Ice John's World

2012 Xmas Cookies Assembly

2012-12-27T17:32:00.000-06:00

Here are all the gluten free cookies I made this year for Christmas!

2012 Xmas Cookies 8 - Butterscotch Oatmeal Cheesecake Cookies

2012-12-27T17:27:00.003-06:00

Oatmeal shortbread crust with butterscotch with the lemon cheesecake filling. Perfect balance!

2012 Xmas Cookies 7 - Andes Creme de Menthe Cookies

2012-12-24T17:27:00.005-06:00

Andes Creme de Menthe Cookies - Nice minty cookies with Ades Creme de Menthe chocolate chips. Turn up the volume with Peppermint extract! (Gluten free)

2012 Xmas Cookies 6 - Maple Oats Pecan Cookies

2012-12-24T17:26:00.001-06:00

Maple Oats Pecan Cookies - Oatmeal with maple syrup, pecans, and cinnamon. A nice cookie if you are tired of cookies that are too sweet.

2012 Xmas Cookies 4 - Chocolate-Dulce De Leche Bars

2012-12-24T17:24:00.000-06:00

This is for those who really have the sweet tooth. Shortbread crust, sweet caramel, dark chocolate and beautiful swirl 3-color white chocolate. Holiday sweet must and a small piece is more than enough.oliday sweet must and a small piece is more than enough.

2012 Xmas Cookies 5 - Snickledoodle

2012-12-23T14:28:00.004-06:00

Traditional Snickledoodle cookies but this one is gluten free.

2012 Xmas cookies 3 - Nutella Chocolate Cookies

2012-12-23T14:26:00.003-06:00

Nutella Chocolate Cookies - Nutella enhances the chocolate flavor and make this cookie almost fudge like chewy.

2012 Xmas Cookies 2 - Peanut Balls

2012-12-23T14:22:00.002-06:00

Running late to make cookies and post so here are 3 more: Trisha Yearwood's Peanut Butter balls - Garth Brook's favorite! Light and Dark corn syrup, brown sugar, chunky peanut butter and rice cereal. One of the best desserts ever!

2012 Xmas cookies 1 - Double Vanilla Delight

2012-12-21T15:38:00.001-06:00

So the Christmas is getting close. It is time to make cookies again. Not sure if anybody still reads this blog or I just post for my own record.
Still at work this week so not too much time to make cookies. Here is the first one: Double Vanilla Delight. It has the soft nice Mexican wedding cookie kind of texture with real vanilla bean cream frosting. Gluten-Free!

Busy Spring And Summer

2012-06-19T15:53:00.000-05:00

Have not posted for ages! Cannot believe that it has been almost 4 months since my last post. Life has been busy. And Facebook takes over most of the social network. Wonder if anybody still writes blogs nowadays.

Valentine's Day Red Velvet Cake

2012-02-14T11:21:00.003-06:00

Happy Valentine's day! It is one of the sweetest day of the year so I have to make this red velvet cake (gluten free) with the boiled frosting. This is a family recipe from a friend from south of USA. It has very rich flavor of the cake and the frost is very whipped cream like but not greasy at all.

And I decide to decorate it with all the red and white hearts. It almost looks like they are trying to head back to home at the center of the cake to crowd together. That means all the love is merging together. :) Wish you and your love ones, single or married or with the significant others all have a wonderful Valentine's day!

Happy Lantern Festival

2012-02-07T10:59:00.003-06:00

Happy lantern festival! It is dragon year this year and of course there are lots of celebrations back in Asia. I have been very busy and do not have too much time to post here. But I still managed to make the Fa cake and year cake.

There is a big lantern festival going on in Taipei, Taiwan. It is quite a beautiful show that you can check out here. Of course, it is a usual working day here in US so no celebration at all. This winter actually is very mild and sunny. It sometimes confuses me that if I am still in Florida for work. :) But I still bought some sticky rice balls to eat to celebrate the lantern festival. Happy dragon year!

Christmas Snowflake Vanilla Pudding Raspberry Cake

2011-12-26T08:53:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas, everybody! It has been a while since I post anything here due to my trip back to Asia to visit my parents. Of course, the weather is quite different between south Asia and here in Wisconsin on northern America. Frost and snow winter has arrived for sure when I come back to here. Since I was short of time, I did not get to make too many cookies. I made this Snowflake cake instead. It is a vanilla cake with vanilla pudding mix in the batter. The frosting is the French vanilla pudding with cool whipped so it is very light and not overly sweet. The filling is the tart raspberry jam.

The decoration is lots of snowflakes made of white chocolate. It takes a while to make those but definitely worth the efforts. The cake was a hit yesterday in the Christmas gathering. Everybody loves it! Even my picky 9-year-old nieces and 11-year-old nephew ate several pieces! The cake was gone in no time! Happy holidays!

Thanksgiving Cakes

2011-11-29T15:55:00.003-06:00

This is a long overdue post and I cannot believe how long it has been since my last one! Is there still anybody reading my blog at all? It was the Thanksgiving weekend last week in US and every family was cooking a big meal for friends and family. Of course, people had to eat a lot in order to go shopping on Black Friday! LOL.

I made two cakes for the Thanksgiving. The first one is a pineapple carrots cake with cream cheese frosting: very moister, tasty and solid. It had one pound of the carrots in it so the whole cake had to weigh about 10 pounds! The second one is a gluten free pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting as well. It has cinnamon, all spice, clove, nutmeg, and pumpkin. Very tasty as well! Of course, I also made an apple pie but I left it in the oven to cool and completely forgot about it! Unfortunately, I did not remember it until 2 days later and it went straight to garbage can. The temperature has been dropped to freezing point and there was even some snow flakes in the air yesterday. The winter is coming....

More Autumn Colors

2011-10-06T14:34:00.005-05:00

I drove all the way to the gym during the lunch time today. When I got out of my car and was ready to grab my gym bag, I found out that I left my gym bag at home! So no gym workout today.

Instead, I walked around work office and took more beautiful autumn colors around work office. So many colors under the sunny sky and warm weather (70'F, that is, 20'C). It is just a beautiful day today!

Autumn Colors

2011-09-30T12:49:00.002-05:00

Summer has passed so fast that I feel that I did not even get a chance to enjoy any of it. Part of it is due to my several weeks of work trip down in Florida. However, autumn is my favorite season. All leaves have started to change colors and it is really beautiful. The temperature drops to around 40F degrees (5'C) to 50F degrees (10'C). Autumn is definitely here and it is time to bake some apple desserts! Expect some bakery posts from me soon!

Smoke In The Air By Wildfire From Minnesota

2011-09-13T16:12:00.003-05:00

Due to the cold front, the smoke of the wildfire in Minnesota gets to blow hundreds of miles down over to SE Wisconsin area. The sunny sky becomes like a cloudy day and you can smell the buring in the air. Of course, I just had to go outside to jog and get my nose and eyes all irritated.

You can see a satelliate picture here.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes and Margarita Cheese Cake

2011-07-13T15:54:00.004-05:00

Time passes fast! The summer suddenly arrives and it has already almost in the middle of the summer now. I have been a bad blogger here but it is so busy always in the summer since everybody here wants take advantage of the short warm days.

It was the birthday for my nephew and twin nieces on this past weekend. I made these cute cupcakes baked right in the ice cream cones. Topped with either vanilla or chocolate frosting or both! Decorated like the real ice cream! Kids love them!

For the 4th of July weekend, I made an interesting cheese cake that features triple-sec, margarita mix, and tequila, condensed milk, cream cheese and whipped cream in the filling. Then it is topped with triple-sec, margarita mix, and tequila frozen gels. I got this recipe from a LJ blogger friend. And it is really great! Cool and tasty, best for the hot summer!

Memorial Day Weekend Cakes!

2011-05-31T15:37:00.002-05:00

It has been a long time since I post some baking stuffs here! This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend in US. And it was also the starting of the gardening season for this part of the US. There were so many people crowded in all the garden centers and nurseries to buy plants, trees, and flowers to plant in the yards/gardens that it was not even funny.

Of course, there were also lots of parties and activities going on since it was a 3-day long weekend. Besides, the weather was finally nice! I had a baking festival going on to prepare cakes for several occasions. Here are the 3 cakes I made, all gluten free! The first one was the mini-banana bundt cakes with lemon glaze. Very moisture!

The 2nd one was the sour cream spiced chocolate cake. This is a very nutritious cake that contains 6 eggs and lots of sour cream. It is so moisture and the combinations of coca and ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and salt are just great. The 3rd one is the strawberry cake with the cream cheese frosting. Since it is the strawberry season, I just had to incorporate the fresh strawberry puree both in the cake and the cream cheese frosting. Very yummy and fresh!

Travel Travel More Travel

2011-05-20T15:13:00.001-05:00

Cannot believe how long I have not post here. Still around and read posts but just no time to post. Just went to Montreal Canada. Nice city and super friendly French Canadians!

Gluten Free Cream Cheese Oats Cranberry Bar

2011-03-19T14:00:00.003-05:00

Finally, the spring seems to be on the corner! It is sunny, warm and the temperature is about 50'F (10'C). Most of the snow has gone and the crocus in the garden has started to bloom! Amazing! Well, I decided to make this new recipe, "Cream Cheese Oats Cranberry Bars". It has 4 layers of goodies. The base crust and the topping crumbles have oats, cinnamon, and nutmeg and my special gluten free mix. The 2nd layer is the combination of cream cheese, sweetened condense milk, orange juice, and brown sugar. The 3rd layer is the cooked cranberry with orange juice and zest. The cranberry layer is spooned to drop in cream cheese layer to create marble effects. The final product is just a beautiful and tasty spring dessert!

Long Winter

2011-03-10T08:57:00.002-06:00

Just when we are ready to welcome spring, it snowed again. This time, it dumped almost 5 inches (13 cm) of heavy wet snow and made a big mess everywhere. Guess winter will be here for a while. The same frozen winter situation for the Wisconsin politics. The teachers union busted policy passed last night in Wisconsin capitol. More messy political fight ahead for lots of people in this state for sure. So it is indeed a bad winter after all.

Lemon Ginger Cake

2011-03-06T17:39:00.001-06:00

What to do on a sunny but cold winter weekend? Baking! Lemon ginger cake! It has fresh lemon zest, lemon juice, ground ginger, candied ginger, cardamon, and sour cream. Just the right sweetness, moisture and yummy! And it is gluten free!

Hawk Came To Visit

2011-03-03T08:34:00.003-06:00

It is already March but there is absolutely no sign of spring at all. As a matter of the fact, several waves of snow storms are on their way to this region in the next several days. Talking about the long depressed winter. Within all the frozen and white ice and snow, a hawk flew to the tree branch outside the office and wandered around for a while. We have a bird feeder around that area so it must be coming to see if it can grab some birds as food. Unfortunately, most of birds had escaped so it just sat there for a long time and left with empty stomach. Wish spring comes soon (actually, not for another 2 months).

Sunny Bitterly Cold Winter

2011-02-10T07:26:00.002-06:00

It has been bitterly cold recently. It is windchill -25'F (-31'C) ouitside now! And it is only -8'F (-22'C) without wind even though it is so sunny! Come on, let's make it even colder! My, this winter is showing its power!