I LOVE lemon tarts.  My husband LOOOOOOOVES lemon tarts.  When we were in Paris, we both “discovered” this amazing dessert (Tarts au Citron!) so ever since then, I have been constantly trying new recipes to make awesome tarts at home.

Most of the time, lemon tart is a great dessert in the summer – refreshing, not too sweet, and just the right kick of lemony sourness.  But this time, in February, I had a hankering to make it for a friend’s dinner party.  They are often great at being my guinea pigs for new recipes!

The result?  it is delicious.  Just so smooth and the right amount of lemony-ness.  I just didn’t tell them how much butter went into it! (Ignorance is bliss for many dessert eaters!). Note that the original recipe actually uses Meyer Lemons.  Which is this beautiful sweet kind of lemons.  Well I couldn’t find any, so I used plain old yellow large lemons from the store. It works out just fine!

Part 2 of asian tradition: the 100th day celebration for baby!  The day to celebrate and wish for the baby to live 100 years.  (I believe this tradition originates from Korea).  As we did a full moon celebration for Abigail’s full moon, we kept this one low key.  Immediate family for a dinner only.  And since I didn’t make a cake for the full moon celebration, I’m not missing the chance this time!

I wanted to make this cake extra special, so a week or so prior, I started planning little elements I would add to the cake: Sparkly Cake Topper, her name in Royal Icing, and Butterfly fondant accents.

1. Sparkly Cake Topper

Since I don’t have a very cool machine like a Cricut to do this sort of thing, I did it old school way – by hand/xacto knife.  The Dollar store had a pack of 2 silver glitter cardstock for $1.50.  I took a 1/4 of it to make this.  (save the rest of course).  Printed the design on regular paper first, and then traced it on the cardstock. Carefully slice it out.  And then traced the 2nd copy, but flipped (Mirrored) so that it will fit on the other side.  I chose to make 2 layers as the cardstock wasn’t super sturdy and I didn’t want the sign to wobble.  Hot glue 2 toothpicks on, and then put the 2 layers together…voila:

Sparkly 100 Day Cake Topper

To be honest, cookie making is not my forte. I made some in the past, and were never satisfied.  Tried my hand at decorating cookies a few years back, but didn’t have the patience (nor read proper instructions/tips to make royal icing properly) and really haven’t tried it again since.

Queue 2016 Christmas.  As I’m on maternity leave, it has completely kicked start my drive for baking (in between baby napping and such).  After weeks of reading online recipes, tips and tricks from cookie experts and royal icing decorating ideas, I was pumped!

Made a basic sugar cookie recipe I found (googled “Easy Sugar Cookies”) and found this one. It tasted terrific! and super easy to make.  I didn’t follow the icing recipe on the site as I didn’t want to put fresh milk in a recipe..didn’t seem…good to keep not refrigerated after?  So back to google and found a recipe that uses Meringue Powder – don’t recall the source..but here is the recipe:

• 5 T. meringue powder
• 3/4 C. very warm water
• 1 t. cream of tartar
• 2 1/4 pounds powdered sugar (I weigh it—2 lb. 4 oz. or 36 oz.)
• 2 tsp. almond (or vanilla) extract (oil free/alcohol free)

I added a bit of lemon juice (for flavouring) and gel food colouring.

I chose a few shapes (mittens, snowflake, circles) and got to mixing the colours and decorating!

Ta da!  Packaged these up as gifts.

yup. the title says it all. Owning a Samoyed means no privacy.  I actually find it endearing.  Ellie has this ability to turn into a ninja dog and sneak up on you.  Where she usually pads around pretty heavy footed and dog tags tinkering (hence we call her Tinkerbell sometimes), once in awhile, she sure can give you a startle.

Hi! whacha doing?

This is a pic I took from the bathtub…while I am taking a bath.  lol. she totally sneaked up on me.

lol. silly girl.

As we were finishing the nursery, there was one element that I knew I wanted to add once the baby was here – the name in a banner across the crib, but of course back then, we didn’t know the gender, and we certainly didn’t have a name yet!

I took some scrap fabric in soft green and gray (the nursery wall is yellow), and printed the letters in regular paper, then traced and cut out on my fabric.  Pinned the 2 sides together and hand stitched all around, leaving a hole to fill in stuffing. Added a ribbon to tie it all together! Fairly simple, but took me awhile as my fabric was pretty soft, so it was a bit hard to maneuver.  If i was to re-do this project, i would add a Heat and Bond layer to stiffen up the fabric, and honestly just use a sewing machine!

Here it is hanging over the crib, and of course my little model!

My baby girl is about to be 1 month – already?! Where does the time go…(rhetorical answer: feedings, changing diapers, admiring, taking photos).

Chinese tradition calls for a “full moon” celebration – basically the baby has now passed the “everything is ok” mark and everyone can come and see the baby and celebrate her birth.  I think in the olden days, they may not even name the baby until after it has pass the full moon.  This celebration can be as small or as large as you want. Some people go all out.  (note, many chinese households now also adopted the 100 days celebration instead to celebrate).

We have 40 people coming for Abigail’s full moon – a mixture of family and In laws’ friends – to be held at a chinese restaurant banquet.  Though I wasn’t exhilarated at the thought of having to “make” something so early into my new mommyhood…I also didn’t want to not contribute to the celebration.  I obliged and allow my husband to “outsource” the cake.  But I wanted to make the favours for the guests.  I decided on macarons for them.  In hindsight, it was a lot of work and time when the baby is only 3 weeks old leading up to the dinner. Definitely not recommended for anyone thinking of doing this for their baby’s party.  but everything worked out, as they often do, so here I am sharing the pictures!

I wanted to do 3-4 macarons in a gift bag of different colours and flavours.  I had to balance finding fillings that has the ability to keep frozen and stored for the week (which most macaron fillings can handle), but also it be ok once they are sitting at the restaurant and not in the fridge.  Here’s what I ended up making (approx 35 each):

• White Chocolate ganache with pink coloured shell
• Lemon filling with yellow coloured shell
• Vanilla buttercream with soft pink coloured shell
• White Chocolate ganache with purple coloured shell