baby shower onesie cookies

I recently flew to Chicago for my cousin Angie's baby shower.  I grew up with Angie, and we've been best friends for as long as I can remember.  Her friends in Chicago were organizing her baby shower, but I wanted to contribute something, so I offered to make some onesie cookies!

I used my favorite homemade sugar cookie recipe, and used the same onesie cookie cutters (from my previous attempt at baby shower cookies) to cut out the shapes.  Once those were baked and cooled, I outlined the cookies with white royal icing.  After the outlines had dried, I filled them in with thinned royal icing, and then let that dry overnight.

I wanted to make the cookies match the baby shower invitations, so I used orange royal icing to outline half of the cookies, and blue/grey royal icing to outline the rest.  It took me a while to match the blue color to the one in the invitations, but I ended up mixing in royal blue, black, and a teeny bit of purple to achieve the right shade.

Angie's friends did an awesome job with the baby shower - everything was beautiful, and the food (Korean food made by Angie's cousin-in-law) was deelish!  I was so happy that I was able to make the trip to participate in the celebration!

elmo cake

Even though we didn't have a birthday party for my daughter Melodie's second birthday, I still wanted to make her a cake, to match the cookies and cupcakes that I made for her celebration at daycare.  So I made a cake in the shape of Elmo's face!

I wanted to try something other than chocolate cake, and decided to make a brown sugar cake from Martha's "Cupcakes" book.  I divided the batter in half and used this Elmo cake pan to bake each half of the batter, one half at a time.

Once both cakes were baked and cooled, I began making the filling.  Since I knew that the brown sugar cake was going to be pretty sweet, I wanted the filling to be light. so I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting, and then lightened it with a batch of freshly whipped cream.

For the frosting, I made a batch of cream cheese buttercream (basically a batch of buttercream frosting with a stick on cream cheese added to it).  Then after frosting Elmo's eyes with the white frosting using an offset spatula, I divided the rest of the frosting it into portions, and colored the them red, orange, and black.  Then I filled in Elmo's eyeballs and mouth with black frosting using a piping bag fitted with a #5 tip.  Next was Elmo's face with red frosting using a piping bag fitted with a star tip, and finally Elmo's nose with orange frosting using the offset spatula.

Melodie loved her Elmo cake!  Although I thought it was a little too sweet.  Also, the next time I make an Elmo cake, I think I'd flatten out the piping on the eyes and the mouth.

And now I'll leave you with a picture of the birthday girl, eating her cake!

elmo cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese whipped cream frosting

My last post was about the Elmo cookie favors that I made for my daughter's birthday party at daycare, so I also wanted to show you the Elmo cupcakes that I made to go with them!  I had made Elmo cupcakes a few years ago for my son's third birthday - I had used plastic Elmo rings as cupcake toppers, but this time I wanted to make everything edible!

I started by making chocolate cupcakes - mini cupcakes for the kids, and regular cupcakes for the teachers.

For the frosting, I wanted something light and airy, so I made a batch of cream cheese frosting, and then a batch of whipped cream, and then lightened the frosting by folding in the whipped cream.  Then I piped the frosting on with a large closed-star tip, to create a "whipped cream" effect.

The final touch was topping the cupcakes with Elmo toppers that I had made previously by piping them with royal icing on waxed paper - the same method I used for the Superman cupcakes for my son's birthday.

A few notes about using this technique:

* Give the royal icing at least 2 days to dry.

* Be very careful when peeling the dried royal icing off of the waxed paper, as they are very fragile and break easily.  I would almost describe it as "peeling the waxed paper off of the toppers" rather than peeling the toppers from the waxed paper.

* Place your royal icing toppers on top of your cupcakes the day you are serving your cupcakes.  If you leave them on overnight, the toppers may wilt and the colors may bleed onto your frosting (not very attractive when black royal icing bleeds onto white frosting!)

Happy Birthday, my Melodie!

*** Update: you can also find the Elmo cake that I made for her here!

elmo cookies

My daughter Melodie's turned two the week before Christmas, but I didn't have time to plan a party (I feel so guilty - I didn't have time to plan one last year either!).  However, we had a small party for her at daycare.  And since I did Hello Kitty last year, this year I decided to do her second favorite character - Elmo!

I made Elmo cupcakes for the party (post to come later), and for the favors I made Elmo cookies.  I used this Elmo cookie cutter, and my favorite homemade sugar cookie and royal icing recipes (but you could of course use store bought).

After the cookies were baked and cooled, I used black royal icing to pipe the outlines for Elmo's eyes, nose, and face.  When the outlines had dried, I filled in the face with various colors of royal icing - red for the face, orange for the nose, black for the mouth, and white for the eyes.  

And the finishing touch was adding Elmo's eyeballs.

As always, I wrapped the cookies cellophane bags tied with raffia and custom favor tags.

Melodie loved them!  And so did all the kids (and teachers) in her class!  More to come on the other Elmo goodies that Melodie enjoyed on her birthday!

*** Update: I also made Elmo cupcakes and an Elmo cake!  You can cupcakes here, and the cake here!

christmas wreath triple chocolate mousse cake

Every Christmas we drive down to LA to spend Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family, and this year I wanted to make a cake to mimic my Christmas wreath cupcakes from Martha's "Cupcakes" book, which I had made earlier in the week.  So I decided to make the triple chocolate mousse cake from America's Test Kitchen once again, since I've made it several times and it hasn't let me down yet!

For the bottom layer I made my favorite homemade chocolate cake recipe (instead of the flourless chocolate cake in the ATK recipe), but I followed the recipe exactly for the chocolate mousse (middle layer) and the white chocolate mousse (top layer).

From start to finish this cake takes a while to complete, because you have to bake the cake and then wait for it to cool for an hour or so.  Then you prepare the chocolate mousse layer, add it on top of the chocolate cake layer, and then let that set in the fridge for another hour or so.  Then comes the final layer, the white chocolate mousse, and once added to the top of the cake it also needs to set for another 2-3 hours.

After all the layers had set in the fridge for a few hours, I piped my wreath design in the middle of the cake with a leaf tip and cream cheese frosting colored green.  Then I sprinkled on holly and berry sprinkles (I used only the berries) that I found at Target (or you could use red sugar pearls like Martha suggests).

I unmolded the cake right before our drive down to LA, but I think I hadn't let it set long enough.  The sides were craggy and jagged, and not smooth like how I wanted it to be.  But I had no choice, it was time to go!  I hope everyone enjoyed it anyway!

homemade caramel popcorn

The past few years, I've been giving out jars of homemade caramel popcorn as Christmas gifts.  It's so much fun to make, and it makes the whole house smell delicious!

I've been using Alexis Stewart's recipe (Martha's daughter) for caramel almond popcorn, and I've made different variations - sometimes I use peanuts instead, or sometimes I leave out the nuts altogether.  It still tastes delicious.

I start by popping popcorn in a large stock pot on the stove, which is so easy and fun for the kids to watch (especially if you have a clear glass lid for your pot).  Now at this stage, the popcorn is already delicious - you could just add some salt and drizzle on some olive oil (or drizzle on Giada's rosemary-infused olive oil - so good!).

But since we're making caramel popcorn here, I just pour the popped popcorn into the largest mixing bowl I have (and add your toasted nuts if using), and then set it aside.  Then comes the making of the caramel.  In a small pot, combine butter, brown sugar, and a little bit of corn syrup (to make the popcorn shiny), and melt it all down.  Once it reaches 255 F with a candy thermometer, take it off heat and add in some salt, vanilla extract, and baking soda.  Then stir it up, and immediately pour it over your popcorn.  Toss your popcorn with the caramel (I use two spatulas for this) until evenly coated, and pour out onto two silpat-lined baking sheets.

Then I bake it at 250 F for a little over an hour, stirring it up every half hour or so.  And then, out comes the most delicious, buttery, crunchy caramel popcorn!

I like to give out my caramel popcorn in large mason jars, with a pretty piece of fabric over the lid and tied with raffia.  The caramel popcorn will stay crunchy in the sealed jar for couple of weeks.  Enjoy!

christmas wreath cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes with peppermint cream cheese frosting

I saw these wreath cupcakes in my Martha Stewart "Cupcakes" book last year, but never had a chance to make them last Christmas.  So this year I had to make them!  I started by baking chocolate cupcakes, and then whipped up a batch of peppermint cream cheese frosting to top it with (basically a standard cream cheese frosting with about 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoons of peppermint extract added to it).

Before adding any coloring, I first used the white frosting to cover the tops of the cupcakes.  Then I added green coloring to the rest of the frosting, and began piping a ring of leaves on the perimeter of the cupcakes using leaf tip.  Then inside the first row of leaves, I piped a second row, and a third row, to finish forming the Christmas wreath.

Martha's book suggested using red sugar pearls as the berries on the wreath, but since I didn't have any of those, I used these cute holly and berry sprinkles that I found at Target.

I loved the end result.  And it had just the right amount of minty-ness and chocolate!  Next year I plan on using the same leaf technique to make Christmas tree cupcakes!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

kimchi jjigae

I've been into watching the show "Kimchi Chronicles" on PBS lately - it's a show where chef Jean-Georges and his wife Marja (who is half Korean) travel throughout Korea and taste different Korean foods, and then they go back home and each cook up a version of the dishes they tasted.  One weekend I watched an episode where they had kimchi jjigae, a spicy Korean kimchi soup.  My mouth immediately started watering, and after that day I've been obsessed with it!

A couple of weeks later I was craving that spicy soup, so I decided to try making it using Marja's recipe.  I didn't have any pork belly on hand, so instead I used a leftover rotisserie chicken, bones and all.  I know, rotisserie chicken bones in kimchi jjigae is probably not the authentic way to make it, but I was desperate for some soup!

So I browned my leftover chicken and bones with some sesame oil in my cast iron pot, added thinly sliced onions and chopped kimchi, and then covered it with water.  Then I brought it to a boil and then let it simmer for over half an hour, then added a bit of fish sauce and scallions and allowed it to simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

It was so simple to make, yet so delicious!  Hot, sour, spicy, salty ... perfect for a cold winter day.  Next time I'm definitely going to try it with the pork belly!

*** Update: I have no made this several times, using various meats such as leftover roast chicken or turkey, spam, or portugese sausage, and I still love it each time!  One note about using portugese sausage - it makes the soup extra spicy, so beware when inhaling soup as the spiciness will make you cough!

thanksgiving birthday cake - pumpkin spice layer cake with browned butter cream cheese frosting piped roses

My cousin Yvonne's birthday was on Thanksgiving Day this year, and since the two of us are known to devour an entire pumpkin pie together, I decided to bake her a pumpkin spice layer cake.  I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's "Cupcakes" book, except instead of making cupcakes I made two 8-inch round cakes.

While the cakes were cooling, I started on the filling and the frosting.  I knew that I wanted to make brown butter cream cheese frosting (when I made that combination for my Halloween cupcakes, the flavors combined were delicious!), but I wanted the filling to be a bit lighter, since my family doesn't like desserts that are too sweet.  So I whipped up some fresh whipped cream, and then added about a cup or so of the brown butter cream cheese frosting to it, to make a lighter filling with the same flavors.

Once my cake was filled and stacked, I let it set in the fridge so that I could add color to my remaining frosting.  I was going for a peachy-pinky color, so I mixed pink with orange and a bit of yellow.  Once that was ready, I applied my crumb coat of frosting (this is to seal the cake and to prevent any cake crumbs from ruining the finished frosting).

Since the first roses cake I made was so popular (inspired from the rose cake tutorial by I Am Baker), I decided to decorate this cake the same way.  Using a 1M Wilton tip, I piped large roses all over the cake, and filled in the remaining spaces with swoops and swirls.  I loved the way the specks (from the browned butter) in the frosting showed through the peachy color of the frosting.  Although, while my frosting started out to be the perfect peachy color, after a few hours the color set and turned into more of a bright orange sherbet color!  It wasn't what I was originally going for, but it actually worked out to match the whole Thanksgiving theme of the cake.

The final touch was a homemade birthday banner for the cake, similar to the one I made for my son's Superman birthday cake.  I took differently patterned craft paper and cut small triangles out of them, then threaded them together with string and a sewing needle, and then wrote "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" on them.  Then I attached the two ends of the banner to bamboo skewers ... I attached double-sided tape on the skewers, wound the string around the sticky part of the skewer, and finally tied the string securely in a few knots.

It was the perfect combination of Thanksgiving flavors, birthday cake look-and-feel, and girliness with the roses and patterned banner.  Hope you enjoyed it, Yvonne!  Happy Birthday!!!