Homemade-reo's.

The other day Katie said, "Hey, remember when you had a blog?" to which I said, "Hey, remember when you shut your face?" Just kidding. But although my camera has mysteriously disappeared, probably to the same place where all my bobby pins go to, I do have some pictures loaded of past baked goods so I really have no good excuse not to update now that I'm finished with class. I guess I can break my Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon with some pics.

I've been pining to make homemade oreos for awhile now, for no good reason other than my brain latches onto strange things. Which is probably how I ended up with two certifiably insane chinchillas.



One reason I put off making oreos until now was because I didn't think I could achieve the black color oreo cookies have that make them seriously off putting to those with braces. And because I am crazy, I did not want to make them if they were not the appropriate color. But then I did some shopping at the baking store King Arthur with a gift certificate I had (thanks Elrita!) and picked up some of this:

... black cocoa! The stuff is intense, you supplement regular cocoa with this stuff and it makes baked goods extra dark and extra chocolately. Let the oreo party commence.

I used this recipe for the cookies and it worked fine. Because I'm lazy and hate to roll out cookie dough, I rolled the cookie dough into a log, chilled it, and cut off rounds instead. Way easier. For the centers, I used my favorite buttercream recipe and flavored part with vanilla and part with raspberry jam. The only downside of this frosting is that it melts really easily, since it is essentially 99% butter (and 100% delicious because of it). So I kept the cookies refrigerated and would probably consider making a different filling if I were to do it again. But they did taste delicious! The consensus of deliciousness went to the cookies with vanilla filling -- people like tradition.

See? Melty. Whatever, people liked them. I brought them to a bar to share with friends, though it took me about 10 minutes to find them in my purse. My purse is a black hole and recently I lost my phone for an entire week in the depths of it. I wish I was kidding.

Nuts for Maple Pecan Biscotti

Howdy, cupcake-ettes. I am alive and back to daily life. I made some goodies over Christmas break that I need to share so lets get started. I'm feeling lazy so this will be short.

Biscotti are a great holiday gift because they're easy and last forever-- they're already stale after all. Biscotti are also really easy to customize so I decided to make a maple pecan version for some gifts. I love maple flavored things, especially those maple leaf candies that are basically a solidified version of maple syrup. It's a quick and convenient way to acquire cavities.



Unfortunately maple is a pretty delicate flavor and these weren't as maple-y as I would have liked. I was going for more of a maple flavor explosion and I got more of a touch of maple. Regardless I was happy of the outcome. They were lightly sweet and nutty. I did try to add a maple glaze to up the maple explosion factor but whenever I added maple syrup to powdered sugar it tasted weirdly metallic. As if I had intended to make a maple flavored robot. Which was not what I was going for. So I skipped that and brushed the biscottis with maple syrup after they baked instead.



I didn't toast the pecans I added, mostly because I burned the first batch and was too lazy to toast another so I just added raw pecans. I'm sure they would be good with toasted pecans but the untoasted pecans were better than expected and added some chew. I love when my laziness pays off.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
¼ teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon maple flavoring
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
¾ cup maple syrup

DIRECTIONS:

1. Sift first dry ingredients together in a small bowl.
2. Whisk sugar and eggs in a large bowl to a light lemon color; stir in vanilla extract, maple flavoring and maple syrup. Sift dry ingredients over egg mixture, then fold in until dough is just combined.
3. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Using floured hands, quickly stretch dough into a rough 13-by-2-inch log, placing them on the cookie sheet. Pat dough shape to smooth it. Bake, turning pan once, until loaf is golden and just beginning to crack on top, about 35 minutes.
4. Cool the loaf for 10 minutes; lower oven temperature to 325 degrees. Cut each loaf diagonally into 3/8-inch slices with a serrated knife. Lay the slices about 1/2-inch apart on the cookie sheet, cut side up, and return them to the oven. Bake, turning over each cookie halfway through baking, until crisp and golden brown on both sides, about 15 minutes. Transfer biscotti to wire rack and cool completely. Brush tops with maple syrup and let dry. Biscotti can be stored in an airtight container for at least 1 month.


Laziness at peak level so that's all. Coming up: coconut cream pie, sticky toffee pudding.

December Daring Bakers Challenge: Inedible Houses of Joy

I was happy to see that the December Daring Bakers challenge was something I wanted to do. Last month’s challenge was to make cannolis and I am so not into cannolis. Plus, you have to deep-fry the cannoli cookies, which sounded like an excellent way to give myself more third degree burns. The month before that the challenge was French macaroons, which I did want to make but in October my immune system decided to go on vacation and my energy was spent trying not to die. Last minute I tried to make them but I completely messed up the recipe and ended up with almond hockey pucks. Mmm! Let’s blame it on my fever. So I gave up on those and went to sleep instead.

December's challenge appealed to my inner three year old. Make a gingerbread house! The only gingerbread house I can remember making is the kind in which a first grade teacher helps you glue graham crackers to a milk carton. Making a real gingerbread house is more difficult in that um, you use gingerbread instead of graham crackers and can't use empty pints of milk as a support system. Tricksy!

Blurb-o-ze-month: The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I decided to go with a gingerbread log cabin in tribute to my home state of Alaskan. Gingerbread Sarah Palin and gingerbread Russia not included.

I used the Good Housekeeping gingerbread recipe which worked really well -- all I had to do was add a little more water than called for because that sucker would not roll out. I'd recommend halving the recipe unless you're making some sort of gingerbread fortress because it makes a ton. I halved the recipe and had more than enough for one house.

The 'glue' in gingerbread houses is usually royal icing or hot caramel and I went the royal icing route. Trying to glue the house together with boiling sugar water sounded like a Fear Factor challenge and I'd like to keep the use of my hands. Make massive amounts of royal icing, you'll need it. And try not swear as much as I did while trying to glue on the roof. See why caramel would've been a bad idea?

BJ came over while I was finishing up the house and he thought I had been driven to insanity by finals. I was making a cabin? Out of gingerbread? On purpose? And then I made a snowman out of icing as a finishing touch and BJ suggested I be institutionalized. But BJ works in a restaurant in which the 'shrimp nest' in a popular item so let's save our judgment, shall we? If BJ had his way I would've made a gingerbread army base filled with gingerbread soldiers and candy cyborg zombies.

Yeah, this took forever and the gingerbread house tastes like ginger scented stale cardboard. And royal icing tastes like sweetened rocks. But I like baking and holiday decorating so why not? It was worth covering the kitchen and living room with powdered sugar and hardened icing. The cabin is currently sitting in my apartment back at school, where BJ is watering our plants while we're on vacation. I predict if he gets drunk enough he'll eat it. Or smash it. Or smash it and then eat it, it's a toss up really.

Birthday Blogging and Family Stories

It's birthday blog time! Happy birthday, mom!

My present will be late so here's a sneak preview of part of your gift and a blog entry to tide you over.

First off: the baked goods. I love fall flavored baked goods a lot. As in cinnamon and spice flavored, not leaf flavored. When trying to decide what to send my mom, I decided to bake some ginger spice cookies. I didn't have the required amount of ginger so I added some more spices to make up for it. See how clever I am? I just add 'spice' to the name to disguise the fact that I can't plan ahead.


They were yummy though and the first ginger cookie I've made that has the proper ginger cookie crackles on top. Which I failed to capture in my photos. Fail.

So expect a package of these guys in the mail soon, mama. Along with some other surprises that I hope you'll like as well.

And now. I think its only appropriate to share family stories on my mom's birthday. Which is unfortunate to the pride of the rest of my family. But it must be done.

When my older sister Mia was born, apparently she won Most Perfect Baby in the Universe award (typical older sister move) and my parents thought, "Geez, babies are great. Let's have some more!" And then with my birth things went terribly wrong and when that was over and done with my personality was somewhat akin to, "Woman who birthed me, what is this terrible place? You will be punished for bringing me to this cruel world. And who is that bearded man? I don't like the looks of him. And also: wah."

The next few years I clung to my mom like a spider monkey and had an emotional breakdown each time she tried to pry me off to indulge in such selfish things as feeding herself. There are few pictures of me as baby and in the ones that exist I am on verge of tears, reaching out to the camera because my mom had dared to be six inches away from me. I was the infant Queen and mother was my servant. My dad likes to tell a story in which Mia and I were going out to go somewhere and the family was in a hurry so my dad tied my shoes. I burst into tears because MOM DIDN'T DO IT.

I eventually became somewhat more emotionally stable. I think. At least I don't have a panic attack when my mom doesn't tie my shoes. But this may only because I now only wear slip on shoes. I also warmed up to The Goofy Bearded One, aka my father.

Since the holidays are approaching, I thought I would also describe the infamous Blankensop sister Christmas video, which scarily portrays the differences between me and my sister. Since Mia is extroversion personified and I am the emotionally repressed introvert, watching any old home video of us interacting is bound to be hilarious.To give you an idea of the differences between my sister and I, here's a scene from a random family video: Toddler Sophie is curled up in a rocking chair, quietly flipping through a picture book. My mom is filming me and I'm bashfully answering her questions. Mia enters the room, looks at my mom filming me. She then storms up to the rocking chair, shoves me out of the chair and says to the camera, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MOMMY? HEY, LOOK AT THIS BOOK!! DO YOU WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK?!"

The Christmas video is a similar experience. Cue video from the early 90's. Mia and I are sitting in the kitchen on Christmas morning. She's maybe eight and I'm about four. I am on the left, smiling shyly at the camera with my giant brown Romanian Orphan eyes. Mia is on the right, sitting on the edge of her seat and appears to have just consumed copious amounts of cocaine. Throughout the entire video she is grinning like a mad loon, talking nonstop and gesturing violently. I'm surprised her hands didn't 'accidentally' go out of control and hit me in the face.

It is also imperative to know that Mia had a speech impediment when she was younger. She sounded like a tiny pixie-like version like Elmer Fudd throughout most of elementary school. She could not manage R's so, like her cartoon cousin, rabbit became wabbit, rascally became wascally etc. With speech therapy she eventually was able to overcome this but it was a particularly hilarious era in Mia's life. Or should I say... hiwawious? In the video I also can't pronounce R's because I'm a baby, cut me a break.

The entire video goes something like this:
Mom: So girls, are you excited for Christmas?
Mia: I LOVE CHWISTMAS BECAUSE SANTA COMES AND BRINGS PWESENTS AND SANTA ATE THE COOKIES AND MILK LAST NIGHT AND I LOVE CWRISTMAS BECAUSE IT IS NICE, WIGHT SOPHIE?!
Me: Wight.
Mom: Sophie, what's that present behind you?
Me: It's-
Mia: IT'S A BEAWR (note: 'bear') AND IT IS A PINK BEAWR AND SHE CALLS IT PINKY. SANTA LEFT IT FOR HER AND I GOT LOTS OF OTHER PWESENTS TOO, WIGHT SOPHIE?!
Me: Wight.

This continues for about ten more minutes. I'm pretty sure the only time I say something other than 'wight' is when Mia attempts to snatch my blankie out of my hands and I say, "Don't touch my bwankie, it's vewy special..." Meanwhile, Mia continues to talk at light speed and at one point spontaneously bursts into song. Luckily she now does improv so she has an outlet for her crazy. The crazy still seeps through some but it is mostly contained.

And yet Mia still insists that I am the weird one because I may or may not have had an onion peel collection as a child. For the record, this is also a lie.

Aren't you proud of your children? What's that you say? What about Piers? What little brother? Just kidding, I have hilarious stories about my brother Piers as well. All in good time, all in good time.

Happy birthday again!

Adventures in Nowhereland

Alright, alright,I suck. I was in a baking and blogging rut and that was even before I got the Virus of Death and couldn't move for a week. I've only recently gotten back into it so forgive me.

First off, I found some long lost photos of stuff I baked about nine million years ago so I thought I would post that stuff first.

This is stuff from when Joe and I visited my dad last summer. My dad lives in Nowheresville, Alaska. On top of a hill. Half an hour from anything. Of course, the closest establishments are a couple bars because Alaskans cannot physically be 50 feet away from alcohol at any time without having a stroke. Whenever I visit we end up cooking, baking and watching ancient B-list horror movies and occasionally we slink into town to replenish supplies.

In between movies, I made thumbprint cookies filled with apricot jam and pecan caramel clusters. Joy of Baking succeeds again, these were lovely.

We usually stay in a cabin my grandparents used to live in, which is quaint and mildly creepy. My dad's old room give me major heebie jeebies, which I discovered when I was younger and my dad kindly let me sleep in his old room while he slept on the couch upstairs. The room is the basement, below ground, and is completely devoid of heat and light. I had vivid, horrible nightmares for two nights straight when normally I can't remember my dreams at all. After the second night I told my dad, "That room is creepy, I couldn't sleep and had nightmares all night." to which he casually replied, "Yeah, that room is kind of haunted." THANKS DAD.

The room still freaks me out but luckily I ensnared a man to share the room with me and I figure the monsters will eat Joe first as he's bigger. Though I do have more meat on my bones. SHUT UP BRAIN.

You try to sleep in a room that in plastered in this wallpaper:

(shrill violins) REEEE!

REEE! REEE!

REE! REEE! REE! THE BEARS! THE BEARS!

Last time we went to visit my dad, I went to go take a bath when I spied an enormous spider hanging out in the tub. I promptly turned around and told Joe to dispose of it before I cried and like obedient monster bait, he flushed it down the drain. After I took my bath and was drying off, I told my dad that a mutant enormo-spider had been living in his bathroom and he said, "Oh, that little guy? Yeah, I let him chill out in there and just move him when I need to take a shower." And I was like um yes, that's totally normal and then I found Joe and whispered in a panic, "Joe, I think we just killed my dad's pet spider!" But because mutant enormo-spider is apparently also a indestructible spider robot, it crawled out of the drain unscathed and I didn't have to break it to my dad that I had killed his roommate to take a bubble bath.

Anyway. I also made spice pecan brittle. It was supposed to turn out as candied pecans but it um, didn't. Even though, I wanted to marry it, I love sweet pecan candy.

I didn't love the recipe I based this on, I actually had to remelt the batch to get it to the right consistency. But it worked out alright in the end.

So that's what I did while trying to survive the haunted basement. I think there's a reason all these horror films are coming out based in Alaska. No daylight in winter? Everlasting daylight in summer? Cabin in the middle of nowhere? Small room with wallpaper that was designed under the influence of acid? I should just write the screenplay now and make millions.

Apricot pits: delicious?

I think I've professed my love for anything almond flavored before. Except almonds. I don't really like plain almonds. But any almond flavored dessert is automatically a shoo-in with me. WHAT?

Also what is up with the phrase a shoo-in? What does that even mean? Does it have to do with shoes? Who knows.


But there is a semi-reasonable explanation for this. Amaretto and almond extract gets that almond-y flavor from apricot pits. Yes, APRICOT PITS. So it's not really that I like almonds or even apricots but the shriveled up, cyanide-packed apricot pit. I don't like to think about it too much though, it kind of gives me the heebie jeebies.

So naturally one of my favorite cookies is amaretti, which is traditionally made with- TAKE A WILD GUESS- apricot pits. For those of us who don't live on an apricot grove or don't know how to use apricot pits with accidentally poisoning friends and family, amaretti is made with actual almonds.


Joe requested I make another batch of amaretti for his opera party. Joe is majoring in music, which means he sings a lot of opera and tricked me when I met him at a rock concert. He likes to watch operas a lot and I um, don't so he's been inviting other music majors over to watch operas with him. Or maybe they don't know they're going to watch an opera but we lure them in with food and they're trapped for three hours watching The Magic Flute. SUCKERS.


These pictures are actually old from another time I made amaretti with a slightly different recipe. I liked that recipe a little more than this one but of course I don't have it, I used a recipe out of my dad's cookbook. But this recipe is pretty similar from I could remember and they tasted delicious. And if you have ground almonds laying around (who doesn't?! Oh, you don't? I see...) this takes just a couple minutes to whip up. As Brian used to say: easy peasy lemon squeasy.

Alright, now I must get my beauty sleep so I can be nice and refreshed tomorrow morning to give a million more flu shots. Ta!

July's Daring Baking Challenge + I'm Back!

So I’m WAY late for this Daring Bakers Challenge but I have all sorts of good excuses. I was planning on making these towards the end of July and had all of the supplies ready. And then I got the killer flu from hell.

I haven’t had the flu in years and this one hit me like a ton of bricks. I almost said a ton of steel bricks but those don’t exist, do they? I obviously have suffered from permanent brain damage from my fever. I was basically incapacitated for a week, slumped in one of Joe’s armchairs, possibly drooling a tad. I spent most of my time watching awful television because shows like Bridezillas require no brain activity and with my 102 degree fever, I couldn’t spare any strength. I know y’all are just waiting for your own excuse to watch such glorious monstrosities without judgment.

I finished the challenge when I was done dying but by that time I was already late to post. Then I had to move back to school. Then I had to move in to a new apartment that didn’t have internet yet. I almost died of withdrawal but my sanity was saved by my iPhone.
So at this point are you like, “JESUS WOMAN, JUST TELL US WHAT YOU MADE”? Because I’m sort of sick of myself at this point. So here’s the blurb-o-the-month:The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

We had the option of making milanos, the marshmallow cookies or both. I had originally planned on making both but since I ran out of time, I decided on the milanos only. I’ve made marshmallows before so I didn’t feel a burning urge to make them again.



Recipe:

Milan Cookies

Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

INGREDIENTS:

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

------------------------------

These were easier to make than I had thought: I was mostly worried about the cookie dough. To shape the cookies, you have to pipe the dough (batter?) onto the cookie sheet. I don’t have much piping experience and my piping set was back at school. Snipping the tip off a ziplock bag ended up working just fine though.



I liked these alright, they looked a lot like milanos and tasted good to boot. The only issue I had with them is that the texture of the cookies was different from the Pepperidge Farm milanos, which have two crunchy cookies sandwiched between a dark chocolate ganache filling. This recipe yielded much softer cookies, more like a crisper madeleine. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but not exactly Milano-like. My teenage brother ate most of them, which is always a plus.
So now I’m back in Cleveland, braving the ungodly heat wave and thunderstorms. School started and when I stop dying of heat stroke I’ll start baking again.

Brian has graduated and moved on from living with Joe and I but we’ll still see him around. We spent the past weekend with Brian and his childhood friend, Sam, at Sam’s cottage. I met Sam’s pugs for the first time, one of which is the saddest example of a dog I’ve ever seen. The thing must be approximately 200 years old in dog years because she can barely walk from arthritis, can barely see from cataracts and can barely breath from… being an ancient pug. The poor thing sounds like a broken lawnmower, she is constantly like GRUNTGRUNTGRUNT-WHEEZE-GRUNTYGRUNTGRUNT-WHEEEEEEZE. I eventually decided that she was trying to navigate through echolocation.

The cottage is on Lake Eerie, which apparently is a giant tourist destination because there is a giant touristy boardwalk full of weird stores, arcades and bars. At one arcade I won a stuffed triceratops. And by ‘won’ I mean the stoned teenager at the prize desk thought I was cute and gave me a 600-ticket prize for my 12 tickets. Being cute has its advantages, like collecting all the sweatshop made stuffed animals your heart could ever desire.

At one creepy store they sold a variety of things ranging from leather goods, plastic mythical creatures to illegal weapons. Which of course means that Brian bought a switchblade he promptly christened Knifey. I spent most of the rest of the weekend pleading with Brian not to play with Knifey, which of course didn’t stop him from dueling a rose bush late at night on Saturday after a few beers.

Sunday we all headed to a local medieval fair, which was fun in an awkward sort of way. Some of the people working at the medieval fair are genuinely SO INTO the experience that it makes us semi-sane vaguely uncomfortable. Also, it seems that many people are convinced that in medieval times, fairies and dragons lived aside people and ate such delicacies as deep-fried pickles and cheesecake on sticks. It was fun though, except for the part where it was nine million degrees outside.

Another fun challenge, milanos are something I probably wouldn’t have thought to make these cookies on my own. This month’s challenge will be even more difficult so check back to see how I fare!

Squirrel* cookies! *No squirrels were hurt in the production of these cookies. Sorry to disapoint you.

For my sister's birthday, just about my entire family bought my sister cooking and baking related supplies. Like me, my sister loves to bake and even runs a little cupcake business on the side. Among other things, my mom got Mia a cupcake cookbook, my dad got her a food processor and I got her some various cupcake liners, sprinkles, flavoring and cookie cutters from Bake it Pretty. I stumbled upon Bake it Pretty a couple days before Mia's birthday and just about hyperventilated because I wanted everything on the site. I knew Mia would too (love it, not hyperventilate) so I picked out a bunch of stuff for her.

Speaking of Mia's birthday, I totally screwed up this year and thought her birthday was two days earlier than it actually was. I blame part of this on the fact that Joe and I drove to DC that day so I had just spent all my brain cells on watching the road and feeding Joe fruit for eight hours. We got into DC late and right before we went to bed I was like, "SHIT TODAY WAS MIA'S BIRTHDAY, RIGHT?" and I called Mia and left a cheery message on her voicemail wishing her happy birthday.

It was not her birthday. But at least I was two days EARLY, right? At least that's what I tell myself.

Anyways, my mom wanted Mia and I to use some of her birthday goodies to bake together and blog about. I said sure before seeing Mia's kitchen, which is about the size of a large cardboard box. One person can barely fit in it, let alone two. So when I say 'we made these' I mean we took turns being in the kitchen.

Cupcakes are cute but Mia and I wanted to make something that I could home to mom and cupcakes do not travel well. Cookies travel well though and would give us a chance to use the cute cookie cutters I got Mia, which included a squirrel and a cupcake. We decided to make shortbread cookie sandwiches filled with fig jam, since my mom loves fig jam and I like the shortbread recipe from the cookie book.

Here's the squirrel. Isn't he cute? Apparently I didn't take any pictures of the cupcake cookies because I took these pictures literally on my way out of Mia's apartment on the way to the airport. Joe and I had called a cab for three o'clock and when he didn't show at three, Joe called him to ask where our cab was. The basic answer was the hell if he knew, there were no cabs in the area. So we were like GREAT, THANKS and walked to subway instead. With 50 lb bags. I cried a little and nearly stabbed Joe's eyes out because he was nearest to me. Then I took some xanax and things were a lot better.

And thus concludes things I baked and took pictures of in California.

These were good, I think? I can't really remember but considering I like that shortbread recipe and the fig jam, I think it's safe to say these were good. Recipe previously shown here.

I've made a few things in Alaska (including this month's Daring Baker challenge, in which I became a BAKING GODDESS OF AWESOMENESS) but you'll just have to wait for those.

Uggo oatmeal cookies

I have another cold. What happened to my immune system of steel? I think it's probably because the last two years I've been working in the hospital with adults and the last few months I've been working with kiddos instead. New germies. Delightful! Not to mention that Brian is constantly wary of any hospital germs I could be carrying. He asks me all sorts of medical questions but the minute I clear my throat or sneeze, he stares daggers at me and won't be within 5 feet of me. Which is probably smart since Joe cannot escape me and inevitably ends up with whatever I have, bwa haha.

Anyways. I made cookies recently. I got a bit cookied out for a few months, probably from the Great Christmas Cookie Extravaganza, Part 1 and Part 2. Joe suggested I make chocolate chip cookies recently when I couldn't decide what to make and I broke out of my cookie slump. I used the chocolate chip cookie recipe from The Sweet Life, my favorite dessert book. I had never tried this recipe before and they were WONDERFUL. So much so that I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of them.

The recipe was kind of that mythical chocolate chip cookie recipe that is crisp and caramelized on the edges with a chewy, soft center. It yielded something like four dozen cookies but since the proportions of the recipe would've been weird if I halved it (half an egg, anybody?) Joe told me to make the whole thing, telling me I could bring some to work tomorrow. I ended up not bringing any to work, however, because I remembered that one of my co-workers can't have gluten. But they were still all eaten within 24 hours. I ate two cookies. That means that Joe and BJ both ate about two dozen cookies within a day. I hate boys.



So a few days later I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from the same cookbook. It's actually pretty remarkable that I had chocolate chips left over, Brian has the tendency to wake up from hungover hibernations and immediately consume large amounts of candy, sometimes a pound of chocolate chips. This time though I think he ate two dozen cookies instead so I was in the clear.

The oatmeal cookies were really good but man, they are ugly. They were really thin but lumpy because of the oats. On my first batch my oven was a bit too hot and the cookies were paper thin and on the edge of burnt. I took them out of the oven with a look like, "What the eff cookies! You do not look so delicious!" But they got a bit prettier after I sorted out the oven temperature. It helps that we FINALLY got an oven thermometer, where we learned that our oven runs about 50 degrees hotter than it says. No wonder I was having to pull my baked goods early.

I dubbed these Uggo cookies, after the sphynx cat Brian decided he should get solely to name Uggo. Sphynx cats are those delightful hairless kitties. Like this:
I especially like that one because he's a bit cross eyed. Poor guy. In case you were wondering, the only TV show BJ and I can agree upon is Cats 101 and Dogs 101. The other 99% of the time, I'm mocking the horrible dialogue on Burn Notice and he's making fun of the multiple horrible reality TV shows I so adore.

I can't find the recipe online so I won't post it, sorry! I'm a little terrified of copy infringement. I'll try to find the chocolate chip cookie recipe or just suck it up and post it because you deserve to make them, they are DELICIOUS.

p.s I am spending Passover with Joe and Easter with Katie, my bestie. My gentile, non-Kosher hands are not allowed to make anything for Passover but Katie suggested I bring dessert to Easterfest. What should I make? So far I have thought of: carrot cake, some sort of cheesecake or pie. Let the voting commence.

Espresso Shortbread for the Week of Doom

I don't even know what to say about this week except that forks were looking like mighty fine objects to slowly advance into my skull. I took these pictures last Sunday but The Week of Doom prevented me from posting until today.

On Sunday I finished a giant 20 page project and decided to celebrate and bake. Except that nobody bothered to tell me that the due date of the project was changed while I was out of the room and wouldn't be due for another week. Fork to brain incident #1. Anyways, I eventually decided on making a chocolate-dipped espresso shortbread recipe from my cookie magazine that I'm baking my way through.



This (and the other shortbread recipe from the magazine) is one of the better recipes I've tried, I'm a big fan of shortbread. I thought the coffee flavor of these guys could be stronger but I still liked them a lot. Next time I wouldn't roll them as thin but I've only made shortbread once before and I don't really know what I'm doing. It could've been a lot worse, like the time I made pumpkin pie and forgot to add sugar. DELICIOUS.

Chocolate-Dipped Espresso Shortbread, from Fine Cooking
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INGREDIENTS:

8 oz. (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. table salt
10 oz. (2-1/4 cups) all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. finely ground espresso coffee beans

For the dipping chocolate
9 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 Tbs. vegetable shortening:

Line two baking sheets with parchment. Combine the butter, sugar, and salt in a stand mixer bowl (use the paddle attachment) or a large mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until the butter combines with the sugar but isn't perfectly smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the flour and ground espresso and mix on low speed, scraping the bowl frequently, until the dough has just about pulled together, about 3 minutes; don't overmix.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Aim for a uniform thickness to ensure even baking. Using a heart or other shape cookie cutter, cut out shapes as close to one another as possible. Press the scraps together, roll them out, and cut out more cookies. If the dough becomes sticky, refrigerate it briefly. Arrange the cookies on two parchment-lined baking sheets and refrigerate until chilled, at least 20 minutes.

Position oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and heat the oven to 300° F. Bake the cookies until golden on the bottom and edges and pale to golden on top, 30 minutes to 1 hour. (After 15 minutes, swap the position of the baking sheets and rotate them 180 degrees for even baking.) If the cookies are done before 30 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 275° F for the remaining batches; if they take longer than 1 hour, increase the temperature to 325° F.

Dip the baked, cooled cookies:

Set a sheet of parchment or waxed paper on a work surface. Put the chocolate and shortening in a small heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Melt the chocolate, stirring, until it's smooth and warm; don't let it get hot. Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate. Set the cookies on the parchment and let the chocolate set up at room temperature, about 2 hours.

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I don't get these baking instructions. Bake somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour? Uh, that's a big range, especially when a minute or two extra could ruin these. I ended up baking them about 25 minutes but I did make mine a bit thin. Also, I had to chill the dough some, it was reeeeeally soft and hard to work with. But other than that, it was a-okay. Oh: I melted the chocolate and shortening in the microwave. Worked fine.



I made these while wearing my robe, which is not at all surprising if you know me and my disdain for clothing, especially pants and socks. Brian happened to come in as I noticed that one of my sleeves was covered in flour. I mused out loud, "Hm, I should probably stop baking in my robe..." to which Brian said, "Um, yeah. About that. It is acceptable to wear a robe an hour before bed and up to an hour after waking up. Not, you know, NINETY PERCENT OF YOUR WAKING DAY." But this is coming from somebody who A) survived for a good year on white rice and ranch dressing to save money and B) once became so drunk that he forgot how to read. He cannot be trusted.

Joe has been making tons of bread lately. Joe decided it looked like fun after I made a few loaves of bread at the beginning of the year. And then he quickly became obsessed with it and I have been literally unable to make more bread because Joe is undoubtedly already making five different loaves that day. He's been hinting that I should post some of his bread on the blog, which I've been hesitant to do because I like to post recipes and Joe's recipes are 20 pages long from a scary looking bread encyclopedia. But here's one anyways, sans recipe: cheese bread!



I loved this bread, which is unsurprising since it combined simple carbs with cheese which made my bones turn to jelly. Then I had a feeding tube installed so that no time would be wasted in that time consuming chewing stuff. Luckily, it's gone now and I can stop gorging on it.

In other news, today is Joe's and my five year anniversary. I won't get too mushy, I'll just say that Joe's presence is probably the sole reason why the forks were not actually forcibly inserted into my brain this week. The Tiffany's ring he got me didn't hurt either. I love you.

Our anniversary gift from Brian was him cleaning the shower curtain. Which actually was a great gift, since we had a few mold colonies the size of several small continents growing on it. I was starting to fear for my life whenever I took a shower.

Stay tuned for February's Daring Bakers challenge!

Sick Whinning + Chocolate Chewies

Internet, I am sick. This is weird for me because since I started working in hospitals a few years ago, I never get sick. Well, first I was sick ALL THE TIME for the first year and then I developed crazy antibodies and my white blood cells are now made of steel. Until now.

Friday night I was unable to sleep because I was so nauseous, but I figured it was just my stomach hating me as per usual, I'm nauseous all the time. But then I started throwing up and getting chills and I knew I was in trouble. My fever finally broke today, which means I can do more than a) sleep or b) stare blankly at the TV for ten hours. But my stomach is still rioting and won't let me consume more than a bottle of vitamin water a day. Thanks, mysterious stomach virus.

So no baking until I can look at a glass of water without gagging. Lucky for you, here are some cookies I made earlier this month. On the Super Bowl, actually.



I've never been a big sports person. Nobody in my family played or watched sports and I don't have a competitive bone in my body. I tried a bunch of sports in middle school, but was tragically bad at all of them. Being five feet tall didn't help. I did become track manager in 8th grade when I promised to make the coaches batches of cookies. And so began my obsession with baking.

Anyways, so I'm not sure I've watched a Super Bowl in my life, except for bits and pieces when I was waiting to watch commercials. I watched more this year than I ever have in my life, and that was only after watching the Puppy Bowl.

The Puppy Bowl is put on by Animal Planet is exactly what it sounds like: for two hours, they put various puppies in a room decorated to look like a football stadium and then film the adorable puppies playing. There is also a delightful kitty half time show, in which a dozen kittens play with various spinning, shinning, and moving objects. It kind of looks like an acid flashback, actually.

Joe, BJ and I had a Puppy Bowl party and recorded the Super Bowl to browse through later. Joe made a caloric-ly dense onion dip and I made chocolate cookies. There's these low-fat chocolate cookies at Whole Foods which I really like, not because they're low fat but because they have a crunchy meringue-like shell with chewy cake like interior. I hadn't been able to replicate them very well but recently stumbled on this site which looked pretty close to the Whole Foods version.


And they were! I really liked this guys. The only thing that I would like to change is how thick these were and looking at her page, it looks like that could be changed by using a muffin top or english muffin pan.

Here's her recipe at Cafe Luna,you'll have to read it ALL BY YOURSELF.

I'll admit I used Hershey's cocoa, it's all I had and the choices at my local grocery store were either Hershey's cocoa or "Food Club" brand cocoa, which is probably saw dust and food coloring. I added a few melted squares of a good quality 100% chocolate bar, which improved the flavor but my cookies still looked a bit anemic compared to hers. I also left out the walnuts since we didn't have them and I don't like them much.

Overall, I really like this recipe and will probably experiment with it again in the future with better ingredients when my body stops hating me.

Things I made a while ago: Butterscotch bars and panna cotta

I made both of these awhile ago, I'm a slacker and am just getting around to posting these guys.

The first one is honey-yogurt panna cotta. Panna cotta is a very delicate molded custard, it is basically the closest you can come to eating heavy whipping cream without feeling like you're eating heaving whipping cream. But shh, don't tell my thighs.

I'd made panna cotta once before, last year when I was stranded in Joe's apartment and lived in the common area in a bathrobe while making Joe's roommate's vaguely uncomfortable for two days. It's a long story. But Joe wouldn't be back for another day and since all of my belongings were locked in his room until he returned, the only thing I could think of doing was to commander their kitchen and bake all day. I think I made various custards and cookies and only stopped when I had used all their sugar and eggs.

I was interested in a particular recipe from The Sweet Life because it lightened panna cotta with strained plain yogurt and sweetened it with honey. The idea was that it was supposed to taste like a Greek version of panna cotta. Sign me up!



This was the week that I failed coddling eggs so I wasted a ton of eggs trying to make the "egg white custard" which I think may be an invention of the author because it would just NOT. WORK. On my third try I used a hand blender which either worked or hid the curdled egg whites, I couldn't tell. But it was good enough for me!

I was a bit disappointed in how they turned out, I didn't think they tasted yogurt-y enough. I ended up adding a lot more honey as well, since I didn't think it tasted strongly enough of honey. However, I made the grapefruit curd shortly after this and the panna cotta were greatly improved when smothered in grapefruit curd. Then again, just about anything is good smoothered in creamy grapefruity goodness.

I'm too lazy to steal the recipe from The Sweet Life but here's a recipe from Martha Stewart that is very similar to what I used, except it doesn't use egg whites. Which is brilliant, since you can't curdle the stupid eggs.

Honey Yogurt Panna Cotta, from Martha Stewart

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INGREDIENTS:

Serves 8

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 vanilla bean (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)
• 1 envelope (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1/2 cup honey, plus more for serving
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place cream and sugar in a medium saucepan. With a paring knife, split vanilla bean lengthwise; scrape out seeds, and add to cream along with empty pod (if using vanilla extract, add to yogurt mixture in step 4).
2. Bring cream to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Cover pan, remove from heat, and set aside to steep, at least 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, place 1/2 cup cold water in a small bowl, and sprinkle gelatin over water; set aside to soften, at least 5 minutes. In a large bowl, whisk yogurt, honey, and salt until combined; set aside.
4. Return cream to a boil. Remove from heat, and immediately stir in softened gelatin until dissolved. Pour mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into yogurt-honey mixture; mix until combined.
5. Divide mixture among eight 4- to 6-ounce ramekins. Chill until firm, at least 4 hours and up to 2 days.
6. To serve, unmold each panna cotta from its ramekin: Run a paring knife around the top inner edge of ramekin, then dip bottom of ramekin in a bowl of boiling water for 10 seconds. Invert ramekin onto serving plate. Holding ramekin tightly to plate, shake firmly to release panna cotta. Drizzle with honey before serving.

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I also got a e-mail recently calling for volunteers for a bake sale and I jumped on the opportunity. I decided on Nutty Butterscotch and Chocolate Bars from my cookie book. And I just found the recipe online, so I don't even need to steal it from my magazine! Excellent.



Nutty Butterscotch and Chocolate Bars from Fine Cooking magazine
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INGREDIENTS:

11-1/4 oz. (2-1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/2 lb. (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature; more for the pan
1-3/4 cup very firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1-1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
7-1/2 oz. (1-1/4 cups) semisweet chocolate chips
1-1/4 oz. (1/2 cup) sweetened coconut flakes
4-1/2 oz. (1 cup) medium-finely chopped pecans or walnuts

DIRECTIONS:

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 9x13-inch baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt to blend. In a large bowl, combine the butter and brown sugar. With a hand-held mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until very well blended and fluffy, about 2 min. Add the eggs and vanilla and continue to beat on medium until well blended, about another 1 min. Add the flour mixture and mix on low until just blended, about 1 minute. Pour in the chocolate chips and coconut; mix on low until combined.

Scrape the dough into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Scatter the nuts evenly over the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean with a few moist crumbs clinging to it, about 40 min. Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool completely. Cut into bars, squares, or triangles. Cover with plastic and store at room temperature for up to two days or freeze for up to one month.

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Mine were actually chocolate-less since I discovered last minute that BJ had used all the chocolate chips by stirring them into his coffee. I had about three white chocolate chips that I scrounged up and added in. But honestly, I don't think the bars needed them. They were plenty sweet and I think the chocolate would be overwhelming. I DO think the walnuts are needed and I'm not usually a nut person. They added some depth to the bars, which are pretty sweet and one dimensional otherwise.

Anyways, I kept a few for us and packaged the rest for the bake sale. The secretary of the organization it was for, who is the sweetest girl ever, thanked me profusely for bringing stuff. I thought, "Pfft, are you kidding? Can you have a bake sale like three times a week so I can bake stuff and give it away every 48 hours?" but I like to hide my crazy so instead I said, "No problem!"

Still one more to play catch up: Chocolate chewies from the Super Bowl

Vanilla Tuile Cones with Lemon Curd or Sophie Can't Coddle Eggs

I was excited to participate in this month's Daring Bakers Challenge, especially since I wasn't able to participate last month. Last month the challenge was to make this crazy eight layer, frozen-mousse-plus-a-billion-other-pieces French cake. Between finals and the holidays/vacation, it just could not happen.

Here's the standard Daring Bakers blurb o' the month:
This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

This challenge was to make tuiles (Is that the plural of tuile? Let's pretend.) and pair them with something light of our own choosing. Originally I wanted to make sorbet but I don't have an ice cream machine and making your own sorbet looked kind of dicey. We had some grapefruits that had been hanging around for weeks so I decided to make grapefruit curd. Curd is kind of like a thin citrus pudding-y jam you can spread on just about anything. It's kinda sweet but kinda tart and kinda thick but kinda thin. I'm not very good at describing things, clearly. It's a good thing I decided not to major in English. "The book was kinda good and was about things and stuff. The end."



To make the grapefruit curd I heat up the juice of one ruby red grapefruit and the juice of a half a lemon over a make shift double boiler. While the citrus was warming, I beat three eggs with 1/4 cup a sugar. Then I tempered the egg-sugar mixture with some of the citrus juice to warm the eggs up without curdling. Added the egg mixture to the citrus and beat until thick and coated the back of the spoon. Took the mixture off heat, beat in 2 Tbsp butter and the most of the zest of the grapefruit. Viola! Grapefruit curd!

Except I only got it to work on the third time and wasted six eggs before I got it right. Our new stove is incredibly hot and no matter how carefully I tempered the eggs, they curdled. This drove me bonkers as I've made pudding/lemon curd/panna cotta etc only three trillion times successfully and suddenly the eggs would not bend to my will as per usual. Joe suggested the double boiler which helped a lot. He also beat the hell out the mixture and was probably more successful than me with my puny, stick like arms.

The tuiles were more successful, the most tricky thing about the tuiles is getting them the right thickness. Too thick and they'll be chewy, too thin and they'll burn up. You also have to shape them pretty much immediately after baking, which singed off the pads of my fingers.

I exaggerate, I still have fingerprints.

I used a slightly different recipe than the one given but lots of people had success with this recipe and it is pretty close to what I did:

Vanilla Tuiles

INGREDIENTS:

¼ cup ounces softened butter (not melted but soft)
½ cup ounces sifted confectioner’s sugar
dash of vanilla extract
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
1/2 cup sifted all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat over to 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either butter/spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. If using a stencil, press the stencil on the bakingsheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter (I used the back of a spoon to make circles). Leave some room in between your shapes.

Bake cookies in a preheated oven (180C/350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from bakingsheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time or maybe put them in the oven to warm them up again. (Haven’t tried that). Or: place a bakingsheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.
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Anyways, once I singed my fingers off rolling the burning hot cookies into cones, I stuffed a bunch of grapefruit curd into a ziplock bagged, cut off the tip and pipped the curd into the cooled cones. Cooled cones. Sounds like a crappy reggae band. Maybe only because it sounds slightly similar to the fabulous movie Cool Runnings.

Joe told me to make just half a batch of cookies and then I fed him one and he shouted, "I WANT A THOUSAND." He later said they're the best thing I've ever made so I must file this away in the 'makes the boyfriend happy' file. Other things that make Joe happy include beating things in a mortar and pestle, Pokemon and opera. He has a wide range of interest.

Next up: yogurt panna cotta and coconut walnut butterscotch bars.