Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Rare Beauty of a New Life

Well once again another holiday has come around. I like Easter, a lot. It's fantastic on so many levels. We had a small family get-together yesterday at my house. And let me just tell you how that went.
 
Bread.
 
Okay. So my mom and I were going to make buns and make them look like little bunnies. Yup, that was the plan. Well my mom gets up and starts to make the bread in the bread maker and soon smells fresh bread...a loaf of bread...not just bread dough. So needless to say, we ate that loaf of bread for supper that night.
 
Round two.
 
Alright this time we changed it up, cheese straws. Okay that sounds weird....basically they're just super skinny bread sticks with cheese. Well apparently the dough we made felt like being uncooperative and not rolling into sticks. So our cheese straws soon became cheese biscuits.
 
Third times a charm?
 
Lemon Easter bread. Okay so we make the dough successfully and proceed to place the pans in the oven to rise for an hour before we shapde it into buns. Ha. We than decided to pre-heat the oven so it'd be ready for the buns........the oven that had the pans in it. Yaaa...so than we just had really flat loaves of bread. They did taste good, but they were very flat.
 
Was any of our baking successful? Well yes. Despite our 3 failed attempts we did end up with a lovely meal and a fantastic day with the fam jam.
 
Now for dessert I called dibs on making a something...in my house this is necessary. After claiming dessert duty as my own, I was left to decide what to make.
 
Cake.
 
Of course!
 
 
I made a chocolate cake with chocolate mint buttercream. While shopping the other day we stumbled upon some weird icing flavoring stuff from Duncan Hines. It's intended to add to store-bought icing...pfft who buys icing? But I got a couple packs of the chocolate mint flavor and added it to my own buttercream. And I was very disappointed. It kinda didn't make my buttercream taste any different than usual. I speculate that I didn't have enough for the quantity of icing I had...I'll report back after I give it another go.
 
I made a ferrero rocher filling for the cake. Now after searching thee web for hours I couldn't find a recipe for this anywhere...so I made up my own. I tried to keep track of what I did, so here it is:
 
Ferrero Rocher Cake Filling
  •  16 Ferrero Rocher chocolates
  • 1/3 and 1 Tbs icing sugar
  • 3 Tbs water
*Crush up the chocolates (I found this easiest to do with them still in the wrapper) in a bowl
*Add the icing sugar and water, mixing until it becomes a spreadable consistency
 
 
Something like such ^^
 
To decorate the cake I made fondant calla lilies. To do this I just cut out a triangle of marshmallow fondant and rolled it into a cone, stuck a yellow tube in the middle, and used food coloring to paint the insides yellow.
 
 
 
Those Duncan Hines flavor thingers did give the buttercream a nice color, one point for them!
 
 
Well, that's all I have for ya today. Have a blessed Easter and fantastic weekend,
Enjoy,
Sydney

Monday, March 11, 2013

You Had me at Pie

The last two weeks for me have contained a lot of pie.
 
I'm not complaining, really. But it's true. And in that light, let us read a few "Pie Tips."
 


 
Okay, that's enough nonsense. Let's get real...about pie.
 
I had pie the other day...the pie was made with good intentions, I really believe that. But let's just say that's where the good ended.
 

Whipped cream and cream cheese. Yum, right?

Ha.

Nope.

Something wasn't quite right about this pie...but it did make for an entertaining evening nonetheless. From blasting the hand mixer in the middle of the kitchen to a whipped cream fight to throwing pie at the running ceiling fan. What?! Ya...it happened.

But anyways...I decided to attempt this pie...with an actual recipe. And it was a tad bit better. Okay, a lot better. It was wonderful, in a very cream cheese-y kinda way.


Whipped Cream Pie
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/2 pint whipping cream
  • Fresh fruit
  • 1 pie crust
*Whip the whipping cream until thickened
*Beat together cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice until smooth
*Fold the cheese mixture into the whipped cream
*Pour filling into pie crust
*Refrigerate until firm
*Decorate with cut up fruit, chocolate, whatevers you want!


For the crust I just whipped up a quick one but I imagine you could use pre-made or even a graham crumb crust.

There ya go. Now go forth and make pie.

-Sydney

Sunday, March 03, 2013

"Nine out of ten people like chocolate....

...The tenth person always lies." - John Q. Tullius

Hello all,

I come to you today to admit my shameful actions. I have been blogging for over a year and a half now. A baking blog. With recipes.

And there's something I have failed to do within the last year and a half.


Chocolate Chip cookies.

What blog is complete without a good chocolate chip cookie recipe? Okay maybe that should be narrowed down to what baking blog...but let's face it, no matter what you blog about you should have a chocolate chip recipe. Now I know there's like a million recipes out there and everyone has their own preference. I speak from experience. I went to make some cookies the other day so I pull out my recipe box and flip to the cookie section expecting to find a chocolate chip cookie recipe. Ha.

To my surprise I found five recipes for chocolate chip cookies....each one was different in it's own way. Let's see, there was an oatmeal chocolate chip, cinnamon chocolate chip, cake-like chocolate chip, quick-mix chocolate chip, and simply chocolate chip cookies.

Based on my ingredients at hand, normal chocolate chip cookies it was. Now the others are probably wonderful too, but these were pretty superb.

Again, I guess this depends on your preference of cookies...soft, chewy, crunchy, burnt, chocolately, you name it. These one's were super soft and chewy...that almost half-baked texture, that's the one I'm talking about. We all know how fabulous Subway's cookies are due to their half-baked taste.

One of my friends commented that these cookies were very "moist." Compliment? ...I guess in it's own way, sure.

 
Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup margarine
  • 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp  salt
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup chocolate chips (white, milk, dark: have fun with it!)
*Pre-heat your oven to 350*
*Beat all ingredients in order given
*Stir in chocolate chips by hand
*Scoop onto cookie sheet, leaving about an inch around each cookie
*Bake for 11-14 minutes
*Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack


I also made some chocolate sheeps. Sheeps, what a fun word. I'm pretty naive when it comes to chocolate making, so forgive my lack of skill.


With that being said, only one poor sheep lost a set of legs. The poor fellow. But needless to say, he tasted the same as the others!


Well this has been "What's new in Sydney's kitchen." Join me next time...to see what else is new in my kitchen.

xoxo
Sydney

ps. I'll leave you with a picture of my dog...she's highly fond of my baking!