Bride Doll Cupcake

My friend Elly is getting married this week and so this past weekend we had a little hen night party. It was a tea party at a nail salon so that we could all get our manicures and pedicures for the wedding, followed by a slumber party at my place.

For the tea party I was in charge of bringing the cupcakes and the minute I heard this I knew exactly what I wanted to make...a little bride doll cupcake. It was my first attempt at anything of the sort but I took the challenge because I felt it would be the perfect gift for her.

You can make this easily with any cupcake recipe. Once done let it cool completely and then flip a cupcake over and cut a little X all the way through. This will make it easier to slot the doll's legs in. After that you can do anything you want with the dress decor...I was going for simple and elegant since it was a bride...but you can do princesses and more...different colors and designs...just play around with it and have fun.

Our hen night was a blast and it was nice to feel like kids at a slumber party again...we were all in our jammies playing games...putting on temporary tattoos...watching movies...just having fun being girls!

Accidental Butter

The other day when I was whipping cream to make it stiff I created a beautiful thing...butter! I have a special whip setting on my food processor and I let it whip for a few seconds while I got distracted with some dish washing and before you know it I had beautiful lumpy butter. It's a funny thing to get excited about...but for some reason I smile every time I see these photos...I've also used it since to spread on bread and to cook my eggs and it seems even more delicious because it's 'Butter a la Alexandra'.

Why would anyone want to buy butter when it's this easy to make?

Step 1: Pour cream into your food processor(if you have a whisk setting) or whisk it with a hand mixer on high...and if you don't have either of those fancy schmancy machines...pour the cream into a bottle...seal the bottle and shake it like a polaroid picture!

Ta-da! You have butter!

If you intend to keep this for a long time then you should wash the butter...this gets rid of the buttermilk residue so it doesn't spoil so fast...rinse it with plain water and then keep it in a sealed container or wrap it with baking paper. You can also add salt to your butter if you'd like it salted...or even create all sorts of herb concoctions.

So...once again I ask...why would you want to ever buy butter when it's this easy to make?

Homemade Soy Milk

At first glance this looks like a nice tall, cold, frothy glass of soy milk...

Well in actuality it is...

But if you knew just how much work went into making that one glass of soy milk you would laugh...in fact looking back on it now I can laugh too...but in the moment that this picture was taken I was tired, distressed, and generally upset.

12 Hours of Soaking Time + 3 Hours of Prep + 20 Mins Cooking + 15 Mins Squeezing = 1 Glass of Soy Milk

Doesn't tally up does it? All that work and effort went down the drain all because I made a simple mistake! I suppose cooking can't always turn out successful...and I did mention that I would blog both about my successes and bombs...well this was a total flop!

You can learn from my mistake though and hopefully the same thing doesn't happen to you.

Homemade Soy Milk

200 Grams Organic Soy Beans

Water

1 Large Pot

Food Processor/Blender

Cheesecloth or Fine Mesh Cloth Strainer

Step 1: Soak the soy beans in a large bowl of water anywhere between 8 - 15 hours. Make sure there is a lot of water as the beans will soak them up and grow in size. I soaked them for 12 hours. This is how much larger the bean will look after soaking.

Step 2: I read in a few different blogs that the end product can taste quite grassy/beany and to minimize this you should take the skin off of the beans once they have been soaked. This is the process that took me over 2 hours to do. It was tedious and I hope it made a difference in the taste. If I ever do this again I might just keep the skin on to cut down on all the time it takes to make.

Step 3: Blend the beans with just enough water to cover in a blender or food processor. This will result in a white frothy liquid.

Step 4: This is where I made many mistakes which resulted in just one glass of liquid. Different recipes and sites that I read had different steps after this. Some say that you should strain the liquid out after processing it and then cook it on the stove top and others say to cook it first and then strain later. I decided to go with the latter. Pour the frothy blended liquid into a large pot and simmer until the liquid looks less frothy and more grainy. This is when the liquid has separated from the grain. I believe it was in the cooking that I went wrong. I think I should have added more water as the processed liquid seemed rather thick. I also think I might have cooked it a bit longer than I should have and so a lot of the liquid evaporated. If it starts looking thick add some water to it as it boils.

Step 5: Once the liquid has separated add it in batches to the cloth so that you can squeeze and strain. This is another way I went wrong...I think I should have strained it then cooked it...because at this point I was presented with boiling hot liquid that I would have to somehow squeeze and strain by hand with a cheese cloth to separate it from the grain. This was painful and near impossible!

The pieces that are left behind in the cloth are known as Okara. This is healthy and contains more protein than tofu. You can freeze it and use it in future recipes...I think this is the only good part that came out of my whole soy milk project! I'll use the Okara in other recipes as I'm not letting all that good protein go to waste!

As you can see, homemade soy milk might taste good in addition to being healthy and preservative free...but with all the work that goes in to it I think I might just stick to buying my cartons of soy milk at the grocery store!