A touch of Claire- baking, cooking& life

It's finally baking season again- winter is coming! Er, I mean, it's already here. It's such a cliche, but "how time flies!" Thanksgiving is just around the corner and my fridge is happily filled with meat and root vegetables (pumpkins, squashes, sweet potatoes, beets...). I highly suggest to try incorporating root vegetables to your bread dough. You will be surprised at how much they can help with the texture and flavor- your bread gets so much moisture and aromas. Bonus points- you also end up with beautiful color from the root vegetable you use.  Like today, I found these gorgeous purple potatoes from  Freshdirect , which were actually rare to find here. I feel that they are definitely more of a seasonal thing, probably because purple color is more festive XD? They taste quite similar to regular sweet potatoes/yams, with a slight hint of special aroma if you ask me.  RECIPE (finally!): Presoak the seeds for ~30min by combining: Flaxseed: 15g oats...

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Isn't spring the moving season? Yes, to me I guess as I've been moving for two years in a row at this time of year. Sadly I finally moved out from the glorious upper east side of New York after being there for 4 years (can't believe! is it that long already??), to the "humble" Queens.. However, after I moved in, I'm starting to love my neighborhood. There is actually quite a few to explore and to discover (I mean, hmm, restaurant) in Queens. Indeed, I can't just improvise to make a call to order some Chinese food delivered to my door, or walk to the French bakery a few blocks away whenever I want. Luckily I can opt to make my own.  With a good multigrain bread, some jam/spread, slices of good cheese, I am considering myself having a perfect breakfast/brunch. Of course, the world is even better if there is a cup of tea :) Multigrain batards are the most frequently-ordered bread I do in store- they're crust...

Long time no see! I've got to explain my dropping one of the most pleasant things in the world-BREAD MAKING, yasss... My sourdough starter died! That was real heart-breaking for me. Yes, you need to feed& maintain your sourdough starter by adding new flour/water every week. Bring them out from the fridge, reactive them in warm place, and, all in all, make them happy by using/refilling them frequently.  I was doing a totally bad example- I was lazy for the summer (busy with some traveling) so I didn't touch my baby for a whole month. And it was too late when I thought of it. Sad story... Even after I finally ended all the hustles of the summer, I wasn't able to restart my new sourdough starter culture. So I moved on to some other hustles and fed myself with bread from the Wholefoods- they are OK to live on with compared to most crappy breads in other markets in my mind.. And time flew to the end of the year! I was deeply feeling something was missing in...

What is you favorite chocolate glaze like? Rich, thick and melting in your mouth, or syrup like that is shiny and sticky? Of course you can say both- come on, it's chocolate! Chocolate is just among the most magical things to me whose texture changes so much in different temperature when combined with different other ingredients. You can totally make a flourless chocolate cake with just egg, cocoa powder and cream; or with only egg white and chocolate, you can create the most stunning chocolate mousse in the world! We buy really good ~70% chocolate at home for baking, of course and for directly putting into our mouths. We as small kids absolutely preferred sweet milk chocolate, but our palates gradually develop as enjoying more of the biter aromas as many people grow up. Getting back to the cake today, it was made for a really good friend's defense party (alas, one more friend graduated, sad face..). Hopefully the decorations on the cake remind somewhat of festival ...

I feel that I haven't been properly baking for such a long time! I spent some time with families when they came to visit us, tried to focus on my science a little bit more (failure!!!), and attempted to writie something science related ( ??? ). But most of the time, I guess I'm just so scared of the hot weather and crawled in the cough daydreaming lol.  Before I even realized, it is September already (which is also related to back-to-school season, ouchhhhhhh ...). I guess it just somehow reminds me to stop wandering in the lazy summer time and start do/bake something. Chance came that I was asked to make two cakes in one weekend. So here we go: The green tea charlotte is an adapted version of mine. I once made a similar one here . But here it just made total sense that I used 2 egg white to make the lining meringue biscuit and the egg yolks went to the mousse filing- no waste at all XD. I love the versatility of green tea; it basically go with anything, yet it ju...

This summer of New York has sneaked here with no one's attention! I can't believe that it is already mid-May now. (It' officially BBQ season, yay!!!)  I'm never really into grills, but I love BBQ parties! On a perfectly sunny day, with the perfectly adorable people, just indulge yourself to all the fun games and all the high-calorie yummy goodness  (burgers, sausages, cheese, fruits and of course sweets!! )XD  Here is what I made- pavlova cake perfect for the BBQ. It is so easy to make, I literally spent no more than 10 minutes preparing the cake base (not including baking time in the oven) and another 10-ish minutes to pipe out the chocolate cream cheese and pile on all the fresh& lovely berries. I used this recipe for the cake. The filling is a 1:1 mixture of whipped cream cheese and melted chocolate . The reason I didn't use whipped cream as most recipes here is only because one of my friend is not tolerant to lactose, but she can eat certain ty...

I had almost given up cooking before my boyfriend! I've always been enjoying spending time in the kitchen, but, often time, I just gave in to my laziness. Plus, I had my perfect excuses: 1. I'm a busy phD student; 2. I'm spending most of my "kitchen time" baking. So I'm really used to a rather simple meal plan myself: homemade bread for breakfast, salad for lunch and yogurt for dinner. (I try to balance the protein and starch in it, so, don't worry, I can totally be filled up.) With all my passion (and time), I made bread for myself and cakes for friends. However, all these routine somehow changed when I started to take on the responsibility to feed someone- someone who is an ultimate meat lover, who hates salad (I mean, all the green leaves), who would never join my meal plan. Alas, the game completely changed- only I'm still the lazy girl as I've always been. So I came up with a couple of tricks for the "game": 1. Make it simple...

For some reason I stopped blogging for such a long time! (I moved, a couple of travel plans, friends' visit, being confused &being lazy...) I didn't actually stopped baking, but I feel that typing words requires more commitment. Ironically, I'm starting to realize that I could be really enjoying writing! I ended up taking a writing course called "Effective Academic writing" at CUNY (amazing class!), and wrote my first science writing piece on cancer immunology~ Besides, I'm still so indecisive about what I should be focusing on right now. Graduate school (of course???) or career development? Current "the one" or once "many friends"? Of course it would be wonderful if I could have them all, but at lease in my experience, it never happens lol Enough ramblings and coming back to the baking theme today, it is much easier to attempt to incorporate everything to a bagel. Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried onions/garlic, course sea salt...

I feel that the winter of New York has come to the peak (maybe one of the peaks) of its power recently. Oh, yeah, I should mention the 'happening' snowstorm this week- yay snow-white New York/nah,,, snow-ruined traffic...  I'm always so late in sensing what's going on. Like this time, I didn't even do my regular weekly grocery shopping, while all my friends go crazy stocking up their fridge (btw, it was said that the electricity system might shut down because of the snow) and got back telling me that supermarkets were empty... Luckily, until now things are fine. The graduate school is closed for today (Tuesday) but lab buildings are all open lol. I'm enjoying looking at the now through my window, writing this blog and procrastinating to go to work lol... Excited about the snow, I'm actually the kinda of person who hates coldness to death (a leftover effect of an extremely unforgettable, chilled camping trip.) So since the winter came, I hav...

I got to say that, I've been procrastinating about this post for too long- from 2014 to 2015 lol. It was made for little Sam's baby shower party back in December of 2014; by the time this post is on, he should be delivered at any time!  It is exciting to post this cake as my first work of 2015.  I tried to add more fun to the cake, coz I was asked to make something special for the party~ FYI: the biscuits surrounding are made of meringue and the tidy bear is made of marzipan and cocoa powder. As for the cake, it is a layered cocoa sponge cake with raspberry cream cheese mousse. Was doing a terrible job taking the pics though as I was in a rush :( Not gonna do lots of ramblings about 2014 or 2015. A lot more happened in the past year than I thought/ Should always appreciate what I have at this moment./ Will try worry less and do more in 2015. Most importantly, will keep baking and posting :) xoxo~

Yes, it is correct- I ordered some food-graded lye on Amazon. If you are not familiar with lye, aka sodium hydroxide here, it is actually a very corrosive chemical. You know, my nerdy scientists, we use it in lab all the time. But when it comes to making pretzels and bagels, do you also recognize that the classic pretzel wash has lye in it. A quick dip in the magical/alkaline water creates a rich brown sheen with thin crust on the dough. Sounds intimidating, it is acceptable for someone who deals with other hundreds of millions of 'sort-of-scary' experiment every day lol. (I've been thinking about what my years of labwork& research have brought me for my life: for real, protocol reading and testing things out.) Plus I'm just such a bagel fanatic- that explains a lot. I guess I fell in love with bagels even before with New York City, where the best bagels are made. Toasted bagel, cream cheese and some slices of smoked salmon makes those busiest New Yorker...

After centuries' not being able to bake a bread (total excuse/too lazy/distracted by someone..lol), I finally couldn't stand eating sweet potatoes and store-sold breads as breakfast anymore. And since I've been craved for so many different recipes of sourdough bread during my procrastinate-to-bake-a-bread period, I decided to make a all-inclusive bread  ~(￣▽￣)~* The sourdough starter was cultured with rye flour for one day before the bread was made so that there is extra something flavor- rye& sourdough√ Two of my favorite grains/seeds: flaxseeds and bulgur were soaked and added to the dough; lots of flavors and texture- flaxseeds& bulgur√ Sweet potatoes!!! My secret ingredient of bread since it adds both flavors (especially a subtle hint of sweetness) and moisture.√ Quinoa (soaked) was added to the dough and (dried) was dusted on top of the bread to give lots of crunchiness. I was inspired by a local bakery, which has the best millet banana bread- th...

Ever felt that the cake you are trying is too sweet/rich? I guess that is one of the biggest complaints most of my (Asian especially) friends have as for the store-sold desserts. Ever thought about the solution to it? For me, it is to balance! I haven't been baking as often (for some reason) but a really good friend of mine was having her Birthday party this Saturday, so I got to make something (I mean, a cake). I used to be really afraid of high-cal cake recipes and was pretty keen on finding low-cal substitutes. But now I rather eat a smaller piece or eat less frequently, yet fully embrace the great flavors of butter, chocolate and cream. For this reason, the cake does contain a whole lot of cream (considering it was shared by almost 20 people, wasn't that bad, hmm? ), but the richness was actually balanced by my secret ingredients: almond and green tea. Apologies for that I didn't take pictures at the party when the cake was sliced, but please imagine the ...

Whoops, the topic today might seem too simple?  My 2014 didn't really start as I wished, too much hustle and bustle to handle; some changes to life. According to Chinese Lunar Calendar, it is actually the year of horse, which is my year. I know it doesn't really make sense, but I'm supposed to be super unlucky in this year. I don't really believe in such sayings, but I did taste it quite a bit- all those frustrations and desperations did exist. Don't really want to dig into that. But things are changing. Life seems to be back on track now, and even better! When now again enjoying the present me, I feel that life does consist of the lucky and the unlucky- just embrace both.  What never changes is my love for baking when good mood and bad mood both make perfect reason for doing it! The tart is adapted from Pierre Herme's Tarte Mangue Kiwi, only I replaced kiwi and mango to my favorite strawberries~~~ http://indigoseas.blogspot.fr/2014/01/pierre-...