I have this recipe for zucchini bread that is just fucking delicious. I mean knock your socks off good. It's moist, flavorful, and not too heavy. I've made it about 5 times now and each time it has come out perfectly. That is until recently.
We spent a grey Sunday up in Flint with some friends who we'd not seen in almost a year. We were having a great time as I was getting the bread ready. I made a slight mistake right off the bat as I'd forgotten to add the eggs. For most recipes, this isn't a big deal because the ingredients don't always have to be added in a certain order. The same is true for zucchini bread. So I just dumped it back into the mixing bowl and gave it an aggressive stir. The egg was thoroughly mixed in and in the oven she went.
Now in my kitchen, which currently houses a crap-tastic oven, this bread takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes to bake, 20 minutes longer than the recipe calls for. An hour after the bread has been in the oven at my friends' place, I take a knife and put it almost at the middle. The knife comes out clean. One would assume this means the bread is finished. That it should be left to cool, then inverted and sliced. In this case that person would be wrong.
I take the bread out and let it cool for almost an hour. I invert it, put it on a plate and start slicing. Everything is going fine until I reach about an inch past where I inserted the knife to test its done-ness. I think to myself, 'Wow, this is one moist batch!'
Right.
So I keep slicing only to find that the other half of the bread is completely raw in the middle. Quickly, I put the bread back in the pan, get it in the oven, turn it up to 350 and leave it for about 20 minutes. I then test it and it's still raw.
Ok.
So I leave it for another 5 minutes. I test it and, indeed, it is still raw.
Another 10 minutes and...raw.
At this point I have been dealing with this bread for hours and just want it over with. Everyone has finished supper and is ready to munch on some bread. At this point, there is nothing I can do to prevent the outside of this bread from burning. All I can try and do is salvage the bottom half of the bread and hope that it is cooked all the way through. So I up the oven to 375 and leave it in there for 20 minutes.
Once that 20 minutes had gone by, I knew there was no way this thing was going back in the oven. I was committed to it be finished in some capacity. I take it out, let it cool a few minutes, invert it, and...raw. Unbelievable. This thing was in the oven for about 2 hours and it's still raw in the middle. Obviously the in and out didn't help, but holy crap. I ended up throwing away the entire crust, the middle, and ending up with about 4 legitimate slices that I then cut up into bite sized nuggets of disappointment. It tasted fine, but disappointing nonetheless.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
A Rude Classic, Does Anyone Read This Damn Thing?
It's pretty obvious that I have taken a long hiatus from this blog and it has been for a multitude of reasons. Let me throw some bullet points at you:
Ritz are delicious and so I'll leave you with that.
- Taking pictures while baking is annoying. I have to stop what I'm doing, wash my hands, and take a bunch of pictures. This has become increasingly difficult as I have taken on more complex recipes that are very time and temperature sensitive while also requiring constant stirring.
- I'm lazy.
- I don't know if anyone reads this.
Ritz are delicious and so I'll leave you with that.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Most of you out there know that I am a very skilled baker, who is also partnered up with a very skilled chef. While my talents have come from practice at home, my partner's come from 17 years of cooking experience ranging from mom and pop Italian to fine dining and just about everything in between. The consequence of this is delicious food, a kitchen that is always in a state of disrepair, and a fat intake that requires an obscene amount of exercise in order to avoid needing one of those rascals.
DIGRESSION
Because of our eating habits, I typically end of biking to work and back. Round trip, this equates to about 12 miles a day. Do that three times and you're at 36 miles, than add on any rides we might take for fun. I also do yoga, but that has little to do with this tangent.
I was biking home the other day after a pretty long day at work, over 9 hours if I remember correctly. I almost always ride on the street with the exception of 3 blocks. This particular road is 4 lanes of one-way traffic, heavy traffic that also has numerous turn lanes. It is a brief gauntlet that scares the bejesus out of me and so I opt for the sidewalk. On this particular day, I saw a man riding on the same sidewalk coming in the opposite direction. He was in a rascal and, without falling into anger-induced stereotypes, let's just say he did not signal that he was in this mobile chair due to glandular problems. I say this as someone who knows people with such ailments who have to use motorized wheelchairs and have articulated to me how to spot those who simply lead an unhealthy lifestyle. Now, I usually wouldn't pay much attention to this except that he, well, aimed for me. No joke. The son of a bitch started grunting and actually tried to run me into heavy traffic. What the hell?!
GET BACK ON TRACK
One night a few months ago, some of the more annoying people we know paid us a visit. These guys in fact:
We decided to make the best of their company and wow them with our culinary skills. Well, it was more my partner who was riding the Wow train. I was just excited to eat some good food. We began with a little of this:
Which was quickly follow by this:
With a touch of that:
Et voila! you have this:
DIGRESSION
Back in 2009, my partner cooked for me for the first time. The relationship was new, in fact it was still "dating" and this was really the first thing either of us did to show our affection for each other He made a rare New York Strip Steak with a blue cheese sauce on top of garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. As I was eating it, he asked me what I thought. All I could say was, "I'm in trouble." To which he replied, "Yes. Yes you are." Almost three years later, he still has my stomach and my heart wrapped around his finger.
STOP BEING CUTE AND GET ON WITH IT!
After eating my partner's perfectly seared scallops, delicious mashed potatoes, and wonderfully crisp asparagus, I felt disappointed in what I was going to make...popovers.
Really? I can't believe I just let him show me up like that!
Thankfully, because the main course was so hefty, a light and airy dessert was just what the people wanted. So they got it:
Let's be real here, that looks pretty damn cute.
Originally I wasn't sure what to do for the topping. The most intrusive of the two guests, Captain Red Shirt whom I suspect is a commie, piped up and suggested doing a simple yet delicious chocolate sauce. He gave me his recipe, incorporating a secret ingredient that proved most delectable. Thank you, commie bastard!
The result was...
Light. Airy. Chocolaty. Delicious.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
I will kill you
A good friend of ours, in fact...
It might look like slop, but this shit is tasty!
So to J and Lady Generous, thank you for everything. I hope to see you both again soon!
...this guy
...recently moved home to New Orleans. He, J, is a great guy and an even better friend. He's someone with whom you can get into a shouting match during a heated debate and then have a great time laughing about a sophomoric joke the next day. In gratitude for all he'd done for us, I decided to surprise him with real, traditional Louisiana Bread Pudding. So I called in some favors from...
this girl.
Ignore that guy. He refused to drink with us in NOLA.
He learned his lesson after he was dropped off in the 9th Ward overnight.
That girl was an old friend of J's. She'd housed Captain No-Fun and us in NOLA before ever meeting us, so I knew I could abuse her generosity further by asking for her input on the Bread Pudding. I looked around different cookbooks and websites, deciding to combine two recipes into one. I ran it by Lady Generous and I was off to make one of the most unhealthy desserts ever wrought from my small, pale hands.
When I begin to describe this Bread Pudding to people, I am frequently met with remarks referring back to one's mother and how said mother's recipe could not be beat. Well you know what? Your mother didn't use doughnuts for the bread.
You read that right. I bought a dozen glaze doughnuts and staled them out in a bag for days, using that as the bread for the Bread Pudding. Conclusion: your mom did not know the real deal.
The first step is to soak the stale doughnuts in milk until they are nice and mushy. You can't overwork them because they'll turn into actual mush. You must walk the line while plagued with doubt.
While the doughnuts are soaking, you prepare the bourbon sauce, adding as much bourbon as you like. I, apparently, like it a lot. Once the sauce is ready, you basically add spices, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and raisins gingerly. The doughnuts are very delicate at this point and they must be treated as such in order to result in the proper fattening of loved ones.
After baking what will become the Bread Pudding, you plate it and add the bourbon sauce. None of us were prepared for how strong yet delicious this would be and so some had to wait before driving home.
It might look like slop, but this shit is tasty!
So to J and Lady Generous, thank you for everything. I hope to see you both again soon!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
EAT S#@T AND LIVE!
Breathe in through the nose.
Hold.
Now out through the mouth.
The prodigal baker returns, internet and stories in tow. I acknowledge it has been a very, very long time and I expect that there is a desire to see what I've been baking these past few months. You must, however, wait because I have a rant that will shed some light on why my few weeks of internetless life became nearly 4 solid months...
It all began with a move into a house. My boyfriend and I took a relatively big leap and decided to rent a house instead of a larger apartment. We found a beautiful home in a wonderful part of town.
We moved in shortly after signing our lease and I began my research of internet and home phone options. This decision was an important one because I was obsessed with being able to use my refurbished rotary phone and, since I had been stealing internet before, I would have to begrudgingly purchase the service in our new home. After many days of research, I decided AT&T was the best choice for the money.
I soon would learn that I was an uneducated fool with an ass for a brain.
I called and set up my service on April 21st and everything went swimmingly. Of course it did, I was a new sale. I ordered my telephone and DSL service, with a free modem/wireless router combo in the mail. Upon receiving my world wide web package, I quickly went to set up my new telecommunications device.
It is at this point that things start to get blurry. I know that I called the next day to set up some kind of service protection thing for $5 a month. I was told something along the lines of, "wait for this to be
applied to your account, which will happen tomorrow, and then report the problems in your service." I did as they asked.
It is at this point that I should mention that I spent 1.5 years working in call centers. I am familiar with efficient, informative systems and terrible systems. Many people who call these centers do not realize that the incompetence of the person on the other line might have nothing to do with their intelligence, but instead with the resources or lack thereof that the company has provided them.
After 4 days and literally dozens of phone calls with no consistent information regarding my simple questions, I canceled my service with AT&T. You may think to yourself that this would explain, at most, maybe 2 weeks of internetless life. You're wrong and you're wrong because AT&T, should it be a person, would more than deserve being set ablaze.
After my run-in with the monopolizing corporation, I looked for a local company to provide me with my internet and home phone service. I found a great one right here in town and they had my request submitted with 15 minutes of the call. The problem, though, is that AT&T has a monopoly on the telephone lines (again) and the local company had to literally lease the use of the telephone lines from the multinational corporation. Frustrating, yet simple, right?
Nope. Because I had recently been an AT&T customer, the local company was unable to get permission to use the lines. Despite having canceled my service, AT&T had yet to process the cancellation. So we waited...then we tried again...to find the same response.
At this point I called AT&T and donated some rage. Like so many of my calls with them, the individual on the phone was kind and sincerely wanted to help me. The problem, however, is that within the same god damn call I would speak with multiple people who would all either tell me different things or not know how to access the right information. In one call, I was told I owed them over $150, even though services were not rendered, and another person told me I had a credit on my account, even though I had not paid them anything. This is how AT&T works, like a pot head roommate who doesn't remember shit and so they just make stuff up.
To make what is already a long story short, let me say that this went on until early July until I finally had to give up on my wonderfully helpful and patient local company. I am now a Comcast customer and remain so for one year until my contract expires. At that time, I will return to my local company, assuming that AT&T hasn't bought them out.
So, Nasty, what did you do with your time while you were unable to search the 'web.' Well, readers, I fucking baked!
My neighbor at my old apartment was having a hard time and wanted chocolate. I had chocolate chips and cocoa powder so I figured I would assault him with both. I began by doing what every baker does and mixed the dry ingredients.
Pretty normal so far. I then mixed the wet ingredients together, then mixed the dry and wet to make what seemed like a strangely dry, thick dough. I then had to reread the recipe because it called for making logs of the dough, wrapping them in seran wrap, and chilling overnight.
Ok, but...
Hold.
Now out through the mouth.
The prodigal baker returns, internet and stories in tow. I acknowledge it has been a very, very long time and I expect that there is a desire to see what I've been baking these past few months. You must, however, wait because I have a rant that will shed some light on why my few weeks of internetless life became nearly 4 solid months...
It all began with a move into a house. My boyfriend and I took a relatively big leap and decided to rent a house instead of a larger apartment. We found a beautiful home in a wonderful part of town.
We moved in shortly after signing our lease and I began my research of internet and home phone options. This decision was an important one because I was obsessed with being able to use my refurbished rotary phone and, since I had been stealing internet before, I would have to begrudgingly purchase the service in our new home. After many days of research, I decided AT&T was the best choice for the money.I soon would learn that I was an uneducated fool with an ass for a brain.
I called and set up my service on April 21st and everything went swimmingly. Of course it did, I was a new sale. I ordered my telephone and DSL service, with a free modem/wireless router combo in the mail. Upon receiving my world wide web package, I quickly went to set up my new telecommunications device.
Let's just say it didn't work. Nothing worked. No dial tone on my phone and nothing happening with the modem/router. So I call AT&T...at 10pm at night.
Anyone who lives in the US knows why I shouldn't have done that.
applied to your account, which will happen tomorrow, and then report the problems in your service." I did as they asked.
It is at this point that I should mention that I spent 1.5 years working in call centers. I am familiar with efficient, informative systems and terrible systems. Many people who call these centers do not realize that the incompetence of the person on the other line might have nothing to do with their intelligence, but instead with the resources or lack thereof that the company has provided them.
After 4 days and literally dozens of phone calls with no consistent information regarding my simple questions, I canceled my service with AT&T. You may think to yourself that this would explain, at most, maybe 2 weeks of internetless life. You're wrong and you're wrong because AT&T, should it be a person, would more than deserve being set ablaze.
After my run-in with the monopolizing corporation, I looked for a local company to provide me with my internet and home phone service. I found a great one right here in town and they had my request submitted with 15 minutes of the call. The problem, though, is that AT&T has a monopoly on the telephone lines (again) and the local company had to literally lease the use of the telephone lines from the multinational corporation. Frustrating, yet simple, right?
Nope. Because I had recently been an AT&T customer, the local company was unable to get permission to use the lines. Despite having canceled my service, AT&T had yet to process the cancellation. So we waited...then we tried again...to find the same response.
At this point I called AT&T and donated some rage. Like so many of my calls with them, the individual on the phone was kind and sincerely wanted to help me. The problem, however, is that within the same god damn call I would speak with multiple people who would all either tell me different things or not know how to access the right information. In one call, I was told I owed them over $150, even though services were not rendered, and another person told me I had a credit on my account, even though I had not paid them anything. This is how AT&T works, like a pot head roommate who doesn't remember shit and so they just make stuff up.
To make what is already a long story short, let me say that this went on until early July until I finally had to give up on my wonderfully helpful and patient local company. I am now a Comcast customer and remain so for one year until my contract expires. At that time, I will return to my local company, assuming that AT&T hasn't bought them out.
So, Nasty, what did you do with your time while you were unable to search the 'web.' Well, readers, I fucking baked!
- triple fudge cookies
- lemon meringue
- apple pie
- tres leche
- Mexican coffee popsicles
- blackberry cobbler
- strawberry rhubarb dessert
- dairy-free peach cobbler
- strawberry summer cake with barley flour
- regular peach cobbler
- strawberry rhubarb pie
- baked alaska
- strawberry compote
- Boston cream pie
- French silk pie
- German pancakes
My neighbor at my old apartment was having a hard time and wanted chocolate. I had chocolate chips and cocoa powder so I figured I would assault him with both. I began by doing what every baker does and mixed the dry ingredients.
Pretty normal so far. I then mixed the wet ingredients together, then mixed the dry and wet to make what seemed like a strangely dry, thick dough. I then had to reread the recipe because it called for making logs of the dough, wrapping them in seran wrap, and chilling overnight.
Ok, but...
it looks
like
shit.
I swear this was not intentional. It really did just turn out this way, though not to my disappointment. So I did as instructed and wrapped them up.
Appetizing, right?
The next day I cut these pieces of crap into little disks and arranged them on the appropriate cookie sheet.
I still had hope at this point, but it was foolish on my part. They were very dry and disappointing to eat. After munching on a few, I opted for a nap.
Now you know what I look like...a sleepy blond.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Must...have...the grossness!
This is my first, and I hope only, non-baking related post. I recently moved and in doing so, encountered the hell that is AT&T. Suffice it to say, they are bastards and will get theirs. Them being bastards is why I have not updated in so long. I've been baking and baking good, but without internet at home I cannot update this. I am updating this right now from work. I hope they don't mind much. I'm just trying to explain my absence.
So please know that I exist and am still pumping out baked goods. There will be many posts to enjoy once I have access to the world wide web again. Thanks y'all!
p.s. Vote on what I should make "next!"
So please know that I exist and am still pumping out baked goods. There will be many posts to enjoy once I have access to the world wide web again. Thanks y'all!
p.s. Vote on what I should make "next!"
Friday, April 22, 2011
When In Doubt, Add Cheese
Apple pie is a beautiful thing. It's simple, delicious, and comforting. I had thought nothing could improve upon it until a few months ago when a friend asked me if I'd ever put a, get this, slice of cheddar cheese on a piece of warm apple pie.
Suddenly my whole life was thrown into question. Why had I not thought of this? Had my then 26 years of life without cheese on my pie meant that those years had no meaning? The answer was yes and I intended to change that. To do this, I took a few simple, important steps;
- Buy a shitload of apples
- Buy a brick of cheese
- Invite that creepy friend over to eat the scraps
- Make
- Nosh
Steps one and two were easy enough. Who doesn't love to buy copious amounts of fruit and cheese? No really, who?
My boyfriend and I then took on step three, which was harder than you'd think. The poor guy was in the middle of writing his dissertation and it took substantial effort to tear him away from it. Baked goods are usually what persuades him in the end.
Look at how happy he is by all those apple peels. I find his love of them to be amusing and very peculiar. At least it means I don't have to waste them!
Step four sucked. It really did and here's why. I followed a recipe that involved me grating the cheese and working it into the dough. This seemed logically sound at first, but when it came to rolling it out, I broke into a sweat in the middle of March trying to get this stuff flat. It was rubbery and would pull back after lifting the pin. In the future, I'll sprinkle cheese on the bottom inside of the crust and on the top of the outside.
I was really pissed when I took this picture. The rolling was really difficult, but also the dough was so thick that actually making the cute little apple pies proved to be far too much of a challenge. With muffin cups being the size that they are and the cheese making this dough very thick, I was left omitting the top crust on a few of them during some flirtations with rage quit. Here is a picture of what those looked like:
That's also my hand. Now you know what that looks like.
All in all this was a yummy recipe, but in the future I'll sprinkle the pies with cheese when they're about half way done. I might just do that with apple pie in general because after all, everything is better with cheese.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Would you like some freaky ass muffins?
In the past few months, everyone and their mother has gotten pregnant. Two friends in Minnesota and now a third one here in Michigan. Seeing as I can't really fatten up my MN buddies, I've chosen to add to the body mass of the with-child lady here in MI.
Despite being a freakishly adorable pregnant woman, something I am sure others resent her for, she's had some very real difficulties keeping food down. Any food. All food. Yet I am to bake for this woman, no I must bake for this woman. I am a masochist and will take on the challenge with such brazen arrogance that I might begin to bake blindly. My example of this is my voyage into the realm of Olive Oil Muffins.
When I read the recipe for this, I made two very serious mistakes. First, I assumed that the delicate flavor of olive oil with the zest of citrus fruits would ease her stomach. Second, I failed to see that there was balsamic vinegar in the recipe and a lot of it. Shit.
So I start making it...
Look at all that pretty, cheerful zest and sugar. It says to you, "I'm going to be sweet and light and yummy and you'll go weeeeeeeeeee." Little do you know you are a naive fool destined for peculiar disappointment.
Lost in my delusion, I bake on.
Still looking like normal muffin batter and then...
Balsami-what?! Ah shit!
I promised baked goods. She wanted muffins. She's expecting them.
There is no turning back.
With some pretty intense trepidation, I put them in the oven. Now my boyfriend will be the first to tell you that I always doubt my baking. It never fails. I will get to a point with a recipe and I will say something to the effect of "I don't know about this." 99% of the time I am wrong and what comes out is a delicious treat that rarely lasts the night. This time I was right.
I will go on record as saying that these are better at room temperature than warm, though not by much. The heat makes the balsamic vinegar really intense and overpowering. The citrus comes out more at room temperature. Sadly though, they still taste weird. I wouldn't say bad, but just strange. They weren't light, like I'd hoped, and the flavor was too rich. Basically they turned into the exact opposite of what I'd hoped they would be and I was left with no choice but to wrap them up and send them to my pregnant friend who'd been suffering from extreme morning sickness, my friend who just wanted some god damn muffins.
She still hasn't said whether or not she liked them and I must admit, her silence is deafening.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Whoopie Gluttony! and a post-script question...
In the summer of 2009, I moved to Toronto for graduate school, bringing my relationship with my boyfriend into that hellish realm of long-distance. During my time in Toronto, or TO, I would travel to Michigan to spend time with my wonderful man. During my visits and throughout my time now spent living with him in this fair state, I've come across something peculiar; whoopie pies. In all my travels and lives spent in Canada and Minnesota, I'd never even heard of these. During this same time, I have also not eaten one since the majority of places who offer baked goods only provide crisco, cheap ingredients, and a severe lack of love.
So I made my own. Whoopie! (this whoopie is brought to you in part by...)
Look at it! Just look at it! What a beautiful machine that will help with my carpel tunnel and provide a far-from-endless amount of entertainment! So, crass lady, what did you do with it?
I mixed some shit.
First I did the standard creaming of wet things. I took the shortening (something I hardly ever use), butter, sugars and mixed them right up without breaking a sweat, then adding the eggs and vanilla. I also got to learn the valuable lesson of scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl...
Whoa, look at her go! Whhhoooooopieee!
I'll stop that now.
I then mixed the dry ingredients and made the filling, adding the dry to the buttery business in the electronic mixer.
This is essentially cake batter made thicker so that you can make drops of it onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. You then just pop them in the oven and make what are really just tiny cakes. While they're baking, make the filling and get ready to spread some cheesy, fatty, sugary joy all over your creation.
Mmmmmmm. This mixture is cream cheese, butter, sugar, vanilla, and I added some maple syrup because, well, that should be added to just about everything. Then once the pies had cooled, the smearing began and overly large and delicious whoopie pies came to be.
When making the chocolate halves, I used a standard tablespoon for dolloping the cake batter. I think these would have been perfect if I'd used standard teaspoons instead. They were very yummy, but were a bit too much. As far as taste goes though, I certainly brought everyone to flavor country.
Post-script: I would really like to make this blog popular and while I have been researching how, I would greatly appreciate any feedback you might have to help me improve this. Please comment below with your suggestions and criticisms!
So I made my own. Whoopie! (this whoopie is brought to you in part by...)
Look at it! Just look at it! What a beautiful machine that will help with my carpel tunnel and provide a far-from-endless amount of entertainment! So, crass lady, what did you do with it?
I mixed some shit.
First I did the standard creaming of wet things. I took the shortening (something I hardly ever use), butter, sugars and mixed them right up without breaking a sweat, then adding the eggs and vanilla. I also got to learn the valuable lesson of scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl...
Whoa, look at her go! Whhhoooooopieee!
I'll stop that now.
I then mixed the dry ingredients and made the filling, adding the dry to the buttery business in the electronic mixer.
This is essentially cake batter made thicker so that you can make drops of it onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. You then just pop them in the oven and make what are really just tiny cakes. While they're baking, make the filling and get ready to spread some cheesy, fatty, sugary joy all over your creation.
Mmmmmmm. This mixture is cream cheese, butter, sugar, vanilla, and I added some maple syrup because, well, that should be added to just about everything. Then once the pies had cooled, the smearing began and overly large and delicious whoopie pies came to be.
When making the chocolate halves, I used a standard tablespoon for dolloping the cake batter. I think these would have been perfect if I'd used standard teaspoons instead. They were very yummy, but were a bit too much. As far as taste goes though, I certainly brought everyone to flavor country.
Post-script: I would really like to make this blog popular and while I have been researching how, I would greatly appreciate any feedback you might have to help me improve this. Please comment below with your suggestions and criticisms!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Hey. How you doin? Been a while...
Like the title says, it's been a while. Work has been extremely busy, which has left me too tired to either post or bake. I also went here
Oh Toronto. The place I hate to love and love to hate. I lived there for about a year for grad school (yup, I'm educated...I think) and lived just around the corner from where this picture was taken. This is the ice rink at Christie Pits Park and I just love the view of Canadians ice skating with the CN Tower in the background. It broke my heart that I wasn't able to walk along this stretch of road at night when all the lights are lit up. There's nothing quite like it.
Anyways, what the fuck have I baked? Well this post is somewhat of a deviation from the norm; I made Chex Mix. Not my usual sugary offering, but Chex Mix is delicious and does involve using the oven. It counts. I swear.
This is my boyfriend's mom's recipe and stems from the archaic 1950's era when butter and salt were the staples of the American diet. That's changed, right? Right? There are a lack of photos in this post due to the same friend who comes over all the time. Here is proof of his existence.
Someone like that in your home would most certainly distract you. I'm just sayin. Now back to the Chex Mix.
This is an extremely easy recipe and results in an excessively salty snack. Suffice it to say, I love the shit. There is a LOT of butter, Worcestershire Sauce, Seasoning Salt, salted peanuts, AND pretzels. This stuff is seriously heart clogging and I'm sure it's correlated with the rates of heart disease amongst baby boomers. So let's keep those numbers up and keep winning!
So there you have the mix of Chex or Chex Mix (hahahaha!!!!!! yeah!) alongside its buttery, salty harlot. In a large roasting pan, you get the cereal and pretzels all mixed up (hahaha) and then pour the butter-salt-sauce over it. Use the spatula and do your best to coat as much of the mixture as possible. Then put it in the over and stir thoroughly every 15 minutes for 45 minutes. In the end you'll have this
A delicious, salty, nutty treat that everyone will love. This batch lasted less than one day and I invite you to take note of the paper towels needed to soak up the excess butter fat that oozes itself down to the bottom, leaving the nastiest, tastiest bits to be eaten last. Enjoy!
Oh Toronto. The place I hate to love and love to hate. I lived there for about a year for grad school (yup, I'm educated...I think) and lived just around the corner from where this picture was taken. This is the ice rink at Christie Pits Park and I just love the view of Canadians ice skating with the CN Tower in the background. It broke my heart that I wasn't able to walk along this stretch of road at night when all the lights are lit up. There's nothing quite like it.
Anyways, what the fuck have I baked? Well this post is somewhat of a deviation from the norm; I made Chex Mix. Not my usual sugary offering, but Chex Mix is delicious and does involve using the oven. It counts. I swear.
This is my boyfriend's mom's recipe and stems from the archaic 1950's era when butter and salt were the staples of the American diet. That's changed, right? Right? There are a lack of photos in this post due to the same friend who comes over all the time. Here is proof of his existence.
Someone like that in your home would most certainly distract you. I'm just sayin. Now back to the Chex Mix.
This is an extremely easy recipe and results in an excessively salty snack. Suffice it to say, I love the shit. There is a LOT of butter, Worcestershire Sauce, Seasoning Salt, salted peanuts, AND pretzels. This stuff is seriously heart clogging and I'm sure it's correlated with the rates of heart disease amongst baby boomers. So let's keep those numbers up and keep winning!
So there you have the mix of Chex or Chex Mix (hahahaha!!!!!! yeah!) alongside its buttery, salty harlot. In a large roasting pan, you get the cereal and pretzels all mixed up (hahaha) and then pour the butter-salt-sauce over it. Use the spatula and do your best to coat as much of the mixture as possible. Then put it in the over and stir thoroughly every 15 minutes for 45 minutes. In the end you'll have this
A delicious, salty, nutty treat that everyone will love. This batch lasted less than one day and I invite you to take note of the paper towels needed to soak up the excess butter fat that oozes itself down to the bottom, leaving the nastiest, tastiest bits to be eaten last. Enjoy!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Tiramisu Cake Duo: aka BAM
WARNING: I am extremely sarcastic and while most who know me are very aware of this, it does not translate well when used in online forums. The greatest compliment I've ever received was that my deadpan is reminiscent of Bill Murray's. Now imagine trying to read his blog about baking. I hope you get the point.
With that out of the way, there is a girl I know who is all right. I am sure I could do better as far as friends go, but I'm lazy and it's purely a matter of convenience. So she comes to me with this recipe and says, and I quote, "Oh baking goddess of the northern United States, please guide me in making a Tiramisu Cake as I feel emotionally and intellectually ill-equipped to perform such a task. If you do this, I will forever be in your debt." So I decide to help her out of pity. Not because she's my friend. No way.
Let the cake adventure begin!
We first began by making the espresso syrup and concentrate, mainly her tasks since I was sure she'd accidentally spit in it or something. She's gross and spits on things. So anyway, here is a picture of her hand doing the things:
Notice how her hands shake with anxiety over the simplest task...
She continued making the concentrate while I made the cake batter, a very simple task so I spent much of the time taking pictures of her as she struggled. Here is more evidence:
Still shaking and hiding her face in fear. Fear of what, though? Failure? Of this I am sure. Back to the god damn point, there's the concentrate. We weren't able to find espresso powder, which is what the recipe called for and this lead to what you'll find to be my one gripe with this cake. Before that can happen though, I must continue to degrade whatsherface.
As proof that I did in fact do something for this cake, here you can see the cake itself with the extra added perk of an owl shape baked into one of the two made. There were actually two layers, but only one displayed my awesome abilities of baking assorted avian shapes into things at random.
Sometimes I stare in the mirror for hours looking at my face in awe of my skills and stunning beauty.
Then came the time to ice the cake, something that who-the-hell-is-that did surprisingly well. We made the icing ourselves with everyone taking turns at whipping the cheese and heavy cream. Seeing as I had to yet get a mixer, this was an arduous task and resulted in comments about my "guns" from the girl I keep talking about. Clearly she has yet to learn basic social skills, something at which I fault her greatly.
Before and after being dusted with cocoa powder, the deliciousness was close at hand.
Looks good right? Well we were all so excited about this that we decided to put on some David Bowie and dance.
There she is, looking down at the ground in shame of her inability to dance, interact with animate objects, and sweat. The other two are great though and really outshine her in every way. They are just great company and so I fed them the cake after I convinced her it was time for me to go to bed. Here are the cake's innards.
So here is my gripe: the cake was pretty dry. The espresso, being regular and not powder, I think lead to the syrup not infusing properly into the cake. Even after sitting overnight, it still was delicious frosting with some pretty dry cake that didn't balance out. I would make this again, but only if I had access to the espresso powder and I would definitely make it with Whatsherface. She's a great sport, a good friend, and always a joy to be around. She should really work on the sweating thing though. Her B.O. is out of control.
With that out of the way, there is a girl I know who is all right. I am sure I could do better as far as friends go, but I'm lazy and it's purely a matter of convenience. So she comes to me with this recipe and says, and I quote, "Oh baking goddess of the northern United States, please guide me in making a Tiramisu Cake as I feel emotionally and intellectually ill-equipped to perform such a task. If you do this, I will forever be in your debt." So I decide to help her out of pity. Not because she's my friend. No way.
Let the cake adventure begin!
We first began by making the espresso syrup and concentrate, mainly her tasks since I was sure she'd accidentally spit in it or something. She's gross and spits on things. So anyway, here is a picture of her hand doing the things:
Notice how her hands shake with anxiety over the simplest task...
She continued making the concentrate while I made the cake batter, a very simple task so I spent much of the time taking pictures of her as she struggled. Here is more evidence:
As proof that I did in fact do something for this cake, here you can see the cake itself with the extra added perk of an owl shape baked into one of the two made. There were actually two layers, but only one displayed my awesome abilities of baking assorted avian shapes into things at random.
Sometimes I stare in the mirror for hours looking at my face in awe of my skills and stunning beauty.
Then came the time to ice the cake, something that who-the-hell-is-that did surprisingly well. We made the icing ourselves with everyone taking turns at whipping the cheese and heavy cream. Seeing as I had to yet get a mixer, this was an arduous task and resulted in comments about my "guns" from the girl I keep talking about. Clearly she has yet to learn basic social skills, something at which I fault her greatly.
 |
Before and after being dusted with cocoa powder, the deliciousness was close at hand.
Looks good right? Well we were all so excited about this that we decided to put on some David Bowie and dance.
There she is, looking down at the ground in shame of her inability to dance, interact with animate objects, and sweat. The other two are great though and really outshine her in every way. They are just great company and so I fed them the cake after I convinced her it was time for me to go to bed. Here are the cake's innards.
So here is my gripe: the cake was pretty dry. The espresso, being regular and not powder, I think lead to the syrup not infusing properly into the cake. Even after sitting overnight, it still was delicious frosting with some pretty dry cake that didn't balance out. I would make this again, but only if I had access to the espresso powder and I would definitely make it with Whatsherface. She's a great sport, a good friend, and always a joy to be around. She should really work on the sweating thing though. Her B.O. is out of control.
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