Cookie Project Part 2: "Scrooged is supposed to be a comedy?!"

Today's cookies, coming from the December 2008 issue of Bon Appetit magazine, are Cinnamon Pecan Shortbread.

Some of the reviews were not so great on these, but once I had my finished product, I was convinced that whoever wrote the reviews a) does not know how to follow directions (cookies did NOT spread, nor did they crumble, per A Cook's review b)is a bag of hot air ("high investment, low return"?!?!?! Seriously...what did you invest in?! It's butter, sugar, and flour. Who doesn't have this crap in their pantry???) c)is a Christmas beast monster. (How can you not love pie crust?!)

Anyway, I was pleased with the result. These were really easy, and I didn't actually have to buy anything except for the pecans (which were on sale anyway).

My holiday programming was 'Scrooged' with Billy Murray. I was not amused or impressed, and I will leave it at that.

Because I was pretty lazy and unproductive yesterday, I decided that I was also going to make marshmallows today. I made them last year for Christmas, and they are incredibly easy, and not they're also not labor intensive. And they're also kind of fun. These are just regular vanilla marshmallows, but I think when I do my actually Christmas baking stuff next weekend, I'm going to make some mint ones as well.

Slab of Marshmallow!

Slab of Mallow can be rolled!

Chopped up mallow, ready for hot chocolate!

R.I.P Thanksgiving leftovers

For some reason, my mother and I are in the habit of cooking enough food for a small army for Thanksgiving, when in actuality there are usually only between 6 and 8 people there, plus whatever random friends my siblings and I can scrape up to come over and help us consume massive amounts of pie.

And every year, there are 2 kinds of cranberry sauce. 'Regular' and 'orange'. And every year, I'm pretty sure my mother and I are the only ones who actually EAT the cranberry sauce. This year I made both. I left the orange with my mom because it's her favorite, and I brought the 'regular' back with me. Alas, I ran out of turkey far before running out of cranberry sauce, and sat around trying to figure out what to do with the leftover sauce.

*light bulb* I love pastries. More specifically, I love turnovers. (Oh, and cream cheese) This was a delicious brain child.

Cranberry Sauce
1 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
2 tsp grated orange peel
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 bag fresh cranberrys

In a pot, combine 1 cup water, sugar, cinnamon stick, ginger, orange, and cloves. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Add cranberries, and bring to a boil. Lower heat until medium, and simmer, stirring, until thickened, 8 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Chill.

Cream Cheese Filling
1 8 oz. package cream cheese
1 egg
1/3 c. sugar.

Blend in an electric mixer until smooth.

Prepare phyllo dough (as I did) or puff pastry according to package directions. Place 1 Tbsp each of cranberry sauce and cream cheese mixture at one end of dough strip. Fold flag style. Brush with butter. Bake for 13 minutes at 350F.

Cookie Project part 2 (yeah!)

Today's recipe was taken from the December 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. The recipe: Lemon Cranberry Florentines. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I will admit that I didn't have any idea what a Florentine was. Thanks to Wikipedia for enlightening me on this one. "A Florentine biscuit (or, simply, a Florentine) is a confection made from setting nuts and candied cherries into a caramel disc, which is then coated on the bottom with dark chocolate". However, the picture that accompanied the entry did not resemble a cookie, or, for that matter, even a 'biscuit'. At most, it looked like a charred English muffin that got stuck in a commercial restaurant toaster (I know this from experience). My outlook was grim for this project.

However, my hopes for the recipe were somewhat bolstered by the really cute picture that was in the magazine spread (yeah!):

Well, you know what happens when you follow a recipe to a T? How it's usually supposed to work out? (yeah!) Well, it didn't this time. I did write a rather scathing review on Epicurious, but for some reason, it has magically disappeared. Now I'm going to air my grievances.

A) I had the same problem here as I did with the last recipe with the quantity that can be produced by this recipe. It's duly noted that the same person penned both recipes. This, once again, is apparently supposed to make close to 40 cookies. Once again, I got 2 dozen.

B) The baking information is WAYYYYYY off. If you bake these things at 350F for 16 minutes, you know what you're going to have? (yeah!) Not cookies! You're going to have lumps of black crap and a house that smells like carbon.

C) Please note that a combination of A+B left only 12 cookies that may have been viable for eating, but the cookies didn't flatten into discs really. Take a look at the picture above, and then take a look at what these things come out looking like:

I didn't even bother putting the chocolate drizzle on them. I ate one. It was mediocre and I didn't care to eat another one. My roommate decided to try one, and I could tell there was some sort of deep internal struggle taking place for him not to spit it out into the waste can.

This is a big old fail. The combination of cranberry, lemon, and almond was good, just not here....perhaps in an oatmeal cookie? (yeah!)

You might be wondering why this post is flecked with 'yeah!' all over...and I shall tell you. Because of the 1983 epic Christmas-time movie "Trading Places" with Eddie Murphy, Dan Akroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The jail scene? Surely it's coming back to you now. And now, for Christmas-time funs, here's a selected excerpt that I shall leave you with for the evening:

Cookie Project part 1.2

I love ginger. I mean I really really love ginger. I think that my love of ginger has actually surpassed my love of cilantro. And my love of cilantro is pretty intense. Not this intense, but intense none the less. I think there was only one time I had ginger and it was not enjoyable. I will recount this memory for you:

Twas in the cramped quarters of this limousine on the day of my sister's wedding.

It was indeed a most glorious day, where the whiskey ran wild and free like the most wild and free river you could imagine. Any day that happens, you know it's going to be a good day, or at least you THINK you know it's going to be a good day.

Then my sister's brand new husband decided that while we were in Chinatown doing pictures and what not that he REALLY REALLY needed this ginger candy. And once he had obtained this magical item, he insisted that everyone try it. It was LIKE regular crystallized ginger, but only if you didn't boil it first. It was almost as if someone took a piece of raw ginger, dipped it in adhesive, and then covered it in sugar to trick you. Not good. Extremely potent. And the kind of thing that can only be washed down by chugging a Miller Lite.

But I digress.

Because of my love of ginger, I was very, very happy to see a recipe for Triple Ginger Cookies in the December, 2009 issue of Bon Appetit, mentioned in my previous post. The recipe came along with this really cute picture:

If you can't appreciate that picture, I'm pretty sure you have no soul.

I made a few slight modifications to the recipe. 1)used about 1/2 c. rather than 1/3 c. crystallized ginger. 2)I realized I didn't have any molasses. I went to Target to get some. I checked the baking aisle, didn't find any. (I today learned that molasses is located in the breakfast aisle, next to the maple syrup). But, because I'm a genius, somewhat akin to MacGyver (but in a more kitchen-y sort of way), I simply replaced the 1/4 c. molasses with 1/8 c. dark corn syrup (because when the hell else am I ever going to use it) and 1/8 c. honey bear (because honey bear is always watching).

A couple things here though, no matter how much I rolled the dough into balls, they did NOT get a cracked surface. Oh well, not a big deal. What the big deal is, is that this recipe says that using tablespoon sized balls of dough, you'll get forty cookies. My ass. I wound up with a mere 2 dozen. They were delicious of course, but I really wish i had 40 them, not 24. Here is a picture of the finished product being eaten by one of my lovely housemates:

Whilst the cookies were in the oven, I turned my attention to a horrible piece of Christmas programming. If you like 1989, obviously fake head wounds, useless screaming, and overly exaggerated and stereotyped mental hospital escapees, AND you also like Christmas, then I have a treat for you. Witness this episode of 'Tales From the Crypt', Season 1, titled "And All Through the House":

Cookie Project part 1

A couple of the recipes that I'm planning on doing for Christmas call for decent quantities of crystallized ginger, and I don't know why, but I'm having a slight problem locating it. Also, if you try to find it online, it seems to be ridiculously expensive. But since crystallizing ginger is pretty much the same as candying things, and since I have candying skills, I decided to make my own, and made about 3/4 lb. of it.

Since the ginger I had wasn't young ginger, thinly slicing it with a santoku knife wasn't working really well. The ginger was far too fibrous. I wound up using a vegetable peeler to slice the ginger, and it worked quite well.

This ginger is going to be used in Triple Ginger Cookies and Gingerbread Cookies. Whatever's left will probably just be eaten plain or put into hot tea. Another awesome thing about candying things? Syrups! I have a jar of lemon syrup in my fridge from some lemon peel I did awhile ago, and now I've got a jar of ginger syrup that I can use to spice up delicious alcoholic beverages.

Crystallized Ginger
3/4 lb. fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
3 c. sugar, plus more for coating, if desired
3 c. water

Place ginger slices in a large pot. Cover with water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, and repeat.

Add the sugar and 3 cups of water to the pot. Cook until temperature reaches 210F.

Remove from heat and let stand, one hour. If you're coating the slices, draing the syrup and toss slices in sugar. Shake off any excess sugar. For either, place slices on cooling racks overnight until dry.

To get myself more in the Christmas spirit, I've also decided that each portion of the cookie project will coincide with a viewing of some sort of holiday related programming. Today, I watched a Christmas episode of 'The Twilight Zone' from 1960. The episode, entitled "Night of the Meek". It's about a drunk department store Santa with a magical sack that turns garbage into presents!! It was completely uninspired and features one of the worst fake beards I've ever seen. You can check it here.

Or if you like horribly botched conversion and dubbing, you can check it below:

Watch 11. The Twilight Zone - The Night of the Meek in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Thanksgiving was amazing. Serious blogging activate

Well, I did mean for my Thanksgiving post to be lovely and filled with pictures, but when it came down to it, I was too exhausted and hungry to spend time taking pictures of everything I made. And I did make a lot.

What's funny is that most of the recipes were pulled from cooking magazines I've been collecting, but the dish that seemed to go over the best, and the one that everyone had to have seconds of, is an old standby of my grandma's.

While it might not sound too charming, it is delicious, and has been pretty much my favorite holiday food since I was a wee child.

Good old macaroni and cheese with corn. It's the easiest thing ever. Take a pound of uncooked pasta (preferably shells). Dump it into a 13*9*2 baking dish. Add 2 cans creamed corn, and 1 can corn kernels (drained). Add 2 sticks of butter, cut into tablespoons, and 1.5 lb processed cheese foodstuff (aka Velveeta), cubed. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Works wonders. I made it for a cookout we had over the summer. Everyone was quite skeptical about it at first, after they saw me putting it together, but once they tried it, they were in love. Unfortunately, there usually aren't ever any leftovers.

But anyway, seriously blogging project. I've been having a pretty horrid time with cookies lately. I didn't use to have this problem, but whenever I bake them now, it's just a disaster. With Christmas season coming up, I'm planning on getting back on track with baking, and to do so I'm working through all the Christmas cookies in the December issues of Bon Appetit for the last two years (with the exception of the coconut macaroons, because I made them last year), 9 cookies=9 circles of hell.

It's going to happen.

I Made a Roast for the First Time

Just goes to show how much your palate changes over the course of time, I suppose. I really disliked roast growing up. Don't know why, just something I was not into. I found a recipe a while back for a roast, and something in my head decided it sounded pretty damned wonderful. Magic ensued.

This was my roast after I rubbed salt and pepper into it. A 2 pound boneless chuck eye roast. I got it on sale (I feel the need to note this, because I am a cheap ass about purchasing meat). I think it looks like a damn fine piece of beef.

Roast Beef with Coffee Gravy

Adapted from this recipe
1 2 lb beef chuck roast, fat trimmed
fresh ground pepper
kosher salt
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced
2 bay leaves
1 c. baby bella mushrooms, rinsed and quarterd
1 can beef broth
2 c. fresh brewed coffee
2 Tbsp. flour

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Rub salt and pepper into beef. Let sit 10 minutes. Heat oil in a large skillet. Brown beef on all sides. Move to baking pan. Add onions and mushrooms to skillet and saute, two to three minutes.

Add bay leaves, beef broth, and coffee to skillet. Bring to a simmer. Add to roast in baking dish. Cover and roast for 3.5 to 4 hours, until tender. Remove the roast from the pan.

Strain juices through a mesh strainer and into a skillet, discarding any solids. Add gravy to skillet and boil, about five minutes until thickened. Strain once more before serving.

I am not generally a beef gravy kind of person, but this gravy has made me a believer. It was amazing, especially when sopped up with crusty French bread.

Amazing Lunch: De Jred

Since I am on a mini-vacation with plans that always fall through, I was left with really nothing going on on Friday, until one of my friends from work, who also had the day off, was looking for someone to go to lunch with.

We wound up meeting up at De Jred, a new Jamaican restaurant in Skokie that her friends had been telling her about. Because my friend is Jamaican, and clearly I'm not, nor do I have any experience with Jamaican food, I let her do the ordering.

We both wound up getting the Jerk Chicken plate (which you can get as half chicken, or breast only, I believe we wound up with half chickens), which, at only $7.00, came with A LOT of food:

In addition to the chicken, the plate also came with fried plantains, a bowl of rice and red peas (which are kidney beans), and steamed cabbage (I cannot express enough my love for steamed cabbage of any sort. I love that stuff, and was super excited about it).

I am not normally a big fan of chicken on the bone, but in this case, it didn't really matter. This was by far the most tender chicken I have ever eaten in my entire life. We were given knives, but honestly did not need them. The chicken was just falling off of the bone. I never understood how people could describe meat as 'melting in your mouth', but I do now.

As far as the seasoning on the chicken went, it had a nice heat to it. I love hot food, but I also love being able to enjoy food. This chicken had the right balance of being both hot and enjoyable.

One other thing I loved? My bottle of "Kola Champagne". It's like cream soda, which I normally don't like. But, the reason I don't normally like it is because it's too syrupy and heavy. Not Kola Champagne. This stuff was amazing; although it was still pretty sweet, it didn't leave me feeling the need to drink 5 gallons of water and cleanse it out of my system.

The service at De Jred was always very fast and friendly. I'm planning on going back for more jerk chicken, and possibly even going out on a limb and trying the goat stew.

And for those interested:

De Jred
4901 W. Oakton (corner of Oakton and Lamon)
Skokie, IL 60077

Fall Cupcakes

Two cupcakes I made on Friday for my fall seasonals:

Pumpkin cake with clove & cinnamon cream cheese frosting

These ones are super moist. And to change up the boring regular cream cheese frosting that accompanies a lot of pumpkin cakes, I added cinnamon and fresh ground cloves.

Cinnamon Apple Cake with Cayenne Caramel Icing and Spiced Pecans

For this one, I pulled the 'frosting' recipe from the November 2009 issue of Bon Appetit and added 1/2 tsp. of cayenne pepper. I was expecting something a bit thicker, but wound up with something that, while still good, was more icing-like than i expected, even after chilling for 3 hours.

Zombieland and BLTs

Monday I made this bomb-ass BLT. I got home from work about 8 o'clock, started making bread. I went to the store, got some thick bacon, avocado, and lettuce. 11 o'clock rolls around and my bread is ready. I've got bacon. I've got mayo. I've got this amazing tomato that I stole from my mom's tomato plants on Saturday. I have the best BLT in the world. It may not look like much, but that shit was amazing. And huge! I'm a simple person, I can enjoy simple things. And bacon is one of the best of them:

Tuesday night after work, I went to see Zombieland. I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I love zombies and zombie movies, however, I do not like fast zombies, and this movie was chock full of them. At one point during the movie, I announced that I was bored. My mind was on three things and three things only, and this is in order of importance:

3) Why is that chick familiar? (She was in Superbad)
2) Woody Harrelson is hot:

I mean sure that other kid is kind of cute, but Woody Harrelson is just really hot.
1) Bacon sandwich. And dammit, you know I made another one as soon as I got home.

Bacon, don't you ever leave me.

it's the middle of october already?

The past month and a half has seriously flown by...right into the pre-winter weather we all know...and hate. I'm already sleeping with hoodies and spaceheaters and extra blankets. The worst part is how the mornings are always dull and gray. I just want to see a couple more sunny days before the snow starts coming. That's all.

One good thing about the colder weather is that now when the oven is on, instead of it being painfully hot in the kitchen, it's quite comfortable and warm. And I have been doing a lot of baking.

I did my first wedding last week. It wasn't a big affair, but it feels good to have one under my belt. There was an eminent near disaster, when I realized that the giant cupcake cake was not done, and had to start over again. That's when I decided beer would come in handy. And everything else went swimmingly.

The next morning, I had to take the cake to the destination, which was an hour and a half away. I did have severe worries about the structural integrity of the cake stand, as it was comprised, from what I could tell, entirely of cardboard, and was definitely shifting as i was transferring the cake from the box to the stand. I'm not going to lie; once I realized that there was a possibility of collapse, I hauled ass on out of there. BUT! I did take a picture. I know it's totally not stunning or anything, but it was my first one, and it can only get better from there.

The big part of it and half of the cupcakes were lemon raspberry and the rest of the cupcakes were plain vanilla with vanilla buttercream. I'm going to have to pat myself on the back and say that it was the best buttercream I've ever made.

While I did worry that the cake was not going to make it until the reception, someone did post pictures. I was afraid that there would be some sort of cake disaster pictures, but yes, the cake did survive.

My first savory cupcake...and one other

A couple weeks ago, my roommate and I hosted this like beauty/facial thingy party at our house. I don't know. Whatever. BUT! as all parties in our house go, we have good food and drinks.

I contributed cupcakes to this bonanza. I did lemon-raspberry to test out what I was doing for the wedding last weekend. And then I brainstormed in my little mind and came up with something truly amazing. I picked up some Asian pears on my last trip to H-mart; and I knew I wanted to roast them. Also, everyone (I think) knows that walnuts go well with pears. I didn't want to do a regular old cake for them, so I went with a brown sugar pound cake. My original idea was to do a goat cheese and honey frosting, but I thought the goat cheese might throw some people off, and I stuck with a cream cheese and honey frosting that was pretty amazing. These suckers went like hotcakes. Do people still say that anymore??? I think this one is definitely going on the list of fall seasonal cakes, which I've been working on getting completed.

Also, I have a friend from work that has been throwing some ideas for savory-type cakes at me. I'm really not into these so much. I'm cool with scones and muffins and whatnot, but not quite savory cakes. This weekend, after the wedding cake was delivered and I had time to recuperate from that little bit of stress, I busted one of his ideas out. This is a dill cake with smoked salmon cream cheese...I hesitate to say frosting, because it's lacking the key components of butter and sugar, although I did whip some heavy cream into it to make it a bit fluffier.

I really enjoyed the cake part of it, the fresh dill flavor was pretty nice. BUT, I am NOT a fan of smoked salmon, so the combination was a little bit lost on me. The recipient of said cakes did enjoy them though. Will I make them again? Likely not.

Some people find my bad pronunciation charming

Honestly. Ask my roommate. I'm just really white, and from a small town. My Spanish pronunciation is pretty bad. I can say things correctly in my head, but when I try to speak, I just sound like Whitey McCrackerhead. It's something I've come to accept.

Which is why you will most likely not hear me say 'empanada' out loud ever again. But my pronunciation of the word isn't really the point here.

The other day I went with Sean to the grocery store (Cermack Produce) up the block because we were out of 'shit tickets' (use your imagination here). The grocery store also happened to have eggs on sale for $0.99 (probably because most of the cartons had at least one broken egg). Well, the egg sale was enough to draw Sean's interest, and there he was rifling through every container of eggs trying to find one without a broken egg in it.

Boredom got the better of me, and I started looking at the freezer cases. It was then that I found the empanada 'discos' and decided I was going to make some.

So, last night after Luz and I had a 'business meeting' over beer, it was empanada time. Here's the recipe, and for fun, more things I can't pronounce.

Black Bean and Corn Empanadas

1 package Goya 'Discos Grandes', thawed (yeah, I'm not saying that out loud either)
1 large can black beans, mashed (frijoles negros)
1 can corn (maiz)
1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1/2 c. finely shredded cheddar.

In medium mixing bowl, mix last five ingredients. Place a few tablespoons of the mixture in the middle of each round of dough. Fold over and crimp to seal. In a large skillet, or pot, heat a few inches of oil. Fry each empanada until golden brown, about 2 minutes each side.

The results were nice. The crust was crispy and flaky. The filling had just the right amount of heat from the jalapeño, and there was enough filling leftover for me to make a burrito for lunch.

I've got another package of the dough, and am probably going to try to come up with a dessert filling for them.

Insatiable Cravings for Frito Pie

If anyone has ever been to a county fair, they most likely know what Frito Pie is.

Unfortunatley, no one I know knows what Frito Pie is, and that, my friends, is sad.

It's one of those glorious food items that you should probably only eat at the fair, along with funnel cakes, and hot dogs that are a foot and a half long.

But, I'm short on funds, and Frito Pie is cheap and easy to make. The dish is merely Fritos corn chips (which I will refuse to eat plain), chili (the thick and chunky kind), shredded cheddar, and onions. Since I am an obese woman trapped in the body of a moderately sized woman, I also put sour cream on mine.

I know it's not a lot to look at, but it is pretty filling. Also, if you're broke, you don't complain a lot. Hence, I have eaten this three times in the past week.

Ain't no shame.

The hot dogs have conquered me

I'm thinking that I need to take a long, well-deserved break from my attempts at eating 80 different hot dogs. I managed to get two down about a week and half ago, but it was a struggle. Just the thought of ingesting another one right now makes me feel a bit physically ill. But, someday, I will finish all 80 of them.

For now, these are the last hot dogs in a very LONNNNGGG time:

On the left you have a buffalo wing dog. This is a hot dog cooked in wing sauce, then topped with carrot, and blue cheese. I suppose you could put celery on there if you like celery, but I don't. Whatever.

On the right, you have my take on the Sumo Dog, from Tubby Dogs in Calgary. This dog originally calls for wasabi, Japanese mayo, pickled ginger, and toasted sesame seeds. I switched it up a bit and did wasabi mayo, pickled ginger, and black sesame seeds.

So long hot dogs. Nice knowing you.

Business Is A Boomin'

The baking is going well. I've got two weddings coming up and a couple other orders I need to work on (and ship...to California...). I'm pretty excited about both the weddings. The first one is a giant cupcake cake, with flavors of my suggestions (lemon cake with raspberry buttercream. No fondant! YAY!). I think the other one is going to be a more traditional cake, and my first attempt at something huge. I'm pretty excited, although this one will most likely have fondant, and I've never worked with it before (shh!) I'm fairly confident with my handiwork and my ability to quickly learn.

I think we'll be going over the details of that cake this weekend.

After that, I've got a couple weeks till the second wedding.

Then after THAT, I'll be going back to my creative freedoms, and testing things out in the kitchen. Hopefully they'll be more successful than what is sitting in my fridge right now.

I like whiskey. I like to make house infused whiskeys. I've got an apple/vanilla/cinnamon that I've made a couple times, and is amazing. I took a bottle of it to Christmas dinner at my grandparent's house one time. This was two days before I was being banned from solid food and alcohol for two months (massive jaw surgery) and my lil' broseph had never had whiskey before. We pretty much drank the whole fifth of it, while playing pool, and unwillingly listening to the Bill Cosby record that my grandfather will inevitably put on at every family function.

(intermission: I am trying to find a picture of said whiskey, and I came across an old blog where I was slightly disappointed about a job interview I bombed. It was at a children't boutique. This is effin' hilarious, because, hello, I don't understand why I thought I could tolerate a job with kids, or moreover, their yuppie parents. Praise the lord that I've moved on to the wonderful world of asset management)

Anyway, whiskey infusion #1

Then, I did a second whiskey infusion that was peaches, cloves, and cinnamon. That was was decent, not as good as the apple though. But because it's whiskey, and my friend, I made quick work of it. (Cannot find picture).

Right now, I will not discuss what is in secret infusion #3. I just put it in yesterday, and it needs about 5 days to totally come together. You're supposed to taste it everyday. Day one....was not good.

*crosses fingers*

Luz's Birthday Cake

Or, my first successful attempt at a layer cake. The only other time before this weekend that I made a layer cake was a chocolate mint cake that I made a couple years ago. It was lopsided and the frosting was starting to melt, so I put it in the freezer. That was NOT a genius move. I wound up breaking the handle off a kitchen knife trying to cut it. But, this time i decided to do things right. I asked Luz what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday her only request that the cake be chocolate. I snagged a recipe out of an issue of Bon Appetit.

There was only one slight difference, and that was that I used regular cream cheese instead of mascarpone, because it did not require me making yet another trip to the grocery store. The cake was....delicious. In fact, when I came home inebriated from the bowling alley last night, I ate a cold chunk of it with my bare hands. Let it be known, that by sharing that little fact, I have almost no shame.

A Giant Cupcake Cake.

Good news! I was approached about baking for a wedding. Seems like a mildly daunting task, but I'm pretty awesome and confident with my baking so I'm pretty sure I can handle it. Originally (meaning before today), I thought it was going to be 100 cupcakes and a giant cupcake cake. So I did a practice cake (autumnal theme). I will no longer be doing the giant cupcake cake, but for a first run, I don't think I did too shabby of a job. I also figured out some good tricks with using the Wilton Giant Cupcake pan.

1) First things first, there are some blogs that I read that said you could do this cake with 6 cups of batter. Well, that my friends, is bullshit. You need at least 8. If you're doing this from boxed mixes, you'll need two boxes. You'll use 75% of the batter in the giant pan and you'll have enough batter left to make a dozen cupcakes.

2) To get a cake that looks nice like the one in the above picture, you'll need handy carving skills. You'll need to cut away some of the swirl for the top half to make it look proportionate to the bottom part.

3) And to prevent disasters and increase portability, I found it is best to cut a dome in the bottom part of the swirl to make it fit on top of the bottom cake, like a little hat. You'll need about a cup of a really, really thick basic butter cream to cement the two together.

All up, my butter cream was 1 lb of butter, 2.5 pounds of sugar, and a little bit of milk. (This will also ensure that you've got enough to frost the dozen cupcakes).

The results: (pardon my table, I like movies):

Also, that frosting isn't chocolate, it's food coloring.

Back with a vengeance...and a belly full of hot dogs

I have been computer-less for about a month. It was quite unfortunate. Now, because my old computer was not fixable, I have obtained a new computer (at no cost, thank you Best Buy Service plan!). During the past month, I've been keeping myself busy with hot dogs and bagels and baking (and video games). All very exciting, I assure you. I suppose the first order of business would be getting updated on my continuing effort to knock out those 80 hot dogs. (Is is it wrong that the only thing that I really had of any importance on the old computer was my hot dog spreadsheet?) Anyway...

First up, we have the Pittsburgh Dog, and the Southern Slaw Dog:

The Pittsburgh dog was really dry, and I probably wouldn't eat it again. It had provolone, tomato, dry coleslaw, and onion.

The Southern Slaw dog, on the other hand was AMAZING. I'm afraid you just can't go wrong with a mix of BBQ sauce and coleslaw. It kind of makes me hungry for a good pulled pork sandwich....

Next, I conquered the Guatemala dog (with one minor adjustment) and the Montreal dog:

The Guatemala has: guacamole, mustard, mayo, ketchup, green hot sauce, and cabbage (typically boiled, but honestly, no thanks). On the Montreal, we have cole slaw, relish, mustard and onion. Both were decent.

Now, I realize it is not attractive to put up pictures of half eaten food, but if I didn't, you would be able to see the inside of this.

On the left is the breakfast burrito hot dog (which I will NEVER eat again, it was bad enough trying to eat this one). IT has scrambled egg, cheese, hot sauce and hot dog. On the right is the pizzeria dog, which has marinara sauce, shredded mozzarella, and a liberal sprinkling of crushed red pepper. (I also toasted it in the toaster oven). It was not too bad.

The two dogs that followed left me feeling pretty terrible about myself, the Belgium dog and the "Trailer Park" dog. The Belgium had fried potatoes (and because I was in a hurry, I used Ore-idas. Shame) and mayo. The trailer park had melted velveeta and crushed potato chips.

And most recently, I had two pretty good dogs. The Texas is on the left (bbq sauce, cheddar, onion) and the Britain is on the right (cheddar, spicy dijon, cider braised apples and leeks. The recipe came from Bon Appetit).

All up, I've eaten 16 dogs and have 64 left to go. And while it's not really part of the project (yet), here's a shot of me, eating a corn dog, at Bagelfest in Mattoon (more to come on that soon).

Chicago (style dog) Represent

Tonight, after going to the beach with Luz and Sean, I managed to pack away another 2 dogs for the project. Both of them were more than acceptable today. I went with the Chilean style dog (mayo, ketchup, avocado) and the Chicago style dog (if you don't know what that is, you should stop reading and go school yourself, but I'll provide you with the diagram anyway).

My dill pickle is hidden under the dog itself. That bun was getting pretty crowded. Please note in the chart above that ketchup is a no-no.

I would have to say that the best thing about the Chicago do inarguably is the hue of that relish. Seriously. It is amazing. The secret ingredient is Blue #1.

6 down. 74 to go.

Let the punishment begin!

So I downed another two hot dogs for the Around the World in 80 hot dogs project. Bon Appetit listed the following:

Korea: kimchi and pickled cucumbers
Vietnam: sriracha, cilantro, shredded carrot.

After an unfortunate discovery involving humidity and my regular hot dog buns, I had to use my poppy seed buns. Please note that my Korea dog does not have the pickled cucumbers. Those things are gross. I bought them and I tried one. I didn't swallow it. Luz said it had a boogery saltiness...All I know is that they were pretty gross. My exact words: "This is just plain foul!" The dog with the kimchi only wasn't much better. But, because I am a trooper I forced myself to eat it.

The Vietnam dog was also deserved the stamp of failure. This one may be my fault though, because I did get a little over the top with the sriracha. My lips were on fire. Luckily, i had MILK!

These are definitely two dogs I will NOT be eating again. Pickled cucumbers be damned!

4 down, 76 to go.

Watch as I attempt to eat 80 hot dogs in one summer

And no, I'm not going to do it all Takeru Kobayashi style. Bon Appetit has this thing in their most recent issue called "Around the World in 80 Hot Dogs" where they suggest 80 different hot dog variations. I decided, because I like punishment, that I was going to do it. Some of them sounded really nasty though, so I took them out, did a lot of internet research (thank you wikipedia) about regional hot dog styles, and have set out to eat 80 different hot dogs. You know what aggravates me? They left off the Chicago style. Bastards. Anyway, last night, Luz and I made some hot dogs (hers were Ball Park, mine were Hebrew Nationals (which are by far, the best hot dogs ever). Working with things I already had around the kitchen, I went with the Peking (hoisin and green onion) and the Japan (which called for wasabi and mayo, but when you have Kewpie wasabi mayo, I think you're pretty much covered. They were both pretty decent.

I also took the dry erase calendar that we got to keep track of bills but never use, and turned it into my official hot dog tracker:

2 down, 78 to go.

Every little thing I do is magic

Made these for the monthly birthday celebration at work. Chocolate cupcakes baked in wafer cones and topped with basic vanilla buttercream and star shaped sprinkles. I pondered making a swiss buttercream, but at 11:30 at night, I just didn't have the energy.

I saw this idea in an issue of Gourmet or Bon Appetit a couple years back and have wanted to make them since. I probably won't do it again though. While the cake was very moist and the frosting was amazing (as usual), the cones took on a somewhat stale consistency during baking. No one else complained about them, but I was not satisfied.

In the end, I triumphed because they were still adorable. One of my coworkers said that her daughter had made them for her daughter's birthday but instead of using the wafer cones, she baked them in waffle dishes, and did not have the stale cone problem. I may have to try that.

Muffins Vol. 2

Muffins are a delicious and filling breakfast food. But when I think of muffins and/or breakfast foods, I usually do not think about chocolate. In fact, that's the last thing that I would think of. I don't understand people and the whole chocolate chip pancake thing. That just sounds kind of repulsive to me. But then again, I'm one of those people who won't eat anything breakfast-y before after the breakfast eating hours (11:30 am), and i usually don't eat anything not breakfast-y before 11:30. BUT, in my dedication to Alton Brown and his kitchen wisdom, I've committed myself to making every recipe from his baking book, cover to cover. I did the 'Old School Muffin' a couple weeks back, and this time around it's 'Chocolate Muffins #7). I did make a few minor alterations (used 2% instead of buttermilk, decreased the vanilla, used half semi-sweet chips, and half white chocolate chips). Once again, I used the large muffin tin, to make 6 large muffins instead of 12 regular sized ones. The baking time was increased substantially because of this. The finished product was nice and moist and encouraged me to drink A LOT of milk because of house rich they were. Unfortunately, they weren't much to look at:

Chocolate Muffins #7
Adapted from Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food
2 c. all purpose flour
0.75 c. cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. baking powder
0.50 tsp. baking soda
0.50 tsp. salt
1.25 c. sugar
1 stick melted butter, slightly cooled
2 large eggs
1 c. 2% milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
0.50 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
0.50 c. white chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin tin. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, butter, eggs, milk, vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Divide batter into muffin tin, cups should be full. Place in oven and increase temperature to 400 degrees. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Alton recommends tipping the muffins onto a cooling rack as soon as they come out of the oven, to give the bottoms a kind of crust, but I don't really like that, and leave them in the pan to cool.

The muffins are decent at room temperature, but much better warm, with a BIG glass of milk.

Other projects I have going on right now: my take on Bon Appetit's latest issue's "Around the World in 80 Dogs". Some of the ideas just sound repulsive and unbearable, so I switched them up, and added the Chicago style. I can't believe those bastards left it out!! Also, coconut popsicles. I made them, but they're stuck in the molds....

BaconBurgers and Cupcakes

Last weekend, we went to 'the beach house' (location undisclosed). While we weren't having stiff drinks and pissing off the old codger of a neighbor with fireworks, a lot of good food happened, most notably, the BaconBurger.

I was really excited (I am a huge dork) that they had slider buns at Target, and proclaimed that we would be making use of them. These burgers were amazing. The patties themselves consisted of ground beef (duh), a nice chunk of bleu cheese (crumbled), Worcestershire, and salt and pepper. The Paul face grilled them up (although it should be known that I can make a mean burger). Near the end we glazed them with the best BBQ sauce ever. They were topped with bacon and avocado and were so amazing that I made the same a few days later at home for some friends.

To go along with the burgers, I also made a sweet potato salad, a recipe I stole from Bon Appetit, although what I made looked way better than the picture on the website. I would also like to note that I didn't peel the potatoes, because I like the skin.

Also, this week, I had an order for cupcakes, and was pretty pleased with what I came up with. It was for a dozen S'mores (naturally) and a dozen of these beauties:

Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Chile Buttercream. I was pretty excited about the sprinkles.