Biscoff / Speculoos Sandwich Cookies

We happened to have Girl Scout Shortbread cookies and cookie spread in the house at the same time. So, of course I spread the cookie butter on the flat bottom of a shortbread GS cookie and smooshed the bottom of another on on top of the cookie butter to make sandwich cookies. It's called cookie butter for crying out loud. I couldn't not do it.

This can be done with either Biscoff Spread or it's equally yummy cousin Speculoos Cookie Butter.

That's all...no actual recipe and, good God, no nutritional info.

Just try this. You won't be sorry.

-DK

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Yes, I am one of those moms. The ones that send in cupcakes or cakepops for holidays and birthdays that end up mentioned on Cake Central. But chances are, if you're reading this blog, you are too.

It started out innocently enough. Reynolds was advertising their new stay bright cupcake liners in the baking aisle at the supermarket and I picked them up. The pattern would be cute for Valentine's Day.

Since I already had the wrappers, I agreed to bake cupcakes for my daughter's class Valentine's Day party. And made 2 dozen cupcakes using Hershey's Perfectly Chocolatey Cake Recipe . To really pump up the chocolate flavor, I used a cup of boiling coffee instead of plain water. The coffee flavor doesn't come through in the actual cake - it doesn't taste like mocha or anything. Coffee just really enhances the chocolate, making it deep, dark and delicious.

Now I couldn't put a nice big swirl of frosting on top of the cupcakes because my cupcake carrier will just squish it down:

So I had to come up with a flatish decoration. I had some Duff fondant in hot pink and black left from another project. And some gold dragees were hanging around as well. Had a bunch of heart cookie cutters in different sizes in my decorating kit too and viola:

But the edges looked a little unfinished and Valentine's Day should be, I don't know, a little more romantic. And these cupcakes looked very modern. So I used pink frosting and an Ateco 104 tip to make little feathered boas to cover the edges of the fondant:

All this, for 6 year olds! But, fellow foodies, I'm sure you understand the obsession. And, after all - isn't Valentine's Day all about going overboard for the ones we love?

Ewww to Ohhh!

My daughter is a picky eater who has a very limited repertoire and I figured the few things she eats should be as healthy as possible. So I bought some whole wheat graham crackers to use for my daughter's school snacks. What could possibly go wrong?

EVERYTHING! They are gross. She didn't like them and neither do I. When companies make things like this, I wonder if anyone actually eats them before they build factories and churn out thousands of boxes. Whole wheat is not unpleasant - unseasoned whole wheat grahams are. There should be a sweetener and maybe a pinch of salt, right? No - it's just...plain, dry wheat and now there's a whole $5 box of them sitting in the pantry.

BUT chocolate makes everything better. So do marshmallows. And together they could bring about world peace.

I set the graham crackers on a piece of parchment paper (wax paper works too) on top of a small cutting board. Then microwave melted some semi sweet chips and a very little shortening together in a glass coffee mug. Using a spoon, I drizzled chocolate across the graham crackers.

The mini marshmallows were a little too big so I cut them in half before pressing them into the wet chocolate drizzles. They looked a little nakedly white so I drizzled more chocolate across the marshmallows and used the cutting board to carry them to the fridge. After they set up in the fridge for about 15 minutes, the end result looked like this:

They tasted great now! And since I had chocolate left over, and some strawberries were in the fridge, the inevitable happened.

My daughter's teacher had sent home a note earlier in the week to remind us to send in a snack every day. I had tucked a yogurt tube into her lunchbag but it was clearly a forgettable snack. The above pic is what went into school yesterday. Little miss told me the whole class including her teacher, were looking at her like they "wanted some" as she enjoyed her snack. Guess I won't be getting any notes for a while!

-DK

Cooking with Kids: Pizza

My daughter loves to help me in the kitchen. Ordinarily, I'm pretty patient when teaching her new things. Like running behind her bike holding the seat for an entire summer until she was ready to two wheel it on her own. But put me in the kitchen with her and I make Gordon Ramsey look like Mother Theresa.

To encourage her interest in the kitcheny arts without sending her screaming into the therapist's office, I've starting picking projects that go together quick, are something she will eat and don't require precise measuring.

Pizza dough is sold ready to go in just about any supermarket and it's so easy, just follow the directions on the bag. I buy pizza sauce or  doctor up a jar sauce with some garlic and italian seasoning. My daughter and I take turns stretching and patting out the dough into a round pizza sized shape.

While we shape the dough on the pizza peel, the pizza stone preheats in the oven. Then we brush the crust lightly with olive oil, spread the sauce very lightly over the crust and sprinkled on a mix of part skim mozzarella, finely shredded cheddar and parmesan. A heavier brush of oil on the edges of the crust followed by a sprinkling of seasoning and parmesan ensure it will be good to the last bite.


It's so much fun pulling out the bubbling finished pizza cause we made it ourselves! Some carrot sticks and dip on the side and we have a fun weekday meal that also helps me spend some quality time with my baby girl.

Bento-a-go-go

There's something wrong with my brain. As a kid I could read music, even hum out an unfamiliar tune while scanning the notes, but put an instrument in my hand and it sounded like I was choking a cat.

My experience with bento is the same way. My efforts to put it in a box, as in how it is supposed to be served looks like this:

It's like a train wreck. Not in the I-can't-stop-looking-at-it way, but in that it looks like it was actually hit by a train.Yet if I try it on a plate, it looks much better:

See, pretty!

The plated pics are my bentoish experiments for my daughter who has a PB&J addiction so pronounced it needs an intervention. To keep me from going barking mad making the same food all the time, I amuse myself with different ways to present it. The flower plate is PB&J, string cheese and strawberries. The sandwich pieces were cut with Ateco round and oval cutters.

Bento comes from Asian culture and is, very basically, an attractive way to present a variety of foods within a container. There is some AMAZ-ing bento out there. But that's the pinnacle, not the every day. Regular bento is food served at a restaurant in a pretty lacquered box or a parent using odds and ends in their baby girl's lunch. To get started making bento for kids, there are some great sites devoted to it.

Since I haven't displayed natural talent at assembling bento in a box, I now feel I have to do it and will be obsessing on figuring it out.The latest experiment looks alright:

The hearts are just wheat bread made with a cookie cutter from Michaels but you'd think it was filet mignon the way my daughter reacted. When hubby saw it, he said it made him smile. That's what food's all about, isn't it?

- DK

Easter Cupcakes

The status is not quo. The combination of white almond sour cream cake and buttercream dream icing is one of my all time favorites. But I make it so often...I'm not bored with the flavor combination but I feel like doing something different than just frosting a cake or an icing swirl on a cupcake.

Since this sugary ennui hit in the spring, I thought I'd try an Easter theme. To me, nothing says Easter like a basket weave and alternating a sunny yellow with bright white just drives home the spring feeling. 

For some reason, I really believed I had a grass tip in my decorating kit. It wasn't until the basket weave was done did I realize the grass tip was not purchased on the last culinary outing after all. At this point the cupcakes were liberally sprinkled with copious amounts of profanity. So much cursing goes into my desserts, that I now believe they would not taste the same without it.

After experimenting with a few star tips, I found one that made serviceable looking grass and then added Easter egg sprinkles to finish them off. They were very well received by my crew at work and, if I did catering on the side, I would have walked away with a few orders. But caking for me is a hobby, not work, and I want to keep it that way. So no side orders. Plus the NJ Department of Health makes big 'ol frowny faces when food is sold professionally but prepared in a home kitchen. So there's that.

-DK

Popcorn

I can't begin to explain how much I love popcorn. It doesn't matter if I'm hungry or not, if there is popcorn around I will cram it in my gob until it is gone.

But popcorn's a whole grain, so it's all good, right?

Well, yeah. But we gotta go a little easy on the butter and air popping is way less costly calorie wise than oil popping. Which means we can spend more calories on cramming popcorn in the mouth!


One of my favorite ways to eat it is Crab Popcorn.

Air pop your favorite popcorn - I get mine from an Amish store here.

Spray popcorn with butter flavored Pam

Shake on as much Old Bay as you can handle

Try not to make more than you should eat - it's crazy good.

Per cup:
Calories: 40
Total fat: 0.8g
Sat fat: 0g
Carbs: 6.2g
Protein: 1g
Fiber: 1.2g

-DK

St. Patrick's Day Cake

This was the rush jobs to end all rush jobs. I was having some family over for an early dinner and wasn't going to do a big dessert thing. All the prep for dinner was done the day before so throwing together the meal was going to be really easy. Meaning I had time to think about not doing a dessert thing before they got here.

And, suddenly...

I WANTED TO DO A DESSERT THING!!!

So. ummmm. WHAT do I have in the house!? Cocoa! Yes! Everyone loves chocolate. And, uhhhhh, foil wrapped chocolate coins? (why do I have these ?) And the makings for frosting in the cupboard because I'm in the middle of taking the Wilton course at Michaels.

Cake! I'll made chocolate cake but instead of a cup of boiling water, it'll be a cup of coffee to make it extry chocolately (for culinary reasons, NOT because I had old coffee sitting in the pot from breakfast). And buttercream icing but...plain buttercream is going to be BORing with such a chocolately cake. 

**looking around the kitchen wildly and spotting a box of Thin Mints Girl Scout cookies** Got it!! Tint the frosting green and flavor it with mint and the whole darn cake will taste like a giant Girl Scout cookie. Niiiiice.

Cake takes just a wee bit of time to cool and I ended up with half an hour to frost, write on it and decorate (yes, unwrapping chocolate coins and sticking them on a cake counts as decorating as long as Cake Wrecks doesn't find out).

I wish it looked more finished. But the great thing about any relative older than me is that they beam with happiness and talk with pride about anything I do the way they did when I was 5. And I love it. Not even gonna try to deny it. And the cake did end up tasting like a big Thin Mint, so we all had seconds.

     -DK