Hummingbird Cupcakes

Why haven't I heard about this marvelous-sounding confection before? The Hummingbird Cake recipe is Southern Living's most requested recipe of all time. I grew up in the South, and I always flipped through my mom's Southern Living Magazine. I have to admit, the first time I heard the ingredients listed I thought it sounded odd - a can of pineapple mixed with cinnamon bananas and pecans- gross! Then I thought, wait a minute, I LOVE pineapple upside down cake, so the more I thought about these, the more they intrigued me. Doing a little googling, I've realized I am not alone.

Apparently, Hummingbird Cake is younger than me (at least in print). Recipes vary slightly, but all the elements are there in each one. If you want to know more about the cake, you can read all about them on the following sites:

• The Food Timeline



• The Joy of Baking.

I first ran across these when I stumbled onto The Cupcake Bakeshop. She said she has made them about 20 times. Then I pulled out a book we have a library, Southern Cakes.

Hummingbird Cupcakes (adapted from Hummingbird Cake recipe in Southern Cakes)
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 8oz can crushed pineapple, do not drain
2 Cups mashed bananas (about 4 medium-sized bananas)
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange 24 foil baking cups on a large sheet pan (or line muffin tins with paper cups). Set aside.

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, and use a fork to mix well.

Mix in the beaten eggs, oil, vanilla, pineapple, bananas, and pecans (the recipe doesn't say to mix those together separately, but I did). Mix well, stirring gently just enough to form a thick, nubby batter.

Divide evenly between cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, until it passes the toothpick test.

Cook cupcakes on wire racks.

Although the frosting in the book sounded great, I did not follow it exactly because it called for 1/2 cup more pecans. I would have used them, but Brian had to help crack open pecans (direct from the streetz of the OC, baby!), and it was getting too tedious to come up with 1/2 a cup more. So here's how I made the frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon

With a mixer, combine all ingredients on medium-high speed. Test consistency, and add more sugar until it gets to desired consistency.

If you so choose, you can add the following step: Remove whisk attachment from mixer. Lick. Yum.

Once cupcakes are cool, slather on frosting.

I made these for a co-worker's baby shower, and they seemed to go over well. I liked them! They tasted like moist banana bread, and the pineapple wasn't all that discernible.

I will definitely makes these again! (*The photo was taken with my camera phone - so no flash and bad lighting).

Asian Salad

Here are the ingredients I used to make an Asian Salad. Measurements are approximate.



Broccoli Slaw
Spinach
Shrimp
Soy Vay
Toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:
Olive Oil (about 2 TBSPs)
Toasted Sesame Oil (about 1 tsp.)
Chili Garlic Sauce (about 1/2 tsp.)
Soy Sauce (about 2 teaspoons)
Rice Wine Vinegar (about 1 TBSP)
Coriander (a couple dashes)
Ginger (fresh grated or or ground to taste)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Marinade desired amount of shrimp in enough Soy Vay to cover. Heat a skillet up on medium to medium-high heat. Toss the shrimp, and saute until fully cooked.

In a small bowl, whisk all the dressing ingredients except for the Olive oil. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the oil.

Toss together spinach, broccoli slaw and dressing. Plate, and then top with shrimp and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.

Southeast Asia

I love Asian foods, but I cannot cook them. Not that any of the ethnic foods I make are completely traditional and true to their heritage, but the best I can do with Asian foods is to leave to the restaurants (especially with Indian and Chinese), use a box, or just incorporate the flavors into my own Americanized style. Last weekend, Brian and I wanted Asian, but neither of us could place our tastebuds on what we were craving. I mean, Asia is a big continent. We decided on Southeast Asia via Tom Thumb and World Market. Brian loves Pad Thai, but the only way I can make it is from a box. We picked up a box of Thai Kitchen Pad Thai noodles and sauce. Thai Kitchen is fairly good, but we discovered that the A Taste of Thai box was slightly more authentic (at least to Bangkok City standards. On a side note, I watched a show on the Travel Channel about Pad Thai, and that the red Pad Thai we get here is an Americanized way of making it. It's not red in Thailand.)

I followed the Thai Kitchen box fairly close, except instead of using bean sprouts, I used broccoli slaw, added shrimp, and a glob of peanut butter when I added the pad thai sauce. I usually top with crushed peanuts and chopped green onion, but I forgot about the green onion when we were at the store. Darn! It came out pretty good. Not as good as a restaurant of course, but acceptable to satiate our craving.

To go along with it, I also made spring rolls. I don't make them very pretty, but they are good. They are super easy to make, they just require a lot of steps. You can put almost anything in a spring roll, but I tend to just like vegetables and bean thread noodles best. Any veggies work, but cucumbers seem to always be in spring rolls when I order them.

Spring Rolls

Cucumber, cut into matchsticks
Red Bell Pepper, cut into matchsticks
Carrots, shredded (after peeling the carrot, I used my peeler and made carrot shavings)
Sai Fun Bean Thread Noodles
Spring Roll Wrappers (Rice Pancakes)

The ingredients:

You have to soak the rice pancakes in warm water before rolling. Make sure it's not too warm, because then it will curl all up and look like a jelly fish!

Then you quickly blot on a tea towel to dry:
I set the rice pancake on a plate, and then line up the ingedients. Then I sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds:
To roll, I roll up one side, then the bottom, and then the top, and then I roll it as tight as I can without the stuff poking out (I'm not very good at this yet):

I also made peanut sauce for the spring rolls. I came up with my peanut sauce recipe to mimic the peanut sauce of some of the Vietnamese restaurants in Arlington. It never comes out the same because I just drop ingredients, whisk, taste, over and over until I think it tastes okay. This time, I wrote it down as I went. This isn't exact, but I never make it exact anyway. It's fairly close the restaurants - well, it's close enough!

Peanut Sauce for Spring Rolls

2 TBSP Peanut Butter
1 TBSP Roasted Peanut Oil
1 1/2 TBSP Soy Sauce
2 TBSP Rice Vinegar
1/2 tsp Chili Garlic Sauce (or more if you like it spicier - I'm a spice wimp)
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1 tsp Mirin

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Top with crushed peanuts.

This is the first time I've used Mirin in it, and it seemed to make a positive difference. I got it at World Market, and I'll be honest, I think I heard it was rice wine, but I wasn't completely sure. A google search found this incredibly useful blog: The Perfect Pantry: Mirin. Of course then I had to start reading this other entries, and wasted a lot of time! Blogs are like reality TV - they suck you in!!

Blondies, Revisited

Back in December, I decided to try to make Blondies for our holiday staff party. I had never made Blondies before, but had some made by friends before and loved them.
I used this recipe out of my Hershey cookbook, and changed it up a little bit.

Three Great Tastes Blonde Brownies
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup (of each) HERSHEY'S
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips, and HERSHEY'S Premier White Chips
Chocolate Chip Drizzle (recipe follows)

Heat oven to 350°F.
Grease 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1-inch jelly roll pan.
Stir together brown sugar and butter in large bowl; beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add flour and salt, beating just until blended; stir in chocolate, peanut butter and white chips.
Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely; cut into bars.
With tines of fork, drizzle Chocolate Chip Drizzle randomly over bars.
Makes about 6 dozen bars.
Chocolate Chip Drizzle: Place 1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and 1/4 teaspoon vegetable shortening (do not use butter, margarine, spread or oil) in small microwave-safe bowl.
Microwave at HIGH (100%) 30 seconds to 1 minute; stir until chips are melted and
mixture is smooth.
Recipe and photograph provided courtesy of The Hershey
Company, Copyright ©1995-2005.

My version of the Blondie:

Blondies
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1 10 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1-inch jelly roll
pan.
Stir together brown sugar and butter in large bowl; beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add flour and salt, beating just until blended; stir in Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely; cut into bars.

Verdict on this one? It's kind of a weird thing - I'm not sure exactly what a blondie is "supposed" to be like, but it came out a lot like the brownies I make and love, so I suppose it was a bit of success. I believe my biggest problem was that I used mostly dark brown sugar instead of light brown, because I ran out of light brown. That could have added more moisture to the mix.

For Christmas, I received a big (and I mean big!) box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. I knew I would never eat them all, so I tossed them in the food processor, and folded them into another recipe for Blondies (Butterscotch Blondies to be exact) - also from the Hershey's cookbook. I just substituted the chips and nuts for the chopped up chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

Butterscotch Blondies

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups (11-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Butterscotch Chips
1 cup chopped nuts(optional)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

2. Beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in large bowl until creamy. Add eggs; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in butterscotch chips and nuts, if desired. Spread in prepared pan.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until top is golden brown and center is set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. About 36 bars.

When I was spreading the mixture out into the pan, I first tried a rubber spatula. That did not work at all. Then I tried a knife. Better, but nope. Then I tried a pastry scraper, and that didn't work really either. So I went to my method of spreading out rice crispy treats - a big piece of wax paper. Smash down with the wax paper - it's quick and easy!

The verdict on this one - completely different than the first. It was more like a standard chocolate chip cookie dough than brownie batter. They were really good, and I think these were better!