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