Lunchbots Quad Bento Lunchbox: Floral Fun

Ham sandwich flowers, baby carrots with ranch dip (in round container), blueberries,cantaloupe flowers watermelon flowers and a pineapple skewer.

EBLESKIVER STUFFED WITH BANANAS (GF)

Pronounced "able-skeevers", this Danish treat is a cross between a pancake and a popover.   They are cute and fun to eat.  You can stuff them with anything.  Today I stuffed mine with ripe banana chunks and served them with a dusting of confectioners' sugar, maple syrup and whipped cream.

EGGBALL (GAI DAAN JAI) WAFFLE IRON, WILLIAMS SONOMA

Eggball Waffles, a popular Hong Kong street food.  Visit the Night Market in Richmond or Vancouver’s Chinatown and you’ll find these made fresh in front of you.

ZOKU VIETNAMESE COFFEE POPS

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Pops!

ZOKU ICE POPS MAKER

It's summer and berry season! 

What better way to showcase fresh local fruit than in a homemade ice pop? 

SHOPPING SPREE AT GOURMET WAREHOUSE

It isn’t often that I find myself at the Gourmet Warehouse on Hastings Street in the East side of Vancouver.  However, since we had to head over to the Mikado Martial Arts supplies store on Hastings for some hand wraps for Bebe, I thought we ought to stop on by while we’re in the area.  It’s been over a year since I’ve visited the store.

Btw, Bebe earned her green belt in Karate recently.  She was also named “Top Student of the Term” and that’s a pretty big achievement for a 6 year old.   

Anyway, time was short and I rushed around looking at all the goodies.  I didn’t even get to see 1/4 of the stuff because I stalled at the Soda Making machines and decided to finally purchase one.  I’ve been eyeing the Penguin for a while (since a year ago) but hesitated because I heard the CO2 cartridges are hard to come by.

I drink tons of soda water and this would be hopefully a good thing for the summer too!  I can make my own soda drinks without sugar and experiment with flavours too!  


I have yet to make soda from my deliciously clean, free tap water (I filter it usually).   I’ll be trying it later on in the evening.   Vancouver’s tap water is fantastic and I don’t buy bottled still water at all. 

Sometimes I drink mineral water because I love bubbles, but for regular drinking purposes the whole family drinks tap water.  It’s such a waste to buy bottled water in our neck of the woods.    Did you know that B.C. tap water is rated as the BEST in the World?  no foolin'...check it out here!  In fact, Vancouver tap water is safer and cheaper to drink than some bottled waters.  You can see an article about this from the news here.  Now, I can put bubbles in my tap water, I don’t think I’ll be buying any club soda, Perrier or San Pellegrino anymore!

The SodaStream kit comes with 2 glass bottles for storage and they are specially designed to fit this particular machine.  You have to buy their bottles.  You can’t use just any ol’ bottle.  The CO2 cartridges can be returned to the store and exchanged for new ones or refilled ones.   The starter kit comes with the Penguin, 2 bottles and one CO2 cannister.  The cannister I was told would last 60 litres.  That should keep me for a while until they get more stock on the cartridges.  They had 3 different starter kits with 3 different prices.  The cheapest model used plastic bottles and was lighter (and not as pretty), the medium priced model was a tad better looking and the Penguin was the higher end model.  They are all made by SodaStream.  The Penguin starter kit was $299.99.

The SodaStream is touted as being environmentally friendly since you don’t waste money and resources on bottles and cans.  You save money in the long run if you drink a lot of soda water and it’s healthier if you opt to make sugarless drinks with juices.  Soda Stream Penguin Water Carbonator


Hit the jump to see the rest of the contents of my shopping bag!

FOODIE THINGS I LOVE #1: THE GAGGIA TITANIUM

I love my Gaggia Titanium.  It makes a super espresso in seconds with the push of a button.  “From Bean to Cup”, it grinds, doses and brews a very good espresso with a nice crema.   It does everything but wash my cups (it is capable of heating them though!)

When I purchased my Titanium from Espressotec in Richmond a few months ago, I was not an avid coffee drinker.  Sure, I stopped by the Starbucks once in a while, but my drink of choice is green tea (loose leaf!) and even when I did stop by Starbucks, I often ordered green tea.  Weird.  I know.   When I do order coffee, it is often a short non-fat latte  and I don’t take sugar with it.
In Vancouver, so much of walking into a local coffee shop is a social thing, “meet you at Starbucks for a cup of coffee?”  Often it is a local watering hole—albeit caffeinated…or a convenient and non-committing place for a first date.   In fact, I frequent Starbucks for the sole purpose of socializing; meeting long-lost friends from high school and chatting with colleagues after work.  I stop by and use the hundreds of dollars worth of gift cards I receive each Christmas (great teacher gift! thanks!) from my students and buy my daughters banana bread after a pleasant day at the playground, hot chocolate after trick-or-treating, or a special cupcake or cookie if someone is having a bad day.  So keep the Starbucks gift cards coming—I won’t be giving up my visits there!   Will I be drinking their coffee though?  Hell no. Not with my new superautomatic espresso machine!

XMAS BLING FOR OREO WREATHS

This is the lazy-man’s Christmas cookie.  I searched high and low for the White Chocolate covered Oreos I decorated with snowflakes last year, but I couldn’t find any.

Instead, these Oreo Wreaths caught my eye.  They didn’t look particularly festive so I thought I ought to add some Christmas bling to them.  I employed my new gadget:  the Cuisipro Decorator Pen to pipe the melted coloured white chocolate.  The pen was okay but white chocolate isn’t exactly the easiest product to pipe with at the best of times.  

The pen works like a syringe.  You remove the tip, pull on the syringe to suck up the melted white chocolate or whatever icing or frosting you’re using and proceed to squeeze the silicone body of the pen to get the product flowing.  Sometimes I had to push the plunger to get the chocolate coming out or to get rid of an air bubble…and I had a couple of close calls where a big blob of chocolate burst from the tip, but I had a custard cup nearby to catch the drip so it wasn’t so bad.

THE LAPTOP LUNCH KIT: MY LUNCH IS COOLER THAN YOUR LUNCH!

Things have sure come a long way since my plastic Scooby Doo lunch kit with its matching orange thermos from the seventies. I recall having to dispose of it shortly after discovering something smelly growing in it.

Ahh. Vancouver elementary schools in the Seventies were a different affair back then. Back then, I attended Laura Secord Elementary school and the population was primarily Italian, Portuguese and what I could only distinguish was other White kids. I mean, all white kids kind of looked the same to me. So though I could generally tell the difference between Portuguese, Italian, German and so on, on the whole, I just thought of them all as White kids. Asian kids were a minority and South Asian kids you could count on one hand. Actually we used to call my friends East Indian, though currently the term might be politically incorrect; I don’t know. But I digress…as usual.

But this is my blog and I’ll digress if I want to!

The popular lunches of the day came in brown bags and I must confess, it was not that cool to come to my school with a lunch box. You were more than certain to be judged by the picture on the outside and though I did love Scooby Doo, I wasn’t too sure if any kids thought he was cool too. I noticed all the cool kids had brown paper bags. I know that for sure, you could get mocked for wearing a red t-shirt with “Disco Skate” emblazoned on the front in sparkly gold letters (because all the cool kids listened to Kiss, and “Disco Sucks”, don’tcha know?) Hey…it was comfortable and it seemed like a cool idea at the time.

I know that you could get teased for wearing your hair in a pony-tail and of course it was taken for granted that you’d get ridiculed for being too fat, too short, too skinny, too tall, Chinese, Japanese, East Indian or pretty much anything other than white.

So, let me be clear here: I ate at home.

What I did notice on the days I did hang around school around lunchtime was that kids ate white food: white bread sandwiches and juice; cookies, cheese, apples, potato chips and stuff I surely have eaten but rarely had the opportunity to at home for lunch were staples of the day.

When I walked the 3 blocks home on Lakewood Drive and crossed the Grandview Highway (it wasn’t really a big highway—only two lanes-- but it was still called a highway), and then walked across the bridge that spanned over the train tracks below, I knew that awaiting me upstairs in the Office of the Mid-City Motel that we owned and operated, would be a plate of my mother’s fried rice.

Herein lies my nasty aversion to peas. I hate peas in foods that ought not to have peas. My mother poured frozen peas into fried rice and macaroni and cheese. Today, I realize peas are indeed classically in “Yeung Chow” Chinese Fried Rice, but I never thought it a good idea at the time. I used to deftly flick them into a pile only to have my mother cruise on by and comment I had better eat the peas by her next pass by. Fortunately, I had a huge black German Shepherd waiting below the kitchen window outside and she loved peas. I wasn’t allowed out of that kitchen chair until my fried rice was finished.

Thus during my formative years I was sort of psychologically scarred by peas. You see, in China, there were thousands of children who would love to even have a plate of plain rice. In fact, that pile of fat we would rip off and discard on the side of our plates would be coveted morsels that a small village would extend for a week as “soong” (the good stuff you make to go with your rice, like a stir-fry) with their bowls of white rice. So the stories go…and the guilt is slowly ingrained into my little soul. Every morsel of rice must be cleaned from your bowl or you would marry a man with a pock-marked face. Each grain would represent an ugly scar on his face. Every grain was harvested by hand and represented the toil of poor Chinese farmers somewhere across the ocean in a mystical land I had never visited.

So, I never argued. Talking back inevitably resulted in more stories of filial piety and whatnot.

Today, as I cruise by highschool students in our hallways during lunch, I notice potstickers, vegetarian samosas, tofu, meatballs, spaghetti, fried rice, perogies, falafels, pizza and yes, even sandwiches. It brings a smile to my face to know that these kids will never know the pains I took in my youth to fit in with my peers by bringing the appropriate style of lunch to school so they wouldn’t be repulsed or worse, find another way to mock me for being not-White.

Fortunately, I knew how to fit into Seventies Vancouver. I was raised by Seventies television. I knew what western values were and I watched the Monkees, Mister Rogers, Sesame Street, Happy Days, The Love Boat, the Carol Burnett show, Donny & Marie and so much more. I could tell you the time of the day by the show that was on. PBS was my mainstay and thankfully television programs were actually pretty clean back then.

When our elementary school was required to do some surveys, I of course responded on my forms in a manner that I thought they wanted me to respond. In my grade 5 class, we were asked to record everything we ate for a few weeks or so. Everything for breakfast, lunch and dinner plus snacks was to be written down. Today, I realize these forms were collected and I presume, used for statistical purposes to determine something about our population. Currently, there are inner-city schools that provide lunch programs and I guess this was a source for determining such a need.

Anyhoo…at the time I didn’t think too much about why they were doing, but I did what I normally did. I wrote down for breakfast: milk, juice, toast, jam, butter

and for lunch: a ham and cheese sandwich, milk and an apple

and for dinner: pot roast, potatoes, carrots, corn and milk. And so it went for the whole week. I had quite a few ideas of what I thought a balanced western meal was supposed to be because I had learned about the food pyramid on PBS!

I didn’t think I was fibbing. I was just telling them what I thought they wanted to hear. I thought it highly unlikely that the people reading these forms would know what tofu was and I can’t imagine what the translation for “jook” was in the seventies. I didn’t even know it was called “congee” until the Eighties, when Chinese food evolved past Sweet & Sour Pork and Chop Suey. Bok Choy wasn’t a mainstream veggie you could buy at the local Safeway. You do realize of course, that Chinese-Canadian food is stuff Chinese people in restaurants cook for non-Chinese and where soy sauce was a condiment poured over rice (horrors!)? I didn’t even know what Chop Suey was until I heard about it on t.v.

Today, I purchased for my daughter what I think is a cool lunch kit. It’s “green” and has no phthalates. It’s reusable and efficient because you don’t have to try to fit plastic containers into a lunch bag that doesn’t fit all that plastic. Everything nestles nicely and is durable. What’s even more enticing to me was the fact that your food can be presented separated in their own containers sort of like the yummy Swanson salisbury steak t.v.dinners I relished as a youngster. You know, with the watery mashed potatoes and gravy, the mixed veggies (with peas…that I ate!—because they belonged there) and the apple cobbler dessert! Yup. Loved them. You would too if you lived at my house motel. I’m so fond of compartmentalized food that I even like airplane food. I’m the only person I know who actually likes airplane food. I like that everything comes in its own little compartment like those t.v. dinners.

Don’t worry. I don’t like t.v. dinners anymore. Everything just seemed tastier back then it seems. Ding Dongs, fudgsicles, popsicles and wagon wheels were bigger, richer and tastier.

I don’t know whether or not my daughter will be teased about her Laptop lunch kit in her school this coming September, but I think not because they have this anti-bullying campaign going on and there’s plenty of action going on in our district concerning safe schools. But hey, just in case…that’s why I enrolled her in karate classes. Kiai!

Inside the Laptop Lunch kit there is room for an ice-pack in the mesh-lined cover! Yes, at least her lunch will be literally “cooler” than everyone else’s! The patterned carrying bag has a handle, an adjustable strap and a zippered pocket built into the front for napkins and little notes and treats.

I liked the slick black kit which opens up easily to reveal the coordinating pink accents. You don’t have to pull out all these separate plastic boxes to get to your food. You just zip open the bag and you can the inner plastic box inside it while eating. You could even do this on you lap! Inside the outer plastic container you’ll find nestled securely the food containers. This particular kit comes with three resealable lids which seem pretty tight-fitting. You even have a compartment for the matching fork and spoon that comes with the kit! The water bottle I’m not crazy about but it’s practical, light-weight and fits neatly into the space.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to post any pics of her lunches in the style of the cool bento blogs out there, but I do have all the bento paraphernalia and I suppose I ought to have a go at it and see if I can keep it up. I may not be as passionate about posting bento lunches as I am about my baking so I may just try one post in the future to see.

I wasn’t looking to buy this product, but I knew about it from all the bento blogs I read. I happened to see it at my local Chapters store where it was promoted as a “Green” product. I purchased my Laptop Lunch kit with a Chapters members discount (10% off) and a $5 off coupon. Not so bad. They had cool colours. List price was about $49. I hadn’t thought to purchase it online, where it’s for a special internet package price for $25! yikes. oh well. But the shipping is $22.25 to Canada so the total would have been $47.24. I think I got an okay deal in the end.

HARD WORKING FOOD BLOGGER AWARD & SILICONE HEAVEN!

I'm baaack!

I just recently arrived home from a road-trip to Seattle. I must say, sharing a bed with an 18 month old isn't fun. I was kicked, pinched, slapped, punched and whacked during the night and Bebe would come over occasionally from the other bed next to us where she was sleeping with daddy, and say, "Mommy, daddy's bothering me with his snoring!"

Oy.

silicone heaven: cannelé molds

On the brighter side of things, I bought up a storm at Sur La Table at Pike Place Market and also at this nifty little store called Mrs Cooks, which I found in a mall in Seattle. I finally got the coveted silicone cannelé molds I so wanted. I had looked all over for them in Vancouver and couldn't find any. At Sur La Table, I found it and some half-sphere silicone molds too! I have no idea what to do with the demi-sphere molds yet, but if you have some good ideas (and pics) please do tell!

they're not copper, but they'll do!

don't these look like they would make good fake boobies?

I also purchased a silicone rolling pin...and added it to my collection of 3 at home. I already have an old-fashioned wooden one (my mom's), a wooden french-style rolling pin and a fondant rolling pin.

At Mrs Cooks, I bought 5 nifty shaped cookie cutters: a crown, a dragonfly, a butterfly, a cake with candle and a maple leaf ('cause I'm Canadian, eh!). I also found a cool gadget that's called a "recipe divider". I need this because I'm always halving recipes. All you do is spin the little stainless steel wheel and you get the correct measurements. Love it.

I don't think many bloggers know this, but I also do a lot of scrapbooking and card-making. I can't rationalize the economy of buying all the stuff that you need for this particular hobby 'cause long ago I exceeded the reasonable amount most people would spend on purchasing Christmas, birthday, wedding and thank you cards at the store. When I first started, I'd say to Stomach: "Look how cheap this is! Can you believe people actually spend 5 bucks on a birthday card?!" So I won't bore you with the details about my crafts purchases. The bill was ugly.

But enough about my weaknesses...

I have been awarded the "Hard Working Food Blogger" award by Sally at PinkBytes. She is such a sweet lady and her blog is a lovely extension of her personality. This award originated from Elle at Elle's New England Kitchen.

I am here now to pass on this award to a couple of fellow food bloggers for the hard work and dedication they put into creating and maintaining fantastic blogs. It is a lot of hard work and though I think many food bloggers are deserving of this award, I have 2 people that spring forth in my mind when I think of this Hard Working Food Blogger award.

[drum roll: brddddddddd: ching!] They are: Kevin, at Closet Cooking (a fellow Canadian!) and Mark, of No Special Effects.

Kevin posts and comments with such regularity that it amazes me. I don't know where he finds the time to visit all these blogs, make comments, cook and photograph his food and keep up his own inspirational blog. That's dedication, my dear! He's always got something delicious going on in his kitchen and he's such a nice guy!

Mark's always first to make a comment on lots of blogs (how does he do that?) and he's always got something interesting to say. He makes my day with his visits and I love reading his musings about food and life. He's a creative multi-tasking man of many talents! That, and who else could dispense for me free medical advice for carpal tunnel syndrome caused by piping 330 royal icing flowers?

If they were to come to Vancouver, I'd have to take them out for some major Dim Sum! We've got the best, 'cause all those top notch chefs from Hong Kong emigrated here! then, a visit to Granville Island Market, right?

Like Elle, I too think fellow food bloggers are a hard-working bunch. We do often eat our food cold, sending our pics to the etherworld in the hopes that someone out there will take note of our food and our ideas and possibly *gasp* be accepted at Tastespotting or Foodgawker...

Yes, we all deserve a pat on our backs and if you fit this description, I believe you too deserve this award and should help yourself to it! Go on! Take it! don't be shy! and spread the love.

CINNAMON BUN STYLES: THEY'RE ALL GOOD

cream cheese frosting slathered cinnamon bun

I have a 15 year old Black and Decker bread machine stashed away in my cupboard.

You didn't know Black and Decker made bread machines, didja? (no, I didn't buy it at Home Depot!) I have gotten some good use out of my machine and it's still chugging along no problems...knock-on-wood! Though it's an ugly beast it does the job. It doesn't have a little glass window so you can watch the bread mix, rise and bake. I just lift the lid and take a peek. What I discovered is that it's perfect for making really wet and sticky doughs. I just use the "dough" setting and when it's ready I do the rest by hand. I've made foccaccia, brioche and of course cinnamon buns with this great dough setting.

I was flipping through my collection of cinnamon bun recipes and I came across a couple of favourites...

In Vancouver, we have an institution that makes the best Cinnamon Buns ever. They're unique and you have to be a starving university student to understand the cult-like following that these buns have. In fact, you have to be on campus to purchase these buns. The University of British Columbia has the best caramelized cinnamon buns out there. There's no stupid raisins sticking out of the dough. There's no nuts and there's no cream cheese frosting. The texture is lighter and they're not as rich as the ones you buy at the mall. But these suckers are HUGE. Each bun is about 3 inches tall and the size of a side plate. The centres are of course the best with all their sticky gooeyness.

When I was attending UBC, I'd buy one and it would sustain me the whole day. Not a very balanced diet, but this wasn't what I did every day. I acquired the UBC Cinnamon Bun recipe from the local newspaper, The Vancouver Sun, and made them many times. The last time I made it, as I was pulling the roasting pan out of the oven, (yes, they're so huge you need a roasting pan for them) the pan touched my inner forearm and I had the nastiest burn ever. I haven't really made them since.

However, if you're a daredevil and think you could eat the whole batch, I'll include the recipe for UBC Cinnamon buns in this post. It's a traditional recipe, made by hand, and yields enough buns to feed a small country or your kids' soccer team. Just scroll to the bottom.

The next best thing to UBC Cinnamon buns are those that you get slathered with cream cheese frosting. There are different chains producing them in the food courts in malls and some bakeries and coffee shops carry them too.


I have a quick and easy Bread Machine Cream Cheese Frosting slathered Sin-Amen (hey, I coined an oxymoron!) Bun recipe.

The dough is all mixed in your Bread Machine according to manufacturer's instructions...on just the dough cycle. You take out the dough, roll it out and fill it and then roll it up like a jellyroll. You don't even have to wait for a second rise. You just pop it in the hot oven and by the time you finish creaming together the frosting, the buns are ready!

So you can choose your cinnamon bun style today: traditional (i.e. time-consuming), light and caramelized or quick (i.e. bread machine), dense, gooey, creamy and rich


SIN-AMEN ROLLS WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
(BREAD MACHINE METHOD)

DOUGH:
1 T (1 pkg) dry yeast
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 t salt
4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/3 cup unsalted butter, cut up into 1 cm cubes

• FILLING:
  1 cup packed golden sugar
  2 1/2 T cinnamon
  1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
  ICING:
  8 T unsalted butter, softened
  1/2 cups powdered sugar
  1/4 cup cream cheese, at room temperature
  1/2 t vanilla
  1/8 t salt


• PREHEAT the oven to 400 degreesF


• DOUGH: following the manufacturer's instructions, dump all the dough ingredients into the bread machine in the correct order. Press the dough setting.


• While the dough is being processed in the machine, prepare the Filling and the Icing.


• FILLING: mix the golden brown sugar and cinnamon well.


• When the dough cycle is complete, roll out the dough to approximately 21 inches by 16 inches. [cakebrain's secret tip: I do all of my rolling on a plastic wrap-lined counter. I sandwich the dough between two layers of plastic wrap and roll with a rolling pin until I get my desired measurements. Yes, it's unorthodox, but I don't make a mess, it isn't sticky, I don't use additional flour and it's a breeze to clean up! Scoff if you must, you professional pastry chefs, but I'm not wasting time cleaning up afterwards!]


• Using a pastry brush, brush the melted butter evenly on the rolled out dough. [don't forget to peel off the top layer of plastic wrap before you do this!]


• Sprinkle the sugar & cinnamon mixture evenly over the dough.


• Roll it up jelly-roll style, starting at the long edge. [cakebrain tip#2: If you were following my tip about the plastic wrap, you'd be doing this step easily. Just pick up one long edge of the plastic wrap underneath, and use it to lift the dough and roll it. I also gently press on the roll to make sure it's not too loose. When you get to the end, just use the plastic wrap to help you move the roll around. You don't have to actually touch the dough...it's super sticky. Of course, when you're all done, discard the plastic wrap.]


• Using a serrated bread knife, and a sawing action, cut the dough equally in half. Then cut each half equally in half again. You should have 4 equally long pieces. Cut each of these into 3 equal lengths. You will have a total of 12 cinnamon buns.


• Place the buns cut side down an equal distance apart in a buttered baking pan


• Bake for 12-15 minutes or until light golden brown.


• FROSTING: cream the softened butter and cream cheese until smooth. Mix in confectioners' sugar, vanilla and salt until well combined. Frost the cinnamon buns with the frosting after they've cooled. [I usually frost half of the buns because some people don't like frosting or like to control how much they have. I just keep the rest of the frosting in a bowl for them to serve themselves]


• these freeze well!

*************

Now, what some of you UBC alumni may have been looking for high and low. These are the legendary, gargantuan

UBC CINNAMON BUNS

(as published in the Vancouver Sun)

DOUGH
3 cups (750mL) milk (2%M.F.)
6 T (90 mL) butter
6 T (90 mL) granulated sugar
1 T (15 mL) salt
1 t (5 mL) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (125 mL) lukewarm water
2 (8 g) packages traditional active dry yeast
2 large eggs
9 cups (2.25 L) all-purpose flour, about
FILLING
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) granulated sugar
2 T (30 mL) ground cinnamon
3/4 cup (175mL) melted butter, divided

• For the dough: scald milk. Stir in butter, 6 T sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm
• Dissolve the 1 t sugar in lukewarm water. Sprinkle yeast over water mixture. Let stand in warm place for 10 minutes; stir
• In large bowl, combine lukewarm milk mixture and eggs. Stir in dissolved yeast. Add 4 to 5 cups flour and beat well for 10 minutes. With wooden spoon, gradually add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.
• Turn dough out on to lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, adding additional flour as needed. (This is a soft dough). Place in well greased bowl and roll dough over to grease the top. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in warm place for 1 hour or until double in size.
• Meanwhile, prepare filling: In small bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside
• Punch down dough and turn out on to lightly floured surface. Divide the dough in half
• Roll out each piece of dough into 18 x 9 inch (46x23cm) rectangle Brush each rectangle generously with melted butter. Place remaining melted butter in bottom of a large 16.5x11.5x2.5inch roasting pan (42x29x6cm)
• Sprinkle an equal portion of sugar-cinnamon mixture evenly over each rectangle. Roll each dough rectangle up tightly like a jelly roll, starting from the long side; pinch seam to seal. With sharp knife, cut into 2inch (5cm) slices. Arrange slices, cut-side down, in prepared pan and cover loosely with greased wax paper. Let rise in warm place for 45 to 60 minutes or until double in size.
• Bake at 350degreesF (180C) for 35-45 minutes or until baked
• Remove from oven and immediately invert on to serving tray.
• Makes 18 large cinnamon buns
• approx. nutritional analysis for each serving: 433 cal, 9 g pro, 14 g fat, 69 g carb

MARCH MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: SPRING PETITS FOURS

Sugar rushhhhh!
spring petits fours

seedless raspberry jam sandwiched in the petits fours

a platter of these petits fours would be perfect for a dainty tea party. yup, i've munched two of the cakes in the foreground. i couldn't wait!

These darling Spring Petits Fours are so sweet I had to chase them down with a couple of glasses of water! They are enrobed in an icing made of confectioners' sugar. The recipe called for a kilogram of confectioners' sugar and I thought that a bit much for the quantity of cakes, so I halved the recipe for the icing. In the end, I still had plenty of icing left over. Mind you, I scraped the dripped icing from the sheet pan I had under the rack of petits fours and reused/repoured it over the remaining cakes. I didn't encounter any problems with my technique so I'm glad I saved myself some ingredients. I hate to waste.

For half of the petits fours, I sandwiched seedless raspberry jam. These little raspberry ones were even sweeter. whooeey! I think if you were to have ONE of the cakes with tea or coffee it would be fine. I'm not too fond of royal icing or this poured icing glaze. All I taste is sugar. It makes me want to brush my teeth right away.

As for the performance of the cool flower cake mold...it's a winner! I sprayed it with baker's spray beforehand and the little petits fours popped out no problem! I'd like to figure out a way of employing the spring flowers petits fours mold for making something else. Maybe brownies? Financiers? hmm. I just don't like the icing. Unfortunately it's the icing that makes it look so pretty! The little cake part was good by itself. Yet again, a dessert that looks pretty but doesn't rock my tastebuds. I think I would use this pan again, but perhaps I'd look for an alternative to this icing. Perhaps a thinner coating of icing or better yet, a coating of white chocolate tinted in pastel colours! yeah! That would be a winner, I'm sure! I'm trying that next.

Check out the recipe here.