How to Make your Own Vanilla Extract

Happiness to Charlie Brown and the Gang is:

finding a pencil.

Pizza with sausage.

Telling the time.

Happiness is learning to whistle.

Tying your shoe for the very first time.

Happiness for Bake Happy Blogger is:

Having a sister

Sharing Bulgogi

Pouring vanilla extract onto a cake batter without a care in the world.

Yeah, it is a total luxury to have Vanilla Extract and pour not just a teaspoon or two in your recipe. That's why I envy Chef Michael Smith, that lucky guy! He's got this big bottle of homemade vanilla extract that he just pours in total abandon when he's making a cake. Never measuring how much he's put into his batter. Ohhh that's the life!


You see, I always buy from The Vanilla Bean Company for my vanilla extract and vanilla bean needs. Unfortunately, I always run out of the extract so I have to go out and buy some again. So I decided, I might save money if I make my own vanilla extract using their beans. Plus, that will allow me to live my dream of pouring vanilla extract into my batter like there's no tomorrow. Like Chef Michael.

So here I am on my kitchen with a bottle of vodka and vanilla beans.


Homemade Vanilla Extract
adapted from allrecipes.com


Ingredients:
1 liter Vodka
15 pcs Vanilla Beans

Procedure:
(1) Split vanilla beans into two, leaving an inch "unsplit" so they're still connected.

(2) Place all beans onto a 1-liter jar

(3) Pour Vodka

(4) Give it a good shake every week and on the third week, extract is soo ready at my disposal. Bwahahahaha! :) Can't wait.

Bake Happy Supports Jessica Sanchez!

I am casting my vote for Jessica Sanchez. If blogs can vote, I am asking (err... demanding Bake Happy to vote for her too)

But unfortunately, I can't :( (location issues). So I am asking your support (if you're in the US)  to vote for her to be the next American Idol.


Seriously, with a voice as powerful, magnetic and so far beyond her 16 years as hers, she deserves to be called the next American Idol come Thursday. 


See one of her best performances here:

When she hits the high notes (and holds it evenly), I get goosebumps. Everytime. 

And to inspire you to vote and vote and vote (as if her video singing still hasn't), I "Bake Happy-fied" Jessica and made Jessica Sanchez Cupcakes :)

On her background are microphone cupcakes I made from cake and ice cream cone plus silver dragees. An idea I got from Hello Cupcake. If you seriously want to have fun with cupcake decorating, this is THE book to read.

Anyway, back to Jessica, I hope we all take time out from our busy schedules and vote for her. See the American Idol site for more details.

Don't forget to watch Jessica's final performance today and the American Idol finale on May 24th!

Good luck, Jessica! You've rocked our worlds, now its time we rock yours. 
Let's keep on voting guys! 

Wintermelon Tea Cupcakes

Today, I am going to answer a very important question. This question, I believe, has been bugging you for quite sometime now. It may have given you sleepless nights and anxiety, it may have troubled you almost incessantly, and it may have caused your inattentiveness at work. I do not want to continue causing that.

So here I am, addressing your question:

What do I do with all the cakes, cupcakes, and other desserts I've been making once I've posted it up online?

But before I answer that, let's make mini cupcakes first. Today's recipe, I must admit, is a mouthful: Wintermelon Tea Mini Cupcakes with Cream Cheese

Frosting Topped with Homemade Lemon Marmalade Drizzled with Wintermelon Tea Syrup.

From here on, let's just call it Wintermelon Tea Mini Cupcakes, or the cupcakes. Saves time.

I got my winter melon tea bar from my friend, Gene. I've never seen anything like it. Tea turned into a bar. How cool is that? According to Gene, what is usually done with it is to melt the bar, add ice, bring out a fancy straw and enjoy. But I usually go the road less traveled and decided to make cupcakes from it.

Hmmm what goes well with wintermelon tea? Lemon is okay, right? And oh, throw in cream cheese and we have a winner.

But first, where to find a recipe? My plan is to make syrup out of the bar and use it as the sugar substitute. I looked for a recipe which calls for a liquid sweetener and found this:

A recipe for agave cupcakes at Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Instead of agave, I will use the syrup. Sweet!

Wintermelon Tea Cupcakes
adapted from Simple Vanilla and Agave Nectar Cupcakes (Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)

325F/makes 30 mini cupcakes

2/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup wintermelon tea syrup
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
(1) To make syrup, bring 2 cups of water to a boil and melt one wintermelon tea bar until liquid is reduced to 1 1/3 cup (just use half of this for the recipe)
(2) Sift all dry ingredients together.
(3) In a large bowl, mix the milk and apple cider vinegar in a large bowl.
(4) Let it sit for 5 minutes to allow it to curdle
(5) Add in the syrup, oil and vanilla extract.
(6) Mix in dry ingredients, be mindful of lumps. I used a strainer to get rid of it from my batter.
(7) Fill liners two thirds full. Bake 12 to 15 minutes until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean

Note from the book:
(1) Don't overbake or cupcakes will be dry.
(2) These cupcakes need to cool at least an hour before topping or filling, and also to develop the flavor and texture properly.

For the cheese frosting, I used this recipe.

For the lemon marmalade, I made my own. For the first time. I'm glad I did, I had rave reviews about it. Pinky Swear. I got the recipe from Erin of Yummy Supper. Now I have a big bottle of lemon marmalade I intend to spread on a buttered toast for breakfast. Indulgence is life. But wait, I should assemble the cupcakes first.

To assemble:

Ice the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting using a big round tip

Spread half a teaspoon full of marmalade on top of the frosting

Drizzle with the remaining syrup

That's all folks! Till the next recipe!

Oh wait, yeah. You were waiting for me to answer your question. I thought I totally distracted you. I was wrong, silly me.

Bake Happy goodies go out to who I call my Bake Happy Friends. My family, friends, classmates, officemates, buildingmates and officemates. Sweet, right?

Sneak peek. For this recipe, I made 60 mini cupcakes. See? This is before....

 and this is almost right before after. :)

These went to my officemates, who dearly loved the unique flavor (Buti na lang, otherwise it'll go to waste :))

Have a great pre-weekend-Thursday everyone!

How to Make Pahiyas Festival Cupcakes

An unfortunate thing happened this time last year. Blogspot had a meltdown. 

Yeah.  I had a post about the most colorful festival ever celebrated in the Philippines every May, the Pahiyas Festival. It was up for two days then...

Poof!

It was gone, no where to be found. Nada. No trace that it even existed. At all. I was heartbroken. I just have to accept that sometimes, bad things happen to good blog posts. 

You see, I had to wait a year to post it again because the festival happens only on May 15. So here it goes.

For those who are not familiar with the Pahiyas Festival, here's the 411 - 

• What: a celebration of splendid display of kiping (rice wafers), fruits and vegetables gracing every house
• Who: by the people of Lucban, Quezon, the Philippines and the rest of the world
• When: every 15th of May
• Where: Lucban, Quezon
• Why: thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest

And to celebrate the festival, I made Pahiyas  Festival Cupcakes. Here's how -

Pahiyas  Festival Cupcakes

What We Need:

Gumpaste

Rolling Pin

Royal Icing in Gold

Basket Weave Tip #46

Knife  

Fondant in various colors (pink, purple, yellow, orange and green)

Small oval fondanrt cutter

Modelling Shell Tool 

Here's How:
(1) Roll gumpaste and cut into a rectangle. Cut a smaller rectangle inside to serve as a window.

 (2) Pipe a basket weave design diagonally to serve as the wall's design.

(3) Using the colorful fondant, cut out the ornaments to adorn the wall. Use the modelling shell tool to curl the cut outs.

 (4) Paste the cut outs to the wall/window.

Now, an iconic Pahiyas Festival image has a girl watching the festivities on the window. So I did just , that. Only this time, I did a shortcut and drew a girl on the window :)

Happy fiesta, everyone!

Buttecream Cookies for Mother's Day

This mother's day...

show your Ma, Mom, Mum, Inay, Nanay more love:

• take her to the movies and see Every Breathe You Take (oh wait, it's not yet showing right?) or The Avengers (I would love to see it again, this time in 3-D)
• treat her to dinner, Wee Nam Kee's Cereal Prawns and Hainanese Chicken with Barley Juice are to die for or
• make her some appreciation cookies. Your cookies need not be complicated because whatever you give your mom today, I'm sure it will definitely bring her happiness.

Start with rolling out a sugar cookie dough. Sugar cookies are normally decorated with royal icing but this time, let's experiment with a rich buttercream. I have cut the cookies into circles, ovals and scalloped squares.

Okay, so the plan of attack is to decorate the cookies with buttercream, right? But we'd need to have a focal point on the cookies so here are some heart sprinkles to do just that. 

And we'd need some piping tips to help smother the cookies with buttercream. I used a number 2 (round), 18 (open star), 47 (basket weave) and 21 (open star).

For the square cookies, I made a basket weave effect and placed the heart on the upper right hand corner.

 For the round cookies, I used a simple dot piping technique to cover the cookies and again placed the heart on the upper right hand corner.

 The oval cookies got the cupcake frosting treatment. Instead of a round swirl, I made an oval swirl to cover the cookies and placed the heart on the same position as the round and square cookies.

See? That wasn't that hard isn't it? I bet you'll have fun making this, too. :)

And before I finish this post, allow me to greet my two moms. Yes, my sister and I are two of the lucky ones to be blessed with such loving two. Here's our picture, taken during their "activist days" circa 1983 or 1984. I love it that they brought us to the EDSA rallies. That's my sister sitting, Ma's holding me while Mom dotingly looks on.

Happy Mother's Day, Ma and Mom! Thank you for all the love and support, we couldn't have done it without you. :) Love you!

Cupcake Decorating 101: How to Pipe a Swirl on a Cupcake

I swear, a time traveler must have kidnapped me. I woke up this morning, its already May. Yup, May. I just have two questions: (1) How did that happen? and (2) How come when your older, time flies way faster? 


So before a time traveler snatches me up again, I am posting this cupcake tutorial on swirls. I love that word, Swirls, so whimsical, makes my heart skip a beat, puts a spring to my step. Swirls. Did I by any chance, made a poem? Nah...


Anyway, a lot of you have been asking me how I pipe the swirls on my cupcakes. So I thought I'd share how though a short video. 


Hope you guys enjoy watching!