Monday, August 24, 2015

Cake for breakfast at Masse's Pastries (Berkeley, CA)



On the morning of my birthday, my parents asked me, "What do you want for breakfast?"

The answer is always cake. Specifically, cake from Masse's Pastries, which is my favorite local bakery in Berkeley. So at 9am on a Sunday, we went for cake and tea.


So here's a little pro-tip for all you kids out there whose parents won't let you eat cake for breakfast. Just wait until you're a 20-something 'adult'. Then your parents will let you eat all the cake for breakfast you want. It's magical.

P.S. Then my friend Annelies Zijderveld of The Food Poet made me some birthday Earl Grey lollipops out of my other friend Anita Chu's lollipop cookbook!


Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Strawberry, Guava, Campari Ice Pop-tails



If, like me, you discover yourself at that point of the summer when deadlines are heaping upon you at a mad rate because it's almost the end of summer and everything that you planned to get done (which was too much and too ambitious to begin with) in June when summer first started and everything that's gotten piled on since (beacuse it's hard to say "No" when there are seemingly open-ended months with long daylight hours),... make these strawberry, guava, and Campari ice pop-tails, and take a deep breath. In that order, please.

Seriously, the making process (aside from the freezing) takes all about 5 minutes, and you will thank me because the payoff is worth way more than 5 minutes.... which is more than I can say about the other tasks on my to-do list! Anyways, these are inspired by a good friend and collaborator of mine who was the first one to introduce me to Campari and the first one to show me strawberry guavas picked off a real life tree. Of course, strawberry guavas aren't easily available outside of SoCal, so here I've subbed in a combo of fresh summertime strawberries and guava juice. The great thing about guava juice is that it's often sweet enough where you won't need to add any extra sugar to this ice pop. Even so, it's sweet and summery and lightly exotic--not your childhood's strawberry popsicle!

Grab a ice pop, and ganbatte to all of us.



Read on for recipe....