It has been a very exciting few weeks for one of our little league team moms. After being nominated by her daughter (which I blogged about previously), Krista won the competition to be the 2013 Baltimore Orioles Honorary Bat Girl!

We are so proud of Krista, all the other nominees, survivors, and those currently in the battle. We, of course, are thinking about the angels who gave their all in the fight and are no longer with us.

I’m especially proud of Krista’s daughter Sarah Grace, whose winning nomination essay should be an inspiration to any family member or friend of someone in the fight against cancer.

Sarah Grace’s Honorary Bat Girl Nomination Essay

As a way of honoring Sarah Grace, I made her a special cake, along the theme of the special pink bats used on Mother’s Day by Major League Baseball.

Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

I made a red velvet cake (her favorite), with cream cheese frosting in light pink all over. I made a bright/hot pink border using the same cream cheese frosting. In the interest of time, I used a box mix and can frosting.

For the lettering, I piped melted chocolate candy onto a “logo” I created.  Thanks to my designer friend Rebecca Henigin from Henigin Design, who studied the font and told me which fonts I should use for my logo.

I printed out the logo, and taped a piece of wax paper over it.  Using a piping bag and small tip, I hand-drew the letters on the wax paper, tracing them with the chocolate candy melt. Since the McElwains live in Walkersville, MD, that’s the location I used on the bat.

In hindsight, the letters need to be a bit bigger/thicker.  Once they harden and you begin to peel them off the wax paper, the thinner parts break very easily.  There are a few “Frankenletters”, but hopefully you can’t tell which ones they are!

Yes, yes, I know the letters for Walkersville don’t form a symmetrical arch!

The hot pink frosting on the side of the cake.

Congrats to Sarah Grace and her mom Krista, and thanks for bringing inspiration to all those who are “Fighting Like a Girl!”

No-one needs a recipe for rice crispie cakes, but I thought Beth looked cute in the photo and I wanted to celebrate the fact that we’ve finally finished the Easter eggs, yay! We melted the last ones down this afternoon.

Ingredients

• chocolate
• rice crispies
• marshmallows

Melt the chocolate. Pour in some rice crispies. Stir. Spoon into cake cases. Decorate with marshmallows. Refrigerate. Done.

I was going to make guacamole but despite having a ripe and ready to eat label on it..
The avocado was far from ripe enough to mash up, bloody liars!!

Yesterday started off cold and miserable, I had to turn the heating on and the lights, it’s nearly June for goodness sake, when I came back from walking the dog in the afternoon I ended up having a nap because all the warmth and joy had been sucked out of me and I didn’t feel like doing anything else…
When I woke up it was still miserable and I wanted something nice with a cup of tea, but we didn’t have anything nice so despite feeling a bit muzzy headed I made made some ‘buns’ using the simplest recipe I could find, which was a scaled down version of my mums rock bun recipe.
It was really easy and didn’t involve any thought..

“Cream 75g butter together with 75g caster sugar, mix in an egg, add 150g sifted S.R flour and any chocolate you can get your hands on, I had half a bar of cooking chocolate, which needs to be cut into chunks.
Spoon onto a baking sheet and bake at 180° for 18 minutes, eat two warm, in succession..”

That did the job and I feel quite cheerful afterwards.

Because it was such a dreary day I decided comfort food was in order, so I made a chilli.

Chilli bowls

I made up a chilli with the mince, tomatoes and other bits and pieces.

Then made a couple of bowls out of two flour tortillas, and fried two more..

and I did a few potato wedges with some left over mozzarella I had.

I was going to make guacamole but despite having a ripe and ready to eat label on it..

The avocado was far from ripe enough to mash up, bloody liars!!
so I just diced up half.

it was really nice, warm and filling, and that’s when the cloud broke and some sun appeared, just as it was shining through the back window on to the telly, so we had to pull the curtains..
Typical eh!!

Here is what you will get

A rolling pin that has discs on the end that you can take on and off to adjust how thick you need the dough. This is great for pie crusts or even crackers.

The spatula and baster have a nifty little tab on them that allows them to stay up off the counter and stay clean when in use.

An cute little kitchen timer.

You also get an 8×8 baking pan. This prize has a retail value of $60.

Check out the gluten free mixes from Betty Crocker. You can make a gluten free cake in your new cake pan The mixes are not included in the giveaway.

Since I am grain free, I used the rolling pin to make some plantain crackers and it worked great.

“The information and prize pack have been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark.”

Are you ready enter to get your FREE gift pack? Click the link below to enter.

US residents only. Giveaway ends on May 29th. Good luck!

Gluten Free Baking Giveaway

a) wine

b) cake

c) bacon

Chocolate doesn’t feature. Neither does lettuce. I feel that makes me a well balanced person.

Anyway, I was given a challenge. My son’s school is holding an international buffet day tomorrow. Each child has had to painstakingly research (well painful for the parent who had to assist when all the child wanted to do was play on computer games instead of looking up fun facts) a specific city to create a tourist brochure. I remember doing things like this when I was a child. But I am a girl and therefore found it quite fun to cut out pictures and write words and make things look pretty. Apparently my boy child has less enthusiasm.

I digress. The other part of the project was for each child to bring in a dish local to their specific city. This is the part where the mums try to outdo each other for top marks, house points and gold stars. Our city (note the use of ‘our’ rather than ‘his’) was Toronto. I now know a lot about Toronto and I have to say, it sounds delightful and I would happily go visit it. But in the course of our research, we learned that Toronto is massively multi-cultural which means that there isn’t really one food specific to the city. Most of the other unique Canadian delicacies seemed to belong to the French speaking Quebec region.

So we asked ourselves. What two food stuffs is Canada known for? Easy. Maple syrup and bacon. Canadian bacon. To the rest of the world know as back bacon. Americans call it Canadian bacon because it’s not streaky like the pretend bacon you get in the USA.

So maple syrup and bacon. Bacon and maple syrup. What to do? What to do? We couldn’t do french toast with maple syrup and bacon or pancakes with maple syrup with a side of bacon as there is no way for us to keep the food warm. But then I turned to the all knowing power of Google and typed bacon and maple syrup recipes.

And whaddaya know? Apparently these two ingredients are used fairly frequently to make maple syrup and bacon cupcakes. Yes, really.

So I made them. I followed this recipe (thanking the Bacon Today website for this – I do like a website that is entirely dedicated to bacon.) I followed it to the letter including ‘beating the crud out of the butter’, except that I didn’t add extra salt – I didn’t think it needed it. And I have absolutely no idea what Turbinado sugar is, so I skipped that.

They turned out to look pretty awesome. The proof however was in the tasting. There was no way I was taking them into school without finding out if I needed to take barf bags along as a side dish.

Drum roll for the verdict please…….

Turns out that that bacon in a cake is fan-bloody-tastic. Who knew? Salty and sweet at the same time. This is the new way forward. Bacon in everything. My husband will be pleased.

So returning to my original thought of what three things I like to put in my mouth. I am nailing two out of three with this treat AND I get to wash them down with a glass of wine for being such a genius. Ta Da!

• Babe – nope, not a pig that thinks it’s a dog…
• Chouchou – a candied peanut, awwwww, how sweet….
  
• Sweet pea – Bath&Body Works lotion overdose
• Cutie pie – classic cheese
• Mon coeur – am I really your heart?
  
• Ma puce – nope, not a flea either….
• Snookums – please, please, more cheese!
• M’amour – too syrupy sweet
• Stud – hottie with a body?

• Stud muffin !! ULTIMATE CHEESE….And we have a winner!

In celebration of the winning pet name (which, I must disclose, is ONLY used in jest) I made…..blueberry studded muffins. I kid you not. And they were just right – not too sweet, moist, with a slight crunch on top. They were approved by Taste Tester #1 and myself, since we ended up eating half of the batch in one day!

Blueberry Muffins

Makes 1-1.5 dozen

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 8 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1-1/4 cups plus 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 2 cups blueberries (if using frozen, do not thaw)

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Grease muffin cups or line them with liners.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and 1-1/4 cups sugar until light. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Add to the flour mixture alternately with milk, beating just until smooth.
5. Coat the blueberries with flour and mix into the batter.
6. Fill the muffin cups with batter. Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of sugar over the tops of muffins.
7. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool completelys before removing from the cups.

So today was a very big day for some of us. My family friend, more like my second older sister, got engaged on her birthday and we were celebrating both happy occasions. Because I wanted to make something special, I tried my hand at a chocolate cream pie. Now if you don’t know, I was scared of making chocolate cream pies because the thought of adding hot milk to egg yolks and combining them without cooking the egg yolks scared me. But today I was able to do it. Yay! And I made this amazing cream pie to boot. Everyone loved it and I loved it too! It was rich and chocolate-y and smooth, without being overly sweet or heavy. I got the recipe from Melissa Jacobson at Food and wine. However, I did make a few tweaks and adjustments.

whoops! Sorry about the left over plate in the corner :/

So what are we waiting for? Let’s get started!

Ingredients: 

italicized ingredients are tweaked

Crust:

-6 ounces Oreo cookies (no filling), crumbled into fine crumbs. The recipe calls for just chocolate wafers

-4 tbsp butter (unsalted)

-1 tbsp sugar the original called for 2 tbsp

-1 pinch of salt

Filling:

-2 cups whole milk

-1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

-3 egg yolks

-1/4 cup cornstarch

-1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

-4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped, I used bittersweet. I thought it toned down the sweetness

-1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped

Topping:

-3/4 cup heavy cream

-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

-1 tsp brown sugar

-Chocolate shavings, for garnish

-2 bananas, sliced

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. In a medium bowl, mix the cookie crumbs with the butter, sugar and salt until the crumbs are evenly moistened. Pour the mixture into a pie dish (I used a tart pan witha removable bottom) and press evenly over the bottom and up the side of the dish to form a crust. Bake for 8 minutes, until the crust is fragrant. Remove from the oven and, using the bottom of a drinking glass, immediately press the crumbs again to compact the crust. Let cool completely.
2. Heat the milk with 1/4 cup of the sugar until bubbles form around the edge. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar (I added more sugar than the original recipe because I was using bittersweet chocolate), cornstarch, and salt . Gradually whisk in 1 cup of the hot milk mixture. Pour the egg and milk mixture into the saucepan and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly, until very thick, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the bittersweet and unsweetened chocolate until smooth. Now here Melissa says to strain it, but I didn’t and I didn’t have any problems with my cream. I think as long as you continuously whisk, there shouldn’t be any lumps. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pie filling and refrigerate until chilled, about a few hours.
3. Let the pie stand at room temperature. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the cream with the brown sugar and the vanilla until firm. Spread the whipped cream over the pie, arrange the banana slices on top and garnish with chocolate curls.

To make it more banana-y, I think I’ll add a layer of banana slices along the bottom of the crust before pouring in the chocolate cream. I really enjoyed making this pie and I’m definitely going to be making this again! Did I mention that of the whole thing, less than a quarter of it remains? We demolished it and it was so worth it. P.S I’ve been asked to do a guest post for Fae’s food blog! She’s absolutely amazing and I want to have a worthy post! What do you think I should cook? I was thinking one of my dad’s Japanese recipes like chicken katsu (a type of fried chicken) or chilled soup. What do you guys think? Would you like to see a sweet or savory post?

Hugs and puppies!

Mimi

i have been more or less “paleo” for about 4 years now.  i am still finding new recipes and ingredients to add to my recipe repertoire.  lately, i have been working with coconut flour.  i stumbled upon a bread recipe.  bread, woo hoo!

this was supposed to be enough for one loaf, but i made two small loafs instead.

yum!

Today I found myself wondering into John Lewis and just couldn’t resist these adorable products. The individual tray bake is perfect for brownies/ mini banana breads/ mini lemon drizzle cakes… this list goes on! I just had to buy it, what a fab idea. Also the ‘Cake Tester’ was just too cute to not buy.

I’m gonna talk first about the Bap Rolls. These little buggers have been quite troublesome for me. The first few tries all failed dismally, and finally I managed to make some that seemed to work. I have worked out that to make the yeast work to rise, I need to heat the oven while I make the bread dough and then turn it off and let the dough sit in there with the door ajar while it rises. That seems to be working well so far. The rolls I made were good, though I remember Bap Rolls from home, and they were always big and fluffy and soft, soft, soft. These ones are good, but they’re not fluffy like I remember. I’m not really sure what it is that makes the bread fluffy like that – is it that I need to add some bicarb and lemonaide to the mix to get the air in there? If anyone knows how bakers get that light fluffy bread, please let me know! Anyway, they were great and I’m glad I finally got some bread to work for me.

The second dish I want to talk about is the potato Lyonaisse. This was also really simple. Cook the onions, layer them in dish with potatoes and cover in a bit butter and bake until cooked. Easy. It also tasted good. I think I’m really used to making potato bake with cream and bacon etc so this kind of just felt like potato with onion. It was good to eat though, but not the best I’ve done. I’m going to give this one about 60% good.

Lastly the Herb Chicken. This really was awesome. The recipe asked for the chicken to be marinated in oil and lemon juice for about 30 minutes, but I had to go out and I had to leave it for about 4 hours or so. I don’t know if that made it get in deeper, or what but man, it tasted good. It was so easy – marinade, cover in flour and then fry in a pan with a bit of butter (a lot of butter) for 10 mins on both sides until cooked. (You can see a bit of the butter in the picture as it burnt a bit in the pan – the butter, not the chicken.) The chicken was really soft and succulent and tasted amazing. I was sorry when it was finished.

Anyway, today I plan to cook a little earlier, and I’ll probably post again tonight. Tomorrow’s going to be a fun day, I have appointments with accountants, the gym (although there’s nothing left to do at the gym) and then a photography class. I might just go to sleep after all of that and have a sandwich before bed.

Here’s a photo:

Until next time – enjoy your meals!

Aaron

Apple Pie! Yes! For breakfast? Yes! How did you know? Don’t judge me. I’d judge me too, don’t worry.

Buttery, flaky, and decadently sweet from a dark, amber maple syrup, the sweetheart of American desserts has been transformed and turned around with a generous addition of saffron and nutty crunch of walnuts. How wonderful was this with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream? SO wonderful not even the word wonderful itself would be enough to describe the feelings the very first and the very last bite evoked. Let me just tell you, there were tears. And moment of silence. And lots of moaning. Oh, yes.

P.S. I’M BAAAAAAAAAACK. For good. Probably.

❦

Maple Walnut and Saffron Cinnamon Apple Pie

Yield: 9 inch / 22 cm round pie pan

“INGREDIENTS”

Pie Dough:

200 grams all-purpose flour
80 grams bread flour
100 grams vegetable shortening, at room temperature
80 grams unsalted butter, frozen and grated
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
45~90 ml ice cold water

Apple Filling:

750 grams apples (e.g. fuji, etc), thinly sliced (approx. 2.5 large)
1 tablespoon heavy cream
50 grams vanilla sugar (or granulated is fine)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
generous pinches of saffron threads
70 ml pure maple syrup (preferably Grade B/No. 3)
50 grams walnuts, finely chopped

egg wash, for brushing

1. Preheat the oven to 405 degrees F or 200 degrees C.

2. Combine the flours in a large mixing bowl. Measure in the shortening and, using a pastry blender or fork, cut the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

3. Take the grated butter and combine with the crumble-like flour mixture.*

4. Sprinkle in the salt, followed by a bit of ice water at a time until the dough comes together. Knead quickly into a relatively smooth, round ball of dough and cover entirely in cling/plastic wrap. Place it into the refrigerator while you make the filling.

5. Combine all the ingredients for the filling until the flour is completely dissolved and the apples are thoroughly coated in the syrup, spices, and cream. Set aside.

6. Divide the dough into 2 parts. Generously flour a wooden board or counter top and the rolling pin before working on the dough. Roll the dough out big enough to cover the entire pie pan with at least 1 cm hanging out. To make it less likely to break or tear, roll the entire dough, starting from one end, around the rolling pin – almost as though you were wrapping it like a birthday present – before carefully lifting it away from the board and onto the edge of the pan. Unfurl the dough across the pan until it is no longer wrapped around the pin. Now, carefully push the dough into the edges of the pie tin.

7. Pour the filling into the middle of the dough and roll out the other half of the dough. Repeat the same wrapping and unfurling technique and then score the top of the pie.

8. Brush with enough egg wash to cover the entire surface and bake it in the oven for 10 minutes. Then, lower the heat to 375 degrees F/190 degrees C and continue baking for 20 minutes and finally, the last decrease to 325 degrees F/170 degrees C for 25 more minutes. Remove from the oven to cool and serve, with vanilla ice cream or vanilla bean buttermilk sauce. Enjoy!

*If you forget to freeze the butter and are in a pinch for time, just use room/fridge temperature butter and cut it into the shortening-flour mixture just as you did in Step 2.

❦

I didn’t get to this Sundays with Joy till Monday.  We went to a wedding on Friday night, hung out with family on Saturday, and generally had a lazy day on Sunday because well, I totally believe in lazy days.  But first thing after I dropped off my son at school Monday morning, I went to work on this.

I don’t know why I’m surprised.  Every time I think Joy may have gone over the edge (see Orange Gingerbread Squares) she gives me the most pleasant surprises.  I really wasn’t looking forward to this recipe.  It just didn’t appeal to me and I couldn’t imagine what its texture would be or at all what it would taste like.  I just went and set about making it.  Don’t let the name fool you, overall it was pretty simple.  My favorite part though was making the grapefruit sugar that goes into this batter.  It just smells fantastic and you find yourself mixing in the zest with your nose in the bowl.  Inhale.

First of all, Joy says this is fancy and she’s right.  Although, she pictures a lamb dinner and I am moving more towards a dessert for a fancy tea.  Then, she says you can enjoy it warm or cold.  Here again, I think she is smoking something.  I am already unsure about this “soufflé pudding” anyway, why would I want to try it warm?  I do, however, tend to listen to Joy when she tells me to try something even if I don’t wanna.  Of course, she was totally right.  I would actually recommend eating this warm.  It’s by no means bad when cold but it’s just heaven warm.  It is warm, sunny, light, sweet…perfect.  I can’t describe it any better.  It is important to note that it is best the day it is made and that is the only bummer here.  So just make sure you have people to share it with when you make it.

This week, Ellen over at Indigo Scones is hosting our link up.  Check it out if you are curious as to what the others in our group have tried.  I know a few have mixed in some other flavors.  Don’t forget, if you’d like the recipe please buy the Joy the Baker Cookbook.

My GeekyLink for today is Star Trek: The Middle School Musical.  It is short, funny,  sweet and filled the Star Trek void a bit as I have yet to see Star Trek Into Darkness.

Weird things happened. As I was pondering what to make next, I happened to see a cooking video of  Mike Symon making apple bread pudding. It looked kinda easy. He convinced me to give it a try. I had to take a deep breath. Somebody please smack me.

I made a trip to the supermarket, got the bread and apples. I am making apple bread pudding, for real this time. This one is for Lynard.

Apple Bread Pudding Recipe

6  cups 1/2-inch-cubed Challah bread (about half a 16-ounce loaf), toasted
3  medium (or 2 large) Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
6  eggs
1 1/2  cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2  cups regular milk
1 1/2  teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3  cup honey
1/4  teaspoon salt
1/4  teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2  teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degree F (175 degree C). Spread the bread cubes in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Bake for 5 to 6 minutes in the oven until golden, nice and dry.

In a big bowl, mix together the eggs, cream, milk, honey, vanilla, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Put the egg custard aside.

Make sure the oven is preheated at 350 degrees F. Bake time: about 45 minutes.
In a much larger metal roasting pan, fill with medium-hot tap water 1-inch up the side of the pan.

Arrange toasted bread cubes and diced apples evenly in a nice 2-quart baking dish. Whisk and pour the custard mixture over the bread and apples.

Gently put the baking dish into the warm water bath, put in the oven. Bake until the pudding is firm and the top is golden brown, ready in 45-50 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

( Tips: To make it fancy, drizzle some rich, thick homemade caramel sauce on top. I am thinking about chocolate taffy apples. Will try that next time. )

The bread pudding has a very delicate flavor. You may want to add sugar to the recipe. But Lynard liked it without sugar, a lot healthier. Two thumbs up. That’s what home cooking is all about. You cook what your family will eat, not what people will eat.

It was a good learning experience for me. I forgot about the warm water bath at first. Good thing I looked at the recipe again after I put the bread pudding in the oven. Better late than never. I bet I will remember next time. Oh, yes, I will make banana bread pudding for Lynard. He will be surprised that I don’t use the instant pudding mix. By the way, I don’t eat that stuff.

Starts with a blue layer…

Then green…

Then red…

Then yellow!

After cooking for 16 minutes and a topping of buttercream you have RAINBOW CUPCAKES!!!

2 cups of white whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/4 cup of chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup of mini semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup of buttermilk
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 egg white (optional)
sanding sugar

First preheat the oven to 375 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter cut into the mixture with a fork or a pastry blender until you have a coarse meal. Stir in the hazelnuts and the chocolate chips.

Next whisk the buttermilk, egg yolk, and vanilla. Add this to the flour mixture and mix until a dough is formed.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead. Pat the dough into a flat disk and cut into wedges.

Put the wedges into the pan. If you want the wedges to be soft, leave them close together. If you want the scone to be crispy, then separate them. Brush them with egg whites and add the sanding sugar.

Bake them for 18-25 minutes or until they are light golden brown. Cool before serving.

This recipe looks delicious and I’m excited to try it when I get my new Breville stand mixer

Recipe found here

So when I went to start writing this post the first place I consulted was Lakeland. Glorious Lakeland. Every time their catalog drops on my doormat I love to find what I can spend ludicrous amounts of money on to save me mere milliseconds.

At some point I will do a non-home-edition, because there are so many idiotic inventions. So this is my list of the world’s most pointless inventions, home edition.

1. An Egg Boiler. In my day and ‘Egg Boiler’ was called a saucepan and water. And the USP of this item? It can cook up to 7 eggs at once. Seven! You know what that was called back in the day? A large saucepan. 

2. Thermospatula. This is the most annoying thing that Lakeland do; take two completely separate items and merge them into one. I have a thermometer and I have a spatula so what possible need do I have to merge the two? Less washing up I guess.

3. A plate to put your hot bowls on. So you don’t burn your hands. Also come in the form of gloves. Oven gloves. For £1 from any supermarket. (Also then you can’t play number 4 on this post).

4. Battery operated Salt and Pepper Grinders. Are you worried about repetitive strain injury? You are so lazy you can’t even be bothered to grind the salt to give yourself a heart attack.

5. Herb Scissors. Basically just 5 pairs of scissors stuck together to cut herbs quicker. Here’s a novel idea, more cutting might actually work some of your muscles.

6. Clingfilm Dispenser. Like the one that is stuck to the box. But separate so that you have more junk on your work top.

7. Cupcake Corer. Also known as a knife. Or spoon. Cutlery. Have you heard of it? Or do you just shovel your food in your mouth straight from the bucket?

8. Cupcake Maker. I have one of these. It’s surprisingly versatile. But I call mine an ‘oven’. This is purely so you can get your cupcakes faster, you fat bastard.

9. Laundry on Legs. One would not want to over exert oneself and bend all the way to the floor to get washing out the basket.

10. Peel ‘n’ Slice. A knife and a peeler in one! Despite it being redundant in my kitchen as I have both, how does one go about peeling or cutting without shredding their hands? Sure you can do ninja tricks with it but you’d need a trip to A&E.

Err. Slight engineering fault here.

Things you’ll need:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 egg — OR if you’re missing an egg: 1 1/2 tblsp water, 1 1/2 tblsp veg oil, 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
• 1 small yellow or white onion, diced up
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 4 tblsp flour
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tblsp minced onion (optional)
• 3/4 cups water
• 3/4 cup pineapple juice (if you don’t have any, just replace with water)
• 3 tblsp ketchup
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 3 tblsp soy sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

Other things you’ll need:

• 1 small bowl
• 1 large bowl
• Whisk
• Large skillet

Do this: 1. Make your “egg”.  Put the water, veg oil and baking powder in a bowl.

Whisk it all together.  Let it sit for 3-4 min. 2. Gather everything else.  Dice your onion. 3. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, diced and minced onion, “egg” or “real” egg, cornstarch, bread crumbs, garlic powder, ketchup. 4. Using your hands — mix up the ingredients.  You’ll need to spend 4-5 min to make sure everything is mixed really well.  Add salt and pepper to taste. 5. Take big spoonfuls of meat mix, form into meatballs.  Place on skillet on med-low.  Brown up the meatballs (be very careful when turning these little guys over.  I prefer to use tongs, and lifting the meatball from the bottom to flip over, opposed to a sideways flip).  Set aside once the meatballs are browned.   6. In the same (or another) large skillet, mix up your sauce: brown sugar, water, white vinegar, soy sauce.  mix well.   Put on medium low. 7. Whisk in your flour.  There should be no flour “lumps” in the sauce. 8. Add meatballs to sauce. 9. Cook for about 30 min on low, continually pouring sauce over meatballs.  Serve over rice or mashed potatoes.  YUM! 10. Want to get fancy?  Add grilled pineapple on top!

My daughter Erin and I love Speculoos. It is called “Biscoff” in the USA.

I discovered it when I lived in Brussels, Belgium.  When you order a café there, it comes with often the Speculoos cookies, or sometimes with a mini chocolate.  That was a nice little treat for me.

When we were living in Paris, the Speculoos spread came out on the market(2008). I jumped on it, I bought 2 jars even I had not tried the spread yet. I knew I would love it.

And I loved it when I put a spoon half-full of Speculoos spread in my mouth. Heaven.

I was so sad to leave France last summer. One of the (so many) reasons was this Speculoos spread. I thought we couldn’t find any in the US. I bought 6 jars before the movers arrived and put in the basement. (we weren’t allowed to bring any food, that’s what “they” said. )

I knew we could find the cookies, as in Delta flights, they always propose “Biscoff” as a sweet treat, from the same company as Speculoos.

There is a shop called “World Market” in Greensboro. And what we found there, “Biscoff Spread”! It was $5.99. Expensive. Bought one anyway to compare if it is the “Spaculoos Spread”.

Tried both. Not the same thing. I was so sad. The Biscoff color was so pale and weak on its taste. So sad.

But we started to find it at normal super markets (the price was $3.99 ish) and I was buying some anyway, and they were for Erin. For me, she wouldn’t understand the difference of the taste. “Speculoos = Mama’s, “Biscoff = Erin’s”. Of course she preferred “Mama’s” but she is such a good girl, she started to accept the fact. I am such a bad mom.

Well, now we can find “Biscoff Spread” everywhere  and as matter fact, I compared the spreads again, and they are finally  the same thing.

Biscoff Spread Cookies

• 125g Butter (1/2 cup)
• 90g Sugar (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp.)
• 125g Biscoff spread (crunchy or creamy)
• 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
• 1 Egg
• 1 pinch of Salt
• 250g All-purpose Flour (2 cups)
• 1 tsp. Baking powder
• 100g Mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

<Directions>

• Preheat the oven to 170˚C.
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the butter and sugar until creamy.
• Add eggs, Biscoff spread, and the vanilla extract. Mix well.
• Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt, add in the butter mixture, fold until the batter is well incorporated.
• Scoop the batter and place on the baking sheet. Flat the surface with your palm.
• Bake for 14 – 15 minutes.

The unbaked batter is super good. I thought the batter was better than the cookies.

It was like a kind of ice cream, I could just keep going.

I used a mini size cookie scoop.

Now I only have a jar of Speculoos Spread in my kitchen cabinet. I know I can buy “Biscoff”, but I think I will be so sad to finish the last one. (and it is expired. :)

1. Betty Crocker’s kitchen

2. Nerdy Nummies (existing videos on blog)

3. My own videos