Red Bean Mooncakes

This Sunday is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated in many countries including China and Vietnam.  Mooncakes are a tasty pastry traditionally enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival.  They consist of a thin pastry crust, and are usually filled with red bean paste (yum), lotus seed paste (yum yum), or some other dense, tasty filling.

Chocolate & Hazelnut Birthday Cake

Does anyone else have something that you constantly think you're out of, but in reality you have vast quantities sitting in the back of your pantry?  My husband and I are like this with Nutella.  We often return home from the grocery store with a new jar of the sweet chocolate spread, only to be surprised to find many more jars in the pantry.  We currently have four mostly-full jars cluttering our shelves and serving as vivid reminders of just how disorganized we are.

Champagne & Strawberries Ombre Cake

It's my husband's and my first anniversary this week.  Our wedding cake was completely eaten, so we did not do the save-the-cake tradition (which honestly we probably wouldn't have done anyway, since year-old cake sounds a little unappetizing).  I thought that instead, a new cake featuring pink champagne and strawberries would be appropriate for the occasion.

Pâte à Choux Swans (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

I'm continuing to have a lot of fun with the Daring Bakers' monthly challenges!  This month, we were challenged to make filled pâte à choux swans (or, more generally pâte à choux shapes).  Prior to this challenge, I had no idea what pâte à choux was - I soon discovered that it is the pastry used for cream puffs.  I love cream puffs (here in Seattle, they're often served at pho places - is that the case anywhere else?) so I was very excited to get started!

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

Blueberry Pie Cookies

Camping is one of my favorite summer activities.  Car camping, boat camping, backpacking...I love it all, and one of my favorite things to do after I arrive at the campsite is to relax with a good book and something tasty.  Most of the time, these are store-bought cookies or crackers.  Sometimes, they are tasty homemade pastries.  Recently, I've been dreaming of bringing along the ultimate summer baked good (pie, of course).

Almond & Raspberry Cattails Cake

My dad really likes cattails.  I also like them (although not nearly as much as he does).  I think they evoke an image of a still, quiet pond, on which you while away an afternoon in a boat.  So, I decided to make a cattail-themed cake for my dad. 

Raspberry & Aprium Mini Pies

Summer is for fruit pies!  And summer has finally (finally!) come to Seattle.  Luckily, farms, grocery stores, roadside stands, and farmer's markets are bursting with berries, peaches, plums, cherries, and fruits that I have never even heard of.