Crepes with Caramelized Bananas

Crepes are something I've always wanted to make and I was always hesitant because everyone always seemed to be making a big deal over how difficult they were to execute properly. So I went searching for an easy to follow recipe and found one but modified the ingredients based on a suggestion from a commenter.  If you follow the directions, you too can achieve this yumminess! 

Crepes

Ingredients

• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons melted butter

Directions

1. Sift the flour and salt together into a blender. Add the rest of the ingredients. Blend until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Heat a skillet over medium-hight heat and brush with oil. Pour 1/4 cup of batter into pan, tilting to completely coat the surface of the pan. Cook 2 to 5 minutes, turning once, until golden. Repeat with remaining batter. 

 Tips

• Instead of using oil to coat the pan, I used nonstick spray before each crepe. I'm not sure if you'd need to do this for each crepe if you had a super nice nonstick pan. So just use your judgment. I was so afraid of them sticking, I probably overdid it a little with the spray.
• If you have a stick blender you can make this in a bowl and mix it with your stick blender or you can go old school and whisk this until you get all the lumps out! 
• These cook really fast, so do not leave them! 
• The great thing about crepes is that they're so versatile! You can fill them with savory or sweet ingredients. I was going for dessert crepes so I filled these with caramelized bananas. To make the the bananas I heated 1/4 cup brown sugar with 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat in a skillet and let it go until it just started to caramelize. Then I threw in a pinch of cinnamon and salt and the chopped bananas and only left in on the heat long enough to evenly coat the bananas. 

I just love how pillowly soft sifted flour looks!

I'm trying to be one of those fancy food bloggers today and documenting the steps! 

I used a stick blender so that's why the batter is in a bowl. 

 I really do love crepes! 

 Here's the crepe all put together with the bananas! Also desert crepes just have to have whipped cream! 

That's all for this week folks! I hope you all go out and make lots of yummy crepes now! Happy cooking and crafting! ♥  

Hello Kitty Cookies

Sorry for not posting last week guys! I got busy and totally forgot I didn't have a blog written up! Anyway, this week's post is just a quick one. A couple week's ago I made some cookies as set dressing for a costume photo shoot. (I was re-shooting all the costumes I've made so far to prepare for October! I'm gonna be re-blogging the costumes with the updated photos to countdown to this year's Halloween costumes!) 

These were made on the fly and are the same sugar cookies I made here. They were covered with marshmallow fondant, which is the same one we use for everything! I made a little template out of paper for Hello Kitty's head and then cut them out with an xacto blade. I just sculpted little pieces of red fondant into triangles and circles for her bows. Her face was drawn on with food markers, which you should really get if you don't already have some. I think they're the best thing ever and make it super easy to add faces and details to things! The colored backgrounds were cut with a round scalloped edge cookie cutter. They were really simple and easy to do and would make really cute treats for a little girl's tea party! 

I stuck with fun and bright colors for the backgrounds!

Closer shot of Hello Kitty's face! 

I really loved how this blue turned out! 

That's all for this week folks! Happy crafting and baking! So excited that the holidays are coming up soon, we can't wait to see what all of you have planned for this year! ♥  

Farm Animal Cake Balls 3: Cows

This week's post is the final part of our animal cake balls. If you want to know how to make these check out our first post in the series. To round out our barnyard animals we made cows out of white cake with vanilla frosting. 

White Cake 

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons softened butter, for pans
• 2 1/4 cups cake flour, plus more for pans
• 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
• 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces, slightly cold

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour 2 (9 by 2-inch) round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together the milk, egg whites, vanilla bean seeds and vanilla extract in a medium bowl.
3. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. With mixer running at low speed, add the butter, one piece at a time and continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs. Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed until the mixture is pale and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add remaining 1/2 cup of the milk mixture, increase speed to medium and beat 30 seconds more. Scrape sides of bowl and mix for 20 seconds longer. Divide the batter evenly between the cakes pan and smooth the tops using a rubber spatula.
4. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 22 to 24 minutes. Cool in the pan on baking rack for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the side of the pan and invert cakes onto the baking rack, removing parchment paper, and let cool completely, about 45 minutes.

Close up of a cow! They were my favorite because of all the details Ai did on them! 

Hanging out at the top of the barn! 

Closer shot of their cute little cow faces! 

That concludes our farm animal cake balls! You can look forward to more cute cake balls from us in the future! Happy baking and crafting folks! ♥  

Farm Animal Cake Balls 2: Chicks

Here's part 2 of our farm animal cake balls. Today's animals are cute little carrot cake chicks. I talked about the techniques in last week's post here. You should definitely check it out if you haven't already because we link to tips on how to dip the perfect cake ball. 

I've tried a couple of different carrot cake recipes, but the one I'm going to share with you today is my favorite. It has coconut and pineapples in it, which might sound strange, but they definitely add a lot of moisture and flavor. Of course if you're allergic to anything you can always omit and substitute. 


Carrot Cake


Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1 cup flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice
• 1 cup raisins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8x12 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, oil, sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour mixture and mix well.
4. In a medium bowl, combine shredded carrots, coconut, walnuts, pineapple and raisins.
5. Using a large wooden spoon or a very heavy whisk, add carrot mixture to batter and fold in well.
6. Pour into prepared 8x12 inch pan, and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour. Check with toothpick.
7. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.

You can find the cream cheese frosting recipe over here, but since I was only using it to combine the cake balls I halved the recipe.

Close up of the little chick

We thought it would be cute to show the cycle of a chicken's life! 

The random hen we made just for the picture above! 

The chicks in the barn.

A closer shot of the chicks.

That's all for this week folks! Next week will be the conclusion of our farm animal cake balls. Happy crafting and baking! ♥  

Farm Animal Cake Balls: Little Pigs

So I know we swore that we would never ever do another cake pop again, but these aren't cake pops, they're cake balls! For some reason these were so much easier to do than the pops especially after we found a really awesome video on how to dip smooth and perfect cake balls. The video can be found here and you should definitely watch it if you want perfectly smooth cake balls. The technique used in the video doesn't require anything fancy, just stuff you already have at home! Since these went over so well, you can be expecting a lot more fun cake balls in the future. 

We did three different animals and each animal was a different cake, so we'll be spreading this out into three posts. All the balls were dipped in candy melts and their facial features were made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. This was our first time using actual candy melts, which are really great, but we still had to thin them out by adding a tablespoon of melted shortening to two bags of melts. We made the mistake of using gel food coloring to color on the eyes and little details. The gel never dried and now we know that we need to use powder food coloring mixed with alcohol! 

These pigs had a chocolate cake interior and if you've never made cake pops or balls before you should check out Bakerella. Her method of making the insides is the one we like the best. By mixing the cake with frosting you end up with a really moist inside. The chocolate cake recipe I used is from www.blogchef.net, which you should check out. He has some really great recipes! 

Chocolate Cake 

Ingredients

• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¾ cup baking cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¾ cup boiling water

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9” round baking pans. In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking power, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and oil. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water with a spatula or spoon. Evenly pour batter into both baking pans.
2. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to fully cool.

Chocolate Frosting

I didn't do anything fancy for the frosting. If you want you can use a store bought frosting. I melted half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and creamed it with 1 stick (1/2 cup) softened butter. Then I slowly added powdered sugar until I got the consistency and flavor that I was looking for.

Close up of a pig. They all looked like this.

The pigs inside of the barn that Ai constructed.

While I was baking the cakes, Ai crafted an awesome barn out of a red science poster board. She wrapped the outside with red wrapping paper and attached a bow to seal the barn. Her birthday was the other day so the barn was a cute and fun way for her to bring it into work.

The shelves were made out of the extra parts of the board and lots of hot glue. They were really sturdy and held up well. Ai made cute little name cards for the cakes! 

Closer shot of the pigs in the barn! 

That's all for this week folks! You can look forward to two more cake ball posts to finish up the whole farm! Happy crafting and baking! ♥