Tag / cake

by colleen xie

Strawberry Pearl Yogurt Cake

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The fact that it’s now October makes the whole denying-summer-is-over a bit rougher, but a girl can dream, can’t she? Actually, I’m surprised at how many nice, sunny days we’ve gotten so far (good job, Raincouver)…I went on a quick hike just this past Sunday. That being said, the beauty of fall foliage is undeniable, especially as I walk down Main Mall on my campus. I’ve always thought it a bit Central Park-esque with its impressive trees.

Well, I’m not quite ready to usher in pumpkin spice er’thang yet, but this spiced strawberry pearl yogurt cake is a nice compromise.

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by colleen xie

Making the Wedding Cake | Congrats EG & MX!

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A bit over a week ago, my brother and my sister in law held their wedding reception at Kirin *throws confetti*. Even though they were officially wed already and so this lil Chinese wedding banquet was relatively casual, it was still nice to see everyone all dressed up and looking sharp, celebrating the start of something beautiful.

It went unsaid that I would be making their wedding cake– I’d be offended if they bought it– but at the same time, inside I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to put out a respectable cake. I started looking at ideas on Pinterest ages ago, but it wasn’t until literally a week before the reception when I actually sat down and started looking at recipes, calculating the quantities, watching videos on how to dowel cakes and generally freaking the * out. Especially when you see less-than-perfect (read: lopsided and hard to look at) homemade wedding cakes out there. Ouch.

I wasn’t all too confident in my cake skills. Up until this point, I hadn’t ever made a tall, even layered frosted cake. There was hardly the occasion to. But I found Sweetapolita’s blog invaluable, as Rosie is truly the cake master.

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by colleen xie

White Chocolate Honey Matcha Mochi Cake

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Glutinous rice flour is a wonderful thing– when cooked, it’s chewy and dense in the most pleasant way possible. Rice flour comes in two types, either glutinous or non-glutinous. Glutinous rice flour (aka sweet rice flour) is made from grinding short grain sticky rice, and its starch content is very high, making it a great thickening agent. Despite its name, it’s neither sweet nor does it contain gluten. Regular rice flour can be made from medium or long grain rice, and it’s used more commonly in gluten-free baking. I’m super partial towards the glutinous type, just because lots of my childhood favourites were made with glutinous rice flour… I can see myself going through a phase of subbing out regular flour with glutinous flour in my recipes, just to see how well that chewy factor fits with the recipe.

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by colleen xie

Twenty.

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It’s my birthday today! -cue confetti-

So I’ll keep things short and sweet.

Keeping with tradition, I made my own birthday cake, except this time it was for both my friend and I (who share the same birthday!). We both follow @beta5chocolates on instagram, and were enamored by their epic cream puff cake:

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coming soon… #creampuff cakes.

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by colleen xie

Raspberry Almond Cake

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I work as a pharmacy assistant. It’s not the *most* dynamic sort of job, but I do get to interact with a wonderfully diverse group of people. Today I was ringing up a lady dressed in varying shades of pink– from her top, to her jacket, to her nails, to her jewelry– very spring-appropriate, I thought. (I silently applauded her, because pink is my favourite colour and has been since I was old enough to understand what a favourite colour meant). She kept her gaze fixed on me, even after she had inserted her card into the machine. Her fingers hovered over the keypad as she looked at me. Finally, she blurted: “but how can you be a pharmacy assistant when you’re like, grade three??”

I smile politely and told her I just finished my first year of pharmacy school. She nodded and said, as if to convince herself, “well yes, of course I wasn’t being serious, I know you can’t be working here if you were really in grade three…”

I somehow felt apologetic and tried to assure her lightly, “I know I look young”.

She just looked at me, her fingers still hovering over the pinpad.

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