vanilla pastry cream.

Don't you love it when you make a list of things to do, and at the end of the day, you've actually crossed off almost every item?

I have always been a list-maker (before I realized during college that they usually made me more stressed, and then I obsessively turned to Google calendars). When I was younger, I would put things like "Brush teeth" and "Make bed" on my summer to-do list, oftentimes after I had already done them, just to feel better about myself.

My list has developed to slightly more important things - like "check 401(k) policy" and "apply to med school." It's a nice day, however, when my to-do list tells me to make pastry cream. I can certainly oblige to that.

vanilla strawberry chia seed pudding. (paleo, gf, vegan)

Have you heard of chia seeds? I reviewed them before. They have an insane amount of fiber, and make their presence known by texture more than taste. Dry chia seeds are crunchy. When soaked, the seeds absorb the liquid and develop mucilage - which just means they get a little polysaccharide gelatinous coating.

This property is vital in order for chia seed puddings to work. In all the variations I've found, chia seeds are mixed with a non-dairy milk (probably to retain the vegan aspect), and let sit, with occasional stirring. After a couple hours (or overnight), the mixture has thickened substantially, forming a "pudding." Fruit, purees, nuts, and flavorings are added afterwards.

vanilla baked alaska with browned butter cake.

My brother's been asking for baked alaska for ... ever. Probably a year. Every time I would come home from college, he would ask where it was. One late afternoon, after a long day of indulging in old video games, I decided to just make it.

There are three components to the entremet - a base of cake (traditionally sponge, but more commonly pound cake), the ice cream, and meringue. I forewent the traditional domed shape. I found my individual assembly style cuter, albeit slightly more difficult.

It's one of those, the sum is greater than the parts, things. It's totally worth the effort.

rose cream hearts.

I just beat two worlds in KH1. What else have I done since being home?

Uh, made these beautiful cookies, duh. I adore custard. Custard anything .. crème caramel, egg tarts, bread pudding, the filling of cream horns, eclairs, cream puffs, and lobster tails (aka - sflogliatelle). Look at this beautiful picture of a lobster tail dissection I randomly found. I swoon.

I could continue, but you get the point. And I realized that despite my love of custard, I barely have any custard things on here. So here is one. These rose cream hearts are light delicate cookies which can be cut into any shape (I did hearts), and in-between is sandwiched a filling. I made my filling rose-flavored, with zero food coloring, because I am also obsessed with rose anything, but you can easily make them regular custard-flavored or vanilla.

vanilla browned butter cake with truffle frosting.

It's been a long (very) Fat Tuesday. Fat, because my roommate and I totally went HAM on the bread pudding served at the Mardi Gras dinner at the dining hall tonight. And then Andrea and I devoured half this browned butter cake in approximately 30 minutes, max. Long, because I had an exam this past Sunday and today, and a ton of other things on top of that. Thankfully, that higher power up there was looking out for me and caused the physics page to crash today. And so my physics online homework was delayed!

And so I proceeded to use the remainder of my time researching HTML. Because I wanted to add a Recipe Index to my blog and didn't realize it was so easy! You just go on "Pages" on your dashboard and make a page with whatever name you want.

But here's the tricky part. You need to make sure to SHOW your pages! This is the most difficult part. But I'm warning you guys now. Cause I'm such a tech pro. I'm soo ready to answer questions to work in the computer labs. And also prepared to bake enough cakes until they accept me just for my food.

Calandra's Bakery German White Cake.

It's kinda hard to type when you just do your nails. Mine are dark burgundy with red flecks. It's perfect for my role as Cleopatra, tonight. Have you ever heard of an any race but your own themed party? Probably not, because my suite can sometimes surpass the boundaries of ridiculous and offensiveness.

And it will definitely be more successful than last night's venture. At around 10pm yesterday, I decided to go to bed, and then one of my dear floormates entered our room, ready to go out. When she asked if we wanted to come, I hesitated. Bad move. She pounced on it, and my two options of the night no longer fluctuated between whether I should sleep at 10 or 11, but between whether I should sleep immediately or go out.

I went out. And what a random night.

cutout cookies.

It was hard not putting an exclamation after the name in the title - these cookies are so attractive!

I almost had a heart attack when my mom told me she'd given away all our Christmas cookie cutters, as I was rolling out this dough and ready to bake up some Winnie the Poohs dressed up as Santa ... #firstworldproblems. I survived, you'll be glad to hear.

pink buttercream cupcakes.

There is so much history behind these cupcakes. The simplicity these convey is a facade for the events that occurred while they existed.

Earthquakes, ants, disasters galore! 

Let me explain.

german chocolate cake, vanilla version.

I just assembled the cake about five minutes ago. I do not have the slightest idea of what I will write about in this post to you all (well that's not so unusual), and there are walnut skin things all over the place.

But after a little of the frosting got on the back of my hand and I absentmindedly licked it off, I had to share my love with the world. I am aware the world does not read my blog, but let me pretend it does for this time, okay?


This frosting. This caramel, walnut, coconut frosting has blown my mind. German chocolate cake has been my favorite cake ever since my surprise sixteenth birthday party, when my mom (moms know all, srsly) arranged for a 1/4 sheet cake of German Chocolate Cake to be my birthday cake.

vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.

Should I continue making the title as the name of whatever I have made? Sometimes I do that automatically, because it just looks nicer. But sometimes, when I'm feeling bizarre (which is often), I tend to just make the title really random and connected to the focus of the post in a really extended, twisted, barely-related way. But usually, a simple title suffices, so I will probably maintain that habit.

This classic, almost boring cake was made at college - YES! AT COLLEGE! I finally utilized the stovetop and oven of the kitchen in my building in this risky endeavor. I had gone home two weekends ago, and at home, I collected all the [MANY] things I would need in order to properly bake something and brought them to my dorm.