Broken Oven :(

Well as you probably guessed from the title, my oven is broken!  The touchpad broke last night. I am very unhappy about this for many reasons.  First, no baking for the time being, and as a baking addict, this is quite unsettling.  Also, I just bought this oven for my mom in August for $2500, and if you ask me, that is a lot of money and it should last more than half a year!  Yes, it is still under warrantee, but that didn't help last night, when Nick and I were ready to make empanadas!

I did manage to sneak in a batch of amazing brownies before it broke, luckily.  It was Jay's birthday and he likes chocolate, so I decided to try some brownies from scratch and top them with mocha frosting.  As a person who is not a huge chocolate fan, it means a lot for me to say that a brownie is good!  But they were so cakey and delicious, and the frosting had just enough coffee flavor!  My mom, who basically hates everything, loved them and said they were the best thing I have baked.  I'd bake them again someday... if I had a working oven :(   Anyway, I got them out just in time, because when I went to shut the oven off... it wouldn't. It was stuck on!  We had to flip the breaker to get it shut off, and now it's no good at all.  I wonder how long it will be until I can bake again!  Hmph.

I'm in quite the funk tonight.  No oven, and back to work after a week off tomorrow.  Argh!

Recipe:
Cakey Brownies with Mocha Frosting
From the February 2012 Food Network Magazine  Insert: 50 Brownies

Brownies:
1 3/4 cups flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks butter
2  1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup water
6 ounces chopped unsweeteed chocolate (just noticed that I used semisweet... I guess my brownies were extra sweet!)
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Frosting:
1 teaspoon instant espresso (I just used instant coffee granules)
1 tablespoon water
1 stick butter
1  1/4 cups confectionary sugar
shaved chocolate for garnish  (not surprisingly, I skipped this.  I'm all about ugly food)

Pre-frosting!

1.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Coat a 9-by-13-inch pan with cooking spray (I actually lined my pan with tin foil, and then used butter to grease it since I am out of spray.  It came out perfectly).

2. Whisk flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.

3.  Bring butter, brown sugar, and water to a simmer in a saucepan.  Off the heat, whisk in chocolate; cool slightly.



4. Whisk in 5 eggs one at a time.  Whisk in vanilla.

5. Stir in the flour mixture.

6.  Spread into the pan; bake 3-35 minutes.

7. For frosting, dissolve 1 teaspoon instant espresso (or instant coffee)  in water.  Beat this with butter and confectioner's sugar.  Wait until the brownies are completely cool to frost.  Sprinkle with shaved chocolate.

Don't feel too bad for them... Delilah helped herself to a couple brownies herself.  Apparently chocolate does NOT kill dogs.

Vacation Catch-Up

I haven't been updating much because I have been attempting to squeeze every last second of fun out of this vacation week!  This does include baking and cooking, but blogging has not slipped its way in yet ;)  With two days left to go, and more recipes to try out, I knew I had to do some catching up this afternoon!

I have made three different things this week.  First, my mom mentioned that she saw a Mardi Gras special on the Today Show and they made a special Mardi Gras cake called a king cake.  It's kind of like a coffee cake that gets rather garishly decorated with green, gold and purple (the Mardi Gras colors).  Inside the cake, you bake a little plastic baby Jesus, and whoever gets the Jesus in their slice gets good luck for the year (or something).  I was intrigued by this cake and decided to give it a try. 

Pre-decorating, this braided cake is sooo pretty!

Scary attempt at making a baby Jesus...

There was one problem: no baby Jesus.  Mom and I tried to figure out what we could do to solve this, but we ended up grabbing an old  oyster shell and drawing a Jesus onto it.  The end result was so bizarre that I left Jesus out altogether and our cake was luck-less! ;)

Decorating the beautiful braided yeast cake was wonderful, because this is one time when it is supposed to look bad!  I am an expert in that.  The frosting's secret ingredient was evaporated milk, and came out great... I was a little afraid since I have had numerous bad frosting experiences lately.  Then I frosted the cake, and shook the colored sugars on top.  Like I said, I was supposed to use green, purple and gold.  I had green, so that was no problem, but we do not regularly use purple or gold sugar!  I improvised with yellow, and a mixture of blue and pink.  Perfect?  No.  But it wasn't supposed to look great, so I'd have to say I did the king cake justice!   I love the end result.  Tacky and ugly, but absolutely delicious.

Post-decorating, and ugly but delicious!

The cake called for a ton of egg yolks, so I was left with my usual problem of tons of leftover whites!  I wanted to try something different than my go-to pavlova, so I found a recipe for meringue cookies.  You may notice that there are no pictures of these... and that is because they look like mushroom caps and I hate them!  I followed the recipe to a T - I did the mix-in flavors of vanilla and rum - and I think the recipe is definitely wrong.  With what I already know about meringues and pavlovas, I know that it's pretty uncommon to see the oven at 300 degrees, and then to bake for two hours!  It's usually a much lower temperature, and not that long in the oven.  I had my doubts but I tried it anyway.  The house smelled great for a while, and then started to smell like burning.  I took them right out, and while the consistency was right for meringue, the taste was a little burned.  Luckily I took this in stride and didn't do my usual meltdown because I can definitely say this was no mistake of mine; do not try this at home!

I also made my family's favorite dinner of the lettuce wraps this week.  These absolutely delicious little babies came courtesy of Laura and when I made them last time, Kenzie, Mom and I devoured them.  The sauce is so good, I could practically drink it.  I was excited to let Mark try them this time, and was slightly (very) disappointed to find that he wasn't a huge fan.  He claims he hates ground chicken.  I claim that he went into the dinner planning on not liking them!  Regardless, Mom and I still scarfed them down and think they were great :)

Be ready for another update, hopefully tonight; I have a new brownie recipe I am going to try!

Recipes:
King cake
Meringue cookies
Lettuce Wraps

Strawberries and Cream Muffins!

For Valentine's Day last week, Nick gave Kenzie an Edible Arrangement.  It was pretty awesome and had pineapple, grapes, chocolate-covered strawberries, and lots and lots of regular strawberries!  Since it has now been a week since the big day, and we still had a lot of fruit left over, it was time to do some baking with fruit.  Luckily it was the perfect chance to whip up my favorite use for strawberries: strawberries and cream muffins!

Hurray for leftover strawberries and lovebug decorations :)

I love muffins, I love strawberries, and I love cream (okay not really that last part) - so these muffins are like the perfect thing for me.  I had made them over Christmas vacation and fallen in love, so I was thrilled to have a surplus of strawberries today.  The problem with baking with strawberries is that they disappear when you bake them; they turn into pinkish areas in the cake, but definitely do not stay in their berry form!  This recipe tries to fix that by pouring the batter into the cupcake cups, and then adding a layer of berries, then more batter, then sprinkling berries on top.  It keeps the strawberries intact and helps the muffins look rather adorable.  In addition, you also layer on some sweet cream (hence the strawberries and cream muffins!) in between the berries and batter.  The cream is absolutely delicious and adds to the cupcakes' amazingness.  It is safe to say that these are one of my favorite things to make - and eat.  If you ever end up with an extra cup of strawberries, there is absolutely no excuse to make these babies.

How cute are these?  Nice work with the cute cupcake decorators, Mom!

Recipe:
Strawberries and cream muffins

Dedicated to my Cutest Fans :)

Today I was home alone with Dad while everyone else was out shopping and doing errands.  Mom and Kenz are doing some much-needed grocery shopping: we are out of many things, including sugar, which severely limited my baking this afternoon!  So I had a great idea: why not make something that doesn't need sugar?  And this idea evolved intomaking dog treats :)

I had seen a recipe recently for dog biscuits and was intrigued.  Why haven't I thought of this before?  The dogs love any food, so I know that even if I burned them, left out an ingredient, or made them look like crap (like most of my food!), they would both still devour them ravenously.  So this entry - and day of baking - is dedicated to Daisy and Delilah, the world's sweetest basset hounds!

This recipe could be eaten by humans (and I will admit that I took a bite of Daisy's); it didn't include anything weird.  It has oats, applesauce, peanut butter, and coconut for flavor.  I will confess that they are actually kind of delicious.  But don't take it from me:

Recipe:
Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits

A heart for Delilah!

Daisy even woke up for a treat!

I love my two girls :)

I Hate Cake

Hello, to my many followers!  AKA, hi to my aunts, mother and Laura ;)  I have not forgotten about my blog, but my back has been pretty horrendous.  After a day of work standing on my feet all day, by night time, I am miserable and can do nothing more than lay on the couch.  Luckily, it is February vacation week!  Perfect timing!  I can take care of my back and still find a little time to limp my way into the kitchen. 

Today I decided to give in to my mother's constant begging for "chocolate cake with vanilla frosting."  I think it sounds kind of bland, and as someone who likes weird and different food combinations (I am very intrigued by maple bacon cupcakes), chocolate cake with vanilla frosting is boring.  But, my mom loves boring food (we always say she hates flavor) and it was time to give her what she wanted!  I found a recipe for dark chocolate cake, so I was happy that it was at least slightly different... except then I couldn't find dark chocolate Hershey's powder, so it ended up being just a regular old chocolate cake.  Hmph.

I was hoping for a triumphant return to the kitchen, but it did not quite turn out that way.  For some reason, every time I make cakes, I somehow fail to properly butter and flour the pans.  This is now the second cake in a row that has stuck!  Argh.  I guess I need to go heavier on the butter next time - way heavier.  Then, we ran out of confectionary sugar when I was making the frosting, so I made less of the recipe.  I should have gone to the store, but my back was already starting to aches, so I made the decision to just go with less.  This was not a great idea.  When you make two layer cakes, you need a lot of frosting, because you have to frost the tops and sides of both.  Well, when you don't have enough frosting, you can only do the tops of both... sparingly.  This resulted in another ugly cake (remember, the cakes stuck in the pans, so they were a little strange-looking, and usually frosting covers that up... well, nto today).  I am kind of sick of my food being ugly, but today I can blame no one but myself for not going to get more sugar!  I have basically been half-assing my entire life since my back started hurting 2 weeks ago, and I really need to get it figured out so that I can start living again!

At least Kenzie and Mom say that the cake is delicious (but could have used that extra frosting!).  And Daisy looks interested...

Recipe:
Dark chocolate cake with vanilla frosting

Spasming into the Kitchen

Well today is my second consecutive sick day from work... I haven't done this in years!  Not a great feeling.  Apparently I am having back spasms (you know, like athletes... which I am so not)  and there is not really much to be done about that besides massages (yeah right) and some exercises to strengthen my back.  Since I am going to be miserable well into the unforeseeable future, I figured I would suck it up and do some more baking today.

Seriously, how gorgeous are these ramekins? Never mind the cakes!

Susie bought me ramekins this weekend, after hearing me whine that I want to try souffles but had no small dishes.  She surprised me with the most beautiful little ramekins: four are white and four are turquoise; they have little polka dots all over, and I am in love with them.  It was perfect timing, too: my new Food Network magazine subscription finally kicked in (thanks Nick!) and there was a recipe for chocolate molten lava cakes.  I remember having these for the first time on my first cruise and thinking that it was pretty darn cool, so I thought it would be a great thing to cook in my new ramekins.

What is surprising is the amount of eggs in these babies.  It calls for 6 eggs, which is a lot in and of itself, but then you also need 6 more yolks!  One entire dozen eggs in these 8 little cakes!  I was shocked (and also stressed, because you know I refuse to waste egg parts... more on that later).  Another surprise is the inclusion of a pinch of cayenne pepper!  You can't taste it, but you know something is there.  And there is cinnamon in there too: I am realizing that chocolate and cinnamon are winning combinations. 

Anyway they weren't too hard to make, and they come out fantastically.  Susie and Mom devoured them, and as more people stopped by (Pat, Betsy, Kenzie), they have been thouroughly enjoyed by all.  Susie claims I could market them to restaurants!  My only regret is that I think I cooked them for maybe 4 minutes too long, and they weren't so molten.  The middles were soft, but not runny (then again, Mom says she hates runny cakes, so it was for the best!)  The recipe says to bake for 12-14 minutes; mine were nowhere near done in 14 minutes, but my oven is always slow, and I bet they took more like 25.  Maybe next time I will take them out at 20.  And yes there will be a next time, as soon as my family has recovered from eating 12 ounces of chocolate, 2 sticks of butter, and a dozen eggs, all mushed into only 8 little cakes :)  One last  tip: serve them with vanilla ice cream.

Then, despite the throbbing pain in my back, I could not let my egg whites go to waste, so I whipped up my favorite old egg white -user-upper: the pavlova.  Sooo easy and delicious!  This one came out way better than my last one.  I tried a slightly different recipe (this one called for lemon juice instead of vinegar, and had a higher oven temperature; it also did not require leaving it on the oven after you turn it off). The last pavlova stayed a little mushy, but this is perfectly meringue-y.  This one called for kiwis to top it (apparently it is the national dessert of New Zealand!) but I wanted to keep it simple.  I texted Pat and told him it was all his (this is one of his favorites) if he brought strawberries for the top, and we had a deal.  I cheated a little and used a can of whipped cream on top.  Hey, give me a break, I'm injured!  If you plan on trying the lava cakes, plan on making a pavlova too.  It is just too easy and delicious not to.

Recipes:
Pavlova

The Neelys' Molten Lava Cakes
From the March 2012 Food Network Magazine
Active time: 30 min
Total: 50 min
Makes: 8 cakes

2 sticks unsalted butter, plus more for buttering ramekins
4 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinchof nutmeg
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, plus more for dusting
6 large eggsplus 6 egg yolks
1  1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Butter 8 6-ounce ramekins (I think mine were bigger... no matter!) and sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon sugar (I tried to spread the sugar around so it wasn't just one big clump).

2. Combine the butter, cinnamon, cayenne, nutmeg, and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently until melted and smooth.  Cool slightly.  Whisk the flour, confectioners' sugar, eggs, yolks, vanilla extract, and almond extract in a bowl until creamy (I think I will use my mixed next time).  Whisk in the melted chocolate mixture.  Divide among the prepared ramekins.

3.  Bake the cakes until the tops are stiffand the edges darken, 12 to 14 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let cool 5 minutes.  Loosen the edges of the cakes with a small paring knife and transfer to plates while warm.  Dust with confectioners' sugar (and serve with vanilla ice cream!)

Barely Back at It

I am sorry that there have not been any new posts, but to be honest I am miserable with this random back pain!  I took Friday off from work, but my doctor couldn't see me, so I took tomorrow off too.  I can barely sit, never mind stand, so cooking or baking has been beyond me.  Today I went in to work, made my sub plans, and came back to the couch, but soon I was so stir crazy that I sucked it up and went to the kitchen to make a snickerdoodle bundt. 

The side that actually came out of the pan!

I'm practically completely crippled now after the process of making a bundt cake, but it was well worth it!  You coat the bundt pan with butter (note to self: more butter next time... one part stuck!) and cinnamon and sugar, so that the outside sort of caramelizes into a crusty outside!  And the inside is very moist and tasty.  Also, there is a layer of more cinnamon and sugar in the middle - so if you're into snickerdoodles, this is the cake for you!  It wasn't too hard to make... it just was difficult for me and my sore back!  I am hoping for a doctor's appointment tomorrow so that I can get back into the kitchen and update you on more fabulous new foods ASAP :)

Recipe:
Snickerdoodle Bunt Cake