Sweets

Shortbread biscuits are pretty basic.

They are made with simple ingredients, but they are delicious.

This time I added a little bit of “Paris” tea leaves, finely ground.

It smelled and tasted heavenly!

But why I decided to bake shortbread biscuits?

The main reason was “Ted Lasso”.

We started watching the show, Ted Lasso, a few weeks ago, and we got hooked!

We’ve been binge-watching since then.

I have a feeling that watching the show makes some people want to get a cold beer out of their fridge, because after all, the characters are mostly either on the soccer field or at a bar!

Me?

No.

Beer doesn’t do it for me.

But the shortbread biscuits?

Yes.

The main character, Ted Lasso, brings shortbread biscuits to his boss every morning, and they look so good!

Every time when I see Rebecca (the boss) has her first bite, I crave for it (lol).

And he brings the biscuits in a cute small pink box just like this.

Don’t laugh.

I made the box myself out of a piece of paper!

You can really find anything on YouTube.

The biscuits fit in the box perfectly!

It was hard to wait for it to cool and ready to be cut.

The cutting part is so satisfying.

Absolutely delicious!

I can definitely start a day with a piece of biscuit like this.

I used this recipe, but I cut it in half.

https://www.mashed.com/474422/ted-lassos-shortbread-biscuits-copycat-recipe/

I made this sometime in spring.

I forgot to post it and then when the summer came, I felt like it was too late to post.

Chocolate and summer just do not seem to go well together.

Technically it’s still summer (in my mind summer does not start until September), but we are almost there, so I decided to post it now (otherwise I am afraid that I will forget about this again).

This was a delicious banana bread.

Okay, we call it “bread”, but it’s definitely should be categorized as a “cake”.

I added the mixture of sunflower seed butter and chocolate to the banana bread batter and created the marble design in the middle and on the top, and then chocolate chips were also put in (both in the middle and the top as well).

The mixture of chocolate and sunflower seed butter tasted like heaven itself!

This was a delicious “bread”!!

Just a perfect snack with a cup of black coffee.

Now it’s getting cooler, so maybe it’s time to make it again.

No oil.

No eggs.

No dairy.

No gluten.

It’s a dense, which I personally like.

It tastes the best cold.

I had a hard time staying away from the fridge!

Here is the link to the recipe (Japanese).

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZrR8hjvxhg/

Mochi Donuts have been popular for a while in Japan, and its popularity seems to have been finally catching up here in the U.S.

They are chewy with the Mochi texture, and for some reason that makes this donut so tasty.

Just because it’s Memorial Day today, I decided to add the right colors.

These Mochi Donuts were baked instead of fried.

But the texture is still amazing.

Crispy outside and perfectly chewy inside.

Lightly glazed and decorated with the blue butterfly pea powder.

These were so addictive.

I couldn’t stop eating them!!

I’ve never had a chance to try this famous Taiwanese pineapple cake made by professionals.

When I learned about it, I was already on the plant-based diet, and I just couldn’t find any pre-made pineapple cake that was vegan.

So when I found this recipe in a Japanese magazine, I asked my mother to get the edition for me.

This turned out great!

As I said I’ve never tried professionally made pineapple cake.

So I don’t know how clot this is to the real thing, but I really liked (and my husband did too).

This was the reason why I’ve been absent from this blog for a while.

I’ve been busy with a vegan macaron making project.

It was supposed to be a quick one-day activity, but unfortunately, I ran into countless unexpected obstacles.

I’ve made vegan macarons on occasion in the past.

Not all of them turned out great, but they usually turned okay for the most part.

Well, this time I really struggled.

It was like I lost my mojo!

I’ve never encountered this many baking failures in the past.

And this time I was making shells for someone else!

Pressure possibly???

Usually I don’t do this, but this time I wanted my shells to look uniformed.

I started out using a new recipe this time.

And it was a major failure!

So, I went back to the recipe I had always used. ↓

https://www.supergoldenbakes.com/vegan-aquafaba-macarons/

For some reason, that didn’t turn out well either.

So I tried a new recipe. ↓

https://okonomikitchen.com/vegan-macarons/

I had some success with it, but it was not consistent.

I was able to make enough good-enough ones, but it was so frustrating because I did not know what resulted in the good batch or the bad batch.

I read so many guides and forums online for macaron troubleshooting.

But often times, they say something like… the reason this happened is because either the batter was overmixed or undermixed, or the oven temperature was too high or too low…

Can you see why it’s frustrating?

So basically, every process of macaron-making has to be PERFECT, which is, as you know, hard to do (sigh)…

Anyway, these are some of the shells that turned out better than others.

Blueberry buttercream.

Chocolate ganache.

Lemon buttercream.

I love this color combination.

Muted and elegant.

(Actually I wanted one of the colors to be “gray”, and I bought and used “super black” coloring gel. And this is what I got (the blue looking one). It’s still pretty, but it’s definitely not black or gray. I was completely perplexed. )

I put some blueberry syrup to the buttercream, but I thought it would be fun to place syrup and syruped blueberries on top for extra blueberry flavor.

It’s pretty this way, too!

I probably won’t make macarons for a while after this experience.

I need a little break.

But next time I do, I will either go back to the old recipe or try something different, maybe this one ↓.

https://projectveganbaking.com/vegan-macarons/

I had a feeling that this cake was going to be great.

Isn’t it interesting that you use a whole orange, skin, rind, and everything!

I used an organic orange for this.

Wash, cook, and puree it.

Just looking at this already made me excited.

I scraped every bits of the batter off the container and licked the spatula.

If the batter is so good, then the final result should be great, right?

I initially thought of making one big cake, but I decided to go with this mini Bundt pan.

I love this pan, but I don’t have a lot of chances to use it.

The cake turned out great!

I was so relieved that the cake came out of the pan okay.

(I took out the first one too quickly when it was still warm, and it did not come out cleanly. Note to myself: wait until they are cool. I waited for the rest, and they came out fine.)

This cake is so good that you really don’t need anything.

Do not even think about frosting.

Trust me.

You don’t need it.

It has a wonderful texture and great orange flavor.

And it’s perfectly sweet.

Not too sweet and not not-sweet-enough.

The recipe is ↓

https://www.rainbownourishments.com/vegan-whole-orange-cake/

I’m already thinking about making Whole Grapefruit Cale using this recipe.

I bet that will be great too.

Chocolate is for winter, and strawberries are for spring!

(Well, I take it back. Chocolate is for all year round. 😉

My mother-in-law is a big strawberry lover, and she is picky in a good way when it comes to strawberries.

When strawberries are in season, she goes strawberry-picking and freeze them.

She is good at it, too.

Last year I went with her one time, but she picked much more than I did!

She gave us a bag of her frozen strawberries the other day, and I decided to make coulis with them.

It was perfect on my almond jelly.

The same almond jelly was served with yellow peaches the other day.

Which would you prefer?