~*~*~* Passion-Orange Sparkling Drink *~*~*~

In celebration of warmer weather, pre/post-finals relaxation, and overall refreshment, here's a sparkling juice drink "recipe" (I like to think of it more as, "guidelines").

Serving size: 1 glass (but easily adjustable!)

Ingredients:
-1 orange, room-temperature
-passion fruit syrup
-cold carbonated water (Calistoga, San Pellegrino, club soda, etc.)
-ice (optional, but definitely nice if you have it)

Method:

1. Juice the orange.  Be impressed by how little juice is contained in that entire orange.
2. Pour carbonated water into a glass until 2/3 - 3/4 full (this depends on how large your glass is).
3. Pour in your fresh-squeezed orange juice.  Be amused by how it fizzes.
4. Add in a couple spoonfuls of passion fruit syrup.  Stir a few times, to make sure everything's nicely mixed.  Taste, then adjust sweetness and passion fruit flavor by adding a little more at a time until desired sweetness/passion is reached.

Notes:
-If you want to make A LOT of this, it's probably most practical to just buy some (not from concentrate) orange juice.
-The proportion of carbonated water to juice is approximately 3:1.  That means the final drink is 75% fizzy water, 25% OJ.  If you're inaccurate like me, err on the side of more juice, less water.
-The reason temperature is specified for the orange and carbonated water (under ingredients) is...science-y!  Sort of.  I remember reading somewhere that you get the more juice out of citrus fruits when they are at room temperature than when they are cold from the fridge (there's some scientific reason, I can't articulate it).  For the carbonated water, it comes down to gas laws: the colder it is, the more gas will dissolve into the liquid (something to do with molecular motion, I think...hey, chem was a long time ago..).  The converse is also true: the warmer it is, the less gas will be dissolved in the liquid.  This is why soda is so much more awesome cold.  Essentially, for maximum fizziness, refrigerate carbonated beverages.
-I got the idea for this combo from a can of juice concentrate, haha...
-Orange juice + Sprite/7-up is also a most excellent combo. :3

Strawberry Scones & Cupcake Craziness

I like alliteration.

But that really doesn't have anything to do with this post besides the title.

Anyway, I didn't cook much at all this past week because it was busy-busy-busy and I still suck at time management.  I did eat a lot of salad and hard-boiled eggs.  But I -did- manage to bake a couple things (real food? pshhhhaw...), and will now share them (or at least, photos of them) here~  Two recipes to recommend today:

First off...

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream Frosting~

Recipe from: Joy the Baker

The recipe lists all "organic" ingredients, but my (monetary) resources are somewhat limited, and I gotta move everything outta the apartment in a month or so, so buying a whole new *organic!* set of ingredients would have been...stupid.

Otherwise, both recipes were quite simple and reliable! :D
About the buttercream: What I adorrred the most, is that it doesn't use powdered (confectioner's) sugar!!  Instead, the frosting is thickened with a milk-flour mixture.  When making the milk-flour mixture, it doesn't ever actually need to boil; you just need to heat it until it's steaming a little, and it'll thicken up just fine.  I did notice that after a day or so in the fridge there was a bit of a not-so-smooth crystallization thing happening that probably doesn't happen with confectioner's sugar based frostings (don't really know, I don't usually make frosting...), but taste was still fine.  Compared to store-bought and other frosting recipes, it's not as sweet, but I still found it pleeeenty sweet enough.

 I made these on Easter day (4/4/10), so these were decorated to go with that lovely commercial-Easter kinda theme.  They were also frosted with some Betty Crocker vanilla whipped frosting I picked up at Safeway a while back, instead of the rose.

Concerning rosewater (that's how you get rose flavoring in the buttercream): You can get a nice, 12-oz (I think..) bottle of it at Whole Foods for $3.99 (or was it $2.99?  either way, less than $5).  That's cheaper than an itsy-bitsy bottle of vanilla at some places (definitely cheaper by-the-ounce than anywhere else).  Wow.  And it feels like such a luxurious, gourmet flavoring~  Don't try drinking it straight, though.  Please, please trust me on this.  Seriously.  Don't.

...and another set decorated with the vanilla store-bought frosting.  I gave these to some of the sophomore guys in my fellowship--the chocolate cake is our sinful lives before Christ, the red sugar the drops of blood Jesus shed, the white frosting the forgiveness and grace with which He purifies and covers our sins, and the egg representative of new life in Him.  Complex, cheesy (not in actual, physical taste! just in meaning), and...eggy all at once.  Yeah, I'm aware that the toppings look like bloody fried eggs...

and to finish...

Strawberry Scones! ^^

Recipe from: Confessions of a Tart (cute name, yeah? XD)

These were the first shaped/cut/then-baked scones I've made in a couple years.. you know, where you pat the dough into a circle and then cut triangle slices out to bake..?  yeah.  I usually just do drop scones because it's a lot easier and much less messy.  But I had a lot of extra strawberries, and I figured, as a scone-lover, I really ought to give these a try..

They were pretty yummy, and really not as much of a pain as I'd imagined (even the cutting in little butter cubes part).  The strawberries were quite juicy, and it all turned out rather tasty~

*J2 Special!* Strawberry Coffee Cake

This entry is special!

Why so special?

Because it's the first one we've made together this year AND uploaded to the blog. :D

Strawberry Coffee Cake, recipe from Joy the Baker

yayyy~ :'D

Look it's so puffy! Look it's so sweet. Look, I am hungry all over again.

Recipe Recommendations [I]

Not everything I make comes from the amazing, fermented brilliance of my mind.

In fact, quite a lot of it originates in other people's recipes, especially those of the huuuuge community at Allrecipes.com~

here are some of the things I've made from there that are worth trying for yourself :D

1. Gingersnaps!  they don't snap, but they're sweet, spicy, and deliciousss
   
2. Soft Sugar Cookies IV -- ahh they're kinda cakey.  really yummy~~
3. Rasberry and Almond Shortbread Thumbprints -- oooh they're rather buttery.  but an excellent, homemade substitution for those knott's jelly-filled cookies i used to often buy from the vending machines at school.
4. Easy Fruit Cobbler -- made this with apple slices leftover from an apple pie~  a very bread-like base, and i'd like to try it again with peaches or some other fruit..maybe plums?  mmm..
5. Black Magic Cake -- AHHH it's wonderful.  and wonderfully easy.  definitely making it again, and trying it with frosting~  (last time it was totally finished even w/o, kept fairly moist for 3-4 days, maybe more!)
   
6. Quiche Lorraine -- haha, it's not sweet or a cookie.  it's SAVORY and supersuper good.  also very easy, and open to modification, like adding spinach~
7. Chicken and Apple Curry -- i made a couple modifications, like cooking it on the stovetop and chopping the chicken breasts into cubes, but the heart and taste of the recipe was still there.  my first successful curry ♥
8. Caramelized Pork Slices -- a little bit sweet, but still quite good.  I'd make it again :)
9. Spam Musubi --It's so simple that you really only need the recipe the first time; the marinade was tasty, but since i'm usually kinda pressed for time, i don't mind frying the sliced spam straight-from-the-can; also, as long as you're using a non-stick pan, you don't really need oil to fry spam...it's plenty greasy on its own..

click to see full-size! :D

Notes:

• I never use shortening or margarine... if they're in any recipe, i always replace them with butter.  I do so because shortening scares me, and butter somehow scares me less by being uhhh "natural".  it just seems easier to trust. :P
• The recipes listed here are simple & ones I haven't made much modification to; they can be followed pretty much as-is (or by reading one or two of the reviews); only the butter thing, halving recipe yields (i usually only cook for 1 person...and for one person to finish everything...too much, yeah?), and ummm dropping-out-spices-because-i-don't-have-them

I went through a whole pound of butter in about one week.
((just thought I'd mention it.))

Scones

Cranberry Scones

This scone recipe is really easy to make, really easy to modify, and yields results most delicious when eaten warm from the oven (or microwave)~ It only takes [me...and I'm slow..] about an hour (20 minutes of that being bake-time where you can wash the dishes or finish last homework or something), so you can bake them in the morning for a fresh breakfast. To speed up the process, prepare the mix of dry ingredients the night before.
Reference: All Recipes - Blueberry Scones

Servings: approximately 12 three-inch diameter scones

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/8 cup white sugar, plus a little more for later
  
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup butter, chilled
• 3/4 to 1 cup dried cherries, cranberries, some kinda small fruit pieces
  
• 3/4 cup half-and-half cream
• 1 1/2 tbsp almond OR vanilla extract
  
• 1 egg

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
2. Mix flour, sugars, baking powder and salt in a medium-large bowl. Cut the butter into these dry ingredients (I use two knives and just kinda chop at it until it all looks very crumbly). Stir in the fruity bits so that they're distributed somewhat evenly in the mixture.
3. In a separate, smaller bowl, beat together the cream and egg, adding in the flavoring extract when almost mixed. Slowly pour these liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, and gently stir until the wet and dry are well mixed. At this point, it'll look and feel pretty sticky.
4. Take a spoon and start dropping spoonfuls onto a parchment-covered (or else ungreased, but hopefully nonstick) baking sheet. Space the blobs apart a little because they do spread 1/2" to 3/4". When done dropping the scone batter, sprinkle the tops with sugar, then pop them into the oven to bake for about 18 - 20 minutes.

And that's it~ Eat them warm with butter, jam, etc. They keep for at least 3 - 4 days (perhaps more in a refrigerator?). Microwave cold scones for about 10 seconds to bring back to original tastiness.

Cherry Almond Scone