Blue Milk
Made for the Ultimate Star Wars party (here)
Any TRUE Star Wars fan knows, blue milk is where it’s at. It helps kids grow into strong Jedi.
ingredients:
16 ounces of milk
blue food coloring gel
No recipe needed, but watching this turn blue is half the fun. Just a quick touch of ELECTRIC BLUE food coloring and you have instant Bantha milk.
The kids LOVED it and asked for seconds. Huh. Who knew a little food coloring would get you your daily dairy requirements so easily.
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!
Brown Sugar Buttermilk muffins
So light. So buttery. So full of brown sugar-y goodness. Eat these WARM. You’ll thank me for this later.
ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
crumb:
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoon cold butter
Preheat the oven to 375 degres. Prep a muffin tin with liners.
In a small bowl make the crumb by taking the flour, brown sugar and cold butter and just cutting it up with a fork until it’s crumbly. Set aside.
In a medium bowl whisk the flour, brown sugar,white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the butter, eggs and buttermilk, and stir together until JUST combined.
Spoon into the prepared pan.
Add the crumb topping on top of each muffin – be generous!!! Make a mess, go ahead.
Bake for 14 minutes, let cool on a wire rack for just a bit. Again, if you can’t eat them straight out of the oven, heat them up for a few second in the microwave. You won’t regret it.
The crumb on this is so fine that any addition of fruit or nuts would just be heavy. Besides, why mess with buttery, sugary perfection?
Cream Cheese filled Pancakes
While *I’m* not a fan of cream cheese – my cheese lovin’ son IS. And since breakfast is also his fave meal of the day, I made up some pancakes filled with sweetened cream cheese. The touch of lemon zest adds just a little kick of freshness. The perfect send off for the first week of school.
ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
2 Tablespoons cream cheese
1 Tablespoon softened butter
1-1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cream cheese
2 Tablespoon powdered sugar
1 Tablespoons lemon zest
In a small bowl stir together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon zest. Set aside.
In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the egg, butter, milk and vanilla until just combined.
Set your pan to medium high and add touch of butter. Watch the heat, you know how *I* am about my pancakes!
Ladle out the pancake batter. Add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into the center of the pancake…
then top with more batter.
Once the bubbles start to pop, carefully flip the pancakes and cook the other side.
You can top these with syrup or strawberries, and you’ll be please to find a creamy center to brighten your morning!
Bacon+Buttermilk Waffles
Having made a TON of cupcakes recently – I found myself with a lot of leftover buttermilk. The bacon? I have no excuse. I never have leftover bacon. Who doesn’t love bacon?
Does the Mickey Mouse waffle iron make them taste better? I’d say…YES.
ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
Chop your bacon into small pieces – I like to do this raw so that I don’t have to crumble it afterwards. Then in a skillet, cook the bacon until nice and crispy. Drain and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and baking powder. Add the buttermilk and the eggs until just combined.
Make sure the bacon is nice and drained, you don’t want oily residue in your beautiful batter. Stir in the crumbled bacon.
Prep your waffle iron by brushing it with butter. Then cook until nice and golden brown.
You’ll find the buttermilk gives the waffle a nice fluffy texture and the bacon is IRRESISTIBLE with maple syrup. YUM.
Of course these are a breakfast specialty but the kids always ask for them for dinner!
Green Tea Pancakes
I make A LOT of pancakes. I’m always looking for a way to change it up and surprise the kids – so one morning I added some matcha powder (powdered green tea) to the batter. The kids LOVED it! Topped with a nice strawberry compote, you have a unique, colorful, delicious breakfast.
ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons matcha (powdered green tea)
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk
1 Tablespoon melted butter
Strawberry compote (recipe, here)
Matcha can be found in the tea section of Japanese markets. Careful – that powder is potent and will get EVERYWHERE if you are not careful.
In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and matcha.
Add the eggs, milk and butter until just combined.
Heat your skillet with a little butter and start making PERFECT pancakes.
Top with some Strawberry Compote and serve!
Strawberry Compote
I make this as a quick topping for pancakes, but it works for cakes too!
ingredients:
1 cup strawberries
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
In a small bowl mash the strawberries a bit so they are in small chunky pieces. Pour it all into a saucepan, adding the sugar, and the lemon zest.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer for two minutes until the strawberries break down a little more.
Let cool and serve.
Chickie Eggs
I saw these in The Manga Cookbook
The thing that caught my eye about these were how cute and SIMPLE they were, using very few ingredients – and you can make a momma and a hatchling! I think these eggs would be so cute for Easter!
ingredients:
eggs
black goma (sesame seeds)
1 carrot
If you are afraid of boiling eggs, don’t be. You don’t need a special boiler or one of those floaty things that tells you when it’s done – just do it the old fashioned way, plain and simple.
Carefully place your eggs in a pan. (I usually do 6 in a saucepan, if I do more I use a large pot.) Gently cover the eggs with about 1-2 inches of water.
Bring the pot to a boil – obviously watch it, don’t go far it will be boiling before you know it. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat OFF. Cover with a lid, and let it sit there for 12 minutes.
Prep a bowl filled halfway with ice water, set aside. When the 12mins are up, drain the eggs and place them in the ice water to cool. Keep them in the fridge til you are ready to use them.
Once the eggs are cooled crack and shell them. If there are little pieces of shell stuck I like to run the egg under water and then dab it with a paper towel.
Now to prep the other ingredients let me first tell you, quite obviously you won’t need a whole carrot. Just an itty bitty tiny piece. Cut a slice of carrot, cutting out a small wedge shapes. Set aside.
As far as Black Goma is concerned finding black sesame seeds can be hard, but usually an asian market would be your best bet. You can find them online too
For the momma chicks:
Take a toothpick and poke two holes for eyes. Place the black sesame seeds in.
Poke a hole with a toothpick and insert the carrot for the beak.
For the baby chicks:
This time slice the egg in half – carefully so you don’t tear the yolk – then do the same for the eyes and beak.
So simple, it’s hard to not want to make an army of baby chickie eggs!
Lemonade Drop Scones
I needed to use up some lemonade and some lemons, can you tell I love lemon?? So I threw this together on the fly. The fragrant aroma when these are baking makes me salivate. They are just perfect right out of the oven.
Why are these called drop scones? Because when I mixed up this dough it was a little tackier than I thought so instead of cutting it, as you would a normal scone, I ‘dropped’ them like cookies. The round-ish shape was rather nice.
ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
½ cup lemonade
Zest of one lemon
Pinch of salt
Crystallized sugar
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prep a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, and baking powder. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter. Get it all together so it’s nice and crumbly.
Add the egg, milk and lemonade until combined, then mix in the zest.
As I said, this batter is a little on the wet side, which is why you are going to scoop them rather than cut them.
Using two large spoons, scoop out and drop the batter onto the prepped cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes until nice and brown.
They are PERFECT warm, try and eat them right away! Great with some butter and whipped cream!
Ovaltine Pancakes
Sometimes you just need to change your average pancakes up and give ‘em a little extra something. In this case that extra something is tasty delicious Ovaltine.
ingredients:
1-1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup Ovaltine
1 egg
1-1/2 cups milk
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and Ovaltine. I add A LOT, 1/2 cup, but if you don’t want the flavor that strong, a 1/4 will be fine. Chocolate or malt, choose your poison. I like to go old skool, malt all the way, baby.
Stir in the egg, milk, melted butter and vanilla. Just until combined, don’t overdo it!
Make pancakes as you normally would (if you want to see a good vs. bad pancake, go here.)
Serve these with Brown Sugar Bacon twists and your kids will jump for joy.
