This year I’ll be about 8 hours away from my mom at Mother’s Day. Although I’d love to send my mom a cake as well, this Strawberry Ruffle Cake is for my mother-in-law since she is living here in Calgary where we are.

When I started to bake and experiment again since our return to Canada, my mother-in-law showed me an old (Mennonite) recipe book (from 1976) from which she has been baking for a looong time.

It’s not really a cookbook. Just a lot of type-writer typed pages stapled together. Oh, and it is in German. But there are things like snicker-doodle cookies and Lady Baltimore cake. So I am certain a lot of the recipes are American/Canadian.

One of the cakes in the booklet is “Sternlicht-Torte” which basically means Starlight Cake. It is my mother-in-law’s go-to white cake recipe. She loves white cake! But she is a lone star in a family of chocolate lovers. For this reason she doesn’t get to make it very often, because usually it means she has to eat it all by herself.

For Mother’s Day I thought I would treat her to her favorite starlight cake. (I couldn’t stop humming the Starlight Express songs while baking the cake).

Another thing about the recipe booklet – it doesn’t specify baking times, temperature or pan size. In some recipe (like this one) not even the method!

Making this cake was a real adventure. I only wanted a 6-inch round cake. So I made the batter (while making up the method) totally prepared having to make cupcakes from the rest. But it turned out to be the perfect amount for three 6-inch layers. (My bottom layer only is smaller because I had to level it more than the others. I opened the oven door too early and one layer sank in).

I loved how light, fluffy and moist the cake came out. This just might become my go-to white cake recipe as well.

For the filling and frosting I wanted to make something light an fresh – strawberries are just perfect for that.

While looking for a strawberry filling recipe, I came across Natasha’s Strawberry Layer Cake. Funny enough, the strawberry filling in her cake is simply pureed strawberries (at chunky apple-sauce-like consistency).

Reading through her post I was intrigued by her cream cheese frosting. Neither side of our family is very big on buttercream and Natasha’s frosting recipe doesn’t use any butter at all. Just cream cheese, whipping cream and sugar.

First I was afraid without butter the frosting might not be stable enough to hold up for piping, but the ruffles came out beautifully. And I even added a little strawberry puree to the frosting to flavor and color it.

Another bonus of no butter in the frosting is that it doesn’t harden up very much in the fridge. So even if you don’t let the cake come to room temperature before eating it, you don’t have to chew the buttercream.

A little more about the piped ruffles.

Almost 2 years ago I posted another ruffle piping tutorial. Those were tighter, neater ruffles. While for this vintage cake I wanted to try vintage, shabby-chic style ruffles.

These are also created with a petal piping tip (eg. #104). The fat side of the tip touches the cake while the thin side points outward. I piped ruffly lines from top to bottom, each time overlapping a little with the thick part of the previous ruffle.

On the top I piped a few hearts with the same petal tip – starting and ending at the bottom tip of the heart. Again, the fat side touches the cake, while the thin end point outwards.

I also used a few white sugar pearls to decorate the top and the side.

Notes:

*If you want to make a larger cake, you can double the recipe and bake in 8 or 9-inch cake pans.

** You can make your own cake flour with all-purpose flour and corn starch: Per 1 cup of flour replace 1 tbsp of AP flour with 1 tbsp corn starch.

What does breakfast look like at your house?

During the week my husband and I eat very different breakfast – only coffee unites us. He usually has a peanut butter + honey bread, while I make myself oatmeal with cinnamon and fruit. These days I also like to add a teaspoon of coconut oil (thats good stuff).

Also, we eat while we are still half asleep until the coffee finally kicks in.

The weekends are different though (at least Sundays). We sleep a little longer – so once its breakfast time we are kind of awake and try to make it a really enjoyable time with special food, like waffles or these awesome whole wheat pancakes!

And they have Greek yogurt in them!

I made yogurt pancakes before, when we were in Thailand and didn’t have baking powder or soda – and it worked. This time I made them with whole wheat flour though, so leavening (baking powder in this case) is not a bad idea.

Don’t shy away from these pancakes because they are made with whole wheat flour. I tell you – they are FLUFFY!

Plus, whole wheat flour is good for you. So is Greek yogurt (it doesn’t even have fat). AND… I used melted coconut oil. Which is fat but healthy fat. Which makes these pancakes like triple healthy! 

But they really don’t taste like cardboard at all. I didn’t tell my husband that I made these pancakes with whole wheat flour + Greek yogurt and he never noticed they were different from white flour + buttermilk ones.

(Btw, you can substitute canola oil if you don’t have coconut oil)

I hope you are convinced now that you HAVE to make these pancakes, like… tomorrow!

Because they are yummy, fluffy and kind of healthy.

I love my pancakes topped with maple syrup and berries, but chocolate chips, butter and pancake syrup are really great too.

Recipe adapted from Pinchofyum.com

If you happen to be completely out of baking soda or powder but have yogurt at home, try these leavening-free pancakes:

I told you already that Oreo cookies were widely available everywhere we went in Southeast Asia. I was already on a candy roll with the Banana Chocolate Truffles when I remembered something:

A while ago I had seen Heidi from Bits of Sunshine make cake pops from Oreo cookies and even shortbread cookies. That somehow was a revelation to me. I had never thought of using anything but crumbled cake to make cake pops. (And I have to admit, I am not a super huge fan of that mushy texture).

So I just had to try if I like the texture better with cookies – and indeed I do! The consistency is denser and almost chewy and I just LOVED them.

I was in Vietnam at the time I made these and didn’t feel like going on a crazy hunt to find popsicle sticks, so I made truffles instead of pops.

To make the truffles I first crushed the Oreo cookies. I didn’t have a food processor so I put them in a baggie and crushed them with a rolling pin, but it will be much quicker with a food processor. The Oreos should look like fine crumbs.

I mixed the crumbs with 3 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk, just because I had an open can and because I had seen Heidi do that with shortbread cookie pops. You can be creative with the binder you use. If you have some buttercream, use that or try flavored coffee creamer. Start with 1 tablespoon and add more as needed (it’s always easier to add than to take liquid away:)

Once the mixture resembled cookie dough in its consistency I rolled it into truffles. As a rule of thumb, one Oreo cookie will make about one 1-inch truffle. So 12 Oreos resulted in 12 truffles for me. I placed the truffles on a lined sheet and refrigerated them for about an hour. If you want to speed up the process, you can freeze them for 10 minutes or so.

Then I dipped the truffles in melted white chocolate (a fork is my favorite dipping tool) and drizzled some dark chocolate over the tops. Just because it is so warm in Vietnam, I kept the truffles in the fridge, but the sweetened condensed milk binder hardens quite a bit so I let them sit at room temperature before serving.

Looking for more truffles or bite-sized snacks?

Chocolate Banana Truffles are a great way to use up an overripe banana.

Chocolate Dipped Banana Peanut Butter Bites

No-Bake Oatmeal Berry Bites

It has been almost 2 weeks since we returned from Southeast Asia back to Canada.

We are in the process of settling in after 1.5 years of absence. Of course I have been baking like crazy already, but I am just getting used to my current oven. So I might still need a little bit but I am excited to post some baking recipes with you soon.

In the meantime let me share with you what has been my lunch almost every day since we are back in Canada: Avocado Smoothies!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know that avocado is very healthy and good for you, but I am not a fan of them. Guacamole was the only food I could handle avocado in. However, Erin from TexanErin.com has been posting a few avocado smoothies and every time she promises they don’t actually taste like avocado.

So I had to give it a try and she is absolutely right. With this smoothie you get all the health benefits of avocado without having to deal with the taste of it. And to make things even healthier I added chia seeds.

Adding chia seeds to a smoothie has similar effects to adding ground flax seed without getting the brown color. Both are great sources of healthy omega-3 fats, fiber, calcium and magnesium. However, chia seeds don’t have to be ground for our bodies to be able to absorb its nutrients and I really like the slight crunch they add.

Aside from avocado I add 1 frozen banana and about 1 cup of another fruit (mango in this case). I use milk and Greek yogurt for my smoothies. They tend to be on the thicker side and sometimes I actually eat them with a spoon. If you prefer them more liquid, you can add more milk.

Banana bread just got competition!

Let me present to you another way to use up those overripe bananas and you don’t even need to use an oven.

Ok, well, these truffles don’t actually use a lot of banana. Just about 1/3 cup, which is about half of a large banana. So if a whole lot of bananas turned brown and blotchy on you, you just might have to make banana bread (or freeze them to use in smoothies later).

However, keep about half a banana aside so you can try these amazing truffles that combine chocolate and banana flavors in such a wonderful way. The banana flavor is not strong and overpowering but present in a very pleasant way.

The creamy center of these truffles is a chocolate ganache made with sweetened condensed milk. I used a combination of milk and dark chocolate but you could also make these with just one kind of chocolate.

I just mashed the banana and stirred it into the melted mixture of chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. For a really smooth texture you can blend it all together in a food processor.

The ganache then has to set up in the fridge for at least 4 hours or better yet overnight. Once set I cut it into equal pieces (about 25-30). You could even dip them as squares, but I rolled them into balls. Wetting your hands helps with stickiness.

For the coating I melted dark chocolate (a little added vegetable shortening makes it thinner). Chocolate dipping can be a messy process and I guess everyone has to figure out their own way. I like to use a fork to lower the truffle into the melted chocolate. So that when lifting it out the excess chocolate can drip off.

My chocolate that day was a little stubborn and didn’t want to form a smooth shell, so I pronounced the ‘unevenness’ even more with the back of a spoon to create a swirly texture.

I made these truffles still in Asia, so storing them in the fridge was a must, but I think even in cooler climates it is a good idea to keep them refrigerated in an airtight container.

They didn’t last longer than a week with us. If you think you won’t eat them all in one week, the truffles can also be frozen.

Recipe adapted from loveandoliveoil.com

Are you a fan of banana and chocolate? Chocolate Dipped PB Banana Bites are another quick snack idea.

In our last few weeks in Southeast Asia I ate mango every day!

I just knew how much I was going to miss this juicy, sweet fruit, so I made sure to enjoy it as much as possible while I could.  Every time we went out I picked up at least a couple of mangoes from the street vendors – the riper the better!

I also tried hard to think of another way to use mangoes other than just eating them fresh (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find fresh mint leaves so an adaption of my mojito mocktail wasn’t an option. Finally I came up with the idea to flavour iced tea with mango.

Most recipes I saw online use mango nectar to make iced tea. I didn’t like this for 2 reasons

1. I wanted to make use of the abundance of amazing fresh mangoes and

2. I wanted to have absolute control over the sweetness of the iced tea.

So started by pureeing the flesh of one mango.

- There is a recipe video for Chicken Mango Salsa in the BlogHer TV player in the sidebar today. In the video Hilah shows how she is cutting mango and it is the exact same way I do it now after learning this method from a lady in Thailand -

Then I mixed the puree with fairly strong, brewed black tea. I found a ratio of 1 part mango puree to 2 parts brewed tea to be ideal.

I gave approximate volume amounts in the recipe but obviously the amount of puree you get, will depend on the size of mango you use. So if you have different amounts than the recipe, you’ll know to add twice as much tea as mango puree. (You can also make the puree from frozen mango, just let the chunks thaw first).

The mango I used was super ripe and sweet, so I actually had no need to add any sweetener. If you like it sweeter, you can add honey, sugar or other sweetener to the finished tea.

What are some of your favorite drinks made with fresh fruit?

Any fruity version of this Mojito Mocktail is always a winner in my books. This one is made with strawberries but I have also had papaya and passion fruit versions.

By the time this post goes live I’ll probably be somewhere mid-air over the Pacific ocean.

YES! We are going to be back in Canada for the summer. And I have extremely mixed emotions about this. On one hand I am soo excited to see our families again and actually meeting my baby nephew for the first time. Can you believe I never got to hold him yet? Now he is already about to start walking and probably won’t care much for being held. Hopefully my sister will allow me to post lots of adorable pictures of the cute chubby chipmunk on here!

On the other hand, leaving behind sunshine, warm (um…HOT!) temperatures, amazing – and oh so cheap – Asian food, and an abundance of tropical fruit (ripe, juicy mangoes, papayas or pineapple anyone?) is everything but exciting. Yes, Southeast Asia clearly has won our hearts! And already we can’t wait to come back.

However, monsoon season is about to start, so it will be nice to escape seemingly endless rain showers. And you know what I also won’t mind? Being able to bake again! Aside from a short month on Bali we never had a place with an oven in Southeast Asia (I guess it is kind of counter-intuitive to put such a heat-producing machine in an already too warm kitchen).

It was tough for a baking fanatic like me but it has also stretched my inner creative being and lead me to come up with all kinds of no-bake dessert treats like today’s Peanut Butter Oreo Chocolate Fudge.

Which brings me to the topic of Oreo cookies in Asia. With so few Asian households having ovens there also comes a scarcity of related ingredients available. Some countries (like Malaysia and Indonesia) where better supplied than others (Thailand, Vietnam) but one “ingredient” that has been available literally EVERYWHERE are Oreo cookies – Yes, I see Oreos as an ingredient and not so much as a treat in itself.

Aside from the original flavor (no Double Stuf though) they even have varieties here that I have never seen in North America. How would you like some Orange Ice Cream Oreos, or maybe Blueberry Ice Cream flavor? (Neither of those taste pretty good btw).

Double Delight - Peanut Butter&Chocolate Cream is much better already, but my absolute favorite Asian Oreo flavor is Strawberry. I used them in this White Chocolate Fridge Cake. I heard there is a Berry Burst flavor available in North America now, but here it is just plain Strawberry flavor. Oh yum! (There may or may not be a few packages of these in my luggage right now.)

Regular Oreos are also always a winner! In my last post on Moody Photography I already showed you that I had spiked up Oreo cookies with peanut butter. I came across this idea on Back For Seconds and thought they would be a fabulous add-in for my newly discovered easy chocolate fudge recipe.

For this fudge version I used a mix of milk and dark chocolate and omitted the salt. The peanut butter-spiked Oreos are placed in the center of the fudge and also make up the crumble topping.

Do you see Oreo cookies also rather as an ingredient than a snack in itself?

I’d love to see your favorite creations with Oreos as ingredient!

Feel free to link them up in the comments!

I have never received as many comments on my food photography as when I started posting pictures that could be classified as “dark & moody”. Now, I should put out a disclaimer first: I am not the most qualified to talk about food photography. (At the moment I am only using a point & shoot camera.) So all I am going to do, is show you how I do it, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only or even the best way.

This short how-to is intended for bloggers/photographers that are starting out and trying to do their best to take appealing food pictures with the abilities and resources at hand.

It all started out with these Literally Rocky Road Bars. They where my very first dark & moody pictures. But how did I go from the SOOC (straight out of camera) picture on the left, to the one on the right (that made it on the blog)?

Before we go into the editing details and steps, let’s talk a bit about the

Set-up and background

In my post about Changing up your Food Photography I showed you the antique desk that is in the place we are currently renting in Vietnam. This desk serves as a background in most of my darker pictures.

Now, I totally realize that not everyone has an antique desk standing around that they can use as a background. So I did a little experimenting and came up with a setup that everyone can recreate.

These peanut butter filled Oreos are the component for a treat that is coming up later this week. Do you see the black and dark gray background? They are my black sweater and my husband’s gray t-shirt. One is spread on the seat of a chair and the other I hung over the lean.

I bet you all have a chair and dark-colored clothing items.

The next important factor is

Lighting

Although these are “dark and moody” pictures, light is still important. As always – natural lighting is best (at least for me), but I found that too much direct light doesn’t work for me to create a moody atmosphere.

Instead, I place the chair in front of an open door so that the light grazes over the setup from one side. In all of my pictures the light is coming from the left. Just play around a little with your setup and I am sure you will find your right spot as well.

Now on to the exciting part (or not):

Editing

Since reading the Tasty Food Photography guide (which I highly recommend, by the way), I started using Photoshop to edit my pictures. Before that I was way too overwhelmed with all its functions, so this guide was really great at easing me into it. I have an older version of Photoshop from my husband but it still works great for my needs.

One thing that really kick-started the darker kind of photography for me, was being introduced to Action Sets.

Amanda from I Am Baker recently wrote a post about food blogging trends. In this post she introduced me to action sets  from The Pioneer Woman (thank you Amanda!). Action sets are similar to filters you might be familiar with from Instagram or photo editing sites like picmonkey.com

This is the same picture as above SOOC – straight out of the camera. Now let’s play with it.

1. First I do a little preliminary adjusting of Levels, Exposure, Brightness/Contrast and I almost always Sharpen the image.

2. You will notice that it usually isn’t the food that looks “dark & moody”. I only want to apply above mentioned action sets to the background – so I cut out the food. I am zooming in to the food as much as possible and draw around it with the Magnetic Lasso Tool. This is very easy with light food on a dark background but gets a little trickier when the food is dark as well and requires a little more patience.

Then I right-click into the food and select Layer via Cut (sorry, I am not familiar how it works on a Mac). The food and the background are now in 2 separate layers.

3. I select only the background layer and apply the Old West action set.

4. I decreased the action to about 90% (it was a little too dark) and Flatten the Image.

I also Crop the image to desired size and make a few small adjustments, if necessary. With this one I used the Healing Brush to get rid of a little white spot on the shirt in the background and another one on the foreground.

And voila! The difference is most noticeable once the images are side-by-side.

What do you think of this dark & moody food photography trend?

Have you tried taking darker pictures?

Any tips or suggestions that worked for you?

Don’t forget to come back later this week to see why I filled these Oreos with peanut butter.

Tomorrow is National Caramel Popcorn Day (in the US) and just in time for that I bring you this Mocha Popcorn treat. You guessed right – it uses caramel popcorn.

Here in Vietnam I can buy ready-made caramel popcorn from the store and pretty much every street vendor has it too. But if you don’t have caramel popcorn, regular or buttery flavors will work for this too.

The caffeine kick in this popcorn is perfect for me and everyone else who has trouble staying awake during movies. Yesterday I fell asleep in the theater again! Maybe it’s not me but the movies – G.I. Joe 2 was a pretty bad.

Jocelyn from InsideBruCrewLife is the queen of popcorn munch in my eyes. Just look at all the different creative popcorn treats she has on her blog. Before reading her blog I never realized what creative potential popcorn has.

To make this Mocha Popcorn Munch I combined the popped caramel popcorn with instant mocha powder (I used VIA Ready Brew from Starbucks). This popcorn mix is tossed with melted white chocolate and sprinkled with mini chocolate chunks (I cut my own mini chunks because I can’t find chocolate chips in Vietnam – but mini chocolate chips would be perfect).

After setting up in the fridge, I break the popcorn into chunks and drizzle it with the most amazing mocha white chocolate drizzle. Really, this popcorn munch is worth it just for the that. To make the drizzle I adapted one of Jocelyn’s recipes. Instead of instant coffee I used mocha.

The instant mocha is mixed with heated sweetened condensed milk until it dissolves and then stirred into a little melted white chocolate (1 tsp of shortening makes it more “drizzable”).

Can I tell you something I haven’t shared with you yet? We are going back to Canada (for the summer at least)!!!!

I have to say, I am pretty stoked just thinking of all the baking opportunities! Yes, you heard right, I will be able to bake again and I can actually get my hands on pretty much every ingredient I want to.

Our flight is booked for the end of next week already. First we’ll visit my family in Kelowna for a bit but most of our time will actually be spent in Calgary.

I have a number of no-bake treats scheduled still but soon enough baking with an oven will commence!

Peanut Butter and chocolate are kind of like magic ingredients. If I just hear one or both of these ingredients, my eyes light up and taste buds start salivating. I will hardly ever say no to goodies that have peanut butter and/or chocolate on the ingredients list. And it is exactly these two ingredients that can turn simple crackers in to a fancy party snack.

I got the idea for these pimped up Saltine cracker sandwiches from a snack bar that is being sold here in Vietnam. It basically consists of Saltine crackers with different flavored fillings. Unfortunately, those fillings don’t taste very good. They are just very sweet, creamy and highly processed ‘stuff’. Sure, the added colorings and artificial flavors are intended to make you think you eat strawberry or chocolate cream, but I wasn’t fooled.

Instead I was inspired to make my own version that is at least a little more real. For one of these snack sandwiches I used 3 plain Saltine cracker squares and spread a little melted chocolate (I like dark chocolate) between two squares. Then I topped it with another square that was spread with peanut butter. And as if that wasn’t enough of the ‘magic ingredients’, half of the sandwich is dipped in melted chocolate and then drizzled with a little more. Just for the pretty factor.

So if you are looking for another treat to put on the snack table for your next party, why don’t you make these easy Saltine sandwiches. Chances are that you already have all ingredients in your pantry. You can also use different kinds of crackers and your choice of chocolate and peanut butter (or other nut butter).

Although I didn’t care for the packaged snack bars here in Vietnam, there are other amazing foods here that I really like. Top runners are Pho and fresh spring rolls. I’ll really miss those when we move on, but I just learnt how easy fresh spring rolls are to make from a fun video in the sidebar player. Check it out, if you love Vietnamese/Asian food as much as me.