BRC Heaven

Just letting everyone know that Miguel's Jr. had it's soft opening tonight and I got my BRC (bean rice and cheese) burrito fill. Best part? It was free!!!! If you're in the Costa Mesa area and want something good to eat, check out Miguel's on the corner of Newport and 17th! They plan to officially open this Thursday!!!

Hello Kitty Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

Hello Kitty Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

There were a few birthdays celebrated this past weekend and what’s a birthday without cake?  I decided to attempt to make my first:

1. Pull apart cupcake cake
2. Homemade cupcakes
3. Homemade butter cream

I was successful in two out of the three which is not bad!  Which ones do you think I succeeded at?  Well if you guess 1. and 3. you are correct!  As for the homemade cupcakes, I think I over baked them because they became kind of hard on the outside and crumbly on the inside.  Here’s the recipe I used: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/ from Smitten Kitchen which is the same website from where I get the brownie roll-out cookie recipe from (which are yummy).  Here’s my explanation for my scone/biscuit-like cupcake…The recipe said to bake 35-40 minutes for two 9-inch round cake pans.  It also said this recipe makes about 22-24 cupcakes.  So great I’m thinking!  But how long do I bake it for cupcakes?  I figured it had to be less than the amount for two round cakes.  So I opted for 30 minutes…Apparently that’s too long.  Hehe!  The taste was still yummy, but the texture was too crumbly and dry.  I brought a couple in for my taste tester coworkers and warned them ahead of time to taste at their own risk.  They are two of the nicest people I know so of course they’re going to tell me “It’s not that bad!”  So I decided to just go with this batch because I was partly lazy and partly too busy to bake another batch.  I figured if I slopped enough butter cream on there, and fed them to kids, they would eat anything, right?

I had a lot of fun creating the pull apart cupcake cake.  The only problem is that these types of cakes take A LOT of butter cream, so I had to make another batch the morning of my dance class (where I was to bring this to).  I placed them tightly together on my lovely Martha Stewart square cake stand (given to me by my friend, Justin…I love it and I use it ALL the time!), slathered lilac butter cream all over the top to make it look like one big cake.  Then I Googled online “how to smooth out butter cream on a cake” and learned to dip my spatula thing in hot water and carefully run it over the butter cream.  Again, not perfect, but good enough since I was running out of time!  Good tip, Google!

The girls pulling apart the cake! :)

Then I took a traced Hello Kitty face on parchment paper and placed it carefully over the lilac butter cream to trace with a toothpick.  Then I took a Wilton tip (I think it was #24 or some other star decorating tip) and filled in Hello Kitty’s face with white butter cream leaving the bow blank for pink butter cream.  Then I had some leftover royal icing that I mixed with black food coloring but the darkest I could get it without messing with the royal icing texture was gray.  So gray is it!  I used the gray royal icing to trace the pink bow and the whole Hello Kitty face.  I also used the gray royal icing to fill in her eyes and whiskers.  Then I took a little bit of the leftover white butter cream and mixed some yellow in for her nose.  The final product was really cute.  Not perfect, but with practice I will improve hopefully!  Can’t wait for the next birthday!!!

Here are some additional sites I visited for tips on cupcake cakes, butter cream recipes, etc:

Best Birthday Cake Recipe

Glorious Treats American Buttercream

How to Get Perfectly Smooth Buttercream

How to Write on a Cake 

Hello Kitty Cake Inspiration

Portola Coffee Lab

I can't remember where I first heard of Portola Coffee Lab. I watch a lot of Food Network shows and I read a lot of food blogs from local writers (like Fast Food Maven from OC Register). So this discovery could have been from anywhere.

It was a Sunday morning where we didn't have anything planned for once which is always nice every once in a while. My Timmy husband told me the night before "I'm going to take you on a surprise tomorrow morning!" I was super excited for this surprise and kept thinking what it could be as I dozed to sleep for the night.

When we woke up this morning I put my sneakers on per Tim's request and put my lip balm in my pocket. The essentials of course... And off we went. East on the 91 freeway, south on the 55 and I thought hmm maybe 85 Degrees for breakfast?! Then we got on the 405 North and then I knew we passed 85 Degrees. So hmm what else is North on the 405? We pulled up to a furniture store plaza and then I realized where I was... OC Mart Mix! And what's inside OC Mart Mix?! Portola Coffee Lab! Woohoo!

It's pretty cool inside. Exposed ceiling, wooden structures and eclectic stores fill this building. Not much was open since it was still early in the morning. But it was neat to walk around and think about the stores we want to check out when we come back...like the Cheese Store.

So we walked up to Portola Coffee Lab and that's exactly what we saw--a science lab-like place with baristas as the scientists in their lab coats. This isn't your ordinary coffee shop with coffee pots but instead the coffee scientists meticulously brew each cup in fancy ways I cannot even explain. Just go and watch their experiment with your coffee beans.

The service was delightful. I was unsure what to order or how things worked there. The nice woman at the register with the pretty red lips kindly explained the different options while asking me my preferences to best form her hypothesis on what I should get. In the end they brewed me up a Colombian roast and I accompanied that with a breakfast burrito because why not?! Tim got his chai latte (not a fan of coffee him) and a breakfast burrito too.

He wasn't blown away with his chai latte (he loves the Trader Joe's powder kind) but we both enjoyed our breakfast burritos that has egg, bacon, bell pepper, and black beans in it. It came with a side of not-to-spicy-yet-still-tasty salsa. My coffee was was bold, flavorful and tingled my tongue with excitement. Because I told red lips lady I drink coffee with cream and sugar she suggested this particular coffee and method would go best with what I desired. I'm sure whatever I got though it would have good. If you're a coffee lover and in the mood to check out a really cool somewhat trendy indoor mall-ish type place, check out the OC Mart Mix!

Also if my brother is reading this, there's a place called SHUCK Oyster Bar that we'd like to take you to too. Looks cool. :o)