Tornadoes and birthday cakes...

Last week we had major tornado scare. The kids were at school and I had to sit in the closet for almost an hour.

We ended up not getting a tornado but we got major hail... (see below)

After we got home from school, all activities were cancelled. We decided to bake a birthday cake for one of Sude's coaches... This is how it looked at the end...

It was a very creative process... I wanted to make it fun for Sude...

After we mixed up a box of yellow cake we split it up to 3 bowls and made three colors of batter, her choices...
- brown (added cocoa powder)
- pink (added food coloring)
- green (added food coloring)

We poured them to the pan randomly and Sude used a knife to swirl the cake batter to mix the colors further...You can see in there a cake created by an artist...(At least that's what she says)

I applied a new trick that I have learned and it WORKS.... I did not want to have a dome on my cake. Usually I cut off the dome to make the cake flat but I did not want to loose any cake that way. There are always more kids at the gym who are interested in cake...

I washed a kitchen towel and wrapped the cake pan with it and baked the cake that way. Sure enough, it worked and I had an evenly raised cake...

I made the cream cheese icing myself. A proven and yummy recipe...

- 1 stick of butter

- 1 pack of cream cheese

- 2 cups of powdered sugar

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla

- In my case, pink food coloring

I had to do the icing myself the next day when she was at school.

The cake was a huge hit. It is a shame I don't have a picture of the slices... (No surprise there)

Spring is here: Ice cream cup cakes

I have not been baking lately... I don't know why...
I guess you kind of get out of the habit.

Since Sude has moved up a level at gymnastics, I have been meaning to bake a treat for the team. Finally last week I ended up making these ice cream cup cakes.

This was a simple recipe, well I guess no recipe... I used boxed chocolate fudge cake and store bought cherry icing (baking Gods would be mad)

You need to fill out the ice cream cones by 3/4 with the cake batter, not more... Then bake them at 350 until the cupcakes are done. Then decorate with icing like it is a cone of chocolate ice cream.

Kids enjoyed them and it was easy enough to get me eased into baking again...
Enjoy...

Chocolate/Tea Cake

This is a great chocolate cake. It has wonderful flavors of tea, cocoa, and cinnamon. I recently made it for a friend who had a back surgery. It is a dense cake that goes very well with tea or coffee...

Ingredients:
4 eggs
1.5 cups of sugar
2 sticks of butter (melted)
3 cups of flour
1 cup of tea (made with 2 tea bags)
5 tablespoons of cocoa
1 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Take the eggs out of the refrigerator so that they are at room temperature. Beat the eggs until they are fluffy. Slowly add the sugar. Add 1 cup of the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking powder and vanilla. Mix until they are well blended. Add the cup of tea while the mixer is still mixing the batter. Add the remaining flour (2 cups) while mixing. At the end, add the melted butter.
Bake at 360 for 45 minutes...

Linzer cookies...

I made these cookies for a gathering at a friend's house. They were easy to make and really tasty. The recipe is from my Cordon Bleu baking class. I had to make some changes to the measurements and convert them to cups, etc from weights.

Ingredients:
9 oz butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups roasted hazelnuts
6 graham crackers
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
Dash of vanilla extract

Process the hazelnuts in a food processor until it has a fine texture; see left bowl in the picture.
Also process the graham crackers until they are fine; again see the bowl on the right.
Bring butter and egg to room temperature.
Cream butter and sugar until light anf fluffy. Then add the egg and follow with all the dry ingredients including the vanilla.

Flatten the dough in between two wax papers and let it still in the refrigerator until cold.

Cut the cookies with cookie cutters and bake them at 350 for 8-10 minutes (until golden brown)

When the cookies are out of the oven sift powder sugar on them and vola.... You are done.

Next time I am planning to make sandwich cookies with this recipe with raspberry jam in between. That is what the recipe calls for... I will let you know how it turns out...

Chocolate class...

Right before the Christmas break, I had the last of my baking classes; chocolate...
I was a little rushed, which I do not like, but we were heading to the airport afterwards. I had to miss the best part of the class: eating at the end.

We made several things; chocolate mousse, which is to my surprise has raw eggs in it.

Caramel/pecan/white chocolate ice cream...

Chocolate truffles...

And lava (also known as molten) cake, which is my husband's favorite.

I was really interested in learning the tricks around that recipe. I did not get a chance to bake mine in the class. So I brought them home and put them in the freezer. I baked them after our trip. They were sooo good, totally out of this word. I am planning to make them home at our next dinner party.

So the recipe to follow...

Cookies for school party...

The second graders at Sude's school had a winter party before the Christmas break. I had the task of making cookies for all three 2nd grade classes. 70 cookies to be exact.
Baking the cookies was not a big deal. I used the same recipe that I used for scrabble cookies. It is from Bake at 350...

http://dailydoseofdomesticbliss.blogspot.com/2010/12/scrabble-cookies.html

I had a great helper to decorate them who was excited to show her decorating skills to all of her classmates.

When we were done... We lined up all of our creations on the counter. We used a chocolate circle that I got from Trader Joe's at California to decorate the stockings in addition to icing and sugar.

Everyone enjoyed the sandwiches, cookies, and hot chocolate...

Hamburger cup cakes...

One of Sude's gymnastics team members moved to Hawaii...Few weeks ago, we had a "See you soon" party for her at a hamburger place that is close to the gym after practice. I thought making hamburger cupcakes would be a good idea...
I used boxed ingredients all the way. I made vanilla cupcakes for the bun...

I made brownies for the patties. I cut them with small size cookie cutters...

I mixed cream cheese icing with different food coloring to make ketchup, mustard and "lettuce". I then sliced the cupcakes in half and squeezed the ketchup and mustard icing to the bottom.

I placed the patty on top...

Then some green icing...

Then I brushed them with some water and sprinkled them with sesame seeds. They were a big hit. The hardest part was to make the ketchup color this time. For some reason, I had the play with the tone of the red to get the right color.
They were all gone by the end of the night...

Chocolate espresso cake

For Thanksgiving, I made a chocolate espresso cake as a dessert. Recipe was from Nigella Lawson's cookbook; Feast.
The look of the cake was not very good but it tasted delicious. I served it by topping it with whip cream mixed with instant coffee. We ate it few days after Thanksgiving with coffee and it was still very good. It is dense and goes great with coffee.

Ingredients
5 oz bittersweet chocolate
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons of butter
6 eggs
1.25 cups powder sugar
1teaspoon of vanilla extract
0.5 cups of flour
2 Starbucks instant coffee pockets
0.5 cups of coffee liqueur like Tia Maria

Bring all ingredients, especially eggs to room temperature. Beat the eggs with sugar and vanilla until thick and fluffy.
Melt the chocolate and butter and let them cool. Preheat oven at 350 and butter a 9 inch spring form. Gently fold the flour and instant coffee to the eggs and add the hook ate mix last. Make sure the mixture do not loose it's fluffiness.

Pour it to the spring form and bake for 40 minutes.
I topped it with whip cream mixed with one packet of instant coffee...

Coconut macaroons...

This is the recipe that I learned in the baking class few weeks ago. The original recipe ingredient amounts are twice as much of the recipe here. I thought it was going to be too much, so I cut everything by half. And boy, was I right. 

Even with these amounts, I had plenty of macaroons to take to a dinner party, eat, and give away to friends...

Ingredients

9 oz shredded coconut, unsweetened

4 dried apricots

1 oz cornstarch

4 egg whites

0.5 lbs sugar

6 oz corn syrup

Bittersweet chocolate, melted

In the food processor, process apricots with coconut in batches. Apricots should become as fine as the coconuts.

On a bowl, warm the egg whites with the sugar over hot water bath until the sugar is melted. Don't let the eggs to cook.

Mix all of the ingredients except the chocolate.

Pipe them or scooped them on a baking sheet. Make sure the sizes of the macaroons are as even as possible for consistent baking (I do sound like a baker)

Bake at 325 until golden brown for 12 to 15 minutes.

When they cool off, dip the bottoms of them in chocolate or drizzle them with chocolate. Place them on wax paper and let it cool off in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

And then just enjoy coconut heaven...

I took a box to a dinner party and everyone liked it. It is also a great holiday treat if you make them with cranberries.

Banana, peanut butter, chocolate chip bread...

I have been meaning to come up with a new banana bread recipe for a while. Last week, I had 3 bananas that were just perfect for a bread. I looked through the web for some recipes. For some reason, I had to have peanut butter in it.
(One of my favorite things in the world is a banana/peanut butter sandwich)

Anyhow...

I ended up inventing the following recipe combining many ideas.

It is simple and delicious...

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of oil

2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 bananas, mashed
3 tablespoons of peanut butter
1 cup of chocolate chips

In the mixer, mix eggs and sugar until it is smooth and fluffy.
Add all of the ingredients in the following order and mix slowly; oil, bananas, peanut butter, cinnamon, flour, baking powder, and chocolate chips...
Then bake it at 350 for 45 minutes... Check if it is done with a toothpick.

I used these paper containers that I got from New Zealand. They were adorable and so very Japanese...

I made four and gave three of them to Sude's coaches as Halloween treats. The last one was mine.... It was so good with coffee and tea for "few" days...
I do not think I need to mention how many days it took me to finish it...

Caramel filled brownies..

I have recently made caramel filled brownies. Ree calls them "Knock you naked brownies" :
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/05/knock-you-naked-brownies/

They turned out really, really good. Very rich and yummy. I ended up slicing them pretty small since it was hard to finish a big slice.

The only problem is that I did not remember to take a picture of the finished product.
Nice, right?

I even packed some of them in colorful takeout boxes and took them to some friends, still did not remember...

I guess as soon as I put the caramel in between the layers, I was mentally done...

marble cupcakes with chocolate icing

I am writing this post from a far away land called New Zealand. After 26 hours of travelling, I am at my hotel trying to stay up until bed time while all of my family and friends are asleep...

Before I left, I made a batch of marble cup cakes for the gym team with chocolate icing. They were quite simple to make since I used boxed ingredients.

I used vanilla cake mix and followed instructions on the box. Then I split the cake batter into two and added 1/4 cup of cocoa to one of them. I filled the paper cupcake holders with half vanilla and half chocolate batter.

After I baked them, I used the boxed chocolate frosting mix from Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's has one the best chocolate frosting mixes and you simply mix it with a stick of butter and few table spoons of warm water. The problem is that, there is NO Trader Joe's where I live. That is why every time I travel to California for work, I come back with a suitcase of groceries.

After I iced the cupcakes, I placed them into my two tiered cup cake holder/carrier (it has a expandable dome like lid). This was a gift to me from a friend  a while back and it has been sitting the cabinet waiting to be used. I have been searching through some blogs and I will be making more cupcakes after I am back to States.
Aren't they look beautiful?

They were also very tasty and all the girls enjoyed them...

Brunch menu - olive loafs

The third item of the brunch menu was olive loafs. These loafs can be stuffed in different ways. I decided to stuff them with black olive paste. You can find the paste in speciality stores. You should be able to use pesto or some other spread if you like.

Ingredients:
2 cups warm milk
1 packet instant yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil (or sunflower or corn, any liquid oil)
1 teaspoons salt
1 egg (yolk to spread on top and white to the dough)
Flour (I did not measure the flour but I will explain how you can figure out how much you need)

I make the dough in my Kitchen Aid mixer but you can use your hands too. Mix all the liquids first, then add the sugar. Then slowly start to add flour spoon by spoon. Wait after each spoon so that the flour is mixed into the liquid pretty good. Soon you will start to have the dough. The dough should be quite soft almost sticking to your hand. It should have the same softness as your ear lobes. I know it sounds gross but this is a customary explanation of softness of dough in Turkey. (Next time I will measure it with cups and update the recipe)
Then you cover the dough with a wet cloth and let it rise for an hour.

Then you need to pick golf ball size pieces and spread them with your hands. As you can see in the picture, at the beginning I used flour so that the dough would not stick to granite. After I did the first half, I started to use oil instead of flour and I think those loafs tasted better.
Then you need to spread the olive paste on it.

Then roll it up...

And then make it a circle and stick the two ends to each other...

Then place them on a greased cookie sheet...

Then you need to let them "rest and rise" for another 15 minutes. Then you can brush them with the egg yolk and put some sesame seeds on top. Bake them until they are golden color...

Just like this one...

Enjoy and let me know if you try it...