Posts Under Food Category
Earlier this month, I had a fantastic idea: I wanted to get up really early to watch the Royal Wedding, and have a 5:30am, high tea, Royal Wedding pajama party with my mom and sister. At Easter, my mom was telling my grandmother about the idea… she loved it so much she decided to come.
So, bright and early – actually more like dark and early!- Friday morning (at 5:20 in the morning to be exact) I got up and woke up the rest of my family. Please note I said “got up” and not “woke up” – I’d like to think I went to bed at a decent time, but the reality is I was up until about 2 and then the Royal Wedding coverage was starting… lets just say I got sidetracked for a good couple hours and took a power nap at 4:10.
Ahem.
After the ceremony (note: before the kiss!) we had a Royal Wedding Tea Party with all sorts of tasty breakfast treats… and our own crowns, of course. I hand painted them and glued some sead beads on to make them match the British Flag.
Breakfast was SO good: we had tea biscuits, strawberry jam, and strawberries. My grandmother brought homemade Devonshire Cream and lemon butter as well. And WOW was the cream, jam, and lemon sooo tasty on the tea biscuit together. We also had oranges done up in sugar syrup, and English Breakfast Tea.
We had such a lovely morning watching the wedding together, gushing over Kate Middleton’s dress, and laughing about all the outrageous hair pieces and hats.
I seriously want to do this kind of fancy breakfast more often! Maybe a little later in the morning though – like, oh, maybe an 11 o’clock brunch instead of a 7 o’clock breakfast?
Although I’m impressed – for 7 a.m. in a family that likes our sleep, we all look fairly awake!
Oh yeah, and of course – Kodee and Becky got in on the fun too.
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No, I’m not thinking about Twitter right now – I’m thinking about spring, baby birds, pretty blue Robin eggs… and most importantly, cupcakes. Lots, and lots of cupcakes.
36 to be exact.
Yeah, there’s two types of cupcakes there – chocolate and vanilla. My sister and I couldn’t agree on the flavour (she likes vanilla better than chocolate, sometimes I wonder if it’s possible we’re not actually related); so we made both. That’s 19 chocolate and 19 vanilla cupcakes (does anyone ever get 24 out of a box mix like the back claims?). Except my sister and dad “taste tested” so only 36 got decorated. 
There’s no special recipe for these cupcakes (we may or may not have cheated by using a box mix); but they were so cute I just had to share. Don’t worry, I taste tested the batter by making sure the bowl was good and ready for the dishwasher.
Both are iced with vanilla buttercream icing: the ones with the eggs-in-a-nest are a chocolate buttercream “nest” with jelly beans (those big speckled ones that are everywhere at Easter) for the eggs; and the ones with the birds are coated with toasted coconut for the nest. The birds are upside-down mini eggs. I used black icing dye and a toothpick for the eyes, and piped the beaks on using a small round tip.
Aren’t they cute?
They tasted pretty good too. The toasted coconut mixed with the buttercream icing was ah-MAZE-ing! Even the boy loved them, and he HATES coconut. He ate more than one of the vanilla coconut one. My sister and mom liked the vanilla coconut ones best too. I was (of course) partial to the chocolate ones.
We made quite the disaster in the kitchen. I’m a messy baker, what can I say?
That wasn’t even half of it… I’d already picked up a bit! Plus, you can’t see the crazy mess on the counter. Like when the icing poofed everywhere while my sister was making it.
We were chatting away, and Kait covers and turns on the electric mixer (we cover the mixer with a dish towel to try and contain some of the dry ingredients)
Kait: I’m so awesome, look it’s not even making a mess with the icing sugar!
Me: Are you sure it’s turned on? The mixer sounds really quiet.
Kait: Yeah, it’s on!
She checks the settings. A moment passes.
Kait: The bowl isn’t really turning…
She peaks under the towel, there’s a long pause, followed by hysterical laughter. She whips the towel off the top of the mixer.
Kait: I FORGOT TO PUT THE BEATERS IN!
HA! Hilarious. So she gets them from the sink, snaps them in, and starts the mixer.
Icing sugar poofs EVERYWHERE (including all over the floor, sorry mom!)
Kait: There, that’s better.
Yup, I might be the only blonde in the family in terms of hair colour; but it’s nice to know I’m not the only one with a blonde brain!
Although, in fairness, I introduced my sister to “Lauren’s four steps to making cupcakes the RIGHT way”.
That might have had something to do with the blonde moment:
And per usual (I’m camera happy, what can I say?) I took a bunch more photos (displayed below), so be sure to check them out! :)
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If you know me, than you know I’m not really a football fan. I watch the Super Bowl, but that’s about as far as it goes (and lets face it, I like the commercials and halftime show better than the actual game most years. Sidenote: this year was not one of them, thankyouverymuch Fergie).
Anyways, this year’s challenge for me leading up to the Super Bowl was finding the perfect “mancake” (read as: manly cupcake) to take to my friend’s Super Bowl party.
Mission Successful.
May I present you with… Maple Bacon Super Bowl Cupcakes.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Maple bacon cupcakes (yes, with REAL bacon in them!) filled with a maple icing (which tastes like the maple glaze on maple doughnuts!) and topped with a Vanilla Buttercream decorator icing and chocolate football.
I modified a recipe I found on Vanilla Garlic to make these.
Cupcake Recipe
Makes approximately 16 cupcakes || 350° for 16-18 minutes
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp room temperature butter or margarine
Mmmmm maple bacon cupcakes
- 12 strips of bacon
- 1 tbsp bacon grease (save the grease when you cook the bacon for this recipe!)
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup of bacon (cooked, drained, and crumbled)
Cook the bacon, save the grease and put in the fridge to harden, then mince the bacon (or get the boy to do all this while you deal with the main batter for the cupcakes, which is what I did ;) Beat the butter and cooled bacon grease until it’s light and creamy. Add the brown sugar and maple syrup and mix it well. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then slowly add to the batter while mixing it. Add the milk. Mix the batter until the ingredients are just combined. Fold in the chopped bacon bits.
Maple Icing/Filling Recipe
**I used this as filling – it’s very liquidy at first, but hardens well if you decide to use it for icing. If I wasn’t decorating these for the Super Bowl, I’d use this as icing and top the cupcake with a curled strip of bacon.
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3-4 tsp milk (to taste)
- Pinch of salt (to make it a little less sweet)
Toss everything in a bowl, and blend.
Ta da!
As I mentioned above – I used a vanilla buttercream (with decorator consistency) for the icing, since I was, well, decorating them! I always use the Wilton Buttercream recipe (with an extra tbsp of water) with clear Vanilla Extract. Something I’d like to try is making this icing with maple extract instead of vanilla, and see if that will work as a maple flavored decorator icing (and as flavored as the above recipe); but I didn’t have any maple extract on hand when baking.
You can check out the rest of my photos on Flickr:
I hate the cold. It’s a well-known fact. I also claim to hate snow (even though the first snowfall makes me giddy, and I love to ski… I guess what I’m trying to say is, “I hate scraping snow off my car” ;). However, as the weather cools and the leaves fall – I get to bust out my winter-y clothes (and I love my touques and sweaters and scarves!) and sip some cocoa. Now, usually I get lazy and just drink the Tim Horton’s powered mix… but sometimes, when I’m ambitious, I’ll make REAL hot chocolate. I’m talking delicious, real chocolate, cream, and marshmallows. Sometimes even sprinkles and candy canes. But this time, I am talking about the most super fantastic, marshmallow-riffic, gourmet hot chocolate ever. AKA a few really tasty sounding recipes and ideas combined into a “Lauren concoction”. And, since I’m feeling giving (tee hee!) and also since I haven’t posted a recipe in, well, forever – I thought I’d share.
Mmmmm... <3
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I had a craving for a chocolate cake at 10:30. Like, at night. And not many places (if any!) are open this late on a Sunday that will sell me a slice. And living by myself, I am not about to bake (and therefore eat) 24 cupcackes or an entire cake (or buy one!). If I did this every time I wanted cake or something, I’d weigh like 300 pounds by now! ;)
So, these super cute ramekin dishes I bought at Michaels for 30 cents each (it was a post-Valentines day sale) came in QUITE handy.
The best part is it’s a small reciepe, AND doesn’t use anything I don’t keep in the house (ie, chocolate chips or baking chocolate – uh, if I kept it here I’d eat it all before baking with it!)
So, that being said, may I present you with…
Cake For The Chocolate Craving, Single Girl
**note: I forget where I found this recipe – I’ve had it for awhile, and it was from some website/blog, so if anyone knows where it’s from please let me know and I’ll give credit where credit is due!
Ingredients
- Flour: 1/4 a cup, then 2 more tbsp
- 3 tbsp buttermilk.
If you’re like me, and don’t have buttermilk just kicking around – put 1 tbsp lemon juice into a measuring cup, then fill with milk until the 1 cup line. Let curdle for 5-10 minutes… ta da! Buttermilk replacement.
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter (melted) – I use margarine, though (mildly healthier!), and it works fine :)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda (1/8 = half of 1/4, if you don’t have a 1/8 measuring spoon)
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup sugar
Directions
- Grease (or Pam!) the cooking dishes.
- Mix buttermilk, egg, and vanilla.
- Add butter tbsp by tbsp, mixing in between
- Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda, and sugar
- Pour wet over dry, and mix
- Bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean)
Volia! Delicious cake, and in individual(-ish, I only ate half of one dish in one sitting) servings.
