Chocolate Wacky Cake

Wackiness don't just apply on selfies and group shots but on cakes as well. There's a Wacky Cake also! This cake has no eggs, milk, or butter on it kaya wacky, diba? hehe! Don't fret because I can assure you this is really good! It came out moist, dark and delicious.

It's been toasty in my part of the world this couple of months and I swear to take a hiatus on baking to take care of the little bun in my oven, haha, but the inner baker in me can't really resist! Good thing this chocolate recipe is very simple and easy to make.

Recipe follows...

Pan Seared Honey Garlic Pork with Button Mushroom and Asparagus

Quick, easy and delicious!

Vegetable Adobo

One of the most beloved viand for us Filipino is Adobo and to make it healthier 

I put my kids favorite vegetables - carrots and potatoes. 

This has few ingredients and very easy cook.

Ingredients and procedure:

1/2 kilo Pork, adobo cut

Garlic, carrots and potatoes - peeled and cut into cubes

Sautee garlic in oil until golden brown.

Add pork and simmer for a minute.

Add the soy sauce and simmer until the pork is brown in color.

Add the potato and simmer for about 3 minutes or until almost soft then add the carrots and simmer until almost done or about 5 minutes, cover.

Add the vinegar until taste blends well, uncover.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add caption

 Enjoy!

Homemade Dark Chocolate Syrup

In our house we eat pancakes almost everyday and drench them in chocolate syrup.

What better way to save money and eat healthy?  HOMEMADE!

Oreo-Graham Truffles and Chocolate Ganache

Sitting pretty inside my refrigerator are some left over dark chocolate ganache that I used for my chocolate cupcakes and a bowl of cream cheese frosting from our baking 101 with my friends. I didn't really want to make another cupcakes because that would be redundant and boring. So, why not make a no bake Oreo Truffles covered with Chocolate Ganache? 

Ingredients

1 pack chocolate Oreo
6 pieces graham crackers
1/2 cup Cream Cheese frosting
1/2 cup Chocolate Ganache

Direction

Crushed oreo and graham crackers into fine crumbs, I use my food processor.
Mix the cookie crumbs and the cream cheese until it is well combined.
Shape the mixture into balls about an inch in diameter and put in the refrigerator for about an hour to firm.
Dip the balls into the ganache using two forks to roll each other until evenly coated and return into the plate or parchment paper.
Refrigerate for an hour or until firm.

Serve and enjoy!

Ghoulish Treats for Halloween

I'm a big fan of the movie series The Walking Dead but that's not my inspiration for this halloween month since I'll be giving this away to my son's pint size classmates. Hehe, I don't want to scare them much! I got this ideas from different talented bakers (which, again, I forgot to note the sites) but anyhow, making these cookies are a lot of fun but tiring since I'm on my second trimester in pregnancy. I will follow post my equally ghoulish cupcakes in a few days. Stay tuned! 

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Oreo Cream Cheese Truffles

Here's my first no bake oreo cream cheese truffles. So easy to make and it only has 3 ingredients to prepare!

recipe adapted from No-Bake Oreo Truffles by Chef in Training

Ingredients

2 packs chocolate oreo cookies
8 ounce cream cheese
--- dipping chocolate


Instructions

• Chop Oreos up finely in a food processor. Save some of the finely crushed oreo for garnish later and set it aside. 
• With hands, mash softened cream cheese and crushed oreos until well combined.
• Roll into 1" balls and place on a wax covered cookie sheet. Put in freezer for 15 minutes.
• while balls are in freezer, melt chocolate according to directions.
• Pull the oreo truffles out of the freezer, and dip into chocolate or may use a spatula to just cover the balls with the chocolate for another effect. Garnish with reserved oreo crumbs before the chocolate sets up.
• Let chocolate set, refrigerate for a few minutes.

Voila! Easy No bake Truffles to enjoy!

Ombre Style Sweetness!

Here are some of my  favorite ombre style in cakes, cupcakes or cookies alike from different talented bakers. It kinda look intimidating but as the tutorials shows it looks easy breezy, hehe. This should be my next project.

I love pink and I love this pink ombre swirl cake from  Glorious Treats

An ombre ruffle dress cookie from bubble and sweet

Ombre ruffle cake from Bronnie Bakes

i love the ombre flowers from Cake Central

Purple ombre mini cakes by  Glorious Treats

Orange overload by Better with Butter

Puto Maya at Sikwate

We had a long weekend this month so I thought of mastering another Filipino favorite snack.

Puto Maya (sweet sticky rice cooked in coconut milk) and sikwate (hot chocolate) always reminds me of my childhood. Every after the sunday mass our Papa would always bring us to one of the stalls in the market and we ate Puto maya and sikwate. I remember we flood the sticky rice in our bowl with sikwate and ate it like it's a soup, hehe and I still do that today.  Oh, how I love reminiscing those times. The taste of freshly made puto maya and the sweet taste of pure and chocolatey sikwate.

Pink Roses

Mother's day is indeed one of the busiest day in all kinds of food business. That said, I have my own share too that I totally forgot to took pictures of my first Mother's day cupcakes that were ordered from my own cupcake business. Whew! my bad! Anyhow, on the day itself I manage to whipped something up to celebrate my own Mother's day cupcake.

Happy Mother's Day!

Palitaw (Sticky Rice Dumplings with Coconut and Toasted Sesame Seeds)

It's the holy week and normally Filipino families gathered together and celebrate traditional filipino activities and that includes - Eating native delicacies. So today I decided to make my very first Palitaw.

We Filipinos call this sweet flat rice cake Palitaw. A very popular snack or dessert in the Philippines. This delicious kakanin is made simply with mixing rice flour and water and formed into a dough. The flattened dough are cooked in boiling water until they float and such is the name "litaw" means to float or to surface" the palitaw name was derive from.

Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu with Honey-Mustard Sauce

This is a french classic recipe but don't let the fancy french name fool you. Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe is easy and delicious and once you know how to cook it you will want to make it more often. This could be an easy weeknight recipe for working mommy and daddy. Kids love it!

Honey Mustard Sauce

I love honey mustard... And since I enjoy it I clearly needed to make my own. I found this recipe online and adjusted to my tastes. This kind of thing is really best adjusted to your own taste. As versatile as the dressing so as the variety of its use. I made this ahead for my chicken cordon bleu for dinner later.

ingredients

½    cup mayonnaise
2¼  tbsp prepared mustard
2     cups honey
½    tbsp lemon juice

directions

• In a small bowl, whisk everything together. Stored covered in the refrigerator for an hour ( or longer ) to let the flavors mingle.

Veggie Stuffed Squid with Marinara Sauce

This main dish serves well for a light and healthy lunch for the family. Serve with pasta or crusty bread to soak up the glorious sauce or in our case a cup of fragrant rice!

Saturday Breakfast Special

I love saturdays.... This particular day of the week is when we don't rush on anything. An easy breezy day! This morning I made another version of my fluffy pancake. A little heavenly!

A cup of Ca Phe Hoa Tan and my version #2 of Fluffy Pancake made my saturday!

FLUFFY PANCAKE v.2

batter                                                             sour milk and egg mixture                       pancake!

ingredients

1½  cup milk

4     tbsp distilled white vinegar

2     cups A.P flour

4     tbsp white sugar

2     tsp baking powder

1     tsp baking soda

2     eggs

4     tbsp salted butter, melted

1     tbsp vanilla extract

directions

• Combine milk and vinegar in a bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".
• In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda. set aside.
• Whisk eggs and butter into the "soured" milk. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a spoon until combined but don't over mix these. Having a few lumps in the batter is a good thing! 
• Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat and pour ¼ cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.   

mommy notes: sour milk is simply a substitute for buttermilk. It does not make things sour!

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

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.

Avant Garde Cake

Every third sunday of the month of January, Filipinos celebrate the Sinulog festival to honor the Santo Niño, or the child Jesus. It is essentially a dance ritual which remembers the Filipino people's pagan and their acceptance of Christianity. This is one of the grandest and colorful festivals in the Philippines particularly in Cebu City.

Another grand event that is happening today is hubby's birthday celebration! We are also having our grand event here at home and as usual a busy day for me in the kitchen. I made him an avant garde style cake and for his lunch viand is beef steak ala pobre. Isa lang nagawa ko because we attended the morning sunday mass.

chocolate cake and muffins with cream cheese frosting and strawberries

the strawberry is a little sour but it complements well with the sweet cream cheese frosting

little boy can't wait to blow the candle!

his best wacky shot daw!

Here's my version of the chocolate cake avant garde style:

Ingredients

2½ cups A.P Flour

2 teaspoon premium baking powder (aluminum free)

1 teaspoon premium baking soda (aluminum free)

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon coffee powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1½ cups warm water

1 cup unsalted butter

2¼ cups sugar

4 premium whole eggs

1. preheat oven to 350℃. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk the cocoa powder, coffee powder, and vanilla into the warm water.

3. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

4. Add eggs one at a time then alternately add the dry and liquid ingredients.

5. Bake for 30-90 minutes depending on the baking pan you're using or until toothpick comes out clean.

for the cream cheese frosting

1 cup cream cheese, softened

½ cup softened unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted

optional : food coloring

In a mixing bowl, cream the softened cream cheese and butter. Blend in the vanilla and sifted confectioner's sugar, whisk until fluffy. Blend in food coloring, if desired.

Banana Chocolate Chips Muffin

This afternoon I decided to make a Banana muffin that my toddler loves to munch. I'm a big fan of organic stuffs so I tweaked the original recipe that I got from our school and substitute most of the ingredients with premium and/or organic. Here it is, enjoy!

oozing chocolate chips

a healthy and delicious give away for Christmas

The recipe will give you a soft banana muffin that the kiddos will surely love to devour.

Ingredients

225g      Organic White Flour
 4g         Organic Baking Soda
1.5g       Salt
90g       Butter, at room temperature
115g     Mascuvado Sugar
1pc       Premium Egg
50ml     Milk, at room temperature
325g     Ripe Bananas, Mashed
5ml       Vanilla Extract

Procedure

1. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar in an electric mixer using the paddle attachment on medium speed until light and smooth.

3. Add the egg slowly on low speed, fully incorporating the egg and scraping down the sides of the bowl after addition.

4. Add milk, alternating with the dry ingredients, in 3 additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Blend in the bananas and vanilla.

5. Scoop batter into muffin cups and put chocochips on top.

6. Bake in a 350 F/ 175 C oven until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

7. Remove from oven and cool in wire racks or enjoy it hot with a cup of coffee or better yet a refreshing cold beverage.