Cupcake Creations

Let me start out by saying that the palmiers were delicious. Even Ariella loved them, which is funny, because they don't exactly seem like a six-year-old's idea of a treat. She was a little intimidated by the "green things" - she is her father's daughter - but got over it quickly and enjoyed them. David would be loathe to admit it, but he did not hate them. Now that I have experienced the taste combo, I want to find a cookie recipe with the same flavors. I think that would be tasty and unusual.

This weekend, I decided to flex my cupcaking muscles a little bit. I tried two new flavors: lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream, and devil's food cupcakes with caramel buttercream. The lemon was just delicious, with some real tartness in the frosting. I was less enamored of the devil's food, as the texture was a little delicate for a cupcake. I mean, who wants their cupcake to fall apart when they take off the paper? The frosting was also somewhat problematic. The recipe is an American one, which calls for brown sugar, but the coarseness of the brown sugar here prevented the texture from ever becoming smooth. They still tasted great and looked cute, but the sugar added some real crunch in the creamy frosting. Guess I will have to work on it - the kids will be so disappointed!

The last fun food activity for this Shabbat was making vegetable sushi with Ayelet. I was inspired by Arica's recent sushi post, as well as Ayelet's incessant requests for sushi making. We used an assortment of vegetables - avocado, steamed sweet potato, red and yellow pepper, cucumber, and carrot, in various combinations.

They were fine, and yummy, if not particularly artistic. Local sushi places have nothing to fear from our rolling technique. I am sure that will a little more practice, our technique will improve. Also, next time we must include smoked salmon, kanpyo, and shitake mushrooms, just for fun.

Shavua tov!

Dvora