Quick and Easy Cream Cheese and Shrimp Cocktail Appies

I was sick the other day and Cowie came to visit me after work.  I wanted to make him a snack because he was actually pretty busy today and came over with his laptop just to see me.  He's not fond of sweets so I scoured my kitchen for something to make him.  I had a box of gourmet crackers, cream cheese and some frozen cocktail shrimp.

While he was working in the other room I quickly defrosted the shrimp and dried them.  I creamed the cream cheese to get it to a spreadable consistency and looked around for my piping tips.  Unfortunately Rice Bowl had borrowed them last week and hadn't returned them yet so I just used a small spoon to place the cream cheese on the crackers.  I placed a cocktail shrimp on top of the cream cheese and voila! An elegant yet simple snack that can double as an appetizer at a party.  Perfect!

  And best of all, Cowie loved them.  He had one and put the rest in the fridge in an attempt to stop himself from eating them all in one sitting.  However, the only thing that it accomplished was that he got more exercise walking back and forth to the fridge.  Before the end of the night he had already finished the plate himself.

Birthday Cakes Galore!

Another month another birthday. This month is my sister Rice Bowl's birthday. It is actually just a day after Cowie's brother Meta Knight's birthday.  So this year not only am I going to attempt to make everyone's birthday cakes, I'm going to do 2 in the same week!  Ambitious, I know.

I asked Rice Bowl what she wanted and she said something with chocolate but changed her mind when she remembered that our parents don't like anything too sweet.  I told her not to worry, I can figure it out.  So I decided on a chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream and a fruit filling.  Perfectly simple and more importantly perfectly safe.  I asked Meta Knight what kind of cake he wanted and he said anything was fine.  When I pressed further he said how about a jello mousse cake followed quickly by just joking!  But alas, like Cowie's other brother Wickwicki mentioned later, the challenge had been issued and the ambitious Piggley that I am, must accept.

And so the planning and research started.  I found a really good chocolate sponge cake recipe online and gathered up the ingredients.  Rice Bowl likes cartoon cats so I wanted to decorate the cake with one.  I wasn't sure how to do it yet and decided to worry about it when the time comes.  Meta Knight's cake took more thinking.  I wanted to do a coconut mousse on top of pineapple jello on top of a sponge cake.  The first problem I ran into was that you can't make pineapple jello because the enzymes in pineapples disrupts the formation of bonds needed for the gelatin to solidify.  Darn it, my great idea was foiled by chemistry.

The problem was solved as I was rummaging through my mom's kitchen and found a pack of piña colada jello! What luck!  I just love it when the Chinese think outside the box and makes simulated flavours like this.  And so the coconut mousse piña colada jello sponge cake was born.

I started with Rice Bowl's cake and that went quite smoothly.  So smooth, in fact that it fooled me into thinking that the next one would be literally a piece of cake.  Boy was I wrong!


For Rice Bowl's cake I started with the chocolate sponge.  It came out really light and fluffy.  After cooling, I trimmed the two layers and started assembling the cake. 





I made a whipped cream frosting and drained a can of fruit cocktail. 

On the first layer I placed a generous helping of whipped cream, the can of fruit, more whipped cream and topped it off with the second layer of the chocolate cake. 

I frosted the outside and used the rest of the whipped cream for decorating the cake. 

I wanted to do a black cat but I only had red food colouring so I turned it into a pink cat. 

I needed to make eyes but had forgotten to save some white whipped cream before I coloured it.  I scoured my kitchen for something to use and had an idea when I spotted the cake trimmings from Meta Knight's cake! His cake was white so it was perfect for making the eyes.  I looked around now for something to make it round and my eyes landed on the cap of a bottle of just the right size.  Yes, perfection.  A strategically placed chocolate chip on each eye completed the look I was going for.  For the whiskers I used a tube of red gel.  And to my surprise the result was more than I had hoped for.  Or perhaps I had low expectations to begin with!

Now we turn our attention back to the ambitious jello and mousse cake.  I started with the sponge cake and right away I had problems with it.  The egg whites took forever to stiffen; to the point that I thought I had done something wrong.  As I combined everything and shoved it into the oven, I thought it would come out rock hard!  Luckily it was fine.  In fact, it actually came out lighter than I've ever seen it before.  Which I can tell you is both a blessing and a curse.

As I left the sponge to cool, I worked on the coconut mousse.  As I followed the recipe step by step, as I poured hot water into a pound of dried coconut, blended it and then used my bare hands to squeeze out the liquid because I didn't have any cheese cloth, as I collected the liquid into a bowl, I realized, I could have used the pre-made can of coconut milk sitting on my counter top instead of making my own! Go figure.

Once I had the coconut mousse prepared, I assembled the jello on top of the sponge cake and placed it in a spring-form pan. 

The idea is to pour the mouse over top and out to the sides.  As I poured the mousse in, I had a terrible feeling that something wasn't right.  To my surprise, the sponge cake along with the jello on top came floating up! Apparently my super light sponge was too light.  I tried to force it back down by putting a heavy bowl on top but it worked for about a second when it slipped on the jello and the cake came back up, now sticking up on one side like an iceberg!  I gave up on trying to fight physics and decided to let it set with all the layers now mixed up.  I shoved it in the fridge and hoped everything will work out in the end.

The next day, I decided to just flip the cake over and I would still get the effect of the mousse on top.  I flipped it over onto a plate and as it began to settle down the unsupported sides began to fall. The top layer of the mousse was thin and the whole thing looked like a gooey mess.  Meta Knight's birthday was that day and I had to do something quick.  I scraped off the melting mousse from the sides and tried to rearrange the cake.  I cut the sponge into two and attempted to sandwich the jello and the thin layer of mousse in between it.  It actually looked alright but then the jello and the mousse started to slide! Cowie called and said I had to get going but my cake was a disaster.  I can't give this to Meta Knight.  It didn't even look like a cake, let alone the master piece that I thought I could make.  Why oh why did he challenge me!

I packed up the droopy cake and headed over to Cowie's house along with all the essentials that I needed to fix the cake with.  That's right, I haven't given up yet!  While they were all preoccupied with watching the hockey game I worked quickly to salvage the cake.  I whipped up some whipping cream, opened a can of fruit cocktail and almost screamed with frustration. It was a can of chunky fruit!!!  Okay, I can work with this, in fact, it might work better for structural stability.  I scraped off all of the mousse and left the jello.  I placed the whipped cream then the fruit and more whipped cream in the center and replaced the top of the cake.  By then the sponge was already breaking apart and drooping.  I strategically placed chunks of fruit in and around the cake to level it off.  I then covered it with whipped cream and using blue food colouring on the remainder of the cream, I decorated around the cake.  Finally, I used my red tube of gel and wrote happy birthday on it.  When everyone came out for cake, having seen the mess before, they were quite impressed!  I wonder if they would be as impressed if they didn't see the goopey mess before hand!

Lessons learned:
1. Do not accept jokes as challenges.
2. You can't beat chemistry: pineapple and gelatin do not play well together.
3. You definitely can't beat physics: denser items sink while lighter things float.

The Flying Beaver

Last night Cowie, me and a couple of friends went out for dinner.  We chose The Flying Beaver in Richmond from Kirby's blog: Eating With Kirby.  Her food recommendations were brilliant.  I chose the Kahuna burger because Kirby said it was worth trying.  I picked the Bison burger for Cowie because he likes meat.  When all the food came, it looked glorious. 

Maybe we were all starving by then because when the nachos came first, we devoured it like there was no tomorrow. 

The Flying Beaver was actually quite far away but because the ratings on Kirby's blog was so high, we just had to go try it.  From where BT and I live it took 45 minutes to get there!  But it was well worth it.  Thanks Kirby! We will definitely keep checking back for more food recommendations. 

http://www.eatingwithkirby.blogspot.com/

Cowie's Famous Eggs

Cowie went on his family vacation last month and left me for two and a half weeks. He came back on a Monday and was supposed to go to work he next day. We all know that there is no way to avoid jet lag especially when you come back from Asia. So surprise surprise, he had to take an extra day off. The good thing about this was that his internal clock was so messed up that he was actually awake pretty early. This is when he decided to make me his world famous fried eggs.

I barely had time to scarf it down before I had to run off to work. It was actually pretty good. That weekend, Cowie again felt the urge to show off his cooking skills. He chose to make his world famous fried eggs! This time he made it for me and his brother. It was the cutest thing. And I must say, there is something really attractive about a man cooking and since he's confident frying up eggs left right and center, who am I to mess with a good thing?

Sausage Egg MahMuffin and Spam MahMuffin

My Cowie is not a huge fan of sweets and deserts.  But he does seem to love to eat, he just prefers the savoury items over the sweet ones.

Spicy Ground Italian Sausage Pizza

Its too bad because deserts are more fun to make and they come out so pretty when made right.  But watching Cowie go ecstatic over meatloaf, pizza, curry etc. is just as gratifying.  Also, the stuff he likes to eat is much cheaper and much more healthy when made from home!


One of his most favoritest things to eat is the sausage egg mcmuffin.  Yes, those oil dripping, excess salt containing heart attacks wrapped in wax paper is what he craves in the mornings.  The only time he can enjoy one (thank goodness) is on the weekends and only when he wakes up before 11am!  Mind you, there were more than a couple of times when he would wake with a start to find he had just enough time to run out before breakfast is over.


This Cowie obsession is what led me to make my own MahMuffins.  They are better in many ways. That mysterious dripping oil is gone, I can double the sausage patties, I can substitute in a variety of meats and best of all there is no time limit! I can make this any time of the day! So in conclusion, Cowie can party the night away and not have to worry about missing breakfast the next morning! Woohoo!


All you need is a package of english muffins toasted and buttered (I leave this out since my butter is always too hard to spread anyway).  Pan fry some sausage patties or luncheon meat and poach some eggs.  I recently got an egg poacher pan that is so easy to use.  Fill a pan with water just below the top of the egg poacher pan.  Crack 4 eggs in, put the lid on, let the water come to boil and within minutes, perfectly poached eggs are ready to slide onto warm english muffins.  Place a piece of cheese on the hot egg, then the meat and finally the tops of the english muffin. 

When Cowie bit into one of these sausage egg MahMuffins, he was in heaven!  Every bite was savoured as he reached for a second one.  To top it off, I usually serve these MahMuffins with freshly squeezed orange juice. 

Change it up with a different kind of meat!

The Elusive Chinese Sponge Cake

A Typical Chinese Birthday Cake

Have you ever had a Chinese birthday cake? Well, I've had one every month from September through January of every year.  In my family, each of our birthdays fall consecutively in each month starting with my Dad in September. These cakes are soft and fluffy and filled with whipped cream and fruit. In recent years, the occasional strawberry or mango mousse has replaced the fruit filling that we have grown accustomed to.  However, the one thing that has never changed is the "sponge" part of the cake. 

Did you know that it is actually super difficult to make a sponge cake? The recipes that are widely distributed are usually much more dense than the Chinese sponge cake.  When finally I've found the right recipe, I run into problems of over-mixing, deflating, the forming of a denser layer etc. However, despite this, in the past couple of months I've decided, "hey, I can do this, who's birthday is coming up so I can ruin it with a badly made birthday cake?" And not only am I going to challenge this elusive Chinese sponge cake, I'm going to put a layer of mousse on it to make it extra special.

Yup, obviously as a beginner I should have stuck with the basics and so my first strawberry mousse sponge cake was a borderline disaster.  I was so embarrassed when the knife went in and a great deal more pressure was needed to cut through the so called sponge.  The strawberry mousse looked as though it would slide right off the cake.  The cake looked pretty good but looking at it is all we should have done. (sigh)

After tasting defeat, I went online in search of where I had gone wrong. I had probably over-mixed the batter and used the wrong temperature on the oven.  Also, the recipe was not for the Chinese sponge but for a regular sponge cake so it was more dense than I expected.  After adjusting all of these factors, I attempted cake number 2 and it came out of the oven spongee and smelling delicious.

The mango mousse sponge cake looked and tasted delicious. Yes it took 4 hours to make but the genuine compliments I received from friends and family were well worth the effort.  If it wasn't for my laziness (I didn't trim the cake before I poured the mousse over it so it didn't look as symmetrical as it should have), it would have been the best cake I've ever made.  My first bite was the taste of hard work and success.