it had been an intense week having to make around 500 macarons! as usual, here were some pics i took. flavors as shown here are pistachio, rose, lemon coconut & coffee.

for my mom's birthday this year, i made her a cheesecake. i was already researching on the entremet i wanted to make, only to hear her say "actually, i love cheesecakes" at the last minute and that really put me in a panic mode. in my 7+ years of baking i don't think i attempted much cheesecakes and i didn't wanna make something i hadn't made before. baking for occasions is just not the time for experimenting. hence i turned to something i made before in my very early days of when i started baking and had good results from it.

i made kanto style sakuramochi over the weekend. as you know, there are two styles of sakuramochi - kansai (western japan) and kanto (tokyo & eastern japan). i made the kansai one before therefore it would be good to try this out as well. kanto style's a crepe-like pancake roll filled with anko red bean paste then wrapped with pickled sakura leaf.