Apple-Banana Coffee Cake with Walnuts and Honey

Ever since I pulled out the bread machine, I've wanted to become a better baker.  I'm the first to admit that baking is difficult for me.  Why is it so difficult to adhere to the damn recipe instructions?!?!  I think my ego gets in the way.  I think I know better than the baker who actually made a successful end product out of the recipe that they shared. "The ingredients on this list are so dull...let me spice it up with..." or "This batter doesn't look right; it looks too dry...let me add some milk..." 

Sometimes, I just can't follow the simplest instructions and things like this happens:

Fail! What was supposed to be a pineapple banana bread.



Until I know the science behind the core ingredients (rising agent - yeast/baking soda-baking powder, sugar - brown/white, flour type, "moisturizer" - butter/oil/honey, liquid - milk/water/yolk/egg white), I really shouldn't try to fuss with the base ingredients or instructions!

However, I can't help but come up with excuses.

This past weekend, I was doing my daily foodgawking and spotted an awesome apple coffee cake with creme fraiche and honey recipe posted by Baking the Goods.  I had most of the ingredients listed in the recipe but was too lazy and budget-oriented to get creme fraiche or use an additional Fuji apple that I had in the fridge.  Instead, of 2 apples, I used 1 apple and 1 super ripe banana (just because it was an eyesore and I wanted to get rid of it).  Instead of creme fraiche, I used whatever yogurt was left in the fridge - blueberry.  I also nixed the yummy crumb topping because I was lazy and wanted to avoid additional sugar and butter.

Please rise properly and taste delicious even though I deviated from the recipe!

Success!

This recipe turned out forgiving and I was able to produce a beautiful and delicious Apple-Banana Coffee Cake with Walnuts and Honey!

Apple-Banana Coffee Cake with Walnuts and Honey and

served with Mike's homemade Cranberry Ice Cream

Madeleines!

Pin It

I couldn't resist buying a madeleine pan once I decided to go on my DC baking binge.  I only managed to make 2 kinds of madeleines before departing, but I will definitely be making more once I get settled in Madison.  I'm eyeing matcha madeleine recipes right now...

My first madeleines were not quite as successful as I wanted.  I forgot to add honey so my lavender madeleines turned out on the dry side.  Luckily Jamie made delicious chai for us to dip the madeleines in.  The lavender butter was tremendous though.  I would definitely apply the technique of melting butter with lavender in other recipes.  The smell is irresistible!

Lavender Madeleines

(Recipe Adapted from PurpleFoodie)

Melting butter with lavender

Ready for the oven

Lavender madeleines with chai

My second batch of madeleines was much more successful because, well, I didn't forget any steps, and the parmesan helped make the madeleines both moist on the inside and slightly crunchy on the outside.  Instead of  ground pepper called for in the Williams-Sonoma recipe, I added cayenne pepper because I love the bit of tang it has that's lacking in black pepper.

Rosemary-Parmesan Madeleines

(Recipe Adapted from Williams-Sonoma)

Rosemary-Parmesan Spicy Madeleines

Paciugo: Rose and Lavender Gelato!

Pin It

After spending a day out in the sun exploring the Texas Sculpture Garden in Frisco, which apparently is the "largest private collection of contemporary Texas sculpture," my brother and I met up with his grad school friends at Watters Creek, an outdoor mall in Allen, TX.  

I'm not too fond of the collection at this business park, but I did enjoy the tar roses!

After stuffing ourselves at the Cheesecake Factory, we walked around, listened to an outdoor concert, and cooled off with delicious gelato at Paciugo.  I noticed on their website that they'll be opening a store in Northern Virginia Spring 2012!  Yay!  Looks like I will get to treat myself to some awesome gelato flavors like the ones below a year from now!

Rose Chocolate Chip

Lemon Poppyseed

Vanilla Lavender

Lemon Poppyseed, Vanilla Lavender, and Rose Chocolate Chip

Cutie Pie Wagon

Cutie Pie Wagon

After a day of classes, I decided to buy a snack.  I craved something...I didn't know what, just something from a trailer I haven't visited before.  After menu-shopping at the various trailers parked on South Congress, I settled on the award-winning Buttermilk Pie at Cutie Pie Wagon.  It was pretty expensive for this miniature pie, but it was quite delicious.  Not mind-blowing, but enough to satisfy my cravings and allowed me to re-fuel before a night of readings and papers.

Buttermilk Pie

La Boîte Cafe: Follow-up

So last time, I wrote that La Boite's croissants were dense and were not flakey.  But after buying croissants early in the morning rather than in the afternoon, I realized that their freshly baked croissants are indeed flakey, particularly the almond croissants. 

Assortment of Croissants: butter, ham and cheese, and almond

I was even happier when I found out that La Boîte makes macarons, and not just the boring usual flavors, but bold and creative ones!  Below were the first macarons I bought from this bakery.  I have also tasted rose, guava, durian, pistachio with chocolate ganache, and chocolate with coffee cream.  Forget about the dinky Central Market macarons, these are much more satisfying!

Assortment of Macarons: (I forgot what the multi-colored one is), lemon, vanilla, fleur de sel caramel, plum, and green tea 

New York City Day 7

I have been so bogged down with schoolwork that I abandoned food blogging for the duration of the Fall semester!  Well, I have a lot of catching up to do, including finishing up on my July NYC trip!

After the amazing dinner at Aburiya Kinnosuke the previous evening, I enjoyed a leisurely walk through Central Park and a light, pastry-centric lunch at the Bouchon Bakery at the Time Warner Center.

Views from Central Park

The seasonal pastries - raspberry croissants and raspberry eclairs - were incredibly scrumptious!  I fell madly in love with these light and fruity concoctions.  I thought that the raspberries in the raspberry eclair would come in jelly or cream/custard form, but the eclair was more of a sandwich of raspberries, which is even cooler! 



Raspberry Croissants

Raspberry Eclair

And as a last day scramble to soak up the NYC food scene, we headed back out to Flushing to scope out what goodies to bring back home.  There were tons of small Chinese bakeries sprinkled throughout Flushing.  We picked out a dozen flakey green tea and red bean paste with preserved egg yolk pastries at one of these bakeries.  I highly recommend the green tea su!

Green Tea "Su" (flakey pastry) and Red Bean Paste Su

Since we only had the glutinous rice steamed with dungeness crab dish at 東湖 New Imperial Palace Seafood Restaurant, we decided to revisit the establishment to try other dishes for our last dinner in New York.

Chicken Soup with Shitake Mushrooms

Stir-fried Clams in Black Bean Sauce

Crispy Fried Seafood Rolls

Braised Abalone with Shitake Mushrooms and Bitter Greens

Steamed Sable Fish Topped with Preserved Vegetables

The food was good, but I wasn't extremely impressed.  Still, the leftovers made a pretty good breakfast zhou (rice porridge) the next morning.  Hooray to the versatile hotel coffee makers!  See my tips on eating well on a budget.

Homemade Shaved Ice!

Taking advantage of potential business in the fight against the Texas summer heat, snow cone and Hawaiian ice trailers have been popping up everywhere.  I always crave Taiwanese shaved ice in the summer.  The texture of the ice and the variety of toppings are so much better than the artificially flavored crunchy snow cones.
I'm not particularly fond of the kidney beans topping (my mom's favorite), but I love taro, barley, red beans, green beans, stewed peanuts, and all sorts of fruits on my ice.

In the past, you can only buy a hand cranked ice shaver at Chinese supermarkets.  Those sucked because the plastic bowls that you had to fill with water have a tendency to split or warp due to water expansion in the freezer.  We never really had a chance to successfully make shaved ice at home.

Recently, we came upon an electric Taiwanese ice shaver at an Asian market.  I would not recommend buying it because it broke after our first try.  If anyone knows of a good ice shaving machine, please tell me where I can get one!

I topped my shaved ice with fresh mango, blueberries, and Vietnamese condense milk.  It tasted heavenly.

Taiwanese Shaved Ice-with mango, blueberries, and condensed milk

Jungle Cafe and Patisserie

Jungle Cafe and Patisserie

Everytime I'm in Houston, I make sure that I bring at least 2 rectangular cakes from Jungle Cafe back to Austin with me. Their Chinese/Taiwanese takes on French desserts are almost as good as Japanese take on French dessets. In other words, Asian takes on Western desserts are tastier than desserts made by Americans. Ouch. There, I said it. And dare I say that sometimes, they're even better than desserts made by the French because it's just as tasty but healthier? Chill. The sky won't fall because the Asians can trump the French at their own culinary undertakings. I'll be fair and say that this isn't an absolute rule. The Chinese take on Western cooking can sometimes be disasterous as I've written on my post about Wang Ping Steakhouse in Taiwan.


What's so great about Jungle Cafe's desserts?


1) The cakes are light as air. You know how madeleines are supposed to be light as air? The lightest of madeleines can't touch Jungle Cafe's cakes. They are like angel food cakes, but more moist. Angel food cake tastes great at first, but it gets stuck in my throat as the air and tiny bit of moisture are mushed out of the morsel.


2) There is no trace of icing on any of their desserts. Before you bombard me with "but icing is the best part of a cake," you should just buy a tub of Betty Crocker ready-made icing from the grocery shelf and dig in rather than eat a cake to support your argument. Icing is utter junk. I'll only happily eat the icing on cakes made by Fickle Foodie (example 1, example 2, example 3, and this can go on for quite a bit).


3) 很精细 (finely prepared)

We're addicted to three dessert flavors: coffee, green tea, and mango. In order for another flavor to divert our attention away from these three, it'll have to be super sumptuous, unusual, or present in the absence of the trinity.


That's how I picked out the following goodies on this trip:

Coffee Cake with Raspberry Jelly

Mango Mousse-with almond biscuits, mango orange mousse, mango gelee, and chocolate; Emeraude-Chocolate almond, pate a feuilletine, almond biscuit, pistachio cream, and diced nuts

Amour-coconut dacquiose, orange, almond biscuit, pate a feuilletine, and chocolate cream

They even have macarons! (these are all tea flavored)

Jungle Cafe will move to the Dunhuang Plaza just down Bellaire Blvd. soon.