Rose Hokkaido Cupcakes with Pistachio-Infused Cream + potluck + event!

Hi everyone, I’m back in the States!! We arrived, exhausted from four plane rides, in Boston yesterday late afternoon (that’s what you get for traveling with miles, I suppose!). New Zealand was an incredible experience. Alex and I did a self-drive adventure, embarked on many trails and hikes, gingerly participated in adventures such as floating down a river in a pitch-black cave, illuminated only by the glow of 2 million glowworms suspended on the ceiling, and combatting sea-sickness to go 20km out into open sea to swim with 500 dusky dolphins. 500!! Before and during the trip, we heard this question constantly: why New Zealand for your honeymoon? The short and quick answer is just because. We’re young, we crave adventure, we’re photographers, we want to go somewhere new and different. The long answer, well, you can go do your own research on the amazing experiences New Zealand can offer.

That being said, I’m so excited to have a post ready for you the day I get back~!! Like a good girl, I’d prepared this way before I left so that I wouldn’t be scrambling to take photos and make cupcakes on Sunday night. Like a not-so-prepared blogger, I didn’t have anything written up except the recipe I’d developed. Oops. Because my mind is still fuzzy from travel fatigue and sorting through hundreds of emails + snail mail, I’m going to keep it short. I’d like to talk to you about three things:

1. I’m participating in a virtual edible flower potluck!! See list of links at the end of the post. So delighted to be joining all these talented bloggers. Please go check out their posts – there are some amazing things being done with flowers!
2. My contribution: rose hokkaido cupcakes with pistachio infused whipped cream. Pistachio and rose are a match made of dreams, and I couldn’t resist yet another infusion. I couldn’t really find any previous recipe about infusing whipped cream with pistachio, but I did find quite a few for hazelnuts. I applied the same principle and – it totally worked! I wanted to eat the rest of my pistachio-whipped-cream by the spoonful. I’m never going back to regular whipped cream again! As for the cupcakes, they are a super soft cupcake, made in a similar style to a chiffon cake, that is supposed to collapse. They’re supposed to get wrinkly and then puffed up again later by filling it with a custard or cream. Isn’t that amazing? I found this recipe and this to be very helpful in developing the resulting cupcake recipe. I made a few tweaks and ditched the custard cream completely, instead choosing to fill it with a soft whipped cream infused with pistachio. Yum. See recipe below.
3. I’m hosting an event with Meg of Bread+Barrow!!!!!! and YES it is about edible flowers!! If you’re in the Boston area, I’d love if you would stop by and hang out with us. We’re going to talk about edible flowers, how they can be incorporated as a flavor, decoration, and styling element, and you will have the opportunity to play around with the props and do some photographing yourself. Also, we’re so honored to have Scoopsies ice cream at this event!!! It’s free of charge and you can RSVP here. 

Chocolate Pistachio Orange Biscotti

Biscotti. People call it the Italian cookie. Others say it’s heaven dipped in coffee. I say, let’s stop talking and just eat them. Biscotti means “twice cooked”. This is indeed the case for this cookie. The dough is formed into a loaf and cooked until it is set. While it’s fresh out of the oven, the loaf is chopped into biscotti pieces. Then, they are popped back into the oven to achieve that delicious crunchiness. They’re meant to be dry and crunchy – so you can imagine how great it would taste when dipped in coffee!

I can’t believe I’m getting married in a week and a half!! I will be leaving Boston for California this Saturday, so I’ll have a week to do last minute preparations. For most of the wedding planning time, I’ve felt pretty relaxed and stress-free, especially since I have an awesome wedding planner to back me up. However, now that it’s within two weeks, I can feel the stress start to creep up on me.

What do I do when I’m stressed? I bake of course -such a cliched answer, but so true. My friend J first introduced me to baking biscotti, something I would never have thought of before (I don’t know why). He made these awesome pistachio-orange biscotti drizzled with dark chocolate, and they were amazing. The biscotti I made here were inspired by his, but instead of drizzling with chocolate, I used cocoa powder to give the whole cookie a tinge of chocolate.