BIRTHDAY CAKE

Yesterday, I baked my mom a birthday cake, though her birthday isn't until tomorrow.  I'd been reading through the blogs and websites I check every day, and found a recipe for an amazing looking cake, so I decided to try it.  Why not?
It was a messy experience, and the frosting didn't quite work out, but it tasted and smelled delicious. I don't think I've ever made a dessert so delicious- so, of course we had to eat it at 3:00 in the afternoon instead of at night on my mom's actual birthday.

I don't have cake pans... so pie tins were my only option...

my great grandmother's mixer has a tendency to get completely filled with whatever I'm mixing

cake + frosting layer +cake = one giant oreo?

the shape was a little off, but this was AMAZING cake

Belarus: Apple Pie

The Dish: Apple Pie, just not pie shaped... See the original recipe here.
The Country: The capital is Minsk, and a popular drink in Belarus is Russian wheat vodka.

AAAAPPPLLLESSS

Ingredients:
4 apples (green or red, I used one green and three red)
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of all purpose flour
2 eggs
cinnamon

doesn't that look appetizing? ......

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 350°
Cut the apples into half inch thick slices.
Mix the flour, sugar, and eggs.
Grease a 9x12 (or somewhere around that size) pan, and lay the apples evenly across the bottom.  Sprinkle them with cinnamon.
Cover the apples in the flour/sugar/ egg mixture.
Bake for 50 minutes- 1 hour, depending on your oven.

THE FINAL PRODUCT... it looks kind of messy, but I'm still learning. :D

Notes: I think I should have used more cinnamon than I did- the flavor was relatively unpronounced.  I wouldn't call it bland, but it wasn't a WOW moment.
While it was baking, my dad, mom, and I watched a history channel video about Florence's Medici family in the 1400s. I wonder what kind of food they ate.... ?
Rating:  2

Bangladesh: Begun Bhaja

The Dish: Fried eggplant. See original recipe here.
The Country: The People's Republic of Bangladesh is right next to India, so the majority of their foods are similar.

chopped eggplant

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large eggplant
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder

frying eggplant

Procedure:
Wash the eggplant, then cut it into thin slices.
Heat a frying pan and add the oil.  Place the eggplant slices in the oil.
Add turmeric powder and salt.
Fry for about seven minutes, or until the pieces are light brown.
Eat.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Notes: It was slightly gooey, and the texture was like I was eating a slug, but the flavor was fine. I added a bit too much salt, so I would advise going light on the salt, and maybe heavier on the turmeric powder.
Sorry I haven't cooked in a while, I was in my school's production of Grease and the rehearsals were quite late.
Rating: 2.25

Barbados: Sweet Bread

The Dish: Bread with raisins and coconut.  See original recipe here.
The Country: With a population of about 300,000, this island nation is the home of Rihanna.

the ingredients

Ingredients:
1/2 a stick of butter
3.5 cups of flour
Shredded coconut
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Seedless raisins
1 cup of sugar (hello, clogged arteries)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup of milk

the dough

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Melt the butter.
Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder together.  Add the egg, milk, melted butter, and vanilla extract.
Separately, mix the sugar with however many raisins you would like.  Add in a handful of shredded coconut. 
Take about 2/3 of the sugar/coconut/ raisin mix and add it to the flour mix.  Leave the rest of it to the side somewhere where your dog wont try and eat it. (My dog is a crazy scavenger who likes to eat whatever he finds, so I have to leave my weird cooking concoctions at the back of the counter or he'll have a feast of coconut shreddings and raisins.)
Add this new mixture to a greased baking tin.  Bake for 45 minutes- 1 hour, depending on the efficiency of your oven.
Sprinkle with some of the remaining sugar/raisin/coconut mix.
Cool.
Eat.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Notes: "Wicked," my brother's response, not to the bread, but to the fact that Barbados is where Rihanna is from.  I think he liked the bread too, but he's a big Rihanna fan, so you never know.
Rating: 3

Bahrain: Chicken Machboos

The Dish: Chicken and rice, with peppers, onions, and tomatoes.  See the original recipe here.
The Country: As you know, protests have erupted in countries throughout the Middle East, including Bahrain.  Protesters have flooded Pearl Square in Manama, and the army has withdrawn.

yummy... yellow food.

Ingredients:
As much chicken as you would like
3 onions
3 medium sized tomatoes
1 red pepper
1 435g bag of basmati rice
salt
cinammon
coriander
tumeric
cumin
butter
vegetable oil
lemon juice

transferring my chicken

Procedure
Heat 4.5 cups of water on the stove.
Chop the onions, sauteé them in a cup of vegetable oil. When they are slightly golden, add in chopped red pepper.  After two minutes, add in chopped chicken.  Add in 1 tsp cumin and 2 tsp tumeric.  Chop the tomatoes and add them in.  Add 2 tsp salt. Stir until the chicken is all the way cooked.
Add in 1/2 tsp coriander and the hot water. Cover the pan and let it sit for twenty minutes.
Take everything out of the pan, leaving behind all of the liquid.  Put it all on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 350° for twenty minutes.  While this is happening, put the rice in the leftover liquid.  Cook until it absorbs all of it. Add more water and keep cooking if the rice is still hard. Sprinkle a little bit of lemon juice over the rice.
Serve the rice and chicken together.

THE FINAL PRODUCT, with some bread.

Notes: The bright yellow color sort of scared me at first, but it ended up tasting pretty good. The chicken itself was somewhat bland, but the tomatoes were delicious.  I know I didn't have all of the ingredients that the original recipe called for, so it may have tasted better if I had all the right stuff.
Rating: 3

Candy Melts = absolute cooking failure

I thought it would be fun to attempt to make cake balls (balls of cake on a stick), but "fun" is the last word I would chose to describe what just happened; words like "disgusting," "nauseating," and "barf inducing," are much better choices.

the devil

So, I baked a cake, a simple, straight from the box, chocolate cake.  I went for a bike ride while it cooled.  When I came back, my grandpa and I began to mash it into balls.  We should have stopped right then, when it would hardly stick to the lollipop sticks.  If only we had known what we were getting ourselves into.... I had bought a pack of "melting candy" the day before, I was excited to use it because it was mentioned in one of my how-to-make-good-cupcakes books.  I should not have been excited.  When I pulled it out of the microwave, it had turned black, and was oozing.  It smelled as if someone had lit a pile of turds, on fire.  The Arizona sun must be getting to me after such an intense Chicago winter because I figured, if I dipped the cake ball things in it, it would all work out.  It began to smell so intensely, and ooze so disgustingly, that my grandpa and I gave up. We tried to clean the bowl, but when the oozing mixture hit water, it started to bubble again, in some scary chemical reaction.  This stuff is dangerous, it actually isn't safe to use.  Stay away from melting candy.

cake balls (aka, turds)

We threw all of it out, but the house still smells like burning poop. We're sitting on the porch right now because the smell inside is so intense.  I don't think I'll be able to eat chocolate for a while.
Oh, by the way, happy Valentine's Day.

Bahamas: Banana Pudding

The Dish: Hot bananas. It's absolutely delicious! See original recipe here.
The Country: The Bahamas are made up of  29 islands, and the country's national flower is the yellow elder.

mashing up the bananas

Ingredients:
Six bananas
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3.5 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup milk

this looks like baby food

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 300°
Mash the butter and brown sugar together with a fork.
Mash up the bananas with a potato masher (or a fork, but that is much slower).
Add it all together, mix it with a fork.  Add in the flour and milk.  Mix again.  Make sure  it is still slightly lumpy.
Bake for twenty minutes.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Notes: If you don't like bananas, you would absolutely hate this recipe, but luckily, everyone in my family likes bananas.  I'm at my grandparents house, so this was the first time anyone other than my siblings and parents has tried my food, and they liked it!
Rating: 4.9