Daring Bakers' - Candy Making!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I'm back to the Daring Bakers! I missed last month's challenge due to getting settled in the new house, and I almost didn't think I would make this one on time, but here it is!

For my chocolate candy, I opted to go with a simple Irish Cream Truffle. What better way to sneak some Irish Cream in to my coworkers than with a delightful chunk of chocolate and sugar, er truffle, first thing in the morning. It seemed to go over well since the empty plate was returned to my cube by about 10. I modified the recipe slightly based on the chocolate that I had in the house. Next time I might try using all white chocolate for the top layer to get a little more contrast between the layers and in flavor.

For my second recipe, I went with the Strawberry Pate de Fruit. After reading comments from other bakers about how long it took to get to the required temperatures, I decided to get comfortable and call the parents while continuously stirring.

After getting to the 140 degrees in the first step, I called my dad to chat while I got up to 200 degrees. He answered by asking, "What did you break now?". To be expected since my dad has been fielding calls of "How do I fix X?" for the past couple of months. Home ownership has taught me that I'm pretty much useless at being handy.

Anyways, we chatted while I stirred, and stirred, and stirred some more. While the recipe itself was straightforward and simple, I drove myself crazy watching the temperature slowly crawl up. And then drop by 5 degrees. And then go up a few degrees. And then drop 3 degrees. My dad is a talker and has no chatting endlessly. But I even lost him before I could get up to 200 degrees.
An hour and a half later, I finally got up to the 225 degrees and was able to pour it and call it a night.

For all that effort, I actually really liked the final product. I cut the pieces and rolled them in sugar and couldn't stop eating them. I feel like it's pretty darn healthy though, and would even go so far as to call it a serving of fruit. I mean it's just pureed strawberries and a little(ish) amount of sugar. Clearly healthy.

So candy making was fun, but not necessarily something I would keep making. I'm more of a butter and sugar girl, and there wasn't much butter going on in any of these.

Until next month's challenge, I've got plenty to do around the house. I've discovered that my parents are way better at home ownership than I am. But I'm learning, one mistake at a time!

Daring Bakers' - Baklava

Erica of Erica's Edibles was our host for the Daring Bakers' June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

And so, I made baklava. I have to confess that I was less than excited about this challenge, partially because it seemed like a lot of work and partially because half my kitchen is in boxes.

Most of you know already, but I bought a house!! The Cooking the Books headquarters will be moving into our new official kitchen within the next week or so. In the meantime, I've been crazy busy with paperwork, loans, wire transfers, packing, organizing, and lots of boxes. I think I've found a cat in every box I pick up, so I feel like the boys are excited about the move.

That said, I've put minimal effort into this challenge. I made the baklava, swearing at the Greeks the entire time for coming up with such a difficult dough. I have to say that the dough rolling and stretching was not my forte. I had planned to use my 8 inch square pan, but after attempting a couple sheets I broke down and dug my 6 inch pan out of a box.

For my filling, I used pistachios and hazelnuts with cinnamon, cloves, and sugar. The nut filling was absolutely amazing. I had a lot of filling leftover after switching to the smaller pan and I've been slowly using it up on yogurt, oatmeal, quinoa, and anything else that needs some tasty nutty goodness.

I was disappointed in how tough some of the dough layers were, but I'm sure that was mostly user error on my part. My best guess is that I overworked the dough, but it still a tasty treat.


I would like to try my hand at baklava again sometime. Not anytime soon. But sometime in the future. I want to try the frozen pre-made sheets to compare to the dough I made. I also plan on hitting up the Greek Festival here in Reno over summer to perform a quality control check on the authentic stuff.

In the meantime, I have plenty of packing, cleaning, and sprinkler repair to get busy on. I'm hoping to post more on the house in the near future, but I make no promises!

Guest Post - Cookie Dough Truffles

Today's post is my first of hopefully many guest posts - brought to you by my Quantity Control Expert, Lea! Enjoy!

Ok, so Rachel has been encouraging me to write a blog for quite some time. This Memorial Day weekend I found myself venturing into a culinary endeavor that I was excited to share.

When it comes to the production and consumption of baked goods, I excel at the latter of the two. (Hence my designation as Quantity Control Expert). While my cooking has improved, my confectionary skills leave much to be desired.

My dog loved this recipe. Whether it was due to faulty equipment or my general lack of baking competence, he stood by ready to assist with clean up as the chunks of cookie dough mix exploded all over the kitchen.


I stole this recipe from “The Yummy Life” which appeared on my favorite food porn website (as recommended by Rachel) “Tastespotting.com”. I was looking for a dessert to serve at my Memorial Day BBQ and I had been craving sweets… It must be fate.

The other attractive factor of this recipe was the opportunity to use some of my lifetime supply of flax seed, acquired the last time I attempted to bake. Despite its addition to my oatmeal, yogurt, and smoothies, its volume has remained seemingly undisturbed.

So, I started by “creaming butter and brown sugar in a large bowl.” My impatience did not allow for the butter to be very soft, which was further aggravated by the fact that my hand mixer has three speeds: too fast, out of control, and stuck.

You’re then supposed to add vanilla, which I forgot. This probably would have helped minimize the flour splash that occurred as I slowly added the flour and ground flax seed. The mixture should by dry and crumbly, but mine just appeared to be dry.

Then, I slowly added a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk with the mixer running, followed by the folding in of mini chocolate chips (couldn’t be found, so I used regular size).

At the sight of what appeared to be a cookie dough type substance, I quickly began rolling the dough into balls until it stopped cooperating and the dough started to fall apart and refuse to maintain shape. I then had the brilliant idea of sticking it in the fridge for a while, only to check back at the recipe to realize I should have chilled it for 2 hours prior to forming it into balls. Whatever.

Now the fun part (besides licking the dough off the mixer attachments and my arm). Microwave melting chocolate or chocolate chips and 1 table spoon of canola oil in 20-30 second intervals until it looks like you can dip your balls in it. Roll those suckers around and let chill. Voila. Cookie Dough Balls.

Reviews were mixed, and it generally depended on whether they liked cookie dough in general. Anyone who did, loved them; anyone who was not as big of a fan was hoping for strawberries inside. Overall, a delicious treat but I’ll probably move on to bigger and better things.

Breakfast Pie

I love breakfast. And I love pie. And I also love that it's socially acceptable to eat breakfast or pie for any meal of the day.

So this breakfast pie is basically awesomeness in pie form. Really. There's just no other way to describe it.


The original recipe called for bacon and an onion. As much as I love bacon, I really wasn't up to cooking bacon. So I bought Italian sausage and browned and crumbled that instead. I also bought the onion fully intending to use it, but completely forget it when I was cooking.

When I make this breakfast pie again, I'd like to try rolling the pie dough a little thinner. It was just a little too thick for my taste (that's what she said), and I felt like it still had somewhat of a raw flour taste. The Resident Taste Tester disagreed and seemed to like it as is.

I also think that some cheese would take this breakfast pie from awesomeness to orgasmic, but I leave that choice entirely up to you.

Also important to note, the cookbook that I used for this recipe is some wanky pastry cookbook with all the measurements and ingredients in British. Since none of us speak British, I have helpfully translated everything into English. You're welcome.

Breakfast Pie
adapted from Greatest-Ever Pastry Cookbook

For the Filling
2 tbsp oil
1 lb Italian sausage (mild or regular - your preference)
1 small onion, finely chopped (but no worries if you forget it)
5 eggs
salt and ground black pepper
a little milk, to glaze

For the Pastry
3 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
3/4 cup butter, diced
5-6 tbsp chilled water

1. For the pastry, combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Rub the butter into the mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Sprinkle over most of the water and mix to a pliable dough. Maybe it was me, but mine was super dry and I ended up adding extra water. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.


2. Butter an 8-inch pie pan. Roll out two-thirds of the pastry and use to line the pan. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.


3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Heat oil in a pan and add the sausage. Cook and crumble with a spoon until browned and cooked through. Add the onion and cook 2-3 minutes.


4. Cover the pie crust bottom with the cooked sausage and onion mixture. Break the eggs on top, spreading them evenly apart. Tilt the tin so the egg whites flow together. Season with salt and pepper.


5. Roll out remaining pastry, dampen the edges and place over the pie. Roll over the top with a rolling pin to seal the edges and remove excess pastry. Carefully cut curved lines from the pie's center to within an inch of the edge. Glaze with milk (be liberal on this or else it won't brown as nicely).


6. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes more.

Daring Bakers - Chocolate Marquise on Meringue

The May 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

So holy crap! When they call these Daring Bakers things "challenges", they do in fact mean to challenge you.

Because I had no idea what a marquise is, and I'm still slightly hazy on the whole concept, I clung desperately to the original recipe with no real variation. Ok, so really no variations except to half it. The end result was delightfully delicious, but getting there made me thankful for the leftover tequila that didn't go into the dessert.


What you see in the picture is a chocolate marquise under a torched meringue with a tequila caramel sauce and spiced almonds.

More in depth, the marquise is an intensely rich pillow of soft chocolate with hints of cayenne and tequila. It is then softened in the fridge after freezing. It's not as hard as ice cream, but can't quite be called a mousse. Really, it's soft, sexy, and chocolate-y.

I can't take credit for coming up with the complimenting garnishes since they were the suggestions. But I enjoyed that the flavors in the garnishes, tequila in the caramel sauce and cayenne in the almonds, matched the flavors in the marquise itself.

I appreciated that this challenge really took me outside my baking comfort zone.

I played with hot boiling sugar not once, but twice, and lived to tell about it! I learned that I should probably invest in a candy thermometer instead of using, er, trying to hold a 4-inch meat thermometer in a pot of hot boiling splattering sugar as it reaches 235 degrees...

I borrowed a torch from a friend, which taught me that playing with fire in the kitchen is beyond fun and that I also need to invest in my own torch. Expect to see more fire coming out of my kitchen, preferably in the form of skillfully torched culinary masterpieces and not the kind that requires a fire department visit. Although that could be fun too...

And most importantly, this challenge emphasized the idea of fully reading through the entire recipe at least once before starting. I think I read this one at least 10 before starting. It took at least 3 tries to begin to understand what I needed to do, and another 5 times before I felt like I had a plan in place.


And to those of you Daring Bakers who casually mentioned that you did all your mixing by hand because you don't own a mixer, God bless you. The thought of whisking until soft peaks form makes my heart hurt. My little Kitchenaid earned its keep a million times over for this one challenge alone. So I salute you, hand mixing champions.

It would be a lie to tell you I fully enjoyed making this dessert. I used many swear words and was glad to finally serve it and be done. But I give massive props to any recipe this challenging that can withstand my blundering through it and still turn out so well. Thanks for the challenge ladies! Next month's challenge certainly has some big shoes to fill...

Daring Bakers' - Maple Mousse and Edible Containers

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com/!

Time for another Daring Bakers challenge! This is my second challenge and I promised myself that I would get it baked and blogged well ahead of time.

Well... It's now Sunday night and my blog is due Tuesday, so technically it's not quite last minute yet. But not quite as early as I wanted it to be done. Oh well. Third time's the charm!!

So this month we had to follow Evelyne's maple mousse recipe and use it in an edible container. Her suggestions for containers were either a bacon cup or a nut cup, both of which looked great. While I'm not one to turn down bacon in any form, I really wanted to see what I could come up with on my own.

The maple mousse on it's own is delicious. This was my first time making mousse and it went much easier than I thought it would. I have to confess, I've been eating the leftover mousse with a spoon all day. It's just that good!

My original idea for the edible cup was a spicy polenta cup. I wanted the sweetness of the mousse to balance the spiciness of the cup. I ended up really liking the flavor combination and getting a subtle kick from the cayenne pepper.

I tried two different ways to bake the polenta into cups, and neither way was very user friendly for me. For my first batch, I filled a mini muffin pan with polenta and tried to mold it to the sides of the pan. They looked pretty good going in, but expanded in the oven. I ended up having to push them back down a couple of times.

The second batch I spread on a baking sheet to about a half inch thickness on a cookie sheet and chilling it in the oven. I used a circle cookie cutter to cut out circles and indent them with the round end of a spoon. Like the first batch, they expanded in the oven and didn't quite cup like I saw it going in my head.

Sadly, I wasn't so much a fan of the polenta cup itself. I didn't really like the texture of the polenta, but I feel like it was more user error on my part. Having never cooked or eaten polenta before, I was sure what I was aiming for. Good learning lesson though.

Because my polenta didn't make as many cups as I thought I would need for a dinner party, I started searching my kitchen for what else I could turn into an edible cup. I had some graham crackers in my pantry, so I crushed them in with butter and cinnamon and tried to make crusts in a mini muffin pan. They baked and they baked and they baked, but they just wouldn't turn into a cup that would hold together.

So I turned to my freezer and found two sheets of leftover puff pastry and decided to make some puff pastry cups. I cut about 20 2-inch circles and then cut a smaller circle out of half of them. I stacked them and added my failed "toasted" graham cracker cups to the inside to make a graham cracker filling. After they baked, they turned out to be nice little cups and perfect for my filling!

I plated both types of edible cups with a cinnamon maple glaze garnish on the plates. I was really happy with how they looked when plated, and my guests seemed to really like them too!

I personally ended up liking my last-minute puff pastry cups much better than my spicy polenta cups. The graham cracker filling below the maple mousse gave it a nice crunchy texture and buttery flavor that went well with the maple.

Overall, I was really happy with how it turned out, especially the maple mousse! I'm looking forward to next month's challenge!

Banana Muffins and An Apology

Dear Butter,

I know, I'm sorry. I turned my back on you and walked away. I betrayed you. All I can do is ask your forgiveness for what might have been the biggest mistake of my life.

I know it's not an excuse, but all I could think of was my recent Beer Fest comfort eating. I just wanted to eat healthier. Which was why I turned to a banana muffin recipe that called for flax seed and no butter.

But before you dismiss me forever, dear Butter, will you remember the years we've spent together? You haven't been just some Buttery booty call I make at 2 in the morning. Oh no, you've been so much more to me. We had a commitment.

Do you remember how many chocolate chip recipes we went through before finding The One? Do you remember the cakes we've created together? Think of the pies!

I know I betrayed you and I know it was wrong. I knew from the minute I tasted the "healthy" muffin that I would be begging you to take me back. I mean, did you see the crumb on those muffins?! Flax seed can't even compete with your sweet crumb.

Oh Butter, all I can say, from the bottom of my heart, is if lovin Butter is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Eternally yours,

Rachel

I'm not one to judge you if you try this recipe. We all make mistakes, and sometimes you have to be away from something before you realize just how much you need it. Just know that you'll be begging for your butter back.

The original recipe called for dried dates, but who really keeps those in their pantry? I had dried cherries, which were probably the only saving grace of these muffins.

"Healthy" Homewrecking Banana Muffins

from Allrecipes

Ingredients 1/2 cup flax seed 3 bananas, mashed 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/2 cup white sugar 2 eggs 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup flax seed 1/2 cup cherries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a standard 12-muffin pan. Use an electric coffee grinder or food processor to grind 1/2 cup flax seed; set aside.


2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together banana, oil, sugar and eggs. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground flax seed and 1/4 cup whole flax seed. Gradually stir flour mixture into banana mixture. Fold in cherries. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins.


3. Bake in preheated oven for 20-30ish minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into muffin comes out clean.

Burrito Fridays

Every other Friday since the beginning of time, or maybe only a couple of years, the two tax managers in my department and a guy from revenue have held Burrito Fridays. The revenue guy lives by the Super Taqueria on Damonte Ranch and picks up breakfast burritos for the group on his way into the office.

Now, you’ve probably gotten to know me well enough to know that if there’s some form of food group, I want to be part of it. And this was a group I wanted into.

I started with the chorizo burrito, but I discovered that it was rather spicy. Even for my growing tolerance for spice (thanks to the Resident Taste Tester). So then I moved on to the machaca burrito, which tasty shredded beef in a breakfast burrito. Usually the revenue guy will get the chorizo and I’ll get the machaca so we can hedge. That’s just enough spicy chorizo for me to handle. And so you don’t think I’m overindulging, I usually eat half for breakfast and save the rest for my lunch.

Daring Bakers' - Meringue Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Well friends, I made a commitment. I know. I try not to do that too much. But, this was something that I think is going to be a good thing. I joined the Daring Bakers!

For those who may not read as many baking blogs as I do, you should probably start. I can recommend some great ones. But let me tell you about my commitment.

The Daring Bakers are a group of online bakers who blog together to test their baking skills. Each month, a new challenge is posted on the first of the month and all bakers are required to post their challenge blogs on the 27th. Bakers can share their tips, troubles, and finished goods in an online forum throughout the month.

I learned about this group maybe a year ago and was interested in joining then. But this time a year ago, I was up to my eyeballs in tax returns in Satan’s Workshop. I barely had enough time to cook dinners and go to the gym, let alone bake a challenge and then blog about it. This year, now that I’ve escaped to private accounting, I actually have the time and energy to really take on these monthly challenges. This, my friends, is awesome!

So enough rambling. Let’s talk challenge.

This month’s challenge was a filled meringue coffee cake. Sweet yeast dough rolled up with meringue and a filling.

Individually, the elements weren’t overly difficult to work with. I’ve been conquering my fear of yeast this year and thought that the dough came together nicely. I actually even hand kneaded the dough; no Kitchenaid dough hook attachment on this one. As promised by the recipe, my kneaded dough was soft, smooth, and sexy.


The dough is then divided and rolled out into two rectangles. A meringue of whipped egg whites, vanilla, sugar, and salt is spread on top of the rectangles.

Out of the entire challenge, the only real swearing came from trying to separate the egg whites. For some reason, it took about 6 eggs to get the 3 egg whites I needed and at least couple egg whites ended up on my countertop. Filling is then sprinkled on top of the meringue.


The dough is rolled up lengthwise and the ends are brought together to form a ring. I discovered a couple things while rolling up the dough. First, don’t spread the filling all the way to the long sides of the dough. If you do, you’ll end up with a mess of filling trying to overflow out of your rolled up log.


Second, you should spread the fillings all the way out to the short side edges of the dough so that there’s filling throughout the whole ring. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a piece of cake at the seams without any filling. Not to worry, I ate that piece so no one else would have to…

Since the dough made two coffee cakes, I chose to make one filling with Jamie’s All-American filling of cinnamon, sugar, and chocolate chips. I opted to leave out the pecans because I’m still unsure of any nut allergies in my new coworkers.



For my second coffee cake, I wanted to go with one of my favorite flavor combinations: sharp cheddar and apple.


I took my coffee cakes in to the office to share with my coworkers. The chocolate chip one was gone within an hour or so, but everyone that tried the cheddar and apple one stopped by my cube to tell me how good it was. The meringue melts into this tasty sticky goo that went well with both the sweet and the savory fillings. The rolled up dough looks incredibly impressive and makes everyone thing you’re way cooler than you are. I’m totally ok with faking coolness through baked goods.

For Mission #1, I’m going to call it a win. I’m actually really excited to be part of this group and see what we do next month!

Irish Car Bomb Cake - Day 2

So after my evening of baking, cooling, and buttercream transferring, it was time to put my cake together.

I made the chocolate ganache with a generous cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and about 2/3 cup of heavy cream melted together over a double boiler. The recipe I read online suggested 1-2 teaspoons of Irish Whisky. I started with this amount (off the heat so the alcohol wouldn’t burn off) and realized that a couple of wimpy teaspoons were not going to achieve the St. Patrick’s Day buzz I was hoping to give my coworkers.

So I added a couple more. And then some more. And then I lost count. But, you could taste the booze in that ganache when I was done with it. Oh yeah.

Then I got started on the Irish crème cream cheese frosting. The recipe I saw suggested I add a couple of tablespoons to the frosting. Well friends, I tried that. And maybe it was all the whisky from the ganache, but I could barely taste the Irish crème.

So I added some more. And then some more. And then I lost count. Hmm. Anyways, by the time I was done with it, you could taste the Irish crème in it. How else do you know when it’s done?

So around this time, my little brown life coach showed up to get me through the evening. She was under the belief that she was there to make cupcakes for her guyfriend, but came bearing chocolate and coaching skills.

When the life coach came in, I had her taste the ganache and the frosting to get her professional opinion on the potency of my components. You should probably know that the life coach does not drink much. I’ve seen her get all cute and tipsy on a couple sips of wine. So when she tasted the spiked ganache and frosting, her reaction to both was, “Yeah, there’s definitely alcohol in there.”

While the life coach got set up to frost her cupcakes, I got my cake frosted with the Irish crème cream cheese frosting. Because of all the extra liquid in it, it didn’t quite crust and I wasn’t able to really smooth out the frosting like I wanted. But I got it reasonably smooth and figured no one would notice after they consumed the alcohol.

Well friends, now came the moment of truth. The time when my will to finish the cake came into direct conflict with my desire to drink Irish whisky straight out of the bottle. The time when the skills of my life coach would be tested.

It was time to flip the transfer.

I took my transfer out of the freezer and cut away the excess wax paper. I took a deep breath. The life coach took a deep breath. And then I flipped it and started pulling away the wax paper.

And then I started using every bad word I could think of, several times each.

As I pulled the wax paper away, much of the black outlining that I had so patiently outlined stuck to the wax paper. But the worst part was the bigger yellow area. As you can tell, the yellow did not transfer very well. Or pretty much at all.

Yup, the yellow area pretty much tanked.


Once I had all the wax paper off and could really see the extent of the damage, there was a moment when the life coach just watched me, waiting to see what my reaction would be.

I stood there staring for a minute and briefly thought about the nearly full bottle of whisky sitting just a few feet away from me.

And then I decided that this was fixable.

Thank God, I still had all the colors mixed up and in bags ready to go. I sat down and started to re-draw the outlines that had stuck to the wax paper, and the fill in the missing colors. My sweet little brown life coach stood next to me, encouraging me and telling me that I could do it. It was like a Rocky moment in cake decorating. I should have started singing Eye of the Tiger...

And then it was done. I had re-filled the missing areas and even had enough frosting left to add the borders.

You may not be able to tell, but the top border got a little away from me and I realized it was totally lopsided. The life coach took one look and reassured me it was perfect. I agreed because there was no way I was going to try to fix it.

Do you see those frosted green cupcakes behind that awesome looking cake? Those are virgin cupcakes I made for a couple of pregnant and nursing coworkers of mine. Even though I may not agree with a zero-alcohol policy, I’m just nice enough to be supportive of it.

So now after all this exciting cake talk, you’re probably asking how the contest turned out. Because surely I have maybe a couple of readers who aren’t already my facebook friends…

Well friends, it was tough. The competition was stiff and the baked goods were boozy. In sampling the other entries, I could tell there was some Irish crème in a couple of them. One claimed to be a Guinness and orange cake.

But in no other entry could you smell the alcohol wafting than in my cake. My cake screamed booze. And it made me proud.

We sat near the judges to eat our samples. And I’m not proud of it, but I desperately tried to listen to what they were saying.

I also may or may not have given a cupcake to a coworker who subsequently rounded up our entire accounting department to go down and vote for People’s Choice…

And then they posted the winners.

In the words of the great Charlie Sheen, “Winning.”

That’s right friends; I won both First Place and People’s Choice. I won $75 to Williams Sonoma and $50 to Nothing To It!

But credit needs to go out to the little people who made this cake happen, especially the little brown life coach who knew just when to bring her encouragement and her chocolate. It also goes out to my awesome coworkers who went down to vote for my cake. And finally, to the judges for not firing me for bringing an alcohol soaked cake to a zero-alcohol company function. Thank you.

Irish Car Bomb Cake - Day 1

I entered my first ever baking competition. And there’s so much to show and tell you about this that I had to break it into two posts to really get it all in.

Without giving away the ending, just know that it was intense. Like, Food Network Challenge intense. Except without that annoying girl who replaced Keegan as the host. She’s really just obnoxious.

Anyways. My company did a St. Patrick’s Day baking competition. The only specifics they gave was either St. Patrick’s Day or green themed baked goods.

Maybe it’s the public accountant still left in me, but my mind went straight to baking with alcohol, specifically Guinness. So when my Google search, er, research, led me to Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, I knew I hit jackpot. Guinness chocolate cake, filled with Irish whisky chocolate ganache, frosted with cream cheese frosting spiked with Irish crème.

I followed the Guinness cake recipe pretty much as written, except I was short on cocoa powder by maybe ¼ of a cup. I read in one of the reviews that this recipe makes a lot of batter. Let me confirm this by saying this make a crap-ton of batter. I filled two 9-inch cake pans, 12 cupcakes, and an 8-inch cake pan. Dear Lord, there was Guinness cake batter everywhere.

So while the cake was baking and cooling, I got started on my second attempt at a buttercream transfer, which is a design made in reverse on wax paper that is frozen and then transferred onto the cake. I’ll get around to telling you about the first one sooner or later. This one was way more detailed and larger than the first one I tried, but the first one went so smoothly I wasn’t overly worried.

I started with the black outlining on the hat, clover, and yellow areas so that it would appear as the top layer when I flipped the transfer over.


Then I filled in the yellow areas, starting with the smallest detail in the bottom area and then working across the buckle.



Then I filled in the green areas on the hat. My hand was shaking by the time I finished the hat. Baking is not for the weak.


I wanted to use a different shade of green for the clover, but I don’t think I added enough of the hunter green to make it really stand out against the hat. Oops.

And then throw the entire thing into the freezer while I cleaned up my mess of a kitchen. This was only the kitchen table. You should have seen the counter behind me…



Since the baking contest was on Thursday, I did my baking and buttercream transfer on Tuesday and then put the whole thing together on Wednesday. As much work as it was on Tuesday, just wait till you hear about Wednesday...

A Fairytale

Once upon a time three months ago, there lived a beautiful accountant princess who longed to escape the evil horror known as public accounting.

So our little public accountant interviewed for a private accounting position. And in this interview, she let it slip that she loved to bake and would love even more to bring goodies in to her potential new office if she were to be hired.

"Why would she do such a thing?" you might ask.

Well friends, in an attempt to do whatever it took to get out of public accounting, our current little public accountant just might be willing to use this tasty little personal tidbet as leverage to get this job.

You might say, "Dear public accountant, don't you think you would be hired based on technical skill and background?"

And our little public accountant would most certainly and wholly agree with that. "But...", she might say, "what if someone else has my level of skill and background? Couldn't I just try to give myself a more personable appearance? Just to have a little advantage?"

You might nod your head in agreement.

Now in our fairytale, our favorite baking accountant is hired for the job. She starts at her new job that's full of friendly faces and non-public accounting happiness and a 401(k) plan subject to audit. And she remembers that there is, in fact, good still left in the world.

But then she realizes that she will now need to bake something for the office.

But this can't just be any little something!

I mean, you, er, our little public turned private accountant was possibly hired under the premise that she bake wonderful little somethings to share with her soon-to-beloved coworkers! She must wow them in order to keep her job, or risk going back to the fire and brimstone of public accounting.

So, dear friends, our little private accountant decided to pull out the big fairy tale guns: Chinese Cinnamon.

And she turned to a recipe she hoped could wow them all. A recipe so wonderful that they gave her a promotion, a raise, and a new corner office with many windows. But they built her the new office so no one else would have to give up their office.*


Cinnamon Cookies

from food.com

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
cinnamon sugar

Directions:

1. In a mixer bowl, cream together sugar and butter; beat in egg and vanilla.
2. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.
3. Add to butter mixture and blend well.
4. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours or till firm enough to roll into balls.
5. Shape dough into small balls about 3/4-inch in diameter and roll in cinnamon sugar to coat.
6. Set cookies 1-inch apart on lightly greased cookie sheets.
7. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes or till the edges are lightly browned.
   

*Note: This recipe does not guaranteed the baker a raise, a promotion, or a new corner office with many windows.

Christmas in January!

So, by telling you that this blog is about the Christmas cookies I made, it's clearly an incredibly late blog entry since it's now about a month after Christmas.

And I know that I'm kinda sorta half-assing (yes Mom, I know you don't like that word) this blog anyways because I'm not giving you all the recipes and details for each cookie.

And I'm also aware that I still can't seem to take a picture without getting weird shadows in different parts of it. You would never believe that I took two years of photo in high school. Sorry to disappoint you, Ms. P.

But the bottom line is it's my blog and I'll do what I wanna!

So here is the unveiling of the cookie platters that were given and consumed more than a month ago!

From the top left and working clockwise:

Expresso Chocolate Shortbread (recipe by Dorie Greenspan)

Salt and Black Pepper Cocoa Shortbread (recipe also by Dorie Greenspan - the woman knows her shortbread)

Chocolate Chip Cookies (my favorite chocolate chipper recipe, also found here less the bacon this time)

Rolled Sugar Cookies with Royal Frosting Icing (cookie recipe by Dorie Greenspan) and hand-drawn Christmas decor by yours truly (I love edible markers!)

Butter Rum Cookies (recipe by Martha Stewart)

Maybe it's just the drunk in me, but I personally liked the butter rum cookies the best. At some point in life, there will be a repeat of those coming from my kitchen!

Peanut Butter Chili

Isn't it weird how things just happend to fall in place?

I spent all weekend on my sofa nursing a cold with the two tubby tabby cats who also apparently have either colds or allergies, according to the vet. We all seem to be doing better now, except for a very angry Toby who seems to have developed yet an ear issue now.

There will be an even angrier Toby when he realizes he'll now have to go back the vet.

Anyways, if I wasn't sick over the weekend, I would have made this oddly delightful peanut butter chili on Saturday for Josh's Chili Cook-Off. But because I was sick, I didn't end up making it until Monday. Then today I realized that Monday was National Peanut Butter Day.

Clearly it was fate that helped me to unintentionally celebrate one of the best food holidays of the year!

Anyways, I read online that there are people who always eat chili with peanut butter or peanut butter sandwiches. I've mentioned this to several people now, and our question is always, "Huh?".

Well friends, it's time for a little learning lesson. Apparently this is somewhat of a craze, if you will, with those crazy Mid-Westerners. They have typically used peanut butter as a thickener for chili, and also because (according to them) it compliments beans and paprika. Due to the peanut butter flavor in the chili, eating the related sandwich is clearly the only way to go.

That all said, I made the peanut butter chili on Monday. I would agree that it definitely helped to thicken the chili and the peanut butter taste was subtle but good. Had the chili and I made it to the cook-off, I don't know that it would have won, but it could have held its own.

The recipe as originally written is vegetarian, and I would have left it that way for the cook-off because so many of my friends don't eat meat the way the Quantity Control Expert and I do. But because it was for the Resident Taste Tester and myself, I threw in some ground beef and enjoyed it.

Also, the original directions have a couple of steps that involve adding half the ingredients for a little simmer and then putting more in for another simmer and maybe something else. But I'm more of a throw-it-all-in-and-let-it-simmer type girl with chili. I threw the ground beef in first to let it brown, but then I just added everything else all at once and let it simmer for about a half an hour. I think I also added some cinnamon, but I don't know how much.

(It was probably on the shorter side of a half hour. But I was hungry, don't judge me.)

Peanut Butter Chili

adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (optional)
2 cups tortilla chips (optional)

Directions
(as interpreted by Rachel)

1. Brown the meat (if you're using it) in a large pot over medium heat. Add all the other ingredients, stir, and let simmer for 30 minutes or until you finish the other chores you tell yourself your going to do. Seriously, go put your clothes away.