Secret Agent K

Five things that make me happy this week

1. Baking , especially when it's to raise funds, and I don't have to do the raising. 

I made marshmallows flavored with Cream of Earl Grey tea from DavidsTea (the recipe is here), and I also made apple turnovers, which were both surprisingly easy to make. We raised money for Centraide. The department at my work was organizing. So many sweets were made and about 400$ were raised! Wonderful!

2. Leaving anonymous gifts to put smiles on people's faces! Inspired by Secret Agent L.

I left these at the gym! Random Acts of Kindness is the way to go :)

3. Complimenting people by way of post-its, idea from Operation Beautiful

This one I put up on a car at the gym. I'd have done it for more cars, but it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella! It will definitely brighten someone's day!

4. Made a cake for my friend's birthday! It's a butter pecan cake with whipped cream frosting. It was a total hit at the party! I may one day start making cakes for money  - wouldn't that be something? 

5. Pretty boxes for cupcakes I  just ordered from my friend's company Georgette Packaging

Have a lovely week!

Happy K

Milkshake for a saturday morning

Matcha sort of makes me happy. It's green and grassy and it tastes of spring! It's super caffeinated (well, it takes only a bit to get the same buzz from a big cup of coffee) and it's delicious in a milkshake, latte, or desserts. Also in white chocolate (I am especially liking this one at DavidsTea). Matcha is expensive though, when you compare it to other teas. It's because it is simply exceptional! It is also super healthy, you can read about it on the internet... I actually bought a "watered-down" version of matcha from DavidsTea that is basically matcha mixed with powdered sugar. 

So I made this milkshake this morning:

1 cup Soy milk
1 teaspoon matcha
1 big scoop of vanilla ice cream

In a blender or Magic Bullet (which is what I have)

Yum!

Happy weekend :)

I made a cake!

Hello ... I haven't posted any food-related message yet... Food makes me happy. Well, here's the first one! 

I made a cake for my nephew's birthday! Here is the cake that I made: 
 

Mmmmmm doesn't it look delicious?! Cake does make me happy! So does baking! I didn't have much time to prepare it though, I slept in from a Halloween party the night before and ended up having to make shortcuts to create a delicious but simple enough cake! It's a good thing that I have a Pinterest board and that I am pretty familiar with it to pick out the cakes and methods I want to try out!

So, what I made is a dark chocolate cake with pumpkin-flavoured whipped cream topping and dark chocolate shavings. 

Ok so I started with a bookmarked cake photo that just looks delicious. This one is a chocolate buttermilk cake with Earl Grey meringue frosting and salted caramel drizzle, which I found on a blog called Raspberri Cupcakes. Honestly looks fantastic! And the fact that this blogger uses tea to flavour the icing is awesome, since I am a huge tea lover and it actually inspired my icing. 


But I was making this cake for my 8 year-old nephew and well, I don't think he's much into the Earl Grey flavour. Since I have many teas, I went through them, then decided that the winner is my favorite autumn tea from DavidsTea, that is, Pumpkin Chai. (Oh my god !! I was looking for a web link and i realized...It no longer exists??!?! What am I going to do???) Well, I have a good supply for now fortunately!) It's a cinnamony, clovey, carrot-pumpkin blend that is amaaaaazing. 

Actually when I was at the grocery store and I tried remembering the recipe, I really though the icing from this recipe was whipped cream, so I bought a carton, but only after realized the recipe above was made with egg whites instead. Apparently you can add liquid to meringue to flavour it, but it doesn't work with cream. With whipped cream, you either have to steep the tea in the cream and let it cool/steep for several hours, or you have to mix in solids. So what I did was take about a teaspoon of my chosen tea and ground it in my spice grinder until it was powdery and just folded it into the sweetened whipped cream. I also made a small portion of strongly brewed tea and added a teaspoon to the cream... though I don't know if it's really worth it. It ended up being really tasty though! 

For the cake part, I used the chocolate cake recipe from Ricardo (1/2 recipe). 

Then for the chocolate shavings - which was super smart because both my nephew and his father always fight over who gets the chocolate pieces on a store-bought cake - I was inspired by the devil's food cake on Cafe Fernando (which features beautiful recipes). I used 3/4 of the recipe, since I had a smaller cake. You roll the parchment paper - this trick works like a charm!

Anyway, it was a success!! I surprise myself sometimes! :D

Until next time,
Happy K