Back to Baking~Lemon Crunch Cake

A belated Happy Birthday to Michael! Mike's birthday occurred a couple weeks ago so we celebrated with a game night get together with some friends.

Here's Mike's birthday cake. I wanted to bake him a cake from scratch so I attempted to make a lemon crunch cake. My mom kept raving about a cake she had tasted in San Francisco from a lemon crunch cake she tasted at a Japanese bakery. I searched online and found this recipe. I had also tasted The Alley's lemon crunch cake the last time I was back home in Hawaii, so at least I had a frame of reference of what to strive for.

The lemon crunch cake recipe is basically a chiffon cake recipe without the oil. It had a light texture and flavor and reminded me of a Japanese-type cake. The recipe tasted great and people who prefer less sweet desserts would really enjoy it. It's pretty much the opposite of a Costco or Sam's Club type birthday cake (although I am not complaining about these cakes, because some times they taste good too). If I were to tweak the online recipe to make it more like "The Alley's" cake, I'd stick with a traditional chiffon cake with oil, add more lemon flavoring and sugar, add more lemon flavoring to the whipped cream, and add a really good and tart lemon curd.

Here's the birthday boy with his cake.

Check out this cake that was made for a friend's birthday. If you're a fan of "Settlers of Catan" you'll like this cake.

New Format

As you may have noticed, Mike has been picking up the slack and has taken over blogging on this site. Why?
Partially because I've been lazy and have been adjusting to a full-time job. The other reason is that I've been slowly working on updating the format of my blog. I've been dappling with code and photoshop and finally finished the new "blue" layout. Yay!

So with this project done, I'll get back to blogging.

Day 4~Restaurant Crispi 19

On our fourth day we sought out a truly great culinary experience. We had spent the previous night looking for places to eat online, and we settled on a seafood restaurant called Crispi 19. We marked it's general location (near the top of the Spanish Steps) on our map (which wasn't very good), and decided we'd wander around and find it the next day.

When we began our trek to find Crispi 19 we immediately realized our mistake. Our map had a big icon of the Spanish Steps that covered a lot of small streets in the area. This made finding the restaurant really difficult. We wandered for a while, and since we were already really hungry, we almost gave up. Just when we were discussing where else we'd like to eat we happened to see a street sign for Crispi street. It was then that Lauren had an epiphany that saved our day. Guess what? The restaurant name was also its address. Problem solved.......we went in an got ourselves a table.
Unbeknownst to us, Crispi 19 was acctually a fine dining establishment. We looked totally out of place in our jeans and t-shirts. The saving grace was that being a fine dining restaurant, Crispi 19 didn't really serve much lunch.....sure they were open, but we were the only ones there. Plus we were tourists, so no one really cared.
We shared a bunch of food, and passed the plates back and forth.....probably a no-no, but being tourists eating when no one else was there, we didn't have to be embarrased. I got a prix fixe meal (tuna tartare, crab and shrimp ravioli, and a dessert), and Lauren got a pasta with fried squid. The tuna tartare was interesting. I'd never had something like this before. It felt overly fancy for my tastes at first, but when I mixed the tuna, the onion, the salt, the egg, and the pesto sauce together (and made everything look really messy) and ate it with the orange, it was really good. It was rich and salty, and the citrus cut it perfectly. Lauren thought it was okay, which is saying a lot because she doesn't really like raw fish.
Lauren's pasta was also very good. I think the sauce was some kind of seafood stock with olive oil, tomatoes and basil. It was a bit salty, but it as also thin, so it fit nicely at first. When you got towards the bottom of the bowl you got more and more sauce, and it got too salty for Lauren. I hapily finished her bowl.
The shrimp and crab ravioli was excellent. It was rich, but the portion was small so it wasn't overpowering. It came in a creamy seafood tomato sauce.
I don't remember much about the fish, other than that it was fish, that it was cooked perfectly. I think it was halibut, but I'm not sure. Lauren really liked it!
I don't remember what the dessert was called, but it was also good. There was a chocolate cake that was moist and had lots of fresh whipped cream on top. There was also a soooth and creamy panna cotta. Its kind of like creme brulee, except without the brulee. The texture is a little different though since panna cotta is thickened with gelatin instead of just eggs. We both enjoied it....especially Lauren.
We spent the rest of the day......you guessed it......eating. We went to a sicilian pastry shop. There were a bunch of awards displayed on their door. Lauren was so impressed that she took a picture.
The pastries looked beautiful. We had an exremely difficutl time picking out what to eat. We finally setteled on an asortment of goodies, and ate them outside. We both decided that italian pastries are a little too sweet for us.

I don't remember exactly where we went, or what we ate there, but we also made it to a gelateria before the end of the afternoon. When something's good, you just have to stick with it. We had a lot of gelato throughout the rest of the trip.

Day 3~Italy Food!

Our third day in Italy was spent hunting for food. We went to the Jewish Ghetto and grazed. Lauren loved all of the bakeries and I had my fair share of pizza. We sampled so many things that by the time lunch came we weren't even hungry.
Lauren went crazy in this bakery and ordered a bunch of things. As a note to all you foodie travelers, bakers don't like it when you order just one of something when it's sold by weight, especially when they're super light things like pretzels. I think the tiny cookies (~3 pieces) and pretzels (~5 pieces) Lauren got were like 20 cents or something like that. We got a bunch of stuff, so it was okay, but one of the workers got scolded by the manager when she tried to ring us up for a .1 euro bill.
We ate our purchases right outside of the bakery. I got two kinds of arancini, fried rice balls. Between the baked good and the fried goodies, it was a fun experience.
We saw a bakery/pizzeria that a lot of locals were coming out of, and we knew we had to try it too. In our experience, this is one of the best ways to find good food. We also went to Campo di Fiori, an open market. There was a ton of fresh produce, and lot of other things. We bought a fruit cup to share, and looked around.
We bought some dried spices to take home but we keep forgetting to use them.


In case you didn't notice from the last post, Lauren and I aren't always the best with maps. We wandered our way toward the subway station, and ended up back near our hotel. Instead of going out to eat dinner, we decided to engage in one of Lauren's favorite activities.....we went to the grocery store. Don't think this was the first time we went during our trip....no, no, no we went way back on day one. This was just the first time we decided to go and buy a meal there. We got breadsticks, cheese, wine, bread and ate it in our room. It was nice to relax in the room for a night. I think this helped prevent us from getting travel fatigue.

Day 2 Part 2~ Italy

We did so much on our second day that Lauren broke it up into two separate posts. After eating all the gelato, we decided it was time to go and see the sights. Our first goal was to go and see the Trevi fountain. We took the subway to the nearest stop. When we got out there was a fountain right outside, and we assumed it was probably Trevi fountain. There were a bunch of tourists taking pictures next to it, so it seemed right. But after thinking about it for a few minutes it just didn't seem right......it wasn't impressive enough. A quick consultation with our map told us that we still had a 5-10 minute walk to get to Trevi fountain. When we finally got there it was far better.
Instead of the dozen or so tourists that were at the other fountain, there were easily over 100 tourists at the real Trevi fountain. We looked around, sat down and had a rest, and then proceeded on to the Pantheon, or so we thought.
We followed a sign pointing toward the Pantheon....unfortunately it was pointing in the wrong direction.....we confirmed this when we passed it for the second (and then the third) time. So we marched on, and on, and on, and after 30 minutes of so we took a break and sat down on some steps where a lot of people were hanging out. And that was how we saw the Spanish steps. I think we took pictures, but none of them came out good. We proceeded on and on, ignored the sign, asked for directions, and finally got to the Pantheon just before it closed. We ended our day at Piazza Navona. It's the place there Tom Hanks pulls the priest out of the fountain in Angels and Demons. It's really beautiful at sunset, and there are lots of restaurants that line the square. There are lots of waiters there trying to usher you into their establishments......this really turned us off because if the food was good why would they need to be so pushy. But because it was so nice there, despite our better culinary judgement we picked a restaurant that seemed good and sat down for a meal. We got free glasses of champaign, which was good, but the pasta we got was just average. It was nothing you couldn't make yourself, and definitely not worth the $50 we paid. Still the wine was good, and we had a great time enjoying the scenery. It was a Jekyl/Hyde experience. Ambiance - 10, Food - 3.
What did we do after diner? You guessed it...Gelato! Here are more pics. THey're acctually from the gelateria we went to earlier in the day, but they fit here too.

Day 2~Italy

Day 2 of our Italy Adventure began at Vatican City. While we didn't do the Angels and Demons tour as recommended by a good friend, we did sign up for a tour. As a side note, if you ever go to Vatican City, take a tour.........there is so much art and history to see that unless you are an art history major, you will be totally lost. As another side note, remember to sign up for your tour on the proper day! If you don't then you'll have to panic and call the tour company at the last minute and hope that they can help you out. I'm not saying that happened to us........it's just a friendly tip....
Being an Engineer, I don't really have much interest in art. Suffice it to say that despite this, I was still amazed at the art and history in Vatican City. I won't try to comment on anything, but here are a few pictures of things we saw. A gift to one of the popes, something by Raphael, and something by Michelangelo....that's what the pictures are of....I think. We looked for some of Splinter's work, but couldn't find anything.....the guide got really mad at me when I asked about it. The one above is St. Peter's Basilica....I think....... We were respectful in the Sistine Chapel, and did not take pictures like the hundreds of other people there. Some Japanese company bought the rights to the ceiling, so you're not supposed to take any pictures. I pointed out to the guide that Lauren and I were Japanese so it'd probably be alright for us to take photos, but she just got really mad again.


We ended our day by mailing postcards to our parents from the Vatican City post office. It's supposed to be a cool thing to do since Vatican City is separate country.
After the tour, we went out in search of food. First stop was a pizzeria which Lauren's mom recommended from a magazine article she had read. It was packed full of locals, and looked great. We ended up getting a two slices with lots of fresh cherry tomatoes and some crushed red pepper, one with cheese, the other without. They were great! Unfortunately we didn't know how to ask them to heat them up in Italian.....that would have made them a lot better.
Next stop was a delicatessen that w saw while wandering around. There were lots of school kids outside eating sandwiches, so we thought it had to be a good place.
We went inside, and with limited italian we asked then to make me a sandwich. I got one with some kind of ham and marinated artichokes. It was rather fatty, but very good.
Lastly, having eaten a clearly "Michael" dish (the fatty pork sandwich) we sought out a purely "Lauren" culinary experience. We embarked on our first (first of many) gelato trek.
We made our way to a gelateria again recommended by Lauren's mom from the same magazine. Even though we only went to one gelateria on this day, it still counts as a trek because we ate at it twice. I don't mean that we ordered two cones each. We literally had some gelato, then walked out and Lauren was talking about how good it was, that we turned around and walked 5 minutes back to get more. I don't remember exactly what we had there, but I'm pretty sure they had a pear that lauren really liked. I really liked the chocolate. I think we also had pistacio, coconut, and hazelnut.
Below are some other pictures we took along the way.