De Baking Psychopath

More blueberries! Alas, this is probably the last fresh blueberry recipe for the year, as blueberries have permanently left the markets (at least local ones) with the dusk of summer. I made this recipe for the celebration of the successful thesis defense of my fellow graduate student in the lab. She's soon to be off to a glorious post-doc, hopefully in sunnier and warmer shores. She's not a big fan of overly sweet cakes, and this one seemed to fit the bill. A simple, light fruit-filled cake with a beautifully caramelized crust made with only pantry-staple ingredients. Other bloggers described this cake as light and moist, which I did not find this cake overly so (more like rustic and sturdy), but despite my relative disappointment, it was well-received by labmates. This would be a great everyday snack cake or a low-key function in which you didn't want to send everyone home in a sugar coma. The recipe can be found here , as found on the blog " A Whisk and a Spoon ...

I'm back with a doozy! Although the circumstances for which this cake was made was unfortunate--the leaving of one of my co-workers--we more than adequately celebrated her moving on to bigger-and-better things with a meal out to a favorite lab lunch destination and this chocolate-y liqueur-soaked cake with some vanilla bean ice cream. This, my friends, is the Kahlua Cake. The moistest cake-mix-doctoring you will ever lay a fork on. Soaked with a liquored-up glaze while the cake is still warm from the oven. Then covered with a boozy dark chocolate "ganache" icing that just floods over and puddles the cake. (You might have to card guests before serving this cake. My co-workers gave me grief over serving this to a summer student in our lab because you can really taste the alcohol in the icing.) Serve with ice cream (especially vanilla bean ice cream, yum). There really is not that much more to say. Make it soon. Kahlua Cake (adapted from David W.) Ingredients : CAKE: 1 packa...

And for the finale to this tasty travelogue, I give you the conglomerate of the sweets I tasted and happened to take pictures of during this trip. Starting with ice cream! I previously posted about the Turkish ice cream we had in the streets of Lugang after seeing the Mazu Temple, but here is a common sight at any department store food court in Taiwan: Asian-Italian gelato. Italian in style, Asian in flavors. The flavor combo I chose was passion fruit (left, with the seeds!) and milk (right), which I ate in combination to create an Asian creamsicle. It was quite yummy. And of course, Mister Donut . This chain was originally American, then bought by Dunkin Donuts and basically shut down in the US. A Japanese company then got the franchising rights later and the chain has been making it's way through Asia slowly. It has opened in Taiwan as a joint venture between the Japanese company and Uni-President, the scary-successful conglomerate in Taiwan that also owns 7-Eleven and Starbuck...

Taiwan is all about the tea. Sure, there's a lot of coffeeshops, and those are popular and all that, and there are a lot of nice fruit drinks like papaya milk , but really, we're Chinese--we drink tea. Now bubble tea, the combination of sweetened tea with fat tapioca balls, is uniquely Taiwanese. We had a decent amount of it during our time there. My favorite version of milk tea is not with tapioca, however, but with egg pudding instead. One of the ways we enjoyed tea was at a fancy tea shop called Rose House . I got hooked onto English style tea from frequenting one branch of this cafe chain in high school with my friends for special occasions such as birthdays. The interior of the cafe was always decked out in flowery decor and frilly cushions. Of course pretty tea sets and cups are a must. We were not so lucky to cross paths with a separate store to dine in to enjoy the frilly splendor, so we instead parked at a Rose House booth in a high-end cafe/food court in a departm...

The photos you see below are a conglomerate of four of the bigger meals we had with family at more traditional style restaurants throughout our trip. These are not necessarily representative of a "normal" go-out-to-eat restaurant a family might visit on a Friday night (unless you're my dad...). But a person might frequent these sorts of places often enough for more special occasions such as birthdays, holidays, or with special guests. This meal is also described in this post ...lots of things with faces, lots of seafood in general. My family and Jess and I had lunch with a couple of my dad's friends from the insurance world at a family-run seafood restaurant in Lugang, Chunghwa county. The first picture far above shows various customers picking the tastiest victims seafood for their meal. Fried oyster fritters Steamed shrimp Steamed bamboo, drizzled with Japanese-style sweet mayonnaise and rainbow sprinkles 滷肉飯 ( luroufan) : Soy sauce-stewed chopped or ground pork...

Asian "shopping mall" food courts are found in the basements of Japanese mega department store chains in Taiwan (we don't have malls in the American sense--everything is found in the department store). The food courts span entire floors, sometimes multiple floors, and consist of a succession of counters wrapped along the perimeter of the room (much like American food courts), a large bench-style seating section, a bunch of free-standing specialty treats/medicines/teas kiosks, often a bread shop tucked in a corner, and uniquely, often a high-end supermarket (think Whole Foods styling and pricing) on one end. The supermarket often presents some cheap and yummy eats itself, such as the roast eel on rice lunch box pictured above, on sale because it was made the previous day, and priced at the equivalent of THREE US DOLLARS . And I'd taken the picture mid-way through the meal so there was originally double the amount of eel... Yes, you'll also find fast food at these f...

Street eats! Such a quintessential part of the Asian food scene, and an important part of every trip back. Here are some highlights, in no specific order: 大腸包小腸--"big sausage wrapping little sausage": a Chinese sausage enveloped in a "bun" of glutinous rice 花生豆花--soft tofu with boiled peanuts (sweet) Front: Fresh wonton noodle soup Back: Oyster omelet fry Turkish ice cream : a popular street treat in Taiwan recently. It has a sticky, stretchy quality that was very unique. As previously mentioned, my beloved 烙餅 ( laobing ), on the griddle. The flaky flatbread is cooked until toasty and then whacked on the side of the griddle until puffy and flaked (like the one in the center), and then attached to a fried egg if you request it. Yummy laobing with egg and some soy sauce 鹽酥雞--"salty crispy chicken" With a generous sprinkle of pepper. Mm mm good. 炸甜不辣--fried fish cake slices Another favorite, 胡椒餅--"pepper bread": a stuffed bread with pork, scallion...