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VANILLA LATTE is a blog dedicated to food & travel with occasional random stuff thrown in. It is managed and written by me, Maggie Ha.


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Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting 18Aug11

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

Quite possibly one of my favorite ways to consume bananas… in cake form and with chocolate! These cupcakes are so fragrant and scrumptious looking just sitting on my kitchen counter, I had to have one with my cuppa tea this morning. Okay I guess the tea was more meant to go with my cupcake than the other way around. I mean it’s a hearty breakfast right? There’s bananas in them!

I pretty much buy bananas with the intention of eating about 2 and then patiently waiting for the remainder of the bunch to ripe for a few days so I can make banana bread. I associate banana bread with breakfast because the cafe’s in Sydney served them as a breakfast menu item. Mmmm, toasted with a little bit of butter melted on top. Wish my local cafe here had banana bread as an option!

I adapted this banana cupcake recipe from Martha, adding a little here and there. I used my go-to simple chocolate frosting recipe because to me, banana goes with chocolate like peanut butter and jelly. Hope you like them as much as I do!

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Raspberry Swirl Cheescake 5Aug11

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake

Let me start off by saying… I don’t particularly love cheesecakes. When it comes to dessert choices, I almost always go for the fruit tart, anything chocolate or ice cream. But every once in a while… I just want a good slice of cheesecake with lots of crust. Vini has been requesting cheesecake to be put at the top of the “Please Make This For Me!!!” list for quite some time… so I played around with my Red, White & Blue Cheesecake and came up with this Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake.

My favorite part of any cheesecake is the crust. So I generally make crusts that go all the way to the top of the sides so there’s plenty of graham cracker goodness for every bite. The raspberry swirl is a perfect combination of tangy fruitiness to the rich creamy filling. This dish would be great for a dinner party, the pretty marbling will definitely impress guests! Cheesecakes are very time consuming and require at least 6 hours of refrigeration after all the baking is done but the result is definitely worth it. Bon appétit!
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Latest Latte

Ground Support

My local favorite is currently Ground Support in SOHO. I go there almost every day for a smooth creamy soy cappuccino or if it’s hot out an iced soy latte. When I’m not in a hurry to run out, I try to take a few extra minutes to enjoy the coffee in the shop… you know, chat with the staff, catch up on some calls and best of all… people watch. Always some interesting characters in NYC!


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