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Priscilla Tsai
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert / Breakfast Zucchini and Sweet Potato Bread
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 8:00 AM
This bread is the marriage of two unlikely ingredients. Who would think to pair zucchini and sweet potatoes together?
Not me.
But when a friend requested that I find a good zucchini bread recipe for her, I found this Zucchini and Sweet Potato Bread recipe from Epicurious.com.
The recipe got rave reviews and received a four "fork" rating from fellow bakers. Convinced, I gave it a whirl.
The bread (really, cake) turned out delightfully dense, moist, and slightly spicy from cinnamon. It tastes similar to carrot carrot cake. Containing both zucchini and sweet potato, I'm eating it guilt-free as I'm counting each slice as two servings of daily veggies. (Dieters, don't quote me on this. I made it up.)
As suggested by many reviewers, I cut the sugar from 2 cups to 1.5 cups. Next time I'll cut the sugar even more because I found it still a tad too sweet. To amp up the health benefits, I subbed 1 cup of white flour with whole wheat flour. A few reviewers suggested using apple sauce in place of the oil – perhaps I'll try that next time, too.
I had way too much batter to fill one loaf pan (but not enough to make 2 loaves), so I made 8 muffins on the side.
Co-workers at CL demolished the bread in one afternoon, which goes to show it's a crowd-pleaser.
Find the recipe below, with my notes in parenthesis.
Have an item you want me to find and test a recipe for? Just leave a comment below.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / cupcake Earl Grey cupcakes with citrus Swiss meringue buttercream
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:00 AM
The reign of tea-flavored cupcakes continues.
Yesterday I posted a recipe for green tea cupcakes. Today, I'm sharing with you a recipe for Earl Grey-flavored cupcakes with a citrus Swiss meringue buttercream.
Earl Grey is a tea blend with a distinctive aroma and flavor due to the addition of oil from bergamot, a citrus fruit. I've always been curious as to what it might taste like in a cupcake, so here it is! To compliment the bergamot flavor, I paired the tea cupcake with a citrus frosting.
To create the Earl Grey flavor, I tore open three tea bags and gave the contents a whirl in my coffee grinder to finely grind up the tea leaves before adding it straight to the batter. When you bite into a cupcake, you'll see flecks of tea. To deepen the flavor, I also steeped one tea bag in the half cup of milk the recipe calls for. (Again, I used Magnolia Bakery's vanilla cupcake recipe as my base recipe.)
For the frosting, I went with a silky smooth Swiss meringue buttercream flavored with two types of citrus – lemon juice and orange zest. The resulting cupcakes were fragrant and floral.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Food News / free food / Priscilla Tsai Yo, I've got some Yoforia giftcards for you (UPDATE: Free fro-yo for grand opening)
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:45 PM
Hey, Yoforia lovers, did you know Yoforia's new store at Promenade on Providence (off I-485 and Providence) is now open? They opened last Tuesday, March 1, and will be hosting a grand opening event this Friday, March 11th from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. You are invited to come out to enjoy a FREE 16 oz. yogurt with unlimited toppings.
It gets better than that...
I'm giving away a few $20 Yoforia gift cards to use at any of the Yoforia stores in town.
To win: I like to share my recipes with you guys each week, but now I want to see what you've got. Email me with your best tried-and-true recipe from your recipe box. (email me at priscilla.tsai@creativeloafing.com). I'll need your name, email, and mailing address, and a short description would be helpful, too.
From the submissions, I'll pick four winners based on the tastiest-sounding recipes. I'll pick one stand-out recipe to make and blog about, too.
Deadline for submissions: Friday, March 11.
One recipe per person, please.
Priscilla Tsai Green tea cupcakes
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:00 AM
Green tea-flavored foods make me happy ... like green tea ice cream, green tea Kit Kat bars, green tea popsicles, and green tea Swiss cake rolls.
If you love green tea too, you'll appreciate my newest cupcake creation: Green tea cupcakes made with matcha powder (aka. green tea). They are slightly green-tinged, which makes them appropriate for St. Patrick's day.
My original plan was to make a green tea cupcake and top it with toasted almond buttercream, but after baking and tasting the cake portion, I realized the subtle green tea flavor would be overwhelmed by other flavors. I went with a green tea frosting instead to enhance the green tea flavor of the cake.
The base cake recipe was adapted from Magnolia Bakery's vanilla cupcake recipe. I find that Magnolia's cupcake recipe always produces a good tight-crumbed cupcake, which is also easily adjustable to make different flavors. What's also a plus is that you don't even need to break out your measuring spoons – you don't need to measure any baking soda, powder, salt, or anything because it calls for self-rising flour.
For decor, I typed up and printed out funny fortunes. I laminated them with packaging type so they wouldn't get ruined by the frosting. I went with fortune cookie fortunes as garnishes because I figured green tea is associated to Chinese food, and Chinese food is associated with fortune cookies... makes sense, right?
(P.S. I you want more tea-flavored cupcakes, stay tuned ... a recipe for Earl Grey cupcakes will be posted tomorrow.)
Monday, February 28, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Chicken / Dinner Thomas Keller's Simple Roast Chicken
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 8:00 AM
This roast chicken recipe is the easiest thing I've probably ever made, and it's probably one of the tastiest dinners to have ever come out of my oven.
Thomas Keller of the famous restaurant French Laundry in Yountville, CA choses his own roast chicken to be included as part of his "last meal" in the book "My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs And Their Final Meals: Portraits, Interviews, And Recipes."
I can understand why. The chicken comes out with perfectly crisped skin and juicy, flavorful meat.
What's ridiculous is that this roast chicken recipe can't possibly be any easier. You take the chicken, wash it, dry it, truss it (if it's not already trussed), sprinkle it with salt and pepper, throw it in the oven, add some thyme, and voila. Done.
I served it with some sauteed green beans and roasted red potatoes.
Side note: While washing the dishes after dinner, I found my dining companion licking (yes, licking) the chicken-juice-covered cutting board when he thought no one was looking ... I guess the chicken is that good.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Priscilla Tsai Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Soup
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 4:02 PM
This Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Soup recipe comes from Epicurious.com. It's meat-free and healthy.
I omitted the butter and the soup turned out just fine. To make it a meal, I added a package of whole wheat cheese tortellini for some protein.
The only inconvenience in making this soup was the prep work involved – roasting eggplants, which takes 45 minutes, and char-grilling and peeling red peppers... I suck at peeling those peppers.
To roast and peel red peppers, you are supposed to char them over a gas burner, then place them in a brown bag for 10 minutes to steam, which causes the skin come right off. That didn't work so well for me ... by the time I was finished, I had little black pieces of charred pepper under every fingernail from picking off the skin bit by bit. Awesome.
I guess I'll try charring my peppers so they are completely black next time – I read online that you gotta get them really charred and then place them on a cutting board with a glass bowl inverted over them for a few minutes. If you want to avoid roasting your own peppers, you can always buy them jarred at the grocery store (they're not cheap though).
Despite the pepper incident, I'd definitely make this soup again. It's creamy, slightly sweet, nutty, and with the tortellini, it's a perfect lunch or light dinner.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Banana pudding conquered
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:48 AM
If you remember, banana pudding has been the bane of my existence.
I know it's simple to make, but for some reason a good banana pudding has always eluded me. I have refused to take the easy road by using boxed mix for the vanilla pudding.
This stubbornness resulted in a nasty grainy, mess last time. (Check out my failures here and here.)
Well, I am happy to say I finally reign supreme over banana pudding. I made a creamy vanilla bean pudding from scratch and layered it with bananas and Madagascar Vanilla Wafers from Trader Joe's.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Mouthful / Priscilla Tsai Taste Test: Dessert crepes at Crepe Cellar
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:04 AM
Ok, fine! Twist my arm and force me to eat crepes.
Kidding. As someone with the biggest sweet tooth around, I was more than eager to take the Crepe Cellar Kitchen & Pub up on their offer to have me come by and sample a smorgasbord of dessert crepes last night.
As owner Jeff Tonidandel brought out four giant dessert crepes heaped with ice cream and whipped cream to my seat at the bar, fellow patrons gawked.
Take a gander at the goods:
Monday, February 14, 2011
Priscilla Tsai French macarons for my Valentine
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 3:52 PM
Macarons, the little French meringue-like sandwich cookies (not to be confused with macaroons, the coconut cookies) are one of my boyfriend's favorite things on earth.
They've taken over food blogs and may be (or are they already?) the next food craze. Pierre Hermé and Laudrée in Paris are the masters of macarons and feature the cookies in a multitude of flavor combinations.
I've shied away from making them after reading on blogs that they are a pain in the butt to make. Every step of the recipes is portrayed as a delicate procedure and requires painstaking effort.
Well since today is Valentine's Day, I've decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at making some macarons for the boyfriend.
I followed the Martha Stewart macaron recipe I found at the blog Giver's Log, penned by a baker named AmberLee. The post gives detailed instructions, along with helpful tips and photos. I followed AmberLee's recipe to a T, and my macarons came out fabulous. Considering all the hubbub around the difficulty of macaron making, I was astonished that my macarons came out nicely my first attempt. They even had perfect little "feet" (pied in French), the little ruffled bottoms.
I made the little hearts on my macaron shells by dying a bit of reserved batter a darker pink, dropping a little blob of that batter atop of freshly piped shells, and then drawing a toothpick through the centers.
Get the recipe here.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert / Cookie Chocolate Chubbies
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:52 PM
Don't you just love the name of these cookies? Chocolate Chubbies!
Too cute.
These little chubby cookies are full of chocolate, pecans, walnuts, and more chocolate. They are like rich mini brownie nugget bites. The recipe comes from the cookbook Sarahbeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours.
I suggest you make these. Soon. Valentine's Day is coming up, so obviously you have the license to eat all the chocolate you want (guilt-free) from now until Feb. 15.
For these cookies, I used a honking large bar of dark chocolate from Trader Joe's, chopped into chunks, as well as semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips from Ghirardelli. Yes, it's really an overload of chocolate, but it happens to work so well in these cookies.
I plan to share these fatties with friends during my weekend ski trip, as I should really stop inhaling them myself.
Hmm... but these Chocolate Chubbies do happen be just right size to pack into the pockets of my jacket... these could make for a nice little snack on the ski lift perhaps...
Here's a photo montage of the entire process:
