In fact I had a hard time calling these rainbow muffins. Besides the colors, it is nothing like a rainbow, but a splash of colors.

But who cares! They were tasty, and they brought a great deal of fun time for me and my son.

Ingredients (12 regular sized muffins):

The past three weeks were probably one of the best time for my mother. Not because she came to Canada for the first time. In fact if not for you both, she would have gone back home the very next day after she landed.

It was the time she spent with you and me, shortest yet sweetest in her life. And in my life.

Thank you for bringing her over. I had a chance to be a daughter all over again. Best mother’s day gift for us both.

Caffeine. All about caffeine. From the crust to the filling to the garnish.

Ingredients (6 mini tarts):

Directions:

Because it is the first time for my mother and her sister to come to North America, and we figured what would be more canadian than taking a roadtrip. So we decided to drive ten hours from Vancouver, BC to Banff, AB. TAKING YOU BOTH.

Normally I would have started to come up with lots of worries that would keep us from even thinking about the word ROADTRIP again for the next ten years. But when your father suggested this, I was all causal and relaxed – your grandmother came here to spend time with you both, now they have ten full hours of you!

I am not going to complain about how you screamed all along the road that we had to struggle leaving you both away at every gas station stop. Instead I am going to tell you how much fun we had over this epic roadtrip.

Like……whenever you had a banana in your hand, Ethan, you would mechanically raise your voice and utter, “O Canada. Our home and native land…..” Every time we had to decide if we should stop the car and salute to you.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Like……all Chinese moms are insane. And mine insisted to take a rice cooker along. She thought it took the same effort for your father to drive as a construction worker to operate a jackhammer to drill concrete pavement. “How the hell would he be able to regain the energy without bowls of rice?” she asked when I was too busy rolling my eyes. But OH THANK YOU MOM! The first night at the motel, before me and your father finished unloading, the DINNER was ready – a big pot of steamy rice with mushroom, Chinese sausage and pork ribs. I bet the Aussie next room had a hard time controlling himself not to knock our door demanding to only smell it.

Like……although the weather wasn’t cooperative that we were not able to see the magnificent view of the famous Lake Louise, we still got to capture some breathtaking landscape. Except every time my aunt woke up from nap, she had a hard time telling the difference from what she had seen before. All she was able to recognize was SNOW and MOUNTAIN and TREE. Ethan, I’m glad that you were awake most of the time making noise and demanding to listen to the same song. Already a wonderful entertainment for my aunt.

Like……how this picture reminds me of the very first trip that your grandmother took me along when I was a kid. All the memories.

Like……the first time you put on your rainboots, Maya, you went crazy stomping in puddles and kicking snow. The joy on your face made you become one superstar that cheered up everyone around you, including that group of tourists who found you so adorable that they fought to take pictures of you.

Like……Maya, I knew that you would have a hard time falling asleep in the new environment. However, I didn’t expect you would become all calm and mellow when I lied you down next to me, and soothe yourself to sleep right away. The next morning you woke up before me, you gently touched my face with your hand and pressed your face to mine to see if I was awake. Not a sound. Oh my god, how much did i miss that?

Like……on the way home, Ethan, you asked, “Are we going to Banff now?”

How much does it cost to have this look-fancy-but-unbelievably-easy-to-make cake at a high-end restaurant?

Probably more than what it takes for you to make enough for 10 persons. And I am not even joking? Cheap, simple and quick to whip up a big bowl of batter, pour it into a couple individual ramekins. Keep in the fridge and put them in the oven when you are chatting with your guests after dinner, before you know it, they are ready to serve. Impressive.

Why just one month has gone by and you both seem like a couple years older?

Maya, I think you have taken a dive into your terrible twos. Shouldn’t I be well-prepared having already gone through your brother’s terrible twos? Yes. I should. In fact, I am. For six months later. NOT NOW. Not ready to handle the situation when you act like I’m assaulting you when I try to feed you, shoving away that big full spoonful of tomato sauce onto the pure white wall, situation when you start to roll your body on the floor in a grocery store just because I refuse to let you lick that slab of beef ribs, situation when you fight my hand off yours trying to go down the stairs all by yourself, situation when you only have options of me holding you or you being on the floor, but not floating in the air where you can fly up above the refrigerator and pour out everything from the inside of those 17 cereal boxes. If there are laws against people under the age of 21 pretending to be 21 and go clubbing and be alcoholic, there should be laws against a child who is six months away from the age of two acting so terribly two.

There is no reason for your constant outrageous pitch of scream. Any time when your mouth is not eating, it is screaming. My mother flew all the way from Hong Kong to visit us for three weeks. The first morning when your usual nagging started that at one point you were stomping your feet against the floor so bad that you were going to crash it, I ran out and brought you back to the bathroom with me, set you next to the toilet and handed you a box of tampons. You shut up right away. Worried if I just flushed you away, my mother peeked inside the bathroom and shrieked. You had opened 2 tampons, one of them inside your mouth. She freaked out yet had a hard time not to laugh. When she intended to reach out trying to take it away from your mouth as she worried you might choke, I was all relaxed, “Mom, the most important thing is she’s not making any noise.” I think she was quite proud about the fact that she had raised a responsible daughter who happens to be an innovative parent. Mom, so much more for you to experience from this magnificent wild animal zoo in the following weeks. WELCOME.

“Bob the Builder” is now your favorite television show. In fact the only part that you enjoy the most is the opening theme song. Every morning after breakfast, you will pass me the remote and go all, “Bobbbbbbbbb! Bobbbbbbb!” wanting me to turn it on for you. You will spin and tap dance on the floor when the song starts, and request to play it from the beginning when it ends. Last time your grandmother tried to make you happy and sang you the song. At first, you looked pretty excited that Bobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb came out, seconds later you looked at her strangely like, stop, you are not doing it right, please just turn the real thing back on. Then you passed her the remote.

I thought I would have to hold my tears when I started to type THIS – Ethan, you are starting to grow out of your nap. First, you started to refuse to fall asleep after lunch. Last time it took 14 times of you going out of the room and being taken back or threatened to stay in the garage. And when we were finally convinced that you should be sleeping because of the silence, which was 40 minutes later, the silence only lasted for half an hour. At the beginning, we though we would all be dead. NO NAP NO LIFE. But turns out it has created a window for some me-and-you time which we both missed badly. We can play board game and blocks together without worrying your sister will shatter everything. I will ask you to draw something silly that you will draw something even sillier, and we will laugh so hard so blissful. And that’s when I continued to feel your growing knowledge to EVERYTHING that I might not even know. Once you drew a thing that you insisted was glue. How do you present glue on a drawing? I have no idea. I asked you what glue was supposed to look like.

“It looks like glue.” you said.

“Okay. Last time you used it to make art. What did you feel playing with it?”

You giggled at me and answered, “It feels like……..GLUE, MAMMY.” Like, why it’s so hard for you to understand?

And this is one of the many reasons I love to hang out with you – the conversations that you lead me into are always addictively fun. So addictive that if I had known talking with kids could be this entwining I would have had kids, like, forty years ago.

The other day when we were lounging on the couch flipping channels, we came across a scene where a couple done having sex and prepared to get dressed. “Why they take off the clothes?” you asked. Seriously I am totally aware of the importance of sex education for kids. And I know that I will be one sophisticated mother who gets herself prepared to this topic. Just I didn’t expect it would happen now for a three-year-old. No manual has ever mentioned that sex education should start this soon. The shock struck me so hard that I could only come up with a dumbest answer, “Because they are hot.” Fortunately you seemed to pretty contented with that. Except a brief moment later, we reached a channel where “Mad Men” was playing. What else can you see in “Mad Men” except smoking and sex? You reacted speedily fast and asked, “Mommy, are they hot too?”

“……Yes.” I answered, biting my lips to bleed.

“Why everyone is hot? I WANT TO BE HOT TOO!”

Every morning at around 7am, you wake up and come to our bed. We used to take you back to your room, so we could sleep for another 10 minutes before you came back to ours again. For some reason you’ve started to conclude that the wake-up time for the whole family is 8am. And now you will just come to our bed, lay down next to me and wait till 8am. You will snuggle deep into my neck and sometimes face wash me with your face. This is always a wonderful feeling, because I know you are not doing it just so that I will give you my iphone or a gummy bear. You are snuggling for the sake of snuggling, and I know these days are numbered and that it will only be a few years before you won’t be able to say the word Mommy without throwing up.

Kids, we know that the more you grow up, the less likely you are willing to give us kisses. Now we routinely ask you for a kiss or thousands of it whenever you request for something, because we all are crazy about your kisses. Maya, you are always the generous one. The amount of kisses that you give out is so enormous that one time when you asked for a cookie, both me and your father told you to kiss us each like 70 times before you completely forgot the fact that you kissed us because you wanted the cookie. I cannot put into word about how magical your kiss is to kill the stress over my head or to put a smile back to my teary face. A kiss, a hug, a  snuggle, you will never know how many years of my life you have healed with this one gesture. Thank you.

This suit was a gift from your father’s big sister TWO FULL YEARS AGO. I don’t know why it still fits perfectly. I swear to your grandmother that I’ve been feeding you properly. Like last time I made mac and cheese in a 9″x9″ pan, and you ate half of it. The other half, your sister finished it.

And I’m not even joking. You’ve been eating like a normal person now. Remember the days when you would refuse to eat three days in a row? Now after 3 bowls of rice and a big slice of chocolate cake at dinner, you will ask to have another bowl of rice within the following two hours. Like seriously? And you will be all, “Yes, I am serious.”

But that is not the point I am posting this. After these years, I still have a hard time figuring out what is bigger, your mouth or your eyes?

Happy Monday! How about something pinky, girly and tasty to start your week.

This chocolate cake and meringue buttercream combination has been mesmerizing me FOREVER. Because the taste is really to-die-for. And the versatility is totally boundless. The buttercream can be easily converted into Espresso buttercream, vanilla buttercream, lemon frosting or raspberry buttercream.

Ingredients (8-inch 5-layered cake):

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease five 8-inch round cake pans, and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl, whisk the boiling water and cocoa powder until smooth.

Beat butter and sugar together on medium speed in a bowl of a standing mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in buttermilk and vanilla extract.

Reduce the speed to low and beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by half of the chocolate mixture. Repeat with another 1/3 of the flour mixture and the remaining chocolate mixture. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just incorporated.

Divide the batter (about 1 cup) and pour into the prepared pans, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Bake 13 to 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Place the cakes (in the pans) on a wire rack to cool. Then invert the cakes onto a greased rack.  Cool completely before frosting.

To prepare the buttercream, put egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl over a pot of simmering water. Use an electric hand mixer to beat constantly until the sugar has completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot. Remove from heat.

With whisk attachment, continue whipping the mixture in a standing mixer until thick, glossy, and cool.

Switch over to paddle attachment. While mixing on medium speed, continuously add softened butter in chunks until incorporated, and mix until it has reached a silky smooth texture. If curdles, keep mixing and it will come back to smooth.  Add vanilla and salt, mix well.

Right before frosting the cake, add the strawberry puree in the buttercream and  beat  for  another  10  seconds.

To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on your serving plate and spread with 1/2 cup buttercream. Repeat this process until all cake layers are placed. Smear buttercream on top and sides of the cake.

Garnish with color sprinkles.

Cover and refrigerate the cake. Leave out in room temperature for at least an hour prior to serving.

Over my first attempt to tie your hair, I almost killed myself. Or you might think I was trying to kill you.  In fact it really surprised me because all along you’ve been pretty good letting me pin your bangs with a hair clip. And I thought you would love to have your hair tied into little curly ponytails. I love it. YOU HATED IT. You were screaming so hard thinking I was fighting to pull off your hair. When I took you to the mirror trying to show you how cute you were, you cried even harder seeing your hair all GONE. Gone up above the ear getting ready to fly away.

I have to admit that I was devastated by your reaction. All I wanted was to make look more girly. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you play with your brother’s trucks and train sets in the first place, because you are getting to a point where you are only fascinated with cars and toy guns. Plus the fact that I haven’t bought you enough amount of dresses. I started to consider that maybe I should get you a Barbie, make you to hold it all the time. Just in case it would help.

Yesterday I couldn’t help but try to tie your hair again. I got myself prepared with a full table of snack before I put you on. Being ecstatic surrounded by food, you focused all your energy trying to unwrap the cheese stick and chocolate, but totally neglected that I was trying to kill you again.

And Tah-Da…..what a great accomplishment I had achieved. Except I completely forgot about the fact that your brother would chase you around the house wanting to pull your ponytails all day long.

Simplicity is what these muffin are about. So simple that for those who don’t want nuts, fruits, or anything in their muffin, I’m sure you will love these.

Ingredients (12 muffins):

Preheat over to 425F. Grease muffin tin or line with muffin liners.

In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth. While the mixer is running, slowly add the white and brown sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, waiting for each to be incorporated before adding the next. Add vanilla and mix until light and fluffy.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Working in batches, add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, alternating with milk.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tins, filling them no more than 3/4 full.

Bake until risen and browned, about 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool for few minutes until you are able to hold them.

To prepare the topping, combine the sugar and cinnamon to make cinnamon sugar.

Dip the top of each muffin in the melted butter, then roll into the cinnamon sugar.

Serve warm.