Brave Cupcake

Part of my Pixar Cupcakes that I've been doing. Usually I watch the movie than make the cupcake but lately here at Disneyland Brave is all a buzz so I just decided to make the cupcake now.

It is a blood orange cupcake with a mixed berry jam filling and a coloured buttercream frosting that has a hint of cayenne pepper in it. It turned out really good and I shall not reveal how many I ate.

I will admit I ran out of food colouring so the frosting isn't as dark of an orange that I wanted it to be so my brother kindly pointed out to me that it looks like a mac 'n cheese cupcake but that's his opinion. I will agree that it does sot of look like that, but it still tasted great and had the bit of fiery heat because I think out of all the red-heads in Disney history, Merida might have the most fire.

And I did go and meet her at Disneyland and she was pretty cool and I'm sure if I brought her some of these cupcakes that the three sneaky bear cubs would have taken them.

-Charlotte

P.S. Movie comes out June 22nd, and I can't wait!
Also I've been working on her costume for myself and one for my friend as well. Should be finished soon, than I have to work on the wig.

Disneyland Mickey Shaped Beignets

In Disneyland at the Mint Julep Bar (http://disney-eats.blogspot.com/2012/04/update-mint-julep-bar.html) and if it's you birthday at Cafe Orleans you can get Mickey-shaped beignets.

Beignets are from New Orleans and are pretty much doughnuts but so much better. They are covered in powdered sugar and the Disneyland ones are shaped like Mickey.

In the cookbook Disney Desserts:
http://www.amazon.com/Delicious-Disney-Deserts/dp/B004HPFGSU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337840131&sr=8-1

They have the recipe for the Disneyland beignets but I ran into some problems when I tried to make it. I'm allergic to wheat and soy and I tried using an oat and rice flour combination to replace the wheat flour that the recipe called for but something happened and I think I figured out what it was. It wasn't making it gluten free, I think it was the lack of equipment. I didn't have a mixing machine so I had to change some techniques in my procedure and that seemed to cause some problems.

When I tried to deep fry the beignets they just fell apart, so I popped them in the oven and baked them. They came out as a cross between a cookie and a biscuit and worked great with a cup of tea, or to make co-cast members jealous at work, but I still enjoyed them even though they weren't exactly how I wanted them to be.

 

-Charlotte

P.S. Probably going to stick with my Tiana's cookbook version for beignets.

Happy Belated Pi day!

This has been a busy week for me so I haven't had time to post much.

Every year I celebrate Pi day which is March 14th, and this year it was on Wednesday, which I had class then work and it was crazy that day. But I did made a pie the day before and I did have a piece on pie day.

I made my typical lemon meringue pie, just so I can draw the pi symbol in the meringue.

And because I was working at Disneyland this Pi day, so I would always remember that, I drew a little Mickey as well. I did have some problems here and there but that was just because of lack of tools. I don't have a zester so I had to peel and dice the lemon peel, and I had to hand whip the egg whites (good yet painful work out).

There is a gluten free crust (which honestly I eyeballed and kind of threw together but it worked), and focused on the filling. I used Alton Brown's recipe (available on foodnetwork.com) and it came out great and delicious and has been gone for a while since I have roommates who like to help me eat my baked goods.

More cupcakes will be coming soon. In the meantime here are some costumes of mine from Wondercon that I made:
Eve from WallE.


Young Ellie from Up.

-Charlotte

Minnie Mouse Cupcake

My just finished Minnie Mouse cupcake!

Honestly, I am not happy with how it turned out. Everything was just too....squishy and not in a cute Dori from Finding Nemo way, in an annoying way.

Nothing really was working for me tonight except my pudding and the cake itself, but here is what it is: a chocolate (suppose to be red velvet) cupcake, French Vanilla pudding filling, and a cream cheese frosting with a red glaze and black glaze writing.

I did have an idea of doing a chocolate cupcake with a whipped cream filling and a chocolate ganache frosting and a red and white polka dot bow, so I might so that one instead, but right now this is my Minni mouse cupcake.

-Charlotte

P.S. It does taste amazing though, the flavour is for sure all there.

Goofy Cupcake

This is the first of my Fabulous Five cupcakes. I started with Goofy because the items at had at my apartment worked for Goofy.

This is a nutmeg cupcake with chunks of apple and a orange coloured buttercream frosting. The hat is made of gum paste and the lettering is done in icing.

The next one is probably going to be Pluto.

-Charlotte

Fab Five Cupcakes

So yesterday my roommates and I went to Company D (discount cast member store full of cheap Disneyland merchandise) and in the pin area I saw a pin package of cupcake pins decorated like the fabulous five (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto). I didn't get them but they did give me an idea.

I know they won't be pixar, but I need something to make before Carsland opens up (I decided I will make cupcakes for that) so I'm going to make fabulous five cupcakes.

My roommates shall love me.

I don't have a picture of the pins but here look at my new hat:

And now a cake:



-Charlotte

Disney Magic

As of today I am now living by Disneyland and will be working there.

For my roommates and because I had left over cake batter I made these:

The left over cake batter was lemon and the filing was left over pastry cream. I then dipped them in dark chocolate and attached the dark chocolate ears.

I haven't tried them yet but they sure do look darn tasty.













If you want to see the cake I made in which I had left over cake batter from for these Mickey Ear hat cakes look for '2012- Wine Barrel 50th birthday cake' under my cakes page.

I hope to continue to bake while I'm here, we have a very nice kitchen and I know that I will be making pancakes this week sometime.

I will be here for the opening of Cars Land in California Adventure Park so I might do a special Pixar cupcake for that.

-Charlotte

An Update

As one might have noticed, due to my lack of updating, things have been very busy/hectic these last couple of months.

I did successfully complete my internship at the bakery, decorating many cakes and learning many new techniques in how to decorate cakes.

School is almost finished for me for the semester, I am coming up to my last week now. After which I will be going to Disneyland and working there from January to August. I will continue to decorate cakes (I have one scheduled for January 7th) and create Pixar Cupcakes (the next of which being Brave).

I will be doing some editing/updating of this particular blog but not much will change. In the meantime you can check out my other blog called Disney Eats. Still Disney and food related, I will posting about different restaurants/snacks/foods available at Disneyland and around it.

That is all for now, updates shall be coming soon.

-Charlotte

He He

Well it has certainly been awhile, but I have not been totally lacking in my cooking/baking/decorating ways.

First here's a cake I made:



It was my Grandpa's 70th birthday so I made him a sushi cake!

The cake is the yellow base (which to me kind of looks like cheese). I tried to make it look like a bamboo serving dish but ran out of time to really paint it.

But I know the sushi look great because my uncle though they were some of those plastic sushi that pretty much everyone in my family has around their house. I was very rushed in making this but I did everything I wanted to do for the most part.

The sushi is made out of fondant and rice krispie treats, and the ikura sushi, the ikura is made out of coloured white chocolate.

Fair warning: It was very sweet. We didn't finish most of it so my mum brought the leftovers into work the next day. That's how you get rid of dessert you don't want: give it to your hungry co-workers (or your mum's hungry co-workers).



And now for some other exciting news.

I got a summer internship at a bakery!

That's right, from 4:30 in the morning to eight I work on decorating individual desserts for the display case, then from eight to noon I decorate or assemble cakes. I just finished my first week and so far I've assembled eight different cakes and decorated an Indiana Jones 6th birthday cake and a Baby Shower (It's a Girl) cake. Let's see what is in store for next week.

And coming up!: My mum is graduating with her MBA so I get to make her graduation cake.

I will, of course, post pictures once I am done.

That's really all for now. I had been busy with school finishing up and what not so all time went to studying.

-Charlotte

Muffins!

They are like cupcakes, just uglier!

Sorry, my friend has a shirt that says that with a picture of a happy cupcake and a sad muffin. In actuality, I love muffins. The other day I was really craving those large muffins you can get at Costco (which verge on the border of muffin and cupcake) so I decided to try and make some, since I couldn't exactly go to Costco and buy some (they really should make Gluten free versions).

So I made a chocolate with chocolate chip and lemon poppy seed muffins. Both weren't as sweet as the ones from Costco (which for me was a good thing) but I don't think I added enough lemon to the lemon poppy seed ones.

Either way they were really good and looked really good, and I'm kind of sad they are all gone now. I tried to bring as many as I could back to my apartment from my parents house (they have the muffin pans) but I had to leave a few behind which I know my parents ate because my dad sent me a text saying he really liked the chocolate muffin (I only left them chocolate muffins).

I have decided to try and get back to my Tim Burton cookbook since I was looking at the list and saw that I only had a few things left to make (and re-make). And I will get more pictures and Geek Cookbook recipes up, eventually. Hopefully soon, but I do not have internet at my apartment so I can't update as much as I like. And honestly I should be studying for my Disease! midterm....oh well.

-Charlotte

A Holly Jolly Christmas

Wow, it's been a while hasn't it?

Well I would like to say I had been using all that time cooking, and that's half true. The other half of the time I was watching TV and drawing.

Then I moved into my apartment and I still don't have internet, right now I am mooching off of my school's internet. Which really isn't fun, but it's the only internet I have.

So here is what I've been up to:

Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake. I made it for Christmas dessert. My parents told me Christmas morning (pretty much right after I had opened my presents) that I was in charge of desserts and this was the first thing I saw on foodnetwork.com so I printed it out and made it. It was pretty good, and I had it for breakfast the next couple of days.







Eggnog cookies. Every year my mum would make a bunch of cookies (well before she started school) and one of them were eggnog cookies. This year I was in charge of making them 'me safe'. Which mean they turned out flat and sticking to the baking sheet. But they still tasted like eggnog cookies and when I got them off they were chewy and pretty good, considering the fact that I almost threw them away. But it still wasn't exactly like it was back when we used wheat flour to make them.



Chocolate Cupcake. Has anyone seen that commercial where the baker was asking her small business planner people if she should make more cookies 'n cream cupcakes and they were eating these two chocolate cupcakes stacked on each other with cream in the middle? Well I tried to make those, but for some reason my chocolate cupcake was not working so I just topped it off with whipped cream and left them like that. They still tasted really good.






I love cinnamon rolls, but they are ambitious to make. So I thought, why not have the flavours of a cinnamon roll in a cupcake? So that's exactly what I did. I made a cinnamon cupcake and topped it off with a basic butter cream frosting. They were really good.







That's all I've done for now. I plan to go home and make cookies in my new apartment so we'll see how that goes.

-Charlotte

Easy Holiday Recipe

Thought I'd share a very easy holiday recipe that I have grown up on.

Holiday Apple Cider

Apple Juice
Oranges (depends on how much apple juice. About 2 oranges for a gallon).
Whole Cloves


1. Puncture oranges with the whole cloves. 10-15 cloves per orange.
2. Pour apple juice into a large pot and add oranges.
3. Put on simmer for an hour so the orange/clove flavour gets incorporated into the apple juice.
4. Serve warm.


No pictures, sorry, but try it, it's easy and tastes really good.

My Birthday

So my birthday just passed, about a week ago or so and I made a bunch of food for my party (which kind of was a flop since only one person showed up. But I still had fun!).

So here are the things I made for the party:

Mint macaroons with a cream cheese filling. In case you didn't know, macaroons (the classic French kind) should be gluten and soy free because they are made with almond flour (which sadly is crazy expensive, but it was so worth it).









Peppermint candies. I took Alton Brown's candy corn recipe and instead of vanilla extract, used peppermint extract and coloured half of it pink and left the other white and put them together and rolled them into balls. Pretty tasty.









Peppermint bark. My mum kept going on about how we should make some. I kept seeing some on covers of food magazines and the peppermint bark at Williams Sonoma and finally decided to make some. And now I am down to my last piece which I will be eating for breakfast/lunch/brunch.







This picture is pretty bad but in the background you can see my macaroons but the things I was trying to point out is my cream puffs. For some reason my gluten free cream puffs are always really liquidy (yes that is a technical term) so I pour the batter into muffin pans. I always spray it down so it wouldn't stick, but it still does anyway. Oh well.

I filled them with whipped cream and topped them off with some of those Mickey Mouse sprinkles.




Now to plug a few TV shows. On the science channel there is a show called Blais Off. It is hosted by one of my favourite chefs ever, Richard Blais, and he takes classic American food and adds a molecular gastronomy twist to it. If you don't know who Richard Blais is turn into this show or watch the current season of Top Chef (all stars). He is on both, and he is amazing.

Another show, isn't a food show, but it does have the Iron Chef America Chairman on it. The new Hawaii Five-O. My mum watched it when she was young and now that they brought it back all new a re-vamped she watched it again and eventually I got hooked as well. Last Monday, at the end of the episode, guess who shows up. The Chairman. It was weird and hilarious. It has nothing to do with food but it was pretty cool.

My mum has begun the big baking frenzy she does almost every year. She has already made sugar cookies, not gluten free so I can't have any, which is kind of evil. But I have made a lot of gingerbread cookie dough. Last year I tried to make the lamp post from Narnia out of gingerbread but the gingerbread recipe sucked, but this year it has turned out great and once I assemble the lamp post I will post a picture.

To leave you I shall show you something I made three years ago for my AP European History teacher:

November Sum Up

Yes, this is delayed, I've become quite busy recently with living situations and finals.

I have one more final tomorrow but I decided to update right now.

So November, I made a lot of food. Here it is:


Rice Krispie treats covered in chocolate. Topped off with Mickey Mouse sprinkles (from Disneyland).
















Oatmeal cookies, made with oat flour. Glazed with an apple powdered sugar glaze.













Fish 'n chips. Chips baked in oven with paprika. Fish dipped in eggs whites and covered in crushed rice krispies and oven baked. Relish is pickles and plain Greek yogurt. Healthy.












Pumpkin pie. A whole foods just opened up by my house and Whole Foods has a lot more gluten free things than the other store I use to go to. Now they have gluten free pie crust. I have my own recipe for gluten free pie crust, but it's nice to be lazy. Also my mum was demanding (literally) pumpkin pie.














Oh yeah, that's candy corn. I made it. Anyone watch Good Eats? The new Halloween episode. Yeah, I had to make some.











And a picture from my Thanksgiving. Last year there was only 5 people, then my brother left for work and we watched Star Trek. This year we had 15 1/2 people (my cousin Julian is only 23 months old, but he does eat like a full person). This is a picture of my dad and my uncle Jared staring at the turkey which was a little dry.








I will be posting again soon for what I made for my birthday.

-Charlotte

Halloween and Ike's

I know it's November but alas I still attended one last Halloween party while we were still in the spirits. My close friend had a little Halloween party at her house and I couldn't help but make something. I saw Alton Brown's new Halloween episode of Good Eats and he made candied apples and I decided to make them for the party. They turned out pretty good (although I had never had a candied apple before) only every time I would try to take a bite and my nose would get sticky.



















So today, while looking for a place to live, my mum, brother, and I went to Ike's Place and got sandwiches. The good thing about this place is they have a lot of vegan choices which includes gluten free bread. And they are really good, don't just take my word for it, you can see by the long line of people outside.

This is what we got:
My mum- Eli Manning on sourdough bread
My brother- The Joker on sourdough bread
Me- Tony Soprano on gluten free bread

Warning: these sandwiches will fill you up like crazy.

How did we know about it? Man vs. Food

More recipes posted soon and I will post my holiday food...once I make it.

_Charlotte

November: The Month of Food

In case you were wondering, we had butternut squash risotto:














Made by me.

So this year for Halloween it seemed like it was canceled or something. No one decorated, and we had a total of three groups come by our house and trick or treat. It was depressing. But I still had my Halloween fun in the form of Disneyland.















My cousin, my mum, and I went to Mickey's Halloween Party. I was the Red Queen and my cousin was a dinosaur. It was pretty awesome, and a lot of fun. The next day we were in Disneyland and spent time there. We came home on Halloween and everywhere it didn't seem like Halloween was happening.

I still had my Halloween spirit by decorating our house to look like Fleet Street. It was pretty cool I had a display of meat pies (made out of tissue paper) in our front window and a cut out of Sweeney Todd in the upstairs window with blood splatters on the window.

Sadly I have not done much cooking but if you get a chance check out Alton Brown's Halloween episode for this year, it was pretty hilarious and cool.

I will be cooking again soon, though since it is November and that means food and lots of it.

-Charlotte

Best Season Ever

This is my favourite season. Why? Pumpkins. I love pumpkins. My favourite ice cream is pumpkin, my favourite pie is pumpkin, see the trend?

And I've already started baking in the spirit of the fall season (or pumpkin season).















These start the festive food. My mummy bought me a doughnut maker off of Thinkgeek.com, and I've been having fun coming up with awesome doughnuts. These are my pumpkin doughnuts with marshmellow filling (in the hole) dipped in chocolate and topped off with walnuts. They were pretty good but the chocolate I used was weird so it made it odd. Next time I will but a dark chocolate that is semi-sweet.

















These are cupcakes I made for a choir retreat. They all loved them. They are apple cupcakes with a caramel frosting topped with a little sprinkling of salt. The only thing would change about them is maybe add some cinnamon to the batter.


Speaking of choir retreat, I was the chef on the trip. I was in charged of the food so I made a vegetarian jambalaya (we have three vegetarians, one person allergic to fish, two people [including me] allergic to soy, and then me also allergic to wheat). Jambalaya was very simple and I got to serve it lunch lady style. They handed me their plates and I dumped the food on with a big spoon, but it was good food. For breakfast I wasn't really in charge but I helped prepare it and I made the scrambled eggs, and sausage, and cut the cantaloupe. I got a good job on cutting the cantaloupe. For lunch we had a tomato, onion, and mozzarella salad and personalized paninis. It all was good and people liked it all.

I've been coming home a lot recently and every time I'm home I make dinner. I've made pumpkin gnocchi, nachos, curry and rice, and right now my mum and I are trying to decide what to make for dinner. We want something warm since it's raining, which reminds me, I need to get an umbrella. I have rain boots and everything, just no umbrella. Odd, I need to get one very soon.

More food underway. We might make cookies today too! My mum calls them magic cookies... yeah I laughed too. I don't know what makes the so magical, but I will find out.

-Charlotte

Brit. Beans

This is more of an entry for food allergies rather than cupcakes, but a cupcake update will be next!

So in my local (when I'm at my parent's house) supermarket they have a small section in the ethnic food aisle of British foods. Most of them are filled with wheat but there are a few things that I can eat and love to eat.

Heinz Beans are my favourite snack or even lunch. You just heat them up and you get protein and low calories at the same time. Sadly, I am in mourning for these beans because they no longer supply them at the super market. They were great little white beans in a tomato sauce and you could anything to it as well. Plus they are soy and wheat free.

There is a British food store about twenty minutes away from my parents house but I don't know exactly where it is but I now have to go there for my dose of Heinz Beans or what I call 'My Brit beans'.

And now I wish I still had my can of beans back that I ate my third week here at college. The last can I got from our store.

Good bye sweet Brit Beans, when we shall meet again, I know not.

-Charlotte

P.s. If you are vegetarian you should eat lot of beans. In Florence they are known as the poor man's meat because of how much protein is packed into them.

Rice

Yes I am updating twice because I have been absent for a while...from a lot of things, except school.

Anyway this entry is about rice. Why? Because I'm a quarter Japanese. Okay, no that is not the real reason. It is because rice is used in so many different cuisines and it can be used savory or sweet and is just so darn tasty.

There are many types of rice and I like them all. Brown rice, white rice, short grain, long grain; I'll eat it. If it wasn't for rice then I'd be stuck eating quinoa all the time. Don't get me wrong, I like quinoa, but one thing all the time would get old after a while so rice gives me variation.

A few nights ago when I, once again, had gone back home I made dinner for my parents. I wanted something Cajun, and so did they, so I made jambalaya.And it turned out to be really good.

I wanted to keep the rice theme going for that night so I even made a rice dish for dessert. I was something I had seen on the new Cooking Channel. David Rocco has made this chocolate risotto that I had to try because it was easy.

I ran into a few problems, though, while making it. I ran out of milk and creme so I didn't have enough to cook the rice all the way making it slightly undercooked, which was a shame because the rest of it was really good. But now I know my mistakes so next time I make it, it will be perfect.

Anyway, what I'm saying is rice is your friend, enjoy it and go cook with it.

-Charlotte

Sold Out

This past weekend I went back home to my parent's house and used the wonderful oven to make a dozen cupcakes. They were white cupcakes with Key Lime marmalade filling and butter cream frosting. Topped with a gum paste logo of the swim team.

I originally had no clue what was going to be the fate of these cupcakes but apparently my dad's swim coach sold them in a like a bake sale (I guess) so raise money for the team (again, a guess). Sunday morning my dad drops them off and all of them got sold. My dad said not everything got sold, so my cupcakes were a best seller, which is nice.

...Then I got a severe case of stomach flu (that's what we finally decided on) on Sunday which caused a train wreck of events that ends with me here, sitting on the couch where I will sleep tonight.

Here's a picture for you.

The team colour is green and their logo is these three waves and a penguin but I didn't have a patience or the time to paint penguins on every single thing.

-Charlotte