Strawberry Milk Donuts
Super Kawaii Happy Fun Time Donuts…is what this recipe should have been called. Something about pink is just super adorable.
I love donuts as you know, and for these I used Strawberry Organic Milk
ingredients:
2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 cup strawberry milk
pink gel food coloring
glaze ingredients:
1/4 cup Strawberry Milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
pink gel food coloring
I use an electric Mini Donut Maker
In a bowl whisk together the cake, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs and the milk and stir together until JUST combined. Don’t overwork it!
Ok, here’s where the cheat comes in. Since the milk is just plain milk colored (boring) I add a teeeeeeny amount of pink gel food coloring. Just to give it a nice hint of color – very strawberry. Mix it until just combined.
Now that your batter is ready, spoon it into your prepared maker and cook per manufacturer’s directions.
Let the donuts cool on a wire rack. Aren’t they lovely and poofy?
While they are cooling, make the glaze. In a small bowl combine the strawberry milk, vanilla and the powdered sugar. Whisk until combined and runny, and again – just add a touch of food coloring if you like. Psst…get a kid to do it so you can take a breather.
These donuts are mini – so you can be sure that sprinkles would be a total overload, am I right? Yeah well I couldn’t help myself, I was already on a pink high, so I had to keep it going.
I set up a prep station of cooled donuts, glaze, and sprinkles…
…then came the fun part. Dipping into the glaze, then the sprinkles – soon we were surrounded by beautiful little sprinkled donuts.
Sweet and cute – a total pink overload!
WWIMeat: What Would Iron Man Eat? – Faux Cargots & Chickie Eggs
School is in full effect, yo – and I think the kids are realizing there’s no turning back. It’s certainly not fun to stick to the regimen of getting up early, working hard, doing homework…I get it. To make life a little easier I like to surprise them at lunch. Sometimes it’s nice to pop open your lunch and see a little Chickie smiling back at you. I like to think it’d make anyone’s day a little brighter.
Faux-cargots recipe, here.
Chickie Eggs recipe, here.
Morimoto’s Hayashi Stew
I am a big fan of Morimoto, and not just his penmanship:
No, I love his creativity. While his cookbook
This is my simplified version of ‘Hayashi Stew’ from Morimoto’s New Art of Japanese Cooking
ingredients:
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced
4 Tablespoons butter
1-1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 cup red wine
3 Tablespoon ketchup
3 cups beef broth
1 cup water
1/4 cup all purpose flour
salt
pepper
In a large pot, heat the oil and add the onion and saute. Stir until the onion is a lovely brown. Remove the onions and set aside.
In the same pot, melet TWO Tablespoons of the butter. Add the meat and the garlic, turning to brown. Again – set aside. (This is the last time you’ll have to aside, I promise.)
Pour the red wine into the pot and bring to a boil, scraping up the meat bits on the bottom.
Add the ketchup, then return the onions and beef back into the pot.
In Morimoto’s recipe he calls for a very elaborate Shanton Broth to be used, but here in down-to-earth-land, I don’t have time to be boiling down four different kinds of meat for FOUR hours. While I KNOW his tastes better because of his broth…no. The new season of Oprah has started and so I am just going to suggest you do as I do and just use a simple beef broth here.
To the meat and onions add the beef broth (~wink) and the water and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 1-1/2 hours.
In a small saucepan melt the remaining 2 Tablespoons of butter over medium heat and whisk in the flour. Cook – stirring for about 3 minutes. Ladle in about 2 cups of the stew broth INTO the saucepan to temper the flour mixture – boil while whisking until thick and smooth. Stir the thickened liquid back into the stew.
Cover and simmer for another 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with white rice.
This stew is quite simple with very minimal ingredients. Not a veggie in sight. It’s warm, hearty and has the loveliest of flavors. Again I’m sure a heftier base broth would be better, but this is pretty darn good as simplified.
Lilikoi Crunch Cupcakes
When I was in Hawaii I went to Aiea Bowl and had the most amazing cake ever – a Lemon Crunch cake. This is my homage to that delicious cake, but in cupcake form and with a touch of lilikoi. Like being back in the islands…
cake ingredients:
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
1-3/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2-1/4 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
lilikoi jelly
crushed toffee bits
buttercream frosting (recipe, here)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and 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.
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.
Lilikoi is also known as Hawaiian passionfruit. You can find this jelly in the hawaiian/asian section of your supermarket. It is a sweet but tart, and adds a nice balance to a sweet cupcake.
Once the cupcakes have cooled, using a cutter or a paring knife, simply cut out a little well in the middle. Fill the well with the lilikoi jelly.
Add the frosting on top to cover the jelly. You have to be careful not to disturb the jelly underneath. You want people to be surprised at the filling!
Now here comes the crunch. While I bought a 3 pound bag, you certainly don’t have to. (Yikes. Toffee bits for days…) Simple chop up a small Skor bar.
Sprinkle the toffee bits to top off the frosting.
All the components work surprisingly well together. The soft cake, tart jelly, sweet frosting and the crunchy toffee – all come together to make a great dessert. Perfect for your Hawaiian themed party!
Vanilla Buttercream
This is a simple recipe that can be used for cakes & cupcakes. You can change up the flavor, tint it for color – it’s very versatile.
ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons milk (as needed)
1 teaspoon vanilla
In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter while adding the sugar SLOWLY, a little at a time. Add the vanilla, then the milk as needed. Once you get the consistency you want, turn the mixer up to medium high and WHIP it for about 10-15 seconds.
Now you’re ready to frost!
Stewed beef tacos
We eat A LOT of Mexican food around here. If I’m not buying it, I’m making it.
Using the crock pot is a simple way to get flavorful, tender beef for tacos. This was the recipe that turned The Kid (‘Meat? Blech.’) around, because he ate. it. up! There’s no turning back now, I’ve created a meat lover…
ingredients:
2 pounds stew meat
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
1 clove garlic
juice of one lime
In a small bowl combine the chili powder, cumin, onion powder and salt.
Place the meat in the crock pot. Add the garlic, then sprinkle the seasonings on top.
Add the juice of one lime and season with pepper.
Turn the crock pot on to low for 5 hours.
You’ll be amazed at the liquid that appears after 5 hours. Here’s where I like to make sure the meat is tender and juicy, perfect for tacos.
Take the meat out, and do a rough chop through the pieces. Put them BACK in the crock pot and cook on low for another 1-2 hours.
The best thing about this is you don’t have to worry about cooking all day, it’ll be done at dinner time and all you can pre-prepare all the fixins’ early, tortillas, roasted corn, fresh guac….Man, I’m getting hungry.
Jell-o
Colorful and fun – I make a lot of Jell-o for parties because it’s easy to prep ahead. Here are some sure to please ideas to serve at your next party!
Broken Glass Jello
This is a favorite – always pretty and your guests will be in awe at how you put this together. Hint: It was a cinch.
Layered Jell-o
This one takes a little more time, but it’s so worth it. When you cut it up the colors come out so evenly like a mini rainbow.
Ice Cream Jell-o
This one is just plain easy. Quick to make, it takes care of itself so that you can keep on party-prepping…
WWIMeat: What Would Iron Man Eat? – Fresh watermelon
While I love making faux watermelon cupcakes and watermelon ice cream bombes – there really is nothing better than the real thing.
Watermelon is at the end of it’s season but you can still find really good ripe on the edge of crazy ripe watermelons out there. I prefer to get them from local farmer’s markets because they are just so juicy and sweet.
Cut them up into perfect little cubes and serve them cold chillin’. Eating them with the world’s cutest flower bento pick helps too.
Heart Flower cupcakes how-to
This is a quick and easy way to top a cupcake. The little flower pots add just the right touch of whimsy – they make a great presentation for a party!
ingredients:
cupcakes
frosting
giant heart quins
edible pearls
4″ flower pots
For the Handmade event I knew I wanted to do something different and artsy with the cupcakes. As with all my cupcake ideas I drew a lot of sketches, and they all seemed to go back to a cupcake flower growing out of a flower pot – with hearts. Hm. So that’s what ended up on the facebook invitation and is now also available here in notecards! But how to emulate that in cupcake form without going over the top?
At my local baking supply store I found ‘Giant Heart’ quins, Corazones Gigantes – no lie – these things were huge. I thought they’d be great as ‘petals’ for a mock heart flower.
Ganache (recipe here) is an easy way to frost a cupcake…without actually making frosting. Simply take the cupcake and dip it. It gives a nice thin layer on top of the cupcake and sets really nicely – perfect for quins.
I placed 5 hearts into a formation on top of the cupcakes, then added a small edible pearl into the center. Then I placed the whole cupcake into 4″ clean flower pot. Because of my extreme need to make everything symmetrical – NO ONE believed these cupcakes were real and I fell into the same problem with the Shave Ice Cupcakes…no one would eat them!!
These look lovely and would make a great favor for a bridal or baby shower!
End of Summer event!
stop by Handmade Galleries L.A. this Saturday from 11am to 2pm!
I’ll have a bunch of new items to debut as well as all the old favorites!
