Voting over at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner has started! Please vote for flour on her nose I, II, and III (you can vote for up to three) over on the right hand side!
Thanks guys :)
Tuesday, July 28
Just a reminder
Saturday, July 25
Saturday, July 18
ICE:Pear & Sage Cupcakes with Honey Ginger Buttercream
Recipe number 3 :P
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE FOR ME ON THE 28TH OF JULY HERE: http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/, in the right hand column. Tell your friends to vote, too!
Etsy prize-pack:
A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH
A delicious treat from CIRCLEMONKEY
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery
CAKESPY,who is now going to be doing a piece for the winner each month until further notice
Corporate prizes:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
TASTE OF HOME books
a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers
Pear Sage cupcakes:
3 1/4 cups of flour
1 1/4 cups of sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup + 6 tbps canola oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup of sour cream
1 cup of milk (I did 1/2 cup of milk, and 1/2 cup of heavy cream)
1 cup of sliced pear
1/2 cup of chopped sage.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
As per my usual methods, mix everything together. I am the queen of lazy baking. :P
If you insist, you can mix the dry stuff together, and mix the wet stuff together, THEN mix those together. ;)
Drop a spoonful of batter into the cupcake tins. Then place a layer of sliced pear, then more batter, then pear, then batter.
Bake for about 18 minutes or until it passes the crumb test.
Honey ginger buttercream:
Directions here
But add 1/4 cup of honey and either diced/mashed fresh ginger, or diced candied ginger.
ICE: Strawberry & Basil Cupcakes with Balsamic frosting
You've already read the whole Iron Cupcake: Earth spiel from the other post, so it's just sponsors, pictures, and recipe this time. :P
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE FOR ME ON THE 28TH OF JULY HERE: http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/, in the right hand column. Tell your friends to vote, too!
Etsy prize-pack:
A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH
A delicious treat from CIRCLEMONKEY
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery
CAKESPY,who is now going to be doing a piece for the winner each month until further notice
Corporate prizes:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
TASTE OF HOME books
a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers
Strawberry basil cupcakes:
3 1/4 cups of flour
1 1/4 cups of sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup + 6 tbps canola oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup of sour cream
1 cup of milk (I did 1/2 cup of milk, and 1/2 cup of heavy cream)
1 cup of chopped or sliced strawberries
1/2 cup of chopped basil.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
As per my usual methods, mix everything together. I am the queen of lazy baking. :P
If you insist, you can mix the dry stuff together, and mix the wet stuff together, THEN mix those together. ;)
Thennnn fold in the strawberries.
Fill up the cupcake tins 3/4 of the way, and bake for about 18ish minutes. (crumb test, crumb test!)
Balsamic buttercream:
Directions here
But replace the chocolate with ~1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar.
Wednesday, July 15
ICE: Lavender & Mint Cupcakes
This is my first Iron Cupcakes: Earth challenge! Wooh!
Imagine my surprise when I checked the site and saw that the theme was HERBS.
"Holy moly, how'm I gonna pull this one off?" (oh yes, that's how I talk.)
After MUCH thought, I decided on a lavender cupcake with mint buttercream.
It took a lot of searching to find reasonably priced culinary lavender (which I got here, by the way), but once I did, it was ON. (like Donkey Kong. Ha)
HEY. BEFORE YOU GET TOO COMFORTABLE, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE FOR ME ON THE 28TH OF JULY HERE: http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/, in the right hand column. Tell your friends to vote, too! Oh, and vote for my other two entries, Strawberry Basil and Pear Sage! :)
Now let's take a break for station identification. I mean, now here's a word from our sponsors.
I mean...
Haha, here are the prizes that the top cupcake will win this month:
Etsy prize-pack:
A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH
A delicious treat from CIRCLEMONKEY
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery
CAKESPY,who is now going to be doing a piece for the winner each month until further notice
Corporate prizes:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
TASTE OF HOME books
a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers
Whew. Now on to the fun stuff.
Dried lavender
Lavender syrup
The lavender's like sprinkles!
Lavender cupcakes with Mint swiss buttercream:
2 Cups of sugar
2 1/2 Cups of flour
2 tsps of baking soda
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of salt
2 eggs
1 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of vegetable/canola oil
1/2 cup of lavender syrup (recipe to follow)
1/2 cup of water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Combine and mix. Hehe. My favorite cake recipes require very little direction.
Fill tin 3/4 of the way with batter.
Cook until they pass the FABLED CRUMB TEST.
Let cool for 10 minutes, then remove from tin and let cook on wire racks.
Lavender syrup:
2 cups of water
2 cups of sugar
3 tablespoons of dried culinary lavender
BOIL IT ALL. BOIL IT. For about 10 minutes.
Then, pour it all into a container and let sit in the fridge overnight.
Strain out the lavender and store in a bottle/jar/whatever in the fridge.
Mint buttercream:
Directions here
Replace the chocolate with mint syrup (made the same way as the lavender kind) or mint extract.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy. :)
Tuesday, July 14
July 09 Daring Cooks Challenge: A trip through hell!
Okay, not really, but this one was a a lot of work, and through either bad karma, or just bad luck, I didn't even get to eat the dish as a whole. (Oh yes, there's a fun story with this one)
This challenge was hosted by Sketchy, from Sketchy's Kitchen
This challenge was an introduction into the world of Molecular Gastronomy, the most of which I had encountered was on Food Network, watching Wylie Dufresne make ice cream with liquid nitrogen.
No worries, this is considerably easier, but still not the thing to make for a quick dinner for the kids. ;P
The challenge? "Skate, traditional flavors powdered", from the Alinea at Home cookbook.
What?
I didn't even know what skate was, before this challenge.
(Turns out that it's a fish, in the same family as manta rays. Fun)
I did a lot of substitutions. A lot. Since this recipe is SO labor intensive,and I still didn't do it very well, I'm going to copy and paste the recipe.
But first, here's what I substituted, and my horrible awful stories to go along with them.
Instead of skate, I used flounder. After poaching it, I tried a piece, and spit it out. It was like mush! This was the end of me ever getting to try the whole dish. Too many other things to do to bother with getting more fish, and cooking it again! I still have all the powders, so if the fancy strikes, I can try it.
I made a garlic powder, just to see if I could. Easiest powder ever to make...but everything it came into contact with smelled like garlic for a couple of weeks. It was awful!
Plus, I made all of my powders with a BLENDER! (for lack of better equipment) So very few of them actually came out...powdery, hahaha.
Oh goodness, this was an ordeal. I certainly hope the next challenge is a little less trying.
Left to right: Red onion, tomato, carrot, lemon, basil
Almond, pineapple, apple, lemon, ginger
Stupid fish!
(I also made: garlic, kiwi, chive, and parsley)
"Skate, Traditional Flavors Powdered - with changes
- 4 skate wings
- * Beurre monte
- * 300g fresh green beans
- sea salt/kosher salt
- 1 banana
- 454g butter - 4 sticks
- 300g lemons
- 5g citric acid/vitamin c tablet
- 150g cilantro
- 150g parsley
- 100g dried banana chips
- 300g spray dried cream powder (or powdered milk)
- 100g cup minced red onion
- 200g capers (brined, not oil)
* For green beans, slice each beans into very thin rounds (2 mm)
* Beurre Monte - 454g butter (4 sticks, 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g water. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the butter 1 cube at a time. This should from an emulsion. Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees. The emulsion will not break - this is your poaching liquid.
Powders - prepare ahead of time
caper / onion
lemon powder
cilantro/parsley powder
'brown butter' powder
Powders
once dried, all powders should be pulsed in a coffee grinder/spice mill/morter and pestle then passed through a chinois or fine mesh strainer.
citrus powder
300g lemons
1000g simple syrup
5g citric acid/vitamin c tablet
zest 300g of lemons (10.6 oz), remove the pith from the zest and poach in the simple syrup three times. dry with paper towels and move to a dehydrating tray. 130 for 12 hours. pulse the zest in a coffee grinder, pass through chinois, and mix with citric acid/vitamin C powder.
If you do not have a dehydrator, place in microwave for 8 to 10 minutes at medium powder. Once dried, follow the other instructions.
cilantro/parsley powder
150g cilantro
150g parsley
blanch the parsley in boiling saltwater for 1 second, submerge the leaves in ice water for 3 minutes. Dry on paper towels and place on dehydrator tray. 130 for 12 hours. grind and pass through chinois.
If you do not have a dehydrator, place in microwave for 30 seconds, turn over leaves and microwave for another thirty seconds. They should be dry by now, pulse in coffee grinder, pass through chinois and reserve.
onion powder
100g cup minced red onions
dehydrator - 130 for 12 hours
microwave at medium power for 20 minutes.
pulse in grinder, pass through chinois
Caper powder
200g capers (get the ones packed in brine/vinegar)
run the capers under cold water for two minutes to remove some of the brine.
dry on paper towels and dehydrate for 12 hours at 130 degrees.
microwave instructions are unclear. Dry them as much a possible with paper towels, the microwave on medium for 1 minute. Check the moisture content and stir them. repeat for 30 second intervals until they are dry. If you use this method, pleas post the time needed to dry the capers.
Once dry, pulse and sift the powder. Mix it with the onion powder.
Brown Butter powder
100g Dried banana chips (unsweetened if possible - many are coated in honey - the freeze dried ones would be brilliant)
300g spray dried cream powder
If you cannot find the cream powder, you can substitute Bob's red mill non fat dry milk powder, or even carnation instant milk powder. The substitutions will alter the flavor a little, but you will still get the general idea.
preheat the oven to 350 degrees, sift the cream powder into a fine layer on a silpat or on parchment. bake for 4 minutes, then remove for heat. If it bakes for too long, it will burn. Be very cautious with all powders in the oven. They all go from browned to burnt in a few seconds.
grind the banana chips in a coffee grinder and mix with the toasted cream powder. Pass this through a chinois and reserve.
* For green beans, slice each beans into very thin rounds (2 mm) * Beurre Monte - 454g butter (4 sticks, 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g water. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the butter 1 cube at a time. This should from an emulsion. Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees. The emulsion will not break - this is your poaching liquid.
Skate
Prepare the skate - 50G v shaped cuts are recommended
Bring 100g water, 100g beurre monte, and green bean rounds to a boil over high heat. Cook until the water has evaporated (about 3 minutes), when the pan is almost dry, remove it from heat and season with 3g salt
bring 300g water and 300g beurre monte to simmer over medium heat, add skate wings and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and flip the wing over and let rest in pan for two more minutes. Transfer to warming tray lined with parchment and season with 5 grams of fine sea salt.
Plating
Take the tip of a small spoon and make a small mound of the citrus powder, the onion-caper powder, and the cilantro parsley-powder. Swirl these around in a hurricane type pattern. I found that it is easier, and you get finer lines if you lightly shake the plate to flatten out the mounds, then swirl the spoon through it to get the pattern.
peel the remaining banana into very think slices (3mm) fan three slices on the plate, place green beans on top and place skate wing portion on top. On the tall edge, sprinkle the brown butter powder.
Substitutions The Skate can be replaced with flounder or cod. If you can get skate that is not 'prepared' IE - Skinned- get the fish monger to prepare it for you.
The powdered cream can be omitted completely, just replace it with more banana powder, or pineapple powder. Possibly non dairy creamer, but I have NO idea what would happen if you tried to brown it.
The poaching liquid is pretty much butter - it could be replaced with other poaching methods. Water, wine, bay leaf, garlic clove, pepper, etc. Try to go easy on the salt in the liquid if you use a replacement."
ShareMonday, July 6
Soft Buns...;)
Oh my goodness. I have finally made GOOD bread. :D
I love bread that has a nice soft "crust", as opposed to a hard...crusty...one...haha.
After hearing about the Hokkaido milk loaf (I know, I'm a bit late on this one). I decided to give it a try. Buuuuut I was wary, so I ended up mixing/tweaking recipes. The one I used is mostly from The Little Teochew.
Anyhoo, it's like, 4 in the morning, so here are pictures and the recipe! :D
By no means is this actually a proper way to make bread, hehe. I took directions and ran with them because I'm lazy ;)
Soft Buns:
1 cup of heavy cream
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of sugar
uh. couple of squirts of honey? (haha)
4ish cups of flour (bread flour is gooooood)
2 1/4 tsps instant yeast (that's generally a whole packet)
1 tsp of salt
1 egg
At this point, I like to preheat the oven to 350, just to make the whole kitchen (and the stovetop) warm, which makes the dough rise better :D
Warm up the cream and milk. While that's happening, add the sugar, yeast, and honey to a bowl.
Add the warm milk to the bowl and stir it all up. Add two cups of flour and the egg, mix it until it's smooth, and let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes.
Add another cup of flour, mix it up and dump it out onto a flour surface. Knead the dough, incorporating as much of the last cup of flour as you need. The dough should be soft, but not sticky.
Let it rise in a greased bowl for an hour, or until doubled.
Divide up the dough. (I am not a stickler for exactness. Just make them somewhat smaller than you want the final size to be) Form them into balls. As I am epic fail at explaining how I do it ("you just kinda...roll it around with two hands"), here's a webpage that sort of does it the way I do it. Trust me, you'll figure it out (just stop before he rolls the balls out...we don't want that!)
After you've formed them, set them on your sheet, and let them rise for another hour/doubled in size. Then bake them for about 15 minutes, or until a pretty light brown color.
I would not do an egg wash on these, just 'cause that makes the crust a little harder.
Serve with happiness and/or sunshine. (read: butter and/or jam)
;D
Saturday, July 4
My Very Berry, Red White, and Blue 4th of July Cake
That title's a mouthful.
As you all know, I'm sure, today's the 4th of July. While I'm forgoing fireworks this year, I had to do something a little patriotic.
Today we had a cookout at my great aunt Nancy's house, and I figured that was the perfect opportunity to make a cake.
Basically, this is a strawberry and blackberry layer cake with my favorite frosting, swiss buttercream.
Also, a lot of food dye, hahaha.
I'm worn out from chasing after my adorable cousins in the July heat, so I'll just get right to the recipe (and pictures!)
Baked layers
Hazy, 'cause I shot it though the plastic, hahaha. Also, decorated with homemeade marshmallow
Woooh
My dad's finished plate
My cousin Justin cleaning it up for him, haha.
3 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
4 1/2 tsps of baking powder
1 1/2 tsps of salt
3/4 cup of vegetable/canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
3/4 cup of pureed and strained strawberries
3/4 cup of pureed and strained blackberries/blueberries/whateverberries
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease two 9inch pans.
In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs.
Divide the (very very thick) batter into two bowls.
Mix the purees, one for each bowl,into the batter. (Or you could just use 1 1/2 cups of one flavor, and do the whole batch like that)
Color the batter if you'd like...it makes it fun. :P
Pour the batter into the pans, and bake for about 25-30 minutes.
Let cool for like 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely.
Frost at your own whims. I cut my layers in half and used a double batch of my swiss buttercream
yayyy.
Happy Birthday, America
Friday, July 3
Doughnuts, a work in progress
I love doughnuts.
I really, really do.
However, the nearest Krispy Kreme is 40 minutes away, and getting them at the Giant isn't the same, unless you get there early in the morning.
(True, there's a dunkin' donuts only 5 minutes away...but...I'm a krispy kreme girl)
And the Safeway colossal doughuts are good, but tooooo big, and they don't have enough glaze for my liking.
So, logically, I've been trying to make my own doughnuts.
This past time will be the 4th or so time I've tried to make them, and definitely the best.
The reasoning? My stupid thermometer must not be calibrated properly (yes, it's giant-faced dial one, but I can't splurge on a nice digital one just yet). It would tell me the temperature was 350, when it was really probably 450...which, as you can figure, leads to hard, nearly burnt doughnuts with raw insides. D:
Eventually (read: Wednesday), I discovered that problem. My doughnut worries are over!
So today, I tried this recipe, and it was fantastic. The only problem was that I undercooked them slightly (the inside was cooked fine, at least), because I was still worried about burning them. XD
My doughnut making set up.
Left: Draining station
Center: Glaze (red) Cinnamon sugar (white)
Right: Decoration station.
Rising doughnuts
Glaze, a little thin.
Yeast Risen Doughnuts (Not donuts!) :
2 cups of flour (using high protein/bread flour = good idea. I had dumped in a cup of all purpose before remembering that I'd bought bread flour for just this reason...and they still turned out fine :P)
3/4 cup of sugar
5 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3 egg yolks (I TOTALLY FORGOT TO ADD THIS! And it still turned out okay. Next time, I'll remember them and see what the difference is, hahaha)
2 tsps instant yeast
Either 1/4 cup of dry/powdered milk + 1 cup of WARM water
OR
1 cup of warm milk (the recipe said to use the powdered milk, and I happened to have some, so I did)
Okay. See, you might have to add a lot more flour. I did. Just do it as you're kneading it. 'cause...this ended up being verrrry sticky.
Anyhoo, mix everything together, and knead until it's a nice soft dough.
Set it in a greased bowl, in a warm place, to rise until it's at least doubled in size.
After that, punch out some of the excess air, and roll out the dough to a 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thickness. Cut out your doughnuts. (I use a bottlecap to make my doughnut holes, because I don't have any cutters small enough ;) )
Cover them, and let them rise in a warm place (warmth is soooo important) for at least an hour (but two hours is better, much better)
When you have about 15 minutes left, start heating 1-2 inches of oil in ...whatever, really. I used a 10 inch skillet :D
Get the oil to 350 degrees fahrenheit (medium, to medium-low heat on the stove should get you there, without the danger of burning the doughnuts. If you don't have a thermometer, just test using some doughnut holes )
Cook the doughnuts for about a minute on each side (you know, until they have that awesome color).
Draaaiiin, and either sprinkle with sugar (or cinnamon sugar) , or dip or drizzle with glaze.
Glaze? So simple. Milk + powdered sugar + vanilla. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
