Drue's First Bento Box!

Drue has been obsessed with bento boxes lately, and who can blame her? Have you SEEN them?
This type of bento is called Kyaraben (character bento). These cutesy bento boxes originated with Japanese housewives who wanted to come up with some way for their kids to be interested in eating their vegetables. If you make a cucumber look like a flower or make a rice ball look like pikachu's head, it's pretty much a ton of fun to eat it. Drue got all sorts of bento box gadgets in the mail yesterday so she made her first bento box.

This one is flower themed if you couldn't tell. Spring rolls along with cucumber, blueberries, edamame, rice, and quail eggs. The little container on the left is in the shape of a strawberry and holds a tiny portion of soy sauce. Adorable! Good job Drue!

Ginger Lime Cupcakes

Last night was full of cooking and baking. Drue made her very first bento box lunch (I'll explain what that is in another post) and Kat and I made Ginger Lime Cupcakes.
I don't like ginger usually but these cupcakes are delicious. Since it's finally getting warm and pretty outside we decided to make these spring themed cupcakes...mainly because Kat loves themes. They're cute though! Check them out...Too cute! Yes, I know. Kat has also made Orange Poppy seed cupcakes from the same recipe book, and we both agreed that for some reason the cupcakes in that book always come out super fluffy and light, which is awesome. The book is called...well, I can't find it right now but I'll put it up here soon. Good book, great book, awesome cupcakes.
So! For Ginger Lime cupcakes you need lime zest and juice, chopped candied ginger (which is about as easy as finely chopping gummy bears), coconut, milk, eggs, sugar, and flour. Am I missing anything here? Like I said I can't find that damn book...
It's a pretty quick cupcake. The weird thing is the icing which isn't really an icing at all - more like a lime glaze. Hopefully you can see it in the pictures. I was positive I was screwing up the recipe when making it, but no. It's supposed to look that way. And you only use a very little bit when putting it on the cupcake. Probably only about a marble-sized amount.
We decided to add the sprinkles and spring-time decorations but of course you can add or not add whatever you want. Personally, I would have liked to use these...

WHICH can be found at the Cake Art Party Store in Tucker, Georgia. I've never been but that's where blogger Bakerella gets all of her stuff. What's that? Kat and I should go there next week and lose our minds over sprinkles, edible glitter dust, air brushing tools and cupcake pans? OKAY, WILL DO! I'm a little scared of how much money may be lost in this store. Poof, gone.

Happy Easter

I know that dying eggs doesn't count as baking or cooking. However, easter eggs are extremely cute, and after you're done dying them, you can use them to cook or bake! So I figured I could at least share some pictures of our afternoon dying easter eggs at home on our front porch.


To create the striped effect we used thin strips of electrical tape on a plain white egg. After dying it in one color and allowing it to dry, remove the tape and apply once again slightly overlapping the parts of the egg that are still white. These were my favorite eggs that was made that day.

The eggs that we put our names on didn't turn out as well as we had hoped. The stickers kept falling off in the dye, but you get the gist of what we were trying to do. Using sticker letters made for mailboxes would probably work better than stickers made for scrap booking. Hmm...live and learn ;)The roomie's initials

Olive Oil Cupcakes with Lemon, Thyme, and a Balsamic Vinegar Whipped Cream

One of my favorite things to bake here at home is cupcakes. I'm always looking for new and different cupcake ideas, and when I came across this one at cupcakeproject.com, I knew I had to try them out. I present to you, Olive Oil Cupcakes with Lemon and Thyme and a Balsamic Vinegar Whipped Cream!
Okay, so I know the picture isn't great but my refrigerator had the best lighting. And I know the idea of cupcakes made without butter and with savory ingredients sounds gross but...get over it because these cupcakes are amazing! You won't regret trying them. Moving on!
To make these cupcakes you need everything mentioned in the title (olive oil, lemon zest and juice, fresh thyme, balsamic vinegar, heavy whipping cream) along with sugar, flower, a pinch of salt, baking powder, and eggs.
It's not a very hard cupcake to make, and I managed to do it without a hand mixer which decided to die on me as I started to combine the ingredients. Making the whipped cream by hand was a bit tiring but in no way impossible to do. I also didn't have a piping bag so I put the icing bag using a fold-over sandwich bag. Not the prettiest, but I made it work.
Some foodies might insist on using a very high quality olive oil for this recipe since you are using such a large amount (2/3 of a cup), but I used Kroger brand olive oil and they were still delicious in the end.
Now, a lot of my friends were wary to try these, and the first bite is off-putting, but by the time you're done you only want more!
To see the full recipe be sure to visit http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2008/05/olive-oil-cupcakes-with-lemon-thyme-and.html

The Yellowfin Tuna Birthday Cake

My best friend and I always like to create really interesting and fun cakes for our friend's birthdays. This year our friend Sean suggested something that he thought would be impossible for us to create. Since he is a chef, he told us that he wanted a cake that was a Yellow Fin Tuna, one that was anatomically correct and one he could dissect. We were definitely up to the challenge. We started out by making two pans of strawberry cake. We sketched out a shape and cut the cake to size. Using the same fondant technique as the Candy Box Cake, we made some gray colored fondant. It actually turned out to be more purple in the end but we were planning to use spray-on food coloring anyway so the base color wasn't that big of an issue. Using some left over fondant, we rolled out some "fish bones" and layed them on the cake before laying the even layer of fondant over the entire cake. Then we got creative! Using wire mesh pushed slightly in to the fondant, we used edible spray paint to give the cake the blue and yellow hues we were looking for. It was nice to use the spray so we could blend the colors. Using white chocolate chips sprayed with yellow food coloring, we created the yellow markings on the side of the fish. The final details were added using a black marker made for cake decorating, and for the shine on the fish we brushed on some cake glitter. It really made the fish look real!
We had some left over cake left so we decided to make some cake balls in to "bubbles" to put around the fish.
All in all cake the cake took SIX HOURS to make. But, the reaction from Sean and the rest of our friends made it worth it. And the cake was yummy, too!

Valentines Day Candy Box Cake

Today I wanted to share a cake idea that my roommate and I borrowed from another blogger, bakerella. This cake was so fun to make and was very appropriate since we made it on valentines day. In the end, it was beautiful and delicious!
We made our own fondant by melting marshmallows with just a touch of water in the microwave. We added red food coloring (made especially for icing) for that candy-box red effect. If you add just a little almond or vanilla extract to the mixture, it makes the fondant taste even better. After adding a box of confectioners sugar and kneading for a (very) long time, you have fondant! Roll it out to your desired thickness and lay it over the cake covered with just a bit of icing and it will adhere nicely. Make sure that when you are working with the fondant that you have a nice non-stick surface to work on. We layed down some wax paper and covered it (and our hands) with crisco. It feels gross, but if you don't do it you'll be picking marshmallow goop off of your hands all day.
To make the "truffles" we actually made what bakerella calls "cake balls". In order to make these, we crumbled up the extra cake we had left over from the main base and added a bit of cream cheese icing. After doing this, you should roll the mixture in to balls and then form them in to the desired shapes of your truffles. We did balls, squares, hearts...but there are more shapes you could try out. Be creative!
After setting the cake balls on some parchment papers and putting them in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, you're ready to dip them in chocolate. Melt down some chocolate pieces in the microwave, cover the cake balls and then let them cool and harden on parchment paper.
Now comes the fun part of decorating! We used colored melt-able candy in tubes to make the designs on the truffles. We also used heart-shaped sprinkles, coconut, and colored sugar. Place the completed truffles in fluted cups and TA-DAAA! You have your delicious candy box cake. Enjoy, and share!

Be sure to visit bakerella's blog to see her version of the candy box cake, and all the other sweet treats she creates!
www.bakerella.com