Left Over Cake

Cake balls, lollicakes, cake on popsicles are just some of the names given to the ultra creative kind of presenting the well loved cake! This has stormed the food blogs like storm for quite a while now and today I finally decided to try them! I had quite a bit of left over chocolate cake and frostings and making them into cakes balls seemed the natural way to use them all up.

Most recipes call out for a boxed cake mix and canned frostings but why not go homemade as long as you're going to do all the trouble to make this adorable darlings? It's more natural and well be highly appreciated, hehe. So anyway, I had quite a bit of leftover chocolate cake and frostings from my recent kitchen foray in finding the perfect the taste for my cupcakes. Refrigerated cakes are a lot more to handle in making these sweeties because they can be rolled easily and wont stick too much to your hands. Here's how:

In a big bowl, crumble the cake into fine crumbs. In a separate bowl, whip butter, frostings, powdered sugar, and milk until smooth. Pour into the cake crumbs and mix with a spoon. Continue mixing and kneading until fully incorporated into the cake and until desired consistency is achieved. Roll into a ball. Put in a popsicle stick or in my case I put mine in an ice cream cone. It's safer for the kids and they can it everything too!

Melt chocolate or chocolate chips in a double boiler on the stove and dip each ball into the chocolate until covered. 

Let the little helpers do the decorating...

And let them enjoy their ice cream cake!

This is just a rundown to my next cakeball kitchen test... Next time it'll be more creative and more aesthetically fun! hehe

Banana Muffin with a Twist

It's a monkey business in my kitchen today! Ok ok not in the weird way though! hehe... When I woke up this morning to make breakfast the sight of ripe bananas in my kitchen countertop silently laying there struck me and as if calling out for me to make something nice to them... and so I did! Today they were no longer just bananas but bananas with a twist! You may also check my banana chocolate chips muffin that I did on my early baking days. =)

i love this monkey cupcake liners 

the cupcake liners did add drama to my bananas... hehe rhyme di ba? 

this is one of my favorite recipe. easy to make and with no special equipments needed.

ingredients

1¾ cup A.P flour

1    cup brown sugar

2    tsp baking powder (aluminum free)

¼   tsp salt

¾   cup milk

2    ripe bananas, mashed

½   cup vegetable oil

1    tsp vanilla extract

½   cup chocolate chips

directions

1. preheat oven to 350℉ and line 12 muffin cups.

2. mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add oil, milk, vanilla to dry ingredients and stir until mixture start to come together. Mix in mashed bananas. Do not over mix.

3. fill cups ⅓ full, place a few chocolate chips in the center and then cover with the remaining batter.

4. bake for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean but not dry.

Cinnamon-Muesli Waffle

Breakfast need never be dull. Studies have time and time again proved that having a decent breakfast is vital for health. It is, indeed, the most important meal of the day. On the weekdays we always have a rice and viand combo but on the weekends it's coffee and bread or pancakes or waffles that is!

On my previous post I made a brownie with muesli instead of the usual nuts. So why not enhance my fluffy-pancake recipe and toss in healthy stuffs on the ingredient. I never like to eat muesli with milk for breakfast and as for eating it with yoghurt... just don't get me started. 

ingredients

2     cups A.P flour

½    cup packed brown sugar

1     tspn baking powder (aluminum free)

1     tspn salt

½    tspn ground cinnamon 

2     cups fruit-free muesli, toasted
1     cup chocolate chips, optional

2     cups milk

2     egss

¼    cup vegetable oil

directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and a cup of muesli in a food processor and pulse a few times to coarsely grind the muesli. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and oil. Add dry ingredients, chocolate chips and the remaining cup of muesli and whisk just until moistened.

2. Heat non-stick skillet or griddle over medium. Drop batter and cook until you see bubbles bursting, about 1-2 minutes per side. 

mommy notes:

Batter on this recipe is thick and if you want to make a decent circle shape you might want to cook it in  a circle egg shaper. 

Homemade Strawberry Jam

My very first homemade strawberry jam! I use brown sugar instead of the usual white sugar and it turned out thick, sweet and the color was very nice. It was so easy to make and it tastes great!

ingredients

900g fresh strawberries

750g brown sugar

1 lemon juice

directions

1. squeeze lemon juice in a squeezer. set aside.

2. In a bowl, crush strawberries with fork until mashed. Using a heavy bottom saucepan, mix together mashed strawberries, sugar and freshly squeeze lemon juice. Stir over low heat until the sugar dissolved. Increase heat to high and bring the mixture into a rolling boil. Stirring often. 

3. Transfer into sterile jars leaving half an inch headspace, and seal. Process in a water bath. If jam is to be consume right away, no need with processing, just transfer in a ramekin or glass containers and refrigerate.

mommy notes:
water bath is a method of home canning use for processing high-acidic foods. Boiling the can or jar in a boiling water for 5-85 minutes depending on the product, style pack, and jar size. The process removes the oxygen remaining in the jar, which helps to form a tight seal between the lid and the rim.

Ryker's monkey themed party

My sweet little boy turns 2 years old and that means everything is in two! A double celebration and  two kinds of cupcakes in two colored frosting. He had a monkey themed mini celebration this morning at his daycare school together with his pint size classmates and the second and big bash pool party is on the weekend with family and close friends.

patiently waiting in class...

For this event I made a vanilla  and chocolate cake cupcakes. A honey-mustard chicken wings and easy spaghetti. With these menu you will never go wrong in pleasing the most discriminating palates.

To our darling little boy,

      You're officially a toddler now but I still see you as that precious little newborn that I bring into this world. How time flies and now you're saying babyhood goodbye.

       You gave us so much joy... everything about you is wonderful. Always remember that mom and dad loves you this BIG! And we are excited with all the oodles things that you want to become when you grow up. Don't grow up so fast. I Love You.

Mom.

 

I Love You Cupcakes

ingredients  (derived from allrecipes)

1  cup white sugar

½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2  eggs

2  tsp vanilla extract

1½ cups A.P flour

1¾ tsp baking powder 

½ cup milk

direction 

for the vanilla cupcakes

• preheat oven to 350℉. 
• in medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Spoon batter into prepared pan or muffin cups.
• bake for 20-25 minutes in the preheated oven. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

for the heart shape

• separate a spoonful of batter in a small bowl and add red coloring and scoop into a cupcake liner together with the vanilla cupcakes . Cut it with heart shaped cookie cutter and there you have a heart!

Happy hearts day everyone!

Priceless Moments

The best and hardest job in the world, they say, is being a MOM. I say it is a career and it's very rewarding! We are constantly multitasking but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate the little things - literally! Whenever my little boy notice that I'm out from his sight he scrunch and calls out for me and when he does find me a big smile paints his face and he hugs me and lean his head on my shoulder like he didn't see me for a long time. It's just the sweetest! It made me wish my little Ryker to be little forever!

In a few days my little boy will be bidding babyhood goodbye and into the world of toddlerhood. As much as I hold dear my little boy's early years, I know there are umpteen of equally beautiful milestones to come...

Until then...

Cupcakes 101

Recently, I read a post from another food blog entitles 5 ways to Ruin Homemade Cupcakes. Catching title and really very helpful that's why I thought of reposting this for you guys. Yes, I am one of those bakers who is on the road to baking the perfect cupcake and I admit I have my share with mishaps and bumps in finding the perfect one. Practice makes perfect, as they say. Anyhow, here are the baking blunders to avoid in making the perfect homemade sweeties!

1) Using warm butter rather than “room-temperature” butter “Room temperature” butter is approximately 70 degrees Fahrenheit. When you make cupcakes from scratch, you need butter to be the right temperature so that the dough can rise the right amount and be mixed in thoroughly. When it’s too warm, it mixes in too quickly and changes the texture of the cupcakes. To get the butter’s temperature right, it’s best to take it right out of the fridge and let it defrost in the microwave for about 10 seconds.

2) Not knowing the temperature of your oven
This is one of the most common (and most frequently undetected issues) for at-home bakers. While an ideal oven would always carry even heat throughout without hot spots or anything, many ovens function at less than ideal levels. To test how hot your oven is cooking, and if it has hot spots, line the middle rack of your oven with slices of bread and bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for a few minutes to see how the pieces cook. If you have some spots that are burned and such, remember them, and rotate and bake your goods accordingly. If the whole tray gets burned, it may be that your oven just cooks hotter all around, and if it’s barely toasted at all, it may be too cool.

3) Making unwise substitutions
Many chefs like to get creative in the kitchen, but while substituting herbs and spice in a recipe can be great – baking is not usually that forgiving. To get your foods to rise properly and have the right textures, you need to have the right ingredients in a fairly delicate balance. If you would like to make substitutions, these are a few great emergency substitutions you can use, but otherwise substituting things in a baking recipe is a bad idea because it disrupts the underlying chemistry of the dish!

4) Baking too long
Cupcakes are very delicate given their size and higher exposed surface area.  Baking them for even a little too long can cause them to dry out very quickly. If the recipe says 30 minutes, check them at 25 minutes with a toothpick just to check how they’re doing. Once the tester comes out clean, it’s time to take them out of the oven, since residual heat will continue cooking them anyway.

5) Letting them sit too long in the pan
If you leave your baked cupcakes in their hot pan for too long, you’re likely to end up with soggy cupcake wrappers and overcooked cake! After you take them out of the oven, wait 10 minutes and remove the cupcakes from the muffin tin – otherwise they will absorb too much liquid and become wet.