Baking in Dallas

Healthy Banana / Pumpkin Pancakes

2010-01-06T09:22:00.003-06:00

Here's a way to get your kids to eat a fruit AND a vegetable in one sitting, while thinking they are getting a special breakfast treat.

Take 3 overripe bananas (I show 4 here, I got a little zealous on this day...3 will do ya. 4 actually makes the pancakes a little too soft I've determined).

Mash them up (or use your handy-dandy Kitchenaid Mixer to do the work -- loving mine!!!!)

Add 1 16 oz can of Pumpkin. Combine.

Add 2 cups of Lowfat Bisquick Mix. Combine.

Add 1 Egg and Milk to desired consistency. Start with 1/2 a cup of milk and continue to mix, evaluate and add. You don't want the batter to be too thick or the pancakes will rise too much. The pumpkin makes the pancakes more likely to fluff up and get "thick". Some people like them that way. I like my pancakes on the thinner side. You can always add more milk after doing the 1st batch if they seem too thick for you.

Now heat up your griddle. It is important that it is pre-heated and evenly heated. I usually put a few drops of water on there and wait until the water is all evaporated. I put my griddle on 4 of out 10 (low/med) for the heat.

I make mine "dollar size" since my kiddos are young. They seem to be more enthusiastic about them at this size for some reason. When the pancakes start to have bubbles appear, but before the bubbles have all popped, it's time to flip them.

Here's a plate of pancakes ready to go. I usually make these late at night after the kids are in bed, then let them cool and put them in the freezer for easy serving any AM.

Here's the bag about to go into the freezer.

My son likes his with a little peanut butter and syrup on the side. He makes little banana/pumpkin/peanut butter pancake sandwiches with "dipping sauce".

Mr. "Picky Eater" in Action

A little peanut butter, then dip it in some syrup.

I have a fork, but who needs one?

Don't like vegetables you say!?! Ha ha! Tricked ya! (sssshhhhhhhh)

This article has been "moved" to my new blog website and can also be found here: http://www.bakingindallas.com/healthy-bananapumpkin-pancakes/

Priya's Indian Peas

2010-01-02T21:16:00.005-06:00

Eeew...Peas.
At Thanksgiving two years ago we invited a friend who was alone for the Holiday -- his family was all in India during Thanksgiving. As his contributory dish he brought a bowl of peas. I must say, I chuckled a little bit when I saw this, I mean, who **really** likes peas? When it came time to load up our plates, I politely served myself a small portion, I mean you have to be polite, right? Well, much to my total surprise, when I took a bite of those peas I actually stopped chewing for a second and froze, just to try to understand what in the world I had just eaten. They were so surprisingly delicious. The flavors were so rich, and the peas had a fresh, crisp type of consistency. It was not at all what I was expecting. These didn't taste like any peas I had ever, even remotely, tasted in my life! In fact, those peas were the only thing I went back and had seconds on at Thanksgiving, (mostly because I was just stuffed, but I had to taste them just a once more). I asked Jey (our Indian friend) about the peas, and he said it was his wife's recipe and that she could email me the instructions from India. When I got the email, I was a bit afraid. The peas called for a pressure cooker to be used, and I had no idea how to use one. I didn't own one, and was actually really intimidated by them. I mean, aren't those things dangerous? I was told that I "could" do it by boiling the peas longer than required by the pressure cooker, but after I did try that multiple times, I concluded that the peas just did not end up with the right consistency. I ended up having Priya eventually take me shopping at the Indian Grocery store near our house (thank goodness, I would have been so lost without her), and then come to my house and demonstrate to me how to make the peas. I have since become an expert at it, and have taught my parents how to make them too. The only thing that I really had to go out and buy was a Pressure Cooker, but it turns out, they really aren't that scary after all, and there are all kinds of things you can use them for other than just peas (artichokes, super tender meat, etc). I got a Presto 6-Qt one, which is plenty big. I bought the same one for my parents for Christmas a year later. My grandmother also has a Presto Pressure Cooker she has had for 50 years or so, and it still works great. She told me that she uses it for many things on a regular basis to this day.
In this blog entry I thought I would go step by step through how to make the peas, complete with pictures and comments, so that hopefully all of you can make them too.
One other thing...I really do think that these peas help keep weight off. They are so high in fiber, and since I started eating a bowl of these maybe once a week or so I have dropped maybe 4-5 pounds in the last year, not changing anything else about my lifestyle or diet!

Priya's Indian Peas

2 Cups of Whole Dried Green Peas (green vatana)
3/4 Tbsp Mustard Seeds
1 Tbsp Cumin Seeds
1 Tbsp Very Small White split Lentils (skinless urad dal)
1 Tbsp Small Yellow split Lentils (nirav toor dal)
1 Large Yellow Onion, finely chopped
1-2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes or 1 finely chopped/seeded green chile
1 Tbsp Oil

Soak the Dried Peas for 2 hours in hot tap water and 1 tbsp salt. Rinse and remove any bad looking peas. Put Peas into Pressure cooker and cover with 2-3" water. Bring up pressure until cooker "locks" in place, and leave at full pressure for 3 minutes. Turn off heat and let cool.

Put the oil in a pan and put the burner on medium heat.
Add the mustard seeds.
Once they start to break/splatter due to heat, add the other cumin seeds and lentils.
Stir vigorously so they don't burn.
Once the color of lentils changes a bit, you can add the onion and red pepper flakes (or chopped green chile)
Drain the water from the peas and add the peas to the pan with the spices and onion.
Mix until it is cooked to your liking (taste as it cooks).

For reference, I took some pictures of the supplies to make this dish that I went out and acquired. In our area (Far North Dallas) we have an Indian Grocery Store called "Taj Mahal Imports" that carries their own brand of goods. They are really inexpensive and everything seems to be of good quality. I have not been able to find a website and don't think they even have one. If you are in the Dallas area, that store is at the South West corner of the intersection of I75 and Beltline Road.

Online, I did find a website that seems to carry most of the items needed for this recipe. I have included links to the items below with each picture. The website is called IShopIndian.com.

Dried Peas -- Green Vatana

Toor Dal (also known as split pigeon peas)

Urad Dal (Split White Lentils or Maptebeans)

Cumin Seeds

You can also get these at any local grocery store, but they are generally WAY more expensive than buying them in bulk like this.

Crushed Chili -- also known as Red Pepper Flakes. This is the same stuff that the Pizza delivery companies give you in the little packets.

Mustard Seeds

OK, so that is all the "exotic stuff" that you are going to need to acquire before you can get started. Once you have that, you are good to go. Now, onto the actual process.

The Pressure Cooker and the Peas
The first thing that you need to do is to soak the dried peas. Pour the 2 cups of the dried peas into a bowl, add salt (about 1 tbsp, it's a generous amount, but it's really for the water) and fill with the hottest water you can get from your sink tap. Fill the bowl at least 2 inches above the peas, 3 inches if your bowl will allow. Set the bowl on the counter and leave it there for at 6-12 hours. When the peas are done soaking, they should look like the picture below. There will be some little, weird "crusties" floating around, that's fine.

Pour the peas into a strainer and then rinse with water.

Next, get your pressure cooker out. The one I use is Presto brand, but there are all sorts out there. Mine is a 6 qt. pressure cooker. It has a base insert that goes on the bottom (inside) to keep things from scalding on the bottom of the pot. If you have one of those, put it in. Pour the peas on top of that insert (if you have one). Add water to the level of about 1 inch above where the peas stop. You do not need a lot of water, as the peas have "grown" to about the size they are going to be when fully cooked. They are not going to soak up a lot of the water from the pressure cooker at this point (believe it or not).

Here's a picture of the level of water above the peas in my pressure cooker prior to cooking.

Put the lid on the pressure cooker and lock it into place. If you have one of the "bobbers" like mine has, add that on top.

At this point, unfortunately, I'm going to warn you that each person trying this (if you are not using the exact pressure cooker I have), is going to have to figure out how their pressure cooker behaves and how long things need to cook. For the pressure cooker I have I can tell you what works perfectly though! I have an electric stovetop. I put the pressure cooker on one of the back "larger" burners and put the heat on level 5 (medium). I then walk away for 10-15 minutes while it slowly builds up pressure.

On my pressure cooker there is a safety locking mechanism that prevents you from opening the cooker if it is under any pressure at all. It looks like this when it is in "safe" mode (it is down).

Once that thing goes up, the cooker is in "locked" mode. It is at this point that you need to set a timer. If you are paying attention during the cooking process, you will hear the pressure cooker at it is approaching locked mode. It starts to make hissing noises (if you've never used a pressure cooker, the first time you do use one, this is about the point where you start getting nervous). So, as I was saying, once it goes into locked mode you need to set your timer for 3 minutes. Don't wait for the bobber to rock back and forth, if you do that, you will have split pea soup. Here's what the little locking mechanism looks like when it is in "locked" mode (sorry for the blurry pic, it's the only one we got of this stage):

When the timer goes off, slide the pressure cooker off the active burner. Make sure the pressure cooker is far from you, take a wooden spoon, and gently tip the bobber to slowly let off steam. The steam didn't show up in the picture here, but this is what I am doing. Let the steam slowly escape from the pressure cooker over the next 2-3 minutes until the locking mechanism goes back down.

When the locking mechanism has fallen back down, you can open up the pressure cooker. The peas inside should still be round and solid. Some of their shells may have come off and risen to the top of the water, but it shouldn't be too many. If you see a LOT of the shells have come off and risen to the top, you have cooked the peas just a tiny bit too long. You can still continue with the recipe, just the peas will not be as crisp as would have been ideal. It will still taste fine though! Here's what the peas should look like when cooked if they are done just the right amount of time:

Next, dump the peas into a strainer in the sink and splash with cold water to cool them down and stop the cooking process. The metal disk in the strainer with the holes in it is the bottom "shield" that came with my pressure cooker that keeps things from scalding on the bottom of the pot.

Cold water....

This is the consistency you are looking for in your cooked peas as they come out of the pressure cooker:

Out of the Pressure Cooker, into the Frying Pan

Now we're going to move over to the stovetop again! First, this next process moves really quickly, so you must have your onions diced and ready to go beforehand.

Gather up all your other ingredients and have them ready by the stove with a measuring spoon. You will want to the following all close by and ready to use the second you need them: diced onions, oil, mustard seeds, the 2 types of split lentils, red pepper flakes and cumin seeds. Heat up a non-stick saute pan that is large and deep. You cannot use a small or shallow frying pan for this, it has to be one of pretty good size and depth, like at least 2 inches deep, maybe 2-1/2. The one I use is by Calphalon, is 3 Qt and has vertical sides that are not "slanted".

Turn the burner to Medium Heat (I use 5 on mine) and add the oil. Add the mustard seeds. Spread the mustard seeds out with a spatula so that they all are saturated with the oil and are only 1 seed deep across the pan. Wait. Wait about 5 minutes or so, maybe 7 minutes.

You want to start hearing the mustard seeds begin to "pop" and "crackle". When this happens, be ready to add both types of split lentils (dals) and the red pepper flakes. Stir them rigorously while the mustard seeds continue to pop and crackle. You want the lentils to just start to slightly, ever so slightly begin browning and getting "toasty".

When the lentils are starting to brown, add the cumin seeds. Cumin seeds brown very quickly (in about 1 minute), so watch them closely. Stir aggressively. Watch that the lentils aren't getting overly browned either.

When the cumin is slightly browned, you are ready to throw in the onions. Toss the spice and lentil mixture with the onions. I use my spatula to pick up the spices off the bottom of the pan and flip the onions over, so that the onions are on the bottom and the spices are on the top. I do this over and over, so that the spices are evenly mixed with the onions. This allows the onions to cook, and to keep the spices/lentils from cooking a whole lot more, as they are not sitting directly on the pan surface, they are a bit insulated by the onion.

Cook the onions by tossing them, spreading them out on the bottom of the pan, letting them simmer, then tossing and re-spreading. Do this for about 5-6 minutes, until the onions start to turn translucent in color.

Now, throw the peas back into the pan with all of this.

Scoop and toss, scoop and toss, mixing the onions and spices mixture thoroughly with the peas, allowing the peas to heat up and to fry a little bit on the bottom of the pan. Do this for 3-5 minutes. You really aren't trying to "cook" the peas too much more, just to let them absorb some of the flavors, mix the spices in well, and reheat the peas all at once. The final product will look something like this.

Enjoy!

This article has been reproduced at my new blog URL and can also be found here, along with much more new content:

http://www.bakingindallas.com/priyas-indian-peas/

Ground Turkey and 4 Bean Chili

2010-01-01T21:27:00.002-06:00

I made this recipe up myself and it always receives compliments. It's a fairly simple recipe, with an attempt at being healthy. Most of the items are available in your pantry at any time, the only "special" thing you need to have on hand is the ground turkey meat. If you keep either a tray or tube of that in the freezer for a rainy day, you can make this any time. I like to make this when it's cold outside and there's going to be a football game on later in the day. The good thing about this recipe, as opposed to Beef Stew (my other football/cold day favorite), is that this doesn't require a lot of time on the stove top. It's ready 1/2 an hour after you throw the final ingredient into the pot.

Ingredients

1 pound ground turkey meat

4 cans of RoTel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chiles (12 oz)

1 can Tomato sauce (8 oz)

1 can black beans (16 oz)

1 can kidney beans (16 oz)

1 can northern beans (16 oz)

1 can pinto beans (16 oz)

1 can corn (16 oz)

1 lg yellow onion, diced

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground corriander

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Directions

Brown the ground turkey in a saucepan. When the turkey is browned, use a slotted spatula to transfer the turkey to a large, tall pot. Using a slotted spatula will allow any grease and water that came off the turkey during browning to mostly remain behind.

Put the diced onions into the same pan that you just removed the turkey from and brown them until they are translucent and soft. Transfer the onions to the large pot with the turkey.

To the large pot, now add the 4 cans of RoTel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chiles.

Add 1 can of corn (drain off water into sink first) and 1 can of tomato sauce.

Open, rinse with water and then add each of the 4 types of beans. I rinse mine by not completely taking off the lid and using it to hold the beans in while I run water into the can. I then pour all the liquid out of the can (using the lid to hold the beans in). I do this process 2-3 times until the liquid is mostly coming out clear.

Now add the spices. The magic ingredient here is the unsweetened cocoa. It gives the chili a dark flavor and seems to thicken it up and make it richer overall.

Toss everything well. I put my stovetop burner at 3 (low) and let this warm up slowly to the point where it is simmering. I stir/toss it every 5-10 minutes to make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom of the pot. It doesn't really need to "cook" long, just to come up to temperature. I usually put a lid on it so that it will warm up faster, and then later take the lid off to let some of the liquid evaporate a bit, to make the chili thicker. It can be served within 1/2 an hour after you have started heating it.

This makes enough to server 6-8 people a heaping bowl of chili. It makes great leftovers too.

My husband likes to eat his with saltine crackers.

I usually make a big batch of cornbread to go with it, that's my preference. I like the cornbread to be more the "southern style", which is drier and less sweet, not so cakelike (more cornmeal, less flour, less sugar). Here is the recipe I use. It is from the back of the Pioneer Cornmeal bag. I simply double it.

Cornbread

2 cups yellow corn meal

2/3 cup flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1-1/3 cup milk

2 eggs

6 Tbsp oil

2 tsp sugar

Oven to 450 degrees. Oil an 11 inch round cake pan. (I use my Pampered Chef stoneware cake pan).

Combine all dry ingredients.

Add all wet ingredients and stir.

Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Here's the finished product, and then a shot of it right prior to being devoured. Happy Eating!

This article has been reproduced on my new blog website and can also be found here:

http://www.bakingindallas.com/ground-turkey-and-4-bean-chili/

Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Cake

2009-12-28T17:07:00.001-06:00

I always attempt to do a special birthday party for my kids. It is just something that really makes me happy, and I hope that it is a tradition that at least one of them will pass on to their own kids. I think it creates lasting memories, and truthfully, it just brings me a lot of joy.
This year, my son wanted a Penguins of Madagascar birthday. He was turning 4. The "Penguins" are a new cartoon that is a spin-off of the Madagascar movies by Dreamworks Studios. Even so, when I began my search there wasn't a whole lot out there specifically on the Penguins. I was finding lots of Alex the Lion and the whole Lion/Giraffe/Hippo/Zebra gang, but limited items (very limited, actually, hardly a thing) about the Penguins. I finally came to the conclusion that I was going to have to come up with most of the birthday party "stuff" and the cake myself.
I started searching the internet for ideas as to how I was going to do the cake. For me, getting my head wrapped around the cake starts pretty early, as it is usually the most complicated and requires the most forethought. I found this cake out there that someone else had done, and I really liked it. This was the impetus for what I decided I would make. The problem is, I had no idea how she/he had done this -- they looked so perfect! Yikes.

I started reading up on how this could have been done, and finally concluded that the person who did this cake must have used a technique called a "Frosting Transfer". A detailed explanation of how it is done, complete with pictures and step by step instructions can be found at Cake Central.

Searching for this image on the internet, I pretty quickly came up with a perfect match. I just downloaded the image, brought it into Adobe Photoshop to clean it up, crop and resize so that it would fit my cake pan appropriately. It was important to get an image that was fairly large, clear and had a white background so that I wouldn't have any problems with the tracing.

At this point, I did not own a stand mixer. All my cakes up until last September (when this Birthday party happened) I had used **gasp** store bought frosting. Oh poor me. I know so much better now. I have struggled for years to make frosting do what I wanted, only to have it sag, droop and look like blah. Now I know. Homemade Buttercream is my new friend when it comes to making cakes. I was worried about the transfer process not working out very well, so I did a dry run a week before (using the store bought frosting). I came to find out -- apparently, store bought frosting doesn't freeze. Look at my dreadful results trying to flip over my Frosting Transfer that I made with the store bough stuff. Oh dear. What a lot of wasted work. What a mess. But -- at least I knew in advance that I had to do something different to get this to work.

The answer apparently is to make your own Buttercream frosting. Since it is shortening/butter based and not oil based, it freezes much better, gets stiffer, and just works much better for this technique. And, after making my first batch, I doubt I will ever use the store bought stuff again unless I am in a real big rush. At the time, I didn't have my own stand mixer, which you kind of need to do this. Luckily, my neighbor Sara was nice enough to loan me her Kitchenaid. I have since acquired my own -- thanks to Walmart and Black Friday ($139! Woop!). Quite a deal and to me, worth going there at 4:30am (ack!). Mine is the K4SSWH model, 4-1/2 Qt Lift Stand with the bigger motor and no accessories. I found the same mixer at Amazon for about $169, which still isn't bad at all! So - mixer in hand, I scoured the internet for info on how to make the stuff. I ended up finding a couple of great instructional videos on YouTube. They were very informative and gave me confidence that I COULD do this. Here's a picture of my first completed batch, prior to adding any coloring.

Butter Cream Frosting Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approximately 1 bag)

2 tablespoons milk (+/- depending upon the consistency you want)

Makes: About 3 cups of icing.

Instructions

Let shortening and butter come to room temperature by setting them on the counter for 1/2 an hour to an hour before you get started.

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

The next thing I did was to tape the printout of the Penguins onto a cardboard surface. I then laid a sheet of wax paper over it. I divided the frosting up into separate batches and colored the frosting using Wilton Gel Dies. I put the frosting into separate plastic frosting bags (see top of photo, orange is showing) with a #2 or a #3 tip depending upon what areas I was doing. Above, I have outlined and filled in the beaks in orange (I forgot to do the feet and went back to do those later -- those are orange too!

Now did the black parts (wings, external bodies) and filled in.

Next, went back and did the feet, then did the white bodies.

Lastly, put a layer of white across the back of the whole thing. This is going to be what lays against the cake, the design actually gets flipped over. At this point, knowing what I know now, I would do this backer piece the same color as the color you are going to frost the cake with -- but that is 20/20 hindsight. I took this whole thing and put it in the freezer, obviously laying flat, overnight. Set aside the black frosting in the fridge, you will need it tomorrow for the eyes.

My family is fond of yellow cake. The pan I was using is very large and requires 2 batches of cake to fill (if you are using a store bought mix). So, next I made a double batch of yellow cake. Here's a pic with the beater blade removed. Yum! I oiled the cake pan well and lined the bottom with parchment paper to be sure the cake wouldn't stick. This is always a very worthwhile step that you will thank yourself for -- at least I do. (I'm talking about the parchment paper).

Pour the batter into the pan, cook the cake, check the center with a toothpick to make sure it is done (sometimes on these double cakes it takes longer than the instructions indicate. You want the inserted toothpick to come out clean, and have the sides of the cake starting to separate from the pan. Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool completely. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to make sure the cake sides have separated. Get your surface ready that you will be using for your cake base (I chose to use a Hawaiian tray -- shame, I should have lined it with foil so it would look prettier w/the Penguin colors and not distract from them, but I didn't. Lay the "tray" or whatever you decide to use on top of the cake pan, and turn the whole thing over in one motion. Peel the parchment paper away from the bottom of the cake.

Next, frost the cake in the Buttercream frosting that you made (here, I tinted the majority of my frosting blue to be the background color of my cake). Make sure that the coating is nice and smooth. Let the frosting set a little bit (maybe 1/2 an hour) before going to the next step. You can use a damped paper towel to wipe up the edges around the cake so that the presentation is clean.

Here comes the hard part -- you get 1 chance to get it right. Go get those penguins out of the freezer and take a good long look at them, then a good, long look at your cake. Imagine where the bottom of the penguin design needs to land on your cake. You are going to support the penguin design lightly with one hand while you tip the cardboard over and land the bottom of the design onto the cake and then let the rest just tip and fall into place (pulling your hand away). This requires holding your breath, biting your lip and saying a little prayer. :-) It worked out great though. I was so happy when I looked at where mine landed. Then -- pull the wax paper off the back of the design really, really slowly and carefully. It was at this point that I realized that I should have used the blue frosting for the backer too...but like I said, 20/20 hindsight. (see under Kowalski's wings) I still think it came out pretty good.

By accident, I found these great graham cracker cookie letters at Tom Thumb (aka Safeway). They were in the area where the fruits/vegetables/cakes/fancy breads are, so I am not sure if they are standard. I was just in there to do my regular shopping and spotted these, and my brain started turning. They would be perfect! In fact, I have had so much fun with them. I used those to write the message on the cake. You could also use something like the Earth's Best Sesame Street Cookies that are generally in the Organic Foods aisle of most grocery stores.

To finish up, I used the same black frosting that I had used the night before for the wings to dot on the eyeballs, and then used white with a shell tip to do a border around the bottom of the cake and then the top edge of the cake. I think over all it came out pretty darn good. I can't wait until another opportunity arises for me to try this again, since I learned a lot and I think I would do it even better now w/my new found "note to self" lessons. :-)

I'll have 2 more blog entries on the planning of the party (invites, goodie bags, games, etc) plus the decorations. This line was pretty hard to find at the time I did this party, but I'm not so sure that will continue to be true.

This article has been reproduced at my new blog website and can also be found here: http://www.bakingindallas.com/penguins-of-madagascar-birthday-cake/

An Orange Tabby Cat Themed Birthday Party

2009-12-23T21:41:00.001-06:00

The Party

My daughter decided that for her 6th birthday she wanted a cat themed birthday party. We had just adopted a 1 yr old orange tabby not 3 months prior (his name is Kirby), and my daughter is just in LOVE with him. Lucky for her, he is very docile and puts up with most of her loving, which includes hugging, kissing, carrying him around and smothering him with affection. I was able to find quite a bit of cat themed stuff out there, but most of it was hello kitty or animated cat stuff. Then I found this line of cat themed party goods that focused on an orange tabby as the theme....and I was off! This lens is dedicated to my search and the cat party that I threw for my daughter, including the invitations, decorations, cake, party activities and goody bags. Maybe if you are throwing a cat themed party soon it will help you with some ideas or links that weren't so easy for me to find.

These were a little expensive I thought, but they were so cute. And -- I have to admit, Hallmark did a wonderful job on them. I think I could have had them print on the back too, just I was concerned they would charge more (the website didn't indicate that though, so I was kicking myself later on). They came quickly, and really were just too adorable. I was very pleased with the quality, cardstock and color. Oh -- and they printed my return address on the envelopes too. I could have even had them mail them if I gave them the addresses to send to, but I wanted to have them in my hands and see what they looked like myself. I have no complaints and would use them again if they had the perfect invite.

OK...this line features an orange tabby, so I just had to have this one. Problem is, there are a few lines out there -- Glamour Kittens, etc...that have something ALMOST perfect, but when I saw this line, called "Cuddly Kitten", I just had to have it. I found, at most, 3 places online that carried it, and even then the selection was sparse. I don't know if it is semi-discontinued or what. Anyhow, I finally ended up getting it from http://www.partypro.com, who I had not shopped with before. They had a great selection of this line, WAY more than anyone else I could find on the web, and I looked and looked and looked! I was really happy with their packaging and how fast it came, no complaints there. The pricing seemed pretty good too. I ended up getting plates, napkins, the firework danglers (2 packs -- SO CUTE!), the garland (LOVED IT), mylar ballons, notepads (for goody bags), tablecover (CUTE!), pin the tag on the kitty game (big hit), stickers and treat bags. I found this site AFTER I found the invites above, and if I had found it first I may have ordered the invites from them as they were a lot cheaper. The only thing is that the Thank You notes they have don't feature the orange tabby, so I didn't get those.

Websites that Carry the Cuddly Kitten Line

This line was a bit hard to find. The old standards -- Oriental Trading and Birthday Express had either NO or very limited choices. I found that Party Pro had most of the items of this line IN STOCK, which wasn't true elsewhere. Their prices were reasonable too, and the quality wasn't bad at all. I didn't show the tablecloth in the pics below, but it is really cool -- and better represented by pics not on the Party Pro site.

Party Pro Cuddly Kitten Line

Best Selection of this line I found, this is who I ordered from. Don't forget to order extra purple and teal balloons, I forgot those and had to go buy them the AM of the party.

EZ Party Zone

Just found these guys, and they have a value pack. I didn't even see this site before I ordered my stuff. You have to specifically search on Cuddly Kitten to find this, Cat Birthday apparently doesn't turn these folks up. Too bad too sad for me, but good for you maybe!

Pretty Party Place

OK...Now I am feeling a bit lame. An even BETTER party pack selection. I'm not looking at the prices, but these guys appear to really be trying to get your business, huh? I also found that these guys (Pretty Party Place) apparently sell through Amazon.com too. If you are more comfortable ordering through Amazon -- maybe the shipping is cheaper, dunno? Anyway, here is the link to that:
Cuddly Kitten Party Goods at Amazon.com

Cuddly Kitten Mini Pinwheels!!!!

You have to buy a case apparently (24), but wouldn't these be great for the goody bags!!!! OMG, I am so SAD I missed this!

Cuddly Kitten Necklaces

OK. At some point you have to stop spending, but aren't these adorable? My daughter would personally LOVE this I know without a doubt in the world.

Cuddly Kitten Stuff on eBay

I was able to find some unique stuff for this line on eBay that I did not see elsewhere, so while you're at it you might go take a look over there too. The week I was doing this blog I found some cheaper invitations that actually match this line. The vendor selling these had a lot of other items from this line too, and offered free shipping for any item beyond the 1st that is ordered.

Cuddly Kitten Birthday Invites. Package of 8. $3.99 + Shipping

Here are a couple of pictures from our party showing the "Pin the Tag on the Cat" (it's very large, much larger than I expected) as well as the Garland that we hung from the breezeway between rooms.

The Cake

Orange Tabby Cat Ice Cream Cone Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

Yep..that's a lot to say at once, but that's what I made! I decided to make cupcakes in ice cream cones, and I wanted to make orange kitty cat ones. I googled around and looked at images of cat cupcakes, and found a design that I kind of liked. Then a friend of mine suggested (and she drew this picture) that I combine the cookie and cone idea to make the cats look more interesting. King of a 3D image, with the body being the cone and the head being a sugar cookie. So -- this is what I started from.

I used a standard yellow cake mix and filled regular flat bottomed ice cream cones with the batter. I have since learned a better technique than trying to spoon batter into cones (or even cupcake tins) -- put the batter into a large plastic freezer bag, seal the top, then cut a small/medium hole in the bottom corner and pinch it. Use the bag to "pour" the batter directly where you want it to go. Too bad I didn't know this trick back then, as things did get a little messy (as you can see). I could have filled the cupcakes higher with the batter, but I was afraid of creating a lip-like overlap on the edge of the cone.

I wrapped aluminum foil around the bottom of the cones and set them into a cupcake pan to hold them upright while they cooked. Big lesson learned here though -- do NOT wrap the foil UP the cone, keep it as LOW as you can. The foil will keep the cake in the bottom of the cone from cooking, and you will end up with a mushy bottom with raw cake batter and cooked cake in the top. Believe me, I had to do this 2X because of my mistake! :-) The 2nd time, I kept the foil really LOW and had no issues. If you can come up with a better way of keeping the cones from tipping over, I'd be glad to take the advice.
The image below doesn't actually show how I made the cookie cutter, but it shows me using it for the 1st time. This is what I did -- I laid down a cone on it's side and I drew the right sized "cat head" to fit the cone (and outline). I then used a lasagna pan to make the cookie cutter. I got that idea from a website that shows very clearly how to go about it. One thing I would change if I did it again -- I would make the cookie have a neck on it so that it would stab into the cone better and not be a "no-neck" cat. I would also utilize parchment paper underneath the dough instead of rolling the dough out directly onto a floured table. (See my blog on Christmas Cookies for more on this subject).

Some links that show how to make cookie cutters out of lasagna pans:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Cookie-Cutters
http://www.ehow.com/how_4515739_make-halloween-shaped-cookie-cutters.html

Next, here are some of the cookies about to go into the oven, and then after cooking. I used a generic sugar cookie recipe that I found online. My Christmas Cookie 2009 Blog entry has a really nice refrigerated sugar cookie recipe on it that you can also use.

I used store bought cream cheese frosting and added yellow and red food color gel. Another thing I know better than to do anymore. :-) See -- all these lessons learned the hard way that you can benefit from! If I do this again, I will NOT use store bought frosting, it is just too oily and doesn't come out good on cookies or even on the cupcake tops in my opinion. I would make a homemade cream cheese frosting or a butter cream frosting. Now that I have my handy-dandy kitchenaid mixer, that's certainly what I'll do next year. The buttercream frosting would most likely work the best -- as it dries with a crust and leaves a great surface for decorating.
Here's the frosting in the bowl being mixed with the color. Our cat is orange, so I went with that same color.

After the cookies had cooled, I frosted them with the orange frosting I had made. The rest of the face parts needed the orange coat to dry before they could be applied, so I set the frosted cookies aside.

After the cupcakes had cooled, I frosted them with the same orange frosting. The coat of frosting on the cupcakes needed to be generous, as I was going to use some of that frosting to hold up the cat head that would be "stabbed" into the cupcake top.

When the cookies were dry, I used some leftover white cream cheese frosting to decorate the ears and the mouth area white. I colored some of the frosting with blue gel coloring and put it into a pastry bag with a med/large round tip, and used that to do the eyes - but you could also use one of the disposable frosting "writers" that they have at the grocery store. I used that to make blue eyes. The red nose was made from a piece of licorice that I cut with a knife into a triangle. I drew the mouth with black frosting that I colored with black gel (same cream cheese frosting), and used a writer sized tip (I think a #2) -- again, the frosting pen would work fine here too. For the pink part of the mouth I used pink tic-tacs that I cut in half and turned on their cut side to stick into the orange frosting, so that only the pink round part was showing. On some of the cats I actually did black whiskers too with the same frosting that I used for the mouth. I was running out of energy and time at this point though, so most of the cookies didn't get whiskers. The ones I did do with whiskers were SO cute though!

After the cookies dried, I stuck them into the cupcakes by their "neck". This resulted in a somewhat chinless cat. Like I said, if I did this again, I would make the cat cookie cutter have a rectangular neck piece sticking down that would be left without frosting and act as a tab to stab the cookie into the cupcake. The kids didn't mind though...I think I'm the only one who noticed.

The final touch was to add a red licorice whip off the back of the cone that acted as a tail.

The kids LOVED the cat cupcakes. I know I could make them better next time (always learn the hard way), but it wasn't really that difficult, just time consuming. I used supplies available from the local grocery store and Michael's.

BTW -- I know this one looks really haggard, but it was one of the 3 leftover from the party, I didn't get pics soon enough before the kids had attacked the stash. So -- this one is a REJECT, but still gets the point across of how cute they were!

This article has been reproduced at my new blog website and can also be found here:
http://www.bakingindallas.com/an-orange-tabby-cat-themed-birthday-party/

Christmas Cookies 2009

2009-12-21T22:32:00.002-06:00

Since I have my new handy-dandy Kitchenaid Mixer, I felt especially motivated to do the Christmas Cookie thing this year. My Mom made Christmas Sugar Cookies with us most every year while I was growing up. We decorated them with a simple frosting tinted with different food colorings and sprinkles/choc chips, raisins, mini-marshmallows, etc. I have very fond memories of this activity. Having my own children now, it's kind of fun to pass on what I hope will become a tradition.

First thing I had to do was to find a good Sugar Cookie recipe that would work well for Cookie Cutters. I went online and ended up (as is common for me for some reason) at http://allrecipes.com/. I found a recipe that looked good, and in reading some of the reviews found some interesting, new to me techniques to try.

Here's the recipe I used. It had nearly 3,000 feedback comments with a 4.5 star rating out of 5.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/The-Best-Rolled-Sugar-Cookies/Detail.aspx

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

+ I added 1/2 tsp of almond extract into the dough, just because in the reviews I read where the dough was a little "bland" by some people's standards.

Directions

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

I chronicled my little adventure with some photos (loving that new mixer!). So, I started w/the 3 sticks of butter. (note the bowl has already been used, the pics are from the 2nd batch I made)

Add 2 cups of sugar and cream it, which in this case just means "turn the mixer on low and laugh with delight thinking about how your arm doesn't hurt AT ALL"

Oh the sweetness of just that one piece, I was SO loving it. OK, next, add the vanilla, eggs and then baking powder, salt and flour. I was seriously able to make a whole batch of cookie dough about 5 minutes. Did I mention how much I love my new mixer?

So, after this, I just unplugged the mixer, lowered the bowl, took off the beater attachment and scraped it off, then divided the dough into 2 even piles onto wax paper, wrapped it like a burrito and tucked it into the fridge overnight. I made 3 total batches of cookie dough. Over the next 3 days, I used up 2 batches, and decided at that point to freeze one. The recipe did not indicate how many cookies it would make, but the answer should be "a whole lot!" I made enough cookies for 3 parties on 2 batches of this dough.

Here's some of the batter on the wax paper about to be wrapped like a burrito and tucked into the fridge.

Next, I took a little side trip to one of my new favorite stores in Dallas, Cake Carousel, to pickup sprinkles and to let each child pick out a new cookie cutter for this year. They have an enormous selection of both there, and much more than that. If you are into cake, candy or cookie making/decorating, that place is insane. And I overheard the lady behind the counter today telling another customer that they had been in business for 35 years!

My daughter picked out a gigantic snowflake, and my son picked out a bumblebee/wasp looking thing. I got a few other ones too that I found interesting. We are getting quite a collection going at this point.

Here I go now with the hints that I read from the sugar cookie recipe comments. Previously, I have always floured a surface well, and rolled the dough out right on that surface, then cut all my shapes, peeled back the extra dough, then attempted to pickup the cookies with a spatula and transfer to a cookie sheet without distorting the cookie. After baking, I would pickup the cookie again with a spatula and try to transfer it, once more, without distortion. After reading comments on the website with the recipe, it seemed like a lot of folks were having success with using parchment paper. I have had parchment paper in my kitchen forever, but I don't know why. I don't even know when I bought it or for what. I don't know how to use it, and don't understand how it actually differs from wax paper, other than it feels "less waxy". But I had made a TON of cookie dough and had enough extra dough, and time before I needed the cookies, so what the hey. I decided to try something new. So, I put some parchment paper down on my surface and floured the parchment paper, and then rubbed/pushed most of the flour off to the side to use for flouring the cookie cutters. Here is the floured parchment.

Next, took some of the dough (mountains of dough, I have!) out of the fridge. Split some of it into a workable quantity and formed it into a ball. One thing to note -- one of those future "Note to Self" moments that I am putting down here. The dough seems to stick more at first -- either when it is colder, or when it has been through less "recycles" and thus has less flour in it. I'm not sure which it is. But the point is, when you first get started, this stuff sticks. So -- flouring the parchment paper very well is important, and also, flouring the rolling pin AND the cookie cutters is doubly important. On the website with the recipe, I was reading in the reviews where some people actually "flour" with powdered sugar. I thought that was a little silly, and did not try it myself. My thoughts were that would make the dough overly sweet, but since I didn't even try it, who am I to judge? I just put that info here in case one of you more adventurous types might want to try it sometime and let me know how it went.

Ball-o-dough on the parchment paper ready to be rolled out.

And then rolled out.

Funny thing is, I have had a couple of people in the last few days ask me "how thick do you roll the dough" or "how do you control how thick you roll the dough". In this last bit of cookie making I did experiment a bit. I tried doing dough about 1/8" thick (by eye), and then went thicker, to say 1/4" to 1/3" thick. I thought the thicker dough would make for a softer, maybe more tasty cookie. No beans. The thicker dough resulted in deformed cookies, so don't do it. I have read about these rings that you can buy and put around your rolling pin, they help to guide you so that you roll the dough to the perfect thickness. I don't have any of those, I feel pretty comfortable doing it by eye...but then again, I've never tried them, maybe they are great?

Here is what 1/3" dough versus 1/8" dough looks like after coming out of the oven -- same cookie cutter. Notice how the fatter cookie dough kind of "messed up" the cookie.

The next piece that I tried, which was new for me, was to put all of the cookie cutters into the dough, and leave them there. Basically using only 1 cutter per batch. You then (while leaving the cookie cutters down) peel up all of the excess dough and make a pile of it for the next go-around. I found a metal kabob skewer to be invaluable in this process, as there would always be some darn piece of dough that somehow, despite all of the flouring I had done to the parchment, managed to stick itself down. Also, if you put the cookie cutters too close to each other, the kabob holder helps to get in between the cutters to pull up the dough. Here are the cutters on the parchment with all of the excess dough removed and put into a ball (top left).

I then removed the cookie cutters and set them back into my "flour pile". After that, I used a pair of scissors to cut closely around the cookies (cut the parchment) so that I was able to lift the entire batch of cookies up by the parchment and transfer right to a cookie sheet, parchment and all.

Same goes for after the cookies come out of the oven. No need for a spatula here! (And much less cleaning of the cookie sheet). I just carefully picked up each side of the parchment and transferred the cookies to my cooling rack, parchment and all.

Lesson learned here (the hard way, of course): Do not put the cutters too close to each other, as they end up expanding in the oven and then bumping into each other while cooking. This is especially important if you go with thicker cookie dough. Gggrrrrrrrr....this is NOT what you want to see after all your hard work.

So, now I just let the cookies cool (doesn't take long, 10-15 mins and there is no heat left to them). Having them completely cool is important, otherwise the frosting melts off the cookies while you are trying to work. I stacked the cooled cookies onto a tray and moved them to the table for easy selection. I also went to work on some frosting. I had some leftover cream cheese frosting from the other day when I made pumpkin bread for the kid's party. It was bright white, so I used that for the "white" frosting. I then made a large batch of frosting using powdered sugar and milk. Well -- I was going to use powdered sugar and milk, and then I got an idea....what would happen if I used EGG NOG? I must say, I was kind of pleased with myself. I'm not usually that imaginative, I'm a great copy cat, but not always the most inventive on my own. I poured a whole bag of powdered sugar into a bowl and then slowly started adding egg nog one little bit at a time, stirring gently and working it through the sugar. I'm not sure how much egg nog I used, as I poured, then stirred, then looked at it, decided it needed more, poured a little more and stirred...until it looked just right. You want the frosting to be thick, but not too thick. You want to be able to "paint" with it, but not have it fight you when you go to spread it. I guess I may have used about a cup of egg nog, but that is just a guess. It's not hard to do it slowly and get it right. Just don't add to much at a time toward the end (1 tbsp at a time will take you a long way when you are close).

Then I got out some of those disposable glad-ware containers and divided the frosting up into 5 little "buckets". I used regular food coloring to make the following colors: red, blue, green, yellow and purple. I put a paintbrush in each and a spoon. Having a box of toothpicks on the table is also handy for that "fine placement" that you may want to go for.

Here's the recipe for the cream cheese frosting if any of you are interested in that, it's pretty darn yummy too. .

Ingredients

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

My son found the frosting somewhat irresistible, even though I had said 3-4 times just prior to this for him to wait for us all to get started together. My husband had the camera out, and laughingly took this primo shot of the boy giving in to temptation. SLURP!

We had a great time. We decorated cookies 2 days in a row. Once with just our family, then we had some friends over the next day and did it again. And I still have a whole batch (of the 3 batches I made) of sugar cookie dough left in the fridge -- I think I'll freeze it. Here are some pics from our 2 afternoons having fun last weekend.

This article has been reproduced at my new blog website and can also be found here: http://www.bakingindallas.com/christmas-cookies-2009/

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Mini Muffins w/Frosting

2009-12-17T22:33:00.002-06:00

OK, so my daughter had her school Christmas Party today, and I signed up to do the Christmas snack treats. The school kind of frowns on sugary stuff, and likes healthy snacks when possible. If frosting is included, it needs to be white and minimal. With these ideas in hand, I decided to go for pumpkin cream cheese muffins with a cream cheese frosting and some cake toppers. I got the mini muffin pans at an estate sale about 2 or 3 months back (great buy -- I think $2 a pan). My pans only hold 12 muffins. I saw on Amazon.com that they have some that are non-stick and hold 24 muffins -- boy, that would be slick!

I got the recipe off of www.allrecipes.com. They came out fantastic.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Loaf/Detail.aspx

Pumpkin Loaf

Ingredients

4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup margarine
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
Put softened cheese, butter, and sugar in mixing bowl. Cream together well. Beat in eggs one at a time until blended. Mix in pumpkin.
In another bowl combine flour, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and walnuts. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Pour all at once over batter. Stir just enough to moisten. Turn into greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60-70 minutes until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove to rack to finish cooling.

I had bought really cute little muffin cups to help spruce up the mini muffins, but my grandmother had made a point earlier in the week in a phone conversation -- "I always grease the muffin pans, and then put the muffins into the little paper cups, that way people don't lose half of the muffin when they pull the paper off"....hmmm. OK! So I greased the pans. Here are the muffins coming out of the oven.

And here are the muffins after they came out of the pans, they turned out so perfect! I cooked them for about 40 minutes btw. Hard to judge how long they should take since they are not "loaves".

Next, I put the little muffin cups around them. They were black with little white and blue snowflake designs. Very wintery.

I used the cream cheese frosting recipe to make a tasty frosting topper. Like I said, the school doesn't like too much frosting, so I wanted the frosting to be a little bit thin so that it wouldn't stack up on the cupcakes too much. I added some white sugar sprinkles to the tops and then put the snowmen cake toppers into each cupcake.

According to my daughter (6 yrs old), her teachers and "everyone in the class" wants the recipe they were so good. I'm not sure if that's exactly true, but it sure tells me that the mini cupcakes were a hit.

Here is the recipe for the frosting:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cream-Cheese-Frosting-II-2/Detail.aspx

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

This article has been reproduced at my new blog website and can also be found here: http://www.bakingindallas.com/pumpkin-cream-cheese-mini-muffins-wfrosting/