The Vagabond Mom's Birthday Giveaway!

It's been 10 months since I started to become active on my blog again. And I'm thankful for my visitors and I appreciate all the comments. I know I'm still a starter on cooking/baking and I would like to capture my food journey on this blog. 

As my first giveaway, I am giving 2 prizes to two lucky winners.

First prize:

1 set spice jars (4 pcs)

1 set fruit garnishing set

Second prize:

1 silicone spatula

1 silicone round mold

1 silicone pound cake mold

Spice Jars

Fruit garnishing set - baller, zester, corer

Silicone stuff

Silicone spatula

Silicone round mold

Silicone pound cake mold

The contest ends on November 10. Open to all contestants with a Philippine address. :) Please leave a comment with the following details:

Name

GFC Name

Twitter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What to Do with Old Bread?

I can remember my childhood days when my Nanay bakes bread pudding and my sister and I would eagerly wait for it to come out of the oven. It's my earliest memory of baking with my Nanay and my manang. 

Last week, I had several slices of bread in the fridge that I wasn't too keen on eating, neither is my little girl. So I thought of making it into a bread pudding with blueberries! 

Ingredients:

• 4 slices day-old bread
• 2 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1/2 cup blueberries (optional)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Soaking up

Directions:

1. Cut up your bread into 1 inch pieces. Arrange in your gratin dishes. Sprinkle the blueberries around them. Preheat oven at 170 degrees Celsius.

2. In a bowl, mix milk, well-beaten egg, and honey. Add vanilla.

3. Pour the egg mixture into the bread pieces. Allow the bread to soak the liquid.

4. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the bread turns brown and all the liquid has been absorbed.

Source: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/bread-pudding-ii/

Colorful Cake Lollies

Some of the sweets I prepared for my little girl's party were cake pops. Others call it cake lollies or or lollipop cake. And probably some other names but they're all the same - crumbled cake shaped like lollipops and covered with colorful frosting and decorated with pretty little things!

I thought of having these little treats because I feel that the little ones would enjoy them and the adults would, too. They're eye candies and not hard to eat - you just bite into it, no need for plate or fork. :)

What you need:

- any cake, crumbled

- 1/3-1/2 cup frosting (any would do)

- cake pop sticks

- mixing bowl

- candy melts or compound white chocolate (I used Tulip brand)

- food coloring (if using white chocolate)

- toothpick

- spatula

- any topping (colored sprinkles, marshmallows, nuts, etc)

- styrofoam or floral foam

Directions:

1. In a bowl, crumble the cake. If you have a food processor, you can use the pulse button for a few seconds and you'll get a good result in no time!

2. Slowly add half of the frosting and mix. Add more and adjust the consistency. Just make sure the cake mixture is sticky but not too mushy.

3. Roll about 1 1/2 Tbsp of the mixture into a smooth ball and place them into a parchment lined sheet. 

4. Once you have finished rolling everything into a ball, prepare your lollipop sticks. Dip each into your leftover frosting and insert into the ball about halfway.

5. Put the balls in the freezer for an hour or so. Just so the balls will harden when you decorate them.

Wrong way - bowl shouldn't touch the water.

6. When you're ready to decorate your lollicakes, prepare a double broiler for the chocolate coating. You can opt to use colored Candy Melts. For me, I used white chocolate. After tempering it, divided into bowls and used food coloring.

Ready for freezing!

7. Dip the hardened cake balls into the bowls. Top with your desired candies, nuts or design with another color.

8. Stick the lollicakes on the styrofoam or floral foam and let them dry.

Pretty, aren't they? :)

9. You can opt to serve them as is or cover them with clear plastic and tie with a ribbon.

10. Give them away and let the guests enjoy! :)