Milo | A Dog's Life

Rub my belly please.


I like to fetch my ball and then roll around with it. Why chew my ball while standing when I can do it while lying down?

Marble Chocolate Turkey Cupcakes - Thanksgiving Part 2

This was inspired by a holiday coupon book, with pictures of Betty Crocker creations. The cupcakes are marbled vanilla and chocolate (made with cocoa powder for a dark chocolate flavor), with vanilla pudding mix. The frosting is silky smooth dark chocolate. The turkey feathers are piped semi-sweet and white chocolate, with a Hershey's kiss head.


Making both batches of cupcakes made me late to Thanksgiving dinner, but I was a baker-obsessed.

Pumpkin Brown Butter Cupcakes - Thanksgiving Part 1

You know that yummy sweet-savory buttery goodness that lines the layers of a cinnamon bun? Well, imagine that captured in a cupcake! Here, browned butter is incorporated into a pumpkin-sage cake, with browned butter icing on top. I've made the icing into a thicker consistency so that it holds form (for easier transport to Thanksgiving dinner). However, with the addition of more milk, this icing can drip off the edges of the cupcake for a nice gooey effect as well.

I have been working on my chocolate tempering work, so these cupcakes are topped with a bit of white chocolate flair.

Pumpkin Cupcakes - Happy Halloween!

For the office Halloween event this year, I handed out chocolate chip walnut cookies and these pumpkin cupcakes—with cream cheese buttercream and handmade marzipan pumpkins—in lieu of the usual candy fare.

Hm, well, that's not entirely true. I admit I put out some Almond Joys and Snickers to get rid of the surplus from my Costco variety pack, after having picked out all the Crunch and Twix for myself =)

These cupcakes were made at 2am once again, but well worth it to see the trick-or-treaters at work look so eager and happy. I never received cupcakes for Halloween as a kid, but I guess I like to hand out what I would have liked to receive!

Chocolate Cupcakes - Spun Sugar Crowns

My co-worker gave me a Cooks Illustrated recipe for Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Filling, which I tested out over the weekend. These are delicious and indeed quite ultimate!

The rich, moist chocolate cake is made with melted bittersweet chocolate, and has a hint of coffee in it that really enhances the chocolate flavor. The cupcake is also filled with a smooth, creamy ganache. Out of the oven, this cupcake tastes and looks like a chocolate soufflé. I chose a dark chocolate frosting that has a soft and smooth texture much like the ganache filling.


For the topping, we decided to experiment with spun sugar crowns. It is going to take us some more practice to fine-tune this skill, but we were able to put together a couple crowns and spirals. Anyone have tips for cleaning caramelized (or crystallized) sugar from saucepans?

"Mooncakes" - Mid-Autumn Festival

And for those of you on the lunar calendar . . .


We didn't get a chance to eat actual mooncakes this year, but I was suddenly obsessed with baking my own alternative. After a quick trip to Michael's to pick up a couple tools, I figured out a way to make a cookie-coated brownie "mooncake"!

1) Start with a brownie and a cookie-cutter


2) Wrap thinly with cookie dough and imprint. Note: chill the cookie dough in the freezer for easier handling and pat gently with flour-coated fingers to mold around the brownie.


3) Bake! Or rather, brûlée in order to preserve the imprinted pattern.

Beach Cupcakes - Last Day of Summer

Summer never quite arrived this year in San Diego. But nevertheless, here are some starfish and sharks to bid it farewell.

Starfish cupcakes: Swiss meringue buttercream frosted vanilla cupcakes, dipped in graham cracker crumbs and topped with a marzipan starfish

Shark cupcakes: Swiss meringue buttercream frosted vanilla cupcakes, with metallic cardstock

In the 16 months I have lived here, I have only been to the beach once. What a shame. I must fix this immediately!

Strawberry Cupcakes - A Birthday Surprise

As far as fruit cupcakes go, this is hands-down my favorite: white cupcakes with freshly diced strawberry bits, topped with Swiss meringue buttercream flavored with strawberry puree. With strawberries doing most of the sweetening, this cupcake tastes particularly light, natural and fresh (and perhaps just a tiny bit healthier *wishful thinking*).

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a surprise, given that I asked my hubby to go buy strawberries for his own birthday cupcakes (although it was a surprise in that I didn't tell him until the last minute to do so . . .). In my defense, I was pulling an all-nighter to try to finish as much unexpectedly-assigned work as possible, so that I wouldn't ruin his birthday.

I knew he loved strawberries, as that tends to be his go-to flavor in the dessert department, so we went for a midnight jog to Vons to buy up the last couple of boxes of strawberry left. After he went to sleep, I decided to pipe some chocolate toppings to try to add back some element of surprise.

He loved the cupcakes and I hear his co-workers did as well. I didn't get much sleep, but it was worth it!

Milo | Rhino Dino

Hello! Shhh . . . I am hunting . . .

Icebox Cake - Homage to Billy's

As a cookies-and-cream fan, I love icebox cake (Milo clearly does too). Chocolate wafers, whipped cream, chocolate curls, and . . . that's it! What more would you want?


When we visited New York after my bar exam last year, we went on an impromptu cupcake tour. My cousin Naomi recommended that we check out Billy's Bakery, where we discovered the icebox cake. What a refreshing change from the other cupcake-dominant bakeries we visited!


The Nabisco chocolate wafers aren't easy to find, but grocery stores sometimes stock them in the ice cream aisle. The whipped cream makes up more than half the volume of the cake, but it's so light, and just barely sweetened, that you eat this cake up nearly guilt-free. A couple tips: 1) do not overwhip the cream (or it loses its smoothness, as it did in my case), and 2) use at least 1/4" of cream between layers, as the wafers will soak it up and you do not want to end up with a solid mass.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Post-wedding, our kitchen is now happily equipped with a stand mixer and a kitchen torch. That means, not only do I no longer need to hand-beat meringue for 15+ minutes (a vigorous exercise, to say the least), I can brûlée things to my heart's content. Everyone likes to play with fire!


This cupcake bursts with flavor with lemon zest and pulp baked into the fluffy cake and lemon curd on top &mdash or optionally, lemon custard filling the center, as shown in the photo above &mdash contrasted with an airy, whipped meringue frosting.

For this cupcake flavor, I highly recommend a lighter cake to match the topping. While Martha Stewart suggests a lemon buttermilk cake, I find that a recipe closer to cakelove's Light and Lemony Cake is less dense and thus more harmonious with the meringue. I think a sponge cake would be delicious as well. Thanks to my friend Ji at cakes by Ji for introducing me to the wonderful world of cakelove!

Milo | A Field Day

Milo is a running back. When he runs, he zig-zags back and forth and yet still somehow manages to dash way ahead of you and out of your reach. Admittedly, his endurance is not great, but we rarely meet a dog that can keep up (or escape his playful pounces) in the short run.



Here, we've caught Milo in action at the park. When he tires out, he sits down, kicks his back leg out like he's decided to plop down on a couch, and refuses to continue on. Then, daddy has to carry him all the way home.



UPDATE: This final picture of Milo at the fountain made it into our vet's upcoming calendar! Milo will be Mr. September 2011.

Ladybug Cupcakes - Meet Martha Stewart

After college, I rediscovered my love for baking cupcakes when I found Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. This is a great starting point for cupcake enthusiasts, as many recipes call for ingredients you likely already have in your kitchen or could easily find at the local supermarket. Anyone who's picked up this book will recognize these Ladybug Cupcakes. They're cute, delicious, fun to make, and guaranteed to make a co-worker or two smile. Invest in a multi-opening piping tip, and purchase either gum paste or marzipan to roll out some ladybugs (marzipan is much easier to dye and work with, not to mention more edible). Although the recipe calls for Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I find that regular buttercream holds the grass blade peaks much better. However, Swiss Meringue Buttercream has a lighter and smoother taste and texture, so that is the trade-off.

Orange Chrysanthemum Cupcakes - Childhood Memories

I have early memories of baking cupcakes with my mom in the kitchen. It was probably Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines or Pillsbury, depending on whatever was on sale. I pushed for Pillsbury, the kind with sprinkles.


My mom's secret was adding orange juice concentrate instead of water to the cake mix. All you need is the frozen can variety of orange juice concentrate, and depending on how strong of a citrus flavor you're looking for, add about one and a half to two cans of water to the concentrate (usually three cans are required for orange juice). Then, measure out the volume of "water" called for by the box instructions. Voilà, your cupcakes now taste like homemade orange coffee cake, and you have an excuse to eat one every day for breakfast! Here, I've piped standard buttercream chrysanthemum flowers on orange flavored yellow cake.

I am so used to this added flavor now that whenever I make ordinary white or yellow cake, it always seems to be missing something . . .

Meet Milo | A Birthday Bonbon

Today is Milo's birthday! Our Coton de Tulear is now one year old, and certainly no longer a puppy. He is now tall enough and feisty enough to stand up and nab his birthday-doggy-donut from the dining table. However, as any parent would say—or in this case, doggie parent—in our eyes, Milo will always be our little baby puppy. (He certainly still acts likes one!)

I promised myself that on Milo's first birthday, I would start this blog. With the demands and stresses of my job, a new geographic location without old friends or any easy way to make new ones, and a loving husband who has been kidnapped by something called medical school, I often feel like I have to seek out and treasure the little things that make me happy. Two of those things, without fail, are Milo and cupcakes (both baking and eating them). With this blog, I hope to keep at least those two loves of my life at the forefront of my mind, so that I always have a reason to smile. Hopefully I can share those smiles with you too.