Preview: My sister's wedding cake... and Yummy Spicy and Sweet BBQ Pork Spareribs!

Congratulations to my sister and her new husband on getting married last weekend!!!  I spent a good day making her wedding cake and cupcake ensemble.  Her wedding cake is a Lemon cake with lemon fillings, covered with a lemon frosting and fondant. The cupcakes, were of two varieties: lemon cupcakes with lemon frosting, and Chocolate coffee cupcakes with coffee buttercream frosting. The Main cake was hand decorated and painted as you can see in the picture below into the wee hours of the night:

Photograph courtesy of Ian Cheung

The final product will be displayed once I get a decent picture of it!

In the meantime, I made a yummy Spicy and Sweet BBQ Pork ribs yesterday at a friend's place.  You need not marinade the ribs for long as they were only marinated 2 hours before they were actually grilled! Of course, adjust the Chili powder to your spiciness level!

Please ignore the poor picture quality, as this was taken with my phone as well.

Spicy and Sweet BBQ Pork Spareribs:

Ingredients:

4 lbs     Pork Spareribs
1 cup    Brown sugar
2 tbsp   Chili powder
2 tsp     Salt
2 tsp     Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp  Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp  Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp  White pepper, grounded


Directions:
1. Clean ribs and pat them dry using paper towel. Remove thin membrane on the underside of pork ribs.
2. Mix together sugar and all spices in a bowl.
3. Rub in spices mixture onto ribs. Refrigerate, and marinate for 1 or more hours. The ribs will have liquids coming out of them, so be sure to use a bowl with sides to catch the drippings.
4. Slowly grill ribs over low heat until meat have shrunken from bones, approximately 25-30 minutes. Be careful of the heat as there is a high sugar content in the rub, high heat may burn the ribs without thoroughly cooking the ribs.  Baste with liquids collected during marinating state.

Operation Cupcake due this weekend!!! YIKES!

So with operation cupcake due this weekend,  I will regret that I won't have time to post a picture up this week.  But here is a great recipe for the ground pork with shallots and garlic that you buy at Taiwanese bubble tea places also known as "Niu rou" rice or "Lo Yuk" rice in Cantonese.


Figurines for the cake are almost finished with the final design to be drawn on. Pictures will definitely be up later this week!


Taiwanese style Ground Pork with Shallots and Garlic Recipe

Ingredients:
1 lb ground pork (recommended fatty pork, but lean pork is good too)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
4 tablespoons minced garlic
4 tablespoon fresh shallots, finely diced

3 – 4 whole dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked, and finely diced
2 cups water or beef broth (I even used chicken broth)
1/3 - 1/2 cup soy sauce (less soy sauce if less salty – may use combination of dark and light soy sauce for colour but total 1/3 – 1/2 cups.)
1 tablespoon sugar or rock sugar to taste
¼ cup Chinese rice wine
1 teaspoon five-spice powder

1 – 2 star anise
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon cinnamon

steam rice

Method:
Brown pork in skillet until cooked; drain off oil and set aside.
Add vegetable oil in a pot over medium-high heat.
Saute shallots and garlic for 1 minute.
Add pork stir a few times.
Add water/broth and the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil. Adjust taste.
Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring a couple of times.
Uncover and cook for 15 more minutes. Skim oil.

To make the eggs, I soft boiled a few eggs, than removed the shell, and put it in to boil with the pork.