Yummy, yummy in my tummy!

A little shopping and a pantry raid.

2009-07-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

**I'm sorry I haven't uploaded my Hawaii photos on Flickr just yet. I will blog about my trip to Kauai soon. I hope you enjoy this post**

I recently went to Ross for I don't know what, but whenever I go there, I always end up with some fantastic finds aka: stuff that I think I need but it just takes up a lot of space and I only ever use it probably once or twice a year. Whew!

I can only think that was a Brioche pan- $4 it is made in Italy and it just looks so gorgeous- and that stainless steel cake plate for $8. I could not pass that up.

And who could pass up these hilarious tin trays? $3 each when they are originally $15.00- I love 'em both because they make me smile=)

Okay, now on to the pantry raid. I am going to have to take a picture of my pantry sometime. It is packed with all kinds of packaged edibles. I have cleared it several times to donate to my local foodbank, but I somehow manage to fill it all back up. Any who, my pantry pick on this day was this:

Akora Bahlsen Dark Chocolate Jam filled Gingerbread cookies, Cake Mix, and some chocolate morsels.

I bought the cookies because my husband loves gingerbread cookies and it was only .99 cents at the grocery store. It didn't taste that great so it stayed in the pantry. I always have a stock of box cake mixes and chocolate morsels because sometimes I like to practice cake decorating and give the cakes/cupcakes away to family and friends.

What better way to use my new brioche pan for this experimental concoction i'm about to bake. It might even look like a giant cupcake! Well, lets see how it all goes down.

So I mixed the cake according to package directions, chopped up the gingerbread cookies, mixed it into the batter and then added the chocolate morsels. Now i'm going to prepare the brioche pan. Here is a tip I learned from my cake decorating class. If you are baking in a pan that is 3" deep or larger than an 8" round, you will need to use a flower nail or a heating core to get the center of the cake to bake.

Here is my pan and flower nail greased with baking spray and ready for the cake batter.

Into the oven at 350 degrees. This took about an hour and 20 minutes to bake. The edges cooked first, but it still came out looking great- except for when I tried to get it out of the pan.

A big piece came off, but it shows how nicely the gingerbread cookies and chocolate morsels baked into it. I ate that broken off piece and I tell you- it was absolutely DIVINE! It didn't come out how I expected it to look like (like a big giant cupcake), but it sure was delicious- my husband loved it and had it with coffee, and had some more after that.

**i'm sorry for this horrible, blurry photo, but I was so excited to eat a slice after seeing that melted chocolate piece in the middle of the cake, do you see it....OMG, soooo goood!!!***
I sliced it up and I told my husband to bring it to work because I was eating more than my fair share. I wrapped it up for him to take to work and I struggled not to take some for myself. I think I may have sneaked a slice before he left.

My foodie blogroll spotlight for this blog is: My Baking Addiction. Such a cute and delicious blog!

Portobello Mushroom Tuna Melt

2009-07-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

This is the 2nd recipe i've tried making from the show Cook Yourself Thin. Yum. It really is. I don't think i've had the pleasure of trying a real Tuna Melt Sandwich. I'm sure it is mouth watering good- but you should give this one a try ~especially if your trying to get into that bikini before summer is over. Lets meet the stars of the show:

4 Portobello mushrooms, stemmed, gills removed **I have 2 in the photo because I didn't want to make all 4. I later divided up the tuna mixture and refrigerated half of it for another day
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 5-ounce can albacore tuna packed in water, drained **I used regular canned tuna
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley **I used a 2 teaspoons of dried parsley
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper
4 thin slices Swiss cheese
4 slices tomato **I love Heirloom tomatoes and that one was just calling me at the grocery store
1/2 cup mixed baby greens

1. Preheat the broiler. Using a spoon, remove the gills from the mushrooms by gently scooping them out. Brush the mushrooms with 1 tablespoon oil. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet and broil, turning once until softened and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

2. While the mushrooms are cooking, in a bowl, combine tuna, celery, parsley, lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and remaining tablespoon oil.

3. Remove the mushrooms from the oven. Divide tuna mixture among mushrooms, and spread evenly in caps. Top each with a slice of cheese, and broil until cheese melts, about 2 minutes. Top each mushroom with a tomato slice and 2 tablespoons greens, and serve immediately.

That plate of 2 mushroom tuna melts is only 539 calories. Compare that to a McDonalds cheeseburger which is 300 calories. (and your thinking in your head right now that you would take the cheeseburger any day over a mushroom tuna melt right?!! LOL!!) I have to do these healthy recipes every now and then to counter all the junk I make and have to taste- so I feel less guilty=) They have dessert recipes too! Be on the lookout for that because they have a Red Velvet Cupcake recipe too. I'm curious to see & taste it!

My fellow Foodie Blogroll member spotlight for this post is: Gastronomer's Guide because the Seared Scallops and Strawberry Mascarpone Tart is calling my name- looks so yummy!

I lurve me some good food...& drink=)

2009-07-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

Recently, two of my girlfriends and I went on a Gourmet Food Tour of Seattle. We had a GREAT time! We paid $65.00+tax per person and it was worth it. Do you want to see what that kinda money gets ya? Well let me take you on a free picture tour of all our stops. I wish you could smell, taste, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Seattle like we did. Lets start on the food tour, shall we?
1st stop: Andaluca Restaurant inside the Mayflower Hotel

At Andaluca, we tried a pintxo (appetizer) of Crisp Duck cake. It was placed on top of Cucumber Raita and topped with an Apricot Chutney. The duck cake is made from spicy ground duck rolled in bulgur and fried in olive oil to make it crispy. The Crisp Duck cake was paired with a house made Sangria, which was made with many spices and included fresh strawberries. The restaurant is nice enough to have this recipe and many others included on their website=) The recipe for the Crisp Duck Cake is available here.

2nd stop: Serious Pie. One of the many restaurants famous Chef Tom Douglas owns in Seattle. For you Iron Chef fans, Tom Douglas beat Iron Chef Morimoto!

Buffalo mozzarella, San marzano tomato Pizza. **So Yum!**

Roasted mushrooms, Truffle cheese Pizza. **My favorite of the 2 we tried. Love this**

This I have to say is THE BEST wood fired pizza I have ever tasted. It was my first time to taste anything with truffles. It has a very distinct taste and I love, love, love it. Next time i'm in Seattle, I will definitely have to stop by and order that among other things. Their menu has so many things I would love to try. I wish there was a food tour of all of Tom Douglas' restaurants in Seattle. I would definitely take family and friends on that tour anytime=)

On our way to the next stop!!!

I love beautiful sunny days in Seattle=and so does everyone else, the market was packed! Now if you watch Grey's Anatomy, i'm sure you have seen these places on tv. Look at the ferry boat just under the flag on the mid-left of the photo! McDreamy loves ferryboats (**sigh**)...okay, back to food.....and were walking....

Down the hill and lets take a left.

Pike Place Market, the place known for the flying fish! Not our destination, so lets keep walking...

Beautiful fresh produce! We pass by many, many vendors at the market.

This is the view the side vendors see. The famous signage that is splashed on postcards, movies, and tv shows. The market has been open since 1907. It is one of the oldest continually operated public markets in the United States. There's a little trivia for ya! Look at the group of foodies all excited to get to our next destination=)

We're almost there! Just follow the man with the pink umbrella! It makes it easier to find him since its summertime and there are a slew of tourists, like ourselves- who might get lost in the mix. It's just down the hill this way!

3rd stop: Il Bistro, an Italian restaurant opened for 30 years located underneath the Pike Market Place. We were told it was a popular restaurant to "pop the question"-so they have seen many engagements. We were also told it was haunted oooOOOhhhhOOOooooo. It was Zagat rated this year as well.

We made it! Me and my girlfriends.**Thats me in the middle**We're very happy as you can see- and fully qualified food testers=)

Clams and mussels Risotto served with Sangiovese Wine.
The risotto was cooked al dente. It was very creamy and delicious with the red wine.

For our next stop, we head up the hill and into Pike Market Place.

4th stop: Creminelli Fine Meats, a store opened by an Italian named Cristiano Creminelli that produces Italian salamis and sausages.

Taste samples of the Barolo Sausage. They describe it best in their website:
"The addition of Italy’s most renowned and appreciated red wine to Creminelli’s all-natural fresh pork sausage was a bold move, but perhaps an inevitable one. The result of this powerful duo has a lot of people saying, “Together at last!” We use meat from well cared for animals that produce pork with excellent marbling and tenderness, great flavor thanks to a diet of white grains and whey with no antibiotics or other synthetic feeds. We mix the coarsely ground pork with a subtle array of organic spices and stuff it into a natural pork casing for a sausage that tastes purely and genuinely good."

Barolo, Piccante, and Tartufo Salami
The Tartufo Salami was by far, my favorite of the three. Here is why:

"The Black Summer Truffles (Tuber aestivum) spring up between June and October in northern Italy. They are found by specially-trained dogs who sniff out their hiding spots where they are then gathered by hand. The local mushroom enthusiasts each have a secret spot or two where they hope to find some of their own truffles from year to year. Creminelli has hidden a few of them away in our Salami Tartufo and you are sure to find them there each time you go looking. Their delicate aroma works magic with the all-natural pork to create the Salami Tartufo."

Our second tasting with truffles! I love it! If your interested in reading about the other two salamis, you can visit their website- they also ship their products too!

It was quite funny when our guide explained to us that we will experience the "Costco effect" during our tasting at the market. If your not familiar with Costco, it is a membership club warehouse store that sells products in bulk. Every weekend, there are sample carts everywhere showcasing and offering food samples of products they are trying to sell- all for free. So back to my story~ when we were tasting the sausages and salami, people not in our tour group tried to get a sample. Our guide graciously told them that we were part of a food tour and we paid for the tasting. I don't blame them though, I would want a sample too, it was so good! I wanted to get another helping of the Tartufo Salami myself.

Lets move on to our next destination shall we?

5th stop: The Pike Brewing Co. , a Family Owned Brewery & Pub.

We did a tour of the brewery before we did any tasting.

The Keg filling station. All this talk about beer is making us thirsty. I think we're ready for some beer- and something light to go with it.

Bread and some gourmet cheese! From what I remember on the tour, the husks of the grains used to make the beer is given to a local farmer to feed the cows that make these cheese. Pretty cool huh? That's why they paired the locally made cheese with the locally made beer. The cheese is from Beecher's Handmade Cheese. They make the absolute best Cheddar cheese I have *EVER* tasted. It's the slice of cheese that's on the right side of the plate. I believe its their Aged for 3 years Flagship Cheddar. The other slice of cheese the Smoked Flagship Cheddar.

Pike Tandem Double Ale (on the left)- "Rich, round, and complex with flavors of fruit, freshly baked bread and treacle". & Naughty Nellie Golden Artisan Ale "Crisp and refreshing with mild fruity esters and soft malt character"
Lets taste!

Loved the beer with the cheese and bread. Between the two beers, we preferred the Tandem Double Ale, it was much smoother and had a less bitter taste than the Golden Ale.
Are you wondering if we get any dessert on this tour? Why yes, yes we do! Lets get going!

6th stop: Fran's Chocolates, Home of the "President's Chocolate"- you'll see why later=)

*I apologize for the flash*

Remember this picture?

*Again, sorry about the flash*
Yes, this portrait was made out of all kinds of chocolate truffles! From what we were told, this portrait is of Fran's grand daughter.
Now for the chocolates!!!

From left to rightSmoked Salt Caramels, Gray Salt Caramels, Almond & Macadamia Nut Gold Bars, & Raspberry Truffles.

These are the famous chocolates I was talking about. The Smoked Salt Caramels, which was one of the chocolates we tasted. I saw this while watching The Evening News on NBC one night. Our guide explained to us that President Obama loves these chocolates and gives them to guests when they visit the White House. Of course the boxes of chocolates given at the White House is navy blue in color, has the Presidential Seal along with his signature on it. This is what was said on tv:

Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports, Part One
NBC
Jun 2009
"These [boxes] are Fran’s Chocolates from Seattle, the President’s favorite from the campaign trail."

That was a quote from his secretary, she pulled out a drawer full of boxes of these chocolates! Very cool. I love chocolate, but I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate. We didn't have much time to browse around and buy anything because we had one more stop! (We went back later....i'll even show you what I bought!)

7th and FINAL stop: Gelatiamo, an authentic Gelateria offering gelato, Italian pastries, and coffee.

We first went downstairs and took a tour of their gelato making and bakery area. It makes me want to hurry up and open my own business!!! I even got more excited as we went back upstairs!.

Gelato Cakes!!!

Assorted Italian Pastries. Yum!

Would you take a look at all that yummy goodness!!!

With our tour we all got 2 scoops of gelato- we didn't get to choose the flavors because they were very, very busy and there was about 12 of us on our tour. The flavors they gave us on that day was Peach and Chocolate Flakes. They both were really good and refreshing especially since it was a hot day.

Now if your ever in the Seattle area, I highly suggest booking a tour with Savor Seattle Food Tours. I think locals will benefit from it since you get some history along with the tour. They will probably take you to some place you didn't know was there or thought you'd never set foot in. I'm glad I went on it. All the food we tried was included in the price of $65+tax (which I think came out to $67.50). I say it was all worth it. Every other stop was a sit down and eat stop and it was great! Also, at the end of the tour, they give you a discount card to all the places we visited during the tour. I believe the discounts were from 10% off and up and good for a whole week! I'm glad we waited until the end of the tour to go back to some places. We took advantage of the discount and bought some goodies at Gelatiamo (i'm sorry I didn't get to take any pictures of it)- but I did take some photos of what I bought at Fran's Chocolates! Can you say **taste test?**

Everything I got was dark chocolate &hearts &hearts &hearts !!!
Flavors starting from clockwise:
Single Malt Whiskey Truffle, Dark Chocolate Espresso Truffle, Dark Chocolate Imperiale Truffle, Oolong Tea Truffle, Raspberry Truffle, and in the middle is a Fig Filled and coated in Dark Chocolate.

Melt in your mouth chocolate. The way it should be=) I love 'em all.
My husband and I have yet to try the Port. We haven't opened it yet. Sad, we should have paired them with the chocolates. I remember why we didn't open it. I cheated. I couldn't wait. He was at work and I had to try the chocolates- that's why they were cut in half. Half for me and half for you. I really could have eaten them all, but I didn't want to drive all the way to Seattle with my one year old to replace the chocolates I would have devoured easily. Next time I will buy two of each. Lesson learned. I hope you enjoyed this food picture tour of Seattle!

Since I just recently became a member of "The Foodie Blogroll", I thought it would be nice to do a member spotlight on each of my posts. For this post, I chose Traveleatlove's Blog. I thought it fitting since this post was about Traveling, eating, and loving every minute of it=)

Winner of my very first giveaway=)

2009-07-06T13:35:00.001-07:00

Congratulations TheKitchenSinger for winning my very first giveaway! I used Random.org to randomly choose a number and lucky #9 came up. I'm hoping to have more of these giveaways in the future. Thank you all for visiting!

Mini Cupcake Lipgloss

Now a preview for my next post....

My very first giveaway! has ended, winner will be announced later today

2009-06-29T21:24:00.001-07:00

I went to Seattle with my girlfriends this past weekend and saw this store full of awesome, cool stuff! As I was paying for some candles, I saw a container full of these small cupcakes! Its filled with lipgloss inside. It reminded me of the June Iron Cupcake Challenge: Summer Berries! So I bought one to give away to one lucky reader=)

I don't have many readers, so the odds are good! Since this prize hardly weighs a thing, I am allowing my international readers to try and win this. The cupcake lipgloss container is right beside a standard sized business card so you can see just how small it is. It's really cute & small enough to fit in a small purse or pocket. I am using a random number generator to choose the winner. Your comments are numbered when you post. Here is what you need to do:

1. Leave a comment (only once please) that
answers this question: What is your favorite comfort food?
2. Leave me a link to your blog or email so I can contact you in case you win.
3. Vote for 3 of your favorite cupcake entries for the June Iron Cupcake Challenge. (It doesn't have to be mine- but it would be oh so nice if it was!!! It's the last 2 choices on the list=P)
****The deadline will be Monday-July 6, noon (Pacific Time)****
The winner will be posted the following day. Thanks everyone and good luck=)

June Iron Cupcake Earth Challenge: Summer Berries

2009-06-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

Hi all=) Yes, another contest i've decided to partake in this month. This will be my second time doing an Iron Cupcake Earth Challenge. My first Iron Cupcake Challenge Ingredient was Basil. I didn't win that challenge and i'm just hoping for the best with this one- but, regardless if I win or not, I enjoyed making these cupcakes! I hope some of you have also entered in this challenge too- its a great way to experiment with ingredients you wouldn't otherwise think of trying (although berries are much more common to use than some of the other ingredients they've chosen for the other challenges). The other benefit of joining this is the networking!

Okay, i'm done rambling. Here is my first entry:

Chocolate Berry Surprise Cupcakes

I called it Chocolate Berry Surprise because I dipped fresh berries (blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries) in dark chocolate and placed them in the middle of each cupcake. The cupcake either had one type of berry or a variety- so it was a surprise to the person who ate it. The cross section photo was taken while the cupcake was still warm so the whipped cream was melting onto the center. It is- and was VERY delicious. This won't be the last time I make it i'll tell you that=) Recipes for both these cupcakes will follow towards the end of the post if your interested.

and my second entry is this:

Blueberries & Cream Cupcakes

Oh boy! These too were a treat to make! The cupcake batter had a whole cup of whipping cream in it! I think that is what made it very fluffy and so moist- oh and I can't forget about the fresh blueberries and its juice! (Tell you more about it in the recipe part of this). I topped the cupcake with a Greek Honey Yogurt and drizzled it with Raspberry Honey that I just bought days ago at my local Farmer's Market. I finished it off with a sprinkling of dried blueberries. These are soooo good! It's okay if you have more that one. Don't think about all the cream, butter, or sugar in it- think about all the antioxidants that the blueberries have=)

Okay, so those are my 2 entries. This is the part where I say what the prizes are (and I would really love to have- I will share part of it too- with one of my 8 subscribers. hahahaha. Gotta love those odds. I have given up on the big number of subscribers, i'm just lucky to have any readers. Thank you! I appreciate all of you!). Okay, i'm back on track...the prizes are:

June ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH,
A groovy linocut piece from BLOCKHEAD PRESS
A sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery,
An awesome piece from CAKESPY,
Last and certainly not least, the corporate prize providers for Iron Cupcake: Earth: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, JESSIE STEELE APRONS; TASTE OF HOME books; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM .
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers .

Voting starts June 28- July 6.

Now for the recipes:

Chocolate Berry Surprise Cupcakes

Before I made the cupcake batter, I got the berries ready.
You will need:
A variety of fresh berries and chocolate chips:

Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and heat it up in 20 second increments, stirring it often to disperse the heat & have it melt equally.

It looks ready, now drop the berries in and get ready to fish! Actually, I recommend doing 3-4 at a time because it gets really clumpy when you put too many in at once. You'll see later.

Pretty messy, but so worth it. Place the berries on parchment paper and them place them in the refrigerator to cool and harden. You see that huge clump on the bottom left? I put too many in at once. The chocolate cooled too fast and it started to get too thick. I didn't want to place it in the microwave to warm it again because the berries were already in the chocolate and they were too fragile. So while that is cooling, you have time to make the cupcakes.

For the Chocolate cupcake, I used Martha Stewarts version of her Classic Chocolate Cupcake. I changed one thing since I didn't have the regular unsweetened cocoa powder. Instead, I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder.

Makes 18

3/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners.
Into a medium bowl, sift together cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each, then beat in vanilla. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with sour cream and beginning and ending with flour.

Pour batter into cups. I used a tablespoon scooper. I placed a tablespoon of batter in each cup, placed one or two chocolate covered berries, then placed another tablespoon full of batter on top of it. It should be about 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes.** Obviously you can't stick a toothpick in the center to check for doneness because of the chocolate covered berry in the center. I just checked if the dome top of the cupcake was done by checking its firmness. It was about 20 minutes in my oven**
Cool in pan 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Use any topping you desire, but I used whipped cream out of the can and topped it with chocolate chips.

Blueberries and Cream Cupcake recipe

I found this recipe browsing online and stumbled upon the blog Cupcakes and Crinoline. She found the recipe through Gail Wagman's Cupcakes Galore book. I am so glad I found it because this recipe is a winner as well. I am going to try to substitute the blueberries for strawberries next weekend. We'll see how well that turns out.

BLUEBERRY ‘N’ CREAM Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup/1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk or light cream

3/4 cup blueberries {if you are using frozen blueberries, defrost beforehand}, plus 1/2 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 350°. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.

In large electric mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately, add dry ingredients and milk or cream.

Using a fork, crush 3/4 blueberries with 1 tablespoon water until they are soft. ***I was wondering why this was done, and I figure that if you don't crush them, it will burst during the baking process. Don't skip this step or you might have one big hot mess***

Spoon batter into cupcake papers, filling cups about 2/3 full. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool. **Keep an eye on it, make sure to check it after 20 minutes don't expect the tops to be browned, just check for doneness. Mine baked until 24 minutes and it was perfect**.

For the topping, this is what I used:

Greek Honey Yogurt
Local Raspberry Honey (use any kind of honey you want)
Dried Blueberries

Basically, I just spooned some yogurt on top, drizzled the honey, then topped it with the dried blueberries. Easy Peasy=)

Make some today, they are both really yummy cupcakes. I wouldn't enter if they weren't. Feel free to message me if you have any questions or need any clarification.

What a nightmare!

2009-06-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

This month's Iron Cupcake challenge is Summer Berries. I had a couple of mishaps as I mentioned in my previous blog about one of my potential cupcake entries. I was going to do an Upside Down Strawberries & Champagne cupcake, but that didn't turn out as planned. I was rushing and it turned into one hot mess! It was also totally experimental. It looked good when I was preparing it before it went into the oven. Lets take a look shall we?

Sliced fresh strawberries, they look so good!

Here is some macerated strawberries. I cooked it with some champagne and sugar to make it more like syrup. Still looks pretty good. The other pics are irrelevant since I won't be posting the recipe and steps to this disastrous experiment. The next pic is the cupcakes cooling. Wait for it...wait for it......
................
................
................

Oh the horror!

I should have stopped then and there, but nooooo~ I wanted to take it further. "Lets try to make it work" I think to myself. "It might actually taste good". Ummm....are you ready?

Barf. Hmmm...how about a different topping?

I give up on this cupcake. This next picture isn't actually all that bad.

So I tasted it. Yuck. It was the cupcake batter. The strawberries with the champagne tasted wonderful. The cupcake batter was just horrible. Scratch that idea. Oh, I forgot to mention that the batter made 18 cupcakes, but I only baked 6 in my cupcake pan. The rest I put them in little cake pans- put it about 3/4 full- it overflowed out of the baking pans! My oven was getting all smoky and so was the house. Oh my goodness it was just a disaster. I didn't have time to take pictures. I had to take out the pans throw them into the sink and start cleaning the inside of the hot oven so it didn't get so smoky inside. Never again. Okay, maybe sometime in the future I will try it again and find the perfect recipe for it- but for now, i'm gonna have to pass on that.

My next post will be the cupcakes I will be entering=)

Olivia & Emily the Strange Cupcakes

2009-06-16T19:04:00.001-07:00

I had a few extra cupcakes from my "Iron Cupcake Trials"- they turned out pretty good, but I have one more recipe that I have to try out before I post it. In the meantime, here are 2 book characters that I decided to try out painting. Olivia the Pig & Emily the Strange.

This is my first time using petal dust and color gel + lemon extract to paint on fondant. I'm sorry I couldn't take more pictures or do a whole tutorial for this as it was my first time and i'm certainly no pro at it. But, here is one picture that shows you in a glimpse how I did it and what tools I used.

I am working on doing the Hoops & Yoyo tutorial because a reader from Sweet Cuppin Cakes Bakery blog requested it. Painting on fondant takes a lot of time- i'm glad I picked book characters that used only 2 colors! I have my one year old to watch, so its difficult to try to work fast and at the same time take good photos that explain what i'm doing. I have to save that for the weekends when my husband is home and can watch our baby. Tutorials will be coming up though~ just keep checking back.

Visit their websites Olivia the Piglet & Emily the Strange.
**to be honest, I have never read any of the Emily books, but I saw the book while at Barnes & Nobles, it really caught my eye. As for the Olivia books, I have a few~ it's my daughter's name=) **

They have arrived!!!!

2009-06-14T09:35:00.001-07:00

First, I just want to thank all of you for your votes on the Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup~ whether you voted for my cupcakes or not. I really appreciate you just stopping by here. I am over-the-moon ecstatic that I have more readers and subscribers to my little food blog=) The winners have been posted and you can visit Scoopalicious for the results. I will definitely try again next year and I hope you will too! It really is fun trying to incorporate different themes into a cupcake- that's why i'm going to do the Iron Cupcake Challenge this month too. (I'm still not done, I had a few mishaps- i'll fill you in when I do my Iron Cupcake post).

Okay, now that i've mentioned that, I just want to share in my excitement of the 2 books I ordered. It came in the mail the other day. I apologize for the orange-y colored photo. I opened the box in the evening and that photo is a result of "kitchen lighting"=(

I purchased: Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse and Babycakes!!!
I have yet to try any of the recipes/techniques on either books, but I will definitely post about them when I do. If I am totally in love with either book, I will definitely think about doing a giveaway, but in the same effect, I don't think I have that many readers/subscribers to do one- and I can only send out the prize in the U.S. ( I would love to send it to other countries but it would be way to expensive for me as I will be purchasing the prize and mailing it out too- but I really do appreciate my readers from all the different countries). Tell you what, if I get at least 100 subscribers, I will giveaway one of the two books. This will probably take awhile, so if you can't wait, you can by the books here and check out all the other books I keep in my kitchen cabinet=).

Now are we ready to bake & eat? Summer is just around the corner (June 21st to exact) and its that time of the year where people try to eat a little less and exercise more. This year I am one of those people. I am turning 30 this November and I want to lose some poundage okay, a lot of poundage. Not so easy with a food blog, but I have found some great recipes! Just yesterday I was browsing around on the DVR and wondered what this show Cook Yourself Thin was about. I watched all 9 episodes because I was so intrigued. I made one of their recipes for breakfast today. Okay, lets go!

Sundaes for Sunday! ( its actually called Stuffed French Toast Sundaes)

Let's meet the stars of the show:

1 whole egg
1 egg white
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon honey
4 slices whole-wheat bread, crusts removed
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 cup raspberries
1/2 cup blackberries
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

**(as you can see, I substituted my berries for blueberries & strawberries).

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a bowl, whisk together the egg, egg white, milk, cinnamon and honey. Spray a nonstick muffin pan with calorie-free vegetable spray. Carefully dip each slice of the bread into the egg/milk mixture and press it into the muffin pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes, until crisp.

3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese until smooth. Spoon equal amounts of the ricotta mixture into each of the bread cups and top with berries. Drizzle the maple syrup on top.

353 Calories for 2 of these yummy things.

**I only used 1 tablespoon of maple syrup to drizzle on all 4 of the sundaes. I love sweets and would have liked a more syrupy taste with my ricotta cheese, so next time, I am going to use 1 tablespoon of the syrup and mix it into the ricotta cheese before putting it on top of the french toast. If I still feel like it isn't sweet enough, i'll add the remaining tablespoon of syrup on top. I hope you try these, they really are delicious, tasty, and healthy!** Please come back and visit again because there are more recipes I would love to try from the show! Happy Eating!

Sweet!

2009-06-04T22:32:00.001-07:00

I just saw my cupcakes featured on 2 blogs! Short post, but I just wanted to share! Here they are:

Cupcakes take the Cake

Sweet Cuppin Cakes Bakery

It's got me all giddy- i'm grinning from ear to ear!

(It's an old photo of me. I was shopping at Ye Old Curiosity Shoppe in Seattle and saw this smiley face thingy. It's a really neat store. Next time your in Seattle, I suggest you stop by)!

Another post will be up soon! I am entering in this month's Iron Cupcake Challenge, come back and see what i've created!

What I did with the extra cupcakes....

2009-05-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

I had a half dozen cupcakes leftover from the Cupcake Roundup i'm participating in. I have been wanting to make these for the longest time. Hoops & Yoyo cupcakes=) Short post, but I just wanted to remind you to vote for your favorite ice cream cupcake!

My very first ice cream cupcake!

2009-05-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

I couldn't sleep last night and instead of trying to do something that would help me fall asleep, I do something I know would keep me up. I went online. I brought my laptop to bed. Very bad, I know. Clearly, I wasn't thinking. Well, in the wee hours of the morning, I was browsing around and going through my blog list. I didn't get very far because once I got to I Heart Cuppycakes, I saw the link to Cupcake Project, which then led me to Scoopalicious. Well, it went downhill from there. I was not going to sleep anytime soon. I got super excited because they are holding their 2nd Annual Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup. I saw the deadline- May 31st! It's already the 28th! Before I forced myself to put the laptop away and go to bed, I knew the flavor of cupcake, ice cream, and the topping I wanted to do. First thing I did this morning was write up my grocery list. Your curious now aren't you? =)

Introducing........

Mexican Chocolate Cupcake with Fried Ice Cream!
(topped off with Whipped Cream and a Cinnamon Sugar Baked Tortilla Triangle)

If your interested in entering the contest, visit Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. Don't forget to check out the fabulous prizes! They have some awesome tips and instructions on how to make ice cream cupcakes. Make sure you do so before the 31st!

If your interested to know how I made these, lets get started!
This cupcake recipe is from 4 Obsessions- another blog I found online last night.

The leading ladies and gents of this production:

**I totally forgot to put the Buttermilk in the pic! So sorry!**

2 sticks (1 C) unsalted butter
1/2 C Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 C water
2 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 C well-shaken buttermilk
2 T vanilla
2 C all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt

Preheat oven to 350. Put cupcake papers in your muffin tins.
melt butter in a large heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then whisk in cocoa. Add water and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat.
Whisk in separately sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla.

Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. Then sift again into the cocoa mixture and whisk until just combined (it will be a little bit lumpy).

**since these were the ones I wanted to use for the ice cream cupcakes, I only put in a tablespoon of batter in each liner. There was a lot of batter left, so I followed the instructions with the ones below**

Fill cupcake papers to about 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes until a skewer or toothpick comes out clean. It's a moist cake, so don't worry if a few crumbs stick to your tester.
Allow cupcakes to cook and then dust with powdered sugar.
** For the ones with less cupcake batter, it baked for about 13 minutes in my oven- make sure you check yours after 10 minutes so you can pretty much estimate how much more time in needs baking**

Just in case your wondering how I didn't get chocolate batter all over the place, I used a tablespoon sized scooper- just like this.

It came out with a really nice dome top. I let it cool for about 30 minutes them popped it in the freezer for about an hour or two. Now were ready for the ice cream.

I got the ice cream at my local Fred Meyer grocery store (that's what its called in the Pacific Northwest). I believe its called Krogers in other places. The ice cream brand itself I think is their signature brand. So I don't think your able to find it elsewhere- but I could be wrong.

Look at that yummy goodness. This is how it's described on the box "Honey Cinnamon Flavored Ice Cream with Cinnamon Sugar Toasted Pieces and a Honey Caramel Ribbon". Oh, and right now that and the other flavors are 3 for $10. I put the ice cream in the bowl first to stir and soften it before placing it on top of the frozen cupcakes.

I froze it again for another hour before stealing 3 cupcake tops from my other set of cupcakes and placing it on top of the ice cream. Did you catch all that? Great=)
Well, maybe this picture will help:

Now all I have to do is take a can of whipped cream and go a tiny bit crazy. Okay, its not very crazy.

To make the Cinnamon Sugar Triangles, you will need:

Sugar
Cinnamon
Flour tortillas
Melted butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut tortillas into triangles however big or small you want them. Place it on a cookie sheet ( I put foil on top of my cookie sheet) on a single layer. Place in oven for about 7 minutes or until brown. Depending on how much triangles you have will determine how much butter you put. You only need enough to coat the triangles. Place the triangles in a bowl and put some melted butter on top- a teaspoon at a time because you won't need much. Toss, and then sprinkle sugar and cinnamon, toss some more and your done!

**I forgot to add the butter, such a dooofus** (I added it after I took the picture).
I have to say, this cupcake is so moist and yummy- and with the ice cream, and whipped cream. mmmgood! Please don't forget to vote for the cupcake of your choice the first week of June! Please visit Cupcake Project & Scoopalicious to cast your vote=)

Whole Wheat Caramel Walnut & Pecan Rolls

2009-05-27T23:32:00.001-07:00

This is the first time i've ever made this. I found a recipe online and tweaked it a little. There is a local bakery that makes this- except they only use walnuts on top. I am addicted to it. They always run out and sometimes I get lucky and get the last one=) Okay, lets get started.

The stars of the whole production:

1 to 2 cups all purpose flour (follow directions)
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package active dry yeast
¾ cup milk
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons shortening or vegetable oil
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
½ cup chopped, toasted nuts

**the next time I make this, I am going to use 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour. The bakery's version uses mostly whole wheat flour. **

I toasted the nuts at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, stirring and flipping it over every couple of minutes.

In large bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, salt and yeast; blend well.

In small saucepan, heat milk, water and shortening (or oil) until very warm - 120-130 degrees; Add warm liquid mixture to flour mixture. Stir by hand until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in an additional 1/4 cup to 3/4 cup flour to form a stiff dough.

On floured surface (or in bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook), knead in remaining 1/4 cup to 3/4 cup all purpose flour. Knead about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Place dough in a greased bowl and cover. Set in a warm place to rise for 1 ¼ hour. **I have to admit that I added too much flour, then added some water- which made the dough too wet, then added flour again. So, my dough in that picture looks kinda funny. I used the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid and I over kneaded it. Don't make that same mistake because it will make the dough more chewy. I was talking to my brother on the phone while making this so I was distracted. It still turned out pretty good though.**

Grease a 9 inch square pan. Punch down dough and remove all air bubbles. On lightly floured surface, roll or press into 16×12 inch rectangle. (If you have trouble with this step, rub a thin layer of oil across the top of the dough).

In small bowl, combine brown sugar and butter. Spread evenly over dough then sprinkle with nuts. Roll into a 16 inch spiral/log pressing edges to seal. Cut into 16 slices and place cut side up in greased pan. Cover and let rise for 45 to 60 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes. Cool two minutes, then turn onto a sheet of foil so that bottom side is up.

My Variation
I melted together a 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, 1 cup of packed brown sugar, & 2 Tbsp of light corn syrup in the microwave at 30 second increments, then stirred it together until it looked like this.

This is the caramel topping.
I got my pans ready- I used two 8" rounds, greased it and divided the caramel mixture in both pans, and placed the nuts on top. When I rolled out the dough, I rubbed a mixture of sugar and cinnamon on top before rolling the dough and cutting it.

Again, the finished product:

Make sure you let it cool so the caramel gets nice and crunchy, but still chewy. Enjoy~ Happy eating=)

Twilight cake

2009-05-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of Twilight, but my good friend is. I surprised her with this cake which has all the elements from the cover of each book. The chess pieces, the apple, the ribbon, and the flower. All the decorations where made from a gumpaste/fondant mix. I have to give credit to my husband who did the chess pieces. He did a great job don't you think? Well, this cake took about 3 days to make- the decorations needs drying time. The cake is a butter and french vanilla flavored with 3 layers of bavarian creme. I would have liked to get a picture of her slicing into it, but she didn't want to cut into it just yet. I think she admired it for a day or two before finally digging in=) Oh, I also made the cake board. I did a "marble" technique with red, black, and white fondant. It looked like a marble cutting board. It's very easy to make. As a matter of fact, here is the tutorial I used to make the cake board.

Matching birthday cake & dress

2009-05-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

I saw this cute dress at Target when my daughter was 9 months old. I bought it knowing that I was going to have her wear it for her 12 month old photos. I thought the design was so cute that it would be perfect to match a cake to her dress for the photo shoot. I did a "practice cake" a month before- and i'm glad I did it. I learned A LOT from it- like not to use buttercream for the brush embroidery effect, not to fold the fondant for the sash (I ended up just overlaying 3 different sizes of the sash on the final cake), and that it was easier to level and tort the cake when it had been cooled in the refrigerator first.

This is the "Practice" cake and the filling- guava cake with guava gel filling (this was also the first time I tried this recipe-it basically was white cake mix with guava nectar substituted for the water. It wasn't all that great.)

And the actual cake we used for my daughter's 1 year old photos:

Oh, and here is one of the photos of my daughter with her cake:

My baby is 1 today!

2009-04-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

I made my very first Topsy Turvy cake for my daughter's 1st birthday. It was mini sized. I used a 6" round cake pan, a 4" Wilton spring form pan, and a biscuit cutter for the top tier. I used this tutorial to make the cake. I covered the cake in Marshmallow Fondant. The cake flavor is White Almond Sour Cream made from scratch. It's a moist, dense cake, which is excellent for carving. The almond flavor can be substituted for any flavor you like.

White Almond Sour Cream Cake

2 boxes white cake mix
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teas. salt
8 egg whites
2 2/3 cups water
4 Tbls. vegetable oil
2 cups (16oz carton) sour cream
2 teaspoon clear vanilla flavor
2 teaspoons almond extract

Mix all dry ingredients by hand using a whisk in a very large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Bake at 325 degrees. For the cake pans I used, it took about 35-45 minutes. Just do a cake check after 35 minutes to check for doneness.

***One recipe makes: one 14" round + one 6" round
or one 16" round
or one 12" round + one 10" round
or one 12x18" sheet cake
or one 12" round + one 8" round + one 6"

Half a recipe makes: two 8" rounds
or two 6" rounds + 6 cupcakes

My attempt at making a Guava Chiffon Cake.

2009-04-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

While we were in California, my best friend brought a sinfully delicious Guava Cake from Kings Hawaiian Bakery. It was so light, fluffy, and oh so yummy. I had to try to make it since there aren't any Kings Hawaiian locations in my area, let alone the whole state. I couldn't bring it home with me because it has to be refrigerated. I don't think they ship them either.

I used this recipe from Star Bulletin. I didn't use the cream cheese frosting because King's Hawaiian's frosting was whipped cream. The guava topping wasn't all that great. I think the recipe below for guava gel topping tastes much better. I have tried it before on a sample cake I was making for my daughter's birthday.

Guava Gel Recipe:

2 C Guava juice
1/2 C Sugar
1/4 C Cornstarch

In a medium sauce pan, bring the 2 cups guava juice and sugar to a boil. Make a paste out of the cornstarch and a small amount of water. Remove guava juice from heat and stir in the cornstarch mixture. Return to heat and bring back to a boil and boil for one minute. Cool in refrigerator.

I wish I had a picture of the cake, but by the time I remembered to take a pic, the cake was devoured.

The result: The cake was moist and fluffy, but it was still heavier than the King's Hawaiian cake. I am still searching for the perfect chiffon recipe. I'll let you know when i've found it!

Whut up peeps!

2009-04-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

I made these Peeps cupcakes for Easter. The cupcakes are boxed Devil's Food Cake, cream cheese icing, colored with Wilton gels. The "eggs" are M&M's.

Hope you all had a Happy Easter!

Surprise Birthday Cookies

2009-04-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

I made these cookies for a Surprise Birthday party for a close friend of mine. We couldn't make it to the party since we would be in California on the day of the party. I wanted to make something for her and her guests, and this is what I came up with. Topsy Turvy cookies covered in Marshmallow Fondant.

I used this cookie cutter and impression mat set. I love it. I may buy this and this too!

I tinted the marshmallow fondant with Wilton gel colors. Americolor gel works really well too. I brushed shimmer dust on top of the fondant after I applied it on to the cookie.

I made 40 of these cookies, packaged them and shipped them in lots and lots of bubble wrap. It made it to its destination just fine=)

Marshmallow Fondant Tutorial. You can also checkout YouTube, they have some really good tutorials there as well.

Sugar cookie recipe I used:

6 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
2 cups butter (4 sticks)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla

This is a great recipe when using cookie cutters. It doesn't spread! Your cookies will be the same shape after you bake them as they were before.

Note that this recipe makes up to 8 dozen 3 cookies, but it is easy to cut in half.

Cream sugar and butter until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs and flavoring. Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl and add to butter mixture. Mix well.

Put a handful of the freshly made dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll to desired thickness. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Put the rolled dough, including the parchment paper, on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes or longer. Your dough will be chilled and ready to cut and bake with no wait and no added flour! Repeat the process with scraps after cutting cookies.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on rack.

Welcome Holden!

2009-03-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

Another one of our friends just had her 2nd baby, so I made them this cake when we went for a visit. It is a French Vanilla cake with Fresh Strawberries and whipped cream filling. I just used a box cake mix since it was a last minute thing. I didn't take any pictures on the process of making it. I am sorry. I am even more disappointed at myself for not taking a picture when they cut a slice of it, it was really pretty. 3 layers of strawberries and cream on vanilla cake. MMMMM. As for the filling- really easy. Cut up fresh strawberries and Cool Whip is all you need.

I did however, take a picture of some of the side detail of the cake.

I covered the cake in Wilton white fondant (not the best tasting fondant)- although you could add some flavoring or clear extract to get some good flavor on it, such as lemon, orange, chocolate+peppermint, etc...

I made some chocolate modeling clay to make the brown circles. It basically is a chocolate morsels/wafer+cornsyrup mixture. I used Wilton's because I already had some. In a pinch, I have even used Ghirardelli morsels that I use for cookies. I hear Merckens is pretty good, but I have yet to try them. It pretty much is the flavor and texture of a Tootsie Roll. I think I might try using that next time instead. I did the letters freehand with the modeling clay as well. My first time to try that so it isn't all that great.

Since it was a last minute idea cake, I opted to do retro circles and a rope border. I made the circles by using different sized circle fondant cutters. As for the rope, I just rolled out 2 long pieces and twisted them together. For the blue circles, it's white fondant with some mixed in Wilton Gel Colors that you can find at your local craft store. I got mine at Michaels.

Chocolate Modeling Clay Recipe

10 oz. chocolate chips (or colored candy disks to create different colors)

1/3 cup light corn syrup

Heat chocolate carefully until melted, stir in corn syrup and blend. Pour onto a waxed paper sheet and spread to approx. ½ thick. Cover loosely and let stiffen for a couple of hours or overnight. Chocolate will become very pliable.

This thing weighs a ton!

2009-03-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

Once again, Bakerella has inspired me to make this monster of a cake. FOURTEEN LAYERS!!! She has step by step instructions on how to make it. I followed it to a T (well, at least I think I did). I wanted to make it for the sake of making it- and I was going to visit a friend/coworker who just had a baby, so I had something to give=) I know what your thinking. Sabotage! Yes and no. Usually when I make these cakes I give them to friends or let my husband take it to work. I can't leave it laying around in the house- or I would weigh a ton. I'm about 2 lbs and 2 fork fulls of cake from it.

What can I say, I love to bake and make people's mouths happy!

Check out the inside:

Here is the recipe that was used-it's really actually from Oprah's website. A southern cake from her former chef Art Smith. This recipe is for 12 Layers.

Ingredients:Makes 16–20 servings

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour , sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter , at room temperature
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 large eggs , at room temperature
3 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder , preferably Dutch process
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter , cut up
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Pecan halves, for garnish

Position racks in the center and bottom third of the oven and preheat to 375°. Lightly butter four 8 1/2- to 9-inch cake pans (you will bake the cakes in three batches) and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper. Flour the pans and tap out the excess.

To make the layers, sift together the sifted flour, baking powder and salt. Sift the mixture one more time, and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer fitted with the paddle blade on high speed until light in color and texture, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl and be sure the mixture is well-blended. On low speed, add the flour in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of the milk, beginning and ending with the flour, and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl often with a rubber spatula. Beat in the vanilla. Using a scant cup for each layer, spread the batter evenly in the pans. It will make a thin layer.

Staggering the pans on the racks so they are at least 2 inches from each other and the sides of the oven and not directly over each other, bake the layers until they feel firm when pressed in the centers and are beginning to pull away from the sides of the pans, about 12 minutes. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes. Invert the layers onto cake racks, remove the parchment paper, and cool completely. Wash and prepare the pans. Repeat the procedure until all 12 layers have been baked and cooled.

To make the icing, bring the sugar, cocoa, butter and evaporated milk to a full boil in a large saucepan. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the icing has thickened slightly (it will resemble chocolate syrup but will thicken as it cools), about 3 minutes. Stir in the vanilla. Let the icing cool until thick enough to spread, but still pourable.

Place a layer of cake on a wire rack set over a jelly-roll pan. Spread with a few tablespoons of the icing, letting the excess run down the sides. Stack the remaining cakes, icing each layer. Pour the remaining icing over the top of the cake. If you wish, smooth the icing on the edges to cover the sides. Place pecan halves around the top perimeter of the cake. Let stand until the glaze sets. (The cake is best served the day it is made. To store, cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 day.)

Recommended technique: If you buy inexpensive aluminum foil cake pans at the grocery store (they can be saved for another time as well), you will be able to knock out layers in no time. And no washing between baking!

Taking a break from baking.

2009-03-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to go down to hello, cupcake in Tacoma for awhile. We only live about 30 minutes away. It is conveniently located to The Tacoma Art Musuem, The Museum of Glass, Union Station, and the Washington State History Museum. On a Wednesday, I decided it was the perfect time to take my daughter to all 3 museums and the cupcake shop. I only did the 3 museum thing because there was a special price for all 3 places.

Anyway, hello, cupcake is such a cute place! I believe I bought one of each flavor of cupcake. It was good, but not Sprinkles good. I do love Sprinkles cupcakes, but it has to be fresh. The best flavors in my opinion are the Red Velvet, Dark Chocolate, Lemon, and Carrot. I see on their website there are a few new flavors I would like to try, unfortunately I don't know when i'll have that chance to try them out. I am hoping they open up a location in Seattle, but there are 2 competing cupcake shops there.

Here are the cupcakes from hello, cupcake:

Before....

and after...I tasted half of each cupcake. The other half was for my husband.

I can't remember all the flavors, so check it out on their website.

Red, black and white cake.

2009-02-19T18:49:00.000-08:00

My cakes usually have pink in it, so for one of my Wilton fondant/gumpaste class cake, I decided to do these bold colors. The top flower is a Wilton Fantasy flower made out of gumpaste. Black rope borders, garlands, carnations, and cherry blossom flowers. I don't keep the cakes at home because its too dangerous. I'll eat it! This one went to my coworkers. I believe it was Devils chocolate cake with Bavarian Cream filling.

Valentine's Day cake box

2009-02-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

I got this idea from Bakerella. She has an awesome tutorial. If you decide to do this, I suggest you buy already colored red & yellow fondant. Trust me, its worth it. The chocolates inside the box are cake truffles. I basically used this recipe, but I substituted the chocolate icing with cream cheese icing I had on hand. I learned to make the bees from this self taught lady.

Two Tiered Fondant cake & Draped cake with case.

2009-01-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

This cake was kind of a challenge. The bottom cake was an 8" round and the top is a 6" round. Now I understand why fondant cakes are so expensive. They make the cake look flawless, but it is a lot of work. I just used the Wilton Fondant to cover these cakes. After the mishap I had with the MMF, I didn't feel like going through that again. I rolled all of the border beads by myself. I have since bought a bead/pearl mold. The border really covers up the mistakes I made, and notice on the top tier there is a think pink band. I did that because part of the fondant tore and I was covering it up=) The scroll work is all done freehand with buttercream frosting. The roses on top are made of gumpaste.

I did a marbling color effect fondant covering on the cake, which you can't really tell because of the drape. If I remember correctly, the drape is a 50/50 mix of fondant and gumpaste. I added small flowers in the case and daises on top of the cake. On the other side of the cake are gumpaste roses and rose petals cascading down the other side. I thought I had uploaded the photo of the other side but I didn't. Sorry!

My first fondant cake ever!

2009-01-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

I've recently taken up cake decorating as a hobby and this cake was my first cake for the Wilton fondant course. I wanted to do a Tiffany blue box and ribbon since a square cake and ribbon was basically what we needed to bring in. Not too bad huh? Oh, and I made my fondant from scratch using marshmallows. It came out too soft and it took forever to get hard enough so that the bows didn't droop. If you want to make MMF (marshmallow fondant), click here. There are many vids on youTube on how to make it, choose what works for you=)

Christmas project

2009-01-08T15:33:00.000-08:00

I wanted to start some Christmas traditions with my daughter. One of them was the gingerbread house I posted *sorry* a long time ago. Here are some other ones I wanted to do:

Gingerbread cookies

These are a result from holding my daughter with left arm and decorating the cookies with just my right hand. Oh, and I only had white royal icing. I used leftover candy from our Gingerbread house. I'll do better next time. If your looking for a good gingerbread cookie recipe, I don't have one. I used this.

I love that Betty Crocker. I was skeptical too. I just wanted to decorate the cookies, take some pictures. It just smelled soooo good. I had to have a bite. It was perfect. It was soft and it didn't have too much spice in it. It reminded me of when I was pregnant. I had read that ginger helps with the nausea. The only thing that helped was a gingerbread cookie from the San Francisco Street Bakery.
I'm not much for icing. I'd rather eat it plain.

.yummy.
Christmas cookies for Santa.
I traced my daughter's hands on some paper, cut it and traced it on the cookie dough. I used store bought cookie dough. It was already rolled out and flattened. I think it was Pillsbury brand. It didn't taste good, our dog Sissy loved it. But the cookies turned out great.

And what we have here is reindeer food.

Made with:

I didn't measure anything, I just went with what looked pretty.
After that, I just threw some out the front and back door. We had a thick blanket of snow.

And the last tradition, which I am probably going to need to tweak a little bit is this one.
Christmas Eve character pancakes.

It was a disaster. Note to self: Do not use whole wheat pancake mixes when using pancake molds. Oh, and don't add m&m's to it either. Do it with regular mixes.
I used these molds I bought from Williams-Sonoma on Black Friday last Thanksgiving in California. I thought it was cute.
Now I just want to throw it across the room.

The batter just gets stuck! It made me so mad.

I even separated the M&M's to make it more Christmasy- if there such a word. But anyway, I put the candy on only the Snowflake mold. You can see it turned black!

Here is the batter I used:

And here it is getting stuck to the mold. Yes, I sprayed it with Pam and I sprayed it real good too.

So don't be tempted to buy this mold if you see it at Williams-Sonoma. Well, you can if you want to but I hope you have better luck than I do. I actually tried it with the regular Bisquick mix, it was better, but it still got stuck. I ended up making regular pancakes. So I guess next Christmas Eve I will do regular pancakes with green and red M&M's.

Christmas dinner

2009-01-08T15:09:00.001-08:00

We have decided on a Christmas dinner tradition. Surf & turf for dinner. This year we had rib eye steaks, king crab legs with lemon garlic butter, steamed veggies, and buttered steamed potatoes. Yum. Oh yeah, and for dessert we had eggnog bread pudding and Martha Stewart's Slab Pie. I used my mini chocolate dessert fondue to keep the garlic lemon butter warm. Once again, this was dinner for 2. Our little one was asleep so we both got to get our hands dirty=)

My husband wanted me to cook something fast and simple so we could spend time as a family during Christmas. This meal was so easy and so yummy. I made the eggnog bread pudding the night before (I will post the recipe). The steaks took about 14 minutes to grill. The crab legs were frozen and I steamed it about 20-30 minutes before we had dinner. The veggies and potatoes were nuked in the microwave. Fresh veggies were seasoned with salt & pepper, a little bit of adobo seasoning, and some olive oil. Microwaved it about 3-4 minutes. Medium yellow potatoes were microwaved for 8 minutes, then halved and topped with salt & pepper, and some butter. Easy breezy.

The reason why I have been slacking on my blog:

2008-12-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

Celebrating the holidays for the first time with our daughter= Starting new holiday traditions, such as putting together a gingerbread house the day after Thanksgiving instead of putting up the Christmas tree. I dare not try making the gingerbread house from scratch. I'm afraid it won't fit together correctly (I don't want to buy the cookie cutters for it, resulting in me free handing the cookie forms) and that would result in my using lots of royal icing. So I did the next best thing. Buy a nice gingerbread cookie set from Costco for $9.99. I have decided that I will be getting it from Costco every year=) It makes the house smell so good. So far, I have restrained myself from taking a bite from any of the Christmas trees. I don't really like any of those candies so none of them are missing. Okay, maybe 2 gumballs. I wanted to make sure they really were gumballs instead of jawbreakers=) I couldn't stand the yummy smell, so I made gingerbread men. I will have to upload those pics and post them up soon.

Wilton Course 2 Final Project

2008-12-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

I am really psyched that I made these flowers from Royal Icing. We have class for 2 hours on Saturdays for one month. For 3 Saturdays we made different kinds of flowers. My favorites are the tiny apple blossoms and violets. We also learned to do the basketweave which really looks simple, yet sophisticated in my opinion. Our final was to work with Colorflow icing. We decided in our little class of 4 people to make it a Thanksgiving theme. So this is what I did.

I used a picture I saw online, printed it out and traced over the "Happy Turkey Day" and also printed out some maple leaf outlines. It takes about 24-48 hours to dry. I didn't make it dry enough and a few leaves cracked, that's why its all stacked like that=)

I call it my "Spring to Fall" cake.

It's not perfect, but i'm satisfied with it, being my first cake with royal icing flowers and basketweaving.
Here is my not-so-perfect basketweave and s-rope borders. Those are done with buttercream icing. Those funny looking leaves and yellow rose is from buttercream icing as well.

The Thanksgiving Spread for two adults and one baby=)

2008-12-05T08:01:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier (Emily & my handful of friend readers =), I have a few left to post so i'll try to do them today. I didn't take too many pictures during the preparation because I was doing so many things at once and preparing a turkey+ entertaining a 7 month old is not a good thing ( or should I say, so not Martha). Yeah, I was so freaked out about getting salmonella on anything. I didn't want to touch the camera and then touch baby and all that junk. I hope you understand but i'll try my best to explain all the stuff that I made.

I have to say that this really isn't my best spread. My husband told me not to go all crazy with it because he didn't want me to be so tired and in the kitchen all day. So I made it really simple and semi-homemade. Can you tell? I watch the FoodNetwork all the time. As a matter of fact, I used 2 recipes from the website.

Let me give you the rundown of what is on the table.

Red rice- because were from Guam and there is no eating turkey without the red rice, simple as that.
Cornbread stuffing -Stovetop box stuffing, not because I was taking the easy way out, its because i've always loved stovetop, I honestly really do.
Mashed potatoes- Yukon Gold Idaho packaged just add milk and butter easy mashed potatoes. I always get packaged, especially when its only $1 and it has the "Best of Taste 2007" gold medal on its packaging.
Collard greens- I used Paula Deen's recipe and i'll tell you something about that later. But anyway, this has been a Thanksgiving comeback year after year because my husband was in the Army, where he first tried it and he loves to eat it. It only makes an appearance once a year.
Brussel sprouts- gasp, yes. I tried making it once before, years ago and it just didn't taste right to me. But this time (I bought only 10 sprouts just in case it turned out yucky), I looked again at FoodNetwork.com and saw this recipe from Giada and it had so many good reviews so I had to try it.
Gravy- I took the easy way out on this. I usually do gravy from scratch but my husband was starving and just wanted to eat already. It was my safety, glad I bought it too. It was Safeway brand turkey gravy. Not bad.
9 lb Butterball Turkey- Never again will I buy a turkey without a popout timer thingy. There is more to that story. I will maybe share a few stories about that too.

Not shown: Baked sweet potatoes & parsnips with cinnamon, olive oil, maple syrup and honey (it was still in the oven, the hubby was starving and wanting to eat already).
Chocolate mousse cake- I got the idea from Martha Stewart.

But first:

This tied us over until it was time to eat.

Sliced French bread, drizzled in Olive Oil, baked for 5 minutes @ 350 degrees then topped off with the Bruschetta, which we purchased in the pasta section at Costco (one of our favorite stores).

I stuff the turkey with this stuff because it makes the turkey smell really good=) It's just celery, onions, carrots, butter, salt and pepper. It also gives the homemade gravy a nice taste too. I did end up making some homemade gravy because the Safeway powdered gravy only made one cup. I didn't take any pictures of when I made it because it was quite greasy. But its really easy to make.
1. Take the juices from the bottom of the pan and seperate the juices from the fat. You can do this by skimming the fat from the top or use a gravy seperator type thing.
2. Place the juices in a little pot and add some flour (make sure the juices are cool or else the flour will clump) I would use about a tablespoon of flour per cup of juice.
3. Heat it to a boil on medium and keep stirring until its thickened. If its been cooking for about 5 minutes and its not thickened, add about a tsp of flour to a tablespoon of cold water (or more juices if you have any left) mix and then add it to your gravy.

Okay, for the story of my Butterball turkey, I will have to start with this: Last year, my husband & I spent Thanksgiving in California with his sister and her family. I was 4 months pregnant (this has nothing to do with the turkey story=). Two days before Thanksgiving, we were in search of a turkey. Not just any turkey, it had to be the Butterball brand because that's what "Mom" always made. I kept that in mind because my sis & mother in law are great cooks. I always bought whatever turkey there was that was 8 or 9 lbs (and was cheap) with a pop out timer and it always turned out great. My sis-in-law prepared the turkey last year and it turned out really good. I was sold on the Butterball. So this year, I bought the Butterball without the pop out timer. I went on the Butterball website and followed their directions to a T. My husband stuck in this digital thermometer. The Butterball website said to bake the turkey to an internal temp of 180 degrees if your turkey was stuffed. It turned out dry. I was so disappointed and so my husband said "that's what gravy is for". Really glad we had the gravy.

Here's one more turkey story. I'll try to make it short. One year, my husband thought the pop out timer on the turkey was defective. I was basting the turkey every 15-30 minutes. It looked moist and golden and just perfect. It had just about an hour left of baking and I had to take a shower and get ready because we were having some guests. I asked my husband to baste it for me while I got ready. When I was done, I looked in the oven and I wondered why the oven wasn't hot. He turned the oven off! I asked him why and he said the turkey "looked" done. I told him the timer didn't pop out yet. He said it was broken. So I said okay then, the juices should run clear if its done. It looked clear, so we placed it on my big, white platter and there it was, blood running down from the turkey. So we put the turkey back in the oven to cook and while the turkey breast turned out dry and more "golden brown" than the rest of the turkey, the rest of the turkey was moist. He doesn't bother with the turkey anymore, except for placing it in the platter.

As for the collard greens, it turned out okay. Like I said, I used Paula Deen's recipe. For years, the collard greens "bunch" was pretty big. I noticed this year it was small. I guess they have really thinned it down due to the failing economy. So I used a "bunch" like the recipe said and I used the 3 smoked hamhocks that was in the package. Big mistake. Don't do that. It was too much for the taste and the greens boiled down so much there was too much liquid. I should have bought 2 more bunches of greens to make it work with what the recipe called for. Also, in years past, I added my own spin to it. I added some garlic and onions to it and it tasted really good. I never tried the "authentic" greens but Paula Deen's recipe is supposed to be pretty authentic since she's a Southern woman. It tasted good, but I think i'll stick to my way of making it next time.

We had Chocolate Mousse Cake for dessert.

I saw Martha Stewart had made pretty mini ones with vanilla and chocolate mousse made from scratch. It looked divine and so yummy. I didn't find any vanilla or any lighter colored flavor mousse packets. I took the easy way out on this again since I didn't have time to make the mousse from scratch. I used these:

As you can see from the finished product, it looks like there is just one flavor of mousse and then the cake. For the box mousse, you only need cold milk. It really tastes good, so if you don't have much time, buy this stuff.

For the cake, I used dark chocolate flavored box mix.

It has been cooled and leveled (which is not pictured). I only used the cake in the dark pan. I saved the other cake and put in the freezer for later projects.

I took some parchment paper and placed it around the cake. I had to staple it because tape will not stick to parchment.
I decided to put the dark chocolate mousse first. I intended to pipe it on but it really didn't help, so I just scooped it on and put it on as neatly as I could. I refrigerated it for about an hour and then prepared the raspberry chocolate mousse and put that on top. I really wanted it to have the tricolor effect with the cake, dark chocoloate mousse, and the raspberry chocolate but that didn't happen.

I refrigerated it overnight for Thanksgiving Lunch/Dinner. Here is a yummy slice of that cake. I swear to you, it is sooo good.

I think next time, I will try a springform pan to make the cake and buy 2 very distinct flavor colors so that it really stands out. I will eventually try Martha Stewarts mini mousse cakes and make them from scratch too.

Lollipop sushi made with smoked salmon and cucumbers

2008-11-30T12:18:00.001-08:00

I was watching Food Network a few weeks ago and saw a commercial preview with Rachel Ray at a Sushi Restaurant in L.A. somewhere. I think it was called something like Sushiya. Anyway, they made these sushi lollipops and it looked so cool and yummy so I tried to make it. I think I did okay. I'm not good at cutting thin slices of cucumber. I did my best though. It was thin enough and it wrapped the smoked salmon just fine=)
The ingredients are simple. Just some regular cucumbers and cold smoked salmon.

Peeled and cut cucumbers. I can't really describe how to cut it, but i'll try. I cut the cucumbers into 3 pieces and then sliced it like...well, have you ever tried to peel an apple with a knife without breaking the peel? It's kinda like that. I'm sorry if that didn't help, but I hope you get the idea. You cut it until the get to the seeds part and then toss that away.

After I have it all sliced into thin long strips, I place the salmon in the cucumber slices then roll it and secure it with several toothpicks. After they are secured, I slice them and they look like lollipops. Sort of.

It looks and tastes good, but its even better with some dynamite sauce which is pretty much just mayo and sriracha hot sauce and thats it. I used about a tablespoon of mayo to 1/2 to 1 whole tsp of sriracha. You can add more or less according to your taste. Happy Eating!

Halloween treats~ Bloody mini cheesecakes with eyeballs and bodyparts.

2008-11-06T19:07:00.001-08:00

There was a contest at work for best halloween dishes for appetizers, main course, and dessert. I wanted to enter into the dessert category. This is what I wanted to enter into the desserts category. To make a long story short, I put my cheesecakes in the wrong table, thus it wasn't included in the contest. Oh well. At least there weren't any leftovers=) That's a good thing. (I watch too much Martha Stewart).

I basically just used 2 boxes of No Bake Cheesecake mixes, bought a can of Lite Cherry filling, eye ball candy and gummy bodyparts candy and went crazy with that. Very easy.

The dessert table where my cheesecakes should have been:

Glad I didn't put mine on that table to compete. There were some very good competition don't you think? That Dracula one made out of rice krispies got my vote....except it wasn't really up to the partygoers to pick the winner, the judges had already been chosen. I believe the cake eyeballs won. I'm not sure which one since there were 2 different ones.
I wish I took more pictures, but I didn't. I had my daughter with me and I was in mommy mode and not really thinking.

Wilton Course 1 class complete!

2008-11-06T18:46:00.001-08:00

This was our last project. The whole 2 hours was used to make roses...and lots of them. I also put funny looking leaves that grew every which way...and swirl flowers with M&M's. I had leftovers so I wanted to use it. Here is a side view of my amateur cake:

This is the other cake I mentioned that I needed to make because I was rushing to have it ready for class. The ganache frosting was put on much more smoothly and neater=) I decided on a shell border with some swirl flower breaks. It screams "STUDENT CAKE" doesn't it? hahaha. I didn't want to add too much buttercream frosting decorations because like I told my instructor, this cake is staying home. Whenever I make something, I usually tell my husband to bring it to work. Sometimes I take it to my work...but i'm rarely there since i'm at home with the baby. But anyway, we ate this cake up! It was sooooo good. I used box cake mix. Devils Food Cake. I occasionally make cake from scratch but I like some box cake mixes, so it doesn't bother me. Plus, who can beat the 3/$1.00 price? The frosting and filling is exactly the same from the cake mini pans on my post below. I baked them both on the same day. The reason for why I was rushing..my last Wilton Course 1 class. Oh, I start Course 2 tomorrow! I'm so excited. I get to bring my daughter with me=) I couldn't register otherwise because its on a weeknight and my husband isn't able to watch her. The instructor made an exception for me=)

Wilton mini cake pan set.

2008-11-06T18:05:00.001-08:00

I saw this one day at Michael's and thought it would be neat to make a filled cake like that. So I bought it using my 40% off coupon, which ended up costing around $5.oo. It looked easy enough and since the pans were non-stick, it wasn't supposed to end up like this:

Believe me, I cooled the cake for more than an hour before I tried to take them out. This happened to all 4 of the pans. Not wanting any of it to go to waste, I made these:

Devils Foodcake Truffles

I crumbled the cake using a pastry blender and fork.

I added about 1/2 cup of flavored creamer (it depends on how much crumbled cake you have. The recipe I referred to said to make a "medium sized puddle" in the crumbled cake mix. I should have used a flavor I liked instead I chose this because it was "new" and it sounded good. It doesn't taste all that good. I should have gotten something safe like French Vanilla.

I used a tablespoon scooper to make these sized cake balls, then I froze it for about an hour.

I forgot to take picture of the melted chocolates I used and also forgot to take a picture of me dipping the chocolates. I used Premium Dark Chocolate Candy melts I bought from Michaels. The pink is just colored white chocolate that I also got at Michaels.

And there is the result again:

Getting back to the cake pan set, I made another batch. This time, I sprayed the pans with baking spray...and this time: SUCCESS=)

I filled it with Nutella whipped cream. I used about 1/2 cup of Nutella, added about 2 tbsp of milk. Microwaved it for about 40 seconds and mixed it until combined. I then whipped 1/2 cup of heavy cream and later folded in the Nutella mixture. I made a lot of filling because I was also using it for my other cake (the reason why I didn't take to many pictures...I was in a rush to make the other cake for my class).
Here are the messy cakes...becauseiwasinarush...and didn't have time to make it all pretty. Oh, the frosting is whipped ganache. The same recipe as I used for my daughter's christening cupcakes on my previous post.

Here is the interior of the cake with the yummy, yummy filling.

Happy Eating!

Cupcakes & Cookies

2008-10-21T23:57:00.001-07:00

We had a baptismal celebration for my daughter this past weekend and instead of a cake, I wanted to make cupcakes. I also made some homemade chocolate chip/m&m cookies for our guests to take home. Those package boxes are actually Martha Stewart brand. The boxes came with a Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. It came in a set of 6 boxes, wax paper and labels. It costs about $13 each. I bought 2, but I used my 50% off coupons so I had a really good deal at Michaels.

Ingredients

Makes about 3 dozen
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake until cookies are golden around the edges and set in the center, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.
**I used 1 cup of mini chocolate morsels and 1 cup of mini M&M's because I had them onhand I wanted to use them.

Cookie dough.

Ready for the oven.

In the pretty boxes.

Homemade with love=)

Now time for the cupcakes!

For the cupcakes I just used the Duncan Hines Devils Foodcake mix because I like the way it tastes and its really moist. I got the ganache frosting recipe from FoodNetwork. Its basically just

8 oz semi sweet chocolate

3/4 cup of hot heavy cream

Cut up your chocolate so its easier and faster to melt. Put it inside a heatproof bowl. Cook heavy cream until it comes up to a small boil. When thats done, pour the hot milk into the chocolate and stir. Do not add lots of air when your mixing the ganache. When its well combined, let it sit and thicken a little bit. I'd say about 1/2 an hour. Coat your cupcakes by dipping the tops and set it down for a minute or 2 before adding your decorations.

I used pink m&m's which I got from Target. They normally don't have pink colored m&m's in the regular bag, but it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month and they had it on special. I used ready made white cookie icing that came from a squeeze tube. I'm sure I got it at Michaels.

Wilton Course 1 Classes

2008-10-21T23:46:00.001-07:00

So I decided to try out a cake decorating class because after joining IC:Earth and seeing all these beautifully iced cupcakes, I wanted mine to look as nice. This was our first project, a character cake so we could practice our star icing tips. I used the Wilton Topsy Turvy cake pan. I went a little crazy with my colors. I think all of my cakes could be contenders for CakeWrecks. That website is so hilarious.

Our second project was the ice 6 cupcakes with the new techniques we learned which was drop & swirl flowers, shells, sweetpeas, bows, print. I didn't get to print...but here are my funny looking cupcakes.
Actually, here are my iced cupcakes ready to get decorated.

And here is how it looked like after I got my hands on them.

I have one more class left! Were working on roses and we have to decorate a round cake. I signed up for Course 2 and this time its on Friday nights.

Tres Leches cake

2008-10-21T23:05:00.001-07:00

My husband recently celebrated his birthday and all he wanted was for me to make one of his favorite cakes~Tres Leches. I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS

5 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups milk
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x13 inch baking pan.
Sift flour and baking powder together and set aside.
Cream butter or margarine and 1 cup of the sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs and 1/2 teaspoon of the vanilla extract, beat well.
Add the flour mixture to the butter or margarine mixture 2 tablespoons at a time, mix until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Pierce cake several times with a fork.
Combine the whole milk, evaporated milk, and condensed milk together. Pour over the top of the cooled cake.
Whip whipping cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 cup of the sugar together until thick. Spread over the top of cake. Be sure and keep cake refrigerated, enjoy!

The cake batter.

The cake has cooled completely and I pricked it with a fork so that it absorbs all of the milk mixture.

3 milk mixture ready to be poured onto the cake.

It soaked up all of the milk. I covered it in saran wrap and refrigerated it for about 1-2 hours before covering it with the whipped cream.

Fresh whipped cream.

I had lots of whipped cream left and I didn't want to waste it, so I piped in something our daughter might've said if she could talk. She's 5 months old. I made this the night before his birthday. He had the morning off the next day, so I decided to cook him breakfast too: Longonisa with steamed white rice. He loves that stuff. Its a filipino sausage. There are 2 different types or should I say flavors of longonisa. It just depends on what area its from. The one from Pampanga has a sweet taste (which my husband & I prefer), while the other one from Vigan has more of a salty taste to it (which my oldest brother prefers). One things for sure though, it tastes good with white rice=)

It shrinks down a lot when its cooked. You can find this at asian food stores and its a bit pricey. I think it was about $6.00 for this.

Happy Anniversary!!!

2008-10-07T18:08:00.001-07:00

My hubby & I celebrated our 8 year anniversary on the 28th. We decided to just stay home and cook dinner ourselves. For brunch my husband wanted spam fried rice. **Don't knock it if you haven't tried it alright?** Like my profile says, i'm an island girl and proud of it=)
I thought we had a can in the cupboard but we didn't, so he didn't mind me making it with Chinese Sausage, since he loves that stuff and we had it already in the fridge. I made the fried rice the exact same way I would with the spam.

My ingredients:
3 cups cooked cold white rice (I like to use jasmine rice).
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic
2 carrots, diced tiny
1 cup peas
6 Chinese Sausage, diced
sliced green onions for finishing
3 eggs
salt
pepper
soysauce

*its really up to you how much eggs, sausage, carrots, or peas you want. Taste as you go along cooking. You will find what tastes right for you. I couldn't tell you how much soysauce I put, I just had to taste the rice. In the photo, I had only cut up 4 sausages, I ended up cutting 2 more and adding it to the rice because it didn't taste like there was enough.

Instructions:

Turn on stove to high heat. Add a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan or wok.
When hot, add the diced sausage and cook for about 1-2 minutes, stirring often. Some fat will be rendered from it.
Add the onions and garlic. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, until the onions are almost transparent.
Add the carrots and peas. Cook and stir for about 1 minute. Add salt and pepper.

Add the cold rice, breaking it up in the pan and stirring. Do this for about 2-3 minutes until you've taken all the clumps out and the rice has been thoroughly mixed in the pan.

Make a well in the middle of the pan and add your eggs. Add salt and pepper.Mix the eggs first with your spatula and work your way outside to the rice. Turn the heat down to medium. Keep mixing for about 2 minutes until the eggs cook into the rice.
Add your soysauce. I would add 1 tablespoon of soy first, mix then taste and see if you need some more. Turn the heat off when your satisfied with the flavor. Add your green onions and mix and your done!

I plated the rice in a heart shape. Yeah, i'm crazy like that...hehehe. It was our anniversary.

Now for Dinner~

One inch thick filet mignon and roasted corn. There was supposed to be roasted zucchini too but it was one of those big zucchini's that got too big that it started having that fibrous stuff and it didn't taste right. Make sure you get the small zucchini if your going to grill it. I tossed it before we took the picture. Were still not experts in grilling. Our filets were still rare after being on the grill for 8 minutes on each side. We put it back on the grill for maybe another 8 minutes and mine came out medium well. My hubby's came out medium. It still tasted pretty good since its an expensive cut of meat. I usually like my meat cooked medium. At least dessert turned out FABULOUS! Creme Brulee!

Look at that candy crust and creamy custard!!! Seriously yummy!

After trolling around the net for a good recipe, I found it on FoodNetwork. I searched and got this 5 star recipe from Tyler Florence. This recipe is really a heart attack on a ramekin. Full fat, everything, it is sinfully good. Don't tell your doctor. Or mine for that matter.

Here are the ingredients. Not many, but all baaaaad for your body. But I promise you, the finished product will make your palate sing. Oh, by the way...before you make this, you should look up recipes that require egg whites because you don't use any of it in this recipe.

Thats 9 egg yolks, superfine sugar, and vanilla beans..all ready to get mixed up.

Tempering the eggs with the hot milk (heavy whipping cream). Just like with the custard pie, add it slowly and keep stirring so the eggs don't cook! Very, very, very important!

Ready for the oven. Hot water already added, make sure the water is about 1/2 the height of the ramekin.

Out of the oven to cool completely.

You can't really see it, but i'm burning the sugar. The flame is on the top right of this photo. If anyone has any tips on how to torch the tops without burning the sugar or leaving sugar crystals please let me know. I think I only did 2 perfectly, but we ate them all anyway...Not in one night (although i'm sure we could have if we didn't feel so guilty about how bad it was for us) make sure you refrigerate it first before eating.....and, we finished with this:

We got it at the Duty Free on the US/Canadian border. It came in a nice wooden box, so we bought it, thinking it looked nice, it must taste nice too. We should've known that it wasn't a winner since it was on SALE. Oh well, we will just have to stick to Covey Run's Semillon Ice Wine...whenever we can find it. I think we had a good 8 year anniversary=) Our tummy's were really happy.

Gourmet Mac & Cheese

2008-10-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

I don't usually make- or eat Mac & Cheese, but I was watching Bobby Flay's "Throwdown" one night and they made the Mac & Cheese look good. So I decided to find the perfect Mac & Cheese recipe.
I decided in Ina Garten's (The Barefoot Contessa) recipe. It rated 5 stars and several of the reviews said that their kids LOVED it. If kids like it, this must be good.

The ingredients. The only thing I changed was the breadcrumb topping. I wanted to use Skyflakes crackers. I love that stuff. You can get it at most asian stores. Here is the recipe again.

Shredded Gruyere and Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese with spices, ready to mixed into the hot milk. I used the food processor to grate the cheeses. It makes life more simple.

Add the cheese mixture and mix it until its all melted and then add your cooked macaroni~ be sure to cook the macaroni al dente. Do not overcook it.

Ready for the oven. You can omit the tomatoes, but Ina's recipe had it and I personally like tomatoes.

Yummy mac & cheese. It tasted really good! But i'm a carnivore. I definitely wanted some meat with that. Maybe next time i'll add some cooked ground beef and onions to the cheese mixture. Oh, and Gruyere is not cheap. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it. I never made mac and cheese from scratch before, and the recipe called for something like 3 or 4 cups of Gruyere and I bought (2) one lb. blocks. It was waaaay too much! It was like $10 a pound. I don't know how much it costs in other grocery stores, but I got mine at Costco. I think I like Gruyere cheese=)

The Iron Cupcake: Basil winner goes tooo...

2008-10-03T19:07:00.001-07:00

Mama Baker for garnering 25% of the total votes. Congratulations! Thank you to those that voted for my cupcakes. I didn't even get 1% of the votes, but i'm just glad I didn't get zero votes. Anyway, it was a fun experience, so i'm not complaining. I however, have learned of another cupcake competition, Cupcake Hero from Iheartcuppycakes. I will have to check that out. I don't know if i'm going to do the next Iron Cupcake Challenge, but if your interested, the secret ingredient for October is: CHEESE!

I haven't uploaded any new pictures yet from my camera. But I have some goodies i've made from last weekend. It was my 8th anniversary with my hubby last weekend and I let him pick out the menu... and it goes a little something like this.....
Filet mignon
Roasted corn
Creme Brulee

I also made Gourmet Mac & Cheese because I saw Throwdown with Bobby Flay a couple of months ago and since then i've always wanted to try it. We don't really eat Mac & Cheese that much but they made it look so good on tv. I had to try it. I will post those pics up soon.

But for now, some old baking projects i've done over the past year.

Bake sale goodies for the March of Dimes Fundraiser

Rocky road brownie, Chewy Dark Chocolate Macaroons, & Rocky road cluster

Mascarpone Cheesecake with Almond crust. Recipe from Giada of FoodNetwork.

Sour Cream Cheesecake. Recipe from Alton Brown of FoodNetwork.

Panda cupcakes & Alligator cake. It's from the book Hello! Cupcake

Homemade Icecream Sandwiches~ I didn't make the ice cream.

Mini Pecan and Cherry Pies. I got the idea from NotMartha.

A big cookie cake made with Devils Foodcake mix. I thought the pink M&M's added a nice "little" touch...=)

I saw these cute Cupcake lollipops and I had to make it. Thank you Bakerella!

Lastly, Dessert Sushi. My coworker made this using fruit leather, rice krispy treats, & various types of gummy candy. It tasted yummy. Thanks Cheryl R!

Voting starts today for Iron Cupcake: Basil!

2008-09-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Thanks for visiting! Please vote for one of my cupcakes by clicking on the Iron Cupcake badge on the right side of the screen. Or click here. You can only vote once, so choose wisely. There are a lot of entries and they all look so yummy. As much as i'd love to win, I know i've lessened my chances by entering two. But that's okay. It was fun thinking up creative ways to add basil into a cupcake. But, if you don't vote for one of mine, I will track you down and cupcake your car/bike/bus/vespa/skateboard/rollerblades~ whatever you use for transportation. justkidding. Voting ends on October 2nd at noon.

**Its listed alphabetically by blog name, so mine are the last 2, listed as Yummy, yummy in my Tummy I & II** When you click on the Iron Cupcake link, the voting poll will be on the right side of the webpage.

Here are my cupcakes:

Lemon Poppyseed cupcake with Orange Basil syrup and Orange Basil Cream Cheese Frosting

Lemon cupcake with Lemon/Lime/Basil curd and Orange zest Buttercream Frosting

The recipes for both of these cupcakes are posted, look in my archives.

**These are the wonderful prizes that the winner will receive:

Featured prize from the very talented Etsy Artist Metal Sugar
Cool Head Chefs utensils by Fiesta Products
The awesome cupcake book Hello! Cupcake by Karen Tack and Allen Richardson
A wonderfully crafted apron from Jessie Steele Aprons
What every serious cupcake baker needs, a Cupcake Courier&
a publication of Taste of Home magazine, which has delicious recipe ideas.

So please vote on your favorite basil cupcake recipe (mine) here!

**Thanks everybody! I REALLY appreciate it=)

DimSum from Costco?

2008-09-25T10:50:00.001-07:00

Yep, and for $9.99, you can get one at your local Costco. It looks really pretty and yummy...but is it?

Well, I liked 2 out of the 3 types. The one I didn't like was the one with the shrimp, which you can see, has the yellow wrapper. The dip tastes like a plum sauce, which is okay. Will I get it again? Probably not. My husband agrees.

My semi-healthy spaghetti

2008-09-25T08:57:00.001-07:00

It tasted really good and it was fast and easy.

Ingredients & directions:

1/2 whole wheat thin spaghetti & 1/2 angel hair pasta (its 1/2 of how much you want, depending on how many your feeding).
1 jar of spaghetti sauce
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion
2 medium sized zucchini
1/4 lb ground turkey
1/2 lb lean ground beef
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Boil a stock pot halfway full of water. When boiling, add some salt and olive oil to season the water.
Put in the whole wheat pasta only and cook for about 3 minutes. Mixing every now and then so it doesn't stick.
Add the regular pasta and cook together for another 5-6 minutes, just until they are both al dente.
Dice up the onions and zucchini. Roughly chop the garlic.
Heat up a large saute pan and add the ground beef. Cook until browned, remove and add the ground turkey to the pan and cook until browned. Add the ground beef with the ground turkey and also add the diced onions and garlic. This is when you want to add a tbsp of olive oil. (If your using a fattier ground beef, I suggest you drain that fat and use the olive oil instead).
Cook until the onions are almost transluscent and then add the zucchini. Let it cook for about 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally. You can then add the whole jar of tomato sauce. Turn the heat down to med/low, stirring occasionally. Add the salt and pepper to your taste.

Once the pasta is done, immediately turn the heat off and drain the water. Do not run cold water over the pasta! Plate your pasta, add your sauce and your done.

*other stuff*
~if your like me and want to get every bit of sauce out of the jar, I get some of that pasta water and swirl it before adding it to my sauce. I like it because it thins out the sauce just a little bit.
~This was my first time using the Rinaldi spaghetti sauce. I think i'm going to get it from now on. I really, really liked it. I didn't have to add too much to it.
~While cooking the meat together, I added dried oregano to make it taste more "italian".
~I like onion and garlic flavor so I added OnionOnion and GarlicGarlic seasoning from Tastefully Simple. It's a little expensive but its the best stuff...and they don't sell it in stores. No I don't sell it.
~I also like spicy stuff, so after I plated my pasta and tasted it, I added some Sriracha sauce. It was yum!

I think you can guess what this is.

Just added the zucchini to the mix. I usually add my salt and pepper at this stage, then see if I need more after I add the tomato sauce.

And here it is again, the finished product. I couldn't taste the whole wheat pasta, which is good, because the texture is kinda weird. I think next time I will substitute the ground beef with chopped up portabello mushrooms. We'll see how that goes.

Custard pie #1

2008-09-24T23:49:00.001-07:00

This is the first time i've ever made custard pie. It won't be my last either, that's why i've numbered it. I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com. It had good ratings so I had to try it. The next recipe i'm going to try is from Martha Stewart's website.

The ingredients and instructions. (BTW, I forgot to take out the cinnamon from this shot. I was going to make Sweet Potato Pie~ which I am going to make later).

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg white
2 1/2 cups scalded milk
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
2. Mix together eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir well. Blend in the scalded milk. For more yellow color, add few drops yellow food coloring.
3. Line pie pan with pastry, and brush inside bottom and sides of shell with egg white to help prevent a soggy crust. Pour custard mixture into piecrust. Sprinkle with nutmeg.
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on rack.

I cannot stress enough that when you are adding the scalding milk, you need to temper it first. Meaning, add a little amount of the scalding milk very slowly to the egg mixture while your mixing it. I added a ladle at a time. Trust me, if you don't do this, your eggs will cook and your pie will taste like scrambled eggs. Do not rush this step.

Here is the custard mixture and pie crust brushed with the egg white. Before you add the custard mixture, make sure you prick the pie dough with a fork. Don't forget to get the sides too.

All set and ready for the oven.

Out of the oven for cooling. I think I added another 15 minutes in oven time because it wasn't quite done. It looks very yellow because I added yellow food coloring. I used the Wiltons Buttercup Gel food coloring. I don't think i'll use it next time if I make this recipe again, just because i'd like to see what it would look like without the coloring.

So let your pie cool overnight. I personally like mine cold, right out of the refrigerator. My husband liked this pie. He didn't think he would because he thought it needed more eggs. The Martha Stewart recipe requires 12 eggs so we'll see if thats a winner. I won't be making it anytime soon, but I will make it. Enjoy & Happy Eating!

Chicken kelaguen

2008-09-24T22:55:00.001-07:00

This is one of the favorite fiesta dishes of Guam. It is definitely one of my favorites. I guess you can say its made like a ceviche, except the chicken isn't raw, its fully cooked. My mother in law makes THE BEST chicken kelaguen. She makes it the way its supposed to be made. I make it the short cut way. You are actually supposed to barbecue the chicken. I think its just seasoned with salt. I use the Costco rotisserie style chicken which makes it so fast and easy to make.

Here are my ingredients:
Salt
Hot pepper paste from Guam (you can use fresh hot peppers if you can find it at the Asian store)
1 medium onion
Green onions
Lemon powder (in Guam we use Calamansi, but you can use lemons. I think some Asian stores carry the lemon powder.)

So after you remove the meat from the bone, you will need to dice it into small pieces. I used a food processor and pulsed it until it was the size I wanted it. I then cut the onion into quarters and placed it in the food processor along with the green onions.

The chopped up chicken and onions. Ready for some salt, lemon powder and hot pepper.

I added about a tablespoon of lemon powder to 1/2 cup of water and about 1 teaspoon of the hot pepper paste. I sprinkled about a teaspoon of salt onto the chicken and onion mixture before adding the liquid. I don't really measure, I just go by taste. You can adjust whatever you need to depending on how you like it. I like my kelaguen very lemony so I add a little more lemon powder.

Make sure you mix everything together and taste it before you add more spice or seasonings.

Easy right? It's nothing compared to the real thing though. In Guam we usually add fresh grated coconut to it. On this night, I ate it with corn tortillas, just like they used to sell it at Yigo Mart. It also tastes good with flour tortillas~ just like they used to sell at the student store at my high school (actually, i'm pretty sure they sold it at all the high schools). It looks and tastes better alongside red rice, pancit, lumpia, and titiyas. That's another blog...

Just to let you know, if you use the corn tortillas, wet a paper towel, wrap the tortillas in it and microwave for 30 seconds. It gets soft and it won't tear when you place the kelaguen inside. It also tastes better.

As for storing leftovers, it has to be refrigerated and its eaten cold so don't heat it up after its made. Happy Eating!

Dinner & a movie.

2008-09-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

For the release of the Sex and the City dvd, I decided to make New York Steak with Spinach and carmelized onions and New York Cheesecake for dessert. It was easy to make, but I made some bad decisions, which resulted in an "okay" dinner.

But first, the ingredients:

2 inch thick New York steaks

1 bag of spinach

1 onion

garlic

ginger

olive oil

salt & pepper

and whatever seasonings you like for your steak. I like garlic, so I added some Tastefully Simple Garlic to my steaks.

Chop up some fresh garlic and add it to 1/4 cup of olive oil. Rinse the steak and pat it dry. Add salt and pepper to the steaks then brush it with the olive oil mixture on both sides. Turn on the oven to broil (I suggest you grill the steaks instead, if you grill it). While letting the steaks sit for a few minutes, you can slice your onions and dice the ginger and garlic for the spinach. You want make sure you dice the ginger into tiny pieces. I used about a tablespoon of fresh ginger. Add as much garlic as you want for the spinach. Place the steaks in the oven and cook 4-5 mins on each side. When its done, remove from the oven and let the steaks sit for 15 minutes. The reason why you want to do this is because if you cut into it right away, all the flavor and juices escape. While waiting, you can cook the spinach so its nice and hot when you cut into your steak.

Heat up a large saute pan and add some olive oil. Add the onions and cook until it is brown and carmelized. Add the garlic and ginger, stirring often for about 1-2 minutes. Add the spinach little by little, as it wilts. Trust me, you will use the whole bag. When all the spinach has reduced in size, immediately turn the heat off and add a little bit of salt and pepper. I used just a dash of salt, added about a teaspoon of soysauce and a teaspoon of sesame oil. Mix and adjust the flavors to your taste.

It was raining, cold, and ugly outside so I didn't want to fire up the grill**bad decision**. So I thought it would be a good idea to "broil" the steaks. The steaks were about an inch thick and we like it medium, so I put it in for 4-5 minutes before I turned it over for another 4-5 minutes. This is what it looked like. I'd much prefer the grill, so i'll never make this mistake again.

Here it is, sitting for 15 minutes before I get a chance to cut into it.

Spinach and carmelized onions.

Now for the New York Cheesecake.

The ingredients:

I used the recipe and directions from Emeril on FoodNetwork. This is the first time i've tried this recipe. I used it because it had high ratings and I wanted to see how it turned out without using a waterbath. I had made 2 kinds of cheesecakes from scratch before. It turned out beautifully and yummy, but the centers wasn't firm.

So here was my other mistake. I went to Safeway earlier to get the ingredients I was missing. Mainly sour cream, cream cheese, and the lemon and orange. The recipe calls for 2-1/2 lbs of cream cheese. I know for a fact that 16 oz = 1lb because I used to work at Haagen Dazs and we'd sell pints all the time...but anyway, back to the story....I already had a box of cream cheese at home, which is 8 oz, so I needed 4 more boxes. So why did I get only 2? I kept thinking in my head at the store that 1 box was 1lb. I did not want to wake my daughter to get 2 more boxes of cream cheese, so I scoured through my refrigerator and found "flavored cream cheese". I normally would use that for bagels. I improvised. It was berry flavored. I'm glad I had enough to compensate the amount I needed. This is how my filling looked like.

It has a slight purple berry color, but you can't really tell can you?

Graham crackers in a springform pan (very important).

Ready for the oven...you can see pieces of lemon and orange zest in the filling.

And the finished product. The verdict: My husband likes it, I thought it was okay. I think I like using the hot waterbath for the cheesecakes. Although this was easier to make, without the waterbath, there were cracks on the sides of the cheesecake.

This wasn't a good picture, I accidentally erased the nicer one...but here you can see the crack on the side. It still tastes good though. I think it didn't taste as good to me because I used flavored cream cheese and I knew that it would have tasted so much better had I followed the recipe. Well, at least the movie was good. I kept feeling like the movie was going to be over because i'm so used to watching the 30 minute shows on HBO. This show was the only reason we subscribed to HBO- and boxing...especially PPV. Go Manny Pacquiao! Well, let me know how yours turns out if you try to make this. Happy Eating!

Lemon cupcake with Lemon/Lime/Basil curd & Orange Zest Buttercream Frosting

2008-09-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

After voting and looking at all the goodies in last months contest, i've decided to join IronCupcake: Earth. It's basically the Iron Chef of the cupcake world. Secret ingredients and original recipes. This month's secret ingredient is Basil.
I never really liked lemon flavored desserts, but i've always heard lemon & basil go well together, so I thought i'd give this challenge a try.

I saw a Raspberry cupcake with Meyer Lemon curd on Martha Stewart's show. I liked the idea of the curd, so I decided to use the same idea, but use different flavors to include basil.

I came up with this Lemon Cupcake with Lemon/Lime/Basil curd filling & Orange Zest Buttercream Frosting.

Look at that yummy goodness inside.

Ingredients and recipe for the Lemon cupcake:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup milk

1/2 package Lemon pudding mix

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Place cupcake liners into the cupcake tin.
In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
With an electric mixer, beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla.
Combine the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Stir ittogether.
Add this dry mixture to the creamed mixture. Mix well.
Stir in the milk until the batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes.

Batter all mixed up and ready for the cupcake liners.

Cupcakes cooled and hollowed for the curd.

Ingredients for the Lemon/Lime/Basil curd:

3 eggs
4 egg yolks
Zest of 3 lemons
1 cup of lemon/lime juice (it was actually supposed to be a whole cup of lemon juice but I only had the 3 lemons and it wasn't even close to filling a cup, so I used 4 limes I had lying around to make a full cup) .
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) ~ chilled and cut up into small pieces
1 cup sugar

Directions

Prepare and ice-water bath. Set a medium bowl in ice-water bath and set aside.
Place sugar and lemon zest and basil leaves in a mortar and grind witha pestle to combine and release the oils.
Transfer sugar mixture to a medium heatproof bowl along with eggs and egg yolks; whisk to combine.
Place over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk until sugar has dissolved.
Add lemon/lime juice and basil leaves and continue whisking until mixture is thick and reaches 160 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.
Add butter and whisk until well combined.
Strain lemon/lime/basil mixture through a fine mesh sieve set over prepared bowl. (I used a strainer and cheesecloth).
Cover curd mixture with plastic wrap, pressing plastic wrap directly onto surface.
Transfer to refrigerator until completely chilled.

Lemon zest/Basil sugar mixture.

Cooking the curd in a double boiler.

In the ice bath, ready to be refrigerated.

Filled with the curd and ready for the tops to be put back on. Let's make the frosting!

I just used a basic buttercream frosting and added a tablespoon of orange zest.
Here is the recipe I used:

2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
Pinch of salt
2-1/2 c. of confectioners or powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp orange zest

2 tsp milk

In an electric mixer, mix the butter and confectioners sugar until fluffy. Add a pinch of salt. Scrape down the sides of the mixer. Add the vanilla and orange zest. Add milk one teaspoon at a time. Mix until well combined.

And here it is again, in all its yummy goodness.

Alright, so please vote between September 28-October 1st. Voting starts and ends at noon. So don't forget!

These are the wonderful prizes that the winner will receive:

Featured prize from the very talented Etsy Artist Metal Sugar
Cool Head Chefs utensils by Fiesta Products
The awesome cupcake book Hello! Cupcake by Karen Tack and Allen Richardson
A wonderfully crafted apron from Jessie Steele Aprons
What every serious cupcake baker needs, a Cupcake Courier&
a publication of Taste of Home magazine, which has delicious recipe ideas.

So please vote on your favorite basil cupcake recipe (mine) here!

Lemon poppyseed cupcake with Orange Basil syrup & Orange Basil Cream cheese Frosting

2008-09-16T00:18:00.001-07:00

I couldn't resist. I had to make another Basil cupcake for the Iron Cupcake challenge. I was thumbing through one of my Gourmet magazines and saw a recipe of a poundcake being brushed with a citrus syrup. I thought that it would work for a cupcake too.

This is my Lemon Poppyseed cupcake with Orange Basil syrup and Orange Basil Cream cheese Frosting.

Ingredients for Lemon poppyseed cupcakes:

1 Lemon cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used Canola Oil)
1 Tbsp Poppy seeds (I forgot to add it to my shot)

Follow package directions on back of the box. I added the poppyseeds after the batter was almost completely combined.

and here is how it looks all mixed up and ready for the cupcake liners.

While the cupcakes were baking, I made some candied Basil leaves and Orange zest. It's really easy to make.

All you need is:
Light Karo Syrup
Sugar

Lightly coat the basil leaves and orange zest with the karo syrup then coat with the sugar. Easy right?

This is the Orange/Basil syrup.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup sugar
8 basil leaves

Boil orange juice over medium heat, add the sugar and keep stirring until sugar is dissolved. Tear the basil leaves in half and bruise them slightly by twisting them to release the oils and fragrance of the basil. Add it to the syrup. Turn off the heat and let it sit in the syrup for about 10 minutes.

As soon as the cupcakes are done, prick the cupcakes while its still in the baking pan (I improvised and used a corn on the cob holder, which worked nicely) and brush the tops with the Orange Basil syrup. After it has cooled for 15 minutes, take it out of the pan and onto your cooling rack, then prick it again and brush the tops a 2nd time. While waiting for the cupcakes to cool, lets make the frosting.

I didn't get to take a picture of the frosting in the mixer, but its just like making any other frosting...nothing new. But here are the ingredients & directions:

8 oz. softened cream cheese
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup of Orange Basil syrup
1 tsp milk

Directions

In the bowl of an electric mixer,beat butter until creamy. Add cream cheese
Slowly add confectioners' sugar; beat to combine, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.
Add Orange Basil Syrup and vanilla extract and beat to combine.
Slowly add milk and continue beating on medium-low speed until smooth and creamy.

Frost the cupcakes and add the candied basil and orange zest to the top of your cupcakes.

And again, here is the finished product:

Alright, so please vote between September 28-October 1st. Voting starts and ends at noon. So don't forget!

These are the wonderful prizes that the winner will receive:

Featured prize from the very talented Etsy Artist Metal Sugar
Cool Head Chefs utensils by Fiesta Products
The awesome cupcake book Hello! Cupcake by Karen Tack and Allen Richardson
A wonderfully crafted apron from Jessie Steele Aprons
What every serious cupcake baker needs, a Cupcake Courier &
a publication of Taste of Home magazine, which has delicious recipe ideas.

So please vote on your favorite basil cupcake recipe (mine) here!

I have 2 recipes that i'm entering. I know I should have entered only one for better chances since you can vote for only one, but I just wanted to share both because they both tasted really good....and I don't even like Lemon flavored desserts, let alone it mixed in with and herb like Basil. But, i'm sure you'll see lots of other good recipes on there, even if you don't vote for mine, thanks a lot for looking! You can also join in on the challenge.

Traditional Osso Buco & Italian Risotto

2008-09-15T21:38:00.001-07:00

This will be my second time making this dish. The first time, I couldn't find veal shanks anywhere, so I used chuck roast instead. It turned out really, really delicious. The meat was so tender. I knew I wanted to make this dish again, but only if I found Veal Shanks.

I first tried Osso Buco at an Italian Restaurant here in Olympia called Sorrento's. The risotto was really good, the Osso Buco was okay. I thought the veal shanks would be tender, it wasn't. I didn't know how it was supposed to taste, so I looked up several recipes and came across this one from Allrecipes.

Ingredients:

2 pounds veal shanks, cut into short lengths
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
2/3 cup dry white wine
2/3 cup beef stock
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
Gremolata:
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

DIRECTIONS
1.Dust the veal shanks lightly with flour. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add the veal, and cook until browned on the outside. Remove to a bowl, and keep warm. Add two cloves of crushed garlic and onion to the skillet; cook and stir until onion is tender. Return the veal to the pan and mix in the carrot and wine. Simmer for 10 minutes.
2.Pour in the tomatoes and beef stock, and season with salt and pepper. Cover, and simmer over low heat for 1 1/2 hours, basting the veal every 15 minutes or so. The meat should be tender, but not falling off the bone.
3.In a small bowl, mix together the parsley, 1 clove of garlic and lemon zest. Mix into the veal just before serving. (This is the gremolata sauce which I haven't tried yet because I didn't want to add it to the sauce. I will try it the next time I make it though).

Chopped up carrots, onions, garlic & browned veal shanks.

Braising the veal shanks.

Ingredients for the Risotto.

I used the recipe on the back of the Risotto box. The first time I made this, I added fresh sliced button mushrooms. It was excellent. I intended to add mushrooms to my risotto again, but I didn't use it in time and it went bad.

Basic Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1 whole medium Onion
2 Tbsp Butter
5 cups Chicken Broth (preheated)
1 & 1/2 cup Risotto

Add the olive oil and butter in a large saute pan on medium heat. When melted, add onions and cook until golden brown, stirring often.
Add the risotto and stir for about 1-2 minutes.
Add the chicken broth one cup at a time, each time it is absorbed by the risotto.
Stir continuously for about 15-18 minutes. It is done when all the broth is absorbed and the risotto should be al dente.

This is how it should look like. I used a wooden spoon because thats what it said to use. Plus it works well on your nonstick pans.

Risotto is al dente and done cooking. It looks undone, but it is still hot and cooking even when you turn the heat off. It will turn out perfect. Just remember to keep stirring and add enough of the chicken broth.

Here is the finished result. The veal shank tasted just like the one at the restaurant. Like the recipe says "it should be tender, but not falling off the bone". I like my meat falling off the bone. The reason why I made it again was because I liked when I made it the first time~ with a different type of meat. It was so tender. I thought it would be even better with the veal shank, since that's what the recipe called for. I was wrong.
So, I would make this again with the chuck roast meat or another stewing meat, but not with the veal shank. I ended up cooking it for another hour to make it a little more tender. It worked, but it was still a little rubbery to me. I also would add mushrooms to my risotto. I guess if I used a different cut of meat it wouldn't be called Osso Buco or would it still be?

20 minute meal

2008-09-15T19:19:00.001-07:00

Ingredients:

Angel hair pasta (you can use any pasta you have on hand)

Tomatoes

Basil

Garlic

Olive oil

Salt& Pepper

Actually it was less than twenty minutes. I timed myself. I beat Rachel Ray. Anyway, I was starving and my 4 month old daughter just went down for a nap, so I knew I didn't have much time to cook. I had some tomatoes from my garden, some basil in the fridge, and I remembered that I had some shrimp in the freezer. I boiled some water, threw in the pasta, cut up the ingredients and cooked the tomato sauce. It was fast, simple and it was REALLY good.

For the sauce:
I used whatever tomatoes I had, which was 2 red tomatoes and 1 little pear tomato.
3 basil leaves
2 cloves of garlic
about 6-8 pieces of peeled shrimp

I cut it all up (except for the shrimp), added some olive oil to the saucepan. Added the garlic and let cook until golden, then added the tomatoes, salt and pepper (I also added some garlic seasoning because I like garlic). I let it cook about 2-3 minutes before adding the shrimp. When the shrimp immediately turns pink, turn off the heat and add the basil. You don't want to cook the shrimp too long because it will become rubbery and hard..not too tastey.

Your sauce should look like this.

and the finished product. Tomato shrimp sauce over angel hair pasta.

Sprinkles Belgian Dark Chocolate Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting

2008-09-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

I've had this mix sitting in my pantry for months and i've finally decided to make it. I also have the Red Velvet cupcake mix too (my favorite flavor fresh from their store)....but that's another blog. I first heard about Sprinkles from reading People magazine years ago. There was a picture of people standing outside the store waiting to get some cupcakes! I was thinking that must be some good stuff! So when I went to California to visit my bestie, we just HAD to make stop in Beverly Hills (it was the only location at the time) to get some of that good stuff. Fresh is the way to go, straight from the store. The Red Velvet is yummm. The Dark Chocolate, Lemon, and Carrot was good. It's $3.25 each or $36/dozen.

I bought the Sprinkles mixes at a Williams Sonoma Store, but you can order it online here. It's a bit pricey @ $14.00 a pop. The mix makes 12 cupcakes.

Sorry about the poor lighting in some of the photos. I'm still learning/experimenting. I'll get better, I promise!

Here are my ingredients:

Ingredients for the cupcakes. I forgot to put the milk in this shot! Sorry, yeah, you need the milk..but you won't be able to make it without their cake mix.

Ingredients for the frosting.

Now for the frosting recipe:

1- 1/2 c. of butter

Pinch of salt

2-1/2 c. of confectioners or powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 oz bittersweet chocolate,melted and cooled to room temp

After mixing, if the icing isn't to your desired consistency, you can add a teaspoon of milk at a time until your satisfied.

This is the batter all mixed up. It looks really fluffy...I don't know if I overworked it or its supposed to look like that, but the batter is pretty airy.
I used my tablespoon scooper because I didn't have the regular ice cream scooper. I'm not one to lick the mixing bowl or the mixer. Neither is my husband, but I did lick my finger to taste the batter. It tasted pretty good. I'm sure you bowl lickers are shaking your heads in disbelief. My daughter is only 4 months old so she's not going anywhere near that stuff for awhile.

Now for the frosting. Here I have the butter, salt, confectioners sugar mixed up and now i'm adding the melted bittersweet chocolate *remember, it should be at room temperature when you mix it in*.
This is my end result. I added 2 extra teaspoons of milk. The instructions say not to overmix the frosting. The consistency should look like ice cream.

Cupcakes out of the oven for cooling.

With the Sprinkles trademark dots...they come with the cake mix.
My end result. The cupcake holder holds 23 cupcakes...the mix only makes 12..oh well.

You can definitely use any box cupcake batter. I use them all the time and just use the recipe for the frosting. I'm not a frosting person, but this recipe was really good. The hubby rated these cupcakes a 4/5 overall. I asked him what made it a 4 and not a 5? The cupcake was a little crumby. I'd have to agree, but all in all, it was a good cupcake. The box cake mixes turn out some really moist cupcakes and they are super cheap to get at under a dollar at some places. Happy eating everybody!

I'm craving for Spam Musubi!

2008-09-07T06:22:00.001-07:00

So this is how I make my Spam Musubi. No fancy stuff, I just use the mini Spam can to shape it. Here are my ingredients:

Soysauce
Sugar
Spam
Nori Seaweed
Steamed white rice

I cut up my Spam about 1/4 of an inch thick and placed them in a frying pan with a little bit of water, soysauce and sugar. I let it simmer to carmelize the spam. It looks this this when its done. You can also use teriyaki sauce and let it simmer longer if you want your spam to be darker or more carmelized.

So this is how mine looked like.

My work area. I cut the nori into 3 long strips. I also added some Furikake (flaked roasted seaweed and sesame seeds) to the steamed rice for more flavor. I used the can to shape the musubi. It's easier to use the half sized spam can.

Here is the result! I only made one with plain white rice. All the rest had Furikake in the rice. Hubby says 5/5 stars! As for me, the next time I make it, i'm going to sandwich the spam in between the rice. I think i'd like it better that way. Happy eating!

Breakfast smoothie

2008-09-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

Yay! It's my first recipe blog! This morning I made my husband and I a Berry Breakfast Smoothie. We had just purchased a new VitaMix blender recently. It was an anniversary gift to ourselves~ an early anniversary gift. It's actually on the 28th. I figured that we needed to use it a whole lot to make up for how much it cost.

So here are my ingredients (you'll soon learn that I don't really measure anything, i've always went with how things look and taste). Also, I didn't really get this recipe from anywhere, I just mixed things that I thought might taste good and nutritious for the beginning of the day.

-Silken Soft Tofu (I used the whole box)

-Milled Flax Seed (Keeps you fuller longer. I think I put about 2 Tbsp)

-1% or Skim Milk (You can use whatever milk you prefer. I used about 1/2cup)

-Fresh Mixed Berries (I used the whole pint. You can definitely use frozen berries)

-Vanilla Yogurt Blends (I probably used about a cup)

-Local Honey (2 Tbsp should be enough)

.
Here it is in the blender all ready to go! I added about a cup of ice as well because I wanted it a little bit cold

I love this blender!

And here it is, in our smoothie cup thingys. There was enough leftover to fill up another glass. It was delicious.

The hubby rated this a 4 out of 5 stars.

Yummy, yummy in my tummy!

A little shopping and a pantry raid.

Portobello Mushroom Tuna Melt

I lurve me some good food...& drink=)

Winner of my very first giveaway=)

My very first giveaway! **has ended, winner will be announced later today**

June Iron Cupcake Earth Challenge: Summer Berries

What a nightmare!

Olivia & Emily the Strange Cupcakes

They have arrived!!!!

Sweet!

What I did with the extra cupcakes....

My very first ice cream cupcake!

Whole Wheat Caramel Walnut & Pecan Rolls

Twilight cake

Matching birthday cake & dress

My baby is 1 today!

My attempt at making a Guava Chiffon Cake.

Whut up peeps!

Surprise Birthday Cookies

Welcome Holden!

This thing weighs a ton!

Taking a break from baking.

Red, black and white cake.

Valentine's Day cake box

Two Tiered Fondant cake & Draped cake with case.

My first fondant cake ever!

Christmas project

Christmas dinner

The reason why I have been slacking on my blog:

Wilton Course 2 Final Project

The Thanksgiving Spread for two adults and one baby=)

Lollipop sushi made with smoked salmon and cucumbers

Halloween treats~ Bloody mini cheesecakes with eyeballs and bodyparts.

Wilton Course 1 class complete!

Wilton mini cake pan set.

Cupcakes & Cookies

Wilton Course 1 Classes

Tres Leches cake

Happy Anniversary!!!

Gourmet Mac & Cheese

The Iron Cupcake: Basil winner goes tooo...

Voting starts today for Iron Cupcake: Basil!

DimSum from Costco?

My semi-healthy spaghetti

Custard pie #1

Chicken kelaguen

Dinner & a movie.

Lemon cupcake with Lemon/Lime/Basil curd & Orange Zest Buttercream Frosting

Lemon poppyseed cupcake with Orange Basil syrup & Orange Basil Cream cheese Frosting

Traditional Osso Buco & Italian Risotto

20 minute meal

Sprinkles Belgian Dark Chocolate Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting

I'm craving for Spam Musubi!

Breakfast smoothie

My very first giveaway! has ended, winner will be announced later today