The sakura (cherry blossoms) may have already dropped their petals like pale pink snow here in Tokyo, but I’m still in the mood for spring and had quite a bit of leftover sakura liqueur pastry cream on my hands to use up, so I’m introducing yet another sakura recipe despite the fact that hanami season is over for the year. After making those sakura liqueur pastry cream filled pink champagne cupcakes, I had a rather large amount of cream leftover and was wondering what I could make to use it up other than more cupcakes. After wracking my brains for a bit the first cream-filled thing that came to my mind was macarons, which are something I hadn’t yet attempted due to their reputation for being finicky to make with a high failure rate for amateurs, but I made up my mind to stop being such a chicken and take on the majestic macaron. Despite my worries, I was actually able to successfully make pretty decent macarons on my first try with minimal fuss, so I decided to upload this recipe for fragrant little sakura macarons with either sakura liqueur pastry cream or sakura liqueur butter cream for all those other people who are under the impression that making macarons is too difficult and tedious for the average noob★[Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Pink Champagne Cupcakes Filled with Sakura Liqueur Cream
It’s finally starting to feel like spring here in Tokyo and the sakura (cherry blossoms) are blooming, so the long awaiting and highly anticipated hanami (cherry blossom viewing season) is upon us again at last. I did my first hanami of the year this last weekend and since it’s become something of a tradition for me to bring booze-y “cocktail cupcakes,” I made pink champagne mini cupcakes filled with sakura liqueur pastry cream. The pink champagne cake and frosting were made with the same recipe I’ve used a few times before, but the sakura liqueur pastry cream filling was a first try for me, so I was relieved that the cupcakes got good reviews from the people who did hanami with me. The color and flavor of these little guys really does invoke all the best parts of spring, plus mini cupcakes are the perfect size to share no matter how big your hanami picnic ends up getting, so I definitely recommend giving making these a try for hanami season★
Pink Champagne Rose Cake Pops
I don’t really have a significant other or anything so I just gave them to my friends at work, but these champagne rose cakepops are what I made for Valentine’s Day this year. The roses are pink champagne cake pops, the leaves are marshmallow fondant, the dirt is a champagne brownie, the pot is an ice cream cone…which is to say you can eat all of it but the lollipop stick! To be honest though, I feel like they have more of spring feel to them than a Valentine’s feel to them anyway so that’s why I’m uploading them now despite the fact that Valentine’s is long past.
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Gluten-free Absinthe Cake Bites
I suppose if the New Year is about new beginnings and what not, it’s only fitting that my first baking endeavor of 2015 was also my first fore into gluten-free baking. I had heard that a lot of gluten-free sweets aren’t very good or are a pain to make with not a lot of taste pay off, so up until now whenever I received an invitation to someone who can’t eaten gluten’s home I would just play it safe and bring along something that didn’t rely on gluten anyway. However, recently a friend of mine who suffers from a gluten allergy asked me if it would be at all possible to make a gluten-free version of the absinthe cake balls and that served as the impetus for me to finally take the plunge and take on gluten-free baking. I had to make a few adaptions to the original absinthe cupcake recipe, but the results were more than acceptable in terms of taste and texture–in fact, the gluten-free version may even be a bit better for you as its slightly springier texture requires less icing to form balls. If you want to make a decadent gluten-free treat that doesn’t seem, well, gluten-free, give this a try.
Pink Champagne Cookies to Ring in the New Year
It’s already 2015 in Japan and here in the US we’ll be greeting 2015 in a matter of hours! I can’t believe it! Time flies! I’ve been back in the US to visit since Christmas, and while Christmas is a much bigger event in the US than Japan (it’s a national holiday here for starters) but I don’t really feel that New Years is quite as big of a deal in the US as it is in Japan. For example, I don’t think there is any sort of special food for the New Years here quite like soba is in Japan–people just drink champagne to ring in the New Year. For that reason, I figured now would be an appropriate time to post the pink champagne cookie recipe I made quite some time ago. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]