Flour Girl

Kryptonite

2011-05-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

Superman's looks like this:

Mine looks like this:

In case you can't tell, those are cocoa beans. Not coffee beans.

Anyway, as you all know, if you expose the caped wonder to a hunk of kryptonite, this happens:

Well, expose me to this:

...and you get a similar reaction. I lose all my power, too...er, willpower, that is.

This is chocolate in what, I would argue, is one of its best forms: chocolate cake and chocolate buttercream.

Yum.

And it gets better; check out the middle: White chocolate mousse and fresh strawberries--just enough lightness to balance the intense chocolate flavor.

Sigh.

A Cheery Cherry Kind of Birthday

2011-04-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my cupcakes are a backward sort of affair, inspiration-wise. These little guys were the result of two things: (1) my friend Diana's birthday and (2) a set of Mary Englebreit cupcake boxes I bought forever ago and haven't had a chance to use.

I decided to make cherry-themed cupcake toppers to match the box, and then I went with white chocolate cupcakes with cherry preserves filling to keep with that theme. Designing the toppers actually was relatively quick, and I was pretty pleased with the end result.

See?

Fun, huh?

Here are the toppers themselves:

Boxed up and ready to go!

Mary E., you inspire me. (Now could your boxes just be cheaper, hm?)

Cupcake Towers and Tiny Italians -- when friends get married

2011-04-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

What could possibly be better than a spring wedding involving people you love? Not much. April 1 my dear friends Hans and Julia were married, and they're now chilling in Hawaii for their honeymoon. (Where it's warm. And there are beaches. And palm trees. And drinks with little umbrellas. And, yes, I'm jealous.)

Julia was arguably the chillest, most NON-bridezilla bride I've ever known, both in the weeks leading up the wedding and even during wedding week and wedding day. Seriously. The wedding was beautiful. And I had SO much fun working on cupcakes for one of her bridal showers and the groom's cake for the wedding.

The shower (a couple of weeks before the wedding) was a fun time for the ladies at church to hang out and...er..."shower" Julia with love. And kitchen appliances. Here she is with her new food processor:

Here's the cupcake tower. There were two kinds of cupcakes: key lime with blackberry filling and key lime frosting, and banana with Nutella filling (heck, yeah!) and cream cheese frosting (yum!). There were regular-sized and minis.

Here's a wider shot of the table: cupcake tower, chocolate fountain (yes, I said chocolate fountain), and a plethora of items waiting to be dipped in the chocolate...I'm getting hungry just thinking about it again.

Lovely.

THEN there was the groom's cake, which I had an absolute blast working on! Hans requested an old-school Mario Brothers cake, and I was more than happy to take on the challenge. This was crazy-good nostalgia for me (ah, the days of original Nintendo...Mario Brothers...Duck Hunt...good times).

The cake was a two-tier round, butter-rum flavor, with butter-rum buttercream. I also tried my hand at making my own homemade fondant for the first time...and discovered that it is SO much better than the store-bought Wilton stuff. Much better to work with, much cheaper, and much tastier. (Thanks for the recipe, Brianna!)

I colored all the fondant and hand-cut every individual piece of decor. Yes, it took forever. But it was a blast. How cute is this?

Okay, so I didn't make EVERY piece. Mario and Peach I ordered...though I did make Peach's bridal veil. And the castle came from Michael's--all I had to do was paint it (with nontoxic paint!).

Here's the final product:

Pictures from the wedding (and these are WONDERFUL pictures; the photographer did an excellent job!) are here. There's even a shot of my cake (a much better shot than I took!).

Congratulations, Hans and Julia! Love you guys!

Donuts. 'Nuff Said.

2011-02-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

Getting up early on Saturday mornings was fairly normal when I was a little girl. I seriously hated vacating my warm bed (still do), but Saturday meant Dad was home and we could have some "us" time, just the two of us. We'd get up before the sun and take his gray F-150 into town, first stopping to pick up a newspaper at the gas station and then heading over to the old donut shop.

For the record, this was decidedly not Krispy Kreme. No gleaming conveyer belts and white counters and whatnot. Think smaller. More dilapidated. Er...dirtier. But it was wonderful.

There was something overwhelmingly comfortable about the shop. It was always warm inside. The tables were cracked and rickety, perpetually manned by retirees smoking cigarettes (yeah, this was before public smoking bans) and drinking coffee, and the air was always sweet and heady from the mix of donut glaze and cigarette smoke. The lady behind the counter (I don't know what her name was, but in my memory she definitely has the look of a Thelma or Mable) always smiled and chatted with Dad while I read the cartoon taped to the cash register--a newspaper cutout with a little naked cupid spouting pithy observations about life and love.

Dad would buy me strawberry-glazed donuts (SO good), and we'd take our breakfast and the Saturday newspaper out to the truck, where we sat circling garage sale ads with the stub of a pencil from the glove box.

All this to say that: (a) donuts hold a special place in my heart, and (b) I miss eating them. Ah, for the days of being 5 years old and not thinking for a second about the calorie content and artery-clogging effects of all the grease. (Sigh.)

Now, these donuts...

...made with my handy-dandy new donut pans (for which I paid a mere $5; thank you very much, Cost Plus World Market), are a much healthier (baked, not fried), more grownup version. And while they may not be exactly the same thing, they're pretty durned good...and bring back some good memories.

So We Don't Stagnate...

2011-01-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

One would assume, from the not-updated-in-forever state of this blog, that I haven't been doing much baking lately. Incorrect, folks. Apperances and deception and all that. I've been doing quite a lot of baking lately...just not so much taking PICTURES of said baking. And that's regrettable; I had some great items from over the holidays.

Ah, well. It's not like there won't be more. Besides, there's always the archives to pull from, right? Right.

So...for the sake of not letting this blog get too much more stagnant...into the vault we go.

This is a cake I made back at the end of the summer. Maybe the bright colors, baseball theme, and whatnot will make us all feel a bit more summery in this cold, cold weather.

Things of which my conscience doth approve

2010-11-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

There are certain things about my childhood that I find absolutely terrific. For instance, these costumes. (How cute are we?)

Also terrific is the fact that, when I was growing up, eating leftover birthday cake for breakfast was an entirely acceptable happening. That, I think, was an excellent call on my mom's part. Unfortunately, nowadays I have this wretched little grownup shoulder angel that disallows that kind of indulgence. Breakfast, he tells me, should be something wholesome and responsible--oatmeal, for instance.

Don't get me wrong; I like oatmeal a lot. I actually discovered that fact when I had it for the first time, in college. Yeah, college; no lie. That was the same year that I discovered bran flakes, Brussels sprouts, flax seed, and a variety of other traditionally hated things...and loved them all. Maybe it was some kind of wildly effective reverse psychology, but Mom never fed us any of that when we were kids.

Now, my own as-yet-nonexistent children no doubt WILL be force-fed oatmeal, along with all other kinds of healthy foods. (Because I love them. The kids, I mean...not the foods. Though I do love those. Different kind of love...er, you know what I mean.) But I do like to think that compromises are a good thing at times (remember the Monster Cookies?), and if the oatmeal can come in cake form every once in a while...shoot, who am I to balk?

THIS is one of my new absolute favorite recipes: Spiced Fruit-and-Oat Bread.

The pictures I got aren't the best. Seriously, "in person" this was such a huge, pretty loaf. But, anyway...

I love quick breads for a number of reasons. They're...well, quick. They're virtually fool-proof. And there's something really warm and homey about them. comfort food, I guess. And, if we're honest, they're sort of an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. A much healthier, shoulder-angel-approved kind of cake. But cake nonetheless.

This makes a hefty loaf, and I very much recommend lining the loaf pan with parchment paper, so you can just lift it out instead of trying to turn it onto a wire rack. Also, pleasepleaseplease let the loaf completely cool before you cut into it. It's truly 35.2 times better the next day (as are most quick breads).

Enjoy!

Spiced Fruit-and-Oat Bread
(Adapted from "Oatmeal Breakfast Bread" in Dorie Greenspan's "Baking From My Home to Yours")
TOPPING
 ¼ cup packed brown sugar
 ¼ cup chopped pecans
 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
 2 tablespoons oats
BREAD
 2 large eggs, at room temperature (I used an egg and two egg whites)
 1¼ cups unsweetened applesauce
 ⅓ cup vegetable oil (I used 2 tablespoons)
 ¼ cup buttermilk
 ¾ cup whole-wheat flour
 ½ cup all-purpose flour
 ¼ cup sugar (I used Splenda)
 ½ cup packed brown sugar (I used half brown-sugar Splenda)
 1½ teaspoons baking powder
 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 ½ teaspoon baking soda
 ½ teaspoon salt
 ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
 pinch of ground cloves
 1 cup old-fashioned oats
 ½ cup dried cranberries and raisins (I used a crazy mix of crans, raisins, golden raisins, and blueberries)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 9-inch loaf pan. Set aside.
2. In small bowl, whisk together the eggs, applesauce, oil, and buttermilk; set aside.
3.In large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugars, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir in the oats.
4. Using rubber spatula, gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients, mixing just until combined. Stir in fruit.
5.Spoon batter into pan; sprinkle with topping, and press down lightly so it sticks. Bake 45¬–50 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out (mostly) clean. (Don’t overbake!)
6. Cool cakes in pan 10 minutes; then carefully turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Autumn Additions

2010-11-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

Late autumn is here in full force. I know this because (a) defrosting my windshield is once again a morning necessity, (b) my furry boots and scarves have emerged from the depths of my closet and are now on my person, and (c) I'm using a LOT of pumpkin and cinnamon in my baking. And pecans. And rum.

Also, there are insane amounts of birds on our front lawn. See?

That really has nothing whatsoever to do with autumn, or cupcakes, for that matter. But it's weird, and I found this picture stuck in with my autumn cupcake photos (which is odd in itself, since I don't remember taking the picture, and I have NO idea how it wound up in a file of cupcake pictures). Huh.

Anyway.

Moving on.

This week was a cupcake crazy week...meaning, lots of cupcakes. There were the usual culprits (meaning chocolate and peanut butter and Reese's cups thrown in the mix...heaven help us if they ever stop producing those things).

They're fun, aren't they? Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, and butter-yellow cupcakes with milk chocolate buttercream. And sprinkles, which somehow add to the goodness.

Anyway, like I said, autumn means special cupcake flavors. This is my newest creation and absolute favorite cupcake of the moment. It's a crazy moist pumpkin-rum cupcake with cinnamon vanilla buttercream, topped with toasted pecans and cinnamon chips. Oh. My. Goodness.

Want some? Yeah, me too.

Oh, and lest I forget (and in the inexplicable event that pumpkincinnamonpecanrum amazingness isn't your thing), I also made these:

Dark chocolate cupcakes with cherry buttercream. And a chocolate-covered cherry on top. Because it's cute.

What to do with lemons...and chocolate...and other miscellaneous goodnesses

2010-11-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

These...are lemons. In their natural (straight from the grocery store) state.

These are lemons after I'm done with them. (Don't worry; I"ll spare you the trauma of posting pictures of the shredded, squeezed, mangled lemon carcasses.)

I feel like this needs a caption like "Dad??"

Heh.

Anyway, then there are these guys. Cocoa and peanut butter. Together, as they always, always should be.

Lemon cupcakes, meet chocolate cupcakes.

Buttt...they're still a little naked. Gotta dress 'em up.

Chocolate buttercream:

And Reese's cups:

Lemon buttercream...and raspberries:

Heart eyes? Yes.

Overload? Ehh...

2010-09-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Moderation is supposed to be a mark of mature character. I do not have a mature character. Obviously.

Case in point: these cookies.

For some time, my dad has been asking me to make chocolate chip cookies for him to take to work. I think this is a friend-making tactic…or a ploy to get on his boss’s good side. Not sure which…maybe both. But anyway, I had some free time and all the ingredients, and decided to “git ’er done,” as they say.

I started with my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe…and…er, then things got a little out of control.

It started out okay. First I dumped in a few handfuls of semisweet chocolate chips. Pretty standard. But the whole time I was stirring them in, I kept glancing over my shoulder at the open cabinet—specifically, at the orange bag beckoning, Siren-like, from the middle shelf. Ah, the sweet call of Reese’s cups. Ohhh…why not? Out they came. I chopped and dumped and stirred them in. Goooood. And, yes, perhaps I should’ve stopped there, but then there was the other orange bag: the peanut-butter M&Ms. Those simply could not be ignored. In they went.

Result: diabetes in cookie form. SO worth it.

By the way, please not that it is simply way more fun to eat cookies out of a Cookie Monster/Elmo bowl. (Yes, I do have these in my house. Yes, it is because I bought them. Yes, that was intentional. Do not judge me.)

Props to Vanilla

2010-08-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Some things in life are sadly underappreciated. Bowls, for instance. Never, ever have I heard anyone gush, "Man...bowls...that was such a good idea!" or "That's the best thing since bowls!" Huh.

Also, vanilla.

Vanilla gets a raw deal with the whole "just vanilla" and "plain old vanilla" thing. It's sort of gotten the reputation for being more the absence of other flavor(s) than a flavor itself, I think. Which is unfortunate.

Now, I realize I may sound just a taaaad hypocritical right now. Chocoholism and all. So I'd like to publicly acknowledge my usual avoidance-of-things-merely-vanilla on this blog and the fact that chocolate (especially in Reese's cup form) gets a lot more love around here. To somewhat even things up, I'd like to devote this post to showing you how stinking good vanilla alone can be. (Yes, this was also motivated by the fact that I had an $8 jar of vanilla beans sitting in the pantry needing to be used. Whatever.)

So. This recipe is modified from this site. And it is soooo good. Here you go:

Vanilla Bean Loaf with Lemon Glaze

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup almond meal (I got mine at Trader Joe's)

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup granulated sugar

1 vanilla bean, insides scraped, pod discarded

½ cup nonfat plain yogurt

2 large eggs, 2 egg whites

3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice (or you could use orange juice, or just milk, if you want)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch loaf pan; set aside.

Whisk together flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In separate bowl, whisk together yogurt, sugar, applesauce, eggs, egg whites, vanilla beans, and vanilla. When well blended, gently whisk in dry ingredients, then oil. Batter will be thick and shiny.

Spoon into pan. Bake about 45 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

To make glaze, whisk together powdered sugar and lemon juice. Drizzle over top and let set before serving.

Ta-daa!

One cake, two cake, red cake, blue…well, you know

2010-08-06T14:02:00.001-07:00

I made the mistake a while back of buying a buttercream-scented air freshener for my car. Those durned Yankee Candle people are too good at their job; the thing smelled so real it made me ravenous for cupcakes every time I went anywhere. (I wonder if this would work with bacon-scented air freshener?)

Once the buttercream smell wore off, I went with a safer option: “Ocean Breeze” or something like that. It’s nice. Except that I’ve been baking and transporting so many cupcakes the last few weeks, the car STILL smells like frosting—the real thing this time. Oy. Seriously, I think the interior may just about be permanently infused with the scent by now. (Want to come ride with me? Ha.)

It’s been quite the variety, too—cupcakes in every shape and color and size: baseball team cupcakes, wedding cupcakes, birthday party cupcakes. I admit, I enjoy the diversity; it’s fun putting my “creative” hat.

Anyway, because it’s been a while since my last post, and because I’ve got quite a few pictures to show you, I’ll get to it. Thus (drumroll, please), I present to you…cupcakes. A lot of them.

This first set was something new for me: cupcakes for a baseball team. They requested the team logo in edible form, so I busted out the fondant and went to work hand-cutting the little suckers. See?

The cupcakes were basic: yellow cake, classic buttercream. It was the hand-cutting that really took a while. But I was happy with the outcome, and so were the boys (though I have to say, I think their team logo looks oddly like the starship Enterprise…but that could just be me).

Okay, moving on. Cupcake job #2 was also a first: an entire cupcake tower for my friend Marissa’s wedding. I had so much fun with these. (And my dad did an EXCELLENT job building the cupcake tower for me. Thanks, Dad!)

There were all different designs, and both regular and miniature-sized cupcakes (as well as the small cake at the top of the tower). Plus, I made four different flavor combos: butter rum cake with rum frosting, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate/chocolate, and vanilla bean cake with almond frosting. Mm.

Aaand, last but not least, job #3 (from just yesterday, actually): mini cake plus cupcakes for a little girl’s first birthday party. Cute stuff. Bright pink, purple, yellow, polka dots…yep, I like it.

There was a classic white cake with white buttercream—a small sized one just for the birthday girl. There also were two dozen miniature white cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, for the kids.

AND for the adults (this is my favorite part): two dozen white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream and raspberry filling, and a dozen lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream and whipped cream and fresh berries inside.

Oh. Man. {{ heart eyes for filled cupcakes}}

I mean, look at this:

I don’t usually eat too much of my own baking (I prefer to force them on give them to my neighbors and/or family members). But this is my exception. Here’s evidence.

And Mom helped.

And, because I haven’t offered any recipes in a while, here’s one of my favorites for you:

Classic Yellow Cupcakes
 1¼ cups sifted cake flour
 ½ teaspoon baking powder
 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
 ¼ teaspoon salt
 ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar, divided
 5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
 ½ cup buttermilk, room temperature
 1 teaspoon pure vanilla
 3 teaspoons vegetable oil
 3 large egg yolks, room temperature
 2 large egg whites, room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.

2. Whisk dry ingredients and ¾ cup sugar together in large bowl. In separate bowl, whisk together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and egg yolks.

3. In a third bowl, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Gradually add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar; continue to beat until peaks just form, 30 to 60 seconds. (Whites should hold peak but should still appear moist.) Set aside.

4. On low speed, gradually pour butter mixture into flour mixture; mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape bottom and sides of bowl. On medium-low speed, beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds. Stir 1/3 of whites into batter; then gently fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain.

5. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 18 minutes. (Cake may still appear damp.) Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes; then cool completely on rack, about 1 hour.

Note: Makes about a dozen cupcakes.

Bakery-Style Buttercream
 ½ cup Crisco
 ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 ½ teaspoon butter-flavor extract
 ½ teaspoon rum or almond extract
 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
 milk

Beat Crisco and butter until very smooth and creamy. Gradually add sugar and extracts. Beat well until light and fluffy, adding milk (by the half-teaspoon) and/or more sugar as needed to reach desired consistency.

Baby animals and floral inspiration and whatnot

2010-05-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

Now that it's finally made an appearance, springtime in Indiana, I've decided, is...amusing. Lovely, but amusing.

Picture this: a million and one days of COLD, and then, practically overnight, spring like they paint it in Disney movies: the brightest green fields and blue skies, flowers everywhere, and fluffy, big-eyed baby animals running amok. (Seriously. We've got bunnies, birds, squirrels, calves...even a pasture of lambs down the road.)

Sometimes I'm half suspicious that everything will suddenly bust out dancing and singing, "Sound of Music" -like. ("Spriiiing! Glorious spriiiing!" -- something like that.)

It's, like I said, very pretty...just sort of bordering on a spring parody. Which, like I said, amuses me.

Anyway...all this springtime-y-ness also means things like graduation open houses (which apparently are a big thing in the Midwest; who knew?) Last weekend I had two open house cakes to bake/decorate. The first one I didn't get a picture of, but it was a pretty basic sheet cake anyway (in DePauw University colors). The second one, though, I had been granted some "artistic freedom" with, and I decided that spring flowers were the inspiration.

Ta-daaa...!

This was a really fun cake to make, for several reasons.

(1) It was white chocolate, with white chocolate frosting, which means I got to make myself sick sampling the frosting. (This is a good kind of sick, IMHO, in case you were wondering.)

(2) I got to play with my "grown-up Play-Doh" (i.e., fondant) to make all the little spring flower cutouts. See (below)? (This was while watching the season finale of The Mentalist. Which could be another post entirely because of its awesomeness...except that it has nothing to do with baking. Though, come to think of it, neither does Chuck Norris, and I DID talk about him recently. Hm...)

(3) I LOVED making the tiny fondant flowers on floral wire to stick out of the top of the cake. It's an easy way to add dimension and height to a cake, plus it has sort of a jaunty, playful feel that I like a lot.

And (4) It was a combo cake and cupcakes, which I find fun, and I used pink icing for the cupcakes--which, yes, is girly, and, yes, makes me unreasonably happy.

They're fun, hm?

Close(r)-up shot:

So, all that to say that spring has...um...sprung. Yay. And congratulations on graduating, Sara and Will. So proud of y'all!

Transitions Are Highly Overrated

2010-02-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Once in Fiction Writing class in college, I titled a short story "Titles Are Highly Overrated." (True story. My good-natured professor gave me an A on the paper--as well as a book on improving one's title-writing skills.)

I'm titling today's post "Transitions Are Highly Overrated." There's a reason for this. You see, I've deleted and rewritten the introduction to this post about a dozen times now, trying to weave some wickedly clever scenario wherein I can transition between two unrelated things: cookies and Chuck Norris.

As you might imagine, this is hard. Very hard.

Attempt 1: "Picture Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicking his way through the Toll House factory..." Attempt 2: "There's no 'team' in 'Norris,' just 'I'--and, hey, there's an 'I' in 'cookies,' too!")

You get the idea. This is just not happening. But my conclusion is, hey, who needs tenuous connections for the sake of smooth transitions? Down with transitions! (Please, please do not quote me on this.)

So. Chuck Norris. He's awesome. Did you know that Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open? Oh, and that Chuck Norris grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage? And that Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird?

Yeah!

And (now that that's out of my system) cookies. Not related. But awesome as well.

This past week was kind of a cookie-fest. Not only did I have several orders for Indianapolis Colts sugar cookies, but I also was putting together an order of chocolate chip cookies AND assembling sample bags for a local-business promotional event.

I won't go on and on about these things. In fact, I'll limit myself to one comment per picture. Here we go.

Colts cookies, the sugar version. My comment: these are a pain in the butt to make...and the Colts lost the Superbowl. Sigh.

Chocolate chip cookies, boxed up and ready to ship. Comment: Irish butter + Madagascar bourbon vanilla + dark Belgian chocolate = multinational incredibleness (good, good cookies).

And, finally, the promo bags, which contained dark chocolate peppermint-chip cookies (in Colts blue and white, of course). Comment: don't my business cards look cute?

So, there you have it. Cookies. And Chuck. Awesome.

A fishy story...with a sweet ending

2010-01-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my dad planted himself in front of me with a solemn look (which nearly always means a joke is coming) and asked, “Remember the tuna fish?” Ah, the tuna...as if I could forget.

Maybe you've already heard this story. Actually, chances are you have, considering how often he tells it. (I swear if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it 573 times.) But just in case you haven't:

Imagine me, about five years old. I think that was a fairly cute stage. Oh, actually, I have a picture. Here you go:

Rocking that '80s hair, huh?

Anyway, back to my story. Now, my four-year-old palate is still rather…oh, what shall we call it...underdeveloped? Delicate? (Picky.) On this particular day, my dad is making short work of a tuna salad sandwich, and he gets the brilliant idea that now would be a good time to introduce Little Amber to the joys of tuna. The following ensues:

Dad: “Here, booger, try a bite of this.” (Sidenote: Yes, my dad called me “booger.” Still does. Sometimes “boog” for short. Gross but affectionate.)
Me (eyeing the sandwich suspiciously): “Nuh-uh. I don’t like it.”
Dad: “You’ve never had it. How can you know you don’t like it? Just try a bite.”
Me (whiny): “I don’t like it!”
Dad (annoyed): “Amber Marie. One bite. You’re being ridiculous.”
Me (screwing up my face): “No...it’s yucky!!”
Dad (very annoyed, thrusting the sandwich under my nose): “You WILL take a bite of this sandwich, young lady. EAT IT!”
Me (with a sudden gush of half-dramatic/half-genuine tears): “Nooo!”
Dad: “You WILL eat a bite of this sandwich. Right. Now!”
Me: “MOOOOMMMY!”

Not one of my shining preschool moments. (And not one of Dad’s A-plus parenting moments, either, I think.) From that day on, I vehemently hated tuna fish, and for twenty-plus years I’ve maintained that it’s because of the above scenario.

Now, the interesting thing is that taste buds change. They say you get a new set of taste buds every, what?, seven years or something. I won’t claim to know whether that’s scientifically confirmed or just something “they” say, but the fact is that now, at 26, I’ve discovered that I like tuna quite a lot.

This tells me a couple of things:

(1) Though Dad may believe otherwise (and though I may enjoy making him think so), he didn’t scar me for life with that tuna sandwich. At least not totally.

(2) Dad’s taste in food, while often questionable (ketchup on that? really?), occasionally is spot-on.

For instance, he and I agree on the joys of lemon cake, green tea, and my mom's chicken and dumplings (not, however, all together). We also unquestionably agree on the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. And so I give you the Buckeye Cake.

You know Buckeye candies? The peanut butter balls coated in chocolate? This is the cake version. Here are some pics…and the recipe. Oh, and I warn you: make this one a night you intend to splurge. It’s RICH. But despite the extravagant look/taste, it’s not that hard to make.

Start with one 8-inch chocolate cake, whatever recipe you want. (My recipe makes two, so I use one and put the other in the freezer for later use.)

Bust out the Jif (or, in my case, the grocery-store brand peanut butter)...

And mix up a peanut-butter candy topping (3/4 cup creamy peanut butter mixed with 1/4 cup softened butter, 3/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and a splash of milk--just enough so that it's very thick but spreadable). Spread/shape it over the top.

Refrigerate the whole thing while you mix up some super-decadent ganache frosting. (Heat a cup of heavy cream to boiling; then remove it from the heat and stir in a 12-oz. bag of chocolate chips. Let it sit a few minutes, and then stir it until it's smooth and satiny. Refrigerate it until it's at a good, spreadable consistency. Mine took about 45 minutes.)

Once the ganache is spreadable, gloop it on top of the cake (yes, I said "gloop"). Just look at that goodness:

Spread it out nice and smooth...

Then top it with a ridiculous amount of chopped Reese's cups.

Need to see that up closer?

Chill it, slice it, serve it (with milk or ice cream). And then collapse in a sugar coma.

Hope you approve, Dad.

Nuts.

2009-12-17T08:26:00.000-08:00

I used to consider myself a pretty committed runner. And I was...until I moved from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. Then I found out just how fair-weather I am. Winter here is COLD. Ridiculously cold. And I, put to the test, simply do not care THAT much about exercise (or so it would appear). When the thermometer drops below that ominous little blue line and it's officially below freezing (not to mention windchill), sorry, but running is out of the question.

For me, at least. The neighbor lady down the road is another story altogether. It'll be 15 below, and she'll be out running, bundled up like an Eskimo and churning out white breath clouds like a little steam engine.

Good for her. I applaud her.

And I think she's nuts.

Speaking of which (how's this for a transition?), I've found two great new uses for nuts--AND a much warmer way to spend a winter afternoon. Yeah, it's also much unhealthier...but, then again, I consider mild hypothermia pretty unhealthy, too. Your choice.

Anyway, here we go: Turtle Thumbprint Cookies. And Caramel Turtle Cheesecake. Both recipes include chocolate, pecans, and caramel. You sold? Me too.

Here's are pictures:

These are a bit time-consuming, but they're really that good. And they make nice gifts, if you like to give out baked goods around the holidays. I'll post the recipes in the next few days, if you want them.

Anyway, I know it's only December, and there's much more cold weather to come. My advice is to bake these cookies. Eat these cookies. Be warm. And we'll all go running together come spring.

Decisions, Decisions...

2009-11-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

They say that a healthy lifestyle is about choices ("they" being the Health and Fitness gurus of the world). I give you Exhibit A:

Remember the Animaniacs cartoons, and the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" segment? (Yeah, I know; that show was hilarious.) Zucchini=good idea. Cookie=bad idea.

But at this point we have to ask ourselves the inevitable question: who, in their right mind, would choose the zucchini, when the two are presented side-by-side like that? Oy.

Zucchini, to be fair, is a great vegetable. I like zucchini. A lot.

But let me introduce you to the Monster Cookie:

We're talking butter, brown sugar, peanut butter...

Oats, peanut-butter chips...

Yeah, I admit we're talking ZILCH nutritional value, unless you count a little bit of fiber from the oatmeal. But they're just...so...good.

Thus I posit to you, O Health-and-Fitness guru people, that a healthy lifestyle is not about choices, but about compromise.

My compromise? Voila!

Monster cookie + multivitamin. Yes! (And maybe zucchini for dinner?)

And, yes, I'll give you the recipe.

Monster Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 cups creamy peanut butter

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon light corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups old-fashioned oats

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips or M&Ms

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and sugars. Add peanut butter and next 3 ingredients; mix well.

In separate bowl, stir together oats, baking soda, and salt. Add to peanut butter mixture; stir to combine. Stir in chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.

Drop heaping spoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheet. Flatten slightly. Bake about 12 minutes, until edges are set. (Centers will still appear wet.) Cool on pan 2-3 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Interesting Things

2009-11-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

They say you should try to learn something new every day. Well, I've learned several interesting new things lately. Three, to be exact: (1) The speed limit on a certain stretch of highway between here and Greenwood drops rather sneakily from 55 to 35. (2) Speeding tickets are both embarassing and expensive. (3) Baking peanut butter brownies is therapeutic. Eating peanut butter brownies also is therapeutic.

I won't elaborate on Items 1 and 2, because...well, because I don't want to. Ha. I WILL, however, give you the peanut butter brownie recipe. Because it's very good and very easy. And, of course, because I like you.

First, here's a picture:

Looks good, huh?

Okay, here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons milk
splash of vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

(1) Heat oven to 350. Line a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper; set aside.

(2) Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs, one at a time, then milk and vanilla. In separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix well.

(3) Divide batter between two bowls. Add cocoa powder and chocolate chips to one; mix well. Add peanut butter and peanut butter chips to other; mix well.

(4) Drop batters alternately by heaping spoonfuls into prepared pan. Swirl through with knife to marble. Bake about 25 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting.

(Recipe adapted from Taste of Home Baking cookbook)

Note: I've also done this replacing both the semisweet chips and peanut butter chips with chopped Reese's cups; it's really, really good.

Cupcake Lava and Cake-Related Hilarity

2009-11-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

Yellow cake, I've decided, is a rather challenging animal. Spice cake, or white chocolate cake, or carrot cake, or what have you...those can rely on their extra "stuff" for the wow factor. But yellow cake is just so darned basic. If it isn't really good, it...well...isn't really good.

So I decided to try a new recipe for yellow cupcakes. This should not have been incredibly time-consuming or challenging. Unfortunately, I, genius that I am, managed to overfill the cupcake liners (bad, bad habit) and wound up with little cupcake replicas of Mt. Vesuvius--post-explosion. Not that the cupcakes really exploded, per se...they more sort of bubbled up and oozed all over the place and then crusted over--more like one of those Hawaiian dome volcanoes, actually, than the explosive ones.

Aaaanyway...after scraping/peeling/pouring the cupcake lava into the garbage, I attempted Round Two. Much more successful.

Here was the result:

Yellow cake. Chocolate buttercream. Oh, and chocolate sprinkles (which, let's face it, are just fun). Simple, basic, yum.

I don't think I'm done with the Search for the Perfect Yellow Cake Recipe. But these were pretty good, anyway.

Now, on a different note. People, you have GOT to check this website out: CakeWrecks. It. Is. HILARIOUS. You know how you sometimes see those grocery store bakery cakes that just make you go "Eh?" or "Whaa...?" or "You have got to be kidding"? The frightening, the humorous, the very oddly decorated or atrociously colored? Yeah. Well, this site is dedicated to those, and not only are the photos themselves really funny, but the commentary leaves me rolling. (And I have to admit, I feel like my baking looks really darned good compared to some of this stuff. Haha.) So check it out. CakeWrecks.

Wedding Pics (Finally)

2009-10-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm finally posting pics from the rehearsal dinner and wedding! And rather than waste space rambling, I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking. Oh, and I'll give you the menus.

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, a Southwest burrito buffet. The meats I am NOT posting pictures of (shredded meat, in a basement, under fluorescent lighting...well, it just does not photograph well), but they were a cilantro-lime chicken and adobo chili beef. There were all the fixings, too: tortillas, cheese, sour cream...plus black beans and rice, chips and salsa, etc.

For sides, I made a layered Southwest salad with cilantro lime vinaigrette. It didn't photograph so well either, so use your imagination. Then there were these little cheddar pepper corn muffins, served with chili cream cheese spread. LOVE these; they're so yummy.

Here's a picture of the dessert/coffee/drink table. Dessert was white chocolate fruit tart and cookies. Drinks were the standard (water, tea, coffee, etc.) plus horchata! (That's a sweet Mexican rice milk spiced with cinnamon, if you've never had it.)

Oh, and here are the two "specialty" salsas: cilantro/lime-corn salsa and a mango pepper salsa.

Here's a picture of ME taking pictures of the dessert table. Haha.

Closeup action for the white chocolate fruit tart. Mm.

THEN, moving on to the wedding (Saturday afternoon).

This was an afternoon dessert buffet. Here's the one picture I have of my prep work the night before. I'd like to point out three things: (1) the crazy number of chocolates covering the dining table turned workspace, (2) the fact that the entire table is covered in bubble wrap (long story), and (3) the lovely Starbucks apron I'm wearing. Adam doesn't work at Starbucks anymore but generously donated his old aprons to my kitchen collection--and they're GREAT.

Okay, moving on to the day of. The menu included the following:

spinach dip and crackers
fruit and cheese skewers
sweet breads: banana chocolate chip, frosted pumpkin rum spice, and cherry almond
cheesecake bites--two kinds: white chocolate almond and chocolate chip cookie dough
candies: cookies 'n cream truffles, red velvet cake truffles, chocolate-dipped cherries and apricots, and (heart shaped!) peppermint creams
miniature trifle cups, in two flavors: pumpkin spice and black forest
mint water, raspberry tea, and virgin autumn sangria

Here are some pictures, in no particular order.

In this one you can see the crackers and dip, plus the pumpkin spice trifles (with gingersnap garnishes!):

Here are the fruit and cheese skewers and sangria:

Here, cherry almond bread chunks:

Here, cookie dough cheesecake bites (bottom left), black forest trifles, and chocolate chip banana bread (on the right).

White chocolate almond cheesecake bites, banana bread (again), and pumpkin rum spice bread...

These are some of the candies (on Marla's adorable lazy Susan):

And some more of them:

Here's my caterer's cameo shot: me getting ready to go re-stock the candy trays.

Oh, and a final shot of the sangria. (Isn't it pretty? I loved the presentation on this.)

I have to say, this was a lot of fun and great experience...but I'm glad it's over! Next time, no back-to-back rehearsal and wedding. Whew!

It's the Little Things

2009-09-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know. It's been ridiculously long since I've updated this blog. I blame this on the fact that I have no Internet access at home and usually don't make trips to the public library computer lab just to update my blog. (I know. Excuses, excuses...)

Aaanyway...

I've discovered (more like finally admitted) something about myself: I like cutsey. You know what I'm talking about. Baby animal calendars, rainbows and butterflies, Hello Kitty...stuff like this:

(Um, yeah. Everbody together, now: Awww...)

I know. I've denied it for a long time. But it's true: I'm a girl...and I like cute. I do.

Part of this cutesy-ness affinity is an appreciation for teeny things. Take mini chocolate chips, for instance. I use them all the time, and do you really believe it's just because of how nicely they regulate the chocolate distribution in baked goods? Uh, no. I like 'em because they're CUTE. It's the same reason I'm so attached to my mini heart-shaped springform pans. (Remember those?)

With the above in mind, you can see why I like cupcakes. I mean, they're cake (good) with an impressive frosting-to-cake ratio (even better)...and they're small sized (great!). What could possibly be cuter? And, lest you think that's a rhetorical question, the answer is: mini cupcakes! Cuteness multiplied! (Whatever. Groan if you want. You know I'm right.)

SO...I recently bought two new mini cupcake tins and a bunch of the mini paper liners. Fun stuff, and just in time for a mini cupcake order for a bridal shower. (See? I'm not the only person who likes the things.) Here's a pic:

The cupcakes were white chocolate, with white-chocolate cream cheese frosting. The "S" monogram was for the last name of the soon-to-be newlyweds. (Now honeymooners; the wedding was this past weekend.)

Here they are all boxed up and ready for delivery:

I rest my case: cutesy is good. Mini cupcakes are cute--and therefore good. Embrace it, people. Eat a mini cupcake. (And then, if you absolutely must, go watch Die Hard or something.)

Oh, and I'll be posting pics from the reherasal dinner and wedding in the near future. It was my first wedding reception to cater, and it was tiringcrazyfunoverwhelmingawesome. You get the idea. More to come on that front!

Sweet Summer

2009-09-01T12:59:00.005-07:00

Berries, I've determined, have personality. Think about it:

Strawberries. These are the berry-next-door--sweet, friendly, laid back, and familiar. They're not the most expensive or classiest berry, but they go well with just about anything, and just about everyone likes them.

Raspberries. These are the snazzy berries, a little froofier and with more attitude than strawberries, and definitely more expensive. They're more bistro than backyard, definitely not everyday fare.

Blueberries. They're slightly more mysterious and hard to nail down--and, let's face it, sorta seedy. Not everyone gets off to these guys (but that could just be because they're misunderstood).

Skipping all the "what the heck?" berries, like loganberries, huckleberries (the only Huckleberry I know is from Mark Twain), etc., we come to my intended topic: cherries. Cherries have ridiculously subtle pizazz. They're simple, sleek, and breezy. They're juicy and plump. They're America. And they're SUMMER.

In honor of the last leg of summer (which I am NOT ready to say goodbye to), let's give the cherry some stage time. Come on, put the apples back in the produce bin, folks; they can wait a few more weeks. For now, let's just lounge on the back porch together, soaking in the sunshine, chatting, and having iced tea and soft hunks of cherry almond bread.

Summer Cherry Almond Bread

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups bread flour (or all-purpose is fine; I just like bread flour, if I happen to have it)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt (or light sour cream)

1 cup chopped frozen cherries (NOT thawed)

Heat oven to 350. Spray an 8-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Combine white sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle into bottom and sides of pan; tap out excess.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and extracts and mix well. In separate bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture, mixing well; then stir in sour cream. Fold in cherries.

Pour batter into pan, and bake about 55 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes; then remove to wire rack to cool completely (if you can stay out of it that long).

Crazy Crack Cookie Dough Cheesecake...the Sequel

2009-08-04T14:21:00.001-07:00

I'm posting about the cookie dough cheesecake again for two reasons. One, I love it that much. And two, I didn't post the recipe last time! Silly me. So, without further ado/rambling, here it is:

Crazy Crack Cookie Dough Cheesecake

For the dough:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon coarse-grained sea salt

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

For the cheesecake:

1 (10 oz.) box graham cookies (I like Teddy Grahams), crushed

1/4 cup butter, melted

2 (8 oz.) blocks cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup heavy cream

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

To make the dough: (1) Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt, then chocolate chips. (2) Refrigerate dough at least 1/2 hour; then form into tiny balls and refrigerate another 1/2 hour or so.

To make the cheesecake: (1) Heat oven to 350. (2) Combine cookie crumbs and butter, and press into bottom of mini cheesecake pans (greased) or 8-inch square pan (lined with parchment paper). Bake 10 minutes; then move to wire rack to cool. (3) Reduce oven heat to 300. (4) Beat cream cheese and sugar on medium speed until completely smooth, about 1 minute. Add vanilla and cream, then eggs, one at a time, mixing just until incorporated after each. (Don't overmix!) (5) Gently fold in half of cookie dough balls (return rest to fridge) and 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips. (6) Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Tap gently on counter to remove air bubbles. (7) Bake 20-30 minutes, until edges are set but center still wobbles a little. (8) Turn off oven but leave pan inside for about another hour. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

To assemble/decorate: (1) Remove pan from refrigerator. Remove mini cheesecakes from springforms, or gently lift the parchment/cheesecake from the square pan and cut it into small bars. (When I use the square pan, I like to use a pizza cutter to cut the cheesecake into little squares.) (2) Stack a small mound of the leftover cookie dough balls on top of each cheesecake/bar. (3) Melt 1-2 ounces semisweet chocolate in the microwave. Spoon it into a Ziploc bag, snip the edge, and drizzle the chocolate over the cheesecakes/bars. (4) Refrigerate another 1/2 hour at least before serving.

Crazy Crack Cookie Dough Cheesecake

2009-07-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Amber, and I'm a cookie-dough-aholic. (And, um...no, I don't have any desire to recover.)

My former roommates will attest to the fact that I'm seriously stinkin' addicted to the stuff. Not the baked version, mind you. I can take or leave those. But the DOUGH...the glorious, glorious dough. Hm. I'd probably be scared to know how many pounds of it I've put down in the last few years.

Now, before you give me the gasp/shocked look/"What about salmonella!?" reprimand check this out: I've learned how to make egg-less cookie dough! I admit, this never would have happened except for the fact that I decided recently that I needed to come up with a cookie dough cheesecake. I'm all about eating the raw-egg-laden stuff myself, but feeding it to other people is quite a different store. (Can't have people getting sick.)

As a (related) side note, I just received from UPS a wonderful little package containing the (NON-heart shaped) miniature cheesecake pans I recently ordered. Can I tell you how much I love them?

Here was the outcome. I call these my "Crazy Crack Cookie Dough Cheesecakes." Seriously addicting. Dangerously addicting. (But eat all the dough you want; it's safe!)

At the Races?

2009-07-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Remember that scene in "My Fair Lady" where Eliza goes to the Royal Ascot races, and everyone's dressed in immaculate black and white? Love it, love it.

So, the cake I made this past weekend was totally my Royal Ascot cake. At least, that's what it made me think of. (I had "My Fair Lady" songs running through my head every time I so much as looked at it.) Technically, it was a bridal shower cake. But all I could think of was Audrey Hepburn and green lawns and tea cups and enormous ladies' hats (meaning the hats were enormous, not the ladies).

Man...it's definitely time to rent that movie.

ANYway--Sam, the bride-to-be, chose black, white, and some undefinable shade of blue/teal for her wedding colors. Since I didn't know what the blue looked like, I went with black and white. Classy. Elegant. Did I mention I love it?

Here I am, applying fondant flowers.

And here's the cake at the shower, on the table. The little "thingy" on top was supposed to be a flower. But it fell apart (sad!). Thankfully, I was able to sort of prop it up with floral wire. But it was supposed to be perkier and taller.

A closer shot:

And even closer...

Here are a few of us hanging out in the church parking lot after the shower. (No, we didn't all plan to wear black and white...but, yes, it did happen. Cheesy? Maybe. Funny? Definitely.)

And, finally, another closeup--this time, of us! If only we'd had some of those "My Fair Lady" hats. Ah, well. Maybe next time.

Baked (Vanilla) Beans

2009-06-30T13:49:00.001-07:00

Have you ever seen vanilla beans, up close and personal? They're basically little flat, shriveled-up black sticks with stems, sort of forlorn looking, like they're had the life sucked out of them--the raisin of the spice world.

In spite of their lack of aesthetic appeal, though, the suckers are high dollar. I actually paid $8 for a tiny glass jar containly exactly two. And then I used both of them to make exactly one dozen vanilla cupcakes. (Goodbye, $8.)

No, Kroger didn't rip me off. According to Wikipedia, "vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron." I know you were dying to know that. It has something to do with how expensive it is to grow the seed pods. (Yes, I did plug "vanilla" into Wikipedia. Tell me you haven't researched stranger.)

ANYWAY...

The point of this whole expenditure was to make a knockoff of those vanilla bean cupcakes at Starbucks. You know, those ruggedly appealing, ridiculously expensive (I guess we know why now) ones? Exhibit A:

I have to say, this was a success.

AND to celebrate, I'm going to give you my vanilla bean buttercream recipe. Just cuz I love you.

Worth-the-Extra-$8 Vanilla Bean Buttercream

¼ cup Crisco
¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
heavy whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Beat Crisco and butter until smooth and creamy. Add confectioner’s sugar and vanilla, along with 2 tablespoons cream. Beat well, adding more cream (by the teaspoon) as needed to reach desired consistency. Add scraped vanilla bean seeds and mix until seeds are evenly distributed.

Makes about 3 cups

Ah, memories (and cake)

2009-06-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

I had a nostalgic moment the other day.

Yes, I'm actually having those at the ripe old age of 25, and I think it might mean I've crossed an important threshhold, age-wise. I find myself saying things like, "When I was a kid..." and "Oh, I remember when..." and even "Back in the day..." And I've even contemplated the need to start writing down some of those memories so that when my kids (the hypothetical kids I don't have yet, that is) say, "Mommy, tell me a story about when you were a little girl," I'll have plenty to pull from. (I remember asking MY mom that when I was a kid and absolutely loving to hear those stories, no matter how mundane they might have seemed to her.)

Anyway, the particular nostalgic moment I'm talking about happened last weekend. (Yeah, I'm just now getting around to posting the pictures. Sorry.) I had an order for a couple of birthday cakes, for a joint birthday party for two kids. One was supposed to be baseball themed, the other dance themed.

Fun!

This totally catapulted me back to my childhood. First, baseball.

I remember all those summer days spent hanging out at the baseball field during Adam's games and practices. It was always blazing hot (think Texas summers and shorts on metal bleachers; ouch!). A lot of times my friend Monica (her little sister was on the same team as Adam) and I would go buy candy from the concession stand and then go amuse ourselves until time to go home. Good times.

And then cake #2: dance.

There were years of dance mania on my part. I loved dance. (And by "loved," I mean was utterly obsessed with.) I ate, slept, BREATHED dance. Dance class, dance team, competitions, performances, costumes, shoes, music, makeup...something like 12 or 13 years of it. (And yet I ended up an editor. Huh.)

Anyway, here are both cakes together:

And then boxed up and ready to go:

What can I say? Good times, good memories.

How To Eat a Reese's Cup

2009-06-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

Today, I'd like to talk about the following:

Yes, that's right. Reese's cups. We're going to talk about them. Actually, I'm going to tell you a story about them, and about Junior High Me.

When I was in seventh grade, Reese's cups were a standard item of fare at lunch time. The school cafeteria sold candy, and every day I or one of my friends would fork out the 50 cents to buy a pack. Then the purchaser would painstakingly unwrap and divide the candy into halves or even quarters (which is really a skill/art) and then dole them out--meaning that a pack of two peanut butter cups served as dessert for up to eight preteen girls. (No wonder we were skinny.)

Now, every once in a blue moon I'd get an entire Reese's cup to myself. And let me tell you, I savored the experience. Here was my standard MO and "how to" guide for getting the most out of a Reese's cup: (1) working in a circular motion, carefully push down along the inside rim of the cup, about 1/8 inch from the edge, being careful not to push in the center; (2) continue working in this manner until the "core" of the cup comes out in one disk-shaped piece (being VERY careful not to break the core and ruin the whole thing); (3) separate the two parts--the coveted peanut-butter core, and the hollowed-out rim; (4) set the core aside; (5) nibble on the rim for an inordinate amount of time (no kidding; I bet I'd work for five minutes on it); and (5) finally, as the piece de resistance (and the point of the whole endeavor, to be quite honest), revel in the gooey, peanut-buttery center.

There you have it. If that's not golden advice (and potentially frightening insight into my childhood), I don't know what is.

It's been quite some time since junior high, and my appreciation for this candy has expanded into some new territory. And so, without further ado, I give you my NEW "how to maximize the Reese's Cup": the Reese's Cup Peanut Butter Cheesecake.

Oh, yeah, and I had extra batter, so I made a "mini me" version for Adam. Yes, yes; that IS the heart-shaped mini springform making another appearance. What can I say? I embrace the cutesy-ness of it.

News So Great I Can't Even Think up a Clever Enough Title for the Post about It

2009-06-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: this is going to be an entirely non-food post. A little out of sync, I know. But it sort of has to be; there's no way I'm going to try to combine this kind of stellar content with (comparatively) mundane rambling about birthday cakes or cheesecake.

I have awesome news: my dear friend (and ex...uh, I mean former...roommate) Julia is getting married in August! (You can't see it, but I'm doing a little "woo hoo!" dance. I do it, at least internally, every time I think about it.)

This is dance/grins/celebration worthy for a lot of reasons. Besides it being "ohmygoshJulia'sgettingmarried" excitement, this also is (1) an excuse to fly out to L.A. and see all my friends, (2) the opportunity to be a part of the bridal party (seriously an honor and privilege), and (3) a reason to buy a cute new black dress (GOOD choice with the bridal party garb, Jules).

And there's something else, too--something much, much more important; this engagement, besides all of the above, is an incredible example and reminder of God's goodness and sovereign guidance.

It's simply astounding (in a good, good way) to see two people who love Jesus Christ with all their hearts prepare to join their lives together. No doubt their marriage will be a vivid illustration of His sacrificial love for His church...and no doubt Jules and Tim (the fiance) will only love Him and serve Him better through being together.

Have I mentioned how excited I am? Oh, right...yep, time to do the "woo hoo!" dance again...and then maybe think about writing that post about cheesecake or whatever. ;)

Dough!

2009-06-17T17:14:00.001-07:00

Have you seen that TV commercial (for Papa John's or something) with the Italian guy tossing pizza dough? It's pretty impressive. He manhandles that dough like nobody's business--throws it up in the air, whirls it in circles, even rolls it over his shoulders (no kidding!). All to some really upbeat music.

When I make pizza, I don't really get so Cirque du Soleil about the process. Not because I wouldn't like to, mind you. But I don't have the patience...or the skill. (Me trying to toss dough = dough plopped into a gooey mess on the kitchen floor.)

Anyway, dough-tossing abilities aside, I like pizza. I like the pizza-whirling guy. I like eating pizza. And I like making pizza.

Exhibit A:

Now, that was a Canadian bacon/pineapple pizza. Honestly, not my favorite. I like just plain old tomato, onion, and basil. And my family is big on BBQ chicken pizza. Still, I thought I'd post these pictures because...well, because they're the only ones I have at the moment.

Here are a few more:

Wanting pizza now? (Yeah, me too.) Well, don't worry...and don't call Papa John's. Because I love you, I'm also posting my pizza crust recipe. Enjoy!

Favorite Pizza Crust
1 cup warm water (105–115°)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons white sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 package active dry yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour (sometimes I use half whole-wheat)
olive oil
Italian seasoning
garlic salt
cornmeal

1. Combine first four ingredients in large bowl; sprinkle yeast on top and whisk until dissolved.

2. Add 2 cups flour; stir until smooth. Gradually add remaining cup flour, mixing until soft, sticky dough forms and begins to pull away from sides of bowl.

3. Turn onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 6–8 minutes. Shape into a ball and place in greased bowl, turning once to coat. Cover bowl and place in warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

4. Heat oven to 450°, with pizza stone inside. Punch dough down; divide in half. On lightly floured surface, stretch/toss/roll each piece into a large circle. (Do not let dough rise!)

5. Slide dough onto pizza stone sprinkled with cornmeal. Lightly drizzle with olive oil (or spray
with cooking spray) and sprinkle with Italian seasoning and garlic salt. Puncture with fork. Bake 5–10 minutes, depending on crispiness desired.

6. Remove crust (still on stone) from oven (or just slide the oven rack out), and top as desired.

7. Bake about 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Makes two 12–14-inch crusts

A Tale of Two Springforms

2009-06-14T15:41:00.001-07:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."

It was time...to make cheesecake?

Okay, so it's sort of hard to make a cream cheese/French Revolution parallel. But, man, I love that novel. And, hey, I bet Chuck Dickens liked cheesecake. I bet he would've liked these cheesecakes.

I mean, there is simply something to be said for cute li'l heart-shaped cheesecakes. (They're even PINK, for crying out loud.) And this is one of my favorite recipes: Neapolitan Cheesecake. (Hmm...maybe we could shuffle a few letters and re-dub it "Napoleonic Cheesecake" to make it more Tale of Two Cities-ish?)

I posted a pic of a large one of these guys a while back. These are the same thing, but mini versions. Mom and Dad asked me to make up something special for one of our neighbors. He's been kind enough to keep our lawn mowed since our lawnmower gave up the ghost a few weeks ago, and they wanted to give him a little thank-you. Nothing says thanks like cheesecake, right?

Here are the pics.

First, the aforementioned, oh-so-cute mini springforms. (Everyone, now: Awww...)

Here they are wrapped in their foil swimming trunks, getting ready for a water bath/spa experience.

Chocolate cookie crumbs + melted butter = really yummy crust.

Here they are going into the oven, luxuriating in that steaming hot water bath I was talking about.

Out of the oven, cooling...and cooling...and cooling. (They take forever.)

Closeup, minus the foil "trunks."

Finally, after cooling completely, they get released from their springforms.

After chilling several hours, they get topped with chocolate and drizzled in white chocolate, then chilled some more. Then they're boxed and ready to go!

Sweet Safari

2009-06-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have a confession: I miss Play-Doh. There are days when I wish I still had a couple of cans of that salty goodness (oh, come on, like you never tasted it) to roll into snakes and snowmen.
Somehow, though, this doesn't exactly fly as a "grown up" hobby like reading or jogging or gardening or whatever. And that makes me pretty sad. At least, it did until I discovered something:

Fondant.

It's ADULT PLAY-DOH! (And it's actually meant to be eaten, which is a bonus.)

I've used fondant before, but only for relatively easy things like bows and cutouts. I've never tried to free-style, so to speak. But when I found out I was doing a baby shower cake, and that the mom-to-be was decorating her nursery in a jungle theme, I figured I'd branch out a little.

Let me tell you, trying to hand-cut intricate little jungle animals out of fondant takes a lot of time and patience. (And that's after the time spent coloring the fondant.) Gluing the pieces together with royal frosting is a bit of a royal pain. But it's still so much fun.

I wasn't entirely happy with this cake (and would do several things differently in the future), but I did enjoy the Play-D...um, the fondant.

A Week in Photos

2009-05-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

Me, not including at least four paragraphs in a post? It's shockingly non-standard, I know. But, well...they say a picture's worth...you know. And the fact is that I currently have limited time. So I'll just post a few pictures from the last week of baking and let 'em speak for themselves.

Neopolitan Cheesecake with chocolate-covered strawberries:

And a butterfly cake for Emily's graduation open house. (Congrats, Em!)

Disaster Relief

2009-05-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you right up front that I didn't get pictures of it. I just couldn't bring myself to. It was that tragic.

What was "it"? The carrot cake cheesecake fiasco.

This had so much potential, and I'm not sure if the problem was recipe-related or baker-related (either is possible), but either way, instead of a Cheesecake Factory-esque carrot cake cheesecake, I wound up with...carrot mush. Yikes.

Anyway, this cheesecake was (supposed to be) for company we were having for dinner. When I discovered the mush factor, I promptly threw it out and called in a pinch hitter: the tried-and-true white chocolate raspberry cake recipe. 'Nuff said. Here are some pics:

Those Three Words

2009-05-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ah, the magic of those three little words. No, not those three words...the other three: chocolate chip cookies. (Am I betraying my singleness on multiple levels right now? Ah, well.)

So, are you interested in this topic? Yeah, I thought so. (If not, we need to talk.)

I've tried a lot of recipes over the years--my guinea-pig roommates could attest to that--and here's a little not-so-secret secret I've picked up: pretty much every recipe has the same ingredients. So why in the world are there so many different recipes and different kinds of chocolate chip cookies?

Well, several factors effect what emerges from the oven after you've dumped all those ingredients together and baked them: ratios and amounts (how much brown sugar to white), methods (melted, creamed, or cold butter?), baking temperature/time, etc. This is how a cookie winds up thin and crispy or thick and chewy, more or less chocolaty, and so on.

But those are issues of preference, right? I mean, I like (and when I say "like," I mean "passionately adore") gooey, chewy, thick cookies that are slightly underbaked. (A couple of those plus vanilla ice cream = mmmm.) But that's just me.

So if you ask me, "What's THE best chocolate chip cookie recipe?" I can give you my favorite, but it might not be yours, too...which means you're just going to have to do what I did and try about 53 recipes to figure it out. (And yes, yes, it's worth it).

That said, though, I do have a few tips that apply to every chocolate chip cookie. These are just a few little things that, together, can take any cookie from "good" to "could eat 25 of them without blinking an eye."

And so, in no particular order and without further ado, I present to you "Amber's Chocolate Chip Cookie A-Team":

1. REAL vanilla extract. Not, not, not the "imitation" stuff. (Ew.) My favorite is Mexican vanilla, but anything real/"pure" is good.

2. Coarse-grained sea salt. The coarse grain makes it so that you actually can taste the salt, and that sweet/salty taste contrast in a cookie is mmm...

3. European butter. Now, let's talk about this for a minute. Margarine is cheap, yes, I know. Four sticks for a buck make it really appealing. But it is NOT butter. It is not butter's less glamorous younger brother. It is not even butter's third cousin twice removed. No, no, no. While margarine might be an acceptable substitute for smearing on a piece of toast, it makes cookies (and me) cringe. Really. Butter--real butter--is the only way to go. And European butter is like European chocolate--far better than American. You usually can't find it at the regular grocery store, and it's a little more expensive, but it's worth it.

4. Instant coffee. Yep, no kidding. Cake bakers know that adding brewed coffee to chocolate cake batter really adds a great level of flavor to the baked cake. Instant coffee granules do the same thing for chocolate chip cookies. Don't use too much, or you'll end up with a coffee flavor to your cookie; just a generous pinch or two is enough to enhance the chocolate without adding any coffee flavor to the final, baked product. Oh, and cheap coffee is fine for this.

Oh, and cute little heart-shaped measuring spoons are never a bad touch. (Thanks, Amy!) Because chocolate chip cookies always should be made with love. (Awwww...!)

And, just because, here's my latest favorite chocolate-chip recipe, with a fun twist.

Caramel Treasure Chocolate Chip Cookies

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 generous pinch instant coffee granules
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons butter-flavor Crisco
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
1 small egg, room temperature
¼ cup mini chocolate chips
12 caramel-filled chocolates (I like Dove)

1. In small bowl, stir together dry ingredients; set aside.

2. In separate bowl, cream butter, Crisco, and sugars. Add vanilla and egg; beat well.

3. Stir in flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in chocolate. Chill dough at least 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350°.

5. Remove dough from fridge. Form into balls, flattening centers and pressing a chocolate into each; gently press dough up around to cover chocolate completely. Place 2 inches apart on parchment-lined sheets. Bake about 10 minutes.

6. Cool cookies on sheets a few minutes; then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 1 dozen large cookies

Enjoy!

Cereal Number

2009-04-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Our pantry looks eerily like the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart. There are only four people in my family, yet somehow we've managed to accumulate no less than seven boxes of cereal in the pantry: Kix, Honey Nut Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Frosted Mini Wheats, All Bran, generic bran flakes, and some weird kind of granola made with hemp (um, yeah). That's in addition to the hot cereals: oatmeal, grits, and so on.

I find this intimidating.

And thus this morning I found myself standing in a cereal-haze for who knows how long, staring blankly into the open pantry and trying to decide what to eat for breakfast.

Thankfully, my college days (which included a LOT of cereal) taught me a life skill crucial for coping with this kind of quandry: when in doubt, choose 'em all. (You'd be surprised how many kinds of cereal you can dump in one bowl and still have it taste good.)

Unfortunately, it wasn't until after all this that I realized we’re out of milk.

The simplest solution to this probably would have been "make toast." But that's admittedly sort of boring, and, on consideration, I realized that the gray, nasty weather made it a perfect muffin-making/coffee-drinking morning. At the same time, by this point, I was sort of hung up on the idea of cereal. So I compromised and improvised: cereal muffins! Why not?

My tried-and-true Taste of Home Baking Book has a decent recipe for Three-Grain Muffins. I added some stuff, took out some stuff, made healthy modifications as per the usual, and came up with this, which I really liked. They’re hearty, full of fiber, not overly sweet, and great with coffee.

Cereal-Aisle Multigrain Muffins
½ cup crushed Mini Wheats cereal
¼ cup crushed bran flakes
¼ cup crushed All Bran
¼ cup quick-cooking oats
¼ cup wheat germ
¼ cup white cornmeal
¾ cup low-fat buttermilk
¼ cup very hot water
¼ cup fat-free sour cream
¼ cup applesauce
1 egg
½ cup packed brown sugar (I actually used brown-sugar Splenda)
1 cup whole-wheat flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
(You could also add a mashed banana, raisins, nuts, and/or chopped apples or berries.)

1. Heat oven to 400°. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin; set aside.

2. In large bowl, stir together Mini Wheats, bran flakes, All Bran, oats, wheat germ, and cornmeal. Stir in buttermilk hot water, sour cream, and applesauce; let sit about 1 minute. Beat in egg (by hand). Stir in brown sugar.

3. In separate bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Add to wet mixture and stir just until moistened. (Batter will be lumpy.)

4. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each about ¾ full. Bake 15–18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack 5 minutes.

Makes 1 dozen muffins

Ironically enough, that last picture is of what I found in the mailbox after the whole above-narrated episode: a cereal sample. Ha. Make that EIGHT boxes of cereal now in our pantry!

My Little Rescue Mission

2009-04-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

Today, I would like to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: pears.

Where do I even start? There are very few fruits that can lure me away from the-wonder-that-is-chocolate, or that I would ever, ever consider an acceptable replacement for “real” dessert (i.e., the kind that involves chocolate). Apples can’t do it. Bananas can’t either. Kiwis? Nope. Berries? Nah. Oranges or melon? No way. But pears…pears...well, okay, I guess they can't actually do it either. (I mean, we're talking about chocolate here.) But they come far, far closer than any other fruit I know of and definitely are at the top of my "favorite foods" list. Oh, magic pears.

Now, I was a little bit overzealous about a week ago and brought home a ginormous bag of assorted pears from Trader Joe’s—more than I possibly could eat, and I should have known it (and I’m the only pear-eater in the family). So what I wound up with was a huge bag of assorted pears ripe to the point of getting mushy.

Eating a bag full of pears in a sitting is not an option. Yikes. And throwing out pears is not an option, either. That’s almost as bad as throwing out chocolate. So, what to do?

Make pear bread!

This was one of those recipes that I sort of pieced together (I think I originally got the recipe off "Bake of Break") and made some changes to--mostly making it healthier. I think I’ll call it “Save the Pears, Save Some Calories” pear bread. Ha. (Sort of “Heroes”-esque, isn’t it? “Save the cheerleader, save the world…”)

"Save the Pears, Save Some Calories" Bread

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

generous pinch nutmeg

1/4 cup applesauce

2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream

1/2 cup brown sugar (I used brown-sugar Splenda blend)

1/2 cup white sugar (I used Splenda)

1 egg plus 1 egg white

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups chopped ripe pears

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly coat a 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. In small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Sprinkle over bottom and sides of pan and tap out excess. Set aside.

In large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. In separate bowl, combine applesauce, sour cream, egg and egg white, sugars/Splenda, and vanilla. (I like to use a wooden spoon, not an electric mixer.) Stir in the pears. Add pear mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake about 30 minutes, or until top is beginning to brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

(NOTE: This is best the day after baking it. Just nuke a slice in the microwave for a few seconds, and mmm...)

Let 'Em Eat Cake

2009-04-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

White chocolate raspberry cake, that is. (I think they’ll like it.)

This was my latest “for hire” cake—a birthday cake for a friend-of-a-friend’s 50th. They were planning some sort of elegant dinner party and wanted a pretty cake as a centerpiece of sorts. I had freedom to play with this one quite a bit. They requested white chocolate and raspberry as the flavors, but, for decorating, really the only parameter I was given was to make it pretty and sort of “shabby chic” looking, and to include a fondant “poof” on top.

This cake involved several things that were new to me.

New thing #1: making my own royal icing. This was really easy, actually; I just used the recipe in one of my Wilton books.

New thing #2: making royal frosting decorations the day before making the cake. This was fun. I had decided to go with dusty rose, moss green, and bright white as my colors, so I dyed the frosting a rose color and then made a ton of drop flowers on wax paper and left them out to dry.

New thing #3: making half-roses. Something I’m still learning is the art of rose making. (I’m sooo bad at it!) But half-roses turned out to be not so hard. I piped a bunch of them onto the wax paper with the drop flowers and let them everything dry overnight.

New thing #4: dying fondant. Now THIS was entertaining. Working color into fondant takes some serious elbow grease—a lot of kneading, kneading, kneading. And it took me a while to get the color just right, the same as the frosting flowers/roses. But it came together nicely.

New thing #5: the fondant “poof.” This turned out to be not too difficult either, though I got the ribbon loops too large and ended up having to shorten then the next day (which made the fondant crack a little). Live and learn.

The rest was pretty much normal: frost it, stack it, decorate it.

End result: a white chocolate cake with white chocolate and raspberry fillings and white chocolate buttercream frosting. YUM. And I liked the look and the colors. All in all, I was pleased.

Super Saturday

2009-04-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you take 25 women (always an interesting start), get them up before 8 a.m. on a Saturday (can anyone say “sleep deprivation”?), and seclude them in a fluorescently lit church basement for nearly six hours? Besides some major coffee overconsumption, apparently you can actually wind up with a pretty rad women’s conference. We did, anyway.

This past Saturday was our “Titus 2 Super Saturday” at the church, and it was more than worth forfeiting some sleep for. Our guest speaker was Debbie Cotchey from Plainfield Bible Church, and we also had three “homegrown” speakers, one of whom was my mom. (Great job, Mom! Thanks for not using too many embarrassing anecdotes involving me.)

I was excited to be asked to cater lunch for the event. (Um, twist my arm? Ha.) So I spent all day Friday shopping, prepping, cooking and baking, and otherwise getting ready. The menu:

- “Gourmet” mini sandwiches (two kinds: turkey/cranberry/cream cheese on Hawaiian bread and ham/turkey/salami on mini bagels). I didn’t get any pictures of these, though I wish I had. Cut in half and toothpicked, they were really pretty.
- Spring pasta salad with homemade vinaigrette. I loved the dressing for this (shallots, garlic, and thyme=crazy fragrant), and the fun pasta I used.
- Hot baked spinach dip with Wheat Thins. This dip is a favorite of mine. (And, yeah, I worked hard on those Wheat Thins. Ha.)
- Fresh fruit (strawberries, pineapple, and green and red grapes)
- Cranberry white chocolate cookies
- Mini raspberry cream brownies
- Almond cheesecake bites

Below are a few random pictures of the process (not too many; unfortunately, I kept forgetting to get pictures). I didn’t get any the day of the event, since we were busy rushing around getting it all prepared and set out. Oh, well. This is typical for me, picture-wise: all food, no people.

Hauling in all those bags would make a pack mule proud.

I’m in love with this kind of pasta (radiatore). Pretty, isn’t it?

Homemade vinaigrette dressing.

Tomato and basil. I’ve decided that the answer to “I wonder who first thought up that combination?” is “Whoever first smelled the two together.” Mm.

Lots of colorful salad ingredients.

Stuffing everything into the fridge was a work of engineering. It did fit, though.

The “conjoined twins.” Yes, I took a picture of a strawberry…um, of strawberries…is it one or two? Good grief. Look at the thing!

Mini chocolate chips getting sucked into the brownie-batter vortex. Lucky them.

Cookies cooling on my new favorite kitchen item: the stackable cooling racks! (They also collapse for storage. Brilliance.)

Cheesecake bites. I had SO much fun with them. Loved how they turned out.

And they were yummy, too.

Anyway, all in all, it was a great Saturday, and I'm definitely looking forward to next year!

Double Feature

2009-04-03T12:53:00.001-07:00

I absolutely love rainy days--the ominous clouds, the thunder, the earthy/wet smell...everything. I also love being "trapped" indoors during rainy days. It doesn't get much better than opening the windows, listening to the rain, and spending the afternoon puttering around the kitchen.

Yesterday was that kind of day (for part of it, anyway; the rain didn't last that long). And it was a double-feature baking day, meaning I created a disaster in the kitchen, spent a lot of time cleaning it all up (dishes, dishes, dishes), and then turned right around and decided to do it all over again. This isn't uncommon, for two main reasons: (1) I just like baking that much, and (2) while I make full-fat, full-sugar, don't-want-to-even-think-how-many-calories-are-in-it desserts for other people (mostly Adam), I also like to also have healthier options around. (Yep, my goal is to make everyone else eat the junk so that they all get fatter and I therefore look thinner without even trying. Bwahaha!)

So, Take 1: S'mores Bars. I found this recipe the other day and thought, "S'mores without a bonfire? Sure, I'm game." The concept is great, made me feel summery, and sounded wonderfully simple: a couple of jumbo-sized chocolate bars spread with marshmallow creme and sandwiched between two layers of sugar cookie made with graham-cracker crumbs. Supposedly it would bake up into gooey, s'mores-y bars. Supposedly...but I didn't anticipate a few things with this.

First, who knew that assembling these things would be such a pain in the butt? Marshmallow creme, I've decided, is of the devil. Seriously. It took me probably 10 minutes just to get the stuff spread over the top of a little 8-inch square pan. And it didn't help that instead of chocolate bars, which I didn't have, I had to try spreading the stuff over a messy layer of chocolate chunks and shavings. (As you'd imagine, the creme just sort of picks up the chunks and stays stuck to the spatula...or my fingers...or anything other than what it's supposed to be stuck to. Grr.) Then there's the issue of getting the second cookie layer over the creme. I decided to skip a marshmallow nightmare recap and spread the dough out on wax paper and then invert it over the top of the creme; it was a good move, I think, but it took a while.

Anyway, here was the result:

The long and short of this is that a seemingly easy, amazingly good-looking recipe turned out to be not-so-easy and not so amazingly good. Don't get me wrong; they were good. Just not "Wow!" good. Not worth the marshmallow battle good. More like "Hm, these are nice" good. I think I'll have to tinker with this recipe in the future and see if I can't get some more "wow" out of it.

Take 2 (a healthier option): Orange Streusel Loaf. Now this I love. I found the recipe on "Just Baking" and figured it would be a good one to make a healthier version of. It's not really a spring or summer recipe, I think, despite the orange flavor.

This is an orange quick bread that uses an entire orange, peel and all, that's been ground up in the food processor. Fun, huh? My healthy swaps: egg whites instead of eggs, applesauce instead of oil, half the sugar replaced with Splenda, and nonfat plain yogurt instead of milk (this also adds some nice moisture). I also added some spices, cinnamon and cloves, to both the bread and the streusel topping. The combination of orange, chocolate, and spices is sooo good.

I mixed up a streusel topping (using some reduced-calorie margarine) and used half of it inside the bread, as a thin ribbon running through it. The top has an ounce of dark chocolate melted and marbled through it, covered by the other half of the streusel.Can I just say that this smelled AMAZING while it was baking? It rose beautifully and was moist, flavorful, and pretty. Definitely a keeper. (And not all that bad for you, with the substitutes.)

Anyway, I'm thinking my next post may be good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies. My friend and former roommate Jen is coming in for a visit from California this weekend, and our reunions will, without fail, include Pinky and the Brain episodes and way too many homemade chocolate chip cookies (or the dough, at least).

Better Together

2009-04-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Jack Johnson got it right; a lot of things are better in pairs. Shoes, for instance. Or contact lenses. Or geese, apparently. (This is yet another odd Indiana phenomenon I've discovered: goose couples all over the place come spring. I have yet to see a lone goose. It's sort of intriguingly endearing.)

Anyway, I find that this concept carries over into the baking world, too. Case in point: two cookies are, hands down, better than one. Who wouldn't agree with that? And when they're stuck together with a heaping, gooey glop of buttercream frosting...we're reaching superlative status for sure.

This whole concept is sort of nostalgic for me. When I was little, my mom used to take us ("us" being my brother and me) to the mall on occasion to get these things called "Double Doozies." Very aptly named. Basically, they were two gigantic, soft, chocolate chip cookies with a half-inch thick layer of bakery frosting in between. I don't even want to know how many calories are in one of those things, but holy cow, it's worth it.

I've recently been on a recreate-the-Double-Doozie kick. Chocolate chip with bakery frosting was a hit, according to my brother and my dad's coworkers (my frequent recipe guinea pigs), and peanut butter turned out well, too. Last night, I bought a package of Andes mints on a whim and decided to see what those would be like in a sandwich cookie form.

The result? Mmm...

I started with a Chocolate "Crispies" cookie recipe from my Taste of Home cookbook and modified it quite a bit. I wanted chocolate cookies that would be chocolaty but not overpoweringly rich, and soft but able to hold up when sandwiched. And I didn't want them crispy...or with nuts...okay, so I changed the recipe a lot. Anyway, here's how it went:

These started out like any cookie, with the butter and sugar and eggs. Then my favorite part: some melted unsweetened baking chocolate. (I love how shiny it looks in pictures!) Usually chocolate cookie recipes call for cocoa powder, so this whole melted-chocolate thing was part of the appeal of this particular recipe.

After the dry ingredients were added, it was time for the Andes mints. This was the fun part. Dump 'em on the counter...strip 'em...chop 'em...stir 'em in.

After this, I dumped the dough in a Ziploc bag and refrigerated it. (Usually I like to chill cookie dough overnight, but I was in a hurry on these and left them in the fridge for only half an hour.)

After the dough chilled, it just needed to be formed into pretty little balls, lined up on parchment-lined baking sheets, and baked.

After that I mixed up some basic bakery buttercream (the Crisco-y stuff that I don't really like but my family loves) and added some peppermint extract and green food coloring. A heaping tablespoon of frosting between two cookies, and voila!

I think Adam approved. (Mesmerizing, no?)

A Taste of Spring

2009-03-28T11:36:00.001-07:00

Ah, spring, where are you? Seriously, what's up with the whole teasing-me-with-75-degree-weather-and-then-disappearing-again thing? Really. That's just heartless. Last week was beautiful--blue skies, trees starting to bud, SUNSHINE...aaaand now the cold-and-rainy is back. SIGH.

Oh, well. Drama aside, I know it'll come soon enough. And, hey, if I can't have spring yet, at least I can have spring desserts.

Now, in my mind, spring dessert=fruit. So when we had some friends over last night, I was determined to make something involving fruit. Also, I have a new tart pan that I bought at TJ Maxx a while back and haven't had a chance to use yet. On top of that, I've been eying this recipe in one of my cookbooks for a while now; the picture is amazing (see the pic). So, easy decision. White chocolate tart it was.

Step one: shortbread crust. Just some butter, confectioners' sugar, and eggs. Mix it, bake it. Easy as...um...shortbread?

Step two: Let the sucker cool while I cut up fruit.

Step three (and can I say that this picture does NOT do this step justice?): melt white chocolate and mix it up with whipping cream and cream cheese. (Beauty. Sheer beauty.) Then spread it over the shortbread.

Step four: the fruit! (And this took me WAY longer than it should have. Goofy perfectionism.)

Some oranges...

Step five: Once it's all assembled, make a glaze and brush it all over the fruit to make it shiny and keep it from drying out and getting funky.

Step six: Brew some coffee, cut a slice, and feel a little more content with waiting for spring to show up.

Sweet Beginnings

2009-03-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

Maybe it’s the sort of rebellious triumph of licking the beaters with impunity. Or it could be powdered-sugar-dust-cloud delirium. (Do you count calories that you breathe?) Or maybe it's the glee of playing not just with my food but actually in it, up to my elbows in butter and chocolate. Whatever it is, there’s something that makes baking--for me, anyway--crazy addictive.

What's not to love, right? Cookies, cakes, pastries—they're fun to make, fun to eat, and fun to give to other people. There’s just a whimsy to it, a creativity, and I’ve known it since I was a kid, when my baking adventures were limited to licking Mom's beaters (as in the photo to the right) and experimenting with the Play-Doh dessert factory and Easy Bake oven (ah, the joy of cooking with a light bulb). Somewhere around junior high I graduated to the real thing. My grandmother gave me my first tube pan and sifter, and I started churning out nutmeg sugar cookies like mad. Good times.

To skip over about a decade of muffin, cake, and cookie stories, the summary is that this is a hobby that's become more of an obsession over the years. And now I'm trying to edge my way into the world of "doing this as a job" instead of just "pawning off food on anyone who will take it." (In other words, I need to start making some money off doing what I love, since it's pretty much either that or go broke from all the baking expenses.) I've been working as an editor/writer for the last few years but am planning to enter a pastry arts program at a local community college this fall. And I'm working on picking up some baking "gigs" here and there even now.

What's surprising is that, until recently, it never entered my mind to blog about this. I say “surprisingly” because writing is another love of mine. My degree is in print media, and I’ve been working as an editor/writer since I was in college. Writing love + baking love= I can soliloquize about flour and eggs indefinitely and with a good amount of zeal. But, really, who would read that (other than my mom)? Ah, silly, silly, naïve me.

It was about a year ago that I typed something like “green tea cupcake recipe” into Google. I clicked a random link and—voila!—pictures of cupcakes, recipes, links, personal anecdotes, etc., flooded the screen. Um…wow? I had unintentionally stumbled into the wonderful world of the food blog—the baking blog. For me, this was like waking up at a combination Disneyland/Candyland. Magic!

Anyway, I’ve been reading these things voraciously for months now, getting ideas, learning techniques, trying recipes, admiring photos, and generally just reveling in baking intoxication (and feeling really justified in it, since other people apparently do the same thing). Now I’ve finally decided to join the ranks and start logging my own baking adventures. Thus this site.

The idea is that this will be some form of inspiration for me, plus a chronicle of sorts. The site is sadly underpopulated right now, obviously. I don’t have a fancy-pants camera and thus won’t be posting high-res, magazine-quality food pictures. The writing will be off-the-cuff and probably rambling. No doubt I’ll be horrible about updating, if my past blogging experience is any indication. And maybe it will only be my mom who reads is (love ya, Mom!).
But, in any event…here it is. Hello, world of baking blogging.