March 23rd: Quinoa Tabbouleh & Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

I can't believe I waited a month to write about my baby turning 2! This awesome kid is so much fun to have around and completes our family so perfectly; I can barely remember what it was like before we had her. In the time leading up to and since her birthday, she has become more independent and communicative; I enjoy her company each and every day.

Sadie Birthday Baby

For Sadie's birthday dinner, we had a big family party, with members from both sides of the family in attendance for the first time in my children's lifetime! At Greg's request, I laid out a healthy spread, which included roasted broccoli and cauliflower, roasted pork tenderloin, and a quinoa tabbouleh salad, the last of which I pulled off epicurious:


Quinoa Tabbouleh

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large English hothouse cucumber or 2 Persian cucumbers, cut into 1/4" pieces
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
2/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
2 scallions, thinly sliced

Bring quinoa, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 1/4 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until quinoa is tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, then let cool.

Meanwhile, whisk lemon juice and garlic in a small bowl. Gradually whisk in olive oil. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer cooled quinoa to a large bowl; mix in 1/4 cup dressing. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover remaining dressing and quinoa separately; chill.

Add cucumber, tomatoes, herbs, and scallions to bowl with quinoa; toss to coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Drizzle remaining dressing over.

Makes 6 servings.

Going from memory, I think I altered the recipe a bit, increasing the lemon and reducing the oil, and reducing both the parsley and mint by a bit. I didn't keep notes, so this is guesswork. I do remember the salad was well-received and we enjoyed it.

For dessert, I used my Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook and made:

Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips*

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate chips*

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Peanut Butter Filling (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Put butter and chocolates in a heatproof bowl set over (not in) a pan of simmering water; stir until melted. Remove from heat, and let cool slightly.

Whisk granulated sugar into cooled chocolate mixture. Add eggs, and whisk until mixture is smooth. Stir in vanilla. Add flour mixture; stir until well incorporated.

Spoon 2 tablespoons chocolate batter into each lined cup, followed by 1 tablespoon peanut butter filling. Repeat with another tablespoon of batter, and top with 1 teaspoon filling. Swirl top of cupcake batter and filling with a wooden skewer or toothpick.

Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centres comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 40 minutes. Transfer tin to a wire rack to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored up to 3 days at room temperature in airtight containers.

Makes 12.

*The original called for chocolate, chopped. I always use chips. The chopping is done!

Peanut Butter Filling

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

Stir together all ingredients until smooth. Use immediately.

Makes enough for 12 cupcakes

Thanks to Olivia bringing it to my attention just in time, I remembered one of our guests had a peanut allergy, so I subbed Wow Butter in for the peanut butter. The cupcakes were good, but I suspect with real peanut butter, they would be a truly wow experience.

That's March complete. Now for April. Eep.

January 20th: Underwater Cake

Technically, I made this cake on January 18th and we ate it on January 19th, but its purpose was to celebrate Olivia's birthday on January 20th, so I'm going with that. And I'm still two days late posting about it. You've all already seen my Facebook and/or Twitter posts about it, so I'll get to the nitty gritty:

Back at some point in late 2009, when Olivia wasn't yet two, and certainly wasn't eating cake (oh, that I could say the same for Sadie...), I pulled a number of cake decorating ideas out of a Today's Parent magazine and stuck them in my recipe collection for some day. The first one I made in 2012, for her fourth birthday:

It was supposed to look like a bear's face, and it certainly wasn't as good as the one in the magazine, but it was my first-ever attempt at making a decorated cake, the three year olds attending the party were impressed, and of course, more important than anything else, it tasted fabulous.

Last year, for her fifth birthday, I made her chirp cake.

This year, I returned to the Today's Parent magazine for inspiration. They had three decoration ideas for flat cakes (my favourite!): Princess Castle, A Day at the Zoo, and Edible Aquarium. I let Olivia choose the one she wanted, and to my surprise, she chose Edible Aquarium over Princess Castle. She decided to call it the "underwater cake," so that's what it has become. We made the cake base together on Saturday, and she wanted to help decorate it, but it was still warm at bedtime, so we made the blue icing together and she went to bed and later, I iced and decorated it myself. It had to be done Saturday night, because her birthday party was 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning, and we are not early risers. FATAL MISTAKE. I should have planned ahead so that she could help me decorate, because if I had perhaps she wouldn't have been SO BLOODY CRITICAL. I was excited to show it to her Sunday morning and she was all, "I think these were straight up in the picture. You forgot white rocks. Well, it wasn't quite like this blah blah blah blah blah..." Hurt my feelings. :(

Anyway, she got over it. Partly because Greg tore a strip off her. And here's the end result:

Both the bear cake and the underwater cake had the same base, my favourite chocolate cake recipe, from Epicurious. Here's my version:

Chocolate Cake

3 ounces fine-quality semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli)
1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee (I used instant)3 cups sugar2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)2 teaspoons baking soda3/4 teaspoon baking powder1 1/4 teaspoons salt3 large eggs3/4 cup vegetable oil1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 300°F and grease 2 10-inch round cake pans. Line bottoms with rounds of parchment paper.

Combine chocolate and hot coffee in a medium bowl. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Set aside.

Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In another large bowl with an electric mixer, beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon-coloured (about 3 minutes with a stand mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well. Divide batter between pans and bake in middle of oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Cool layers completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert layers onto racks. Carefully remove parchment paper and cool layers completely. Cake layers may be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.


I adapted an icing recipe from The Joy of Cooking:

Icing

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1 lb icing sugar
5 to 6 tablespoons milk or cream

Beat butter until smooth and creamy. Beat in vanilla. Alternately beat in icing sugar and milk, adding milk a few tablespoons at a time until desired consistency reached.

I beat in blue food colouring until Olivia and I liked the colour. We made several trips: to the grocery store, Candy Mountain, and Bulk Barn to find all the best fishy toppings: graham crumbs for sand, "edible sparkles" (for effect?), Jelly Belly beans for rocks, fruit roll ups, twisted, for seaweed, candy strings for coral, fish, shark, whale, plus gummies for an octopus.

March 24th: blackberry cornmeal cupcakes

Sadie Baby's birthday! Oh, my sweet little baby girl is a year old and almost not a baby anymore. Crawling, babbling, getting into EVERYTHING. I love this child to pieces and wish I could slow down time to spend more with her.

For her first birthday, I decided very last minute to make Martha Stewart's Blackberry Cornmeal Cupcakes, from a cookbook I received for Christmas: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Silly me, I thought the recipe sounded a bit like a muffin recipe, and would be a better option for a baby who doesn't know the difference, but no, they were super sweet and definitely a cupcake, so she had lots of sugar, and enjoyed doing so.

Blackberry Cornmeal Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purose flour
1/2 cup fine-ground yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 to 2 containers (6 ounces each) fresh blackberries

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar. In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter; pour over flour mixture, whisking to combine.

Fill each lined cup with a scant 1/4 cup batter. Top batter with blackberries (3 to 4 berries per cup), then sprinkled evenly with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake until evenly browned on top, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before removing cupcakes, otherwise, they stick to the papers and fall apart.

Recipe says it makes 16 cupcakes; I only made 12.

Recipe also points out 375°F is essential for the blackberries to stay on top and not sink to bottom.

January 20th: Chirp cake

This one comes a bit late! Kept thinking I should talk about Olivia's birthday. Let's back up.

For Christmas, I received Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. After flipping through it and finding some recipes that didn't look too crazy elaborate, I decided cupcakes would be a good way to go for Olivia's birthday. When I approached her with the idea, however, she had her own thoughts:

"I was thinking I would have a cake with a face on it."

"A face? What kind of face?"

At this point, I am picturing Ariel or Dora. I will have to rent a cakepan from Bulk Barn and try my hand at decorating. Oh no.

"A Chirp face?"

"Chirp! What a great idea!"

What a relief.

Let's back up more. Last September, Chirp magazine celebrated 15 years with a birthday issue, including, amongst other birthday articles, how to make a Chirp cake! Smarty pants Olivia remembered this, and so I made a Chirp cake for her birthday. It was easy to make, easy to decorate, and tasted pretty good too.

Chirp cake

1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla

dried mango slices
2 doughnuts
yellow and blue icing*
1 pretzel

Preheat oven to 350F (180C).

In a small bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs together until thick. Whisk in milk, oil and vanilla, then flour mixture. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Pour the mixture into a round, greased baking pan, and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Let the cake cool.

Remove the cake from pan. Spread yellow icing over the top and sides of the cake. Decorate the cake with dried mangoes for the beak, a pretzel for Chirp's feather and doughnuts filled with blue icing for his eyes.

I did end up using Martha's buttercream icing recipe. I thought the directions were a bit over the top, but followed them, and it appears Martha knows what she's about. It was delectable. I made the full recipe, then divided it into two bowls and added food colouring till I had decent blue and yellow icing for decorating as above.

Word to the wise: all the kids wanted eyes, so I ended up making extra eyes on the spot.

BTW. Next year, she might be too old for Chirp. But maybe not. And maybe I'll make Chirp (and Tweet and Squawk) CUPcakes!

Birthday girl, turning 5!

March 5th: Happy Birthday to Moi: carrot cake, portos + goat cheese, loaded baked potato skins

Happy Birthday to me! (From Kat)

I first tried this Epicurious carrot cake in the summer of 2008 when I was home in Nova Scotia. Shannon's friend Shannon made it and I thought it was the best carrot cake I had ever eaten. I tried making it once myself before and it didn't taste as good as I remembered. I had faith in the recipe though, so for my 32nd (gulp) birthday, I thought O and I should give it another go-around. There's a lot in this recipe besides carrots: candied ginger, pineapple, coconut and macadamia nuts, and we topped the whole deal off with cream cheese icing. Yum yum yum. I skipped the three-tiered dealio and just made a 13x9 inch cake. I SHOULD have divided the batter between the big pan and one small or two mini pans. In retrospect, I remember that was the problem last time around: there is so much batter in the pan that the cake starts to burn around the outside before the middle is cooked. But it was still delicious and the best carrot cake I've ever eaten. My goodness, I've been eating A LOT of it this weekend!

If you don't like ginger, I recommend leaving it out. I love ginger and love coming across chunks of it in the cake, but I know that's not for everyone!

Hard at work

I simplified the cream cheese icing a bit:


Cream Cheese Icing


1 250 g (8 oz) package cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tsp each vanilla and coconut extracts
3 1/2 cups icing sugar


Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add extracts and beat again. Beat in icing sugar and, if necessary, chill until spreadable. Spread over cake and keep the whole deal refrigerated. Or just eat it in one sitting (not really!!).

For my birthday supper, I made two of my favourites: garlic-roasted portobello mushrooms and goat cheese, and loaded baked potato skins. The former comes out of my head and the latter is adapted from Crazy Plates. Here's my version of both:


Garlic-roasted Portobellos with Goat Cheese


1 portobello mushroom
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp each dried thyme, rosemary and parsley
2 tbsp goat cheese


Preheat oven to 400°F.


Remove and discard portobello mushroom stem and clean mushroom cap. Place gill-side up in oiled baking pan.


In a small bowl, combine garlic, oil and herbs and spoon mixture over mushroom.


Bake for 10-15 minutes, until garlic starts to get brown and crunchy (that's how I like it, anyway). Remove from oven and crumble goat cheese over top.


Return to oven and turn on broiler. Broil until cheese starts to warm up or gets browned, however you like it!


Makes 1 serving. Simply multiply the recipe amounts for each person you are feeding!

Loaded Baked Potato Skins


3 baking potatoes, scrubbed and bad spots cut away
1 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp olive oil
Cajun spice, to taste
4 bacon slices, cooked and chopped
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 green onions, sliced
salsa and sour cream to top


Preheat oven to 400°F. Poke holes in potatoes with fork or sharp knife. Lightly coat potatoes in butter. Bake for one hour, turning over halfway through, or until done. Remove from oven, split lengthwise, and let sit until cool enough to handle.


Carefully scrape out potato flesh, leaving a 1/4-inch border. Lightly brush both sides of potato skins with olive oil and place flesh-side up in baking pan. Sprinkle on Cajun spice to taste. Place under broiler for 5 minutes.


Remove from oven and top with bacon, cheese and green onions. Return to broiler and broil 2-3 minutes, until cheese is melted and potato skins are hot.


Serves 2-3. Serve topped with salsa and sour cream to taste.

I liked them better without bacon, and Greg was happy to eat my bacon for me.

To accompany, I made sugar snap peas, pan-fried with a finely diced shallot. I squeezed lemon on mine but left G&O's lemon-free. They eat enough lemon on my behalf as it is!

Awesome birthday supper. Great birthday weekend. Happy Kirsten. :)

Happy Olivia, cleaning out the icing bowl.

January 20th: BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA: shrimp, ribs, pasta, bread, salad

It has happened: my baby has turned 3. And she is so 3: smart, funny, perceptive and a genuinely pleasant person to spend time with. Smartest thing I ever did was having this kid. We had a kick-ass birthday, if I do say so myself: breakfast at Cora's, Cosmic Adventures, Tangled 3D, big nap in the car, then a party with the family. This party had no kid-friendly limitations: Chili-coconut shrimp, Beer & 5-cheese penne, artisan bread, Oven-baked ribs with maple barbecue sauce and a honkin' big salad with lemon and oil dressing. Delicious. Would do them all again in a heartbeat. The only recipe being tossed is the rib recipe, as I already have better. I enjoyed the roasting as a cooking method, though; it was quite simple.

Cora's for breakfast

Cosmic Adventures

Oops! Forgot to take a picture of the shrimp before they were eaten!

Ridiculously cheesy penne

Bread with garlic and a hint of whole wheat

Finger-licking required ribs

Honkin' big salad

Birthday girl