Hawaiian Birthday Cupcakes

This post is way overdue, but luckily I still remember to post it before it's getting too late. Last month, my husband's family was throwing a surprise birthday party for his uncle's 50th birthday.  We all had a great time at the Hawaiian themed birthday party.  We even got a pig for his birthday!  My mother-in-law asked me if I mind making them some cupcakes for our uncle's birthday; especially she knew that I got caught up with other orders.  I said no, I don't mind.  So I made some pineapple cupcakes with creamy coconut frosting and decorate with yellow plumeria flowers (made of marshmallows). 

They came out really cute and they were so easy to make.  If you want to decorate your cupcakes in a easy way, marshmallows will be your new best friend.  You need a bag of the big size of marshmallows and cut them in lenthwise four times, so you will get five petals.  And then just spread a little food coloring in the middle and arrange them on top of your frosted cupcakes.  And I also used some melted candy wafers to make some "50" decorations for the cupcakes.  Everything was so tropical and matching the theme of the party=)

DON'T NUT, DONUTS!

My friend made some donuts and cinnamon rolls for her little nieces' birthday couple months ago.  When she told me she is going to make cinnamon rolls, I told her to add bacon in your cinnamon rolls.  She and everyone else thought I was nut at first, but she still "bought" my idea.  And suprisingly, they turned out great and unique and everyone loved them.  Her recipes of making the cinnamon-bacon rolls and donuts are super easy -

Cinnamon-Bacon Rolls -

1 roll of ready to bake cinnamon rolls
1 round cake pan
1 pack of bacons

1. Open the ready to bake cinnamon rolls and put one slice of bacon and roll the rolls.
2. Place the rolls in a round cake pan (I suggest using round cake pan because it is the perfect way to keep the round shape of the cinnamon rolls).
3. Bake as directed and then done!

Donuts -

1 pack of store bought biscuits
Vegetable oil for frying
A big and a small round cookie cutters

1. Open the store bought biscuits and use your round cookies cutters to cut them in a donut shape.
2. Heat the vegetable oil, once it's heated.  Put your donut dought in the oil until golden brown on both sides.
3. Decorate your donut with powder sugar or with an easy donut glaze (click here).

And find these cuper cute donuts on the website.  They are from a bakery in Japan.  How cute!

Baklava Cups Recipe

Couple months ago, I tried to make my very first Baklava (recipe here).  This is one of the most additive desserts I ever ate.  After my first successful attempt, I wanted to make this little treat again for our Easter's dinner; however, I want to make it a little bits different than the one I made the last time.  So I went online and find a pretty interesting recipe from Food Network.com.  The one appears on Food Network.com looks different than the traditional one I made the last time.  The ingridents are also a little bits different too.  I used walnuts and almonds as the recipe called for.  Also added bread crumbs and dried apricots too.  Don't under estimate the bread crumbs, they actually make a BIG different in the texture of the filling.  And the dried apricots make the baklava cups lighter than the traditional one.  

A traditional Baklava I made couple months ago.

The one I made the last time was closer to the one I had in Greece.  The one I made for Easter's dinner had a little Italian twist on it since Giada De Laurentiis is an Italian.  The one I made the last time was a little bits sweeter than the one I made for Easter.  They were different, but I loved them both!  Try both receipes and let me know what you think=)

This recipe was adopted from Giada De Laurentiis's recipe, you could also click here for her demo video:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup almonds
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots
• 1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 1 stick butter, melted, divided
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 12 sheets phyllo dough
• Special equipment: 2 mini-muffin tins

Time:  60 mins

Make: 6 sheets phyllo dough make a dozen, 12 sheets make 2 dozens

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place the almonds, walnuts, apricots, bread crumbs, sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, and salt in a food processor. Run the machine until the mixture is very finely chopped. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the melted butter and the honey and stir to combine
3. On a dry work surface place 1 sheet of phyllo. Using a pastry brush and the remaining melted butter, lightly cover the entire sheet of phyllo with melted butter. Cover the first sheet with a second sheet of phyllo and brush with melted butter. Continue until there is a stack of 6 sheets of phyllo.
4. Cut the stacked phyllo rectangle into 12 equal pieces (Cut lengthwise into 4 pieces and widthwise into 3 pieces.)
5. Gently press each cut piece of phyllo into the mini-muffin tin cups. Press 1 tablespoon of the nut mixture into each of the phyllo cups. Gather the ends of each of the phyllo squares and twist to make a sachet shape. Continue shaping the remaining sachets in the other mini-muffin tin.
6. Bake until the edges of the phyllo are golden, about 20 to 25 minutes.
7. When cool enough to handle, remove the baklava sachets and transfer to a serving plate.

Baklava Recipe

Due to my background of growing up in a multi-cultural town and the love of traveling, I always enjoy trying out recipes of different countries and/or regions.  In the process of preparing the dishes or deserts makes me understand more about the culture of each country.  Beside traveling, making food is a great way to learn more about other countries. 

My parents started taking us to travel when I was just a little kid.  We have been so many wonderful places (Greece, Turkey, Egypt, England, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Portugal, France, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, portion of Mainland China, and America [of course], etc) throughout the whole world.  I feel so lucky that I got to see so many different things (good and bad) in such a young age; it surely opened up my mind and sights to think outside the box and learnt the best from other countries. 

Just a few weeks ago, I had an itch of trying to make a famous and popular Mediterranean dessert - Balkava at home.  Believe it or not, this dessert is so easy to make and is additively delicious.

Recipe (adopted from All Recipe.com)

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough (from the frozen section of the gocery store)
• 1 pound chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds or pistachios)
• 1 cup butter (melted)/PAM
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.

2.  Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan.  I used my new Ninja blender/juicer/food processor.  I will tell you more about how much I love about my Ninja blender later.  It is a great piece of tool to add to your kitchen=)

3.  Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets deep.

4.  Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You may cut into 4 long rows the make diagonal cuts. Bake for about 50 minutes until baklava is golden and crisp.  (The blodded and colored note is very important!  Once you baked it, they are very hard to cut.  So DO remember to cut it before putting it in the oven.)

5.  Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

6.  Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool.

Pulling it out from the oven when they are golden brown.

Pour your honey sauce on it immediately

Serve in cupcake papers.  This freezes well.
 Leave it uncovered because it will get soggy if is wrapped up.





Tamarind Water Recipe

We just went to try a new Korean BBQ place by our house.  Food is good and we enjoyed spending time with our family, but now I am so full, and also feel and smell like a big piece of greasy-beezy pig belly...when we got home, the first thing came up in my mind was the tamarind water I made last week.  Hm...hm...so refreshing, and now I successfully turned myself from a fatty big belly to a less fatty one=)

So you will ask, what is tamarind?  Tamarind is a fruit found in Africa and tropical Asia.  These not so good-looking (they look like Mr. Henkey from the South Park, see picture above. LOL) but surprising tasty fruits are very popular in India, Mexico, Southern Asia, Egypt and portions of Spain.  Tamarind water is one of the most popular agua fresca drinks from Mexican cuisine.

This drink is super easy to prepare and you don't need a lot of ingredients.  Here is my recipe:


6-7 tamarind pods (usually you could get this fruit from Mexican market or Indian/Asian market)
6 cups of water
2 cups of white sugar

Tamarinds with shells

Getting the pods out by hands

About 6-7 pods

1.  Remove the pods from the shells by hands.  I used about 6-7 pods, but it depends on size of the tamarinds and your personal preference (Remember this fruit is a little on the tart side).

Boil 6 cups of water in a tall pot.

 2.  Boil 6 cups of water.  Once the water got boiled, put the pods in the pot and boil for another 25 mins.

3.  Grab the pods out from the pot (they are very soft after boiled, so using a strainer will be a great choice to take them out from the pot).

Mash them good.

4.  Put the soften tamarinds in the strainer and put a bowl at the bottom of the strainer, and try your best to mash them good to get as much as liquid out from them.  After you got the liquid from the fruits, you could discard the seeds and the tamarinds.

5.  Put the liquid back to the boiled water and now you could add 2 cups of water.  Boil for another 10 mins.  

6.  Let the tamarind water cool down before putting it in the fridge.

7.  Add ice and enjoy=)

This drink is so refreshing, so easy and cheap to make, and it makes a good addition in your fridge.  Whenever you need something to refresh your mind, just pour some out and add some ice, and it will certainly put a smile on your face=)

Cupcake Flowers inspired by Cupcake Liners

I found these easy to make but cute flower decorating ideas online.  They flowers are inpsired by cupcake liners.  This first picture of the flower is made with cupcake liners.  Click here for the step by step tutorial.  The second picture is even easier to make, made with lollipop and cupcake liners.

This flower is made with cupcake liners.



This flower arrangement is made with lollipops and cupcake liners.

 This one looks a little bits hard, but the step by step tutorial seems very helpful.  Click here for tutorial.

Cupcake liners are not only for baking, they could make this beautiful flower too.  Check here to see more.