cheesecake was just perfection. Everyone in my family loved it!

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE STRAWBERRY SWIRL CHEESECAKE

Adapted from Kraft’s PHILADELPHIA 3-Step Cheesecake 

Ingredients

2 pkg (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

¼ cup sugar

½ tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 ready-to-use graham cracker crumb crust (6 oz.)

~8 chocolate truffles, cut into 8ths

Strawberry Sauce (See Recipe Below)

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Blend cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and eggs in a blender until smooth.
3. Pour about 1/3 of the cheesecake batter into the crust and spread to evenly coat the bottom crust.
4. Distribute chopped chocolate truffles evenly on batter.
5. Cover the truffles with the remaining cheesecake batter.
6. Level out the cheesecake batter and tap the cheesecake on the counter a few times to release any bubbles. (Use a toothpick to pop any stubborn bubbles.)
7. Place small dots of strawberry sauce (about 1 cm in diameter) in circles around your cheesecake.
8. Use a toothpick or knife to run through each dot to make a heart pattern.
9. Place cheesecake into a larger roasting pan and fill the roasting pan with water until it reaches about halfway up the cheesecake.
10. Carefully place roasting pan with the cheesecake into the oven and bake for 35 minutes, or until the center is almost set.
11. Cool and refrigerate for 3 hours.
12. Serve with additional strawberry sauce.

STRAWBERRY SAUCE

Adapted from Brunch Time Baker’s Mini Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

Ingredients

2 cups sliced strawberries

1½ Tablespoons lemon juice (or juice from ~1/3 of a lemon)

4 Tablespoons sugar (adjust depending on strawberries’ sweetness)

1 Tablespoon cornstarch

Directions

1.  Blend the strawberries and sugar in a blender until smooth.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice and cornstarch.
3. Add lemon juice mixture to the strawberry mixture and blend until combined.
4. Strain the mixture into a medium saucepan to remove the seeds.
5. Simmer over medium heat until the mixture starts to boil. Stir frequently and cook a few more minutes or until it thickens. 
6. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate if not using immediately.

Baking Misadventure: Pokeball Cake Pops

Alas, Adventurers! Not every quest ends in victory. We can't rescue the princess every time. We can't defeat every boss monster. We can't beat every gym leader. And we most certainly can't catch ALL the pokemon. At least not on our first try. (Especially when Pokemon's creators keep making new, ridiculous pokemon. *ahem* Garbodor, I'm look at you!)

Pokeball Cake Pops

Sometimes, things just don't work out the way you want them to and these Pokeball Cake Pops are Exhibit #1. It was my first time ever making cake balls and they ended up lumpy and uneven and just sad. A total fail in my book. BUT I wanted to share them with you anyway.

Baking Adventure: Bánh Bò Nướng (Vietnamese Pandan Tapioca Honeycomb Cake)

Ahoy, Adventurers! Here's something a little different that I baked for a class potluck. This super fragrant, green-tinted, chewy cake is called "Bánh Bò Nướng" in Vietnamese and is one of my favorite Vietnamese treats. It's a popular dessert flavored with pandan extract and coconut milk. The English name might be a little misleading because the "honeycomb" does not refer to any honey used in the recipe but rather the unique bubbled honeycomb shape of the finished product.

Bánh Bò Nướng - Vietnamese Pandan Tapioca Honeycomb Cake

Bánh Bò Nướng is notorious for being really fickle. There are many tips and tricks suggested by various bloggers, but often in the comment sections, you'll read about the multiple failures others experienced - mainly getting a dense brick cake with no bubbles. After successfully making this cake twice (just to rule out beginner's luck with my first attempt), I am pretty confident that my method works.

Before we jump into the recipe, I wanted to include a section for tips and tricks I've gathered that appear to increase your chances of having a successful Bánh Bò Nướng. I'm not entirely sure if all the tips are crucial but I incorporated them into how I make Bánh Bò Nướng just in case. Honestly, I suspect only the final tip is SUPER important but I'd rather be enjoying cake than sorry I wasted my ingredients. If I ever find the time and money, I'll test out all the tricks to see if they're all necessary, but for now here's what I've gathered:

Tips and Tricks

• You have to use single-acting baking powder. Double-acting baking power supposedly won't give you the proper honeycomb shape, but Andrea Nguyen from Viet World Kitchen found that you will still get bubbles just maybe not the ideal honeycomb formation.
• Preheat your baking pan so that your batter sizzles when it hits the pan. (I don't think this tip is necessary because my batter didn't sizzle but the final product still came out okay.)
• Do not incorporate any air into the eggs or else you will get a flat cake. (This is one of the tips I'm not entirely sure about but I followed anyway.)
• Do not overmix your eggs or else you will get a flat cake.
• When measuring out the coconut milk, do not shake the can or carton. Instead, open the container as is and measure out the cream part floating on the top. (I think this is more for flavor.)
• Let the cake rest in the hot oven before removing it.
• Add your single-acting baking powder to you mixture as your LAST INGREDIENT (after you've mixed and strained your other ingredients). (Now this tip, I think is really important. Single-acting baking powder starts reacting and making bubbles once it hits liquid. If you added the single-acting baking powder at the beginning and took too long to mix your ingredients, all the baking powder would have reacted and you would not get any bubble formation when you're baking in the cake the oven, which would result in a dense cake. Therefore, I think this step is crucial!)

Now, onto the recipe...

Baking Adventure: Portal Cake (and Happy Birthday to My Little Bro)

Hey, Adventurers! Happy 2014!

Apologies for the extended hiatus! It was much longer than I had originally anticipated, but I hope you all had a fun, safe, warm holiday season. My holidays were busy with family and friends, but I've also been making things that I'll blog about later. :) Be sure to stick around in the upcoming weeks!

You see, the end of November and early December always correspond with end-of-the-quarter craziness - finals, papers, projects, presentations, and all that fun stuff. In addition, there's Thanksgiving and... my brother's birthday!

Portal Cake

My brother's a big fan of Portal so this year, I made him a Portal Cake. That's right, the cake is NOT a lie!