Teddy Bear Green Tea Dorayaki

Fuji Apple Crab

Fuji Apple Crab

Made a crab out of one Fuji apple the other day. Originally intended to do a lobster, but decided to go with a crab since it turned out to look more like the latter. It can even pass for a spider because of its pointy legs!

I've realized that apples are pretty easy and convenient to create fun food art designs. And not to mention, they're always laying around in the kitchen! All you need is one apple. :)

Fun Facts:

• Fuji apples are a hybrid between 2 different apples: the Red Delicious (from Iowa) and the Virginia Ralls Genet apples (from Virginia) and crossbred in Japan! 
• They are sweeter, lighter (in color & taste), and juicier than Red Delicious apples.
• Supposedly, they can remain fresh for a whole year without refrigeration!
• Fuji apples are the most popular type of apple in Japan.
• The term 'fuji' came from the the town Fujisaki, Aomori, Japan, not Mt. Fuji.

Teddy Bear Toast

Teddy Bear Toast

Saw a couple pictures floating around Pinterest and other social media outlets of a cute teddy bear toast art and decided to do my own. It's easy and quick to make, and it adds an adorable addition to your breakfast!


Total time: 5 minutes, 2 slices of 'teddy bear' bread


Ingredients:

• Slice of toast
• Sliced bananas
• Milk and white chocolate chips
• Cookie butter spread

Directions:

1. Spread cookie butter over the toast. Make sure the spread fills the entire bread.
2. Cut slices of bananas and put three on the slice of bread, with two as the ears and one as the nose.
3. Use chocolate chips for the eyes and nose.

Done!

So easy, right? 

I was actually going to use creamy peanut butter but I ran out just a few days ago so I used cookie butter spread instead. It's a darker brown, but it's still a shade of brown and it works! For the chocolate chips, you can substitute raisins. They're still a relatively black color so it won't be very different. I substituted white chocolate chips for the eyes because milk chocolate chips are hard to see against the dark cookie butter.

Definitely give this a try and make it for breakfast! Guaranteed to put a smile on anyone's face! :)

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)

Black and White Ball

A week ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Black and White Ball and experience ballroom dancing for the first time! I've always wanted to try ballroom dancing and didn't realize how many different styles there are (waltz, tango, quickstep, rumba, etc). I loved how you can either come dressed in formal wear (evening dress or a suit) or in a costume. Everyone was so creative in their attire. I saw Snow White, Lady Gaga, Stormtrooper, and more. It was so much fun and felt like I was re-living my high school prom!

 Stormtrooper and I

I can't wait to attend again next year!

Man Rowing a Boat

 

"Man Rowing a Boat"

Using only 4 ingredients:

• 1 slice of whole wheat bread (man, hat, rain, fishing rod)
• Cashews (clouds)
• Chia Seeds (fish)
• Slice of mango (boat)
  
  

I made this on a whim! I saw a slice of mango on the kitchen table and thought it resembled a boat. I grabbed other ingredients (bread, cashews, chia seeds) and quickly formed a man fishing while rowing a boat. The cashews form the clouds and the outer white grains from the bread crust are used for the rain.

I love how you can create something amazing with just a few simple ingredients that anyone can find at home. It's incredible what kind of art you can create with food. The possibilities are endless. I'm always on the look out for inspirations for my next creations.

Oatmeal with Blueberries

Ingredients:

• 5 tablespoons rolled oats
• almond milk
• blueberries
• almonds
• pistachios
• cashews
• chia seeds
• cinnamon
• honey

Made a quick breakfast this morning. So yummy!

Apple Swan

What do you do when you have an apple and a knife?

Eat it?

Nope, you carve a swan!


This was surprisingly not as complicated as it looks. It took roughly 30 minutes to make, including washing it and taking photos. All you really need is one apple and a knife! Out of a whole apple, I ended up using only 3/5ths of it to make the swan. The rest of the 2/5ths pieces of the apple are leftover pieces you can eat. The eyes are the seeds from the center of the apple (not edible because apparently apple seeds are poisonous). The swan is a bit yellow, though, because I didn't have any lemons at home (lemons help prevent apples from turning brown!) -- so the swan started to brown rather quickly.

Apples have all sorts of health benefits, such as having a high level of antioxidants and fiber while helping to delay and/or prevent disesase. There's a reason why there's the saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away!"

Matcha Green Tea Pocky & Kit Kat

Green tea flavored snacks are all the rave in Japan (not surprisingly as it's a major antioxidant and deeply a part of the Japanese culture), and I'm glad some of their goodies are making their way to the states!

Green tea snacks are usually made from two different kinds of powder. The first kind is made from the loose leafs of green tea leaves. The second is from finely grounded green tea powder that is of much higher quality than the former. The most common type of green tea flavored-anything is made from regular green tea leaves since it's more accessible and easier to make. Matcha (or maccha) goes through a much more vigorous production process and can be quite expensive, and therefore rare. 

Matcha has many health benefits:
-High levels of antioxidants
-A calming effect (helps lower stress)
-Vitamins and minerals 
-Boosts immune system
-Boosts metabolism and helps with weight loss
-Detoxing
-Lowers blood sugar levels and cholesterol

Although matcha is mainly produced and consumed in the Land of the Rising Sun, there are some matcha flavors in the western world too. Starbucks and many other coffee shops now have green tea latte. The most popular green tea snacks are pocky and kit kats (as shown in the picture above). They can be found in Japan or in Japanese shops in the states (ie. Daiso, Ichiban-Kan).

Picnic Day 100th Year Anniversary

In celebration of Picnic Day's 100th year anniversary, I made a cow using any edible food scraps I could find in my kitchen. 

Ingredients:

•Brown rice (face)

•Carrots (horns)

•Blueberries (eyes)

•Almonds (nose)

•Dark chocolate pretzels (nose ring)

•Sun-dried mission black figs (ears)

Originally I wanted to make a cow with pancake batter, but I didn't have a squeeze bottle or bananas! So I decided to make it using toast but I didn't have any bread at home (strange I know). So I opened the refrigerator door and scoured through everything possible to find ingredients that I could potentially use. I grabbed the items and laid them all out on the kitchen table, and began the process.

I love food art and being able to express my creativity on something practical (like eating haha). Food art with a theme is especially fun and exciting when you get to celebrate and showcase a holiday or special event.