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Left hand not good. Typing w/ one hand = hard!

Baking w/ one hand = harder!

Will be back asap. No Daring Bakers Challenge this month.

Cupcake Camp 2008

This weekend I participated in Cupcake Camp in San Francisco. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I knew that there would be cupcake tastings and that sounded like fun! Participants were allowed to bring up to a dozen cupcakes of any flavor of their chosing. Cupcakes would be judged for Best Cake, Best Frosting and Most Original Flavoring.

I knew right away that I wanted to make a dark chocolate cake because most of my recent baking adventures have been light flavors. After giving it a little thought, I knew that I wanted to go simple and classic with my flavors. Something homey and comforting. I went with dark chocolate cake, chocolate frosting with a vanilla cream filling. A sort of fancy, homemade, wholesome Hostess Cake.

When we got there there were already a few cupcakes registered and waiting. Here's my table and my little cupcakes ready and waiting.

The flavors entered included Cherry Limeade, Chocolate Salted Caramel, Maple Bacon, and Chocolate Stout w/ Guinness Foam Frosting. Below is an example of one of the entries: Bubblegum.

 One thing I think came as a surprise to everyone was the sheer number of people who showed up! Not just to enter cupcakes, but to taste them. There were over 45 different kinds of cupcakes totalling about 540 cupcakes for the tasting!

After waiting around and schmoozing a bit, it was finally my turn! People swarmed the table!

That's my arm in the crowd! I got one!

Last one!

People actually fought over it! Here's what I heard as I took this picture:

Him: Uhm, that one's mine.

Her: Really? I was going to take it.

Him: Well I saw it first.

Her: ...

Him: Okay. If you want we can split it.

I was really proud that everyone enjoyed my cupcakes so much. Thanks to Ariel and the gang who helped to put this together! Here are some pictures I took of people enjoying my cupcakes.

Daring Bakers Challenge May: Opera Cake

May's Daring Baker's Challenge was hosted by the ever lovely Ivonne and the magnificent Lis. The challenge this month was dedicated to Barbara who hosts an event called A Taste of Yellow.

An Opera Cake is a French layered cake made up of various components: cake, buttercream, syrup and a glaze. An optional mousse layer was offered.

I have to be honest though. Despite my sincere admiration and respect for these ladies and their goal with this challenge, I was not all that excited when I printed out the directions on how to put this cake together and it turned out to be about 10 pages. This was not starting out well.

The non-optional challenge this month was to make the cake light colors and light flavors. Traditionally this cake uses dark flavorings and colors such as coffee or dark chocolate. I went with honey and almonds. I made the buttercream flavored with honey and the syrup and the cake almond-y. I used Amaretto for the syrup. My buttercream did not have the oomph that it should have. I made it according to the instructions and it looked okay, but after chilling it for over an hour, it was still too liquid-y. I used it any way though cause I just couldn't justify chilling it any longer.

I'm pleased that I had the opportunity to make this cake. It was a great experience. Would I make it again? Probably not, but I'm excited to see what June's challenge will be!

Brownies!

So I've been thinking of joining the Tuesdays with Dorie group, but one of the rules (duh!) is that you have to own the Baking from My Home to Yours book. Now don't get me wrong, I love to bake, but I find it so hard to spend $40 on a cookbook. The Martha baking book was also $40, but I waited til I got a gift certificate to get it. The Dorie book thankfully, after a while of checking, was finally on sale at Amazon for $6. So I did it and man am I glad I did.

Even if I don't join the group, this book is fantastic. It's got about a million recipes for brownies and I made one of them. The only difference was that the original recipe called for 4 eggs, but I only had three, so I made it anyway. They turned out fantastic. The texture is absolutely perfect, moist and fudgey right in the middle and cake-y all around.

I can't wait to make some more Dorie recipes!!

 

Carrot-Ginger Cupcakes

I think the worst time of the year to get a cold is the summer. Don't you? I feel like in the winter it's justified. It's cold and wet and perfect for cold season. The summer however is not. It's HOT! And the worst feeling when you're hot and miserable is to be sick and miserable and HOT! Berkeley as you can tell is experiencing a heatwave and I ofcourse am sick. So on one of the days I was home this week I made these Carrot-Ginger cupcakes.

I bought some crystallized ginger nuggets this past weekend at Whole Foods and although the back of the packaging has a recipe for ginger snaps, I figured that was too obvious so I looked around for another recipe.

My apologies for not writing more. I'd love to tell you about how easy this recipe was and that although the recipe yielded 2 dozen cupcakes, I couldn't justify making 2 dozen. Ken eats about one or two and is done. So I halved it and it turned out just fine. But I'm home sick yet again and so I'll just leave you with these pictures.

I made a creamcheese frosting for the top. I added just a sprinkling of the crystallized ginger nuggets to the top to show that there are some inside. My friend Patrick is trying to figure out the best way for me to send him some. He found this.

Slice 'em up and eat 'em!

I hate it when it rolls around to 7 or 8pm and I really have a hankering for something sweet like a cookie and there's none to be found in the house. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking, "But you're a baker! Isn't that what this crazy website is for?!" Well, you would be right. I *do* love to bake, but lately I haven't been baking every other day so I've found myself searching aimlessly through a kitchen well stocked in potato chips, but no cookies.

Last night I remembered a great recipe to make slice and bake cookies that can be made into any little thing your heart desires. Looking for a fruity cookie? Add some lime or orange zest! Looking for something crunchy? Throw in some chopped nuts!

I originally got this recipe from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen, she originally got it from the ever glorious Dorie Greenspan. This cookie will not disappoint because you basically make it into anything you want. If it's not satisfying, it's your fault. Not Dorie's.

Since Ken and I just had our super awesome Cinco de Nacho party, we have a HUGE bag o' limes that I need to use up. Needless to say, I've been adding lime zest to anything I can. I made one batch of the slice and bake cookies and split it in half. To one half of the dough I added an extra teaspoon of vanilla and the zest of two limes. Since the dough is buttery and rich, I ended up with a tastey Vanilla Lime cookie that was at once delicate in flavor and rich in texture. Yum!

To the second half of the dough I added 1/2 a cup of chopped dried cranberries and 1/2 a cup of chopped pistachios. Believe it or not the dough took it. I thought I had over done it once I started to mix everything in, but it all came together and worked out just fine. The result was obviously a denser cookie, not as delicate as the vanilla lime, but still a good cookie nonetheless. Plus it helped me use up some of the pistacios we had left over from making charoset for Passover.

 

Aaaanyway, now I have cookies to eat at 8pm. This makes me a happy girl. Also I get to send Ken on tour with some as well. Everybody wins!

Slice-and-Bake Cookies
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan

Makes about 50 cookies

2 sticks (8 ounces; 230 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup (78 grams) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour

Options:

Mix in grated zest of 2 oranges and 1/2 cup dried cranberries (I finely chopped them) Mix in grated zest of 2 lemons; coat with or mix in 1/4 cup poppy seeds (I mixed the poppy seeds in) Mix in grated zest of 2 limes; coat with 1/4 cup cornmeal Mix in 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots; coat with or mix in 1/2 cup finely chopped pistachios Mix in 1/2 cup mini chocolate or peanut-butter chips Mix in 1/4 cup finely chopped candied ginger; coat with or mix in 1/4 cup sesame seeds Swap ¼ cup of flour for unsweetened cocoa Swap ½ to 1 cup of flour for ground almonds, pecans, hazelnuts or walnuts

1. Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until it is smooth. Add the sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat again until the mixture is smooth and silky. Beat in the egg yolk, followed by the salt and any dried fruits, zest, nuts or seeds. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, beating just until it disappears. It is better to underbeat than overbeat at this point; if the flour isn’t fully incorporated, that’s OK—just blend in whatever remaining flour needs blending with a rubber spatula. Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Wrap each piece of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

2. Working on a smooth surface, form each piece of dough into a log that is about 1 to 1 1/4 inches (2.5 to 3.2 cm) thick. (Get the thickness right, and the length you end up with will be fine.) Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for 2 hours. (The dough can be wrapped airtight and kept refrigerated for up to 3 days or stored in the freezer for up to 1 month.)

3. Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

4. While the oven is preheating, roll cookie logs in any coatings of your choice. Then, using a sharp slender knife, slice each log into cookies about 1/3 inch (10 mm) thick. (You can make the cookies thicker if you’d like; just bake them longer.) Place the cookies on the lined baking sheets, leaving about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) space between them.

5. Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are set but not browned. Transfer the cookies to cooling racks to cool to room temperature.

Keeping: Packed airtight, the cookies will keep for about 5 days at room temperature, or in the freezer for a month. Unbaked logs can be frozen for longer.

Daring Bakers Challenge April: Cheesecake Pops

April as most of you know, was a very difficult month for me. My grandfather passed away on April 3rd and needless to say the Daring Bakers Challenge for the month was far from my thoughts. Upon my return from Miami however and very very close to the end of the month, it dawned on me that I had missed the challenge. First I was confused as to whether I should have received an email or if it was on the boards. I had not realized (afterall it was my second challenge) that all challenges are posted on the boards on the first of the month. But thank god for Lisa of La Mia Cucina because without her I would be lost. I explained my confusion and she explained that indeed I was confused, but that it was okay. Thank you Lisa!!!

So. With that being said, a little late, here is my April Daring Bakers Challenge!

I have to say that I love love love Jill O'Connor's Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth. I've had it for some time and one of my earlier posts Gooey Goodness! was from her book and it was crazy delicious. 4 sticks of butter. Still can't get over it.

Anyway, Ken and I started a yearly tradition last year called Cinco de Nacho. It's basically an excuse to have friends over, gorge ourselves on nachos and have fun. Neither one of us is Mexican, so really celebrating Cinco de Mayo is gratuitous. Nevertheless, knowing that I still wanted to do April's challenge, I decided to impose our Cinco de Nacho theme on it.

I used the assigned recipe...sort of. I made everything up until the point you actually bake the cheesecake. I made the standard vanilla recipe called for, but split it in half. Half was baked up as Lime Cheesecake and the other half was Cinnamon Cheesecake.

To the completed cheesecake recipe, I added the juice of one lime and the zest of two limes. Tada! Lime Cheesecake. Yes, that's all it took.

The other half of the recipe was turned into cinnamon cheesecake. This was equally as easy. To the standard recipe given I added a tablespoon and a half of cinnamon. Voila! Cinnamon Cheesecake. Yeah, I'm not kidding.

Seeing as part of the challenge was to coat the pops in chocolate, I decided that a great way to do this was to take the cinnamon cheesecake and coat it in some Ibarra Mexican Hot Chocolate. The Ibarra has some extra stuff in it like cinnamon and cacao nibs. I knew it would make the perfect coating for our Mexican inspired cheesecake pops. I didn't coat the lime because the lime was far too delicate and I thought it would get lost in the spicy chocolate.

 

I realized as soon as I started to shave the chocolate that all the extra stuff in the Ibarra was going to make the melted product gritty and honestly not so nice to coat. To rectify this I added a couple of ounces of semi-sweet chocolate. I hoped that the semi-sweet wouldn't interfere with the kick of the Ibarra and luckily it turned out alright. The chocolate ended up having a nice smooth texture thanks to the semi-sweet, but it still had that Ibarra taste.

You can see in the picture the difference between the chocolates. Left: semi-sweet Right: Ibarra.

The final result was amazingly delicious and very fun to eat. I rolled some in decorative sugar and others in graham cracker cookies that I pulsed in the food processor. At first I was a little worried that my guests would think the pop idea too childish, but man, do I have childish friends cause they ATE.IT.UP.

The pops were a huge hit! Everyone had more than one since, you know, there were two kinds to try! Several people...and I'm not mentioning names had even more than two. One guest even asked if he could take one home with him.

These faces don't lie!

 

David Lebovitz's Chocolate-Covered Caramelized Matzoh Crunch

This year for Passover we ended up with two boxes of matzoh leftover. What oh what to do!?!

Luckily I love David Lebovitz and always try to use him as a resource (see Dulce de Leche).

First off, let me say that making this is so crazy easy. Butter, brown sugar, vanilla, matzoh and chocolate. 5 ingredients!

It took AT MOST a half hour to make and makes something as bland as matzoh into a delicious candy. Really an all year round candy.

David Lebovitz's Chocolate Covered Matzoh Crunch

The rollercoaster that is life

For days I've been meaning to post an update. I'm sorry to have been so infrequent in my posts. Unfortunately a week after moving into my new apartment, I received a distressing phone call from my mother that my grandfather had had a massive stroke.

A week later he passed away. He was my grandfather and my friend. He was more like a father to me than my own father was and I loved him more than anyone in my life.

My apologies friends for not posting for some time.

First the move, then my grandfather. Too much for one month. I haven't been baking at all as I have not felt a calling to do so. I'm just not ready.

I feel like I soon will be back on my A game. Soon the next Daring Baker's challenge will be revealed. I hope that will help get me back on track.

Until then please keep me and my family in your prayers.

Daring Bakers Challenge - March

Man oh man. Do I love cake.

Yes. I *love* cake.

For weeks now people have been asking me, "What are you going to bake next for your blog?" My answer has been without hesitation "Well, I really want to bake a cake."

My best friend Patrick gave me a gift certificate for my birthday in February and with it I bought a book I had been coveting "Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook". I told him when he came to visit me that he could pick anything from the book and I'd make it for him. The conversation went a little something like this:

Patrick: Really? *Anything*?

Me: Yes. Anything. But I really need to bake a cake, so maybe look at that chapter first.

Patrick: So "anything" meaning what you want me to pick.

Me: Yes.

No, I'm kidding it didn't actually go like that. I told him he could really pick anything and he picked peanut butter sandwich cookies in true Patrick form. But secretly I really really wanted him to pick a cake.

So, I joined Daring Bakers after watching them have fun month after month. Yule Logs, croissants, lemon meringue pie. Man did I miss out. So finally I decided that I wasn't going to sit on the sidelines anymore. Living is participating and I had to participate as a Daring Baker ASAP!!!

I joined and waited. I was told that I would be able to participate in the March challenge. I looked forward with building anticipation day after day. I crossed the days off on my wall calendar. Gosh this post is sarcastic. Seriously, I was excited. I told all my friends about it. They likened it to SongFight, an online music community where musicians are given weekly songwriting challenges. Ken LOVES SongFight so he was excited when I joined Daring Bakers.

Aaaaanyway, my day came. I woke up one morning and learned what my very first challenge would be and boy, I could not have been more pleased. Not a bit more.

Perfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan!!!!

I squealed like a little girl. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! CAKE!" This was followed by a crazy dance that no one should ever see.

Meanwhile in Life-ville, Ken and I were planning to move in together. Days past and I knew I had to make my cake, but now having to deal with all the logistics and rollercoaster of emotions of planning how to move two apartments into one, I felt like my challenge was more of a chore than a treat.

The week before we moved and the Friday before I had to pack up my entire kitchen, I went to work. I had decided on my flavor combination, we were given Dorie's recipe and were told that we had to make a layered cake, but it could be any flavor combo we wanted. I picked lemon and rhubarb. The original recipe called for lemon and raspberry with coconut on top, but frankly and with all due respect to Ms. Greenspan who I ah-dore, I am so crazy sick of raspberries. So. Rhubarb. Cause I love you rhubarb.

The cake was eeeeasy peas-y. What resulted was a light, airy and gorgeous white cake. It was moist but not at all heavy. Delicate crumb. Yum yum yum.

I cheated a little because in my crazed and frazzled life, I just could not make my own rhubarb preserves. Believe me I thought about it and wrestled with it a little. Do I? Can I? Do I even have time!?!? No. I didn't. So instead I bought some rhubarb preserves and some lemon curd to go between the layers of cake.

As I said, the cake I made in no time flat. It was pretty simple. Basic and straight forward. The filling I had figured out with my little jars of brightly colored red and yellow jems.

Buttercream. Yeah. Let's get started on that one. Sigh.

So most of the buttercreams I've made are standard American buttercreams. None of this double boiler stuff. So this was exciting. I got to make my first ever Swiss Buttercream. Now, I don't know if it's really Swiss, or if that's just it's name (I'm sure some food anthropologist would know the answer to this) but I was eager and anxious to get started.

Double boiler. Sugar, egg whites. Beat with a whisk until your arm friggin falls off. I'm not a stranger to hand whisking but being out of baking practice, I nearly fell over a couple of times cursing Greenspan and the Swiss.

Next comes butter and lots of it. As you can see in my previous posts, my kitchen is no stranger to butter. 4 sticks? Bah! That's kid stuff.

In went the butter. So far so good. Good texture, color, shine. No worries right? ...Yeah you can see where this is going.

So Dorie says "During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate -- just keep beating and it will come together."

Ah. Yeah. Curdle? Yep! Separate? Right-e-o!

My buttercream cried it was in so much pain. It looked at me from within the bowl and begged. It pleaded for help! It was horrible. A massacre. I wish I had taken a picture of it to show you just how much I'm not exaggerating. All I could do was reassure it and say "No! No! Don't cry! Dorie says it'll be okay! She knows! She knows!!!!!!!"

It seemed like that mixer was going to keel over. (this might be an exaggeration)

But really, I had to close the window I thought my neighbors were going to come over with pitchforks to make me shut off the sound. I ran that mixer for nearly 10 minutes. And then a miracle.

She was right.

Slowly the curdled mess started to come together. Little by little chunks started to bind and hold on to each other for dear life and then it was smooooooooooooooth. Smooth smooth smooth, just like George Clooney. I swear that man could probably ask me to cluck like a chicken and I would he's so smooth.

Knowing that I had no light to photograph by, I decided to wrap up the cakes as Dorie said I could and wait til morning to assemble. I put plastic wrap down around the buttercream and set it in the fridge.

The next morning I woke up, took the buttercream out of the fridge to let it come to room temp so I could assemble and frost. I came back a couple hours later and yes, the buttercream had indeed come to room temp, however it was a crumbly mess. Sigh. It just wouldn't spread. As soon as I took my offset spatula to it it would break and crumble. Gah! Damn you Swiss Buttercream! *shaking my fist at the sky*

Let me say this, I am easy disappointed when it comes to baking. I don't like to toot my own horn, but I have a passion and a natural gift. Everything I've learned I've taught myself and most everything I make turns out juuuuust fine. Except for this crazy buttercream. Yeah, it tasted great, but it was a gross and unappetizing mess. I decided to only top the top layer of my cake with the frosting as there was just no way I could see frosting a whole cake with this crazy mess...even if it was a minicake.

Did I mention I made a minicake? Well I did. I had these minicake pans that I had bought some time ago and figured that this would be the perfect opportunity to use them.

Anyway here you go, here's my cake massacre. It was delicious. No doubt about it, it was super crazy yum. The cake and the buttercream both had a subtle lemon flavor and the rhubarb preserves gave my cake a one two punch. Even if it wasn't pretty to look at, my tummy sure was happy.