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French Silk Chile Chai Chocolate Pie

My dad is one of those people that says you’re supposed to eat hot foods when it’s hot outside. I think he just wants an excuse to eat hot bowls of noodles all year round! The weather in Washington DC has been sweltering recently, which I actually enjoy–I’m always cold so I love when I can finally wear dresses and shorts without goose bumps.

This recipe is a combination of cold and hot, as part of Marx Food’s Fire on Ice Chile Recipe Contest.

Update: I brought this pie in to work and everyone loved it — they actually liked it better without knowing there was chile powder in it since it was a surprise. They also were amazed I made my own chile powder! The contest is now open for voting, so if you like this recipe or wanted to see the other entries, please head over there now to vote. 

I recently was on vacation in Vancouver and Seattle where it was a balmy 50-70 degrees. At one of the many coffee and tea shops I stopped by, I got a house-made chai made with fresh ground ginger and cayenne. That unique and delicious drink is part of the inspiration of this recipe. This recipe for French Silk Pie has been in my boyfriend’s family for years and I thought it was time for a new twist. This pie is usually served for birthdays or holidays in a normal pie crust.

I used a combination of homemade chile powder and chile syrup to get the subtle heat I wanted in this cool, rich dessert. The chile powder is a combination of dried habanero, japone, ancho, guajillo,  pequin, and cascabel peppers. The peppers range from mild to hot and savory to slightly sweet, so I combined them all for a complex, multi-dimensional chile powder by following Marx Food’s directions on how to make your own chile powder. I only have a sesame seed grinder and food processor, so I used the processor since it’s used for my pie crust as well.

I added a ½ teaspoon chile powder to the crust and the chocolate filling and also added ½ teaspoon chai cocoa powder to temper the spice. If you don’t have chai cocoa powder, you can use regular cocoa powder or just decrease the amount of chile. If the heat is too much, omit the chile simple syrup (1 guajillo chile, rehydrated, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, simmered together) and add more whipped cream.

Go check out all the other entries in the Fire on Ice Contest over at Marx Foods! Thanks again to Marx Foods for the great Chiles, I have many more plans for them, including chili oil!


Note: I was given the chiles free of charge from Marx Foods, though all thoughts and recipes are my own.

Tagalongs® Cupcakes & 100 Years of Girl Scouts

This year is the 100-year celebration of lots of things, including Girl Scouts! I’ve been a Girl Scout for over 20 years and one of the best things about Girl Scouting is Girl Scout Cookies! Selling cookies teaches about budgeting, setting goals, and managing money. Another great thing about Girl Scout Cookies is that we get to buy them! They’re only available for for a short time during the year, which makes them test all the more better once you finally get your hands on them. My favorite are Samoas, followed closely by Thin Mints, but it seems that everyone else’s favorites are Tagalongs!

My sister’s Girl Scout troop was having a mini-celebration in honor of the 100 Year Celebration in March so I took these popular cookies and brought them over as a special treat for them. My sister’s troop (except for her) are all seniors in high school, so this will be their last year as “Girl Scouts”.  After they graduate high school, if they choose to remain in Girl Scouts, it will be as “Adult Girl Scouts”, not as participants. They loved these cupcakes and made their own “100-year” decorations.


This recipe has been deemed a "hit at home" and is one of the tastiest recipes on Hapa-tite!

Chinese Roast Pork Integrale Risotto

A few weeks ago I entered to be part of Marx Food‘s The Integrale Gauntlet. At first I was very intimidated by the title, but that’s probably because I’ve been watching a bit too much medieval-themed TV shows recently. The more I read about the “Gauntlet”, the more excited I became. This challenge is “all about rice”, one of my favorite foods!

After I entered the gauntlet, I was sent one kilo package of Italian Organic Integrale Rice — my mission was to make an original savory risotto.

Though rice is one of my favorite foods, I’ve only made brown rice a few times and risotto only once. Ashamedly, the one time I did make risotto was from one of those instant risotto packets back when I was in college. I’ve always been intimidated of risotto–the care and attention it takes, as well as the reputation it has for being so easy to “do poorly” or “just wrong.”

Luckily, Marx Foods has a good framework that broke down the process into general steps, noting when embellishments could be added. Using their steps as a guide, I formulated a recipe using some of my favorite flavors and inspired by a recent trip to a new dim sum restaurant nearby.

I chose to make a risotto with shiitake mushrooms, ginger, water chesnuts, pickled cucumbers, cilantro, scallions, and char siu (chinese roast pork). The end result was something that was creamy and rich with the taste of good memories though balanced with acidity and crunch from the vegetables.

For my first time making risotto from scratch, I was quite proud of myself. This is a great healthier version of risotto with it being organic and brown, and it has the added bonus of being a one pot meal!

This dish paired well with a deep red wine we picked up at the local store; the flavor of the wine helped cleanse between bites of the risotto since the char siu was quite fatty. I used about 2 cups (my rice cup measures 180ml) and had generous dinner and lunch portions the next day for two people.

Cast your vote!

This recipe has been deemed a "hit at home" and is one of the tastiest recipes on Hapa-tite!

Banana & Cream Cheese Muffins

I was snowed in this weekend (still snowed in actually!), and didn’t have a chance to eat the bananas I had picked up for on-the-go breakfasts. They were looking awfully brown, so I decided to make banana muffins! This was a great recipe because it used up the last of my cream cheese, butter, and of course, bananas.

A quick search through my Google Reader yielded many results, but I don’t have a loaf pan and I didn’t have any whole or buttermilk on hand. I also didn’t have any nuts, so I subbed the cup of nuts in the recipe below with an extra banana.

Cupcake Exchange: Chocolate Chai Spice


The first snow of the year! (Dec 5th)

I went to a Cupcake Exchange/Bake-Off as part of a Yelp event. I really like Chai, but I don’t like buttercream frosting, so I was interested as to how these would turn out. The recipe, from The Cupcake Blog, had a recipe to make your own chai spice, but I chose to buy Chai teabags and cut them open.

These cupcakes turned out surprisingly delicious! The chocolate wasn’t too deep and the cake was firm (with a crust on top) yet soft on the inside. I didn’t really get the chai flavor, but it might be because of the chai that I used and the fact that this was a chocolate cake.

This was also my first attempt at piping frosting (which I think turned out alright). I tried to make chocolate mint leaves, but I didn’t put enough chocolate on the leaves so when I peeled the chocolate off, the leaves broke. I was able to salvage about three leaves from the fifty I attempted to make and put silver dragees on the rest.

I didn’t win first place, but I did win third (which I later learned was actually 4th place after some math was recalculated). The first place winner was a blow-torched graham cracker crust S’mores cupcake and second place was an Irish Car Bomb cupcake, which I couldn’t really compete with. If I had a molten lava center to this cake, I’m sure I would have won!

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