Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Rainbow Cake

My baby's favourite colour is rainbow (okay, my favourite colour for her is rainbow), so I went with that as a theme for her first birthday (how is she one already!?!?). I know, I know, it's not exactly new anymore, but I wanted to do something cute without spending hours piping little icing rosettes all over a cake. I just don't have time to spend 5 hours making a first birthday cake that she won't even remember. This rainbow cake is a great solution because it takes about 2 minutes more than any normal cake. I used a nice sugary, buttery cake recipe that has gone over well in the past. It freezes well, so I got to make it a couple of days in advance. All I did was put the batter into 5 cereal bowls and coloured each one with different food colours (yellow, orange, red, green, and blue). Then I drizzled each colour into the cake pan. Unlike marble cake, I don't swirl the colours because I want them to all be visible themselves. To finish, I iced the cake with a plain white buttercream icing. I just wanted it to look really plain on the outside so that it would be more of a surprise when it was cut. My daughter stuffed as much of a full piece as possible into her mouth and gobbled it up, so it went over well with the target audience.

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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Waffles - Homemade Eggos

I really like waffles. I figure an Eggo waffle on a regular basis is probably not the most healthy choice though, so the other day I decided to make my own buttermilk waffles - tons of them! - and freeze them like homemade Eggos. I guess it may have also had something to do with the fact that I accidentally bought a big thing of buttermilk instead of homo milk. Why are they almost the same!?!? Anyway, this is my favourite waffle recipe, and freezing them and then toasting them in the morning worked out really well. I got the recipe from the Epicurious website:



  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

  • 2 tablespoons sugar

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 3/4 teaspoon salt

  • 2 cups well-shaken buttermilk

  • 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature

  • 2 large eggs

  • Vegetable oil for waffle iron



  • Put oven rack in middle position and put a large metal cooling rack directly on it. Preheat oven to 250°F and preheat waffle iron.


    Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.


    Whisk together buttermilk, melted butter, and eggs in another bowl, then whisk into flour mixture until just combined.


    Brush hot waffle iron lightly with vegetable oil and pour a slightly rounded 1/2 cup of batter into each waffle mold (see cooks' note, below). Cook waffles according to manufacturer's instructions until golden and cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer as cooked to rack in oven to keep warm, keeping waffles in 1 layer to stay crisp. Make more waffles in same manner.

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    Saturday, October 9, 2010

    Salmon Salad


    I still exist! I'm going to go ahead and assume most of our readers have jumped ship under the assumption that we did. I'm still here, still cooking and baking, still eating, just have not been posting thanks to my little one's need for attention and her love of my laptop (I need to keep it hidden or risk losing keys). This is an oldie from the summer, but I wanted to pop something up during nap time so that I can try and get back into blogging. Nothing fancy, just took some leftover BBQ salmon (BBQ'd with butter, lemon and dill) and flaked it on top of spinach and mixed salad greens from my garden. I added some dried cranberries and goat cheese because I like adding those to most salads, and then topped with a quick balsamic dressing. Yay for posting! I hope to keep it up over the next little while again since I have realized a few recipes I use a lot need to be added.

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