"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.