Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

My second time making chocolate covered strawberries! The first time I used only strawberries and chocolate chips. I grabbed a bag of white chocolate chips and heated them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. The result: burnt (literally some parts were black) and hardened chocolate. So in my second attempt, I followed the recipe instructions step-by-step, and they turned out so much better! Ahh I'm so happy! They're actually really easy and simple to make!

Ingredients:

• Strawberries (fresh, washed and dried)
• Chocolate Chips (semi-sweet)
• White Chocolate Chips
• Shortening

Directions:

1. Wash all of your strawberries and wipe clean with a paper towel. 
2. Put water in your double boiler and heat it on medium.
3. Once it is simmering, put chocolate chips and 1/2 teaspoon of shortening in a heat-safe bowl and put in the double boiler.
4. Once half way (to 3/4th) melted, quickly remove from the stove and place it on a table.
5. Dip the strawberries in the bowl of chocolate. 
6. Place chocolate covered strawberries on a bowl with the chocolate side face up.
7. Put the dipped strawberries in the freezer.
8. Repeat step 3 and 4 for white chocolate chips.
9. Take out the strawberries from the freezer.
10. Make swirls with the white chocolate over the strawberries.
11. Put in the freezer like step 6
12. Transfer to the refrigerator after 20-30 minutes.
13. Remove from refrigerator and enjoy!

Done!

Enjoy! The white chocolate swirls definitely adds an elegant and impressive look! :)

Eggless White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Eggless White Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the recipe for egg-free cookies! I ran out of eggs so I attempted to make some cookies without using any. I also saw a recipe for egg-free muffins, which I was about to make also, but didn't have enough time, so I will attempt to make them next time!

Eggs tend to make cookies chewier. So since these didn't have any, they were more crumbly. Nonetheless, feel free to work around the recipe to suit them to your liking!

Makes 24 small cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 5 tbsp almond milk
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• white chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cut a piece of parchment paper and line it on the cookie sheet.
3. Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, sugar) and whisk in a bowl.
4. Add in wet ingredients (milk, vanilla extract, melted butter) and chocolate chips.
5. Put a drop of cookie dough on the lined tray (about 1 tbsp), with 8 drops per tray.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Done!

Banana Blueberry Peanut Butter Oatmeal

Banana Blueberry Peanut Butter Oatmeal

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp rolled oats
• blueberries
• 1 large banana
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• almond milk
• chia seeds
• honey
• cinnamon
  
  
  
  

Directions:

1. Cook oats in water in the microwave for 1:20 minutes. 
2. Pour almond milk.
3. Slice bananas and place them in a circle on top of the oatmeal.
4. Put blueberries in the inner circle.
5. Place a dollop of peanut butter in the middle.
6. Sprinkle with chia seeds, cinnamon, and honey.

Done!

Ingredients health benefits:

• oatmeal- high fiber, low fat, high protein
• blueberries- high antioxidants, high vitamin C
• banana- high fiber, potassium
• peanut butter- high protein
• almond milk- high omega-3 fatty acids, high vitamin E
• chia seeds- high fiber, omega fatty acids, calcium, antioxidants, protein
• honey- high antioxidants, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal
• cinnamon- lowers bad cholesterol and blood sugar

Withered Roses

These photos are what fresh pink roses look like after sitting in a vase for 2-2.5 weeks. They start browning and drying up pretty fast! Although they look completely different in the photos, the two roses -- the brown and pale pink one -- are actually from the same vase. Surprisingly, they came out very different!

Red, White, Blue American Flag Strawberry Shortcake

Red, White, Blue American Flag Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:

• 16 oz (1 lb) 454 g Vanilla Cake Mix (made with Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Flavor)
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Cool Whip
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1/2 Cup Stick Melted Butter
• 1 Cup Cold Almond Milk (regular milk is fine)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Remove Cool Whip from freezer and place in refrigerator to thaw (the recommended time to thaw is 4 hours before using).
3. Slice stick butter in half (=1/2 cup). Place in a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds.
4. Combine eggs, butter, and milk in a bowl and mix with a hand mixer. 
5. Add in the vanilla cake mix and continue to mix until the batter is no longer lumpy.
6. Pour batter into a butter-greased 9x13 nonstick pan and tap on table to level it out and to decrease bubbles.
7. Put pan in oven and leave for 25 minutes, or until toothpick in the center comes out clean.
8. Once done, leave cake on the table to allow for cooling (for faster cooling, add frozen packages underneath the pan to speed up cooling).
9. When cake is completely cooled (20-30min later), remove Cool Whip from the fridge and use a rubber spatula to spread whip cream topping on the cake. Cover it completely with a thick layer.
10. Put blueberries on the top left corner to form a rectangle.
11. Grab your strawberries and remove the leaves and stem. Then slice it in half and put them on the cake in rows (to resemble the red stripes in the American flag).
12. Slice cake in pieces, making sure that each piece of cake has at least one fruit.
    
    Done!

Tips:

• Choose Cool Whip over regular whip cream from a spray can.
• Slice cake before adding fruits on top if you don't want the whip cream to get all over the fruit (looks better visually).
• You can use different pans also, but a 9x13 rectangular pan resembles an American flag the best.

Enjoy!

Mickey Mouse + Balloons Toast Art

Hi guys! Sorry for the lack of cooking/baking posts recently. Been running low on inspiration lately. D:

Here's a Mickey Mouse toast art I did a couple days ago. It's Mickey created over a slice of whole wheat toast, with mochi and wafer sticks as balloons. This was inspired by my recent trip to Disneyland, where I had the opportunity to meet Mickey for the first time!

The strawberry wafer sticks were purchased from an Asian supermarket, called the Manila Oriental Market. The mochi were from Phoenix Food Boutique down in Monterey Park (when I went to SoCal). By the way, I know the mochi looks a little weird in the picture. It's been sitting in the fridge for a while before I finally had the chance to use it to create this piece, so it's not as round as it should be! I tried to use my hands to make it appear more round, but it just wouldn't budge. Haha. The rest of the ingredients were found laying around the kitchen. :)

This was my first time doing food art on toast! I've seen different types of toast art around and have always wanted to try working with a different medium. I liked how clean and simple toast art looks. All you need is a slice of bread, which you can easily find at any supermarket, and from there you can create anything you want! This was actually my second attempt creating Mickey. I didn't realize how messy bread was and how difficult it was to form a design from it by just eyeballing it without any templates! Now I know better though. :)

Maybe next time I will try to create both Mickey and Minnie together! (Which was my original idea haha :P)