Daisy Cakes

left: Choc full o’ Passion Vanilla bean cupcake filled with passion fruit cream and topped with milk chocolate frosting

right: S’mores Chocolate cupcake filled with ganache and topped with toasted meringue and graham cracker

I've been meaning to stop by Dasiy Cakes since the beginning of the school year when I first heard about it but didn't get around to it until recently. Their shop is a big, shiny trailer located in a small parking lot on the corner of some random street in the middle of downtown. I love the vintage small-town, local neighborhood shop vibe it has. I've only tried a couple "gourmet" cupcakes before but I'd say these definitely take the lead. The cupcake bases themselves were good. They were more dense than box cake mix and the outside had that irresistible crunchy crust. In my opinion, the filling was what made these cupcakes better than other i've tried. The passion fruit cream was...amazing. It was light and creamy and actually tasted exactly like passion fruit. gah, so good. As for the ganache filling in the s'mores cupcake, yeah...impossible to deny that, especially paired with the toasted meringue topping. Reminds me of the pwild and campfires. (: 

I brought these home to share with the family. Yes, they diminished quickly. sigh, if only i could eat desserts guiltlessly like this everyday.

defining happiness

a few photographs by Rodney Smith. love the playful and optimistic yet playful approach to his photographs.

currently...

the first day of spring break (really? already?)

in a food coma from home-cooked deliciousness overload

mourning over tonight's duke-unc game

watching inception

browsing recipes with matcha green tea

i just bought some matcha green tea powder from the asian market today and already used it in the japanese cheesecake i made for dessert. (i think i like japanese cheesecake better than regular cheesecake. it's like...cake meets cheesecake, like a denser, moister version of sponge cake. light and airy, but also creamy at the same time. almost melts in your mouth. yum yum yum). so excited to use it in my collection of about a million recipes that i think would taste good infused with some green tea.

some inspiration by michelle...

death by chocolate

Yes...I realize that this is the third consecutive chocolate-related post in the past month...Given my incessant craving for chocolate, I should probably be diagnosed with addiction. I can't go a day without a dose of some form of chocolate. It's just...so good. 

(me on Valentine's day...yeah, it was bad...)

But ANYWAY, back to my intended subject...

In light of the recent NY Times article deeming Durham (surprisingly) as one of the top 41 places to go in 2011, I decided it was time to actually venture outside of campus and discover the mysterious unknown. Okay, not that dramatic. But in all seriousness, I knew of a few unique and worthwhile places in Durham and I'd occasionally go to the farmer's market but I had never really explored the "revitalized" Durham that supposedly has a bunch of outstanding restaurants and cafes scattered around downtown. Partly because I'm lazy and partly because...no, yeah that was my only excuse. Pathetic, I know. When I actually did get over my laziness, I thought I'd start out with one of the places mentioned in the article. Scratch bakery is this cute little bakery/dessert shop on some random, hard to find street (probably because I suck at directions) in downtown. Everything looked SO GOOD. How good? That sea salt sprinkled dark chocolate croustade good (see above pictures). It was half gone before I could take a picture of it. My friend also had their molten chocolate cake, which was also to-die-for. literally. almost. It was fudgy and molten-y on the inside and the edges had a slight crisp to it...basically the perfect combination. 

okay...must find some chocolate now...

the milk bread project

I've been playing around with different Taiwanese Milk Bread recipes for a while now but nothing has turned out comparable to the real thing that I get in Taiwan until this attempt. yay!! The bread was soft and fluffy and so so good. I was so excited about my success that I made another loaf the next day...and then another within the same week. The first time I braided the dough with nai su (milk powder..stuff) and chocolate in it. The second time I kind of went all out and made separate sections of naisu and raisin, chocolate, and ham and cheese. I made the third batch at home with whole wheat flour and naisu. Still soft and delicious. I can't wait to use this basic (but amazing) bread recipe to make different varieties of breads. next: green tea bread with red bean filling and pork floss bread with scallions.
It's times like these when I wish I had better photography skills.

"when in doubt, go all out"
-kickboxing class 2.14.11
for some reason i feel this could potentially be very dangerous in certain situations...like food.

brownie break...

oh hello second semester, you snuck up on me unexpectedly. why are you suffocating me with endless amounts of work already? 

must de-stress...

so I sort of played around with pattycake's original black bean recipe and turned it into a black bean cheesecake brownie bar with peanut butter, walnuts, chocolate chips, and a crumbly oatmeal crust. or something exactly like that but with a more creative name. definitely creamier than the original, and i love the additional overwhelming amount of other random add-ins. if i was skilled enough to make a decent oatmeal crust, then i could probably eat this everyday.