Nana's Green Tea, Sapporo

I love matcha and I always want edto go to this place, but I was always accompanied by people who did not care about matcha and this place tended to be crowded every time we passed by. That afternoon, it happened that we passed by again and the place was rather quite and I had one person with me and he did not mind to go in and had something else but matcha. I got my preferred treat and so did he. All good. 

Babka

I bumped into chocolate babka pictures again and again and that made me want to bake one. I baked one with chocolate and pecan with crumb topping.

Winter Wonderland, London

We wanted to go to Winter Wonderland, which is in Hyde Park, which is just minutes away on foot from our hotel. We wanted to go at night, to see the lights and the beauty of sparkling lights in the dark night. The problem was, we became tired so easily because of jet lag and maybe old age. When the sun went down around 4 PM, our eyes got heavier and our body screamed for the rest badly. Every night, we fell asleep early, 6-7 PM then we woke up around 2AM and struggled to sleep again and normally failed. We were exhausted. We had no energy left. After a few nights, we forced ourselves to stay awake and walked out of the door to Hyde Park. It was dark, it was cold, but we were quite excited to finally be able to "stay up". Yes, we were proud to be able to walk outside at 4:30 PM, kept our eyes opened and took some pictures. It's a victory. Finally. We saw darkness, we saw lights. 

Banana Cake Breakfast

I had some ripe bananas that need to be consumed. I had an option to slice and put them in the freezer for future use, but I had the urge to bake. 

This is an oatmeal banana cake, a healthier version. Eating it with fresh fruits just make it more flavorful and delicious. It doesn't take too long to prepare, but a bit long to bake, but it's really something that is worth waiting for. 

Recipe:

For 2 servings. Grease two 5"ramekins or baking pans.  Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium size bowl, whisk 1 egg and 1/3 cup of coconut sugar. Add 2/3 cup of oatmeal, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of baking powder and mix well. Add mashed banana (1 medium size banana), 1/3 cup of buttermilk and 1/8 cup of coconut oil. Mix well. Pour the batter into prepared pans, decorate the tops with sliced bananas. Bake 30-45 minutes until a tester inserted, comes out clean. 

Healthy Carrot Cupcakes (With Recipe)

These healthy babies are good for breakfast, snacks or dessert. Or call it whatever at anytime you want to munch something. 

It seems many people baked carrot cakes over this past weekend, I was one of them. In an effort to be healthier, I made healthy carrot cupcakes. These are very moist because of the incorporation of banana to sweeten the cupcakes as well as coconut oil and the grated carrot. They are also creamy because I used oatmeal and almond flour. 

I also mixed in dried cranberries to enrich the flavor and walnut for the crunch.  The recipe is below.

Recipe

Ingredients:
1 egg

1/4 c coconut sugar

1/3 banana, mashed

1 cup grated carrots

1/4 c almond flour

1/2 c instant oatmeal

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 c coconut oil

1/4 dried cranberries (more or less, your preference)

1/4 c walnut and more for topping (more or less, your preference)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and line 6 cup muffin pan with liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg and coconut sugar. Add mashed banana and continue whisking. 

Add grated carrots and mix well using a spatula.

Put the dry ingredients,i.e. almond flour, instant oatmeal, salt and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine.

Blend the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until they are just incorporated.

Mix in the coconut oil, followed by dried cranberries and chopped walnuts.

Using an ice cream scoop, fill up muffin pans layered with paper case until almost full. 

Bake 170C fan, for about 20 minutes.

Marble Cake - Bavaria Pan

Marble cake is still one of my favorites, both to make and to eat. This time, I used Bavaria Bundt pan from Nordic Ware and the result is very beautiful, nice and even color too.

Cafe, Hyatt Regency, Kowloon

I landed in Hongkong late in the afternoon and arrived at the hotel as the sun went down. A reservation at Cafe, has been made for me and DH. DH was so eager for me to try the lobsters they had. As well as other tempting food. Yes, it's a buffet style dinner. So dangerous but so loved. I love and hate it at the same time. I always want to try so many of them and end up eating more than I need and I could and should. Tough life! 

Lobsters and friends were waiting to be picked up. Food and desserts were mostly good. Macarons deserved special mention here, they were yummy. I was so stuffed by the end of our dinner. Expect weight gain and jeans will be so much tighter to wear.  

Il Gran Bar Lavazza, Chicago

It was tea time for the two of us when we were in windy Chicago. We decided to try a couple of desserts from the cafe in Eataly. The above is their Tiramisu and the drinks we had were soda and decaffeinated Mocha. Below is their Chocolate Cake, I can't remember the details, unfortunately. I basically enjoyed my Mocha drink more than the others. 

Jean Paul Hevin, Taipei 101

The last time we went to Jaun Paul Hevin was in Osaka and we had such a pleasant experience and I was excited to find out that Taipei 101 has one too. I planned it out so that we could have an afternoon tea (chocolate) there on our second day in Taipei.  I had Matcha flavor hot chocolate while DH ordered hot chocolate. We tried and shared a sliced of cheese cake and one of their chocolate cakes. They were alright but we did not find them extraordinary. I was a little disappointed but as always, I would not know unless I tried.

The Cafe, Hotel Cafe Royal

We passed by this Cafe on Regent street very often. I always wanted to try and the time was finally right on our last day in London. After having lunch in China town, we walked back and decided to have coffee and a little dessert to share. DH had a cup of black coffee and I chose to have their Signature drink called Yin and Yang. It is a mix of white chocolate and Guanaja 70% chocolate. To share, DH selected a small Union cake above.