Kitchen Concoctions

Straight from Dan and Misonoâ€™s kitchen.

Rose Petal Cupcakes

June 1, 2011 By Misono in Foodie Love, Kitchen Concoctions Tags: baking, buttercream, candied rose petals, cupcake, cupcakes, flower, rose, rose oil, rose petal, rose petal cupcakes, rose petals, roses

We went to a potluck picnic over Memorial Day weekend, and I decided to make rose petal cupcakes!

I followed a recipe I found in the Delicious Cupcakes book from a gift set that I’d received as a gift last Christmas. The cake portion is basically a vanilla cake, infused with a few drops of rose oil, and the frosting is vanilla buttercream — I just used some icing color to give it the pale pink color.

The unique part of these cupcakes were the candied rose petals on top! First, you pluck and rinse the rose petals very well to ensure that they are clean, and then you pat them dry with a paper towel. You then brush them with egg whites and coat them in super fine baker’s sugar and let them dry overnight… and voila! You have candied rose petals.

Here are the rose petals that I used, just after rinsing. (I had wanted cream ones with pink tips, but I couldn’t find them at the store… so I settled with orange ones.)

Here’s what the candied rose petals looked like when finished:

The rose petals tasted mostly like sugar (since they were coated in it), but you could sort of taste the rose petal flavor towards the end, as an aftertaste. I’d say that it’s a nice aesthetic touch and that the novelty of rose petals on your cupcakes is cool, but it doesn’t really add much in terms of flavor to the dessert. It was fun trying it, though! 🙂

Green Tea-Ginger Marshmallow Shortbread

May 13, 2011 By Misono in Kitchen Concoctions Tags: dessert, gelatin, ginger, green tea, Green Tea-Ginger Marshmallow Shortbread, marshmallow, matcha, recipe, shortbread

I haven’t had much time for cooking and baking these days because of Mio, but I recently tried making this green tea-ginger marshmallow shortbread that my best friend Debbie sent me the recipe for.

The bottom layer is shortbread and you create the matcha-flavored marshmallow top layer from scratch with egg whites, sugar, honey, and gelatin. I’d never made marshmallow from scratch before so it was an exciting undertaking! I don’t have a candy thermometer like the recipe calls for, so I couldn’t be as precise as I’d hoped to be… I ended up getting a very thin layer of green tea-flavored gelatin in between the marshmallow and shortbread layers, so I may have done something wrong, but it still tasted pretty good! 🙂

The candied ginger on top gives it a nice punch, and goes really well with the green tea flavor of this delectable treat!

Thank you Debbie for sharing this recipe with me!

French Crullers

February 16, 2011 By Misono in Kitchen Concoctions Tags: book, donuts, doughnuts, Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home, French crullers, Lara Ferroni, pastry dough, pÃ¢te Ã choux

I mentioned my obsession with donuts in my previous post, and I tried yet another variation of a baked donut this week with making French crullers for the first time! My best friend Debbie, upon hearing about my recent donut-making adventures, sent me this awesome book: Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home, by Lara Ferroni. There are tons of recipes in it, from traditional fried doughnuts to baked variations and some really exotic flavors. Just looking through the photos of the donuts had me drooling! Thank you bestest for the thoughtful gift. ♥ (She always sends me the most perfect gifts — A few months ago, it was massage bars and body butter from Lush to help soothe my stretching belly.)

I can’t wait to try making all sorts of donuts from the book, but I decided to try making one of the basic classics before I moved onto the more ambitious creations. So I decided to make the classic French cruller.

What’s interesting about making crullers is that in order to form the pÃ¢te Ã choux, you initially boil the dough in a pot, steaming away the water:

You then throw the dough into a mixer and slowly add in the eggs, mixing with a paddle attachment until peaks form, to create the pÃ¢te Ã choux pastry dough.

The more traditional method of making crullers calls for frying them, but the recipe offered alternative instructions for baking, so I went the baking route since I figured it was easier, healthier, and would create less of a mess for me to clean up afterward. For baking, you pipe the pÃ¢te Ã choux with a star-tipped pastry bag onto parchment paper.

Here’s what they look like fresh out of the oven! They were so fluffy and lighter than air.

Once they’ve cooled, you dip them in a honey glaze to give them the glistening look and sweet taste.

They came out pretty good and comparable to the French crullers you can find in donut shops! My only issue was that I have a strong taste aversion to eggs, and the crullers ended up tasting a little too eggy for me to stomach too much of. :(Â (I should have considered this before I decided to make the recipe which called for the most eggs in the book! lol)Â The hubby has been doing a good job of devouring them on my behalf, though, and I will definitely be consuming a lot more of whatever donuts I decide to make next….

Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae

February 8, 2011 By Misono in Foodie Love, Kitchen Concoctions Tags: chocolate chip cookie, fudge sauce, ice cream, ice cream sundae

We’ve been spoiled by some gorgeous weather the past few days in the Bay Area — Â the temperatures were in the mid-seventies all weekend, and we were prancing around outside in T-shirts, with no need for a jacket! Being an East Coaster, it feels weird to have such warm, beautiful weather in early February — but I’m not complaining! 😉

It started to cool down again today, though, but not before I got my ice cream fix! I was really craving some ice cream last night, but wanted to make it extra yummy… so I made myself a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sundae!

I baked some chocolate chip cookies to couple with the ice cream, and drizzled over the combination with some homemade fudge sauce. Both the recipes for the cookie and the fudge sauce were passed onto me by my lovely coworker and friend Tarrin. (She’s a baking aficionado and some of my best recipes come from her!) Â The chocolate chip recipe is my favorite because it’s so unique and produces such delectable cookies! It uses canola oil instead of butter, egg whites instead of whole eggs, brown sugar instead of white, and calls for a bit of vinegar and a whole bunch of mini chocolate chips! They make the perfect cookies, with just the right degree of chewiness that I love.

Sundried Tomato Parmesan Bread

January 26, 2011 By Misono in Foodie Love, Kitchen Concoctions Tags: artisan bread, baking, blueberry, blueberry scones, buttermilk, parmesan, parmesan cheese, scones, sundried tomato

Our love affair with artisan bread continues! With bread this flavorful, you donâ€™t need any sauces, dips or condiments. We made sundried tomato parmesan bread with olive oil dough, and the loaf came out crisp on the outside, and super moist and savory on the inside.

After mixing the dough, we let it rise (covered) in the Kitchenaid bowl for two hours — it rose to about twice the original volume!

We then rolled out the dough into a rectangle and brushed it with olive oil and topped it with chopped sundried tomatoes (in oil) and grated parmesan cheese.

The dough then gets rolled up…

…and shaped into an oval loaf which we then brush with olive oil and slash on the top. Ready to go into the oven!

Fresh out of the oven! The edges got a little burnt, but overall it came out nicely!

The sundried tomatoes inside are the best part — they give the bread so much flavor, and tastes so good paired with the parmesan! 🙂 This is definitely my favorite so far out of the artisan breads we’ve made; we’ll be making more for sure.

In addition, we made some blueberry buttermilk scones to eat for breakfast. They didn’t come out as sweet as the cranberry orange scones, but they were still pretty tasty.

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