Lobster Cakes

What happens when a foodie loses her craving for food? What does she do when she is making a huge dinner and has to run out of the room because the smell is too overwhelming. What happens when the only thing that can be kept down is cheerios and water? Hmmmmm.......?

Well I am not really sure what to do! hahah! Hopefully I wont have to endure this for the next nine months because that will be unbearable! Yes you read that right.....nine months, well actually seven and a half months. :) To answer the question in your head...yes! I am expecting! My blog has been a bit dead because I seriously have not been able to stand the smell of cooking food. This problem has lessened a bit this weekend so I finally fed my poor starving husband (yeah right) a homecooked meal. When I asked him what he wanted he immediately said "Crabcakes!!!" Well I couldn't find any crab so I used the next best thing....lobster. I decided on lobster cakes served over broccoli slaw. It looked so yummy I even ate some of it. :) Enjoy!

Lobster Cakes

1/2 pound cooked lobster, chopped ( I used two tails)
1/8 cup fresh minced chives
1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stir together Maine lobster, chives, lemon juice, mayonnaise, mustard and 1 tablespoon panko in a large bowl. Season the mixture to taste with sea salt and fresh pepper. Cover the mixture and chill. Melt the butter in a non-stick frying pan over moderate heat. Sauté the minced garlic until golden and fragrant. Remove the garlic, add 1/2 cup panko and cook, stirring, until crumbs are golden brown. Cool crumbs. Divide lobster mixture into 4 mounds on a sheet of waxed paper. Form into patties and coat each patty with crumbs. Sprinkle any remaining crumbs on the top. Line a sheet pan with foil, transfer cakes to pan. Bake in the oven at 400°F (205°C) until just heated through, about 15 minutes. Serve over slaw or with a yummy remoulade :)

 

Snickers Cupcakes

One of the positive things about working in a predominately female office setting is that when a holiday rolls around, so do potlucks. Or as our HR lady put in the email "potuck". That made me giggle for most of the day. Our Halloween potluck was of course a success. So much food and I enjoyed every bit of it....to the point I was pretty sure I was going into a food coma. My contribution to the potluck were some Snickers Bar Cupcakes. I figured why not incorporate Halloween candy into my contribution. It was an awesome decision because these were crazy delicious! The only thing is for some reason they took me soooooooo long to make. Bake the cupcakes, let them cool, make caramel sauce, let it cool, fill cupcakes, make caramel butter cream, pipe on frosting, garnish...and finally eat. :) I felt like I was never gonna get to the eat part. There were so many different recipes for this particular cupcake. I used the cake recipe from the fabulously talented Annie's Eats and I used the caramel sauce from Simply Recipes. I highly recommend that you try these. Your mouth will thank you...enjoy!

The cupcakes filled with the Snickers and caramel mixture

Frosted with Caramel Butter Cream

Garnished with Snickers

Drizzled with Caramel

Perfection in Cupcake Form

Oh yeah and obviously I broke my no cupcakes for a while thing. I cant help it!!! I love cupcakes.

Listening To:
Giving Up The Gun-Vampire Weekend
Kids-MGMT
Black Thumbnail-Kings of Leon
Blister In The Sun-Violent Femmes
American Girl -Tom Petty

They Say It's Your Birthday...

So as the clock ticks into the wee hours of the 1st day of August I am overwhelmed by how many birthdays there are for my loved ones and friends this month. I mean like well over 10 people that are close to me will be celebrating their birth at some point in August. And I am not talking about Facebook or Myspace friends that I am "friends" with but have no contact with, I am talking people that I see and talk to pretty often. So this is my shout out to all of my special people and anyone else who is celebrating a birthday! Happy Birthday, Feliz Cumpleanos, Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Hau`oli la hanau! I hope you eat lots of cake and if you are really lucky it will be a cake that someone special has made for you.
One special person that is celebrating a birthday this month is my mother in law Pam. I have been truly blessed to have this awesome woman in my life and I decided that I wanted to make her something extra special for her birthday. Not just any old cake would do. My inspiration came from an Amish bakery/store close to my home that sells some addicting brown butter cookies. These cookies are Pam's favorites so I wanted to turn them into a cake. The only problem is the closest recipe I found is in metric measurements. So after using my awesome brain and the Internet I made some of the yummiest cupcakes. I found that it is actually the icing that makes this recipe because the cake part was not extremely impressive. You could put this icing on a pumpkin cake, spice cake or a rum cake (like a hot buttered rum cupcake!!! Oh man I have to really try to make something like this) and it would be delicious. I will warn you in advance....get ready to feel greasy. I had butter everywhere. I must have even spilt a little at one point because I slid across my floor. The mess is worth it. The flavor is rich, nutty and reminiscent of toffee or a Werther's Original. I loved them and most importantly Pam loved them. Success!!

Brown Butter Cupcakes with Brown Buttercream Icing
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking

Cupcakes
1/2 cup plus 4 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup self-rising cake flour
3 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
2-3 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 400F. First off is burning the butter: place butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, stir constantly until it turns a dark golden color (3-5 minutes). Take the pan off the heat and strain into a bowl (to separate from the sediment). Let the butter sit until it solidifies, but is still a little soft. (This took almost 30 minutes because it’s hot here; if hot out, put in the fridge for about 10 minutes).
When the butter is solid, yet soft, place in a food processor along with ALL cupcake ingredients except milk. Blitz! Add milk slowly and pulse till well-mixed. Divide among 12 cupcake papers and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Icing
1/2 cup plus 4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 2/3 to 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp milk

Do the same thing with the butter that you did above for the cake. Once it’s in the solid/soft state, beat it along with 1/2 of the sugar until stiff. Add tbsps of milk and the rest of the sugar alternately. Then add the vanilla. Enjoy!

Listening To:

Snow Patrol-Chocolate

Kings of Leon-Pistol Of Fire

Vampire Weekend-Diplomat's Son

Feist-1234