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.