Suprisingly delicious, waaaay healthy, no mayo TUNA SALAD!

OMFG, so good. You ever go to the cafeteria at work and have a hard time finding something that is both delicious and healthy? Well, try this! This amazing tuna salad was made with ingredients that were all found at the salad bar in the cafeteria at my work. I know it sounds weird, but try it...SO GOOD!

Ingredients:

tuna
chick peas
shredded carrots
diced celery
sunflower seeds
olive oil
red wine vinegar
tabasco
salt
pepper
honey

Mix all ingredients together and stick delicious tuna salad into a pita pocket and enjoy!

Bleeding Heart Cupcakes

Posting this recipe was a bit of a debate. On one hand, they're a little too sweet and Yumsugar omitted the baking time (though we've added it below). On the other, they still taste pretty good, and are fun for Valentine's Day.

The cake itself is good and not too sweet, but stuffing it with jelly and topping it all off with frosting makes it go from 0 to 60 in about 30 seconds. Eating more than one might induce diabetic shock, but moderation is key, and at least they look cool - especially if you can fashion the anatomical topping on this post. We suggest a cream cheese or mascarpone frosting to cut some of the sweetness that comes with the jelly, but we've included the original buttercream recipe below.

White Cupcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cups unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

20 glass marbles or small balls of tinfoil
2 to 3 cups strawberry jelly or smooth strawberry jam

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.


2. In a separate, larger bowl, cream the butter. Gradually add the sugar, creaming until light and fluffy.


3. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well after each addition.


4. In a small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla.


5. To the butter mixture, add about one quarter of the flour mixture and mix well. Add about one quarter of the milk mixture and mix well. Continue alternating the flour mixture and milk mixture, beating after each addition until smooth.


6. Line cupcake tins with paper liners. Fill the liners two-thirds full with the batter. Place 1 marble or tinfoil ball between each liner and the tin. This will make a dent in your cupcake when it bakes to make it heart shaped.


7. Bake about 20-25 minutes at 350. If you are using marbles, be careful when removing the cupcakes from the tins because the marbles will be very hot.


8. When the cake is cool, with a small paring knife, cut out a circle about the size of a dime in the center of each cupcake, going about two thirds of the way in. Pull the little plug of cake out. Cut off the top of this piece (about 1/2 inch thick) and eat the bottom. Use a teaspoon or a squeeze bottle to fill the hole partway with the strawberry jelly "blood." Put the little cake plug back in. Continue with the rest of the hearts.

Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth.


2. Add the powdered sugar, salt, milk, and vanilla and mix until smooth and creamy.


3. Put one-third of the frosting into two separate bowls. Color one bowl of frosting with the red food coloring. Tint the other bowl of the frosting blue. Tint the remaining two-thirds pink.


4. Frost the cupcakes with the pink frosting. Make it super smooth by dipping a butter or frosting/palette knife in a bowl of hot water and smoothing it over the top. With a pastry bag or a knife, use the red and blue frosting to make veins on the hearts (as you'll see below, we skipped these steps).

Gin and Tonic cupcakes

What better food to bring to a cocktail party than a snack that's based on a cocktail? Combining alcohol and baked goods is right up our alley, so we decided on these Gin & Tonic cupcakes from Yumsugar for a cocktail party we attended.


INGREDIENTS
Cake:
2 medium egg whites
Pinch of sea salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tablespoons tonic water

*This recipe makes 12 cupcakes, but we doubled it and made them mini for the purpose of this cocktail party snack.

Frosting:
1/2 cup mascarpone
1 tablespoon gin
2 tablespoons corn syrup
Green food coloring
Lime slices covered in sugar or lime jelly candies, for garnish

*We added one more tablespoon of corn syrup and a couple teaspoons of Rose's lime juice to make this sweeter, but beware - it changes the consistency of the frosting.

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 325° Fahrenheit.

With an electric hand mixer, beat the egg whites in a large bowl with salt and cream of tartar until they are risen, like a soft merengue. Now beat in the sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time, sprinkling it over the egg whites and beating about 20 seconds with each addition. Fold the sifted flour into the meringue in three stages, and then stir in the tonic water.

Arrange muffin paper baking cups inside a muffin tin and fill two thirds full. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden on the surface and still springy to the touch. We figured out that when these are really golden brown they're more chewy than cakey, so try not to overbake. Remove and let cool.


Spoon mascarpone into a bowl and beat in the gin and then the syrup and tint it the palest green with a little food coloring. This ended up tasting cheesy and not very sweet, so we added some more corn syrup and some Rose's lime juice. Unfortunately, the exra liquid and over-mixing made the frosting less creamy and separate a bit, so it tasted better, but looked a little off. If anyone has a solution to this, please let us know. Anyway, frost and top with a lime slice or candy.


These cupcakes are light and soft, a lot like angel food cake. They don't taste much like tonic, but the lightness kind of gives the illusion of a mixer.

Now, it's no secret on this blog that Bake hates gin. Luckily, this frosting is creamy and just a little sweet, so it's the perfect way for her to work her way up to actually imbibing the juniper liquor.