New York, I just can’t quit you.

A month later, and I’m back in NYC!  I know, I just can’t seem to stay away!  One of my best friends Laina was going to be working at New York Comic Con, and she was bringing along her husband Brian (another one of my best friends) and our friend Jovan.  I of course jumped at the opportunity to visit NYC again, and decided I’d meet them up in the city later in the week (they flew in Wednesday, I flew in Friday).  Interested in seeing what silly shenanigans we got into this time? Keep reading!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

My favorite season is here! Pumpkin season!

One of my favorite things about the fall season (or just summer part 2 in Florida) is that pumpkin flavored items are sold everywhere!  I’m a bit obsessed with anything pumpkin flavored, and of course love to bake anything and everything I can with pumpkin.  So to kick off the season, I’ve started with some pumpkin cookies!  These are really tasty, fluffy cookies with a surprise medley of flavors created by the mixture of the pumpkin spices and the chocolate chips : ).  I find that even people who aren’t pumpkin crazed will still really enjoy these (my brother for example)!

NYC Summer Trip!

Oh New York, how I love you!  Anyone who knows me, knows that NYC is basically my favorite place in the world as of late.  Since visiting last summer for the first time in my adult life, I’ve become enamored by the city *o* and I’ve visited 5 times since.  So when some travel plans fell through a couple of weeks ago, I decided to call up my best friend (because NYC is simply best experienced when you have your nearest and dearest tagging along for some adventures) and we decided on an impromptu trip during our extended holiday weekend!  This is probably one of the more crazy trips I’ve had, we experienced many things including winning some lotteries, walking into random festivals, walking around the streets at 3am, falling down in the middle of the street, and oh yea, meeting some rock stars ; )

And of course, let’s not forget the most important thing, eating everything lol.  So if I’ve piqued your curiosity, I invite you to keep reading : )!

LA Trip

Hey guys!

First I wanted to thank everyone who has checked out my blog and favorited or followed the blog!  I’m still rather new to this, but it makes me happy that others can enjoy some of the silly things I do : ).

In other news, I just got back from a absolutely phenomenal trip to my home town of Los Angeles!  It’s actually been a few years (2008) since I last visited.  And oh gosh, do I love the West coast.  As with any of my trips, it was filled with foodie adventures, and with a place like LA, well, the adventures can seem endless!  So if you’re interested in reading/seeing what shenanigans I’ve been up to, read on : ).

Visiting NYC Part 1!

So this is going to be my first non-recipe blog post!  As I’ve mentioned before, I absolutely LOVE to travel.  My first trip was when I was 6 months old (to Italy), and since then I’ve visited 11 different countries and lived in three continents.  And even with all that traveling, some of my favorite spots are right here in the USA : ).  Mainly, my favorite place has now become the lovely city of Manhattan.

The first time I went to Manhattan, I was flying in from Peru, and we stayed for a few weeks in the city.  I was only nine, so I couldn’t truly appreciate the city for what it was, so last summer, when the opportunity presented itself to visit again, I of course took it!

My friends and I used to be quite into the whole Anime/Video Game/Cosplay scene back in the day, but real life (aka college) eventually caused me to move away from a lot of that stuff since let’s face it, studying engineering left me with little amount of time to do much of anything lol.   In any case, as we sorta drifted away from attending anime and comic book conventions as attendees, one of my best friends started her own business selling really cute fleece hats, which she now sells at conventions.  A lot of times she’ll have to go out of town to sell at out of state conventions, and when I have the time to do so, I always like to tag along, and visit new places (+ I get to hang out with one of my bffs, so total win-win for me!).

Last summer, with the ever increasing popularity of the new “My Little Pony” cartoon series, it turned out that a convention named BRONYCON was going to take place right near Manhattan.  This was an excellent opportunity for my friend’s business, and an even better excuse to take a little vacation to NYC.  So if you’re interested, read on to read about our somewhat strange and funny adventures in the city!

Lemon Macarons with Lemon Curd

Hello everyone!

How is everyone’s week going?  I was happy to have Monday off,  I always feel like I accomplish so much more by just having one extra day off.  I was finally able to get my shoe closet project started, but most importantly I had some time to bake : )!

Last week, a coworker of mine who has a lemon tree brought in a bunch of lemons.  I gladly took a few and immediately began to think what I could make.  My mind of course went straight to my favorite dessert:  Lemon macarons.

For those of you who don’t know me, I absolutely love anything lemon flavored.  Lemon cake, lemon tea, lemon cookies, lemon frosting, lemonade, and of course lemon macarons.  Lemon macarons are probably my favorite dessert, ever.   I used to make them with lemon buttercream, but recently I’ve been obsessed with lemon curd, so it’s only natural that I combined lemon macarons with lemon curd.  Additionally, lemon curd is great because it’s a perfect way of using those egg yolks that normally would get discarded while making your macaron shells.

Chocolate Present Cake

Hello everyone!
Can you believe that Christmas has already passed us by!? I feel like the holidays were a whirlwind this year!  I unfortunately haven’t had any time to do much baking, which was unfortunate, since I love baking during the holidays, but as my brother’s birthday as well as my own + Christmas all happened during this month, there was hardly a free moment!

However, since it was my brother’s birthday as I mentioned earlier, I did make his birthday cake!  I decided to go with a present theme, since I’ve always wanted to make one.  It didn’t come out perfect (my frosting skills aren’t perfected yet), but I did think it came out pretty decent for my first try.  So, during this entry, I’ll be walking you through making a very simple present cake!

Let’s begin!

When life gives you failed cakepops, make some cupcake toppers!

A couple of weeks ago it was a coworker’s birthday. He happened to be a fan of golf, so I immediately thought to make golf ball cakepops! I’ve been making cake pops for years, and I’ve never had issues making them before until this little project rolled around! Normally, the last step in cakepops is to dip the cake ball in your melted chocolate/candy coating. However, to make accurate golf balls (as in to include the texture of a golf ball as opposed to a smooth surface of a normal cakepop) you need to use a mold. I had never made cakepops using a mold, so this was a bit of an adventure for me, one that didn’t end up quite the way I initially intended it to! But that’s the great thing about cooking, even when things don’t go perfectly, there is usually a positive way of salvaging your disaster : )!

In my case, my failed cake pops turned into cupcake toppers, so all was well in the end. I will eventually make a post dedicated solely to making cakepops the way I normally make them, but for now I’ll show you the process I used for this particular project.

Ok, let’s begin with the basics of cakepops!