Broken Glass Jell-o Pie for the 4th of July
Broken Glass Jello (recipe, here) is a popular Hawaiian party food, but I remember seeing an olllld recipe where it was also made into a refrigerator pie. This is my Patriotic version – airy, and jello-y, perfect for the Fourth!
I made this pie as a gift for the Food Librarian. The gift came with a price, she had to take all the finished pictures for me and as always, her pics turned out amazing!
ingredients:
1 (6oz) package strawberry Jell-O
2 cups boiling water
1 (6 oz.) package blue Jell-O
2 cups boiling water
2 cups nilla wafer crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1-1/2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1 cup pineapple juice
3 Tablespoons cold water
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Prep the red Jell-o by mixing it with 2 cups boiling water. In a separate bowl prep the blue Jell-, also using only 2 cups boiling water. Pour each flavor into a separate square pans. Chill overnight.
For the crust, beat, crush your nilla wafers until you get fine crumbs. Then mix the crumbs and melted butter and press them into bottom of a 9-inch spring-form pan.
In a saucepan over medium high, heat the pineapple juice and sprinkle the gelatin on top. When the gelatin has melted remove from heat then add the cold water. Chill until slightly thickened.
In the bowl of an electric mixer whip the heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form. Fold in the pineapple gelatin mixture until combined.
Cut up the chilled colored Jello and drop the squares in, carefully folding it so the jello doesn’t break.
Pour the mixture into the prepped crust and chill overnight.
Release the spring form pan, and serve! Cool and refreshing, the perfect pie for a summer holiday!
Blueberry Milk Tea Cake
I love fresh blueberries and luckily the Farmer’s Markets are full of them every weekend. This is a coffee cake that I brought up to date by using milk tea. The tea adds a subtle, wonderful flavor and it’s great to serve with tea too.
Perfect for breakfast or a shower party…or standing up at your kitchen counter with crumbs everywhere. I’m classy like that.
ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole milk
2 Tablespoons tea (I used Royal/T tea)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups freshed blueberries (washed and dried)
crumb topping ingredients:
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
6 Tablespoons butter (diced)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep a 9×13 pan with buttered parchment. Set aside.
Steep the tea – I used Royal/T milk tea because I love the flavor. It is infused with rose and has a nice fragrant flowery taste that really compliments fruit so I thought it’d be great together with the blueberries.
In a small saucepan, warm the milk being careful not to scald it. Take it off the heat and put the loose tea in an infuser and let the tea steep in the hot milk. Set aside. You want this good and overly saturated, the milk will start to darken in color. Let cool.
In a bowl whisk together the flour, cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla.
Alternate between the whisked dry ingredients and the cooled milk tea.
Pour the batter into the prepped pan, spreading evenly. Sprinkle the fresh blueberries over the top.
These will not sink into the cake, I came up with this recipe because I didn’t want the blueberries mixed in. Is that weird? I kind of like them to stand on their own – they are so fresh and flavorful, they almost pop in your mouth when you eat the cake. I feel that sprinkling them on top just adds to their beauty and stand alone flavor. I wanted a clear taste difference – layering the cake, with the blueberries and the topping.
Mix together the crumb topping ingredients and sprinkle over the blueberries.
Bake for approx 50 minutes depending on your oven, and until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake is ready.
Let cool, cut and serve!
There’s nothing like fresh blueberries, they way they pop in your mouth when you bite into them, whether they are fresh or cooked. This cake is a perfect to share on a summer morning!
Lilikoi BBQ Ribs
Lilikoi is Hawaiian Passionfruit. The jelly is fragrant and sweet and makes a perfect base for ribs! These ribs can be cooked a variety of ways, no matter what the taste is divine. A meaty little taste of the islands…
ingredients:
2-3 pounds pork spare ribs
1-1/2 cup lilikoi jelly
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons sake
1 slice of fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
ground pepper
Combine the lilikoi jelly, soy sauce, sake, ginger, garlic and brown sugar. (also, cheap sake is good enough. This one’s $2/bottle!)
I prefer doing this in the crock pot, but I noticed a lot of readers don’t own a crock pot, so here are some other ways of cooking these ribs:
Option 1: Put the ribs and the sauce in a crock pot and cook 6-8 hours on low.
Option 2: Marinate the ribs with the sauce for 5-6 hours, then grill.
Option 3: Marinate the ribs and bake it in the oven.
All options turn out GREAT. For the purposes of this recipe I went with the oven method. Place the ribs in a freezer bag and pour the sauce in. Marinate 5-6 hours.
Line a baking pan with foil and pour in the ribs and marinade. Season with ground pepper. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Let rest and serve!
The fragrant smell of the lilikoi will make you salivate as you wait for the ribs to cook, I promise you!
Spumoni Ice Cream Roll Cake
My brother’s favorite ice cream is Italian Spumoni. Spumoni is an Italian ice cream made up of three flavors of ice cream: Chocolate, Pistachio and Cherry. It’s available during the holidays or at your local Italian deli. I make this dessert during the holidays, but a roll cake filled with ice cream is good anytime of the year!
ingredients:
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cup cake flour, sifted
pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
Spumoni Ice Cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Separate the whites and the yolks. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry and set aside.
In another bowl, beat the egg yolks until light. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla, and mix well.
Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the flour mixture to the egg yolk mixture. Fold in the egg whites into the egg mixture.
Prep a jelly roll pan (or cookie sheet – by lining it with parchment paper, and greasing it with butter. This will make it easy to remove.
Pour the batter right onto the lined pan. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until a golden brown.
While the cake is baking, put a clean towel down and dust it with powdered sugar. You will invert the cake onto this to start the rolling process.
When the cake comes out, turn it onto the towel and peel off the parchment.
Begin with the narrow side and roll the cake and towel up together. Cool cake on rack, seam side down, for 10 to 15 minutes. You’re trying to get the cake to maintain it’s ‘roll’ shape.
Once cake has cooled, gently unroll and spread cake with the softened Spumoni and re-roll. Place back in the freezer until you are ready to slice and serve!
Crock Pot Cinnamon Chicken
This is so simple to do, great for when you just don’t have time and want to come home and just serve dinner. No fuss.
My kids LOVE this. Warm and flavorful it’s a perfect weekday dinner.
ingredients:
8 pieces of chicken
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoons pepper
1 can chicken broth
1 can water
Place the chicken in the crock pot. Add the garlic, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Slowly add the chicken broth and water along the side of the pot, so as not to disturb the spices.
Turn the crock pot on to low for 6-8 hours. Serve!
LxL cupcakes
We hosted a huge League of Extraordinary Ladies event at Meltdown Comics this week – trying to get local geek girls to come together and meet new people, hang out and of course…eat cupcakes! (recap, here)
I knew I wanted to make something special to promote our group so I thought personalized League LxL cupcakes were in order!
When I went to Wilton last week I got to see their newest product called Punch! Cut! Decorate! I liked the concept, it’s like scrapbooking – but with edible decor. They sell pre-printed sugar sheets in stores but I wanted to take it one step further and do my own custom version.
btw, Wilton did NOT give this to me, I was so intrigued when I saw the product that I went down to the craft store and bought it myself (with a coupon, of course. Next stop for me: Extreme Couponing, minus the 100 toothbrushes) and couldn’t wait to try it out.
First I drew the LxL logo and had a local bakery print the edible images onto sugar sheets. Then I used the Wilton Sugar Sheets Punch Set
Awesome! A nice circle punch of sugar! I frosted the cupcakes and laid the sugar sheet punch on top. It’s stiff at first, then quickly melts into the frosting and becomes one with the cupcake. ADORABLE.
Sugar sheets aren’t my favorite taste, it’s almost like a light marshmallow-y flavor – sort of gritty. Definitely cute, not all that tasty. So I try to use it sparingly.
The punch sure is fun to play with. They have all kinds
Rainbow Cupcakes
It’s the last week of school and I thought I’d thank the kid’s hard working teachers by giving them a rainbow, a super cupcake rainbow!
It’s just vanilla cake, and the prep on this takes a little time, but in the end it’s all worth it. Topped with a light + airy mascarpone frosting, the end of the year couldn’t be sweeter.
ingredients:
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2-1/2 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup whole milk
gel food coloring (red, orange, yellow, blue, purple)
mascarpone frosting (recipe, here)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda 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. Alternate the milk and the dry ingredients.
Once the batter has come together, separate it evenly into 5 small bowls.
I like gel food coloring best because you don’t need a lot and it doesn’t change the taste or texture of the cake.
Add the food coloring, one color to each bowl.
By the Tablespoonful add the colors one by one into the liners. I go with the colors of the rainbow and start with purple, then move to blue, yellow, orange…
…and then finally red. Bake for approx 15 minutes depending on your oven.
These petal liners take longer to bake and perhaps because of their shape, it also causes the batter to ‘run up’ and mix together, almost like a tie-dye. I like how it came out.
Let cool on a wire rack and then frost with mascarpone frosting.
These little treats taste just the same as a vanilla cupcake but are fun and pretty.
A nice end of the year surprise!
Blueberry Mochi Cake
Mochiko is one of my favorite ingredients. Savory or sweet, it’s so versatile. This is a take on old skool Hawaiian custard mochi but in cake form filled with beautiful fresh blueberries! A lovely cake with that special mochi ‘chew’.
ingredients:
1 pound mochiko (1 box)
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
2 cups sugar
1 can evaporated milk
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9×13 pan with melted butter. Set aside.
Stir together the sugar and the melted butter. Add the evaporated milk and mix well. Then add the eggs one at a time, along with the vanilla.
Carefully stir in the mochiko, baking powder and salt.
After the batter is mixed, fold in the blueberries. If you are using frozen, move quickly – the batter will start to color or ‘gray’.
Pour the mixture into the prepped pan and bake for 1 hour.
Let the cake cool in the pan and then cut it into squares to serve.
This dessert is a lovely blueberry cake with an added surprise of a mochi chewy consistency. It’s perfect with afternoon coffee and tea!
Wilton Food Blogger Workshop
Wilton is the baking company who makes all those wonderful cake pans, decorating supplies and accessories. Last week I was invited to go to their headquarters in Chicago for the Wilton Food Blogger Workshop and take a tour, learn some decorating tips and even compete in a cake competition!
They have a great facility filled with talented people who work hard making all the props for those treat ideas you see in stores year ’round’.
As with most companies, Christmas product is worked on in the early summer, so the rooms were filled with gingerbread and holiday decor.
The prop room was awesome, I need alllll those plates in my house.
Lots of fondant, frosting and so many beautiful gumpaste flowers. There were also lots of decorated faux cakes – the decorations were real, but underneath was a hard shell. Not so yummy, but very sturdy.
We got a tour of the test kitchen, a Wilton history lesson and even got to see the one and only Colette Peters in action.
During the workshop we learned the basics of cake decorating. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert there’s always room to learn more tips and techinques. I love working with fondant and it was nice to get a lesson from an expert in the basics.
We made lots of fondant roses, which was so much easier than I thought it would be! I loved how fun these were to make.
We also learned about a lot of new product such as Punch! Cut! Decorate! which is a cool, different way to decorate your treats.
My favorite part of the day was the buttercream lesson. For years my mom took cake decorating classes (probably from Wilton) and she always made our birthday cakes. I always marveled at how she worked with the bags and piping tips. It was a big influence on me because I just taught myself from watching her and never had any formal training.
It was exciting to finally learn some new techiniques AND I was thrilled that I learned a proper basketweave!
After that I guess they thought we could handle a little friendly cake competition. It was stressful, let me tell you. To come up with a concept as a team and then decorate it all in under an hour…now I know how those tv competitors feel cause t was a lot of pressure.
They gave us faux cakes covered in buttercream, basically blank canvases. My team of Jennie from In Jennie’s Kitchen and Julie from Mommie Cooks! were a perfect match. We all seemed to have the same aesthetic sensibilities and we all knew we wanted a simple, modern, elegant design.
We talked about doing a cake that incorporated what we learned in the workshop and that was simple enough to do in our limited time. I drew up a quick sketch based off of all of our ideas…
…then we all went to town.
Flowers, buttercream, tinting, piping, pearls. Whew! In the end we finished our cake right when time ran out.
Every team had a unique design – so many techniques and colors. It was awesome to see what everyone came up with in just an hour.
At the end of the day we had an awards dinner, where yes, everyone was a winner!
And we won ‘Best Design!’ Yay, us! That is another mini faux cake, but the frosting is allll real and man did it smell great!
While all that was fun and games, let’s get down to business. Once a year Wilton holds Tent Sale where they have over 3000 items all 75% off. Basically, a baker’s heaven. The only thing holding me back was my small suitcase. How was I ever going to take it all home??
With $5 cake pans and all other supplies hovering around $1, it was tough let me tell you. I got some very cool things that I can’t wait to use! This sale is worth flying to Chicago once a year, believe me!
The trip was amazing and it was so nice to be with people who have the same love of baking and blogging. Big thanks to all the other bloggers and especially to Wilton for all their generosity!
Mac ‘n’ Cheese Waffles
I don’t know what to tell you. I had leftover mac ‘n’ cheese and thought OF COURSE I SHOULD MAKE WAFFLES OUT OF THIS. Now you have an insight into my madness.
They are truly amazing, a flavorful treat that combines the Kid’s two loves: waffles and cheese. And if you make Hello Kitty waffles out of them, well, they taste 100 times better of course.
ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
dash of paprika
1-1/4 cups buttermilk (a dash more if you need it)
2 eggs
1 cup Mac ‘n’ Cheese (recipe, here)
In a bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and paprika. Add the eggs and the buttermilk until you get a nice batter consistency. Add more buttermilk if necessary.
Stir in the Mac ‘n’ Cheese. It will be lumptastic.
Prep your waffle iron according to directions. Using melted butter, generously grease the iron – let’s just say melted cheese is not your best friend when it hardens.
Ladle the lumpy batter into the iron and bake until the waffle is done.
These are best warm and go surprisingly well with maple syrup, but are great all by themselves!
