The Ankle Biter Eats!

This year when I asked Boo what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she said “Pink!”. Pink cake with pink icing. I wanted to make something with natural colour and flavour, so I tried a recipe made of raspberry muffin bottoms with a lemon and raspberry icing on top. I also decided for mini-cupcakes, but since I had a bit more than enough batter for 24 mini cupcakes, I made 2 regular size cupcakes in a couple of ramekins, and they were great too—they just needed to stay in the oven a few more minutes.

Recipes

Raspberry Cupcakes
This is a modified version of Emeril Legasse’s recipe for Blueberry-Raspberry Muffins with Streusel Topping minus the blueberries and the streusel. The lemon zest and the hint of cinnamon make this a great recipe.
Ingredients
2 cups cake flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cup fresh raspberries (or less)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place 24 mini-cupcake metal cups with paper liners intact on a cookie sheet or else line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. If you use ramekins, grease the inside of the ramekins with butter and dust them with flour.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Beat the softened butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy and light. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time. Add the buttermilk and lemon zest and mix to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir just to combine. (Batter will still be somewhat lumpy; do not overmix.) Gently fold in the raspberries so the berries do not break open and pour into the prepared muffin tins. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes for mini cupcakes or 20 minutes for standard cupcakes.

Let cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove and cool on wire racks.

Lemon Frosting

Ingredients
3/4 cup (6 ounces) cream cheese, chilled
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash of salt
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Approximately 1/4 cup Raspberry Drizzle (optional)

To prepare the frosting, combine cream cheese, 2 tablespoons butter, lemon rind, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and dash of salt in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at high speed until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar; beat at low speed just until blended (do not overbeat).

To turn the Lemon Frosting into Pink Lemonade Frosting, beat in a small amount of Raspberry Drizzle until you get the colour you want.

Raspberry Drizzle

Ingredients
1/2 cup of Lemon Frosting
1/2 cup of fresh raspberries

To prepare the drizzle, place the raspberries in a wire sieve over a mixing bowl. Using a spatula, press the raspberries through a wire sieve with spaces wide enough that you can press the berry juice through leaving the seeds behind. Stir small amounts of Lemon Frosting bit by bit until you get the consistency you want.

When the cupcakes have cooled, frost the tops with the Pink Lemonade Frosting. Use a small spoon to drizzle on the Raspberry Drizzle. Top with one perfect raspberry.

Notes

You need about 2 of the 12 oz. baskets of raspberries for the muffins, frosting, and the garnish.

It was tricky getting the cupcake batter in the mini muffin tins. Normally, you fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full, but I filled them nearly to the top because the raspberries take up so much of the space. You could cut the amount of raspberries in half if you’d like more cake with just a bit of raspberry.

Causa Rellena is a Peruvian appetizer that I happily eat as a main course. It is layers of golden potato flavoured with lemon and golden aji amarillo, with a layer of—in this case chicken salad, but tuna salad is also good—in between, and garnished with hard-boiled egg, red pepper, green onion, and cilantro. Causa Rellena isn’t an Easter dish, but it is a great way to use any uneaten hard-boiled eggs.

One of my reasons for feeding this dish to kids is that it is mostly made up of things they like. There are a few chopped veggies as garnish, but by my theory of veggies by approximation—the veggies might accidentally end up on the fork, or kids might be tempted to eat them through frequent, but benign exposure.

Ingredients

Potato

• 2.2 lb (1 kg ) potatoes (yellow or Yukon gold, if available)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• juice of 2 lemons
• 2 Tbsp. of aji amarillo
• salt to taste

Filling

• 2-3 cups of cooked, chicken (white meat), chopped small
• ¼ cup of celery, chopped small
• 4 green onions, chopped finely
• fresh cilantro, chopped or snipped, to taste
• ½ cup of mayonnaise
• salt to taste

Garnish

• 2 boiled eggs cut into quarters
• fresh cilantro, chopped or snipped, to taste
• red pepper slices
• green tops of the green onions, chopped or snipped, to taste

Preparation

Mash the potatoes, and mix in the olive oil, lemon juice, aji amarillo, and salt. If you get the proportions of salt, lemon, and aji amarillo balanced, you can taste each flavour and none of the flavours overpowers the others.

Chop the chicken and mix in the mayonnaise, celery, white part of the green onion—reserving the green tops for the garnish—and salt. I’ve noticed that the green onion is great for seasoning mayonnaise if you don’t like the taste of mayonnaise.

Causa in a dish:
Place half the potato mixture on the bottom of a rectangular platter. Put the chicken mixture in the middle, and place the other half of the potato mixture on top.

Causa on a platter:
Spread potato in one long rectangular layer on top of some plastic wrap. Spread chicken on one third of the potato layer; then use the plastic to roll it like a jelly roll. Transfer to a platter.

Cover with plastic wrap and chill until cold. Garnish with cilantro, green onion, red pepper slices, and hard-boiled eggs.

Serve cold, cut into squares about 2-3 inches wide.

Notes
Aji amarillo: this is the Spanish name for a paste made from a medium-hot chili with a beautiful golden colour.
Salt: Maldon sea salt is great with in the potato with the lemon and the aji amarillo.

I saw the recipe for these Salmon Starfish Cakes in First Meals by Annabel Karmel. Unfortunately, although the shape is irresistible, my daughter wouldn’t actually eat them. Well, they have a lot of mashed potato in them, and the only time she ever ate mashed potato was when it had some turkey and gravy on top of it. Maybe there’s a way to make them without potato.

I love salmon. If it weren’t for the fear of mercury poisoning, I’d eat it several times a week. So I was thrilled when I found an easy recipe for salmon that my daughter and I both love. Honey & Soy Salmon Skewers from The Picky Eater section of First Meals by Annabel Karmel.

My only problem with the recipe is that when I want to make something quickly, it doesn’t always work out because you have to cut the salmon into cubes, prep the skewers by soaking them in cold water (and they still burn in the oven), and let it marinade for an hour. The cooking time is only 6 minutes, but the preparation can be a bit much if you’re short on time.

So, I modified the recipe a little bit to make the preparation time negligible.

Ingredients
1/2 lb salmon fillet

Marinade
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sake

Mix together the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl. Put the salmon fillet in bowl making sure it is well coated. Put the bowl in the fridge and leave to marinade for about an hour.

Preheat the broiler—sometimes, I use a toaster oven—to high. Line a broiler pan with foil, and place the salmon fillet on the pan and cook for 6 minutes or more. You want the salmon to be moist on the inside. When it’s done, it will flake easily with a fork.

Take the salmon out of the oven out to rest for a minute while you prepare the teriyaki sauce. It will continue to cook a bit while it’s cooling.

Put the remaining marinade in a pan and simmer for a minute or so until reduced.

Divide the fillet into two portions. Serve the salmon with rice (or without) and spoon the reduced marinade over the salmon. You can put some rice in a child’s bowl and flake the salmon over the rice then spoon some of the marinade over the salmon.

Note:
At going on 2 years old, my daughter is starting to like more types of food, but it has always been difficult to find meat dishes that she likes. When she was a year old, I discovered that she liked finely chopped chicken disguised with mashed avocado and a drop of orange juice. After making the teriyaki salmon recipe, I realized that she also liked teriyaki chicken, and chicken from my salad that has a bit of vinaigrette on it. So, my next step is to try more recipes with marinades.