Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

A lot of wonderful things happened in 2011! Life in 2011 was hectic, wonderful, busy, full of adventures!

I have been working hard, but also slacking hard in 2011. First and foremost, I have to apologizes to all my friends, especially those that live beyond the Tahoe basin. I am so bad with keeping in touch :(. Sorry for all the missed calls. Trust me, I really wanted to talk and catch up with you all but between the 900 roles that I am trying to maintain.....the perfect time is just never there....................excuses excuses eh? I will trying harder this year!!! I promise!!!

Customize your own picture slideshow

Bread!!!...........I am obsessed.......

Life has been busy....Just realized that my last post was in June.......What have i been doing?

Well, let me think..............

Oh yes! Went to Hong Kong and Taiwan with my husband, opened a hostel with my husband, removed over 12,000 nonnative fish from the lake.........................not too too much, right :P

Anywaz, when i actually managed to find some free time, I have been obsessed with bread making.

With different styles!

French, Japanese, Chinese style....

And different techniques too!

Sour dough starters, Wet base starters, Low temp proofing, etc....

Loving all the fresh bread in my house :)

HA7: 4th of July cupcakes (Red velvet with BEETS!!!)

It is forth of July weekend and of course we need to make something RED WHITE and BLUE! Well here are the RED WHITE and BLUE cupcake, a.k.a Red velvet cupcake with creamcheese icing and blueberries toppers.

I made the red velvet with some of the beets we got from our CSA. We are really loving our CSA, fresh tasty vegetables almost delivered to our front door!!!

HA6: Coffee and Chocolate Cupcakes

These were really good. I think the coffee adds alot to the flavor to the cupcakes. I think i am going to try to use a more concentrated coffee mixture next time. Aren't those mini oeros cute?

HA5: Coconut Carrot Cupcakes

Made some of these a few weeks ago for our neighbor's kid two years old birthday. It was a big hit!!! I think I have finally mastered a pipable creamcheese icing. It held its shape really well. I guess the key is COLD creamcheese and ROOM TEMP butter.

HA4: Lemon Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Green Tea White Chocolate Buttercream

The crumb and texture of this cupcake is awesome!!! I have never baked cakes with coconut milk before, but the richness of the coconut milk definitely shows in the cupcakes. I love it. However, it is not lemony enough to my liking. I think I am going to try to brush them with lemon syrup next time. I got the recipe from Love and Olive Oil, and modified the recipe to my elevation (@6200) by reducing the leavening by 1/4 and baked at a higher temperature.

The buttercream is a white chocolate buttercream with Mocha powder (Green tea powder) added to achieve that green mossy color. Yeah I needed a green mossy color icing without using food coloring.

The two components are great on their own, but I am not sure if they work well together.....Need to think about this a little more :)

Btw, I love those little cake topper :). They are made out of modeling chocolate. I needed to figure out some type of cake topper. I didn't want to use fondant or gum paste cause they are not very tasty. I love it....they are so cute :)

HA3: Caramelized Pineapple Vanilla Cupcakes with Pomegranate Buttercream

One of my favorite so far! I always love fruit cupcakes, not too sweet with a fruity tang. I had some pineapple and a big bottle of pomegranate juice in my fridge. I have been looking for a good vanilla based cupcake recipe for my HA project, and found this one from Love and Olive Oil. The tangyness from the pomegranate juice and the sweetness of the caramelized pineapples really go great with each other!!!

I just added 1/2 cup of caramelized pineapple (No sugar added or anything, just chop up the pineapple and caramelized it over the stove top).....And replaced the milk/cream in the icing with pomegranate juice.

Still need to practice my piping skill before July!