Pokemon Cake!

Almost a year after I baked my last cake, I took a new challenge and decided to make a Pokemon cake for my nephew. I bought a few Pokemon pieces from Amazon.com, and browsed the internet to get some inspiration.

Here is my cake:

Everything except the Pokemon is edible! (including the volcano and the trees!)

The frosting is homemade, and the trees and volcano are made of ice cream comes (and covered in frosting, of course).

The flowers were made ahead of time to allow them to dry.

I think that next time I will spread the frosting a bit more smoothly and create the illusion of grass using a frosting tip for grass.

Lastly, leftover cake batter and Pokemon were used to make cute cupcakes.

What a fun project!

Doing this cake and cupcakes took me two days. I'm sure out of practice!

Homemade Croissants!

I spent the last two days making croissants at home thanks to a awesome Craftsy class (online): "Classic Croissants at Home" (taught by Colette Christian.

Here are the prepared croissants, ready for baking!

The whole process definitely takes more than a day; the dough has to rest overnight!

Here is the final product:

Chocolate Croissants (Pain au chocolat)

Traditional Croissants 

Yummy!

Hot Breakfast on a Cold Day: Breakfast Burritos

The temperature is 14 degrees outside, which is pretty low for us Virginians! What could be better than a nice, hot breakfast on a snowy, cold morning? Today I made breakfast burritos for my family.

Breakfast Burritos

(Makes 6 burritos)

Ingredients:

• 6 flour tortillas

  

  Can't wait to eat this hot burrito!

• 6-8 bacon strips
• 6-8 eggs
• 1/2 cup of shredded cheese (I used a blend of Mexican cheese)
• Additional shredded cheese to assemble the burritos (to taste)
• About 1 cup of chopped veggies (I used onions and red peppers)
• 1 avocado, cut in slices
• Salt and pepper to taste (I skipped these because the bacon was salty enough for us)
• Hot Sauce (optional, but highly recommended)

Directions:

1. Cook the bacon strips in a frying pan until they are nice and crispy. Once the bacon is done, place the strips on a paper towel to get rid of some of the grease.  Once the strips are cool, chop them up into small chunks.

Optional: Reserve the grease left in the pan (see next step)

2. Fry the vegetables in a bit of oil

Optional: I used the bacon grease to fry the veggies (I removed some of the oil from the pan, though). I don’t do this often because this has to be bad for us, but it is such a nice treat! Also, this means I have to wash only one frying pan.

Here are my fried veggies - fried in bacon sauce! Yum!

3. Whisk the eggs and add them to the pan once the vegetables are done. Stir frequently to make sure the eggs don’t stick to the pan and cook evenly. Wait until the eggs look almost done, and then…

4. Add the bacon bits and the cheese to the egg/veggie mix, and finish cooking the eggs. If you’re going to add salt and/or pepper, do so now.

Here are the eggs. Almost done!

5. Warm up the tortillas in the microwave.  Heat them up for about 15 seconds.

6. On each tortilla, sprinkle cheese and top it with a couple of tablespoons of the egg/veggie mix.  Then, add the avocado slices on top.

Don't forget the hot sauce! 

Optional: Sprinkle a bit of hot sauce on top of the avocados and eggs.

7. Wrap the tortilla to make a classic burrito.

Done!

Enjoy!