Sunday, March 31, 2024

My Ideal Birthday “Cake” (is Meatloaf!)

A savory dish made with ground meat, my ideal birthday cake is meatloaf! This one is filled with curried carrots and covered with buttery cream potatoes. Happy Easter to all who celebrate and an early Happy April Fool's Day to all!

Food Lust People Love: A savory dish made with ground meat, my ideal birthday cake is meatloaf! This one is filled with curried carrots and covered with buttery cream potatoes.

We all love a good prank for April Fool’s Day but I can’t remember the last time I actually pulled one. Probably when our girls still lived at home and that’s was a very long time ago – COVID days excepted. 

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you probably know that I’m not much of a sweet eater so when our Sunday FunDay host for this week challenged us to make a dish that looked like something else for April Fool’s Day, I knew I’d make a savory dish. 

I also wanted to make a fun recipe that we could actually enjoy for a main course. I created this meatloaf recipe to fit the bill. Doesn’t it look like cake?!!!

My Ideal Birthday Cake is Meatloaf

I used two 6-in or 15cm round “smash” cake pans to bake the meatloaf layers. A tradition that started well after my two girls had turned one, smash cakes are little cakes baked so the birthday baby can put her whole face in. I presume there’s another cake for the rest of the guests at the birthday party.


Ingredients
For the “cake” layers:
2 slices sandwich bread (brown or white)
1/4 cup or 60ml milk
1 small onion or 1/2 medium onion
1 lb or 450g ground beef
1/2 lb or 225g ground pork
2 eggs
1/4 cup or 60ml ketchup
2 teaspoons dry mustard powder (like Colman’s)
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

For the cream potato “frosting”:
4 medium Russet potatoes (weight peeled: about 1 lb 6 oz or 625g)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt to boil, plus extra after mashing, if needed
1/2 cup or 120ml whipping or heavy cream
1/4 cup or 57g butter
1/2 teaspoon white pepper

For the savory carrot filling: 
3 medium carrots (weight peeled: about 7 3/4 oz or 215g)
1/4 medium onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt  

For decorating:
1 teaspoon paprika
Large piping tip
Piping bag

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Cut the bread into small squares and pour the milk over it in a small bowl, pushing the pieces down into the milk. Soak until all the milk is absorbed.


Mince your onion finely. I usually use a small food processor for this to make sure there are no big bits because no one wants to bite into a big bit of onion.

In a large bowl, add your onion, ground beef, ground pork, eggs, ketchup, mustard powder and salt. Mash the soggy bread with a fork till it falls apart and then add it to the large bowl with all of the other ingredients.  Mix well.


Divide the mixture in half and press it into the smash cake pans. My whole mixture weighed 1062g so each pan holds 531g.


Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the meatloaf is browned nicely and cooked through to a safe internal temperature of 160°F or 71°C.

While your layers are baking, make the filling and "frosting." Peel your potatoes and cut them into chunks. Boil them until tender with the teaspoon of salt. 

Warm the cream and butter together till the butter is just melted. I do this in a microwaveable vessel, with quick zaps, watching carefully so it doesn’t boil over. 

Drain the potatoes and mash them right away. I find they mash with fewer lumps while still hot. Add in the melted butter/cream and the white pepper. 


Stir well till combined. Taste and add more salt if needed. 

Peel and cut the carrots into chunks. Finely mince the onion (or use a processor) for the filling. 

Boil the carrots until very tender then drain and mash them right away. 


Transfer the carrots to a heat -proof bowl and melt the butter in the pot you used to boil them. Sauté the curry powder and chopped onions in the butter until the onions are translucent and very soft. 


Add the carrots back into the pot with the 1/4 teaspoon of salt and mix well. Set aside.


When they are done, remove the meatloaf layers from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes. Run a silicone spatula around the edge to loosen. Carefully remove them to plates.


Top one meatloaf layer with the carrot filling. 


Carefully put the second meatloaf layer on top. 


Cover the “cake” with the cream potatoes. 


You should have plenty left over so don't be shy.


Add the paprika to 3/4 cup or 170g of the cream potatoes and mix well.


Fit a large tip on your piping bag and use a spatula to add the paprika potato down the insides of the bag in stripes. Spoon the rest of the cream potatoes in the middle of the piping bag. Decorate the “cake” by piping on little rosettes or stars.


I did a row around the bottom, then a row around the top. And because more is more, I piped rosettes to cover the top. You do you. 


(You will probably have potato leftover at the end unless you choose to cover the whole cake with rosettes. Eat it as is or follow these instructions to make baked Marquis potatoes with the rest. 

I must confess that by the time I finished assembling the “cake” it was closer to room temperature than hot so we sliced it up and warmed it by the slice in the microwave. Delicious! 

Food Lust People Love: A savory dish made with ground meat, my ideal birthday cake is meatloaf! This one is filled with curried carrots and covered with buttery cream potatoes.

If you make one to trick your family, I’d love to hear about it!

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and, as mentioned above, we are sharing April Fool’s Day recipes. Many thanks to our host, Camilla from Culinary Cam. Check out all the illusion recipes below:

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.


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Food Lust People Love: A savory dish made with ground meat, my ideal birthday cake is meatloaf! This one is filled with curried carrots and covered with buttery cream potatoes.


Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Grape Juice Jigglers

Grape juice jigglers are a healthy treat your children will love, made with vegetarian gelatin and naturally sweet grape juice. Maybe make some for Easter? 

Food Lust People Love: Grape juice jigglers are a healthy treat your children will love, made with vegetarian gelatin and naturally sweet grape juice.

When my girls were growing up, I was a bake-from-scratch-type mom, but the two exceptions to that were boxed chewy brownie mix and Jello®. I guess I have to include Jello® pudding in that category as well. I had to help with brownies and Jello® because of the hot oven and the boiling water but instant pudding was sooo easy that my girls could make it by themselves from when they were very little. Cold milk, whisk in the powder. Done! How did it thicken? It was like a creamy sweet miracle. 

I don’t know who the genius behind jigglers was but I put him or her right up there with the marketing person who first thought of “lather, rinse, repeat” on shampoo bottle labels. After all, jigglers get you to use two boxes of that powdered, sweetened gelatin to make the same size pan and it’s probably eaten just as quickly. Or maybe even more quickly since jigglers of all flavors are kid favorites. A cold jiggly treat you can eat with your hands? Yes, please! 

A little research reveals that jigglers were first touted in a cookbook given away by the makers of Jello® in the 1930s. The recipe was rediscovered in the ’70s when, as sales declined, the company looked for ways to reinvigorate the market for their jiggly product, thumbing through their old cookbooks for inspiration. And another generation of jiggler lovers was born. Count me and my girls in that number.

I know a lot of moms try to limit their children’s intake of sugar with no nutritional value and I did too. So drinks and sugar-full Jell-O® were a special treat on weekends. I was not a fan of sugar-free versions because sugar seemed less harmful than the chemicals that made up the unnatural sweeteners. And what about all the coloring additives? Let’s not even go there. So what’s a mom to do?
 
Make grape juice jigglers from pure, naturally colored, naturally sweetened grape juice! Or frankly, any juice of your choice, as long as it is not very acidic, which inhibits the gelatin from firming up.
 

Grape Juice Jigglers

Most gelatin powders are still made from animal products, but vegan/vegetarian friendly gelatin is now widely available as well. Just read the labels if that is a concern for you. I will tell you that if you use the non-animal gelatin, you need just a bit more than usual to get your juice to set. 

Ingredients
4 1/4 cups cups or 1 liter no-sugar added grape juice
4 1/2 teaspoons unflavored vegetarian gelatin powder 

Method
Sprinkle the vegetarian gelatin powder over the grape juice in medium-sized pot.  Stir thoroughly until the powder is completely dissolved and the liquid appears to thicken just a little.
 

Put the pot on the stove and, over a medium flame, heat till just boiling. (About 200°F or 93°C by my candy thermometer.) Tiny bubbles will start appearing. 

Pour the hot liquid into a heatproof rectangular casserole dish about 9x13 in or 23x33cm. 


Leave to cool, then cover with cling film and chill for at least 2 hours or until firm. 

Cut into squares to serve.


Enjoy! 

Welcome to the 8th edition of our 2024 Alphabet Challenge being brought to you by the letter G. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the G sponsored recipes below:



G: Grape Juice Jigglers - today's post!

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Food Lust People Love: Grape juice jigglers are a healthy treat your children will love, made with vegetarian gelatin and naturally sweet grape juice.

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Monday, March 25, 2024

Cheesy Spelt Mini Muffins #MuffinMonday

These cheesy spelt mini muffins are a great little one/two bite snack that will disappear in record time. Leave them uncovered at your peril! It’s so easy to pop one in your mouth as you go by the plate.

Food Lust People Love: These cheesy spelt mini muffins are a great little one/two bite snack that will disappear in record time. Leave them uncovered at your peril! It’s so easy to pop one in your mouth as you go by the plate.

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means my Muffin Monday friends are sharing muffin recipes. It somehow sneaks up on me every month and that makes me wonder how on earth I ever managed to do Muffin Monday every week for almost three whole years!

I was just counting and I have, including this one, 241 muffin recipes on this blog. Crazy talk! Most are sweet with only 54 falling into the savory category. I just love baking muffins and how quick and easy they are. Muffin Monday is an effort to tell the world! 

Cheesy Spelt Mini Muffins

You could also bake this batter in a six-cup muffin pan but the minis are so cute, why would you, except if you just don’t own a mini muffin pan? Plus they will take longer to bake. 

Ingredients
Canola or other light oil for greasing the muffin pan
½ cup or 60g spelt flour½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
2 oz or 56g extra sharp cheddar cheese, finely grated
3 tablespoons or 43g butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons milk
1 egg

Method
Preheat your oven to 400F° or 200°C and prepare a 12-hole mini muffin pan by greasing it with canola or another light oil. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. 


Set aside a small amount of the grated cheese for topping, then add the bigger pile to the flour mixture and toss to coat.


In another smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, melted butter and milk. 


Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones, until just mixed. Divide the mixture between the muffin cups. 


I like to use a little scoop. Add a good pinch of the reserved grated cheddar to each muffin.


Bake for 10-12 minutes in your preheated oven or until golden brown on top.


Cool on a wire cooling rack for a few minutes and then run a spatula around the edges to loosen the muffins. 

Food Lust People Love: These cheesy spelt mini muffins are a great little one/two bite snack that will disappear in record time. Leave them uncovered at your peril! It’s so easy to pop one in your mouth as you go by the plate.

Enjoy!

As I mentioned above, it's Muffin Monday. Check out all the great muffin recipe links below:


#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.


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