My First Cupcakes from Scratch!

I've come to love cupcakes lately. I never really liked cake. I always leaned towards brownies and ice creams of sorts for those sweet fixes. And now, I am often in search of the best cupcake that there is. For the boyfriend's birthday surprise party this weekend, I had considered buying 24 cupcakes from my favorite joint. However, at $3.00 a cupcake... I leaned towards some tasty scratch white cupcakes.

White Cupcakes

inspired by the joyofbaking.com

350 degrees

2 eggs

1 3/4 c. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter at room temp

1 c. white sugar (divided 3/4 and 1/4)

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 c. whole milk

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Butter Frosting

2 c. confectioners sugar

1/2 c. unsalted butter

1 tsp. pure vanilla

2-3 tbs milk

Separate yolks and whites. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In the mixer or with a hand mixer, beat butter until soft. Add 3/4 c. of the white sugar. Add the yolks one at a time. Add the vanilla and make sure the sides have been scraped down. With the mixer on low speed add flour mixture and milk, alternating, beginning and ending with the flour being added. With the whisk attachment on your mixer, beat the whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and remaining sugar and continue beating until it starts stiffening up. See photo below. Take that mixtures and fold it into the batter. Do not over mix the batter or it will deflate. Fill your muffin tins, with muffin liners and the batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done (check with a toothpick)

For the frosting, cream the butter and add the vanilla extract. Mixing on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar. Add milk and beat on high and until the frosting is light and fluffy. 

For applying the frosting, cut a tiny snip off the end of one side of a ziploc bag. Fill the bag with the butter cream frosting and once the cupcakes are well cooled apply the frosting in a decorative manner. Garnish with whatever you desire, I chose coconut and rainbow sprinkles. 

They are absolutely delicious. I enjoyed making them and even more so, eating them. In fact, I just ate one:)

Apple Orange Celery Kale

A Nice Way to Start the Day

Sunday 10am

Cheap and Hearty Homemade Cereal

I learned this trick from a college job, nannying part time for a Chabad house. They ate beautifully, like non I had seen before, with simple and delicious ingredients. Clean foods. Loving and thoughtful foods. One thing the mother of the Chabad house used to do was cook a whole bunch of grains. A quinoa. A couscous, ricey medley. Just straight grain (I know Trader Joe's has a bunch of grainy goodness packets). She'd cook up whatever she had and she would store it in a large Tupperware and refrigerate it. When breakfast time came round as it does daily, she'd bowl the grain. And to complete the simple process: pour the soy/almond milk on top, sprinkle cinnamon and drizzle honey. Presto! A cheap, hearty homemade cereal.

College, Chabad Cereal

1 cup Red Grain Quinoa

Almond milk

Honey (local honey combats your local allergies!)

Cinnamon (two or so shakes)

Cook the quinoa. Top the rest to taste. 

Baking Class Snap Shot!

Lemon Meringue Pies 

February 2013

Multigrain and Oatmeal Blueberry FLAPJACKS?!

A simple, hearty and tasty breakfast. With Agave Maple Syrup and a slab of buttah! Mmmm. Note: an affordable way to eat organic berries is to purchase them frozen. Fresh organic berries come at an expensive price. Trader Joe's carries a wild organic frozen blueberry. 

Cody's Flapjacks (yes, flapjacks!) 

1 1/2 c. Trader Joe's Multigrain and Baking Mix

1 c. Oatmeal

1 1/2 c. of frozen, wild, organic Blueberries (from Trader Joe's)

1 c. Almond Milk

3 eggs

Agave Maple Syrup

Mix together batter, oats, milk and eggs. Fold in the defrosted blueberries. Feel free to use fresh berries and any other fruit you wish. Cook as a pancake, serve and enjoy with Agave Maple Syrup (half the sugars of typical maple syrups!)

Compound Butter Round Dos

I remember when we first made compound butter in my Culinary 1 class. I was amazed at how simple and yet how versatile an ingredient it could be. Simply butter (however fatty) with whatever ingredients you so choose! Some vegetables. Some herbs. Fruits, nuts and seasons. The first time I made compound butter, I added lemon and basil. This time for class we were asked to make a fire roasted red pepper butter. I wish I had the foresight to take a photo of the fire roasting pepper process, perhaps I was too enthralled. We literally stuck the full bell pepper straight onto the gas stove iron grates. Let it blister, they said. The pepper blackened all over and I removed it from stove top and let it cool. Once cooled, I took a pairing knife and removed all the charred blackened skin. Once red again, I finely chopped the pepper and added it to the softened butter. I evenly mixed the peppers and butter in a small mixing bowl (8 oz of butter) and placed the compound butter onto a large sheet of plastic wrap to roll the mix into log form. The log shape makes it ideal for slicing and topping on whatever you want. In class we topped the silver dollar butters on grilled chicken. This morning I made an egg sandwich, toasting the bread in pepper butter in the skillet. BUTTER! Mmm.

Let's Drink to Our Health

Been juicing. And man, is it fun. It's like a burst of life, in a cup. Plus, the colors! We've been really sticking to the basics. Apples, carrots, beets, kale, oranges. This morning I did a strictly veggie blend. It's like a garden in your mouth! Beet, carrot and kale. YuMMMmmmmmy.

Stock City

We reviewed stocks last class which prove a nice refresher. I was saying last night, doing something for second time helps immensely. As it is almost 100 times easier for you know your flow. For this fact, I am a fan of practice; it does indeed make perfect.

The Brown Stock consists of the front two roasting pans (for you roast the mirepoix and the bones and add a tablespoon or so of tomato paste) and the back right stock pot (filled with the roasted bones) you add the roasted mirepoix and tomato paste mixture to the bones in the large stockpot and let simmer for 6-8 hours. The bones in the brown stock mixture come from beef or veal. Strain the mixture when done and you have yourself a brown stock.

The White Stock is the pot on the lower left corner. Which requires less work than the brown stock. You boil the bones (beef, veal or chicken) and skim for impurities. Then you add the mirepoix and seasoning sachet and bring to a simmer for 3-4 hours and strain.

Here is the Vegetable Stock. It consists of mirepoix and leeks, fennel, turnip and white wine. Bring all the veggies to a sweat at the bottom of the pot. Add the white wine. Add the water and seasoning sachet and bring to a boil. The veggie stock only requires a good 30-45 minutes of simmering. Strain and prepare for serving.  

Chard and Bean Soup

A girlfriend mentioned a white bean and kale soup being all the rave in her fine city of Portland, OR. So I thought, why not give it a try! Loving to get creative and throw together a soup, I substituted the kale for chard because I had a bunch of red chard needing a home, and fast. It was nice too because the red stalk of the chard gave the vegetable broth more of a red hue which typically can be obtained by a dash of tomato paste. I threw in  extra items found in the fridge (a half a head of Napa cabbage, carrots etc...) and gave it a bit of a Minestrone flare with the addition of a macaroni noodle.

Chard and Bean Soup

Two cans of White Canellini Beans (large white beans?) and drained

5 large stalks of Chard

2 portions of macaroni noodles (1 cup perhaps?)

2 large carrots chopped in half moons 

2 large celery stalks chopped in half moons

1 medium onion, medium dice

1/2 a head of Napa cabbage

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 large box of vegetable broth (32 oz)

32 oz of water

Salt and pepper to taste

Sweat (saute) the celery, onions, carrots and garlic in the bottom of the pan with a little bit of oil. Add the broth and water. Bring to a boil, add the macaroni and simmer. Add the cabbage. After 10 minutes with the macaroni cooking, throw in the chard and the drained canned beans. No reason to let the chard and the beans stew in the hot broth because you don't want the chard to wilt and loose it's nutrients plus the beans are already cooked. Top soup with a lil shaved Parmesan and enjoy:)

Ribs, Round 2

It seems a lot of meat is being had on our part here! Unusual too, especially because we recently were vegetarians, for about a year. For some reason our shopping list has been consisting of meats. Meats, meats, meats! We've strayed from our usual purchases of salmon and other fish, vegetables and tofu. Foods which typically dominate the menu. I've chalked it up to the cold winter so far, and our bodies craving meats, hibernation, etc... Whatever is going on with this shift of menu, I'm listening to my body and feeding it what it wants because I'd like to think the body knows what it needs.
Cody's Ribs
Apple Juice
A rack of ribs
and Famous Dave's BBQ Sauce (Devil's Spit)
Bake at 350 for about an hour and a half, until done. Rub the ribs in the BBQ sauce. Pour the apple juice below the ribs (which are elevated on a rack of sorts). Bake and enjoy! The apple juice serves as a sweetener for the ribs, a sweetener and a liquid that keeps the ribs moist. Cody has used a can of Coke before! A tip he learned a couple years back from a friend's father. I was skeptical at first, "coke?!" I questioned. However, it works well for a tasty falling off the bone rib. And the Famous Dave's brand is DELISH.

Super (bowl) Wings!

With no interest in watching football, the boyfriend and I made chicken wings to be somewhat festive on this super Sunday evening. We baked the wings in a homemade chicken wing sauce (with a side of blue cheese dressing for dipping and Brussels sprouts for the vegetable). Cody did most of the cooking here for I don't love chicken but man, do I love some chicken wings every now and then. It was nice to discover how simple it was to make wings. Plus, the beauty of making them at home is you don't deep fry them, as they do in restaurants. Therefore, a tad bit healthier! Not as crispy but still delicious. Definitely a simple appetizer when entertaining. A good lazy, Sunday, enjoy with a beer, food!

Cody's Chicken Wings and Sauce

1 Franks Red Hot bottle (16-20oz)

3 large cloves of garlic

3/4 a stick of butter 

1 tbs of Cayenne powder

2.5 lbs of Chicken wings (bout 20 pieces)

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until done. Mix the Frank's, the garlic, the butter and the cayenne in a sauce pan on heat. Douse the chicken wings in the sauce and lay on a baking sheet. Bake and serve with yummy Marie's blue cheese dressing with added blue cheese crumbles and celery and carrot sticks!

Have to Share... The Eclair!

Pastry class was intricate and delicious on Thursday evening. We made eclairs! Now, would I ever try to recreate the eclair in my own home, I am not sure, for it was almost too in depth for such a small little treat. You make the pastry, the cream filling, the chocolate Grenache topping and the white chocolate drizzle design. However, only three eclairs are left from the lot and I'm certainly (certainly!) savoring them. They were DELICIOUS. The homemade pastry crust is what sealed the deal for me. MMmm!

Garbage Salad

Only calling it "garbage" because it hails from all things needing-to-go, in the fridge. This was a Nicoise inspired (because of the noodle addition) salad. Just a thick, heavier, meal of a salad. In the end, it was a bit like a cold macaroni egg salad. The reason I'm sharing this salad at all is because it was the egg, feta and avocado mixture that creamed together wonderfully and came as a delicious surprise to the palette! I have used avocado as a creamy substitute before but the egg and feta alongside the avocado only heightened the salad that needed NO dressing whatsoever.
Garbage Salad
1 Avocado
Feta
2 Hardboiled eggs
Greens
Diced red onion
1/2 can of black beans
3 tomatoes chopped
1/2 bag of whole wheat macaroni