Rye crackers!

So blah blah I've been really busy and blah blah blah haven't baked blah blah I suck etc.

But it's true! I've had classes from 9-5 for two weeks (I'd like to thank sudoku and electronic scrabble from keeping me from killing myself) and when I wasn't in class I was either doing homework, napping or watching trashy reality television. Very important things, obviously. But things have settled down a lot recently and I finally had time to ask Joe what he would like me to bake. And he had very specific ideas: Crackers. Rye crackers.



Rye crackers? Sure. Google is my friend and I found a recipe pretty quickly. Seriously, what did people do before the internet? I already don't remember my life before my iPhone, a dark age in which I couldn't access celebrity gossip at every moment of every day. How did I live?

Rye Crackers

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup (3 3/4 ounces) whole rye (pumpernickel) flour
• 1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) butter
• 3 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) caraway seeds
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) water
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• Additional salt for sprinkling (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the flours, cocoa and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly, using your fingers, a pastry blender or fork or a mixer. Add the caraway seeds and toss to mix.

Combine the water and molasses in a measuring cup and stir to mix. Gradually add the liquid to the dry ingredients, mixing till you can gather the dough into a cohesive ball.

TO SHAPE AND BAKE THE CRACKERS: Divide the dough into 3 pieces; roll it out, one piece at a time, till it's 1/16, inch thick, being sure to flour underneath when necessary so the dough doesn't stick to the work surface.

Use a baker's bench knife, a sharp knife, a pizza wheel or a square cookie cutter to cut the dough into 2-inch squares. Transfer the squares to prepared baking sheets.

Bake the crackers until they begin to brown and smell toasty, 18 to 23 minutes. Remove the crackers from the oven, transfer to a rack and cool completely before serving. Store in airtight containers.
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If you like rye and caraway then you'll like these. The only issue I had with them was that since the dough was pretty dark, it was hard to tell when they were done and I ended up under baking a bunch of them. In my oven, these needed at least 25 minutes.

I would tell you that I'll have another post up soon about the apple crisp I made the other day but Joe ate all of it before I could take a picture of it. However, Brian came over for dinner and I am currently quietly moving the bowl of tiramisu I made today closer and closer to his chair in hopes he'll eat thirds. He lost 13 lbs since he moved out, I can't imagine why.

In other news, let's talk about what else has been consuming my life and that is BABIES. I've always known vaguely that I wanted to have kids some day but that changed last year I was doing my pediatric rotation. It confirmed my desire to have kids someday until one day I took care of an infant whose parents were at a class learning how to take care of one of his medical devices. So I was with him a lot to give him his feedings. And while I was coaxing him to finish one of his bottles, his big blue eyes looked into mine and a small bomb went off in my uterus and said, "OH HELLO. LET ME INTRODUCE MYSELF. MY NAME IS BIOLOGICAL CLOCK, MAY I SUGGEST YOU HAVE BABIES IMMEDIATELY?" and I was all, "Shut up, ovaries, I cannot have babies anytime soon!" Hormones reply with, "No problem, maybe you can just take this little guy home? I'm sure nobody will notice."

Obviously I didn't steal the baby but now whenever I saw children my ovaries go, "HELLO WE CAN'T HELP BUT NOTICE YOU ARE NOT YET PREGNANT. PLEASE REMEDY THIS SITUATION ASAP."

It's very distracting, I wasn't aware that you turn 21 and then have sudden urges to have litters of babies. Joe tolerates it now but I'm sure he'll get weary of it when he finds the darling bassinet I bought.

Just kidding.

Blueberry muffins of mehness

So I HAVE been baking this summer, I swear. However, all my photos are on my new laptop, which I can’t hook up to my family’s internet for some reason. Thus, the pictures have been trapped inside my laptop for some time now, sad and crying baked goods tears.

That’s the reason why I made these muffins in the beginning of time (read: last month) and am just getting around to posting about them now. I was hankering to make something and, like many Alaskans, my mom almost always has frozen Alaskan blueberries on hand. Wild Alaskan blueberries are almost nothing like those giant on-steroids blueberries normal people buy in grocery stores. Alaskan blueberries are much smaller and actually taste like something.

I could be lying right now, how would you know? You’ll just have to come to Alaska and see for yourself.



Anyways, my mom goes out late in summer to pick blueberries with our ferocious dog, Truman. He’s not really ferocious but he is an Australian Shephard, a herding dog. And a lack of a flock of sheep has just about pushed him to the brink of insanity, I think. He regards our family as his sheep and because of this Joe can’t be within three feet of me without Truman frantically nipping at his heels in an attempt to herd Joe away from his precious sheep. And you must remember that Truman has known Joe for FIVE YEARS and this behavior is actually quite tame for a psycho herding beast. I feel totally safe walking Truman because I know if a stranger so much as looked at me wrong, Truman would lovingly tear off their face.

Where was I? Blueberries. We had a bunch of ‘em. I had heard good things about the Barefoot Contessa recipe for blueberry muffins. One girl told me that they were more like cupcakes than muffins and that’s all I needed to hear because all I heard was CUPCAKES.

Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins by Barefoot Contessa

INGREDIENTS:

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces (about 1 cup) sour cream
1/4 cup milk
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 half-pints fresh blueberries, picked through for stems

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place 16 paper liners in muffin pans.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed. Fold in the blueberries with a spatula and be sure the batter is completely mixed.
Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pans, filling each cup just over the top, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins are lightly browned on top and a cake tester comes out clean.
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These were good but not phenomenal, I thought. This could be totally my fault since I subbed plain yogurt for sour cream but with the 900 tablespoons of butter, it’s not like these were exactly lacking fat. I would probably add more blueberries next time (remember, Alaskan blueberries are smaller) and maybe a bit of orange zest or something. They would also be improved with a streusel topping. Then again, just about everything is improved with a streusel topping. Muffins? Better! Cake? Better! Vegetables? Better!

What?

Oh, and ferocious Pup? He's very handsome. Exhibit A:


Ferocious pup is also not a pup, he's now around eleven. He hasn't slowed down at all and may actually be more convinced that he shall one day kill the evil man who brings our mail. My mom recently discovered that he likes to eat fish oil pills so I've been feeding them to him every day and then telling my mom he will never die and his brain will remain sharp until the sun implodes. And then my mom cries a little.

Alright. Next up are some goodies I made while visiting my dad, who lives in a more secluded part of Alaska so there was even more time to bake goodies. I reeeeeeeeally liked a few of the things I made so stay tuned.

Brown Sugar Glazed Banana Cupcakes

Happy St.Patrick's Day! I'll have a more festive post later, for now here's what I made the other night.

I've been a bad blogger lately. I've made two desserts that I didn't photograph, gaspity gasp. The first one was chocolate banana bread pudding which turned out well (especially considering I made it up as I went along) but was ugly as sin and I didn't want to make a post about my own personal Rosemary's baby. The next was key lime pie for my baby brother (who is somehow not three years old anymore but seventeen, when did that happen?) and I just plum forgot my camera. Oh wells. Here, imagine them.

This is where you think about chocolate banana bread pudding.

Here is where you think about key lime pie.

I did finally get around to getting pictures of my most recent baked goods. I made these as thank you gifts for some nurses and I was soooo indecisive when trying to decide what to make. I finally settled on banana cupcakes because I'm always freezing overripe bananas and always have an extra eight million frozen brown bananas in case there's a sudden world shortage on disgustingly overripe frozen bananas. I decided on a glaze instead of frosting since I was going to have to cart these to the hospital with me and any frosting would just get destroyed on the journey.


This is actually the first banana cake recipe that I've tried that is actually cake-like in texture. I've tried others that were basically banana bread in a cup, which is nice but I've been looking for something with a lighter crumb. This is definitely more cake-like, less quick-bread. I cut down the sugar since I knew I was going to glaze them and I know Joe likes less sweet desserts. I know, he's not from this planet.

Here's the recipe I used:

Banana Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup butter
  
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (this was three bananas for me)
  
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening, butter and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla, bananas and buttermilk. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to banana mixture. Fill 18 paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.
2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to wire racks to cool completely. In a small mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar and enough milk to achieve desired spreading consistency.

For the glaze, I just combined 1/2 cup of brown sugar with a splash of vanilla and 2 Tbsp water. I dipped the tops of the cooled cupcakes a few times to form a nice glaze over the top. You could also just drizzle it.

The glaze makes a nice crunchy, sugary shell and since the cupcakes weren't too sweet, it wasn't overwhelming. I approve.

Flourless Chocolate Cake and Coconut Sorbet

When you think Valentine's day, you think chocolate. So it is only appropriate that for February's Daring Bakers Challenge, a chocolate cake and ice cream was in order. The challenge was pretty straight forward: to make a flourless chocolate cake and homemade ice cream.

Blurb'o-the-month: The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

I'm not going to lie, I was not too excited about this challenge. I'm not wild about flourless chocolate cake in most forms, I usually find it too intense but kind of boring. And ice cream? I've never liked ice cream. Which didn't stop me from considering buying an ice cream machine for the challenge. I nearly rationalized by hey sometimes, like every five years or so, I like a couple bites of sorbet. Or gelato. Which would make it TOTALLY WORTH $50, right?

I managed to talk myself out of it and will probably spend the money on an absurdly expensive strightening iron instead.

I'll admit, I used a different recipe for the flourless chocolate cake. There was a chocolate bête noire recipe in The Sweet Life that I've been eying for awhile and it appealed to me more than the one given. And I'm glad I did because it was AWESOME. I loved it. It's a bit like a chocolate pudding cake. You can see the recipe I used here. I apologize to your thighs in advance. But it had to be done.



Most of the Daring Bakers did like the posted recipe though and I feel guilty not posting the recipe I was supposed to use so here it is:


Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

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I like sorbets far more than ice creams so that's what I decided to go with. I settled on either espresso or coconut and ultimately decided on coconut so my dish wouldn't be all brown. Plus, I just made espresso shortbread.

I'm usually too lazy to type up recipes I get from cookbooks but this one is so easy that I remember everything. Here's the basic recipe I used:

Coconut Sorbet, Adapted from the Millennium cookbook

1 can light coconut milk
6 tablespoons fructose
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
Dash vanilla
Dash salt

Combine the above ingredients. I used a hand blender so that the coconut flakes would be better incorporated. If you don't have one, I would either blend it in a food processor or finely chop the coconut before hand. To make by hand, pour the liquid into a large glass pan and freeze. Take out of the freezer every 30 minutes or so and blend with a whisk or large wooden spoon before returning to the freezer. Repeat until desired consistency is reached.

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Can you use regular sugar instead of fructose? Dunno. Joe happened to get me some fructose from the local health food store, otherwise I would've used regular sugar. But it was soooo easy, the recipe doesn't make a whole lot so it freezes really fast. Tasted lovely, though I prefered the unfrozen coconut liquid. Because I am a heathen and I DON'T LIKE ICE CREAM. It balanced really well with the cake though, especially when it was piping hot. The cake, not the ice cream.

Glad I did this month's challenge, I'm not sure I would've tried making ice cream by hand otherwise. I'm not sure I would make it again for myself but I would serve it to company.

Hahahhaa. Like I have fancy dinner parties and don't spend my Friday nights baking and watching Pokemon with Joe. Hahahahah. Company. More like force feed it to Brian immediately after he comes back from working out.

Looking forward to March's challenge!

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.

Lazy Cookies

Coming from vacation in Hawaii to school in Cleveland blew my brains and I haven't been able to focus since school started. Or I have been able to focus but my focus has been on getting really good at having panic attacks. I don't know if my insurance covers therapy but it does cover Xanax!

So I haven't been baking much at all the last few weeks. But I've been having insane cravings for those no-bake chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies, which is weird since I think I've had them once in my life. Today I was feeling a bit less like pulling out all my hair while hyperventilating in a corner so I decided to make some of those no-bake cookies.


They're good but not as good as the ones I had before. These guys were a bit crumbly, probably because I cut the sugar in the recipe since I knew the full amount would be too sweet for me (I know, scary right?). The problem is, they're still a bit on the sweet side and I don't know how to bind them better and give them a better texture without using the full amount of sugar. Oh well. They certainly fulfilled my chocolate-peanut butter-oat craving and I'm hoping BJ's friends will eat the rest of them tonight while drunk. (Update: Brian just announced that he's eaten half of them. Excellent.)

No Bake Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
• 3 cups quick cooking oats

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, cocoa, milk and margarine. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, salt, peanut butter and oats.
2. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto waxed paper. Allow cookies to cool for at least 1 hour. Store in an airtight container.

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I used butter instead of margarine, smooth peanut butter instead of chunky, halved the sugar and used half quick cooking oats and half regular rolled oats. I only had quick cooking by accident, quick cooking oats freak me out. They do that thing that instant oatmeal does when it turns into oatmeal glue instead of oatmeal. I didn't realize until a few years ago that oatmeal doesn't have to be scary and gelatinous, you just need to cook real oats! And then I proceeded to eat oatmeal every day for two years before burning out and never wanting to eat it again. I'm slowly getting back into it though, I just mix it up with cornmeal and cream of wheat.

And now you know more about my breakfast habits than you ever wanted to know. Good.

In other news, the other day I was having a bad mental health day, I think that was the same day I sent Joe a text message that read in part, "kill me, kill me, kill me". I was in my room while Brian and Joe were playing video games. I yawned a monstrous, terrifying high-pitched yawn and I heard Brian whisper to Joe, "Did you hear that? I think we have a wolf loose in the apartment." and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry because I was so pumped full of feelings.

Bread Time!

Some people make New Years Resolutions about losing weight, spending less money, or stopping a disgusting habit, such as chewing and subsequently eating your nails which you know drives your crazy girlfriend to the brink of insanity. Ahem. I, on the other hand, make resolutions about baking. My goal this year is to get good at making bread. And also to finally make it through A Random Walk Down Wall Street so that I can learn to invest my nonexistent money. But I won't actually HAVE any money until I pay off my student loans (insert panicked, hysterical laughter) so I figure the bread thing is more important.

I've never made a standard loaf 'o bread so I decided to go that route first. I found a recipe in Cooks Illustrated which promised to produce a from-scratch loaf in just two hours, which was a big motivating factor. One reason I don't bake much bread is because it takes so very, painfully long and I'm an instant gratification person. I want my bread now, not 12 hours from now!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2	cup water
1/4	cup cornmeal
3 1/4	cups bread flour , plus extra for work surface
2	teaspoons salt
3/4	cup milk , warm (110 degrees)
1/3	cup water , warm (110 degrees)
2	tablespoons unsalted butter , melted
3	tablespoons honey
1	package rapid-rise yeast (also called instant yeast)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Bring 1/2 cup water to boil in small saucepan, slowly whisk in cornmeal. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens, about 1 minute.

2. Adjust oven rack to low position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Once oven temperature reaches 200 degrees, maintain heat 10 minutes, then turn off oven heat.
   

3. Mix cornmeal mixture, flour, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Mix milk, butter, honey, and yeast in 1-quart Pyrex liquid measuring cup. Turn machine to low and slowly add liquid. When dough comes together, increase speed to medium (setting number 4 on a KitchenAid mixer) and mix until dough is smooth and satiny, stopping machine two or three times to scrape dough from hook if necessary, about 10 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface; knead to form smooth, round ball, about 15 seconds.

4. Place dough in very lightly oiled bowl, rubbing dough around bowl to lightly coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; place in warm oven until dough doubles in size, 40 to 50 minutes.
   

5. Form dough into loaf by gently pressing the dough into a rectangle, one inch thick and no wider than the length of the loaf pan. Next, roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn the dough seam side up and pinch it closed. Place dough in the pan and press it gently so it touches all four sides of the pan. Finally, place dough in greased 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan.

6. Cover with plastic wrap; set aside in warm spot until dough almost doubles in size, 20 to 30 minutes. Heat oven to 350 degrees, placing empty loaf pan on bottom rack. Bring 2 cups water to boil.
   

7. Remove plastic wrap from loaf pan. Place pan in oven, immediately pouring heated water into empty loaf pan; close oven door. Bake until instant-read thermometer inserted at angle from short end just above pan rim into center of loaf reads 195 degrees, about 40 to 50 minutes. Remove bread from pan, transfer to a wire rack, and cool to room temperature. Slice and serve.

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And the recipe delivered, despite my usual lack of sense. I failed to realize we didn't have butter until I was supposed to add it. I used olive oil instead. I also used all purpose flour since we didn't have bread flour. I'm curious to see how much of a difference the bread flour makes, that shall be my next enthralling experiment. We also ran out of milk (rice milk, actually) so I used more water plus some buttermilk powder instead.

I thought it could maybe use a touch more salt? Then again, this is supposed to be a pretty basic bread for sandwiches and such. The only other problem I had was that the bottom of my bread was a bit soggy when I took it out of the loaf pan. But I had let it cool for hours while I was at class so that may be my own fault. Still good though and tastes especially good toasted. And it really did only take about 2 hours. I'll play around with this recipe some more, it supplies a good basic loaf without too much fuss. Approved!

See my toaster in the background? It toasts toast and cooks eggs at the SAME TIME. I don't really use the egg portion, usually only BJ does, but it's still pretty awesome, no? Next I'll teach it to do the dishes.

Get Your Fat Pants on: Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Joe requested I make carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting recently and I happily obliged. I don't think I had made a carrot cake prior to this and to make matters more difficult, Joe wanted the cake to have pineapple and coconut in it in addition to the usual raisins and nuts so I was a bit nervous that I would have more chances to mess things up. Apparently I had a bit of a carrot cake phobia.

It worked out well though. I let Joe pick the recipe out of the two I had it narrowed down to and he picked the Barefoot Contessa version because he trusts her. She does look like she knows how to bake a cake, I'm always a bit untrustworthy of skinny pastry chefs. Giada DeLaurentes, for example. How are you so skinny? On the other hand, Paula Deen creeps me out a bit. I once saw a show in which she made a breakfast sandwich with eggs and bacon and used two doughnuts instead of bread. That was just an abomination and my fat cells swelled a bit just watching the show.

In any case, I altered the recipe a bit to make it closer to how Joe likes carrot cake but it still turned out.

Carrot Pineapple Cake

INGREDIENTS:

nocoupons

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
• 3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 pound carrots, grated
• 1/2 cup diced fresh pineapple

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

For the cake:

Beat the sugar, oil, and eggs together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light yellow. Add the vanilla. In another bowl, sift together 2 1/2 cups flour, the cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Toss the raisins and walnuts with 1 tablespoon flour. Fold in the carrots and pineapple. Add to the batter and mix well.

Divide the batter equally between the 2 pans. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely in the pans set over a wire rack.

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Changes I made: I replaced 1/3 cup of the oil with applesauce since A) carrot cakes can be oily and heavy and B) I had a huge jug of applesauce I needed to use. I also toasted my walnuts briefly, used about a cup and a half grated carrots and about a cup chopped, drained canned pineapple. Even if I had thought to buy a fresh pineapple, I think I would feel a bit weird eating one in December. It doesn't feel right. Oh, I also used 1 cup flaked coconut which I threw in at the end.

If you're making this as cupcakes, you'll have to change the baking directions. I tried baking them at 350 for about 20 minutes and while it worked, they came out flat and a bit ugly. I found another recipe that said to bake carrot cake cupcakes at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and then to lower the temperature to 350 until they finished baking, about 10 more minutes for me. These came out much cuter with nice domed tops.

This was a great cake to bake since I got to snack on all the tasty elements while putting it together. I love raisins, pineapple and even carrots. I also adore coconut, something I inherited from my coconut-loving mom who used to make us fork over our Almond Joys every Halloween as kids. Though I guess it must have been the almond coconut combo, she shunned our Mounds bars.

For the frosting, I used a delectable Orange-Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from good ol' M. Stewart. I would gladly live off this stuff the rest of my life, this stuff is amaaaaaazing.

Orange Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 bars (8 ounces each) cream cheese, room temperature
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
• Pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place butter in bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese, and beat until well combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes more. Add sugar, orange zest, ginger, and salt, and beat for 5 minutes.

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I scaled this recipe back some because I never read recipes before going to the store and only bought 2 blocks of cream cheese. It still made plenty of frosting though, I had just enough to ice the 27 cupcakes and enough to sample liberally while making it.



I am now officially on Winter Break and survived my freakishly long plane ride back to Alaska. My standard coping mechanism of surviving plane rides consists of Xanax and chick flicks. It almost never fails.

After I get some supplies, I'll be making a few things for friends and family for Christmas. Stay tuned.

Fire Alarm Cinnamon Rolls

I had a sudden urge to bake cinnamon rolls recently, which is strange because I've never been a huge fan of them, for one thing they're usually way too huge for me to finish. Why are most cinnamon rolls bigger than my head? Besides being dinosaur sized, a lot are way too sickly sweet. And I am the Sugar Queen, it takes a lot for me to say that. But I figured if I made them myself, I could make them smaller and cut down on the sweetness. All the recipes I looked at called for a jillion cups of flour and made a thousand and a half cinnamon rolls, which freaked me out until it dawned on me that I could scale the recipe down. I go to college!

So once I established that BJ would eat the cinnamon rolls (I think his exact words were, "I would eat the shit out of cinnamon rolls."), I dug around and played with some recipes. I decided to try and infuse a maple flavor to the cinnamon rolls.

Maple Cinnamon Rolls

INGREDIENTS:

For the dough:
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 heaping tablespoons white sugar
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons melted butter

For the filling:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp maple flakes, optional

For the icing: (I kind of threw stuff together, here's PW's maple icing recipe I based it on, however you will need to scale this back a lot since we're not making a billion cinnamon rolls)
1 bag powdered sugar
2 Tsp maple flavoring (I used maple syrup)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup brewed coffee
1/4 tsp salt

In a mixing bowl, beating all ingredients until smooth.

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Stir in salt and 1 cup flour. Beat mixture for 2 minutes. Beat in egg and melted butter. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes.
3. Roll dough with rolling pin into an evenly shaped 12-by-16-inch rectangle. Brush dough liberally with butter and sprinkle an even layer of cinnamon-sugar mixture, leaving a 1/2 -inch border along one of the long sides. Roll, beginning with the long side of the rectangle. Use both hands to pinch dough with fingertips as you go, sealing edges firmly to form a seam. (Do not seal ends.)
4. Cut into 12 even pieces using dental floss (or serrated knife with cutting board) and arrange in greased pan (9x13 would work, or I used a springform pan and a pie pan for the rest).
5. Cover loosely with plastic and allow to rise until double in size (rolls will touch), about one hour (or overnight in the fridge). When rolls are almost fully risen, adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. While the cinnamon rolls bake, make the icing (recipe above). Set aside until cinnamon rolls cool slightly, pour generously across the top of the rolls.
   

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End result: (pan one of two, but these guys were cuter)


The cinnamon rolls turned out well, though not exactly what I was going for. My favorite part of the cinnamon rolls was always the dough, there's a place in Alaska that sells giant cinnamon rolls (which my mom would buy, eat the most delicious center bite and then abandon for the rest of us) and the rolls are very chewy and... gluten-y? These rolls were very soft and light, which was good but not what I was hoping for.

They ARE tasty though, BJ proclaimed them better than Pilsbury. Which is good, I think I would've cried if they weren't better than something that came in a .99 cent can. But I think I'll try to find a recipe closer to what I was looking for. I also think the maple flavor could be more intense, I think I would try to find maple extract to put in the icing next time but I can't find it recently.

As per always, the recipe yielded twice as much as it said it would. I halved the recipe, which said it would yield 12 cinnamon rolls. Logically, I would come out with 6 cinnamon rolls. But no, with my magical baking powers I still came out with 12. Granted, 2 of those were mini sized because I ended up with a small amount of end piece dough that I decided to try and salvage. But the rest were pretty decent sized. Here's one of the baby guys:


Aw. They were like little cinnamon roll donut holes.

Oh, I almost burned the house down making these. While my cinnamon rolls were in the oven, I noticed the kitchen started to smell a bit like burning but I checked the cinnamon rolls and they were totally fine so I kind of forgot about it and wandered off. A few minutes later, the smoke alarm started to go off and the kitchen and dining room were filled with smoke. I checked the cinnamon rolls, which were clearly not on fire, and realized that debris at the bottom of the oven chose this day to spontaneously combust. Glorious.

So we opened up all the windows to air things out and shut up the smoke detector but there wasn't a lot that could be done until the cinnamon rolls finished baking. After I took out the cinnamon rolls, Joe decided that the best way to clean out the oven was to crank it up and let everything in the oven finishing crisping away before we clean it. Which is all fine and dandy except that means that the windows have to be open and it's 20 degrees out. My apartment is like a small arctic village at the moment.

On the bright side, I don't live in a dorm anymore, where if somebody burned a bag of popcorn the fire alarm would go off and everybody had to evacuate the building. Sometimes at 4 in the morning in the middle of winter, I wanted to kill whoever set that one off. The smoke alarm only temporarily rendered me deaf and insane, which I guess is better than standing in the cold for half an hour, waiting for the police to verify that the building is not actually on fire.

Hooray, college.

3 Down, 98 to Go: Mediocre Chocolate Cookies

My last rotation in the acute care setting I was working in was on Monday so I decided to bring some baked goods for the staff to thank them for tolerating me. The same day the hospital was going to throw my group a dinner and bribe us to work for them so I figured I could bring the rest of the baked goods to the meeting for everybody.

I decided on cookies, since they're relatively fast, unfussy and yields tons of goodies, unlike brownies or something where I would have to make multiple batches in order to feed everybody. So I flipped through the cookie magazine I'm baking my way through and settled on double chocolate cookies. Who doesn't like chocolate cookies? Untrustworthy fiends, that's who.


I had to modify the recipe a bit because when everything was all mixed together, I had cookie dough soup. The dough was supposed to chill but I was not convinced that the liquid I had would firm up enough to make anything resembling cookies. I had to add a bunch more flour to make the dough come together but I didn't think to add more chocolate so I thought in the end the cookies were a bit lacking. They needed more chocolate flavor or something, I don't know. Plus, they were a bit on the cake-y side, which I was not going for. But I can't really blame the recipe, I guess, since I did alter it and maybe it would've been magically perfect without my additions.

However, the two dozen cookies I delivered to the staff were consumed alarmingly fast so I guess they weren't too bad, people seemed to like them. I'm just a cookie snob.

Double Chocolate Cookies

5 oz of unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Melt the unsweetened chocolate, 1/4 cup of the chocolate chips and the butter over low heat in a saucepan. Set aside. Whip the eggs and sugar on medium-high speed until thick and light. On low speed, and the chocolate mixture and vanilla and mix until blended. Fold in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in the remaining chocolate chips and the white chocolate chips. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours. Preheat oven to 350. Drop tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes.


So if I were to make them again, which I probably won't since there's better looking chocolate cookie recipes in the magazine, I'd add more unsweetened chocolate, more vanilla and maybe some cocoa powder? Dunno, I just think they need a flavor boost.

I am nearing the ends of final exam hell and it hasn't been too bad so far actually. I need to cram my brains out for one more final for Thursday and then I'm pretty much in the clear. After I restock on baking supplies, I am free to relax for awhile and fatten BJ up with baked goods before heading back to Alaska for Christmas, where I can fatten others up as well. Life is good.