Insalata Caprese

Today was an all Italian food day at my house. We had lasagna rolls, chicken parmigiana and caprese salad for dinner. All that was missing was the tiramisu and it would've been perfect but I've never made tiramisu and I didn't have most of the ingredients the recipe calls for, so I guess I'll make it another day.

Anyway, insalata caprese or caprese salad is super easy to make and it's delicious! All you need are:
-tomatoes
-fresh mozzarella cheese
-fresh basil
-olive oil
-balsamic vinegar

Slice the tomato and the the mozzarella cheese. Add the basil leaves, whole or chopped, whichever you prefer. Finally, drizzle the salad with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Buon appetito!

Strawberry Garnished Chocolate Cake

Today I baked a cake for my uncle's birthday and I wanted to share it with you guys but first I wanted to share a little story of how I decided what cake I would make for my uncle.

A few months ago, I introduced my mom to Pinterest and she's been pinning like mad ever since. I swear, she has more pins and boards than I do. So a couple of weeks ago she pinned this cake, which is just a bundt cake with berries in the center and on top.

 

I don't know why but she really liked it and kept telling me to make it. Finally, I caved in and told her I would make it for my uncle's birthday. She was so excited, it was so cute. It's a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, garnished with strawberries and blackberries drizzled with chocolate. I didn't have a bundt cake mold so I used a regular circular mold instead. It was really good!

And this is my version of the cake!

What do you think?

<3, Martha

Super Simple Spinach Lasagna

Yesterday (Friday), I decided to make a spinach lasagna for my family because I didn't want to eat fish (we don't eat meat on Fridays right now because it's Lent). Also, my dad's allergic to seafood and he always ends up eating a sandwich on Fridays and I can tell he's sick of sandwiches so I thought he'd enjoy this dish. Anyway, the lasagna was a big hit, everyone loved it and now I wanted to share the recipe with you guys.

Ingredients:
1 box of lasgna
2 jars of tomato sauce
2 large boxes of spinach
2 small bags of shredded mozzarella cheese
dried basil
salt

Directions:
1) Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box
2) Cook the spinach until it's soft and add salt to taste
3) Mix the spinach with a bag and a half of the mozzarella cheese

4) Add a layer of lasagna until if covers the bottom of a large glass dish

5) Add a layer of half of the spinach and cheese mixture

6) Cover with tomato sauce and sprinkle some basil on top

7) Repeat steps 4-6
8) Add another layer of lasagna, tomato sauce, cheese and basil

9) Put the lasagna in the oven until the cheese melts or about 10-15 min

And your done! It's a super simple and delicious vegetarian meal!

Oh! Also, I made some chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I won't post the recipe because to tell you the truth, they weren't the best tasting cupcakes I've ever made, so I'll wait until I have a delicious recipe to post it. What really improved these cupcakes was the cream cheese frosting I used. It's super simple, all you need is 1 pkg of cream cheese, 1/2 stick of butter and 2 cups confectioner's sugar. Bon appetit!

 

<3, Martha

Pink Ombre Swirl Birthday Cake!

It's my 23rd birthday today! Yay! I'm pretty excited to see what this year of my life will bring. 

As a gift to myself, I decided to bake a birthday cake. I actually don't have any pictures of  the process except a phone pic of the colored batter but here's the recipe for those who would like to try it out.

Ingredients:
-1 cup of unsalted butter
-2 cups sugar
-4 eggs
-1 1/2 cups self rising flour (or 1.5 cups regular flour + 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder + 3/4 tsp. salt)
-1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
-1 cup milk
-2 (or 3) teaspoons vanilla extract
 *1/2 cup vegetable oil (to make it moist, otherwise it turns out a bit dry)

**I doubled up the recipe because as you'll see shortly, I made a pink ombre cake.

Directions for cake:
-Grease & flour cake pan
-Cream butter til smooth
-Add sugar and beat til fluffy (about 2-3min.)
-Add eggs 1 at a time, beating after each addition
-Combine the flours and add in 4 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla extract. beating well after each addition
-Divide batter in bowls and add different amounts of coloring to create different shades of pink
-Pour into baking pans
-Bake 20-25 minutes at 350F
-Let cakes cool
-Stack layers together "gluing" them together with a thin layer of frosting.

The recipe for the frosting can be found in this blog. Now let me tell you, this is hands down the best frosting recipe ever. I've used this recipe countless times and have gotten so many compliments on how good it is.
*The only change I made was that instead of 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract, I used 2.
*Also, I doubled the recipe (I would actually recommend to triple the recipe so you won't run out of frosting like I did)
*I also divided the frosting into 4 bowls to create 4 different shades of pink

 Directions for frosting the cake:
-Frost the entire cake with a thin layer of light pink or white frosting (I didn't do this because knew I would run out of frosting if I did, and I was out of butter and powdered sugar to make more frosting. So, if you look closely you can see little brown gaps).
-Using a Wilton 1M tip make big rose swirly shapes by swirling the frosting starting in the middle of the rose, going outward in a clockwise direction.
-Make the bottom row the darkest shade and make the following rows lighter as you go up.
-Once you reach the top, do the same for the top of the cake using the lightest shade of pink. And that's it! Hope you enjoy your ombre cake as much as I did mine!

P.S. This is how it looks on the inside. Pretty, huh?

Valentine's Day Strawberry Cupcakes

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! 

I wanted to share with you a strawberry cupcake recipe I made today. Whether you're single or in a relationship, you'll definitely love these strawberry cupcakes!

I must admit, I had to improvise a bit on this recipe because: 1) I only had exactly 6 tablespoons of butter available, 2) I don't have a cupcake pan that fits into my counter top oven, and 3) I wanted PINK cupcakes so I added some food coloring. However, I was determined to make these cupcakes and in the end I think they turned out pretty well.

The recipe I used is adapted from this one. I went over the reviews and made some of the suggested changes, plus, I also added my own.

CUPCAKE RECIPE:
Ingredients:
-6 tablespoons (tbs) butter at room temperature
-3/4 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-1 1/2 tbs strawberry extract
-4-5 drops of red food coloring (if you want pink cupcakes)
-1 3/4 cup self rising flour
*** or if you don't have self rising flour like me, use 1 3/4cup flour, 2 teaspoons (tsp) baking powder and 1 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/2 cup fresh or thawed finely chopped strawberries
-1/2 cup milk

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325F (165C).

2. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time and then stir in the strawberry extract and food coloring. Add the milk. Combine the self rising flour and salt and stir into batter just until blended. Fold in strawberries last. spoon into baking cups.
*Now, this is one of the places where I improvised. I used 2 baking cups per cupcake so they would hold up better and I placed them in a baking dish. The cupcakes came out kind of  with a wonky shape but taste-wise they were delicious! Strawberry cupcakes are strawberry cupcakes regardless of their shape and size. ;)

Here's a pic of my wonky-shaped cupcakes:

As I mentioned before, I didn't have any more butter for the frosting so I decided to go with a simple glaze instead. Oh, and of course I was also running low on confectioner's sugar so I just used what I had. All you need are 4 ingredients.

FOR THE FROSTING:
Ingredients:
-1 cup confectioner's sugar (I only used 3/4 cup because that's all I had)
-5 tsp milk
-1tsp vanilla or any other flavoring (I used 1/2 strawberry and 1/2 vanilla)
-1-2 drops of food coloring (optional)

Directions:
1. Place confectioner's sugar, flavoring, coloring and 3 tsp of the milk in a bowl together. Mix.
2. Gradually add the remaining milk until it reaches the desired consistency.
3. Pour a spoonful onto cupcake and spread evenly.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!

Today's my grandpa's birthday! I'm pretty excited because:
1) It's the first time in four years that I've been with him for his birthday
2) I baked him a cake! Yay!

So, I'm not really going to post a tutorial for this cake, mostly because I already made it but here is a picture of the finished cake. It's a vanilla-chocolate-vanilla 3-layer cake, covered in vanilla buttercream frosting and it says "Happy birthday grandpa" in Spanish. And yeah, it's green and blue, not the most appetizing colors, I realize, but it was delicious!

Happy birthday grandpa!!