1st American Anniversary

My marriage story is an interesting one.  I met Lee while I was teaching English in South Korea.  He was an assistant manager at the English cafe I volunteered at.  We became close friends and eventually started dating and then we decided we wanted to spend the rest of of lives together!  Because Lee is Korean and I am American our marriage process was a bit different than other couples.  We legally got married in Korea 3 years ago.  Then a month later Lee proposed.  Then 2 years ago today we had our Korean ceremony an then a year after that we had our American ceremony.  Confused yet?

Korean Wedding 8/6/11

American Wedding 7/28/12

Lee and I still haven't decided which date to use as our anniversary, but this year we opted to use our American one (since it would be our 1st) We took some photos with the tree we planted on our wedding day (instead of lighting unity candles) we went out to dinner and Lee surprised me with a visit to the rose and peace gardens and we ate the top of our wedding cake. 

1st American Anniversary 7/28/13

With our tree we planted on our wedding day!

Still full of love for each other after 1 year (or 3)

We were so lucky to have our wedding cake made by a loving family member, my wonderfully talented aunt Debby.  She did a wonderful job don't you think?  She even saved some flowers and twigs for me so I could decorate the topper, however I was super bummed when I opened the box that she had stored them in for me to find that all the flowers were broken. 

The beautiful wedding cake Debbie made

Look at the stunning details!

I quickly decided that this would be a great time to try my hand at decorating cake with cookies.  It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot along the way.
All in all it was a wonderful anniversary and I can't wait for the years to come.

My first cookie cake. 

Stay sweet everyone!

Jars of cake

My mom was hosting a dinner party and attending another all in one week. She was swamped with cooking especially because she had to make a dessert and two appetizers for the dinner party. I decided to help her out. The theme for the dinner party was a Fish Fry. I have wanted to try cake in mason jars for some time now and I finally have an oven big enough to do it. The recipe is from I am Baker go check it out, she has a wonderful site.
The cake is a blueberry cake with blueberry whipped cream icing and a strawberry on top. Hope you enjoy ^^

Cake for Kiddies

This week marks my last week teaching in Korea.
For the past 3 years I have been teaching an after school reading club.
I wan't to instil a love of reading in my students. Many of them only have time for studying, and don't have time to sit down an appriciate a good book.
We read one or two books a semester. This year we read boxcar children books, a favorite from my childhood. Every so often I try to bring the book to life for the stuents. The boxcar children books are great because they talk about cooking a lot. It is a great way for my students to learn first hand about western style food. This semester we made bread, had a clam boil and on our last day of class decorated a cake. The following are some fun pictures from our cake decorating day.




I made the cake the night before (I have always wanted to try a cake like this, thanks to http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/ she is wonderful!) Hope you enjoy, I know the kiddies did ^^

Memorial cake

About a month ago I was asked by my husband's parents to make a cake. Not just any cake but a cake for a special celebration. That special celebration being my husband's grandfather's memorial service.

In Korea the death of the head of the family (Father) is celebrated with a ceremony each year on the date that the person passed away. The whole family gets together, the men sit around and eat and the women cook a huge meal for the men and prepare special food to give to the deceased.

After the men have finished eating and talking a special table is set and a ceremony is preformed where drinks are poured for the deceased and offered to them and the family bows to them. Generally the men just pour the drinks, but when a new person joins the family through marriage they also should join in, in the ceremony and the deceased should 'meet' them. So my husband and I poured a drink for his grandfather and offered it up to him.

After the ceremony everyone sits around and talks and eats the food that was on the ceremonial table. The cake was a huge hit, as well as the chocolate covered strawberries I made to go with it. I felt very special, and welcomed into the family to be asked to contribute something to the table.

Brownies

It was spring in Korea.... I am slow with my updates. One of my co workers had helped me out big time. Helping me out means baked treats. In honor of spring I decorated some of the brownies in cherry blossoms. Yes I know the color is off. I am still learning exactly how to color my icing correctly.... I'll get there ^^

Cakes

While I love making cookies I like to mix it up sometimes and make cakes. This first cake is a congratulations cake for my co-worker who was recently accepted into graduate school on a scholarship program (she was 1 out of 80 who applied, only 2 were accepted).
The cake is vanilla, cinnamon, apple, with a layer of caramel icing in the middle of the cake and a spiced butter cream on top. The cake is decorated with some chocolates from a mold and then piped with colored chocolate.
This cake was for a friends birthday. The cake is vanilla and the icing is caramel. It has some more of the poured chocolates and there are some snicker-doodle cookies in the back to support the chocolates. The gifts on top are actually little chocolates ^^ aren't they cute!

Snowmen cakes

I needed a quick treat as a Christmas gift for one of my husbands friends. I made these snowman cakes. I cheated and used a box of cake mix and baked it. Then when the cake was cool I cut the snowmen out using a cookie cutter. I then sliced the snowmen in half and spread some jam on one side and put the sandwich back together. The last step was to pour some melted white chocolate on the top of the snowmen and some dark chocolate for their hats. I use a toothpick dipped in chocolate to paint on their faces and buttons. If I would have had more time (and chocolate) I would have dipped them completely but I kid of like how you can see their jam filling.
Enjoy ^^