The Chewy Experiment

Today, I decided to try to make chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to make them for Boyfriend Bird, because he has finals around now and he is stressed. And cookies are good for that. So after a long decision process (mainly realizing that I had no oatmeal and couldn't make oatmeal cookies), I decided on just simple chocolate chip cookies.

And then I realized I should make Alton Brown's The Chewy, since so many people have said it is amazing. So I made the batter at my nest, and then flew on over to Jujyfruits Bird and Dot Hack Bird's apartment, where I actually baked it. And the first batch came out burned.

I was quite upset, as I hadn't burned cookies in quite some time. I turned the oven down and watched the other batches, which all came out much better. Boyfriend Bird, Jujyfruits Bird, Dot Hack Bird, and Fleur Bird all happily snacked on them. And then I packaged them up and sent them with Boyfriend Bird, who ate them sadly while studying.

Ah, college.

Rainbow Cake: my lesson in baking cakes

A few months ago, a good friend of mine moved. It wasn't a cross-country move, just an hour or so away, but far enough that seeing him for a quick lunch wasn't an option anymore. We will name him Darth Bird. He'll probably never read this, but I think he'd appreciate that name. I was worried about him moving; he's been one of my closest friends since high school, and after recently losing another close friend, I was concerned about not seeing him as often.

Luckily, Darth Bird thought ahead, and got me as well as four other birds involved in a game with him before he moved. The game is still on-going, and we aim to play every other weekend. So once a month we drive down to his apartment, and he generally cooks us something.

The first time we did, he made an amazing homemade lasagna. The only part of it that was store bought was the noodles, and it was quite awesome.

If you read the title of this post, you are probably wondering what on earth this has to do with rainbow cakes. Well, I decided to make a rainbow cake for his apartment, figuring that a cake was a perfect thing to bring to a dinner gathering, and that the directions that I found over at Omnomicon were so simple it'd be hard to mess up.

Well, I was mostly right about that. I have a lot of learning about baking to do.

I opted out of the diet version, despite being on one, because I figured no one else was. The whole 'double the batter' thing was also rather confusing, but I got it all sorted out. And dirtied a lot of bowls in the process.

Mama Bird helped, and did a lot of the color mixing. 'That's nowhere near blue enough! You need more blue! Here, let me do it!' That sounds like a pretty accurate transcript, and we had a lot of fun. We're very sarcastic to each other, but it's okay because we like each other. She is the best Mama Bird.

I took a lot of pictures of the process, because it was fun, and amusing. This was the batter before it went in the oven, but right after this is where everything went wrong.

You see, I was impatient with the cake. I needed to get it iced and ready to go. I did not give myself adequate time to prepare it. So it came out of the oven, and I tried to pull it from its little pans. One split in half, and the other just lost some off the top. Then I tried to ice it while it was still warm, and we lost more. Beyond 'we lost more,' it started completely falling apart. I got so upset I almost didn't bring the cake, until Mama Bird told me I was being an idiot and made me. It had many toothpicks stuck in it, holding it together. As I pulled the lid off the container, I was actually embarrassed, and all over again wished I hadn't brought it. The sight that greeted me was the cake, split wide open, hardly sticking on its tray. I (almost) tearfully presented it to my friends.

And did my friends care that it was falling apart?

No. They still ate most of it. Our tongues were purple for the rest of the evening. And I learned a few crucial things about baking: wait to remove your cake, wait to ice your cake, and just really, be patient. My friends also taught me that "If it tastes like cake, we are going to eat it."

It's been a few months since Darth Bird moved, and we still see each other frequently. In fact, I'm going to go see him in about twenty minutes, so I should really stop typing and go brush my hair. But it's nice to know that some friendships aren't so easily ended.

Today's lessons learned:

• My friends will probably eat anything.
  
• Food coloring definitely has a flavor.
  

I decorated a cake!

I have tried to decorate a cake before, and it has never turned out well. And I tried to write 'happy birthday!' across cupcakes for a friend once.

They were strawberry cupcakes. From a box, because I am not a great baker. But although trying to ice them nicely was not very successful, they tasted fine. I want to try to make real strawberry cupcakes sometime, but I need an excuse. Otherwise I will eat all of them.

We were visiting some Bird family this weekend, and part of the trip was a joint baby shower. Mama Bird told one of my many Aunt Birds that I was now a cook, since I certainly cook a lot more than I did when I last came home from college.

She immediately responded with "Oh, good! She can decorate the cake!"

I am a computer programmer. I cannot decorate anything. I cannot draw, I cannot do patterns, and my horrid handwriting has been a thing of legend for some years. So I was sort of stressed by this, although it's not like anyone was really too hung up on it.

Aunt Bird actually had an icing pipe. If I am ever going to be good at decorating cakes, I may have to invest in one.

On sleeping in and muffins

I have a dog. Doggie Bird, I suppose I will call her. Boyfriend Bird hates her because despite being adorable, she is very poorly trained, and snaps at anything that moves if it's within an arbitrary radius and disturbs her while she's sleeping. We all know this and make sure to wake her up when we wish to move.

Yes, it's a little ridiculous.

She's still adorable.

Last night, she came in to sleep on my floor, which is her favorite place to sleep from about midnight to six or so, when she goes to sleep other places, meaning I have to always have my door open so she can escape. I normally keep a mess of blankets on the ground for her to nest in, which is adorable. They were all cleaned over the weekend, and I had no blankets to give her.

So I found a shower curtain.



She slept fine.

She continued sleeping when I was going to work, and will sleep until someone comes home. I am jealous of her, although perhaps I would be tired of sleeping in every day eventually. Certainly not any time soon.

What I would really do if I had her life would be make muffins all the times. I love having a muffin for breakfast, as it's something you can just grab out of the freezer if you've frozen them, they're low-calorie if you don't make super sugary ones, and they're quite good. My last muffin experiments were raspberry and cinnamon. I actually made two batches of raspberry, because I messed the first up.



See the middle of the muffin? That is the lone raspberry in the muffin. Instead of chopping the raspberries up so they were well-distributed through the muffins I just threw in a cup of non-chopped raspberries. It made the muffins dry, and although they weren't bad they were certainly disappointing. So what did I do? I made more muffins. To make up for my sadness.



The second batch of raspberry muffins looked promising, and I had made sure to chop the berries this time, so I had high hopes. But since these were my 'breakfast work muffin,' I was concerned that three weeks of nothing but raspberry muffins would get old fast, so I made cinnamon as well.



While I have no problem with cinnamon muffins (I made the darn things, didn't I?), I was so much more expected for the raspberry that I had one as soon as it came out of the oven. And had cooked enough for me to grab it. Maybe a little sooner. It smelled so good.

I had to try a cinnamon one too, for... fairness.

The raspberry ones turned out perfectly this time. The chopped raspberries distributed through the muffin, keeping it from being dry, and giving a much more uniform raspberry flavor. I devoured those muffins, and wish I had made more. I am going to, eventually, but the raspberry muffins are approximately 250 calories apiece, which is a little much for me for breakfast. They'd probably be much less without the crumb topping, so I may try that someday to see how much flavor/texture they lose.

As for the cinnamon, I will not make them again. I am a fan of cinnamon, but when it is worked in to the whole muffin, not just on the outside. I also probably did not make them 'correctly,' as they weren't exactly light and fluffy. Either way, I will most likely not make them again. Which is okay, because the Hillbilly Housewife has a large collection of freezer muffins for me to pick from. The two I made here were the raspberry muffins, which I highly recommend, and the cinnamon muffins, which I'd recommend if you really like cinnamon and are better at baking than I am. Which is not hard to be.

Apple dumplings, aka how I'm giving myself diabetes as quickly as possible

I made the apple dumplings from Pioneer Woman today. I and a group of friends went to a local Pho place for dinner, and apparently I ordered the worst thing on the menu because it was disgusting. I ate maybe a fourth of my meal before giving up and moping. So when we got back to our friend's apartment, I decided to make the apple dumplings to make up for the dinner.

I had planned on making them the previous night, when there were eight people in this apartment. But we got back from game night late, no one was really that hungry, I wasn't in the mood to cook, and it didn't happen. Tonight, there were five of us there: Boyfriend Bird, Jujyfruits Bird, .Hack Bird, and Challah Bird. I knew we had enough to make more than one serving of the dumplings, but I decided to just make them all, thinking that maybe we'd have leftovers. I was really hoping this would mean I would get to eat five of these.

I should not have wished for this.

So we made them. They smelled wonderful, Challah Bird and I kept opening the oven to sniff them. And then they were done, and we did some quick math. There were 24 dumplings, and five of us. That was almost five per person! But we decided to do four apiece, and let people fight for the extra.

I knew how rich they were. I had eaten them last weekend. And I knew I had been on a diet for a few months, and hadn't eaten anything nearly that sugary since I had started. In retrospect, there were plenty of warnings that I shouldn't eat as many of these as I did.

I ate all four of mine. Most of my friends proved they weren't as foolish as I and only ate three. As soon as I put my spoon down, I realized I felt slightly queasy. And for the rest of the night I hugged my stomach, being torn between wishing I hadn't eaten them all, and knowing that there were more sitting in the kitchen and remembering how delicious they were.

As delicious as they are, maybe I'll wait a few months before I make more.

Apple Dumplings from Pioneer Woman, modified slightly
(Serves 6, approximately $4.93 per serving)
Ingredients

2 granny smith apples

2 cans crescent rolls

12 tablespoons butter

1.5 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup mountain dew

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Peel and core apples. Cut into 8 slices each.
   
3. Roll each apple slice in a crescent roll, and place in pan.
   
4. Melt butter, and add sugar. Barely stir.
   
5. Add vanilla, stir in slightly.
   
6. Pour mixture over apple rolls. Pour Mountain Dew around edges of pan.
   
7. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
   
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
   

Today's lesson learned:

• Only ever eat two apple dumplings.