My annual “Honoring our mothers” Day was this morning.  Here is our rose display — a rose for each mother here with us and who have gone to Heaven.

I had a cupcake disaster yesterday.  I made mini and large red velvet cupcakes.  I’m not sure what happened, but most of the mini ones looked shriveled and ugly so that not even a lovely cream cheese icing could salvage them.  What to do?  My sister suggested a red velvet trifle.  I had all the makings for a cream filling and lots of fresh strawberries, so I decided to try it.

In a glass bowl I layered the beauty challenged cakes on the bottom.  (Using a glass bowl allows the pretty layers to show.)

I created a cream layer by whipping 1 8 oz block of cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar and then streaming in 1 cup of heavy cream and whipping together until the texture of whipped cream.  I covered the cupcakes with more than half of the cream.  I then used fresh strawberries soaked in fresh mashed strawberries and sugar and poured that over the cream layer.  I topped with the remaining cream and then garnished with sliced berries.

Here’s the finished product, only awaiting a few sprigs of mint for decoration.

This was the first scoop taken from the red velvet trifle.  Verdict—some purists in the crowd preferred the red velvet cupcake, but most loved the combination of the flavors reminiscent of red velvet cake coupled with a layer of strawberry sauce.  Not a bad result for an almost failure!

My cousin who is a fantastic chef cooked a wonderful Mother’s Day luncheon honoring his wife, Mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law and his “favorite” cousin (me)!  As a gift to the mothers, I purchased some cinnamon palmiers from La Tour bakery and made some fresh strawberry mochi.

I washed and halved fresh strawberries and encased them in mochi.  Mochi is a delightful Japanese confection which can be made in a microwave.  

To make the mochi:

1 1/2 cups mochiko (sweet rice flour)

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

pinch salt

Potato starch for dusting only

drop desired food coloring (I used red for a pink colored mochi)

Equipment:  microwave, mochi pan or microwave-safe bundt pan, plastic knife.

Directions:  Mix all ingredients in bowl until smooth.  Spray pan with cooking spray.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and slit holes in top of wrap to vent.

Microwave 3 minutes on low, then 3 minutes on medium, then 3 minutes on high.

Cool 5-10 minutes and then use plastic knife to cut in evenly sized pieces.

Use potato starch to keep mochi from sticking to your hands.  Wrap mochi around a piece of strawberry and pinch together ends.  Dust mochi with potato starch.  

Serving:  place each piece of mochi in a cupcake holder for presentation.  If you’re giving a gift, a pretty presentation is to take a paper plate, punch holes in the rim and tie with a colorful ribbon.  (Thanks for that tip, Pinterest!)

Here’s a simple and elegant appetizer platter suitable for almost any party.  I bought the triple creme brie and Coastal chedder cheese from Costco.  Additionally, Costco offered these mozzarella sticks wrapped in prosciutto and salami.  I added some grapes and dried apricots and served with Milton crackers.  Yum!

For a lobster boil birthday dinner, we wanted to make sure the decor was as special as the food.  Here’s our dining setting!

Close up of a place setting for the lobster boil.

Here is the lobster boil basket filled with all the goodies (lobster, crab, clams, onions, hot links, potatoes, and corn) cooked in water seasoned with sea salt, Old Bay, beer and lemons.  Careful timing and tending resulted in a perfect dinner.