MSC: (Naked) Strawberry Cupcakes

On May 29th I read an article online at www.nu.nl in which the author wrote about how healthy strawberries are: apparentlty they protect against nutritional diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart and vascular disease.

How fortunate that Sherry of Sherry Starts Cooking had selected the Strawberry Cupcakes for this month’s Martha Stewart Cupcake Club! This is the first time I visited Sherry's blog and in the first sentence of this post I found out we have something in common: she got her wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday, one of mine was pulled today: no fun!!!!

These cupcakes were a breeze to make, I halved the recipe and ended up with 24 cupcakes instead of 16. I guess the Dutch eat smaller cupcakes than the Americans. I made the recipe on Tuesday and wanted to bring them into work on Thursday. So when the cupcakes had cooled down completely I popped them into the freezer. I pulled them out early Thursday morning so that they could thaw while I made the Strawberry Meringue Frosting to go on top.

Unfortunately the strawberries I had saved to go into the frosting had gone bad and were of no use to me whatsoever. What to do?? It was to early to go to the supermarket to buy some whipped cream for topping instead, as it wasn’t open yet. I decided my coworkers would have to eat naked cupcakes! And they liked them a lot, they didn’t even feel there was something missing!! Check out the recipe over at Sherry Starts Cooking and visit MSC!!

P.S. Stay tuned for a couple of giveaways this week!! One will be posted tomorrow, the other on Friday.

My big 30th Birthday High Tea Party

This was it, Sunday I finally turned 30 and had a wonderfull party outside my apartmentbuilding with lots of my friends and family.

Hours of preparation went into this party searching the Internet for great recipes to make just for this occasion, I even had a give-away back in April to inquire what other bloggers thought I should serve. Some of the suggestions made it and some didn't....

These strawberry cupcakes were made by me earlier this month for Taste & Create, only without the original topping, recipe to be found here. I had run out of butter so I had to come up with my own version, here's what I did:

Creamcheese frosting

200 grams cream cheese at room temperature

2 tablespoons raspberry-flavoured liqueur
1 cup powdered sugar

17 strawberries

Place cream cheese, liqueur in a medium bowl and powdered sugar in a bowl and beat just until blended. Cut thestrawberries in half. Top each cupcake with a dollop of creamcheese frosting and garnish cake with strawberry halves.

The miniature tiramisu cupcakes were such a huge succes at work back in May, that I instantly knew I had to make them again.

Shelby of The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch suggested that I make Cucumber Sandwiches. Instead of going for the traditional sandwiches I opted for these cuties, here's what I did:

Open-faced Cucumber Sandwiches

2 packs of party bread (I found these presliced at my supermarket, of course you could use rolls or baguette)

200 grams cream cheese at room temperature

1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped

1 tbsp Rosa Maria Dipper (herb mixture from Oil & Vinegar, also available in U.S.A. and other countries!!)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cucumber

dill, chopped

Mix the cream cheese with the garlic and Rosa Maria Dipper, add salt and pepper to taste. Slice the cucumber into thin slices. Divide the cream cheese mixture over the slices of bread, put one slice of cucumber on each sandwich and sprinkle some dill on top.

Chicken and Salmon wraps, easily made and gone in 60 seconds.

From left to right: Dorie's Cinnamon Squares, Ina's Lemon Cake and Ina's Outreagous Brownies.

These Cranberry Scones were amazing, my mom actually made them after the recipe suggested by Steph from Obsessed with Baking. They were quite easily put together, we left out the orange glaze and served them with orange marmalade, strawberry jam and Clotted Cream from Devonshire. Delicious!!

I also served two fruit salads: one with red fruits and one with green/yellow fruits, but I forgot to take pictures!!!
As the following pictures show we had a lovely afternoon with great weather!

I hope all my birthdays to come will be equally wonderful!!

Strawberry Coconut Pudding for for Taste & Create XVIV

And here's my second entry for this month's Taste & Create: I had some leftover light coconut milk from the Thai-style Chicken for CEiMB, so I decided to go ahead and try Kit's Piña Colada Pudding. Unfortunately I couldn't find the Knorr Piña Colada jelly, but did find some strawberry jelly and gave that a go. I changed the quantities a bit as I only had about 300 ml of coconut milk left, so I had 300 ml coconut milk and .

When you look at Kit's post you'll see that there is a thin layer of pineapple jelly on top and a thick, creamy coconut pudding underneath when the dessert is unmolded. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out for me like that: my pudding is one big pink pudding, no thin layer of jelly.... I wonder what went wrong...... The pudding also wasn't as thick as my jelly normally is, however it did taste amazing!! Yum!! I'll definetely make it again, but next time I'll use the proper quantities!

Strawberry Coconut Pudding

1 can of coconut milk

1 box of Strawberry jelly

boiling water

Follow the instructions printed on the box but substitute coconut milk for the boiling water.

The recipe calls for 500 ml of water, use 100 ml of boiling water to soften the jelly and then added the can of coconut.

Strawberry and White Chocolate Tiramisu

Here's the recipe for the delicious tiramisu I made for New Years Eve. We all loved it!! The pictures are not the best.... I forgot to bring my camera to the party... How silly of me. Fortunately my host was happy to make some pictures of the tiramisu and us to show you how great it was!

Strawberry and White Chocolate Tiramisu

6 servings

1 can of strawberries (fresh are preferable, but they were soooooo expensive)

raspberry liquor to taste

1/2 cup cream

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

250 grams fresh strawberries

150 grams white chocolate, divided

1 cup mascarpone

1 package savoiardi (ladyfingers),

Puree the can of strawberries with your foodprocessor (I used my blender). Add a splash of raspberry to the strawberrypuree and mix.

Add the sugar and vanilla essence to the cream and beat untill almost stiff. Slice the strawberries

Melt 100 grams white chocolate au bain marie. Beat the mascarpone loose, add the melted chocolate and mix in with the mascarpone. Mix the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture

Line the glass with some strawberry slices, start with a layer of ladyfingers in the glass, drizzle some raspberry liqour over the ladyfingers, scoop a bit of strawberry puree on top and add a layer of mascarpone. Top with ladyfingers, drizzle some raspberry liqour over the ladyfingers, add a layer of mascarpone, add a layer of strawberry slices and finish off with one last layer of mascarpone.

Cover the tiramisu with some cling film or aluminium foil and pop into the fridge so the mascarpone can set. When ready to serve grate the remaining white chocolate finely and sprinkle a layer on top of the tiramisu.

Enjoy!!