Wild Rice Cakes

Upon discovery of a neat little list of all the WoW foods in the game, I decided to embark upon one dish in particular. Wild rice cakes. Yum. My reasoning for this is I have friend who is a vegetarian. He and his girlfriend are trying a lot of my recipes, so I figured this would be acceptable for them. Plus any of my other friends who don't eat meat. This recipe was graciously adapted from Epicurious.

6c (or more) canned vegetable (or chicken) broth

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1c chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/3c long grain white rice

1/3c wild rice
1/2c dry white wine (Don't use cooking wine; too much salt.)
1/4c coarsely grated low-fat mozzarella cheese
1/4c sharp cheddar cheese

1/3c plain dry panko (or bread crumbs)
1/4c grated Parmesan cheese

Bring the broth to a boil, remove from heat, then cover.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion; saute until tender then add garlic. Stir frequently to avoid burning.

Add white rice and wild rice; stir 1 minute. 

Add wine, cook until absorbed, about 2 minutes. Stir in 2 cups warm broth, bring to boil. 

Reduce heat to medium, cover and simmer 15 minutes. Repeat and stir occasionally until rice is tender.

Uncover; simmer until rice is tender and broth is absorbed, stirring often and adding broth by 1/4 cupfuls if rice is not tender, about 10 minutes longer. Stir in mozzarella; season with pepper. Cool until you are able to handle the rice easily with your hands.

To bake: 

Preheat oven to 375º F. 

Take a muffin pan and spray it with non stick cooking spray. Sprinkle panko and Parmesan cheese in the bottom of each cup. Take a heaping spoonful and gently pack it into each cup. Top with more panko/parm mix and bake for 20 minutes.

To pan fry:

Make patties of rice and place them in the panko/parm. Coat both sides.

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium-low heat and place the rice patties into the pan. Cook until both sides are golden brown. Drain well on paper towel.

Muffin pan Rice Cakes.

Excited!

There was something posted on the press release about cooking in World of Warcraft. We will be able to make customizable meals! This excites me so much because now I can make stuff up on the fly and learn new recipes to cook. Horray!!

In other news, I am currently working on several recipes at once. Most of which are Darkmoon Faire fare! Yum. You can look forward to me creating Corn-breaded sausages in which I will get my six year old to help me make. Sarsaparilla Sinkers, which he will also help me make and finally because it's faire food, what faire would be complete without funnel cake.

Also I will be posting up new progression pictures of my staff!

Conjured Mana Muffin

I completely under why mages conjure this food and don't take the time to go through by hand to make these. My shoulder is killing me from the amount of mixing that had to be done. The batter is more of a dough at first and you may find it easier in the beginning few steps to mix it by hand.

To make mana muffins, the first thing you need to keep in mind is not to over mix the batter. You end up with a muffin that has a huge bubble like dome.  I did this and some of my muffins look goofy. They still taste good, though. I also cut back on the amount of sugar in this recipe, which I lovingly adapted from here.

Components you will need:

1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 large eggs at room temp.
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 c. sour cream
1/2 c raspberries, whole
1/2 c strawberries
Turbinado sugar

Preheat the over to 375ºF. Line muffin tin, or grease only the bottoms. Muffins tend to rise better when they have something to cling to.

Using a mixer (hand or stand,) combine all the wet ingredients until well blended. In another bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

This is where you may want to use your hands if you don't have a stand mixer. Takes the dry and wet and mix until just combined. It should have a semi-crumbly look. Fold in the sour cream. Make sure that you do not over fold as you will need to add the berries next.

Be gentle with the berries, they are soft and you do not want your mix to be exploded with bursts of pink and red from berries that have have turned to mush.

An ice cream scoop will be useful to spoon in enough mix into each muffin cup. Sprinkle a little bit of the sugar in the raw on the tops for a nice crispy sweet top. Fill about 3/4 of the way and put in over for 20-25 minutes. Check the centers with a toothpick. When you remove them, carefully pull them from the muffin pan and cool on a rack. Wait 10 to 15 minutes before eating.

Enjoy with a nice large glass of Ice Cold Milk.

Dalaran Brownies

It was after I made these brownies that I realized they weren't actually Dalaran brownies. Seeing that Dalaran brownies are indeed brown. These ones are not. So we shall call them a variation of Dalaran brownies and hybrid of the brownies and red velvet cupcakes.

To make the brownie:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 oz tablespoons red food coloring
1 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a square cake pan.

In a small bowl, combine cocoa powder, red food coloring, 1 teaspoon vanilla and water to create a paste.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. This will look very dry before it looks "whipped"

Add the eggs one at a time, then add remaining teaspoon of vanilla. Use a hand mixer on medium speed, add in red-cocoa paste. Beat until batter is completely red. Add more coloring if desired

Add flour and salt, mixing until just combined.

Spread in the pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Let cool completely before frosting.

Butter-cream Frosting


1/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk

Blend all ingredients in a bowl until smooth.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1/4 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

This recipe is still a work in progress, as it's updated I will repost. I decorated mine with chocolate curls from unsweetened bakers chocolate. Just for show, I don't recommend eating them.

Chocolate + Cake + Celebration =

A Very delicious lie.

Today is my husbands birthday. So I decided that I wanted to make him a cake as well as one of his favorite meals for dinner.

Tonight we are having Manicotti and a Chocolate Celebration Cake.Which will be so delicious and moist.

I asked my husband what sort of filling he wanted for his cake, he decided strawberry so it's going to be a variation of the already delicious cake.

To make the cake:

Cake:
3 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 ½ c. hot brewed coffee
3 eggs, room temperature
¾ c. vegetable oil
1 ½ c. buttermilk
¾ tsp vanilla
3 c. sugar
2 ½ c. all purpose flour
1 ½ c. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
1 ¼ tsp salt

Filling:
1 (16 oz) bag frozen strawberries, thawed
¼ c. sugar
4 tbsp cornstarch

Frosting:
Betty, Duncan, Dough Boy, I'm lazy and prefer the pre-made confections to the homemade ones. I find them too sweet.

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Grease 8 inch baking pans. Set aside.


You will need several bowls for this recipe.

Medium: Combine chocolate and coffee and stir until all the chocolate is melted.

Large bowl: Beat the eggs three to five minutes then add all wet ingredients; oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and coffe-chocolate

Other large bowl: Dry goods here; sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined evenly and everything is a nice tan-ish color.

Add the wet to the dry and mix until it's smooth. I know it will be tempting to lick the beaters, and it's something I've done as a kid with no repercussion, however, I do not recommend this due to the raw egg. 

Divide between three pans and bake between 55-60 minutes. Insert a tooth pick into center of each cake to see if it is done. A clean tooth pick means it's ready to be pulled, dirty and crumby means bake a little longer.

While you are waiting for the cake, now would  be a good time to start on the strawberry filling. Take the thawed berries and put them in a blender or a food processor. Puree until lumpy, but smooth. Add to a sauce pan, along with sugar and corn starch. Stir and stir and stir. The mixture will thicken up as it heats up.

Now once your cakes are done, leave them cool in the pans about five minutes before switching to a wire rack. Cool the cakes completely before frosting otherwise it will melt and you'll have soggy cake and frosting soup.

Once the cakes are cooled, take a long sharp knife and level out the tops of the cakes.

Go on. It's alright to eat the leftover pieces.

spoon some of the strawberry filling on the first layer and spread around until there is about an inch left, place second layer and repeat. Dirty ice the cake with a thin layer of frosting and then coat generously with the rest of the frosting.

Add curly or sparkler candles, light and enjoy the happy.

Recipe adapted/borrow from Baking Junkie. Thank you :)