Bow Tie Macarons

Here are the other macarons I made for NYE! As I mentioned in my last post, I made black & white macarons for NYE. The black sprinkle macarons in that post were definitely more New Years specific and more time consuming to decorate, so for my white macarons, I wanted something simpler that would take less time to decorate, yet still be cute and classy.

Like how the black macarons were influenced by my New Years manicure, these macarons were inspired by my New Years Eve dress (actually, to be more accurate, the dress I was going to wear… I'm ridiculously indecisive, so I came prepared with 3 dresses and ended up wearing something black instead :P… while this bow dress ended up as the background for these photos, lol). Half of my white macarons were decorated with bows, and the other half were covered with rainbow sprinkles for a pop of color, both designs perfect for any party or celebration!

New Year's Eve Macarons

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all are enjoying the holidays :). I'm currently trying to get all my holiday cookie photos edited, but hopefully I'll have them up soon. This year I made a variety of cookies for Christmas and then a few more sweets to celebrate New Year's Eve last night. I'll start with posting my New Year's desserts, then move onto my Christmas cookies.

For this New Year's Eve, I really wanted to make some black and white macarons. Today I'll present my black macarons, and in my next post, I'll share my white macarons. Other than black and white, I also associate New Year's Eve with a ton of glitter and confetti, which inspired my manicure from last night: mixed rainbow glitter (Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday) over black nail polish (Chanel Black Satin). In turn, my manicure became the source of inspiration for these macarons.

I knew I wanted to make these macarons glittery and rainbow, since I figured that would contrast well with the black color, sort of like how fireworks show up so well with a dark night sky. So, I decorated them with the edible equivalent of glitter and confetti: shimmer dust and sprinkles. I also wanted to try something new, so rather than just cover the macarons with nonpareils, I ended up spelling out "NYE" and "2014" on the macarons to make them just a bit more fancy. These were definitely the perfect dessert for celebrating New Year's Eve.

^A preview of my white macarons.

Coffee Crunch Cake

Apparently my blog is 4 years old! As I've done in the past, I want to share recipes for my favorite cakes for my blog's belated birthday. Today, I'll be sharing a new favorite of mine: the Coffee Crunch Cake. This summer, I was back home in California doing research in SF, a city near and dear to my heart. Throughout the summer, I spent my time after work and on the weekends exploring the city: the bakeries (duh!), restaurants, ice cream shops, food trucks, bars, art museums, shopping, etc.

I discovered a tiny bakery in Japantown that's known for Coffee Crunch Cake, something I never heard of before, but with all the good review on Yelp, I decided to take a risk and get it. Well, it was delicious! Naturally, I decided that I needed to make one at home from scratch. By the way, just fyi, back in the day (in the 60s), there used to be a pastry shop/candy store/soda fountain in SF called Blum's which was where this cake was created. The shop is no longer open, but the cake is still made at a few select bakeries in CA, and, of course, you can make it at home :)!

I like to call it "the Thing" cake (you know, Fantastic Four). It's not the most attractive cake (I do think it's eye catching though), but it tastes amazing. Like a creme brûlée flavored cake! It's made of a few layers of fluffy chiffon cake alternating with plenty of freshly whipped cream and covered with lots of yummy honeycomb candy AKA coffee crunch. For me, the best time to serve this cake is a few hours after decorating, after it has chilled it in the fridge; at this point, the coffee crunch has had time to melt into the whipped cream, yet it still retains its crunch. Yum!

Homemade Celebration Oreos

It's been a while... Originally I planned this post for July 4th, so I could use my red, white, and blue sprinkles, but there was a terrible heat wave and I couldn't summon the fortitude to turn on my oven.

Hot weather + baking = no way!

When I finally got down to making these cookies, July 4th was past, so I wanted to adapt my original idea into something less holiday specific. That's how I ended up with these Homemade Celebration Oreos. Remember when I made TKOs (Domo-shaped ones, to be specific)? Well, I thought they were wonderful, but they definitely were not what I think of when I crave an Oreo. What I want in an Oreo is a crisp, chocolate, slightly salty cookie with a white, shortening-based filling, which I got by combining two popular homemade Oreo recipes (the one from Flour Bakery for the cookie and the one from Retro Desserts for the filling).

To give them a special homemade touch, I covered them with rainbow sprinkles (3 kinds... because I could :D)! Perfect for any celebration since desserts and celebrations go hand-in-hand. Great for a birthday. Any sort of party. Or just because you want to brighten up someone else's day. But feel free to customize them for a specific occasion. Red, white, and blue sprinkles for July 4th (pictured below). Green, red, and gold sprinkles for Christmas. Assorted baby blue or baby pink sprinkles for a baby shower. The colors of your favorite sports team. The possibilities are endless!

P.S. Feel free to make them sprinkle-less. They're just as delicious ^_^.

P.P.S. I still made some 4th of July cookies in the end. Just because :).