Ombré funfetti

Hey remember my funfetti post? Well, there's always an opportunity for funfetti, right? I baked another cake for a friend's birthday this weekend and I attempted to frost it in pink ombré. Think color gradient.  Think paintchip. Think happiness.

Again, funfetti, you knocked my socks off and made me feel like I was a little kid again!

Tres Leches Cake

 

 For those of you who are lactose intolerant, I apologize.  I actually apologize from the bottom of my heart.  I love dairy.   My friend just unfortunately found out she has a light intolerance to dairy.  Maybe more than light, but light in the sense that she will still travel miles for frozen yogurt just to pay the price later.  Clearly, we are meant to be friends.  I would gladly suffer for frozen yogurt, cheese platters, and not to mention this Tres Leches Cake.  Oh, the suffering would be 3 fold?  Bring it on!

Tres leches is magic.  The three stars?  Evaporated Milk, Sweetened Condensed Milk, and Heavy Cream.  While it sounds intense and heavy, it's actually pretty light because the cake itself is somewhat light.  Maybe others would disagree, but I wouldn't judge someone if they ate 1/3 of the cake in one sitting.  Am I biased?  When I made it, I could easily be found eating for both dessert and breakfast the next morning.  So yes I'm likely biased. When I wanted to make this cake for a family dinner, my mom complained that it was going to be too rich and too much.  I did what I normally do.  Disagreed, didn't listen, and made what I wanted to!  (Just kidding Mom!) But it turned out great!  (and she agreed with me in the end).

 

What helps making this cake lighter than it normally is, is folding in the whipped egg whites.  After making the batter with just egg yolks, whip the whites to create some air, then fold them in gently so that the batter will be lighter and fluffier.  With this step, you have to be careful to keep the air in your egg whites and to not overmix the batter. Be gentle with them and only fold until they are incorporated!  If you have some spots of whites, that's ok!  Folding in the egg whites will make your cake taller and add some air so it won't be as dense.  And it'll create space so it can soak up all the dairy!!

Cook the cake, and cool it.  Get excited.  Then poke the cake with a fork all over. Go nuts. 
Then.... mix your milks, and soak that sucker!!! Let them soak in for about an hour, then top it with whipped cream.

Hello tres leches.  I love you.  I want to have you with tea during a night cap with friends.  Or during breakfast with some cinnamon on top. Maybe alongside some berries.  Maybe always and all of the time! So good!

The Pioneer Woman strikes again!  Her recipes have yet to fail me:

Ingredients

• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 5 whole Eggs
• 1 cup Sugar, Divided
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/3 cup Milk
• 1 can Evaporated Milk
• 1 can Sweetened, Condensed Milk
• 1/4 cup Heavy Cream

• 1 pint Heavy Cream, For Whipping
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan liberally until coated.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Separate eggs.
Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.
Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.
Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool.
Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher. When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can.
Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes. To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable.
Spread over the surface of the cake. Decorate cake with whole or chopped maraschino cherries. Cut into squares and serve.

Super Bowl Corn Dogs

Do I care about the Super Bowl?  Minimally. I'm not that in to football.  I get excited about football if I'm already following the team. More often than not, I get bored.  Watching a 3 hour game when the weather is beautiful outside gets me down.  But maybe in the future, should the man in my life be really in to football, I  could get excited about it.  But know what I'd be more excited about?  Things that you eat when you watch football games!  Yes, I am definitely in to those.

I had a superbowl potluck this year.  I was so ill prepared for this epic sports day that someone else brought their TV because mine wasn't up to snuff.  Whoops, my bad.  But basically, I needed this potluck to happen because I have been wanting to make corn dogs.  Yep, corn dogs!  I said it!  Everyone loves corn dogs.  Am I right?  My vegetarian roommate in college said that what she missed most about eating meat was corn dogs.  That's a hell of a compliment! 

So anyway, Superbowl, I thank you, for allowing me to make corn dogs, among other fried items, and for giving me an excuse to eat nacho cheese, candied bacon nuts, and drink beer with friends that are yelling at the TV!  For that, I'm totally down with you coming around once a year. 

 So back to corn dogs.  These corn dipped dogs were awesome.  I also may or may not have battered and fried various types of cheese cubes.  When I say may or may not, I mean yes I definitely did and in no way regretted it. 

Deep frying things is intimidating.  All that oil and possible splatter burns!  But all in all, frying all these were pretty easy.  The batter held up well, and if you keep your oil at the right temp, splatter should not be much of a problem. 

 

I have to say, the end product was definitely worth it.  Dip them in spicy grainy horseradish mustard!  You can't go wrong!  And the cheese balls?  I don't think they could be any better. 

 

 

When the time came that we didn't need anymore dogs or cheese (I know, I know, how could that happen?)  I started wondering what else we could throw in the leftover batter and oil.  Can't lie, we fried a couple pieces of candied bacon, and a dozen truffles.  We totally went state fair style in my house on Sunday.  Everything tasted good.  Shocker! Deep fried things were tasty?!

 

I stopped after the chocolates.  Please kill me if I ever fry oreos or a stick of butter.  Seriously, just as I wrote "oreos" I got really bummed because we definitely had double stuffed oreos at the party and I definitely should have fried a few.  Damn! 
There's always next year!
I need to get a hold of myself... but I promise I won't ever do butter!

I got my recipe and ideas from The Pioneer Woman but only did half dogs and cheese cubes instead of sticks!  Oh and truffles.  Happy frying!

Chinese New Year

To eliminate any confusion, we aren't chinese. We're filipino. Half.  But my sister lives in Shanghai, so this year we got to celebrate Chinese New Year with her.  Chinese New Year is probably the most important of the traditional holidays in China, so my sister got to take some time off of work and come home for a while.  To celebrate, and to show my family some of her favorite Sichuan dishes, my sister planned a Chinese New Year Feast!

It was awesome.  My mom and I were sous chefs for the night.  Mostly a lot of chopping, cornstarch slurries, and mise en place.  It was pretty crazy making five different things in my Grandma's small kitchen to feed 9 of our family members, but it was a success.

The front runners:

宫保鸡丁 gōng bǎo jī dīng kung pao chicken

干煸四季豆 gan bian sijidou dry-fried green beans

鱼香茄子 yu xiang qiezi fish-fragrant eggplant

番茄炒蛋 fanqie chaodan tomato w/ fried egg

麻婆豆腐 mápó dòufu "Pockmarked-Face Lady's Tofu"

My family was impressed and my grandma loved it.  She likes trying new asian dishes and having someone cook other than herself.  The kung pao, eggplant, and tofu were my favorite and they all tasted just like what they do in China.  It was the first time any of us had made most of these things, so my sister really pulled off a delicious authentic chinese feast!

Gōng xǐ fā cái!

Snickerdoodles for Santa

"SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM!"
Merry Christmas to everyone!  I hope Santa brought you and yours everything you wished for!!  I also hope you left Santa some warm cinnamony Snickerdoodles to keep him full throughout his night!

Santa Sized Snickerdoodles
Recipe from Carol Cotner Thompson

Yield:38-40 big cookies

4 1/2 C. flour
4 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
½ lb. butter
1 C. veg. shortening
3 C. sugar
4 eggs,room temp.
1 T. vanilla


1 c. sugar

2 T. cinnamon

Combine and sift dry ingredients
Cream butter, shortening & sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla.
Gently add flour mixture.
Roll golf ball size dough balls in sugar cinnamon mixture. Bake at 350 for 14 minutes.
*dough can be refrigerated up to 48 hours before baking.

Holiday Treats

This year, some friends of mine had the annual "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party.  Ugly Christmas Sweaters... when did you become a thing?  Although enjoyable, I think these sweaters are best when they have tangible decorations on them like extra fuzzy mittens, actual beads as garlands on the christmas tree, or little bells on the reindeer's antlers.  oooo! Our group this year only had a few good sweaters, but I personally think we played enough embarassing charade like games to make up for the lack of embarassment in our clothing. 

Anyway, Christmas party!  I took it as a perfect excuse to make a massive amount of paper snowflakes and an unhealthy amount of holiday treats!  Those that made the list this year?  A revisit to Oreo Truffles, Chocolate Fudge, and get this... Maple Bacon Kettle Corn!!!!! 

For the Oreo Truffles, I made them the same as before, but for half the batch I used Mint Oreos and added a little Peppermint extract to both the oreo mixture and the melted chocolate.  The regular ones I sprinkled with some rainbow sprinkes, and the mint ones with crushed candy canes. 

 

I love a good fudge.  Who doesn't?  It really doesn't come around often enough.  I used a Max Brenner recipe for Sweet Dreams Chocolate Fudge Candy.  I poured some of it in heart shaped Ice Trays and got heart shaped fudge!

And the star... Maple Bacon Kettle Corn.

First of all, Kettle Corn is a beautiful thing.  Get me a bag from the farmers market and I'll probably eat the giant size in one sitting.  I'd do as my mother taught me:  put some in a cup so I don't eat too much.  But with Kettle Corn, I just keep filling that dang cup up, no questions asked, and definitely no shame... at least until I realize it's all gone.  This story is all too familiar...
BUT cook the kettle corn in bacon fat?  Add some crispy bacon drizzled in maple syrup?  Bacon + Kettle Corn? ....I die. 

 

The pictures don't do it justice.  But believe me, this kettle corn is definitely holiday party worthy.  Turns out popcorn plus bacon is a winning combination.  I found this recipe on Joy the Baker who I've started to fall completely in love with.

Happy Holidays!

Scones: Two Ways

  

Scones make me think of Tea Time.  Of England.  Of fancy things and hats. 

I have cousins who have british accents.  One of them lives in London, so I guess that makes sense.  But both were raised in San Diego and one still lives there!  How does that happen?  I listen to them and wish that I could sound cute and British like they do.  Maybe I'll have to move to the UK and just practice, and then never lose it.  Oh and also meet my future husband, and wear tartan coats, and take a stroll on Primrose Hill.  Oh wouldn't it be lovely?

During college, my roommates and I used to speak in our "British accents" on a normal basis.  These accents were less than lovely and usually we sounded like something closer to Rose from the Golden Girls or a 3 year old child wondering where her scottie dog was.  Plus our conversations usually were centered around things like Taco Bell or what kind of 2 buck chuck we wanted to buy that night.  Anyway, if I could go back, I think I'd like to have a tea party with all of my roommates and our bad accents.  A tea party complete with scones.  Delicious Blueberry Lemon Scones and Pumpkin Scones with Maple Glaze.  But honestly, I think if we had a real tea party and spoke only in our accents, we would be in tears of laughter in no time.

As inspiration for your own tea party, make these scones!  I made them for a going away brunch at work, but the blueberry ones have been a staple in my brunch baking in the past.  The pumpkin ones were new this fall, and I made up a maple cinnamon glaze to sweeten them up a bit. 

The trick to scones is not to overmix them. Some scones can be tough and hard, but both of these recipes are really tender.  You want to keep your butter cold and incorporate it quickly.  If the butter doesn't get overworked, your scones will be nice and flaky!

Would you fancy some Earl Grey Tea with your scone? Right-O. These are just the dog's bollocks! Cheerio!