Family Bites

My Sister's Baby Shower

My sister is expecting her first baby.  Which means that I'm on my way to welcoming a little niece or nephew in January, and I couldn't be more excited about it. We don't know what she's having, which is really exciting actually, and we're awfully anxious for the little one to get here. 

My mom and I threw a baby shower for my sister this past weekend.  We crammed 23 lovely ladies into my small home and celebrated her and her munchkin.  There were a couple of games, plenty of gifts and an abundance of food, of course.  I won't bore you with the family photos or mandatory belly shots, but will show you pictures of some of what we ate.  It's hard to play host and photographer at an event like this, but I did manage to snap a few before the guests arrived so I could show you what was made.

The cake.  Triple chocolate fudge with a triple chocolate frosting.  Nothing says decadent quite like that.  I've been loving the little bunting trend seen in a quite a few places these days, so I opted to make my own for this cake using the theme colours we chose: pink, blue and chocolate brown.  Fresh flowers rounded out the simple decorations and the general consensus was the cake was a crowd pleaser.

Orange curd tarts with raspberries and white chocolate.  This was the easiest sweet I made.  I used a simple orange curd recipe, which I piped into tarts fashioned from a pate brisee.  Topped with raspberries and a small shaving of white chocolate, these easy-to-make sweets are going to make another appearance over the holidays.  I made the curd three days before the party and stored it in a glass jar in the fridge.  The tarts were assemble the evening prior to the event and I grated the chocolate on at the last minute.

 

I have had these chocolate truffles bookmarked from The Pioneer Woman's website for months, anxious for the opportunity to make them.  Again, they were another do-ahead sweet, stored in the fridge until the morning of the event.  While the original version is topped  with sea salt, I used coloured sugar on mine, in keeping with the theme colours of the party.

 

I worked (out of the home) four days last week, so these little beauties were picked up from my local bakery (hey, what can you do?).  My family thanked me for keeping my sanity by opting for a few purchased items for the party.

More store-bought sweets.  Assorted candies in the colours of the shower.

 

These favours were lots of fun to make.  I used Orangette's recipe for caramel popcorn (my favourite by far) and packaged it up into little cello bags.  I made a cardstock tag for the bag using my computer, coloured paper and a little foot hole punch.

Each guest left with a little bag of sweets for the ride home.

The remainder of the food was standard shower fare; cheeses, fruits, veggies and dip, tea sandwiches and my sister's mother-in-law's handmade spanakopita, which was absolutely delicious.

Don't you just love new babies!

 

 

Creepy Cupcakes

Happy Halloween!  Here's what accompanied my little Harry Potter to school this morning for his class party. They're made with a sweet potato cake base, iced with chocolate frosting and topped with candy to resemble some of the spooky faces I hope we might see over the next few days. 

I debated for quite a long time over how to decorate these ghoulish goodies and when it was 9pm and down to the wire I opted to use what I had on hand (after a quick trip to the 7-11).  I think it worked well, and based on the kid's reactions I would say they agreed.

 

(so serious for the camera)

 

If you aren't already in a sugar induced coma this weekend, and you're looking to bake something scary, this sweet potato cupcake recipe is quite a winner.  I used my favourite carrot cake recipe (from the Silver Palate cookbook), omitted the coconut, walnuts and pineapple and subbed sweet potato for the carrot puree (the secret to the cake's success in my opinion). A few sprinkles of nutmeg rounded out the flavour, and an incredibly moist confection was made.

Wishing you a very spook-tacular weekend!

Creepy Cupcakes, adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups canola oil
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups sweet potato puree (instructions here)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Add the oil, eggs and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in the sweet potatoes and combine.

Pour the batter into prepared muffin cups. Set on the centre rack of the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until the centre of the cupcake has set.

Cool on a rack and ice with your favourite chocolate frosting.  Decorate with assorted candies to create your most menacing faces. 

Halloween Candy Bark

Two Decembers ago I walked up the stairs to the top floor of our house and found a six year old boy sitting in the washroom completely immersed in a copy of Martha Stewart's Cookies. Not only was he reading the cookbook (in the washroom no less), but he had also flagged all of the recipes he wanted to try with the mini pad of post-it notes resting on the top of his little thighs. 

This week the same boy asked for a date-night in the kitchen with me, while his older brother was out playing hockey. I could hardly resist and was anything but surprised when he picked up the latest copy of Bon Appetit and perused the pages, looking for the perfect recipe to make. He found what he wanted on page 57 and we went to work on some Halloween Candy Bark.  The mom in me thought "no, please not this" but the cook in me thought "this could be fun". And it really was.

 

 

Halloween Candy Bark

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, leaving an overhang.  Spread 1 pound of melted chocolate in the prepared pan and sprinkle with 2 cups of assorted, chopped Halloween candy.  Chill until firm. Remove from pan and break into pieces.

Happy Anniversary Coconut Cupcakes

 

Rob and I celebrated our Anniversary this week.  I'm not exactly sure why, but the kids love this special day as much as we do. They made us cards, bought me a gift and insisted there was dessert for our celebratory date-night-at-home dinner. 

We contemplated a cake for a while, and after throwing that idea out the window (I was working during the day and there really wasn't much time to get a whole cake finished) we settled on cupcakes.  Coconut cupcakes. Rob and I met over muffins, so cupcakes seemed quite apropos. 

  

I wanted to put something special on the top of the cupcakes so I went with paper hearts attached to a wooden skewer.  Simple yet effective. I know a lot of people are over the whole cupcake craze but I think we're really just getting into it.  They were easy to make and fun to decorate.  And perfect for saying "I love you".

PS - A cupcake recipe that yields plenty of baked goodies is great for the upcoming school year.  Freeze half of the treats and keep them on hand for class parties and birthday celebrations.  That way you won't be up baking at midnight (believe me, I've done this!) in hopes of sending homemade goodies into the classroom.

Coconut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, adapted from Barefoot Contessa

• 1 1/2 cups butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups sweetened, shredded coconut

For the frosting:

• 1 package cream cheese
• 3/4 cups butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 - 3/4 pounds confectioners sugar, sifted

Preheat the oven to 325.  In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy (at least five minutes).  With the mixer on low speed, at the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl after each addition.  Add the vanilla and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk.  Begin and end with the dry ingredients.  Mix until just combined and fold in the coconut.

Line a muffin tin with paper liners.  Fill each 3/4 full with the batter and baked for 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.  

While the cupcakes are cooling make the frosting.  In a clean bowl of an electric mixer cream together the cream cheese, butter and vanilla, on low speed.  Add the confectioners sugar and mix until smooth.  Frost the cupcakes and top with additional coconut if you like.

M&M Love

 

I love peanut M&M's so much I can't keep them in my house for fear that I won't be able to stop eating them. I love peanut M&M's so much they're the only thing I snack on when I order a treat at the movies. I love peanut M&M's so much there is nothing that could replace them as my favourite candy.  

 
 

But I've found a close second, and that's the new pretzel M&M's.  The boys and I decided to become official taste testers this week and wanted to share our opinions with you. While they're not as good as my beloved peanut M&M's, they run a close second.  The crunchy-salty-sweet combination is perfectly delicious. Jackson has declared them far tastier than the peanut variety and Ben thinks they're equally as good.  So there you have it, and official recommendation from the Family Bites kitchen.

How about you? What do you love so much you can't keep in your house? 

Frozen Banana Bites

My three boys have been living in the woods for the past few days.  And it's been above 33 degrees Celsius since the day they left.  I'm expecting that by the time they return tonight they will be looking for the coolest of treats and coldest of beverages I could possibly provide.  Enter the frozen banana bite.

I remember seeing something fun created with frozen bananas in an old issue of Bon Appetit.  I pulled my copies out last night and found exactly what I was looking for.  Bite-sized pieces of banana, dipped in sweet, dark chocolate, coated with an assortment of fun toppings and popped in the freezer until each piece is completely frozen.  Easy and oh. so. good.

When you bite into these little gems the texture of the frozen banana perfectly mimics that of a popsicle, albeit a more substantial one.  In addition to be tasty this is incredible adaptable.  Feel free to use milk or white chocolate and  roll them in whatever you have on hand: nuts, toffee bits, dried fruits, toasted coconut, cookie crumbs or nothing at all.  Whatever you prefer.  

If you're planning a soiree, serve these on a tray a la an hors d'oeuvres for a fun finish to a party meal.  And if you're trying to offer some creative summer-vacation-boredom-busters for your kiddies, this is a great activity for your little chefs.  With nothing more than three or four ingredients, a few bowls and a baking sheet these could be made almost completely unsupervised.

I'm armed and ready for the return of my lads.  I'm certain they'll be pleased with their welcome home treat.

Frozen Banana Bites, adapted from Bon Appetit

• 2 bananas, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped
• 1 tbsp. olive or canola oil
• 1 tbsp. milk
• Assorted toppings

Stir chocolate, oil and milk in a small saucepan, set over medium hight heat, until melted and smooth.  Set aside and allow to cool slightly.

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Using a fork dip each piece of banana into the chocolate to cover completely.  Dip each chocolate-covered piece into one of the toppings and roll around to coat well.

Transfer to baking sheet and repeat with remaining pieces.  Place in the freezer for 2-3 hours or until frozen solid.

S'more on a Stick

 

Jackson came to me last week with one simple request: could I please make s'mores for his end-of-year class party?  No easy task I tell you, with the absence of both fire and heat in the grade 2 classroom, but I was up for the challenge.

I put my thinking cap on and decided to make a deconstructed version of our favourite campfire snack. Think skewered gooey marshmallows dipped in sweet, dark chocolate and rolled in a graham cracker crumbs. Perfect for little hands to manage, I thought the lollipop version of these treats would be much appreciated by the teacher who wouldn't have to clean a slew of sticky fingers.

 

Oh, and did I mention how incredibly easy these are?  When making this kind of concoction at 11pm, one generally does look for the easiest method possible.  I did attempt this in true Jan-style by making homemade marshmallows first, but I wished I had saved my energy because they just didn't work.  Not quite as dense as the store-bought version they didn't skewer properly and were fairly floppy.  Not a problem though.  I packaged those ones up for Canada Day marshmallow roasting and went with the good old fashioned packaged version for these treats.  And they worked brilliantly.

A simple skewer-marshmallow-dip-in-melted-chocolate-roll-in-graham-crumbs method was employed and in less than twenty minutes I has two classroom's worth of goodies for the party.

I was happy with the results, and more importantly so was Jackson.  Next time I'll just be sure to keep the leftovers away from his brother though, so the stabbing-with-a-skewer episode of brotherly love isn't repeated.

S'mores on a Stick

• 40 marshmallows
• 8oz dark chocolate, melted
• 12 graham crackers, crushed and crumbled
• 40 small wooden skewers

Skewer the marshmallows.  Dip into melted chocolate and roll into graham cracker crumbs.  Stand on a tray and repeat with the remaining marshmallows.  Cool in the fridge until the chocolate has set and hardened.

Hot Chocolate Popsicles

 

Oxymoronic title aside, these popsicles have been our must-have frosty treat for the early-summer hot and humid days we've been experiencing of late.

Chocolate is the only flavour the boys unanimously agree on all of the time, and when popsicle making season snuck up on us two weeks ago, we set out to find "our" recipe for the summer.  Internet perusal and cookbook comb-throughs turned up nothing but sugary sweet concoctions sure to induce a confectionery coma in all of us.  

That's when I decided that "our" recipe would be a cold and frozen version of our hot-cocoa one.  One made from whole milk, cocoa, honey, cinnamon and baking chocolate.  Simple, somewhat sweet and not-too-bad for us either.

We've been using our new popsicle machine for these goods.  A birthday gift to me last winter, we've been holding out on using this until just the right time. Which happens to be now.  This little gem of  a gadget makes homemade popsicles in seven minutes.  The only requirement is that the beverage used is icy cold.  So I've been making hot cocoa, cooling it in the fridge and storing the liquid in a glass bottle.  Then, when the mood strikes, we whip out our machine and get to freezing.  

 

The special machine in not required though.  These could easily be made with regular icy-treat molds or paper cups and popsicle sticks.  

Do you make popsicles with you kiddies or do you prefer to buy them?  Favourite flavours? Popsicles or ice cream?  How about both?  Let's discuss!

 

Hot Chocolate Popsicles

• 2 cups milk, or milk alternative
  
• 1 baking square of semi-sweet chocolate
  
• 2 tbsp organic cocoa
  
• 2 tbsp honey
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  

Place the milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat and allow to simmer to warm.  After three or four minutes add the chocolate and allow to melt.  Add the cocoa, honey and cinnamon and whisk to combine well.

Remove the cocoa from the stove and cool completely.  Pour into a glass bottle and store in the fridge. When you are ready, pour into popsicle molds and freeze until solid.

A "Chipwich" - Roasted Banana Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cookies

 

My very favourite food is ice cream.  I hate confessing that and feel that as a foodie my preferences should lean towards more sophisticated fare like lobster or oysters, but they don't.  In fact, I don't even like oysters and while I think lobster is good, I truly melt (no pun intended) at the thought of a good ice cream.  

I'm partial towards interesting flavours from artisan creameries and absolutely must have some sort of crunch or chunk in my frozen confection.  No plain chocolate for this girl. I've passed my love of ice cream onto my boys and we've decided to make a new variety each week of the forthcoming summer.  A small batch of homemade frosty deliciousness to share over the weekend.

On Saturday I made this roasted banana ice cream.  Sounds amazing, right?  Then I thought it might be great to smush it between these three-ingredient peanut butter cookies I make,  and then..are you ready for it...roll the sides of the sandwich in mini chocolate chips.  A new take on the classic chipwich. 

The first long weekend of the summer season has me thinking a lot about frozen desserts.  What are your favourites?  Do you make your own ice cream?  Would you like to?  What flavours do you like best?

Dirt Dessert

Did you know that April 22nd is Earth Day?  I'm sure you did, but in preparation for the day, which is celebrated quite heavily at my boys' school I might add, we've made dirt dessert.

I have to admit I was quite surprised to learn that this year is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day - were you aware?  It began in 1970 by a U.S. Senator who thought it would be a good idea to have an education forum on environmentalism.  How forward-thinking was he?  I'm happy it's stuck around and that my kids are celebrating the day, because I can say with certainty that when I was in Grade 2 I was not so well informed. 

 

And, of course, every celebration needs a bit of food, right?  If your kids or school plan on having a little Earth Day party, these could be just the treats for the occasion. Nothing more than three ingredients required and the pots can be customized with worms for boys and flowers for girls and using the terracotta is also an eco-friendly way to serve it up.  Hurray for springy sweets!

PS - I think these would make a great alternative to a traditional cake for a spring or summer birthday party, don't you?

Dirt Dessert

• Small terracotta plant pots, washed well with soap and hot water
• Ice cream, any flavour
• Oreo cookies crumbs
• Gummy worms

After washing and drying your plant pot well, fill to the top with the ice cream of your choice.  Cover the ice cream with Oreo cookies crumbs and stuff with gummy worms.