Mama Baker

Losing momentum

November 7, 2008 at 9:15 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I am losing momentum. I haven’t done a blog post in such a long time but being a mommy to a wild child can be pretty demanding. Halloween was a pretty hectic day. Hubby was working and I had to take E around trick or treating with my sister and her boyfriend. It was fun but a lot of work and I was very tired by the end of the night.

Also, hubby is training for a fitness test so he and I have been busy with that. Therefore, my baking time has become really limited and to photo record it is a challenge.

Here is an example of my day:

3:00 am: E is crying non stop. Rock her to sleep again.

3:15 am: E wakes up and cries again. Rock, rock, rock, rock.

7:30 am: Time to wake up. Put the coffee on. Make hubs lunch and sometimes breakfast. Hubs feeds E.

9:00 am: Feed E again and again and again (I’m glad I have an eater!)

9:30 am: Wash the dishes.

10:00 am: Finally I get to eat breakfast. E eats half of my breakfast.

11:00 am: E goes down for a nap. Constant crying and rocking which takes up to an hour (sometimes an hour and a half).

12:00 pm: Clean while E sleeps. Wash the walls and floors. Vacuum the carpet. Clean the bathroom. E really loves to make a mess.

1:30 pm: E is up and usually plays with me. By playing I mean body slamming me, pulling my hair, and testing me when I say “no.” She is only 15 months but I have to hand it to her… she likes her way.

2:00 pm: E makes a big mess whether it is throwing food on the floor or finding the rice cereal and dumping it on the clean carpet.

The day goes on with E making a mess and me trying to clean up…

6:00 pm: Hubs comes home and plays with E then gives her a bath while I frantically try to get dinner ready.

7:30 pm: We all eat dinner. E starts to get tired so we brush her teeth and get her ready for bed.

8:00 pm: Put E in bed.

8:45 pm: E is still crying. Rock, rock, rock, rock…

9:30 pm: Hubs and I train for his fitness test.

10:30 pm: Take a shower

11:45 pm: Read a bit.

12:00 – 12:15 am: Lights out…

So you see. I really don’t have much time for this blog but I am going to try. I actually have to go right now because E is awake!

As hectic and busy as my life is I really love it. I love my daughter and I love my husband and wouldn’t change anything about my life.

BOO! Did I scare you?

October 13, 2008 at 5:14 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I love Hallowe’en. I do, I do, I do! One of my favourite things about Hallowe’en is dressing up. Since we people get all the fun of costumes I thought cupcakes should deserve the fun too. I mean, I am all for equality. I also really like candy corn and Hallowe’en is nothing without candy corn. So I looked up a recipe for candy corn. I tried to take the flavour of that deliciousness and put it in a cupcake. Now, the cupcake didn’t taste exactly like candy corn but it was amazing. It was crispy on the outside, light on the inside and not too sweet. Hubby was very surprised about how good it turned out and scarfed it down.

Try Cuppycakes in Disguise and you will be pleasantly surprised!

Oooooo

Surprise!! There’s a cupcake inside!!

Ingredients for Cupcakes

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup white corn syrup
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
2 cup cake and pastry flour
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Ingredients for Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
4 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla

What is required for decorating

waffle bowls
1 pkg (225g) white chocolate chips
1 tbs butter
icing colours (black, red, yellow, blue, green)
Paint brush

Prepare Cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Take another bowl and blend sugar and butter. Add corn syrup, honey , milk and vanilla and then blend. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.

Liberally oil a cupcake pan and fill with batter. Cook for 18-23 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

Let cupcakes cool.

Prepare Buttercream Frosting
Blend confectioners sugar and butter together by slowly adding the sugar. If frosting gets too stiff add some milk. Dye frosting orange by mixing together red and yellow icing colours.

Assembling cupcakes
Melt white chocolate chips and a tablespoon of butter over a double boiler. Take the pot off the heat source and then dip waffle bowls in the chocolate one by one. Spread the chocolate evenly over the waffle bowl with a pastry brush (preferably silicon). Place waffle bowls on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Transfer baking sheet into the fridge so that chocolate hardens (about 2 hours).

Take cupcake and turn it upside down. Ice them liberally and place them in the fridge to harden.

Once the chocolate is hardened take the waffle bowl out of the fridge. With a paint brush and black icing colours create ghost faces.

Paint phrases on the cupcakes with a paint brush.

Place waffle bowls on the cupcakes and voila–cupcakes in disguise.

Uh-oh….one cupcake didn’t make it….

I think the ghostbusters got this one … mmm

Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en, Pumpkins… Oh My!

October 9, 2008 at 9:51 am | In Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: autumn, chai, cream cheese, cupcake, fall, halloween, orange, pumpkin, thanksgiving

I am Canadian and being Canadian I will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Monday. With Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en both coming very soon I decided that I needed to make a festive cupcake.

Now, I am addicted to baking blogs. One of my absolute favourites is I heart Cuppycakes –who by the way just won September’s Cupcake Hero . She is a cupcake genius. In a recent post she did an amazing caramel apple cuppycake . My problem (which my hubby ALWAYS mentions) is that I am a very poor cupcake decorator. Well when I saw CB’s caramel cuppycake I thought you could make that a pumpkin. Then at the store I saw some candy and a light bulb went on.

Thus, I present to you A Patch of Pumpkin’s cupcake.

I created the recipe by basically adding more flour to my standard pumpkin pie recipe. Hubs thinks it is awesome and in his words “it is a cakey version of pumpkin pie!” I know, he is kind of nerdy…

Ingredients for Pumpkin Cupcakes

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup golden sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1/3 cup shortening

Ingredients for Chai Cream Cheese Frosting

1 packages (8 oz) of cream cheese, softened
2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp chai spice mix
Yellow and Red food colouring

Ingredients for Assembly

Orange sprinkles
Green bytes candy or thick green licorice

Prepare Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a bowl mix together flour, cinnamon, ground ginger, cloves, salt, baking powder and baking soda. In another bowl, blend together shortening and sugars. Once a creamy texture is reached add the pumpkin puree and mix.

Who needs a KitchenAid when you have a real Kitchen Aid (he is SUCH a goof)

Take the bowl of dry ingredients and slowly add to the wet mixture making sure everything is blended well.

Fill cupcake liners and place in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or till cake tester comes out clean.

sooo gooey

Remove from oven and let cool.

yay!!! They came out looking scrumptious

Prepare Chai Cream Cheese Frosting

Blend together softened butter and cream cheese together. Once blended, slowly add confectioner’s sugar so that frosting is stiff. Add vanilla and chai. Blend again. Add food colouring till you achieve desired orange colour.

Assembling Cupcakes

Take cooled cupcakes and put big dollop of frosting on top. Shape so that frosting resembles a sphere.

Roll frosted cupcake in sprinkles fully covering the surface of the sphere.

oh so prettttttyyyy

Insert green livewire byte or green licorice that has been cut to an inch. Run knife vertically down the sphere starting from the green candy — doing this will create the ridges of the pumpkin. Continue to make ridges on the cupcake till you have six ridges. However, it is important to make sure you wipe off the knife before you proceed to do more ridges.

Place in fridge over night so that frosting sets and there you have it, a nice festive patch of pumpkins.

Also, I would like to thank Fiesta Products for my Iron Cupcake prize. I received the whole Head Chefs set in the mail yesterday and my daughter, E, loves them. She uses them as dolls right now but I think they are great in the kitchen.

The Ice Cream face off!!!

October 3, 2008 at 7:03 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: french vanilla, ice cream, taste test, vanilla

I love ice cream. It is my absolute favourite. Everyone in my family loves ice cream. We love it so much we even consider it a breakfast food. My sister and I can finish off a carton of ice cream in one night– and often do when we get together.

Usually I get some chocolaty ice cream goodness or maybe pralines and cream but when I want something to pair with my desserts I always go for vanilla. In the past I choose french vanilla because I just assumed it was better (apparently in my mind yellow equals better). Then I started to wonder, what is the difference between french vanilla and vanilla ice cream?

Well, searching the web I found out that french vanilla uses more egg yolks and is more custard-y or something like that.

That’s when I decided that we had to come down to the bottom of things and have an blinded ice cream tasting party to decided which flavour people liked most!

I present to you… the ice cream face off!

mmmmm

We used Breyers ice cream and I think there are definitely better vanilla ice creams out there.

Trevor goes first. Alas, he couldn’t tell the difference between the two but preferred the plain old vanilla which was a surprise because before he said he liked french vanilla more.

My sister Tonija could tell the difference but was undecided on which one she preferred. Again, before the tasting she thought she liked french vanilla more… interesting…

Hubs could tell the difference and liked the french vanilla more! Note: the rice in my hand. Clearly we were very scientific and used it as a pallet cleanser in between tasting

I could tell the difference and originally I thought I liked the vanilla more but then after a few bites it had kind of an artificial taste to it. I also found the french vanilla not very vanilla-y.

The consensus stated that the french vanilla was creamier but left a weird after taste whereas the vanilla was sweeter. However, I am still undecided as to which I prefer.

I guess this means I will just have to eat double the ice cream to compensate for my uncertainty.

Hooray!

Oh wow!

October 2, 2008 at 12:02 pm | In Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Tags: basil, happy, iron cupcake

I have been neglecting my poor blog (mostly because of this cleanse and E is teething again I think). However, I just recieved an email from Iron Cupcake and I ended up winning the Basil Challenge!

Thank you everyone who voted for me. I am so overwhelmed and will definitely post pictures of the prizes.

On a side note, I will start making cupcakes and other baked goods this week. So stay tuned because I have some great ideas.

love love love.

Starving…

September 29, 2008 at 5:23 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I am starving right now because this is my fifth day on my cleanse. My hubby and I are doing the Wild Rose Cleanse which means no sugars, no wheat, no gluten, only ONE serving a fruit a day and 20 per cent of protein. So that is why I haven’t posted any baking because if I baked anything I probably would eat it. No, actually I would definitely eat it. This cleanse feels more like a diet!

Anyway, Iron Cupcake voting is up now so check it out and vote at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner

Cinnamon Apple Tart

September 22, 2008 at 6:59 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: apple, cinnamon, cloves, dessert, flakey, pastry, phyllo dough, tart

So, last week I had big aspirations for baking. I bought a bunch of ingredients including phyllo dough. When I got home from the supermarket I placed in in the fridge so that it could defrost. Seven days go by and it was still in the fridge starring me down. I couldn’t take it anymore so I took it out and decided I would make an apple tart with a bag of apples my hubby told me he would eat (he hasn’t even eaten one, sheesh).

Anyway, my sisters were over and since we are such dessert maniacs I decided this would be the perfect treat for us. My inspiration for this dessert came from a recipe book my parents gave me for Christmas call The Silver Palate which has very many tasty creations in it. Well, I took their idea of apples wrapped in phyllo dough and made it my own — kind of like apple pie wrapped in phyllo, yum yum yum!

Ingredients

6 medium apples, peeled, cored and cut thin (I used granny smiths)
12 phyllo leaves
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbs cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
2 tbs granulated sugar
1/8 salt

Prepare

Unwrap the phyllo dough and cover with a moist towel for at least 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Melt butter on the stove top.

In a bowl mix brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves together. Toss apples in the sugar cinnamon mixture.

In a separate bowl combine granulated sugar and salt together.

Grease or place parchment paper on a baking sheet. Grab one leaf of phyllo and lay it on the baking sheet. Make sure the damp towel is always placed on top of the phyllo that isn’t being used.

Cover the phyllo dough on the baking sheet with butter using a pastry brush. Then sprinkle some of the sugar and salt mixture over it. Repeat this five times.

After the sixth layer pile apples in the centre of the phyllo creating a circle. Pour the excess sugar cinnamon syrup on top of the apples.

Put on another leaf of phyllo dough. Cover with butter and sprinkle with sugar salt mixture. Repeat this five times. On the last leaf only cover with butter.

Cut off excess phyllo only allowing the dough to be 8 inches in diameter. Pinch the edges shut.

Place in the preheated oven for 35 – 40 minutes. Cover with aluminum when top becomes brown (about 10 minutes).

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and enjoy (I hope).

Cupcake Hero — Baker’s Choice

September 20, 2008 at 6:50 am | In Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Tags: chocolate, cloves, coffee, cupcake hero

This is my very first Cupcake Hero entry and I was very excited because I saw that it was baker’s choice. Now, one would think that having to choose only two ingredients from a list of twelve would be easy. However, I like to make things difficult. After a week of contemplating what ingredients I would choose I decided on cocoa, cloves, marshmallow, coffee, and liqueur (specifically Kahlua).

So I whipped up a recipe but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I actually made four different batches of cupcakes trying to figure out what could be improved. It was an extremely long process especially with a little 14-month-old who always needs her mommy (only child syndrome). So, that is why there is only one picture of my cupcake–I am very, very, very sorry.

Anyway, I finally came up with a nice fall cupcake recipe that I will be adding to my own personal collection of favourites.

Ingredients

Cupcake

1/2 cup cake and pastry flour
1/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/8 salt
1/3 tsp cloves
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup golden sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 tbs coffee
1 tbs Kahlua

Marshmallow Topping and Filling (adapted from Seven Minute Marshmallow Frosting)

1 egg white
3 tbs cold water
Dash of salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp Kahlua
1 tsp cocoa
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

Prepare Cupcake

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon together. Mix well. In another bowl, blend together butter and sugar. Once blended add milk and the eggs on at a time while blending. Stir in coffee and Kahlua. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients slowly making sure everything is mixed well.

Fill cupcake liners with batter and place in a preheated oven for 15-17 minutes or until cake tester insert comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool.

Prepare marshmallow filling and topping

Place egg white, water, salt, sugar, cream of tartar in a double boiler. Let ingredients melt together. Stir slowly for at least 7 minutes as to temper the egg. Take pot off heat source and quickly whip mixture until stiff peaks appear. Then slowly add mini marshmallows while whipping. Try and make sure marshmallows are completely melted. Then add Kahlua and cocoa.

Pipe the mixture into the cupcake. To decorate the top take a spoon and heap the marshmallow fluff on top spreading in an whimsical fashion. To toast the tops use a kitchen torch or place in the oven on broil keeping a very close eye on them (the get toasty quite fast!). Or if you are like me and don’t have a blow torch and cannot master the broiling method you can use a lighter.

Iron Cupcake Earth: Basil

September 18, 2008 at 8:03 am | In Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: basil, iron cupcake, white chocolate, zen

Ever since I heard that basil was the ingredient of the month for Iron Cupcake I was in a panic. I was racking my head for how I can make a cupcake with basil in it taste good–I just could not wrap my mind around it! I was thinking about basil while dreaming, studying, changing diapers, running and, well, just about everything I did I thought about that herb.

Then, finally, I decided to stop the thinking and start the baking. I took random ingredients out of my fridge, freezer, and pantry. Little did I know this painstaking business turned out to be something quite the opposite.

What came out of my oven was something tranquil–something almost zen like.

So turn off your cell phone and turn on some music and bake, taste and experience.

Ingredients

Cupcake

40 grams of Farmers Basil
1 cup sugar
1/2 tbs lime juice
1/2 cubed mango
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 tbs almond extract
2 cup cake and pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Icing

1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 tbs butter
1 tsp chopped basil

Prepare Cupcake

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Blanch basil in boiling water for a minute and then submerge into an ice bath. Pull off basil leaves. Put a tablespoon of compacted basil into a food processor. Add sugar to processor and blend. Then place mango and lime juice into the processor and blend once again.

In a seperate bowl, combined flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix ingreidents together. Put aside.

Take basil sugar mixture and transfer it into a bowl. Put butter into mixture and stir until creamy. Blend in eggs one at a time and then add the milk. Mix well. Stir in almond extract.

Take dry ingredients and slowly add them to the wet mixture making sure everything is mixed well.

Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.

Place in preheated oven for 16 – 20 minutes.

Prepare icing

In a double boiler melt white chocolate. Once chocolate is melted remove off heat source. Add cream and mix with an electric hand mixture. Mix for one minute then add confectioners sugar. Blend for another one minute and add butter. Take left over blanched basil from cupcake recipe and remove the leaves. Finely chop the basil leaves. Add a teaspoon of compacted basil to icing. Mix well.

Dip cupcakes into icing and place in the fridge so that icing can harden.

Eat with a warm cup of tea and enjoy your day (and, of course, your cupcake too!).

But before I close this post let me tell you what great prizes are available in the Iron Cupcake World challenge! You can check out the wonderful sponsors below:
Look at the cool stuff you can win from these sponsors:

Cupcake Signet Ring from Etsy artist metalsugar

Head Chefs from Fiesta Products

Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson

Jessie Steele Aprons

Cupcake Courier

Taste of Home magazine

So go ahead and vote for your favourite cupcake from September 28 till October 1 at No One Puts Cupcake In A Corner.

(vote me! vote me! PLEEEAAASSEEEE)

SHF– Capital City Cupcakes

September 14, 2008 at 7:12 pm | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This week has been EXTREMELY busy. School has started and I feel behind in all my readings already. With all this hecticness going on I needed something stress relieving. The cure?–baking something delicious and wonderful.

I was browsing the internet and found an event that I had to absolutely join. The event? Sugar High Friday Cupcakes which is the perfect place to showcase my new cupcake idea found at Foodbeam. Sugar High Friday, I believe, was the creation of The Domestic Goddess

Now I am from BC and being from BC I know all about the coveted Nanaimo Bar. Nanaimo Bars are good but I find them a bit too sweet. Also, I definitely prefer cupcakes over bars. The cure for my Nanaimo Bar sadness? Well obviously the Capital City Cupcake (after my lovely home Victoria, BC).

Without further ado, the Capital City Cupcake.

(the cupcakes have been adapted from the city of Nanaimo’s nanaimo bar recipe found at Nanaimo Bar

Ingredients

Capital City Cupcakes

1/4 cup Grounded Almonds
1/4 cup Graham Cracker crumbs
1/2 cup Unsweetened flaked coconut
1 cup Cake Flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tbsp. cocoa
2 tsp. Baking powder
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Filling

1/2 cup butter
2 tbsp. and 2 tsp. cream
2 tbsp. custard powder
2 cup confectioners sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Chocolate Ganache

4 oz Semisweet chocolate
4 tbsp whipping cream

Prepare Capital City Cupcake

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder, ground almonds, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, cocoa, and salt together. In another bowl blend together softened butter and sugar. Then beat in milk and eggs. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture slowly while using an electric mixer on low.

Fill cupcake liners two thirds of the way full. Cook for about 15 minutes or until cake tester insert comes out clean.

Prepare filling

In a bowl mix together all the ingredients (butter, cream, custard powder, vanilla extract and confectioners sugar). Beat until light.

Prepare Chocolate Ganache

In a double boiler melt chocolate. Once melted, add cream. Take the mixture off the heat and beat with an electric mixer.

Prepare Capital City Cupcakes

Take cooled cupcake and with a paring knife cut out the centre.