Lemon tart pie

Summer is all about refreshing baked goods, I believe. Lemon-y things are no exception. For a dinner party last week, I decided to re-appropriate a lemon bar recipe and turn it into a pie. Main reason being I don't have a deep enough baking pan but really, it's easy to gobble up a dessert when it's in slice form!
Adapted from Hostess with the Mostess.
What you need...
Crust:

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
• 6 ounces (12 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
  

Filling:

• 6 large eggs
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• About 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar to powder on top.
  

What you need to do...
to make the crust:
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
2. Combine the flour and confectioners’ sugar in a bowl until mixed well.
3. Add the butter and continue to mix. I mixed it by hand so that it would be an even, buttery, dough...sort of like what a butter cookie looks like pre-shaped/baked.
4. Gently press the mixture evenly onto the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan (or in my case, a 9" cake pan). Bake until golden brown, 25 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.
5. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F.
to make the filling:
1. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and granulated sugar until smooth.
2. Stir in the lemon juice and then add the flour.
3. After checking your crust is at room temperature, pour the filling on top of the crust. Bake until the lemon filling is set, about 50 minutes.
4. Let cool to room temperature. Afterward, you can either put in the refrigerator for 1 hour or keep at room temperature for 3 hours before cutting. Dust the top with confectionery sugar.

Just powdered the pie. About ready to be served!

And voila! A slice of pie!
I would recommend you make the crust just a TEENSY bit thinner than I have in this photo, though.

Egg custard tarts

Into the oven they go!

Egg tarts is one of my favorite dessert/breakfast/pastry. It's almost a mixture of sweet and salty, using egg, sugar, and butter. I can't share the recipe with you as my aunt gave it to me (sorry!) but hopefully these photos will suffice. And, I even took an awkward photo with my new creations just for you!

Almost done baking!

Cooling down.

First delicious bite!

Custard-eyes

Green Tea cupcakes

Here's another cupcake post for you because I'm too intimidated to make a real cake and cupcakes are easy and fun to share! Sorry if I'm putting your S'mores cupcakes to shame, Andi but you know what? Yours are more in spirit to this blog though!
I found this recipe from my friend Angela's Tumblr, but I modified it a lot because I don't like following directions. If you're a fan of light and fluffy cupcakes, this is for you. It's not too sweet or heavy, which is a perfect guilt-free snack/treat...even if it's not "healthy."
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs; 2 egg yolks
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk (or soy milk, which is what I used)
2-5 tablespoons green tea matcha (basically green tea powder. I feel that even if you add the 5 tablespoons, it's still not overpowering.)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners...or if you're like me, forgo the cupcake liners because seriously, I don't need to impress anyone.
2. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
3. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each egg. Add egg yolk, one after a time as well.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder. Add to batter and mix to combine.
6. Whisk 2 tablespoons matcha into the milk until completely dissolved. Add to the batter and mix until combined. Taste and add more if you want a stronger green tea flavor.
7. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way.
8. Bake for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely before icing with green tea cream cheese frosting.

Green tea cream cheese frosting
I seriously eye-balled a lot of this so you should experiment with HOW MUCH frosting you want. You'll see in my photos that I don't have a lot because my dad isn't into sweets.
Ingredients:
8 oz Philly cream cheese, room temperature
half a stick of unsalted butter
1 cup confectionery/powdered sugar, sifted
2 tb matcha
2 tb milk, if you want a "runnier" frosting
Directions:
Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add sugar and matcha (and milk if needed), beat till you have a whipped-like consistency. Top it on your cupcakes when the cupcakes are finally cool.

Now photos!
Right out of the oven. Look at that awesome green color!

Adding the frosting:

First bite!

Nutella cupcakes

Hey remember that time when this blog existed? I should stop being a lazy food blogger and post to the 2 readers who still visit! This was something I made with a few friends about three months ago.

One of my loves is Nutella. And I can eat it in anything. I found this cupcake recipe through my friend Angela, who also shares my love of Nutella.

So here we go, awkward photos (because phone-camera quality is awkward?) and a recipe to follow. Let me tell you now: this is not for the health conscious. However, if you don't care (like I don't care), you won't regret it. It's crispy on the top, super moist and chocolaty in the middle. HEAVEN.

Nutella Swirl Cupcakes (via this tumblr)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
~9.8 tablespoons butter, softened (the recipe is in the metric system, so I'm converting these. So even the ingredients will be in awkward numbers. Hurrah!)
3/4 cup white sugar
3 medium eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup nutella

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 320°F.
2. Line 12 muffin tins with cupcake or muffin liners.

3. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl. Leave aside.
4. Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl till texture is light.

5. Add in the eggs, one at a time.

6. Add in the vanilla extract.

7. Gradually add in the dry ingredients into the wet mix till well-mixed.

8. Fill up each liner with batter till about 3/4 full.
9. Top up each cupcake with approximately 1 tbsp of nutella.

10. Use a toothpick to swirl the nutella into the batter.

11. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. And voilà!

Photos courtesy of my friend Queenie and her Blackberry.