This year's July 4th Cake

Have you ever had one of those cakes from the Asian pastry shops with the fruits on top? They're similar to a sponge cake, but super moist and not very sweet. In Korean, it's called seeang cream cake, but you can find them in Chinese or Vietnamese bakeries as well.We used to get one of these for every one's birthdays growing up. They're pretty pricey at the bakery these days, and I love to learn new things....so this weekend, I made one! I used strawberries and blueberries to form the American flag. It was pretty close to the ones at the bakery. I used the recipe from Honey and Butter's blog.

I'm not sure why I always take photos of the ingredients, but I do and here are the ingredients for this cake...

 And the whipped cream:

I started running out of time for the BBQ we were going to, so I was in a hurry, plus it got messy once the whipped cream came into play. Here's a photo of the center filling, I added chopped strawberries to the cream:

Oh yeah, one very useful trick I picked up was to line your cake circle with several pieces of seran wrap, place the cake on top, frost your cake. When you're finished frosting the cake, pull the seran wrap off. It catches all the stray frosting so that you don't have to worry about transferring the frosted cake to the cake circle. It also saves time.

Here is both layers of cake frosted and ready for the fruit decoration:

The cake:

Make a Flag Cake, Make a Flag Cake!

I can not believe it's almost the end of June. AND the July 4th weekend is next week! Last year, I made this totally awesome flag cake. Trust me, it's awesome. You should make one too! Seriously! It was a lot of fun to assemble AND everyone at your party will LOVE it. I promise! Click here for the HOW TO. Have fun :)

Peach & Cheese Danish

It's summertime, and I get a lot of free fruits from people. I love it! But, a (good) problem I have is that I get so many that I can't finish. So, I make fun things like this danish. It was so good and easy for a Friday night. Easier because I used store-bought puff pastry.

Caramelize the peaches:
2 peaches sliced (I had white peaches)
3 tablespoons butter
1.5 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the butter over low heat. Add sugar and peaches. Turn up heat slightly and cook peaches about 5 minutes or until caramelized.

Make cream cheese filling:
4 oz. light cream cheese (room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
sugar (I don't remember how much I used, maybe 2 tablespoons)

Thaw the puff pastry according to the instructions on the box. Dunno why, but I had some problems separating the sheet (first time ever). So, I threw some flour on it and rolled it out. I cut them into 6 pieces (2 large pastries and 4 smaller pastries).

I formed the pastry shapes by pulling the edges up for the filling.

Top with the caramelized peaches:

Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden.

Let cool and enjoy with your favorite beverage.

Too Many Oranges!

What do you do with lots and lots of free oranges? I've been given more oranges than I can eat or drink by myself. Luckily it's been warm here in the Bay, so I made some juice bars and orange sorbet.

For the juice bars, simply squeeze the juice and pour into your popsicle molds. Easy like nothing else.

Even after I made the juice bars, I still had a basketful of oranges left.  I made orange sherbet. This too is very simple.

Recipe from the FoodNetwork.com here

Let your ice-cream maker do the work:

Transfer to a container, cover and freeze for a couple hours.

And, yes, I STILL have some oranges left...

Japantown Farmers Market Veggies

Asparagus, zucchini and peas. Stir fried in garlic. So simple, so delicious!