Gingerbread Christmas Train

This year I decided to be slightly more traditional with my gingerbread project. I made a Gingerbread train complete with Engine, Coal Car, Logging Car, Freight Car and Caboose.

 The whole train! And a little skating rink full of hockey players.

 The train passes a snowman.

 The 'logs' are marshmallow sticks, strawberry flavoured ones.

 The coal car is full of chocolate covered jujubes and black jelly beans. The freight car carries saltwater taffy and hard candy.

 Jujube hockey players on a shiny rink

 The engine working hard at the front of the train.

Merry Christmas!

Amazing Brownies

This is a truly amazing brownie recipe. Very rich and chocolatey. I've been meaning to post the recipe for a while but I keep forgetting. It kind of has weird measurements...

2 1/4 sticks of butter or margarine (about 1 cup + 2 tbsp)

2 1/4 cups sugar

5 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup + 1 tbsp flour

3/4 cup + 1 tbsp cocoa

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

(Optional 3/4 cup nuts or 1/2 cup other flavoured chips, ie white chocolate, butterscotch or peanut butter)

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper and then spray with PAM. In a saucepan melt together butter and sugar, until butter is completely melted. Allow to cool slightly, then transfer to mixing bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in vanilla. Add flour, cocoa and salt. Stir gently until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Bake for 35 min. Cool completely before cutting. 

Barbie Cake

I made this for my roommate's birthday this year. She helped me make it and we had a lot of fun.

 

I always thought the barbie in the cake looked a bit too much like it belonged on Cake Wrecks. But this one ended up looking alright. 

 

Structural integrity issues aside...

 We also originally didn't have enough cake... some improvisation with cake scraps occurred.

 All done!

 My roommate's party was 'Burgers on the Beach' so here is Barbie on the beach!

 Glamour shot!

SkyWeb NEXT Cake

I made this cake to celebrate the end of a major project at our office. It's the company logo with the project name.

Bacon Spaghetti

This is a classic in our house. I definitely prefer it over beef spaghetti... by a lot! 

6 slices bacon (half a package-ish)

1 onion, finely chopped

Fresh mushrooms, chopped

1 tsp oregano

2 tsp basil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 can (391 ml) tomato sauce

Spaghetti noodles (for 4 people)

Chop bacon into small pieces and then fry. In a medium pot, fry onion. Add mushrooms and spices and fry. Add bacon and tomato sauce, simmer as the noodles cook. Cook spaghetti noodles according to package directions. 

Serve sauce over noodles with parmesan cheese. 

Butter Chicken

Last November I went to India for a business trip. It was amazing! It was cool to experience a new culture and, of course, new food. A few months after I got home I decided I wanted to try some new food and so I decided to hunt for some good Indian recipes. I know that butter chicken isn't 'real Indian food' but that's what I tried first. So here's my recipe, which is actually a combination of many other recipes. 

2-3 chicken breasts

1 onion

2 cloves garlic (I use about a teaspoon pre-minced garlic from a jar)

1 can diced tomatoes (large can)

1 can coconut milk 

1 tsp chili powder

2 tsp garam masala 

1 tsp curry powder

(Spice amounts are estimates, change to your own preferences)

Rice or Indian bread (such as naan or chapati) as a side

Chop up chicken breasts into small pieces and fry in a wok or other large pan with high sides. 

Chop up onion and garlic. Add to cooked chicken and fry. 

When onions are soft, add the spices to the pan and fry for a minute or so. 

Purée the tomatoes using a hand blender or food processor. Pour puréed tomatoes into chicken/onion/spice mixture. Pour coconut milk in and stir. 

Simmer for 15-20 min. While it is simmering cook rice or bread. 

Serve by pouring sauce over rice or with bread. 

UCM Grad Cake 2013

For the third year in a row, I made the grad cake for my church. Grad was in April... but I'm posting the cake now. Oops...

I wanted it to be a three tiered cake... but I had some structural integrity issues. So it ended up being a two tiered cake with an extra cake off to the side.

 

Covered in grad hats of course!

Panda Cake!

I made this cake for my summer roommate's birthday. She loves animals and all things cute. And her boyfriend told me panda's were her favourite.

Isn't he so cute? I think its the cutest cake I've made. It was hard to cut him up and eat him.

Gummy Birthday Cake

One of my close friends loves gummy candy of all kinds. So for her birthday I made a cake... and covered it in gummies.... lots and lots of gummies.

 There were a lot of gummies on this cake. The goal was 95% gummy coverage... I think I made it.

 If you look closely the cake say 'Lisa' on it. But this turned out to be hard to see.

 Wrapped around the base of the cake were 3 foot long gummy snakes. They ended up having to take scissors to the cake to cut them.

Gummy overload!

Flamingo Cake

I made this one for a co-worker's 40th birthday.

Apparently flamingo's and 40th birthdays are a thing... I really don't know why, but I've been told they are.

Vanilla Cupcakes

I've been on the hunt for a decent vanilla cake or cupcake recipe for a while now, and I've finally found one I like. It's light and fluffy and tastes like butter and vanilla. I really like it. I made these for my friend's birthday the other day. I topped them with chocolate icing and white sprinkles... so it makes it hard to tell from the picture that they are vanilla cupcakes.

2 1/4 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla (or more)
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare 24 muffin cups.

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the milk, vanilla and butter and beat well at medium speed for at least one minute. Add the eggs and beat again at medium speed for at least three more minutes, scraping the bowl as you go.

Fill muffin cups about 2/3rds full. Bake 20-25 minutes.

Adventure Time Cookies!

A couple weeks ago it was my boyfriend's birthday. I really wanted to make him a cake, but he lives about 8 hours away during the school year and cakes don't mail very well. So, I made him cookies instead!

 

Adventure Time Cookies! It's one of his favourite shows, so I figured he'd enjoy them. I made them with my sugar cookie dough and then decorated with royal icing, because it would ship better than buttercream. They actually held up really well to the shipping process. 

That's what they looked like when he found them! Of course then he told me that they were way too nice... and he can't bring himself to eat them. Except for the purple one, who is his least favourite. And he also ate the few non-Adventure Time ones that I squeezed into the box.

 

Then my roommates and I  ate the rest...

Disney Princess Cake

This is pretty much one of the funnest cakes I've ever made. It was for my friend who I've made two birthday cakes for before, Shamu and Jedi Mickey, and this year she was having a Disney Princess Tea Party birthday.

So, I decided to make the most insanely girly, Disney princess-y cake I possible could.

 With Darth Vader thrown in for good measure...

 Pretty much this was just a standard cake, made two tiered (which was all the birthday girl could say as she stared at it when it was brought out), and then covered in Pink Icing, Princesses, Darth Vader and a whole bunch of edible glitter!

I had so much fun working on this cake and I just love how it turned out!

Seahawks Birthday Cake

One of my uncles has his birthday on Christmas Eve. We were visiting him and my grandma for Christmas this year and so I made him a cake with his favourite NFL team on it!

Enchiladas

Just for clarification... in my house we call these burritos. However, I have since been informed that they should really be called enchiladas. I still tend to call them burritos, but for this post I will attempt to refer to them properly.

Enchiladas

1 recipe taco meat
1 (medium sized) can of tomato sauce (or enchilada sauce if you prefer, although this is hard to find here in Canada)
1 can refried beans
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
8 soft tortilla shells

Preheat oven to 350. In a 9x13 pan, spread out half of the tomato sauce. Prepare taco meat. With the stove still on a low setting, stir the refried beans into the taco meat until melted. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of grated cheese, until mostly melted. One at a time, take a taco shell, add 1/8th of the meat mixture, then fold at both ends and roll. Place rolled taco in pan. Repeat for all tacos until meat mixture is used up. Spread the rest of the tomato sauce on top of the enchiladas. Top with remaining cheese. Bake 20-25 minutes until cheese is melted and tomato sauce is bubbly.

Serve with sour cream and salsa!

Note: Usually I use tomato sauce, however for the picture above I was using green enchilada sauce. I really like green enchilada sauce but it is difficult to find in Canada.