Sweets & Desserts

Cake Tasting @ Cake Fiction – Union, NJ

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One of the designs we stared at for awhileGive us cake!

One of the events we both were really excited about was the cake tasting. After all, cake is the most enjoyable dessert on the planet. After several hours of searching for wedding cake designs and weighing our themes, we were able to decide on one thing: a red cake to go with our Chinese-Indian themed wedding. That was it. These days, wedding cake designers offer 10+ cake flavors and cake fillings that all sound delectable, making it difficult to decide on one particular combination. And that’s only for the interior of the cake! The most difficult decision was the actual design that represented both our styles. Siddharth’s style is all about bold and colorful designs with embellishments. I, on the other hand, look for simplicity and clean lines (very plain-jane).

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Mid-Autumn Festival, 中秋節

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Greetings, blog readers and happy mid-autumn to all. The mid-autumn festival is a holiday in China/Hong Kong that celebrates the harvest of the fall crops and the time when the red moon is the brightest of the year. Of course, here in Northeast, it coincides with the very beginnings of the beautiful changing colors of leaves.

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Berry Ice Cream Sandwiches

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Summer on east coast is hot, hot, hot and a great way to keep cool is with some homemade ice cream. This past weekend, we chose to celebrate the summer heat with some fresh blueberries and strawberries. And a great way to compliment your homemade ice cream? By sandwiching them between two shortbread cookies! This was our first time making ice cream sandwiches and they are a cinch to make if you have some patience (or just a weekend) but we promise, they are worth the wait. Make a few to serve at your next summer BBQ!

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Baked Corn Pudding

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Who doesn’t love sweet corn? In addition to the traditional corn on the cob, corn can be incorporated into a lot of dishes, even desserts. Here, we made corn pudding – kind of a cross between cornbread and bread pudding. We call this a baked corn pudding because the texture is fluffy and cake-like on the one hand, but it is also gooey and thick like pudding. This unique texture is what makes this item (you could even eat it as a side dish for your next Thanksgiving!) so good and will keep you asking for seconds. Did I mention that the recipe is quite simple and there’s no way you can screw it up?

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Dessert Pick: Lemon Bars

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Citrus flavored dessert are very versatile for guests. They are sweet and sour, tangy and tart at the same time. Sometimes I wished I lived in California or Florida and had my own lemon or orange tree! Today, I picked Martha Stewart’s recipe for lemons bars to try. These are absolutely delicious and refreshing and ridiculously simple to make with just a hand mixer! Make these to share for your next dinner party. The beautiful lemon color makes for a great photo and summertime dessert centerpiece.

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Dessert Pick: Sweet Lobby

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Sweet Lobby
404 8th St SE
Washington DC 20003
202 544 2404

Sometimes planning ahead for food on your vacations is invaluable. And sometimes you just stumble onto an absolute gem. That’s what happened to us when we came across a microscopic store front called the Sweet Lobby on Capitol Hill. Packed with customers and emblazoned with stickers and flags indicating all kinds of awards, we knew right away that we’d better try what they had to offer. Turns out they make some of the most delicious French macaroons we’ve ever had. Oh, and their cupcakes rock. So good that they took home first place in Food Network competitions (Cupcake Wars and Cupcake Champions). Timothy, one of the competitors on those shows, was a fun guy to talk to, and we definitely think that you should try his cupcakes/macroons!

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Pandan-Sesame Crepes

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An electric green crepe? How’s that for fun with food! The outrageous hue here is derived from pandan essence. Pandan essence comes from the leaves of the screwpine, which resembles but is not related to a palm tree. In Southeast Asian cusine (think Malaysian, Thai, Philipino), pandan is used similarly to vanilla in western food, imparting fragrance to desserts, drinks, and various dishes. The taste is difficult for me to describe, but I have to say I love it! In this dish, I added a few drop of pandan essence (found at a local Asin store – it is impossible to find actual pandan leaves here in Ithaca) to a basic crepe batter. I then made a sweet black sesame filling for the crepes. This is an incredibly easy recipe that produces an exotic looking and delicious dish in a short time and makes for a nice snack or breakfast item.

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Caramel-Walnut Oatmeal Bars

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Sometimes I just crave caramel. Here is a simple recipe to sate caramel craving while adding some nutritional value, oats :). These bars are absolutely delicious and will certainly satisfy your sweet tooth. The caramel just oozes through the bar and the extra nuts we added really give the bar the extra crunch to a really moist dessert. This recipe makes a nice size portion that can be cut into small pieces to share with your friends and neighbors (or not!).

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Goat Cheese-Caramel-Walnut Brownies

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Listen up, bakers! This recipe is to die for, the brownies are superdense , not cakey like Duncan Hines. This recipe was completely thought out by Siddharth and it’s great. The brownies are gooey and the caramel gives the extra zing to the chocolate, although I must warn you, it will require some work and a lot of patience! The flavors are really well balanced, with the goat cheese cutting the sweetness, and the walnuts adding extra crunch. I wasn’t a huge brownie fan to begin with, but these brownies were enough to convert me!

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