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!!

MMMM (more minis and Mad Men)

August is almost over and I don't have much to show for it (baking wise). I can't say I have been so busy and not able to bake.. mostly I just don't know where the time goes. Maybe I should ask Fairport Convention? Something tells me they don't know either..

Well, since we last spoke, I realized I gained 10lbs. No joke. Perhaps that's where the time went.. the gym. I haven't thought much about baking because for some reason, merely looking at dessert seems to ensure I gain a pound or three. I'm trying to control it, so baking has taken a back burner.. (ha!)

However, I am so spectacular baker girl that I am still in high demand for birthday cupcakes at work. Well okay, it's a self enforced tradition, but I don't think people mind :) We only have one August baby at work- he's the one who introduced me to Iron Cupcake. Right around the time our admin distributed the inner office calendar, people starting nagging him (including me) about his cupcake of choice. He took his sweet time deciding, and after all that time, he chose vanilla cupcakes. BAAAHHH!!! I can't explain my dislike for vanilla cupcakes. First off, it's so white (in more ways than one). Second, boring! Third, how do you make a vanilla cupcake cute for a boy?? I asked him if it would be okay to use vanilla bean because I wanted them to have a little bit of a kick, and he gave an enthusiastic yes.
I used Martha's white cake cupcake recipe for the first time, and added vanilla bean. I was not impressed. They were dry and peeled away from the paper liner. I've never had this problem so bad, but I know it is common with white cupcakes. Some people say it's because there's too much "fat," others say it's from leaving the cupcakes in the tin for too long and allowing steam to build up. I don't know what happened to mine but it was super irritating. I frosted them with a marshmallow fluff vanilla frosting and added vanilla bean there as well. The bean wasn't enough so I had to add some extract as well. All together, the cupcakes tasted fine, but nothing spectacular. Birthday boy was happy, as were all my coworkers who are so cute and excitable the entire week leading up to somebody's birthday. I'm glad they were enjoyed, but I will not be making Martha's white cupcakes again unless I can figure out how to tweak the recipe in my favor. Also, no photo. Why does this tend to happen for work birthday cupcakes?? Shorry.

Other than birthday cupcakes, I have been thinking about this month's Iron Cupcake- the ingredient is coconut. I had a couple of great ideas... and tried one of them out tonight. I call it "Kokomo Colada," affectionately named after my absolute favorite smoothie at Yumi Yogurt. Yumi Yogurt was my first job evar.. I dished out soft serve and made smoothies freshman year of high school. I loved the Kokomo Colada smoothie so much, when somebody ordered it, I would fill up their smoothie cup and scrape the extra out of the blender to save for myself. The smoothie has banana, pineapple juice, coconut, cinnamon and vanilla soft serve. DELISH! I modeled my cupcakes after the smoothie: banana coconut cinnamon cupcakes, pineapple cream cheese frosting, topped with toasted cinnamon cocount. OMFG SO GOOD!


These could definitely be winners!!!!

This is what I love about baking- coming up with great combos that work because finally I have the base knowledge to do it. I am no genius, I am not professionally trained.. but I have the basic skills and I know what tastes good.
There is also some part of me that craves being a good wifey. I like making things because I love watching people enjoy my things. Brad isn't always that person, but I still think of myself as a little wifey to him and everybody else I bake for. It's a thought I cherished.. until tonight.
I began watching Mad Men from season 1. Simply put, it's maddening. I actually teared up during the first episode seeing the way women were treated in the early 60s. I've always known of the injustice, but the show really puts it in your face. No wonder women burned their bras! Seriously. And here I am, brought up in a time where it's okay for me to wear pants to work.. and I go home and willingly put on an apron to make my man dinner or bake up a storm. Fortunately I'm not a "secretary" and Brad isn't an Ad Exec in the 60s and he appreciates my efforts, but honestly, this was a wake up call. I've noticed this huge domesticated-house-wife type renaissance among women my age. We buy into the cutesie cupcakes, aprons, kitchenware, bakeware.. and the kicker is the trend is to do it all with a vintage 50s/60s flair. As I watched Mad Men, I thought, WTF have I been doing?? Buying into a culture that was lost for a reason, that's what! Yikes.
Okay, I'm not going to stop baking. In reality I never have felt like baking was giving up my rights as a woman, and Mad Men hasn't changed that. I just feel a bit more reticent about buying into the whole mid century kitsch factor that's been so popular. A perfectly made up woman posing in the kitchen with a pink cherry apron and a bundt cake is pretty, but just not cute when I think of the implications. Still.. if you haven't yet seen Mad Men, you should! So frustrating and good!!!

Toodeloo... ;)

Nutella Cupcakes

Heading downtown tonight to enjoy Movies on the Square with JoAnna. Tonight's movie? Ghost! I couldn't think of a better way to get my ceramic sensuality on than with one of my homemade Nutella cupcakse and some Mexican hot chocolate, courtesy of JoAnna.
Okay so it's actually the first time I've made these little bites of European heaven.. and I made it up as I went along. I added some Nutella to my chocolate cake recipe along with the hot cocoa mixture. The cupcakes came out tasting like regular chocolate, but with a hint of a bit more decadence. I made the frosting by following my favorite peanut butter frosting recipe but replaced the peanut butter with some Nutella and cut some of the sugar. It came out amazing!
I'm looking forward to a very chocolatey night!

Checking In- July Babies, Wedding Cake, Banana Muffins and Iron Cupcake.. oh my!

Lots of people are born in July.. including lots of coworkers. I've set the standard of celebrating birthdays at the office (previously nobody did anything when it was somebody's birthday). Celebrating soon turned into bringing baked goods in. Which is fun, but honestly.. I work with something like 40 people, so it gets tiring! Fortunately a lot of people take their bdays off, so I don't bake too often. But then I run across high density birth months, like July, with 5 birthday boys and girls! I knew I wouldn't be able to bake something and bring it in 5 times this month, so I told all the birthday kids I'd be baking on a specific day and to send any requests my way. I got two requests for German chocolate, and one for chocolate raspberry. I thought it would be best to have at least three flavors, but I didn't want to make two different kinds of cake (lazy). So I went with German Chocolate, Choco-Raspberry, and Chocolate with Peanut Butter frosting. I've said before, it's a bit scary how insane people go for the peanut butter frosting, but it's also fun to watch the lunacy so I bring it in as often as I can.

In all I made 96 mini cupcakes but brought about 80 in, divided evenly among each flavor. For the German Chocolate, I didn't have time to make my own coconut pecan frosting so I used store bought. It hurt to resort to that but it's good I did because I would have been up making cupcakes way too late. To decorate, I piped some homemade chocolate frosting around the edge and filled it with the coconut frosting, then piped a little chocolate star in the middle. They looked super cute. The raspberry and peanut butter were decorated the way you've seen in previous posts.

I brought the 80 minis in the kitchen at 8:30. They were completely gone by 1:30. People who came by to thank me mentioned they loved the German Chocolate the best, but I did notice that peanut butter was the first flavor to run out. Lots of people confessed to eating at least 3! I love it!


Speaking of peanut butter...

JoAnna's groom's cake at her wedding was a Peanut Butter Fudge cake from Icing on the Cake in Los Gatos. I didn't get to try any because it disappeared in a flash, but I heard it was phenomenal. I do not think the bride and groom got a slice either, so they ended up ordering another one when they got back from their honeymoon. JoAnna brought a hugical slice to my house and I immediately dug in. Delicious! The cake was peanut buttery moist with little hints of actual nut, the filling was a creamy peanut butter, and it was frosted all around (tops and sides) with a dark and fudgey ganache type frosting. I really enjoyed it.

However, it had me thinking that I could pull off a way better version. Buttermilk cake (no chewy nuts, thanks), a generous peanut butter frosting filling and top frosting (more whipped than creamy), and a rich chocolate fudge frosted around the edges of the cake. I like to think of this as a fantasy cake.. something I should only eat in my dreams. So if I end up making it, please make sure you only let me have one slice. Thanks :)

Here's why. I consider myself pretty fit.. that is, in comparison to my old self. I've never been overweight by Dr's standards, but I've always hung around the top of my weight range. I started working out about two years ago and noticed a big difference in my energy and strength. Initially I lost weight but then I plateaued, and then I gained a little when I got too adventurous in my eating/baking. But I still feel better than ever so my weight number doesn't usually bother me. Until last night, when I went on the scale. I happened to have some banana muffins in the oven at the time, which I had hoped to fill with caramel and top with cream cheese. After seeing my reading, I went inside and nixed the caramel/cream cheese plan. I had one banana muffin, gave Brad two, and packaged up the rest to bring to Mom & Mike and a coworker. I felt sad but so right. I really needed that reality check.

I do not plan to stop baking. I just need to pretend I'm a real baker and not eat every single thing I bake- it just isn't beneficial anymore. I know what I make tastes good.. I don't have to try it to prove it. Or if I do taste test, leave it at a taste.. not 3 cupcakes! Hahaha!

Speaking of trusting myself. Iron Cupcake was last Monday, theme: alcohol. I tried and tried to get excited about the theme but I just couldn't come up with anything I really wanted to make. Plain and simple, I just don't like alcohol in baked goods- it doesn't taste right to me and overpowers everything else in the recipe. Same with chocolate cake that uses espresso or coffee.. I only taste the coffee, yet the coffee is supposed to "enhance" the chocolate flavor. If I want a mocha, I'll go to starbucks! Of course this is personal preference, so don't get me wrong.. I'm not saying other peoples' preferences are inferior, honest! ;) So, in the end, I decided to skip out on the alcohol challenge. I checked out the winners and noticed they had 5 people who placed! It appeared at least 19 bakers participated on top of about 100 tasters. HUGE! So I guess alcohol cake is popular.. d'oh! But I am glad I trusted my instincts and didn't put myself out there with something I don't necessarily like. Next month is coconut and I have two amazing ideas up my sleeve. The competition is Monday, August 30 in SF.. hope you can make it!

Caramel Cake Bake-Off!

Willful and I both read The Help by Kathryn Stockett and both of us were left with an unrelenting craving for caramel cake. So, Will suggested we do one of her infamous "face-bake offs" using the same recipe. We did this once before with bagels- the technique involved baking the same thing at the same time and posting photos/videos of the process on facebook. Will found the recipe for this bake-off from the annual publication of America's Test Kitchen: Best Recipes and Reviews of 2009. She took the time to copy and snail mail me the recipe and it turned out I actually had the publication already :D

We baked at 2p.m. pst / 3p.m. mt (how do you abbr. mountain time??). Molly came over to help document. The result is the video below.. which ended up being about 8 minutes.. WAY long in my opinion but there are a few scenes in there worth waiting for :) Will even makes a cameo!!

Enjoy :) and... don't mind the video quality.. I exported in the highest quality possible but youtube always turns it to shit so I don't know what to do, and I don't have the time to figure it out at this point.

Rehearsal Cupcakes Photo!

I was convinced a photo of these didn't exist, but Devina got one! Hurrah! Bird's eye view isn't the best for minis, but you get the idea. YUM.

coconut cupcake w/ cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut &

lemon cupcakes with raspberry buttercream and a fresh raspberry garnish:

That's all for now!