Save Me San Francisco

I recently spent a week in San Francisco for spring break. This is quite possibly one of my absolute favorite cities, largely due to the food scene. Every time I visit, I feel like all I do is eat, and I'm not complaining. This past trip I got to try some new dishes like the chicken porridge at Out the Door, pho ga at Turtle Tower, xiao long bao at Shanghai Dumpling King, "salad basket" at Suppenkuche, bi bim bap at Be Bop, and a dosa at  Udupi Palace. I also hit up some of the tried and true favorites like crawfish beignets at Brenda's, honey lavender ice cream at Bi-Rite, pizza at The Cheeseboard, and chai tea at Philz. I could not have stopped by all these places without my wonderful hosts Krista, Ralph, and Jennifer. Thanks all of you!!

One snack I loved and was inspired by was the sea salt lavender shortbread cookie from Batter Bakery. I actually thought I might be able to replicate it, so I did some searching and found a recipe for honey lavender shortbread cookies. These are super yummy and are not soapy tasting at all. To make things even better, they are incredibly easy to make, you just throw everything into your kitchenaid mixer :) and press it all into a pan. Definitely try these out, they are delicious.

Sea Salt and Lavender Shortbread Cookies
from Spache the Spatula

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp corn starch
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp culinary lavender
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp honey
• Sea salt for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8″x8″baking tin with butter or non-stick spray. Line with parchment paper and grease the parchment paper as well (make sure there is enough overhang of the parchment paper so that you can easily lift the cookies out of the tin). Set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine all of the ingredients and mix in low speed until combined (it’s fine if the dough is crumbly).
3. Press the dough into the prepared tin. With a fork, poke the surface of the dough all over.
4. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown and the cookies feel firm when lightly pressed
5. After you remove to cookies from the oven, sprinkle the tops with sea salt. Allow to fully cool in the pan before removing and slicing into 16 equal squares.

Short and Sweet

First post in a long time. I'll keep this short. These muffins are delish and I need to save this recipe. They are so good that JC is allergic to almonds, yet he still had 3 of these. They are really moist and fluffy with the perfect hint of almond flavor. Make them, you won't regret it.

Almond Poppy Seed Muffins
from My Adventures in the Country

2 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp evaporated milk (For the original, use a whole 13 oz. can)
2 Tbsp whole milk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup poppy seeds


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325°.  Line 19 muffin cups with paper liners.  (The original recipe said it made 30 muffins, but I cut the recipe in half and still ended up with 19, so this recipe makes quite a few muffins.)  In a medium bowl, whisk together the baking powder, salt, and flour.  Set aside.


In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, evaporated milk, milk, and vegetable oil.   Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, beating well until combined, but do not over mix.  Add the extracts and poppy seeds, stirring until well combined.  Use a large cookie scoop or  1/3 cup measuring cup to pour batter into muffin cups.  Bake for 25-30 minutes (mine were done in 25) or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Makes 19 muffins.

These are Dangerously Delicious

I feel like I dropped off the face of the planet for the past couple months. So many people have come up to me and asked "Do you still blog about your cooking?" And I have to sadly respond with the truth, "No, I just haven't had time." Both JC and I have been so tied up with school, we rarely have time to cook, and if we do, we make one of our tried and true recipes that we can whip up quickly.

We did have a few weeks off for the holidays so we managed to make a trip over to LA to visit some of my family. We definitely made the most of our time there, eating at all of our favorite places and even went to see The Getty. JC and I took note of the huge crowd in front of Van Gogh's Irises and had much more appreciation for Monet's Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning. We had our fair share of saba from Sakae Sushi, got my fill of manju from Sakura-ya, had paradise cake from King's Hawaiian, chinese dinner at Seafood Port, ramen from Santouka, poke from Marukai and Uncle Clinton, dim sum in San Gabriel, fried chicken from The Loft, chinese chicken salad from Rascals, and had Pinkberry multiple times. We added a few new places to our list of must-visit like the Boiling Crab in Garden Grove, Mochi Cream in Mitsuwa, Shin-shen-gumi ramen in J-town, and 85 degrees bakery at Diamond Jamboree. You can obviously tell we love to enjoy good food.

I'm currently at the end of my Intersession block aka I have a bit of free time. Free time = time to bake. For Christmas, I got a cake pop baking pan, so I wanted to try and experiment with the cake ball trend. At one of our holiday parties, my baking queen aunt made some incredibly adorable red velvet cake balls coated in chocolate. I had been eying a recipe for chocolate peanut butter cake balls and figured I'd give them a shot. I wanted to try the traditional cake mix plus frosting approach before I started experimenting with the cake pop pans, so anyone can make this recipe without any special equipment.

This is seriously one of the easiest recipes ever, but the results look so fancy. I made one slight mistake in that I forgot to chill my cake balls before dipping them in the chocolate. I think this step would have made them turn out much nicer with a thinner chocolate shell. Regardless, they still look, and taste, amazing. I found it a little difficult to get a good technique for dipping. I first tried using forks and then switched to using two toothpicks. I still don't have a great way to make them look super nice, but I'll keep experimenting. I also decided to sprinkle a bit of crushed butterfinger on top to give a little crunch and contrast to the chocolate shell. You can easily substitute any cake flavor and frosting, just use the same basic steps. Enjoy!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cake Balls
adapted from Starting to Simmer

• Box Chocolate Cake, prepare according to box and allow to cool
• Chocolate frosting
• Chocolate morsels for melting
• Crushed Butterfinger bar
• *Ingredients for peanut butter filling (see below)

Break cooled chocolate cake in a large mixing bowl and crumble with hands. Add the chocolate frosting and mix until the mixture is a consistency in which you can form 1-inch balls. If the mixture is too crumbly, add more frosting. Make a ball of cake and make an indent in the center. Add a pinch of the peanut butter filling and wrap the chocolate cake around to form a ball. Place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Once you have made a pan-full of balls, place in the fridge for about 10 minutes to let them harden up. In the meantime, place the chocolate morsels in a microwave safe container and microwave for about a minute, stirring half way through, until all of the morsels are melted. Remove the cake balls from the fridge and carefully dip each in the melted chocolate and then place back on the wax paper. Before the chocolate hardens, sprinkle a bit of the crushed Butterfinger on top. Once all the cake balls are coated in chocolate, lace the tray back in the fridge to harden the chocolate. 

*Peanut Butter Filling

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon butter at room temp
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 - 1 cup powdered sugar

Place the peanut butter, butter and salt in a microwaveable bowl. Heat for about 1 minute, stirring every 20 seconds until warm and soft, but not hot. Stir in the vanilla extract and powdered sugar and mix until it has reached the consistency of cookie dough, adding more sugar if necessary.