a first birthday and a pinterest party

why hello there...it's been a while! life has been busy trying to manage school, the beginning of my photography career, (please check out my photography page and like us on facebook :)  www.facebook.com/sachiphotography ), and baking

now, that i've given my photography shout out, on to the baking world!  this weekend i was asked to bake for one of my coworker's baby's first birthday.  it was pretty neat because it was a joint first birthday for cousins and the theme was elephants...they were oh too cute!  the elephants were cartoon-ish yet modern and sophisticated...if you don't understand what i'm talking about, see cupcake toppers below! :)  i baked my favorite, butterscotch w/ vanilla buttercream and a sprinkle of sea salt.  i needed to bake 150 cupcakes and i had never baked this many cupcakes by myself before so i was nervous but, everything turned out well and i even finished in less time than i had expected.  i couldn't have done it without help from my husband joe and friend sara.

here are the pics from the event.

this weekend we also had a pinterest party with our college friends.  i decided to go with simple since i knew i would have to bake 150 cupcakes!  so i found a recipe for a jello cake.  it definitely turned out simple, sweet, and strawberry!

here are the steps.
1. bake cake as directed on box

2.  poke with a fork

3. prepare jello w/ 1 cup hot water and 1 cup cold water

4.  pour over cake

5. refrigerate overnight

6. top w/ whipped cream and fresh fruit!

so if you're ever in need for a quick dessert, this one's highly recommended! 

i heart pinterest!

japanese cheesecake

japanese cheesecake

this past weekend we had a pinterest party with some of our friends.  definition of a pinterest party:  make something from pinterest.  we did a pinterest food party so we all made food.  i've also heard of a pinterest craft party, which sounds quite fun (everyone plans a pinterest craft and brings supplies for everyone to make that craft.)

so, for the pinterest food party i decided to try making japanese cheesecake.  i was hoping it would be like the panya bakery version...not quite there but maybe if i keep at it :)

here's the recipe i followed:
http://www.joepastry.com/2011/japanese-cheesecake-recipe/

melt butter, cream cheese, and milk in the microwave in 10 second intervals

keep melting and stirring until mixture has a smooth consistency 

sift dry ingredients (except the sugar and cream of tartar)

separate eggs

mix wet ingredients, dry ingredients, and egg yolks together

beat egg yolks and add cream of tartar and sugar...fold into wet mixture

line a spring form pan and cover outside w/ foil so that water won't leak in
as the cake will bake in a water bath

top with cream topping (i used a condensed milk, heaving whipping cream, and brown sugar mixture)

upon reflecting on the cheesecake, it was a lot denser than i had hoped it would be.  i think part of it had to do with the egg whites. you're supposed to beat until foamy and then add in cream of tartar and sugar and continue to beat until soft peaks form.  i dumped the cream of tartar and sugar in all at once...it kind of made the egg whites heavy and not so airy.  next time, i think i'll add the sugar in gradually.  hopefully this helps make the final cake more fluffy :) 

my husband made meat pies for his dish and had extra dough so i decided to make pear pies with it.  we rolled the dough, and created a pear + butter + brown sugar mixture.  then we stuffed the pies with the pear mixture plus some delicious goodness of brie cheese :)  next we folded the pies closed, topped with an egg wash and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and baked....yum yum! :)

pinterest

this month i needed to share a "nice & new" at our leadership meeting at school.  basically every month someone on the board takes a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting to share something nice and new that they've discovered.  usually when it's my turn i try to incorporate food because who doesn't love food at a meeting?! i also wanted to share my addiction to pinterest (because i use it to find a lot of school resources) so i decided to choose a simple recipe from pinterest and get the best of both worlds!

here's my try at a sweet and salty treat.

ingredients:
- pretzel twists
- chocolate kisses
- m&ms

1.  lay out pretzel twists and top with a kiss.

2.  bake at 275 degrees F for 3 mins.

3.  squish an m&m on each treat

4.  refrigerate

5 enjoy!

this was a super easy recipe and super tasty...the hardest part was opening all of the kisses!

oh baby!

within the past week i've been to two baby showers.  they are so much fun, filled with the joy and anticipation of new life :)  one was for my cousin who is having a ??? and one was for one of my coworkers who is having a girl :)

here are my baby cakes:

red velvet w/ pink-vanilla frosting.  topped with
pearly white sprinkles and clear sugar + a single silver ball

butterscotch cakes w/ vanilla frosting & sea salt - my specialty!

some things i learned while preparing these cakes:
- making your own cupcake toppers with scrapbook paper, toothpicks, double stick tape, and a circle puncher is very cost effective (and it doesn't take too long.)

- i really love these wilton three tier cake stands

- it is okay to put more than one type of sprinkle on a cupcake :)

looking forward to meeting these two little ones :)

p.s. one week til the honolulu marathon!  

oreo stuffed

lately i've been addicted to pinterest.  it's basically a visual version of "bookmarking" stuff.  when you find cool things online, you can "pin" it and the link is saved along with a picture to your "board."  it's amazing, motivating, and inspirational all that the same time.  i've been getting ideas for crafting, photography, cooking, and baking.

one pin that came up was oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies.  now chocolate chip cookies are amazing in itself, so stuffing it with oreos just takes it to the next level.  here's the link to the recipe and my version of it.

http://picky-palate.com/2011/10/17/itty-bitty-oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

mix wet ingredients and dry ingredients in separate bowls.  then slowly mix them together.

scoop the dough using a mini scoop, top with an oreo (or mini oreo) and then another scoop of dough.  press together and make sure oreo is fully covered with dough

bake and enjoy

 here's some other baking projects i did this weekend.  pineapple cupcakes, cream cheese topping, and chocolate drizzle.

pineapple cupcakes with cream cheese topping.

other exciting news in my life:  i am officially registered for the honolulu marathon.  wish me luck!  i'm up to 16 miles and i've got one more month of training til the big day...goal for the race: to finish :)

hello, fall

fall is here!  which means pumpkin is in :)  last night i tasted a pumpkin pop-tart (yum!) and pumpkin beer (not-so-yum).

on to baking...a few weeks ago, i signed up to take refreshments to a class i had on saturday and to church today.  so i spent a chunk of this weekend baking.  but it's something i enjoy, so i was a happy camper...or i guess i should say, happy baker :)

for saturday's class i took my good ol' butterscotch w/ vanilla and sea salt.  i've decided this is one of the easiest, fastest, and favorite cupcakes to bake.  i'm designating it my "house-cupcake"  (like a restaurant's house dressing.)

for today i did mini's for church since it was for more people.  i wanted to do pumpkin so i went on an online hunt for an easy pumpkin recipe.  i found out that you can use yellow cake mix and substitute the water with pumpkin pie filling and come up with a fabulously moist pumpkin cupcake.  usually pumpkin is paired with cream cheese frosting, but i didn't have cream cheese and didn't really want to go back to the market so i decided on a toasted marshmallow topping.  I used egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and vanilla to whip up the marshmallow and then broiled it to toast.  the toasted tops of my pumpkin mini's added the warm homey feeling of fall!

pumpkin poppers

i also ended up with a little extra marshmallow topping so i used it for my left over butterscotch cupcakes that didn't get frosted because i ran out of vanilla buttercream.  and that's how my butterscotch with marshmallow was born. :)

butterscotch w/ marshmallow

sachi bento - a little bit of everything

i wanted to call this entry "mixed plate" but then i realized i already an entry with that title so here we go with the bento!

lately, i've been busy doing lots of different things (hence the title "bento.")  for those of you who don't know what a bento is, it's a japanese packed meal that has a little bit of a bunch of different foods in it...rice, veggies, meat, sides, etc.

so my (sachi) bento includes: school stuff, sweet stuff, and photography stuff :)

school stuff:
school has been crazy-busy lately.  the whole first quarter has flown by which means it's time for report cards and parent-teacher conferences.  though things are hectic, i'm enjoying what i'm doing.  i've got a fun bunch of kiddos and this year, i'm trying new things.  one thing i'm working on is a class blog.  here it is:
http://kidsteachingothers.blogspot.com

sweet stuff:
one of my coworker friends got married last weekend so our grade level threw her a mini-bridal shower luncheon.  she was on a no-carb diet so we decided on salad for lunch.  being me, i reeaally wanted to make dessert but a no-carb diet makes that quite challenging.  i couldn't make cupcakes or cake pops so i decided on layered-sugar-free jello in heart molds.  this prompted my first experience with gelatin, i know...pretty crazy.  so i used 3 packets to one box of jello.  in my opinion, i used a little too much, so maybe next time i'll try 2 packets :)

more sweet stuff:
this weekend i was craving cupcakes...quite the shocker ;)  so i decided to try the Sprinkles cupcake mix that my cousin got me for my birthday (you can get it from wiliams-sonomoa.)  it super easy to make, i just needed to add butter, eggs, and milk + frosting.  my favorite part was the signature Sprinkles-dots.  the cupcake ended up tasting good and was moist but it was quite dense (like all the other cupcakes i've made from scratch.)  any ideas for fixing this?

photography stuff:
in my last post i shared some photos i took of faces i came across in china town.  i've been practicing more and i've been loving every moment of it.  there's something about looking through the lens of a camera and capturing moments in time that is just so exciting to me.  i guess you can say it's my way of telling stories.  here are some pictures i took in seattle/portland.