loganberry vinegar

Did you look carefully at those berries?

They're actually frozen loganberries because loganberry season doesn't start for another three weeks or so. (Yes, I am counting.)

A few weeks ago, I bought these berries at our favourite farm in Deep Cove, Smyth's. We'd just gotten back from Hawaii and I was desperate for interesting fruit – so far, rhubarb is the only ripe fruit on Vancouver Island.

Seeing as our freezer is roughly the size of a very small shoebox, it was quite the commitment to buy a big bag of frozen loganberries. But, oh, what fun they are! Definitely worth carving out a space in the miniature freezer for them.

So far, I've used them for waffle and ice cream toppings, deep-dish apple-loganberry pie, rhubarb-apple-loganberry crisp and now, loganberry vinegar.

This vinegar is easy as pie (actually, speaking from recent experience, easier). Just purée the logans with simple white vinegar, leave them to join forces in a cool, dark place – with a daily shake, for fun – strain, and voilà: loganberry vinegar at your service.

I know you might not have logans in your part of the world and I am genuinely sorry for you if you don't. (If you've never heard of a loganberry, it's a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry and it is, hands down, the most scrumptious berry in the world.)

However, I do believe this vinegar would work for most summer berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries . . . What kind of berry will you have growing near you?

In any case, with this little labour and the dirt-cheap price of white vinegar, what have you got to lose?

What to do with your loganberry vinegar? Tonight, I made a simple salad dressing with it – loganberry vinegar, walnut oil, honey, mustard, salt and pepper – and besides being a lovely pinky-red colour, it really did taste like loganberries.

I envision a summer of logan-y salads and marinades to come.

one year ago: tomato cheddar soufflé with asparagus
two years ago: chili pasta


loganberry vinegar
slightly adapted from Sherri Brooks Vinton via Brett Smyth

glass jar that holds 4 cups
2 c. berries
2 c. white vinegar

First, sterilize your jar. Boil water in the kettle. Fill the jar and let it sit. After 10 minutes, pour out the water.

Use a blender or immersion blender to purée the berries and vinegar together. Pour into the jar.

Let it sit in a cool, dark place for 5 to 7 days (or longer, if you're away). Shake every day to blend the flavours.

Strain it through either a double cheesecloth or a very fine sieve (not both, or nothing happens). You might need to use a spoon to stir it and encourage the liquid to fall through.

Pour the strained vinegar into a sterilized jar or bottle. Keeps at room temperature for up to 1 year. (Please note that I haven't tested whether it keeps at room temperature for a year or not yet. If you're a nervous type, keep it in the fridge.)

 

chinese-canadian lettuce wraps

Lettuce wraps with ground pork and potato chips spilling out of them are not exactly romantic things to photograph. It's hard to get any light into the pork, the lettuce looks whiter than it actually is and the chips make it look like some kind of sea creature from outer space.

Oh, well. They fulfill two of my major requirements for making it to this blog, so I present them to you with pride. (Those two requirements are tasty and fun to eat.)

I have actually been working on Chinese-Canadian lettuce wraps about seven years now.

My friend Virginia, who is from Hong Kong, made these for me just after I'd moved to Vancouver. I remember being quite suspicious when she put out a bowl of potato chips and said we should put them in the wraps. Suspicious, but willing. (Virginia is a very good cook. Her hot pot is the hot pot to beat all hot pots.)

With a salty-peppery crunch and bits of tasty ground meat attempting to escape, I bit into my lettuce wrap.

I was – immediately, irrevocably – converted to putting potato chips in my lettuce wraps.

And that is how we've eaten them ever since.

I do believe Virginia used ground chicken or pork (considering I didn't eat red meat at the time). But we've now settled on ground pork mostly because eating ground pork reminds me of the Chinese pork and chive dumplings that I LOVE so much I put the word in all-caps. In fact, the ground pork marinade here was inspired by the excellent Mark Bittman's recipe for pork pot stickers.

Dress the pork a bit and fry it, then fry up some carrot and celery. Throw it all in a lettuce wrap. Use your artistic talent to wedge in some curly potato chips. Eat.

And now for some exclamation marks: I can make these in 35 minutes! Alone! Without a sous-chef! So can you! Eating potato chips for the main part of your meal is fun!

You might be thinking: don't we need some sauce here? In fact, that is what the ever-suspicious Scott thought at first. (I think I will be telling him to trust me for the rest of our lives.)

One bite and I proved him wrong. This pork is so moist and well-seasoned with a kick of pepper and sesame oil (not to mention the pepper on the potato chip), that you really don't need any extra sauce. Which is awesome. Because it means less mess and less dishes and in case you didn't hear me the first time, you don't need sauce.

I call these Chinese-Canadian lettuce wraps because I checked and Virginia didn't put potato chips in them in Hong Kong. Instead, she used deep-fried mong bean noodles for crunch (which also sounds pretty fantastic). So this is Vancouver Chinese fusion food at its best. Yum.

Thank you, Virginia!

one year ago: blueberry rhubarb rum jam
two years ago: chocolate peanut butter oatcakes (the most popular recipe ever on dollop!)

chinese-canadian lettuce wraps
wraps inspired by Virginia
pork inspired by Mark Bittman's recipe for pork pot stickers in How to Cook Everything

2 tsp. fresh ginger, minced
1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/4 – 1/2 tsp. salt
454 g. (1 lb.) lean ground pork
3 ribs celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1/2 c. chopped green onion
1 iceberg lettuce, washed, dried and separated into whole leaves 
220 g. (1/2 lb.) chips, preferably salt and pepper or lime and pepper

In a medium bowl, mix ginger, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, pepper and salt together. Stir in the pork; try to coat it as best you can.

Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Fry the pork, stirring often and breaking up larger chunks, until it's cooked through, about 8 minutes. With a slotted spoon, put the pork in a bowl, leaving whatever small bit of liquid is left in the pan.

Turn the heat down to medium-low. In the pork pan, fry the celery and carrots until they have slightly softened, but are still tender-crisp, about 8 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.

Stir the pork into the celery and carrots and mix well. Stir in the green onion.

Serve pork mixture with lettuce leaves and potato chips so that everyone can make their own.

mango love on oahu

That is a pineapple that I found growing in a field. At sunset. I ask you: how fun is that?

In retrospect, I should have known it would be a very good day when, as we were driving up to the North Shore in the morning, I heard these lyrics on the radio:

My heart does the tango
I love you like a mango

I am serious. I did not make that up. I mean, how could I make up a lyric that good?

We had just eaten a lovely breakfast of yogurt panna cotta and toast with macadamia Nutella sitting outside in the courtyard at the even lovelier Café Julia in Honolulu.

Now, we were cutting up the middle of the island of Oahu to reach the Haleiwa farmers' market on the north shore (and, um, buy mangoes!). This is how my husband demonstrates his love for me: he finds farmers' markets.

We pulled into the dirt parking lot and I was ready to bolt out of the car, cloth bag in hand, excited grin firmly plastered on face.

I headed into the fray of stalls selling flowering ginger, shrimp tacos, lilikoi popsicles, taro, apple bananas, sea asparagus, honey soap, coffee beans, and local chocolate. Scott, on the other hand, found a shaded table and settled in with a book. (After five years of marriage, we know how to navigate these things.)

Occasionally, in between chats with vendors, I brought him things: an iced coffee, a shrimp taco. Once, I called him over to see some beautiful local jewellery (good thing, too, since he then bought me a necklace with a rose petal pendant for our anniversary!).

The farmers' market was heaven. We stayed until it shut down in the early afternoon.

After that, we drove along the north shore and explored in the rain. Once it stopped – as we knew it would because it was that kind of day – we drove back to Waimea Bay for our afternoon swim. (On Oahu, I just didn't feel like my day was complete without an afternoon swim. In fact, the most work I did every day was packing our bag for the beach. Ah, the good life.)

At the farmers' market, I had asked the woman who sold me a very, very good shrimp taco for lunch where we should go for dinner. She thought about it for a moment and said, "Opal's Thai" because her friend worked there and it was very good. But, she said, we needed to get there early because it would be busy on a Sunday night.

I kept that in mind in the afternoon, but somehow – miraculously! – my triple-type-A personality didn't get stuck on it, and we lazed around on the beach as the sun dipped lower over the water.

And maybe it was a vacation lesson for me. Maybe we were just lucky. We walked in to Opal's around 6 and got a table right away. We looked at the menu happily and made our choices as the tables filled up all around us. Then Opal came. He asked us all kinds of questions: where were we from, had we eaten Thai food before, what were we planning to order. He made a few notes, nodded and said, "I'll take care of you."

I asked about wine – after a full and perfect day, wine was necessary to cap it off – and he said we could buy some at the drugstore next door and bring it back.

We could buy some wine at the drugstore (!). Notice the italics! In socialist Canada, we can only buy alcohol in government-approved liquor stores. So that in itself was an adventure. But I walked right over like I did it every day, found a bar of soap (to replace the badly-scented soap back at the condo) and picked a very nice Sauvignon Blanc from California off the shelf.

When I got back to Opal's, he whisked out a bucket of ice and plopped my drugstore wine in. Our lettuce wraps, with salty tofu and carrots and other goodies, had just arrived and we dug in. The whole meal was like that. We finished one thing, another surprise arrived, we drank more (now chilled) wine and dug in like kids at a birthday party. Sigh.

The sun was just setting as we started back down the island and I do believe my heart did the tango.

One year ago: Oregon hazelnut salad
Two years ago: Behold the small white bean in ripe bean soup

poached apricots and hawaii

Look at these poached apricots.

Don't they look lovely and buttery with that hint of syrup and crushed pistachio on top?

Too bad they don't taste that way.

Unfortunately, I know exactly why.

A couple of years ago, Scott found out that his late Mennonite grandfather used to drink apricot brandy. This was a revelation because Mennonites are not known for drinking . . . um . . . anything.

So Scott thought we could get a bottle of apricot brandy and drink it on Christmas Eve when we opened presents, instead of our usual port. I was game, although I got a little nervous when he said the apricot brandy only cost $8. And this was not a small bottle.

Christmas Eve came and we eagerly toasted our little glasses of apricot brandy, thinking of Scott's grandfather. The first sip, however, was disappointing. The second sip confirmed what we already knew from the first: we weren't drinking any more of this. It was strangely perfume-y without any real flavour. It was bad.

Of course, we couldn't just throw the apricot brandy out, but we couldn't drink it, either. It hid in our cupboard for a long, long time. Over that time, we went to a Turkish restaurant and had the loveliest simple dessert of apricots poached in some kind of alcohol. I filed the dessert away in my mind, thinking I would have to try making it some day.

The time seemed ripe when I saw particularly fat dried apricots at the grocery store a couple weeks ago. I looked online to find a recipe for poaching them but couldn't really find what I remembered. With nothing to go on, I thought I'd make it up.

Looking at our (not so vast) selection of alcohol, I saw the apricot brandy. Genius! Apricots go with apricot brandy!

Turns out, they don't.

If I have taught you nothing, please remember this: nothing goes with apricot brandy. Don't drink it or cook with it or do anything with it. Pour it down the drain. In fact, that's what I'm going to do right now.

(Sound of me pouring apricot brandy down the drain and wrinkling my nose.)

Now, I don't want to leave you recipe-less for the next little while, while I jaunt off to Hawaii to celebrate my anniversary. (We're going to Oahu – Any favourites you want to share?)

So, here are a few links I've been looking at lately:

I love this photo, and of course the Earl Grey chocolate cake looks divine.

The German in me can hardly wait to make this buttermilk poppyseed cake.

I think I might finally be ready to try making my own marshmallow fondant.

Chive blossom vinegar, anyone?

I once made my own granola bars and they were a crumbling tray of despair. These look better.

Does this photo trick you like it did me?

And if I were to try poaching dried apricots again, I might try this. I'll be back, tanned and relaxed, with a recipe in a couple weeks. Aloha!

One year ago: Dutch marzipan cookies
Two years ago: Chocolate nut balls

grilled chicken sandwiches

For a little while there, it seemed like summer was coming.

I got all cocky: hanging laundry outside to dry, busting out the rosé, buying a fragile little basil plant . . .

I think you can guess where this is going. It is now cold and wet and gloomy and I can't believe I wasn't wearing socks just a few days ago. (May showers bring June flowers?)

Anyway, back when I thought summer was coming, I made our favourite summer sandwich.

The original recipe calls for a barbecue but since we keep thinking we're moving and decide we don't want to move a barbecue across the country, we've adapted this recipe over the years for our handy electric grill. The chicken takes a bit longer to cook, but it still makes the happy grill marks that I think look kind of professional.

Also, we marinade the chicken in this genius concoction for which I take no credit, but which does lovely, lovely things to the chicken, making it all tender and tasty.

After marinating and grilling, it's pretty easy: slather your bread with the lemon-garlic mayo, pile it up with grilled chicken, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted pepper and havarti cheese, try to get a bite in before everything pops out onto your plate, and you're in business.

This is one of our favourite meals to serve company because you can do everything ahead of time except grill the chicken. Heck, even the chicken is fine if it's just warm and not hot.

After that, everyone can build their own sandwich with whatever they like. Also, you just have to have a good time licking your fingers and chasing pieces of messy sandwich around your plate. Instant happy dinner party!

In fact, I have proof that this sandwich creates fond memories in our guests. We made this for our friend Richard back when we all lived in Ottawa.

Last year, he lived in Japan and came to visit us. I asked if there was any Canadian food he was longing for and I would make it for him. What do you think Richard requested? That's right: this sandwich.

So, you see, it's kind of hard to go wrong. Change the filling, use a real barbecue, make your own mayonnaise from scratch.

Do what you want and you'll still love this sandwich. This, I am confident of. Summer, not so much.

one year ago: sour cream coffee cake
two years ago: putting asparagus on pizza
 

grilled chicken sandwich
adapted from Canadian Living

chicken marinade
2 tbsp. neutral oil, such as canola or grapeseed
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar*
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. grainy mustard
1/2 tsp. soy sauce
freshly-ground pepper
2 good-sized boneless, skinless chicken breast

lemon-garlic mayo
6 tbsp. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced

sandwich filling 
1 red pepper, roasted** and sliced
1/2 c. oil-packed sundried tomatoes, sliced
1 1/2 c. havarti cheese, grated
1 avocado, sliced
your favourite bread to make the sandwiches

Mix all the ingredients of the marinade together and coat the chicken. Let stand for 10 minutes or cover and refrigerate for up to 12 hours.

Mix all the ingredients of the lemon-garlic mayo together and put in a small bowl.

Prepare the sandwich filling items (slice, grate, etc.).

There are two ways to grill the chicken:

1. Grill the chicken on an electric grill set to medium-high until done. Turn once while it's cooking.
2. Grill the chicken on the greased grill of your barbecue set to medium heat. Close the lid and grill, turning once, until it's not pink inside, about 10 minutes.

Slice the chicken and assemble your sandwiches. If you like, grill them once they're filled in order to get the cheese to melt (but I don't).


* I ran out of red wine vinegar and used white wine vinegar instead. Still yummy!
** To roast that pepper, cut out the innards and put the three or four big pieces of flesh you have left on a pie plate. Roast it in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.

gouda and roasted pepper dip

What can I say about this lovely little dip?

Perhaps that it is thick and very well-behaved at a party, so you don't have to worry about it dripping off your chip and on to your new acquaintance's shoes?

Perhaps that you can make it ahead of time, pull it out of the fridge, swirl in some cilantro and you're good to go?

Perhaps that it's full of Gouda cheese and I can't think of another cheese that I like better in a dip?

Would that do?

Oh, right.

Well, perhaps I should also mention that it's just a tad expensive? (I find this happens when you have to buy three dairy products for one dip. But once you taste this dip, I do believe you won't mind pinching your pennies and eating beans for the rest of the week.)

Now, I hope that is enough information to help you make an informed decision. To dip or not to dip?

I will just add a few notes.

If you like kick, add two jalapeño peppers. (If you're feeling especially wild, try three! Yes, I understand that you might not have pictured jalapeños and Gouda as BFFs, but they really do like each other.)

Don't – I repeat, don't – misread your recipe and only add half a cup of Gouda cheese. By the time you realize your mistake, you will have started soaking the food processor in hot soapy water and then you'll have to wash it and dry it all over again and grate more cheese and whirl it all up again. And wash it and dry it all over again. (I might be speaking from experience here.)

Finally, you may be a sucker for hot dips. You may think you live for a chip covered in gooey cheesy hot dip goodness. But, people, some dips are better cold. Some dips may have a hot dip option, but are still best cold. This is one of those dips. I know you like options, so I leave it for you to decide. 

One year ago: a baked banana revelation
Two years ago: chocolate cheesecake and tom yum pak soup

gouda and roasted pepper dip
barely adapted from chatelaine

1 red pepper, stem and seeds cut out
1 – 2 green jalapeño peppers, coarsely chopped
2 1/2 c. (625 ml) Gouda cheese, grated
1 c. (250 ml) regular sour cream
1/2 c. (125 ml) feta cheese, crumbled or chopped
2 tbsp. cilantro, coarsely chopped

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the pieces of red pepper in/on an oven-safe dish and into the oven. Roast for about 15 minutes, until the pepper is a little wrinkly and looks like it's roasted. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Once the red pepper is cool, take off the skin if it seems easy. If it doesn't, don't worry about it. Chop it roughly and put it in the food processor with the jalapeño. Throw on the Gouda, sour cream and feta. Whirl until the pepper is as fine as you would like it.

You may stir in the cilantro (saving a bit to garnish) and serve right away. If you'd like to wait up to two days, store it in the fridge, bring it to room temperature, and stir in the cilantro just before serving.

hot dip option*

Replace the sour cream with 1 c. (250 g.) regular cream cheese. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until it's hot and starts to brown, about 10 – 15 minutes. Garnish with cilantro before serving. Serve with toasted baguette or pita triangles.

* But the cold dip is truly the best option. (And I'm usually a hot dip person, so you know I'm serious about that!)

zeppelin pancakes

The sun streamed in last weekend and I was surprised to think that one day soon I too would be walking around in short sleeves.

My Easter weekend could be summed up like this: three glorious days when life could lift up, up and away from the workaday world.

These light-as-air pancakes for breakfast certainly helped.

They are called "zeppelin pancakes."

Do you know what a zeppelin is? I mean, do you really know what a zeppelin is?

I had vague notions of something kind of round and floaty. After a little help from a friend, I can now tell you with authority that a zeppelin is a "rigid airship." So it seems I was on the right track.

In any case, these pancakes are definitely on the right track.

As long as you have buttermilk and sour cream around, you can whip them up almost before you can say, "Did we take out the bacon to defrost last night?"

The recipe comes from a bewitching little book called "The Breakfast Book" by Marion Cunningham. There are no photos, but there are lots of recipes and little drawings: of spoons, of bananas, of breakfast trays. It was published in 1987 and I send all my gratitude to the lovely Molly for bringing it to my attention last year.

Marion Cunningham says this recipe comes from Don Chappellet, who perfected it while making Sunday morning pancakes for his six kids. Which just shows that you can make this recipe pretty quickly and without a lot of fuss.

But, oh, the pancakes themselves are something to fuss about. So light they almost lift off the plate, held together with a crispy golden filigree of butter, and full of the tang of buttermilk – just asking for a pat of butter and a drizzle of maple syrup . . .

Don't wait until the next long weekend to try them. Because, you never know, they might turn a regular weekend into something that feels like a long weekend. Zeppelins will do that.

One year ago: gumdrop cookies and chocolate tomato juice cake: bad idea
Two years ago: butterscotch pudding and chocolate cheesecake

don chappellet's zeppelin pancakes
from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham
gluten-free adaption from me

fries about 25 – 30 pancakes

2 eggs, separated
1 1/2 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. sour cream
1/4 c. butter, melted
1 c. wheat flour
     Or gluten-free:
     46 g. brown rice flour
     46 g. tapioca starch
     46 g. potato starch
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Heat your griddle to medium-high – this recipe will come together in no time.

Mix the egg yolks, buttermilk and sour cream together. Stir in the melted butter. Set aside.

Stir the flour(s), baking soda and salt together. Stir into the buttermilk mixture and beat until smooth. Try not to worry that it's still quite runny. Set aside.

Beat the reserved egg whites until stiff but still moist. Carefully fold them into the batter.

Butter your griddle and make your pancakes. Turn when you see bubbles opening. Fry briefly on the other side.

If you don't think you can eat all the pancakes at once, you have two options.

Option 1: Fry them all up. Save the extras in the fridge. Reheat by placing on a cookie sheet and in the oven set to 350 degree Fahrenheit for about 6 minutes.

Option 2: Save the batter in the fridge. It will lose a bit of its oompf but still make delicious pancakes; you can always stir in another beaten egg white before cooking, if you like.

paska for easter

Scott tells me he remembers eating paska at his Mennonite grandma's house for Easter.

At first, he (like me) was dubious: icing and sprinkles on bread.

But then he tried it, and my half-Mennonite boy was smitten. (I'm sure the icing and sprinkles helped lure the children in.)

When we got married, he hadn't eaten paska for years because it relies on wheat flour and eggs to make a rich, soft dough – sort of like a Mennonite brioche. Scott was diagnosed as a celiac in his late 20s and that made the wheat flour a no-go.

Then he told me about paska . . . and seeing as one of my main goals in life is to recreate our grandmother's recipes, I knew I had to find a way to make it gluten-free.

I thought it would be crazy hard . . . and then I found Mennonite Girls Can Cook. Lucky for me, one of the Mennonite girls is a very good gluten-free baker and offers this version of paska.

Scott was a bit wary at first because it didn't come in the traditional free-form shape – which would be impossible with a loose, gluten-free dough that needs to be contained as it bakes. But it did have the icing and sprinkles, so he was willing to try it.

Turns out, this is one of those too-rare gluten-free breads that tastes good (i.e., not like sand – hallelujah!) and stays fresh for days.

Now that it's Easter weekend, I'm so pleased to have this pretty Easter bread around. Ever since we took a chocolate class last year with David Mincey and learned about the child slavery involved in cacao production, we're only eating fair-trade chocolate from small producers. But it tends to come in plain bars – not the shiny, foil-wrapped eggs I like to decorate with (and, uh, eat). I finally found this little bunny and it will do nicely next to the paska.

Happy Easter to you!

Last year: gumdrop cookies
Two years ago:  butterscotch pudding


If you're looking for a regular paska recipe, I'd try this.

gluten-free paska
barely adapted from mennonite girls can cook

1 tsp. + 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. milk, heated to lukewarm
1 tbsp. yeast
2 large eggs
1/4 c. butter, melted
finely-grated peel of 1 lemon
juice of half a lemon
finely-grated peel of 1 orange
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder 
1/2 heaping tsp. xanthan gum
1/2 heaping tsp. guar gum
3/4 c. brown rice flour
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1/4 c. potato starch
1/4 c. almond flour

Grease an 8" cake pan or something similar. Set aside.

Mix 1 tsp. sugar into lukewarm milk. Add yeast to proof for about 10 minutes. Set aside.

In a mixer, beat the eggs. Add the 1/2 c. sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the butter. Stir in the lemon peel, lemon juice and orange peel. Add the yeast mixture and mix well. Set aside.

In another bowl, blend the salt, baking powder, xanthan gum, guar gum, brown rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch and almond flour until well mixed. Add to the liquid ingredients and beat on high for 1 minute.

Spoon into the pan. Let rise until doubled in bulk, which should take about an hour.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes – adjust time for differently-sized pans. For the 8" pan, keep an eye on it after 15 minutes: it should be nicely browned (don't underbake).

Let cool. Remove from pan and ice. Decorate with multi-coloured sprinkles. Once the icing has set, slice like bread to eat. Store in a tightly-sealed container at room temperature.

icing 

3 tbsp. butter
2 c. icing or powdered sugar
a sprinkle of kosher salt
1/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Beat the butter until fluffy. Beat in the icing sugar and salt. Add most of the milk (because you might not need it all). Beat in the vanilla. You are looking for an icing that is easy to spread and slightly loose so it will "set" over the cake. Ice the cake and sprinkle with mulit-coloured sprinkles.