food events

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

maki — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:08:55 +0200

It seems that quite a few people have been trying out the kasutera/castella recipe recently, and running into problems. Castella is not an easy cake. So, since it's Easter, I thought I'd haul this out of the archives attic. These little Rich Tea Cupcakes are much easier to make, and while they have an entirely different texture they are really quite delicious. I hope you'll give them a try! The cupcakes are delicious unadorned, but the icing is dead easy, and the fondant is not too hard if you can get a hold of the glycerin. Alternatively you could use store bought Easter themed cake decorations. Originally published in March 2005, as part of the late lamented Is My Blog Burning food blog event; edited and updated.

One of the first attempts at baking that I remember tackling on my own was cupcakes iced with pale pastel icing. I had seen a picture of them in one of my mother's magazines, and they looked so elegant to me. The one thing I remember about those cupcakes is that they tasted peculiarly like uncooked egg - I think I hadn't whipped the eggs enough or something. But the whole process of making the icing, tinting it with food coloring that I had begged my mother to buy for me, and swirling it on the tops of those cakes, was quite fascinating.

This isn't quite an attempt to remake those cupcakes. For one thing I now know how not to make cakes that taste overly eggy. But I did want to make something pastel colored and kawaii (cute) -- and, since it's Easter time, pink and blue bunnies and pastel colored mini-eggs seemed like perfect embellishments.

I'm not a big fan of buttercream icing unless it's very chocolatey, but chocolate was out of the question since I wanted that pastel color scheme. So I've avoided this usual cupcake topping; instead I've used a much easier icing, which is just powdered or icing sugar mixed with lemon juice. It's appropriately shiny and translucent and adds a little tang to the whole experience. And it's dead easy to apply - just drizzle a spoonful or two on top of each cupcake. At this point you can just leave it as is, or use any kind of colorful decoration that strikes your fancy: the icing acts like a sort of glue for the embellishments too. I made some bunny heads and eggs with fondant, but this is a bit fiddly. In Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess has all kinds of ideas for decorations on top of the icing (she uses plain water for the icing though) such as little candies, a cherry, a knot of cream, and so on. Of course standard cake decorations such as sprinkles and other sugar ornaments work too. I was originally planning on using small chocolate eggs, but then I thought of the bunny theme - and the cake decorating sections of the supermarket are sadly lacking in bunny-themed items. Besides, I just love that pale, half-translucent quality of fondant. The soft, melt-in-your-mouth sugariness is a perfect match for the top of this cupcake too.

I'm calling the base cake recipe without the adornments Rich Tea Cupcake, since the original cake recipe is adapted from one for a tea cake. I'm not sure what exactly a "tea cake" is -- I presume it means it's good for serving with tea. (For the matter, I'm unsure about what a "coffee cake" is either, and how it differs from any other cake....) This is rich yet fairly simple to make, apart from the beating the eggs and sugar vigorously over hot water (or bain marie ) part. This step is common in a lot of European cake recipes, and makes for a cake crumb that is quite crumbly and delicious, with not a trace of raw-egginess about it. The cupcake sans icing is delicious just plain or with an apricot or red currant jam glaze on top. It's very mildly spiced with lemon peel, nutmeg and vanilla, and is not overly sweet. Yes, it has 4 egg yolks plus 4 whole eggs in it.

Recipe: Rich Tea Cupcakes

250g / 8 oz unsalted or salted butter (I used unsalted, since salted butter is not common here)
2 tsp finely grated lemon peel
1 tsp real vanilla extract
4 egg yolks from 'large' eggs
4 whole 'large' eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plain white flour)
2 Tbs cornstarch (cornflour)
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt if you used unsalted butter
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 150°C / 350°F. Make ready the cupcake cups. Hint: if you stack 3 paper cupcake cups together, they are sturdy enough to hold their shape when you pour in the batter without needing muffin tins or something. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Put the butter in a bowl and microwave it on low setting for a minute to soften it. You don't want to totally melt it but it should be easy to cream. Add the lemon peel and vanilla.

Heat up a pan of water to simmering point. In another bowl, beat together the egg yolks, eggs and sugar. Put the bowl over the water, and let it come to lukewarm temperature. Beat this mixture over the hot water vigorously (an electric hand mixer helps a lot, or you can think of it as good toning exercise for your arms) until it's about tripled in bulk and is a pale lemon yellow. When you lift your beater, the batter should form a thick ribbon.

Take off the heat and add the sifted together flour mixture slowly, Don't overbeat. Add the butter mixture bit by bit too until it's all incorporated.

Spoon or pipe the batter into the cupcake linings about 2/3rds full. (Hint: this goes a lot faster if you use a plastic bag as a "piping bag". Put the batter into a plastic zip bag, push the batter towards one corner, and holding the bag ready to go over a cupcake liner quickly cut off that corner with scissors - just a small hole does it! You'll fill the cupcakes up in no time.)

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15-25 minutes, depending on the size of the cupcakes, until a skewer inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Let cool completely before applying the icing.

Recipe: Lemon Icing

This amount will be enough to cover 12-16 medium sized cupcakes, depending on how generous you are with the icing.

250g / 8 oz icing (powdered) sugar
2-3 Tbs lemon juice, strained of all pips and pulp
additional water or lemon juice if necessary

Mix together the sugar and juice until it's quite runny. The amount of juice or water seems to vary on how humid the weather is. It should form a slightly runny paste, and drop slowly but easily off your spoon when it's ready to go. You can color it with food coloring if you like.

Drizzle with a spoon over the tops of the cupcakes.

Recipe: Fondant

Fondant is the stuff that covers those almost unreal-looking, smooth wedding cakes that you see in glossy magazines. It's also used to cover petit fours. It's not that hard to make, though a bit fiddly. The only special ingredient you need is liquid glycerine, which you can get at a pharmacy (drugstore). Be sure you get pure liquid glycerine, which is safe to eat, not something pre-formulated for cosmetic use! You can use this as a cake icing, or to make cake decorations as I have here, or even on their own as little 'fancies' or candies.

500g / 8 oz icing (powdered) sugar
50g / 2oz liquid glycerine
1 Tbs. egg white (approximately the egg white of one 'large' egg)
Food coloring of your choice

Mix together the ingredients until all the liquid is incorporated. Knead for a few minutes until totally smooth. Don't worry if it's a bit sticky, but if it's too dry add a tiny bit more egg white. Let rest in a plastic bag for at least an hour or overnight in the refrigerator (this seems to make it a bit easier to handle).

To make the fondant decorations, take a small bit of the fondant and color with the food coloring. There are different kinds of coloring, but the key is to always add a tiny bit at a time. I prefer to use paste or powdered food coloring, which gives me more control than the liquid kind.

The bunny heads are made by making a small, thick sausage with a fat middle and tapering ends. Fold this over and pinch the middle to make the face. Pinch the ends to make the ears. Smooth out any cracks with your fingers. Prick out the eyes and mouth with a toothpick.

The eggs are rolled balls shaped a bit to resemble eggs.

Prepare these in advance and leave out to dry a bit. Apply to the cupcakes while the lemon icing is still wet.

Leftover fondant can be frozen; just defrost at room temperature - never defrost in the microwave! Knead well after it's defrosted until it's supple. Or, it will keep for a couple of days well wrapped in the refrigerator.

April is Frugal Food Month on Just Hungry

maki — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:08:03 +0200

As I have noted over on Just Bento, April will be Frugal Food Month here on Just Hungry (and Frugal Bento Month over on Just Bento).

Personally, saving money has been on my mind a lot these days, as I realize that we need every penny we can scrape together to buy a house that we really like, in an area we really want to be in. While Just Bento will be concentrating on the money saving benefits of making your own lunch, here on Just Hungry I will be talking about a wider range of topics related to frugality and food. Some will be related to this site’s main topic, Japanese cooking (and culture), but not all.

Above all though, I hope to keep things fun and not too heavy.

So…stay tuned! :)

Special themes and events

maki — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:04:57 +0200

Top page for special themes and events.

Menu For Hope V: It's on!

maki — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:53:33 +0100

[Update:] Menu For Hope has been extended to December 31st!

Menu For Hope is an annual fundraising event, now in its 5th year, contributed to by food bloggers around the world. Last year, nearly US $100,000.00 was raised for the United Nations World Food Programme, to benefit the school lunch programme in Lesotho, Africa.

Menu For Hope’s creator and head organizer is Pim of Chez Pim, and this year’s regional Europe host is Sara of Ms. Adventures In Italy.

I’m happy to announce that Just Hungry is once again offering raffle prizes for Menu For Hope V. This year, we have two!

Raffle Code EU01: A Japanese food package worth 50 GBP from JapanCentre.com

Anyone who lives in the UK and is interested in Japanese food knows about Japan Centre, the great family-run Japanese food store (not to mention travel agency, bookstore, restaurant, recruitment centre…it’s a mini-Japanese conglomerate!) located in the hub of the action at Piccadilly Circus. They also have a terrific mailorder service. I’ve been a loyal customer myself for some time now. This prize is a 50 GBP (that’s British Pounds) value package of Japanese food products from Japan Centre online catalogue. I’ll select a good mix in consultation with Japan Centre, taking the winner’s wishes into account of course.

This prize can be sent to any country in Europe where Japan Centre delivers. Please check the list on this page to see if your country is eligible.

A big thanks to Simon Tokumine of Japan Centre for donating this great prize!

Raffle Code EU02: The Return Of The Big Box Of Swiss Chocolate

If you aren’t in Europe, there is no need to go away disappointed. This prize was very popular last year, and it’s back! The lucky winner will get 52 bars of Swiss chocolate. Yes that’s right, that’s one for every week of the year. The stack you see in the photo is just a representation, not the actual bars, because of course they will be procured just before shipping for maximum freshness. And, the winner’s tastes will be taken into account of course. No two bars will be the same! Yes, in Switzerland this is more than possible! (No, I’m not talking about candy bars, these are real chocolate bars.)

This prize can be delivered anywhere in the world. However, please check your country’s requirements regarding receiving gifts of food from overseas to avoid disappointment.

How to Bid for a Prize

Note down one of the prize codes above, either EU01 or EU02. Check out the great prize offered on Just Bento too. Or choose another prize from the list at Chez Pim, or the regional European list at Ms. Adventures In Italy.
Go to the donation site at First Giving and make a donation.
Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. You must specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02 and so on.
If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
Please allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

The last day for donations has been extended to December 31.

I know that this is a tough holiday season for a lot of us, but just keep in mind that there are many people, especially children, around the world that are in far worse situations than most of us are. For as little as $10, you not only would be donating to a great cause, but you could win something great, for yourself or a loved one!

Good luck and thank you to everyone who enters!

Last day for Menu For Hope, and Happy Holidays

maki — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:18:19 +0100

This is the very last day you can donate to Menu For Hope! And a nice bonus - take a look at the beautiful poem about Lesotho here by Rethabile. (Yes, if you also read Just Bento you’re getting this in double…but it’s a poem worth visiting more than once!)

Just Bento and Just Hungry (which is mostly me anyway) are taking a few days off to take care of a ton of offline duties. (Thank you for your nice emails…we’re hanging in around here.)

We decided not to get a tree this year, so the only Christmas decoration of sorts we have up is this wallhanging/advent calendar, that I finally finished last week.

In this day and age when things I have made or worked on exist only in digital form, it’s really grounding and satisfying to create something that has a physical form and presence, that I can touch and hold. That includes food too. There’s nothing better than the warm feeling you get when your friends and family’s faces light up when you present them with delicious food that you made with your own hands. Especially around the holidays.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Menu for Hope IV: Think Chocolate

maki — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:03:39 +0100

Just Hungry is happy to announce that once again, we’re donating a prize for Menu For Hope, now in its 4th year. Menu for Hope is an annual charity event contributed to by food bloggers around the world. It was instigated by Pim of Chez Pim, and this year’s regional European host is Fanny of foodbeam.

Menu For Hope IV will benefit the United Nations World Food Programme; this year’s donations have been earmarked for the school lunch programme in Lesotho, Africa.

The Just Hungry prize: A Leap Year’s Worth of Swiss Chocolate

The code for the Just Hungry prize is EU13. Note that down!

In case you hadn’t noticed, the current JHHQ is in beautiful, tranquil Switzerland. What is Switzerland known for? Heidi? Alps? Yodelers? Crazy dadaists? Discreet bankers? Modern architects? Cheese? Unfortunately none of those things can be shipped too far (or too easily). But chocolate can. 53 full size bars of Swiss chocolate, in fact (52 plus 1 for leap year) could be yours by bidding on EU13. They will be from local and small producers as well as popular brands; artisanal as well as a few mass market. All Swiss made, mostly varieties not sold outside of Switzerland, and all tested for quality at JH HQ. And, unless you have many dietary restrictions, 53 different kinds. (Yes, they make hundreds of different kinds of chocolate bars here.)

And that’s not all! This prize will be personally selected. The winner will be able to let us know in advance if they have any dietary or taste restrictions, such as nut allergies, a dislike for white chocolate, etc., within reason.

The approximate monetary value of this prize package is US $250.

The photo shows just a small representative selection of chocolates that you might get.

Important Fine Print

Shipping will be prepaid, and the box will be sent as a gift. In most cases you should not have to pay any duties - or if so they will be minimal. We’ve sent many similar packages to various countries around the world and have never had problems. In the event that there are any duties, they will be the responsibility of the recipient.

Special note for U.S. residents: Due to the uncertainties of what customs or Homeland Security’s policies du jour are, we would prefer to ship the prize to you in the first quarter of 2008 when one of us will be going to the U.S., unless you specify otherwise.

How to bid

Go to the donation page at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4.
Make a donation! Each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice.
Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. The prize code for the Just Hungry package is EU13. Please specify which prize or prizes you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. Specify how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code - for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU13 and 3 for EU14. Be sure to check the “I am happy for the page owner to see my email address …” box at the bottom! This will allow the organizers to contact winners.

Here’s an example:

The deadline for donating is December 21.
Check back on Chez Pim on January 9 when the result of the raffle will be announced.

Last year, Menu For Hope raised an amazing $62,925. I hope you will take the time this year to donate to a very worthy cause, with a chance to indulge yourself with Swiss chocolate for the whole year!

And, if 2008 will perchance be a year of abstinence and healthy eating for you, perhaps you’ll be interested in the bento-supplies-galore package being offered by Just Bento….or donate for both! You can also check out the list of great prizes offered by Europe-based food bloggers, or complete worldwide list.

Saturday thoughts: Donna Hay, Just Bento, food blogging events

maki — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:50:32 +0100

The sister site to Just Hungry got discovered by several sites overnight (while I was not at the computer, as always happens in such cases) and the traffic went up about 100 x, mainly thanks to it being on the del.icio.us popular page for a while. I haven’t even ‘officially’ launched it in my mind, since I am occasionally breaking it by fiddling with the engine (Drupal, for the technically inclined) in the background, but it’s very gratifying to know that people are interested in the subject. I think it must be timely.

While Just Bento is still in its infancy, bento fans should be sure to check out two great English language bento sites, Cooking Cute, which is on hiatus right now but has lots of great information in the archives, and Lunch In A Box, which among other things has lots of great information on making kid-friendly bento lunches. Both are in my favorite food blogs list.

I had a bit of a headache this morning due to a late night, and so plonked myself in front of the TV to watch Saturday Kitchen on the BBC, a breezy weekly food programme hosted by James Martin. One of his guests was Donna Hay, a cookbook author and food stylist who has fans all over the world. There’s even a food blogging event in her honor called Hay Hay It’s Donna Day (the latest round news is here). I love her food styling as much as everyone, but her appearance in the Saturday Kitchen was a bit of a let down - mainly because she declared in the Omelette Challenge (where two guests square off with each other to make a 3-egg omelette) that she doesn’t like eggs! In my slightly groggy state I was bowled over by this statement. How can you like food and not like eggs? (She was also wearing a sort of party outfit complete with cute and impractical shoes, and flirting quite a bit with the host James Martin, but that’s sort of beside the point. Needless to say, she lost the omelette challenge by a wide margin to chef Atul Kochhar, who I really admire - his book Simple Indian is so great that it’s surpassed my Madhur Jaffrey collection to become my favorite go-to Indian cookbook. I bet he doesn’t make a lot of omelettes being an Indian chef but he didn’t complain!) I felt a similar sort of disappointment when Tom Colicchio said earlier this year that he did not like okra, though he could be excused for that since okra is one of those love/hate kinds of foods. But…eggs!

Speaking of food blogging events - I feel rather bad about this but I am giving them a pass for the forseeable future. Even the one I started, Food Destinations, is on hiatus. What with starting another blog and other issues I just can’t find the time for them. I really appreciate getting invites to various events but…something has to give, unless I can magically increase the number of hours in a day, or figure out how to get by on 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour cycle. (Sometimes I get it down to 3, but it makes me cranky.)

Food Destinations #5 roundup is up

maki — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:49:20 +0100

Natalia has the roundup for Food Destinations #5 up on her blog now - go and check it out!

A typical Swiss farm shop (Food Destinations #5)

Guruman — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 08:39:41 +0100

For Food Destinations No. 5, the theme of which is “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”, our first inclination was to pick a restaurant we go to often. But while we have some favorites, we don’t really go to any one restaurant more than once or twice a month on average, since we like variety when eating out. On the other hand, there are a couple of food stores that we shop in almost every day, where they truly know our names. One of our favorite haunts is our very typically Swiss local farm shop in the suburbs of Zürich.

The Müller family runs a small farm that is typical of the non-rural areas of Switzerland. It’s tucked in the middle of ever-spreading housing construction, and they have had to slowly cut down their farming activities over the years - getting rid of the cows a few years ago, and the egg-laying chickens just recently. They still have the apple orchards and the vegetable and berry garden though.

Their farm shop is housed in a former small abattoir. Like most such farmer-operated stores, it has very limited opening hours: from 9 to 11:30 two mornings a week, and 30 minutes in the evenings every day except Sunday.

The product selection is top notch. Even though they don’t have their own chickens anymore they still sell fresh, organic or Integrierte Produktion (which is a designation for produce that’s almost totally organic) locally produced eggs for a bit less than the equivalent quality at the supermarkets. While the eggs are still expensive by U.S. standards at around 60 Rappen or US 50 cents per egg, they are worth it all the way.

They have their own line of organic apple products: Süssmost (non-alcoholic apple cider), apple preserves, dried apple rings, and a delicious alcoholic bubbly apple wine called Blauacher Chlöpfmoscht.

The Müllers are also part of the Slow Food movement. Following that philosophy, they carry a nice selection of interesting and locally produced products, such as organic spelt, called Dinkel in German and epautre in French, and pasta made from spelt and other flours.

Depending on the time of year, they have all kinds of interesting things like wild garlic pesto, elderberry syrup, and a variety of honeys and jams. During the harvest months they have a small selection of fruits and vegetables. They also sell a delicious Bergkäse - country farm cheese, made from the milk of cows that spend the winters in the meadows in the hills above our village, and the summers up in the Alps near the resort town of Arosa in the Grisons, chomping on alpine flowers and herbs. Imagine a great aged Gruyère with rich, herbal undertones. You will rarely see this kind of cheese sold at regular stores in the city, or even at the open markets, because the production is too small.

And on Saturdays, Frau Müller bakes some delicious bread on the premises. The chubby Knopf (knot) loaves, fragrant with milk and butter, are to die for, and the whole grain Hirtenbrot (shepherd’s bread) is not far behind.

Does this sound special? It is, but yet it’s not. While the Müllers’ store is quite a bit prettier and better stocked than most, small farm stalls and stores selling what the farmer produces exist in many communities around Switzerland, quietly upholding the tradition of fresh, locally produced food. We really hope that the continuing encroachment of large supermarkets and hypermarkets won’t drive these tiny family run operations into extinction.

Müller’s Buurelädeli, Dorfstrasse 56, 8906 Bonstetten
Open Mon-Sat 18:30 - 19:00; Fri & Sat 9 - 11:30

If you live in or are visiting Switzerland and want to find a farm store

The best way to find a farm store near you is to just keep your eyes open as you walk or drive around and look for the signs that say Eier (eggs) and/or Frische Früchte und Gemüse (fresh fruits and vegetables). In the French speaking areas, look for oeufs and legumes et fruits frais. Or, ask your neighbours! Most towns and villages have at least one farmer who sells things like fresh eggs and vegetables directly. Shopping at farm stores is one of the under-appreciated pleasures of living in Switzerland.

This is an entry for Food Destinations No. 5 food blogging event hosted by From Our Kitchen. It’s part of the Food Destinations series originated by Just Hungry. Keep an eye on the host site From Our Kitchen for the roundup!

If you’d like to host a future Food Destinations event and bring fame, fortune (well maybe not that) and visitors to your food blog, please let us know.

(Photos and research by Max, written by Maki.)

Food Destinations #5 is on!

maki — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:57:21 +0100

Food Destinations is back for round 5! This time it’s hosted by Natalia of From Our Kitchen, and the theme is Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Details are here! The deadline is March 18th.