A mild revival

I haven't written anything in a long time, although I've still been cooking a lot. I've been on a mission to try to cook something out of every cookbook I own. That's a lot of cookbooks. We're up to like 30 or something insane.
This is what I made from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. I was supposed to make the Peppermint Cream Puff Ring, and as soon as I saw it I was afraid of it. I make a lot of food. I rarely focus on making the food look good.
But this time... this time it worked out.


Look how pretty it turned out! I should have toasted the almonds, I'll admit. A minor mistake. But it turned out well!
And I had so much extra dough (not to mention extra cream) that I made little.... dough-cream-bars.


And one cream puff.


I know scale doesn't really show here, but that cream puff was actually huge. I ate it all, and it was enormous. It was delicious though.
I've been going through these books for a while now. I've made Shrimp de Jonghe, Smothered Greens, Popovers, Duck Confit Tacos, Skate with Tomato and Olive Sauce... it's been interesting. The skate was a REALLY great adventure, it made me go adventure to a fish market and talk to people who had jobs I didn't know existed in order to get five pounds of fish. I still have a pound of it left, if anyone wants to tell me what else to do with it, I'm all ears.

Muffin Round-Up

Looking back at all the drafts I've written to be published, it occurs to me that I have far too many muffins.

Well, that's a lie. Far too many muffins that I haven't shared. Even after the insane amount of baking I did for Christmas, I don't think there's such a thing as too many muffins.

Instead of writing full entries for each of them, I'm just gonna share a few quick pictures and my thoughts on them. Maybe that'll motivate me to finally get the rest of my old entries up so I can start sharing new stuff again. Like the buffalo chicken calzones I made recently. Oh god, why did I wait so long to make those?

First up: Coconut Jam Muffins, from Los Angeles Times. They're definitely dessert muffins, since they're pretty darn sweet. Surprisingly, even my friends who didn't like coconut liked these. I think it's probably because they have oatmeal too, because oatmeal does magic things to muffins.


Whole Grain Pumpkin muffins from Other Side of Fifty, which I sadly didn't take a picture of. They didn't look too pretty. I also doubled the batch to use all the pumpkin I had left, and ate these for almost a month and a half. As someone who's always disliked pumpkin pie, I thought that was a pretty big feat.

Morning Glory Muffins from Joy of Baking. I didn't get a picture of these either, but with a much more reasonable excuse. I made these the morning of Run For Your Lives, which is a zombie-themed 5k. We got up super early to drive to the race, and I decided that really nutricious muffins would be great, and someone suggested carrot. So I went all out and made Morning Glory muffins. There are no pictures of these because they were all completely demolished the night I made them, including the extra ones I left at my house. I'd highly recommend trying them.

Raspberry Lemon muffins from Coco Bean. Despite my making these more than six months ago, I remember them extremely well. I really liked the flavor, but I didn't do a great job with the zest, so there were long strands of lemon throughout the muffins that weren't really enjoyable to chew on. If it hadn't been for that, I think they would have been perfect.


Honey Cornbread muffins from A Farmgirl's Dabbles. I made these to pair with jambalaya, so I could watch the Princess and the Frog and have fitting food (never mind that they actually eat jumbo in that movie.), and they were great. Not overly sweet, but sweet enough that I think with a little jam they'd be a perfect dessert. Thinking about them makes me sad I gave the rest away...

Chocolate Cherry muffins from Stolen Moments. I don't think I even need to say much about these. Just look at the name and ingredient list. Chocolate muffins are great, and then add cherries? They were amazing.

Apple Cinnamon muffins from Southern, eh? I have a thing for apple and cinnamon. I love them. Next time I make these I'm going to put a bit more cinnamon in them, but otherwise they were great. They're also surprisingly low calorie.

And now for the Christmas muffins.

White and Purple Amaretto muffins, modified from I Love Muffins. Instead of having any chocolate I just made extra batter and died some of it purple. I wasn't a big fan of these, but I think the texture difference the chocolate would have provided would probably have alleviated most of my complains about them. I also just didn't find them terribly flavorful, since I didn't add anything to compensate.


Strawberry Cinnamon Sugar muffins from Eggs on Sunday. I added some food coloring to make the batter pink, and also put pink sugar sparkles on top, just in case it wasn't sweet enough before. They were quite good, although I wish strawberry flavoring would come through more in baking. Maybe if a large number of strawberries were pureed....


I would actually call these cupcakes, honestly.... and we didn't take a picture of any of them, but they're rainbow muffins! I had a lot of help with these, and they did a bunch better job at making them even than I probably would have.... making the rainbow cake was frustrating enough for me.


Here's a picture of all the muffins (well... half of the muffins. There were five tins in the end):


There are four muffins in there I didn't take pictures of individually: blueberry from Obsessed with Baking (which I've made before and are always a huge hit), another version of Cinnamon Sugar muffins, banana muffins from Melbourne Food Files, and my personal favorite, apple butterscotch from Annie's Eats. I could have easily eaten all of the butterscotch ones on my own, and probably would have if there hadn't been people in the kitchen with me.

Okay, there's one more muffin I didn't share with you guys, because they were special. I also liked the pictures I took of them enough that I think they deserve their own post. So while the world may be almost caught up on my muffin adventures, bear in mind that I just ate the last of the banana muffins, so the time for more is rapidly approaching....

Christmas Baking

Four dozen cookies, two pounds of candied almonds, and about ten dozen muffins, all baked in two days. The complete list:

Candied Almonds

Green Tea Cookies

Modified these into Chocolate Blackberry Cookies

Russian Tea Cookies

Carrot Cake Cookies

Blueberry Muffins

Strawberry Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

White Amaretto Muffins

Rainbow Cupcakes

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Butterscotch Muffins (which are possibly my favorite)

Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

It took hours and would not have been possible without a lot of help, but they all came together, and I think everyone liked everything.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Heart Attack

You wouldn't know it, but I've been baking a fair bit recently. And according to Sister Bird, making food she can't eat. Not because it's bad. Some of the food she has legitimate reasons for never wanting to eat. Like the habanero spiced potatoes. I was the only person in the family who could handle the amount of heat in them, but I didn't like them enough to write up a post about them. Making something I haven' liked enough to share has been happening a fair bit, aside from the incredible response the jam muffins got.

On an unrelated note, am I the only one who uses jam and jelly interchangeably? I know, one is chunky, one isn't, but really?

But as I was saying... I have an enormous backlog of things to post about. Two more muffin recipes, stuffed zucchini, jalapeno cheddar cornbread, chicken and cannelinni soup, hummus, sloppy joes.... I've stored up plenty of pictures and thoughts, but I'm just slow about typing them out. I liked all of those things, but I don't think any inspired me to immediately share them with the world.

This cake, on the other hand, needed someone to write a public service announcement about it.



I wanted to make it for Papa Bird for Father's Day, because I know he has a soft spot for chocolate and peanut butter, and I've currently got a soft spot for any cake that'd let me practice with my leveler. So when I looked in my crazy collection of recipes and saw Smitten Kitchen's chocolate peanut butter cake, with three glorious layers, I knew it was a match made in heaven.

After I did the nutrition information for it? It was still a great match. But it certainly wasn't made in heaven.



One of the great things about this cake is that it was a one bowl recipe. Obviously, the frosting and the ganache were done in separate bowls. But the cake batter itself was whipped up in one bowl. Which, by the way, I did without the aid of Mama Bird's Kitchen-Aid mixer. I've been slowly shifting away from using mixers, and back to beating things by hand. It's easier to fold things like delicate berries into batter without breaking them, and it's easier to ensure that every part of the ingredients have been mixed. Or maybe I'm too lazy to get the mixer out. That would be impressively lazy.



I still made the frosting in the mixer, though. Whipping butter isn't fun or easy.

The whole thing took me most of the day to make, but most of it was waiting. Make the batter, wait for the cakes to bake. Panic when the edges bake too quickly and look burnt. Fret that they're not done after half an hour, and wait even more impatiently. Pull them out and wait for them to cool. Get impatient and put them in the freezer. Level and frost the bottom layer, and shove it back in the freezer.

Go bother the neighbors because you clearly need a break from all this hard work.

Frost the other half, put it back in the freezer, make ganache. Forget to put it in a double boiler and sort of accidentally make fudge. Break the corn syrup bottle and have to make the glaze without any syrup. Then finally serve the cake.



I was so proud of it. It looked professional. Sort of. It tasted either professional or like it really wanted you to have diabetes. It was extremely rich, and just tasted like peanut butter chocolate love. Papa Bird loves those things. Home run for Father's Day, right?

Well, not exactly. He was... okay with it. He was tired and not really hungry. He complained it was too rich, too many calories, even with such a small piece. He was tired and dare I say, possibly even a bit grumpy. I was sad I was forcing him to eat a cake he didn't want. I ate an entire huge piece out of spite for everyone who complained.

But really, it is delicious. Fleur Bird loved it so much he had two pieces and asked me to make it for his wedding. Papa Bird told me last night that he loved it and was sorry to see it all gone. So if you know anyone who loves peanut butter and chocolate and want to see them struggle with an amazingly rich piece of cake.... here's your cake.

Recipe slightly modified from from Smitten Kitchen
(Makes 16 slices, with 695 calories and $0.86 per slice)
Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2.5 cups sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup canola oil

1 cup sour cream

1.5 cups water

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Mix together four, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
   
3. Add oil and sour cream and mix well.
   
4. Mix in water 1/2 cup at a time, beating well.
   
5. Add in vinegar and vanilla.
   
6. Add in eggs and mix very well.
   
7. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
   

Peanut Butter Frosting

10 ounces cream cheese

4 ounces butter

5 cups powdered sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter

1. Beat cream cheese and butter together until fluffy.
   
2. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating well each time.
   
3. Add peanut butter, and mix well, being sure to scrap all parts of the bowl.
   

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze

8 ounces chocolate

3 tablespoons peanut butter

1/2 cup half & half

1. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and peanut butter.
   
2. Cool, being careful to not let set.
   
3. Mix in half & half.
   
4. Pour over cake as quickly as possible.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Cake is not always a great present.
  

California Chocolate Cookies

A friend of mine recently moved to California. I'm at that age where it isn't unreasonable of my friends to move across the country. We're not tied down by anything more than a sense of familiarity, and as much as I'm sad to see her go, I hope she finds what she's looking for over there. And starts posting some pictures to Facebook. How am I supposed to know she's doing well if I don't have pictures?

The last time I saw her, I made cookies. They were Martha Stewart's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies, only with white chocolate chips instead of more milk chocolate. But I messed up.



I overbaked them.

I wish I had paid better attention to the site I first found them on. When I first went to take them out of the oven, they seemed so undercooked. So I just put them back in. Then they were black on the bottom, and I was bitterly disappointed.

My friend still ate probably 2/3 of the cookies. But I was upset. I'll redo this disaster sometime, because I can see how delicious these would have been. Nothing tastes sadder than burnt chocolate.



The night wasn't a total failure, at least. We had a lot of fun sending her off.



When I say 'we had a lot of fun,' I mean 'we bought a lot of alcohol.' We also bought popcorn, The Emperor's New Groove, My Little Pony fruit snacks, and ate a mountain of pulled BBQ chicken. Which was absolutely delicious, by the by. I will be recreating that sometime not too far in the future.



But the best part of the night, to me, was when we were all giant nerds. We made colored drinks. Grenadine with Everclear, Blue Curacao with Schnapps, and Absinthe with... a whole bunch of things. Arranged artfully, they made the Triforce of Booze. Power, Courage, and Wisdom. Color-coded and everything.

We are all huge nerds.

And next time my friend is back on our side of the country, I will make her chocolate cookies that haven't been burnt to a crisp.

Today's lessons learned:

• Don't overbake cookies. Ever.
  
• Everclear is vile.
  

Boozey Brownies

I'm, uh... a little late to be doing a St. Patrick's Day post. I know, I know. More than a little late. But I made these, they were tasty, and I'm going to share them. You can make them next year. Or if you're just feeling particularly alcoholic someday and need some chocolate.



Boyfriend Bird threw a little party on St. Patrick's day. He and his roommate grilled some burgers, and I made Sriracha Joes because I am incapable of not making food for parties these days. I promise one day I will share that recipe, because it is my favorite sloppy joe ever. I could eat them for forever. But I took no pictures of them, so that'll be for a later post.

St. Patrick's Day is possibly the only holiday that is acceptably celebrated by getting black-out drunk. I didn't celebrate it this way, but I definitely watched some people doing so. And that wasn't even at the party; I saw some very inebriated people at two in the afternoon. Four of us went into a local city for a festival we had heard of. I personally knew nothing about it; I was just told there was some Irish festival where a bunch of bars had stuff set up outside and live music. Booze and music? How could that be bad? This was the day after I got my tattoo, so I was super nervous about it being outside and ruined in the sun, and it was still red and extremely sore. But I had a green halter top, and I couldn't resist showing it off. I'm so simple-minded some days.

Sadly, the 'festival' was a huge letdown. We couldn't find anywhere to park, had to walk pretty far (although we did see a lot of cute dogs), and once we got there, we realized that there wasn't really anything outside other than lines to get into bars. There were plenty of people in green, though. So we went to the only semi-outdoor tent, where we could hear live music, but once they had verified we were of age, they told us there was a $20 cover.

We just laughed and left. We ended up eating cannoli and tiramisu from a local Italian bakery. It's technically a chain now as it has 4 locations in the city, but it's only in the city, so it still counts as local! My family used to go there every time we went to the city, so it'll always have a special place in my heart, and it was nice to get to share it with some friends who had never experienced it.

After our little trip, we went home and made these brownies, ate, and drank. And all was well. The brownies reminded me of the black bottom cake my mother used to make, only the chocolate was lighter. The taste of alcohol didn't come through for me, so if you're a fan of booze-taste, make sure you brush the whiskey on afterwards! I just dumped the whiskey in the Guinness batter as I was mixing it, because I didn't have anything to brush with and didn't want to be bothered.

Recipe from Confessions of a Cardamom Addict
(Makes 20 brownies, with 165 calories and $0.50 per serving)

3 ounces cream cheese

4 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons Bailey's

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup Guinness

2 tablespoons cocoa

3 ounces chocolate chips

3 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon canola oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup and 2 tablespoon flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon Jameson

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Mix together 2 tablespoons butter and cream cheese.
   
3. Add 1/4 cup sugar and Bailey's until fluffy and delicious.
   
4. Beat in 1 egg, vanilla, and 1 tablespoon flour. Set aside.
   
5. Bring Guinness to a simmer.
   
6. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder, then mix in chocolate chips to melt.
   
7. Stir in 2 tablespoons melted butter and oil.
   
8. Mix in other egg and egg yolk, then 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, and salt.
   
9. Sift in 2/3 cup and 1 tablespoon flour.
   
10. Mix until batter is smooth.
    
11. Mix batters together in brownie pan.
    
12. Bake for 30 minutes.
    
13. Brush the top with more whiskey if desired.
    

Today's lessons learned:

• Don't trust word of mouth.
  
• Cannoli are worth every calorie.
  

Valentine's Day, aka I LOVE CHOCOLATE

A few weeks ago I made some impressively messed up muffins. I won't say bad because they were edible, unlike the disastrous cornbread muffins I tried. They were messed up because I just didn't really think about the different types of flour. Those muffins completely failed to rise, resulting in midget muffins that were incredibly dense and had a very strange texture. I ate them for a week or two, and then was sick of having to hide my breakfast in shame each morning.



Notice how you can stack two in a muffin container that's meant for one. Eating just one wasn't filling at all. It just made me hungrier. On Sunday night, I had had enough of them and decided that since I'd be in the kitchen for my Valentine's experiment, I should make proper muffins. And these turned out fantastically, with one~ little problem.



It seems that the heart shaped ones weren't completely done (although I swear I toothpick tested them, I really did). But they still taste delicious so I don't mind. Supposedly they are only 98 calories. I'm not sure I believe that. They don't taste like they're less than a hundred calories. They're deliciously fluffy, even after being frozen. I am tempted to never cook another muffin recipe and try substituting other fruits for the blueberries.

I've already gone through two weeks of them, so I will have to start looking for the next recipe soon. Probably more fruit, as it lets me pretend they're healthy.

Although I can almost fit two muffins in my cupcake holder. I wonder if I just make my muffins too small?

Blueberry Muffins from Chocolatesuze
(Makes 20 mufins, approximately $0.95 per muffin)
Ingredients

1.33 cups sour cream

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons milk

4 tablespoons butter

2 cups self-rising flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 345F.
   
2. Mix sour cream, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract together.
   
3. Add flour to mixture.
   
4. Add the blueberries and stir gently.
   
5. Add butter and milk, continuing to stir gently.
   
6. Bake for 20 minutes, or longer if not done.
   

These also freeze just fine, although they stick to each other when you pull them out if you aren't careful. I've had a few causalities. I'm a good bit late for a Valentine's post, but timeliness isn't really my thing. Boyfriend Bird and I decided we didn't really want to celebrate Valentine's Day, or at least not 'traditionally'. For us, Valentine's comes after a string of birthdays and Christmas and our anniversary, so we're both out of gift ideas. (I say us both, but it's me. He's very good at gifts.) We decided that we wouldn't go out to a fancy dinner or buy each other anything, but just have a quiet night together. And it was wonderful. We went to a local grilled cheese place and then played Minecraft and Black Ops for the night. We're nerdy birds. But of course I couldn't resist trying to make SOMETHING for him. So I bought oreos, chocolate, a candy mold, and had some fun. The one in the top corner was me wondering if I could just dunk them with my hands. No. Chocolate is hot. Do not try that. It will hurt and you will feel dumb. (But if you do, you should probably eat that oreo before anyone else sees it. And then post pictures of it on the internet anyway.) I also decided to be fancy and do some white chocolate too. I melted all this chocolate by using what I have dubbed the 'ghetto boiler,' although I think it's actually a pretty common method. Mama Bird has an impressive collection of pots, so I found two that sit on top of each other, boiled water in the bottom one and then put the chocolate in the top one. So by making my own double boiler. There are plenty of guides on how to do it written by people who actually know what they're doing, if anyone is really curious. Sadly, I only made about seven white chocolate cookies. I've used my ghetto boiler two or three times before, but this was the first time I overheated the chocolate. It was an interesting experience; the chocolate firmed back into a solid. I was confused at first, thinking that the steam must all be escaping and that I needed to turn up the heat, so I only made it worse. But at least a few of them weren't ruined. The milk chocolate ones turned out wonderfully. The candy mold chocolates turned out mostly well too. They tasted wonderful (other than burning it, how can you mess up oreos and chocolate?), but I didn't really have a good strategy for trimming the excess chocolate from the edges of the mold. If/When I attempt this in the future, I will be more mindful of scraping the extra chocolate on the mold, and filling them to the proper point so they sit correctly. Not that Boyfriend Bird minded. I think most of them are gone at this point. We did end up going out for a Valentine's dinner that Friday. We went to a wonderful sushi place, and he got me to try some crazy ones. Boyfriend Bird is much more adventurous than I, he really enjoys going out and ordering food or beer he's never had before. Like duck tongue. We ordered sea urchin, but I wimped out because it looked so strange, but I did eat the salmon roe. And the enormous special we ordered that I could hardly fit in my mouth, and the delicious spicy grilled roll... This post's cooking lesson(s):

• Pay attention to the type of flour you're supposed to use.
  
• Don't overheat chocolate when trying to melt it.
  
• Try new foods! (maybe this is more of a life lesson...)
  

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.