Random pictures!

Spitting caves, china walls, Pizza Studio pizza @USC, and norikara bento from Kokorotei!

Random pictures :)

Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Brownie? Yum. Cookie? Yum. A brownie-like cookie? YES.

These cookies are rich, chewy, and filled with chunks and chunks of chocolate. Unfortunately I can't find my sd card reader, so I can't upload the pictures. Shucks! Even though the pictures didn't do the cookies justice, they at least showed how thick and puffy the cookies looked. If I find the reader, I'll be sure to upload them, but in the meantime, maybe just take my word for it and try these super chocolate-y, soft, and delicious cookies?

Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookie Recipe
Adapted from All Recipes Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies I

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chunks, I used Trader Joe's 72% Belgium Dark Chocolate cut into 1/4 chunks

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F (325 for convection ovens) and line a pan with parchment paper
2. In a medium sized bowl, cream butter and sugar. Mix in egg and vanilla extract.
3. In another bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. Slowly mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes (I baked mine for 8 minutes). Wait for 1 minute and then place on a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.
6. Enjoy!

I'm back!

I'm back! I know it's been quite a while since I posted. I've been baking, but just haven't had the time to take pictures, upload, and write. But don't worry, that hopefully won't happen again! Starting (maybe?) tomorrow, I'll post some new recipes! Oh, right now there are these delicious chocolate chocolate chunk cookies baking in the oven, and they smell amazing!

 See you tomorrow!

What I've been making recently....

Baked Alaska: Homemade funfetti cake with a layer of vanilla bean ice cream and smothered in whipped meringue

Honey Toast: A scoop of vanilla ice cream atop cubes of honey buttered  toast and drizzled with even more honey!

Yellow Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting

Looking for the perfect summer cupcake? Look no further than this yellow cupcake with cream cheese frosting and lemon curd filling. The components can be made separately and ahead of time, making the assembly quite easy, especially if you want these for a party!

Trader Joe's Lemon Curd

Cream Cheese Frosting

Yellow Cake

Ojiya

Ojiya serves tempura, soba, and sushi, and oh btw, is oh so delicious! Here are some pictures from our lunch!

Tempura and Cold Soba

Hot Soba

Inari

Morimoto

Pictures from Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant in Waikiki. Ha, it's cleverly called Morimoto Waikiki. The actual food wasn't as good as I expected (Izakaya Gaku is so much better!), but the decor was lovely.

Morimoto's Loco Moco

Morimoto's Chirashi

Maguro, Kani, Ikura, Ebi, Tamago

Apple Muffins

Want something quick, healthy, sweet, and delicious? All for breakfast? Look no further than these apple muffins. They were super quick to whip up, and they were delicious! Plus, they're supposedly healthy. Or, at least if you follow the recipe. I didn't have whole wheat flour, so I just used normal all purpose flour. I know, I guess mine aren't healthy. But they sure are delicious! 

Recipe from here

Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin

Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin is located in Waikiki and is just one of the many stops you should take if you are thinking of visiting Hawaii. Can you guess what they serve? Well, their name states what they specialize in, katsu!!! Shrimp katsu, pork katsu, oh yummy! My mouth is watering just thinking about their food.

Their katsu is different from most places in that their katsu doesn't taste oily. You know when something is well fried when the fried item doesn't taste fried. I know, weird logic, right? Anyways, their katsu doesn't taste fried, and the batter is super crunchy. I heard it's because they deep fry it twice :O yum, right?!

Cookie Dough Macaron

Remember yesterday's cupcakes? Well, I'm always left with leftover frosting whenever I make cupcakes. Rather than eating it all by myself (my stomach would not appreciate that!), I decided to use up some of the leftover macaron shells from my freezer. Everyone said they were very good, but green tea macarons and chocolate chip cookie dough filling? Haha, maybe they were just being nice.

I used my normal recipe for the macaron shells and the filling is from this book, which is delicious btw.

From top: Green tea, Espresso, Gingerbread

Cookie Dough Lover's Unite!!! :D

I can't wait to share with you guys a recipe from the Cookie Dough Lover's Cookbook! When you were a kid, did your hand just gravitate to that unbaked bowl of cookie dough? Well, I'm sorry to say, but I had an aversion to unbaked cookie dough, unless it was in cookie dough ice cream. Hm, I really should try that recipe! Lindsay has a recipe for some amazing sounding cookie dough ice cream (chunks of cookie dough on browned butter ice cream anyone?!?!). Anyways, I know these cupcakes don't exactly look like the ones in the book....but I tried! And I messed up along the way....Yup, while I was making the cookie dough batter I accidentally put the chocolate chips in before I portioned out the frosting part! Grrr, so when I tried to frost the cupcakes, the chocolate bits got stuck in the tip, and I couldn't frost the cupcakes nice and pretty :(

So, I put on my problem solving cap and thought of a new idea. I remembered clearing my pantry out and finding some sprinkles, and then it hit me. Cover the tops with sprinkles! So it looked a lot better in my head, but I guess it worked out ok. The cupcake itself was moist, but not as chocolatey as I would have liked. But when paired with chocolate chip cookie dough filling and frosting, the cupcake was delicious! If you love cookie dough, I would definitely recommend buying Lindsay's book. It's cute, fun, and the recipes and pictures are oh-so-mouth-watering!

Now, here are a ton of pictures!!!!

Randommmmm

Roses!

Banana Cinnamon Muffins

Pretty flowers..

OMG its a green walkway! Haha, just jokes, its an algae covered stream

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear...."

Mint Cookies

So I guess I did have a lot of pictures to post. Well, this I'm pretty sure is from christmas time O.o oops. I guess I'm way behind in posting! The kiss seems to have melted, I probably made a mental note to place the kiss after baking...or not use mint kisses. Maybe they melt under lower temperatures? Anyways, this is a mint chocolate chocolate cookie with a mint kiss and andes peppermint baking chips.

Hello Kitty Waffle O.o

Just a quick post cause I wanted to share with you this super cute waffle I ate the other day! So my friend gave me a hello kitty waffle maker a long long time ago, and I finalyl began using it last weekend. Kay, so maybe this picture isn't that great of a picture (I really wanted to get back to eating!) but the waffles were super fluffy and slightly crispy, just the way i like it, plus they're in the shape of Hello Kitty!! What could be better than that?!?!?!

Cream Puffs :) aka シュウクリム！

シュウクリム = shoe cream, but not actual shoe cream. That'd be just plain gross. It's actually a cream puff!! I used tartine bakery's recipe, and they turned out sooooo good! I made cream puffs previously, and while they turned out ok, I guess I didn't use enough batter for each mound because they were too tiny. Also, don't open the oven door during the first part of baking!! I think that's why last time I made them they collapsed :( Anyways, enjoy!

Super thick yummy pastry cream !

Puff Part (from here, but actually from the book-im just too lazy to retype..)

Ingredients:
4 oz nonfat milk
4 oz water
4 oz unsalted butter
4 oz all purpose flour
4 eggs

For savory preparations, add 1 tsp salt
For sweet preparations, add ¼ tsp salt and 1 Tbsp sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line sheet pans with parchment or a nonstick mat.
2. Measure out flour, and reserve for later. Crack eggs, set aside.
3. In a medium size heavy bottomed sauce pan combine milk, water, butter, salt and sugar, if using. Place pan over medium high heat. (Choose a pan that is bigger than you think you need as flour will cause the mixture to swell and expand and the last thing you need is a bunch of hot choux all over you.)
4. Heat mixture until it comes just to a boil, there should be steam coming off and visible bubbling of the surface but not a rolling boil (once mixture comes up to heat, it will boil over easily, so if it looks close, do not wander away from it), then turn heat off and immediately dump in flour. Whisk to combine until all flour is absorbed and no large chunks remain.
5. Return to medium-heat, switching to a wooden spoon. Begin to heat mixture, stirring constantly to release steam and cook off some of the water contained in the dough. This should take about 1-2 minutes and the mixture will transform from a chunkier, more amorphous mass into a much smoother, paste (you will see some of the paste begin to adhere to the bottom, and the dough will look like a mass of creamy mashed potatoes).
6. Transfer paste to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on medium speed, beat mixture for about 1 minute to release some of the heat (if you add eggs to quickly, you will end up with the scrambled eggs in your paste). Begin to add eggs, one at a time, allowing each egg to be fully incorporated before adding the next. Continue to beat on medium speed until paste cools a bit and holds medium peaks, about 5-10 minutes, depending on the batch size.
7. The paste can be used immediately or stored in the fridge, for up to one day.
8. Fill a pastry bag and pipe into desired shapes.
9. Bake choux at 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees for 10-20 minutes longer until shells are crisp and golden brown all over.
10. Remove from oven and poke with a skewer or toothpick to allow steam to escape, this will keep them from collapsing outside of the oven, especially if you are making larger shapes.
11. Freeze leftover shells for up to 1 month, you can also freeze piped paste up to one week.