The next best thing

to jump on a non-stop flight to Hawaii for a plate of laulau, is be to test out a recipe for crockpot laulau. Found a recipe from a shared post on FB that took me to 3sister3kitchen blog that looked good. 

Of course, being here in NJ means no luau leaves aka taro leaves. After some research for a substitute, I decide on collard greens. The 3sister3kitchen recipe suggest spinach but it has such strong flavor I was looking to try something else.

I found this video from Sunny Anderson from the Food Network talking about her version of laulau and using collard greens. How it was good substitute because the greens are usually cooked with pork. When I looked at the green, I kind of thought they even looked a little bit of taro leaf. So that's why I decided to used it for this test. I also read that kale may work well with this. Maybe I'll try it for another test. I'll keep the kale for my chopped salad that I've been loving.

Here's the start of my crockpot laulau test. 

Filling up the pot with the goodies

Following the recipe, I lined the crockpot with the blanched greens, add pork then layered the salmon on top. I seasoned with hawaiian salt. Wish I could find butterfish here, but it's not too easy. Been craving butterfish misoyaki. I guess I have to test out misoyaki on salmon or chilean sea bass.

ready to start cooking

Then I layered the rest of the greens on top. Now to wait all day for it to be done. 

After all of the laulau prepping, I decided to give my kitchen a good scrub before I start something new. I already finished up a batch of apple butter this morning. 

Add vanilla bean to this recipe. Smell so good

[Oh, my, oh, my only 3 1/2 hours into cooking and it already seems so good. 6 1/2 hours to go. I hope I can hold out till then for a taste. This will be my lunch for tomorrow. I can't wait. I better cook a pot of rice.]

Meanwhile after the good scrub, I decide to try again with the macarons. I know from Hawaii to France. Who would have thought. But I've wanting make both of these for a while. I was just in the mood today.

Made up this batch using the recipe from JoyofBaking.com. I have batch of vanilla bean swiss buttercream in the frig and some lilikoi curd plus a bunch of other jams to fill with 

waiting to set up

First sheet in and out. Cracked. :(

Cracked and no feet but still taste good.

Could be not rested enough or under beaten meringue. May need another minute. I got this troubleshooting macarons from Not So Humble Pie blog. Let's see if second sheet comes out better.

Second sheet. Better.

These have little feet.

Well, not too bad, I'll still fill and eat them. And try again soon, maybe at the end of the week. I hope they come out better. 

And now for what I've waited all day for. Tah Dah! Crockpot Laulau. Smells so good. 

Right before it was done.

first scoop

my dinner!

This is so delicious and worth the wait. Not the exact flavor of the laulau and the collard has a different texture but the pork is so soft and greens has a great flavor from the pork and salmon. I think by adding the salmon gave it that umami flavor that food from Hawaii have. Like adding the the sea to it. 

If you don't live in Hawaii, craving some laulau and can wait 10 hours, this is most definitely a dish to make. 

I survive the making of 100+

To be exact 101 cupcakes for office event, 15 macarons [dumped almost a full batch. I had no patience left to gently remove from the slipat sheet because they were slightly overmixed and underdone again and kept cracking. Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!] and 1 batch of cupcakes for the restaurant's valentine sweets. Pictured above are the 101,  pre-frosting and filled, waiting to get all dolled up for the big event.

100 cupcake plus and incredibly busy menapausal woman

It just started a hour ago. Cleaning, organizing and prepping before the real baking start. Have already prepped 2 batches of swiss buttercream [I think I need make another], 2 batches of cream cheese frosting [for sure I need another], lemon curd, raspberry jam, steeped the milk with earl grey tea and measure out 3 batches of dry ingredients. 

I'm still working out what I'm making, this is what I have committed to so far:

• Earl Grey cupcakes with lemon curd filling and cream cheese frosting
• Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry jam filling and strawberry cream cheese frosting
• Blackberry Jam cupcakes with vanilla swiss buttercream
• Red Velvet cupcake with chocolate ganache filling and cream cheese frosting
• Chocolate cupcake with fudgy chocolate frosting [may have a little surprise filling]
• I'm thinking of doing an apple spice cupcake or orange cupcake that probably will be the last batch I'll make

And I'm hoping that I get all of these done so I can whip up a couple of batches of macarons for the restaurant as valentine's promotion. I haven't even promoted that yet as I don't know if I can make it. But if I do, it will be raspberry and meyer lemon macarons. I'm making them smaller than I've testing so I can give out 1 per person or 2 per couple. There will be lots of piping in my future--my arm already hurt.

Okay, off I go to prep some almond flour for my macarons. I have faith that I can do it all. Pictures to come. 

Macarons-test 2

Is this a sign I what I'll be doing in the coming year. Here's picture of some macarons batter, just piped out, waiting to set up to go into the the oven. I'm testing out another recipe of macarons with my niece.

Happy New Year!

Wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I'm starting off the new year with some visiting family--niece arrives today. Then my sister and bil arrive in 4 days. They are all coming into some cold weather but then are off to drive up to almost Canada [upstate NY] where it looks like it will be a winter wonderland for them. 

Hope I can get my niece to help me out and make some macarons and maybe even try out the giant bread maker to make up some mochi. Speaking of mochi, I better soak that rice.

Hope the New Year brings more pictures of things I've been making and doing. Or at least non blurry pictures from my new camera. 

Have a great New Year's Eve and a great year to come!

Test Baking

UPDATE: I found the where I got the pear tat recipe. Here's the link: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/409177. And made a second one for the restaurant, pears not as ripe. Would have been better if I waited a couple days. My suggestions is to wait to the pears are really ripe, like "juice run down your arm if you bite into" ripe. It will totally be worth it.

Been testing a few things past few months when I can fit things into restaurant baking schedule. A few needs more testing, one winner on first try. I'm sure the people at work are happy with me testing as many recipes as I can. Got a few pictures to share.

Pear Tart [looks more like a cake]

Been wanting to try out this recipe for ages. Simple, with the minimum of ingredients and I had the perfectly ripen pears for it. The problem is I can't remember where I got this recipe. I'm trying my best to find because it was such a hit at work.

It's has 3 very ripe anjou pears cut into 8ths then smushed into this buttery batter. It takes a long time to bake (about an hour) and in the beginning I thought it was a disaster. Batter looked so soupy from all the juice of the pears, the batter wasn't rising and it wasn't browning. But then about 1/2 way into the baking time, the batter start enveloping the pears and the browning begins. The finish result is a cake-like tart with creamy, custardy, chucky pear center. So delicious.

Recipes testing and my broken cake

UPDATE: 9.10.11

I crossed off what I tested.
_____________________

With the long weekend here, I'll have some time [one day] to do some recipe testing. Here's my list of what I want to test:

nutella rice crispie treats

chocolate malted cupcakes

plum crumble or crisp

brownies

mango something

chocolate dobash--like Delite bakery in Hawaii--maybe turn into cupcake

cream puffs

mochi something

macarons

My recipe testing list is so long and always growing. Most likely, I will only get to 2 of them. I also have make up a cheesecake. That extra day isn't enough.

As for my broken cake, I tried making one of my favorites, Sour Cream Apricot Cake for the restaurant. It's a very moist and delicate [not too sweet] bundt cake with chopped dried apricots soaked in some kind of liqueur [I used some Applekorn]. I thought it would be great with dollop of whipped cream. Well, when I filpped it out of the pan [I knew it was going to be bad when I had to shake the pan to death], only the bottom half came out, the top was stuck in the pan. I guess I did a very sucky job and greasing and flouring the pan. 

Oh well, not Oat and the staff at the restaurant can enjoy my broken cake. I tried it, it was delicious. Maybe next week, the customers can enjoy, too.

I'll post some pics of my testing soon.