A touch of Claire- baking, cooking& life

I've been feeling a little bit blue these days, I guess part of which is due to a natural cycle of mood. I can make myself feel less uneasy with this excuse, but I know there are some reasons: 1. I came to this country, stepped on the glorious island approximately 1 and 1/2 years ago; I've been enjoying the many goods Manhattan offers me, but sometimes I do feel lonely in my 8th floored small apartment, especially when here come Christmas, new year and Chinese new year. Sometimes I do want to be cuddled in some reliable arm, which could be extremely hard here! Sometimes my girlfriends and I came to the conclusion that the only way to survive the busy metropolis is to enjoy a "Sex and the city" lifestyle- sigh... OK, enough for the dreamwords, a more reasonable excuse for my blueness is a friend of mine finished his master degree here and is going back to China. It's always so hard for me to say words like goodbye. We held a small farewell party for him, as food

I could have one thousand reasons to open a blog- just about some random pieces of life, my crazy ideas, people I hate and love, and most importantly, my love about baking!!! But I was so hesitant to actually do so (OK, I admit that lameness is one of the reasons), coz I'm not satisfied with the pictures I take! I was looking at the hundreds of pretty pictures on several popular food blog, enjoying and complaining- since when has photographing become an essential life skill besides computer and replacing the bulbs?!! (I'm good at neither btw.)  After all, I do want to present my cakes in a more pleasant way. So here is the decision I just made: I'm going to work hard on photographing. Hopefully the blog can see my growing~~~~ The small cakes are adapted from Thomas Keller's devil food cake. Love the rich chocolateness 'enriched' by mayonnaise! I added red bean flavored cream (so popular in Asian sweets!) between two cake layers, and glazed the layer ca