Just like LAST YEAR, the Lemon Fairy left a gigantor bag of lemons on my porch. I don’t know whether to hug her or punch her because she knows my weakness. I just can’t let these things go to waste. I’ve been working my way through them like a maniac, so you know what that means…it’s Lemon Week! A new lemon recipe everyday…until I die from citrus poisoning. Is that possible? I hope not…
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Simple, right? It is – but the taste is beyond compare. It’ll make your days brighter and your life longer. Ok, maybe not, but it sure makes does give your baking that extra somethin’.

ingredients:
1 cup sugar
zest of 1/2 lemon

Zest the lemon into the sugar. Stir around so that the oils can mix into the sugar. Keep in a sealed container. I use this for baking lemon cakes and muffins, it adds a whole new dimension to your lemon-y desserts!

Pardon me while I conduct a bit of research:

If you were going to a luncheon – What desserts would you LOVE to see there?

Thanks!

**Thanks for all the great ideas, they’re all useful and making me hungry!

Since I spent New Year’s making over 250 pounds of mochi, I haven’t had a chance (or need) to make any at home. So this bag of sweet mochi rice has just been sitting here. Staring at me. I thought a good use of it would be to make a meatball, kind of like the ones called ‘porcupines’, just think of these as Japanese PORKupines. HAW! Ok, not that funny.

ingredients:
1 cup mochi rice (soaked for 2 hours)

1 pound ground pork
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon mirin (Sweet Rice Wine“>sweet rice wine)
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
pinch of salt
dash of pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
2 green onions, chopped

Put the mochi rice in a bowl of water and let sit for 2 hours. This will soften it up and get it ready for steaming. When you start to make the meatballs, drain the rice well, and set aside.

Combine the pork and all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix together until incorporated. Form little meatballs, say 1″ balls or so, then roll them in the drained mochi rice.

Place them in a steamer and steam for approx 20-25 minutes.

The mochi rice makes these a little sticky, but very tasty!

I had major dental surgery and am now toothless. While I should be on a steady diet of anything through a straw, I still jammed a piece of cake on the ‘good side’ of my mouth and chewed it up. Hey, a girl can try.

However the Kid got right to work on my new liquid diet. He said he wanted to make smoothies and when I went to get the blender, I turned around and he’d already drawn up a visual recipe for me to follow. He’s a quickdraw! He made me follow his instructions EXACTLY and it came out fantastic.

ingredients:
16 ounces frozen strawberries
1 banana (cut up)
1 cup apple juice

The ingredients in this are simple. While I wanted to add some more ’stuff’ the Kid wouldn’t hear of it. He was right. Simple was best.

Frozen strawberries are great because it gives you just the right amount of slush factor without having to add ice. Blend frozen strawberries, banana and apple juice in a blender. Add more apple juice if you need to, but not too much.

Blend until the smoothie starts to turn in on itself like a mini tornado. That’s how you know it’s ready!

Saturday morning the Kid woke me up at 6am – very concerned about Haiti. For a six year old, that Kid has a lot of worries. I thought a fun and interesting way to help would be to go to the Food Trucks for Haiti fundraiser in West L.A. Not only would part of the profits go to the Red Cross, but we’d get to sample some of the best food trucks in Los Angeles.

This is my main reason I don’t let the kids eat fast food – there are so many better ways to spend your money locally on great tasting food without preservatives. The Kid said he loved everything he ate and felt good that we were giving money to a good cause. My little foodie philanthropist.

The Baby woke up asking for BBQ for breakfast. There is no separating this kid and his meat, he must dream about it in his sleep. However 7am does not seem like the ideal time for me to get up and start smoking a brisket.

Yes, that is a picture of him when he was just a year old, going after a smoked turkey leg. His love of BBQ has only grown. Here are some of his favorite BBQ recipes and sides – a menu of what I would make for him if say, it wasn’t so early in the morning. Hm. Now I’m hungry. Maybe the Baby is on to something…

Tropical ribs for the slow cooker
Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Maple Glazed Ribs
Marinated Tri Tip
Sweet Spiced Pork Loin
Bacon and Cheese Biscuits shaped like piggies!
Sweet Cornbread Muffins
Goldfish Mac n’ Cheese
Pasta Salad with Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Sweet Potato Cupcakes

I am going stir crazy being stuck in the house due to the storm of the century. This is NOT typical Los Angeles weather. Slightly depressed and freezing, I turned to my pantry for warmth. I found it in old bread crusts (thanks to the Hello Kitty sandwich making-fest we had!) and a jar of Nutella. Ah, Nutella. My breakfast of choice everyday when I lived in Italy. Pure comfort.

I should teeter on the edge of sanity more often. I come up with some pretty good recipes in the end.

ingredients:
approx. 8 cups of bread crusts, cubed
2-1/2 cups milk
½ cup heavy cream
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
¾ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons Valrhona cocoa powder
3 Tablespoons nutella

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

You are going to make EIGHT tiny bread puddings, so grease 8 small single serving ramekins with melted butter.

As for the bread crusts, I cut mine into small cubes, not gigantor size, seeing as how they are small ramekins. Equally portion out your cubed bread crusts into the buttered ramekins. Set these aside.

Now you’re going to start the custard. In a bowl, whisk the milk, heavy cream, eggs and vanilla. Carefully add the sugar and the cocoa powder. Stir well – this make take some mixing as the cocoa powder will clump a little, do your best it doesn’t have to be totally incorporated, just enough.

Now stir the nutella into the custard mixture. Oh, Nutella. So creamy and delicious. How I love it on a piece of crispy toast, the perfect crunch – just heaven in the morning with a cup of tea. Oh, hi. Enough daydreaming, back to the recipe. Again, the Nutella won’t completely break down – just keep stirring until most of it has been combined. The rest will probably sink to the bottom.

Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet, this is only to catch possible spillage and to make it easy to transport to your oven. No one wants a chocolate-y mess on the floor.

Carefully pour the custard over the bread in each ramekin. You’ll get more in there than you think, once the bread starts soaking it up. You’ll see that some of the nutella has settled to the bottom – no problem – just pour it right on top of the bread. Trust me, it will be great when it’s all done baking. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Bake for 40 minutes in your preheated oven. Let cool just a bit and if I may be so bold, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Comfort food, indeed.

So for the Kid’s birthday he said he wanted “Chocolate cupcakes. Vanilla frosting. That’s it.” Then gave me that look like, “Don’t fancy it up, mom.” Sheesh! Fine, fine – but if I’m going to do it, it’s going to be GOOD. I took the same concept at the Very Vanilla cupcake and used some good ol’ organic chocolate milk.

Since it was a knight- themed birthday I added little swords on top. Don’t poke your eye out folks, cupcakes is dangerous business.

ingredients:
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Carefully add the eggs one at a time until incorporated, then add the vanilla.

Two very important notes – One: When I bake I only use Valrhona cocoa powder. I accept nothing less. It is the best and brings so much life to your desserts you’d wonder why you ever used that canned junk from the supermarket in the first place. The people eating your desserts WILL notice the difference. Two: Chocolate milk makes this extra chocolatey – you can just use regular milk if you have no choice. Enough preaching — now alternate milk with the dry ingredients until combined.

Spoon the batter into prepped liners, bake 15-17 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool on a wire rack.

The Kid was right – I actually like this paired with a vanilla buttercream rather than a chocolate frosting. Something about the two flavors working together. Chocolate on chocolate is sometimes over the top. Anyway – frost with a vanilla buttercream and serve. Swords optional.

This is the happiest little cake Darth Vader has ever seen. Why I combined rainbows and Darth Vader for the Kid’s birthday, I don’t know – doing a dark chocolate would be too easy, right?? But the Kid LOVES Star Wars and hey – he’s 6, so let’s celebrate! A perfect cake for the dark lord in all of us. This was fun and tasty and I love that the candle is a lightsaber, hilarious!

ingredients:
white cake batter
(this Very Vanilla Cake works well – if you decide to use box mix, UGH, just don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.)
5 different colors of gel food coloring

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prep two round cake pans by lining the bottom with parchment and buttering right on top of it, doing the sides of the pan as well.

I used the Very Vanilla cake recipe and divided the batter into 5 small bowls. You should get about 1 cup in each bowl. I dyed each of the bowls of batter a different color. Gel dye is the best because you need very little of it.

What you are going to do is make two round rainbow cakes, so the batter will be divided equally into two pans – follow? Probably not, that’s why I tried to take pictures. Let’s just hope for the best.

Now pour HALF of one bowl of batter – let’s say blue to start – right in the center of the first pan. The rest will go into the center of the second pan.Then take the second bowl, green, and pour half of that RIGHT into the center of the blue. Go on, don’t worry. The batter will spread all on it’s own. IT’S LIKE MAGIC. Or not. Then take the orange, pour half THAT right into the center of the previous color, and so on and so on.

Eventually you will have TWO pans of cake batter ready to roll that look like this:

Bake for 18-20 minutes depending on your oven, until your cake comes out nice passes the toothpick test perfectly. Let cool in pans, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.

They look like targets, but when you slice into it, trust me, it will all come together. I stacked the two cakes (with frosting in between, of course) and I just frosted this with a tinted blue vanilla buttercream.

Just for kicks and cause the Kid loves them, I and added a few Godiva White Chocolate Balls around the edges. If you want to see how SUPER EASY it is to stencil lettering onto a cake (for all of you scared of fondant) go HERE.

Darth Vader LOVES rainbows. I’m sure your kids will love this cake too.

*How I frosted the lettering in the Star Wars font (it was easy): Stencil Lettering how-to, here.

The morning of the Kid’s birthday I threw a Rainbow Cake together right quick, there was no planning so I didn’t have time to roll out fondant and do a whole thing. Writing on a cake with frosting is easy. But sometimes you want things to look a little cleaner – as if you really put in a lot of effort….but in reality you are just kind of lazy. Here’s a good way to fake it.

Since I wanted to stick with the Star Wars theme, I printed out wording in Star Wars font on heavy cardstock. Using an x-acto I cut out the letters.

Now you have a template. I laid this on top of the already frosted cake, and using a different color of frosting, I just went through and tried to stay within the stencil. Even if you go over or screw up it doesn’t matter, the beauty of it is when you lift the stencil off, you’ll have clean lettering – honest!

This is a super quick way to get fancy lettering done fast!

(Fondant lettering how-to is similar)