Sunday, May 30, 2010

I'm Addicted to the White Stuff

"Hi, my name is Rachel and I have a problem."

They say the first step is recognizing that you have a problem. I fully recognize that I am addicted to the white stuff.

I thought I could just experiment with it. You know, have a little fun, enjoy myself, and then walk away from it. But I can't just walk away from it.

I am addicted to frosting.

It started innocently enough. I went to a buttercream frosting class and got my first taste of the stuff. And when the class ended, I found myself signing up for the next one. It's true, I have enablers.

Yes friends, I signed up for Royal Icing Flowers. Six more weeks of the white powdery stuff.



The first class had a rocky start while I was getting the hang of coordinating piping the flowers while turning the flower nail and moving the bag, all at the same time. But then it got a little easier.

The pic below shows my gradual improvement in the first flower that we made, the wild rose. As you can see, I didn't quite grasp the concept of connecting the flower in the center. And then I kept moving the center in the next couple of flowers. But by Take 5, I actually had a keeper of a wild rose flower.

We learned five flowers in this first class, all of them using the same basic petal movement.

In the pic below: Top row: three primroses and one wild rose. Middle row: four apple blossoms, Bottom row: two daffodils, two pansies.

I apologize for the quality of photos, but my poor camera is old and on its way out. I'm in the market for a new one, so hopefully better photos to come soon!


The daffodils have really cute details that the photos don't show, but they are pretty darn good! These were definitely my favorite flowers of the night, although the apple blossoms were tiny and fun to make as well.

So yes dear friends, I have a problem. I hope you'll continue to support me as I work through this issue over the following weeks. If you need me, I'll be the girl at the grocery store with the cart full of powdered sugar.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

My Epiphany and Some Cookies

I had a sudden epiphany today.

On any given day, I have more ingredients to make cookies than a sandwich.

I mean seriously, a sandwich is bread and some form of filling. It can be as easy as peanut butter or some turkey. So bare minimum, 2 ingredients.

Cookies, though, have a whole list of ingredients. Butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, salt, vanilla. I have a whole shelf in our pantry that the Resident Taste Tester has graciously given to me to house my baking supplies, and it has spilled onto other shelves at this point.

Can you tell that I'm hungry and have nothing to eat? I could have cookies mixed up right now, but I have no bread to make myself a sandwich. Sad but true fact about me.


So I made cookies. I made Buttery Jam Cookies, but I used black rasperry jam because the RTT told me to.

The recipe says that it makes 45 cookies, but I only got about 27-ish. There would have been one more, but I ate the cookie dough for it. Another sad but true fact about me. Anyways, I read some other reviews for this recipe, and it seems that several other people had the quantity issue that I had. Maybe I just like big cookies. Hey, size matters.

These are very tasty cookies and can be adapted to whatever jam you have on hand. I'm kinda curious what peanut butter would taste like, but that will have to wait until next time.


Buttery Jam Cookies

From Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp. whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup apricot jam
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place two racks in the oven, one in the upper third of the oven and one in the lower third of the oven. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar (on high speed) for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat on high speed for an additional minute. Add the milk and the vanilla extract and beat on high speed for 30 seconds. Add the jam and beat on low speed for 1 minute. Add the dry ingredients, with the mixer on low speed, just until they’re mixed in. The dough will be extremely thick and stiff.

With a an ice cream scoop or a teaspoon, drop spoonfuls of the dough onto baking sheets, forming cookies that are about 1 inch to 1-1/2 inches in size.
Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, rotating the trays from top rack to bottom rack halfway through.

Once baked, let the cookies sit on the pan for a minute or two and then remove to a wire rack and let cool completely. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Napa's Backyard

We're all friends here, right? So can I tell you about what I did last night and how fabulous it was?

I have no recipes to share with you right now, and nothing tasty came out of my kitchen yesterday. But I would still love to tell you about my Friday.



Last night, the Resident Taste Tester and I went to Napa's Backyard - The Backyard Brawl at the Grand Sierra. It was a foodie's heaven:
  • A cooking competition with some of the best chefs from around the country preparing amazing food for me to taste!
  • 50 wineries with over 200 wines to pair with the amazing food!
  • As if that wasn't enough, it was a great excuse for the RTT and I to get all dressed up and go out!

We're jeans and t-shirts girls usually, but we clean up nicely.

As the RTT and I failed at planning ahead, we had to wait in a ridiculously long line at the Brawl to buy our tickets. When we finally got to the front of the line and were next to buy tickets, a woman came out of the ballroom and asked us if we needed tickets and then handed us 2 tickets! She said she worked for the hotel and had extras to give away. She saved us each $60 and kicked off the evening with a great start!

Now, let's talk about the food. Of course, I forgot to try to steal one of the menu books from the VIP section so I can't tell you who made what, but I can tell you what was tasty!

One of the Charlie Palmer booths had short ribs and a fava bean spread that literally just melted in your mouth.

Another booth had a BLT, but the "L" was lettuce ice cream. The ice cream was slightly salty, which you wouldn't expect from the lettuce, but the combination of the warm sandwich and the cold ice cream was wonderful.

One of the vendors had honey glazed prawns that they threw on a plate without any garnish. I had low expectations from just looking at them, but they were perfectly sweet and crunchy.

Tahoe Creamery brought a Chardonnay ice cream that I will be attempting to recreate sometime very soon. It was light and sweet and so refreshing compared to some of the heavy plates and meats we tried.

There was duck and ham and crab cakes and steak. We had stuffed mushrooms, polenta cakes, and perfectly green asparagus.

Reno's own Wine and Cheese Board totally kept up with the big boys with their pulled pork sandwiches with mango-tequila cole slaw. The RTT, who absolutely hates sweet with savory, actually said it was good before she found out there was mango in it.

The tasty little cup below was delicious, and we almost missed out on it as we snagged some of the last few cups before they ran out. The bottom was warm spiced pear with a sweet cream and nuts on top. There was just enough of a kick in the pears to have a little heat, but it was offset by the cool cream. Oh so good!!


Spice pear awesome-ness, oh so good


By far, the best item we tasted all night was the strawberry rhubarb panna cotta. It was the only thing we both ate that we desperately wanted seconds of. Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the booth, they were all out. I've seen the Barefoot Contessa make panna cotta many times, but this was the first time I've been inspired enough to want to try it myself!



We missed the voting, probably because we were too busy trying to eat to worry about getting our votes in. But hands-down, the panna cotta was our favorite!

I wish I knew more about wine to tell you about the different ones we tried. But I truthfully couldn't name a single wine that I drank. I know I enjoyed all the ones I tasted though!

By the end of the night, the RTT and I were so full and completely happy. I got all the things I enjoy last night: food, wine, dressing up, and an evening out with the RTT. Last night was an epic win!!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

My Adventures in Cake

Well my friends, it's time to talk about cake.

Not just any cake though. It's my showcase of cake decorating skills. Or maybe the lack thereof.

A few things before we start this party:
  1. I am an accountant. I sit at a desk and play with numbers all day. Creativity and artistic skills are not my forte.
  2. I had pretty much zero cake decorating skills prior to this class. (Follow-up note: I still have pretty limited skills now.)
  3. Be nice. The first one isn't pretty. I know it's not. To be fair, it does get better.
Now, back to class! I took a six week buttercream class at The Biggest Little Cake Shoppe. The first class was to get our supplies and a basic overview of the class, so there was no actual cake involved. We learned how to mix the basic frosting recipe and thin it down to the right consistency, and our teacher showed us how to frost the cake.

Class 2 is where things got interesting. We brought our cakes in unfrosted and leveled it, filled it, frosted it, and smoothed it. Then we learned dots, stars, and a little zig-zag border.

So, mine was not all that smooth. It was rather crummy, in both the covered in crumbs and kinda crappy way. Large portions of the cake had stuck to the pan when I tried to get it out, so the fact that it's as round as it is here is actually pretty amazing. There was an awful lot of frosting re-creation.

FYI: Mo is the nickname of my pregnant manager's unborn kid. When you only have pink food coloring and limited creativity, that's all that comes to you.

Check out the crackage and my totally uneven star border! That's talent baby.

That's right friends. This blog isn't always pretty. Sometimes you have to take a little of the ugly in between all those fabulous cookies I serve you.
Moving on: Class 3! We learned how to write on our practice boards.

A little frosting shout-out to my beloved blog.

We also learned how to stamp with cookie-cutters and then fill it with stars. We learned a couple of other borders, but I went with the star border.

I had a much better cake base this time. It was almost completely round!
I went with the tulip outline and star filling. I'm quite pleased with this cake!
I'm also quite pleased with this happy yellow color!
And then we get to Class 4. I have no pictures of this sad cake. I wouldn't let the Resident Taste Tester eat it. In fact, I wouldn't even let the Stead Board of Taste Testers eat it.

Now before you judge me, I made that cake on April 15th. Yeah, that April 15th. I was working like crazy and threw together a crappy little cake that didn't rise in the oven. And I was so tired at class that I just didn't care. Plus, I could not get the hang of rosebuds and sweet peas. So it was an ugly little cake that you'll never get to see. You'll live.

Unfortunately, I missed Class 5, which I was really sad about since I missed basket weaving. I know, distressing. But I had the BAP Spring Banquet where I got an award for my CPA exam score. Fair trade-off.

But now we get to Class 6, our final. I know this has been long, but you have to check out my masterpiece! We learned how to make roses! After my frustrations with sweet peas and rosebuds, I was really nervous about the roses. But they ended up being much easier than I expected. I still need some practice, but they were pretty darn good for a first try.

Semi-blurry shot of my rose garden. Not too shabby, huh?
Per the Quantity Control Expert: "You could sell this for money if I wasn't about to eat it."

So overall, I enjoyed my cake class. Yeah, I still need a lot of practice and fine-tuning, but it was tons of fun and gave me a good stress reliever for the end of busy season. I'm signed up for the royal icing flower class starting next week, so be ready for that excitement!!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Drunk on Cupcakes

Can you get drunk on cupcakes?

I know of many other things that I can get drunk on, but how about a cupcake? In the name of science, I felt that this was a question that needed to be answered. I also had a ton of tequila taking up way too much pantry space and a burning desire to try baking with it.

So instead of a Wine Sunday, we invite the Stead Board of Eaters (formerly known as the guys) over for The Resident Taste Tester's famous enchiladas and a large quantity of liquid margaritas, and a platter of margarita cupcakes.

These tasty cupcakes are super moist, with just enough lime zest and margarita mix to make them slightly tart but still sweet. The tequila in the cupcake batter bakes off all the alcohol, so clearly I wasn't getting drunk off the cupcake itself.

But what we really need to talk about is the frosting. It was definitely a margarita in frosting form. That is, until I started fiddling with it. I had the perfect margarita flavor balance in the frosting, but it wasn't stiff enough to pipe onto my cupcakes.

So I added a touch more powdered sugar, and then a little more, and then just a touch more. And then it taste like sugary margaritas. It was still darn good, don't get me wrong. But I think a little more lime juice, or tequila, to keep the tartness would have been perfect.

Back to my search for scientific knowledge. Can one get drunk on cupcakes?

To answer the question, I really don't know. While eating the RTT's super spicy, jalapeno-loaded enchilladas, I may have drunk my way through a very potent Matt-made margarita. I was on the floor by the time I finished dinner and had to sober up enough to serve dessert.

I feel that a more controlled experiment would be required to fully answer my question. Maybe once my tequila has been replenished, I'll try again.

Prior to dinner, I actually took my camera out and took pictures of my experiment. Unfortunately, my computer isn't recognizing the photos on the camera so I have no photos to share. I know, fail again.

Margarita Cupcakes
Adapted from The Cupcake Project

The Margarita Cupcake Recipe
1/4 cup margarita mix
1 1/2 tsp lime zest (1 lime)
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 tsp tequila
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Fill a 12-cup muffin tin with liners. In a large bowl, mix together lime juice, lime zest, milk, oil , tequila, vanilla and sugar. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add to lime mixture and stir until just combined. Divide evenly into muffin tins. Bake for 20-24 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the cakes spring back when lightly pressed. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Tequila Lime Frosting Recipe
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp milk
3 tbsp margarita mix
1+ tbsp tequila
2+ cups confectioners’ sugar
coarse sugar and salt for “rims”

Cream together butter, milk, margarita mix, tequila, and 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar. Add in more sugar as needed to make the frosting smooth and spreadable. Spread on cupcakes and roll the edges in a small amount of coarse sugar and salt (poured into a small bowl, so it’s easy to direct it).