this wife bakes

Celebrate Valentines day with Coconut Candy Cakes.

2012-02-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

I wanted something simple to make for valentines day. I thought of cheesecake brownies, I thought of strawberry pie… I even thought of well.. I thought of so much I lost track. My brain was filled with ideas that it began to hurt. So I kept it simple.

I grew up on coconut cakes in Bermuda yet I never made them myself. Just like glass candy.. well I tried to make those years ago and the outcome was not great. So, back to the coconut cakes.. I love these.

I had the pleasure of having a similar candy that I bought from a Caribbean grocery store on Covington Highway in Georgia. They call them Coconut drops and they have a bit of ginger in them. So delish!

I enjoyed these too. I notice that they are softer then the Coconut drops I bought in the store and that was fine.. plus you only need 2 main ingredients. Coconut and Sugar.

I thought I would make mine pink.. you know.. in all Valentine Day style. Turned out that a tad drop of red food coloring went a long way and the color was fabulous.

The recipe is as easy as it seems…

Coconut Candy Cakes

My original source: Fellow Bermudian Rosely M. Joell

but techniques also adapted from: Food.com

Ingredients:

4 cups sugar

1 cup water

2 cups grated unsweetened coconut

2 teaspoons lemon extract

Directions:

Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper.

Bring sugar and water to a boil in a heavy saucepan, stir occasionally until sugar dissolves.

Stir in coconut and continue boiling.

If you have a candy thermometer , boil until mixture reaches 234 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer drop a small bit of mixture in glass of ice water. If it holds together and is soft when you press, it is ready.

Remove from the heat source.

Quickly stir in extracts and coloring (if you desire to change the color).

Dump the entire mixture on the baking sheet and let them harden slightly and break them into individual candy cakes for wrapping and presentation.

These can last for up to a week if left in a airtight container . I can totally seeing these Coconut Candy Cakes in different colors at parties ! Lime green, yellow, blues and pinks and red all assembled on a platter! The color turns out beautiful as long as you don’t over boil your coconut.. that will turn it a golden brown color.. still delicious though. :)

Bacon and Artichoke Dip

2012-02-03T18:36:00.001-05:00

Aaahhhh, bacon.. it soothes my soul. You can add bacon in pretty much anything and I will devour it. Almost.

This dip comes just in time for the Superbowl. I found this recipe by Lauren King while surfing through a Bermuda Cookbook.

14oz can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup parmesan cheese

6 strips of cooked crispy bacon, crumbled

Mix all ingredients and place in a buttered pie dish. Place in 350 degree oven for 2o minutes.

Enjoy!

Oven Fried Chicken Tenders.

2012-02-02T09:20:00.001-05:00

In ode to the upcoming Superbowl I did another finger food post. Whoo hoo. Go me. Actually, this was my kids dinner one night. But I am sure it would look pretty on a table of appetizers for the Superbowl. I do have a suggestion.. have plenty of dipping sauce.

My reason you ask? I just didn’t find these to be well seasoned enough. The original posters says it taste like Kentucky Fried Chicken…nah. I didn’t think so. It was missing something. I love my fried foods to be heavily seasoned. I mean if you are going to eat fried fattening food you might as well go all the way and add more salt. However, I don’t add much more salt. In fact my secret ingredient for fried food is mustard.

Before I fry my chicken or fish I marinate it in plain ole French’s Yellow Mustard. A tip a good friend from LA told me. I love how it makes the food pop! Mustard is great in so many things!

But this post isn’t about mustard. It’s about chicken tenders that are fried in the oven in a ton of butter. Another recipe that was brought to you courtesy of Pinterest board.

Recipe:

source: Our Life Uncommon

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tbsp Season Salt

3/4 tsp Pepper

1 cup Flour

2 tsp Paprika

1 1/2 pounds of chicken breast tenderloins

milk

Mix dry ingredients in bowl or large ziplock bag.

Marinate thawed chicken breast tenderloins in a bowl of milk for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut 1/2 stick of butter into pieces and place in a 9x13 baking pan.

Melt the butter in the pan in the pre-heated oven.

Remove pan when butter is melted and spread around the bottom of the pan.

Shake excess milk off of chicken and coat each piece with the flour mixture.

Place piece chicken in pan.

Cook for 20 minutes and turn each piece of chicken and continue cooking for 10 more minutes, or until cooked.

I know I already mentioned that I thought this recipe needed more seasoning. In addition to that my batter stuck a bit to the pan as I turned the tenderloins. I also think there was too much butter as the original poster didn’t state how much chicken she actually used.

The pros to the recipe is that it is quick and easy and less work then frying chicken. I feel with some minor adjustment it can be a good recipe. I think it serves well for large crowds and as I stated…just have plenty of dipping sauce. I think next time I try it I will be marinating it in some good ole Yellow Mustard! I will let you all know how that works out!

Feel free to post your experiences with this recipe and your tips!

I hear Superbowl is coming up.

2012-02-01T13:52:00.001-05:00

…again.

I am no huge fan of the big game but I do have 2 people in this house that are. The 12 year old boy and the Hubsta often sit in front of the tellie to enjoy a good match. The 12 year old is a Steelers Fan and the Hubsta is a Giants fan. Needless to say this year the Hubsta is very happy. This should be a great game for him. For me? Well…I will enjoy the commercials.. and the food of course.

I enjoy Pinterest for pinning recipes I want to try. And this is one on my “its done” list. I thought it would be appropriate to post it the week of the Superbowl as it is a wonderful munches appetizer. Since the Hubsta doesn’t eat pork the kids and I enjoyed it ourselves.

Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pulls. Oh my.

Recipe:

source: Plain Chicken

1 unsliced loaf of round sourdough bread

12 oz cheddar cheese, thinly sliced

3 oz bag Oscar Mayer Real Bacon bits

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 Tbsp DRY Ranch dressing mix

Cut the bread going both directions without cutting through the bottom crust.

Place the cheese slices in between the cuts.

Sprinkle bacon bits on the bread and get them between the cuts as well.

Mix the melted butter and Ranch mix together and pour over bread

Wrap the entire loaf in foil and place on baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees then open foil and bake for additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Watch loaf disappear.

How Irie.

2012-01-27T09:17:00.001-05:00

I made Rasta Pasta!

I thought it was good considering I have only had it once and it did taste really good! Also there are a few recipes for Rasta Pasta online and they are different. I chose one that I would call “ital.” Typically, Rastafarians believed in “clean eating” way before it was a fad to eat clean. We used to refer to this type of food as “ital” which is derived from the word “vital”. Eating clean is vital to Rastafarians.

I suppose the name of this recipe came from the fact that the sauce itself is very natural. This recipe had all the spices I love and the vegetable I love too. I knew I couldn’t go wrong with choosing it, especially since the hubsta loves to eat “ital” food. However, what went wrong was my preparation time. My original recipe source said 20 minutes! Oh boy.. where they incorrect. I totally underestimated how long it would take to prepare this dish. My advice to anybody that wants to attempt this pasta is to prep everything prior to cooking.

The sauce for the pasta is so tasty, I almost wanted to just eat that alone! I know for sure I will be using the same ingredients for the sauce to make a great soup one day. I didn’t serve this pasta with anything else. No bread…no salad. It was a one meatless meal all on its own. Now if you want to add chicken to it I am sure that it would be great too. But this is the perfect recipe for the vegetarian or the “ital” eaters in your life.

So here goes..

Recipe

Source: Group Recipes

Ingredients:

4 oz uncooked penne
1/4 cup butter
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 chili pepper, seeded and minced
2 cups diced pumpkin, butternut or acorn squash
1 cup water or vegetable stock
1 cup coconut milk
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1 green pepper, chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 small zucchini, chopped
1/4 cup corn kernels, fresh,canned or frozen & thawed
6 broccoli florets,blanched

Directions:

Place the pasta in boiling water and cook. Drain and set aside.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat in a large sauté pan.

Add onion, garlic, ginger and chili pepper and sauté for 4-5 minutes.

Add the pumpkin and water to pan and cook 15-20 minutes or until tender.

Add coconut milk, coriander, cumin, thyme, white pepper, nutmeg, allspice and salt, and simmer for another 4-5 minutes.

Place the mixture in a food processor and process 15 seconds, or until sauce is smooth.

In a large skillet,melt remaining butter and add the green pepper, mushrooms, zucchini and sauté for 4-5 minutes.

Add corn and broccoli and sauté for 2 more minutes.

Pour pumpkin mixture into skillet and stir.

Bring mixture to a simmer and cook for about 1 minute.

Blend pasta thoroughly into the mixture.

Cream of Fresh Cauliflower Soup

2012-01-25T10:19:00.001-05:00

So fresh and so yummy.

Don’t let the good looks fool you… this is some good good soup. Made with curry and vegetable broth the flavor is one you savor forever. This will be in regular rotation in my house.

The motive to making soup today in this 62 degree weather in January in Atlanta is for a good cause. The ASPCA and a blog that goes by the name of Branny Boils Over.

I had the pleasure of meeting and dining with “Branny” in May 2011 at the Blogher Food 11 Conference here in Atlanta. Prior to meeting her I have always admired her blog. I felt like I knew her before actually meeting her because in her writing I got a good sense of what type of person she is. Upon meeting her just solidified all my previous assumptions. She is pretty cool. Likes to laugh and smile and can be serious and not so serious. Just my type of girl. Icing on the cake? She loves animals and this year, the second year, she is honoring her love of animals by turning our focus on them and their needs.

For every soup recipe she collects with picture via blog or email she will donate $1 to the ASPCA. This encouraged me to break out the soup bowl. And you should too. Lets support the ASPCA together.. go on over and check out the rules of Souper Bowl Round 2 on her blog and take out your soup pots, bowls, Crockpot or whatever it is that you can to whip up your soup. The deadline is January31st, 2012!

Cream of Fresh Cauliflower Soup Recipe

Amended from a recipe by: Jessica S. Wade

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 cups sliced fresh cauliflower

1/2 tsp curry powder

1 tbsp of butter

1 tbsp flour

1/2 tsp salt

dash of black pepper

1 cup low fat or skim milk

In a saucepan, combine vegetable broth, onion, cauliflower and curry powder.

Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for approximately 10 minutes.

Place half the cauliflower mixture in a blender and blend for 30 to 60 seconds or until smooth. Repeat with remaining mixture.

In same saucepan melt the margarine and blend in flour, salt and pepper.

Add the milk.

Continue cooking and stirring until mixture is thickened, smooth and bubbly.

Stir in the cauliflower mixture.

Cook and stir until the soup is heated thoroughly. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Optional: Garnish with sprinkles of cauliflower mixed with red pepper flakes.

~~This year she asks us to dedicate our post to a pet. I have had a few pets in my life so it was hard to pick just one. I don’t have a picture of any of them…not on paper anyway. Just in my heart. So, I dedicate this post to my pets gone but not forgotten… Frisky, Kujo, Whiskers, Misty and Shadows. Thanks for the joy and I and my family shall continue to spread it.~~

Molasses and Ginger go hand and hand

2012-01-23T10:56:00.001-05:00

..or hand to mouth.

I finally made my mom’s gingerbread! And it was so worth it! The recipe is easy as ever and I am not sure what took me so long to make it! Especially since gingerbread is one of my favorites.

My mom visits me often and on one such occasion I asked her to make the gingerbread so that I could watch.

There is something about the hand of a mom that makes everything taste good…even when she adds more or less of an ingredient than the recipe calls for. Not sure how that is possible because with baking everything comes down to science. Perhaps that skips their generation of moms..because no matter what she decided to add to the recipe it always works out.

So I tried it myself and I tried to do it as she did. I substituted butter for margarine or shortening which is what her recipe called for. I just don’t bake with those ingredients so I risked the change in texture and taste for that. Also instead of putting a cup of molasses.. why not add the whole bottle!? I watched her do that herself when she showed me. My mouth dropped open because I was so sure the recipe was a goner from that. And just as her, I did no other adjustments to the recipe to compensate for the addition of extra molasses. Just a prayer and a whim that it will work out.

I enjoyed the smell throughout the house as it was baking. And not once did I text her to ask her any questions as I usually do when cooking or baking something that I love when she makes it. I had to decrease my baking time as the smell became so intense that this cakiest knows..it is done. When she baked it the gingerbread took an hour. With my hands it took about 45 minutes. Maybe she did add something extra I didn't know about. She can’t tell me all her secrets or should she?

Results? Perfect gingerbread. Not her gingerbread.. but pretty darn close. Maybe because of the butter…but my guess is that I was missing that generation of “ just add this and add that.” But regardless, my gingerbread was still darn good. It didn’t last 2 days in this house.

With that said I am going to post my mom’s recipe for Gingerbread. I have no source for this recipe as she didn’t and I believe she learned how to make it from her mother, my grandma.

Mom’s Gingerbread

12 ounce bottle of molasses (the darker the better!)

1 cup hot water

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare 9 x 13 inch baking pan with grease and flour for easy release. I use Bakers Joy :)

Combine molasses and hot water in a medium size bowl and set aside.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in a separate bowl

Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl.

Add egg

Add dry ingredients (flour mixture) alternately with water and molasses mixture to the creamed butter and sugar in the mixing bowl, ending with the dry ingredients.

Pour mixture in baking pan and place in oven for 30 minutes at 350 then drop temperature to 300 for approximately 20 minutes.

Gingerbread should be baked when tester comes out clean.

Let cool and carefully remove from pan.

For extra yummy goodness.. pour some warm custard on top!

How would you like your Tuna Steak?

2012-01-12T20:02:00.001-05:00

Seared or burned?

I can’t tell what this is. But it tasted great! I have never had tuna steak. Nor have I had anything seared or even attempted to sear anything myself.

Today, tuna steaks were on special at the grocery store. I didn’t even know if the hubsta ate tuna that was not in a can. I am pretty sure he appreciates anything that is not “canned” anyway. So the tuna came home with me.

Searching for a baked tuna steak recipe I came across a Marinade for tuna steak. This could be grilled but some people seared it.

Seared? Well, why the heck not? I was feeling adventurous. After all I had just baked 3 cakes, boiled sweet potato, steamed vegetables, baked chicken and cooked rice. I might as well end my exhausting day with an adventure.

I marinated the tuna steak and let it come to room temperature. I learned that watching a video I found online… gooo me :)

My mom had been hounding me to buy a cast iron skillet… and thank goodness after her hounding of 7 years we got one last week. This was perfect to test out my newbie searing skills.

I got the skillet hot hot hot. Well..that is what they said. I think I put too much oil on the bottom of the pan but nevertheless, it got hot. I placed 2 tuna steaks in the pan and let them sizzle. I had to walk away as I was tempted to touch them. But I had learned that I needed to leave them alone. That is hard… anything in a pan I immediately feel that I have to turn or mix or just mess with.

I watched the clock. 3 minutes? 4 minutes? 5? Oh dear… isn’t it supposed to be kind of pink in the middle? The hubsta will not eat pink fish unless its name is Salmon. Anything other then that is just plain old undercooked. So I watched it and the clock and hoped that I didn’t over cook it. Okay.. I couldn’t make it the entire 5 minutes on one side. I turned it at 3 or 4 or something…it doesn’t matter because I think I burned it. Crust… yeah.. black crust. Oh well.. blackened tuna steak is good. Right?

I let it sear (burn) on the other side for about 2 minutes. I didn’t see any pink line in the middle of the tuna steaks. I then removed. I was nervous but I took my fork and flaked it. It was no sign of pink. I over cooked it, over seared it…burned it. Well, hubsta would say it was cooked. But…is it hard… like burned hard..and rubbery? I tasted..

Best.fish.ever. Well almost. But close. My mouth sang. Yes… score. I can say it again with confidence because it tasted great. No pink…a little black around the edges…but the taste was great. Seared or burned … this wife that bakes… loves it.

Recipe source for Marinade : Allrecipes.com

My one adjustment is not using soy sauce. I love Publix Steak marinade and substituted it for the soy :)

A package and a Sugar Cookie recipe from home.

2011-12-23T19:28:00.001-05:00

…what more can I ask for?

I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but I am horrible at making cookies. My cookies may taste good.. .but in the looks department they fall short. I like easy breezy cookie recipes anyway because my kids eat them before they even make it into a cookie jar. Plus I am very lazy when it comes to making them. I just can’t understand the amount of work that goes into making one. Yes… this is me typing this.. the girl who spends 12 hours or more decorating a cake.

I have been on the quest for a Bermuda Sugar cookie recipe. I have received and tried three. This one is by far the easiest and is very tasty.

Now my problem with Bermuda Sugar cookies is that I am not making them in Bermuda. That is causing me not to be satisfied. So when my Aunt gave me her recipe and I tried it.. it tasted like hers but the texture was way off! And when I tried the one I found on the web, they tasted phenomenal…yet again.. the texture was not there. I also did this recipe that was brought to me from an Angel. And…her name really is Angel. This is the recipe I am about to share.. and they tasted really, really, really good…

…a lovely visitor from home brought me goodies. Goodies in a Bermuda grocery store bag. I used to work at this company for a few years part time. Ahhh.. the memories.

Alas… in the bag…

I haven’t seen Kerrygold Irish butter in years! And Robin Hood flour! Score!! My Angel says that it is the butter that is making the difference in the cookies. The Kerrygold website says it is sold at Publix and Whole Foods.. well, while on the hunt I also found it at Trader Joes. I also feel that the flour makes a huge difference too. Robin Hood flour is my favorite for making cookies!

I was still a little skeptical because I still think that the altitude can effect these cookies as well… but I was willing to give it a go.

Here is the easy breezy recipe from an Angel.

Bermuda Sugar Cookies

Recipe:

2 cups Powdered Sugar
4 cups all purpose flour
1 pound of butter
1tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon

Bake on 350 until golden brown.

I criss crossed the cookies with a fork after placing them on the cookie sheet which I lined with parchment paper. I also sprinkled some granulated sugar on some of them and amused the kids by sprinkling some colorful non pareils on others.

That’s it folks. I promise you. It’s that easy. Within minutes.. my family was gobbling them up.

I will say that I am very happy with the outcome of these, texture and all. I plan on getting more of this butter and trying the other 2 recipes that I have and posting them on the blog as comparison. But for the moment.. .I must end this post as there is one more cookie left on the cooling rack and I must go claim it as mine!

Cornbread is calling my name.

2011-11-22T09:02:00.001-05:00

…and I answered.

My kids love cornbread. I crave it certain times…not often. But when I crave it I have to make it. I had a go to recipe and I couldn’t find it. Dinner was on the stove, vegetables steaming, red beans and rice boiling, fish cakes rolled up and floured ready for frying and I didn’t have anytime to search for that dang recipe.

Hello Allrecipes.com and thank you. Thank you for supplying me with an endless list of cornbread. The “eenie meenie miny mow” game had to come into play. Oh.. and the fact that I had to pick something that I already had the ingredients for.

Golden Sweet Cornbread

Recipe:

adapted from: Allrecipes.com

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup white sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup melted unsalted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Spray or lightly grease a 9 inch round cake pan.

Combine milk and cornmeal in bowl and soak for 10 minutes

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.

Stir in egg, butter and cornmeal/milk mixture until well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

This recipe was well worth the kiddy game. It was a little sweet and of course my little ones loved that. It also didn’t help that I drizzled honey on it when it came out the oven. Oh yeah… it was good. Almost too good… I practically annulated it while frying the fish cakes.

If you like a less sweet cornbread I do recommend cutting the sugar in this one. If you like a dryer cornbread then I do recommend you don’t try this one at all. This will be my new staple cornbread recipe. Now that I have noted that.. any bets the old one will show up?

My Buddy and Me :)

2011-11-17T18:30:00.000-05:00

…I’d like to think so anyway.

I don’t usually gaa gaa or go goo gooo over celebs. There are only a few. And honestly Buddy Valastro the Cake Boss…wasn’t someone on top of my list to meet. I do love his work and admire his drive and his passion… !

I now view him a whole different light. Really… this is a man who is so genuine and sincere. This is a man whose drive is inspiring!! I didn’t even know his story until I won a chance to hear it directly out of his mouth….

Serious… I friggin won something else. How great has this year been too me!! I was blown away with the support of my husband and friends on facebook and twitter! I couldn’t believe that I won the TLC Cake Contest after only entering the night before. I couldn’t believe that so many people spread the link and so many people voted for my cake. That brought tears to my eyes. Even when I had thought I had lost the contest I felt as though I was a true winner…

The email I received from Amy of the Discovery Channel was a shocker. I was truly excited!! I won! I won!! Of course I had to take my mentor cakiest Christine of Not a Crumb! Exquisite Cakes because if not for her I wouldn’t have known what my hands are capable of doing. She opened my eyes to so much in the cake world and continues to do so! Plus… she is a pleasure to be around.

We packed up the car and headed to Tennessee. We certainly stood out at the Tennessee theatre! For …sure.. you could tell we were from Atlanta. We stood staring up at the theatre which reminded me of the Fox Theatre here in the ATL..a bit. The line was practically wrapped around the building. I guess that is what the line looks like outside his shop in Hoboken. Wow! This man is soooo admired!

And when I say admired.. .I mean people practically threw themselves off the balcony when he entered the theatre walking through the aisles! My goodness, I had never seen such a thing. Christine and I were in awe of the crowd.

He enters the stage and began shooting Carlos Bakery T-shirts in the air with some sort of shooter gadget. The people went full attack mode.. trying to grab a shirt. It was so unbelievable.

The show was hilarious. 2 plus hours of cake decorating contest…from moms decorating cupcakes, to dudes making roses from modeling chocolate and having to dance or as Buddy says “get freaky deaky”, to their wives across the stage. Whoever brought their piping bag skills on …and in the men's case.. their dance grove poppin.. basically was deemed the winner. He even had the kiddies on stage. It was hilarious hearing them throw their moms under the bus when Buddy would ask if mom was a good baker!

He also had a question and answer section of the show and he decorated a cake in like 2 minutes (minor exaggeration folks).. piping black scrolls on a three tiered cake. Ah-maze-ing. He proudly told us how his new cake factory will be delivering within the USA in December.

The most heartfelt part of the show was when he spoke of his dad… and how he and his mom came to the USA, of how he wanted to live the American Dream…and of course how he died… and how Buddy took over the bakery…devastated… but knew he must move on and take over and continue what he and his dad had in vision for the bakery.

Part of being a VIP ticket holder was the meet and greet at the end. Christine and I felt so unprepared as we had nothing for him to sign. Imagine our joy when his DJ Rusty, to us Buddy would sign our T-shirts… while they were still on us. Too funny…out of all the people I swear we were the only ones that had to strip a little (removing our layers of clothes to get to the undershirts) for an autograph from Buddy. I was looking around for Lisa. I would totally run from her.. Yeah..seriously.. she doesn’t look like one to mess with!! Buddy cracked a few jokes about how he wears “wife beaters” as he signed the back of the one I had on. ::Pause for Blush:: ::Carry on:: He also congratulated me on winning the cake contest. ::Blush more::

What struck me the most… ? As Christine and I walked away..he called back to us… we turned.. he wished Christine the best of luck in her bakery. And he told us “God Bless.” He had my heart then.

Best.experience.ever.

Creamy Salmon

2011-10-31T13:15:00.001-04:00

..at least that is what I will call it. :)

source: Moms who think

The listed name is Healthy Baked Salmon Dijon. And it is pretty good. I am not familiar to making salmon with creamy sauce on it so it was “out of my box”. Hubby ate it and didn’t complain about it so I am assuming it was a pass.

Now I am not posting something I didn’t taste. No sir, not me. I did taste it and I thought it was good. So, if you are looking for a different way to do salmon then try it. If you like Sour cream, Dijon and Dill…this is for you. Will I do it again. Yes. Perhaps I would serve it with a rice or couscous. Perhaps I will add less sauce… but I will do this again.

Recipe:

1 cup fat free sour cream
2 teaspoons dried dill
3 Tablespoons scallions, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 lb. salmon fillet with skin, cut in center
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
as needed fat free cooking spray

Directions:

Whisk sour cream, dill, onion, mustard, and lemon juice in small bowl to blend.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil baking sheet with cooking spray.

Place salmon, skin side down, on prepared sheet. Sprinkle with garlic powder and pepper, then spread with the sauce.

Bake salmon until just opaque in center, about 20 minutes

Cakes R us.

2011-10-29T19:14:00.001-04:00

well me.

Red Velvet Grooms Cake! I saw the idea of this cake online and loved how it wasn’t the traditional tuxedo cake!

Vintage Pink and white Bible Cake for a Baptism. White Almond cake with Buttercream. Very fun to make!

GT Smash Cake and Cupcakes for a first birthday girl! Vanilla flavored! How pretty. Mom supplied me with the picture as I forgot to take one! Glad she did… love it!

Another vanilla Smash cake… this one is race car themed. It was done for Michelle over at Cook au Vin. She had a wonderful party for her little one. The picture was supplied by her as well…

Yes.. the Florida Seminoles. Chocolate goodness with Buttercream as requested. This was my first football field cake. I tried to make it so it wouldn’t look too bakery like… so I wanted the logo to be hand cut. It took some time but I loved the results! Goooo Seminoles!

Dora cake was fun! So much fun! I wanted it to be bright and cheery and so it was! The little birthday girl requested Strawberry cake! I wish I had a picture of it cut and it must have been even prettier! I made Dora and friends out of gumpaste and fondant mixed. Dora was a little challenging but I was happy with her… I don’t know which is my favorite.. her, backpack…the map? Or even the dancing stars..or the vivid flowers…and the butterfly.. don’t forget the butterfly. I want to make another one of these cakes. Very fun!

Snickers Caramel Cheesecake Cookies

2011-10-23T20:57:00.001-04:00

….another recipe brought to me via Pinterest so that I can bring to you. :)

adapted from : Picky Palate

So. I see these on Pinterest and I tell myself that I totally have to make these even though I don’t eat Snickers chocolate bars. That’s what Pinterest.com does to you folks. It sucks you in… hours upon hours of drooling and wishing, okay…inspiring too.. for you to eat, create, buy, slave over, add to wish list, party plan, hang up, plop down.. you get the point. It is deadly over there and I urge you all to try it.

I also urge you to try these cookies. They are so good and Picky Palate make them look so much better then I do but I just about was able to hide these two slivers so I can snap a half decent picture.

I will be honest though. I don’t have that muffin top pan to make these and I wasn’t going to invest in one for this either. I decided that I will use a regular muffin pan. FAIL! Even though I did it as Picky Palate suggest my mixture overflowed and became a mess. It also didn’t release itself from the pan very well.

We live and learn.. well kind of. I was still defiant as I had some more crust mixture and cheesecake batter left. I decided just to do it in a pie dish. SUCCESS! The only thing I did differently was to add some more butter to the graham cracker crust that layered the pan. That is it. I did everything as per the recipe! My results were very satisfactory.

This dessert/snack… whatever way you want to enjoy it, is very sweet and decadent. I do recommend doing the whip cream topping to break away some of the sweetness. But seriously, mine couldn’t stay around long enough for me to whip the cream.

If you are not on Pinterest.com then I suggest you get over there and request an invite to join. Okay.. maybe I won’t suggest it.. because if you spend long hours on that site you may then come back and blame me. You have been warned. Stay away if you must.. .join if you dare. But if you do join.. you should try complete some of the projects, recipes etc. that you pin. It is the whole purpose… I mean.. why just drool on your keyboard?

RE-Visited.. Luscious Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

2011-10-07T00:02:00.000-04:00

…with Caramel Chocolate Whipped Ganache Filling and Chocolate Buttercream with Chocolate Ganache and Caramel drizzle.

I was bored yesterday and decided to make a 6 inch cake. A decadent 6 inch cake. If I haven’t said so before…I will say it again.. this is the best chocolate cake ever. Yes.. ever.

So, you have the recipe. Now I urge you to try it. If you like a cake filled with chocolate flavor then this is it. The recipe has sour cream.. duh… and unsweetened chocolate.. its great.

I wanted more chocolate.. so I made a great Chocolate Buttercream from Food.com. This is my go to Chocolate Buttercream recipe.. and I have mentioned that before to. But just incase you all didn’t get it the first time I thought I would mention it again.

Still.. that wasn’t chocolate enough. So hey, a ganache. Why not? I was bored.. .I had semi-sweet chocolate chips laying around doing nothing and being bored like me. So I put them to work and made my go to ganache recipe. This time I decided to whip it. Whip it real good… while cold. Then I added some caramel topping that I had in the fridge. Yes, that looked bored too so I invited it to the party. And boy.. that was the best guest as it complimented the chocolate so very well. I even decided to give it a bonus by drizzling it on top of the cake… which of course I had poured some un-whipped ganache that was leftover. Why waste?

Anyway, the result was worth the effort. Can’t you tell?

Basil Pesto Chicken

2011-10-03T10:22:00.001-04:00

My 12 year old son loves chicken and he certainly has his favorites. I am so bored of making the same old chicken recipes. Actually, I don’t have many chicken recipes because I don’t make too much of an effort when I cook it.

I decided to look for different ways to prepare chicken.. but they had to be easy too. I am finding that now all my kids are in school or preschool that my day is still busy or even busier then when I had the little ones home all day. I spend most of my day in my car picking them up or dropping them off and soon they will be back in after school activities so I will have less time in the kitchen.

Easy and delicious now has to become part of my daily lifestyle… during the week at least.

Basil Pesto Chicken Recipe

source: Moms Who Think

Ingredients:

4 boneless skinless chicken breast

1/2 cup basil pesto

2 tomatoes

shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix and toss chicken with pesto in a bowl till covered.

Cover a cookie sheet with foil and place chicken on sheet. Try to use a rimmed cookie sheet to prevent spillage.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes.

Place slices of tomato on top of chicken and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

Bake for additional 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Roll Cake

2011-09-29T23:31:00.001-04:00

Since this was all over Pinterest.com I decided to bake it and see if it lived up to the hype.

Honestly.. I didn’t think it did. The taste of cinnamon is there… you can tell it is supposed to be cinnamon roll. But the texture of the cake throws me off. And the cake seemed very very dry. Unless I baked it incorrectly or I am just so used to my cakes, then I could be wrong.

Maybe it warrants another go? It sat around my house for about a week until there were about 4 or so slices left. Then I discarded. With 2 grown males and 2 small kids… no baked good last that long in this house.

So I ask you to give it a try. It is a very easy recipe. And if you find a different result..please let me know! I could have over mixed… over baked… anything could have happened. We all know in the world of baking everything comes down to science.

Recipe

Source: Cooking up North

Cake:
3 c. flour
1/4 tsp.salt
1 c. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. milk
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. butter, melted

Topping:
1 c. butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. cinnamon

Glaze:
2 c. powdered sugar
5 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Mix everything together except for the butter.

Slowly stir in the melted butter and pour into a greased 9x13 pan.

For the topping, mix all the ingredients together until well combined.

Drop evenly over the batter and swirl with a knife.

Bake at 350 for 28-32 minutes.

While warm drizzle the glaze over the cake.

Still I RISE!

2011-09-28T11:36:00.001-04:00

Can I just say that being busy must suit me. Because man oh man.. I did 4 cakes this past weekend and 5 cakes the weekend before that!!! I can’t believe I pulled it off! Well, yes I can… but I needed to test myself. Not so sure if I will do that again though! My body took some time to recover! If I ever have that many request I will definitely be getting some help in this kitchen!

Here are a few of them…

The bottom tier of this Toy Story Cake was Cookies and Cream, which was the most requested. The top tier was funfetti! This design was requested by client and was inspired by Michelle Sweet Cakes.

Hand painted Louis Vutton Wallet Cake… with edible cards and money! Great fun making this one!

This vintage Suitcase Cake was also Cookies and Cream. The top was Styrofoam covered and decorated with fondant. The lid actually opened and yes.. some spillage of clothing was on the side. OPPS! :)

Hollywood Star baby shower cake was a request from the client! This cake was blue velvet inside! The request was for it to be “over the top!” I added some non edible jewels and gold highlight edible paint to complete the look!

And this has to be one of my favs. I love the gumpaste baby camel! The baby shower theme was Moroccan and they requested a camel to be on top of the pillow cakes. The bottom was carrot cake and the top was vanilla. this cake was too cute especially when it was placed with the beautiful decorations of the baby shower.

By the way, the decorations where so awesome I couldn’t stop talking about them. I met the event planner Yuri Waddell of The Plan Designers and I would recommend her to any and everybody. Very pleasant and her decor was top notch. You can see her blog at Randomly Creative.

Once I get the other pictures in of the other cakes I did I will share! Promise. I also have a cake recipe to share soon too!

Fifty and Fabulous! “Queen of Sole” Cake!

2011-09-10T12:50:00.001-04:00

This cake was tons of work but so much fun. I didn’t think it would even look this way when I finished! I mean I knew the look I was going for but when I put all the elements together it was better then I thought!

It totally fit the theme of the party! The birthday girl loves shoes! Thus.. “Queen of Sole” was born.

This was my first gumpaste high heel shoe. Well, technically.. my second. The first one broke. Note to self: Give yourself at least a week drying time when you do sugar stilettos.

Okay.. the crown was a cinch. I did want to go into more detail but since I knew I was going to have a top pillow full of so much detail and pops of color I opted to tone it down a bit. I don’t think the overall cake misses it!

The only thing non edible on this cake is the jewels on the crown. I didn’t have enough time to make some isomalt jewels. But I think these look great! I wanted the crown to have an old world feel to it.. Viking like and powerful.

The flavors were vanilla cake with buttercream filling which was the top tier and the bottom tier was Cheesecake cake with Chocolate Cheesecake marbled throughout and it was filled with strawberry buttercream!

For the love of Quinoa

2011-09-06T16:34:00.000-04:00

Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is a relative of leafy green veggies, such as spinach or kale.

Kind of hard to believe because for some reason I thought it was a grain. We use it as a grain so it is commonly thought as so.

Alright enough of all that.. I am just here to tell you that is is delicious. The added bonus is that it is better for you then that grain of white rice. In fact it is similar to brown rice but has more protein. And in my opinion taste a whole lot better then brown rice.

I love beans so naturally eating quinoa with beans was a delight for me. The recipe I found on Allrecipes.com and I substituted kidney beans for the black beans because that is all I had. I love kidney beans more then black beans anyway so it really was a win win situation for me!

Quinoa and Red Beans

adapted from : Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions:

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

Stir in the onion and garlic, and sauté until lightly browned.

Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth.

Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper.

Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes.

Mix in the black beans and cilantro

Easy Eggplant Curry

2011-08-29T12:34:00.000-04:00

I love Curry. But for the longest time I thought you boiled it in a big stew pot and that was the only way that it was done. My mom didn’t have any curry dishes in her rotation, which didn’t bother me too much because a lot of things she did make were really delicious, such as her scallop potatoes.. which I must blog about soon, and her farine pie.. that I will be blogging about as well. When I visited a few households I would always see a big ole pot of curry chicken. This led me to believe that that was the only way to curry anything.

As I began to crave the taste for curry more and more I wanted to learn how to make it for myself. I tried a few different ways and it was just so so to me. I even tried those premix curry paste cubes sold in the grocery store. Don’t get me wrong.. those are good and so quick and tasty. But I wanted to know how to do it from scratch!

My mother in law was visiting and took me to a Caribbean store on the other side of Atlanta. I picked up some soy, some coconut candy, a box of Sorrel Ginger tea for the hubby and some graham marsala. She pointed out to me the curry powder she uses for her dishes. Her curry dishes are delicious and full of flavor. I long to make curry as good as she does. I had to start somewhere, so I picked up the brand she showed me which was Lalah’s.

Its simple to use and you can make a curry paste out of it if you don’t want to use it dry. The amount of the ingredients depend on the recipe you are using.. but in some case I eyeball it. I love curry and a little goes a long way but I always tend to use more then needed.

The most important thing about curry is sautéing the mix prior to adding your meat. That 1 minute of browning the fragrant spice in the frying pan makes a huge difference. In making the eggplant curry, I heated my butter in the pan and added sliced onions. I fried the onions until they were light brown in color and then added 2 tbsp of curry. I also like to add graham marsala with my curry but this is not at all necessary. I bought it and wanted an excuse to use it! I stirred it for about a minute…until I smelled the flavors and the curry mixture turned a light brown. Don't over cook it and keep and eye on it as it browns quickly! Then I added my chopped eggplant and sautéed for a few minutes. I added some water, just enough to get the consistency that I wanted for the sauce. Remember this will thicken as it cooks. I let the Eggplant Curry stew for about 20 minutes.. on low heat until it was ready to eat!

You can eat alone, or over roti or naan bread. I like it with peas and rice, or red beans and rice or just plain white rice.

At this time this is my curry method of choice. But I will be trying a ton of recipes of the Lalah's website. I am getting more confident with making it and can’t wait to try different meats and vegetables! By far this is the best curry seasoning I have had. A pound container last a long time and the price is right for $4.70.

Feel free to let me know how you do your curry and what you like to add it with!

Salmon in a can.

2011-08-26T10:27:00.001-04:00

For a long time I only made lentil burgers. The reason is being new at whole “hubby is a pescatarian” thing I wasn’t comfortable or knowledgeable about making any other burger but beef or lentils.

Now with portabella burgers, chickpea burgers, and veggie burgers being very popular I decided to jump out of the lentil box.

I make a great Codfish Cake and enjoy it being placed in between a Hot Cross Bun never realizing that it is a version of a fish burger because the word “cake” is embedded in my brain.

So then comes the salmon burger. It sounded interesting enough because we love salmon. Salmon in a can not so much. But was I willing to try that? Okay, yeah….why not. It is Friday and cooking in this house on a Friday night is a little bit unheard of. So canned salmon it is. Opening the canned salmon didn’t make me go running to the nearest pizza or Chinese restaurant…our usual boring first choices for a Friday night. It kept me interested enough to see what it would be like seasoned and fried. Frying has to make all things taste good. Right? And anything called burgers usually do.. like lentils. :)

Lemon makes things taste great too. Three things such as frying and lemon and fish… a recipe for tempting my tummy. And it did. This Lemon Salmon Burger was every bit of yummy. The basil, parsley and onion addition helped the burger to pop and it really makes you forget you got the salmon out of a can.

I served the burgers with brown rice and sautéed spinach. A very healthy clean meal. But I am sure these burgers would taste just as good between a bun and slathered with sauce.

You can find the recipe here at Allrecipes.com and do try the sauce that is posted with the recipe. I did and it was perfect!

Brown Sugar Cupcakes for Josie

2011-08-18T07:13:00.001-04:00

Delicious moist Brown Sugar cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream swirled on top and a sweet raspberry for decor along with sugar flowers and dragees. This makes for an elegant delicate subtle treat that can pack a light sweet punch even at a virtual baby shower. Yes.. a virtual baby shower.

Anybody who knows me has heard me mention the name Josie. My friend Josie has a great blog called Pink Parsley. I have referred many a friend in Bermuda to her blog. Some of whom have emailed me pictures of the recipes they have made. Pink Parsley’s blog is full of yummy goodness. I heart the name.. I heart her blog… her recipes… and I totally heart Josie.

Behind that blog lies a quiet Josie..who always smiles and listens and offers advice only when the time is necessary. I met Josie before blogging. We have kids the same age and used to meet at a local coffee house to chat about life as stay at home moms and anything else. At our kids’ last play date she told me she was expecting again and I was thrilled! Her 3 year old daughter is so precious and now I can’t wait to meet the newest addition!

When Josie started her blog I was inspired and extremely happy to have a friend who could create such delicious dishes and be so gracious to share the recipes. And the best thing is she loves Mexican food. My absolute fav!! Another thing Josie loves is cupcakes. So when Annie of Annie's Eats asked me to participate in Josie’s Virtual Baby Shower, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Josie loves baking cupcakes.. and she does them well.

RECIPE

Brown Sugar Cupcakes

source: Your Home Based Mom from Martha Steward Cupcakes

Ingredients:

3 cups sifted all- purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

4 large eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325F.

Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and brown sugar until pale fluffy. This should take approx 5 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated and scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

Add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of the buttermilk and beating until combined after each.

Divide the batter evenly among lined cups.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean.

Raspberry Buttercream Recipe:

adapted from: allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1 cup butter

8 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

6 ounces heavy whipping cream

2 ounces of Seedless Raspberry Preserves

Directions:

Cream shortening until fluffy. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time and blend until incorporated.

Continue adding sugar continue creaming until well blended. (I would taste after 6 cups to test if sweet enough. 8 cups of sugar can sometimes be too sweet for me. And remember the raspberries will make it sweeter.)

Add salt, vanilla, and heavy whipping cream and blend on low speed until moistened.

Add Seedless Raspberry Preserves. Beat at high speed until frosting is fluffy.

The food blogging community is an awesome one. They are very giving like a tightly knit community. A neighborhood of foodies except we only see each other online. We wave and communicate through the windows in our homes via the desktop or laptop. Despite that, we know each other as well as we can. Some of our foodie neighbors we dream of meeting in real life, and some of them we actual do! Its a blessing when you have a local friend that is one of them and a great blogger at that. Make sure you see the rest of our virtual baby shower guest and their shower yummies by visiting our hostess’ blog Annie's Eats and our mommy of honor Josie at Pink Parsley.

I have been doing more cakes then anything else, as you can tell by my blog if you have been following me. Click on the Cake tab to the right and you can tell fondant and me are friends. Ironically enough Josie was one out of a few people including Michelle of Cook Au Vin, who encouraged me to decorate cakes for others. I felt it only fitting to make a little gumpaste shaggy teddy bear because of that. Josie, the little gumpaste blue bear is yours…but the deal is you must come by and visit with little baby in order to get it. :)

The tutorial for this shaggy gumpaste bear can be found here on You Tube! I absolutely love Michelle Cake Designs. Her work is very inspirational!

Josie… enjoy today as we all unite even more through your virtual baby shower. You are very much deserving and I congratulate you on your new bundle of joy. Now come get your blue sugar bear!

More of what I love to do…

2011-08-15T00:59:00.000-04:00

You have had to have heard of the popular kids show on Nick Jr. called Umizoomi right? The song is so catchy I find myself singing it all the time. Then when my kids hear me they sing right along with me. The show is cute so I was really excited to have the opportunity to make an Umizoomi cake for a friends daughter. I also took the opportunity to make a cupcake cake. Since I had an easy low caking summer I was ready to start carving. I go through withdrawals when I haven’t carved a cake. Something so satisfying about slicing food into a shape of something. Well.. I don’t like the cupcake pans so I knew I had to attempt this freestyle.. as I normally do with any of my carved cakes. The ridge around the top of the cupcake is actually cake I carved away. I mixed it with some buttercream and made a log then wrapped it around the top. Next time I want it to be a bit more defined. But it was good to use cake shavings for it instead of a log of fondant.

I was happy with the results but I know where I could have done better. So I do hope to do another one. The same goes for the gumpaste characters of Millie and Rio. I wasn’t 100 percent happy. But I could really use some practice with gumpaste characters so the more chances I get I will take them on full strong.

I have noticed that baby shower cakes are coming in faster then I can count the fingers on one hand.

Well.. okay.. I don’t get too many request for cakes but it does seem as if lately everybody is having a baby. I guess the recession had couples cutting back on date night at the movie theatres.

I am so not complaining because for a long time I was wishing I did more baby shower cakes. They are just too cute!

Inspired by Michelle Cake Designs..I put this together for a mommy to be. The fondant ribbon was to match the invite. I used the cake tin to make the lid of the box by turning it upside down and placing a cake board the same size as the pan on it. I then laid and shaped the gumpaste like a lid on it and left it to dry for a day. The next day removed it from the cake tin and let it dry for 2 more days. To be sure that my cake dowels that I place in the cake to hold up the lid were not going to pop through the top, I left the cake board under the lid.

The tissue was fun to make as well…the blocks were well.. interesting. However, I am happy with how my first gift box turned out and plan on doing more! Very fun and easy!!

….and I love shabby teddy… you will see him again… loved making him.

This one was all cake including the bassinet. I didn’t plan on doing the bassinet in cake too. I was going to mold it from rice krispie treats. But I had extra so I figured it always good to have more cake :).

That is pretty much it for the summer. I had my godson visiting for 4 weeks so I kept my calendar clear and also I wanted to spend more time with my kids. Fall is soon upon us and I have some exciting cakes on the horizon still keeping a great pace.

Quality over quantity.. it took me a while to learn that one.

Guilt free Crust. :)

2011-07-10T01:27:00.000-04:00

Many of us that enjoy a good crust to a pizza. Sometimes too much. Well, I know I enjoy it too much. My son pretty much leaves the pizza crust on the plate. What a waste!

Speaking of waste… my waist doesn’t like my love of pizza crust. Or French bread for that matter… but that is a whole other post.

Since trying stop eating so much simple carbs and sugars I am researching other ways to have my crust and eat it too… guilt free.

Thus the chickpea is introduced. Add with some dry oatmeal and olive oil and you have this:

I suppose you could spread it out a bit neater then I have but I like all the nooks and crannies in it. This was chickpea delicious. Clearly.. the chickpeas taste is stronger then the oatmeal. The crust is soft and good. You can add herbs and seasoning and it would really take it over the edge.

I made applesauce to spread on it after toasting. I also put sliced tomatoes on it and sprinkled with some black pepper and it was amazing. I have yet to try it as a pizza crust but that is next on my list.

This will be my go to crust recipe when I feel carbs are not my friend. I never said I will never eat a good ole crusty crust of pizza again… just in moderation as with everything else. But this has potential to be my go to guilt free snack.

Chickpea and Oatmeal Crust

source Diet Science.com

Ingredients :

1 cup oatmeal
1/2 can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1 egg white
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic salt to taste

Directions :

Blend ingredients in blender/food processor until smooth.

Add a little water to loosen up ingredients.

Keep mixture like a dough-like consistency.

Bake in oven at 400 degrees until edges lift off from pan and the crust looks cracked

This Wife Bakes

2011-06-09T22:25:00.001-04:00

This wife also cooks. This wife also cleans. This wife also runs errands. This wife also is the designated driver. This wife tries to do it all. But through it all this wife is still a person… a person that still needs to take care of herself.

I told you all that I would share some of the things I learned in the BlogHer Food11 conference. One thing I learned was if people wanted to read recipes then they would buy a cookbook. I can’t remember which member of panel said that but it hit home. My blog started as a recipe collection for me and for others. I kind of wanted to bring some of Bermuda to America and vice versa. Then it turned into cakes. Well, I love to bake.. but didn’t want my blog turn into a huge cake gallery with no personality. And to me, that is what it was becoming. That member of panel then said the person who is reading your blog wants an experience… your experience with food. My blog wasn’t showing my experiences with food. I mean, it showed some of the good, the bad and the ugly…but not my thoughts on the dish… my thoughts of making it. I have become more relaxed in my writing since first starting but now I crave more from my blog. It is time for a change.

In addition to changing how I write up a recipe I am adding more healthy recipes. Oh… don’t huff and puff about it. I will still be blogging some good ole fattening desserts. Life isn’t life without some sweet dessert.

For the next few months I am trying to focus on my health and make a lifestyle change. I want to enjoy the lovely desserts with less guilt. Don’t we all? So majority of my meals can use a little cleaning up!

This brings me to a recipe I want to share. A healthy one. :)

Oatmeal Banana Muffins

adapted from: 3 fat chicks

…no flour….no sugar… just good ole fashion oats and fruit.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cup dry oatmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup skim or 1% milk

2 large egg whites

1/2 cup of applesauce

1 banana, mashed

1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

cinnamon to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a muffin pan with non stick spray or use liners.

Mix oatmeal, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in bowl.

Add rest of ingredients and mix just until incorporated.

Add to muffin pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Makes about 10 muffins.

Folks… do not make these and expect a fluffy oatmeal muffin. Nah… this muffin is purely oatmeal and banana and I chose not to add Splenda. But by all means you can. The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of it. This muffin is dense and not too sweet. But for someone like me who is trying to break away from too much sweet and enjoy eating wholesome…it works. It makes a great healthy choice you can grab on the go. I toasted mine this morning and added mashed apple. It was a great breakfast treat with no guilt. If you are watching you flour and sugar intake I would definitely encourage you to try these and enjoy trying them in different ways!

Experiment with adding blueberries, raisins, oohh.. pineapple.. yum.

I think I am going to make another batch.

The Greatness of the BlogHer Food11 Conference

2011-06-09T21:07:00.001-04:00

Yes… I am here. Busy as ever but still here… thankfully. I have had 3 weekends of busy-ness. From the time May 20th I have had company visiting from overseas. Can’t neglect family… but did neglect the blog.

The day my cousin was due to arrive from Bermuda I had made plans to attend BlogHer Food11. She didn’t have me for a whole weekend, but it was a weekend I couldn’t miss. I had wanted to attend this food blogging conference for a good 6 months. But as time got closer it seemed that it wasn’t to be. Then a friend of mine, the lovely Shelly Chapman of Eat.Relate.Love.com told me about a contest that one of the sponsors was having.

POM Wonderful was offering a ticket!! FREE! All I had to do was email them. I never win anything… not like this.. .but man, it must have been my time to shine. I was stunned that my email was picked. I was elated that out of many few were chosen and I was one!

BlogHer Food11 was more then I could hope for. I went there with cards in hand, made by Precise of Extreme Atlanta. I was ready to learn and ready to meet and ready to eat. I met people that I respected in the food blogging world… like Brady of Branny Boils Over. I love her blog! And meeting her showed me she is just as true to herself as how she writes. I also met Tami from Running With Tweezers and Betsy who is the sister of Rue Drummond. And my twitter pal Lauren of Celiac Teen a young blogger with a mature lovable and educating personality. I also got the pleasure of meeting Erin of Erin's Food File whom I think is awesome and would love to sit at a bar with and have a drink. Man, there are so many more..

I met bloggers whom I had not heard of but upon meeting them thought were so cool that now their blogs list amongst my favorites. Irvin from Eat The Love, Sabrina of The Tomato Tart. Also one of my favorites is Chef Asata, her realness is the coolest.

And I can’t forget my friends such as Shelly of Eat.Relate.Love and my girl Josie of Pink Parsley. It was great hanging out with them there. I can’t name everybody, seriously… there were many that I had the pleasure of meeting and so many that I didn’t.

Amongst all the bloggers there was food. Oh my gosh… Along with the hotel feeding us every five minutes…the sponsors were everywhere enticing us with their goodies… A few of my favorites where Bays English Muffins. It is at their station where I first tried Nutella. Yea, I said it… never had it before. And now I am hooked. I am also hooked on Bays English Muffins. You find these in the dairy section of the grocery store… you know.. by the eggs. I will never buy the other English muffin again. Ever.

Scharffen Berger was very popular at the conference. They were giving out bags of chocolate! Oh my. And of course POM Wonderful was giving out some of their delicious pomegranate juices. Amongst them were the other great sponsors of the BlogHer Food11. I came home with a bag of wonderful goodies! Got to love free stuff!

Anyway, the main thing is I learned. I learned a few things. And because I forgot to take a camera to the BlogHer Food11 event this post is picture less. Which leads me to tell you that I will be making a new post of some of the things I learned from BlogHer Food11 conference. Soon…..

Oh.. wait.. .I found a picture of me at the conference…hanging out with Shelly and Asata..

Click here to see!! How fun!!

Ice Cream Bread. Yes, I did it.

2011-05-16T22:55:00.001-04:00

As strange as it sounded, I was intrigued. As easy as the recipe is… I figured.. why not?

Two ingredients folks. Ice Cream (any flavor) and self rising flour. I used Strawberry Shortcake flavored Ice Cream…it had chunks of strawberry and shortcake throughout a buttercream flavored ice cream…Perfect for this recipe I thought.

That’s it.

I promise you it gets no easier than that.

I feel that the “bread” takes on whatever flavor ice cream you use. Since I used an ice cream that was filled with strawberries, the cake was strong with the strawberry taste (and a pretty color too). The texture is soft and somewhat cake like.. almost… not quite. But it is good! Surprisingly.

What made it even better?… When serving it, I put a dollop of the ice cream on top!

Ice Cream Bread Recipe

source: the Hungry Housewife

2 Cups of Ice Cream, softened (any flavor of your choice)

1 1/2 cups of Self-Rising Flour

Grease and flour loaf pan. I love Baker’s Joy for that job.

Mix ice cream with flour in bowl until they are just combined.

Pour in loaf pan and smooth top.

Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from pan and cool.

I checked mine at 30 minutes and it was done but I notice my bread wasn’t as high as the one in the original recipe. hmmmmm?

Anyway, if you try this recipe… feel free to let me know how yours turns out. This recipe will be a staple in my house for a quick treat… I am so ready to try different flavors!

It’s Saturday night… Is Scooby Dooby Doo around?

2011-05-14T22:37:00.000-04:00

This is a quickie post. One of them cake ones. I just needed to get this picture on the blog before it disappears in my computer. Okay, that isn’t that serious because I have the picture on Facebook too.

I was asked to do a Scooby Doo themed cake for birthday boy Carter who was turning 5. Oreo Cookie Cake was requested for the top tier and the bottom tier was funfetti vanilla with buttercream filling. There are so many awesome Scooby Doo cakes out there. The best thing about Scooby Cakes is that you can put so much stuff on it… not too much so that it is junky but just enough because there are tons of characters and items that scream Scooby Doo… pardon the pun. Scream? Scooby? Did you get it…

Scooby Doobie Doo

Here are you…

I know you’ll catch that villain!

Oh.. let me throw this Rockstar Chic Cake in the post too. She was white chocolate on top tier and vanilla on the bottom. I didn’t get to take any great pictures of this beauty because the venue was dark and I assembled it there… but believe you me… she rocked!!

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake

2011-05-12T11:43:00.000-04:00

adapted from Annie's Eats

So rich, so thick, so chocolate…you can’t eat it slow but you can’t eat it fast….

I was eager to make this cake. But not stupid enough to make it just because I wanted to. That would result in the cake being in this house and me nibbling at it daily. So when the opportunity came up at a Mother’s Day Brunch for the family I figured that it would be perfect.

Mind you I was going to go another route. I was going to make something lighter…more refreshing like Ambrosia or something. But this cake was calling me.

I made my Luscious Sour Cream Chocolate Cake and paired it with the Peanut Butter Icing that Annie recommended.

Once you make these two recipes begin building your cake. As long as your Chocolate layers are cool. I didn’t torte my layers so it was a 2 layer 8 inch round cake. I also doubled the Peanut Butter Icing Recipe… That is very important because you wont have enough if you don’t double it. Here.. I will make it easier for you…

Peanut Butter Icing Recipe:

adapted/doubled from Food Network.com

2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 cup peanut butter, creamy
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2/3 cup heavy cream

Mix the confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in mixer. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy and making sure you scrap down the sides of the bowl. Add the heavy cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

You will use this icing as your filling with chopped reese’s peanut butter cup and you will then frost your cake with it. Decorate to your liking using whole and chopped mini reese’s peanut butter cups.

Oh… so delightful.

What was really crazy about this cake was that I enjoyed decorating it… It was sooo simple and took no time at all.

I only bought a 12 ounce bag of reese’s mini peanut butter cups and I had some left over so a tip… don’t buy a huge bag…

Unless your like me and you don’t mind eating the extras. :)

It’s Official.

2011-04-29T11:11:00.001-04:00

Pasties are not my friend. Unless I am eating them.

Okay.. wait.. the other official news in that Prince William has married Kate Middleton. So we have a new Princess. And although I wasn’t to gaga about the wedding, the bug bite me last night. I wanted to see her dress, I wanted to see the chemistry between them. I wanted to eat British food. See where that went? Wedding…dress…food…? Okay, moving on.

Turns out I did a cooking class in my first year of high school. I had to either do cooking, sewing or art. I choice art for the rest of my high school years because my goodness, cooking was just not my forte. :/

I dug around for my old Food and Nutrition class note book. Voila!

Yeah… I still have it. Looks as if I really was attentive in class. Colored the banner and shield with my red pen. Cute.

Anyway, I decided to make something quick and British. Most of the recipes in my Food and Nutrition class book are British as was my teacher Ms Grey.

Cheese and Onion Pasties. Oh yum. These things were delicious! Oh I was happy cause I was about to make me something British and delighful and in celebration of the Royal nuptials!

FAIL!!!

I am not great at dough. I think I don’t go into making it with a positive attitude so it bombs on me from inception. Anyway, I tried. And I will keep trying. Usually my problem is that the butter melts in my hands and I never get the breadcrumb effect when I rub it in the flour mixture. This time.. that didn’t happen. It was perfect! But.. my dough was brittle. I added more cold water to it but I felt like I was going to destroy the texture of the dough. Anyway, I somehow got through it and made something to resemble a dough like consistency!

Then I put my pasties in the oven only to pull them out and see that my seams busted.

Oozing out of the seams was cheese and onion. Onion and cheese oozing. Although this sounds delicious it just didn’t look pretty.

My faith in my dough making abilities dwindled more.

It won’t stop me though. I love a challenge. I will keep doughing until I get it right. In the meantime.. you must try these delicious cheese and onion pasties.

Shortcrust Pastry Recipe:

source: the food and nutrition class of Ms Grey

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tbsp margarine (I used butter)

2 tbsp shortening

1/4 tsp salt

2 to 3 tablespoons ice cold water.

Directions:

Sift flour and salt into a bowl

Add in margarine and shortening and cut it in with a round bladed knife.

Rub in with fingertips until mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

Add 2 tbsp water and stir with knife. If it doesn’t start to bind(form into large lumps) then add a little more water.

When the mixture starts to bind, gather together by hand and form into a smooth ball.

Wrap up in cling wrap and set in fridge or use immediately for recipe of your choice.

Cheese and Onion Pasties Recipe:

source: the food and nutrition class of Ms Grey

1 cup Shortcrust Pastry

2 ounces of grated cheese

1 small onion, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1 beaten egg

Directions

Roll out pastry to 1/8 thick and cut into 6 circles (use the lid of a jar as a guide)

Chop onion and mix with grated cheese and half of beaten egg

Add salt and pepper

Damp the edges of the pastry circles and divide the mixture evenly into the centre of each

Bring the edges together and press firmly to seal and pinch or flute to neaten

Brush sides with beaten eggs to glaze and prick once or twice.

Place on lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes to lightly brown.

For your Pastry Kings and Queens out there that make this recipe.. please feel free to share the link to a picture and share tips in my comments! I love a tip or two or three :)

And do enjoy it. These were DELICIOUS!! It was quite fitting to have these in honor of our new Royal Highness!

Metemgee (Metem)… Can I call it Heaven Stew?

2011-04-27T12:51:00.000-04:00

I was first introduced to this Guyanese dish over a friends house. I was intrigued by it. It didn’t taste at all like I imagined. And I imagined it wouldn’t taste that great because of how it looked. But you can’t judge a book by its cover…or in this case a stew by its ingredients.

Push forward a year or two and my mother in law served it to us when we were over for dinner. I was elated because I love it. She had a few different ingredients then the one I first had but it was even better.

I began the hunt for the Metemgee aka Metem recipe. Now I hunted for it because just as you ask anybody for the recipe you get “Oh, I put a little of this and some of that and then you do this and add that…” Since I bake I love having a base recipe with measurements that I can start with. Then of course I can play with it after to make it suit my taste. I never could get it. One of hubby’s aunt kindly emailed me a recipe for it! I was anxious to try it…but life got in the way. I then lost it in email inbox cyberspace and never asked for it again. Then…then I saw it.

I love perusing Jehan can Cook blog. Jehan’s blog is based on Guyanese cuisine. Its a great blog as hubby’s family is Guyanese and I tell you, their food is awesome! So tasty and so flavorful…I have literally been introduced to a whole new world through Guyanese food.

Because I tend to cook some Bermudian dishes for hubby and kids I would like to be able to cook Guyanese food for them as well. I know I won’t be able to get it just as his mom does. I have already come to terms that I will never get my mom’s famous Scallop potatoes cooked just like she does. So I am not even trying.. I just wanted to be able to make it and make it taste good!

Jehan shared her recipe in which I used the exact same ingredients. The only thing I did differently was change the order of how I added them to the pot. I am going to share my way of doing this. But if you want to see how she differs the recipe then please check out the link I will provide. I thank her for sharing this. And I can’t wait to try some more of her recipes!

Metemgee Recipe:

recipe: adapted from Jehan Can Cook

1 tablespoon oil

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves minced garlic

1 14 ounce can of coconut cream

3 cups water

10 sprigs of thyme

2 scallion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 pound salted codfish

1/2 pound cassava, cut into 3 inch pieces ( Note.. cassava here in the USA is also called YUCCA)

2 white sweet potato, medium size and cut into 3 inch pieces

2 plantains

and…

Dumplings

Recipe:

this is to be added during last 10 minutes of cooking Metemgee

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup self rising flour

1/4 sugar

1/2 cup milk

dash of salt

For dumplings… mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add milk and mix. Take some dough and roll in palm of hands (should be enough to fit in palm) then form a log like shape. Do this with the rest of dough and set them aside.

Directions:

In large pot heat oil and add onions. Sautee until tender about 4 minutes and add garlic. Sautee for additional minute.

Add coconut cream, water, thyme and scallion and pepper and bring to a boil.

Cut up salted cod in large chunks and add to pot. Add cassava(yucca) and simmer for 35 minutes.

Add plantain and sweet potato. Simmer for 15 minutes or until tender.

Add prepared dumplings and cover the pot. Do not take cover of pot for 10 minutes to allow dumplings to steam.

Turn off pot and remove dumplings.

Metemgee is ready to serve with your dumplings!!

I am sure people prepare this dish in many different ways. If you have a helpful tip please share in the comments. I found this way to work for me. It was great to have Jehan’s recipe to start me making this delicious dish. It will be in regular rotation in my household.

More Brownies.

2011-04-25T10:32:00.003-04:00

These are good. I haven’t decided which brownie recipe I like the best though. I always make these brownies but wanted to give another recipe a fair chance.

I was very pleased. Even though I made some changes. Yes, sometimes change is good. In this case change was very good because it made me a believer that I can enjoy a less fudgy brownie.

This recipe makes a cake like brownie. But not to cakey. I am not a huge fan of brownies with cake texture. So if you are like me and love a fudgy brownie then you may like this recipe too.

What I also love about this recipe is the cracked up surface. It has the soft almost cake like with a hint of fudge and crunchy top that makes this brownie mouth pleasing.

Recipe:

source: adapted from Kittencal’s Extreme Chocolate Brownies

2/3 cups butter

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/4 cup water

4 cups (24 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Grease 9 x 13 pan

In large bowl mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Bring butter, sugar and water to a boil in saucepan. Stir constantly until butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Approximately 3 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in 4 cups chocolate chips until melted. Tip: Let chips rest in butter mixture for about 2 minutes then mix. This allows chips to soften and you will get less lumps.

Beat in vanilla to the chocolate mixture.

In separate bowl beat eggs then add them gradually to the chocolate mixture. Mix well.

Add chocolate mixture to the flour/baking soda/salt. Mix well to combine.

Spread in prepared pan.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Be careful not to over bake!

Tip: Best way to cut brownies is with a plastic knife while warm. :)

Enjoy!

Bunny Bait! Sure to catch you a bunny!

2011-04-23T20:05:00.001-04:00

source : Sing for your Supper

So I spotted this bait over at Sing for your Supper and I absolutely had to make it for the kids tonight.

As I type they are enjoying it. They helped to make it too which made it all the more exciting!

I had candy melts here which I used as the binder for the popcorn and the pretzels and m&m’s. So good. This is the perfect treat for your salty and sweet craving!

I.can’t.stop.eating.it.

So head over to Amy’s blog and check out the recipe!

Really, Amy… thank you for sharing this great find! This will be a traditional at my house for years to come!!

FINALLY! Hot Cross Buns!

2011-04-20T18:09:00.000-04:00

Every year on Good Friday when I was growing up we always had Hot Cross Buns and in between them we stuffed Codfish cakes. I would smother ketchup on mine and enjoy. Couldn’t stop at one either. Two was always enough because they were filling… but your mouth wanted more.

Everybody made their buns different. And those who made buns were always mighty proud. We always bought our buns from the bakery! It wasn’t anything wrong with that because the bakery buns were good too!

Now that I have my own family and I bake, I wanted to make my own buns. Since my mother doesn’t make buns… but makes a great farine pie and other Bermuda goodies that will be featured on this blog soon.. I had to find a recipe that I was going to keep.

I mentioned on an oh so popular social networking website that I wanted to make some hot cross buns and a good friend of mine sent me a recipe.

This good friend, Juliana Swan… I used to work with at a hotel in Bermuda. She was like our mom of the front desk! Juliana mostly worked nights but when we would come on for first shift she had the front desk in tip tip order for “her girls". It was great when we had the odd occasion of working with her during the day if she had to fill in for someone. We would tell her our “problems” and she was always more then willing to offer advise.

Now years later Juliana has left me a tip top recipe for Hot Cross Buns. Just one more thing that I have to thank her for…

I feel honored that she shared and allowed me to share with you.

Recipe:

source: Juliana Swan

“Never Fail” Hot Cross Buns

Mix together:

3 cups of hot milk

1 1/2 cup butter Crisco sticks (I used regular Crisco), cut up in pieces

2 1/2 cups sugar (I used half brown sugar)

3 tsp salt

In 3/4 cup warm water add:

3 tsp sugar, then dissolve/stir in 3 yeast packages (4 preferred)

Let rise

Beat 4 eggs

Mix together in large bowl :

12 cups of flour (5 lbs)

1 box raisins or currants (optional)

2 tsp allspice (suggested pumpkin pie spice as substitution)

4 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Add all tree liquids to flour mixture and knead for 15 minutes in to a sticky ball.

Let rise in warm place for approximately 1 hour

Roll into small balls.

Make crosses with knife.

Let rise again.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes

::This makes 3 dozen buns::

Optional… Brush with melted butter and/or dust with icing sugar. I made an icing sugar from Food.com and it complimented the Hot Cross Buns very well!

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Dip.

2011-04-18T10:21:00.001-04:00

For those of you that have never heard of Buffalo Chicken Dip then you have seriously been living under a rock. Or on one. Like you, 7 years ago I had never heard of this stuff. Then I just kept seeing “Crack dip recipe” everywhere. Seriously, everybody would ask for the stuff. I decided to investigate. Saw the recipe.. it looked good but I never tried it until this year. Now I am a fan. And if you have an 11 year old son like mine then you need to make it and hide it. Serve to him in portions. My son will eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.

Buffalo Chicken Dip aka “Crack dip” is very addictive. It can be enjoyed with crusty French bread, crackers, celery or corn chips. Any way you chose to dip it you will enjoy it.

Mostly the dip is cooked on the stovetop in a large sauce pan or frying pan. I did my dip in the Crockpot. Honestly, throwing all the ingredients in the Crockpot was just plain old easier. I do enjoy it both ways … but there is something about having to do little work and obtaining a big taste that is great in my books.

Here’s the recipe and what I did…

Recipe:

adapted from: Food.com

2 10 ounce cans of chicken (or you can cook some chicken breast and dice them yourselves)

2 8 ounce packages of cream cheese

3/4 cup of Franks Red Hot Sauce (you can use any hot sauce but Frank has a buffalo sauce to.die.for.)

1/2 cup Ranch Dressing

1/2 cup Blue Cheese Dressing

2 cups mild cheddar cheese

Directions:

Throw all ingredients in Crockpot for one hour on high. Then mix ingredients and switch Crockpot settings to warm for 1 hour then it is ready to serve! You can keep it in the Crockpot on warm for easier self serve plus it will keep the dip warm.

If you wish to do this on the stove check on the Food.com link for directions!

Care for Baked Pancakes?

2011-04-15T09:43:00.001-04:00

Bueller…Bueller?

Usually when you add baked in front of any popular food entree that is enjoyed fried you get a few pauses and raised eyebrows.

Baked pancakes have been around forever but I know they are rarely made in my household. I have never had them growing up, nor over anyone’s house… or heck… never seen them on a restaurant menu either.

I have been making these for the past year because sometime I don’t feel like looking at my stove. Simple as that.

This past weekend, I had guest staying over from out of the country. I knew I was going to make them pancakes before they had to get on their early flight home. Baked Pancakes would allow me to still enjoy the morning with them without slaving over a hot griddle.

Well… they liked the baked pancakes. Keep in mind I feel that these pancakes are pretty much just a vessel. I would definitely put powdered sugar on them or syrup. I add a twist to them by adding a brown sugar syrup. Yeah.. I know.. totally defeats the whole healthy baked better for you pancake. Right? Listen.. I said baked.. I never mentioned healthy. Some things you just gotta enjoy and let the guilt or the gym hit you afterwards.

This is for you Jenita.

Recipe:

source: adapted from Food.com

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Melt butter in an 8" or 9" pie pan ( I melt butter in microwave)

While that's melting, mix together the flour, milk and 2 beaten eggs.

The batter will be lumpy

Pour over the melted margarine

DO NOT MIX.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until sides rise and middle is cooked

I usually get 4 to 6 servings!

While pancake is baking I whip up 1 cup of brown sugar with 1 tsp vanilla and 2 tbsp water. This makes a thick brown sugar syrup. I pour on pancake once out of oven. If this is too much feel free to cut syrup recipe in half.

I also have to add. The funny thing about this recipe is that the shape of your baked pancake will always be different! It rises any which way it wants.. then deflates once out of oven! Its truly funny to watch.

Enjoy with your favorite fruits or sausages, bacon, eggs or all!

Cake Updates! Got to keep them coming!

2011-04-12T21:37:00.000-04:00

Cake Updates

Who doesn’t love Coach? I know I do. So when asked to do a coach purse cake I jumped at the opportunity. She asked that I model the cake after her very own favorite purse. Also, that a picture of her daughter be added and something that represented she loves to work out.

Score….

I love the zipper!

This cake was fashioned to look Phenix’s pet. She has a Dwarf Rabbit. I didn’t even know there was such a thing! But with some pictures I was able to carve and paint this red velvet cake to look like her pet!

For an awesome Sweet 16 party at Le Fais Do Do, Atlanta. The colors requested were Purple and Gold. The design was all me! It was the first time I made dragees. I needed them to be different sizes and I ran them threw some White Sparkle Luster dust. Beautiful. Also a first was using Isomalt to make the gems that are on the second tier. What fun are those!

This is one of the largest cakes I have made so far! This cake was heavy!! I had fun doing the ruffles too!

My best friend had her birthday party at an Ethiopian club. The setting was perfect for this…

I love baby shower cakes! I had the awesome job of doing 3 recently!

Another purple beauty! A belly cake!!

with cupcakes too….

This one is from my phone.. oops… how I did a cake and totally forgot to take pictures with my digital point and shoot!??!!

Want to see the diapers?

I also had a request to do a past design. I put a spin on it.

Well… with summer coming I am going to take some time to test out new recipes. We shall see if they work for me. I am looking forward to it.. and I am sure my family is too.

Behold… its Peanut Butter Cookies

2011-04-12T20:41:00.000-04:00

again.

But these ones are an old favorite in my house.

While in high school I knew someone named Anna. Anna and I have lost touch over the years. Yeah, can you imagine losing touch with someone when there is all these social networking sites going on. Well, Anna was on Facebook, then she wasn’t. So I have no clue where she is or what she is doing.

I could probably ask some other high school friends that I am in contact with. But for some reason I think Anna doesn’t want to be found. I mean we loss touch before. Found each other. Loss touch again and found each other once more. Now well, you get the picture.

I have fond memories of Anna and visiting her at her home. Amongst those memories are her peanut butter cookies. They were really good and I hounded her for the recipe.

She gave in :)

I have the recipe on a old yellow lined legal pad paper. Its crumpled up and you can see the creases in it more then the writing on it. But it is good enough to see Anna’s delicate cursive writing… good enough to see her recipe.

I don’t know if this is truly her recipe. Not sure where she got it from. So, because of that.. I will call this recipe her recipe.

Anna’s Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar (and extra in plate to roll dough in after shaping)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Stir together flour, baking soda and salt.

In a mixer bowl beat butter for 30 seconds.

Add peanut butter and sugars. Beat until fluffy.

Add egg and vanilla and beat well.

Add dry ingredients to beaten mixture. Beat until well combined.

Shape dough into 1 inch balls and roll in a dish with granulated sugar.

Place 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet.

Place tines of fork in sugar and criss-cross the batter.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Cool about 1 minute before removing to a wire rack.

Makes 48. (I somehow only get 32)

Dairy Free Soy Free Cake and Frosting

2011-03-02T21:36:00.001-05:00

What a challenge. I love a challenge. I was glad when this cake was requested. The birthday boy has a dairy allergy and a soy allergy.

The research began.

I follow Chef Felisha Wild on Twitter . I also liked her page on facebook and perhaps would have never seen her post on this Vegan Vanilla Cake if I had not. I was grateful.

I had to make a couple of substitutions and they are noted below. You can find tons of dairy free and soy free substitutions in your Whole food markets. You will note that I used the SPECTRUM dairy free and soy free shortening to substitute for both the vegetable oil and and shortening. I melted the Spectrums to oil consistency before adding to cake. I also have been using coconut oil as a substitute in baking and cooking. Taste great and can substitute for the vegetable oil. Voila!

Vegan Vanilla Cake

adapted from: Our Daily Salt

Ingredients

1 cup Sugar

1 2/3 cups unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil (USE COCONUT OIL or SPECTRUMS DAIRY FREE SOY FREE SHORTENING~melted)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening ( use Spectrums DAIRY FREE SOY FREE SHORTENING)

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup water

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and sprinkle some flour into an 8 inch cake pan or round. I use Bakers joy.

In a large bowl combine sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt

Cut the soy free, dairy free shortening into your dry ingredients and in another bowl combine melted soy free dairy free shortening, vinegar, vanilla extract, and water to the bowl, mix well.

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well.

Pour cake batter immediately into pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean

Remove cake from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan

Then place the cake upside down on a plate and allow it to cool an additional 10 minutes before frosting

With this Chef Wild posted a Vegan Vanilla Frosting Recipe! How great is that?!

Vegan Vanilla Icing

adapted from: Our Daily Salt

Vegan Vanilla Icing

Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup margarine softened (use EARTH BALANCE DAIRY FREE AND SOY FREE)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or any other extract that you like)

5-6 drops of food color (optional)

Directions

Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl

Using an electric mixer, blend until creamy.

Adjust ingredients if necessary

The thing about this recipe is that it wasn’t dairy free. So I purchased Earths Balance Dairy Free butter… they have a brand that is Soy free as well! Score.

The consistency of the butter was soft. Well, I couldn’t find the butter I found the spread so that would explain it. But this frosting had to be in the fridge always. As the elements of the atmosphere would make it slush faster then you could “Dang.. look how good that cake looks!” Well, not that fast.. but I was watchful over it. Stuck it in the freezer right before it was to travel over 30 minutes to its final destination. Glad when I heard it made it there intact.

The best part was I had told the birthday boy’s mom that I probably couldn’t decorate it due to the frosting being so soft. But I pulled the rabbit out of the hat. She told me she was really surprised when she took it out of the cake box. That is why I do this. I like making people happy.

The main cake was an Oreo Cake which was my white cake recipe with Oreos. If I could do that cake over I wouldn’t add as much crushed Oreos. It made it hard to torte and score and it change the texture of my recipe. I will research more into a better recipe for that cake. Overall I successfully matched the cakes with the theme of the party. Cream Cheese was the frosting.

I really enjoyed making the fondant lion as well!

EDIT: Its been brought to my attention that I didn’t mention my substitute for the vegetable shortenings and oils in this recipe. The edits have been made above !10/22/11

Pick a Cabbage…any cabbage…

2011-02-22T13:59:00.000-05:00

Then roast it.

Loved this. I love anything that has a charred look and taste to it.

Super easy. Super tasty. Super healthy too.

Recipe

source: Group Recipes

Ingredients

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp sugar

1 medium head green cabbage

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Directions

Adjust oven rack to upper middle position and place rimmed baking sheet on rack and heat oven to 450 degrees.

Combine salt, pepper, and sugar in small bowl.

Quarter cabbage through core and cut each quarter in to 1-inch wedges, leaving core intact. You should end up with 16 wedges.

Brush cabbage wedges all over with oil and sprinkle with salt mixture.

Arrange cabbage wedges on hot baking sheet.

Roast until cabbage is tender and lightly browned around edges which is approximately 25 minutes. ( I liked mine a bit scorched :) yum)

Drizzle cabbage with vinegar. ( I left this step out)

I thought the seasoning was perfect and the roasted brought out a great flavor in the cabbage. One that is indescribable. You will definitely have to try this one for yourself.

Crockpot Black Bean Chili

2011-02-21T10:58:00.001-05:00

Source : forgotten :(

So I was in search of a recipe to use up some of the black beans in my pantry. I was craving a chili. Normally I do chili with meat and red beans but I thought I would go a different route this time. You know.. .to use up the black beans.

I found an interesting recipe online and my goodness, I cannot remember where. I hate that. I am supposed to be so organized when it comes to these things but the truth of the matter is that I am not. My recipe organization or lack of, needs a separate post,

So.. here is my adapted recipe to the recipe I found online that I can’t credit because I don’t know where I got it from. Whew…

Recipe

2 tbsp olive oil

2 large onions, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

3 (14 oz) cans diced tomatoes, undrained

2 tsp cumin

1 package chili seasoning (your choice brand… and yes don’t judge me..i like the package seasoning!)

1 package taco seasoning (as mentioned above… don’t judge!)

10 oz package of frozen corn (i didn't use in the above but I love corn and will next time)

2 (15oz) cans of black beans, undrained

To prepare:

Sauté onions in the olive oil until transparent, stir frequently

Add garlic and cook 2 minutes

Add cumin and taco and chili seasonings

Cook for 2 minutes

Mix all ingredients into 4 to 5 quart slow cooker

Cover and cook for 6 to 7 hours on low

I found this recipe to be absolutely delicious and I may use this as a base for my meat chili.

The original recipe used 1 tbsp chili powder instead of the chili package and the taco package. I love taco seasoning in chili… adds that extra oomph.

Anyway! Enjoy this ! I did!

Crustless Spinach Quiche

2011-02-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

Quiche. My mother in law jokingly calls it “Quickie”. I love it. I was not always a quiche fan but in the past few years it has grown on me. I guess when you put cheese in anything you can make me a fan. Oh..la…la… especially feta.

Okay.. feta is not in this one. But I think that will be in the next.

I got this recipe from http://www.mealtimemakeovers.com/ and adapted it to my liking.

Recipe

3oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup milk

4 eggs

1/2 tsp dried dill(I subbed basil)

1/4 tsp pepper

2 cups shredded cheddar

16 oz packages of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed

3oz chopped baby bella mushrooms

1/2 cup chopped onion

Directions

Beat cream cheese with electric mixer

Add milk, eggs, dill (or basil) and pepper and beat until smooth

Stir in remaining ingredients

Pour into sprayed 10 inch pie plate or quiche pan

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes until set

Enjoy!

Trufflelicious

2011-02-10T12:29:00.000-05:00

Hey… next time you make cupcakes…drop some candy of any sorts in it. I tried it with a Ferrero Rocher when I had some extra cake batter.

Fudgy Chocolate… with creamy chocolate … with hazelnut… with oh my goodness gooeyness.

Well, these didn’t last.. I didn’t even have to put icing on top.

I got this idea from here ! I used my own Chocolate Cake Recipe. The best tip I got from the site was to freeze the chocolate before you add them to the cupcake prior to baking!

I think I will try more! How about strawberry cupcakes with chocolate truffles…? How about Vanilla Cupcakes with Minstrels, Reese's…..? Endless……

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake

2011-02-09T19:52:00.002-05:00

Heaven. Really.. I don’t know what else to say about this cake. It is really good. If you love Red Velvet Cake and Cheesecake you must try this. I urge you to try this!

I saw this on Beantown Baker's blog and I had to try it. Luckily I had a family dinner to go to. Because if this cake had to sit in my house then ..well then.. lets just say it would have been hard to stay away. Breakfast, lunch and dinner… this would have been it.

Excuse my picture quality. I took a quick snap after it had been cut and the lighting was not too good and I had to use the flash. But you can get a good idea of how delicious it was.

So listen.. here is the recipe as adapted from Beantown Baker's blog.

I used my own Red Velvet Cheesecake Recipe. But I used the cheesecake and frosting recipe from Beantown Bakers.

I recommend doing the cheesecake first as it needs time to set in the freezer overnight. So you need to do this at least a day ahead!

Cheesecake

1 1/4 pounds bar cream cheese at room temperature

3/4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp finely grated

lemon zest plus 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 tsp coarse salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup sour cream room temperature

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Boil water

Beat cream cheese on medium speed until fluffy

Add sugar gradually and continue to beat until fluffy

Beat in lemon zest and juice and salt

Then beat in eggs one at a time scraping down the bowl after each addition

Beat in sour cream

Pour in prepared baking pan. I used parchment paper for the cheesecake. Important step!

***Place in a roasting pan and fill with boiling water up to half way on pan.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until just set in the center. Let cool 20 minutes. Run a paring knife around edge and let it cool completely.

Cover and chill overnight and then wrap in saran wrap and freeze.

***I baked this in a normal 9 inch round cake pan. I do not own a cheesecake pan which I am sure would make it easier but it is up to you. Using a regular cake pan is fine. Sit it in a pan of water. And make sure you run a knife around the edge before you release the cheesecake. Here is where I got some great tips on baking a perfect cheesecake.***

It was my first time and I loved it and will do again.

Make the cake and the frosting.

Frosting

12 oz. cream cheese, softened 12 oz. butter at room temperature 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 3 cup confectioners sugar

Assemble cake by layering the red velvet layer on bottom then the still frozen cheesecake, removed from saran wrap, in the middle. Top with next layer of cake.

My layers did not match up. At this time you need to score your cake so that layers are even. This is why the cheesecake still should be still cold at this point. Not frozen… wait about 10 to 15 minutes so that it can soften. Then you can comfortably trim the sides to have an even cake.

Grab your cream cheese frosting and do a crumb coat. This layer should catch any of the red velvet crumbs that would not look pretty showing in your final cake.

Put in fridge for approximately 20 minutes. Just so that the crumb coat can firm. Now you can safely frost the cake with the rest of the frosting. The first coat should have trapped any crumbs.

I added some pecans on top and piped some frosting stars as well.

Place back in the fridge. I would say take out about and hour before you serve. Be careful.. mine sat out for a bit after it was cut and began to get too soft and the layers fell as we kept cutting into it.

It was still delish.

Bake this for your Valentine!!!

Green Split Pea with Hambone Soup

2011-02-09T19:02:00.001-05:00

Adapted from: Food.com

I was supposed to post this last month. Life got in the way. This soup is awesome. I rarely make my soup with ham. Sometimes I use turkey, sometimes I go at it with no meat at all. Either way, green pea soup is a soup that always pleases.

I have tried a number of recipes. Yes, this is a basic soup but there are a few different recipes out there. None of which you can mess up.

However, I found the one that I am keeping in my blog. Uncle Bills Green Split Pea with Hambone Soup. The one that deserves a spot in my recipe binder. Tagged with stars and notes on how much I love this soup.

It got good reviews on Food.com so I decided to try it.

Recipe

8 cups water

1 large Ham bone

2 cups green dried split peas

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 medium onions, chopped

2 large celery stalks

1 large bay leaf

2 vegetable bouillon cubes

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Rinse peas and add to large soup pot

Add water

Bring to boil, remove from heat and cover and let sit for 1 hour

Return to stove and bring back to boil

Add ham bone, carrot, onions, celery, bay leaf, cubes, salt and pepper

Reduce heat and let simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally

Remove ham bone and cut off any remaining ham into bite size pieces and return it to soup and discard bone.

Adjust your seasonings to your taste.

If you wish you can puree it

Add more water if too thick

This soup freezes well… so if you feel you made too much freeze it in bags and pull it out to defrost anytime you need a warm bowl of goodness!

Crockpot Barbeque

2011-02-08T21:48:00.001-05:00

YUM. This island girl never shredded no pork. This island girl never had pulled pork. Apparently..it’s huge here in the south.

So, I decided to make some for me and the kids. Not for the hubby because, well, you know.. pork just isn't his thing.

Got a recipe from www.mealtimemakeover.com and it is very easy 3 ingredients. I bolded them below for your convenience.

Throw a 5 lb Boston butt in the Crockpot (first time I even heard of one of them). Pour 1 and half cup of Cola and an 18 ounces of your favorite BBQ sauce (in my case…whatever was on sale at Publix). Cook on high for 8 hours until pork is tender and meat shreds easily. Stir it occasionally to prevent the sauce from burning on the sides of the Crockpot!

This had my house smelling oh so yummy!

Paired Perfectly.

2011-02-07T21:49:00.000-05:00

Nothing more satisfying then making someone happy with cake and then they surprise me with this.

Michelle sent me this the night of her Birthday Party for her 3 year old. Supermom. The pictures are great. Thank you!

She requested a small cake for her daughter and a surprise cake for her niece. The surprise cake design I drew didn’t translate to the cake because once I molded the flower I thought it deserved its own show. I loved it. So Audrey Hepburn like. And the Princess crown cake was a pleasure because I got to adorn it with sparkly dust! How fun! And the cake totally matched the crown Michelle picked out for it.

I love that both these cakes went to the same party and represented two different age groups yet they paired so perfectly!

Right before Super Bowl XLV!

2011-02-06T11:41:00.000-05:00

It wasn’t Super Bowl Themed but it was close enough dangit. It had a football on it :) Benjamin loves balls… so does my son.. so I could totally relate when his mom said she wanted a sports ball cake! Its all edible. The balls are made out of rice krispie treat with fondant. and the tennis ball I loved. My girl Christine of www.notacrumb.com gave me a tip to brush the tennis ball with yellow buttercream to give it that texture. Wonderful!

This cake and the colors came out better then I expected! You know… I had the vision.. I knew what I wanted it to look like. But when it comes out better it’s a SCORE!!!

Bermuda Codfish and Potato Breakfast for Granny Irene.

2011-02-04T12:31:00.000-05:00

I write this post in remembrance of my Granny Irene. We had a family tradition that we would visit 3 other family members home on Sunday Mornings in rotation and eat a Traditional Bermuda Codfish and Potato Breakfast. My mom and dads house was part of that rotation so there were 4 in total. My Granny Irene didn’t take part in this… but her brothers and sisters did. We represented my Granny Irene.

This week I lost my Granny Irene. She was a beautiful age of 89. She was a vibrant, sassy, classy, smart and gorgeous woman. She loved all her Grandkids and Great Grandkids and always showed it. She was a very popular woman. She died of kidney failure and she took a part of me with her. I never got to say goodbye… I never got to give her a hug and I never got to tell her I love her.

However, I feel like she is close to me. I feel like she is in this room with me… watching me and my kids. My 4 year old daughter started singing a song two days ago…a song I had never heard her sing before. A song that felt like my grandmother was singing through her. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine….”… it touched me so much. No doubt my Granny Irene is here.

In her remembrance I am going to post the Codfish and Potato Breakfast we often shared with her family.

Salted Cod can be purchased from any Farmers’ Market. Make sure you pick the Salted Boneless Cod..

In a large pot.. soak your pound of fish overnight changing the water at least once.. perhaps before you turn in for the night.

Then change the water and bring to a boil. Continue boil for about 20 to 30 minutes. Peel about 4 medium potatoes and place them in the same pot. Also boil 4 eggs. My mom used to put them in the same pot. I do that sometimes or do it separately, it doesn’t matter.

While the codfish and potato are on a slow boil, put about 1 tbsp olive oil or butter.. your choice…in a sauce pan. Sauté 1 medium onion. Add a 15oz can of stewed tomatoes. Add some ketchup and salt and pepper all to taste.

Since hubby is pescatarian I fry up some bacon in another pan. Bacon is soooo good with the sauce and the Codfish Breakfast! Normally you can fry the bacon first then add the onion and the stewed tomatoes. But I do them separately so that I can add it to the plates of the meat eaters in the house.

Simmer your sauce.

On a plate arrange a banana.. place a hard boiled egg, peeled and then scoop out some fish from your pot… make sure you use a slotted spoon to drain the excess water. Then add some potato.

Some people make turned cornmeal.. I am no a fan but maybe one day I will make some and blog it. Someday…

Some add avocado. I don’t because I am not a huge fan of avocado.

I simply have toast and a banana.

But the above picture doesn’t represent the way a “normal” person eats Bermuda Codfish and Potato.

A “normal” person takes there fork and creates magic. We smoosh and we smash the fish, potato, banana and egg with the sauce and make it a mountain of bliss.

Yeah.. Codfish.

My dad doesn’t eat it with the tomato sauce. He likes it with mayonnaise and butter.

Some just make an onion sauce.. which is quite good too.

But above is how I make it… just like that with the addition of bacon sometimes.

No matter how you eat it.. it’s good.

This is now my once a month tradition. A tradition I decided to implement because I came from a family of traditions. This tradition is in remembrance of my Granny Irene. One Phenomenal Woman.

“Granny Irene, you are a lady that I look up to and respect and love. A lady that my children, your great-grandchildren, will always hear stories about. A lady whose sense of style, parenting, dedication and strength will not be forgotten. You remain in my thoughts, my memories and most important my heart. I will miss you always.”

Easy Spicy Cod

2011-02-02T13:07:00.001-05:00

The Hubby aka the Pescatarian, has limited fish he will eat. By choice. He likes Tilapia, Whiting, Salmon, Snapper, King Fish and Cod. Those are our staples.

So I try to find different recipes to spice things up a bit. I do get bored of cooking and eating the same thing… He on the other hand doesn’t mind. But I do think he likes that I try different things too.

I had some cod here and didn’t want to do what I do when I don't have time to do anything. That is put cheddar and a tomato on top and bake it. I googled and came across a recipe for Spicy Cod. Oh wait.. let me rephrase that because the operative word here is EASY!! So.. EASY Spicy Cod.

Recipe

as seen in Allrecipes.com

Easy Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds cod fillets

2 cups salsa

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Easy Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Rinse and dry cod fillets. Place fillets in a lightly greased casserole dish. Pour salsa over fish. Sprinkle with parsley, salt and pepper.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Serve warm over rice.

Fit for a Princess!

2010-12-01T19:22:00.001-05:00

One of the most cutest little people named Ava was turning 3 and her mom was having a Princess party for her. Of course … she needed a cake to fit the perfect occasion!

Once it was at location I was able to add the wand and a couple more gumpaste flowers!

The crown was easy to make and I did it 2 weeks in advance. I had to do 2 because my daughter also wanted a princess cake…

This was hers right after I painted it…

This was my daughters cake…

Yes… TWO Princess cakes in ONE weekend… it worked to my advantage!

Oh… lest not forget the cupcakes!! I sent these to my daughters class!

November 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge ~ Crostata

2010-11-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Well….this was a fail in my book. I am horrible with dough. Just horrible. I read up on the tips… you know… to make dough… such as freezing butter after you grate it.. etc. Well, my dough was just alright. I still couldn’t get it out of the glass pan.

I choose a sweet dessert to serve with Thanksgiving dinner. Chocolate. I have been on a chocolate kick recently and it is showing in my hips. Well, next week no more. I have to let the chocolate go. ::sigh:: It’s going to be more of a challenge then I can admit to. But I have to do it.

I layered Strawberries in my chocolate ganache to make this pie. It looked rough… yes it did… when I took this picture the pie wasn’t set and I was rushing to get it to our Thanksgiving dinner location.

This pie was rich!! Oh my goodness, the chocolate was to die for. I mean… shoot Chocolate Ganache with Bermuda Black Rum in it.. well… the taste was phenomenal.

Thanks again for a great Daring Bakers Challenge… I will try it again… practice does make perfect.

Yeah.. that part one movie coming out that’s not Twilight.

2010-11-19T17:43:00.001-05:00

Okay… I am a twi-hard. But I haven’t had an opportunity to do a Twilight cake. However, I guess Harry rules.. and truthfully the Deathly Hallows movie looks pretty awesome and almost makes me want to read the entire series. Almost being the operative word.

Okay, Damon is having a sleep over and my 11 year old son is attending. His gift?… cake! His mom has no clue I do these types of cakes so I am anxious to see her face more then I am to see the birthday boy’s.

It is not as complex as the Harry Potter cake from March this year, but I love it just as much.

I love snitch. I had no idea how I was going to do his wings but fondant and toothpicks stuck in a ball of dry gumpaste are awesome…

Also I wanted to throw the scarf on the cake and not place it… but it kind of looks like a mixture of both. The fondant was stretching a lot while trying to throw it and then it started ripping so I had to place the rest of it carefully on the book cake. Grrrrrrrrrr. But sometimes in fixing something you don’t like.. well… it can end up worse. So the scarf stayed as is and I worked with it. I wish the camera could show more of the scarf texture. I was quite proud of it :)

Sigh… the things we cake people go through in the world of cake!

Anyway, Damon.. Happy Birthday man.

And even more…!

2010-11-16T11:39:00.001-05:00

Yes…cake.

We’re backyard friends.. .the Backyardigans!!!

just chillin….

daydreaming and spreading happy birthday cheer!

Peace OUT! I love this cake.. so girlie so simple so sparkly!!

UP UP AND AWAY… Ben had a great airplane theme and mom gave me the invites to model from! So cute… again.. simple but cute!!

Mom threw a great party too.. boy I tell you… some great event planners I have met….

Birthday boy Ben even had a shirt to match! how cute is that….?? love it!

Cakes! Cakes. More Cake?

2010-11-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

not been bloggin… but been bakin. Haven't had much time to try new recipes… haven't had time to blog. But I must time manage better. Sleep too…

Anyway, I had time for cakes :)

Lets get on to the pictures…

It’s Minnie! This party was awesome… every single detail was great… I attempted a buttercream creation but guess what..it was humid as heck that day and it was September. hmmmmm… still too early to do a tier buttercream cake. As we delivered I watched my buttercream sweat. I was not impressed but regardless the cake still was cute and all her details made it work! Who doesn’t love Minnie Mouse!?!

Hello Kitty was loads of fun… 11 year old Kamri loved it. I loved it too… and check out that buttercream… near flawless!! :) Much better day for Buttercream.. whooo hoooo….

How about these cute cupcake wrappers I found on etsy.com. Awesomeness…

His life on a cake… Paul sold houses, been married 60 years, loved his cabin and was a pilot in WWII. Amazing. His family wanted all this to be represented on a cake… and boy… it was special…

It’s Halloween Time!! I baked cupcakes for my daughters class…. how fun…. LOVED THEM!!!

What a cute pumpkin… but the mummy was my favorite…

SLAM DUNK!! This was a rush and I soooo wish I had more time to do it but I was okay with it! Red Velvet ball on Vanilla net.. oh yeah. The theme was basketball and it was held at an Athletic Club. Andrew’s mom did a great job with the decor… down to the gold stars on the table which matched the cake!! lol….

October 2010 Daring Bakers ~ Doughnuts!

2010-10-27T19:52:00.000-04:00

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Love doughnuts and never thought I would make them… although I have always wanted to. Soooo happy this was a challenge and I had time to participate.

My kids where happy too :)

The recipe we used was really easy…

You can find it HERE!

Thanks Lori for an extremely delicious recipe choice that went without fail!! Whoo hoooo…..

Strawberry Arbor Mist Cake

2010-09-15T10:23:00.001-04:00

I wanted to try something different for Labor Day. I loved the Champagne Cake I did but I wanted something fruity too.

So I used Arbor Mist… Strawberry Flavor and substituted it for the milk in my yellow cake recipe and I used Strawberry Yogurt instead of sour cream.

My biggest error was using Almond Extract… not that anybody else that ate it cared… but I did. I am not a fan of Almond and too me it overpowered the strawberry. But the cake was gone in 2 minutes… so I guess it was just me and my Almond extract disliking ways.

The cake was a beautiful pink inside… I forgot to get pictures of it when it was cut! We all know it is hard to get a great pink when making strawberry cake so I added a few drops of food coloring to make that pink pop.

I filled it with fresh strawberries… so pretty… thanks to the help of hubby who sliced them up for me!

I did a rustic decoration job with Buttercream. I LOVE RUSTIC CAKES!!! So bakery looking delicious!! I must do more ….

Again… so pretty… I had to share….

The Force is totally with this.

2010-09-14T13:07:00.001-04:00

Luka requested YODA for his birthday and Luka got Yoda for his birthday.

After a brief hiatus from cakes I had fun with this one. Total satisfaction.

YODA was 20 percent lemon cake. My new oven proved a little challenging with the shape of the bowl that I used for this one. I needed to use a carved bowl and I had my old oven temperament down to a “T”. This oven is a newbie… so despite using the same recipe as I did with Elmo’s Lemon cake… this oven said patooey. It tasted the same but had some settling that I didn’t like. However, YODA still over-ruled. The rest of the cake was vanilla. In total YODA was 7 layers of cake goodness filled with buttercream.

HOWEVER, the hardest part of the cake was easy to me and the easy part was hard. Why for? Sooo not sure… but that is the world of cake. Unpredictable.

I was terrified of sculpting YODA’s face… and it was so easy… like I did it before… but hadn’t.

I was over confident in doing his cape and ears. Well, they ended up being the hardest part.

Trying to drape the cape was difficult… and the ears well, lets say they tried to defy gravity more then once.

But, it came together. And despite some minor disasters… especially in travelling to get him to the lucky birthday boy’s party in the park… I was proud of him. Thank goodness for travelling with some extra fondant and a rolling pin and some edible glue. With the crowd of children that surrounded me while I was repairing made me more nervous then YODA himself.

He was seriously so realistic that I felt I was on the set of Star Wars. It was eerily weird.

My children reacted the same way. One running the opposite way when he saw it…and the other screaming.

Luka thank you for choosing YODA… cool… totally dude.

Fish Chowder for the Soul

2010-09-12T11:20:00.000-04:00

I love Trader Joes… who doesn’t?? They offer package foods that are also healthy. Yeah, its possible to get package foods with no preservatives these days. Funny how you pay more for food that has no added bad stuff huh? But, TJ’s is quite reasonable in the price arena.

I usually have items that I pick up from TJ’s without fail. Included in that list is Vegetable Chips… shoot for $1.99 a bag you can’t go wrong. They have these awesome baked chips, I love getting the flex seed tortilla chips (ohhh dip them in a pineapple salsa from Harry and Davids…mixed with cream cheese..heaven). Along with their Feta Cheese, Naan, Mandarin Chicken and nut mixes I have a small list just to keep it all under control at TJ’s. That is very hard to do.

This week I bought cod. I love cod fish but get bored eating it the same way. This package was about 4 bucks for a pound of cod. And low and behold there was a recipe on the label. SCORE~

EASY FISH CHOWDER

adapted from Trader Joes Cod Pieces label

1/2 stick of unsalted butter

1 large onion

1 to 2 cloves of chopped garlic

1 large potato peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes

2 tbsp flour

2 cup vegetable or chicken broth

2 cup milk or half and half

1 lb cod pieces

salt and pepper to taste

I also added: Baby Bella mushrooms, Old Bay Seafood Seasoning

Directions

Melt butter in 2 qt saucepan. Sauté onion and garlic (and mushrooms if you are adding them) until soft. Add Potato and cook over low heat until potato begins to soften. Season with salt and pepper (and Old Bay) to taste. Sprinkle flour and stir gently over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add liquids and cook over low heat until soup begins to thicken. Gently stir in cod and continue cooking until fish is completely cooked. Taste for seasoning and add addition salt and pepper if necessary.

Zucchini and Yellow Squash and Onions, OH MY!

2010-09-02T22:13:00.000-04:00

recipe adapted from: allrecipes.com

Yeah, okay follow the trend setting here. I am trying to eat a little better. Yes indeed. I bake so much that if my family can eat a little better during the day then I wont feel guilty about have cake and other baked goods around for them devour.

I also now enjoy Spinning and Zumba. But that's another blog.

Carrying on… Publix had a sale on Zucchini and Yellow Squash and I couldn’t resist. I wanted to do something different other then the normal marinate in Italian dressing and grill them on the George. I searched in the oh so famous allrecipes.com and found this.

“Grilled Lemon Pepper Zucchini”, but I didn’t grill it I baked it. and I didn’t have red bell peppers so I used some salsa… that sold me… the salsa was the kicker.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 small yellow squash, sliced

2 small zucchini sliced, sliced

1 small onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, minced ( I used salsa)

1 1/2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil ( I didn’t measure any of my seasonings. Bad habit I have)

1 tbsp lemon pepper seasoning

Directions

Preheat Grill (or oven to 350 degrees)

Combine all ingredients and wrap in aluminum foil and seal into a packet.

Place packet on grill and cook 30 minutes turning every 5 to 10 mins. Or bake in oven for 40 mins.

Take out and enjoy. I warn you when you sample a zucchini you may not want to stop eating them.

Lentils are good

2010-09-01T21:32:00.001-04:00

stew recipe adapted from: Fresh paint Blogspot

Despite the fact that you all may not think so. But I do. I am a convert. As you can tell.. my blog loves lentils just as much as it likes cakes. I have Lentil Loaf and Lentil Patties you can find on this blog. I even Stuffed Zucchini with lovely lentils. Now here I am presenting Lentil Stew.

Lentil Stew is pretty much anything you throw together with Lentils and it takes a stew like appearance. There are no rules. Seriously. 1 2 3 and you are there. Lentil heaven.

For this one I had a cup of lentils and cut up some baby bella mushrooms (my fave) and chopped some onion. I seasoned it with Rosemary, Oregano, Basil (loads of basil…yum), a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and sea salt and black pepper. Oh I add a Maggie cube for some ~~FLAVA~~ opps I mean flavor.

I cooked these in the microwave! Gasp!! Yes I did… I just added 3 cups of water to the lentil mix in a Pyrex dish and heated them at 70 percent power for 30 minutes. I checked after that to see if the water had dried up (it didn’t, but if so add some more) then did another 20 minutes at 70 percent power.

There are soooo many variations for this stew just like any stew or soup. Stewed tomatoes can also be added for that extra pop. I would have added them but didn’t have any in the pantry.

Now go ahead and make you some of these here lentils… and throw them down with some healthy brown rice…

Yeah, I got to eat healthy every now and then. Have to offset the over consumption of the cakes.

Baby Shower Blues

2010-08-30T22:41:00.000-04:00

Not really blues, but I like the sound of the title. I did this cake for a special friend of mine… her little bundles of baby boy is due soon and a shower was thrown for her.

This cake was an easy one… I only drew maybe 10 designs… sometimes it takes me more because I always want to do so much. I was glad that the colors were decided for me by the host of the party!

I had fun doing the bassinet. I really wanted to do a stroller but I ran out of time. It was interesting because when you do objects out of fondant it can take a while before it starts to look like what you intended it to be! This started looking like a bonnet.. then a shoe!! I was beginning to get discouraged.. but I knew once I pushed on to the completed object it would be what it was supposed to be.

The cake was basic white cake with buttercream. The top tier was white Satin Ice fondant I died to an ivory hue and the bottom tier was chocolate Satin Ice fondant. The adornments are all fondant but the bassinet and the flowers are gumpaste I made using fondant and tylose powder.

I really like doing baby shower cakes. I find them to be beautiful yet whimsical. I guess it depends on what look you are going for.

Baby teddy was removable… he matched the decor of the cake table perfectly!!

Congratulations to the mother and father to be!!

Champagne cake and Ginger Ale money…

2010-08-29T23:08:00.000-04:00

My mom always used to say something close to that. We would go shopping and I would pick out something that I loved and look at the price and die. And she would giggle and say “Champagne Taste and Ginger ale money!”

Gotta love her.

Anniversary cake I did last month proved more challenging to me that anything… Why? It had to go on a plane…and it wasn’t a non-stop flight! Oh the pressure…

I couldn’t do too much in decoration… but I didn’t want it too look to dull either. So I played it safe.

I kept it simple…so simple that even if I put the words Happy Anniversary on it it would have off set the whole cake. Don’t think I didn’t do the words… I did.. I placed them on the cake.. around the cake… nothing satisfied me. I was a nervous wreck with this one.

The flowers were crazy! I loved them. Chocolate rose with bronze luster dust to highlight. The fondant was ivory Satin Ice. I probably could have done the roses a bit smaller.. .but I just loved them!

It was humid in my house too. The fondant swirls kept falling as the edible glue would take extra long to stick them to the cake. My cake began to sweat as so did I. Now, I have the air-condition set to 50 when I do any cakes! Decorating in the summer heat is stress!! But all a learning process…

Okay, the cake. Champagne Cake with Champagne Buttercream and Strawberry Buttercream to fill.

Oh… yeah….. Champagne, Chocolate and Strawberries…

Turn off the lights hon.. Let’s eat cake.

August 2010 Daring Bakers ~ Baked Alaska and/or Ice Cream Petit Fours

2010-08-27T21:50:00.000-04:00

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Call me a loser but I didn’t do it. I had all intentions to complete this because it was my birthday month and petite fours would have been perfect little birthday cakes for me. But when it came around to that time the last thing I wanted was to be in the kitchen.

This is ridiculous. Seriously I have no other excuse but to say simply that “life got in the way.”

August 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge ~ Ice Cream Petit Fours

2010-08-27T20:06:00.000-04:00

We had a choice this month. We could make Ice Cream Petit Fours or Baked Alaska! As long as we prepared the Brown Butter pound Cake from the recipe provided… and we did ice cream from scratch!

I really want an ice cream maker. But I did my own ice cream using this recipe! It came out more like a sherbet but it was really tasty and tart. I really liked it and will definitely use it again…

I did the ice cream on one day and the pound cake the next. I followed all the steps and then I stopped at one. I had the ice cream sandwiched in between the cake layers a little too long in my freezer. It still tasted good but I could never find the time to get the petit fours together.

Now I didn’t have a small square pan (oh wow… the shocker..me a bake… no small square pan!!) so I used a round pan. Then… I got lazy.. I didn’t feel like cutting out the small petit fours… I used a round cookie cutter that wasn’t quite that petit. Anyway, it was delicious… once I poured a chocolate ganache over the top of them it didn’t matter what size they were!!!

Again… this was a great challenge.. the Brown Butter Pound cake was really good on its own as well!

Here's the recipe and the directions to make this great summer treat!!

Strawberry Blueberry Buckle

2010-08-08T23:48:00.001-04:00

I have had this recipe for like ahhhh, 2 years??!! Never made it until today! It’s been so long that I have had it printed that I don’t remember whose blog I retrieved it from. All I remember is that whomever blog it was on.. the picture was so enticing. I had to make it. Unfortunately, it took me this long. Well, I won’t make that horrible mistake again. Mistake being waiting so long, not actually making it. Cause this recipe was, sorry is a winner!

Such a cool summery treat. I always buy blueberries and strawberries when they are in season. How can you resist especially with them being so inexpensive at this time. And they look so good too.

So, today, I had an excessive amount of blueberries and strawberries. I wanted to make some blueberry muffins. I have a great recipe for blueberry muffins… it is so yummy that you can’t just eat one muffin. Wait, rewind… back to buckle.

I am not sure why they call this dessert a buckle. Does one buckle at the knees when they taste it? I almost did. Is it so heavy with delicious berries that it buckles your baking pan? Nah… it is so light. Hmmmmm, well to anyone reading my rambling if you know the answer, please feel free to leave it in my comments.

Oh, and another favor…if any of my foodie buddies recognize this recipe from another blog.. .please leave a comment on who you think it belongs to so I can credit them. I owe them lots of credit for this one.

Recipe

source: unknown

Ingredients

1 cup sifted all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

2 tsps grated lemon rind(I didn’t have any lemon so I used extract and subtracted 2 tsp of the milk to off set the wet ingredients)

2 tbsps of lemon juice

1/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted almonds ( I omitted)

1/4 cup milk

1 1/4 cups sliced fresh or frozen strawberries, thawed and drained.

1 1/4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed and drained

Topping:

1/2 cup sifted all purpose flour

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 8 x 8 baking pan

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt onto wax paper

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with mixer set high speed until light and fluffy.

Beat in egg, lemon rind and juice. Stir in nuts (if using), then milk.

Stil in dry ingredients, then berries.

Spread into prepared pan.

Prepare streusel topping buy mixing flour and brown sugar in small bowl. cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture is crumbly.

Sprinkle the streusel in an even layer over the batter.

Bake for 40 mins or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean and cake begins to pull away from sides.

Cool on wire rack.

Cut and serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

I attempted making whipped topping with evaporated milk. It was nerve wrecking because I didn’t think it would come together… but it was possible and it was good.

The above whipped delicacy was made possible by Google. Well, I had to Google my butt off to see if heavy cream can be substituted with evaporated milk. That was all I had in the house. Apparently, if you place the milk in an ice cube tray and place in freezer for about 30 mins until the edges started to crystallize you can use it as you would heavy cream! Place the not quite frozen ice cubed milk in the cold mixing bowl and beat with cold beaters and in about a minute you have frothy milk!

Look… just do this…

1 cup evaporated milk ( I used a full fat one because the more fat the better the consistency)

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the cold cream for about 1 minute until frothy. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla extract and beat some more for about 2 mins. Serve immediately.

Read the recipe for yourself at Very Best Baking.

I know the recipe says serve immediately but Hubby wasn’t home when I served this to the kids. So I threw the whole stainless steel bowl in the fridge and it was still good and stable when he was home and ready to indulge.

Get your Fish on with this Cod and Veggie Casserole

2010-08-08T23:04:00.001-04:00

I am loving one dish cooking. If I can cram everything in one pot and cook, I am a happy wife. If it looks pretty, my kids are happy kids. If it taste good, Hubby is a happy Hubby.

I love Cod too. Mostly salted Cod. Any other Cod you kind of have to make it taste like something by covering it up with something.

This is that dish.

Ohhh Yeah, chicka chicka… cheeewww bow bow… for some reason that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off song wont go away while I type this post.

Okay…back to the schedule ~~program~~ dish.

Although this is a one dish dish, it doesn’t contain a starch item. So I did some brown rice to help soak up some of the sauce.

The preparation of this dish is easy and it cooks in 25 mins. Great.

Recipe

source: adapted from Food.com

Ingredients

1 lb Cod

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning

1 medium tomato, fresh and sliced thick

1/4 sliced red pepper

1/4 sliced green pepper

1 tbsp chopped red onion

1 tbsp chopped green onion

1/2 pd fresh asparagus spears

vegetable oil cooking spray

Directions

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees

Spray medium size casserole dish with vegetable oil cooking spray

Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of Cod and place in dish.

Place tomato on Cod then sprinkle with the peppers and onions. Add Cajun spices.

Top with asparagus spears and sprinkle green onion. Then add some more Cajun seasoning if desired.

Spray with vegetable spray.

Cover casserole and bake for 25 mins or until fish flakes easy with fork.

Serves 2! Recipe can be easily doubled or tripled!!

Uncover… scoop on to plate and Enjoy!!!

Easy Baked Breakfast Casserole

2010-08-06T15:43:00.001-04:00

I am so not a breakfast person. I mean, come on…how many post of breakfast food do you see on this blog. I am not a morning person so I leave the beating of eggs up to Hubby.

However, there are times I need to step up to the stove and battle the pancakes or bacon or eggs or whatever. I do this while wishing that the kids would just crave the toaster Eggo waffles… or how about those awfully sweet pop-tarts that I tend to indulge in from time to time.

I needed to incorporate breakfast into more of a baking project in order for me to enjoy it. Thus, this recipe was perfect. And I will proudly say that I have a few more up my sleeve that will soon be posted.

Easy for me first thing in the morning is always good!

Recipe

adapted from here! Food.com

Ingredients

10 to 12 eggs

12 ounces grated cheddar cheese

2 (4 ounce cans) chilies (I used green peppers)

salt and pepper

I added chopped tomato and more grated cheese when there was 10 minutes of cooking time left.

Directions

Spread grated cheese in a 9 x 13 inch pan that has been buttered.

Spread green chilies evenly over the cheese.

Beat eggs and add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the eggs over the cheese and green chilies.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until set.

Cut into squares and serve.

Oven Fried Fish

2010-08-04T14:02:00.001-04:00

Not having a stove has forced me into trying something that is supposed to look or taste fried without being fried. I have always been curious about this non frying but baking technique but not enough to actually do it. I felt like fried fish, no stove. Beggars can’t be chooser.

Home-ec101.com has a fish and chip recipe that is oven fried/baked/whatever. It is actually pretty good.

I marinated fillets of Whiting in a Kosher Steak Seasoning from Publix Grocery Store for 25 minutes. Love that stuff on burgers, steak and fish… you name it. It makes it all good!

I then followed the recipe as best as I could with what I had on hand. Instead of white cornmeal I had yellow and I had seasoned breadcrumbs only. Those changes only added to the great flavor. Within 10 minutes of oven baking/frying/whatever time, the fish was ready!

So check out the recipe here at Home-ec101.

Its a good recipe as I adapted it and I am sure it is great as written too. I now think I have converted to a rookie fried like baked in oven something or the other. Ohhh, what about using this recipe with boneless chicken!! Yea, The possibilities are endless!

I Love David.

2010-08-04T02:02:00.001-04:00

David’s Yellow Cake that is. I have to tell you something. Yes, its a confession. I was a box cake baker a long long long time ago. Yes, yes, it is true. Until, I decided I liked baking enough to bake my own cake. And luckily with some minor research I met David.

I met David through his cake. Okay, I didn’t really meet him…but I can honestly say that his cake is sooooo delish that I almost know him because I make it often. Does that count? This cake was my first recipe I used to make a cake from scratch. I was so proud that I did it, I did it again and again. Getting better and better with research and practice.

Doesn’t his cake look good, minus that little flour ball left from me flouring the Bundt pan to death. Which is a no no by the way. Tip… you must have equal amount of shortening to flour to ensure proper ~~disheveling~~ removal of your cake from the pan. I wasn’t taking any chances with this puppy. I again, was baking this in my lovely Tiny Toaster Oster Oven. This time knocking down the cooking temperature by 25 degrees. YES! Perfection. Thank you David!! I will give you a call sometime to personally thank you and take you to dinner. I am sure hubby won’t mind as he loves this cake too.

DAVID’S YELLOW CAKE RECIPE

source: Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

8 egg yolks (I hate wasting yolks so I used 5 whole eggs instead)

3/4 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (I dropped temp to 325 degrees when using toaster oven I think I will try in my regular oven too.)

Grease and flour 2 - 8 inch round pans. ( I used a Bundt pan this time…both come out perfect)

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.

Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing just until incorporated.

Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until tops spring back when lightly tapped.

Cool 15 minutes before turning out onto cooling racks. ( I normally cool for 10.)

Okay, how about I had no butter to make buttercream frosting. I could not make my FAVORITE buttercream frosting!! Oh, the horror. I only use that one and it calls for all shortening but I substitute half unsalted butter for the shortening! How was I going to make it without any butter. Ew! the thought of a buttercream using all shortening frightened me! But I had no choice. So I found a recipe using ingredients that I had on hand…well almost.

Kittencal is a veteran in the frosting area. I love her Chocolate Buttercream recipe which was used for the Naruto Cake. I came across her Extra Creamy Fluffy White Frosting and gave it a go.

It was sooooooooooooo good. To my surprise. It didn’t taste like a blab of grease! I found a new recipe for frosting I love.

EXTRA CREAMY FLUFFY WHITE FROSTING RECIPE

source : adapted from food dot com

Ingredients

1 cup of white Crisco

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups confectioners sugar sifted

1/2 cup un~whipped heavy cream (I used evaporated milk)

Directions

In a bowl using an electric mixer, beat together the shortening, salt, vanilla and half of the icing sugar and beat until very smooth.

Add in milk (or whipping cream) and beat well.

Add in remaining icing sugar to desired texture and beat until fluffy and creamy.

I love this moist cake people. I love this fluffy light frosting. Great combination. David, I must get your autograph next time you pop by. You superstar you.

My Tiny Convention Toaster Oven & The One Bowl Mocha Devil Food Cake

2010-08-04T00:43:00.001-04:00

Well, I am certainly challenging myself. We have recently moved and had not arranged to get the gas turned on. Well, I had to learn to cook using only our microwave, George Forman Grill and our lovely Oster Toaster Oven. Just until our lovely gas man cometh that is.

I pushed myself and I was having fun with it. This semi - somewhat process cooking is a breeze. Throw a steam bag of veggies in the microwave for 7 mins and taaa daaa .. bam… beautiful corn, asparagus and carrots courtesy of Birdseye. And delicious I must add. WOW, there’s 10 minute rice! Pop it in the microwave and POW …it’s rice! Heck, throw some thyme, paprika, pepper and a veggie bouillon cube in it and you have flavored quickie rice. Meat? No problemo. Grill some chicken seasoned with some Lipton Herb and Garlic Soup mix… yum.

Okay, so how about I bake me a cake in the toaster oven. Yeah, you heard me. Simple. With the right oven you can. I was craving cake and craving baking. I chose to dig in my pantry and found some Ghirardelli unsweetened chocolate that I had bought to make my Luscious Sour Cream Chocolate Cake. I remembered that Ghirardelli had some recipes on the inside of the wrapping that I wanted to try.

Truthfully, I am not big on Devils food cake. But I wanted to try it anyway. Ghirardelli has a One Bowl Devil Cake that look like it was delicious. It was okay, yes just okay. It was moist and rose great in my oven. I couldn’t fit both 8 inch round pans in the oven so I did a no no which was let one pan sit out. Trick to that is place a damp cloth over the batter while you wait. Despite this waiting on the side the second cake rose fine.

Please note that this picture was taking with my mobile phone as my camera was nowhere to be found due to our move :(

I had leveled and frosted this beauty with a recipe I also found on the back of the wrapper called Ghirardelli Mocha Buttercream Frosting. Both recipes are posted for your convenience.

As said, I am not a big Devil Food Cake lover… this cake tasted better the next day. I also think that because the oven is smaller I should have dropped the temperature by 25 degrees. Needless to say the cake was eaten in two days :)

Recipe

source : Ghirardelli wrapper

Ingredients

2 cups sifted cake flour

1 1/2cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I had none on hand so subbed 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice with enough milk to make 1 1/2 cups)

3 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

4 oz Ghirardelli Unsweetened Chocolate, melted

Directions

Sift cake flour, sugar, soda, cream of tartar and salt into large mixer bowl. Add shortening, half the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Mix in remaining buttermilk and melted chocolate. Beat additional 2 minutes. Spread into 9 by 13" greased cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan. ( I never cool in pan… i can’t let cakes sit in a pan for more then 10 mins…it just doesn’t seem right)

Okay.. on to the Delicious Ghirardelli Mocha Buttercream Frosting.

Recipe

Ingredients

source: Ghirardelli Wrapper

4 ounces (1 baking bar) Ghirardelli Unsweetened Chocolate

2 tsp granulated instant coffee

2 tbsp boiling water

2/3 cup butter

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Melt the chocolate.

Stir occasionally until the chocolate is smooth.

Dissolve the instant coffee granules in the boiling water.

Stir the coffee mixture into the chocolate and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until fluffy.

Gradually add the confectioners' sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, mixing until smooth.

Add the melted chocolate and mix until well combined.

July 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge ~ Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

2010-07-27T00:17:00.000-04:00

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suita of Suita's world – life and food. Suita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

Yah Yah… I couldn’t make it. I really wanted to. But couldn’t. I even had the flavors all planned out. Vanilla sponge cake with coconut and pineapple ice cream with a pineapple filling.

My excuse. My move was a week later then planned.

Good news. I have a new oven. Hip Hip hooray!! Now what fun it is going to be to adjust to this one! I don’t mind though. I love new.

So, Daring Bakers, as much as I wanted to make my own ice cream… I must chuck it up… and on to the next month. Can’t wait to see what it is.

June 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge ~ Chocolate Pavlovas

2010-06-27T20:44:00.000-04:00

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

Too bad I couldn’t participate. June was a busy month. With out of town company and preparing to move for July…plus a birthday. We was a tad bit busy in this house.

I do want to try Chocolate Pavlovas though. Anything chocolate is right up my alley.

Check out Dawn’s blog Doable and Delicious to see how delicious they look! Thanks Dawn, when I try them I will let you know how I made out!

In the meantime, I need to collect some boxes to get to packing…..

Elmo’s World!

2010-06-22T20:38:00.001-04:00

My son turned 2! Unbelievable..just seems like yesterday I held his little tiny body in my hands! Hey, they certainly grow fast. Don’t blink!

My eldest son was tired of fondant. However, I had already decided that I was going to do buttercream anyway. I wanted to do something different but familiar to him. I researched Umizoomi…which is a show that he loves and so do I. But Umizoomi is better in fondant. Then I thought most two year olds love Elmo and it is so familiar. So here is Elmo.

The hardest thing about Elmo was getting the buttercream a great red color. I think next time I will buy it! I also wanted to give him a birthday hat but I was running out of time. I did get a little sloppy with it as you see a dollop of buttercream by his feet.

My son was getting very impatient with me. He would come in the kitchen and demand his cake. He had every right too, after all it was 9pm. How come I can get everyone else’s cake ready in time but not my own child's?

Anyway, it was so worth the wait. The fur was the most fun!

When Elmo was cut his flavor was a great lemon cake with raspberry filling. I tried a new recipe that was inspired by someone named Mellissa who gave me a few tips. That’s all I have. Mellissa..I don’t know if she has a blog that I can refer you too, but anyway, I will share what I have adapted from her tips on this lemon cake. Now, before I share the recipe..I must note that this cake was more of a pound cake texture which surprised me. But it was good. It had a great moist crumb, and the density of it proved very good to support the cake.

Lemon Pound Cake

Ingredients

5 cups cake flour

3 1/3 cups sugar

2 tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp salt

1 cup lemon juice (the bottle was fine but fresh is best)

1 cup unsalted butter

16oz plain yogurt (i used fat free)

1 tbsp lemon extract

5 whole eggs

Zest of 4 lemons ( I wanted a really strong flavor so I am sure you can cut this down to 2 or 3)

Directions

Sift flour then add other dry ingredients and mix with whisk.

Add eggs, butter and sour cream.

Beat on high for 2 mins

Stop mixer and add lemon extract and lemon juice and zest.

Beat for another 2 mins on high.

Pour into pans.

Bake at 350 for approx 45 mins or until cake tester comes out clean.

This recipe makes 10 cups of batter(which is ALOT). You can cut it in half if you need a two layer 8 inch cake only.

Naruto is the man!!

2010-06-16T21:23:00.001-04:00

And this mad almost defeated me. His top half wouldn’t support his bottom half. I had to give him new bottoms!! I was truly sad because I did an awesome job on his bottom half!!

I contemplated just using his top half but I thought it would be freaky if it was half of Naruto… isn’t he supposed to be awesome…? So having half of him..well…wouldn’t that show his defeat?

My next challenge is that I didn’t have the green dye that I wanted for the top of the cake. So I was not happy with it.. To me it didn’t flow with the rest of the colors. But the cake must go on.

My next challenge was because I gave him a new bottom half he didn’t have the days of drying time he should have. So I had to form the legs on the cake! Oh gosh, I don’t like putting gumpaste figures in the fridge. Never have and don’t want to try. The cake needed to stay firm to support him. Technically I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I cranked up the air condition and let the entire cake sit next to it. See, my house was hot. My central air wasn’t keeping the house cold. It caused much condensation issues with my fondant. Normally its no problem when the fondant condenses..you just have to stick it in front of a fan or real cool area and let it dry. It can be scary because even as I applied the fondant it was sweating. It was hard for me to smooth.

I had tried a different technique with this cake called “Cake Speckle”. I wasn’t sure if the not so smoothness of my fondant was because of this. I will definitely do a post about cake speckle soon. Look out for it! But here is a peek of what it looks like! This was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercreme and strawberry filling!!

In this end.. the cake came together. Naruto sat on top..well until we got the cake to the destination.. then under him a crack formed!! It was sweltering!

Bottom line..again…I learned from this cake. Would I do things differently next time I have a cake like this to do? Yes indeed! Working in the summer with fondant is certainly an experience!! And we have a whole lotta summer left!!

Here’s a treat for you.. the recipe for the Chocolate Buttercreme! Hand’s down the best I have tasted!

Chocolate Buttercream

Recipe Source: Recipezaar

*Kittencal’s Buttercream Icing*

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

2 2/3 cups confectioner’s sugar

1/3 cup half and half cream or milk or whipping cream (I prefer heavy whipping cream)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

~ADD ONE OF THE FOLLOWING~

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted (for light)

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted (for medium) ( I use this)

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted (for dark rich)

Directions

Cream the butter in a small bowl.

Blend in the desired amount of cocoa powder *

Then add vanilla, confectioners sugar*, alternately with the cream.

Beat with an electric mixer, until the desired texture is achieved.

*Note..I sifted my cocoa powder and confectioners sugar together then added them prior to vanilla and cream.

This recipe makes 2 cups. Ah, I’d like to add that you may want to double it because it is highly likely that you will be “tasting” this a bit more then usual! Make sure you have some for the cake!!

Autobots wear flowers too…

2010-06-04T18:33:00.000-04:00

Here's the story,
Of a lovely lady,
Who was always wearing flowers in her hair.
Then one day,
she saw the movie Transformers,
and the Autobots were also her flair!

Angie love Autobots and flowers in her hair (as my make shift song above implies). It was her birthday. She asked me to make her a small cake. I don’t think she remembered that months ago she said she wanted an Autobot cake.

So, this I think, was a complete surprise to her. What made it even more surprising was the yellow gumpaste flower that I put on her Autobot. :)

It was great to see her face when she saw it. It was a basic 4 layer 6 inch round vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. It was covered with black fondant. The Autobot is gumpaste with nu-silver luster dust and accented with smoky amethyst luster dust.

For a relatively small easy cake…I did have an issue. MY HOUSE WAS HOT!! The air-condition was pushing as much as it could. I was about have a fondant melt down..

But that was it. Which is a big it…but I got through it.

Anyway,

Happy Birthday to the lovely ~~lady~~ Autobot, Angela.

May 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge ~ Piece Montée

2010-05-27T00:50:00.000-04:00

Well this was a piece alright. I thought it would be a piece of cake. But each stage although easy in theory had some issue with me!

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

This dessert is quite popular now. I have seen some people actually have them as their wedding cakes. Cute concept… no knife needed I guess and one up from cupcakes.

But to put this little piece together was a piece of pain.

The crème patissiere was easy to do. I have done it before when I made the Cannoli for a previous DB Challenge. It is really a great crème which is not too sweet. This step was my first step. Okay, so it went pretty much without incident. Yippee!

Next I made the pastry or the Pate a Choux it is called. Strange method of making pastry in a sauce pan. Wonders never cease. This was pretty easy too.. the worse was incorporating the egg because my arms were killing me… too bad I couldn’t use a mixer…

I got my Pate a Choux in the oven and I feared I made them too big. Oh well… When they were ready I took them out of the oven and half of them were flatter then the other half. What’s up with that? I can’t explain it. Yet another step in something I thought was foolproof and it duped me. I chose not to redo but to work with it. This was two nights before this challenge was due and after doing 4 cakes this month I was tired of looking at my kitchen.

My next step was the caramel. That I thought I did well, until I tried to do a spun caramel effect. I read up on how to do it and I prepared my kitchen well. It SEEMED easy enough…just messy.. but none the less my spun sugar was just a mess in my kitchen. It was enough to serve the purpose though.

Now… lets put this bad boy Montée together. I ignored the fact that I may need a supporting structure inside. Especially since I don't think I did enough of the Pate a Choux. I chose to try glue the pieces together with the caramel glaze as the recipe states. My caramel hardened before I got the structure right. Tough luck. But I managed to put them together the best I could and used a few lollipop sticks to help support. I didn’t have any toothpicks as suggested.

I had so many plans for my Piece Montée. I was going to do some gumpaste roses and adorn them to it. Then sprinkle some dragees around the structure.( You all know I love me some dragees). I debated using the chocolate glaze the recipe suggested as well…but I just didn’t want it too complicated.

I experimented with my spun caramel. I have been wanting to do spun caramel for so long. I tried making a nest with it then assembled my Piece Montée in it. The Piece was so delicate it kept falling to pieces! Even with my so called lollipop support system and dried up caramel. It was funny. I was rushing to assemble and take some pictures…soon to find out that once the spun caramel got on the Piece Montée it starts to WILT :(

Anyway, lesson learned..and I had fun. I will make this again but maybe with coconut crème center and lemon glaze. The thing with these is that you can experiment with so many flavor combos… Raspberry crème with chocolate glaze, strawberry glaze with vanilla cream… oh my.

When life hands you wilted spun caramel, make a Piece Montée Margarita. :)

Recipe:~

Chocolate Pastry Cream

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup milk, divided

2 tbsp cornstarch

3 oz semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped

6 tbsp sugar

1 egg

2 egg yolks

1 oz unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine 3/4 cup of milk with the sugar in a saucepan, bring to boil and remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

Return the milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat.

Bring ¼ cup milk to a boil in a small pan; remove from heat, add in the chocolate and mix until smooth.

Whisk into pastry cream together with the butter and vanilla.

Pâte à Choux

Yield: about 28

Ingredients:

¾ cup water

6 tbsp unsalted butter

¼ ts[ salt

1 tbsp sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 eggs

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.

It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. Pipe choux about 1 inch apart in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high and about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Bake the choux at 425 ◦ F until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 350◦F and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Filling the choux

When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux.

Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet.

Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Chocolate Glaze

Melt 8 oz of chopped semi-sweet chocolate in microwave or double boiler.

Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning.

Assembly of the Piece Montée:

Dip the top of each choux in your glaze, and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet.

Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up.

Cupcakes are now my friends

2010-05-26T22:28:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I wasn’t the biggest lover of cupcakes. Somehow decorating little cakes individually and getting them to look somewhat alike seemed to frighten me.

I think I am over it. I had to do cupcakes for my son’s class. His graduating class that is. I intended on doing some fondant graduation caps but I changed my mind when I realized I didn’t have the time. But that was good. Because it encouraged me to use buttercream and make a something pretty cool out of it.

Congrats to my son who graduated from Elementary School on the Honor Roll. Whoot Whoot!

Two Cake night…

2010-05-15T18:19:00.001-04:00

Two kids, one weekend, two cakes. Pokémon and Zhu Zhu pets were the theme of choice.

These were smaller cakes and I had to control myself not to overdue them. I had envisioned what I wanted but wasn’t quite sure how…

Pokémon was easy. Except that I planned on adding Ash, the trainer to the cake by doing a chocolate transfer. Well, I was out of black oil color to dye the chocolate and as you may, or may not know…you can’t use regular food coloring dye or the chocolate will seize. Despite this….I pushed on saying that I will figure out what to do when I cross that road. Then I decided to deviate from my normal routine of mixing the colors as I need them which allows the chocolate already laid to temper. I decided to premix my colors and have them laid out and ready…that lead to the discovery that piping bags don’t like the microwave…as now I have green dye on my feet…explosion central! Anyway, the tempered chocolate did not lay to well on Ash’s picture…and ended up looking like a mess and a million. Okay…not that bad but he didn’t need to go on the cake looking like that. My son was happy as he warned me not to put him on the cake in the first place.

Ash less Pokémon cake… for Daniel…whose favorite Pokémon is Snorlax. I think I like him too..

Happy Birthday Daniel..

and of course…. Stephanie… Happy Birthday!!!

Her choice…Zhu Zhu Pets.. Who knew a hamster can be a girls best friend!??!!

Jilly is the girly girl of the Zhu Zhu Pets. Apparently.

She love to dress up in her crown and veil… she has the softest pink fur and a little cherry symbol on her back.

I have learned a lot about the Zhu Zhu family. I was also quite pleased as to how this cake came out. Jilly was made from rice krispies…much like the poke ball in the Pokémon cake above. Jilly is resting on purple fondant, although it looks less purple in this picture…but she is also surrounded by edible pink and purple glitter.

I was thrilled I managed to push out a hamster cake perfect for a little girl.

Go Jilly!

Mums for Mom.

2010-05-09T12:23:00.001-04:00

Happy Mothers Day!!! I love love love Chrysanthemums. Hence the Chrysantheumum on the top of the cake of my logo. So when I received an order for a Mother’s Day cake I choose a Chrysantheumum to adorn the cake.

Doing a gumpaste Mum was very challenging…but I knew I wanted it to have a fantasy look as well. A bit abstract….

Every Mom is not perfect. Every mom is a bit abstract. We should be.

Imperfections and all…yet so beautiful.

I love this cake.

Happy Mothers Day.

Eh…What’s so special about a Buggati anyway?

2010-05-06T17:58:00.000-04:00

I guess this one is special because it is my son’s birthday cake. This was his request. It didn’t matter that I had never attempted to do a car cake before. It didn’t matter to him that I told him I don’t think I can do it. He simply responded “Yes, you can mommie.”

I didn’t get nervous about this cake because it was for my son. It wasn’t for someone else’s child. When I attempt to make something for the first time for someone else I dream about it… Seriously.

If this cake was for someone else, I probably would have done it over. And I am positive that everything I learned not to do with this one would have made the next one so much better.

As you can guess I am not too happy with my Buggati car. But…in my defense, it was my first car :). I have heard how difficult car cakes can be.

I could pout and mumble and say I will never never never do this again(which I did)…but I will do it again. Maybe next time I won’t do a car that is as detailed as a Buggati…maybe I will do a Honda, a Beetle or a Lightening McQueen car. Something a bit more simple so that I can get better in time. But really, am I simple like that? I always have to take it further…

Eh….What’s so special about a Buggati anyway? I have my answer…my son. He loved his Buggati in the dessert. “Mommie! Did you know that Little Wayne has a music video with a Buggati in the dessert? … and then breaks out in song, “I can transform you, I can transform you…!”

I learn something new everyday.

Bitter Sweet Daffodils

2010-05-02T16:05:00.000-04:00

My Mother in Law has received the opportunity of a lifetime. An opportunity that she has worked very hard for. Not only is she graduating with her second Master’s Degree this month, but she has a new out of state job offer that is phenomenal ~ just like her.

As selfish as I feel, because I don’t want her to leave us I know none of us can clip her wings. I cry writing this…because I can’t explain how my heart can be happy for her yet sad because she is leaving us.

My Mother in Law’s strength and perseverance is amazing. She has inspired me to push on no matter what. Her life stories are amazing and I can see how they have molded her in to the strong woman she is today.

Beverley, I am wishing you all the best. As much as I want to hug you and not let you go. As much as I want my children to not go a day without seeing you I am hopeful that the lessons you instilled in me and Hubby will be instilled in them.

When you asked me to do your Birthday cake I was happy. I wanted this cake to represent how beautiful you are to us. You have been there for me since the day I moved here. I appreciate and love you and want all the best for you. Thanks for the inspiration, the support and the love.

Bitter Sweet Daffodils…

April 2010 Daring Bakers ~ Traditional British Pudding!!

2010-04-27T01:47:00.000-04:00

Okay, Bermuda may be a British Dependant Territory…but baking British food is not my flavor.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

I first looked at this challenge and thought “Heck no!” I was not buying “suet” no way no how and not making pudding. Then I thought of the Christmas Pudding my granny makes and thought it may not be that bad. I read the challenge…over and over. It was easy… Esther allowed variations…the most important variation was using Crisco or butter rather then suet. Whew.

So, I got cocky. Oh yeah, I can do this…easy. Just like dough. Needless to say, I am not that great with dough. I mean, how many recipes you see on this blog with dough? Two…maybe? My hands are too warm for mixing that butter with flour. My hands are perfectly warm for fondant :)

So, I tackle it…choosing to do a savory vegetarian pudding for hubby. Poor Hubby. My first issue was of course, the dough. It was so fragile. I couldn’t roll it in one piece and even if I managed to do so, transferring to the greased Pyrex dish was a nightmare. Like a puzzle, I ended up slopping my dough in sections in my dish. UGH!! I shook it off. Time for my filling to go in. My filling was a sautéed spicy chickpea with tomatoes and potatoes. It looked a bit too watery…but I thought the more juice the better. I then pieced section by section dough to cover the filling…like a pie. I felt positive. Then, 2 hours later the positivity flew out the window. Much like how I felt when I saw my so called traditional pudding.

This is the only picture your going to get. After daringly trying to turn this out on a platter I decided that it was only good for my eyes only. The dough was gummy and partially cooked. Just like the hard potatoes in the filling. The filling spilled out because the dough which was supposed to be a great crust couldn’t support the weight due to it being under cooked. What a disaster. I threw the filling in a frying pan and sautéed till potatoes were cooked and served to Hubby with some rice. Poor Hubby.

2 weeks flew by before I decided to tackle the pudding recipe again. This time I figure I will do a sponge cake like pudding! Ah ha! Cake and me are friends..so this should be a no brainer.

Again, super easy recipe I found on the Pudding Club website. Can you imagine…a whole website for pudding lovers! Seriously take a look because some of them look delish! I chose Jam and Coconut pudding. Please make a note… “desiccated” coconut is not a fancy smancy way that the British call grated coconut. I learned this the hard way. Also, someone needs to explain to me why 120g of caster sugar is not the same as 1 cup of granulated sugar. No explanation is really needed…I just need to know why my brain blanked out and did this. Caster sugar is soooo different from granulated sugar…just as desiccated coconut is to grated coconut. These ingredients needed to be a finer texture.

I did enjoy putting this pudding recipe together. Creaming butter and sugar and sifting dry ingredients. Whoa, I am a pro at that. I even proudly used my homemade strawberry jam that I cooked the night before. So good.

Unlike the chickpea disaster which went in a casserole dish filled with water in the oven, I put this one in the Crockpot. When I heard the occasional burp from the crock I felt like I finally had it.

2 hours passed, I checked it and all was good. I let it sit for 10 minutes before turning out on plate as I read that somewhere. Then, IT happened. IT is THIS…

It kind of fell. Yeah, like splooshed in the middle.. What the heck did I do wrong?? Perhaps the incorrect sugar type? I think so.

However, see the spoon? That spoon tried very hard to let go. Seriously. This pudding was so good… I had to pry the spoon away from it, then pry the spoon away from my mouth. It was difficult to stop nibbling at this pudding.

Kudos to you Esther, for choosing a technique that I, like many have never tried before. You have converted some folks. I haven’t decided if I am a convert yet…I may tackle this again. The taste is well worth another shot!

For those of you that want to know more about steamed puddings and suet, check out Esther’s blog at The Lilac Kitchen. If you go to the end of her post she has a great write up on the different methods. Feel free to try it and get back to me… As I said, I may try again. If I fail then British pudding is just not my cup of tea. :)

Wii Wii Monsieur

2010-04-24T17:39:00.000-04:00

My little cousin’s birthday is today…and I told him for his birthday present I can do a cake! When I asked what theme of cake he wanted he said “Final Fantasy.” Who, what? I had never heard of Final Fantasy anything. I had my work cut out for me.

I had all intentions of creating his requested character of choice by gumpaste. I was pretty excited because it was giving me another chance to work on gumpaste figures. His dad quickly informed me that the birthday boy wanted toy action figures on his cake. Okay…no problem. A little disappointed but it was his birthday so he gets what he wants.

Originally I was going to do a round cake with marble fondant and stick the figure on top and do the logo and taaaa daaaa! Then the day before I decided to go a different route. I did a Wii remote control since that is what he was getting for his birthday. No…not a Wii remote…a Final Fantasy game for his Wii. Why not tie it all in and make it cohesive.

There is Squall. Squall looks like Cloud. Ask me how I know..

I read so much on Final Fantasy that I could play the game and win on the first try. Not exactly but you get my point.

I like that I went this route with this cake. The Wii remote is pretty simple to replicate. My only thing is I didn’t have a long enough cake board so the remote is not as narrow and thin as I would have liked it. Otherwise then that I was happy with it… I probably would have been more happy if the figure was a gumpaste one too. But it was a great way to present a gift of an action figure to the birthday boy… and he was very grateful.

The cake flavor was vanilla with a layer of buttercream..as per birthday boy request.

Happy Birthday Zenas!

Oh So Red Velvet Cake!

2010-04-13T00:29:00.001-04:00

I have searched for a good red velvet cake recipe. And that is hard to do when you are not quite sure what flavor red velvet should be. Is it chocolate cake? I think not…not with only 2 tablespoons of cocoa…this chocolate fanatic will never be satisfied with that. Its not vanilla white or yellow cake…if you don’t add the red coloring it is an unappealing beige. What flavor is beige?

Some feel that red velvet cake is just a vessel for a good cream cheese frosting. Well, I happen to think that most cake is so I can’t attest to that theory. Red velvet cake…should taste like something…some type of flavor of cake.

Anyway, with that said I have tried 2 different red velvet cake recipes and not been quite happy. I have had a great red velvet from Metrotainment Bakery here in Atlanta and I just needed to find a recipe that came dang near close if not better.

This, my third red velvet, was a hit. I must say I had a few issues. One was that I kept getting clucks of flour or cocoa in my batter. I was distraught trying to get these flour poufs out of my batter. I did everything, even taking my rubber spatula squashing them…but there where too many. I gave in and baked the cake and the flour poufs came up to the top of each cupcake. I am thinking that I need to sift the dry ingredients instead of whisking to mix. I will have to test this because it could really change the texture of the cake. I mean really, this cake is super soft and moist…any more fluff may cause it to disintegrate in my hands before it disintegrates in my mouth.

Secondly, I tasted a cupcake about 20 minutes after cooling time and I felt it had an aftertaste that I did not like. It didn’t taste bad…but it was just something that lingered on that I didn’t want too.

Without panicking I decided to wait and taste it again. Sometimes cake needs a few hours for the flavors to come together. There are many cakes that taste a whole lot better the next day. Well, by George…this was one of them. I gave a cupcake another go and WOW! Super impressed. No funny aftertaste..and I didn’t even see the “drive me crazy flour poufs”. Perhaps they really did poof??

Now, have I figured out what taste a red velvet cake has? Nah… and with this recipe I don’t need to. It clearly taste like red velvet. :)

I will be making this again in 8 inch round and 3 layer form. And I also have another 2 red velvet recipes that I want to try and compare. But for now I had to post this recipe because it tops my list as a great cake. A great vessel for whatever frosting you decide to slather on top. Some prefer a great Vanilla Buttercream but most prefer a Cream Cheese Frosting as I used above.

This recipe was forwarding to me by someone who didn’t even know I was looking for a great red velvet recipe! Go figure… Here’s Simone’s source.. The BEST Red Velvet Cake on"Yes, Divas can cook" blog!

Thanks Divas.

Recipe:

CAKE

Ingredients:~

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

2 Tablespoon of unsweetened, cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon of white distilled vinegar

2 teaspoon of vanilla

2-3 oz. red food coloring (I used 3 oz)

1/2 cup of coffee

Directions:~

Preheat oven 325 degrees.

In a large bowl add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt & cocoa powder. Whisk until well combined. Set Aside.

In a separate large bowl, add sugar and oil. Mix until combined.

Add in eggs, buttermilk, vanilla & red food coloring. Stir until combined.

Next add in the coffee & vinegar. Stir until combined.

Pour the flour mixture into the sugar mixture a little at a time. Beating until well combined.

Pour the batter into 2 greased & flour 9 inch round cake pans. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. (Another way to check for doneness is to lightly press the cake on top, if it springs back then it is done, if the dent remains in the cake then it is not done. Do not over bake.)

Let cool for 10 mins then remove on to racks to cool completely before frosting.

Please note…as I made cupcakes my cooking time was reduced to 19 mins. I recommend checking them at 15 mins first in order not to over bake.

FROSTING ~ The greatest (in my opinion) cream cheese frosting recipe can be found here on the recipe for Big Bill's Carrot Cake!

I Caked a Carrot.

2010-04-11T00:11:00.000-04:00

So Hubby says. It was a good carrot too. And a much better cake. Easter was upon us. I wanted a new carrot cake recipe. I asked some of my lovely friends on the WC board and one gave me Big Bill. I found Big Bill on Slow like Honey. Best thing going. This carrot cake that is…and going it went.

See there…raisins..pecans…and coconut too. Oh, and of course…carrots. This cake was easy to make…the batter was little…and the chunks were plenty.

How can carrots morph into cake. And still taste like carrot…but devishly delicious. Yeah, this isn’t something you want to add to your daily vegetable intake. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if I could…but I can’t. A minute on the lips leads to a lifetime on the hips. Wait…this is a food blog..there’s no talking of weight watching here!!

Slap!! Slap!!…Back to the carrot cake. I must say my Easter dinner was good and this carrot cake, Big Bill’s carrot cake just made it even better.

I urge you to cake your carrots into this.

Oh mannnnn, I haven’t even begun to talk about the cream cheese frosting on this cake…I can’t and I won’t. Just try it. Please.

Recipe:

source: Slow Like Honey whose source was

Baking: from my home

Ingredients:

CAKE

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

¾ teaspoon salt

3 cups grated carrots (about 9 carrots,

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans

1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)

½ cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden) or dried cranberries

2 cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

4 large eggs

Directions:

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Butter three 9-x-2-inch round cake pans, flour the insides, and tap out the excess.

Put the two pans on one baking sheet and one on another.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In another bowl, stir together the carrots, chopped nuts, coconut, and raisins.

With a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the sugar and oil together on a medium speed until smooth.

Add the eggs one by one and continue to beat until the batter is even smoother.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear.

Gently mix the chunky ingredients.

Divide the batter among the baking pans.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until a thin knife inserted into the centers comes out clean. The cakes will have just started to come away from the sides of the pans.

Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes and unmold them.

Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.

The cakes can be wrapped airtight and kept at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 and ¾ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or ½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

Optional additions:
½ cup shredded coconut
Finely chopped toasted nuts and/or toasted shredded coconut

Directions:

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy.

Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in the lemon juice or extract.

If you’d like coconut in the filling, scoop about half of the frosting and stir the coconut into this position.

Peeeas and Rice Please!!

2010-04-03T21:41:00.000-04:00

Hoppin John..some may call it. This isn’t quite it, no ham hock here. Rice and Peas…some may call it that too…this isn’t quite that either. Black Eye Peas and rice…well yeah, it is…but in Bermuda it is plain ole peas and rice.

This was a staple in my home growing up. When I saw my mom chopping up chorizo I knew that peas and rice was for dinner. I often snuck pieces of chopped chorizo to nibble on and she would scowl at me. I love a good memory. I don’t make my peas and rice like my momma. Not that I don’t like hers, I love it…I just wanted to adjust it a bit.

My mom’s peas and rice is dark. She usually adds a browning sauce to it. I prefer mine light. I also leave out chorizo because Hubby doesn’t eat it. In order to give it some flavor since the chorizo added a lot, I add my all time favorite Maggi Vegetable Cube.

This rice is so simple and easy to make. I don’t really have a recipe written for it. And the taste is all controlled by the shake of your hand…not teaspoons or tablespoons. Oh, the relaxation of cooking..compared to baking that is!

For this…my recipe…

3/4 cup black eyed peas

2 cups parboiled rice ( I sometimes use brown rice for a healthier version)

4 cups water ( use about 1 cup more if using brown rice)

2 Maggi Vegetable Cubes

Salt

Pepper

Thyme

Paprika

Directions:

Cover peas in water and soak overnight. Drain.

Bring 4 cups water to boil. Add peas and boil for 10 minutes.

Add rice. And to your taste add the seasonings…I am heavy handed with them.

Bring back to boil, then turn down to simmer. Leave uncovered and stir occasionally.

Once water is evaporated rice should be ready. If you are using brown rice the time will be longer.

I tend to use this same method when I use red beans. Sometimes using red beans I used a can of coconut milk then add water to make up to 4 cups. Please note…I use CANNED red beans… if you use fresh..you need to boil the beans until tender prior.

Codfish Cakes!

2010-04-02T20:46:00.000-04:00

During the Easter Holiday Codfish cakes are very popular in Bermuda. EXTREMELY popular!! They are enjoyed alone or even sandwiched between a split Hot Cross Bun…smothered in ketchup or cheese and hot sauce.

The Thursday before the Good Friday holiday you could find my mom slaving in the kitchen. Mashing and rolling…mashing and rolling. Dusting and frying…dusting and frying. Ohhhhh, the house smelled soooooo good. You knew it was the Easter Season from that smell. Coupled with the sound of humming from the kites being flown outside by the neighborhood boys whose main objective was to make their kites the loudest in the neighborhood. It was always a goal to have the best hummer of the season.

Good Friday in Bermuda is so festive. It is a holiday that is treated and respected as a holiday. There is no work and no school. Just good family fun. You either stay home and embrace the day or head to the beach for a swim and maybe a kite competition. we used to head over to my Aunts house and spend time with the family while playing marbles, fly kites and eating fish cakes. Codfish Cakes…

Here’s my mom’s recipe:~

Bermuda Codfish Cakes

2 Pounds Codfish(salted and boneless)

3 pounds potatoes. peeled

1 onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1/4 cup butter, melted (this is optional)

1 tablespoon curry powder (optional)

flour and oil for frying.

Directions:

Soak codfish overnight in cold water.

Change the water and boil codfish for 1 hour. Add potatoes and continue to boil until potatoes are soft.

Drain.

Add the butter, onion, parsley, thyme and curry powder.

Mash mixture with fork or potato masher.

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out some of the mixture and roll in flour.

Fry in pan with shallow level of oil until golden brown.

Enjoy!

March 2010 Daring Bakers ~Orange Tian!!

2010-03-31T20:38:00.000-04:00

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

Yeah, yeah. I am so late with this. But since I missed last months Tiramisu I just couldn’t pass this one up. So I had a little break in my schedule and decided to do this 3 part dessert. It was worth it.

The recipe calls for oranges. I used Strawberries. My reasoning is because strawberries were on special and oranges were not. Good enough reason for me. What I like about Daring Bakers is that you can adapt your recipes some. You shouldn’t go too far from what the host picked…but if you are vegan you can adjust the recipe to suit. If your ingredients are out of your budget…then you can use food ingredients in your budget. Almost…if they work. I do however, try to get what I can as close to what the recipe calls for.

There were two changes to this recipe. One of which I just explained. The other is the use of gelatin. No gelatin is not out of my budget…but it is out of my cooking and baking because of my live in pescatarian, Hubby. Gelatin contains pork and if I want Hubby to be my guinea ~~pig~~ fish, I need to cook or bake with Kosher ingredients. I heart my guinea fish so I don’t want to give him anything that he is against eating.

The gelatin factory was a dilemma for me. I was so sure my tian wasn’t going to stand up with out the gelatin in the whipping cream. Some used agar agar, some just didn’t use anything at all. I didn’t want to chane not using anything to stabilize the whipping cream…I didn’t want a slooshy center! With some research I found that powdered sugar has some cornstarch in it and the recipe calls for powdered sugar. Was it enough though? I decided I could add more sugar…but I didn’t want to alter the taste of the recipe that severely. So I opted to add tablespoon of cornstarch. VOILA!! It worked… My whipped cream held up beautifully!

Oh, guess what? I made my own marmalade (well the recipe tells us to)…how awesome is that!!!??!! I am truly going to do this more often. It is so easy. The strawberry marmalade was delicious too!! I was stunned.. (patting myself on the back.)

The only thing I would change about this recipe is the caramel sauce. I wasn’t a big fan of the consistency or the flavor. I would probably go with an original caramel sauce instead.

So, thanks Jennifer from www.chocolateshavings.ca, thanks for this awesome summer cook dessert. I will put in on my to do again list…next time …I will try oranges…maybe blueberries, kiwi and whatever else I can get away with!

Here’s the recipe as written by Jennifer and amended slightly.

Pate Sablee: (this is the cookie under the dessert)

2 medium-sized egg yolks at room temperature

6 tbsp and 1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup and 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cubed

1/3 tsp salt

1 1/2 and 2 tbsp cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

Directions:

Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale. Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a homogenous ball of dough. Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface until you obtain a ¼ inch thick circle.

Using your cookie cutter, cut out circles of dough and place on a parchment (or silicone) lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.

Marmalade:

1/4 cup and 3 tbsp freshly pressed orange juice ( i used bottled brand)

1 large orange ( I used strawberries and estimated the size)

cold water to cook the oranges

5 grams of pectin

sugar to equal the weight of the amount of cooked oranges (uncooked strawberries in my case).

Finely slice the orange. Place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill with cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes.

Blanch the orange slices 3 times. This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.

Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool.

Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor).

*I didn’t have too cook the strawberries but I followed the directions on the box of pectin that I purchased.)

Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated sugar . If you don’t have a scale, you can place the slices in a cup measurer and use the same amount of sugar.

In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juice and the pectin. Cook until the mixture reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

Orange Segments:

For this step you will need 8 oranges. ( I used strawberries and estimated)

Cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.

Caramel:

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 plus 2 tbsp orange juice ( I did use orange juice…next time I will use a lot less, I found my sauce to be too watery for my liking)

Directions: Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it.

Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice. As soon as the mixture starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments.

Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bowl — you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert. When the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). You can then spoon it over the orange tians

Whipped Cream:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

3 tbsp hot water (I omitted)

1 tsp Gelatin ( I omitted and substituted 1 tbsp cornstarch which was added to whipping cream after it started to form peaks)

1 tbsp confectioner’s sugar

1 tbsp orange marmalade(I used strawberry as noted in recipe above)

Directions:

In a small bowl, add the gelatin and hot water, stirring well until the gelatin dissolves. Let the gelatin cool to room temperature while you make the whipped cream.

Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute. Add the confectioner sugar. Increase the speed to medium-high. Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible (but not lasting) trails in the cream, then add the cooled gelatin slowly while beating continuously.(I added the cornstarch here instead of gelatin mixture)

Continue whipping until the cream is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in the orange marmalade.

Assembling the Dessert:

Line a small tray or baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Lay out 6 cookie cutters onto the parchment paper/silicone.

Drain the orange segments on a kitchen towel.

Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure you do this pretty as this will be the top of the dessert.

Next add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer. Leave about 1/4 inch at the top so there is room for Pate cookie.

Spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough.

Carefully place a circle of dough over each ring (the side of dough covered in marmalade should be the side touching the whipping cream). Gently press on the circle of dough.

Place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes. (I left mine in there waaaay longer)

Using a small knife, gently go around the edges of the cookie cutter to make sure the dessert will be easy to unmold. Gently place your serving plate on top of a dessert (on top of the circle of dough) and turn the plate over. Gently remove the cookie cutter, add a spoonful of caramel sauce and serve immediately.