Cracked Egg Cupcakes

 What a fun April Fools joke or a great Easter surprise dessert! From  What's New Cupcake......Cracked Eggs!
Materials Needed
12 baked mini cupcakes, flavor your choice
Ready made white frosting
Home made or store bought lemon curd
White melting chocolate, almond bark or Wilton candy melts
plastic Easter eggs
paint brush
empty egg crate

 To make chocolate eggs, melt over double boiler. Lightly oil shells. Here is a tip, use only the top half of egg that is oval on top and elongated, the bottom breaks too easily when removed!

 Place a couple teaspoons of melted chocolate in egg and swirl, using paint brush to cover sides, Place in fridge to harden, repeat, building up chocolate to an even coat with no thin spots. This will take some time so do it a day ahead even!
When set, remove. Some broken pieces are exactly what you need so don't feel bad if you break a couple.

 Frost cupcakes and place a dollop of lemon curd on each. Place Egg pieces and broken chunks on top. Surprise!

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Winner!

Congratulation to Patty at On Hollyhock Farm.
She is the winner of the NDKitchen giveaway!

You can all still enter the burlap coffee bag giveaway at my other blog
ASouthernBelleWithNorthernRoots!

Banana Java Muffins

 Streusel
 4 Tbs softened butter
1/4 c packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp instant coffee granuals
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/3 c finely chopped walnuts
1/2 c butterscotch chips
Mix and set aside

Muffins
 3/4 c softened butter
1 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c mild coffee
1 c mashed very ripe banana
1 c butterscotch chips


 Preheat oven to 375.
Spray or line muffin tins.
Cream butter and sugars, add eggs and vanilla, mix well
Mix flour with salt, cinnamon,b powder and b soda, fold into creamed mixture.
Add coffee and banana. Stir in chips.

 Top with Streusel and bake for 30 to 40 min

Foodie Friday

Cake Balls

well everyone has a post about cake balls. The recipe is so simple that the fun is in the decorating and eating!
Simply bake a cake according to package directions. Cool and crumble into a bowl, mix in one container of ready made frosting and form into balls. You can make small ones like  red velvet truffles,  

or you can make large ones. One recipe made 12, size shown on this post.

  Chill or freeze balls until firm. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and dip, let set on wax paper until firm.

  Another option is wrapping in fondant. Recipe here.
Cut circle large enough to cover entire ball. Pinch top together forming a gathering.

 Dig in!! because the frosting is in the cake, these are so moist and yummy!

Home Made Noodles and Soup

 To make egg noodles;

 Start with about 4 c all purpose flour, salted with approx 1/2tsp salt.
Make a mound with a hole in the center. Crack 3-4 eggs and begin to mix together with your hands.
 I first break up yolks then begin incorporating flour.  A dough that is firm yet pliable will begin to form, I usually remove dough in sections as it reaches a nice consistency. Add flour or eggs as you wish until you have the amount of dough required. This amount makes a large enough batch for a 6 qt casserole dish.

 

Roll dough out on lightly floured surface or use a pasta machine.

Cut with a pizza cutter into strips and hang to dry.

I cut thick strips because I like large noodles, you may cut or shape as you desire.

Noodles generally cook up 1 1/2 times the cut size.

If you don't have a drying rack, use a laundry dryer, oven racks..etc. be inventive!

 Soups on!
Brown 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in 6 qt pot with 2 tsp olive oil. Cut into bite size pieces and deglaze pot with chicken broth. I used 12 cups.
Add 1 small chopped onion, baby carrots, 3 cloves crushed garlic, 1 Tbs thyme and salt and pepper to taste.
 Simmer 1 hour.

When I was young a lady named Carol lived in our neighborhood. She often made home made noodles. I don't know if this is how she made them. But I remember her noodles hanging and drying all over her kitchen. She had a daughter my age, Holly, when ever I knew noodles were on the menu.....I did what ever I could to hang around long enough for a bowl!!
When I got older my aunt Vida taught my step mother and I how to make these and I am so thankful. They are truly  a comfort food and chicken noodle soup is the cure all for every illness....right??

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Edible Cookie Bowl

1 1/4 c all purpose flour

1/2 cocoa powder

1/4 c finely ground pecans

1/2  tsp salt

4 Tbs softened butter

2/3 c sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Mix flour, pecans, salt and cocoa, stir into creamed mixture.

Roll out on floured surface and cut small cookies. 1/8 in thick, I used a 2 inch scalloped cutter.

Cover a bowl, loaf pan or smaller bowls for individual servings with foil. Spray foil and place on another baking sheet.

Begin laying cookies over foil, overlapping and giving a gentle push with finger to help stick.

Once covered bake at 350 for 10-12 min. Let bowl cool, carefully remove, you may want to invert and remove foil from inside of bowl if you have any resistance.

Fill with more cookies, candy, granola (shown above) or use as a trifle by filling with pudding or ice cream.

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Fondant Calla Lilies

Learning how to use fondant and beginning in cake decorating......well the best part of it, is you have to make cake, and eat it!!
The cake used is the bakery cake recipe HERE.
Fondant is homemade marshmallow fondant found HERE, just using strawberry marshmallows for the pink color.
To form the calla lilies I used the Wilton heart cookie cutter and plastic cone set. Roll white fondant out and cut in heart shape, soften and thin edges using a roller or wooden stick. Form around cone and let dry. You can moisten the edge to help stick but be careful not to  get inside wet or it will stick to cone.
Color some of the fondant yellow and some green, cut a small green circle and then cut it in half to form the green bottom of flower.
Roll the yellow into a long oval and cover in colored sugar. Let these dry along with any leaves, stems etc. Flower pieces dried over night.

Layer cake, on this cake I placed a dam of icing to help hold in Lemon filling. Then placed a layer of thinly sliced strawberries, repeating twice. Cover entire cake with butter cream icing, recipe HERE.
Then roll out pink fondant and cover cake.

Decorate with remaining icing and place dried flowers on top.

Home made Granola

Easy and Yummy, I am not a big one for granola but my friend Dianna shared this recipe for me and I must say it is wonderful! I have made some changes from the original, so feel free to customize it to your taste.

3 c rolled old fashioned oats
1 c sliced almonds
3/4 c shredded coconut
1/4 c wheat germ
1/4 c oat bran
1/3 c dark brown sugar
1/4 c oil
1/4 c maple syrup
1/4 c honey or agave
1 tsp salt
1 c dried cranberries
1/2 c chopped dried apricots, pears or mixture of both
1 c white, milk or dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 250
Mix oats, almonds, coconut, wheat germ, oat bran and brown sugar in large bowl
In another bowl whisk together oil, honey, syrup and salt.
Pour over mixture, stir well and place in 13 X 9 pan and bake 1 hour 15 min. stirring every 15 min.
Remove and cool on wax paper. When completely cool place in large bowl, add fruit and chocolate chips, Break up any large pieces and mix well.

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