dessert – Sheikah Plate

A Year Ago…

May 30, 2018May 30, 2018by Teri Mae10 Comments

Hey, friendly followers who stick with me through thick and thin! Guess what today is? It’s officially 1 year since I posted my very first recipe. Can you believe that?! One year! And look how far we’ve all come! I’ve got followers, a twitter account, exciting new recipes, collaborations, and friends in foreign countries. This blog thing has turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made. And even though I’m still not posting regularly (this time thanks to my garden and backyard: photos on Instagram tomorrow if you want to see them!) I’m getting better and you are all so supportive I feel like it’s all okay. That everything is okay.

So thank you to the people who have supported me, pushed me, and helped me get from point A to here in the last year. In other words – thank you to all of you! In honor of this auspicious anniversary here is a reblog of my very first recipe: Wildberry Crepes!

What seems like an eternity ago my husband and I went to Paris. This was easily one of the best experiences of my life and I brought back a serious love for french pastries. I set out determined to master every single one I had eaten. The easiest to master was the crepe. My high school french teacher taught me how to make his secret recipe, weaseled out of the corner crepe stand proprietor while he was living in France. I already had a lot of experience making them before my trip but I was able to perfect it after watching the way the locals made them. So when I accidentally made a crepe in Breath of the Wild I was so excited! Link could make crepes! It felt so cool to make something in the game that I love making in real life. This made the decision of which recipe to create first simple. It had to be the crepes that had brought me so much joy.

Hylian Wildberry Crepes:

The equipment for this recipe is pretty straight forward: a bowl for the batter, a whisk, measuring materials, a piping bag if you’re feeling fancy, and a frying pan or crepe pan. I make crepes so often it was worth every penny to buy a really amazing crepe pan. I use Le Creuset. I love their cast iron quality and the spatula and rateau (spreading) tools are perfect.

Crepes start with some forethought because they are best if there’s very little air in the batter. They make a smoother surface with no pockets or holes for the delicious insides to ooze out of. Eggs, milk, flour, and butter are whisked together until there are no lumps. This may take a minute or so. The flour can get really finicky when added to the egg mixture.

In order to get rid of all that pesky air a piece of plastic wrap is pressed down onto the surface of the batter, the bowl is given a few gentle shakes, and the entire thing is put in the refrigerator to rest for at least an hour. Since I usually make crepes for breakfast I make the batter the night before, that way they are fresh and ready for the morning.

Gently cutting in any butter that may have come out of solution is key! You didn’t let it sit for an hour just to ruin it now! Pans should be heated on medium low and butter should be added to the entire surface. Don’t skimp out on me now, we are making crepes not a salad! Add the first half cup of batter, spreading it by tilting a frying pan or using the rateau with a crepe pan. First crepes are a sacrifice to the Goddess: it’s meant to be made made and then promptly thrown away. If your sacrifice has been accepted you won’t need to butter your pan again.

Every crepe is an adventure. The amount of batter you add and your attention to spreading will produce different sizes and different shapes. The challenge is to get each one perfect. It’s definitely a super gut check challenge. Easier with pratice, the right elixers, and the right gear.

Only the best berries should be used, which usually means purchasing in-season. These wildberry crepes feature strawberries, the current berry-of-the-month. My favorite, however, are raspberries! Use whatever feels right. Wildberry is vague, allowing for some fantastic judgement calls. To make them a little syrupy dip the cut side of the berry into sugar and allow it to sit for a few minutes.

You can pipe or dollop the whipped cream. Honestly, after the pretty photo shoot was over, my husband and I stood over the crepe pan spooning on the cream and berries faster than I could make them.

Link’s Wildberry Crepe recipe:

- Fresh Milk
- Bird Egg
- Tabantha Wheat
- Cane Sugar
- Wildberry

Hylian Wildberry Crepes

Servings: 6-8 crepes
Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Print

Crepes with berries and whipped cream from Breath of the Wild

Crepes

3 eggs
1 cup milk, any percentage will do
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour, sifted
3-4 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling

24-32 small strawberries, 3-4 per crepe
1 cup whipping creme or heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar plus a few pinches for dusting berries

Directions

Whisk together eggs and milk until smooth. Slowly add sifted flour and salt and whisk until combined. Add butter and continue whisking until the batter is smooth with no flour lumps.
Gently press a piece of plastic wrap down into the bowl to rest on top of the batter and cover it entirely. Refrigerate and allow to rest for at least one hour.
While the batter is refrigerating prepare the berries and whipped cream.
Cut strawberries in half and lightly cover the cut side in sugar. Allow to sit at room temperature for a few minutes to produce a little syrupy goodness.
Whipping cream can be made three ways: a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, a blender, or a bowl and hand mixer with a whisk attachment. For any of these options add the whipping cream to the blender or bowl and whisk on high. Slowly add the sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks form and the cream becomes shiny.
When the batter is ready gently peel back the plastic wrap. It is perfectly normal for some batter to stick to the wrap. In fact, if it doesn’t, you may not have pressed the plastic down enough. Some butter may have separated at this point. Using a knife or spoon gently cut and turn the batter until uniform.
Heat pan on medium low until hot. Add butter to cover the surface of the pan. Add 1/2 cup batter to the pan and twist or spread using a rateau until the batter covers the bottom of the pan. Allow to sit for about 1 minute until the bottom sets up. Flip the crepe and cook about 1 minute more until lightly browned. Throw this first crepe away. It usually has too much butter to taste really good.
Continue adding 1/2 – 2/3 cup batter at a time to the pan without re-greasing the pan and follow step 7 for cooking instructions.
Remove from pan and immediately pipe or spoon on whipped cream and strawberries. Crepes are best enjoyed hot but are still delicious cold. They do not store well so make and enjoy all your crepes that day!

Recipes

Carrot Cake

July 11, 2017July 11, 2017by Teri Mae9 Comments

It’s came! It finally came! The recipe you’ve all been patiently waiting for (I’m looking at you, Later Levels). Since I had a little more time with this recipe I decided to experiment a bit and go a little different route than your traditional “carrot cake”. Most carrot cake, at least in the U.S. is more of a quick bread than a cake – it’s dense and crumby, though still good. Instead I combined a few different recipes I found and made a much more light, airy crumb texture, that had plenty of height and reminded me much more of an actual cake. But, by doing this, I made it a bit more complicated. So bear with me and let’s dig in!

Carrot Cake

Start by mixing together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon, and most of the sugar. Put it in a bowl, use a whisk, and get it nice and evenly aerated and blended. Oh, and make sure you pull out the eggs. You’ll want them to sit at room temperature for at least 20 minutes before you whip them.

Grate the carrot using a fine grater. It’ll take about 4-5 large carrots to get enough for this cake. That seems like a lot, but can you imagine a better way to eat your veggies? I usually don’t peel my carrots. I feel like the skin has the potential for being good for you and is not, at the very least, not bad for you. And it saves you that extra few minutes in time and clean up. Win-win. And, because we aren’t using Endura carrots, anything that shortens the time is worth it. When the carrots are ready slightly squeeze handfulls of them over a sink to get a little of the juice out. This will help keep it from falling to the bottom of the pan and from letting the cake be too wet.

Now here comes the different part and the reason this isn’t an “easy” recipe. Add all the eggs to a bowl and whip on high, using a whisk or electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, until they start to get bubbly. Stop and add the rest of the sugar and all the oil, and continue whisking until the eggs get light in color, start to get fluffy, and can almost double in volume. This will take at least 5 minutes. If you’re lucky enough to have a stand mixer like a KitchenAid you can do this while grating the carrots and save yourself even more time!

Once the eggs are ready slowly fold in the carrots. This mixture will be really thick and you’ll wonder why on earth we spent all that time whipping eggs, but trust me. It’s worth it. Slowly add the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Butter a 10 inch round cake pan, making sure you get all the cracks and crannies. I prefer a springform pan because they are the easiest to get a cake out of. If you don’t use a springform you may have to flour the pan as well as butter it. Just throw in some flour after you grease it, shake it until the butter is covered, and dump out the excess. It’s pretty easy. Add the cake batter and stick it in the oven. The entire bake process is an adventure, like completing a shrine. Depending on the oven, the type of oven, how old your oven is, etc… your baking time will be different from someone else’s. But my oven bake time was about 45 minutes. Yours will be pretty close to this, but just watch starting around 40 minutes. Getting a perfectly domed cake is all about timing. Take the cake out to early (or even check on it too early) and the whole thing will collapse on you. Take the cake out late and it’ll be so dry you’ll regret eating it. So if you open the oven door to check on the cake and the center wobbles a bit close it quick and wait another 5-10 minutes before you even try again. A toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean when it’s ready!

While the cake is baking feel free to make some good, old fashioned cream cheese frosting. Make sure the butter and cream cheese is at room temperature and add them to a bowl with the vanilla (again, a stand mixer comes in really handy right about now). Beat them together until they are well combined. If you use a stand mixer make sure you scrape the bowl at this point with a spatula. Add the powdered sugar 2/3 cup at a time until it becomes spreadable. How much powdered sugar you add is really up to your taste preferences. I prefer a more sharp, tangy frosting (if I eat it at all) so I was good at 2 cups.

When the cake is done take it out of the oven and allow it to cool completely before frosting. I take the springform sides off after about 5 minutes so it doesn’t keep cooking. If you use a regular round cake pan take it out of the pan after 5-10 minutes and let it cool on a wire rack. This will prevent the bottom from getting soggy. No one wants a soggy bottom.

Make sure you wait until the cake has cooled completely before you frost. If you don’t the entire top layer will peel away into the frosting and become a big, giant mess. When cooled, frost and enjoy! Oh, and I don’t recommend garnishing with a raw carrot. But I won’t judge if you do…

Link’s Carrot Cake recipe:

- Any Carrot
- Tabantha Wheat
- Cane Sugar
- Goat Butter

Carrot Cake

Servings: 1 10 inch cake
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: moderate
Print

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting from Breath of the Wild

Carrot

4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups finely shredded carrot (about 4-5 large carrots)
3/4 cup cooking oil

Frosting

4 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 cups powdered sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F
Whisk together flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together until aerated and combined
Shred carrot with a fine grater. There is no need to peel beforehand but you may if you desire.
Slightly squeeze handfulls of carrot to remove excess moisture.
Using a stand mixer or electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment whip eggs together until frothy. Slowly add the oil and remaining 1/2 cup sugar and whip together until light in color, fluffy, and almost double in volume.
Gently fold carrots into the egg mixture. Be careful not to deflate the eggs.
Slowly add and stir in flour mixture until just combined.
Butter and, if not using a springform pan, flour a 10 inch round cake pan. Make sure the butter gets in all the cracks. If you need to flour the pan add a handful of flour and knock the pan in circles until it’s covered in flour after buttering. Dump out excess flour.
Add cake batter to the pan and use a spatula to smooth down and even the surface.
Bake for about 45 minutes. The cake will be done when a toothpick comes out clean.
Make the frosting while the cake is baking by adding the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla to a mixer or bowl.
Mix until combined and slowly add powdered sugar, 2/3 cup at a time, until you reach a spreadable consistency and desired flavor. This, for me, is 2 cups powdered sugar.
When the cake has cooled for 5-10 minutes remove from the pan and allow to finish cooling.
Frost and serve! This cake will store well at room temperature for a few days tightly covered.

Recipes

Creamy Heart Soup

June 13, 2017by Teri Mae8 Comments

This recipe was hard.

There were several issues with it right from the get-go. First: voltfruit, hydromelon, and that giant version of a radish don’t exist in the real world. Second: The obvious substitutes, based on what the BotW equivalents look like, were a very strange assortment of flavors. And third: Fruit soup is something I am not a fan of. Ever. So finagling a recipe utilizing fruit and a random vegetable was a major challenge to me.

This recipe morphed from an attempted appetizer to a definite dessert soup. Apparently that’s a real thing – I checked. Frankly, I didn’t go crazy for any of the combinations I tried, but, as mentioned earlier, I was pretty limited by the ingredients and by my prejudice against fruit soup. To me it tasted like a melted smoothie until I finally found the right combination to change it to a pureed fruit salad. Which, to me, is way better. So is it decent enough? Absolutely. Is it something I’ll eat all the time? Nope. Was it worth experimenting? Do you even have to ask? Will you like it? You’ll have to let me know!

Creamy Heart Soup

We had to start with the substitutions. Obviously hydromelon is watermelon. They didn’t even attempt to change the name. I made the gambit through all the milk varieties – milk, half and half, heavy cream – and finally landed on whipped cream. Why? Because fruit soup really needed some cream and the whipped kind tasted best. If you need an easy whipped cream recipe check out my Hylian Wildberry Crepe post. The last is voltfruit. When I picked up my first voltfruit on Eventide Island a dragon fruit immediately came to mind – and the idea just stuck. It looks just like it! So that’s what we went with.

We start with dicing our watermelon into large cubes, dicing our radish into small cubes, and scooping the fruit from the dragon fruit. It was actually incredibly easy. Watermelon is cut into slices, the rind is removed in pieces, and then you can easily cut through the delicious insides. The dragon fruit is cut right down the center and the edible portion is easily removed with a spoon. And the radish is diced like, well, everything else.

Add all the ingredients to your blender in this order. Based on your blender there may be a particular order you should add things in. For my blender it was: dragon fruit, watermelon, radish, sugar, and lemon juice. Blend until smooth, stop and add the whipped cream, and then blend until well-mixed.

Once it’s all ready add the mint leaf and stir it around for 30 seconds to a minute. You don’t need to go crazy – that fresh, minty flavor will be there without any additional mashing or dicing. Remove the mint and chill the soup thoroughly, at least one hour. I promise it will not taste as good warm.

Now for the confession. You know the nicely made fruit balls that look like they float so well in the photo? Yeah… they didn’t float at all. The minute I tried to gently place them in they sank to the bottom like a rock. So it took some serious maneuvering and MacGyver-ing to get the photo to look sort of like the Breath of the Wild photo. Hey, that’s the price of a photo! But what does it mean for you? Well, you won’t be able to present the soup the way I did. Unless you want to serve it to your guests with a few lids and coins in the center to keep the fruit from sinking… So whether you want to include fruit balls or not is totally your call. My recommendation: skip it entirely. This soup doesn’t need any more fruit.

If you do choose to add fruit simply take either a melon baller or, if you don’t have one (like me!) then use a round teaspoon and gently cut a circular shape from a slice of fruit. It’s not that hard – I promise! Garnish however you choose and enjoy slurping your dessert!

Link’s Creamy Heart Soup recipe:

- Any radish
- Hydromelon
- Voltfruit
- Fresh Milk

Creamy Heart Soup

Servings: 4 small, 2 large
Time: 15 minutes plus 1 hour to chill
Difficulty: easy
Print

Creamy Heart Soup with Watermelon and Dragonfruit from Breath of the Wild

Soup

2 1/2 cups watermelon, seeded and diced
1/2 medium dragonfruit
1 tsp radish, diced
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 cup whipped cream
1 mint leaf

Garnish Ingredients

12 small watermelon balls
8 small dragonfruit balls
4 radish slices, cut into hearts

Directions

Dice the watermelon into large chunks
Dice the radish into small pieces
Slice the dragonfruit in half and scoop out the edible fruit
Add all ingredients to a blender in this order: dragonfruit, watermelon, radish, lemon juice, sugar
Blend until smooth
Stop the blender, add the whipped cream, and blend until thoroughly mixed
Pour the soup into a bowl and add the mint leaf. Stir and mix for 30 seconds to 1 minute until the mint flavor is infused in the soup. Remove the leaf.
Chill the soup for at least 1 hour.
Using a melon baller or teaspoon remove fruit balls from watermelon and dragon fruit.
Slice and shape radish into hearts.
Garnish the chilled soup with fruit and radish hearts and serve.

Recipes

Wildberry Crepes

May 30, 2017May 30, 2017by Teri Mae8 Comments

Hylian Wildberry Crepes:

You can pipe or dollop the whipped cream. Honestly, after the pretty photo shoot was over, my husband and I stood over the crepe pan spooning on the cream and berries faster than I could make them.

Link’s Wildberry Crepe recipe:

- Fresh Milk
- Bird Egg
- Tabantha Wheat
- Cane Sugar
- Wildberry

Hylian Wildberry Crepes

Servings: 6-8 crepes
Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Print

Crepes with berries and whipped cream from Breath of the Wild

Crepes

3 eggs
1 cup milk, any percentage will do
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour, sifted
3-4 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling

24-32 small strawberries, 3-4 per crepe
1 cup whipping creme or heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar plus a few pinches for dusting berries

Directions

Whisk together eggs and milk until smooth. Slowly add sifted flour and salt and whisk until combined. Add butter and continue whisking until the batter is smooth with no flour lumps.
Gently press a piece of plastic wrap down into the bowl to rest on top of the batter and cover it entirely. Refrigerate and allow to rest for at least one hour.
While the batter is refrigerating prepare the berries and whipped cream.
Cut strawberries in half and lightly cover the cut side in sugar. Allow to sit at room temperature for a few minutes to produce a little syrupy goodness.
Whipping cream can be made three ways: a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, a blender, or a bowl and hand mixer with a whisk attachment. For any of these options add the whipping cream to the blender or bowl and whisk on high. Slowly add the sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks form and the cream becomes shiny.
When the batter is ready gently peel back the plastic wrap. It is perfectly normal for some batter to stick to the wrap. In fact, if it doesn’t, you may not have pressed the plastic down enough. Some butter may have separated at this point. Using a knife or spoon gently cut and turn the batter until uniform.
Heat pan on medium low until hot. Add butter to cover the surface of the pan. Add 1/2 cup batter to the pan and twist or spread using a rateau until the batter covers the bottom of the pan. Allow to sit for about 1 minute until the bottom sets up. Flip the crepe and cook about 1 minute more until lightly browned. Throw this first crepe away. It usually has too much butter to taste really good.
Continue adding 1/2 – 2/3 cup batter at a time to the pan without re-greasing the pan and follow step 7 for cooking instructions.
Remove from pan and immediately pipe or spoon on whipped cream and strawberries. Crepes are best enjoyed hot but are still delicious cold. They do not store well so make and enjoy all your crepes that day!