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Cinnamon Rolls

18 Apr

When I was a teen, my aunt invited my cousins and me over to teach us a few things in the kitchen. I can’t say I’ve made homemade ravioli since that night, but I do regularly use her Asian sticky rice “recipe” and her recipe for cinnamon rolls. This is something of a semi-homemade treat, so it’s super easy. I took some rolls fresh from the oven to a friend’s for brunch last weekend, and they were pretty amazing.

First off, pour some pecans into a bundt pan. Then add in some frozen dinner rolls. I usually cram in about 12 of the 15 rolls in the package.

Yeast Rolls

Sprinkle one package of butterscotch pudding mix over top the rolls. (DON’T use the instant!) And then sprinkle 1 teaspoon cinnamon over that.

Butterscotch Pudding

In a saucepan, add 1 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter. Stir over medium heat until melted and smooth, then pour it over the rolls. At this point, you can put them in the fridge to sit overnight and bake fresh in the morning, or you can go ahead and bake them now.

Ready for the Oven

Bake the rolls at 350 F for about 30 minutes. Loosen the sides, then dump the whole thing upside down onto a serving plate. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Rolls!

YUM

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Teal “Thank You” Cookies

10 Apr

Omigosh, y’all. I have been so super busy lately (work, life, you know the drill)… I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted. I will have more updates soon, but in the meantime, here are some great pictures from my most recent baking adventure.

I made these cookies as tokens of appreciation for our volunteers. And it’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, so I made them teal – the color of the sexual violence awareness ribbon.

COOKIES!

I used a basic sugar cookie recipe – this one’s the best because it’s tasty but also doesn’t spread too much when they bake. My sister and cousin stayed with me over the weekend to hang out and because my sister wanted to “learn how to cook.” It worked out great to have a team in the kitchen since this is a somewhat labor-intensive project. And it turns out my cousin is an experienced baker, so she did a lot of the rolling and cutting of the dough. And she was super resourceful! I realized I didn’t have a rolling pin (I had always borrowed Betsy’s), and she came up with the brilliant idea to use a wine bottle. Perfect.

We used a flower cookie cutter for a slightly more interesting shape than a plain circle. The rounded edges were way easier to frost than those pointy snowflake cookies. After they baked and cooled, I topped them with some royal icing that I tinted with teal gel food coloring. (Remember – a little bit goes a long way.) Last, I sprinkled them with silver sanding sugar.

Close up

Since these were gifts for volunteers, I decided to package them up all pretty. First I placed each cookie into a clear treat bag (6 x 3.75 in – I picked them up at AC Moore). I cut strips of teal scrapbooking paper into 3.75 x 3 inches, folded them in half hotdog-style, then stamped them with a “Thank you so much” stamp. I folded the top of the bag down, slid the folded paper over top, and stapled it shut. ADORBS.

Pretty Packages

We packaged up a cookie, a mini candle, and a coupon to a local restaurant and gave them out at our volunteer appreciation party. A fun project and a great little thank you gift.

Now for an inspiring photo to end this post: Cookie Monster Cupcakes.

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Free Dinner!

14 Mar

This isn’t a nice recipe or anything, but I was just super impressed with my own economical dinner skills tonight and thought I’d share.

I got home late from a meeting, the BF is still out, and I was starving. I was doing my typical stand-in-front-of-the-open-fridge-and-hope-something-tasty-magically-appears. And in my head, I heard my dad yelling, “Shut the door!” (Everyone’s dad yells that, right?) But then something magically did appear: an idea. (Oh so cheesy, I know. Apologies.)

From the top shelf: Leftover bhindi (okra) masala from going out to Tandoor Indian last night (Yum!). The BF already ate the chicken tikka masala, so there wasn’t enough left for a meal.

From the way back of the middle shelf: Leftover brown rice from last weekend’s salmon lunch.

From the bottom shelf: Leftover baked chicken a friend sent home with the BF when I couldn’t make it to dinner this weekend.

From the drawer: Leftover asparagus spears, also from the salmon lunch.

Each on its own, certainly not enough for a meal. But together – perfect! I just finished, and it was delicious, easy, and free. Yay for no waste!

Leftovers Dinner

And for dessert… coconut chocolate chip oatmeal cookies leftover from a visit to a friend this weekend!

C is for Cookie!

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Herbed Salmon with Asparagus and Brown Rice

11 Mar

We just made a super delicious Sunday lunch. Pretty fancy, but it wasn’t much work. This would make a great meal for dinner guests.

We got a frozen salmon fillet from Trader Joe’s and thawed it out. The BF laid it on a baking sheet while I put together the herb blend. I was going for a similar idea as the Herb-Crusted Pork I posted a while back. In a small bowl, I mixed up some toasted chopped almonds, dried rosemary, dried thyme, and some sage. (Sorry I don’t have exact measurements here, I was just making it up as I went.) I added enough olive oil to give it a somewhat paste-like consistency. Then I spread it evenly on top of the fish. If it looks like it’s not enough, just make a little more.

Fish Close-Up

I set the whole pan in the fridge until we were ready for lunch. Then the BF popped it in the oven, and we baked it on 400 F for about 12-15 minutes. He covered it in foil while it baked so it would stay moist. If you like it flakier, you may opt to go without the foil, or to take the foil off in the last few minutes.

He also prepared a tray of asparagus seasoned with a lemon and garlic spice blend, and baked it right alongside the fish. That’s what made it so easy – they baked at the same temperature for the same amount of time, so only one thing to keep track of.

Asparagus

We served our fish and asparagus with brown rice. A delicious and healthy meal. Lunch is served!

Lunch

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Banana Fluffernutter Cupcakes

4 Mar

My mom is nuts for marshmallow fluff. Whenever I think of it, I picture her eating it straight off a spoon with a giant grin on her face. My mom is an excellent role model. She also demonstrated burping the alphabet and how she could squirt water through the gap between her two front teeth, both at the dinner table. The latter didn’t go well when my sister, who was about five years old at the time, attempted to do the same. She didn’t realize it wouldn’t quite work the same if you’re missing your four front teeth. That mess put an end to our water squirting at the dinner table, even if my dad was away on business.

Surprisingly, I never got on that much with marshmallow fluff. Maybe because I would always prefer to have chocolate. But this frosting changed my mind. I’ve never had a fluffernutter sandwich, but my mom always spoke of them fondly. To make a classic fluffernutter sandwich, you spread peanut butter and marshmallow fluff between two slices of soft white bread. I was thinking about this when dreaming up a new cupcake idea, and I decided that adding banana to the mix would be pretty awesome. Plus, I had some brown bananas I really needed to use. Thus, the concept for banana fluffernutter cupcakes was born: banana cupcake with peanut butter filling and marshmallow frosting. Unfortunately, these cupcakes disappeared before I could take one to my mom, but I might have to make another batch for her.

Cupcakes & Flowers

I started with a basic banana muffin. I thought something more muffin-like rather than cake-like would balance out the crazy sugar dose in the frosting.

I used applesauce instead of butter to be slightly healthier, and honestly, if you subtract the frosting, the banana/peanut butter portion of this recipe makes for an excellent and fairly healthy breakfast muffin. But if you wanted to go all out, by all means, use butter instead of applesauce.

A note about the applesauce: The first day, the paper completely stuck to the cupcake when I tried to peel it off. I recommend using butter or at least half butter and half applesauce. But if you do want to go applesauce all the way, not to worry. I took these to work on the third day after making them, and not only were they still moist, but also the paper peeled right off, no problems.

While they baked, I set out to make the marshmallow frosting. This stuff is SO GOOD. It’s just sugar with sugar, really.

After letting the cupcakes cool completely, I used my cupcake corer to remove the centers from each cupcake. This little guy is only 5 bucks and is seriously handy. You can get through a whole tray of cupcakes super fast. I definitely recommend it. But if you don’t have one, you can use a paring knife.

Not a happy day to be a cupcake.

Hardcored. Ha.

Instead of making a sugary peanut butter filling, I decided to fill them with plain peanut butter right out of the jar. I thought making a sweet filling might be too sweet when paired with the frosting. And most brands of peanut butter (like my favorite, crunchy Peter Pan) include a significant amount of sugar already. I used a little spoon to smush the peanut butter down in there.

Then I topped them with the marshmallow frosting, and there you go.

One Cupcake...

Super delicious. The blend of banana, peanut butter, and marshmallow is to die for. The flavors mingle so well together.

Two Cupcakes! Two! Ha Ah Ah. (Sorry. I just watched a video of The Count from Sesame Street. Don't ask.)

 

Banana Fluffernutter Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup (1 individual serving) applesauce (OR 1/3 cup butter)

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mash bananas with a fork. Add sugar, egg, and applesauce. Mix on low until just combined. Mix in flour mixture on low until just combined.

Pour the batter into the cupcake pan and bake for about 25-30 minutes. They should spring back slightly when tapped.

Let cool completely. Core each cupcake and fill with peanut butter. Top with marshmallow frosting.

Marshmallow Frosting

1 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 tub (about 8 oz) marshmallow cream

Sift sugar and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter until creamy. Beat in 1/2 the sugar until combined. Add vanilla and the rest of the sugar and beat until combined.

Stir in marshmallow cream.

 

Aerial View

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1 Cake, 3 Ways

24 Feb

I promised a cake to a friend because of a competition we held at work, and when the time came around, she wouldn’t tell me what kind of cake she wanted. But I owed it to her, so I didn’t want to back out or forget. So since I didn’t know which cake to bake for her, I just baked three.

But I thought this through. Mixing up three different batters seemed like it would take up a lot of time. Obvi. So I made up a basic batter without any flavoring, divided it into three bowls, and then added separate flavorings to each one. And while the cakes were baking, I made up 3 different fillings for each cake. And then I made one vanilla buttercream frosting to top everything off. Game plan: coconut cake with coconut cream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting, lemon cake with lemon filling and vanilla buttercream frosting, and almond cake with chocolate filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. Hells yeah.

I started by mixing up the base. I sifted together 2 1/2 cups flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. In a separate bowl, I mixed 2 cups white sugar, 3/4 cup butter, and 3 eggs with an electric mixer for about 1 minute. Then I alternately mixed in the flour mixture and 1 cup milk to the sugar mixture.

3 Cake Batters

I divided this base into 3 bowls.

  • Bowl 1: I added 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1/3 cup coconut flakes.
  • Bowl 2: I added 2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest.
  • Bowl 3: I added 2 teaspoons almond extract.

With my batters ready, I baked them at 350 F in batches, as my cake pans allowed. I used Wilton’s Mini Tasty-Fill Cake Pan Set. Sounds ridiculous, but it’s cool. It makes mini cake halves with a depression in the center of each one so that when you stack them, there’s a hollow center to add filling to. Of course, if you don’t have a smaller cake pan like this, you could make cupcakes and fill those. My small cakes baked 22 minutes or so. Cupcakes would probably take 18-20 minutes, but just keep checking with the toothpick test until they’re done.

3 Cakes Baking

While my cakes baked, I made the fillings.

  • For the coconut filling, I made up a half batch of the same filling that I used in my Simpler German Chocolate Cake, except I omitted the pecans.
  • For the lemon filling, I made a slightly different version of the original recipe I found here. In a saucepan, I mixed together 2 teaspoons lemon zest, 2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon flour. I mixed that until it was smooth, and then I added 3 tablespoons unsalted butter and 3/4 cup sugar. While I brought that to a boil, I whisked 2 egg yolks in a bowl until smooth. I put a small bit of the lemon mixture into the eggs and stirred until smooth, then I added the egg mixture to the lemon mixture, stirring well. Do this part quickly so that the lemon mixture doesn’t boil for longer than a minute or so. Then I reduced the heat to low and stirred constantly for about 5 minutes. Then I removed it from the heat and let it cool. (Note: Don’t skip the step of stirring the eggs with a small amount of the lemon mixture first. That’s so you don’t cook egg chunks into your lemon filling.) (Other Note: I thought this was a little too thick. If I made this again, I would follow the original recipe more closely. I think I had too much sugar and not enough liquid.)
  • For the chocolate filling, I melted 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter and 1/2 cup of a broken up Hershey’s Bar with Almonds in the microwave, stirring well every 20-30 seconds until smooth.

While my fillings cooled, I made the frosting. You can find the original recipe for Vanilla Buttercream Frosting at savorysweetlife.com.

Then it was time for assembly. I matched the cakes to their fillings and filled the center of each one. After I sandwiched them together, I frosted them all with the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

So that the recipient would be able to tell what’s what, I topped each with something to represent what was inside. Coconut flakes on the coconut cake, chocolate bar bits on the almond-chocolate cake, and yellow and white sprinkles on the lemon cake. I stacked them all on one cake tray, and that was that. 1 cake batter 3 ways!

3 Cakes

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Almond Cake with Chocolate Frosting

12 Feb

This is more of a concept than a recipe, but I’ll at least post enough for you to re-create it on your own, if you were so inclined.

I’d really like to work more on my presentation skills, but I’m pretty terrible at decorating. Any time I serve up a dessert that looks like a big ole delicious mess of chocolate, I typically huff and puff and said something like, ‘It doesn’t matter what it looks like, it only matter that it tastes delicious!’ But seriously, it’s time to step it up a notch. Though I do believe that taste is more important than looks, it also doesn’t hurt to look pretty.

I got this idea from a blog whose picture I saw on Pinterest. (Oh, Pinterest. You are responsible for my craftiest of urges.) The blog is in Swedish, but you’ll get the gist.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison so you can see how good mine looks compared to the original. Considering that’s a top-notch Swedish creation, I’m pretty proud of mine. I mean, Swedish and flawlessly executed design are practically synonymous. We’re talking about a people who have brought us Ikea, Volvos, and meatballs.

Not bad, huh?

When I saw that picture, I decided I needed to try out that frosting technique. And ever since I bought some almond extract, I’ve been meaning to use it for more than just the truffles that I messed up so badly I had to throw away. Enter almond cake with chocolate frosting.

I couldn’t find a recipe for almond cake that pleased me well enough, so essentially I just made a white cake and added almond extract instead of vanilla. So here’s the recipe: Use whatever cake recipe or mix you like, add some almond extract, and taste the batter until you like it. I baked it in a springform pan so the sides would be straight.

Then I whipped up some of my Best Chocolate Frosting Ever. I spread a liberal amount onto the finished almond cake and then loaded the rest into my decorating bag. I used a #32 tip because that’s the biggest one I had, but really, you could use any large decorating tip. Betsy helped me out with this one by piping big dollops in a line around the rim of the cake while I went behind her with a spoon to flatten the drops out and spin the cake. Handy with two people, but certainly do-able on your own.

Dollop!

 

Spooning.

We left the center of the cake flat, free of dollops. I could say it was for effect, but really, we ran out of frosting. Looks good, though, huh?

Voila

I toasted some sliced almonds and pressed them into the sides, and voila – finished! (Actually, that’s not true. I burnt the first batch of almonds, toasted a second batch, and then voila.)

Yum yum

Enjoy this fancy cake served up right on fancy china.

 

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Super Bowl Menu & Printable Shopping List

4 Feb

Now I’m not a big fan of the Super Bowl or football or sports in general, but I am a big fan of food. And I’m also a big fan of theme parties. I don’t have the inclination to sit through a Super Bowl myself, so this post is more of an imaginary exercise. This is what I would serve IF I threw a Super Bowl party. May you benefit from my odd mix of productivity and laziness.

My goal for this menu was to be a little different from your typical Bowl party without being totally wackadoo. I saw an infographic that said Americans eat the following on Super Bowl Sunday:

  • 100 million pounds of chicken wings
  • 43.2 million pounds of tortilla chips
  • 45.8 million pounds of potato chips
  • 13.2 million pounds of pretzels
  • 4.4 million pizzas
  • 71.4 million pounds of avocados
  • 111 million gallons of beer

So basically all that kind of grossed me out. And I think in general, variety is the spice of life. So my metric for a successful menu was that I would come up with something that absolutely used none of these things, but would still satisfy my brother.

The Menu:

Main – 

  • Mini Barbecue Meatball Sliders. This recipe feature BBQ meatballs served on a roll. Simple and delicious. I would add a spoonful of slaw to each one. I’d also double the recipe. 12 is so few when there’s just one meatball on there.
  • Taco Cups. These are excellent because you can customize them with whatever fillings you like. Just not guacamole, that’s the rule.
Sides – 
  • Spinach, Bacon & Onion Dip with crostini. Bacon… yum.
  • Minty Pea Dip with carrots or other dipping veggies. To satisfy your guests’ craving for something green.
  • Roasted Eggplant Dip with pita. Yum!
  • Rosemary Cashews. Delicious, handy little snack. And cashews are good for your brain!
  • Chili Lime Cashews. For a bit more kick. (Btw, one pound of cashews equals about 3 cups, so these two recipes should yield fairly equal amounts. Also, the other recipes here call for light brown sugar, and this is the only one that says dark brown sugar. So I would just forget the distinction and use whatever I have on hand.)
Desserts – 
Drinks – 
  • I give up. What’s a Super Bowl party without beer?
VANQUISH THEM!
The Shopping List:

It’s your lucky day! I already wrote up a shopping list for you. It’s organized into two sections: ingredients you probably already have and ingredients who probably need to buy. Double check your fridge and pantry before you head to the store!

Download the Super Bowl Shopping List here.

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If this doesn’t seem quite festive enough, you could always scrap this whole menu and make a Super Bowl Stadium instead. (I highly suggest googling “Super Bowl Stadium” and spending some time looking through the image results.)

Those football players look tasty.

From HolyTaco.com

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Rainbow Tie-Dye Cake!

2 Feb

I jumped on the rainbow wagon to make this delicious cake for a friend a couple months ago. (Yes, a couple months ago — sorry, I lost the pictures till now. Geez. Back off.)

My friend, Julia, gets super excited about rainbows and colors in general, so I surprised her. I figured it would be a lot of work, so I did cut one pretty big corner: I started with a white cake mix. I mixed the batter according to package directions, and then divided the batter into 6 bowls. Then I dyed each bowl with gel food coloring, mixing a healthy dollop into each bowl until it looked like the right color. (Use gel instead of regular dye — you won’t need to use as much, so it won’t water down your batter.) Though I’ve seen neon, which looks pretty cool, I went with traditional ROYGBIV colors. Except I combined indigo and violet into one color, since they’re pretty much the same anyway.

Working backwards... VBVBG VBGYVBGYOVBGYOR. Or... ROYGBV.

After I mixed each color, I poured each layer into a bundt pan one at a time. (And yes, I did it in rainbow order.) I tried to pour it relatively gently so that the layers wouldn’t mix. But I didn’t worry too much about it because I wanted them to swirl a little to get a tie-dye look.

Bundt layers: VGBY

Red

I set the cake to bake according to package directions, and while it was in the oven, I got started on the strawberry buttercream frosting.

The cake passed the toothpick test, so I pulled it out to cool for 10 minutes or so. Then I flipped it out of the pan. I noticed that it didn’t rise very much in the oven. I probably over-stirred it while trying to get the colors mixed well. So word of warning — stir the colors in, but try not to over-stir.

After I frosted it, I thought it looked a little plain for something so super fantastic as a tie dye rainbow cake, so I added rainbow sprinkles on top. DOUBLE RAINBOW.

Rainbow Cake!

ALL THE WAY.

Peace, dude.

I really love that the end on the right almost looks like a peace sign. I’ll just pretend I did that intentionally.

The frosting really takes the cake (ha), so if you didn’t want the hassle of a full rainbow, you could just use any white cake recipe you like. Enjoy!

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Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

31 Jan

O. M. G. This is so good, and so worth the hassle. Bear in mind that since it calls for fresh strawberries, the quality of your strawberry is going to be really important. You may want to save this one for the summer time. But, one reason I wanted to post this now is because it’s pretty common for grocery stores to get shipments of decent quality strawberries for Valentine’s Day. So if you’re looking for a seasonally appropriate frosting, this may be a great pick.

First, set out a stick of butter to soften and prepare your strawberries. I first cup them up, discarding the stems and slicing the rest into manageable pieces.  My pieces measure up to about 1/2 cup strawberries. (I would buy at least a pint, but probably two, just to make sure you have enough.) Then I use the back of a spoon to push the strawberry chunks through a fine-mesh sieve. The strawberry goo that comes out the other side of the sieve is exactly what you’re looking for.

Start out with 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter. Add it to your mixing bowl with 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. Beat with a hand mixer until soft and creamy. Then alternately add 4 cups powdered sugar and the strawberry goo, using the hand mixer to incorporate the new additions. That should do it, but of course you could add extra sugar, strawberries, or vanilla to your taste preference.

The frosting is a beautiful light pink color, usually with some pink specks in it. But since you pressed the strawberries through the sieve, it’s nice and smooth.

I topped vanilla cupcakes with this frosting for a pink-themed bridal shower:

Strawberry and Coconut Cupcakes

And I topped my rainbow tie-dye cake with some strawberry frosting:

Rainbow Cake with Strawberry Frosting

Fresas deliciosas!

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