Chinese Bakery Near by Me

I haven't written in my blog for nearly a month already!
This year has been pretty struggling for me. I need to distress a little bit.

Anyways, last month, I visited a Chinese bakery near where I live called Marry Anne Bakery House

I took pictures and ate them while in the car ><

When I went to the bakery, mostly there was cakes and other sweet baked goods in the display. It seemed that all the bread was in warmer (oven? ) behind the display. They had curry bun (the one I got), Pork bun, read bean bun, some others I forgot. The bun was warm when I got it, but I'm not sure if they always keep the bread in the warmer. 

The Curry bun was, in my opinion, just okay. The bread was kind of dry for being in the warmer, and lacked some fluffiness. It was not very impressive. Curry filling was not bad though. 

Egg tart was pretty good! I believe they were $1.50 each. The bun was around $1.25.

I also had a chiffon cake that was in a cone shaped. Those were less then $1. 

The cakes looked pretty good, I would like to try their cake next time I go there.

I am missing the Sun Pearl Bakery in Orlando. I wish that there was one down here :(

Cookies at Night

When I was chatting online with My dad tonight, he was telling me how he got free cookies at Starbucks because they are celebrating their 15 years in Japan.

After I heard that, I wanted to eat cookies so bad. Even though it was around 10:30 at night.

I started to look up recipes online and found one with just 4 ingredients. It was my first time making this type of cookies, but they turned out pretty good. It's very simple and fun to make.

I had some shaped cutters that I bought from Japan. The cutters are actually for vegetables so all the ones I have are really small. They do look and function like a cookie cutter so they worked. The biggest size cutters I had produced mini cute cookies. Plus a mini smily cookie.

September Cooking & Baking

Here is September cooking & baking that I missed writing about:

Mabo Dofu with no chili paste or sauce !

I don't have any good spices/condiments stocked up yet, but wanted to eat mabo dofu. 

What I used is what I had: Paprika powder, ketchup, soysauce, left over packet of chili powder from a instant noodle, tofu, meat, garlic, etc...

This was pretty awesome and fatening. 

"Minchi Katsu" Ground meat katsu. Basically, fried ground meat!

It has some chopped cabbage in it, which makes it a little healthy. 

The second picture of the inside have cheese in it. The inside picture doesn't look that great, but it tasted good.

It's good with just some Worcestershire sauce poured on, or with other sauce. One that I made is just ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mayonnaise, and mustard.

 Attempted to make some bagels. 

Bagels are hard to make!

Especially the shaping part.

These didn't turn out so well.

Bread! Attempted to imitate the rolls you get at some steakhouse places.

This was pretty fluffy.

WT and I were talking about okonomiyaki and I decided to attempt it.

I needed to find "Nagaimo", a some type of yam. 

I found "Malanga" which I thought was yam but I now think it's not.

I think this okonomiyaki turned out pretty well.

I still need to find where I can get Nagaimo.

I am trying to practice making melon pan for a bake sale this week.

I used a recipe from Cooking With Dog on youtube!

This one is just a roll. Used the same recipe form Cooking With Dog melon pan. 

Still trying to practice.

For the past few days the weather is becoming really cool!

It just means that summer ended for sure. 

But not too long ago, it was still pretty warm outside.

So sometimes I put the bread dough outside to rest.

Being in the warmer temperature, the dough rises faster.

I was thinking there was something positive living in the hot weather in September. 

That is gone now, I have a feeling the weather is just going to get cooler from now on.

Hamburg!

Inspired by runnyrunny999 on youtube, I made the hamburg last night!

It was really good, especially the sauce!
I didn't have panko here, so I used crumbled Ritz crackers instead.
I was very happy with how It turned out.

I almost thought it has too much fillers because the mixture was so soft, but it was just right because it poofs during cooking! Whenever I made hamburgs before, I didn't put enough fillers...now I know what I was doing wrong.

Well thank you runny for the Hamburg video haha.

Painting Nails at Night

I don't usually paint my nails often, but when I do I often do it right before I go to sleep.
It's around 2 AM now and I decided to paint my nails. The reason why I do this is this because in my theory, I think it's time saving to let them dry while sleeping. Therefore, I end up painting my nails in the dark, maybe with one light stand on, and use my not-so-good-during-the-night eye sight to paint.

Anyways, I realized I should not get so much sparkly nail polish. I have 4 sparkly polish and 3 of them seem pretty similar.

I only have 2 polishes that are opaque color. I want to get some more opaque so I can use the sparkly ones on top. But When I do, I will probably end up not painting my nails that often. Should I have a goal of changing my nail color weekly? I don't know if I can follow that routine.

Last week, I cut my hair by my self!

It needed a hair cut very much, so even though I was kind of nervous cutting it, I'm glad I did.

I used to cut my hair by myself a lot, I think because I don't always trust the hair dresser.

It's fun to cut hair too, and even if I mess up, I can only blame myself.

I think this time I did a pretty good job :D

Only one person, one of my professors, noticed my hair change which was kind of funny!

First Post From iPhone!

For the last post about the Bzzagent, I wrote it from my iPhone thinking since when was I able to publish blogs on blogger on my phone?

Before, blogger was not smartphone capable. Today, I am able to publish from accessing the blogger site on Safari on the iPhone.

Hmm theres gotta be an app for that.


And there is!!!!


I am using the blogger app right now! This was an awesome discovery. I wonder when did the app become available?

I was hoping someday I could write on blogger from my phone. I'm glad google was able to do so. Thank you!

Bzzagent campaign for Cuisinart Stick Hand Blender

Bzzagent started this new thing where people can express themselves in why they are interested in joining a campaign. Today, there is a campaign for Cuisinart hand stick blender, and I want to join this and try it out!


So this post is dedicated to the Bzzagent campaign.

Why I want to try this Cuisinart Stick Hand blender is because I want to get back to cooking right now. I just moved to south FL, and during the move to here, I wasn't able to cook that much. Now that I am finally settled in a new apartment, I want to have fun cooking! I have some things in mind for what to male with a stick blender: creamy corn soup, fruit sauces, fruit smoothies (!!), salsa (!!!). I think salsa and tortia chips fit very well here in South FL.

What to come next

Has it really been 3 months since my last post? :0

Well, new semester has started now at university, and I am taking 4 classes.
It has not been an easy breezy time lately.

Hopefully I will get back to baking soon.
Since I moved here to south Florida, there is much more bakeries around.
I can rely more on bakeries than before, which is good for now because I haven't got the urge to bake yet.
It will be fun to check out what some bakeries offer around here! And I will post review on here :D

Last few of May Baking

Hello and Happy June :D

I have two baking episodes from May to update!

This is the corn-mayo bread that I made with WT. It turned out really nice! And you cannot tell from just looking that this took 24 hours to finish. Yes, 24 hours. The reason being, we started to make the dough late at night, and wanted to finish it the next day. So we put the dough in the refrigerator for us to finish the next day.

The type of recipe WT showed me to make this bread was very different from the other recipes that I have been using. It requires two type of dough, which means it requires the dough to proof 3 times, instead of the normal 2 times.

I'm not yet sure what this process of using two doughs does to the finished product, but the bread sure turned out very soft and yummy. It is worth the time and effort, and I can't wait to make a bread with this recipe again.



Well, I was hoping to make bread with the recipe used above, but I felt very lazy and decided to make bread with the usual one-dough two-proof recipe.

This is my first time making Naisu bread! Naisu is more common in Taiwan, and the only place I can get Naisu bread is from a Taiwanese bakery in Orlando. I originally thought it was cheese, but it turned out that it was made from egg, butter, sugar, and milk powder.

This texture of the bread was similar to a cinnamon bun. Maybe because I rolled the dough like the way cinnamon buns are made. The bread didn't have the texture like the bread from an Asian bakery. So in conclusion, the recipe that requires two types of dough like the one used in the corn-mayo bread creates more of an "asian bakery" texture.

There is more to learn about making bread...

As I am writing this blog, I am in the process of making french bread.
It's been years since I made french bread! I remember reading through the Fresh Loaf Website for tips and recipes.

From that site, I learned that pre-fermenting is good when making french bread. They call it "poolish", and it takes overnight to make it. I hope my french bread will turn out good. Thinking of french bread reminded me to get a really good knife to make the slits on the dough! I had trouble making the slits before, but I did have a good practice of making slits when we made the corn-mayo bread. The slits were perfect and the oven spring was awesome! Now I am more confidant in making slits on the dough.

Fun trip & My far away bread pan :(

I completely missed out on writing and reading blogs for a little while now. I have been *busy* being a tourist for a week. Busy meaning going to places and playing around. I haven't had this kind of trips for a while so it was awesome.

Sorry for the sudden change of topic, but I've wanted to get a bread loaf pan from Japan. I've asked my dad to bring it when he came back from Japan last week, but he came back with no bread pan. However, he did bring back some Manneken waffles instead.

There was two kinds of waffles inside, the original and chocolate. The original waffles are definitely the best. I love Manneken waffles, I wish they sold them in U.S. :(

Forgot to add, they are the best when toasted in a toaster !


I had a second attempt of asking for a bread pan last month, when our family friend had come to visit. Their visit is the reason why I had been a tourist for few days. This attempt of getting the bread pan also failed, because of timing, location, and etc.

Instead, I got some nice souvenirs. One of it was some kasutera (カステラ). We got both original and strawberry one. It was my first time to try the strawberry kasutera.

I didn't really like the strawberry kasutera. I guess often times anything "original" turns out to be the best.

Ah I feel really hungry now from writing about food.

Bzzagent Covergirl Natureluxe Foundation & Gloss Balm

 

Last week, I got my very first bzzkit from bzzagent!

I joined bzzagent recently, and was invited to the Covergirl  Natureluxe campaign. :D
Bzzagent allows people to try out products for free, review on the product, and spread the word about the product. It's a pretty fun concept!

I had already tried the Covergirl Natureluxe foundation before joining bzzagent, so I knew a little about the product already. Natureluxe is a new line of products by Covergirl, and what attracted me to buy the foundation was that it has jojoba oil and cucumber water in it. The shade I bought was the lightest shade out of them all, which is the alabaster. Alabaster is a little bit too light on me now, so I was very delighted when I received a shade darker, flax, in my bzzkit.

The founation feels very silky when applied to face. It feels light, but stays on pretty well. I think Covergirl made an awsome new line of product. Natureluxe, with it's "natural" concept, made me want to try a Covergirl product which I had not used for years. I really like the Natureluxe foundation. :D

The bzzkit also came with the Natureluxe gloss balm in clay argile. I really like the feel of the gloss balm when applied to the lips, but I am not too found of the color. Clay argile is kind of like red/pink bronze color. It's fairly dark, and I think dark lip color don't suit me very well. I'm not too found of the smell of it also. The smell reminds me of some lip balm I used when I was in Elementary school. The gloss balm gives a glossy look but not the glossy feel, which is pretty cool.

This was a very good and happy first bzzagent campaign experience!

Bling out the phone!

This was my project for the last 2 days. It took a total of.........................

.......................................

...............drumroll....................

...............................................

5 hours!

This is my old phone that I took out to be temporarily used until my iPhone is ready to be used. This Samsung t339 had scratches, color fade, and just looked old school. I should have taken a "before" picture, oops.

I think it's more common to bling or decorate phones in Japan, and after seeing some "デコ電"(deko den) or decorated phone, I wanted to bling out my phone also. I googled for some ideas, and went out to get some supplies. I didn't find any cute charms at the stores, but I did find some unused hair accessories and necklace charms in my room. 

The flower almost doesn't match the rhinestones, perhaps it's too bling? It was my first time decorating so I can't expect too much from myself. I had fun decorating it, and basically you can add anything. I should have been more careful when using the glue though. Some of the rhinestones are covered in glue, and doesn't look good. The glue I used was "Elmer's craft bond ultra stick all". I wasn't sure which glue was the best for decorating phones. I might look for a different bond next time. My next planned project is to decorate the iPhone case! Hope it will turn out better than this one.