Movin' on Uptown

Toronto Bakes For Japan

So I've moved out of the urban jungle and now living uptown.  I've been living here for 2 months and I'm finally taking a break from baking this weekend!  The first weekend we moved here, I donated 8 dozen cupcakes to Toronto Bakes For Japan.  I made about 4 dozen black forest cupcakes and my sister helped me baked 4 dozen green tea cupcakes (Thanks Sis!!).  The bake sale raised over $30K!!!  THANK YOU TORONTO!

Cake Pops

I bought a whole bunch of goodies from the Bake Sale, but the most memorable purchase was the cake pop.  It was my first cake pop experience and it was scrumptious!  (Oops ... actually my first cake pop was from Starbucks and I was less than thrilled.)  I had burnt some green tea cupcakes in preparation for the bake sale (need to adjust to a new oven).  Reluctant to throw out 2 dozen muffins, I cut off the burnt bottoms and decided to try making green tea cake pops.  These things are not easy to put together.  The cake is mixed with icing and then shaped into balls.  Too much icing and your cake balls will fall apart.  I took a cake pops class a few nights ago at Le Dolci and here is a pic of the final result ...

Vanilla Cake Pops

The Winner of The Chili Contest Is ...

My Vegetarian Chili!  At work, I helped to organize a Cinco de Mayo celebration during the lunch hour.  We had margaritas, chicken tacos (homemade, of course), nachos with all the fixin's and 3 chilis to sample for the chili cook-off.  My vegetarian chili entry actually won!  (I voted for the other beef chili that came in 2nd place.)  My husband told me I would lose to the meat chilis.  But my co-workers told me they thought my chili had a lot of flavour.  My favourite ingredient to add to chili is chipotle peppers.  Some people have been asking me for the recipe, but I don't really remember how much of what I put in it!  I started with a stew recipe and added whatever was in my spice rack to make it taste more like chili.  One co-worker said that my chili technically wasn't a chili because there was no meat in it. Well, my chili was the people's choice.  :)

Vegetarian Chili

(Serves 6)
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 large Onion, diced
1/2 large Red Pepper, diced
1/2 large Green Pepper, diced
3 cloves Garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/2 tsp salt
A few dashes black pepper
2 Chipotle Peppers (canned), drained and chopped
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
3 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable stock
1 cup Corn
1 (16-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup fresh Cilantro, lightly packed, torn into pieces (stems and all)
Finely grated zest of 1 lime
Juice of 1/2 lime

In a stockpot, sauté the onions and peppers in the oil over moderate heat for 5 minutes.  Add the garlic, cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt and black pepper.  Sauté 1 minute more.  Add the chipotles, tomatoes, water and vegetable stock, stir.  Bring to a low boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Uncover, add the corn and beans.  Thin with more water if needed.  Cook uncovered for 5 more minutes.  Add the cilantro, lime zest, and lime juice.  Let sit for at least 10 minutes.  Serve.
I actually reheated the chili in a slow cooker for a few hours at work before serving it at lunch, so I think that's when the magic really happened with my chili.
 
Detox to Retox
Like most women, I always think that I need to lose weight.  Lately, I've been eating way too many cupcakes and other goodies.  Since the beginning of April, I have been baking cupcakes almost every week.  For my brother & his fiancée's jack & jill showers, for afternoon tea on Will & Kate's wedding day, and of course Mother's Day.  So I decided that after Mother's Day I would detox for about 5 days.  5 days of fruits, veggies, whole grains, no dairy, no animal protein, no processed foods.  I did that for months after my second Master Cleanse and maintained a relatively flat tummy.  This time, I lasted only 3 and a 1/2 days.  For those 3 days I did hot yoga two days in a row, ate fresh veggies and savoured my morning watermelon fruit smoothie.

Watermelon Berry Smoothie
1 cup watermelon cubes
1/3 cup frozened berries
3/4 cup fruit juice (I used Oasis Wild Berries and Pomegranate)
1/4 cup water
Blend everything in a blender and enjoy!

Are You There Blog? It's Me, Mir

Keeping a blog updated takes a lot of effort!  I like blogs with lots of pictures, so I want to post my own pics on this blog.  I've been in a bit of a hibernation mode (already!), thus no published posts in 3 months!  Without further ado, I'd like to share my love for Swiss Meringue Buttercream with you:


Don't you just love pretty food???

 


I finished my cake decorating class last Sunday and I am still no professional decorator.  Royal icing is supposed to be easier to work with, but if you don't make it properly, it will likely be too stiff.

My baker alter-ego experimented with different lemon cakes during the cake decorating classes (we had to bring baked cakes to 3 classes).  I discovered that Martha Stewart's cake recipes didn't work out for me.  I guess everyone has different cake preferences and her recipes turned out like dense pound cake, but I was looking for something light and fluffy.  I finally found the recipe on allrecipes.com.  My husband actually liked the Martha Stewart one, and not the fluffy chiffon cake.  Here are the cakes I decorated this fall (please lower your expecations ...):


 Moist Lemon Cake with Whipped Topping



Lemon Cake with Raspberry Filling and Almond Buttercream




Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Curd Filling and Vanilla Buttercream

Luckily, my husband and I didn't have to eat all these cakes by ourselves.  We invited family over for intimate dinner parties.  My husband is taking a level 1 culinary course and every Sunday, he brings home enough food for 4 people.

My upcoming baking projects will be baking 8 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange at work (but first I gotta test drive some new recipes), and cupcakes for 5 holiday parties.  I think it's time to bring back the Green Tea Cupcake.  :)

The Best Thing I Ever Ate

I have been dying to share my recent food experience with everyone.  I bought these delectable vegetarian pockets called Murtabak from Absolute Bakery in Cabbagetown.


Mini Murtabak

My sister and her friend shared a large chicken Murtabak that was being made on the street.  The guy would take a 5-inch round of dough and turned it into paper-thin wrappers about 12-inch wide in a matter of seconds without any tools!
I didn't know what I was buying from the bakery because there were no labels.  After I tried a mini Murtabak, I returned to the bakery a couple hours later to buy several more to share with some colleagues.  The outside of the Murtabak is almost like roti, but very thin.  It is filled with a yummy mixture of seasoned potatoes and other vegetables (other versions include chicken or beef) and then pan fried.  I think Murtabaks originate from the Muslims, so they can also be found on the streets of Indonesia and Malaysia.  I'm salivating as I'm thinking about them ... :)

And For Dessert ...
In my baker life, I made banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting yesterday.  I used a banana muffin recipe from allrecipes.com that yields a light and fluffy muffin.  Since I didn't have a lot of time yesterday, I had to open my emergency Duncan Hines jar of frosting from the pantry.  ;)  It's aaaall good!


Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting



My Little Bakeshop

My friends seem most interested in my baking projects, so I will share my latest one.  For the company BBQ, I ended up making chocolate chip cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

This Martha Stewart recipe was a lot more effort than I initially thought it would be.  The cupcake turned out a little more like a pound cake, despite folding in beaten egg whites into the cake batter.  My cupcakes are usually soft & moist.  I brought only 2 dozen cupcakes to the BBQ and I didn't see any left over.

I didn't end up baking lemon meringue cupcakes for my boss because I spent most of my Sunday baking a Black Forest Cake for my mother-in-law's birthday.  It didn't work out the way I wanted to.  First of all, I used silicone cake pans and totally forgot to grease/flour them before pouring batter into them.  So the cake stuck to the pan.  Not giving up, I carefully scraped the cakes out of the pans.  With the two thin layers of cake, I slopped on the cherry pie filling and whipped cream.  To make a long story short, it was quite an ugly cake (hence, no pictures of it here!).  I was running out of time and my hubby wrote "happy birthday" with a store-bought icing tube.  Since it didn't have enough time to chill and it was hot day, the cake was leaning to one side and the "happy birthday" was running off the cake by the time we served it.  (It was horrendous!!!)  Oh, well.  I hope she appreciated the thought.  :|  I thought it tasted pretty good.  I have made my recipe corrections for my next attempt at Black Forest Cake.

Next Saturday we're celebrating four birthdays at my aunt's house.  hmmm ... what would Brian Boitano make?  (One of my favourite Food Network shows)  I think I will attempt the hamburger cupcakes.

A Domestic Goddess in the Urban Jungle

Moving downtown wasn't totally my idea, but I went with it and I'm loving it.  My Saturday morning routine is hitting the St. Lawrence farmer's market to buy fresh eggs, veggies, and bread.  If I don't feel inspired to cook dinner, I have a plethora of restaurants to choose from: Thai, Italian, bar, upscale pub, Japanese ... but that dilemma happens only about once a week. 

I can't help but to think about food almost all the time.  I have Food Network to blame for that.  There aren't many FN shows that I don't like - maybe Restaurant Makeover (it's on ALL THE TIME) and Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry.  I have to work out at least twice a week or else buy new clothes!!

This past weekend was a long weekend, so I was in the kitchen prepping to go to a couple of dinner parties.  I wanted to share my summer trifle with everyone.  I used Jell-O instant vanilla pudding a couple of weeks ago, but I thought I would try to make it scratch.  I dusted off a pastry cream recipe from the baking course I took last fall.  The directions weren't very clear, so I followed the directions from a Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream recipe from foodnetwork.com but used the proportions from the original recipe.  The result was very thick and not too sweet.  It reminded me of the tapioca pudding from dim sum.  Anyways, here is a picture of the result:

My Summer Trifle

I used store-bought pound cake, drizzled it with vanilla almond milk, then added a layer of the vanilla pudding (if you look closely, you'll see vanilla beans in the pudding), then spread mixed fruit (raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and peaches) on top of the pudding.  I repeated the layers and then finished with real whipped cream sweetened with vanilla sugar (of course I re-used the vanilla pods!).  I have to admit, it was pretty dee-lish, but who doesn't like trifle?

I've got a lot of baking to do this week.  Boss' birthday is at the end of this week and she loves lemon desserts.  So I'm going to attempt Lemon Meringue cupcakes.  (At work, I'm known as the Cupcake Queen.)  The company BBQ is on Saturday with the spouses and the kiddies.  I'd like to make my Green Tea Cupcakes for the grown-ups, but what shall I make for the kiddies?

Gumdrop Cupcakes (a la Martha Stewart)?

(http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/gumdrop-cupcakes)

Cookie Monster Cupcakes?

(http://goodthingscatered.blogspot.com/2009/04/cookie-monster-cupcakes.html)

or

Cheeseburger Cupcakes?

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/katedw/3489933430/in/set-72157617528706606/)