3 Bakeries &...

This year’s King Cake-danish dough with custard, apricot or raspberry

Here is the King’s cake made by Aki’s Bakery in San Jose, CA. It is a special cake that looks like a ring shaped doughnut and is decorated with green, purple, and gold frosting or colored sugar sprinkles. There is a plastic baby doll hidden in each cake. Someone’s piece will have the toy in it. That person is suppose to bring the next king cake or host the next party and have good luck.  The doll symbolizes the baby Jesus who was visited by the 3 Wish Men on January 6th. King cake parties are very popular. More than half a million King cakes are eaten every year. In Biloxi, Mississippi, bakers start baking King Cakes as soon as Christmas is over. The bakers want to be sure that they will have enough made when Mardi Gras begins. 

My family invited the neighbors over to have King’s cake. My husband got the plastic baby. I hope it brings him much good luck! The neighbors brought over handfuls of beads and made each child show off something for a string of beads. My daughter told this joke- What do you get when you cross Jackie Chan and a sheep? Answer: Lamb chop! And my son showed off his the robot he designed for his Recyclable Art Project. It was a Happy Fat Tuesday for all! 

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One ha’ penny, two ha’ penny,
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons
One ha’ penny,
Two ha’ penny,
Hot Cross Buns!

I remember reciting that nursery rhyme when I was a child. Hot cross buns are made during the season of lent. In England, they are eaten during Good Friday. The cross is made with icing. The cross is to represent the Pope’s guard’s uniform which is adorned with a yellow cross. The buns are a yeast sweet dough with raisins or currants with citron or other candied fruit. I love when my husband starts making these buns. To me it is also a symbol of spring and renewal.  I love them toasted with a dab of butter. 

I had an awesome eating experience this week on a date with my husband. I follow the @dishcrawl on twitter and noticed that they were having a Downtown SJ Dishcrawl so I bought tickets.  As we left to go, I check my twitter to find out that NBC The Feast was going to be there taping and that there were going to be 100 people at the event. So funny to see the camera man only interview pretty female dishcrawlers. We purposely wanted to just be part of the crowd and watch the dishcrawlers stuff their faces.
Our first stop was at a place called Mezcal and the delicacy that they were going to share with all of us were a few specialties- roasted grasshoppers, Mezcal tequila with worms, and melotes.

Worms were fermented in the tequila for 4 years. 
They popped in our mouth like a cherry tomato and tasted like strong medicinal tequila. 

Chips, salsa, guacamole, and grasshoppers- We think they were crickets. They had a spicy muddy, shrimp flavor

Our next stop was a food truck- MOGO BBQ. Korean taco truck where we had short rib quesadillas and tacos. It was worth every flavorful piece.

Third stop was Hanuman Thai. Where we ate pad thai, masuman curry and tasted lychee sake.

MOGO BBQ Short rib quesadilla and tacos! Yummy goodness!

Traditional pad Thai and chicken curry over rice. The chef learned all of his recipes from his parents and the place has a family feel to it. 

The final stop in the discrawl was this crazy ice cream truck called Treatbot.  Crazy because they have a karaoke machine on the back of their truck for people to sing with.  I spoke with the owner who was standing outside of his truck just giggling at the crowd.  He said that his friends were joking with him to have a truck with a karaoke machine. He went on to explain that in the Philippines you find karaoke machines in the alleys and in all sorts of strange places. So since his parents had the equipment sitting around their house he decided why not do it. And the rest is history. Treatbot has tasty ice cream and entertainment.

My coffee almond fudge ice cream came in 3 oz dixie cups. 

Treatbot- Karaoke on the back of an ice cream truck! Crazy, but fun!

I started my other new thing I wanted to learn this year- food photography. (Yeah, I know like I need to add one more thing to my already busy life, but it is something that I have always wanted to do- to document all of the different kinds of foods that my bakeries produce.) I hope to take pictures of everything that we bake at the bakeries and put them on my photo blog. (I know another blog to manage too.) Keeps me busy and away from the really bad stuff! 

This is Kolachi made at Aki’s Bakery. Kolachi comes from the Czech and Slovak and it is a sweet yeasted bread that is filled with apricot, raspberry or lemon. Kolachi are not very big and half can fit into your hand, which is the perfect size for a mid-morning snack. YUM! 

In my family, four people have birthdays in the same week in July. So this year instead of having four different parties we were able to combine forces and have it all together. Here is the cake that my pastry chef husband designed. I thought it was brilliant! 

It has become a tradition at our house to have a post-holiday celebration with these wonderful tasting bottom-dwelling creatures. 25 of these live strong-clawed crustaceans (they were ripping claws off each other as they entered the pot) were devoured by our family, friends and neighbors. A rich belly and food coma was felt by all! 

Here are the live crabs awaiting their doom-

Fresh, hot, cooked crab! Oh yum! 

Cracked crab saute in a pan with lots of garlic! 

My husband made this cake for my daughter’s 13th birthday this year. “It is like eating a piece of art,” comments one girl. We all enjoyed the marzipan and fondant sushi. We all dug into the rich modeling chocolate & decadent chocolate cake bento box with enthusiasm and gusto. Better than any sushi that I have ever eaten for dessert!