Butter flower cookies Halloween

It is Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Time to make some cute monster cookies. 

These are Soot sprites in Spirited Away. The cookies are buttery and tasted like Christmas cookies. This recipe is very easy, just mixing the ingredients and put them in the oven. Also, you can use this recipe to make Christmas cookies. 

And I really like the movie Spirited Away! If you haven’t watched it, it is recommended.

Ingredients:

Soften butter 130 g

Corn starch 40 g

All purpose flour 160 g

Powered sugar 75g

Cocoa powder 10 g

Egg 40g or 1 egg

Step 1: beating butter, sugar powder, egg until fluffy

Step 2: adding flour, corn starch to the batter, mixing until there is done. Don’t overmix the batter, because it will add elasticity. The picture below is good enough. 

Step 3, add the cocoa powder to the half of batter, and start piping. The most challenging step is to pipe because you need strong hands. I was piping the cookie dough extremely hard, you can see from the video that my hands are shaking. 

Step 4: bake 350F for 20 -25minutes, put cookies on the middle-top part of the oven.Everyone’s oven can be little different, so first time I would check cookies at 15th minutes to see if I need to adjust the temperature or time. 

And done! We can decorate the cookies🤩







會吵的孩子有糖吃-班機誤點 爭取

Trick or treat 👻 萬聖節又快到了，美國小孩都摩拳擦掌準備好要去挨家挨戶討糖吃。每個小孩都很有自信、理直氣壯的trick or treat! 這讓我想到「會吵的孩子有糖吃」。美國和台灣文化不同之處。

自從我來到美國之後，被生活漸漸磨練出了厚臉皮，也學習了「討糖精神」。上次去英國玩的時候，飛機晚飛了3小時，我們都坐上飛機了，就在原地乾等3小時，還是半夜，睡也不是不睡也不是。最後還是讓我們通通下飛機，跑到另外一個航廈。因為晚了這三個小時，導致我們排的第一個景點就去不了。我們回到家之後，寫了信跟聯合航空表達自己的不滿。航空公司第一次回信只說我們很抱歉！大大也說算了，但是我還是不放棄繼續回信。過了一個月後，突然收到回信說航空公司給我們一人$100航空credit。如果是以前，我大概也只會摸摸鼻子抱怨幾句就算了。我們後來用了這$100換了免費的機票去紐約玩和賞櫻。如果超過了誤點超過了12個小時,買票用的Chase CSP 信用卡還會理賠每個人上限$500 美金的相關費用。Chase 官方申請連結

所以呢，如果遇到人為因素的班機誤點，大家一定要有禮貌的爭取噢。不要讓自己的權益睡著了。如果拿不到誤點證明，我是用航空公司app 截圖顯示航班誤點時間。

以下是email template 供大家參考：

Hi,

I am writing to you regarding to the delayed flight (flight number) on (date). My confirmation number is (confirmation number). The flight was delayed XX hours due to XX reason.

The delayed flight caused us ($xxx) loss (attached receipt for your loss), and the great inconvenience of trip. I am seeking compensation of ($xxx) per passenger.

 I am looking to hearing from you .

Regards,

(You name)

在台灣「會吵的孩子有糖吃」這句話給人感覺有點負面，形容人無理取鬧，已取得自己想要的東西。所以大家都很含蓄，不太敢表達自己。

在美國，他們叫這種行為是Speak Up。如果有什麼想法，就要勇敢的說出來。這種文化，從小就開始培養，小孩萬聖節要開口討糖果。再大一點上小學的時候，有些小孩會兜售童子軍餅乾、檸檬水。學校上課的時候，老師也很鼓勵學生發問，不管什麼樣的問題，老師都會說這個是好問題。

快轉到出社會工作，我現在每年都會要寫個工作自我評論表。要寫自己這一年的成就（achievements), 未來的目標。開會的時候，經理就有說：這是你的責任去提醒你的上司你過去做了什麼，做了多好。因為上司很忙，同時管理很多人，如果你自己都不記得，還有誰會記得呢？如果你想要升遷，你可以表達你的意願，讓老闆知道你有意願。要不然老闆不是你心裡的蛔蟲，他們不會知道你想要升遷。我想想也是啦，如果兩個表現相同的人，一個有明確表達想要陞遷，另外一個啥都沒表示。我是老闆應該也會直接選擇有表達意願的人吧。畢竟大家都那麼忙，沒時間在那邊猜猜看吧。

Kalahari Resort -Wisconsin

 We visited the indoor water park when the weather was 40 F! Kalahari Resort made my dream come true! I could enjoy the water park without freezing my butt lol It was a great experience, and I really love it! 

The lobby of Kalahari impressed me, it made me feel like in Kalahari Africa. 

The resort is at the North West of Madison around 1 hour drive.

Besides the indoor water park, the resort also has arcade, bowling, mini golf, escape room, spa, and fine dining, bar. It has everything you can think of for resorts. 

If you like arts, you can pay attention to the picture, sculptures in the resorts, they are amazing. 

Generally speaking, my experience is good excerpt the hotel itself is bit old, and the resort is a little short staffed. Our room was finally ready after 4PM, and it was extremely warm all the time even we turned on the A.C and open the window (It was 40F outside).Well, at this price $380 per night, I definitely deserve to check in on time. I feel maybe staying in other hotels and only going to the indoor water park is a better option.  

We stayed one night at the resort so we can access the water park all day from 10 AM to 9PM. I was hoping the water park will be less popular after 7, but it is as popular as anytime. I spent most of my time on flow rider. See the video of me falling lol I love the water park, it was so fun! The lazy river, wave pool, water slides are nice too!  

Video Kalahari Water Park

For the restaurant, they have a fancy steak house: double cut. It is a very nice restaurant. I did not try this restaurant, we went to the Mongolian grill restaurant outside the resort instead. We all like the Mongolian restaurant, and it is all you can eat style. So everyone is able to find something they like.

For the Kalahari Resort, I also could not find any cash back or discounts, on Expedia or Rakuten. The only thing I can think of is to use the credit card that gives extra points for travel/hotel.  Usually, you can book through Expedia to earn the points and through Rakuten to earn 6% cash back. For the credit card, I would recommend Chase Sapphire Preferred, it gives you 2X points for travel, 5X if you book through Chase Portal. Besides, it has not foreign transaction fee, so it is perfect for traveling and dinning. 

If you have not have any of these accounts to save you money, I highly recommend you register one!

The below is my referral link so we both receive referral bonus:

Chase Sapphire Preferred

Use my link, you will get 60,000 points after you spend $4,000 in first 3 months, that's worth $750.

Rakuten

Use my Rakuten link and you can get $40 if spend $40 and cash bask on any partner website, e.g., Macys, Expedia, Target, in first 90days. Not sure when the promotion will end, so register while it last :)

Expedia

You will get $30 off booking hotels through Expedia.

American Butter Cream Frosting Recipe (Reduced Sugars)/ Last minute wedding cake savior

 I was decorating my brother in-law's wedding cake at the last minute on the wedding day. 

This butter cream recipe is very easy and quick. You can make the frosting in 10 minutes. It was a fun experience with family to decorate cake! I also invented the new way to pipe butter cream flowers if you don't have piping bags at hands. Because my brother in-law does not have piping bags, so it is a little challenging to decorate the cake without the tools I am familiar with. I usually get the baking supplies in Hobby Lobby when they are 50%off or other baking supplies website, but at this point we can’t wait for the bags get delivered. But we still made it!!

So, if you don't have piping bag, you can try the sandwich bags or other plastics bags. It is definitely not easy but but than nothing.  

The reduced sugar recipe:

4 sticks of unsalted butter (soften)

4 cups of powder sugar (can add more)

1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream 

1 tbsp vanilla extract 

pinch salt

just few drops food coloring (the wedding color is purple so I used purple coloring)

For some reason, the Wilton purple coloring tasted extremely bitter. It might ruin your cake if you add too much colorings.

Step 1: 

Using the mixer to whip the butter until it is fluffy and turns to lighter color at medium speed.

Step 2: 

Adding powder sugar and keeping whip the butter cream, and gradually adding the heavy whipping cream, vanilla extra, salts, food coloring.

That's all! Enjoy piping!

The piping tips I used: 1M, 2D,14.

Halloween Pumkin-shaped chocolate cake

 Halloween is approaching! What do we do to celebrate Halloween? Cakes! These are only butter cream and chocolate cake, no fondant. I personally don’t like the taste of fondant very much so I choose to make buttercream cake this time. Fondant is way easier to shape  but I will have to compromise the taste.

Ingredients for two cakes 

For pumkin body: 1/4 lb chocolate cake mix

For butter cream: 2 sticks soften unsalted butter cream

1.25 cups powdered sugar (you can more if you like your cake sweeter)

1/8 cup whipping cream 

A little salt 

A little vanilla extract  

 Food coloring-red, yellow, white

Steps:

1.added 1/4 cup water, 1/8cup oil, 1egg to cake mix and mix.

2.pour batter into the cake mold, bake 350 F for 15 minutes 

3. Take cakes out and wait them to cool. 

4. slice the uneven cake surface 

5.spread the butter cream and assemble the cakes

6. Coating the butter cream for first layer to avoid crumble. Then, piping the orange butter cream and sculpturing to pumkin shape.

7.use microwave to tempering chocolate chips.

First time for 15seconds, shake it and set another 10 seconds and mix the chocolate chips to make sure all chips are melting completely.then piping the tempering chocolate to the pumkin mouth, eyes, nose, and pumkin stems. 

美國奶油霜食譜

最近用美國奶油霜做了很多奶油霜花，我努力的調整低糖一下,這個已經是大部分American buttercream 糖粉的一半了。以下是比較低糖的食譜。母親節，情人節都可以拿來擠漂亮的花噢。之後分享鮮奶油和瑞士奶油霜作法和食譜。美國奶油霜的好處是簡單快速、成功率高且價格較便宜。奶油的存放也比鮮奶油容易。

食譜：室溫放軟兩條奶油 226 gram

1又1/4杯糖粉

一小匙香草精（可省）

1/8杯鮮奶油

鹽少許（如果覺得還是太甜）

食用色素少許（幾滴顏色就很濃了）

綠色葉子是用抹茶粉調色的

杯子蛋糕直徑約5.7公分

步驟：用中低速把奶油打發，打發到變淺色即可加入糖分。繼續打發逐漸慢速加入鮮奶油、香草精，調整到你想要的濃稠度就可以停止。不同品牌的糖粉、奶油能融合的鮮奶油不近相同。鮮奶油含有水份所以不能加太多，會使奶油霜失敗。如果覺得奶油霜太軟，可以放入冰箱幾分鐘,或者是多加一些糖粉。

打發成功的奶油霜會變白色沒有顆粒，有延展性可以塗抹。