De Baking Psychopath

First topic of discussion: breakfast. A working day's breakfast in Taiwan is pretty simple: coffee or tea, maybe milk (although oftentimes this is from powder rather than fresh as fresh is rather expensive in Taiwan), maybe toast from a local bakery (Japanese style bread--more buttery), maybe oatmeal or other sweet multigrain drink mixes, or maybe something more traditional (as as pictured below at my grandmother's house) such as rice and veggies/meat if you have the time and someone to cook it for you at home. Otherwise one might pick up a cheap meal on the go at a local bakery or convenience store (such as 7-Eleven), where you can get pretty much anything from lattes to stuffed rice balls to sandwiches to beer (breakfast of champions!). More modern influences have introduced the ideas of cold cereal, bagels, waffles, and donuts (to be pictured in an upcoming post) but these are pretty pricey still and more trendy rather than common. A busy young professional may also choose t...

I'm back! Just a tad bit fatter, but none the worse for the wear, considering how much food has passed through my digestive system in the last two weeks. I heard a pretty good quote on TV the other day in Taiwan in an interview of a young lady in regards to eating in night markets. I think sums up nicely my philosophy about food: 吃太多, 總是可以減肥 吃太少, 就會有遺憾 Eat too much, one can always diet Eat too little, one will have regrets And especially when it comes to food that you remember eating as a child, food that has cultural and familial significance, or just food that you associate with specific memories/places/people, I think it's always worth it to save a little room in your stomach for those things. Certainly your enjoyment should be in moderation and should take your dietary restrictions into consideration (e.g. I wouldn't condone my diabetic father to eat some sort of candy just because he ate it as a kid), but for the average person, one less cookie/bag of chips/bowl of...

I'm coming home today! So hopefully there will be more baking and blogging to be done in the near future, not to mention food travelogues to post! But for now, here's the last of the 4th of July baking, as well as the last of the getting-rid-of-sour-cream series!! This sticky-gooey, colorful beauty is from the book Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman. This book has been on my radar ever since Food Librarian had a giveaway for this cookbook about it and posted a delicious-looking orange ricotta pound cake from the book during National Library Week in April. I borrowed it from the library, flipped through it, and within 5 minutes I knew I need to buy this cookbook. It's chock-full of recipes right up my alley: snack cakes, bundt cakes, coffee cakes, tea loaves, etc. The original recipe called for plums, but I had a bunch of white peaches in the fridge and the peach-blueberry combo is always a winner! Not to mention that peaches and ginger (which is in the ...

As you read this, I am somewhere on the globe, traveling from my current location of habitation to the place of my birth. While I did not go cat adopting during the 4th of July weekend, I did take some time out to go grilling with some friends in the park. We attempted to get a view of the fireworks that evening too but the skyscrapers downtown were blocking our view so it was pretty lame and we made a run for it before it ended so we didn't get stuck in traffic getting out of the park (quite a large crowd had come out to see the fireworks). And of course I couldn't help myself and baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies--a new recipe no less. Urban legend has it that a lady had some awesome chocolate chip cookies at a Neiman-Marcus department store cafe and asked for the recipe, which she was promptly given but was then charged $250 for it (instead of the $2.50 that she thought she'd be charged). She got so pissed (because apparently she couldn't get the cha...

I lied: I have more recipes to post. But I will try to space them out over the next several weeks so that the blog doesn't come to a complete standstill in the meantime. I had a bunch of sour cream in the fridge to use up before I go, bought for now-unknown reasons. Probably coffee cake that never got made. But I decided to try out these intriguing sour cream muffin recipes, and boy, am I glad I did! If you have a leftover cup of sour cream you don't know what to do with, consider one of these yummy muffins! First up: Sour Cream Bran Muffins , seen on Joy the Baker, recipe originally from The Gourmet Cookbook . The biggest change I made was to use honey instead of molasses, as I like the cleaner taste of honey. I used dried cherries and dried blueberries in these guys. They are super moist and soft and a touch buttery, yet wheaty and hearty enough to convince you that you're eating something healthy! Did you notice the pretty muffin cups? These are the ones I bought...