Eating breakfast is important (yes mom was right!) but it's so easy to think there's no time. Afterall, 5 more minutes sleep can seem like the most important thing in the world at the crack of dawn! I've been attempting to have breakfast everymorning and this is probably the quickest and easiest thing to make in a hurry.
Just boil some oatmeal (I use coach's oats from costco - steel cut texture without taking forever and a day to cook!) and add a pinch of salt, half a teaspoon of vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon as it's cooking. then top with a spoonful of brown sugar and some milk! Delicious breakfast for 1 or 2 or 8 in just a few minutes!
Now this is also a good breakfast put probably only if you have a few more minutes. You might have seen this waffle recipe around on other blogs and the internet as "The best waffle ever!!!!!!". Well, with such strong anonymous endorsement I had to give it a try. It looked easy enough especially since you mix the batter the night before and in the morning you just pour it in the waffle iron. Easy!
Well they were absolutely right. This was the best waffle I've eaten in my entire life. No lie.
Click read more for instructions and more pictures!
Was quite good actually! He made chicken stir fry with couscous. A slightly interesting matching but hey there are no rules in food and it tasted great!
He was soooo nervous about it! Look at this face!
Hahaha! But I knew he had nothing to worry about and dinner was great!
Now he's promised to make me dinner once a week (and it can't be the same thing everytime!).
Click read more for instructions on how to make this quick and easy "college cooking" dinner!
The Nutella crepe will always have great sentimental value to me and the Mr. Once upon a time, when things in life were not going so well for me, and the Mr. was not yet the Mr. but just a good friend, he took me on a surprise trip to the beach in the middle of the night. At the beach, we went to the most amazing little cafe and ate big, light, crepes filled with luxurious Nutella. Eating those crepes and walking on the sand with him seemed to make all the bad things in my life a little easier to manage.
I've had the intention of recreating that meal for quite a while. I buy Nutella (more like rationalize buying Nutella "Oh I'll make crepes!"), and somehow it's all gone by the time I get around to making it into a meal (whoops!).
But this time I had great sucess! I got up on Sunday and made the Mr. promise to not come look in the kitchen while I was cooking. When I brought the plates out the sentimental look on his face was priceless, and we sat there on Sunday morning eating breakfast and remembering the beach from so long ago.
Click Read More for instructions on how to make this!
I have been dying to try this since I saw it on Tartlette's blog last week. She makes the most beautiful desserts and I look forward to attempting many of her creations this summer.
This pudding is made with a layer of creamy vanillla tapioca and topped with a rich chocolate cream with a hint of lime zest.
This was my first attempt at cooking a dessert like this. The tapioca was delicious although I wish I could have found large tapioca pearls for the pudding instead of the small ones. Making the cremeux was almost terrifying. I boiled the cream with the lime zest to infuse it with yummy citrus flavor and then slowly and carefully tempered the egg yolks. I returned the entire mixture to the pan and stirred like mad, for fear of ending up with scrambled egg or curdled cream. Well, it thickened alright but when I added the chocolate I noticed a slightly granular texture. Oh no. I hoped it would come together in the refridgerator but when we ate it for dessert I still thought the texture was a little strange.
Fortunately, the Mr. loves it and has devoured all but one! I garnished with a spoonful of sourcream to balance the sweetness and some finely grated chocolate shavings.
Helpful hint: put your chocolate in the freezer for a bit and it will grate much more easily!
Click read more to see the instructions and more photos!!!
I know, I know, it's not cake. But I would also like to include some non dessert courses on my site!
Have I mentioned that I am the luckiest girl in the whole world because I have a boyfriend who not only tolerates tofu but actually enjoys it?! It's wonderful!!!
I'm tagging this as "college cooking" because I am a college student and like to find recipes that are quick, easy, and inexpensive. This tofu dish gets 5 stars in all categories.
I'm teaching the Mr. to cook this summer and he loves this dish and is confident that he can make it now. He promised to have dinner on the table for me when I get home sometime next week. I'll report back and let you all know how his first solo flight goes!
Click "read more" for instructions on how to make this super tasty dinner!
Well it's obvious that I've been neglecting my little site here for quite a while. But seeing as how I'm planning to start updating frequently again, I would like to back track a little to the last big cake I made.
This is the cake I made for the Mr.'s graduation! There is a small back-story as to why I decided a large green dinosaur would be a good fit for his graduation cake. Back before he was the Mr. and was just my good friend, he was having a rough patch in life and we were living a few thousand miles apart. I wanted to cheer him up so I sent him a stuffed green dinosaur toy randomly to make him smile. Long story short, he likes his present, I moved back and we live happily ever after.
So here is how I made the cake...
I made this during final exams so I went to Costco and bought a few packages of their bakery pound cake to save some time. I made my own buttercream and fondant and sculpted the cakes into the dinosaur shape. I frosted and then covered the dinosaur and used more small fondant pieces to make the feet, tail, spikes and facial features. For the graduation cap I used an upside down Reece's Big Cup and a large square of dark chocolate. For the cupcakes, I made some lemon cupcakes and frosted them with a buttercream swirl. I rolled out some gumpaste and cut out 4 heart shapes. Then I used red sugar pearls to spell out 2009 and then gold dragees to outline the starts to make them look fancier :)
It was crazy trying to make this cake during finals season while I was also in the midst of moving out of my apartment. On top of that, his whole family was coming to his graduation so I knew I had to make this impressive as to make a good first impression!
I plan on doing fewer whimsical sculpted cakes this summer and focus more on classier, plated desserts and pastry. But I really love bright colors and cute whimsical characters so I'm sure this will not be the last cutesy cake I make!
Happy Graduation honey!!!
America is obviously not in want of food. Most adults, and too many children, are overweight or obese and there are restaurants, drive thru windows, and vending machines on every street and in every mall. However, there is a serious shortage of real food in this country.
I had this brilliant revelation while sitting at my desk this morning wrestling with a serious sweet tooth craving. I went to the kitchen to get a cup of tea and considered putting some sugar in it to quell my craving. After filling my mug with tea I realize that the only “sugar” there is in the office pantry is actually splenda, and the only cream is non-dairy creamer. What in the world is going on here? What exactly is non-dairy cream? Isn’t cream a dairy product? Like from cows? It’s not soymilk (which is delicious), it’s not rice milk, I have no idea what is in that little round plastic container. Same with artificial sugar really, I’ll admit to having a Diet Coke addiction but I also recognize that it’s not food and definitely not good for me.
So many things we eat are like this. The box of popcorn snacks we have in the kitchen at home, I read the label last night and was forced to question if half of those ingredients are really edible.
I promise I’m not ranting and insisting that all the fast food restaurants be burned down and that eating anything but organic is a sin. But think about what you’re eating every now and then. Did you ever wonder what kind of cow produces neon orange milk to make the easy mac cheese?
Just like they taught you in science class, if you don’t know what it is you probably shouldn’t put it in your mouth.
Just a thought as I sit here drinking my plain tea…
Oh! and I have a big baking project planned this weekend. Stay tuned!
This Saturday I was fortunate enought to interview the owner of Cake and Art in West Hollywood. The average life expectancy for a food establishment in West Hollywood is approxamately 16 months. Cake and Art has been in its same location for over 30 years. They are a truly unique bakery and produce the types of cakes that no other bakery has replicated such as life size cars and the only cake to appear on the cover of Life magazing (August 1988 - check it out!)
Tom gave me lots of great advice about running a bakery. What has worked, what hasn't, the importance of innovation and having a great quality product, but most importantly, loving your product not just liking it. Running a business takes a lot of time and hard work and if you don't really love your product and believe in it, then you will be more prone to failure.
While I was there, I picked up a red velvet cupcake for me and a chocolate peanutbutter cupcake for the mister. I make it a point to taste every red velvet cupcake I come across and I have to say that this might be the best so far. The cake was moist and had a good cocoa flavor, but best of all it wasn't saturated with red color! It was absolutely delicious and had a delicious cream cheese frosting with red edible gliter sprinkled on top. The mister let me have a bit of his and it was also delicious. He promply asked me to find out how to make the peanutbutter frosting and make him a whole batch!
If you end up in West Hollywood definetely go check out Cake and Art, grad a few cupcakes and check out their wall of celebrity cakes!
8709 Santa Monica Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069. Phone: (310)657-8694
http://www.cakeandart.com/
xoxo
Jillian Cupcake
I own my own domain now! I'm so excited! Also, I'm planning a big design overhaul for the page. Those flowers are nice but I've got something else in mind :)
I bought some teriffic new stuff this week. I went to Gloria's Cake and Candy Suppy and bought: white edible glitter, gumpaste flower cutters, candy coating and a pink candy writer. The glitter is for this amazing new project I'm working on for a teriffic girl I know. I won't give it away but suffice to say that I'm pretty excited about it. It's going to be a bit different than what I usually do but I'm looking forward to trying something new.
I'm going to a friend's house tonight to give him a little baking lesson in making some super delicious cake truffles. Also on the sweet agenda, aliens. Yes I'm making alien cupcakes for tomorrow! I'm going to a space themed party and also will need to find some time to make a tin foil dress. Suggestions?
I should have lots of fresh pictures soon!
xoxo
Jillian Cupcake
So I drew up the designs for Valentine's Day yesterday and today I went to get ingredients and to an adorable specialty bake shop for a few special decorations like pretty sprinkles. Now I'm baking all the cake and making the frosting. I'll have them decorated before I go to bed and hopefully by tomorrow morning they will be on the homepage for your viewing pleasure.
I made homemade red velvet cake and it smells so good. I know it's corny but it smells like the birthday cake my mom always made me.
So I'm chilling in my apartment, blasting music and getting entirely covered in sugar.
It's a good night :)
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