Baking : 1 Tara : 0

I should have known that lately things were going waaaay too well for me in the kitchen.....
Today was a disaster.
Well, to start off with it was the first sunny day we have had in a while and I would have liked to spend it outside.  But tomorrow is one of Dano's co-workers birthdays and I already said I would make the cake.  I decided to make the dark chocolate cake I have mentioned before, which is usually a pretty basic recipe for me!  But our oven and I have a power struggle for it to stay on the right temperature and the cake came out looking a little strange.... then I tried to move one of the layers and it broke into multiple pieces.  I felt like I couldn't start over because I had used all ingredients I had left out for hours to get to room temperature.  So, I made some chocolate buttercream and re-assembled the cake and filled between the layers.  However, during the melting of the chocolate I remembered I need to check the mail for a package I was expecting (this was such a blonde moment....) and just walked out the door to the mailbox!  What was I thinking?!  Walked back in to smoke, burned cream all over the stove.... a huge mess.
I should have stopped here and called it a day, bought some canned frosting, and no one would have known.  But being myself... I decided to try to make a frosting recipe for the outside of the cake that I have been studying for weeks!  When I went to print off the directions it was going to be NINE pages (I deleted the pictures and it was still a full two pages).  Its for Italian Meringue Buttercream from the Whisk-Kid blog (which is absolutely amazing)!  You can check out the link for pictures and the recipe.  Overall I think it went okay... (minus some stray sugar that indefinitely hardened to the stove, the bowl, and my saucepan). 
While all this was going on I also tried to make vegetable stock at the same time!  I've made stock one other time, but today I wanted to try making it in my crock pot.  I sort of used a recipe from Allrecipes but didn't exactly measure everything because a gallon of water won't even fit in my crockpot.

Doesn't that just look amazing!

The veggies roasted and ready to simmer!

I also added just whatever was left of my parsley plant from last summer (mostly stems), sage I found in the back of the produce drawer (ooops!), and a few pieces of the rosemary (also from the patio garden).  I read on other websites that people normally cook their stock for about 2 hours in the crockpot but.... I wasn't really happy with it until it had cooked for like 6!  But that is the joy of the crockpot--you can kind of just forget about it (I went for a hike in the sunshine, finally)!  After roasting your vegetables make sure to really scrape the pan and get all the burned bits into the pot.... I lick the spatula afterward because that caramelized vegetable juice is SO good. Julia Child got me into making my own stock because, well, she says "whats the point of making your own soup if you are using stock out of a can?!"  Which is kind of true... and I would never argue with Julia :)  It's also really healthy because you can control the amount of salt you add and it needs much less because it is so flavorful! 

This was one end result I was happy with today!

our very first barn dance...

The Arcata Marsh, one of the places I volunteer (and love to visit!), had a barn dance last night as a fundraiser.  They needed people to bring baked goods to sell so naturally I jumped at the chance!  I decided to make chocolate surprise cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies.  I made a half batch of this chocolate cake recipe, which made around 20 cupcakes.  Then I used the filling from this recipe.

 I like this filling because it doesn't have to be piped in, you just put a layer of cake batter, a dollop of filling, and then I do just enough batter to cover the filling.  It cooks with the cupcake so its not gooey, but just a cream cheese flavoring-delicious!

To coat the top of the cupcake, I didn't want to use frosting since these are already rich enough so I just smoothed the top with chocolate ganache (basically just melted chocolate with some cream and butter or shortening) that semi-hardened.  The end result tasted a little like a Hostess cupcake!

I made royal icing flowers to top the cupcakes.  I make the flowers in large batches and then just save the rest for whenever I need them.

I thought they turned out really cute and I just put them in a fold-over baggie with a white ribbon for the bake sale!

Dano came with me to drop the goodies off and we stood around debating if we should actually go in and participate.... We figured we would be the youngest people there and it would be sort of lame.  Well, we were very wrong.  The place was completely packed and it was quite an assortment of kids, young adults, middle agers, and kind of just a smattering of older folks.  The place was so lively and everyone was dancing, laughing, having a great time! 

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun and just might keep our eye out for the next one ;)

Champagne Cupcakes

Need I say more?







Haha!  So, I decided to make champagne cupcakes after being told by a couple people how amazing they are.  I used this recipe and really didn't make any changes besides using a pastry bag to fill them instead of the technique she uses.  Next time I think I would use a better quality champagne...I dont like to splurge on ingredients until I've made a recipe at least once.  They are really light and a little tart but I think that is why so many people liked them!  I took them to book club last night (with a slightly nicer bottle of Brut champagne to drink with) and everyone loved them! 

One perk of making these was drinking champagne while baking.... I mean, you can't exactly save it!

I was nervous about making the pastry cream because I've never made it before and get really nervous about undercooked eggs (especially when serving to others).  But it turned out really smooth and I felt like it had been on the stove long enough that nothing bad could have survived. 

Filling the cupcakes was sort of hard because I didn't know how much to put in so I went on the safe side and had a lot left over but.... they were still delicious!

Tomorrow I offered to bring baked goods to the Arcata Marsh Barn Dance so I've been starting some recipes today and will finish them tomorrow.  I'll update you tomorrow on that!

the CSA debate....

This morning I had a volunteer shift at the wildlife care center.  I woke up with a headache but figured it would go away in a couple hours.  The shift went okay, we were done a little early, and the other girl wanted to leave so I told her I would stay until our shift ended at one.  I decided to check the hotline one last time before I left (rookie mistake) and.... then I didn't leave for another hour and a half!  I got two more intakes and then a seagull died in his cage and I felt like it would be really inconsiderate to leave that for the next shift.  By the time I got home my headache developed into an "i can't stand the lights being on" situation.  So I did not cook or bake at all today! 

But tonight Dano wanted us to decide if we were going to do a CSA this summer even though I will be living up in Crescent City for my new job which might make it a little more difficult to get through all the veggies.  As I flipped through my Cooking Light magazine though I came across the "Ask Our Dietitian" article that helped make up our minds

"...Vitamin C, folate, and antioxidants fall victim to heat, light, and oxygen.  Once harvested, fruits and vegetables begin to lose moisture, and those water-soluble vitamins and antioxidants start to break down.  More transit time from the farm to your produce aisle (often up to 7 days) means fewer nutrients.  A Penn State study on spinach found a nearly 50% reduction in both folate and carotenoid-derived antioxidants (like vitamin A) after 8 days of refrigeration."

That is really shocking to me.... But it helped us decide to do the CSA again and enjoy vegetables straight from the farm, usually harvested that day.  I hope everyone will consider a CSA this summer-its amazing to know exactly where your food is coming from and get some of the freshest produce!

Here is a picture of our refrigerator at the height of one of our CSAs (this was a 10 farm CSA-much bigger than most!)

My garden

Last summer on a random whim I decided to plant a small container herb garden on our patio--rosemary, chives, parsley, and I attempted basil and cilantro but they did not survive long.  I had no idea what I was doing, but it turned out really well and it was amazing to have fresh herbs in my cooking!

This summer I decided to be a little more prepared so I checked out "The Bountiful Container" from the library and I learned so much!  The book goes over basic setup, techniques to start from seed, and then in-depth sections on the most common/easiest container plants.  I read it cover to cover and decided on beets, lettuce, lavender, parsley, rosemary, chives, thyme, and to give basil another try!  I wanted to do beets because they are one of my favorite vegetables and from the book I learned there are a lot of varieties of lettuce that can't be purchased in the store because they are too delicate to transport so I really wanted to try one of those and decided on the Black Seeded Simpson. 

These are my purchases so far...
$5 pellet tray
$2 water bottle
$12 on seeds

Although starting from seed is a little more difficult, it is a lot cheaper- so for the plants that were stated in the book as easy to start from seed I decided to give it a whirl and....

They are doing surprisingly well!  I really didn't think they would all germinate but it only took a couple days and so far I only have one pellet that didn't sprout at all.  I moved them to egg cartons lined with aluminum foil because the book said once they sprout they don't need to be covered and this way they fit on the window sill much easier. 

Well, this was a really long post but that is my setup and I will keep you updated!

St Pattys Day

I love all holidays.... so naturally, St Patrick's day is no exception.

This year I decided to try a new recipe--the chocolate stout cake.  I saw it on Epicurious when I was looking up cakes a couple weeks ago and the awesome reviews sold me on it.

Chocolate Stout Cake
It started out cooking up some Guinness and butter....

 

 I made only half the recipe because I only have two 8 inch pans and it made just the right amount!  

Final product!

The reviews on the website weren't too positive about the icing in the recipe so I went my own direction entirely.  I made a buttercream frosting and added Baileys Irish Cream to it instead of water for the filling.  Then for the outside coat, I melted chopped dark chocolate with some shortening and a little milk and poured it over the cake creating a semi-hard shell.  Then piped buttercream borders and a shamrock ;)

Overall I would say it was a hit!  We headed out to the brewery and gave the cake out to our friends and a couple strangers.  A piece made its way to one of the bartenders and I got hooked up with free beer and lots of compliments throughout the night.

I've been trying to convince myself for a while not to try brand new recipes on "the day of" but this one definitely worked out even with my crazy substitutions! 

We actually had our Irish dinner tonight since last night we ...errrr.... didn't get around to it and I made vegetable pot pie (my recipe is fill the pan I want to use with raw veggies, then cook them up, and add a pie crust) and the Twice Baked Potatoes I made last year which are really super good.  I meant to take a picture of them but I ate them before I remembered--whoops!

Hope everyone had a great night!

Flower power!

So last night we actually had a somewhat exciting dinner... we added mashed sweet potato seasoned with chili powder to our tacos which we haven't done before and I must say it was pretty good!  I was inspired by this recipe, although we really didn't follow the rest at all.  It added a creamy texture so I didn't need to add quite so much sour cream.... (substituting a vegetable for dairy!?)

Tonight I had my Wilton fondant class and we made some fun flowers: 

Carnation

 Yet another rose...

And a Calla Lily!

One thing I find really entertaining about the Wilton class is that we take the time to make all the parts of the flower (even if they really can't be seen) and in our book they are properly scientifically named!  For the Calla Lily, the yellow part is labeled as "the spadix".... I have a Bachelors degree in biology and I did not know that is what it was called!

Worth all the onion tears...

For my very first blog post I thought I would start with a Julia Child classic--french onion soup!  I scaled mine back a little (just for two, plus leftovers!) and added a few tweaks.  I'm terrible at measuring and following recipes so some of these are estimates....

about 3 c thinly sliced yellow onions
2 T butter
1/2 T olive oil
1 t salt
1/2 t sugar
1 1/2 T flour
1 qt vegetable broth
1/4 c dry white vermouth
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper to taste
round of bread
shredded gruyere cheese

To start!

Sloooowly cooking up the onions.  15 minutes in the butter and oil, covered on low heat.  Then move up to medium, add salt and sugar, and cook for about 25 minutes until evenly golden brown (and smelling like heaven!).  Stir in flour and remove from heat.  Throw on the vermouth and scrape the pan into a saucepan with the vegetable broth.  Simmer 30-40 minutes with bay leaf and check for seasoning.  To finish I toasted a round slice of bread covered in cheese in the broiler, plopped it on top, and added a little more cheese! 

It was so yummy that I could not stop "tasting for seasoning" while it was simmering and waiting for Dan to get home from work!  This recipe is overall pretty simple but you definitely have to be patient while the onions are cooking---do not just turn up the heat to cook them quicker because it will be a whole different flavor!

Bon appetit!