Lollipop sushi made with smoked salmon and cucumbers

I was watching Food Network a few weeks ago and saw a commercial preview with Rachel Ray at a Sushi Restaurant in L.A. somewhere. I think it was called something like Sushiya. Anyway, they made these sushi lollipops and it looked so cool and yummy so I tried to make it. I think I did okay. I'm not good at cutting thin slices of cucumber. I did my best though. It was thin enough and it wrapped the smoked salmon just fine=)
The ingredients are simple. Just some regular cucumbers and cold smoked salmon.

Peeled and cut cucumbers. I can't really describe how to cut it, but i'll try. I cut the cucumbers into 3 pieces and then sliced it like...well, have you ever tried to peel an apple with a knife without breaking the peel? It's kinda like that. I'm sorry if that didn't help, but I hope you get the idea. You cut it until the get to the seeds part and then toss that away.


After I have it all sliced into thin long strips, I place the salmon in the cucumber slices then roll it and secure it with several toothpicks. After they are secured, I slice them and they look like lollipops. Sort of.

It looks and tastes good, but its even better with some dynamite sauce which is pretty much just mayo and sriracha hot sauce and thats it. I used about a tablespoon of mayo to 1/2 to 1 whole tsp of sriracha. You can add more or less according to your taste. Happy Eating!

Halloween treats~ Bloody mini cheesecakes with eyeballs and bodyparts.

There was a contest at work for best halloween dishes for appetizers, main course, and dessert. I wanted to enter into the dessert category. This is what I wanted to enter into the desserts category. To make a long story short, I put my cheesecakes in the wrong table, thus it wasn't included in the contest. Oh well. At least there weren't any leftovers=) That's a good thing. (I watch too much Martha Stewart).

I basically just used 2 boxes of No Bake Cheesecake mixes, bought a can of Lite Cherry filling, eye ball candy and gummy bodyparts candy and went crazy with that. Very easy. 

The dessert table where my cheesecakes should have been:


Glad I didn't put mine on that table to compete. There were some very good competition don't you think? That Dracula one made out of rice krispies got my vote....except it wasn't really up to the partygoers to pick the winner, the judges had already been chosen. I believe the cake eyeballs won. I'm not sure which one since there were 2 different ones.
I wish I took more pictures, but I didn't. I had my daughter with me and I was in mommy mode and not really thinking.

Wilton Course 1 class complete!

This was our last project. The whole 2 hours was used to make roses...and lots of them. I also put funny looking leaves that grew every which way...and swirl flowers with M&M's. I had leftovers so I wanted to use it. Here is a side view of my amateur cake:

This is the other cake I mentioned that I needed to make because I was rushing to have it ready for class. The ganache frosting was put on much more smoothly and neater=) I decided on a shell border with some swirl flower breaks. It screams "STUDENT CAKE" doesn't it? hahaha. I didn't want to add too much buttercream frosting decorations because like I told my instructor, this cake is staying home. Whenever I make something, I usually tell my husband to bring it to work. Sometimes I take it to my work...but i'm rarely there since i'm at home with the baby. But anyway, we ate this cake up! It was sooooo good. I used box cake mix. Devils Food Cake. I occasionally make cake from scratch but I like some box cake mixes, so it doesn't bother me. Plus, who can beat the 3/$1.00 price? The frosting and filling is exactly the same from the cake mini pans on my post below. I baked them both on the same day. The reason for why I was rushing..my last Wilton Course 1 class. Oh, I start Course 2 tomorrow! I'm so excited. I get to bring my daughter with me=) I couldn't register otherwise because its on a weeknight and my husband isn't able to watch her. The instructor made an exception for me=) 

Wilton mini cake pan set.

I saw this one day at Michael's and thought it would be neat to make a filled cake like that. So I bought it using my 40% off coupon, which ended up costing around $5.oo.  It looked easy enough and since the pans were non-stick, it wasn't supposed to end up like this:

Believe me, I cooled the cake for more than an hour before I tried to take them out. This happened to all 4 of the pans. Not wanting any of it to go to waste, I made these: 

Devils Foodcake Truffles

I crumbled the cake using a pastry blender and fork. 

I added about 1/2 cup of flavored creamer (it depends on how much crumbled cake you have. The recipe I referred to said to make a "medium sized puddle" in the crumbled cake mix. I should have used a flavor I liked instead I chose this because it was "new" and it sounded good. It doesn't taste all that good. I should have gotten something safe like French Vanilla.


I used a tablespoon scooper to make these sized cake balls, then I froze it for about an hour. 

I forgot to take picture of the melted chocolates I used and also forgot to take a picture of me dipping the chocolates. I used Premium Dark Chocolate Candy melts I bought from Michaels. The pink is just colored white chocolate that I also got at Michaels. 

And there is the result again: 

Getting back to the cake pan set, I made another batch. This time, I sprayed the pans with baking spray...and this time: SUCCESS=)

I filled it with Nutella whipped cream. I used about 1/2 cup of Nutella, added about 2 tbsp of milk. Microwaved it for about 40 seconds and mixed it until combined. I then whipped 1/2 cup of heavy cream and later folded in the Nutella mixture. I made a lot of filling because I was also using it for my other cake (the reason why I didn't take to many pictures...I was in a rush to make the other cake for my class). 
Here are the messy cakes...becauseiwasinarush...and didn't have time to make it all pretty.  Oh, the frosting is whipped ganache. The same recipe as I used for my daughter's christening cupcakes on my previous post. 

Here is the interior of the cake with the yummy, yummy filling.


Happy Eating!