Thunderstorm and Bread Pudding

I hate Midwest weather. It can be really hot one day and pouring like there's no tomorrow on the next day. Take yesterday and today for example, it was super hot yesterday and we had a severe thunderstorm today. I was playing tennis with my friends when the lightning started, so we ran back to our apartment. After I got home, it began to rain like somebody just threw a bucket full of water from the sky. Chilly weather, rain, hmm... I suddenly craved for something warm, sweet, and creamy.. But what could I make? It had to be quick, simple, and easy.... Bread pudding! I got a loaf of Boudin sourdough bread that my boyfriend brought me 3 weeks ago and I had been meaning to make something with it.

Bread - check! Eggs - check! Milk - check! Sugar -check! I got all the basic ingredients for a bread pudding, but I had to make it more interesting. So I grabbed vanilla extract, chocolate chips, and bananas and mixed them with the rest of the ingredients. After 45 minutes, I was able to enjoy a bowl of warm, sweet, creamy, tangy bread pudding. The tanginess of sourdough worked very well with the sweetness of the custard and made it taste almost like cheesecake. And of course, you can never go wrong with chocolate and banana. Mission accomplished :)

First Real Baking @ Minneapolis

It's been a long time since my last post because I haven't baked for a while. I move to Minneapolis for a summer internship at General Mills and I didn't bring all my baking equipments with me. Here are some pictures of my apartment:

 The apartment is actually very nice (except for the small bedroom) and it comes fully furnished. They even provide a whisk, a baking pan, a cookie sheet, and mixing bowls, so I can actually bake some simple baked goods.

I got so many boxes of cake and brownie mixes from work and most of them will go bad by the end of this month. So, I decided to bake some brownies this weekend! Yuuummmm! Usually I don't like using boxed mixes, but I had no choice since I don't have my pantry here. I followed the direction on the box to make the brownie base, swirled in cream cheese batter in one pan, and baked the other one as is. After they were done, I frosted the plain one with peanut butter and milk chocolate frostings. Oooohhhh.... They're sooo good, if I dare to say so myself :D Anw, pictures are below as usual...

Farewell Macaron Croquembouche..

It's May already, time for what? Graduation, of course! My boyfriend is having his commencement this weekend and I wanted to make something special to celebrate his freedom from his annoying professor =D So, it should be something colorful, fun, and delicious.. Aha!! Macaron croquembouche! I'd been wanting to make this for a looonggg time since I saw a picture of Laduree's mac tower. I didn't want to make a huge one, so I had to scale down the size of the macarons. First step, make some mini macs.

The right one is a regular size macaron and the others are the minis. I filled the mini macs with white chocolate ganache and caramel cream and put them in the freezer to firm up. Then, I covered the styrofoam cone (the base of the croquembouche) with plastic wrap and melted some white chocolate. Ready for assembly!! I applied a little bit of white chocolate on the minis and immediately sticked them on the cone. After the cone was completely covered, I put it in the freezer. The result?

Looked pretty good for a first trial. But something was missing... Hmm... cake at the bottom probably? So, I made a small round orange chocolate cake (vanilla genoise + orange cream cheese buttercream + chocolate ganache) and put my mac tower on top of the cake. Piped "Happy Graduation Rudy" with melted white chocolate, sticked them on the cake, and DONE!!