Cheese And Mayo Bun

I have being following "Maameemoomoo, a 1/2 food blog" since 2010 because I was attracted to Sherie's mouthwatering dishes and bakes. I still remembered vividly it was her Grilled Saba Fish and Black Sticky Rice, 3 ways which makes me among one of her die-heart readers. And furthermore, she had again captured our hearts earlier this year with our all-time favourite "Orh Nee" that she fusion into a wonderful "Orh Nee Cheesecake " which was featured in The Straits Times.

Today I am so happy to invite Sherie to guest post one of her family's all-time favourite "Cheese And Mayo Bun" recipe for us. I am sure with this quick and easy recipe we can all enjoy learning baking homemade bread in no time. Although this recipe is made using bread machine to knead and proof the dough, but no worries you can still make this bread by reading the tips shared by Sherie HERE on "How to make bread without bread machine".

CHEESE AND MAYO BUN

Bread is a daily staple in my household.

These days, i don't do 3 loaves anymore. Apart from experimenting with multigrain breads, one of my weekly must-bake would be Cheese & Mayo Bun. Everyone loves it to bits and pieces. From baby to old man (u-know-who), from me to the helper, we simply cannot resist this irresistible bun, especially now with the water roux method... Darcy is so ditching his favourite bakery. Heee!

When i was approached by the talented Ellena of Cuisine Paradise to guest post for her, i knew she would request a post on bread from me. Grin. Why? Because Ellena loves bread and buns! According to the ever so creative lady, it seems that bread doesn't like her all that much. Hence, she has never quite succeeded in making them. But you know what? Methinks that isn't at all true, because if you know Ellena, you will know that it's rather difficult not to like this oh so sweet lady! *wink*

To be honest, i didn't just thought of the toppings for this bun myself. I made this purely because of Darcy who fancies certain bakery's cheese and mayo bun. If not for Darcy, i wouldn't have thought of marrying the cheese with mayonnaise myself due to its not-so-ideal-for-the-waistline-ingredients.

But whaddaya know.... we are all now addicted to it.

Screw the not-so-idea-for-the-waistline-ingredients! HAHA!

Ingredients: (makes 8 buns)
125ml milk
56g egg
50g caster sugar
5g salt
30g butter
120g tangzhong
350g bread flour
7g milk powder
6g instant yeast

For the topping
grated cheddar cheese
mayonnaise

Method:

1. Place all ingredients in the pan of the bread machine (according to the sequence as stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine). Select the Dough function of the bread machine and press start.

2. Once the machine beeps (after 1 and half hour + 1 proofing), remove dough and give a few light kneading on a lightly floured work surface. Press out the trapped air as your knead before proceeding to chaffing and letting the dough rest for 5mins.

3. Divide dough into 8 pieces.

4. From the 8 pieces, further divide each dough into 3 pieces. Then roll each pieces to 15 cm long rope.

5. Place the rope side by side and start plaiting.

6. Continue to plait until you reach the end. Place the ends together and tuck them neatly under the bottom of the plait. Repeat for the remaining 7 pieces.

7. Place the completed plaits onto baking sheet that has been floured. Let doughs proof for 45 minutes or until double in size.

8. Squeeze or spread ample mayonnaise on the each of the bread doughs before topping them generously with grated cheddar cheese.

9. Bake at the preheated oven at 175c for 10 minutes until the bread is browned. Remove immediately.

----------------------------

Warning : Never bake this when you have little children or adults or .. wait, hmm.. actually, the word anyone would be more befitting *grin*, so yeah, never bake this when there's anyone around because the buns will fly off the cooling rack in a blink of an eye, unless that is your intention in the first place! :D

Once again, thanks Sherie for her wonderful post. And I think after this I shall not have any excuse on not trying to start my bread baking session :p Cross fingers and hope I could bake something decent from her recipe. For more bread recipes on Sherie's blog, you can refer to the list HERE.

{Recipe and Game} Chocolate Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes With Vanilla Ice Cream Plus Blind Taste Test

Isn't these "ice-cream cone cupcakes" look great for special occasions such as Birthday party, school function or even tea-time. I am sure not only the Kids fancy this,  Adults like us will also love eating our favourite cake in a cone instead of on a plate too. So why not give this a try and start making your favourite cupcakes in ice-cream cones instead of paper cases. Or just like us if you don't fancy frosting your cupcakes you can even eat it on it's own or top it with an extra scoop of your favourite ice-cream.

I always love dessert such as Chocolate Brownie or Molten Chocolate Cake that serves with a generous scoop of premium Vanilla ice-cream. And when compared to other flavour, vanilla ice-cream is said to be the most popular flavour like by most consumers which is why you can always see vanilla ice-cream appears in most dessert corner or menu in major cafes/restaurants.

Since I am making some ice-cream cone cupcakes for my neighbours as one of our tea snacks we decided to play a small game while waiting for the cupcakes to cool off. To start off we gathered 3 different brands of vanilla ice-cream to do a blind taste test and see which is the most popular choice among us. In this game, each family contribute one of their favourite brand of vanilla ice-cream and I would scoop it into 3 different cups and let all the participants take a blind taste test on each of them.

For this test we had 9 participants from 3 different families with age group ranging from the youngest; 5 years old to the oldest 60 plus. Each participants will get to sample the prepared Vanilla Ice-cream from Haagen Dazs, New Zealand Natural and Ben And Jerry's without any knowledge of which brand they are tasting. So can you make a guess which is the most popular choice out of the 3 brands that most of them pick?(result is shown at the end of this post) But before we scroll down to read the "taste test" result, let's take a look at the Chocolate Ice-cream Cone Cupcakes recipe shown below first.

CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM CONE CUPCAKES
WITH VANILLA ICE CREAM

I have bookmarked this recipe for quite sometime but was not very keen to attempt due to the frosting part. So with some read-up and brainstorm with my facebook friends, I decided to give it a try without doing the frosting and replace it with a good scoop of Vanilla Ice-cream.

Recipe adapted from Donna Hay

Ingredients: (make 8 flat base ice-cream cones)
60g Butter, soften
80g Caster Sugar
1 Large Egg
50g Valrhona(Guanaja - 70%)Dark Chocolate, melted
95g Plain Flour
1 Tablespoon Dutch-process Cocoa Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
50ml Fresh Milk
8 Flat Base Ice-Cream Cones
40g Valrhona(Guanaja - 70%) Dark Chocolate, extra

Topping:
Premium Vanilla Ice-cream

Method:-

1. Melt 50g of dark chocolate in microwave on High for 40 seconds with an interval of 20 seconds each.

2. Arrange ice-cream cones on baking tray and place 2 feves of dark chocolate at the base of each cone.

3. Preheat oven to 160 degree. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl till light and creamy, add in egg and beat till well mixed.

4. Next sift over flour mixture(plain flour, baking powder and cocoa powder) and continue to beat until mixture became a gluey batter.

5. Fold in milk and stir with either a spatula or hand-held whisk till combine before stirring in the melted chocolate.

6. Spoon batter into each cone and fill up 0.5cm away from the rim. Bake in preheat oven for 15 minutes; increase oven temperate to 170 degree and continue to bake for another 10 minute or when skewer insert and comes out clean .

7. Allow cupcakes to cool for 10 minutes, running a small knife round the "hump" on top of the cake and remove it before stuffing it with a scoop of Premium Vanilla Ice-cream.

8. You can either drizzle extra melted chocolate, sprinkler or use the cut-off cake to place on the ice-cream to act as toppings.

Chocolate Ice-cream Cone Cupcakes

These cupcakes taste great even without any frosting. The cake itself is soft, moist and infused with "Triple" chocolate content. With each bites you can taste 3 different texture in one mouthful such as the crispy ice-cream cone, moist chocolate cake and cold ice-cream all mingling in your mouth.

For your information these cupcakes are best to be eaten within an hour or warm so that the ice-cream cones will reminds crispy instead of soft and soggy after a few hours. But if you intend to keep for longer time you might want to consider reheat it in a 200 degree oven for about 3 minutes to revive the "crispness" of the ice-cream cones.

Result Of Our
BLIND TASTE TEST

Tata!!!!! Have you make the correct guess? Or you are surprised with the result shown above? Yes! I myself was surprised when I saw the results; out of the 9 participants, 4 voted(2 Young Adults, 1 Teenage and a Kid) for New Zealand Natural immediately after they tried all the 3 different cups of ice-cream whereas the other 5 participants still took sometime to decide which product to cast their vote.

As for products wise you can still see tiny bits of vanilla pods in both New Zealand Natural and Ben And Jerry's. But in term of taste New Zealand Natural has the smoothest texture and mild creamy taste which does not overpower the vanilla fragrance. So if you like vanilla ice-cream perhaps you can also gather a few brands and do a blind taste test like us, have fun and enjoy the process as well as the eating those cold and delicious ice-cream especially during hot and humid days.

Happy Birthday, Singapore! - Part I

Today I am very excited to have WaiFong from "Fong's Kitchen Journal" to share with us her National Day Special Cookies as her guest post. I get to know Wai Fong about a year ago through a giveaway event from my blog and since then I always pop-by her blog, drooling over her delicious "Fong's 三菜一汤 - 3-plus-1" that she whipped up for her family. On top of that, she is also one of our regular supporters for the monthly "S$20 Budget Meal" event. So let's put our hands together and welcome WaiFong to share with us her icing cookie recipe as well as thoughts on coming National Day. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Singapore!

This is a very special post for me. First, as you can see, I have made some National Day Cookies here as a pre-National Day celebration. Tomorrow, I will be going down to Marina Bay to watch the NDP preview. And I am equally thrilled to be sharing this post with one of my favorite food bloggers, Ellena, at Cuisine Paradise.

With about a week more to our National Day, I decided to make these cookies for my little girl and her pre-school classmates. I zoom in on two colours - red and white, the colours of our National Flag. And, what's better way to pack these cookies than having them in this NDP Fun Box! For those who have attended last year's NDP ("National Day Parade") celebration, you might remember having this Fun Box inside the goodies bag.

I thought this is also a great time for me, as a Singaporean and a young parent, to engage our little ones in some National Education. I design a simple quiz of 20 questions on Singapore, from "what is our National Anthem", " What does the crescent moon on our flag represents" to "Name 5 MRT stations on the East West Line". These questions are printed and glued on small little tags and taped behind each cookie pack. I hope while the children are enjoying the cookies, they will also get to learn something about Singapore.

I used the same cookie recipe as my earlier Valentine's Day cookies. This cookie recipe yields very crispy cookies, but is extremely sticky to work with. If you prefer more manageable cookies, you may want to add a little more flour to it or cut down the butter to 200g.

Ingredients For Cookie dough: (makes about 28 to 30 cookies)
220g butter
100g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla essence
300g plain flour
60g corn flour

Royal icing:
4 tsp meringue powder
4 tbsp water
300g icing sugar
4 tsp lemon juice
Red, black colour gel

Method:

1) Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy (pale white).

2) Add egg yolk and vanilla essence, beat for another minute or two.

3) Sift plain flour and corn flour together. Add into butter mixture and mix well to form a dough

4) Divide dough to 2 portions, cover with clingwrap and rest dough in fridge for an hour.

5) Roll each dough between baking paper and clingwrap to about 2 to 3mm thick.

6) Rest the dough sheet back in fridge for 30 minutes (or 10 minutes in the freezer).

7) Stamp the cookies using cookie cutter and transfer them to a baking tray lined with baking paper.

8) Bake in preheated oven at 175C for 15 to 20 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely on rack before decorating.


Decorating the cookies:

1) Whisk meringue powder and water till foamy.

2) Add icing sugar gradually and continue to whisk till stiff and fluffy.

3) Add lemon juice and whisk for another 2 minutes. Add a little water (1/4 tsp each time) if the icing is too stiff and dry.

4) Divide into portions and mix in desired coloured gel.

5) For each icing colour, save a portion for piping the outlines (i.e. stiff icing); and then add more water (1/4 tsp each time) to get thinner icing consistency for flooding the cookies.

NOTES:

1) Working with red and black colours are the most tricky, as the red and black coloured gels will turn "pink" and "grey" when mixed together with the white icing. You could try preparing the icing a day ahead, as icing color will darken slightly with time (whisk it slightly before using). If you're preparing your icing ahead, do not make it too thin as it tends to be a little diluted the next day. Alternatively, some websites suggested adding a little cocoa powder to darken the shades. I have not tried this method.

2) Transfer the royal icing to piping bag(s) and use immediately. Else, cover the royal icing with cling wrap to prevent it from drying out.

3) I used a piping tip #2 for piping the lines. For flooding, I just cut a small tip off the disposable piping bag.

4) Click here for a detailed explanation on getting the right icing consistency.

5) Let the icing fully set and dry before transferring them to cookie bag. I left them in a air-con room for about 5 hours to set. Some websites recommend leaving them overnight, but I am concern that the cookies might turn soft.


To know more about WaiFong and her blog, you can cross over to this link HERE to find out more about her cooking and baking recipes. Till then have a great weekend and stay tune for PART 2 of our National Day Special post which is done by me.

Happy Birthday, Singapore!

Herbal And Rose Chicken Soup

I tried making this soup a few weeks back when I saw a photo tag of these ingredients in one of my friends, Alice facebook. Immediately it caught my attention because of one of the ingredients; "rose petals" which makes me very curious about the taste of this soup. So without hesitate, I gathered all the necessary ingredients and try it out on the following day and it was very well-received by my family members including my small boy.

As you can see from the ingredients, lily bulbs are used to calm the nerves and easy sleeping difficulty where else lotus seeds strengthen the Heart, Liver, Spleen and Kidneys and also energize the Qi and promote blood cell formation.

Recipe adapted from Joyce Wong

Ingredients: (serves 4)
4 Skinless Chicken Drumsticks
50g Dried Lily Bulbs
50g Lotus Seeds
30g Dried Longan
15g White Fungus, soak till soften
10g Dried Rose Petals
1/4 Dried Tangerine Peel
6 - 8 Medium Red Dates
1.8 Liter Water

Method:-

1. Blanched chicken drumsticks in boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove, rinse and set aside.(for individual preference you could also replace drumsticks with 1 black chicken for better nutrition value)

2. Next put the dried rose petals in stock bag; soak dried tangerine peel in water till soften then scrap out the white pith to avoid bitterness taste when cooked.

3. Bring 1.8 liter of water to boil in a soup pot before adding in all the ingredients.

4. When the mixture comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer on very low heat for at least an hour or more. Or else transfer the mixture to a slow-cooker and cook on AUTO for at least 3 hours.

5. Season with/without salt to taste, serve it warm.

The adding of Rose Petals act as a health supplement as well as provides a nice fragrance. And if consumed regularly it will also help in blood circulation and ease digestion too. Furthermore some research provides that it also reduces fats, whitening the skin and helps to relive discomforts that arise from menstruation. But most important it can actually helps you to maintain a youthful image. So this soup is a "must keep" recipe for all ladies who wish to maintain a youthful and fairer skin.

Mixed Berry Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

As you can see from most of my "bakes" I seldom do cake with frosting because my skill level of frosting is totally unbearable. I can't seems to frost a whole cake evenly with smooth finishing or at least something presentable. But after seeing Celes's mouthwatering "Blueberry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting" photo on twitter and facebook I decided to give her recipe a try.

So with a twist to her recipe, I have made a Mixed Berry Cake together with some Cupcakes frosted with fresh Raspberry Cream Cheese.

Recipe adapted from Celes @ Celestial Delish

Ingredients: (make one 7" size cake and 6 medium cupcakes)
180g Butter, soften
170g Caster Sugar
3 Large Eggs
225g Self Raising Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Vanilla essence
250g Sour Cream
200g Blueberries
125g Raspberries, reserve 1/4 for cream frosting and decoration

Mixed Berry Cupcakes made with half portion of the batter resting on the cooling rack.

Method:-

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree.

2. Cream butter and sugar for 1 minute, add in flour, baking powder and vanilla and continue to beat for another 2 minutes on low speed until thick and creamy.

3. Next beat in 4 heap tablespoons of sour cream then stir in the mixed-berry using a spatula or wooden spoon till well mixed.

4. Scoop the mixture evenly into a 7" disposal round case and the remaining batter into 6 holes muffins tray line with paper cups liner.

5. Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until skewer insert and comes out clean; OR

* Bake the 6 holes muffins tray batch at 20 minutes or till skewer insert and comes out clean.

6. Cool for cake/cupcake on the cooling rack till completely cold when touch before proceeding to the frosting.

The Original recipe calls only cream cheese, icing sugar and sour cream but in order to make the frosting more colourful and presentable. I added about 10 raspberries into the beaten cream to enhance the taste, texture as well as visual effect to the frosting.

RASPBERRY CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Ingredients:

200g tub Philadelphia cheese
100g icing sugar
Remaining Sour Cream, leftover from the cake batter
10 Raspberry, roughly chopped

Method:-

1. Beat the soft cream cheese with the icing sugar and the remaining soured cream in a bowl until smooth and creamy.

2. Add in chopped raspberries and give it a quick stir or two till mixture is well combined.

3. Spread cheese mixture over the top of the completely cooled cake and scatter with some extra berries on top as decoration. OR

* Spoon a few tablespoons of prepared cream mixture into a pipping bag with a "Wilton 2D" pipping nozzle attached and pipe rose design starting from the middle of the cupcake in clockwise direction.

Mixed Berry Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Overall this is a very soft, light and moist cake made with fresh berries that makes you feel irresistible with its fruity flavour cream cheese topping. And according to Celes, these frosted cake can keep well in the fridge for a couple of days. But before serving, it will be best to bring it to room temperature so that the texture will be soft and moist instead of harden and dry due to storing in the fridge.

Lastly I would like to thanks Celes for sharing this wonderful recipe as well as her patience in walking through the steps and sharing of handy tips in the baking process.

Watermelon Cupcakes for the Feast of St. Anne

Last month my girls made these cupcakes for the first time.  With the feast of St. Anne coming up on July 26th, I thought I would share the recipe here at Catholic Cuisine, continuing the Watermelon Theme for St. Anne's feast day which was originally inspired by Charlotte and her girls!

Watermelon Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix or your own white cupcake recipe
1 cup boiling water
1 small box of watermelon flavored Jell-O or any red colored Jell-O
1 8oz container of Cool Whip, thawed
red & green liquid food coloring
mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Make your own Cupcakes from scratch or using a boxed mix. Use cupcake liners. Cool cupcakes.

Stir boiling water into powdered Jell-O until dissolved. Pierce tops of cupcakes several times with a meat fork or straw.

Spoon Jell-O over cupcakes, making sure that the liquid is going down into the holes.

Refrigerate 30 min. Remove from pans.

Tint Cool Whip with red and green food coloring.

Using plastic baggies to hold the whipped topping, pipe a green circle around the outside rim of each cupcake.

Fill the middle with pink whipped topping.

Add mini chocolate chips to represent watermelon seeds.

Store in refrigerator. Best if eaten the same day.

Additional Recipes for the Feast of St. Anne can be found in the archives! 

Chicken Karaage

Sorry for the lack of post(s) these few weeks because I was pretty busy with a few projects on hand. I would try to get all the draft post(s) published as soon as possible but to compensate, I have invited a few well-known bloggers to guest post(s) some of their home-style dishes and bakes.

Today's let put our hands together and welcome Nami from "Just One Cookbook". I know Nami through her comments on my blog a few months back. From her blog link I also get to know her better as well as exploring her wonderful recipes collection on her home-style Japanese Cuisines. She is also the one who help me to look up recipes on Japanese website regarding the Japanese Steamed Cake which I wish to learn more about it. Today I am so happy to invite Nami to Cuisine Paradise to share her classic “Chicken Karaage” recipe with us and I sure you would like it as much as we do. Enjoy!

Hello readers of Cuisine Paradise! Usually, I’m just the same as you, a fan enjoying Ellena’s delicious creations. She was generous to invite me to contribute a recipe on her site so today I will share one of my family’s favorite Japanese dish, Chicken Karaage (鶏の唐揚げ) recipe. I am a dedicated visitor to Ellena’s site and her mouth watering photos always make me hungry. With her extensive library of recipes from around the world, I learned so much from Ellena and especially Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking techniques. Personally I’ve used multiple recipes from her site to feed my family lunch and dinner and her website has been a great inspirational resource.

Chicken Karaage is a classic Japanese fried chicken dish. It’s a very common Japanese home cooking recipe and many Japanese restaurants including Izakaya (Japanese tapas) offer it in many countries all over the world. You might also find them as a main dish in lunch teishoku (meal set) at restaurants or bento box (lunch box) you buy from Japanese supermarkets. Usually the chicken is marinated in a mix of soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and lightly coated with potato/corn starch mix, then finally deep fried. However, each family has different way of preparing it, and here is mine that my family loves.

I hope you enjoy my Chicken Karaage recipe and thank you so much Ellena for having me!

Chicken Karaage

Difficulty: Modearate
Cooking Time: 60 minutes (excluding marinade time)
Makes: 5-8 servings

Ingredients:

5-10 Chicken thigh fillets, cut into 2 inch pieces (make sure each piece is about the same size so it takes about the same amount of time to deep fry.)

Seasonings
¼ onion, grated
½ Tbsp. ginger (1.5 inch ginger), grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp. cooking sake
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup corn starch (Please adjust if necessary. If you use 10 chicken thighs, probably about ½ cup)

Oil for deep frying

A couple of lemon wedges
Ichimi Togarashi (Japanese red chili pepper flakes) (optional)
Green onion for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Put chicken in a Ziploc bag and combine all the ingredients for Seasonings in a bowl and mix all together.

2. Pour the Seasonings into the Ziploc bag and rub the chicken well with hands. Keep it in the fridge for at least 1 hour, preferably 3-4 hours.

3. In a wok, add oil to about half way full and heat it on medium high heat. When you put a chopstick in the oil and bubbles start to appear around the tip, the oil temperature is now around 180C (356F) and ready for deep frying.

4. When oil is ready, take out the Ziploc bag from the fridge and transfer the chicken into a bowl and discard the marinade (liquid). Then add corn starch and mix quickly. You don’t need to mix it evenly (as you see in the picture below). The uneven coating gives each piece its unique texture.

5. Place each piece of chicken separately into the oil. Do not overcrowd the wok, fry maximum 5 pieces at a time. If you put a lot of chicken in the oil, the temperature will drop quickly and chicken end up absorbing too much oil. Make sure the oil temperature stays around 180C (356F) at all time.

1. Deep fry for 90 seconds.
2. Transfer the chicken onto a wire rack (if not, paper towel) to drain the oil for 4 minutes,
3. Deep fry again for 45 seconds, or until golden brown.

Transfer the chicken onto a wire rack to drain the oil. Before you start the next batch, skim/remove leftover crumbs from the oil in order to keep it clean.

6. Serve the chicken with lemon wedges. Squeeze the lemon right before you eat. You can dip in Ichimi Togarashi if you enjoy spicy chicken.


For more Japanese home-sytle recipes, you can refer to Nami website at Just One Cookbook for more recipe ideas.

Healthy Gluten Free Scapular Cake

I'm trying to eat a bit healthier than usual at present and so I wanted to make a healthier annual scapular cake for the feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. It is gluten free. I have a great recipe, but to make the cake you see above, I only used half of the ingredients. I'm calling it a cake, but in way, it's more like a slice, when you make half recipe. It's very dense and the topping is almost as thick as the cake. My cake tin 10 1/2 inches by 7 inches and an inch and half deep. (27cm x 17.5cm x 4cm)

It's healthy but very, very yummy!! Here's the recipe:

Firstly I'll start with the icing..allow it to be nice & thick, it has no sugar so you can feel guilt free about applying it thick! I use a 250gram pack of cream cheese (8.8 oz) and the same about of butter at room temperature. I then beat the two together, add cacao powder until it is a nice, deep chocolate colour, then I add honey to taste (I'm fairly liberal with it, for a lovely, sweet taste.) This icing holds together beautifully and very easy to apply to the cake.

Cake/slice recipe:

1/2 cup of coconut oil

1 cup of caoco powder

270ml (9 oz) can of coconut cream (or milk)

(Melt the coconut oil and mix these ingredients together)

1 and 1/2 cups of rapadura (dried sugar cane juice)

9 eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract

3/4 tsp of salt

(Mix these ingredients together)

3/4 cup of coconut flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

OPTIONAL: 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

(Mix together)

Mix the three lots together.

Pour half of this recipe into a dish with the measurements I mentioned above OR pour full recipe into a larger rectangular dish for a larger scapular cake.

If you are using half the recipe, cook only for 20 to 25 mins at 180 degrees celsius (356 degrees fahrenheit) or for 35 mins if using the full recipe.

I wanted to do something a little different for the top of the scapulars...I found this breathtaking image of Our Lady of Mt Carmel bestowing upon St Simon Stock, the scapular. So I printed it up and cut out the two sets of angels and Our Lady and St Simon Stock. I then laminated the images so that they could lie on top of the cake without the image becoming damp.

Here is the cake, once it came out of the oven..

Once I had iced it, I then added the laminated images to the top...the original picture is split among the two cakes, Our Lady and St Simon Stock on one side, the two sets of angels on the other.

The picture has the Our Lady and the angels sitting among the clouds, so I thought I'd add those clouds back into the cake by making them out of whipped cream.

Our Lady of Mt Carmel's scapular has been on my mind all week, as I finally start making homemade scapulars from scratch..these are scapulars for life ~ you will never need another, they will never break. I have also enclosed inside my scapulars, a miraculous medal, a St Benedict medal, an little photo image of Mother of Good Counsel and St Anthony's Brief.

Those added sacramentals are securely sewed between the two layers of 100% wool felt and will never come out. I have taught myself to embroider and designed the two designs you see below. My daughters are very keen to learn how to make these, and I hope to remake all the scapulars in the home, as well as make some for other relatives and friends. I hope to share a tutorial on how to make them, over at my blog very soon for anyone who may be interested in this craft.

Tomorrow for the feast, we look forward to having the very youngest members of our family enrolled in the brown scapular after the Mass. Wishing everyone a blessed feast day and I ask for prayers for the family members of a young cousin of mine who died in a house fire almost 30 years ago on the 16th of July, the pain and suffering is always there for them, especially at this time.

One side of the scapular has the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts design, the other side, the two sides of a miraculous medal design.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Meatball Sandwich

Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Our Lady, queen and beauty of Carmel, pray for us. 
July 16 ~ New & Traditional Calendar

According to legend, a religious community was established even before the time of Christ on Mount Carmel. This is the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on which the prophet Elijah successfully challenged the priests of Baal and won the people to the true God. The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel entered the Calendar of the universal Church in the early 18th century.

~~~

My family has a special devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  She is also Sparkles and mine namesake – Carmen.  Because of this, Dad coordinates this feast day celebration.  Praise God!

Dad has narrowed in on my favorite, Carmel Iced Coffee and his specialty, meatballs. 

This recipe is not my own. Dad found it on one of my family’s favorite recipe site, Pioneer Woman. We have been using her recipes for some time. We even started a cooking challenge, where we make one of her recipes every week – for the entire year. We have never been let down by any of her recipes. She gives great directions and provides wonderful pictures and humorous dialogue. Pioneer Woman is also a homeschooling mom!

Dinner: Mini Meatball Sandwiches

Meatball ~ Mount Carmel.

Provolone Cheese ~ White for the purity of Our Lady.

Bread ~ The Bread of Life, Jesus – who Mary ALWAYS leads us to.

~~~

NOTES:

I like using ground turkey, Dad prefers ground beef.

Dad likes to make an extra large batch and freeze the cooked meatballs for future use.