Monkey Bread

The first time I made monkey bread was in a summer school cooking class.  Mr. I. introduced the recipe to the students and we made the easy version of monkey bread.  We used canned biscuit dough and cut each piece of dough into four pieces and rolled them into balls.  Then, we dipped the dough balls in butter and cinnamon sugar.  This was such a fun recipe.  My family enjoyed what I brought home so much that we made monkey bread several times at home.

While surfing the web, looking at recipes, I found this monkey bread recipe that starts from scratch.  I didn't actually make the monkey bread until a year later.  The recipe was really simple and the bread was very soft and fluffy. It also wasn't too sweet. (I didn't make a glaze.  Actually, I kind of forgot about...but the bread was sweet enough already so it didn't matter.)  This is definitely a must make recipe.  Monkey bread is like the best part of cinnamon rolls - the gooey, yummy centers.

Monkey Bread
Recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker, very slightly adapted.

Black and White Cookies

I always wanted to try making black and white cookies, but I never got the chance to because these cookies are very time consuming.  When I finally made these cookies, I was a little surprised at how cake-like the batter was.  Also, the cookies were easier to make than I thought they would be.  The hard part was frosting the cookies and making the chocolate frosting.  Because of the chocolate frosting, I spent around 3 hours, hands on, making these cookies.

These cookies were pretty good.  You'll like them if you like cake-like cookies.  The only downside of these cookies was that the icing was really sweet...and I put a really thick icing on these cookies when I was trying to make sure the icing looked perfect.  So I guess if I ever make these cookies again, I will spread less icing onto the cookies.  Also, one problem I encountered was the texture of the chocolate icing.  I don't know what I did wrong, but not only was the icing not very pretty, it was also really, really hard to spread.  I spent around half an hour trying to get the icing to the right consistency, but it still ended up different from the white icing.  In the end, I was extremely frustrated and vowed that I would never make these cookies again because icing these cookies was just too time consuming.  We'll see if I keep that vow. XD

I actually made these cookies for my brother because he wanted to bring some treats for his band council.  After he came back from his band activity, he told me that many people enjoyed the cookies.  However, there was one guy who said that my cookie batter was not mixed well enough...  :(  My brother consoled me by saying that the guy who said that was a very critical person, hahaha.

Black and White Cookies
Recipe from Simply Sifted.

Actually I have the hard copy of this recipe in my America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book, but I found the recipe online already so I will just give you the link instead of retyping up the same recipe.

Garlic Knots

One day, after eating at a restaurant called Mama...cita?, (I'm not sure if that's the right name.) That place was a pizzeria.  I really wanted to try making some garlic knots.  I tried theirs and it was delicious.  So in hopes that I would be able to reproduce something similar, I tried this recipe posted by Brown Eyed Baker.

The recipe was fairly simple and the bread was really fun to make.  However, it is the type of bread that becomes chewy and hard to eat after only one day.  It doesn't taste that bad the next day, but it's better to eat it the day of.  Also, there ended up being too much sauce leftover for me.

Garlic Knots
Recipe from Brown Eyed Baker

Boston Cream Pie

A long time ago, I made Boston cream pie cupcakes.  Those turned out surprisingly well, so today I decided to make the actual Boston cream pie.  Actually, my cousins returned from Taiwan just recently and one of them turned a year older when he was in Taiwan.  So, in order to celebrate his belated birthday, my mom said I should make a cake.  I spent a whole hour agonizing about what cake I should make and then finally thought of making the Boston cream pie.  Just the day before, I had made some fruit tarts, but I ended up with a whole tone of custard leftover.  So by making a Boston cream pie, I would be able to use up all that custard!

I believe that previously, I have attempted making the cake before....but I don't think the cake turned out that good.  So as a result, I never completed the pudding and glazing part.  This time, I thought the cake was still alright.  When I was beating the eggs, it seemed like it would be successful.  When I actually tasted the end result, the cake was kind of dry. :(  I don't really know what I did wrong with that...  My family enjoyed the cake, but I'm not sure if they're just being nice.  XD


Boston Cream Pie
Recipe from Lick the Bowl Good





Everything seemed to be fine when I was beating the eggs, but when I started folding in the flour I think I deflated the eggs.  Also, I don't think I mixed the butter and milk mixture well enough.  Anyway, this is how it turned out.


After I flipped over the cake, there were some lines left on it.


Slice the cake in half.




Cover it with custard/pudding.


Use the other half of the cake and make a sandwich.  Make sure to use the bottom half, that way the top of the cake will be smooth.




When you make the glaze, make sure to bring the heavy cream to a boil!  Otherwise, the glaze will never harden up...I learned this the hard way.  I didn't really pay attention to the instructions and the glaze wouldn't harden up at all.  I tried cooking the glaze longer with the chocolate already mixed in, but then the glaze curdled. :(

2nd Attempt:


Time to glaze the cake!



P.S. does anyone know why my cake is so short compared to Monica's?  Do you think it's because I deflated the eggs too much?  Thanks :D


P.P.S.  I wasn't able to continue the rest of my crazy day series because I felt like my pictures were too ugly to make a post with.  I will continue posting for that Crazy Day when I remake the items I made and take better pictures.

Espresso Chocolate Chip Shortbread

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole month since I last posted a recipe.  I've been so busy with school and work that I kept on making excuses to not write a post.  Actually, I believe the last time I posted was close to the end of my winter quarter and then the weeks passed by so quickly when I was busy writing papers for my final exams.  That period of time was crazy!  It was the first time in my whole life that I wrote soo much!  I had to write a 10 page research paper for my education class and more essays for my writing class.  Now, I'm taking 20 units.  I decided to challenge myself because I felt like I had too much free time, which ironically, I did not use that time to write posts.  :/  Anyway,  here I am making excuses again. I would like to dedicate this post to I.S.  I don't know if you would like your name out on the internet, but yea. :)  Due to your encouragement, I wrote another post.  I'll try to post consistently...

Today, the recipe I'm sharing with you is espresso shortbread, from Annie's Eats.  Honestly, I never drink coffee, but I enjoyed these cookies.  I was too busy during the Crazy Day to taste these cookies, but they smelled good.  They were also really simple to make.  So if you're busy and you don't have enough time for hands-on stuff, make these cookies.  All you have to do is mix up the cookie dough which you can do in a matter of minutes, roll out the dough, and then chill it.  Easy peasy!

The cookies also look very cute and neat because all you have to do is cut them out in squares and then poke holes in them with forks.  


Espresso Chocolate Chip Shortbread