justJENN recipes

Green Tea ice cream. Some people adore it, some people think it’s awful. It doesn’t bother me. I like this recipe 1) because you don’t have to ‘cook’ the base (I hate cooking ice cream bases) and 2) it’s not overly rich, but just…right. Great for an after dinner palate cleanser.

The thing is - the ONLY way to make this is to use MATCHA. That is powdered green tea. It’s super concentrated. Not for the weak. It’s also expensive as hell, but so worth it.

ingredients:
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons powdered green tea (matcha)
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk

Cook the sugar and water over low heat, basically making a simple syrup. Remove from the heat, and add about 1/3 of the syrup into a separate bowl, with the matcha.

Don’t freak. The stuff looks nasty. Almost seaweed like, and believe me, it could smell better too. Dump that mixture back into the pan with the simple syrup and mix well.

In a medium bowl, add the cream and the milk - then add the matcha mixture. Cool it down in the fridge for about 15 - 20 mins. It will turn a lovely lime green color.

Pour it into your ice cream maker - according to manufacturer’s directions and there you have it. Yummy green tea ice cream….great with shave ice, too! If you like this, you should try my lychee sorbet…

Just look at all those toppings!

From Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make. the minute I saw these in the book I knew that I had to make them. Seeing as how I love food that looks like…other food, I thought these would be hilarious for a birthday.

ingredients:
cupcakes
frosting
yellow gel dye
2 cups yellow (various colors) jelly bellys
yellow starburst
black sanding sugar
white sanding sugar
corn cob holders

Since these cupcakes are yellow I used a lemon cupcake. I decided to go with a plain vanilla frosting and I tinted it with yellow gel dye. I only use gel dye. Liquid dye is just awful - don’t even go there.

I frosted the cooled cupcakes and started to place the jelly bellys, alternating the colors in rows, about 4-5 rows per cupcake. Once I had three done, I stuck in the corn cob holders on the ends.

I took the yellow Starburst and softened it a little until it looked like melted butter. Starburst is a fantastic for decorating, I never would have thought of it until I saw this book. They made great blankets for my baby shower cupcakes.

Put the little piece of ‘butter’ on one of the cupcakes, then sprinkle with black and white sanding sugar. That is what REALLY makes the difference here. You can’t help but look twice, because it really looks like salt and pepper!

These things were so fun to make and when I took them to the party everyone thought it was fun and hilarious. Also: delicious. Try them yourself, your friends will get a kick out of it!

The Baby wanted a Godzilla cake for his birthday. So I thought, what if I took a Godzilla doll…but had him surrounded by a city of…cake? Genius! Well, not really, but I thought maybe all those years of building architectural models might be able to help me out. I am much more comfortable building buildings than large fire breathing monsters.

ingredients:
2 9×13 sheet cakes
buttercream frosting
chocolate fondant
white fondant
yellow gel dye
black gel dye
graham crackers (for sand if you want)
blue sprinkles (for water if you want)

First I laid out a plan. Every good designer has a plan right? Well I just thought it’d be easier to get a vision on how I wanted the height of things, and how I wanted it to look.

The Godzilla was fairly short so a three stack high cake turned out to be just what I was after. So I cut and stacked it according to the plan that I had laid out.

Once everything was cut and in place, I rolled out the fondant to the size that I could drape over the cake. Luckily my cakes were small, so it was easy to do with one package. I found chocolate fondant, which was great because it was almost as if it was pre-dyed but with flavor. I was also going for more of a ‘cartoon-y’ look for the cake, so I wanted the same color for all the buildings, knowing that they’d be detailed in different colors.

Right before I laid out the fondant, I quickly frosted the cake, not heavily, just as if I was doing a crumb coat, enough for stickage.

Then I covered the cake, smoothed it out and cut off any excess. I added little smoke stacks and turrets out of the same color fondant to give the roof a little more depth.

My goal was to just get this done quickly, so I dyed white fondant into just two colors, yellow and gray parts for the windows/details of the building.

Keep in mind, all of these buildings/cakes are not on my board yet. I am decorating them just sitting off on individual cutting boards for the moment. First I wanted to ready the site, I dyed fondant gray to lay out the paving for the street and laid that down. NOW you move your buildings onto their sites.

On the back side, I laid down some frosting, covered it with blue sprinkles for water, then a little bit of sand, which is just crushed up graham crackers. If I was feeling more ambitious I’d have built a bridge too, but let’s not get nuts.

And there you have it. A completed Godzilla cake. To which the Baby said, “YAY. WHEN DUZ HE SMASH IT ALL?” Uh…I realized that I had just built an architectural model. Not so much “Godzilla destroys the city” as “Godzilla goes out for a leisurely stroll to see the sights.” Too bad. I figured once the cake was eaten, then it’d look like there was some damage done. I just couldn’t bring myself to build a bad structural building.

In the end, the guests ate the cake and the Baby got his ’smashed’ city. I think Godzilla felt a bit of satisfaction too.

Ricky Ricardo’s favorite dish. Do you need more of an incentive than that?

ingredients:
4 frozen - skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 medium onion, sliced
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
salt
pepper
1 can black beans

cooked rice

Put in a crock pot for 6 -8 hours on low. Serve with your cooked rice.

I could end the recipe here, but what else can I say. Hm. Sometimes I throw in corn or peas, just for the hell of it. OH. You can add about a cup of water if you are freaked about not having liquid in your crock pot. I hear you, but since the chicken is frozen, you have a bit of moisture in there to keep you from burning the house down.

That’s it. This is the quickest recipe ever. It’s perfect on those days when you don’t want to do a damn thing and just want to come home and eat. Basically - every day.

This how-to is pretty simple, but it combines all the elements kids love on Halloween. Cupcakes. Cookies. Candy. I’m fairly sure it will go over just as well with adults.

ingredients:
cupcakes
frosting
sprinkles
bat cookies
dum dum lollipops

I bake the bat cookies the day before and keep them in a sealed container. It makes for quicker assembly, and who has time to be fooling around last minute?

For these cupcakes I made, seeing as it was Halloween and all, and I thought it’d go good with the chocolate bats. Chocolate bats on chocolate cupcakes would have been good too. Mmm. Chocolate overload.

pumpkin cupcakes

After the cupcakes cool, frost them. I used white chocolate and chocolate frosting to give some variation, it looked really nice when served. I edged the cupcakes in different colored sprinkles, it added a lot of color and texture too them, without going overboard on the decoration. Not a fan of going nuts with the decor, nope.

I then placed the Dum Dum lollipop towards the ‘back’ of the cupcake, to act as a little stand for the bat. Now place the bat near the front and lean it on the lollipop. You won’t really need to add anything to make it stick, it should stay put just fine.

I recommend assembly right before serving, if you do it ahead of time, your bats may get soft, the moisture in the frosting will creep into your little bats.

This is a fun party food, Trick or Treat!