Nomad Kitcheneer

We've all heard of stories of some famous beauties including milk in their beauty routine (e.g. Cleopatra, royalties, celebrities). For the longest time, I've been intrigued by milk soap. In my imagination, I'd have these flawless snow white delicate bars of soap to lather up. Then comes the reality... Lactose (in Milk) + Heat (from Soaping) --> Caramel Color + Weird Odor As usual, I consulted Google and Youtube and pored over tons of articles/videos. Most "successful" authors tell you to make milk ice and dissolve lye (sodium hydroxide, NaOH) slowly and carefully dissolve it over a ice bath. Full disclaimer, from the videos, it works. I'm just lazy, i.e. I don't like to bust out additional bowls and invest in precious freezer space to make this happen. Fast forward to my half-hearted first attempt with milk ice + NaOH, but without ice bath. The mixture still had a hint of yellow in it (even though it didn't warm up too much during the pr

Have you ever made your own soap? Maybe it's time for you to give it a try. I developed skin allergy for surfactant (aka hand soap, detergent, dish soap, you name it) over the years, that I had to wear rubber gloves to do basically any chore in the house. Recently, I started trying to make my own soap to eliminate contact to allergen. I stumbled across this "house chore soap" concept from Chinese/Taiwanese websites, and they are AMAZING! These days, these house chore soaps are the only ones we use to do dishes, clean kitchen, stove etc. They work even better than the commercial ones! S always exclaimed, why would these soaps not be more popular? We don't know...but I hope you'd give it a try. The basic soap making procedure can be found pretty much everywhere on YouTube. The key is to ensure safety and have quality ingredients (not that you need organic certified etc, but more importantly, they need to be free of impurities). When it comes to chemical

If you asked me 10 years ago, I'd never believe that I'd be baking bread, let alone sourdough bread. I always thought baking bread is hard, it lacked the "rigorous" measurement that pastry baking provides, especially when it comes to giving predictable results every single time (blindly following recipes).  Yet here I am, standing in front of my sourdough baby, Sauerteig Bob, staring at it and examining it every day, wondering how he's doing... I started Sauerteig Bob more than 6 months ago, I'm happy to report that it has given me my first best tasting bread ever. I'm now hooked!

It's Fall. The leaves here in Germany are turning color. I'm frantically baking/cooking to finish as much of my pantry items as possible. Yes, you read it right, I'm moving again. It's time for me to pack up and move across the ocean back to California. I'm only here in Germany for 18 months, I still cannot speak fluent German (I claim to be just restaurant proficient =p) Back in the summer, I baked this French Apple Cake from David Lebovitz. The flavor is surprisingly clean, if you're used to the American classic combo of apple + cinnamon. I later baked it couple more times, bringing it to dinner party etc. We had it on its own, had it with vanilla ice cream, had it warm, had it cold...you name it...it's delicious! French Apple Cake Adapted from French Apple Cake  by Dave Lebovitz yields one round (20cm, roughly 8") cake Ingredients: 3/4 cup (110g) flour 3/4 teaspoon baking powder pinch of salt ~3-5 large apples (any kind) 2 larg

Life outside of the beautiful California is an interesting adjustment. I'm in a new country (Germany), learning to speak a new language (German), and adjusting to a new life style. While there are many things I enjoy here in Germany and in Europe, I must say, I miss my Mexican food! Luckily, I have a Mexican coworker (also an expat here), and I managed to nag him into learning how to make mole when he visited home over the holidays. Last week, he hosted a mole cooking demonstration (again, at my subtle nudging). To complete the Mexican theme, I volunteered to bring some Mexican dessert and decided to make the Chocoflan (that is another topic…very interesting dessert). However, to make the Chocoflan, cajeta is needed. It seems like cajeta is not as well known as its cousin, dolce de leche. Whenever I tell people that I'm making cajeta, I have to launch a food-education program and explain the difference between cajeta, dulce de leche, and condensed milk. To me, ca

  I must confess: for the longest time, I have a prejudice towards cupcakes. I find the frosting too sweet, and the cake itself very bland. That is, until I did a "tasting" for a girlfriend of mine's baby shower. I sampled 4-5 stores' cupcakes, and oddly, I realized, not all cupcakes are created equal. (Duh....should've known that a long time ago, but how can I never make that connection?) Fast forward to St Patrick's Day, and I was sitting around reading recipes online for fun. Yes...i do that, though I also often lacked the motivation to get over the "activation energy" to actually make something. Anyhow, I saw this interesting recipe for chocolate stout cupcake with chocolate ganache filling and Baileys frosting. And I went.....how can a cupcake be SO complicated?! It's so complex that I got curious enough to actually want to try making it myself. I mean.....first of all, having beer in cupcake is an interesting idea. Secondly, th