Oh Yeah, This Thing

So, it's 2:30am EST and I cannot sleep. Lying in a lodge bed at Cumberland Falls State Park, I decided to check out my Internet bookmarks. Sometimes you find lost treasures there...like my blog. It turns out that I have not posted anything since I moved to Louisville last June. It is not that I have not baked in that time--I am positive I made lemon bars once, and oh look! I found a picture of a Derby Pie I am pretty sure I baked for my mother's birthday:

It is just that there are a couple of things working against me now:

1) an electric oven/stove (sigh)
2) the absence of Eli
3) my new job keeping me away from home
4) my new co-workers being all "healthy" (where are my St. V's folks when I need them?)
5) a lack of desire to bake for all of the above-stated reasons.

However, after reading through all my old posts amidst sleep deprivation, I have become somewhat nostalgic and therefore am writing this post. There is a part of me that wants to make a bold sweeping promise of a baking resurrection.

I will refrain.

This may very well be the last post written for another year. There is a solid chance I will completely forget about the whole thing tomorrow morning, and during another sleepless night in the future will decide again to venture into my obviously useless Internet bookmarks, where I will see this blog and, annoyed, think to myself, "Ugh. Why does the Internet save everything?"

Uneventful Brownie-Making

Let it be known (if it is not already obvious), that I have traded in baking-as-hobby for baking-as-necessity. So, when my friend Megan's wedding shower required me to contribute to the pitch-in, I called up my trusty baking assistant Eli and set to work on my first (and definitely not last, as I am making them again tonight) attempt at homemade brownies.

I took a chance on a recipe from food.com called "Whatever Floats Your Boat Brownies." It looked simple enough and the 1000+ reviews were all superlative. Plus, the ingredients were all mostly already in my kitchen. When Eli arrived with her brand-new adorable as all get-out apron (you're welcome, Eli) and the ever-important boxed red wine, we got baking. Eli, being a gimp, was surprisingly helpful at cleaning the baking tools...

 And removing egg shells from the cup of eggs she so expertly cracked...

We will blame the gimp hand.


Meanwhile, I measured and mixed...and mixed...and handed it over to Eli to mix...and then mixed some more.

And that is all she wrote.
Really, it was shockingly uneventful. Nothing went wrong. I did not mess up even once. I apologize.

Everything mixed evenly, fit exactly into the pan, and baked perfectly. The brownies were true to their reputation and turned out especially fudgy and gooey. Yum. They were a hit at home and at the shower. Other than the 20 grams of fat per serving (which is utterly amazing to me), they truly may be the perfect brownie. Plus, you can add whatever floats your boat!

Oh yeah, and JD made pizza. It was delicious too.

Lessons learned:
1) Brownies are easy to bake.

White Cake with Strawberry Butter Cream Icing

This baking venture may have been doomed from the start. From prep work to finishing touches, I never quite had a handle on the situation. In the middle of the four-hour fiasco, I just started laughing. Little else could have possible gone wrong.

First there was the matter of the butter. After sitting out all day, the butter was not yet soft, and I had not yet developed patience. So I did the only reasonable thing and attempted to soften three sticks by the dining room heat register. Then I promptly forgot about them...

Did I mention that I left them to melt on top of a bowl of egg whites? Well, I did.

Moving on: After managing to salvage my butter and egg whites, I attempted to mix my dry ingredients with a hand mixer. I mixed, and mixed, and mixed. For TWENTY minutes I mixed. It became obvious that my half-melted butter was not going to cut it, so I nixed the hand mixer and tried mashing the ingredients by hand. After another ten minutes, I had a somewhat clumpy cake batter. Good enough.

 While I let the three layers of now-questionable cake bake in the oven, I set to the strawberry butter cream icing. Believe it or not, I dismissed the option of using strawberry jam, and actually opted to try this from scratch. Shocking, I know. First I hulled, pureed, and mashed the strawberries. So far so good.

 Next came the reduction, which also went without incident. Remarkably. The next trial occurred when constructing the rest of my icing, which seemed to need more strawberry reduction than the recipe implied. Laziness again set in, and I decided it was good enough. I really should be known as "The Mediocre Baker." I may change my blog name to include this more apt description.

 

After the cake came out of the oven (unevenly baked of course) it was time to ice. At this point, I had been making this cake for three hours. That is ridiculous. Just saying. However I mustered up some patience and put to use what I learned from my last cake: do not attempt to ice until the cake is completely cool. The first right move of the evening, I think. The cake was still incredible difficult to ice, with such thick frosting; however I managed a half-mangled rendition of my first (and maybe last) butter cream cake. Apparently it tasted delicious (or at least that is what I was told by co-workers, who ate the entire thing). So, I will consider this venture a success. Just don't look too closely at the cake.

Lessons learned:
1) Butter takes more than a day to soften.
2) Softening butter via register on top of a bowl of egg whites is a horrible idea.
3) You can never have too much strawberry.
4) Butter cream icing is, just as its name implies, very very buttery. I do not like it.

Kentucky Bourbon Balls

I don't want to talk about the bourbon balls.

Lessons Learned:
1) The type of chocolate you use matters. A lot.
2) I am capable of the same meltdowns I had as a child.

Pumpin Pie -or- Why I Should Listen to Food Network Hosts When They Say They Use Canned Pumpkin

My Green Bean Delivery bin had been offering pie pumpkins, so I thought to myself, "I should bake a pumpkin pie from scratch!" and went ahead and ordered two. I suppose I was feeling in the holiday spirit with Thanksgiving just around the corner. So much so, that I thought further to myself, "And I'll make the crust too!" Although I did not amend my original stupid idea of baking a pumpkin pie from scratch, I did quickly change from traditional pie crust to the equally yummy yet much much easier graham cracker crust. My first and last wise move of the venture.

Like most of my baking adventures of late, the evening started when my baking assistant Eli arrived in a fully coordinated baking outfit and brought with her the standard baking necessities: authentic Italian truffle honey, Iberico cheese, and boxed red wine.

 

The pie started simply enough with a successful attempt at a graham cracker crust. I will remember that I must only bake pies that go well in a graham cracker crust.

Next I tried in various ways to hack my way into the first pie pumpkin. This was the beginning of a very long and arduous learning experience. After I eventually cracked the first pumpkin shell (with a butcher knife in the end), I found myself facing its guts. It was explained to me that my next task was to remove all seeds and strings and cut the pumpkin meat into chunks for boiling. So, I reached in and started to work. First with my fingers, then with a spoon, then with my fingers again, then a spoon, then a knife. 

After approximately 15 to 20 minutes of cursing and drinking (and minimal gut extraction), my invaluable assistant suggested slicing the pumpkin like cantaloupe and then paring the string from each slice. Genius.

 

Next step: boiling the pumpkin meat and then removing the skin. My assistant at this point showed her severe lack of patience.  Apparently it was problematic for her to wait for the pumpkin to cool before paring, so she blew on it, placed it in the freezer, and eventually settled on torturing me by insisting that we pare the pieces while they were still scorching (and it turns out I have sensitive fingers). 

After eating a delicious dinner of curried chicken prepared by JD, I returned to my pie making. I was in need of a potato masher and had none. I briefly entertained using my blender to mash the pumpkin, but then I decided to be a purist and just went at it with my fists. 

I would like to say that it was then that I found the satisfaction of digging into my baking full-force, but that would be a lie. It was squishy and slimy and unpleasant; however, I did gain satisfaction from my efforts. The result was a pumpkin pie filling with fairly even consistency. I hear this is a rare skill (and the reason why Food Network hosts use canned pumpkin). Take that, Food Network Hosts. 

 

After some now-forgotten time in the oven: viola, pumpkin pie! And not too shabby, if I do say so myself. I had never had real pumpkin pie, and I was told that it would taste a little different from what I was used to. It did. It was awesome. I may or may not undergo this particular baking venture again in the future, but I am glad that I conquered the traditional pumpkin pie at least this once. It was enjoyed with an equally traditional topping: Cool Whip.

Lessons learned:

1) Baking instructions can make very complicated and difficult tasks appear easy and simple.

2) You never know when you will need the butcher knife that has been laying unused in a kitchen drawer for almost 10 years.

3) Pumpkin pie needs to cool in order to firm. Do not lose heart.

4) Boxed red wine from Target is surprisingly drinkable and one should be careful since it is difficult to tell how much has been consumed due to its opaque packaging. Hint: probably more than you thought.

Macaroons

It turns out that my brother Aaron has been needing someone on whom to unload some dessert cookbooks. We have lots of chefs in the family, but apparently no bakers...until now! Convenient for me and him. On his most recent visit to Louisville he gifted me two especially yummy looking books, and as soon as I saw the over-sized photo of the chocolate-dipped macaroons in Ready for Dessert, I knew my mission.

The evening of baking started like any other: my favorite apron, lots of ingredients strewn all over the counter, and wine. However, this time I had my first groupie, er, audience: Eli! Now Eli would soon become an instrumental part of the macaroon experience, but I am getting ahead of myself.

It just so happens that I was watching The Cooking Channel the other day and some chef was separating eggs with his hands. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like getting messy--seriously--and separating eggs with my hands definitely falls in the messy category. I realized however that if I am to ever be considered a serious baker, I needed to set aside my OCD tendencies and crack that egg into my palm. Ladies and gentlemen: it was cold and goopy. I did not enjoy it.

Overall the macaroon mixing experience was uneventful--other than Eli daring to question whether there was enough liquid ingredients to soften the giant mound of shaved coconut. Rest assured there was. After mixing, the concoction was placed on the stove where there were very specific directions to remove from heat once it started to simmer. It was necessary to obtain a second opinion on this matter, so Eli made her skills available.

As it turns out, both of us are the opposite of deaf. We apparently hear things that are not there. Like simmering. This becomes a slight problem when attempting to form the "pyramids" of coconut for baking. Only one thing could solve the issue at hand: more wine. Again Eli lent her expertise to the cause.

The wine in fact only helped to make the "pyramids" more mound-like, but I have learned in my now-vast baking experience that imperfection is endearing, or something. Either way, macaroons luckily have little discernible shape. Moving on...adding the hand-melted chocolate warrants no special description, other than to note that there was not near enough chocolate to go around (my macaroons may have been a little larger than intended).

In the end, the macaroons were delicious. Shared by JD, Eli, and my lucky co-workers.

Lessons learned:
1) I bake better when I drink red wine than white wine.
2) The term 'simmer' leaves too much for interpretation.

Lessons yet to be learned:
3) A week later, there is still a macaroon in the fridge. I'm not sure if it's still safe to eat. I don't think I am going to find out.

Rolled Sugar Cookie Fiasco

OK, so people show up all the time with sugar cookies in the shapes of cute little characters. They are all over Kroger's, all over television, all over everything. So, you know, should be easy, right? Rolled sugar cookies. Got it. Let's get rollin' (no pun intended).

I get my recipe for my Halloween Ghost Sugar Cookies from Southern Living. You definitely cannot go wrong with Southern Living. I mean, it's the staple of the baking world. Dive in, no questions asked...And then something's not quite right. I am not exaggerating when I say that I could knock JD out with the dough. And that's before it's refrigerated for an hour. Now, don't get me wrong: I was tempted to slam JD upside the head, but I did not test out my theory. As frustrated as I was (and JD was in nearest striking distance), I utilized the coping skills I teach my clients every day and took a deep breath and tried option B: the recipe on the back of my cookie cutter packaging. They turned out light and fluffy:

And then just to see what would happen I rolled and cut, with great difficulty and heart-ache, the first recipe. They turned out, well, less fluffy:

Luckily icing was uneventful, and most of the cookies actually resembled ghosts. In the end, both of the recipes worked out. The first looked (and felt) more like shortbread cookies, and the second looked (and felt) like real-life actual sugar cookies. All were eaten and presumable enjoyed by all (well, at least JD and work associates).

Lessons learned:
1) You CAN go wrong with Southern Living (if they misprint the amount of butter needed).
2) Rolled sugar cookie baking is not for the feint of heart.
3) Random acts of violence do make you feel better, but will ruin perfectly decent cookie dough.