Tasty Tangents

Food, life and other morsels

June 30, 2012
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Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

If you ever want to impress a roomful of kids, or in my case, your co-workers, make a tray of these adorable cupcakes.

They’re ridiculously easy to make, especially if you take a few shortcuts.

The question I got the most after sharing these was ‘So you just put the cones in the oven and they didn’t burn?’ The short answer is yes, but I have no idea why.

The next question was ‘How did you get them to stand up?’ The answer to that question is muffin tins. They are a wonderful thing, but I don’t recommend the silicone type for this project.

I followed this recipe, which is a basic vanilla cake and used store-bought cones, vanilla buttercream frosting and pretty sprinkles and candied cherries.

You could also follow this recipe, which basically means picking up cake mix, the flat-bottomed ice cream cones and the frosting of your choice.

The trick with these cupcakes is not to overfill the cones, it doesn’t take much batter for them to puff up and fill the cones, or spill over the edge.

Cones should be less than two-thirds full of batter so they don't overflow while baking.

After my first batch came out of the oven, I found myself spooning some of the batter out of the next batch of cones to help prevent more  overflowing.

Pre-frosting cupcakes.

After they cooled, I just piped the frosting on using a star tip and added sprinkles and candied cherries until I had a variety of ‘ice cream shop’ looks.

These were so impressive, I’m really starting to think about trying one of the other ‘cupcakes that look like something else altogether’ recipes.

June 23, 2012
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Father’s Day

Crudites

Usually I share recipes when I talk about delicious homemade meals, but after our Father’s Day brunch at my sister’s place, I couldn’t help sharing the beautiful food, even though I don’t have the recipes. Not yet, anyway.

The table was covered with hors d’oeuvres when we arrived; raw vegetables, chips, salsa, guacamole and a few other goodies.

First up, possibly my favourite thing. Pancetta baked into cups, filled with guacamole and topped with a little popper cracker.

Pancetta Cups with Guacamole

I don’t know if I can say enough good things about these, somehow the avocado was the perfect foil for the salty Italian-style bacon.

Next up, smoked salmon served with toast, capers, thinly sliced onion and a homemade herbed mayonnaise.

Smoked salmon with all the fixings.

So good. Enough said. Did I mention we’re still talking about the starters?

The main course was a lovely strata served with bacon, bacon and bacon.

The strata and bacon!

Yes, you read that right, three kinds of bacon. There was regular bacon, candied bacon and Canadian/peameal bacon, all delicious. Not to take away from the strata, which was wonderfully flavourful and fluffy.

A strata is kind of like a really big omelette that incorporates the toast right into it.

There are some good recipes here and a healthier one here if you’d like to try it out, and I certainly recommend you do.

Biggest kudos to the hosts of this delicious meal, go Nat and Jay!

May 29, 2012
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Dinner at Che

Baked Salmon and a bottle of wine.

At first I thought it was a little too trendy, a little too chic (it is a ‘restobar’ after all), but it’s a good thing I try not to judge a book by its cover.

Dinner at Che Restobar was a lovely experience, great food, great wine, wonderful service and a lovely time was had by all.

I can’t take any credit for actually going to the restaurant, it was chosen for a family birthday, but I’m thankful to whoever chose it.

We had a great evening, and I discovered passionfruit cream sauce and yucca fries are delicious.

While it is a little pricey, I think as a special occasion spot, it’s worth a try. If you go, try the empanadas, I can’t remember what the spicy sauce served with them was called, but couldn’t get enough of it.

May 10, 2012
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Star Wars Cake

After consulting with his mom, I decided to go with a Star Wars theme for my godson’s First Communion cake.

But before we get to that, you should know that inside the cake I was going for something Strawberry Shortcake style, but that would hold up to a long drive and warm weather.

So I opted for Martha Stewart’s White Butter Cake with vanilla buttercream and strawberry preserves between the layers. It was delicious, but next time I make the cake I will definitely add some kind of simple syrup to help moisten it a little bit more.

I scouted for quite awhile to figure out what to use to make the cutouts and which characters to include. Initially I thought of making a whole R2D2 cake like this one, but I don’t think my sculpting skills are quite there.

Then I stumbled on these great pancake molds and these great molds from Williams-Sonoma and I knew what I was going to do. (Thanks again to my brother-in-law for picking them up at the Toronto store for me!)

So you can see below how everything started. I used the molds to cut the shapes from the coloured fondant, trimming with a small paring knife, then I just used water to glue  them to the sides of the cake.

Making cutouts for the Star Wars cake.

Figuring out the placement was probably the toughest part, but I think it worked out in the end. I put a Millenium Falcon cutout on top and edible marker for the writing.

I then used candy-coated chocolate rocks to trim it, hoping to mimic the rocky desert landscape on Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine.

Jack's Star Wars Cake

The finishing touch was a couple of mini lightsabers (actually Nintendo DS styluses).

And all that mattered, was that my favourite little guy loved it!

March 26, 2012
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Floral Cupcakes

Flower Cupcakes

Flower Cupcakes

Spring is finally here, and in honour of the warmer weather I thought I’d post some photos of these beautiful cupcakes made by my brother’s girlfriend, Sam, a few weeks ago. You can find great instructions here or watch this instructional video.
 
The idea comes from a great cupcake book, Hello, Cupcake! that is full of fun and whimsical ideas for decorating cupcakes. Sam tells me the decorating was fun, but VERY time-consuming, so be aware if you’re thinking of embarking on this kind of project. Another note, don’t bother buying coloured sugar, just toss some white sugar in a ziploc back with a couple of drops of food colouring and you’re good to go.
 
Sam’s got a talent in the kitchen, but truly anyone can get creative and make their cupcakes, whether for a party or bake sale or just dessert at home, something special.
 
I suppose it’s kind of besides the point, but the cupcakes were mochaccino and oreo flavour, and they were absolutely delicious.
Flower Cupcakes Closeup

Flower Cupcakes Closeup