Sausage-Stuffed Piglet Buns

I love cute food; I love all things mini, colorful, and decorated. It just makes food that much more fun to eat. Maybe I'm still stuck in a little-kid mentality in which your parents would have to place about 10 toys on your high chair and/or put on A Little Mermaid and/or go with you to the park to feed the pigeons and/or take you to the beach in order to get you to eat lunch. Wait, you mean your parents didn't do that with you?

Anyways, these sausage-stuffed rolls in the shape of pigs definitely fit the definition of cute food. They're also fun to make and delicious. The flavor of the sausage is perfectly balanced by the fluffy, soft, and slightly sweet bread. They'll definitely be a hit with little kids who like to play with their food. Or not-so little kids. Ahem.

I'm guest blogging at Girl Versus Dough today, so hop on over to Stephanie's wonderful website for the recipe!

-Caroline

Mixed Berry Bundt Cake

I'm officially done with finals and my first year of college! Whew! Before we get to the good stuff (cake!), I just want to take a moment to reflect on this.

Wow, it's been a long year, and a lot has happened. In September 2012 I arrived on campus as a nervous and excited freshman, hungry for life and new experiences. I settled in my dorm, made dear new friends during Welcome Week, conquered homesickness, joined the synchronized figure skating team, took challenging but enjoyable classes I never thought of taking (Dostoevsky, Philosophy, History of South Asia...and more), survived the Chicago winter, and ended the year strong with the beautiful spring and onset of summer.

It was a wild ride, but I couldn't have done it without the support of my family, friends, and of course...you! Pass the Cocoa has grown so much in this past year, in terms of design and content quality, and it's been such a great joy to be able to bake and share with you, even during college. It makes us so happy to see that you are commenting on our posts, and especially when you report your successes with the recipe! So on behalf of Pass the Cocoa -- Thank you. Thank you for visiting, for supporting us, for commenting, liking, sharing, pinning, and everything! (:

So this cake...

This is definitely one of those cakes that disappears so quickly that you don't even get a chance to take a photo of the inside...which is exactly what happened to me.

I made this cake for my friend Feeney's birthday, and it was a hit (of course)! The inside is super moist and dense, and what's amazing about this recipe is that it doesn't use any butter! In fact, what I ended up doing is replacing the vegetable oil with applesauce, because we didn't have any vegetable oil in stock. So you have applesauce, lots of blueberries and strawberries, and a spunky lemon glaze...perfection!

You've got to try out this recipe and let me know how much you love it! I'm personally really happy with myself because as I mentioned when I made

Blueberry French Toast

, the dorm kitchen doesn't have a measuring cup, so I literally eyeballed everything for this cake recipe. Impressive, huh?

Note: You may make this in any cake pan, not just bundt pan. You may have to adjust the time the cake is in the oven, however.

Also, I'd like to thank Kacey for being my helper (:

Cheers,

Monica

Click here for printable recipe of Mixed Berry Bundt Cake

.

Mixed Berry Bundt Cake

Moist, dense, and very flavorful berry cake

!

Adapted from

Manila Spoon

Time: 1 hour

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients

For cake

:

2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

1 ½ cup granulated sugar (white sugar)

1 cup sour cream*

¼ cup vegetable oil (or, ¼ cup applesauce)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons lemon juice (or, juice of 1 lemon)

Grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)

¾ cup fresh strawberries, chopped (approximate)

¾ cup fresh blueberries (approximate)

For vanilla glaze

:

¾ cup confectioners' sugar (powdered sugar)

1 - 2 tablespoons whole milk**

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

*You may substitute 1 cup plain yogurt for 1 cup sour cream. However, because yogurt has a thinner texture, you have to thicken it by draining through a cheesecloth-lined sieve over a bowl in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes beforehand. If you use vanilla-flavored yogurt, be sure to lessen the amount of sugar used in the recipe, because the yogurt itself is sweetened.

**You may substitute 1 - 2 tablespoons lemon juice for 1 - 2 tablespoons whole milk to make lemon glaze instead of vanilla glaze. In the case of lemon glaze, omit the vanilla extract.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bundt pan.

2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the 2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Set aside.

3. Combine beaten eggs and sugar until the mixture becomes smooth. It will take around 3 minutes.

4. Once the mixture is smooth, add sour cream, vegetable oil, vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Mix until well-combined.

5. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until moistened, just combined. Don’t overmix!

6. Toss the chopped strawberries and blueberries in 2 tablespoons flour until coated. Gently fold strawberries and blueberries into the mixture. Transfer to the prepared bundt pan and bake for 40 - 45 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

7. While cooling, make the glaze: Combine powdered sugar and milk. Start with one tablespoon and add more little by little until you reach desired consistency. It should be liquid but not too runny. Add vanilla extract. Drizzle over the cooled cake. The other alternative is to simply sprinkle with powdered sugar. Or, go the easy & quick route, skip the glaze and powdered sugar, and dig in! Enjoy.

Oreo Ice Cream Cake (No Bake!)

Way back in March, my friend and I made this Oreo Ice Cream Cake for my future roommate Rebecca's birthday! This is going to be just a fun-sy type of recipe, so apologies if the photos are a little less than professional. I almost feel bad for following up Caroline's beautiful

Orange Macarons post

with this one...You'll forgive me, though, right? Because I'm going to show you how to make this amazing Oreo Ice Cream Cake!

You're going to want to make this because it's

so easy

yet delicious and super impressive. I only wish I had better lighting to show you how truly good this cake is.

To clarify, this ice cream cake does not actually have "cake" in it, which I think is perfectly fine because that's what makes this recipe

no-bake

. And this is a very good thing -- at least for my present circumstances -- because my adventures with 

Blueberry French Toast

 have more than proven that college dorm kitchens are a little sketch. And actually, you'll see a little bit of that sketchiness in this post as well.

Good thing is, as I've said before, this cake is suuuuper easy to make. Really, all you do is swirl some Oreos in vanilla ice cream, plop it on top of an Oreo crust, and add chocolate & strawberry decorations. Can life be more beautiful? I dare you to object.

The verdict? The cake was a hit! Everyone was so surprised and impressed when we unveiled the cake. My friend Kacey is super pro at chocolate piping, and I give all credit to her for her signature "alien" and "cheese" chocolate designs. I like to say her designs gave the cake a kick of personality, don't you think so?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this recipe! ...And wish me luck on finals week. As much as I love my school, I can't wait to be back home to see my family and friends, and of course...relax! It'll also be nice to return to baking in a real kitchen. You know what I mean?

Happy summer & ice cream,

Monica (:

*

First, the crust. Put a whole package of Oreos in a large plastic bag. I only had little ones, so we did small batches of Oreo-crushing.

Ideally, you want to use a food processor to lightly crush up the Oreo into small chunks. The other conventional method is to crush the Oreos with a rolling pin. But since even a rolling pin was unavailable to us, we had to resort to using a frying pan for Oreo-crushing -- er, smashing. We made such frightful noise in the kitchen that I'm frankly amazed that people from the other floors didn't make complaints...

Mix half of the crushed Oreos with melted butter to make the crust. Pat down onto cake pan (ideally), which in our case took the form of a pot.

Line the cake pan (er, pot) with seran wrap or foil

to make removing removing the cake easier in the end. Just wait, you'll be so happy you did so.

Okay, so maybe our Oreo crust wasn't very finely crushed, but you'd be surprised how difficult it is to crush things into fine bits using a frying pan.

Next, take out your vanilla or cookies n' cream ice cream and incorporate the remaining crushed Oreos in a large container. Try not to let the ice cream melt too much since you're mixing it in room temperature.

Transfer the mixed ice cream into the cake pan (or, pot), on top of the Oreo crust. Garnish with chocolate piping designs. You are witnessing the creation of Kacey's signature alien design + balloon. Melt chocolate in microwave or on stove and transfer into plastic bag. Cut a tiny slit in the corner, and there you have your very own homemade piping bag!

Enjoy!

Click here for printable recipe of Oreo Ice Cream Cake

.

Oreo Ice Cream Cake

Cookies n' cream (or vanilla) ice cream with Oreo crust, chocolate designs and strawberry garnish. The perfect birthday treat

.

Time: 30 - 60 minutes

Ingredients

1 package Oreos

3 pints vanilla or cookies n' cream ice cream

some butter, melted

chocolate chips and strawberries, for garnish

Directions

1. Crush Oreos using food processor or rolling pin. Mix half of the crushed Oreos with melted butter to make the crust.

2. Pat down Oreo crust into cake pan lined with seran wrap or foil to make removing the cake easier in the end.

3. Take out ice cream and incorporate crushed Oreos in a large bowl. Don't let the ice cream melt too much while mixing in room temperature. Transfer into cake pan, on top of Oreo crust.

4. Take out ice cream cake from the cake pan. Garnish with melted chocolate and sliced strawberries. (Melt chocolate in microwave or on stove and transfer into plastic bag. Cut a tiny slit in the corner, and there you have your homemade piping bag!) Enjoy immediately, or freeze and enjoy!

Orange Macarons

Well, it's finally happened. I've caught macaron mania. I've been looking at a ton of different macaron posts on the blogosphere for a couple of weeks now, and have finally gotten around to making my own. We've all heard about how difficult they are to make, how easy they are to mess up, and while these are both true to a certain extent, I don't think they're worth all the fuss that has been made. No, your first few batches may not be perfect (mine weren't), but they're not terribly hard. Although, of course, the only way to ascertain that for yourself is to make them!

I followed

Bravetart's recipe

, and they turned out very well. She is very thorough and clear, and she also disproves some

macaron myths

.

These guys are actually the second batch I made (I wanted to make sure that the first time wasn't just a fluke!). The first time around, I made some plain macaron shells with Nutella filling.

For the orange macarons, I added orange food coloring to the macaron batter, and filled them with orange curd. I also painted the shells with a dab of food coloring.

Some things I have observed so far in my macaron adventures:

• While the Bravetart recipe calls for the macarons to be baked for 18 minutes, mine weren't done in that time. The insides were still gooey and wet, and the bottoms stuck to the parchment paper when I tried to lift them. I ended baking them for close to 25 minutes.
• If your macarons are slightly over-baked and too crispy, don't worry! Add whatever filling you're using, and store them in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for a day, and they'll be perfect. Not So Humble Pie discusses maturing macarons in her Macaron Troubleshooting post.
• The row of macarons closest to the oven door tends to crack. I've played with adjusting the temperature, but I'm still not sure why this is.

Enjoy!

-Caroline

Update 9-2013: Check out my

Rose Macarons

for step-by-step pictures!

Click here for the printer-friendly recipe.

Orange Macaron Recipe

Adapted from

Bravetart

Ingredients

Shells

2 oz. (58 g) Almond Flour or Almonds (with or without their skins)

4 oz. (115 g) Powdered sugar

1.25 oz. (36 g) Granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon (1 g) Salt

2.5 oz. (72 g) Egg whites (about 2 eggs)

Gel or powder food coloring

Assembly

Orange food coloring (optional)

A few drops of water (optional)

1/3 cup orange curd

Directions

2. If you’re using whole almonds, you’ll need to grind them. Place the almonds in a food processor and roughly grind them. It doesn’t need to be too fine, but there shouldn’t be any large chunks. Add in two or three tablespoons of powdered sugar and continue grinding the almonds until they are very fine. Add the rest of the powdered sugar and grind for another 15-30 seconds.
4. Make the meringue. Mix together the granulated sugar and salt. In a very clean bowl, begin beating the egg whites on medium-low speed until frothy, about 1-2 minutes. Increase speed to medium, and gradually add the granulated sugar-salt mixture, and beat until soft peaks form, about 2-3 minutes. Increase speed to high, and beat until the meringue is very stiff and shiny, about 2-3 minutes. Add gel or powdered food coloring, if desired, and beat the meringue for another minute.
6. Hold a mesh strainer over the meringue, and sift the almond mixture over the meringue. Return any pieces that don’t pass through the strainer to the food processor, and grind them some more, and sift them again. There may still be a few bits that are too big (less than a tablespoonful); just add them to the meringue.
8. Begin folding the dry ingredients into the meringue. Be sure to scrape the edges of the bowl. When done, the batter should be think, but somewhat fluid. Do the ribbon and/glop test to check.

• Ribbon test: hold a spatula-full of batter over the bowl, and it should fall into the bowl in a thick ribbon. The ribbon should re-incorporate into the batter within about 30 seconds.
• Glop test: drop a spoonful of batter onto a plate. The peak should smooth out within 10 seconds.

2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or Silipat.
4. Put the batter into a pastry bag with a round tip about ¼-inch wide. Pipe out 1-inch wide circles, leaving around 1 inch between circles.
6. Rap the baking sheet against a counter or tape several times to release any air bubbles trapped in the batter. You should see bubbles rise to the top and pop.
8. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow the batter to rest in open air until the tops are set; when you lightly touch the circles with a finger, no batter sticks to it.
10. Put the macarons in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, until the cookies can come cleanly off the parchment paper, and the insides are done. (They should be slightly damp on the inside, but not wet and sticky.)
12. Allow the macarons to cool, and fill with orange curd. (See recipe below). Spoon about ½ tablespoon of curd onto a macaron, and top with another macaron.
14. (Optional) Mix together about ¼ teaspoon orange food coloring with a few drops of water. Use a pastry brush to brush on some food coloring on the top of the macarons.

Orange Curd

Adapted from

Bakers Royale

Ingredients

¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Zest of 1 orange

1/3 cup granulated sugar

5 tablespoons butter

3 egg yolks

Directions

2. Put the orange and lemon juices, zest, and sugar into a saucepan and heat over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the butter and continue cooking until the butter is melted.
4. Whisk the egg yolks until fluffy.
6. Slowly pour about ¼ cup of the juice mixture into the yolks, while continuously whisking.
8. Pour the yolk/juice mixture back into the sauce pan, and continue cooking until the curd thickens and a spoon leaves a clear trail in the curd.
10. Take the curd off the heat and allow to cool. Store in the refrigerator.