A few months back I made Thai Basil Chicken with Cashews and thought it turned out great. The jalapenos kind of scared me, but they were not too spicy at all. This dish was fast and easy to make. I’d definitely make this again!
Notes from Steamy Kitchen: What I love about this recipe is that it’s super quick and simple to make. What takes the most time in this recipe is cutting up the chicken! Really, it’s that simple. Yes, if Yan Can Cook, So Can You! For Gluten-free version, use Panda Brand Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce in green bottle (though please double-ck label), San-J wheat free tamari in place of soy sauce and GF beer.
Marinade
2 tablespoons lager-style beer, like Tsingtao
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper (or black pepper)
12 ounces boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Sauce
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon lager-style beer, like Tsingtao
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce (or add an additional 1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce)
1/4 teaspoon sugar2 tablespoons vegetable, canola or peanut oil
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
4 ounces asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon cornstarch, dissolved in 2 teaspoons water
1 fresh jalapeno chili, thinly sliced into rings (optional)
1/4 cup lightly packed Thai basil or sweet basil leaves.
1/2 cup roasted cashews
Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add the chicken and stir to coat. Let stand for 15 minutes.
Combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
Place a wok or wide saute pan over high heat until hot. Add the oil, swirling to coat the sides. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 10 seconds. Add the chicken and asparagus and cook, stirring constantly until the chicken is no longer pink, about 2 minutes. Add the sauce and bring to boil. Add the cornstarch solution and cook, stirring, until sauce thickens, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and stir in jalapeno chili, basil leaves and cashews.
These cupcakes had Kahlua and Vodka in the cupcake and Kahlua in the frosting.
For the topping, I put some bittersweet chocolate into my nut grinder and sprinkled it. It didn’t turn out exactly like I’d expected, but it still tasted good. Good. But not great. I love the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. They’re so rich and decadent and are always a hit at the party. These are more mild tasting, which some people may like, but I definitely wished I’d just stuck with what I knew was good.
Oh, and for the kids, Quinn and Halle, and for Caroline, who is pregnant, I made a few cupcakes without any liquor in them.
White Russian Cupcakes
cupcake recipe adapted from How to Eat a Cupcake, Buttercream recipe from Baked Perfection
makes 12 cupcakes
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 large egg and 1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/8 cup Vodka
1/4 cup Kahlua, divided
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl or in a stand mixer, beat together the sugar and butter until combined. Add egg and egg white, one at a time. Then add the vanilla, Vodka, and 1/8 cup of Kahlua. Gradually add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions, ending with the flour mixture.
Bake 17 -20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean. While the cupcakes are still warm, brush the tops with the remaining 1/8 cup Kahlua. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
Kahlua Buttercream
recipe from Baked Perfection
1 stick of butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
3 – 4 tablespoons Kahlua
Beat butter until creamy. Add salt. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until combined. Add Kahlua 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach desired consistency.
Trent and Loden hosted a baby shower for Caroline and Danny this past weekend. Loden asked me to bring a dessert, so I searched a little bit online for ideas and came up with these candy pacifiers.
The pacifiers are so simple to make (instructions below). All you need is Lifesavers, jelly beans and royal icing.
I made the candies one night while watching a marathon of Breaking Bad episodes (great show!) streaming on Netflix. Then the next day, I made double vanilla cupcakes and decorated them with one candy on the top of each cupcake.
Alternatively, you could serve the candies in a candy dish at the baby shower.
I have even seen photos online of people who put a ribbon through the candy pacifiers and made them into necklaces or bracelets for a Forbidden Word game. (The Forbidden Word game is played by choosing a word that people can’t say, like the word “baby.” If someone says the word, they get their necklace/bracelet taken away. People can win them back by catching others saying the word. The person at the end who has the most necklaces/bracelets wins.) We didn’t play this game, but I could see how the candy pacifiers would be a fun way to do it.
How to Make Candy Pacifiers
1. Buy a package of jelly beans and a package of white Lifesavers (usually these are peppermint or wintergreen).
2. The Lifesavers come individually wrapped, so unwrap all of them. This is not the fun part.
3. Separate out the jelly beans that you want to use. I chose orange because I thought they were the most realistic, but I’ve seen others online say to use pink or blue, depending on the sex of the baby. I knew I was making blue frosting and didn’t want the candy to blend in.
4. Get your royal icing “glue” ready. Royal icing is used because it dries quickly, it dries white, and it dries hard. It works great as glue for this project. I used a royal icing recipe from Joy of Baking. There’s a video there too, if you need further instruction. Note: Don’t make a lot. I had a lot of leftovers using their smallest recipe. Also, I like to use a pint glass like this to hold up my frosting bag when I’m not using it. It’s also handy for filling the bag. Just put your tip in the bag and put the bag in the glass. Take the part of the bag sticking out of the glass and fold it around the edges of the cup. Then spoon the frosting into the bag. The cup will hold it open and make it easier! Also works good for scraping a spatula of frosting against the bag/glass. And, yes, I still have a ton of things with Google logos on them!
5. Lay out half of the Lifesavers on tray (I lined mine with waxed paper so I wouldn’t have to clean it later). Pipe a small amount of frosting into the center of the laid out candy. Top with a Lifesaver positioned vertically. Note, at this time I also used the icing to repair a broken lifesaver. Since the icing is white and the Lifesaver is white, you could barely tell it had ever been broken.
6. Keep doing this until you run out of Lifesavers. I worked a few at a time. Pipe the icing on a few, top with a few, pipe the icing on a few, top with a few. I didn’t want to do all of the icing first and then have it dry out before I could top it with the second candy. Also, when I was all done, I went back to the first ones and wiped off any excess frosting the may have been bulging out. After you do this, go watch an episode of Breaking Bad to let them dry for a bit.
7. Come back and put some icing in the other side of the Lifesaver then stick in the jelly bean. Again, work with just a few at a time to make sure the frosting doesn’t dry out before you stick the jelly bean in.
8. Go watch another episode of Breaking Bad to let them dry for a bit.
9. Tada! One bag of Lifesavers made 24 candy pacifiers. I had a few leftover orange jelly beans. This seems like a lot of steps, I know, but it really is simple and relatively quick to make (not counting drying time). Here’s a video I watched before making the candy pacifiers, if you want further instruction:
On to the cupcakes…..
I liked this recipe and would probably make it again, but heed the warning about overbaking. I was looking for the golden brown described and I think I overbaked my cupcakes a minute or two too long. Take them out before you think they’re golden brown enough! Also, I barely had enough frosting, so if you want your frosting to tower, double the recipe.
Double Vanilla Cupcakes From: Simply Recipes Makes about one dozen cupcakes.
Cupcake
1 ½ cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg plus 2 egg whites
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean (or one whole bean if you can spare it)
Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. While the oven preheats cut open and scrape out the seeds of a vanilla bean. Place the seeds, empty bean, and the milk into a small saucepan. Heat to just under a simmer for a few minutes being careful not to scald the milk. Remove from heat and allow the milk to steep and cool. (Be sure to remove the bean after it cools. Wash it and then place it out to dry so it can be used again.)
Beat the butter for about 3 minutes on medium speed, then add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat for 30 seconds. Add the egg whites, one at a time, beating for 30 seconds each.
In one bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another whisk together the vanilla steeped milk, vanilla extract, and sour cream.
Add the flour mixture and the milk mixture to the butter sugar egg mixture in alternating additions (dry-wet-dry method), starting and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined being sure to not overbeat.
Divide the batter into cupcake papers in a muffin tin and bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes or until slightly golden brown. Be sure to rotate the cupcakes after the first 15 minutes to ensure even baking. Be sure to keep a close eye as these can get overbaked quickly. Allow to cool on a wire rack. Frost when cooled.
Frosting
Beat the butter and slowly add in the powdered sugar. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean (or vanilla extract if using) and beat in.
Dallas made some awesome ahi poke to bring to our New Years Eve parties and I made Irish car bomb cupcakes. This time before I made them I visited Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft‘s baking section and got 1) a proper decorating tip, 2) a cute set of Celebrate cupcake liners and flags and 3) edible glitter. The result was the prettiest cupcakes I’ve ever made! I have baked Irish car bomb cupcakes for New Years Eve 2009 and for Andy’s birthday, but these were the prettiest and tastiest so far. I think it may become one of my specialties!
Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
Modified From Smitten Kitchen
Makes 24 cupcakes
For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.
Ganache Filling
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (I used more like 3-4 tsp.)
Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.
Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.
Baileys Frosting (I doubled the butter used more Baileys and less than double sugar.)
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)
Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.
