November's Cupcake Club Colaboration

For the past few months, whenever I would find myself in Indigo, I'd spend most of my time flipping through cupcake books, particularly the Martha Stewart Cupcake book (That or WWZ but since this is about cooking and not being a nerd...). A few weeks after the book staring started, I found a friend of mine who had also been eyeing the same book. And when we found out a mutual friend had the Martha Stewart book and would lend it to us, we started a cupcake club! It started something like this;

"OMG I LOVE CUPCAKES!!"
"ME TOO!!"
"OMG THIS ONE IS SOOOO CUUUUTTTEEEE!!!! EEEESJKHFSLHFS"
...and then our excitement went somewhere above the decibles audible to humans. We agreed to meet once a month to bake themed cupcakes and improve our baking/decorating skills. For our first meeting, we found a marble cupcake recipe with instructions to pipe pansies and sweet peas (a mother's day inspiration according to Martha).

What you need:

1 3/4c. cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 c. milk
1/3 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. unsalted butter
1 c. granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1/4 c. boiling water

Putting it together:


Start like most recipes; preheat the oven to 350F, line cupcake tins with liners. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl and milk and cream in another. In yet a third bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Creaming the butter and sugar takes a few minutes and results in a light an fluffy batter that will help leven the cupcakes. Then add in the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla. Lastly, add the flour mix and milk mix to the butter alternating between the two.

Now that the vanilla batter is done, it's on to the chocolate batter! Measure out 1 c. of the vanilla batter into a new bowl. In another bowl (the 5th used! Yikes!), mix the boiling water and cocoa which helps bring out the chocolate flavour, then mix the reserved batter and cocoa mix together.

In the cupcake tin, alternate 1 tbsp vanilla batter and 1 tbsp chocolate batter, ending with a last dollop of vanilla batter. Try not to pass the 3/4 mark of fullness in the cupcake liner. Swirl the betters with a knife or skewer to create the marbles effect. Cook for 20min and allow to cool on a rack.

Icing tiiiiiime!!! For this recipe I tried a new icing; Swiss meringue buttercream. It has all the buttery flavour of a buttercream but with the addition of meringue which stabilizes the icing making it softer to eat but more supple to pipe with. Whisk 1 1/4 c. granulated sugar into 5 egg whites over a bain marie (a bowl over gently simmering water). Whisk over heat until the egg whites are warm and the sugar has completely disolved. Remove from heat and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled. Slowly beat in 1lb butter by the tablespoon and 1 tsp vanilla until the icing is smooth.

Then just ice the cupcakes and decorate at will! We found the panies to be deceptively hard to pipe but the sweet peas are fairly easy and beautiful. I also used some dried coconut shavings to make a third, easier flower that is equally pretty.

Additional Notes:

This makes about 16 cupcakes. It had a really soft crumb but was maybe a bit dry for my taste. But they rose nicely and were great canvases for some decorating practice.


And for your viewing pleasure, here's pictures of the icing process, followed by some of our finished products. First a tray by my friend filled with pretty flowers. Then a punnet square of sweet peas (yes, that was a heredity/Bio30 reference), and some coconut flowers.

Jaime Oliver Pasta

I found this recipe on one of my marathon Food Network viewings. It struck me because it seemed pretty healthy and also used a ton of garlic. And I do love a garlic-y dinner. This dinner does take a while to put together but it's relatively cheap and can feed a crowd.

What you need:

Filling:
1 head broccoli
1 head cauliflower
6-12 cloves garlic
1 tsp dry chili flakes
2 tbsp concentrated chicken broth
3 dashes worchestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

The rest:
1 pkg oven-ready cannelloni
750 ml (one jug) tomato juice
1 pkg creme fraiche
1/3c. grated parmesan
salt and pepper
extra grated parmesan and mozarella

Putting it together:

The first thing to do is to cut up the broccoli and cauliflower into florets and boil them. Any stalks or leaves left in are fine. Boil them for a good 20min. They should be mushy and falling apart.


In a pan, fry up the garlic and chili flakes with a bit of salt and pepper in olive oil for about 30sec or until they're fragrent. Spoon the soft broccoli and cauliflower in with a few ladels of water, and add the chicken broth concentrate, and worchestershire. Let the mix simmer until it's a good consistency for filling. The filling can always be mashed if it's too chunky. And salt and pepper to taste. Then let the mix cool until it can be handled.

In a separate bowl, mix the creme fraiche with the parmesan and salt and pepper. If it seems too thick, add a dash of milk. It should be about the consistency of...melted ice cream? lava? Something liquidy enough to be poured but still with some thickness...you get the idea.

Now for assembly time! pour a bit of tomato juice into the bottom of the casserole dish you use. Stuff the cannelloni with the cooled stuffing. Then top off the casserole dish with the rest of the tomato juice. The cannelloni should be covered. Then pour the creme fraiche on top and top it all with the grated cheese.

Cook the casserole at 350F for 30-45min or until the cheese is slightly browned on top.


Additional Notes:

Really not too much to add to this one. If you like spicy food you can always add more chili flakes to the filling. It's just really tasty. The cream mixes down into the tomato juice so you get these tasty layers of just juice, then a mix, then the cream...and with the spicy veggie filling it cuts the richness of the cream.

Oh and in the original recipe, it calls for 2 anchovies to be added when you fry up the garlic and chili flakes. Apparently you don't even taste anything fishy, it just adds some salty-ness... I just wasn't sold on fish in my dish so it got left out.

Sweet Coconut Cupcake

It's time for something sweet! I love baking and these were super sweet and adorable cupcakes. The cupcakes came about for two reasons;

1. I promised my lab I would bring in sweets
2. I found a coconut sale at the grocery store

As it turns out, opening coconuts is difficult and messy. Luckily there are many many video tutorials on the web for situations like this. I recomend draining the coconut water by poking out the eye holes and draining, then put the coconut in a towel and whack it like there's a prize inside (spoiler: there is!)! I didn't use my coconut water mostly because it needs to be filtered and I own nothing capable of filtering it well because I don't drink coffee. But I did make my own coconut milk! It's done by boiling equal parts shredded coconut meat and milk until it froths for 5min, then strain and cool. I don't think opened coconut product has a good shelf life so I'd use everything within 2-3 days max.

So carrying on, lets get to the good stuff! I used a recipe from Vanilla Garlic which by the way has some great stuff.

Ingredients

3/4 c. of unsalted butter

1 1/4 c. sugar

3 eggs

1 c. coconut milk

1 tspof vanilla extract

2 1/4 c. flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 c. dried coconut

6 oz chocolate

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. In an interesting side note, I read that preheating to 375F and then lowering to 350F when you put the cupcakes in produces more moist (moister?) cupcakes but I haven't tried yet...we'll get back to you on that one.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. It will take a few minutes so don't rush it. Add the eggs in one at a time beating very well between each addition.

In a separate bowl, mix up the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) and in yet another bowl mix the coconut milk and vanilla. Alternate adding dry and wet ingredients to the butter mix starting and ending with wet if you please. Try not to overbeat or the gluten will start to develop and it will be breadier and not as short. Fold in the dessicated coconut. Here I split the batter in half and added melted chocolate to half the batter because, I mean, choices are really the spice of life!

Scoop the batter in to the liners to just over 3/4 full and bake them for 18-22min. Don't bother waiting for the vanilla guys to turn golden brown. Those suckers are pale and delicious!

Decorating

I completely ignored the frosting on Vanilla Garlic because....7 whole minutes? With egg whites? Pass. Instead I did a buttercream which is delicious with just about everything. It's mainly just room temperature unsalted butter mixed with powdered sugar. For all the cupcakes 1/2c. butter should be enough. Add sugar until it suits your taste. Then I add a bit of vanilla (~1tsp) and a bit more coconut milk (~1tbsp) to thin it out. Make sure the milk is room temperature though or you could separate your frosting. Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost away! Although when frosting, remember that this is the only time that less is not more. For extra specialness I dipped the frosted coconut into dessicated coconut.

I'd had this idea of piped chocolate toppers for a while so I tried my hand at chocolatiering and while it looked good, didn't even come close to proper tempering. You really need a good thermometer and lots of patience and high air conditioning. So they were pretty but totally out of temper. But for your info, I melted a few ounces of chocolate (first white then semi sweet) in the microwave. A site claimed this would keep the chocolate in temper which...it did not. Anyway, once it's melted, pour the chocolate into small folded piping bags made of parchment paper and pipe onto more parchement paper into whatever design you feel like. I attached the cooled chocolate with extra buttercream.

Extras

I think the cupcakes were coconuty but they could have been coconuty-er. Next time I'd add 1 tsp coconut extract to beef up the flavour. They turned out really light and tender which was delicious and since the batter makes about 20 cupcakes, plan on sharing or long term cupcake consumption.

And a quick decal explanation; the first is a kitty face because I thought it would be cute (totally was!). The second is some doodles and hearts when I ran out of good designs and started just messing around. The third is my nerd toppers for work. We work with HeLa cells and when you stain them they kind of look like that under the microscope. And lastly, doesn't the coconut just look all fluffly like freshly fallen snow? Answer: Yes, very much.

Stir Fry

A stir fry is one of my favourite things to make when there are people coming over for supper. It's extremely cheap and you almost always end up with leftovers. This version should feed 4 people on an average night, or 3 extremely hungry people. The ingredients for a stir fry are extremely malleable based on your own taste preferences, this is just my personal favourite set.

What You'll Need

For the sauce:

- 3/4 cup water

- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar

- 3 tbls. soya sauce

- 2 tbls. corn starch

- 1 tbls. honey

- 2-4 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped finely or run through a press

- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

The rest:

- 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped how you like

- 2 good sized medallion steaks cut into small strips

- 1/2 head of cauliflower cut into bite sized pieces

- 1 head of broccoli also in bite sized florets

- 200g of sugar snap peas, with tips cut off (my preference)

- 1 can of bamboo chutes

- 1 cup of rice cooked in 1 and 1/2 cup of lightly salted water (you can use chicken broth or coconut milk instead of water if you prefer to flavour your rice)

Putting It Together

The sauce first!

Combine the dry ingredients together first, adding the brown sugar to the corn starch and stirring until mixed evenly. Add the water, soya sauce, honey, red pepper flakes and freshly chopped garlic and put it to boil stirring constantly. Let the sauce reduce until it is a little bit thicker than you want it to be after adding it to the rest of the dish, as it will thin out a bit from the moisture in the meat and vegetables. Once this is done, set it aside for later.

Time to get everything going!

The rice is the first thing that needs to go on to the burner, however at the same time it's best to get some water boiling in a larger pot in preparation to steam the vegetables. The lid must be left on the rice at all time while it's cooking. Once the water in the pot begins to boil, remove the pot from the burner and shut it off so the rice doesn't overcook, leave the lid on to let the boiling water steam the rice and cook it through over the next 10 minutes or so. As you take the pot of rice off the burner, put the vegetables in a strainer or steam tray on top of the pot of water that should now be at a rolling boil. As soon as the veggies are on, put a pan with a dash of olive oil on the oven at medium-high heat. 4 minutes into steaming the vegetables, add the strips of beef to the hot pan, stirring quickly to make sure all sides get browned. 3 minutes should be enough to cook all the meat, and the vegetables are now steamed after a combined 7 minutes, so take them off the burner. If there's a lot of fluid in the pan with the meat, drain it or your sauce will be very thin. After this is done, add in the vegetables to the pan with the meat, and pour the sauce over the combined ingredients stirring as you go. Make sure everything is covered in sauce to your liking before turning off the burner. When it's ready to go, it should look like the picture to the right.

Time to serve up!

Get some rice on the plate, poor your favourite drink and layer the food on the plate. Eat to your hearts content because it's actually a pretty healthy meal.

Home Style Pizza

I will admit that pizza doesn't really qualify as quick, but it's pretty easy and relatively cheap depending on the toppings you pick. It's a favourite for us and we try to have it once a week (Pizza Fridays!). The measurements I give are more like approximations of what I usually add because for the most part I eyeball...well, all of the measurements.

What you need

1 1/2 c. warm water

1/4 c. granulated sugar

1 tsp yeast

1 tbsp salt

4 tbsp olive oil

Several cups of white flour

What to do

The first thing to do is dissolve the sugar in the warm water. Then add the yeast, cover and set it aside for about 10 minutes. The yeast will get all foamy on top. It it doesn't it means the yeast is dead and you have to restart or the pizza dough won't rise. It could be because your yeast expired or because the water is too hot (boiling water is waaay too hot!), but either way if it's not foamy it's no good.

Into the foamy yeasty mix, add the salt and oil. I use olive oil but whatever vegetable oil you have will work. Now start to add and mix in the flour. And keep adding and mixing. Keep adding until it's impossible to add any more...then add more. It should be doughy by now. Turn the dough out onto the counter and knead for about 10 minutes. To knead, fold the dough in half and turn 90 degrees, then repeat. The finished dough shouldn't be sticky but elasticy and smooth.

Fun filled fact: when you knead bread, the gluten in the flour develops into glutenin and gliadin. The glutenin develops elasticity in the dough which allows it to rise and keep a good chewy texture. The gliadin is the portion that prevents people with Celiac's disease from being able to enjoy wheat products.

Next you just have to leave it alone for a while. Cover and set the dough aside in a warm area free of drafts and it will start to double in size. Once it doubles, punch it down once and let it rise again. Rising will take somewhere around 1 hour but in general just wait until it doubles in size. I'll admit that I'm usually too lazy or in a rush to wait for dough to rise twice so I often skip the second round. You can also leave it in the fridge over night to rise a second time and then it's ready the next day!

So the dough has risen and now it's time for the toppings! Roll out the dough and move it to a pan that's either greased and floured, or sprinkled with cornmeal (this is our preferred way as its healthier for one, and produces a crunchier bottom crust). You don't want to see how sticky the dough can get after it bakes itself into a pan. Add the toppings and bake it at 350F for 30-45min or until it looks all delicious and golden brown.

Additional Notes:

Flavouring the dough: If you want to alter it a bit there's a few options. Milk can be substituted for water, and honey can be substituted for sugar. If you use whole wheat flour, go for the tasty substitutions or it looses a bit of flavour.

Awesome toppings: Our standard is ham, pepperoni, and goat cheese over the standard mozzarella and tomato sauce. This is one area to go wild with whatever it is you really like but don't go overboard. If toppings are stacked too thickly, the crust won't bake up as well and it can be pretty doughy on the inside.Try to keep it simple and somewhat flat for best results.

Photo trivia: If the finished pizza's crust looks really big, it's because we stuffed the crust with extra mozzarella. It's a fun treat.

Alternative dough uses: Left over dough makes great spice bread! Roll it out and top with olive oil and spices like salt and pepper, oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary and parmesan if you have it. The bread is great to dip in marinara, meat sauce, or tzatziki . For a desert try frying small squares of dough in oil (1/2 cm of oil in a pan is fine). Then sprinkle with a mix of white sugar and cinnamon for a poor man's beaver tail.

Broccoli Sausage Pasta

This is one of my favourite fast and easy dinners. It's not that much prep time, a very short cooking time, and tastes delicious! It's like being Rachel Ray but without being annoying (yumm-o!).

What You'll Need

1 large broccoli

1 pkg spicy italian sausage (~400g)

300g pasta of your choice (Large shells or penne work well)

8 mini bocconcini

Olive oil

Assorted spices

How to Make It

I start by breaking the broccoli down into florets. Small florets. If it's not bite sized it will be very annoying. I boil them for 6 minutes in salted water, then blanch them really quickly so they don't over cook. If you like crunchier broccoli 3-4min will probably be enough. Set the broccoli aside, but don't throw out the cooking water!!

Cut the sausage out of it's casings so it's ready to go. While you're at it, quarter the bocconcini too. From here out it moves pretty quickly. I flavored the bocconcini with some olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, and basil. By itself it can be a little bland and bitter.

Heat up a pan to med-high heat and throw in the sausage. Try to break it up into pieces as you go. For a bit of extra flavor and spice we added a dash of worchestershire sauce and tabasco (for more spice, add more tobasco or red chili flakes).

In your now slightly broccoli-flavoured water which should still be at a rolling boil, throw the pasta in for 8 minutes. If you start the sausage at the same time, they should be ready together. When you're done cooking the pasta be sure to reserve about 1/2 to 1c cooking liquid.

So that's about it! All that's left is to combine everything in a pot or bowl and serve up! I like to add the sausage and cheese first so it all combines, and then the broccoli. It's good to alternate adding bits of sausage and cheese with some pasta water which will be absobed by the pasta and make a delicious sauce. For two people, there should be enough for a lunch the next day, and the longer this sits the better the flavour gets.

This is the finished (tasty) product!

Lastly, a few notes from doing this quite a few times;

It originally started out with broccoli rabe instead of just broccoli. It's good, but the broccoli rabe can be very bitter if it's not boiled long enough, and the longer it's boiled the softer it gets. A vicious circle. If you want to try it, maybe leave out the stalks and only use the leaves and florets which are pretty good.

It also originally had parmesan cheese. We switched it out with the bocconcini for a bit of colour and texture. However I really like the parmesan in it as well. If you opt for parmesan, grate maybe 1/4c or more if you like (I'd go for more) and throw it in at the end. It makes for a really nice smooth sauce.