Pride Parade weekend and birthday fun

Mah birthday was a couple weekends ago. I love cakes with whipped cream and berries, but my lovely allergy tolerance doesn't allow me much dairy. So this is a hybrid dairy-non dairy version. It does, however, HAVE to be dairy for the cake since it is so rich.

Becky's Bday cake

Cake-
2 c all purpose flour, unbleached
1 1/2 c turbinado sugar
2 tsp baking powder (the stuff in the tin, not the box)
1 tsp fine sea salt
8 tbsp melted butter (let it cool for a sec though) - i think thats a whole stick
2 beaten eggs
1 c whole milk
2 tsp plus a smidge vanilla extract (use the good stuff, don't skimp!)


filling-
2 pints strawberries (one pint rinsed, one pint with the green stuff removed and sliced)
3 tbsp sugar
1 tub of light coolwhip

heat the oven to 375, F. Butter 2 - 8" cake pans (yes, really use butter). Cut out a circle of wax paper and stick it in the inside in the bottom. Kind of smoosh it down till it sticks to the butter. Dust everything with flour.

Mix the sugar, baking powder, flour, and salt in a big bowl. Make a little indentation and add the wet ingredients in that spot. Mix all together with a fork or a whisk till the bottom of the bowl is all mixed up. Divide into the 2 pans and bake for about 25 min (set a timer, and then they are done when a toothpick comes out clean). Cool for about 30 min - 10 min in the pan, 20 on a rack.

mix the sliced berries with sugar and half the coolwhip. sandwich it within the cake layers on a nice pretty plate. top with coolwhip and the pretty big berries!




Chinese Broccoli - Gai Lan

This is my fav vegetable in the world. Currently, i could eat this every night, however, i only go to golden foods once a month. Pick fresh, pretty bunches without yellowing.

1 bunch Gai Lan
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 upper thumb joint sized hunk of ginger
6 tbsp veggie stock (i keep a waterbottle of this stuff premixed in the fridge most of the time)
4 tbsp oyster flavor sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
a couple shakes ginger powder.

boil water (about 10 c) with ginger and baking soda. While this is coming to a boil make sauce - bring stock, oyster sauce, vinegar, ginger powder, and sugar to a boil, turn to simmer for 4 min, and then just low to keep warm. When water in the big pot boils, add Gai Lan and boil for about 4 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water, and transfer to a plate. Chop quickly (about 5 slices down each stalk), and top with sauce. TAADAA!

mmmm, jew cookies

fresh bakes goodness.
Hamentashen
Yes, I know I'm late. I bought all the goodies to make these, but ran out of time. It was a busy couple of weeks! These are some of my absolute favorite cookies on the planet that do not necessarily involve chocolate. I don't know mom's recipe, but this is based off of a couple I've found over the years. Favorite fillings are: poppyseed (pie filling), almond (pie filling), chocolate chips (the mini ones work best), and all-fruit jams (my sister loves the raspberry one the best).

Since I have a tile countertop, i just unrolled a big big sheet of aluminum foil, floured it, and it worked fine. easy clean up too!

5 oz unsalted butter or margarine (a stick and a 1/4)
1 3/4 c flour (i use unbleached)
1 egg yolk
2 tsp almond milk
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp sugar
whatever canned filling

combine dry ingredients in a bowl. warm butter in the microwave (not TOTALLY melted, just nice and soft). combine by form with dry ingredients. add egg, milk, and vanilla, and mix with fork. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 375. Roll out sections of dough on a floured surface. Cut round shaped out with a coffee tin or something (my pint glasses worked nicely). arrange on cookie sheet and drop a tsp of filling into each. Pinch of sections of 3rds to form the circles into funny pyramids, to make them kinda look like little jelly filled hats. BAKE at 375 for 15-20 min, until golden.

tips

• you can also be lazy and cut out squares and fold those over, but they aren't as neat.
• don't overfill! There is nothing grosser than burned jelly on the bottom of your cookies! Jellies tend to leak through any tiny cookie hole and bubble up.
  
• If you want the "I spent entirely too much time on these" look, brush each cookie while baking with a smear of beaten egg. it makes them golden and pretty.

ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS
cookie rounds
1 small blop

fold up 2 corners, pinching the ends
pinch up the 3rd, and voila! a semi-cool looking little cookie.