Power Rangers cupcakes
The Baby turned 6! ~sniff~ How did that happen?? Unfortunately fortunately my kids know that any birthday treats they ask for, I will make. From Elmo, Godzilla, Batman – I’ve done ‘em all. And this year the Baby wanted Power Rangers. Huh. Now how was I going to pull that one off?
ingredients:
White Candy Melts
Dark Green Candy Melts
Blue Candy Melts
Red Candy Melts
6-Inch Cookie Sticks
cupcakes
frosting
I decided to go the edible route and do choco-lollipops, like I did with the Phoenix-Jean Grey cupcakes. Candy melts are by no means high-quality but they get the job done and have great bright colors.
For the Rangers themselves I ordered a Power Rangers mold online and listen up – here was my downfall: I only ordered one. Which meant to make 18 lollipops took a looooong time. I should have ordered at least two to make my life less hectic.
Since I wanted my pops to have more definition I used two different colors of candy. First I melted down the White Candy Melts
I then filled in the Ranger’s “mask” and also some triangular details on the suit. I popped the mold in the freezer to set for about 5 minutes.
I melted the green, blue and red (Ranger colors) candy melts in a double boiler and spooned it on top of the hardened white chocolate.
A little tapping goes a long way. Small repeated taps of the mold get the air bubbles out.
A quick set in the freezer and the pops come right out! So fun!
The Baby specifically asked for chocolate ganache cupcakes – now there’s a baby foodie if I ever heard one. And I also made red velvet cupcakes for the parents. Right before serving I stuck a Power Ranger lollipop in each of the kids cupcakes. It was fun to see everyone’s faces when the cupcakes were brought out!
While this seems time consuming it’s actually faster than fondant work and a fun way to present cupcakes to kids at a party. Try molding chocolate – you’ll get addicted like I am…
Punisher pie-cakes
My friend Janna loves the Marvel comics character Punisher. Punisher isn’t your typical tights and cape kinda guy, no – Frank Castle punishes people and exacts revenge while wearing a black tee emblazoned with the symbol of death’s head with a gun cartridge forming the teeth. Uh. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Ok, it is, but anyway – the familiar skull icon that he wears on his shirt is known as the Punisher symbol.
As much as Janna loves Punisher, she loves pie even more. So it makes perfect sense to make the symbol out of…pie crust! I would have just made pies but it was the day after Thanksgiving and we were all pie’d out. So I made a filled cupcake and used the pie crusts as cupcake toppers.
ingredients:
chocolate cupcakes
fresh strawberry jam
mascarpone frosting (recipe here)
pie dough (recipe here)
egg wash (1 egg + 1 Tablespoon cream)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prep a baking sheet with a silpat.
I started with a picture of the Punisher symbol, printed on cardstock about 2-1/2 inches tall.
Cut the symbol out to form a template. Roll out the pie dough to approx 1/4″ thick.
Use a knife and cut out the shape of the skull. Then using a clean x-acto I went in and cut out the details of the eyes and nose.
The lines for the mouth are made by pressing a knife into the pie dough to get an impression, don’t cut all the way through.
Mix up the egg wash and brush it on the pie dough cutouts. Sprinkle the tops with a little bit of sugar.
Bake for 8 minutes or until just slightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack.
Pie dough is great for forming shapes because it doesn’t stretch much and you can still keep a lot of detail work.
Once the pie crusts have cooled, assemble the cupcakes. Cut out a hole from the cooled cupcakes and fill with strawberry jam.
Top with mascarpone frosting and a Punisher pie-crust symbol, and you have the meanest yet sweetest pie-cake ever!
winner of the $100 gift card….
You guys eat some GREAT FOOD. I especially like all the mochi shoutouts!
Now for the winner:
Emily
Submitted on 2011/11/23 at 11:27 am
I love making… and eating… Pecan Pie!
Thanks for reading and entering, everyone! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and thanks to Vons for the giveaway!
Happy Thanksgiving and a $100 Vons/Safeway giveaway!
Tis’ the season…for eating! I love Thanksgiving – turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, pie – I want it all.
I love Vons (aka Safeway in Hawaii!) and Vons.com has a lot of great Thanksgiving recipes and ideas to make your meals easier, tasty and fun to prepare. There are even some alternatives to turkey in case someone in your family has an aversion to poultry. *ahem*
Sure Vons has some great holiday ideas but of course the one that caught my eye was a dessert, Pumpkin Ice Cream Sundaes with homemade brittle. Yikes. I’d eat that year ’round.
Putting on a several course meal can be stressful and pricey. Lucky for you Vons has offered to help out this holiday season with a free $100 gift card for a lucky reader! Who couldn’t use a little extra help planning and buying groceries for holidays?
To enter just leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite dish to make/eat during the holidays. You have until Black Friday, November the 25th – the biggest shopping day of the year. If you win, you’ll already be ahead! Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: I received a gift card as a thank you from Safeway for participating. Opinions expressed are my own and are not influenced by any form of compensation.
Thanksgiving in a crock pot
Turkey for one, anyone? Actually, you can probably get a few meals out of this, one turkey breast is quite huge. But if you don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen tending to a giant bird – throw this in the crock pot, and in few hours you have your thanksgiving meal!
ingredients:
1 apple, sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 turkey breast
1/2 cup craisins
1 (8 oz) can apple juice
3 teaspoons thyme
3 teaspoons rosemary
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
In the crock pot place the sliced apples, onion and carrot in the bottom. Place the turkey breast on top and rub in the spices: thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Add the craisins on top.
Pour the apple juice into the pot, turn it on to low for 6-8 hours and serve!
Charlie Brown Thanksgiving cupcakes
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Everyone remembers Charlie Brown’s fateful menu made by Snoopy – of buttered toast, pretzels, popcorn and jellybeans. What kid didn’t want that for Thanksgiving?!
I decided to recreate this famous holiday meal in cupcake form. Makes perfect sense…right?
First I printed out a cute Pilgrim Snoopy and glued it to a popsicle stick. This would serve as the backdrop for the treats.
ingredients:
pumpkin cupcakes (recipe here)
whipped cream cheese frosting (recipe here)
mini toasts
mini pretzels
popcorn
jelly beans ( I used jelly bellies because they are smaller)
Then I assembled all the pieces of the ‘holiday meal.’
This makes an adorable addition to pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. A sweet and tasty homage to my childhood memories.
Banana Nutella Bundt
Today is National Bundt Day, aka the day of rest for The Food Librarian who has been posting a bundt a day for 30 days leading up to this point. I helped her with one of them and inspired, I decided to participate by baking one today! That and you get a special limited edition “I Like Big Bundts” 2011 baker pin! Er, I designed it. But still! Free pin!
So I made a Banana Nutella Bundt. The main ingredient in this cake is irony since I can’t stand bananas (but they’ve been rotting on the counter since the kids didn’t eat them) and turns out, the Kid is now allergic to Hazelnuts. Insert sadtrombone here.
Still this bundt came out good and there is something lovely about a traditional no nonsense bundt pan. Lots of childhood memories of bundt cake. Happy National Bundt Day!
ingredients:
2-1/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter, melted
4 mashed bananas
3 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup nutella
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prep a bundt pan by greasing it with melted butter.
In a large bowl whisk the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add the butter, mashed bananas, eggs and vanilla. Pour into the prepped bundt pan.
Right on top, add the Nutella in the center of the batter.
Using a butter knife pull and swirl the nutella into the bundt.
Bake for 45-50 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool for 30 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
When you cut in you will get a nice swirl, except for this part that I cut into and the swirl was not so swirly. But you get the idea! It was still deelish – nothing like a hint of Nutella to make sweets even sweeter!
WWVE – Cocoa Tacos
~From the series of my kids lunches including ‘What Would Yoda Eat‘
I’m sure Vader is a huge taco fan – who isn’t? Since I make Mexican food every week, it’s inevitable that it would end up in the lunch box. I like to deconstruct the tacos so that the kids can build it to their liking, or just eat it piecemeal. As long as it gets eaten it’s fine with me.
Cocoa Beef Tacos recipe, here.
*All lunches are kept frozen or cold w/ice packs because of my complete and total paranoia.
**Vader’s other lunches, here.
Sweet Chili Sauce Pork Chops
Lately I can’t live without a little heat. Sweet Chili Sauce provides a nice balance between the sweet AND the heat and it goes great in a pork chop marinade!
ingredients:
4 boneless pork chops (1/2 inch thick)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons sweet chili sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of half a lime
pepper
In a small bowl whisk together the soy sauce, sugar, chili sauce, garlic, lime juice and a dash of freshly ground pepper.
In a baking dish pour the sauce over the chops and marinate for 1 hour.
Heat a pan over medium-high heat and cook the chops on both sides until they are no longer pink in the middle.
Marinating pork makes for a flavorful and quick weekday dinner!
Peanut Butter + Jelly cookies
Ahh, the king of comfort foods, wrapped up in a sweet cookie.
ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3-1/2 cups all purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
peanut butter
jelly
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep baking sheets with silpats.
In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and peanut butter until combined. Add the sugars – then the eggs and vanilla.
In a bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda – add that to the mixture until fully combined. It will almost start to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Take a Tablespoonful of dough and flatten it out in your hand. Add a small spoonful of jelly.
Ok, ok – I used jam – not the same as jelly but fresh off the local strawberry tour, so I couldn’t resist. Also Peanut Butter + Jam doesn’t have the same ring to it. Pinch the edges together, fully closing up around the jelly.
Place on the prepped pan and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on the pan – if you move them when they are warm, they may break. Once they’ve set, let them cool on a wire rack.
A sandwich in a cookie. I suppose you could eat these for lunch. Tho I wouldn’t advise it…
