Liturgically Inspired Recipes- The Baptism of our Lord!
I will take my last chance to wish all of you a Merry Christmas as the Christmas season wraps up with the Feast of Jesus's Baptism! All throughout this season, we have been celebrating that God sent his Son Jesus Christ down to Earth to lead us all to holiness so that through Him, we may gain eternal life in Heaven! Jesus's baptism is just one of the many ways he taught us through example how to give of yourself to the Lord and allow for His will to be carried out. In Baptism, we profess our faith in the Lord and promise to carry out His will and do what he is calling us to do, and become the children of God. It was the same deal for Jesus. When Jesus approached John the Baptist to be baptized, John was at first hesitant to do so, acknowledging that he was not the Word made flesh and needed to be baptized by the one mightier than him who was the Word made flesh, and therefore felt worthy to baptize Him instead. Jesus told John to "Allow it now", and he complied. It was God's will that Jesus be baptized by John the Baptist before He was to begin His ministry, and they both allowed for God's will to prevail.
This Gospel story from this week's liturgy is what inspired my cupcakes pictured on Instagram. For the cake part of it I made a lavender cupcake because though Scripture doesn't specifically tell us what (weather-related) season Jesus's stories happened in, I picture a spring day because we celebrate new life in the spring as flowers bloom again after the dead of winter, and in Baptism, we are born again in Christ. Lavender is a very springy scent and flavor, so it perfectly fits something where I'm aiming for that springy vibe, but because my decoration (not my flavor) is what was actually inspired by the Scriptures, it is not my intention to promote the "Spring-Inspired" theme, so use whatever flavors you like. The one thing I would advise against with your flavoring is that I would not encourage you to fold fresh or frozen fruit into your cupcakes because the white cupcake liners are part of the presentation (which again is Scripture-inspired) and if you're not using foil cupcake liners, it stains the cupcake liners when the juices of the fruit folded in start to come out during baking (which they will!). Dried or freeze-dried fruit won't do that, or you could also try replacing the liquid in your recipe with the juice of that fruit to give it that natural color throughout your batter.
For my presentation, I made a lavender dairy free cream cheese frosting (with hints of lemon and raspberry) that I colored with blue spirulina extract and used blue piping gel (made from blue spirulina extract and agave syrup), and decorated the cupcakes to look like waves, and baked my cupcakes in white cupcake liners because when Jesus arose from the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Earth in the form of a dove. So the frosting was supposed to look like the water of the Jordan and the white cupcake liners are because doves are white. To emphasize the waves effect, I applied the piping gel using an eyeliner brush I had never used before (I got it specifically to use for decorating desserts as that small brush tip is PERFECT for the fine tune details like this) to put the vibrant color where I drew those lines so you could better see the effect.
I hope that my ideas were able to help someone today and if any of you have any recipe ideas, baking or otherwise, that are inspired by your religion (whether you're Catholic or not- all are welcome and embraced in my corner of the internet), please share them with me in the comments below.
This Gospel story from this week's liturgy is what inspired my cupcakes pictured on Instagram. For the cake part of it I made a lavender cupcake because though Scripture doesn't specifically tell us what (weather-related) season Jesus's stories happened in, I picture a spring day because we celebrate new life in the spring as flowers bloom again after the dead of winter, and in Baptism, we are born again in Christ. Lavender is a very springy scent and flavor, so it perfectly fits something where I'm aiming for that springy vibe, but because my decoration (not my flavor) is what was actually inspired by the Scriptures, it is not my intention to promote the "Spring-Inspired" theme, so use whatever flavors you like. The one thing I would advise against with your flavoring is that I would not encourage you to fold fresh or frozen fruit into your cupcakes because the white cupcake liners are part of the presentation (which again is Scripture-inspired) and if you're not using foil cupcake liners, it stains the cupcake liners when the juices of the fruit folded in start to come out during baking (which they will!). Dried or freeze-dried fruit won't do that, or you could also try replacing the liquid in your recipe with the juice of that fruit to give it that natural color throughout your batter.
For my presentation, I made a lavender dairy free cream cheese frosting (with hints of lemon and raspberry) that I colored with blue spirulina extract and used blue piping gel (made from blue spirulina extract and agave syrup), and decorated the cupcakes to look like waves, and baked my cupcakes in white cupcake liners because when Jesus arose from the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Earth in the form of a dove. So the frosting was supposed to look like the water of the Jordan and the white cupcake liners are because doves are white. To emphasize the waves effect, I applied the piping gel using an eyeliner brush I had never used before (I got it specifically to use for decorating desserts as that small brush tip is PERFECT for the fine tune details like this) to put the vibrant color where I drew those lines so you could better see the effect.
I hope that my ideas were able to help someone today and if any of you have any recipe ideas, baking or otherwise, that are inspired by your religion (whether you're Catholic or not- all are welcome and embraced in my corner of the internet), please share them with me in the comments below.