Thursday, March 7, 2019

Chocolate Cupcake with Coconut Ganache and Coconut Frosting

A couple posts back, I posted about my favorite chocolate cupcake. I really love this recipe from The Stay at Home Chef, the cupcakes have the perfect amount of chocolate flavor and are super moist. I love chocolate, so this has become my to bake cupcake when I'm unsure of what to make. Instead of pairing it with regular buttercream, I started playing around with different filling and frosting because there are so many yummy flavors out there that would just compliment so well with chocolate. I've tried quite a few different combos since my discovery on this cupcake recipe, and I must say, this post on coconut is my best one yet!

I despised chocolate coconut sweets when I was young. Almond Joy was my worst enemy. I couldn't wrap my head around their chocolate coconut ratio, it was so off to me. Why would anyone like a chunk of gooey coconut flake in their mouths, with so little chocolate? But the older I get, the more I appreciate the compliment these two flavors do for each other. I still don't like Almond Joy (their 9:1 coconut:chocolate ratio still doesn't make sense to me), but I think there's delight when these two are balanced well in a dessert. 

This post has two recipes - one for the ganache filling and one for the frosting. If you don't want too much coconut, you should use just the coconut frosting. If you prefer a stronger coconut flavor, definitely add in the coconut ganache. This is my second time doing filling in a cupcake, so forgive me if I sound like a newbie. During my first time filling, I wasn't sure if you needed to cover the filling with what you've cored out. I didn't think much of it and ended up eating all the cake crumbs I've cored... the ganache I used was too warm and seeped through the cake, and I had to fill the holes with frosting and it just became frosting filled cupcakes. ๐Ÿ™Š Regarding tools to core, I didn't use any special tools like the cupcake corer or apple corer. I simply used a knife and I thought it worked fine, cause I got to control the size of the hole.  

I found the ganache recipe on Lake Champlain Chocolates. This recipe only requires 3 ingredients - white chocolate, coconut milk, and shredded coconuts. No, I did not use the actual Lake Champlain white chocolate. I don't even know where I would get that haha. I just used Nestle white chocolate chips and I thought the ganache tasted delicious. I'm not crazy picky when it comes to the quality of chocolate especially when it's in such small quantity. If you're doing truffle, however, then I think you should go for a higher quality brand. For a filling, I think your regular white chocolate chips will work just fine. I really love this ganache, it has sucha silky texture and taste to it. I was obsessed! 

As for the frosting recipe, I found it on Baked by an Introvert. It is very similar to your regular buttercream frosting, with some coconut milk added. The entire process from baking, to filling, to frosting could take a whole day. To save time, I suggest begin making the ganache when the cupcakes are cooling. Once the cupcakes have cooled, core them and make the frosting in between cupcake/ganache cooling time. Don't eat all the crumbs like I did! Haha.



Please let me know your thoughts on chocolate + coconut combo! As well as other chocolate combo flavor you like! Would love to get some new ideas :) 

Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Michelle

White Chocolate Coconut Ganache

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooling Time: 35-45 minutes
Total Time: ~1 hr

Servings: filling for 18-20 cupcakes
Source: Lake Champlain Chocolates

Ingredients:
- 16 oz white chocolate
- 6 oz coconut milk
- 8 oz shredded, sweet coconut

Instructions:
1. Melt chocolate using a double boiler.
2. Set aside and let cool to 90 degrees.
3. Add coconut milk and mix well.
4. Set mixture aside to let it set up. Do not refrigerate.
5. Once set, warm the mixture using a double boiler.
6. Beat mixture until smooth and creamy
7. Add shredded coconut.

Coconut Frosting

Total Time: 10 minutes

Servings: 24 cupcakes
Source: Baked by an Introvert

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
- 4-5 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 4-6 Tbsp coconut milk

Instructions:
1. Cream the butter and sugar for 4-5 minutes.
2. Add confectioners' sugar slowly.
3. Add salt and coconut milk.
4. Taste and adjust texture and flavor as you see fit.

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Green Tea Matcha Cookies

My Aiya matcha powder finally came! I'm so excited to finally start my long list of matcha baked goods. Did you guys know that matcha powder is not made with your regular green tea leaves? ๐Ÿ™… I didn't. Apparently there's a whole different way of growing the green tea leaves that are used for matcha powder. I watched a whole video on YouTube about it, it's quite an ordeal. No wonder matcha powder isn't cheap and could have bad grades. I feel like matcha powder is the type of ingredient that you can't just buy based on price. Definitely do your research prior buying! 

First item on my matcha list is these green tea cookies I found on Just One Cookbook. I am obsessed with this blog! I could spend a whole day just reading recipes and wishing I were in Japan eating all these yummy foods. ๐Ÿ˜ญ This is a simple and easy recipe. It does require refrigeration so it's a good recipe for a stay at home day.  Even though the recipe doesn't require much matcha powder, the matcha flavor is strong (could be my powder?). The recipe suggested you to roll the dough into cylinder shape and cut it into slices after refrigeration. I'm thinking you could probably roll it into a sheet and do cut outs after refrigeration as well. I am a huge fan of this recipe! The taste and texture are perfect. Definitely give it a try if you have matcha powder at home. ๐Ÿ˜‰ 



Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich

PS. According to Google, matcha powder expires after 1-2 month of opening. Put it in the fridge to extend the shelf life a bit longer. ๐Ÿ’š

Green Tea Matcha Cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Refrigeration Time: + 2 hours
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hrs 35 minutes

Servings: ~24 cookies
Source: Just One Cookbook

Ingredients:
- 240 g All Purpose Flour
- 15 g Matcha Powder
- 170 g Unsalted Butter at room temperature
- 130 g confectioner's sugar
- Pinch of Salt
- 2 Large Egg Yolks
- 50 g White Chocolate Chips

Instruction:
1. Combine the flour and matcha powder, sift them in a medium size bowl.
2. Beat the unsalted butter until smooth and creamy. Add a pinch of salt and blend.
3. Add confectioner's sugar to the butter and mix until soft and light.
4. Add egg yolks and mix until combined.
5. Add the flour and matcha powder mixture and mix until the dough is smooth.
6. Fold in the white chocolate chips.
7. Take out the dough and roll it into cylinder shape, about 1.5 inches diameter.
8. Refrigerate for +2 hours.
9. Preheat oven at 350 F and prepare baking sheet with parchment paper.
10. Slice the dough into 1/2 inch slices and place them on the baking sheet.
11. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the edge of the cookies begin to brown.
12. Let cool in baking sheet for 5 minutes then let cool on cooling rack.

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Turnip Cake (่˜ฟ่””็ณ• Lo Bak Go) for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year was one of my favorite celebrations while growing up. I loved going to each of our relative's household to greet them and wish them Happy New Year (ๆ‹œๅนด Bai Lin). Not only did I love receiving red pockets ๐Ÿ’ฐ, we got to eat SO MUCH food. We would be feasting from morning till night for 3 days straight. I also just loved spending quality time with my big family, being reminded of how awesome it was to have a full house like ours!

Fast forward to now, at the age of 29 and no longer living in Hong Kong, my Chinese New Year is a whole lot different. Not only do I no longer receive red pockets (that stopped probably around 18 ๐Ÿ˜ญ), I also don't celebrate this holiday much.. I don't have a lot of relatives here in the States, so it's usually pretty quiet and it just makes me homesick. Fortunately, I now have my own family with Wayne! Although it's just the two of us, we try our best to get into the holiday spirit. We are no experts when it comes to Chinese food/cooking, but we try to learn. With that said.. I present you this homemade Turnip Cake recipe!


Haha, are you able to read it? No? Me neither. Well, technically I can read it, but just SUPER slow at it because it's been a long time since I've had to read that many Chinese characters. Believe it or not, I used to be able to read an entire Chinese book in a couple of hours ๐Ÿ˜ญ.. (Great, now I'm having identity crisis because I can't read/write/speak Chinese well and my English still sucks lol). Alright, enough of this, let's get to the recipe and discover what turnip cake is! 



Turnip Cake (aka Lo Bak Go in Cantonese) is a popular dim sum all year round. But it is especially popular during Chinese New Year, along with Sticky Rice Cake (ๅนด็ณ• Lin Go) and Taro Cake (่Š‹้ ญ็ณ• Wu Tou Go). The most important ingredients in turnip cake are turnip (duh!), corn starch, and rice flour. These three gives it the starchy and gooey texture after steaming. It's your choice to add the other ingredients. In the Chiu household, Chinese sausage and dried shrimps are a must. If there's time, my mom would also add Chinese mushroom to it (but that takes longer cause you'll have to cook the Chinese mushroom ahead of time). 

Couple notes on the tools: 
- You need to have some sort of steaming cookware. Mine is a simple rack. I use it along with my steam gripper for most dishes (except for this turnip cake actually, the aluminum pans are too weak for the grip so I just grab them with my hands after it cools down a bit). 

  

- You need a good grater or your hand's going to cramp every 5 seconds!! Or enlist a strong man to help you haha
- You need a scale to weigh some of the ingredients.
- Get a few aluminum foil trays. I used both round and rectangular.

Couple notes on the ingredients: 
- You have to go to an Asian supermarket for the ingredients, so if you don't have one near you.. ๐Ÿ˜Ÿ
- There are many different types of turnips out there, make sure you get the daikon turnip, they're long, about the size of your forearm.
- You can find the rice flour in the Asian specialty aisle in the Asian supermarket, it should be somewhere near the tapioca flour.
- There are many different types of Chinese sausages out there. You might get overwhelmed (like I did) by all the options. So just to give you an idea, I chose the below brand and the most basic plain pork Chinese sausage. I think the plain pork ones are the most delicious! You can mix and match if you have other ones you like. 
- Dried shrimps need to be refrigerated. So you'll need to look for them near the refrigeration/freezer section. I found mine next to the fresh seafood section.
- Regarding the Chinese sausages and dried shrimps, it's really up to you how much you want to put in there. We love to load ours up, goal is to ensure every bite has a bit of Chinese sausages and dried shrimps in it. Below is just my recommended amount, feel free to adjust accordingly.  
- This recipe does not include Chinese mushroom. If you want to include, feel free to adjust the Chinese sausage and dried shrimp portion as you see fit. 

Alright, enough on the notes, here's the recipe!

Mama Chiu's Homemade Turnip Cake Recipe

Prep Time: ~2 hours
Cook Time: ~1.5 hour
Time: ~3.5 hours
Servings: two batches of 8" round turnip cake or more depending on the depth of your dish

Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 - 3 turnips
- 150 g rice flour 
- 150 g corn starch 
- 8 - 10 Chinese sausages, cut into small pieces
- 1 cup dried shrimps
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 6 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Instructions:
1. Pan fry Chinese sausages and dried shrimps for about 5 minutes. Chinese sausages are quite fatty so there is no need to oil the pan before frying them. Once done, set them aside.
2. Use the medium or large holes to grate the turnips. Cook the grated turnips in 1 cup of water for 15-20 minutes. It'll soften the turnips and drain out more water. Set the cooked turnip aside and save as much turnip water as possible, this will be used in the next step. 
3. Mix corn starch and rice flour with 3 cups of water. First use the turnip water and if there is not enough, use regular water for the remaining. 
4. Put the Chinese sausages/dried shrimps mixture, the turnips, the corn starch/rice flour mixture, and all the condiments into a big pot. Cook everything for about 5-8 minutes in medium heat. Stir ensure even distribution and watch out not to burn the bottom.
5. Pour the cooked mixture into the aluminum trays.
6. Steam the cake for 1 1/2 hour. 
7. It might not look cooked but turn off the fire and let it cool. It should solidify a bit more. 
8. Refrigerate up to 1 week. 

How to cook turnip cakes?
Pan fry them! This is our home's personal preference. We like pan fried turnip cakes much more than steamed turnip cakes. I remember my mom always complained restaurants not pan frying them enough to give it a crunchy skin (basically a bit of the burnt you see on my picture above). To pan fry, cut up the turnip cakes into slices or cubes, and fry them for about 4-6 minutes top and bottom. Make sure you use enough oil so they don't stick to the bottom of the pan and break when you try to turn them! 




Give this a try guys! But be aware, once you've tasted homemade turnip cakes, you won't want to eat them at dim sum anymore. You'll realize how much they cheap out on all the ingredients! It just feels like eating dough. Haha.

Thank you so much for reading and happy eating! - Mich


Thursday, January 31, 2019

Jenny Bakery Wannabe Butter Cookies

Oh no, I think it's a mistake I learned how to make these butter cookies cause they're SO ADDICTIVE and I can't stop eating them..! ๐Ÿ˜ณ Welp, now that I'm down the rabbit hole, I guess the only thing left to do is share the recipe and drag you guys down with me (into buttery heaven)! Haha


This was a really fun bake for me! There aren't tons of recipes out there so I got to experiment a bit. I ended up merging two recipes together:

Couple notes on the recipe:
- You need a scale to weigh all the ingredients. Measuring cups are not accurate enough and will affect the density of the cookies. 
- You need a strong and thick piping bag. The dough is thick so the force during piping could burst the bag if they're not strong enough. 
- If you don't have salted butter (like me), just add about 1/4 tsp of salt.
- I tried using Russian piping tip and it was really difficult to make it look neat, so I resorted to the Open Star piping tip (Wilton 1M).




Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich

Jenny Bakery Wannabe Butter Cookies

Time: ~45 minutes
Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients:
- 5.25 oz Salted Butter (1 stick + 2.5 TBSP) at room temperature
- 30 g Powdered Sugar
- 95 g All Purpose Flour
- 75 g Corn Starch

Instruction:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degree fahrenheit (180 degree celcius).
2) Prepare baking tray with parchment paper.
3) Cream together butter and powdered sugar at medium high speed until light and fluffy, approximately 2 minutes.
4) Sift all purpose flour and corn starch.
5) Fold the sifted flour mixture into butter sugar mixture until well incorporated. Do not beat or over mix.
6) Put the dough into a piping bag with tip.
7) Pipe the cookies into a spiral by using a circular motion from outskirt to center.
8) Bake the cookies for 15-18 minutes until light golden.
9) Let them rest for a couple minutes before moving to cooling rack.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie

I'm not really a huge fan of any oaty food items. I would never choose to eat oatmeal and I definitely would never choose to eat oatmeal raisin cookies (bleh!). But chocolate chip in lieu of raisin? That changes the whole ball game. Be warned! These cookies are extremely delicious and addictive!! I'm not exaggerating, I just killed 4 of them in a minute. ๐Ÿ˜ณ


I found this recipe on Live Well Bake Often and it is a super easy to follow recipe. The ingredients are your everyday pantry item. I whipped this up in less than 30 minutes (not counting refrigeration time). It's the perfect recipe for a lazy day (like today when I'm snowed in and not working).



If you really do like oatmeal raisin cookies, just switch out the chips with raisins. I know I'll definitely make these with raisins in the future because Wayne loves oatmeal raisin cookies (we really aren't that compatible when it comes to sweets).

Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich

-------------------------

Time: ~1 hour (including chill time)
Servings: 24 cookies
Source Live Well, Bake Often

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and set aside.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate large mixing bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar for about 1-2 minutes or until well combined. Mix in the egg and vanilla extract, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined. Mix in the oats, then the chocolate chips until just combined. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
4. Using a 1.5-2 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, making sure to leave a little room between each one. Bake in separate batches (keep the other batch of cookie dough in the refrigerator while the first batch bakes) at 350°F for 10-13 minutes or until the tops of the cookies are set.
5. Remove from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes
- Prep time includes 30 minutes of chilling time in the refrigerator.
- Cookies will keep well in an airtight container on the counter for up to one week.
- To freeze the cookies: You may freeze the cookie dough for up to three months. Bake frozen balls of cookie dough for an additional 1-2 minutes. You may also freeze baked cookies for up to 3 months, thaw to room temperature before serving.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Dark Chocolate Tahini Banana Bread

Usually when you ask a couple, "Hey, what would you do differently if you could redo your wedding?" There's always something they would like to change - budget, guest list, photographer.. But not us, Wayne and I loved every aspect of our wedding so much that we would do anything to relive that amazing weekend! Huge thanks to my sister and my brother in law, they were an immense help for our wedding. Despite the jet lag (they arrived from Hong Kong the day before the wedding weekend), they took up the tasks to make desserts for our reception and breakfast for our Sunday brunch! I know, right!? How ridiculously crazy were they!? So much love for these two ๐Ÿ’• We're so grateful ๐Ÿ˜Š

Today's post is on one of the breakfast items they've made for our Sunday brunch - banana bread! Our guests loved the banana bread so much that they wanted take a whole loaf home (I won't name names lol). This banana bread is unique because instead of using sour cream as your special ingredient, it uses tahini. Tahini is basically roasted sesame seeds. Think nut butter, it is super thick and just nutty all around. When you get a waft of this banana bread, it's pure heaven.. nutty banana heaven. My BIL found this recipe on Butter & Brioche. It's a pretty standard, easy to follow recipe. I've followed every step, with the only exception that my baking time took over an hour. It was closed to 1 hour and 20-25 minutes.




These pictures don't do the banana bread any justice! It smells so good that every time you walk pass it, you can't help but want to eat a slice. With that said.. we've pretty much killed the whole loaf, and this was made two days ago.. I know, we have a self-control problem. If you have an afternoon to spare, give this recipe a try! Let me know how you like it. I love it so much I don't know if I can go back to regular banana bread!

Here's a photo of my side of the family at our wedding :) Can you spot my sister and my brother in law? ๐Ÿ’“๐Ÿ˜


Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich




Monday, January 21, 2019

Chocolate Cupcake with Cinnamon Frosting


I made these delicious chocolate cupcakes using recipe from The Stay At Home Chef. This is an extremely easy to follow recipe, in less than an hour you've got 24 big fat delicious cupcakes in front of you. I've pretty much followed the entire recipe except for the cocoa powder. I opted (yet again) for the dutch cocoa powder instead of natural unsweetened cocoa powder because that's all I have in my pantry *shrugs* (check out my Red Velvet Cake post on the difference between the two and when to use what). The cocoa powder worked perfectly, not only did it not affect the fluffiness of the cupcake, it gave the cupcakes a super rich and dark chocolatey taste. AH I was obsessed! 

I didn't make the chocolate buttercream frosting from the recipe, instead I made cinnamon buttercream frosting. I thought it would complement the richness of the chocolate, balance the flavor out a bit, or the cupcakes might be too dense and strong in flavor. Cinnamon buttercream frosting is basically your regular buttercream frosting with ground cinnamon. I used this recipe from Two Sisters Crafting as a guide and just adjusted the ground cinnamon measurement as I go. Instead of 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, I used a little more than 1 Tablespoon. For some reason I could barely taste the cinnamon with just 1 teaspoon so I just kept adding until I found the taste I like. 

Frost the cupcake, top it off with some more ground cinnamon and a cinnamon stick, and here you have it - a chocolatey and cinnamony party in your mouth! 

**Cinnamon sticks are just for garnish, don't eat them lol**



What other frosting flavors do you think will go well with chocolate cupcakes? 

Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich



Thursday, January 17, 2019

Semi-homemade Japanese Curry Chicken

We always have Golden Curry in our pantry! It's a staple like rice and pasta here. Golden Curry is basically solidified curry in a block, all you have to do is add water to liquefy it. It is the fastest and easiest way to get some Japanese curry in your tummy.

Google
Image from Google
This makes a perfect one pot wonder meal! It is entirely up to you to choose the ingredients; you can go from 0 ingredient (just curry with rice) up to 10 ingredients if you are super ambitious. Personally, I like sticking with my basics - onions, carrots, potatoes, and one type of protein (almost always chicken). I usually cook enough portion so Wayne and I can have it for lunch because we love leftovers! To give you an idea, for two people's two meals, I use half an onion, 4 carrots, 2 potatoes, and 2 chicken breasts. This is more than enough to give you food coma after lunch!

To prep: 
1. Dice everything. I like texture so I prefer everything a bit chunky but that takes longer to cook. If you're starving and can't wait, dice them smaller so they can cook faster.
2. Marinate the meat if you have time, it makes a difference! Will share how I marinate my meat on another post, another time! 

To cook: 
1. Heat oil in a pot and cook the onion until soft.
2. Dump the potatoes and carrots in.
3. In 5 minutes, dump the protein in.
4. Stir and cook for about 10-15 minutes depending on size, then dump the curry block and water in (see instruction on the box for water ratio). 
5. Stir occasionally until cooked. 
**(Don't forget to cook rice on the side!) **

This is pretty much the basic instruction on how to make box curry. It's simple and quick!

You can either end here, or you can do what I do and play with the flavor a bit. The reason I do that is because I find Golden Curry a good base for Japanese curry, but not the best tasting out there in my opinion. So what I do is I use curry powder, soy sauce, sugar, and sriracha and just start adding and mixing until I get to the taste I like. My advice is to do a bit at a time cause you don't want any condiment to overpower and ruin the taste, plus you don't want to mess with the curry texture and thin it out or thicken it too much.




Let me know if you guys cook this in other ways! My next challenge is to cook the curry with tonkatsu (Japanese fried pork chop)! 

Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich

PS. Here's a behind the scene with my favorite lighting fixture/person/husband lol



Monday, January 14, 2019

I Love Every Layer of this Red Velvet

I made a 3 layer red velvet cake for my sweet Yoojin's bridal shower last week!


I used the recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction - Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. It was a relatively easy recipe to follow and the cake did come out moist and yummy as she claims it! I did have to change a couple things to fit what I had in my pantry and my vision for the cake. So here's what I did differently:

1. Instead of cake flour, I used all purpose flour. Yes, I know, the recipe strongly urges you to use cake flour. However, I've made the mistake of buying cake flour before and I had absolutely no use for it after the one recipe that called for it. It ended up going to waste. Therefore, I chose to use substitution in my red velvet cake - 2 and 2/3 cups all purpose flour + 1/3 cup cornstarch in lieu of 3 cups cake flour. Just make sure everything is sifted if you choose to use this substitution! 

2. The recipe calls for natural unsweetened cocoa powder. Surprisingly, I don't have that in my pantry and instead, I have dutch process cocoa powder. I didn't even think twice and opted for that. It wasn't until this blog post that I researched the difference and understood how it might affect a baked good's leaven if I don't use what the recipe called for. Ultimately, if a recipe calls for baking soda, use natural and if a recipe calls for baking powder, use dutch. It didn't affect the taste that much, but I was worried it was too thin when I took it out of the oven. Anyways, if you're interested in the food science detail, here's the link to the site I read up on.

3. The recipe calls for 3 Tablespoons of food coloring but I only used 2 Tablespoons because that's all I had left.. I think it turned out fine! 

4. The recipe makes about 6 and 3/4 cups of batter. How do I know? I had to painstakingly scoop one cup at a time into a new bowl so I know how to split it up for my 3 layer cake! I hope this is helpful information for you because every time I bake a layer cake, I struggle with knowing how much to put into the cake pan evenly. 

5. I used roughly 3 cups instead of 4 cups of confectioners' sugar for the frosting. I don't think there's an easy way to know if your frosting is at its perfect texture or not. It mostly comes from practices and experiences. One trick I did learn is to touch your frosting lightly using your index finger and if the frosting is not sticking to your finger, you need to soften it by adding some liquid. If it's too soft and sticking too much to your finger, you need to add confectioners' sugar to create a thicker texture. In this case. 3 cups of confectioners' sugar worked for me! 

One more thing I've learned from this process is to be more generous when it comes to frosting. I was so conservative with the in between layer frosting that you could barely see and taste it. Nonetheless, the cake completed the dessert table and was very much loved by many of the guests, including the soon-to-be bride herself! She even broke her Keto diet just so she can eat it! Haha. 




Thank you for reading and happy eating! - Mich

PS. Found this adorable food pun illustration by Tastemade!