Fail Blog

Yesterday was a little insane. Brad and I had our engagement photo session and I took the entire day off in order to feel less stressed- I could have just left work at lunch and made it to our appointment on time. I'm glad I didn't.
It started the night before, when I forgot I was taking the following day off. I left a conference call with some folks in China to run out of work at 5:30 in order to make our catering tasting by 6. I told my coworker I would follow up on a handful of things the following morning. On my way to the tasting, I realized that was impossible because I wouldn't be at work the following morning! I had tried to make the most of my day off and scheduled Jeepers' vaccinations for 8:30am. So I resolved to come back into work to finish things up after the tasting. I returned to work at 8:30pm and wrapped things up at 10.. was in bed by midnight.. then..
Took Jeepers to the vet at 8:30 (somebody tell me why the vet always takes at least an hour.. with 30 minutes of waiting despite being the first appt of the day??), ran home, got changed, got a manicure at 10, had a makeup trial at 11:00, got my hair blow dried at 12:45, made it home at 1:50 to a barely dressed Brad, and showed up to our photo shoot at 2:06 (6 minutes late!), had a blast pretending to know how to take good pictures, then at 4:30 we visited with Brad's sister who is in town, and then made it home in time to eat a TV dinner, and get started on 24 strawberry cupcakes and a chocolate cake at 7:30pm.
I was so tired I almost just went to bed, and maybe I should have. I offered to make strawberry cupcakes for my dear coworker's birthday and was excited to do it. I tried out a different Martha recipe despite having used another one of her strawberry cupcake recipes with some success, but not any fantastical memories as it was basically a white cake with strawberry chunks baked in. I guess I was hoping to get a really pink moist cake this time around. FAIL. I should have known, because the recipe I got was Martha's version of Sprinkle's strawberry cupcakes. In summary, they came out like dense, flavorless, sickly brown muffins. I attempted to fix this by coring out the cupcakes and filling with a fresh homemade strawberry sauce, and it seemed promising. I planned a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, but had few eggs, and I wanted to try out using pre-separated egg whites, the kind in a carton. Big mistake. Huge. The egg whites did not fluff up at all, they just turned into a white liquid goo. I had to toss it and go with a basic buttercream, the crunchy kind Edith likes, but with no shortening. The end result was nothing more than a concoction and it made me so sad. I couldn't even decorate them cutely. The goofy decor on top was a sweet gift from Brad, but looks a little odd out of context.. it was part of a whole love and peace hippie motif:

I still had a chocolate cake to make, so I moved on. Brad's sister was coming over the following night to celebrate her birthday with us. Thank god I had boxed- it's what Brad and his dad like, and let's get real, it's good. But it still took time and it meant I wasn't in bed until about midnight again after cleanup, etc. I was beated!
Then, on my way to the car with all the cupcakes this morning, I lost my grip on the pan and the cupcakes went flying down and landed with a crashing boom thunder bang. Brad hollered from the bedroom, telling me how awful whatever just happened sounded. I grumbled at him and surveyed the damage. Fortunately, only a couple flew the coop onto the floor.. unfortunately, several had done a flip and landed sideways or upside down in the pan. I salvaged what I could and decided there's no use crying over spilled cuppies. They had been refridgerated so they didn't lose much frosting and looked decent.
People seemed to like them, but they'll eat anything. I'll never make them again.. and I would recommend you avoid the Martha/Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes recipe. But it was a learning experience and I do have good ideas for future strawberry cupcakes! It's all in the sauce...
Oh, and Denice loved her chocolate cake, which Brad ended up frosting. We only had one can of frosting and he had trouble making it spread over the entire cake.. adorable. We all loved it though! No pictures, but a brief video just for fun:

Wedding Cake

Brad and I are engaged and doing all the exciting/crazy things people do/have to do when they are preparing for a wedding. So far we have booked our wedding ceremony and reception sites, I bought my dress, and we booked a photographer. We have pretty much decided on the caterer because they have a contract with the reception site and we have heard great things- all we need to do is the tasting and pick a menu. Next up on our list is DJ and Florist.

By now, most couples would have started going to cake tasting appointments. Brad and I have not discussed it and I find it hilarious it hasn't crossed our minds to engage in this very special rite of passage, which is probably because we both knew from the beginning that I would be making the cake. This decision is not meant to shock or excite people.. in fact, I figured it would just be me and a couple of my geeky baker friends who would be excited or even care. Not so.

The reactions have been from mild shock to people downright arguing with me about how it will not be fun and I will not have time and will be too stressed out (even a potential photographer! thanks, Brad).

Okay, now the brat comes out. Let me ask.. when has it ever been appropriate to not do something you absolutely love, simply because something might go wrong or it might be a little time consuming? NEVER! Why punish yourself with fear? The amazing thing is if something goes wrong, life actually does go on (unless of course you love skydiving and your chute doesn't open). Seriously.. I cannot believe the number of people who are actually trying to talk me out of making my own cake with the argument that it will not be fun. Um, making my own dress wouldn't be fun because I don't know how and don't have a passion for clothing design or sewing! Making my cake WILL be fun because I love to bake. It will still be fun if something goes wrong because I would have tried to do something challenging in the process. And come on.. it's cake!! If it doesn't come out right, so be it. We will cut into a Costco sheet cake at the reception and laugh for the rest of our lives. The point is, we will make it work.

Back up plans are great and all, but I am super confident about this cake. Willful will be helping. It will be delicious because we are making our favorite cakes. It will be gorgeous because we have a simple, bright, and elegant design planned. It will be fun because when Willful and Collie get together.. everything is fun! We also work well together, swapping the role of whiner and leader effortlessly until a job is done. If we could find the Trevi Fountain on a gloomy day with an ill-planned map, we can do anything. Ha! I am really excited.

I still think it's funny Brad and I haven't gone to tastings and would very much like to correct this. I'm interested to try some cakes and see what Brad likes.. he tends to have favorite things that are cheap.. like boxed cake, russel stover chocolate, etc. Even in Italy his favorite gelato was this generic tasting chocolate flavor he got in Padua that tasted like Thrifty ice cream..you know, the square scoops? Hilarious.

Yay for cake!

Apple Pie

I love making apple pie.. but I've always cheated on the crust. Why? Because every gosh darn recipe out there says to use a food processor to make your dough. I don't have one! Or a pastry cutter thingy! And shortening don't live here.. so any crust that is made with it is not eligible either. The prospect of making crust always seems doomed.

Alas, my former boss had a birthday last Friday and I signed up to make apple pie since she is not a cake person. A while back, she actually bought me the most neato thing ever for peeling and coring apples. Anyhoo.. since we had Thursday off, thank you Veterans, I decided it would be a good first go at making my own pie crust.

It seems simple enough.. mix some flour with butter and cold water. Don't be fooled, it is a science. You want to get the butter incorporated and have the whole thing look like crumbs while the butter is still cold. This means no touching and working very fast so the butter doesn't get warm and melt all over the flour. Still without a food processor or pastry cutter, I used this handheld half-moon shaped knife thing to cut the butter into the flour, chopping like a maniac for at least 5 minutes. It worked out really well! I didn't even have any trouble balling up my dough to refrigerate, which required touching. After about an hour of chilling, I was vury vury scurred to roll out the dough so I could mold it into my pie shell.. it was the moment of truth. But it rolled superbly! My recipe told me to roll it out on a lightly floured piece of parchent paper- I really think that made all the difference. The apple peeling, coring, and slicing was a breeze. While the pie shell continued to chill, I mixed the apples with sugar and spices and excitedly piled them into my shell. Then I covered the top with a second dough I had rolled out, pinched up the corners, cut steam holes, brushed on an egg wash, and baked my pie up. **I'm aware I look very cross-eyed in the picture on the left!

I had almost forgotten one of the major reasons I dislike making my own pie.. the dome issue. The top crust forms a dome from all the apples, and when the pie bakes, the apples bake down, but the crust stays domed. This equals an air pocket in the middle, and awkward cutting later. I googled this later, and learned a little trick, in which you cook the apples first then bake them in your pie.. apparently they don't shrink twice! I will try this next time.

Sadly, I never got a picture of the finished pie, only one of it going into the oven. It looked the same as below, only brown. The crust was delish.. but, the apples were too tart. I guess I didn't add enough sugar!

If you like pie, you might check out Wilfull's hilarious apple pie entry on her blog, Cooking on the Farm.

Water for Elephants, Cupcakes for Book Club

I joined my first evar book club recently, which I am extra excited about. But I completely failed to read the first book, Life of Pi. I just couldn't get into it. This month's book was Water for Elephants.. a novel I completely avoided reading because I'm a brat and don't like reading hyped up books (unless of course I happen to read it before it gets hyped up). Whatever, I'm not the only one. :P In the spirit of trying new things, I put on my big girl pants and mustered up the courage to read a popular book.

Water for Elephants, a book about a young man who runs away to join the circus, was a fast enjoyable read. There was little depth to the characters and more raunch than I expected, but the story flowed which is always nice when you're reading a book in a short amount of time (yes, one month is short for me). I expect it will translate really well to the screen and can't imagine how anyone could screw it up. However, Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon are cast.. and without spoiling, I'll only say I just don't see how that will work for Reese, bless her heart.

I wanted to help out the hostess of our meeting, so I offered to make dessert. Upon finishing the circus tale, I decided playfully decorated cupcakes would fit the mood. I went with chocolate because it is my fave, and had two frostings: cream cheese and chocolate. In the end it worked out well.. the alternating colors resembled the liberty horses in the book.

I had to make them when I got home from work.. at 5:30.. and have them out the door.. at 7:15. When I got home, I was a machine.. it was a beautiful thing. I took care of boiling water and mixing with the cocoa powders to start, melted the chocolate chips for the frosting, threw together the cupcake batter, put 12 cupcakes in the oven, busted out the rest of the chocolate frosting, put 12 more cupcakes in the oven, threw 12 minis in the oven with the extra batter I had, did all the dishes, took the cupcakes out, busted out the cream cheese frosting, did more dishes, piped all the cupcakes, decorated, took pictures, packed them up, and was out the door only three minutes late at 7:18. That's my kind of marathon!!

I think they came out super cute, too. The majority had dum dums sticking out the top which looked like balloons (thanks Halloween), and they all had sprinkles. Only 5 of us showed up to book club. The hostess made the most delicious chili, and we all scarfed down at least two cupcakes each. But I still have extra.. any bidders???

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Longest Break Evar! + Spice Cupcakes

Dear friends,

I have missed you! I took a break from the baking blog to start an Italy travel blog, then took a break after Italy that lasted way longer than I expected! Italy was so much fun, I guess I needed a while to recover :)

While we were there, we saw lots of bakery shop displays. One thing that was expected but still surprising was that none of the shops had cakes or cupcakes, they mostly had biscotti, pastries, and other sweets all on display, lined up perfectly. I think it's where the term "eye candy" came from. Imagine a whole storefront display covered in all different kinds of sweets in every pretty color imaginable. And the packaging is to die for. In Florence, especially, they used special Florentine paper to wrap things up, and everything was tied with beautiful ribbons. The less fancy stores just had pastries galore, and I had the best "brioche" of my life at one of these places. It was a giant croissant type thing with a chocolate/hazelnut filling, kind of like nutella but better. I know, you must be asking, is that possible??? YES! Drool drool drool. I would weigh 400 pounds if I had my way and ate one for breakfast every morning for the rest of my life. Fortunately, they're tucked away on a tiny street in Vernazza and out of reach.

Back at home, I've been a bit lazy. It took me a few days to even remember that I had to do dishes and chores.. I was so used to only worrying about a back pack and how to navigate the Italian trains and streets. It took even longer to remember that take-out is easy but not necessary, and that I liked to bake for fun. Bizarre how two weeks away from home can totally change everything!

My first opportunity to bake came when I was about to see my new favorite triplets for the first time. Mom mentioned spice cake the night before my visit (hello, why didn't I think of it! Italy induced zombieness!!). I had to pick a recipe based on the ingredients I had on hand, and ended up going with Martha's recipe which she passed on from her mother. It seemed easy enough and I whipped them up pretty quick, but it was obvious about 10 minutes into baking that these weren't the best cupcakes. Sure enough, they came out a bit rubbery and super spicy. The recipe called for an icing, but that bored me. I would have rather topped with a cream cheese frosting, but didn't have any cream cheese, so I went with vanilla buttercream. They came out cute but sadly, they were nothing special. I felt bad bringing them to such an extraordinary hard working mother of three newborns, but decided she wouldn't mind and probably wouldn't notice they weren't the best because she'd be a zombie, too. :) And besides.. when I got there, it was all about the babies! They're adorable!!!

I had another request for spice cupcakes for a coworkers birthday, and was determined to get it right this time. I am a huge fan of buttermilk cakes, so I googled a recipe for buttermilk spice cupcakes and found a total winner. You make them like you'd make a chiffon cake, with egg whites whipped in at the end, and they came out super moist and fluffy. Martha's cream cheese frosting on top is the perfect compliment. I brought them in for the coworkers birthday/halloween potluck and they were a hit. Cream cheese frosting makes any cupcake outstanding, though! This time I remembered to take a photo:




Happy belated Halloween and hurrah hurray for Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up!!

xo
Collie

Flat-a-tat-tat

I was craving frozen yogurt the other night, so I decided to make chocolate chip cookies. Doesn't make any sense, I know. I guess my brain said "give me sweet!" but I didn't feel like driving so I thought of what I could make with what I had on hand. Also, we had just finished watching Food Network's Challenge show, and the challenge was chocolate. Brad kept saying how much he wanted chocolate while I kept thinking how tasty some froyo would be. Chocolate won, as usual.

I always use the Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, found on the back of the semi sweet or milk chocolate chips they sell, with great success. The only worry I had was that Ghirardelli's chips seemed to have doubled in size since the last time I made them. Seriously, they are huge.. it's almost comical. I got over my initial shock to make the dough as usual, bake as usual... then.. I took the cookies out to find they were flatter than pancakes. I was bewildered. Why so flat! I've noticed a trend lately in absurdly flat homemade cookies (no offense, Lala). Even the cookies in the image on Ghirardelli's website show flatty acid cookies!! The promo image on the right is exactly how my cookies came out.

The cookies ended up tasting just fine, but they were just way too thin and breaky. I prefer a more substantial cookie that's got a bit of a crisp around the edges with some chew, then soft and dreamy in the middle, almost cakey. I used to achieve this with the Gharardelli recipe. Not this time. I even refridgerated some of the dough overnight and baked it cold the next day.. and still.. flatties. I'm thinking it could be the size of the chips.. or maybe the fact that I used fancier flour (King Arthur since I had it on hand from the brownies). In the end though, this is a disastrophe that I will happily do-over.

Oh, and Brad loved them :)

Brownies and Bananas

Friends, it's been so long! I have missed you.

Alas, my real life has gotten in the way of my fantasy baking life again. The theme of August was the letter B: BUSY!, bonkers, bouncy, brownies, and bananas- and not just the fruit! But this is a baking blog so I'll stick with the last two items on my list, brownies and bananas.

Not too long ago, Willful kindly recommended the world's best brownie recipe, found on the back of King Arthur All Purpose Unbleached Flour, or here, on their website. Upon first glance my instinct was to nix the espresso powder and chocolate chips, and Willful enthusiastically agreed, saying she omits those things as well. Willful actually made these brownies a couple of weeks ago and added a cheesecake swirl... awesome idea, and one of my favorite brownies. I was feeling a bit creative as well, so I did a quick google for a few different peanut butter swirls and found one I liked. Basically you combine peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla, drop them into the brownie batter-filled pan, and swirl in. Easy! But, Brad isn't into "complicated" desserts, so rather than make all of the brownies con peanut butter, I made one pan of regular brownies, and used my mini cupcake tin for the rest, dropping and swirling the peanut butter mixture into each little cup. I had never done this before so I was eager to see the results. The regular brownies were ready first, and boy were they perfection- chewy and shiny on top, just how I like them. Next, the peanut butter brownies came out. They had slightly caved in the middle, but I tried them, and even fresh out of the oven piping hot, they were fantasmical. Even though I had sprayed the tin, the brownies clung on to the pan for dear life, so removing them was a challenge. I ended up having to spoon them out and reshape them a bit.. but it was worth it. I packaged several up and sent them over to Willful in the land of enchantment, and received rave reviews. Thanks!!! Even Brad LOVED them, his only complaint being they went stale quickly and he suggested that I tell everybody to seal them up tight so they stay fresh. This recipe is definitely a keeper and highly recommended!!

On to bananas- the best way to describe the August Iron Cupcake in SF. I baked my version of a Kokomo Joe, based on a smoothie from Yumi Yogurt (detailed in another post). A banana-coconut-cinnamon cupcake with pineapple cream cheese frosting and cinnamon coconut on top. The banana cupcakes came out great. The frosting was a different story. Super runny this time around and I had trouble saving it and turning it stable. Also, rather than toasting the coconut, I shredded it extra fine. In order to keep the frosting still, I had put very little on and then pack on the finely shredded cinnamon coconut. JoAnna put it best when she said they looked like Twilight cupcakes.. the coconut was so finely shredded that along with the cinnamon, it glittered in the sun. Haha! The result was a very banana and not very coconut cupcake.. which was bad, considering they were being submitted for a coconut competition.
I didn't let this bother me much, until I arrived at Leland and saw the competition was extremely stiff this month. People went bananas on decorations.. one woman had fancy palm trees topping hers, another made a replica of those pink hostess coconut treats, other people had extra sweets to sample, the majority had fancy signs. It was insane! I missed last month, and apparently the new game is decoration!! So intense.. double rainbow ALL the way.
Not only that, judging changed entirely. Instead of rating each cupcake individually, we now had to text in one vote for our pick for most creative, and one vote for our pick for best taste & appearance. This confused a ton of people, and worried me because I usually like more than one cupcake and for different reasons.. how could I pick just one that should take home the "cake"?? We tasted and after that, things went pretty quickly and before we knew it, we had our winners.. and this is where the claws come out. First off, I did not win and I was very okay with it- I knew why and resolved to have a great time anyway. But the people who did win should not have won, with the exception of our second place winner- she had the best cake, frosting, and coconut overall (she should have won 1st). 3rd place went to someone everybody at our table had marked as "0" all around- not good, didn't look good.. it was just a bad cupcake. First place and most creative prizes went to the palm tree lady- okay, she made flippin' palm trees out of those chocolate filled tube cookies and basil for the leaves, it looked spectacular. But we all marked her "2" for taste- she just missed the mark. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the winners. I could have easily picked 2 other cupcakes- not even mine, tear- that should have taken the top spots.
Text in voting sure has proven to be faster, but it troubles me for a few reasons: 1) people could confuse the numbers assigned to each cupcake and vote for the wrong one on accident, 2) it could turn into a popularity contest, and 3) it's just not as fun as going through and scoring each cupcake individually. Also, combining taste and appearance could mean that people with adorable yet spit-out cupcakes take the top prize, and that's just frustrating for the majority of us who take the baking seriously. I applaud the IC people for all of their hard work and dedication to finding a method that improves efficiency, but I think they might have missed the mark on this one. Well anyway, IC is still tons of fun and I'm sure they'll find a method that works! We will see at the October Challenge.. spice here we come!!