cooking

Its birthday party time around here again. Baby Chuck just turned six and Mr. Dumpling is an incredible 10 years old.

For the first time in six years we gave them separate parties, which was exhausting, but was a new kind of fun for them. Had to make two cakes in two weeks. Here they are:


Dirt Pile:
One recipe All Purpose Chocolate Cake and one
Vanilla cake recipe
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup best-quality butter (Kerrygold works well)
2 large eggs at room temp.
1 tbsp vanilla extract (use natural)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs & vanilla, beat with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy (this is important, should ideally look like yellow whipped cream). Fold in flour and baking soda, stir in milk. Dont overmix, you want to retain the fluffiness of the original mixture. This cake turns out much better when made with a heavy duty mixer than when mixed by hand.
In a (greased and floured) 14" round baking pan or two 9" X 3" rounds, pour the vanilla cake mix to just cover the bottom. Scoop four or five large spoonfuls of the chocolate cake mix into the pan and swirl them around gently with the spoon into the vanilla (you don't want to mix too much or you will lose the marble effect). Alternate until all your batter is used up. Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out with just a bit of crumb on it -about 40 min.
To frost we used American Chocolate Frosting in a Can per the Birthday boy's specifications. Then we covered the cake with crushed Bourbon creams and gummy worms.

Tomorrow: Ice cream cake

It's plum and apricot season in South Africa! So here in Dubai we have tons of sweet lovely yellow and bright ruby red plums, and little juicy blushing apricots. Its hard to keep them in the house long enough to make anything with them, (Baby Chuck is also known as the human compost pile...), but the other night I brought this delicious tart to my friends house for dinner. Its super easy, especially given the high quality, ubiquitous, not terribly $$ puff pastry that is in every market here, definitely the right thing for a last minute invitation.

One package of puff pastry
6 yellow, 6 red plums OR 12 apricots
package of white marzipan
butter (very soft)
demerara or other coarse sugar

Brush the bottom of a 10" glass tart pan with butter. Press the puff pastry squares into the pan to cover the bottom with an irregular 3" (or so) overhang. Slice the marzipan in about 1/8" thick pieces and use them to cover the pastry. It will melt so this doesn't have to be very precise. Slice your plums and line the dish with alternating circles of yellow and red (or you could alternate colors too...). Fold the overhang onto the plums. Brush the pastry & plums with butter and sprinkle with a generous pinch of sugar. Bake at 350 (180) for 25- 30 minutes until pastry is browned on bottom.
Serve cold with whipped cream or warm with ice cream. Almost any combination of non-citrus fruits works well with this...

First up, we've been invited to two. Well, one didn't really pan out food-wise (a story for the Random Complaining column). But the other one is pretty much guaranteed to more than make up for it as the mom is a known sugar addict and an absolutely excellent cook.

And then, we are throwing two.
Baby Chuck is now old enough to plan his own menu which is nice, no dilemmas for me. It's a little predictably terrifying too. We're having chocolate chip muffins from Spinney's enhanced with frosting. AMERICAN frosting in a can (he's being quite specific), so we can put candles in it and sing Happy Birthday to him.
THEN, we're going to let the five year olds make ice cream sundaes. Clown sundaes. They are also supposed to get 'lots of gummy' in their party favors, but I suspect their parents will kill me so I'm skipping it... I did convince him we should have hummus and vegetables for the grownups, he agrees as long as he doesn't have to eat it...


Mr. Dumpling is going to be nine and is therefore much more sophisticated in his food choices. We're having pizza, cake and 'candy sushi'. Mr. Muffin Puff Cake tried to sell him on the idea of an all gummy feast (he's been angling for one, ever since he heard me call gummy 'the 5th food group'...) but the birthday boy is playing it cool.
Candy sushi involves making copies of sushi out of rice crispy treats, gummy fish, and green fruit leathers i.e. a mind-boggling amount of work for me. Which I will do because I have lots of guilt and too much time on my hands. mmmm..... gummy.......

I'm getting kind of good a making sushi lately. Its because the boys are mad for it, its been really humid so the no-cook meals are popular with me, and I feel a lot of economic pressure to make my own... Its just so horribly expensive to take them all out for it, they love it so and will just keep ordering.

It kind of hangs on the rice. I've been using basic Japanese sticky rice for sushi lately, but I usually use short grain brown rice. To one cup of rice you need to add 1/2 tsp of sugar and a splash of rice-wine vinegar. I sometimes add a shake or two of seaweed powder (the package is in Japanese, I have no idea what it is...)

Mr. Muffin Puff cake gets a mix of vegetables in his, avocado, blanched green beans, peppers, pea shoots (if I can find them), and cucumber with sesame seeds.
Mr. Dumpling likes fish and rice only. I usually buy a 4oz tuna steak and a 4oz salmon steak, slice these very carefully and roll them in the rice with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.
I like mixed and usually make a salmon avocado and a tuna cucumber roll for myself.
Baby Chuck is anti-sushi, he eats mac & cheese or a penut butter and jelly if we are having sushi and loudly complains about how gross he thinks it is.