Another monochromatic post (sorta)

There's a lot to be said for color.  But that's not to say something all one color can't look classy!  Adding an inedible decoration can help when you want a precise color, as well.  Take wedding cakes for example, they're often just WHITE.  But add a little piping and a little ribbon and it really pops!

My cousin decided on that design, and I really love it!  It was so fun to get all the designs just so...  :)

Again, sometimes just a little splash of color is all it takes to make a good cake GREAT!  Or maybe that's just my personal preference...  ;)

If you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a fan of free-hand random patterns...  Pretty, but not stuffy.  Patterned, but not fussy.  Easy to fill in empty spots, and even cover flaws in the icing!

Not that we ever have that problem...  *whistling*

Of course, these kinds of patterns work better for females.  Or at weddings.  Or at some fancy dinner. 

I don't have any boys yet, so I'll have to find something different if I ever have one.  :)  Maybe chocolate explosions?

Nah, that'd still work for me...  *drool*



Turmeric: not just for chicken!

Ah, turmeric...  I buy it in large quantities.  My mom uses it as much as possible for the health benefits.  I use it as a SPECTACULAR all-natural yellow coloring.  :)

I get mine from the Amish store down the road.  Good stuff.

Now, you can use the full-flavored spice in desserts without too much difficulty, but it will give your food a twang if you use too much.  Use stale turmeric if the flavor is a problem.  

Using large grain sugar, a dash of tumeric, and a few drops of water you can make colored sugar sprinkles for cookies!  (See instructions in this post.)

Using my cookie frosting recipe, I made some yellow and some chocolate frosting for fall-colored cookies!

I'm not entirely sure why, but I really love that tree cookie...  :)

I mixed a little beet juice into my turmeric yellow frosting, and got a soft orange color.  Combine with chocolate frosting and a little plain white, and VOILA!  Cute little fall owl cookies!

 I must say, these are SO FUN to make!  And so cute!  And so yummy!  And all-natural!  :)  Yay for color.  Pooh on the nay-sayers.  ;)

Flavorings

There are SO MANY great flavorings out there to use in your baking!  So many, sadly, are artificial, so I can't use them in my kids' foods...  :(  Here's a small sampling (not even exhaustive) of what I have in my cabinet right now:

I have several things that I keep around because I sometimes need them for my bakery business.  Or because I just haven't used them up completely.  Or haven't thought about throwing them away.  Or whatever.  It's fairly easy to tell which things are artificial flavors, since they usually SAY "imitation" or "artificial" or simply "flavor" (e.g. strawberry FLAVOR, almond FLAVOR, butter FLAVOR).  Not the real thing, just the FLAVOR of it. 

A good clue for vanilla?  If it's clear, it's not real vanilla...  At least, not that I'VE ever seen...

If you're looking for the real thing, look for "extract" or "natural" or "natural oil".  Watch out for things that are "made with" real vanilla, et al.  That means it's just part of the ingredients, not that it's totally natural.  "Double strength" varieties of vanilla are big offenders here, as they will sometimes make real vanilla, and then add the fake stuff to make it "double strength".  Ask me about discovering that AFTER using it in my food...  That'll teach me to read the labels...  *sigh*

So in visual summary of my cabinet:

Interesting note: Did you know that Wintergreen oil is sometimes manufactured in a lab, and then marketed as "natural" because it is molecularly the same?  Just something to think about...

Buying Candy

Being the first day of November, that means only ONE thing: CLEARANCE HALLOWEEN CANDY.  ;)

I may or may not take part in the dash to get to the good stuff first, but we would all do well to follow my Grandpa's advice: "Stock up before the hoarders get there!"   Gotta love that old-fashioned wisdom...  Heh.  :)

Most candies out there have so many food colorings it's almost INSANE:

I try to find things that at least have a minimal amount of color and preferably no artificial flavors.  As we've seen, even CHOCOLATE isn't immune to the flavoring phenomenon, but there are a few exceptions.  My favorite would be the Reese's peanut butter cup!  But only the large one, as the bite-size ones have artificial flavoring in them.  Same company, essentially the same product, DIFFERENT INGREDIENTS.  GAH!  So remember:

In non-chocolate candy, there's also the ubiquitous Necco Wafer:

Look at the soft coloring!  Kinda like Smarties coloring, but all-natural.  Excellent choice.

Now to my FAVORITE treat to get the kiddos, YUMMY EARTH LOLLIPOPS!

Look at the colors!  And the swirls!  And the all-natural organic-ness!  Well, I guess you can't really tell that last one by looking at it, which is kinda the point.  :)  I got a good deal last year on the hexagon container:

Yum.  These are so good.

I need a Reese's cup.  Now.

Chocolate

Now for a small post on chocolate that might turn into a long post, because I like chocolate.  :)

Did you know that many chocolates contain artificial flavoring?  I didn't until fairly recently...  It seems rude to have these yummy things that shouldn't NEED anything artificial in them, but DO.  I've done a little shopping around, and unless these companies change their products, this is what I've found:

Pretty much everything Hershey's contains artificial flavors.  Sad.  However, Nestle has a good record of all-natural offerings, including their mini chips!  YAY!  Baker's Corner (Aldi) are good, and the cheapest chocolate chips I can find around here.  WOOT!  The Choceur bars on the right (also Aldi) use real flavorings as well.  We used them for S'Mores.  :)

I would also like to add that Ghirardelli's chocolate chips are also all natural... 

 

(These are my FAVORITE chocolate chips of ALL TIME)

I didn't take these pictures, because I believe we've eaten all the ones I got on sale a few weeks back...  Uh, yeah.  "We".  ;)

Cocoa: So tasty, so versatile!

Ah, chocolate...  A subject near and dear to my heart...  :)  More specifically today, I'm talking about COCOA. 

Tasty, and one of the most common all-natural colors in kitchens today!  I rarely, if ever, use brown food coloring, even for cake orders!  And yes, that IS chocolate frosting on the lid.  I was just baking...  :)

Monochromatic cakes and cookies can be simple and smooth like this cookie:

They can have just a little layering for effect:

Or even go all out with a design!

One color, one great looking tasty confection.  :)

Using chocolate frosting on a white cake can have a stunning effect as well, with just a few little dots!

For my cookies above, I make my sugar cookie cutouts, and then I stir up this frosting that dries shiny and smooth! 

Supplies:

GLACE' ICING

1 lb Powdered sugar
6 tbs honey, agave syrup or corn syrup
6 tbs milk
For flavor add:
1/4 c cocoa and 1 tsp vanilla  OR  1 tsp vanilla  OR  1 tsp almond extract

Mix all ingredients together.  It should run off the spoon, but should not immediately dissolve back into the bowl of frosting.  If it is too runny, it will fall off your cookie.  If this happens, add more powdered sugar or cocoa.  If it is too thick, it will not leave a shiny finish.  If this happens, add a tiny bit more milk. 

You can spread this icing on with a knife or spoon for an easy finish.  You can also pipe it with regular frosting bags and tips, or by simply cutting the corner off a zip top bag.

If you leave out the cocoa, you can make a relatively white icing to add your all natural colors to.  Here I've made some beet pink icing to layer on my cocoa frosting:

CUTE!!!

Leftover Caramel?

I know you don't have any, but if you did, it's excellent with CAKE.  :)

Who needs color when a dichromatic look (with chocolate leaves) is just as classy?

:)

What says "FALL" better than...

Caramel apples!  Yum...  That thought hit me on the first day of fall this year!  Granted, it wasn't chilly in the least, but I decided to make a go of it!  Most of the store-bought caramels I could find had artificial flavors and/or colors in them, so we made our own!

Supplies:
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
2 cups milk (or heavy cream, if you have it)
3/4 cup light corn syrup (Okay, shoot me, but I at least use the kind with real vanilla! ;) I'm going to use honey in my next try...)
Dash of salt
1 tsp vanilla
Apples
Heavy cooking pan
Sturdy spoon
Popsicle sticks

Recipes vary, and sometimes (okay, MOST of the time) I substitute something I have or prefer instead of using the actual ingredients in my recipes.  Hence the MILK instead of CREAM in my recipe.  (Who keeps heavy cream around the house?  Certainly not me...)

Heat all ingredients except vanilla to boiling in heavy pan over medium heat, stirring constantly; reduce heat slightly.  Boil about 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture is caramel colored. 

The longer you cook it, the more stiff it will be.  If it's cooked to a light caramel color, it will be more like a caramel DIP; darker caramel could be cut in pieces and wrapped, if it lasts that long...  :D  Stir in vanilla, let cool for 15-30 minutes while you prepare the apples.

For my girls, I put the apples on a popsicle stick to make them easier to coat. 

I suppose you could use a lollipop stick, a skewer or even a FORK for the handle.  No need to get all hoity-toity...  :)

I gave them all a small bowl of caramel and a spoon to spread it on.  Make sure the caramel is still pretty warm, so it spreads easier.

If I'd thought ahead better, I'd have gotten some crushed peanuts/cashews/pecans, some chocolate chips (Aldi has all-natural ones), and/or coconut for toppings too, but I didn't.  Maybe next time.

On the other hand, who needs an apple?  Caramel is pretty good on a spoon, too...  :)

Done!  Time to enjoy!

Even the baby gets in on the caramel apple craze...

Yummy!

Caramel apples are SO GOOD, but what could be better than spending time cooking and creating with my precious little ones?  I'd say it's a WIN all around.  :)

My girls like pink...

I have four daughters.  They all like pink, which is totally foreign to this tomboy.  So my first foray into all-natural food coloring naturally involved a color which I have avoided at all costs in the past.  :)

Some homemade vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting were on the schedule for the day, but they just seemed so...white.  They needed something.  Like SPRINKLES...  Yes, that's it.  Now to make some...

I gathered my supplies: some large crystal sugar (most stores carry this), a canned beet, a small plate and a sandwich bag.

Cooked beets are rather squishy and juicy.  I have either squished a few drops of beet juice into the bag, or just dropped in a small slice with some sugar.  Then shake the bag.

Soon you'll see a lovely pink color start to appear!  Add more beet juice if you like, but be careful not to add too much liquid, or the sugar will melt!  If you have just added a slice of beet, continue shaking until the desired hue is reached.  Pour sugar out on your plate and remove beet.

Your sugar sprinkles are likely quite soggy, but that's okay.  They need to dry for a while, but make sure to stir them periodically so you don't end up with a giant block of sugar.  Ask me how I know.  *sigh*

I usually turn the sandwich back inside out and let it dry on the plate as well.  When everything is dry, the sprinkles just go back in the same bag!  It's economical...  :)

So we made our cupcakes, swirled some frosting on top, and VOILA!  A yummy, sprinkly, cupcake with "no artificials", as my daughters would say!  

Arizona made this one.  She was QUITE proud.  :)

Back story...

I decided to start this blog to keep track of some of my all-natural food creations.  I hope to maybe inspire a few people just starting on this road!  A little background for me:

When my oldest daughter, Arizona, was 4, she was extremely hyper and had very little impulse control.  Even beyond normal 4 year-old behavior...  :)  I realized she had a sensitivity to red food coloring after a well-meaning friend gave her a cup of red kool-aid and Arizona threw up within minutes.  It only took a couple repeats of this kind of incident to realize the problem.  (Cleaning red puke out of the carpet is a MEMORABLE experience.  Yuck.)  I cut out all red food coloring, and saw a difference right away. 

After a year or so, I started doing more research on food coloring sensitivities.  I got to thinking, "These colorings are ARTIFICIAL, they're not even really FOOD..."  I also heard that SOME behavior problems can be exacerbated by these artificial additives.  So I decided to cut out ALL artificial colors and flavors from her diet.  The difference was IMMENSE.  Her ability to focus increased, her propensity to interrupt conversations decreased, and her sense of personal space improved to where she wasn't standing within inches of whoever she was talking to.  All of this happened within a WEEK of cutting food coloring, so I took that as a good sign! 

Some people feel sorry for her because she's "missing out" on lots of yummy things, brightly colored treats and candies.  I decided to start this blog to show that there are plenty of yummy, colorful treats that everyone can enjoy!  We don't have these EVERY day, but for an occasional treat it's worth the time and work!