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Tag: baking

  • Cookie Monster Cupcakes

    Cookie Monster Cupcakes

    Cookie Monster Cupcakes

    It’s Cupcake Day for the RSPCA today, and I went all out. This was my inspiration, and I’d say they come pretty close! Tips for future googlers: I made plain vanilla cupcakes from a box mix. It’s helpful if you can fill the liners higher than usual; that way you get a nice rounded dome on top. The icing is just pre-made Betty Crocker vanilla, dyed to a brilliant sky blue with food colouring we got at Iced Affair. We also used the colouring to dye a bag of dessicated coconut the same colour. (Snookums put it in a big bag, added some drops of colour, and shook it all around.) So I iced the cupcakes and then sprinkled coconut all over. Then the tricky bit. I tried just cutting a slit and sticking the cookie in, but that didn’t work very well. So I started using a sharp knife to cut a smile-shaped wedge out of the top. I also used the knife to trim the sides of each cookie into a point (so I wasn’t ramming as much bulk down into the cupcake). That worked better. The eyes are made from large white chocolate buttons with a small chocolate chip stuck on. I used the knife to cut slits and then stuck the eyes down inside.

    Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to get 24 of these to work!

    Update: I sold out! Everybody loved them. So far I’ve taken in $78 in donations for the RSPCA. Not bad for a few hours’ playing in the kitchen…

  • Watchmen cupcakes

    Watchmen cupcakes. Neat! And no, still haven’t seen it. *sigh*

  • Owl Cookies

    Halloween Teaser #3

    Owl Cookies

    Cutest. Cookies. Ever. (Special thanks to Emily for carving the very evil and Voldemortish jack-o-lantern.)

  • Halloween Teaser #2 – Chex Mix

    Chex Mix

    What’s that? Oh, I’ll tell you what that is. That, my friends, is a METRIC ASS-TON of Chex Mix.

    Except it isn’t really Chex Mix, since you can’t get Chex here. It’s Nutrigrain + pretzels + bagel chips + macadamias + other nuts MIX. And seriously, there’s like two gallons of snack there.

  • Food

    What we’ve done with our veggie box so far:

    • Potato Gratin with Caramelized Fennel and Leek. We had this last night (along with some salmon fillets) and it used up all of our potatoes, the leek, and the fennel. The flavour was great, but I’ve never had much luck with gratins. They always turn too soupy. What am I doing wrong?
    • Cranberry-walnut chicken salad. I made this tonight and used up a bit of the celery and the cos lettuce. (I served the salad on the lettuce.) I already had some dried cranberries to use up in the pantry, so that worked out nice. All I ended up buying was some tarragon and shallots. It looked just like the picture! So vibrant and fresh. I actually really liked the celery in this.
    • Mom’s Apple Cake. The Snook made this tonight and used up all but one of the apples and three of the oranges. It’s cooling on a rack as we speak. It smells fantastic.

    So we’re down to one apple, half a celery, half a lettuce, and three oranges. This is kind of a fun puzzle! I hope we get different things in each box. It’s a good impetus to try out recipes, at any rate.

  • Caramel Pecan Upside-Down Banana Cake

    How Not to Diet: We baked this cake last night. Oh, except we substituted pecans for the walnuts, so really our version is a “Caramel Pecan Upside-Down Banana Cake.” ZOMG. It is delicious. The recipe suggests that the caramel is too sweet though, and you may prefer the cake without it. I think that’s rubbish. Personally, the next time we make this, I’m going to leave the cake out and just make a cookie sheet of caramel-coated pecans. They were that good.

  • Carrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

    Carrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese FrostingCarrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
    The Snook mentioned the other night that the grocery store had some lovely carrots (which he was serving to me for dinner), which reminded me that I’ve had a hankering for come carrot cake lately. I made the mistake of saying that aloud at work yesterday… and promptly received about half a dozen requests for it. A cake is always hard to transport and dish up though, so I decided to go with cupcakes instead. A few websites mention that carrot cake can be a bit dense and heavy for cupcakes, so I found this recipe with a trick to avoid the problem. You “emulsify” the oil by pouring it into a running food processor (with egg and sugar). Sounds fancy, but was actually really easy. So I baked a dozen of them last night, and this morning I decorated them. We’re actually out of maple syrup at the moment (and Coles didn’t have any last night), so I used the hand mixer to beat a bit of maple flavouring along with a good scoop of brown sugar into a block of cream cheese. It tastes FANTASTIC. Then I sprinkled on some orange icing sugar (I have the biggest collection of Halloween-related baking paraphernalia outside the US) and then topped with a walnut half. I hope everybody likes them! (And I have to say, I’m really proud of my food porn photography. Hooray for the macro mode!)

  • Pumpkin Brownies

    Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies. I finally got my Baker’s Edge pan, and this looks like a good recipe to try out!

  • Meatcake!

    Sweeeet. The Snook’s Halloween Meatcake was added to the official Meatcake Gallery!

  • BreadBlog

    The Snook made our third batch this morning: Coffee and Walnut bread. YUM. He again set the machine last night to have the bread ready for breakfast. This time it worked perfectly! I wonder if the caking problem we had last time was because it was a prepackaged mix and this one was from scratch. All I know is, waking up to the smell of fresh-baked bread only to discover that the Snook has left a buttered slice and a glass of milk beside the bed for me makes for the Best. Morning. Ever.