mango charlotte royale and the HOTTEST DAY EVARRR

today was a fun (although HOT) summer day and night; the friends and i had a picnic at the Fullerton Arboretum (free!), we went around Brea mall where i bought some white tshirts for work and some black sandals which i was in DIRE need of because my last pair broke, then we explored and took pictures around IKEA, and ended the day by playing in the park in the dark and cooling off in the grass. all in all, one of the funnest days i've had this summer :) it was a good end to my so-called "break" because next monday i start job training! WOOT!! i'm excited and nervous and just anxious all over about this. hopefully it won't be too bad!

lately the weather has not been kind, staying among the 100's (my car said it was 108 degrees today -___-) and i heard that tomorrow won't be any cooler. and AND lately there has been flash flood warnings around the LA county area...? so i really don't know wtf is UP with alla that nonsense. SOO, because it was so hot, i decided it would be nice to have a fruity chilled dessert to have on hand. i present to you: the Mango Charlotte Royale. yes yes yes, i know the last post i promised a layered jaconde cake, but that dream was swiftly taken away when i realized that i was ONE OUNCE short of the amount of almonds i needed :/

it's mango bavarois lined with genoise mousseline, garnished with mango slices, strawberries, and chocolate. originally i was going to make a little chocolate fence around it just to cover up the sides, but apparently it was so hot that after the chocolate set up in the fridge, it would immediately melt once i took it out. siighhh. anyway, it was the perfect little pick-me-up for this afternoon: cool, smooth, creamy, and deliciously fruity, with just the right amount of subtle sweetness :p

soooo... things that i learned from making this dessert:

1. i need aluminum cake rings! i didn't have any on hand, and so instead i used ramekins lined with saran wrap (which explains all the ridges along the top). "well why didn't you just cut up some cans and use those instead like Alton Brown did?" you ask. well i already tried that, and to tell you the truth, i'm just scared of cutting my hand. so i mean, which would you rather have, a ridged-y sided dessert, or no dessert at all because it was covered in blood? i rest my case.

2. sometimes it's just too hot for chocolate :( unless you want it super melty-like. then it's alright.

3. according to my baking book, the name "Charlotte Russe" is actually the name of a dessert! who knew? it's just another version of the charlotte, just like the Charlotte Royale. it makes me feel slightly better knowing this, so that i won't always have to associate it with just a cheap clothing store :)

4. fruit Bavarian Cream (or Bavarois) is RIDICULOUSLY easy to make :)

4th of july feats and flops!

happy (late) Independence Day! my independence night was spent at a party at my uncle's house, and i had my first go at making american bbq beef (feat!) and i attempted to make mini chocolate pound cakes (flop). the beef was SOOOO goood and i actually got to cut a good amount of hours cooking it by just using the pressure cooker instead of the slow cooker or oven. the chocolate pound cake on the other hand, well, just keep reading.

looks pretty, right? yeah NO. i thought they looked good when they came out of the oven too.

a cross section... it turned out to be really dense, but REALLY dry. also, the recipe i used was SO deceiving! the picture they provided made it look like it was really dark and moist and chocolatey, but i KNEW that it could never get that way without any actual chocolate!! (the recipe only uses cocoa powder).

another problem i came along while i was mixing it: I RAN OUT OF SUGAR. WTF. so not only was it dry, it was barely sweet. siighh. i thought i could make up for the lack of granulated sugar in the batter by just mixing in some powdered sugar and then topping it with powdered sugar later, but that just made it only somewhat bearable. oh well. i brought it to the party anyway, and the kids seemed to like it! so at least i didn't have to bring a full pan of that back home :)

so, just to recap: no sugar in the house. this means, no baking until i go grocery shopping on wednesday :( hopefully the next thing i bake won't make me so miserable!

kiwi gelato and an update on the job hunt

remember my last post i mentioned a job fair in Newport? well, i MIGHT get the job! or i MIGHT NOT! i know, this whole thing makes me kinda nervous, too. basically, whether i get the job or not (a part time prep cook position) depends on my fall schedule for school, which i won't know until July 7th. sooo, at this point i'm hoping and PRAYING that they'll still want me by then! i was one of the VERY FEW people who actually bothered to dress well (i swear, over half the people just came in tshirts and jeans and flip flops -__-), so i'm hoping that worked well to my advantage.

anyway, onto the gelato!

probably one of the easiest frozen desserts i've ever made, as it has no eggs, and no cooking process whatsoever! :)

kiwis were on sale at my local mexican market for 8 for $1, so of course, i had to take advantage of that...

creamy, soft and tart :p it even managed to stay soft after a day in the freezer, whereas most of the ice creams i've made in the past have just hardened. the only thing i would really change about this recipe is to use powdered sugar instead of granulated white since it's not cooked, and the granulated sugar doesn't really dissolve. other than that, it's a good 8 out of 10 :)

rose milk tea ice cream and moving woes

so, if you haven't heard yet, moving kinda sucks. but you know what doesn't suck? ice cream :p

there's this cafe along colima called La Kaffa, and one time (years ago) i went there and had their rose milk tea, which was (of course) bombtastic. since then, i've been trying to find other ways to incorporate that rose flavour, but haven't really come up with anything blog-worthy until now.

i present to you: rose milk tea ice cream, a concoction that i actually came up with myself! (tee hee!) i'm kind of excited because this has been the only actual noteworthy and successful dessert for which i came up with my own recipe.

mmmm. this stuff was pretty good, especially if you are into floral-y flavours. if you look close enough, you can see a few black flecks from the tea leaves that didn't get strained out.
as garnish i added a meringue cookie that i made from the leftover egg whites (as if it needed more sugar) and a dried rosebud just so it looks a little prettier (total non-functioning garnish, i know. whatevs! don't tell me how to live my life!)
the entire freezing process took WAAAY longer than i thought it would, as i don't have an ice cream machine, and right in the middle of freezing it, my refrigerator decides to poop out :/ so, instead of this being a one day process, it ends up being a 2.5 day process. but whatever. the outcome was worth the wait! :)
it was super rich and creamy, and the rose flavour was just the right strength, although it could have used more tea leaves in it. ohhh wells. another good thing: my family actually liked it! yay! usually when i come up with things that are out of the norm, they don't really warm up to it, but this time they did, which was pretty awesome. plus, i'm totally psyched that i actually made ice cream at all, as i've always been discouraged from trying it before because i didn't have an ice cream maker.

as for moving, (big sighh) i kind of didn't want to make an entry about it at all because this whole process has been one big disappointment after another, but i guess i have to update you guys about it somehow. we basically got a downgrade. the house is almost the same size as the last one, but it's like everything is slightly smaller than in our old house. plus, even though the ONE thing that i was looking forward to was getting my own room, my parents said i can't have one. sighhhhhh. this was also after a couple days of me arguing and complaining to them about it. they also said i could have a garden in the back, which now, apparently, i can't. lamesauce. the backyard is super small anyway. and to top it all off, i timed myself driving to school on friday, and the extra distance from here to school added TWENTY MINUTES to my commute. and that was on a friday, when there is typically less traffic than the rest of the week. -____-

okay, well, i really don't even want to think about it right now. let's just think about something pleasant. like ice cream :p

raiding the library and an update on moving

on saturday my sister and i went to the Walnut library for the first time in FOREVER, and they had a bunch of books out in the front for their april book sale. guess what my new source for cookbooks is? $1 a book? hell yes. as i didn't have any cash on me at the time, my sis agreed to get me one book and after looking through every single page and picture, i finally decided today on what i wanted to make first.

flourless chocolate cake :p

a close-up of the magnificently rich and chocolatey goodness, dusted with cocoa powder and topped with caramelized sugar. when we ate it, the inside was still warm and gooey, just as god intended chocolate cakes to be :p

all six cakes, with random sugar designs. i baked them in little ramekins this time instead of the regular 8" pan the recipe asked for, not only because i thought they would look cuter, but also because i can't seem to find my cake pan... this seems to be one of the disadvantages of moving and packing things: i can never find what i need when i need it :/

oh well. smaller things look cuter anyway :)

i'm so glad we just happened to have all the ingredients for this. plus, it totally made up for my partial disaster when i tried to make Lengua yesterday (must find grandma's recipe!)

as for how things are going with the moving: we found a place! yay! it's further from my school! WHAT? dammit. yeah, that's kinda how things have been going lately. i wasn't really fussing with my parents about the whole moving thing in the first place, and all i really asked for was a place that was somewhat closer to my school. so of course, the opposite ended up happening, and now i have 10 miles added on to my 28 mile commute -___- at least my parents seem to be confident in the new house, and they said it was better than the one we live in now (it's in north west covina).

so far i haven't actually seen the place (i've only seen pictures), but i've been trying to look on the brighter side of the whole situation (like how i'll finally have my own room again teehehee). plus, i guess i shouldn't be complaining too much about the distance. i know a girl who goes to my school once a week and lives in Riverside, and last semester i met a guy who goes there and lives in Chino. so i mean, it could be worse.

for now, i just want this all to be over with. we'll start actually moving our stuff in the new place on the 23rd, and my school semester is over at the end of may. it was raining this morning, and now i just want it to be summer already :)

Say Goodbye to Summer...

and a sighing hello to school. again. sigh. i can honestly say this has been one of the laziest summers i've ever had. it didn't even really feel like summer. it just felt like one REALLY long weekend. oh how the days go by...

since it's august, i have to mention the very many birthdays that come with this month- including mine!! yay!! happy 18th birthday, elaine! what's your gift, you ask? college, of course! you get a school you don't know anything about, filled with thousands of students, all of them complete strangers!!! yippeeee!!! you can probably tell by now that i already started class. sigh. it's time again for new classes, new school, new people. i guess i'm just not up to it all. so far my actual classes have been fine. it's the people; everyone already seems to know each other, but i can't even seem to find out where my next class is! or even just the bathrooms for that matter...

i suppose i just need to wait for things to get in their natural order, when everything doesn't seem so new. hopefully that'll be soon :)

now, back to birthdays. in my family, august has 7 birthdays- 5 of my cousins, one aunt, and my birthday.

we celebrated my birthday with korean bbq. mmm... the reason i post this picture is so that you can see the tremendous amount of food there, and also that shirt i recon-ed out of a really old eddie bauer shirt i found at goodwill. it's from an angle that is just far enough so that you can see the jist of the shirt, but can just barely see my horrendous tanlines... because no one wants to see that.

two of my cousins, who were turning 23 and 20, had a party last saturday, and my gift to them were "make your own birthday cake kits" that i made, including a mug, chocolate cake mix, a whisk, a measuring spoon, chocolate fudge icing, and candles. originally i was going to just sew up a bunch of plushies for them, but then i realized how old they were. i wanted to make something that they can actually use rather than just toss aside after saying how cute it was. so what do you give to a couple of people who describe themselves as lazy? 5 minute chocolate cake! i swear, this is one of the LAZIEST ways to make a cake, but it actually came out kinda good. you just gather all the ingredients, mix it in the mug, and bake it by microwaving. the only problem i have with this cake is that you have to eat it almost immediately after you cook it, otherwise the texture changes a lot... and not in a good way :(

sprinkles cupcakes. i've never been to sprinkles, but i intend to taste what all the hype is about. after recently finding a recipe for their strawberry cupcakes, i knew i had to try it, because we all know that strawberries are the best fruit EVAH. and i have to say, they were delicious. drool. obviously i didn't make the ones in this picture, but when i made the cupcakes they didn't seem to last long enough for me to take a picture. that's a good sign, right? i didn't make it with the same strawberry icing, i just used some homemade whipped cream. after a VERY long search for the perfect buttercream icing, i just decided to give up. i soon realized that i never really liked icing... at parties i would always just eat the cake part, pushing the icing to the side. whipped cream always has a subtle sweetness to it, which i like more than the overly sweet buttercream.

mmm. whipped cream... :9

Weekend En Espanol

this weekend was pretty interesting. i spent friday night, saturday, and sunday morning camping at lake Hemet with kelley and jesse and his family. and while most of what was said was in spanish, it reminded me a lot of Deutschlager, or german camp (that is, german language camp). the crisp air, the clear lake, and only being able to understand half of what was said. besides that, it was pretty fun, and a hell of a lot better than just staying at home, which was probably what was going to happen. it's really dark there at night, but it helps to see the stars better, and i noticed that the stars actually twinkle there.

i couldn't help but reminisce about Deustschlager while i was there, and then about german. sigh. it turns out that out of the eight of us who took the german 4 AP test, none of us passed (that i know of). where did we go wrong?! i guess there is something wrong going on when we have too much fun. and boy, did we have fun. THIS IS SPARTA!! in the end i suppose i don't care about that score as much as i should. some of the most fun i've ever had in high school were in that german class, and that's the most i could ask for. and we all know it's better to have tried and failed than to not try at all. for now though, i'm just worried about the next time i visit frau rovell.

a week ago or so i made these cranberry oatmeal cookies, just so i can finally get rid of our craisins (the crazy raisin!!). also, we had a lot of oatmeal at home, and i think we both know it's not that appetizing on its own. but in a cookie? yes. deeelicious.


the cookies were nice and soft, with a buttery taste and a tartness from the cranberries. mmm. while craisins are completely good on their own, it helps to have a somewhat healthy snack around the house to keep you away from the potato chips. it also helps me realize that there are other desserts out there besides cakes and pies.

so without further ado, the recipe, which i based off of another recipe and made a few modifications to.

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
1 c. butter, softened
1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
2 each eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 c. oatmeal
2 c. dried cranberries (craisins!)

directions:
preheat oven to 350 degrees f.

in a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together. beat in eggs and vanilla.

in another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. add to butter mixture and mix together until completely combined.

fold in oats and dried cranberries to mixture until distributed throughout the dough.

drop dough in rounded tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes. makes 48 cookies. :)

you can add nuts to the cookie dough if you like, just minimize the amount of cranberries if you do. i've also seen recipes online that top the cookies with melted white chocolate, for more of a christmas-y taste.