Braided Hot Dog Bread

I got this recipe from Daily Delicious. I believe that this is the first time I tried a recipe from her blog. I always see her updates and everything she bakes looks so professional, like it's from a bakery.

I enjoy baking bread more sometimes because it's healthier than cookies and cakes. But, I also despise how the temperature needs to be warm for the bread to rise quickly. I have to rely on my preheated oven, but I'm afraid of drying the dough out. I can't wait until the weather here is warmer.

I made this bread with packing it as lunch for my brother in mind, but he gets hungry easily eating the bread I make, so he prefers bakery bread. Also, my dad has a sweet tooth; so unless the bread I make is sweet, then I end up with bread stuck in the freezer. So I guess I'll be trying more sweet breads from now on.

Fresh from the oven, the bread tastes so soft and bakery-like. After one day, they still maintain the same freshness, although they become a bit drier. To resolve that, all you have to do is re-bake the bread for a few minutes. I only made 7 pieces of bread with this recipe because I wanted larger sized bread.


Braided Hot Dog Bread

Jenny's Brownies

This Saturday was so fun! (1/29/11) Chinese school ended early because there was a Chinese New Year fair. I really enjoyed walking around with my friend while looking at the fair. Everything there was outrageously priced, but that's because of the law of supply and demand in economy. :) One container of sushi (4) was $5! 1 slice of pizza was $2, 1 cotton candy was $2, and...you get the point. Toward the end of the fair, things were going on sale. Even though everything was overpriced I still had a great time. My friend E. and I decided to bake together at 3. She just finished her finals last week and wanted to celebrate by baking brownies.

I went to her house, so I brought some of the ingredients over. We made Jenny's Brownies, found on Cookie Madness. It was a simple recipe and it produced good results. We might have overbaked it a bit because it was a bit hard.

When I returned to home, I enjoyed some of the yummy nian gao that my mom had steamed for Chinese New Year. I ate sooo much. After that, I went to my Uncle's house and ate dinner there before going back home again. Then I made some blueberry muffins in a cinch as requested by my aunt. I haven't made those for such a long time! They tasted really soft, and they still stayed nice and moist the next day.

Jenny's Brownies






We topped them with some cranberries.

Vanilla Cupcakes

I made these with using up my extra chocolate glaze in mind. I decided to try scooping two balls of the solidified glaze and plopping it into the cupcake batter to see how it would turn out. Seems like my idea was not the best because halfway into baking it, the chocolate was leaking out of the cupcake. It appeared like a volcano spouting lava. XD

Although the texture of my cupcakes was a bit dense, my friends still really enjoyed the cupcakes and ate 2 each. I think that if I mixed it a few strokes less, the texture would have been perfect.

I used up all my glaze (from the chocolate glazed donut muffins)!

Here's the recipe.

Lemon Cloud Tea Cookies

I made these cookies for my church youth group counselors as a thank you, because my counselors always help me out when I need help. They're always there for me when I need them and they always spend a lot of time talking to me to see how I'm doing. So these were for TD Valentine's Day and counselors' appreciation night. Luckily, on this Friday I didn't have school and I was able to prepare the presents. I really had fun wrapping the presents and everything, but it took quite a while to wrap the boxes. We were going to put thank you letters for the counselors into the boxes and also give a cup of cookies.

I made these and they weren't anything special. :( I did add a bit too much lemon juice, causing the dough to become overly sticky. Also, I omitted the zest. That must have been a necessity for the cookies because they were a bit bland. I omitted the zest because I didn't have a zester, or so I thought. I actually do have one; I only found out after my mom was looking through her cabinets and found a few things and asked me if I needed them. Then I discovered that we had a zester. All this time, my mom didn't know what it was, so it was just sitting there in the cabinet. Don't you love it when you find out that you had something you wanted all along?

Anyway, most people who made these cookies were happy with the results, so don't be afraid to try this out. I got this recipe from Wendy from Table for 2 or more... and the original recipe is from Joy the Baker.


Lemon Tea Cloud Cookies

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these cookies on Chinese New Year on a school day. Now that it's second semester, I've been a bit more free these days.

These cookies have the best aroma ever. Mine turned out a but crunchier than how it's supposed to be, but the flavor is really nice. My brother ate one after another. Also, the cookie dough is the fluffiest one ever. If you're a cookie dough lover, I bet you won't be able to resist eating this one! Personally, I don't like eating cookie dough.

You can find the recipe on Brown Eyed Baker. My AFK Family Baking Book has the same exact recipe, the only difference between the two recipes was the directions for shaping the cookies. My book said just to scoop 2 tbsp of dough and shape it into a ball and place it onto the cookie sheet. Only baking one sheet at a time and rotating the sheets halfway through baking. (I forgot to rotate the sheets, but the cookies turned out fine.)


Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Red Bean Nian Gao Pancake 紅豆年糕餅

Whenever my mom makes red bean nian gao, she also makes a pancake sandwich with them. The pancake uses a very simple batter that takes a minute or two to prepare. Depending on your own preference, you can choose to make the pancake thick or thin. The pancake surrounds the rectangular slice of nian gao while it's being cooked, allowing the nian gao to slightly soften, resulting in a perfect balance of texture between the pancake and the nian gao.

Red Bean Nian Gao Pancake 紅豆年糕餅

Daikon Nian Gao 蘿蔔糕

It's a Chinese New Year tradition for my mom to make nian gao every year. She will always make 3 different flavors and give them out to relatives and friends. As a child I really liked the red bean nian gao, but I would never eat daikon nian gao or taro because I was really picky back then. Now, I like eating all three flavors. For the savory nian gao, it is best paired with a soy sauce with minced garlic.

Daikon Nian Gao 蘿蔔糕 is also better known as turnip cake or radish cake. They aren't made out of turnips, but daikons, so the name isn't as accurate. You can find these "cakes", fried, at dim sums. They have a solid texture. When pan fried, they have a nice, crispy outer layer and a warm, semi-soft inner layer.

Daikon Nian Gao 蘿蔔糕
Recipe from my mom

紅豆年糕 Red Bean Nian Gao

Here's the recipe as I promised, enjoy. I will be sharing several more in the coming days.

Red Bean Nian Gao 紅豆年糕
Recipe from my mom who learned how to make this from my grandma

Matcha Shortbread

After eyeing these cookies for quite a while, I finally made them on Christmas day. When I saw the recipe on Dodol & Mochi, I knew I wanted to make these cookies one day.

After a while, I inquired my mom to see if we had any green tea powder. She thought for a bit and said no. A few days later, when my mom picked me up from school, she surprised me by saying that she bought some green tea powder for me. I was ecstatic. My mom knows me so well and she always does so many things for me. I have come to take many things for granted, but now that I think about it, I'm so lucky to have such a great mom. Now that I mentioned my mom, it's only fair to mention my dad too. My dad is always so patient and hardworking. Thanks dad and mom!


The cookies were flaky. When you take a bite of it, the cookie gives in with such a nice feel. I don't really know how to describe them... But they also "melt" in your mouth. It's not too sweet and the green tea flavor is wonderful.

I didn't feel like taking out my hand mixer, so I hand mixed the dough. It took a long time to cream the butter and sugar together and then to get the matcha to evenly combine with the rich mixture, but after a while it all came together.

I took pictures of the process, but they disappeared somewhere.

Matcha Shortbread

Happy Chinese New Year!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year! May your year be prosperous. I'm going to be posting a nian gao recipe soon, three different flavors in fact. I'll update this post soon; I'm going to sleep now.

Update: This was what I had for dinner with my uncle, aunt, cousins and my family.








It was a potluck. I basically took pictures of the same thing from different angles...the pictures are essentially the same thing, but I didn't know which one looked the best.

Wheat Mantou 麥饅頭

I finally got my courage up a few weeks ago to make these wheat steamed buns. My dad always makes regular steamed buns and they are so good that I can eat 3 at a time and they're the size of my palm! I told you I like my carbs. :)

Wheat steamed buns are basically dough molded into pieces and steamed for around 20 minutes. They are also known as mantou,饅頭, and they have a nice "spongy" texture. Some steamed buns may be denser, while others are as fluffy as a cloud. There are a variety of these buns: sweet, savory, wheat, filled and possibly even more. My mom always go to the Chinese supermarket to get these soft wheat mantou and I've always wanted to try making it myself.

After making it, I'm pretty happy with the results. Next time, however, I will replace some of the whole wheat flour with all purpose flour because it had an overly strong wheaty/earthy flavor. The texture was not as soft and fluffy as the store bought mantou, but I'm sure that can be changed the next time I make it. I had to add a bit more whole wheat flour because my dough was a bit sticky.

Wheat Mantou 麥饅頭
Slightly Adapted from from Rasa Malaysia
Makes 12