Cupcake Surprise

Sometimes, a dessert occasion calls for something a bit fancier than a plain cupcake.

Cupcake Surprise

     8 oz cream cheese, softened

     1/3 c sugar

     1 egg

     1 box cake mix (to make 24 cupcakes), prepared according to directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin pan(s) with 24 paper liners.  Combine cream cheese and sugar.  Beat in egg.  Set aside.  Prepare cake mix according to directions on box.  Fill each cupcake liner half full (a #40 disher works well).  Place a scant tablespoon (#50 disher works well) of cream cheese mixture in the middle of each cupcake.  Cover with remaining cake mix batter (again, a #40 disher works well).  Bake for 19-21 minutes (whatever cake mix recommends for cupcakes).  Cool in pans for 15 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Mocha Biscotti

I spent a weekend trying to get this right.

Mocha Biscotti

     1/2 c butter

     1 c sugar

     2 eggs

     1 tsp vanilla

     1 1/2 c flour

     1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder

     2 tbsp instant espresso powder

     1 tsp baking powder

     dash salt

     1/2 c nuts, chopped fine

     2 tsp turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Sift flour, cocoa powder, instant espresso powder, baking powder, and salt together.  Add to mixture.  Add nuts.   Divide dough in half.  Form each half into a log about 3" wide on prepared cookie sheet.  Sprinkle each log with 1 tsp of turbinado sugar.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Let cool 5 minutes.  Slice into 1/2" pieces.  Place cut-side down on a low-rimmed baking sheet.  Bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes.  Flip over and bake an additional 15 minutes.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake and Icing

I misplaced this recipe for years and only found it recently.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake and Icing

Cake:  1 box (about 18.25 oz.) Duncan Hines yellow cake mix*

           1/3 c sugar

           1/3 c water

           1/3 c vegetable oil

           4 eggs

           1 c (8 oz) sour cream

           1/2 c butter, melted

           3 tbsp instant coffee crystals

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine all ingredients except for coffee crystals.  Fold in coffee crystals.  Pour into 9 x 13" pan and bake 35-40 minutes.  Leave cake in pan.  Cool completely before icing cake.

Icing:  5 tbsp flour

           1 tbsp instant coffee crystals

           1 c milk

           1/2 c butter

           1 c sugar

           1 tsp vanilla

In a medium saucepan, combine flour, instant coffee crystals and milk.  Add butter, sugar, and anilla to flour mixture and cook until thick, stirring often.  Cool completely before icing cake.

*If using a new (2013 or later) cake mix (about 15 oz.), add 6 tbsp flour to cake mix before proceeding with recipe.

Sour Cream Pumpkin Bread

Shucks!  This post published prematurely, as I was not nearly ready with my "story", hence lack of pics. 

This is what I do with the pumpkins that seem to make their way to my home after Halloween.

Sour Cream Pumpkin Bread

     1/2 c butter, softened

     1 c sugar

     1 tsp vanilla

     2 eggs

     1 2/3 c flour

     1 tsp baking soda

     1/2 tsp salt

     1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

     1 c pumpkin puree

     1/2 c sour cream

Grease and flour 4 mini loaf pans.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.  Set aside.  Combine pumpkin puree and sour cream.  Set aside.  Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add 1/2 of pumpkin-sour cream mixture.  Lightly stir in half of flour mixture.  Add remaining pumpkin mixture.  Add remaining flour mixture.  Divide equally (If using a #10 disher, use 2 1/2 scoops per pan) among prepared pans.  Bake for 40-42 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Wait 5 minutes then remove loaves from pans.  Continue cooling on cooling rack.  

This can also be baked in a 8 x 8" pan (30-32 minutes), 8 x 4" loaf pan (65-70 minutes), or a double recipe can be baked in a 9 x 13" pan (1 hour).

Wayne's Char Siu Chicken

Happy Summer!  I'm looking forward to warm, restful days, but so far, not many of those has happened.  This summer actually seems cool (do I dare say "cold"?).  I have not gone swimming since the short heatwave we had in the early spring.

Spring...spring was so crazy, so full of activity.

D1 came back to Hawaii for a month.  She shadowed a doctor in Honolulu, and got spoiled by my cousins and uncle.  They graciously allowed her to stay with them and provided family "Uber" services so she did not need to drive herself anywhere.  My cousin and her family fed her all kinds of ono food, including Stason's specialty, smoked lamb.  D1 enjoyed the intense car convos with UMiles as he was chauffeuring her around. 

D1 got exposed to all kinds of food while shadowing the doctor.  His nurses would bring him sinigang and lechon on days at his Waipio office.  I don't think D1 ever heard of sinigang before that.  In fact, D1 claims she had her first peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which Aunty Lori Ann made for her.  D2 and I are confused, as D2 brought peanut butter sandwiches for most of her intermediate school lunches...it's not like we didn't have peanut butter!

In early April, Mr. Dependable and I flew to Honolulu to help D1 deal with some medical issues which turned out to be all good.  D1 bounced back a lot better than I did!

By early May, we were all back in Honolulu to celebrate cute little Cody's 1st birthday party.  His family held nothing back!  The party was at Koolau Golf Club, and they had their famous bread pudding on the dessert buffet!!!  It was as creamy and rich as I remembered it from my resource teacher days.  Kids were feted with games and a the largest jumping castle which could fit inside the ballroom.  Yes, INSIDE the ballroom.  Kikukat Dad said the best part about the party, after the open bar, was the shave ice stand, which was available throughout the party.  I'm not sure how much the birthday boy will remember about his day, but he will certainly have pics.  He took a pic with every guest!

D1 left for AZ the next day, and D2 and I had a few hours to enjoy being in Honolulu.  We were hungry so D2 suggested we make a stop at one of her favorite Chinese restaurants in Honolulu, Fook Yuen Seafood.  Fook Yuen is on the 2nd floor of McCully Shopping Center, and the big draw there is the $15 lobster (limit 1 per entree).  We ordered the seafood pan fried noodles and a salt & pepper lobster.  D2 said her trip to Honolulu was now complete.

One thing keeping me from enjoying my summer is GERD.  I remember having it for a short time about a year ago.  I took some OTC meds for a week and it was gone.  This time, I did the same, but it came back in a few days and I've been working with my doctor to find the right medication.  I am hoping and praying I will not need to have surgery.  My friends who had the surgery have described recovery as grueling.  I'm not up for grueling.

In spite of my inability to eat, I've been enjoying all the food pics my friends have been posting from their travels.  TheKeeper has been traveling through small towns in Japan.  He made me drool when I saw Wagyu sushi.  Another friend has been eating his way through California.  He recently posted a menu showing out-of-this-world prices of Wagyu.  If I could eat it, I would pay!!!

My recent food consumption has changed drastically in an attempt to reign in the acid reflux.  I'm eating oatmeal and banana daily.  I've also discovered that salads sit very well.  Up until last week, I made the mistake of having dressing with my salad...until I realized that salad dressings contain vinegar (a source of acid!).  I'm not sure why I even thought dressing was okay.  Anyway, I'm a bit smarter now, so I'm having my salads without dressing.

In my attempt to "dress up" my salad without dressing, I've been exploring toppings with are neutral (not likely to cause reflux).  Boiled egg and shredded carrots have been my standard toppings on iceberg lettuce.  But I also enjoy small bits  of fish, meat or chicken.  A handful of diced char siu chicken added lots of flavor to a bland salad.  And no, my family is not eating bland food...they continue to eat "normal" food.

click on recipe title for printable recipe

Wayne's Char Siu Chicken

     2-3 lbs chicken
     1/4 c shoyu
     1 tbsp 5-spice
     3 tbsp sherry
     2 tbsp red bean curd
     1 tbsp red food coloring (liquid) or 1/4 tsp concentrated red food coloring

Combine marinade ingredients and soak chicken overnight.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Broil 5 minutes in order to crisp the skin.  Instead of baking/broiling, chicken can also be grilled over a hibachi.

Hot Cross Buns

I didn't grow up in a house which baked a lot.  And when Kikukat Mom baked, she definitely didn't bake bread.  She blames it on a bad experience with manapua (char siu bao) which turned her off from using yeast.  All of my experience with bread baking has been self-taught, meaning I read it somewhere, be it in a cookbook, magazine, or on a blog.

The foundation for my hot cross buns recipe comes from Mika's blog, The 350 Degree Oven.  Like Mika, I admired "Japanese milk bread".  There was/is nowhere in Hilo which makes Japanese milk bread.  I first had this kind of bread from Panya in Honolulu.  The pillowy softness is what separates it from other local breads (Portuguese sweet bread, shokupan, etc.).

In spite of this blog and the plethora of recipes I've amassed over the years, I don't consider myself a good cook.  I think I've been successful because I can follow a recipe, ingredient-wise, and I am able to take calculated risks when I need to deviate.  Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men have been known to go awry. 

I must've inadvertently copied the recipe incorrectly.  Only when I went back to Mika's blog to check on something did I realize what I had done differently.  This was AFTER I had made both a loaf of hybrid whole wheat milk bread and a batch of hot cross buns!  In spite of my oversight, both turned out great, and I'm posting the full recipe (the ingredients differ slightly from Mika's version).

Hot Cross Buns

     1/2 recipe of tangzhong (see below)

     1/2 c milk

     1 egg

     3 tbsp butter

     2 c bread flour

     1/2 c whole wheat flour

     4 tbsp sugar

     1/2 tsp salt

     2 tsp yeast

     2/3 c dried fruits (fruitcake mix, cranberries, etc.)

     2 tsp flour

Place all ingredients, except for dried fruits and 2 tsp flour, in bread machine pan, following the manufacturer's ingredient order.  Start dough cycle.  Stir dried fruit with 2 tsp flour in a small bowl.  Add to dough at "fruit and nut beep".  Grease a large pan.  When dough is done, divide into 16 pieces and shape into round rolls.  Place on prepared pan.  Let rise for 40 minutes.  Bake at 375 degrees for 13 minutes.  Remove to wire rack to cool.  Cool completely before glazing.

Hot Cross Bun Glaze

     1/2 c + 2 tbsp powdered sugar

     2 tsp milk

     1/8 tsp lemon juice, vanilla extract, or lemon extract

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth.  Place in plastic bag, cut a small hole in corner of bag, and pipe crosses on buns.

Tangzhong

     1/3 c flour (original recipe called for bread flour)

     3/4 c water (original recipe called for 1 cup)

Heat flour and water in a small saucepan, whisking constantly, until thickened to a paste.  Set aside to cool or refrigerate if not using immediately.