Greek Salad

Hello, GOOD DAY!
For my birthday my best friend Chantelle sent me Jamie Oliver's Food Escapes cookbook. She is the best & she obviously knows me well :) This cookbook has sent me on a mission to create new & exciting dishes everyday! This week Dan & I had bok choy soup, cat fish curry & we made chicken pita's with avocado dip. Also as you can see above we had a great Greek salad the other night for dinner.
I went though Jamie Oliver's cookbook & I needed to use google to find out what the heck some of the ingredients were.
I love that. I love making something that is new & is a challenge for me. For example, two weeks ago I planned a surprise baby shower for a friend of mine & I was in charge of making all of the food. I also made the cake. I wanted to make something cute, so I knew fondant icing was the way to go.. but I had never made it before. When I was at the grocery store buying the ingredients I was thinking to myself  "oh maybe I can start making cakes on the side..start my own little business! How much fun would that be!" So I decided to make a "practice cake" before I did the actual shower cake & it was an utter disaster! I had icing sugar everywhere, the dough kept sticking to the counter & it ripped when I was finally about to put it on the cake! My thoughts quickly changed from starting my own cake business to "I NEVER WANT TO MAKE A CAKE AGAIN". haha

So I was nervous for round two of fondant making, but it turned out pretty good! I used a simpler recipe and
I am very happy with the end result.

*Don't mind the icing sugar all over my stove. haha*

Also here is the Greek Salad recipe:

Serves 4 side dish portions.

• 1 ripe tomato, sliced
• handful of cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 medium red onion, sliced
• 1/2 cucumber, sliced
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• handful of fresh dill
• handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped
• handful of black olives
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1/2 tbsp of red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsps olive oil
• feta cheese chopped (I didn't measure, so use as much of as little as you'd like)
• 1 tsp dried oregano

Enjoy!

Tomorrow I am starting my new job volunteering at my local food bank! I am excited to get out, meet some new people & work on my French some more! Wish me luck!

Have a great day friends!

xo

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes!

Good morning friends! It is a very good morning here anyways. Dan just called and told me he was exempt at his military physical test! Which means he did SO well that he doesn't need to do it again for 2 years!Also I am sitting here munching down some 5 minute chocolate oatmeal! Great way to start the day!

It looks a little "crazy" but I assure you it is delicious & healthy! Find it here on chocolate covered Katie!
http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/09/21/five-minute-chocolate-oatmeal/
I am also sipping on a big cup of coffee! I have professed on here that I am a bit of a coffee "addict" but I have been cutting down my consumption to ONCE  A DAY! It's been hard, but I know it is much better for my health!

Back to business: Here I am, posting this wonderful recipe just like I promised! My sister in law Claire loves to cook, bake and make everything fabulous! She is very talented! She decorates cakes and she is very creative! So we were chatting on the phone the other night and she was telling me about these cupcakes & I asked if I could share the recipe on my blog! So here we are :)
Here is what you need!

Cinnamon Cake:

• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup oil
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¾ cup sour cream
• Vanilla Cake Mix (not white cake mix)
• 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Buttercream:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• ½ cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2/3 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch powder

(Crush the cereal in a bag and then sift out 2/3 cup)

This recipe has been taken & loved from:

http://www.yourcupofcake.com/2011/10/cinnamon-toast-crunch-cupcakes.html

Step one:

Preheat oven to 350F & put 20-22 cupcake liners in your cupcake pans.

Step two:

In a large bowl combine eggs, buttermilk, vanilla & oil. Mix in the sour cream. Add the cake mix & cinnamon stirring until smooth.

Step three:

Pour the batter into the liners until they are about 3/4 full. Bake the cupcakes for 15-18 minutes, or until you can poke a tooth pick into them & it comes out clean :)

Step four:

To make the buttercream you need to beat the cream & butter until fluffy. Add the cinnamon toast crunch powder, vanilla and powdered sugar. You can use milk to adjust the consistency, depending on how thick you like your icing. 

Step five:

Decorate your little cupcakes with the icing and a nice cinnamon toast crunch cereal on top! Enjoy every bite & of course, share! 

Enjoy your day today! Get outside and enjoy the fresh air!

xo

{Decadent} Cheesecake Filled Strawberries

Like I said before, I love Pinterest. This idea comes from there. I made these last night for Dan and I. We enjoyed a romantic evening of these strawberries, tea and the tv show Curious and Unusual Deaths. haha sounds romantic right? haha. We actually love anything on Discovery channel. If we feel like watching something together, it's normally from that channel. These strawberries HIT THE SPOT. for real. I will make these again.
They are super easy to make. Here is what you need:

• 1 brick of low fat cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 tbsps icing sugar
• 1 pkg of strawberries
• chocolate syrup (or melted chocolate, because that would taste so much better)

Step one:

In a bowl beat the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla.

Step two:

Cut out the centre of your strawberries & stuff them with the cream cheese!

Last step:

Drizzle with chocolate sauce. Then enjoy!

xoxo

Buttercream Icing

This week I made a deishious cake.Yes, that's right deishious. I apparently can't spell. I made a vanilla cake (from the box) and I used the maple fudge that didn't set properly for the filling. THEN I found this fab recipe and iced the cake with it. Needless to say it was super sweet. This icing is a keeper. It is good because you can make it how you like. You can use it to decorate cupcakes, because it will hold its shape nicely. Here is what you need:

• One cup of SALTED butter
• 3 tsps vanilla
• 4 cups of icing sugar
• 4-5 tbsps coffee cream (Or more. You will need to see the consistency after the 5 tbsps. If you need to add more to make it spreadable, feel free. Be careful though because 1 tbsp of cream changes alot!)

Step one:
Beat your cup of butter until it gets nice and whippy. Please use salted butter, it makes a difference.

Step two:
Add the icing sugar.

LOOK at the mess I made!

Icing sugar everywhere!
Step three:
Add the cream. You will probably do this step during part two. Once you add about half of the icing sugar it gets pretty thick. Once you see that it is not mixing well, start to add the cream. Like I said, watch how much cream you put in. I added maybe a tbsp extra, but it goes a long way. So just make it how you like :)
FINI.

mmmm
xo

Strawberry Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake

This one is SO good! My brother and I made it for our mom for mothers day. It went pretty quickly, everyone loved it!
Here is what you will need to make one of these vanilla cakes yourself:
-1 3/4 all purpose flour
-1 tbsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 cup of butter or shortening
-1 cup of sugar
-2 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla
-3/4 cup of milk

Preheat your oven to 350F.
STEP ONE
Combine your flour, baking powder and salt together. Then set aside.
In a large mixing bowl cream butter with sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until light (they say it takes about 6 minutes)

STEP TWO
Blend in dry ingredients by alternating with milk. Beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

STEP THREE
Pour batter into buttered and floured cake pans. (round 8 inch cake pans)
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the tooth pick comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove and let stand on wire racks for 45 minutes.

Icing time!
We decided to make a cream cheese icing and use strawberries for the center and to decorate the top. The cream cheese icing was delicious, I enjoyed it much more than the butter icing that I used for the easter cake.
Here is what you will need!
-2 1/2 cups of icing sugar
-1/2 cup of soft butter or margarine
-1 pkg of cream cheese at room temperature
-1 tsp of vanilla

Sift Icing sugar and let it sit. In another bowl cream butter and cream cheese together. Add vanilla. Beat in the icing sugar gradually until you have reached a spreading consistancy. The icing is done!!

What we did for the center of the cake is we took some of the icing and added cut up strawberries. Then we blended it together. Be careful not too add to many strawberries. It can make the icing very liquidy, and thats not what we want.

Then ice your cake! It can be a bit of a challenge so take yout time!

Once your happy with your icing you can decorate! We added strawberries to the to of the cake and we also melted down chocolate chips as a final touch! voila! ENJOY!

xo

Our Wedding Cake

Our wedding cake was absolutely perfect! Dans mom and sister made the cake for our wedding and they did  a fabulous job. It was a french vanilla, chocolate, cherry chip cake with buttercream icing.  It was important to us to have our family and friends involved in the day. We were blessed to have a lot of support! So here are the pics of our wedding cake!

Here is the cake with all of the final touches!

our cupcakes..

xo

Easter Cake

We made this cake for easter and it was scrumptious!! Here is what you will need to make yourself a cake. You will need quite a bit of time and these ingredients:

-4 egg whites

-2 cups of all purpose flour

-1 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp baking soda

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/2 cup of butter or shortening

-1 3/4 cups of sugar

-1 tsp vanilla

-1 1/3 cups of buttermilk or sour milk (sour milk can be made by adding 1 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar to every cup you use. Add the lemon juice first then pour the milk so that the combination will still make one cup)

STEP ONE

Allow your egg whites to sit at room temp for 30 mins. Meanwhile grease and lightly flour two round cake pans, then set them aside.

STEP TWO
Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium size bowl. Set it aside for awhile. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar and vanilla until combined. Add the egg whites one at a time, beating well. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, beating on low speed after each addition until it is all combined.

STEP THREE
Spread the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes if you are using 9inch pans. If you are using 8 inch pans bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Use a toothpick to seeif the cake is done. Poke the center and if it comes out clean then it is finished!

When the cakes come out of the oven let them cool in their pans for ten minutes. Then once they are ready you can take them out and let them cool on wire racks. In total they need about an hour to cool before icing them.

BUTTER ICING!!

You will need:

-3/4 cup butter, softened

-2 pounds of powdered sugar (8 cups)

-1/3 cup  milk

-2 tsp vanilla

-milk (extra)

-food colouring (PINK :)

In a very large bowl beat butter withan elecrtic mixer on medium. Gradually add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating well. Slowly beat in 1/3 cup of milk and vanilla. Gradually beat in the remaining powdered sugar. Beat in enough extra milk to reach a spreading consistancy. Add in a tint with a bit of food colouring. We used 2 dots of red, and a dot of yellow. You don't want too much food colouring or else you will taste it. Then spread it on the cake & decorate!

WARNING: This icing is ridiculously sweet. I have a massive sweet tooth and it was a bit too sweet for me. Its really sweet because you are using 8 CUPS OF ICING SUGAR! haha But over all the cake and the icing were delicous, just a little more on the sweet side.

Enjoy!

xo