Deviled Eggs

I've tried many different deviled eggs and let me tell you, every one of them have tasted different. Some I liked and some I didn't. I stick to the recipe I always helped my mom make growing up because to me, it tastes a lot better than any other one I've tried. It's a fairly simply recipe. I don't measure the ingredients really, it's more of eyeballing them and tasting it as I go along to see if I need anything else.

Ingredients:
4-5 large eggs
mustard
pepper
Worcestshire sauce
mayonnaise

Optional:
paprika
relish

The first thing you have to do is boil eggs. I usually boil 4-5 depending on how many people are going to be eating them because you have to remember each egg, makes 2 pieces. To boil eggs, cover eggs with water in a pot, cover and bring to boil. Once they begin to boil, turn burner off and let them sit for 12 minutes with the lid on. Once they are done, it's best to let them cool a little to where you can handle them without burning yourself or if you're in a hurry, hold them under running cold water as you're peeling them so they don't burn you.

Once the eggs are peeled, cut them in half, the long way. Carefully remove the yolk by turning the egg over and gently pushing the white, popping out the yolk. I've tried many methods of mashing the yolks and I finally came up with the best one, that makes the yolks always smooth, never lumpy. A strainer. I have a little metal strainer that I use (in the picture), that I put all the yolks in and use the back of a spoon to mash them through it. If you don't have one, you can always just use a fork; it just takes longer and it may have little lumps in it.

When the yolks are all mashed, you can start adding the other ingredients. A few shakes of Worcestershire sauce is all you need since it is pretty salty. Be careful not to add too much. Remember less is more. You can always add, but can never take out. 1/4 tsp pepper and a  1/2 tsp mustard is about as much as I use, but you can always add more to your liking. For the mayonnaise, I start with about a tbsp or two and mix it up and add little by little until it's the creamy consistency that I want. After you've tasted it and got it to your liking, I like to split mine in half and do the deviled eggs two different ways: one plain and one with relish. If you want the plain, then you are done and can start spooning the filling back into the egg halves. I like to top the plain ones with sprinkled paprika. If you want the relish ones, add about a tsp of relish (I like to use dill relish) and then fill the egg halves. Both are equally good, but some people don't like pickles so they stick to just making the plain ones.

Minecraft Cake

I enjoy making cakes and decorating them, tests my abilities to be creative. Now, I know nothing about this game, Minecraft, but one of the kids I work with is really into it and he was turning 13 so I wanted to make him a special cake for his special day of becoming a teenager. I tried Googling it to see what ideas would pop up to help me figure out how to decorate this cake. Now, there were some really neat ideas on there, but they seem to be ones that were very time consuming and I didn't have days to design this cake. I've also never worked with fondant and didn't want to start using it at a time where I'd have to roll and cut out hundreds of squares to make the all the little pixels that the game consists of.

I decided to go with the cut up and layered cake to make it look like it came from a scene from the game. I decided to make 4- 9 in square cakes. I didn't have the time to go out and buy all the ingredients to make these so I used box cake mix to make it easier. However, I did take the time to make the icing from scratch because store bought icing is way to sweet and well, I just don't like it. I made chocolate cake and for the filling icing, I tried making a mint chocolate chip icing, that turned out pretty delicious. I'll add the icing recipe below. For the outer icing, I made a mix of vanilla and chocolate chocolate chip icing.

I made the cakes and threw them into the oven. It helps to put a square piece of parchment paper on the bottom of the pans and spray the sides with nonstick cooking spray so you don't find yourself with a rough bottom where parts stuck and you don't have an even square cake. Once they are completely cool, I cut the tops of the cakes off so they would be flat, since the middle usually rises, causing a hill and we want flat land for this cake. The tops I put aside and plan on making cake pops with them. With the flat squares, I put the icing in a plastic ziploc bag and cut the tip so it would squeeze out in a thick layer. I outlined the first square with the icing and then filled in the rest with more icing, laying one of the other pieces of cake on top. I repeated the same for the other two pieces of cake, so I ended up with two cakes filled with icing. Then I cut the cakes in half so I had 4 long pieces and cut two of them a bit shorter so I'd have a stair like effect, when layered. With the little bit of icing I had left, I used it to stick the pieces together.

Once it was in the shape that I wanted, I made another batch of icing, to cover the outside and make it look like one big piece instead of a few chunks. The second batch, I made just like the mint one, except I didn't put the peppermint oil in it. I used 1 tsp of vanilla extract instead. I also divided it into two parts 1/3 of it I added green food coloring to, to make the grass and the other 2/3 I added cocoa, to make it look like the dirt, as well as hand mixing in a handful of mini chocolate chips to make it look a little rocky.. Using cocoa made it a very light brown, not so much the dark dirt color that I was hoping for, so I took some of the cake that I had cut off earlier and crumbled it up and covered the chocolate icing with it. Make sure you don't cover the whole cake with it though. The tops of the pieces of cake should be covered with the green icing, piped on with the grass tip that you can find in the cake decorating section of a craft store or possibly even Walmart. I only needed one batch of icing to cover the whole cake but I really had to stretch it, so be careful when icing it so you don't run out. You can tell by looking at the picture, how the icing goes.

I tried making green rice krispy treats and wrapping them around KitKat sticks to make square trees like I saw online, but the rice krispy treats ended up being too heavy and made the trees sink into the cake, so instead, I made them into green slime cubes that you can find in the game. I think it ended up working better that way anyway. I also had little chocolates that looked like pieces of gold from the game that I put around the cake.

I was trying to figure out what to put on top of the cake since trying to make any character from the game out of gum paste was going to be impossible with the little amount of time I had to get it decorated and all the little figurines that you can buy of them, he already owned. So I found 3-D cardboard cutouts that you can buy and assemble and they worked perfectly. Once it was all done, I got a simple tube of icing, the kind that doesn't taste good, but it's good to write on cakes with and wrote Happy Birthday.

*NOTE: I needed to transport this across town and it didn't do well traveling 25 minutes, in the sun and going over bumps, but it was fixable. It'd probably be easier to have everything ready and bring it to your destination, if you need to move it, before assembling it with the outer icing. Or if you have someone to hold it for you and they can stay completely still, you'll be good too.

Mint Chocolate Chip Icing:
2 sticks of butter, room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp milk
4-5 drops peppermint oil
3-4 drops green food coloring
1 cup mini chocolate chips

In the mixer, whip butter for 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar a cup at a time along with the peppermint oil and food coloring. Add milk accordingly, if you feel it's too thick. Once all is mixed, beat another 3-4 minutes. Remove from mixer and hand mix in the mini chocolate chips.

*You can find the peppermint oil with the cake/candy making supplies at any craft store. You can also use peppermint extract from the grocery store, it's just not as strong and you may need to add more drops.