Last Sunday, we went to the Steveston Farmer Market, like usual, I got lots of fresh veggies: baby carrots, beets, English peas, kai lan, tomatoes etc.  And then I saw some beautiful zucchini flower in one booth. They were fresh and marked at only $2 a box!! I never bought zucchini flower before and I don’t know how much it’s usually is. I just thought the price was quite decent, so without much thinking, I bought it.

And then when I got home, I was like what was that in my mind? Now I have to buy tons of other ingredients to cook this beautiful zucchini flower.

I stuffed the zucchini flower with ricotta cheese, coated with root beer batter, then deep fried. The batter puffed up so much, the zucchini flower looked more like a fried oyster. :P  I added a little bit of lemon juice in the cheese filling to cut down the richness. The stuffed zucchini flower was creamy, had a hint of lemon, not too rich, and it was a little crunchy on the bottom of the flower. Bad thing was my root beer batter didn’t turn out to be what I anticipated. The batter coating was soggy; probably I put too much root beer to my batter. Maybe next time I will just use a store-bought tempura batter.  

Ingredients:

Zucchini flowers            12 -14

All purpose flour for dusting the zucchini flower

Canola oil for frying

Cheese Filling:

Ricotta cheese                   1 cup

Grated Parmesan cheese           3tbsp

Chopped chives            1 tbsp

Lemon juice                  1tsp

Lemon zest                   ½ tsp

Salt and Pepper to taste

Root Beer Batter:

All purpose flour              1 cup

Egg                                 1

Salt and Pepper               pitch of each

Cold root beer                 1 cup

(I used more than 1 cup in my batter, and it turned out soggy, so stick with 1 cup of root beer. You can also use soda water)

1. Carefully wash zucchini flower, and let dry on paper towel.
2. For cheese filling, mix all ingredients together.
3. Use a piping bag, carefully open up the petals of the zucchini flower and pipe in cheese filling.
4. For root beer batter: whisk all ingredients together right before use.
5. Heat oil to 375^oC.
6. Dust stuffed zucchini flower with some all-purpose flower.
7. Dip zucchini flower into the beer battle then deep fried in oil until golden brown (about 2-3 minutes).

Noted: My regular Friday shift at QP is 6:00-14:30. For some reasons, I worked almost an hour over time last Friday. 

3:30pm, last minute call from my boss from DQ, I don’t need to work on Friday afternoon, but will need to work on Saturday instead. I told my boss I will start my shift at 8am Saturday morning, so I can leave around 11am for the cupcake delivery.

4:30 pm, start baking cupcakes. Vanilla cupcakes first, then Banana cupcakes, then Pineapple cupcakes, Chocolate cupcakes, and last but not least Smore cupcakes.

This is the temporary labels I made. I will need to make my own picture logo. Thanks CK and OH who printed the labels for me.

Toasted shredded coconut for topping the Pina Colada Cupcakes.

I'm labeling everything, so I don't mix up the frostings and the cupcake bases.

7:00pm, went out for dinner, most of the cupcakes baked, only the Smore cupcakes left. Came home around 9:30pm played with Ethan and watched TV until10:00… start baking again

Mixing the chocolate cupcake battle.

Mixed the last batch of cupcakes dough at around 10:30pm, put them in the oven, and then rushed Ethan to the bathroom for a quick bath. I timed myself, Ethan had to finish the bath, put on clothes, dry hair, back to the bed and drink milk within 20 minutes. That means no play time in the tub tonight. He was so pissed when I took him out of the bath tub.. but he’s pissed every time I take him out of the tub anyways.

The"Oven Channel"

Graham cracker on the bottom of the Smore Cupcakes

11:30pm, last batch of cupcakes out of the oven. Total of 137 cupcakes baked! Put Ethan to sleep, and I took a power nap until 12:30a.m. Meanwhile, OH assembled all the boxes and labeled them.

!37 Cupcakes were baked, cooling down on the marble dining table.

OH assembled the boxes, stacked them and set aside.

By4:00am, After Eight cupcakes, Pina Colada cupcakes, and Banana cupcakes with Chocolate frosting were done and boxed. I was working on sugar flowers for the Vanilla cupcakes, what the hell I was thinking, the customer didn’t even ask for sugar flowers, I just decided to put sugar flowers on the cupcakes because I thought the vanilla cupcakes were too plain. I told OH who was waiting for me to go to bed turn in first, I was nowhere close to finish. I told him my plan to leave the Smore cupcakes decoration after I come back from DQ. I will try to finish the work there by 11, then come home finish the Smore cupcakes, then head to delivery.

After Eight Cupcakes, chocolate cupcake base with Mint buttercream frosting top with chocolate sprinkles.

5:15am, 80 cupcakes done, only 20 Smore cupcakes left… I was exhausted, red eyed, hungry, a little light headed and ready to jump on my bed. And then this thought came into my mind, should I finish the smore too? I don’t think I can leave DQ on-time, come home and torch the smore right before the delivery…   what if something goes wrong? I will not have time to fix it. It didn’t take me long to struggle between going to bed and finish the smore. I had stayed up all night, and now it had only 3 hours left before my shift start, so may as well just finish the smore cupcakes and leave myself stress-free and worry free later of the day.

Pina Colada Cupcakes, Pineapple cupcake base with coconut buttercream frostings top with toasted shredded coconut.

I’m glad…I AM SO GLAD I decided to finish all the cupcakes before I headed to DQ. First, the marshmallow frosting didn’t rise as much as I expected. Then the torch didn’t work, and I had to brown all the smore cupcakes with the broil setting in the oven. And because I don’t want to burn any cupcakes, I had to brown them one by one. By the time, I finished, it was7am!

Banana Cupcake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla buttercream frostings, decorated with sugar flowers.

I took a quick shower and then rewarded myself a big fat bowl of instant noodles, one sausage and 4 fish balls. Again, I’m glad I finished all the cupcakes before I started my shift at DQ. I didn’t leave until11:30am.

Smore Cupcakes, Chocolate cupcakes with graham cracker on the bottom, marshmallow frostings.

I’ve been thinking how to get toBurnabywithout climbing the slope. It seems to be impossible because Bby in on a hill. OH found a route that is not as stiff as boundary or Patterson. We put most of the boxes side by side in the trunk. I forgot how many times I checked to make sure it won’t move or slide away. I held one box on my lap, OH was the delivery guy/driver, and EH was sitting at the back and probably thought we were going to Toysrus.

It was not a good day to deliver cake. It was cold, rainy, and windy. On route, OH had to stop quite sharp a few times because the car in front of us decided to stop all of a sudden. Usually I don’t notice nor do I care about the sharp stop, but I found it was quite irritating that day. I imagined the cupcakes tipping, sliding around, up-side-down perhaps?  But it was all good, we got to the venue safe and early, people love the cupcakes.

P.S. After the delivery, OH, EH and I had lunch in Metrotown. We then headed home and I took an hour nap, woke up and went to my mom’s for dinner. After the dinner, I collapsed and slept on the floor.

The cupcakes with promotion discount were $2 each. Making $200 was just not as easy as I thought. It involved lots of planning, scarifying play time with Ethan and sleep time, panicking, rushing to finish. I felt like I had given birth to a second child….exhausted, stressed, but satisfied! It’s tough to work two jobs and take cake orders on the side, but it’s all done for a better future, and I treat it as a learning progress; I can’t wait for my next challenge… 400 macarons in June.

Did you know that McDonald’s now has Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwiches in their breakfast menu? I tried it this morning, it was so delicious. Imagine a buttermilk biscuit crispy outside and flaky inside with a juicy sausage, egg omelet, and a slice of melted cheese… the perfect breakfast ever! What’s more can you ask for? Yes, of course you can ask for more!

 Participating McDonald’s restaurants are giving out Buttermilk Biscuit sandwiches (choice of Sausage Egg and Cheese, Bacon Egg and Cheese, or Sausage only) for FREE on Feb 9 – 10, 2011 during breakfast hours!! It’s FREE! Try it! You will love it!