Cake Balls.

This recipe was inspired by one of Bakerella's recipes. Now of course hers look absolutely gorgeous mine are just pathetic but taste incredibly good. I made them for this past Easter and they were quite a hit (even though they didn't resemble a bunny's head at all...)  my baby sister fell for them completely and has been asking me do redo them since then.
So since she's having a terrible PMS this month I decided to ease her life a bit by indulging her with the cake balls she liked so much n.n
The recipe for the cake is actually a modified version of The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. (All hail The Hummingbird Bakery!! my obsession with the kitchen wouldn't have started if it hadn't been for that blessed vanilla cupcake I tried last summer in South Ken n.n) As well as for the recipe for the frosting.

Now baking has always presented itself as a problem in my kitchen, since, when I was just a baby girl and me and my parents and my new born baby sister moved here, my mother thought it would be a pleasant idea to make the oven a pantry where she could store all of her skillets... needless to say I can't actually bake within that oven... So how do I manage to bake cakes, you ask?
Ah! Well my mom bought this cookware set, that's supposed to work as an oven as well... sometimes it works others... it doesn't.
But hey!! I told you to expect failures!!
The good awesome thing about this particular recipe is that the cake isn't supposed to be perfect because its shredded down into little pieces with a fork in order to make the balls n.n sooo this is an instant  SUCCESS for me as well as for all you people who haven't done a cake in their lives (I am talking to you Alf) And well here it goes.

                                 VANILLA CUPCAKE RECIPE

                        modified from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

(Since I wasn't making cupcakes to pour into small paper cases I doubled the recipe quantites so I would get a cake)

   240 g plain flour. 

  280 g caster sugar 

3 teaspoons baking power (to be honest I add more)

A pinch of Salt

80 g of unsalted butter, at room temperature.

240 ml whole milk

2 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 quantity Vanilla Frosting.

This is how you do it:

1. it says in the book you preheat the oven first. But I dont have an oven so I skip this step. However to you fancy people who can actually use an oven. Preheat it to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.

         2. Put the flour, sugar, baking power, salt and butter in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk)

 and beat on slow speed until you get  sandy consistency and everything and everything is combined.

Gradually pour in HALF the milk and beat until the milk is just incorporated. 

 3. Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then pour it into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated (scape any unmixed ingredients with a rubber spatula). Continue mixing for a couple more minutes until the mixture is smooth. DO NOT OVERMIX. 

4. This is the part where you are supposed to spoon the mixture into a paper cases, since we have none, we pour the mixture into the ultra-special-wanna-be-oven pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until light and golden and the sponge bounces back when touched.

For me that means keep a keen nose and freak when it starts smelling like burn popcorn.

Now when the cake is done, you pretty people with the oven, will take it out and admire it's golden beautiful cake like structured cake. For me... well... they say a picture is worth a thousand words so:                                              

So mine came out slightly burnt and shapeless...not to mention it broke... but hey!! Good news was that I was going to wreck the cake anyway. Like so:

So that day it was really really REALLY hot, so while I made the frosting it was sort of melting at the same time, so I decided to freeze both of them for a while...but then... the tv monster caught me and it kinda made me forget about the pending recipe inside my fridge. So the next day, when I opened up to see what I could have for breakfast TA-DA I remembered I had lots of work to do still...

At first I thought freezing the cake and the frosting had been an awful idea, because they were both sooo cold that the frosting and the cake didn't seem to be mixing well. But then I realized that it had been a very good decision after all n.n since we've been having some crazily hot days lately, and the mixture was already cold it wasn't sticking to my warm-ish hands, so the cakeballs were done pretty quickly AND without as much mess as I was expecting!! Which is good. 

Later though, there was the whole deal involving the white chocolate... and that only meant one thing... 

I am awesome, and I get my zazon from my grandmother, but I am still a rookie, so melting chocolate is a big deal in my kitchen. It's really messy and stressing cause I don't really know how to do it properly... the Easter bunnies were a moment of enlightment...but today... I wasn't feeling all that enlighted.

One of the things that worried me was that my boyfriend, and my sister, and my mom were on the scene and, they say, I can get a little bossy and evil because I like things done a certain way... which could possibly be true... it's not my fault they are slow, right?

Anyway, as I started melting off the ONE WHITE CHOCOLATE BAR my mom bought I realized it wouldn't be enough to cover all the balls completely... soooo... as a randomly thought backup plan I decided to just cover the top of the balls with the chocolate, which, was easier that doing the bunnies aaand not as messy.

In the end, it all came out alright, my sister's PMSing lowered down a few knotches because she was thrilled I had done the cakeballs she had been craving for so long and well, I felt great, and creative so I decided to take some photos outside, but then, my phone camara went CRAZYLOKA so I ended up with just 2... both of them are nice and well lit so hopefully they'll accept them on foodgawker (I tried to submit the Guanabana post and they declined it because there were lightning problems... so hey fingers cross for this pics to be okay) 

 Someone leave a comment already!!

Guanabana (aka soursop) ice cream n.n

okay, if you don't have an icecream maker yet... go buy one! Like now!! hacer Helado es increiblemente facil!! solo necesitas el aparatejo!

Soursop Icecream.

1/2 cup de Milk

nuestra estrella 1 Guanabana

1/2 cup natural yogurt

4 tablespoons de Sugar.

Como le haces?

Lo mezclas todo y lo hechas a la heladera y LISTO!!

Nah! choro choro hahahaha okayokay!! ya enserio...

1. Buy the Soursop (make sure it's incredibly ripe, you'll know it is because it's incredibly soft and jucy) Like this:  

see? it even has juice coming out of it and I haven't even touched it...

2. Cut the Soursop open and take out the core (for some reason we don't eat it) and peel the meat off.

You know it's heavenly sent when the meat just seems to fall apart from the skin as easy as I say cheese.

yummy!!

3.Next we're going to take the seeds out.

And place them on a small bowl or just throw them right into the trash can because we won't be needing them. Taking the seeds off might seem overwhelming at first, but it's quite easy. Since the seed is wrapped up in small meat cocoons you just need to press one end of it to make it pop right out of the other.

And you'll end up with a perfectly white cloud in a bowl.

4. Next, in a previously frozen bowl, we are going to put together the yogurt and sugar. Meanwhile, we'll blend together the Guanbana cloud with the milk, until we get a sort of thickish substance. And then add it to the yogurt and sugar mix.

5. Stir quickly until all ingredients have mixed in together and you end up with something that looks like this:

6. Our final step is to pour our mixture into the ice cream maker and freeze maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

YUMMY, right?

Miercoles de Tiangis: Sopa Rustica de Tomate (Tomato Soup)

Miiiercoles de tiangis!! (for my english readers, that means, Local Market Wednesdays) oh si, todos los miercoles se pone un tiangis cerca d mi casa y aprovecho mil para comprar fruta fresca ( y verduras duh!!) para hacerme mi comfort food de la semana. 

Esta semana, los tomates estaban HERMOOOOOSOS  

So como era de esperarse llege a la casa a a hacerme una deliciosa sooopita de tomate n.n (entre otras cosas) so ahi les va. Mi receta que aparte de sana es muuuy deliciosa n.n

Ingredientes:

4 tomatitos bonitos chulos (lavados y desinfectados) 

Unas cuantas hojitas de Albaca 

Caldo de Pollo

Sal && Pimienta 

Como hacerle: 

1. Primero, para que nos sea mas facil pelar los jitomates los vamos a herbir en agua (ooobvio) y para que esto sea aun mas facil les vamos a hacer un corte tipo tache en la parte de abajo.

 

2. Dejar herbir el agua con los tomates asta que la consitencia quede se vean maso así

La piel arrugadita

Una vez que se vean como viejitos los vas a sacar (con unas pinzas porque si no te vas a quemar como nunca en tu vida y te va a doler) Paso a seguir es pelarlos (tambien con mucho cuidado) y es donde el corte que hicimos en el paso 1 te va a ayudar.

La olla con agua la vamos a ultizar mas adelante, so ponla en algun lugar de la estufa donde no te estorbe.

ALTO!!!!

si eres de las personas que les da asco las semillitas del jitomate, o simplemente te gusta la sopa 100% acuosa este es el momento para a) quitarle el "corazon" a los tomates y b) tambien quitar las semillas. Si este es tu siguiente paso a seguir, pues adelante, yo no lo hago porque se me hace mas rustico y mas practico usar tooodo el tomate... aparte te tendras q esperar un poco, para que se enfrien porque si no te quemas y duele.

3. Ahora cortaremos los tomates en big chunks, osease, en mitades.

y (con muuuuxo cuidado) los vamos a poner en un sarten con tantito aceite de oliva y sal. EXACTO!! los vamos a asar!!

Y los dejamos ahi unos cuantos minutitos, y mientras tanto, usando olla (que les dije q ibamos a usar despues) vamos a ponerle unas cuantas hojas de Albaca y de ese polvo para hacer caldo de pollo Knor (pero si tienes un pollo sin usar ps usalo para hacer el caldo) sazonalo. Y cuando los tomates se vean asi:

SACALOS!

4. Si eres de esas personas que tiene prisa toda la vida, y no tienes una piedrita como la mia, ponlos en la licuadora y muelelos. En caso de que seas una persona super AWESOME como tengas una piedrita, coloca los tomates en un recipiente y empieza a moler utlizando la piedrita como lo hubieran hecho nuestros ancenstros. Amen!!

Si decides hacerlo de esta manera, van a quedar varios restos del jitomate ya que molerlo completamente esta cañon!! y te quedara una mezcla un poco espesa como esta:

5. Tu mezcla del tomate hechala a la olla con el caldo de pollo. Revuelve y sirve.

AH!! tambien zazona un poco si lo crees necesario.

yyyy LIISTOOO.