Mixed Berry Almond Cobbler

I've been wanting to make cobbler for a while now after I had this glorious piece of peach cobbler at The Gypsy Den. This weird hot-in-the-middle-of February weather has permitted an abundance of berries at my local markets and at a great price too! I've been pretty busy with school and stress from upcoming midterms, but this recipe was so easy and quick that I decided to give it a go ahead. 

I used a mixture of blueberries and boysenberries for my cobbler. But you could really try this recipe with tons of other types of fruit as well. I made a mini-cobbler just to make sure the recipe was blog worthy but I doubled the recipe for you all. 

My cobbler turned out really well. The crust was nice and moist and crispy on the edges. Truthfully though, I think it could have done with a little less almond flavor or even none at all, since it kind of overcame the light flavor of the berries, but the scent from the almond was heavenly. Why wait for summer for this beauty when you can have it all right now? Flaky crust, warm juicy berries, cold creamy ice cream all swirling on your taste-buds... are you drooling yet?

Mixed Berry Almond Cobbler

Yields: 4-6 servings

You can find the original here, which I tweaked slightly. 

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsn. all purpose flour

4 cups mixed berries (I used boysenberries and blueberries)*

1 tbsn. vanilla extract

1 tbsn. lemon juice

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 cup whipping cream

1 egg

1 tsp. almond extract

3-4 tbsn. almond paste, crumbled (depending on your preference to almond flavor)

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a medium sized bowl, combine all of the ingredients for the berry mixture and toss well to coat. In another medium sized bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Next, add the whipping cream and almond extract, mix well but do not overmix! Next add the almond paste and incorporate well. Pour the berry mixture into a 9x9x2 inch pan, then pour the sticky dough mixture all along the top of the berries. If desired, you can add some crumbles of butter for some extra goodness. Pop into the oven until golden brown and bubbly, about 30-35 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream or freshly whipped cream and enjoy!

* Try to avoid strawberries because they tend to be too watery for cobblers and make it soggy.

Allll mine!

FFF (Friday Flickr Favorites)

Happy FFF everybody! As you can see, I am still obsessed with Bokeh which predominantly takes over my favorites this week. But the top row of photos is from my best friend, CC, check out her photostream here.

To locate these pictures, peruse through my favorites section here.

Banana Bread with Walnut Coffee Crumble

The bananas at my house are regularly thrown into the garbage. We buy them, we forget about them, they start to turn a hideous brown color, then we remember their presence and quickly discard them into the trash. It makes me sad to waste so much food all of the time so I decided that it was time to make a change... and that change came in the form of Banana bread! 

Banana bread is by far the best way to use up uneaten and overripe bananas. It makes the perfect breakfast with a nice cup of coffee and is great because the bananas keep the bread so moist. I even burned mine a little and it tasted as if nothing had gone awry at all - that's the beauty of it all. And P.S., another way to save your bananas from the dumps is to freeze them. If you know you won't be eating them, just slice them and put them in your freezer for quick smoothies!

Banana Bread with Walnut Coffee Crumble

Yields: 1 loaf, serves 8 - 10

modified from Over the Hill and On a Roll

For the cake:

3 - 4 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork

1/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 extra yolk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups of flour

For the crumble:

1/2 cup walnuts, plus extra

2 tbsn. brown sugar

2 tbsn. flour

2 tbsn. cold butter

1 tsp. instant coffee

1/4 tsp cinnamon

powdered sugar for decoration

Preheat your oven to 350 F. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar until well combined and fluffy. Next, add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. Add the mashed bananas, then the baking soda, salt, and flour. Only mix until combined, if you over mix the bread will be tough. Pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan.

In a food processor, mix 1/2 cup of walnuts, brown sugar, flour, cold butter, and instant coffee. Pulse until the mixture starts to come together and form little pea-sized crumbles. Top the batter with the crumble, then sprinkle on the cinnamon. If desired, you can add some roughly chopped walnuts for extra crunch. Bake until a inserted toothpick comes out clean or until nice and golden brown, about 50 - 60 minutes. Once done, let cool completely, slice and enjoy with a nice cup of hot coffee!

P.S. Try Laura's fantastic version done with pecans, you can find it here.

Lily Allen covers The Clash

Click below to listen to the song:

Sprinkles {Newport Beach, CA}

I've been to Sprinkles a couple of times before. The flavor that first broke my Sprinkles virginity was a strawberry cake with strawberry icing. I've had strawberry cupcakes before and had horrible, and I mean really horrendous experiences. They tasted so phony and full of ingredients you couldn't even pronounce let alone find the origin of. But sprinkles was different, all I could taste was pure intense strawberry flavor. It won me right then and there.

Their simple display:

Simply tucked away:

Chai Latte on the left, Pumpkin on the right:

It's calling you, "EAT ME."

And eat it, we definitely did:

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a Sprinkles die hard fanatic. I can definitely live without them. We all could live without a lot of things, but life isn't about what we need, it's about what we want. Going through life without wants is like not going through life at all. It's just a cupcake when you think about it, just a damn cupcake, and a $3.25 cupcake at that! But they are delicious and there is no denying it.

The other day I decided to try some more flavors. Though I was heavily inclined into buying their famous red velvet, my love for chai and spiced pumpkin wooed me over. Though the chai flavor wasn't the kick in the mouth that I had hoped for, the nicely spiced cake became friends with my mouth immediately. The pumpkin was all I could have asked for: moist, earthy, delicious. Usually I am not the greatest fan to frosting; I absolutely hate overladen cupcakes! But what is special about Sprinkles is that their cupcakes and frosting combinations are perfectly sweet, at least for me. I lick the frosting till the last spot is gone, and that's pretty rare for me.

FFF (Friday Flickr Favorites)

My most recent Flickr favorites:

P.S. I kind of copied this FFF idea from Slow Like Honey, but shhhh... don't tell!

Chocolate Banana Waffles

I love Trader Joe's, it is my all time favorite little grocery store. They may not have everything, but they sure do have what matters, like their multigrain pancake mix. It is so versatile! I've even seen recipes for biscuits for it. But this time my sister decided to make waffles. She just got a 3-in-1 sandwich press, grill, and waffle maker and thought she should put it into good use. To top things off, she added chocolate chips and mashed bananas, one of my favorite flavor combinations. Making waffles couldn't have been any easier or more delicious! It's great too because we like to pre-make them, freeze them and then grab them on the go whenever we're in a rush. It's a hearty and stress-free breakfast. 

Chocolate Banana Waffles

Yields: 15 - 20 Waffles

1/4 of Trader Joe's Multigrain Pancake Mix

2 - 3 overripe bananas, mashed with a fork

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

canola oil spray

In a large bowl, mix the pancake batter according to the directions on the box (you can make as much of this as you want, just make sure to fix the chocolate chip and banana amounts accordingly). Stir in mashed bananas and chocolate chips. Heat waffle iron and spray with canola oil before each time, cook until golden brown, about 8 - 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Excitement!

I just got some new things for my scrapbooking collection at home today, YAY! Don't you just love target? The dollar section has increased my dependence on weekly visits. I could spend all day there and I always tend to walk out with a checking account less filled than when I walked in.

Chinese Chicken Salad

I've been finding myself craving this salad for the last couple of weeks and quite frankly, I'm sick of buying $10 salads for something so brainlessly easy to make at home, and let me emphasize, much, much cheaper. I love saving money, especially in times like these!

Chinese Chicken Salad

Yields: Enough for 3 - 4

2 Romaine hearts, chopped

1 can of mandarin oranges, drained

8 oz. slivered almonds

3 green onions, sliced

20 wonton wrappers, sliced into strips

2 tbsn sesame seeds

1 cup or more of canola oil

4 Tyson teriyaki chicken breasts, sliced (from Costco)

Feast from the East Sesame Dressing (from Costco) 

In a small saucepan, toast the slivered almonds and sesame seeds over medium-low heat until nice and golden brown. Remove from the pan and fill with canola oil until it reaches about 1 inch in height. Heat the oil over medium-high heat until oil is glossy and hot, about 5 minutes. Drop the sliced wonton wrappers into the oil in small batches, making sure not to overcrowd! Remove from oil and drain on paper towels. Repeat until finished and let cool for a couple of minutes. For the salad, toss all ingredients together and top with your desired amount of dressing. Enjoy!

YSL love

I've been looking for a new handbag and I was thinking Marc by Marc Jacobs since its the only designer that I can relatively afford. But it definitely didn't stop me from browsing such beauties as those seen below. I love the textured leathers and metallics at YSL, and especially the cross body bag: practical and glamourous.