Christmas Treats

.... I am backlogged. I am just going to work from the current ones and work back. It seems much easier that way. So this time my sister and I decided to make treats to bring to coworkers and friends. Lets see whats inside! (Oh, and I'm also trying out the left alignment, but I'm not liking it too much) .

Surprise Cake balls!!

First, I'll start off with the red velvet cake. Red velvet seems like a lot of work and with so little time we decided to go with the box. Luckily we found that Duncan Hines has a boxed red velvet cake. Hooray! It was much easier than using the Betty Crocker version with red food coloring. For the frosting we used a simple cream cheese frosting.

I was having difficulty making equally sized balls. We usually make them much smaller so we were trying to decide on size.

These are the balls dipped in chocolate with three snowflakes on top. We used the red aluminum foil to wrap them in.

All wrapped up and ready to go!

Next, we have this rich chocolate cake we found on http://inncuisine.com/decadent-desserts/have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-recipe-deep-dark-chocolate-cake/
This cake was extremely good with the frosting all by itself. That's why we kept some as cake, but we still made plenty of balls.

This time we put one snowflake on each ball. Aren't they cute?

The chocolate balls were wrapped in sliver.

Time for some pumpkin balls.

Pumpkin Cake Recipe:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups canned or fresh pumpkin puree

Directions:

1. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with vegetable spray and dust with all purpose flour. Tap out excess.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves in medium bowl and set aside.
4. In another bowl combine eggs, oil, and sugar and beat until smooth, approximately 1 minute. Add pumpkin puree and mix again.
5. Add dry ingredients 1 cup at a time and mix until blended, smooth and lump free.
6. Pour into baking pan.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35-45 minutes or until pick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Frosting:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• water as needed

Directions:

1. Beat cream cheese and butter until creamy.
2. Add confectioner's sugar 1/2 cup at a time.
3. Add vanilla and cinnamon.
4. If the frosting is stiff add a tsp of water at a time until you get a nice consistency.

To make the balls we broke up the cake in the food processor and mixed in the cream cheese frosting. Then, from there you can roll in to balls.

The line up (This time the balls were more uniform in size)

We dipped these first in chocolate and then half way in white chocolate.

Of course we needed gold wrapping for these balls.

Won tons continued..

So it was a success!! Hooray! I followed the basic recipe below, but I omitted the msg. I added a couple of things to spice it up. I have mushrooms and whole shrimp. Let's take a look.. So it's either really dark or bad flash.. Can't find a good spot to take pics yet.

Cooked Won tons

When I wrap I put a little meat, shrimp and mushroom.

These skins weren't the best. It would break easily while I was wrapping.. I only take one pack out at a time because exposure to the air will make the skins dry out and harder to wrap.

Won Ton

It has been a busy quarter at school.. I totally forgot about this blog.. Oops.. However, I'll try and keep this up and working next year. So this is my parent's won ton. Yummy! I plan to try this out for myself this week. Let's see how that goes.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs of boneless pork leg (ground)
• half a bag of dried black fungus strips (cloud ears)
• 3 stalks of celery
• shrimp
  
• Dried shitake mushrooms
• 2 packages of won ton skins
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• Chinese broccoli
• Fried tofu
• Egg white won ton noodles
  

Directions:
Soak the mushrooms and fungus so they soften.

Peel shrimp and marinate with MSG and salt. Allow it to sit and marinate. Later, chop into small bits to be wrapped. You can omit the MSG if you want.

Chop celery and fungus.

Mix meat, celery, and fungus together. Sprinkle MSG (less than a teaspoon, and add pepper and garlic powder (Add enough so that you can smell it). Next, add about a tablespoon of corn starch and 3 tablespoons of fish sauce. Mix together and then at the top put a small spoon of oil. Let marinate for 2 hours.

Saute mushrooms adding some garlic powder to flavor, and then dice.

Peel the won ton skins. Take a spoonful of meat, mushroom, and shrimp.

Boil water and toss in the wan ton. Do not over fill the pot. You may have to cook them in batches. When the wontons float take them out. If there is extra meat left over, throw in to make meat balls.

To make broth, boil 3 bouillon cubes in a small pot with water. When they have totally disintegrated strain out black particles with a cheese cloth. Pour into a larger pot and add water. While the soup is cooking any left over shrimp or mushrooms throw in. Cook the chinese broccoli and warm tofu in soup. When these are all warmed or cooked place on top of the noodles.

Now to make won ton noodles you must cook each bowl separately. Separate the amount of noodles per person while at the same time opening up the noodles. Bring a small pot of water to a boil, while boiling throw in noodles. Allow to cook for 25 seconds or so and quickly strain out noodles.

Place tofu, won tons, broccoli, and any extra items in bowl and pour soup once it has boiled.

* To make the dip for the won ton, mix soy sauce and red vinegar together.

Won ton noodles

Won ton skin

Mixture of meat

Uncooked wrapped won tons

All done and ready to be served!