Bernie is ONE!! Yes, it went by so quickly! Yes, she gets more delicious every day!! Yes, I began planning her vegetable-themed birthday party more than six months ago and spent hours and hours searching for the perfect garlands and outfits, hand drawing her invitations, developing new recipes, sketching out her table scape, typewriter-ing the seed packet party favors, and scheduling the prep down to the minute. (And yes, in retrospect, I see what Nick meant when he said that I am… crazy…) And then yes, we had to cancel it ☹️! But!! Even though we missed our fronds and family dearly, it was truly a magical beautiful Bernie day and we loved every single moment of it. We had sprinkle pancakes and blueberries for breakfast, homemade chicken and stars soup for lunch, and turkey spinach meatballs with freshly made fettuccine for dinner. In between, we played in pools of Cheerios and visited the farm cats. And then we had cake! Obviously!

I am so pleased with how this naturally colored rainbow cake turned out. It took a bunch of experimenting and tweaking to get the shades to match and to figure out a method that wouldn’t require too much fussiness/juicing/boiling of beets/etc. I tried using turmeric but that was too bright, and I tried using a store-bought precooked beet but that wasn’t bright enough and just got messy. In the end, I went with a combination of store-bought carrot juice, store-bought beet juice, and a big bunch of fresh mint. The cake is based on my go-to vanilla butter cake that is so incredibly moist, dense, and delicious. It’s one of my proudest cakes! The flavor of the beets and the carrots is undetectable and the flavor of the fresh mint shines through just a wee bit, enough to lend its herby flavor but it’s far from overpowering. I went with a basic cream cheese frosting to add some nice tang and decorated with Fimo clay cake toppers.

For Bernie’s mini cake, I stacked up the scraps that I cut off from leveling the layers and cut out tiny layers with a biscuit cutter. No separate cake pans necessary. I was so excited when I realized this would work! The cake is so moist that the scrap layers stuck together without a need for frosting between them. Bernie loved it! I took enough photos of her eating it to break my phone and she didn’t even make a huge mess which makes me think that one day she’ll make a great cook that will be good at the whole clean-as-you-go thing. 

Weeks ago, I baked the cake layers, let them cool, formed Bernie’s mini cake, wrapped everything in plastic wrap and froze them so that I could have one more thing checked off my to-do list for the party. It also made frosting them, especially the mini cake, way way easier. I always like to frost frozen cakes (and then allow to sit at room temperature for a few hours or overnight before serving). 

Important note about the layers! The blue layer that’s in these photos is a layer I added at the last minute because we were going to be expecting more guests than my usual three-layer cake serves and also because I needed to test two of the layers again. It’s not a part of the recipe below, which only makes three layers, but if you’d like to make a blue layer, simply use the same method as the green layer but sub out the mint for wild blueberries (I used frozen). You’ll have to either make another third batch of batter or replace one of the other colors with the blue. I’m sorry in advance for any confusion!!

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Naturally Colored Rainbow Cake

Makes one 3-layer 8” cake (and a mini cake!)

Ingredients

3 1/2 c (450g) all-purpose flour

1 tb baking powder

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 c (225g) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 c (112g) refined coconut oil, room temperature

2 1/4 c (450g) sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 tb vanilla bean paste or extract

1/2 c (120g) sour cream, room temperature

1 c whole milk, divided

1/4 c carrot juice

1/4 c beet juice (storebought is fine, the one I get has a little lemon juice added and that’s ok)

1/4 c firmly packed fresh mint leaves

Frosting:

1 c** (225g) good quality unsalted butter, room temperature

8 oz (224g) cream cheese, room temperature

4 c** (480g) powdered sugar

1/8 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract

3 tb** (45g) heavy cream

**if you’re making a mini cake, I recommend adding another 1/2 c of butter, 1 c of sugar, and 1 tb of heavy cream to the frosting in order to have enough!

Clues

To make the cake layers: preheat the oven to 350ºf. Grease and line the bottoms of three 8” cake pans with parchment and set aside. (For a 4-layer cake, which is the one on the pictures, please see my note above!)

In a large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder, and then lightly stir in the salt and set aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter, coconut oil, and sugar on medium high for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Reduce the mixer to low and add the vanilla and sour cream. Gradually add the dry mixture and mix until about 80% combined (you’re going to continue to mix once you add the coloring so only partially mixing at this stage prevents over mixing the batter). Divide the batter evenly into 3 bowls (using a scale helps with this!). In the first bowl, add 1/4 cup of milk and the carrot juice and fold together until smooth and just combined. In the second bowl, add 1/4 cup of milk and the beet juice and fold together until smooth and just combined. In a blender, blend together the mint leaves with the remaining 1/2 cup of milk until very smooth. Add this to the third bowl and fold together until smooth and just combined. Transfer the batters to the cake pans and spread them out evenly. 

Bake until the edges of the cakes are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs on it; begin checking for doneness at 30 minutes and try your darnedest not to let it over bake. Let in the pans for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

To make the buttercream: 

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and cream cheese until creamy. Gradually add the powdered sugar, and then mix in the salt, vanilla, and heavy cream. Mix until creamy.

To frost the cake, level the top of the layers and then stack them up with a layer of frosting in between. (The cakes bake up generally pretty flat so there won’t actually be that much to level off.) Frost all over and decorate as desired.

To make a mini cake, stack the leveled scraps of cake up, give them a good firm pat so they stick, and cut out four 2 1/2 inch circles with a biscuit cutter. Don’t worry if some of the scraps tear, the cake is moist enough that when you stack up the scraps, they’ll all smoosh together. Stack them on top of each other and, if you have the time, wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap and freeze for a few hours or even a few weeks. This will make frosting this tiny cake way easier! Frost while frozen and let come to room temp before serving.

This cake is super moist that you could definitely decorate the day before serving. Let it sit at room temperature overnight.

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-yeh!

This easy shrimp curry tastes better than a restaurant in under 30 minutes! It’s a Thai red curry flavored with coconut milk and curry paste.

This one left us speechless. Really! Because this shrimp curry tastes better than a restaurant, but it’s a quick and easy dinner you can make at home. There is so much flavor going on here: rich coconut milk, aromatic curry paste, tangy lime and peppery basil surrounding tender, juicy shrimp. Serve it over jasmine rice and your friends and family will be singing your praises. This one is a keeper and even better: it’s a healthy dinner in less than 30 minutes. There are a few secrets to making this Thai red curry: here’s what to do!

Keys to making shrimp curry

It’s so easy to make a shrimp curry! To make it taste like a Thai red curry you’d get at a restaurant, here are some tips on the most important ingredients in this easy dinner recipe:

• Thai red curry paste: It’s a paste made of chiles and aromatics like garlic, ginger, and lemongrass and absolutely essential to the flavor! It’s not too spicy and only adds a gentle heat. See below for more.
• Large shrimp: Using shell on shrimp is nice because they come out even more flavorful and juicier; or use tail on shrimp if desired.
• Full fat coconut milk: Use only full fat coconut milk here: it’s gets that essential creaminess to the broth.
• Fish sauce: It might sound odd if you’ve never cooked Southeast Asian style cuisine, but it’s absolutely essential to adding that authentic flavor in Thai and Cambodian food.
• Basil or Thai basil: If you can find it, Thai basil is most authentic and has a subtle licorice flavor. If not, whatever fresh basil you can find works!

What is Thai red curry?

Alex and I spent time in Cambodia together years ago, and the flavors of this shrimp curry instantly brought us back to Southeast Asia! Cambodian cuisine features curries very similar to Thai red curry.

What is it? Thai red curry is a Thai dish with a sauce made with red curry paste and coconut milk. It can be made with different proteins like chicken, beef, shrimp, or tofu. Then what’s red curry paste? If it’s not part of your cooking repertoire, you’ve got to add it: stat.

The secret: red curry paste

Red curry paste is a jarred paste that makes it easy to make a Thai red curry. It has all the flavors you’d find in the broth, without needing to buy them separately: chili peppers, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, cumin, coriander, and more. Alex and I use it in all sorts of dishes and it has the best flavor. We highly recommend adding it to your fridge! A few notes on red curry paste:

• It’s not too spicy (the heat level varies). The heat of the curry paste depends on the brand. The brand we love is very mild, so it doesn’t add lots of heat to this shrimp curry.
• It’s easy to find in the international aisle in most grocery stores. It keeps for months in the refrigerator and you can use it in lots more recipes, like our Curry Lentil Soup, Curried Butternut Squash Soup or Coconut Lentil Curry. If you can’t find it at your grocery, you can buy it online: Thai Kitchen red curry paste.

Do I really need fish sauce?

To many home cooks in North America, fish sauce might sound odd or scary. But here’s the thing: it’s the secret to many Southeast Asian recipes! When Alex and I visited Cambodia, they put fish sauce in just about everything. Why? It adds an incredible depth and savory umami flavor to everything from broths and salads.

Fish sauce is made from fermented fish. Yep, not the biggest selling point! But you can think of it more like a Southeast Asian-style soy sauce. When you add it to the broth in this shrimp curry, it adds a noticeable authentic Thai flavor. Don’t leave it out!

Use shell on shrimp for big flavor.

The best shrimp for shrimp curry is shell on or tail on shrimp: mostly because it looks the prettiest! Shell on shrimp has the best flavor: both because it gets the juiciest when cooked in the shell, and because the shell adds a little flavor to the broth. But if the thought of peeling shrimp isn’t desirable (we get it!), tail on shrimp is great too. (Want more shrimp recipes? Here are 10 Healthy Shrimp Recipes.)

Best rice for shrimp curry? Jasmine.

The perfect pair for this shrimp curry is rice: but not just any rice. Jasmine rice! Jasmine rice is also called Thai fragrant rice: because of its beautiful popcorn-like nutty flavor. When Alex and I used it for this shrimp curry, it was the finishing touch that transported us back to Southeast Asia. Try our jasmine rice recipes: How to Cook Jasmine Rice and Instant Pot Jasmine Rice.

If you can’t find jasmine rice, basmati rice works too! Or any type of medium or long grain rice. You can use brown rice too (it has more nutrients), but here we wanted to be ultra-authentic and served it with sticky white rice.

More curry recipes

Love curry? We do too. Once you’ve made this shrimp curry, here are a few more to try! There are lots of types of curry from all over the world: most of the recipes on this site are Indian or Thai-style curries:

• Easy Chickpea Curry One of our top recipes, this 20-minute chickpea curry is Indian style (made with curry powder, not paste).
• Vegetable Curry This vegetable curry is the best way to eat your veggies! Cauliflower, bell pepper and chickpeas swim in a flavor-packed broth.
• Coconut Lentil Curry This fast and easy dinner idea that’s healthy and full of flavor. It has similar flavors to this shrimp curry!

This shrimp curry recipe is…

Pescatarian, gluten-free and dairy-free.

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A Couple Cooks - Healthy, Whole Food, & Vegetarian Recipes

I know, I know, you don’t need to tell me that there are already four banana bread recipes on this site, plus four additional banana cakes, and that’s probably enough, right? Genuinely, I believed I was done too, that the Banana Baked Goods course at SK University* had been completed. But then a few things happened. After creating the pumpkin bread of my dreams and what I hope will be the last zucchini bread recipe you’ll ever need over the last couple years, it began to bother me that the banana bread recipes on the site lacked what these have: a towering height and a crunchy top that will be hard not to lift off in one giant tile and swiftly coat the underside with salted butter. So, I created one and I’ve been keeping it to myself for over a year because, see above: SK is probably at Banana Bread Capacity. But over the last few weeks of, well, not doing a whole lot else, I can’t help but notice that we’ve all been making a whole lot of banana bread. And I think you might like this one instead.

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Oven Baked Beef Tacos are a super easy dinner recipe to make for your family!

This is the best sort of dinner recipe to make if you are looking for a meal that uses very few ingredients. And it’s also a good one to make for picky eaters. Everyone will be able to add their own fixings to their tacos, according to what individual preferences are. This recipe makes ten Oven Baked Beef Tacos, so adjust as needed if you want to make fewer tacos or more for a really hungry bunch!

How to make Oven Baked Beef Tacos:

This is a very easy recipe to make. You’ll need to look for the “stand up” taco shells at your market. If you can’t find the exact shells mentioned in the recipe, it’s okay to substitute regular shells. The stand-up shells make the tacos easier to fill, but if you use regular shells then you can just snuggle them side-by-side instead and they’ll stand up well enough.

Taco meat:

You’ll make the taco meat (easy). Use ground beef. And you could use ground turkey in place of ground beef if you don’t wish to use beef (or if you can’t find it). You can use an envelope of taco seasoning for these Oven Baked Beef Tacos, or you can follow directions in the recipe to make your own taco seasoning. Sometimes I like to add a can of chili beans to my taco meat to add a little more bulk and flavor to the filling. It’s up to you!

The taco shells are set inside a 9×13-inch pan. Cheese is sprinkled into each shell and then taco meat is spooned on top.

More cheese is added on top of the taco meat.

And then you’ll bake the tacos. That’s it!  These Oven Baked Beef Tacos are such an easy, no-fuss dinner recipe to make, right? We all need recipes like this right now!

Add whatever toppings you’d like for your tacos. I suggest topping them with chopped iceberg lettuce and chopped tomatoes. Add a little taco sauce or salsa too. And guacamole and sour cream are great additions too. Enjoy!

Here are a few more taco recipes you might like to try:

• Beer Battered Fish Tacos with Baja Sauce
• Family Style Pork Tacos
• Breakfast Tacos
• Spaghetti Tacos
• Grilled Pork Tacos with Tropical Slaw
• Roasted Vegetable and Black Bean Tacos
• Slow Cooker Korean Tacos
• Broiled Fish Tacos

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