“Ok. Seriously, it is time to update!” I suddenly thought about it when I was taking a break after I did 3 loads of laundry this afternoon. Ever since my husband and I moved up to San Francisco, I was extremely busy with getting a job and settling down. It’s been almost 6 months and everything is going well in San Francisco. So far, we went to a few famous spots in San Francisco – still exploring and we love the city.

The good news is that I am getting close to start baking again! Last week, we applied an apartment that we want to move and we are waiting for the approval. If everything goes smoothly, we will have a new place at the end of this month.

Since I haven’t been able to bake freely these days, I would like to show some pictures of my sweets from the past. The other day (now, a few months ago), I was organizing my photos and found old pictures of cakes and cookies that I made from 2004 to 2007. This was the time that I just started getting interests in baking, so the sweets that I’m introducing today are not 100% made from scratch except few cookies, but they were good as they were made from scratch!

My First Cake – June, 2004

This is my first cake ever. Before this one, cake was something that I only buy at a bakery. I made this cake for my husband’s birthday. I used a cake mix and a store-bought icing. It’s not bad for the first cake, is it?

Strawberry Shortcake – April, 2005

This is such a quick and easy dessert. My husband introduced me to the great world of strawberry shortcake. Ever since than, I’m in love with the combination of strawberry and whipped cream!

Dark Chocolate Cake with Fresh Strawberry Filling – June, 2005

This is a second cake that I made for my hubby’s birthday. Can you tell that I really tried hard to make it little bit fancier than the first one? I used Betty Crocker Super Moist – Dark Chocolate cake mix (It was my favorite, but I don’t see this anymore in a grocery store.) and I LOVED it. The combination of “Dark chocolate cake + Whipped cream icing + Fresh strawberry filling” is my ultimate favorite!

Strawberry Flavor Icing Cake – June, 2005

This is a cake with yellow cake mix and strawberry flavored icing. I wasn’t sure where I was going with the decorating part, but my friend who got this cake loved it…=]

Chocolate Whipped Cream Cake – August, 2005

Whipped cream icing is my favorite, not so much for my husband though. I like it because it is sweet, but not too sweet. I’ve always whipped my own heavy cream as I have a control in consistency for decorating. How did I make this chocolate flavored whipped cream? It’s simple, just add chocolate syrup while you are whipping heavy cream!

Dark Chocolate Cake With Raspberry Filling – September, 2005

I love to watch Foodnetwork channel! I have learned most of cooking and baking knowledge and skills by watching TV shows on Foodnetwork. One day, I saw a very fancy chocolate cake on TV – something like the one that I made, and I decided to try for my friend’s birthday cake. At that time, I had absolutely no idea about ‘tempering chocolate,’ so I just melted regular chocolate candy bars, piped and shaped, and waited until they get hard. However, shaped chocolate decors were still soft, so I decided to chill them in a refrigerator. They got hard, but it only lasted for a couple of minutes. Result – my finger prints appeared everywhere on chocolate decors and as soon as it reached room temperature, they were falling apart. Years later, I now know what to do! =]

Dark Chocolate Cake With Berries – January, 2006

After I had a great holidays (Christmas and New Year’s Day) at my parents-in-law’s house, I wanted make something sweet for them before I go home. Again, I made my ultimate favorite – A dark chocolate cake with fresh berries and whipped cream icing. I forgot to buy mint leaves, so I went out to their backyard and got some sage leaves! It worked for that time. Haha…=]

Strawberry & Blueberry Shortcake – February, 2006

Strawberry short cake is my emergency dessert – when I really want some sweet stuff, which is very rare. Any kind of cake (pound cake, angel’s food cake, sponge cake, or chiffon cake) and strawberries are all I need, then, I can simply make this dessert. Don’t have whipped cream? Don’t worry, It is still good without whipped cream!

Brownie With Vanilla Bean Icecream – May, 2006

One of my favorite desserts is good quality vanilla ice cream on top of freshly baked hot brownie. Of course, I can’t forget to drizzle some chocolate syrup and dust powdered sugar for extra sweetness! Oh, I recently got an ice cream machine as a gift from my mother-in-law. I can’t wait to make all different kinds of frozen desserts!

Dark Chocolate Cake With Strawberry Whipped Cream – May, 2006

I made this cake for my birthday. Yeah, it sounds a little weird, but it was my first time making my own cake. I think everyone deserves to have a special cake on their birthday. =] For this cake, I tried some new techniques. First, I added fresh strawberry puree while I was whipping heavy cream. You can see strawberry seeds on the cake! I personally don’t like using artificial flavor, so this is how I usually flavor my sweets. Second, I tired sugar art for the first time. I didn’t know how to do it, but I just did it after I saw a quick process of ‘how to make sugar art’ on TV. It was very beautiful, but my hands were burning!

Caramel Covered Walnut Shortbread Cookies – February, 2007

Although I had not attempted to bake cakes from scratch during my first four years of baking, I made some cookies from scratch time to time. One cold night, I had to have some sweets and made pecan shortbread cookies. I shaped dough in start, square, and triangle before I freeze them. They were good. =]

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing Cake – November, 2007

My first homemade icing (other than whipped cream icing). Instead of adding sugar to cream cheese icing, I added melted white chocolate. Yammmm…it was good! No special decoration needed! Just decorate two layers of baked cake with white chocolate cream cheese icing and sprinkle cocoa powder on top!

Gingerbread Cookies – November, 2007

Winter was coming. I had to smell freshly backed gingerbread cookies in the kitchen before Christmas arrived. I think I over-baked cookies little bit, but it was ok. Royal icing is so fun and pretty to decorate.

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Designed Cake – November, 2007

At the end of 2007, my mother-in-law and I decided to take a cake decorating class for fun. We registered at Joann for Wilton cake decorating beginner’s class and decorated three cakes through the classes. This was my first cake – the theme that I picked was ‘Thanksgiving.’ I decorated cute mother and baby pumpkin using a star tip decoration method.

Clown Designed Cupcakes – November, 2007

My second week of class, I learned how to make clowns on top of cupcakes. My clowns were about to fall.

Flower Designed Cupcakes – November, 2007

We also learned how to make drop flowers on the same week we made clowns.

Mini Wedding Cake – December, 2007

This was the final project – decorating with flowers and ribbons. I baked a regular cake mix in a one cake pan (the height was higher than a regular pan) and sliced them in three layers. Then, carve them into three different sizes using plates. It was my first mini wedding cake. =]

Dark Chocolate Ganache Individual Mini Cake – December, 2007

I’ve always dreamed about making individual cakes. I didn’t have individual cake rings, but I attempted to make them anyway. I baked cake in a sheet pan, cut it with a circle cookie cutter, and arranged layers with whipped ganache by hands. It was messy and not easy, but I did it! By making this sweet, I’ve learned why it is important to have right tools and pans to make certain sweets. It saves lots of time and helps me to get a perfect result. I still don’t have individual cake rings – they are quite pricey. I’m just waiting for the right time to buy all kinds of different size cake rings!

This is the end of my sweets from semi-scratch collection. Although I started baking and making sweets from scratch only a year ago and I love that way more than anything else, I have to tell you that I don’t mind to use cake, brownie, or cookie mix once in a while. They can be convenient when I have to make massive amount of sweets for events or when I am lazy to bake anything. Most of all, it is really a good way to start for beginners who just entered the joy of baking world.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Before I start talking about all the excuses why I haven’t updated for a long long time, I wish everyone the sweetest day of 2009! Every year, I’ve tried to make my own sweet for my husband rather than buying something, but it seems like it won’t be happening in this year.

Well, my excuse for the past lazy & quiet couple of months was moving. Yes! my husband and I finally moved to other city! It is not San Diego as we wanted & planned, but it is San Francisco, yay! We do not mind at all as we can explore San Francisco and live in the city before we move out of California.

My husband has started his new job and I am looking for a job in the city. We’ve decided to get a temporary place for a couple of months, so we can get to know the city and find a permanent place for us. I would love to start baking right away, but all of my baking pans and equipments are in a storage and the place where we are staying doesn’t have an oven. So, unfortunately I have to wait until we get our permanent place. But, I have a few posts including new recipes, which I am planning to upload time to time, so I don’t disappoint my visitors. Plus, I will post some good pictures of the city while I’m waiting for my kitchen. =]

Oh, I’m also planning to redesign Sugar Coated Kitchen. I’ve been drawing so many different outline for the past few months and I think I finally decided what I want. So, that is another exciting news. I will work hard on it!

I’m busy with a job hunting right now, but I am so excited and ready for delicious restaurants, beautiful natures, cool places, and everything that I will experience! I am totally new to this city, so if you know or live in San Francisco & Bay area, please let me know everything about the city!

Have a sweet day!

December, 2008

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Vacation: I spent the first week of September in Coronado(San Diego) with my husband.

Moving: My husband and I are planning to move down to San Diego.

Sweets: There are tons of ideas for new desserts, but I’m waiting until we move before I start making a mess.

As you may have noticed, there are some articles that I wrote before this one. So, technically this isn’t the first post on my website, it’s more like the first one that I’ve written using Wordpress. The point of this article is to give you an idea of what’s going on in my life these days.

This Website

It’s been a couple of days since I changed my content management system from ZeroBoard to WordPress. Although the old website was easy to manage and redesign, I switched to Wordpress for a couple of features that weren’t offered (yet) by Zeroboard. Now I just need to get used to WordPress because it’s quite different. When I switched over, I also decided to change up the design and format a little. My husband and I are still trying to get everything setup just right so that I can focus on baking and posting articles. Please contact me if you see any glaring mistakes or problems around the website.

My Occupation

Currently, I am working as a pastry chef at a local fine dining restaurant. There is no doubt that my heart is in pastry, but I know that I am still far from being considered a pastry chef in the aspect of experience and skill. To make a long story short, this is how it all started: I graduated college with a bachelors in Business Administration in 2007. I then started looking for a job in the various business fields. Meanwhile, I wanted to gain some experience in the baking & pastry arts so that I could decide which field I’d be happier in. In the beginning of 2008, I applied for a pastry cook position at a new local restaurant that was getting ready to open. My boss said that ‘you can teach techniques, but you can’t teach someone to be passionate about pastry’ and that is why they hired me although I didn’t have any formal training. I’m not sure what is going to happen in the future, but I know that I love what I am doing right now.

My Location

As I said in my about page, I was born and raised in South Korea. I moved to Kansas in 2003 where my husband and I lived for 3 years due to the military. The area around us was pretty boring and desolate but we liked it because it was quiet and clean. The people that we met over there were nice and there wasn’t any crazy traffic. We currently live in Palmdale, CA but are looking for a place where we can be close to all of the big city conveniences but where the beauty of nature isn’t far off. We’re both currently applying for jobs in San Diego which is where we ‘think’ we want to live- we’ll see.

August, 2008

This month I’ve decided to switch from ZeroBoard to WordPress as my CMS.

I finally bought a KitchenAid Stand Mixer after dreaming about it for three years.

I am going to focus on posting more articles to fill up my new home.