Gazpacho

     Generally I prefer hot soup, but occasionally I make an exception. This is one of those those times. Gazpacho is a vegetable filled spicy puree that has lovey acidity without making you wish you had heartburn medication handy. The first time I had it was at a reception for a friend's music recital and they served it in cups. I immediately asked for the recipe.
     I adore gazpacho, but if you have never had it before you may not understand it's being called a soup... so don't think of it as a soup. It is simply a nice healthy summer food, that you can either eat with a spoon, or even sip from a glass (I have even been considering a savory Popsicle in the current heat.)
     Before I list the ingredients for the mix I just made I will say this - there are a few essential ingredients but the rest of the list (and, in fact, the amounts) are all very flexible.

Equipment you will need:
     Mixing bowl
     Food processor/blender
     Tasting spoon (not to be used at an "eat it all while standing at the counter" spoon)

I mention the tasting spoon because you really do want to keep tasting while making this dish. Every time I make gazpacho it's a bit different, but that difference depends on how I feel at the time, and how cheap certain veggies are. (Side note: This is a great dish if you want something inexpensive.)

Core ingredients:
     Tomatoes chopped, 3-4 large
     Red Onion diced, 1
     Cucumber chopped, 1
     Lemon juice and/or Lime juice (both is better) around 2 Tbsp each
     Garlic diced 5-6 bulbs
     Salt & Pepper

Optional:
     Red bell pepper diced, 1
     Green bell pepper diced, 1
     Cilantro (leaves only)
     Hot sauce, maybe a Tbsp
     Garlic or onion powder

     Chop all vegetables and put them in the food processor or blender. Blend until desired consistency is reached. I prefer chunky, but some people like puree. Here's how I like mine:

      Now is when you'll want to add lime/lemon juice, salt, pepper, and anything other than the veggies. Taste as you add to make sure everything is working nicely with the vegetables from your area. You want spicy, but you want to leave to eat another bowl too. Do not underestimate the importance of the lemon and lime juice.
     If you feel fancy and avocados are miraculously cheap where you are, slice them to garnish your dish. If you want some protein, try sauteing some shrimp, or even just hang them on the edge of the glass cold like shrimp cocktails.
     The longer this sits, the better the flavors get. At least try to wait a few hours before eating after you mix it all.

Enjoy your cool summer treat!

Low Carb Chunkey Monkey

     I have not posted in awhile as I have not had the time or resources to experiment with foods I can no longer eat due to low carb dieting. Now I have returned with a low carb recipe and it's ice-cream!

Yeilds: 5 cups

There are two parts to this recipe, the first is a low carb magic shell:
(This is just a low carb/sugar free version of the magic shell found here.)

You will need:
  1/2 cup Coconut Oil (measured in a solid form)
  1 1/4 cup Unsweetened chocolate chunks/chips (I used blocks of baker's chocolate)
   Sweetener to taste

- Put all ingredients in a bowl.
- Alternate microwaving and stirring the mix until smooth.
- Store it in the fridge to top ice-cream, or for the next step in this recipe.


 The second part is the ice-cream:

You will need:
   2 cups Heavy cream (as low a carb count as you can find)
   1 cup Almond milk
   2 tsp Sugar free Banana syrup (or to taste)
   1 tsp Sugar free White chocolate syrup (or to taste)
   Possibly a little more sweetener to taste (I added 1/8 cup splenda)

Later you might want:
    Macadamia nuts or other nut.

- Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and put in an ice-cream maker. After about 15 minutes it will probably be done.
- Fold in any nuts you might want.
- Drizzle the magic shell over the ice-cream, then break it and fold the chunks in. Repeat until there is enough chocolate to suit you.
- Place in freezer until the ice-cream is cold enough for you.

Notes:
- It did take a second for the magic shell to work as I used it still slightly hot, so don't freak out if that happens.
- If you can't find sugar free flavoring in your area, check out this site.
- Do not put the ice-cream into the freezer in the bowl of the ice-cream maker. It will freeze solid and get stuck. Find another bowl.

I have to say I'm excited about this as I have wanted ice-cream since going on this diet... and this isn't even an indulgent recipe. :)

Apple cinnamon cupcakes with a mead frosting

     The very (long) title of this cupcake makes me think of fall, and apple cider. Such lovely things, as I hope this cupcake has been for those of you who ate it. For this reason, and because it came second in the last round of voting, I decided to bake it for this week.
     I am much happier with the cake part of this cupcake than I was with the apple spice cake part of the caramel love cupcakes. While both cakes were rather dense, this recipe turned out more gooey... in a good way. The blog I found the recipe on described them as tasting like apple pie filling when fresh out of the oven, and I can see why. The caramel love cupcakes had one half cup diced apples, while these cupcakes had one cup diced apples, one and a half cups applesauce and a fair amount of cinnamon (which I think brought out the apple flavor nicely.) The applesauce did more than just add apple flavor, it made the cupcakes wonderfully moist, and instead of getting comments like "Oh, this is a really heavy cake" I heard things like "yum." I much prefer the last. I am very happy I baked these two back to back, because now I know which cake recipe to follow if I want an apple taste.
     As for the frosting on these cupcakes, all I can say is that it was interesting. I, and most I talked to about it, loved the caramel butter-cream on the caramel love cupcakes... notice how I didn't say on both cupcakes? I am unsure what others thought of this mead "frosting" but I was unimpressed. True, the flavor is unlike anything I have tasted before, but it was super sweet (and I am not a fan of sweet). I even feel weird calling it frosting since it's much more akin to a glaze. It was mostly sugar, mead, and soy milk, all stirred furiously together until it sort of looked like a goo. If the goo was left sitting for more than a few seconds, moving the spoon produced a crackle effect on the surface of the sticky substance. I suppose this isn't a bad thing, it's simply not what I expect out of a frosting. That being said, I think it complemented the cake nicely, especially once the honey swirl was added.

Here is a picture of the crackling in the glaze:

     Over all I think this cupcake turned out well, and people seemed happy with it, but I was bothered by how it looked. I could think of no real way to give it better presentation. The icing always oozed out to the sides of the cupcake eventually, and the honey swirl is just that, a swirl. While certainly not hideous, I wanted to play with icing and so was sad. I'll get over it though. Point being, loved the cake, was alright with the frosting, and disliked the over all look. I would love to know what those of you who ate them thought of the frosting and look though, so please feel free to argue with me in the comments.
     And now, on to the recipe. I got this from the cupcake project website, click on the link to see this woman's amazing cupcake blog and find all sorts of recipes. This recipe makes somewhere around 20 cupcakes depending on how full you fill the cups. I accidentally doubled the recipe because of a misreading of her blog and ended up with over 40. I still have 13 in my fridge. Unless you have a lot of people who want cupcakes, don't double the recipe. Also, I found I did not use all of the frosting (I had about a cup or so left) so if you don't want leftovers the numbers may need to be tweaked a bit.

For the cake part of the cupcake you will need:

     2 sticks of butter
     1 C + 2 T of sugar
     2 C of Flour
     4 Eggs
     1 and 1/2 C of Applesauce (unsweetened)
     1 and 1/2 t of cinnamon
     1 C of finely chopped apples (I used Granny Smith)

For the glaze you will need:
  
     1/4 C of butter
     3 T of soy milk (most likely any kind of milk will do)
     2 T of Mead (I used Strawberry mead)
     2+ cups of confectioners' sugar (waaaay more in my case)

     To make the cupcake, simply cream the butter, sugar, eggs, and flour together and then stir in the remaining ingredients. The mix will look very dry until you get the applesauce in the mix. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes.

Hopefully they will turn out something like this:

If they turn out entirely different please check your recipe and call back later.


     To make the glaze mix all of the ingredients together with a hand mixer. I used a wisk attachment after I realized it was only going to be liquid if I kept using the beaters.

     After putting the glaze on the cupcake don't forget the honey swirl!

So there you have it. An easy, yummy apple cinnamon cupcake with mead frosting and a honey swirl. Here is the original inspiration picture:

And here is how mine ended up looking:

As a side note, Will has started his own food blog - Radical Reductions. Click on the title to go to his blog and see it for yourself. From what he has told me he will be focusing on savory foods, as a foil to my sweet. As he is a better writer and cook, this should be interesting.

Caramel love cupcakes

I have been terribly negligent, using my parents arrival as an excuse to not bake. I apologize and hope to get back on schedule shortly. First though, I will take a cooking break to a) work on papers and b) give people time to vote on the next baked good. Hopefully I will post the choices on here in the next few days.

     For now, here is the winner of the last vote, the Caramel love cupcake!

Here is the inspiration:

here is what I ended up with:

 

 Ta da!

     There you have it. I actually made a traditional french butter-cream for the frosting... and then added caramel of course. From the feedback I have decided that the cake is probably not the best, and is rather dense but the frosting is a winner. Also, people loved my mock-stroopwaffle. Since I could not find such a thing in the stores, nor did I have money to buy all the ingredients needed to make the real thing I bought apple-cinnamon waffles, cut them in half, put cinnamon and caramel in the middle, and because I had no small cookie cutters, cut them into pie wedges. I like the look, and so far I have heard no complaints against the taste, so I call it a win. 

     So that people have time to vote on another kind of baked good I think I will make the mead frosting cupcakes so that I can play with a different kind of apple cake batter and see if some other recipe might be more satisfying.

For now, I hope all of you who tried the cupcakes enjoyed them, and I will attempt to be more consistent with the blog in the future. Here's hoping.

Choose your poison

     I have finally found a home for the two rainbow cakes from my previous post. I have been informed that the first cake did not have sweet enough frosting, so for the second I attempted to remedy that by adding more powdered sugar to the butter cream frosting. I have been told by a few that it worked, but if you are reading this and disagree I would love to know. I am on a diet that inhibits sugar intake so I'm honestly not the best judge of what is sweet enough right now. Which brings me to my next baking project... but first - I wanted to show you want I did with the left over tops of the cakes (that I got rid of with the awesome cake leveler.)

 

     Ta da! I decided to take some disposable shot glasses, crumble the cake and layer it with the frosting. I think it turned out quite charming for some extra bits of cake that I thought about tossing out. I am now ashamed that I almost threw all that yumminess away. It would have been quite a waste.
 
     As I was saying earlier though, my taste for sweets is off a bit of late and I would like to remedy that. This coming week I want to focus as much as possible on flavor. While I still care about ascetics, I feel that I should learn more about how to make things taste the way I want them to, and the way other people like them to.
     I will bake one of four styles of cupcake this coming week. The choices are all listed below, complete with picture and description of each. I would love for as many people to vote as possible. You can leave a comment on this blog, or post your vote on Facebook, or Twitter. You can even email me your vote if you feel so moved! Point being, VOTE. That way I know what people want to eat and I can bake accordingly. And remember, those who vote, get at least one cupcake!
     Now that I have firmly established this "I want people to vote thing" let me set out the guide lines for voting. The important thing to know is that you can vote for more than one cupcake. If you do vote for more than one, please rank your picks. You can tell me why you voted, or you can simply write the title of the cupcake. Eventually I will figure out how to make a poll on here and things will get a lot easier for you guys.

     IMPORTANT: Let me know if you are allergic to any of the current cupcake picks. I do not want to be responsible for a trip to the hospital and the use of an Epi-pen. I will do my part and list the ingredients (other than the obvious flour/milk/cream/sugar/butter), do your part and keep me from injuring friends.

      Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the cupcakes.

1. The "Love Carmel Cupcake"

This cupcake was designed by a loving blogger in memory of her mother. If you would like to see her blog she is over at http://www.thelonebaker.com/. This cupcake is full of carmeley goodness with some apple-spice thrown in for good measure. The waffles on top are dutch stroopwaffles (hard waffles with caramel in the middle) and baking this cupcake would mean an excess of those, so be prepared to suffer. ;)

Ingredients: Apples, Cinnamon, Caramel, Vanilla, pie spice

2. The "Apple Cinnamon Cupcake (with Mead Frosting and a Honey Swirl)"

This cupcake was inspired by the Rosh Hashana tradition of dipping apples in honey. The recipe I would use is from the blogger at http://www.cupcakeproject.com which is where all of the cupcake recipes below would come from. If I cannot find someone with an open bottle of mead who is willing to donate to tablespoons I may have to change the frosting to a cinnamon one. So keep that in mind while voting.

Ingredients: Applesauce, apples, cinnamon, mead, honey

3. The "Better than sex cupcake"

No really, that's it's actual name. There are five different types of chocolate in this thing. If you want chocolate, vote for this. This is no ordinary cupcake.

Ingredients: Vanilla, chocolate, cocoa powder, salt, coffee, brandy(maybe), white chocolate

4. The "Yogurt and Honey Cupcake"

This is the cupcake to choose is you are tired of the heavy sweet flavors. It gets lightness from the yogurt in the batter and the fact that the frosting is yogurt (with a honey drizzle). Don't get me wrong, these are still sweet, just in a different way. If you want something interesting and different, this is the cupcake for you.

Ingredients: Geek yogurt, vanilla, honey, salt


So there you have it. The four choices for this week.  Choose wisely as you all have to eat them.

The cake is not a lie!

     My hands may look like I cleaned up after a sick unicorn, but I have completed the famed rainbow cake. This cake would have taken very little effort if not for the amount of dyes that I had to mix. My icing apparently did not come out as sweet as I would have liked, but I will still count this a success rather than failure since my whole point was to focus on coloring and icing instead of flavors.
     The only "specialized" equipment I used was a cake leveler and an icing spatula. If you do not know of the magic of cake levelers and you bake often, you should check them out. I had no idea how I would stack three rounded cake layers without them tipping over, and then there was the cake leveler. It's basically a garrote wire between two sticks. You place the sticks on the counter, make sure the wire is at the correct height, and drag the wire across the cake. It was quite easy and wonderfully helpful. The icing spatula was also a help, but was not new to me, so not as interesting to play with.
 

  

      Coloring the batter took a lot of dye. The red batter took 115 drops of red dye - over half the bottle. The green icing took almost 100 green drops. If anyone is interested in the exact ratios I can give them to you, but I didn't want to go into the boring details here. I used a plain white cake mix with applesauce instead of oil for the batter.

The cake layers themselves only took about 18 minutes to bake at 350 F since I used small four inch spring form pans (so that I would have several small cakes to ice instead of one large one.) I think the colors turned out wonderfully. I made my own butter cream frosting for the icing. It made the cake quite tall and the slices looked a bit odd, but there was no danger of it toppling thanks to the cake leveler!

 

     Here is the finished product! I reversed the color progression from the picture I found (I thought red made more sense on the bottom so that blue was next to violet.) I found that my original sprinkle method (throw them and hope they stick) did not work quite as well as applying them with a spoon. I simply filled the bowl of the spoon with sprinkles, and pulled it up the sides of the iced cake. There were very few empty spots left after using that method. In order to ice the cake I put it on a cake round with the turntable from my microwave underneath (it's cheap and it works!) That turned out to be unnecessary since the cake was so small, but it was still fun to get to spin the cake around instead of trying to maneuver my arm in such a way to keep the icing smooth.

     I took the finished product to gaming tonight, and here is a picture to give the scale of the cake. If you have ever played D&D, or any other table top game involving mini-figs you will have a better idea of just how tall the cake is. Also, I have put the original picture that inspired me next to it for a comparison. If you happen to want some there is another un-eaten cake currently.Hope you enjoyed this week's cake! 

 

The great cake challenge

     Hello again wonderful, brave readers. I have been lax about updating my blog of late, much has happened but I am writing now to tell you about a challenge I have set my self and think I might need a bit help with. Don't worry, your part involves eating cake. Yes, that's right, I am looking for people to eat cake and cupcakes and other sweet things, and maybe bread. Well, definitely bread because at some point I want to make bread that looks like a panda.
     The point being, I am going to attempt to make/bake/or otherwise throw together some sugary delight about once a week. Most of the things I make will be inspired by a recipe or picture that I find online which I will post here along with a picture of what I end up making. I have already chosen my first delight - a rainbow cake. See below.

     I chose this particular rainbow cake because not only do I have to dye the cake batter, but I get to dye frosting and use sprinkles as well! I have no idea what recipe was used for the cake in this picture, I am going to use a modified white cake mix with butter-cream frosting though. Hopefully I will not resort to mixes often, but this time I'm really focusing on learning how to stack a layer cake and dye frosting properly, and I may add powdered sugar clouds on top!

     Though I have chosen this week's sweet, I need help choosing for next week. So that I don't resort to dice rolling I am going to post three to five pictures every week (there will be some underlying theme every time of what I want to work on that week, but I will most likely have widely diverse treats) and I would love for people to vote on what they want me to make. As your motivation to cast a vote - I will attempt to make at least enough to feed those who do vote, regardless of whether yours is the top choice that week.
     Hopefully I will have pictures up of my attempt at a rainbow cake sometime tomorrow night or Tuesday. Do let me know if you would like a bit!