Celebrating Through Food

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This week is not only the birthday of my blog, it is also my hairdresser's birthday so I just had to do a post on cupcakes. Who doesn't love cupcakes? Individual portions of cake just for you, so pretty and delicious, cupcakes are pure joy. I will be sharing them with my hairdresser and my husband will be sharing the rest with his workmates. For me, there is nothing better than making people happy with food!

I took photos of each step while making Food Network's Martin Howard's Chocolate Devil's Food Cupcakes. It may seem daunting but I promise, it isn't. Like the Halloween cake I made last fall, you dissolve the cocoa in boiling water. I know, weird! But these were so delicious, please trust the recipe. Cream together butter, sugar, salt and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time and then add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk:

I made my own buttermilk by adding some lime juice to some regular milk. Works like a charm. I would never get through a whole container of buttermilk before the expiration date so making my own also saves me money.

Then you add in the cocoa mixture and mix thoroughly.

I ended up adding extra batter to make bigger cupcakes

The recipe says that it makes 36 cupcakes which is a lot! So I added one and a half scoops of batter with my ice cream scooper, normally I would just do one. This resulted in 24 cupcakes, much more manageable. I still baked them for 20 minutes and they came out perfect. So light and airy!

I used the same recipe for frosting as I did for my Halloween cake, it is an orange and cream cheese frosting that taste like summer and goes beautifully with the chocolate. I added some sprinkles and a silver ball to top it off. So pretty!

In the year that I have been online, this is my first time going over cupcakes with you. I have not had a lot to celebrate I suppose but I am determined to change that. Plus, there is nothing better than making someone's day with a special treat. I hope there are many more special moments that inspire cupcake baking, for all of us.

Suzie The Foodie's Birthday Giveaway!

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Thank you to everyone for filling out my survey and participating in my birthday giveaway! The contest is now officially closed. To find out who won what a day early, you can sign up for my newsletter. Or you can wait until Thursday for the results.

BTW, that is photo of a giant cupcake and not a psycho clown, LOL.

Mini Muffins with Strawberry Cream

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I love seeing the strawberry cream cheese ooze from this mini muffin! I was inspired by the Podleski sisters' who are on the show Eat, Shrink and be Merry by their recipe Little Miss Muffin Top. First, I wanted to see if they could come up with a muffin recipe that used whole wheat the I actually liked. Second, I loved the idea of cream cheese filling for muffins. The problem? I do not have a muffin top pan. But I do have a mini muffin pan which got my brain thinking, hmm, is there a way to do a mini version of their recipe? Apparently, there is!

OK, I will admit it, I also changed the recipe a little. I know most people like lemon but with strawberries I prefer lime and because these were mini muffins I could not add all that fruit, it would take up too much space.

I put a little batter on the bottom, a tiny dab of low fat strawberry cream cheese and little more batter on the top.

The original recipe says to bake the muffin tops at 375F for 12 minutes so I baked my mini muffins for just 10 minutes and kept my fingers crossed.

They came out perfectly! The only problem? I also wanted to add some strawberry rhubarb jam to the center and forgot, doh!

I am not a huge fan of any recipe that uses whole wheat flour and I also do not like muffins very much. These were nice and crispy on the outside with a lovely texture on the inside. The cream cheese gave a beautiful hint of strawberry and then melted in your mouth. I bet they will be even better when I make these with jam in the middle, which I will. I enjoyed these so much I will be making them again next weekend.

Regular muffins are so overwhelming for me, too big and bulky. A real food commitment. Mini muffins on the other hand are little treats. I have been indulging in them all this long weekend with sweet tea and getting extra fiber without sacrificing flavour or texture! Thank you Janet and Greta!

Who says you can not experiment while baking? I changed the structure of these muffins as well as the flavour so they were tailored to my personal palette and style of eating. Oh the power of food knowledge, is it ever tasty and liberating.

Rachael Ray is coming to my kitchen, well, sort of

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CSNStores.com, which is made up of various online stores including AllBarstools.com (Home Bars) and Cookware.com and offers just about everything a foodie could want, contacted me regarding a giveaway! How lucky am I? How challenging was it for me to figure out what one cool thing to pick out among so many other cool things on the site? What did I want to test in my kitchen and secretly dream of owning?

How did I figure it out? I focused on Rachael Ray.

I know, a lot of people do not like Rachael. They find her voice abrasive and she is goofy, but perhaps that is why I can relate to her so much? When I saw her show 30 Minute Meals for the first time years ago, I was so inspired. It was actually kind of healing for me to see a "real woman" and self-taught cook, creating meals for regular people. Wearing jeans and a cotton top, laughing and talking to herself, she was so real and down to earth. So was her food! I do not like all of her meals but many are tasty including her Lime Chicken Sandwich on a Cheese and Chorizo Biscuit from her book Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats. Dare I say, "Yummo?!"

So when I saw that I could try out Rachael Ray's Casserole Dish thanks to cookware.com I jumped at the chance. I got this goofy geeky feeling inside over the idea of owning a Rachael Ray product! I have actually never seen one in real life before, it is not something you find around here. I did struggle between choosing this casserole dish and Paula Deen's. I am also a huge fan of hers but when I thought of how heavy a 5 quart cast iron pot was going to be, me and my weak hands knew Rachael Ray's would be easier to lift in and out of the oven, as well as keep sparkling clean.

I will also be receiving Rachael Ray's Lazy Spoon and Ladle set, so curious to see if I like this one. I am a little bit more dubious, might be more gimmicky than helpful but if it works how happy I will be not to have to use a spoon rest all the time. I am looking forward to testing them out. Hope I like them! I must admit that I do love the fact that they will match the casserole dish. Is that silly?

From this experience I have concluded that I am a bit of a kitchen geek and still a big a fan of the Rachael Ray of the past. The new fashionista Rachael Ray is more of a stranger to me. When these items show up and I cook fabulous dishes in my kitchen I will commune with the old Rachael. The one who talked about how she thinks the ladies on Desperate Housewives should eat more food because they are too skinny. Yup, that's my kind of gal.

Sensational Snap Society Ecourse Contest Winner!

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Calicogirl! You are the winner! Thanks for contacting me, enjoy the course for me OK?

Shelagh must have a green thumb on top of being an amazing photographer because look at the daffodil plant she brought me! It has been dark and dreary and yet here they are all suddenly in bloom. Please, someone let me know if these are supposed to go outside? Or do I keep them inside? I am a terrible gardener, LOL.

Speaking of giveaways, I have one coming up on Monday to celebrate my foodie blog's first year anniversary. Please show up to find out all the stuff I am giving away and how to enter the contest. I would not want you to miss it.

Recipe Review: Soft Onion Sandwich Rolls

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Chicken sandwich with mustard and cheese, healthier version of an old favourite

Yes, I have still been trying to time travel through food! I will move on to new and exciting adventures soon but today I want to reminisce about onion buns. When I was a kid my mom used to buy the softest, moistest onion buns in the world. When I would make my lunches for school I would slather the buns with mustard and heap on the pastrami. I could barely make it through morning classes, yearning for lunch. It was always the best sandwich in the world. I still yearn for those flavours.

Since then, I have yet to discover onion buns that deliver on flavour and texture. Most of the ones I have bought have been hard and so dry inside, no amount of mustard could make them moist and delicious. So recently I was determined to make them myself! I found this breadmaker recipe for Soft Onion Sandwich Rolls at Allrecipes.com and gave it a shot. The first time I made them it was a disaster! I did not add enough liquid and the dough was hard and did not rise. So please, make sure to check that the dough is coming together in the breadmaker and if it looks dry, add a little lukewarm water until it does.

Put all the ingredients in your breadmaker and select the dough cycle. Take the dough and divide it into eight equal portions and then roll each piece into a ball. Put the dough balls on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and cover with a clean towel. Let them rise for 40 minutes.

I did a regular egg wash on top because I wanted that golden brown colour the yolk will give the dough. I sprinkled the top with dried minced onions but next time I will add my own caramelized onions to the top! Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. So easy!

These freeze fantastically well and I am very picky about that kind of thing! I could not possibly eat all eight buns before they got stale so I put them in a freezer bag and into the freezer and used them as needed.

Now they still are not as super moist as the ones my mom bought but they are very, very close. I like having hot sandwiches but the oven would dry them out so I tried steaming them! Yes, that kept them very moist. But my favourite method? The darned microwave. I try not to use it very often but it was perfect at heating up the chicken sandwiches and melting the low fat Havarti cheese. Yum!

There is something not quite right with the liquid measurements for this recipe so I can only give it four out of five wooden spoons which is a shame since I loved these so very much. Thank you claudygirl for this recipe!

How amazing that I can go and capture the flavours of my childhood with the ease of my breadmaker and a little time on my hands? Being able to cook and bake are powerful skills. Who else do you know who can time travel?