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.
Another birthday is coming up, and I thought it would be nice to make cupcakes for the party.
Last year I made Lemon Meringue cupcakes. They were very cute. Although my meringue decorating could use some practise, the meringue covered the cupcake in unruly peaks which I thought was perfect for my one year old. Unfortunately, the cakes were sweeter than I like and a bit dry.
So for her birthday this year, I’ve decided to try out a few different recipes beforehand to see which ones I liked the best.
I started out with a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated for a golden cupcake mix called their Best Cupcake Recipe. Although their thoroughness of their testing sounded promising, and the cakes were fairly tasty, but not what I was looking for. They were a bit dry, and a bit eggy, and they didn’t have the longevity I was looking for—they were best the same day.
Lemon Sponge Cupcakes
Then I decided to try Joy of Cooking which I consider to be a stand by. I decided to experiment with their recipe for Lemon Sponge which they said could be baked in a square tin or in custard cups. I figured if I used the metal lined cupcake liners inside a cupcake tin, that would be good enough. It might have been a good idea, unfortunately, I decided to try mixing it in the food processor to save time. This was a disaster. They came out flat and rubbery instead of spongey. The tops were light and airy though. I might give this another go. The recipe said to serve them with whipped cream and maybe a bit of raspberry sauce or just dusted with powdered sugar. Either way ought to be pretty good.
At this point I got lucky and found a recipe for “Aliece Wells Lemon Cheese Layer Cake”. I’d already made lemon curd which I adapted from a recipe in Feast: Food to Celebrate Life by Nigella Lawson and I’d been thinking of making Royal Icing, but I was nervous about using raw eggs, so the Seven-Minute Frosting sounded perfect. I have to say that the cakes came out exactly how I wanted. OK, they would have been better if I’d not used all the batter - the recipe is for 27 cupcakes which I halved, but I couldn’t resist using the extra batter in my 12 cupcakes. But the taste was moist and delicious, and they tasted just as good the next day.
The Seven-Minute Frosting was a disaster. The frosting is supposed to rise when you beat it like normal egg whites, but it didn’t rise at all. It was a humid day, so that may be it. But maybe I should have left the icing on the stove instead of taking it off after it had reached 170°. It tasted nice, but I ended up using whipped cream to ice the cupcakes instead.
So my next quest is for the perfect icing for lemony cupcakes.
Lemon Curd
Ingredients
1 cup lemon juice from fresh squeezed lemons
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
Melt the butter in a double boiler. Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together. When the butter has melted stir in the sugar-egg mixture and the lemon juice. Keep cooking, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened. Then take it off the heat.
This makes a very tangy—but in a good way—lemon curd. It’s also a bit runnier than Nigella’s which gets it’s stiffness from using a full stick of butter.
Best Cupcake Recipe
I adapted a wonderful recipe that I found online called Aliece Well’s Lemon Cheese Layer Cake Recipe for the cupcakes. I wanted them more lemony and I didn’t need so many. But I was very happy with the results. See my version of this recipe.
Very Lemony Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Frosting
When cupcakes and lemon curd have cooled, use a pastry bag fitted with a medium round tip to push a hole in the top of each cupcake and fill with the lemon curd letting some of the curd flow on the top of the cupcake in a small circle. Use another pastry bag to pipe some whipped cream in a curly, daisy-like border.
Lemon Cupcakes with Whipped Cream on the left and with runny Seven-Minute Frosting on the right
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.
