Devil's Food Cupcake

Last week we went for a walk in west village and turned the corner at Magnolia on Bleecker street. I have to say though, since I've been living in NYC for ten years, I've never had famous Magnolia's cupcakes just yet.
Line snaking to the side of Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker St.

The long line in front of the store always turns me off. But because of this long line in front of Magnolia that I finally learn how to make cupcakes myself.

I'm not a big fan of sweet, but I always fall for cute cupcakes, and that makes me want to try to make them.



My only favorite kind of cake is chocolate cake, and these the Devil's food cake is my show off. This time I tried the recipe from Martha Stewart's.

I love it! This recipe makes the cupcakes that is not too sweet, which is the way I love.


Kudos for those who create super cute, yummy looking cupcakes...well....to me, trying to come up with how to make my cupcakes look cute and tempting is just....not that easy.

Thai Green Papaya Salad

Som-Tum

Papaya Salad is everybody's favorite salad, almost. It's chock-full of flavors and textures yet very light and energized. This dish is usually pared up with grill or fried meats and also going great with sticky rice.


Papaya salad is an Eastern food, but, because of its huge savories taste, it becomes food that people in every part of Thailand loves to eat, no matter where they are living in, this salad will make its ways through.

You can find and easily enjoy them at every corners of Thailand from tiny street stalls to exclusive restaurants .

Mom's papaya tree

In the US you can find these green papayas at most Asian market. Besides making salad, we love to put them in water base curry with prawns. It's DE...li....cious!!

Choose fresh and firm green papaya
- green papaya, grated into a handful of long string.
- grape tomatoes
- long string bean
- 4 cloves of garlic
- Thai chilies
- unsalted roasted peanut (optional)
- dried shrimp (optional)

- 2 tbsp. lime juice
- 1 tbsp. tamarind water
- 2 tbsp. fish sauce
- 2 tbsp. palm sugar


Mixed with carrot for extra crunch and colors

Normally, in Thailand, they mix this salad with wooden pestle and mortar, the idea of making this salad is to crushing and mixing all ingredients at the same time, but I don't have those.

So I just bruise the ingredients that need to be bruised- like string beans, garlic and chilies with my granite pestle and mortar then put everything in a salad preparing bowl and mix them together in salad bowl instead.



1. Grate papaya and carrot into long thin string. Set aside in preparing bowl.
2. Cut string bean into 1 inch long and slightly pound them with mortar and pestle, just that they are bruised. Do the same with garlic and chilies.
3. Put all ingredients in a bowl ready to dressing.
4. Add fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind water, lime juice in a bowl and start mixing all together until everything's combined.


Serve! ....with sticky rice, BBQ pork, grilled or fried chicken. Really a great dish.

Stir-fired String Bean with Curry Paste

This is a perfect dish to spice-up your table a little without having your mouth on fire even though it's made with curry paste. It's also a delicious string bean dish eating with steamed rice and a bowl of light soup.


Get a wok on fire

- A bunch of long and firm dark green string bean, cut into an inch long.
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed.
- 2 tbsp. julienne Kaffir lime leaves
- Red curry paste, start with 1 tbsp.curry paste and you can add more if you want it more spicy.
- Generous amount of your meat of choice - pork, beef, chicken, or seafood like shrimps, squid or firmed tofu, cut into bite size. Here I used pork.

- 1 tbsp. fish sauce
- 1 tbsp. palm sugar
- water



1. Heat up the wok, drizzling in saute oil.
2. Add in crushed garlic and meat, saute for 1 minute.
3. In goes curry paste and 1 tbsp. of water.
4. Add string bean.
5. Start seasoning with fish sauce and palm sugar.
6. Add julienne kaffir lime leaves, saute to incorporate until the meat cook through, string bean getting soft, but still crunchy, add more water if it's too dry.
7.Turn off the heat. Serve.