Five months (carrot cake sandwiches)

This is a carrot cake whoopie pie. Or is it just a carrot cake cookie sandwich? What makes a whoopie pie a whoopie pie? I hadn't heard a whoopie pie until a couple years ago. Was I deprived as a child on purpose by parents limiting processed sugars? Or are whoopie pies just not a "thing" in northern California?

Whatever it's called, it's delicious.

Appetizer for dinner (brie in pie crust)

Hey guys! Guess what? You really can put anything in those pie cookies. Even things that don't qualify as cookies. See above: brie.

S'more whoopie pie

I'm on a baking/blogging roll!

Today was brought to us by the s'more whoopie pie.

Happy birthday, America! (Apple Pie Cookies)

I've been told that pies are the next cupcake. I wasn't convinced. Yes, you can make pies in adorable miniature form in a cupcake pan. But it's just not that portable, you know? They crumble, the filling falls out, it's a whole plate and fork deal. But I think I've found the solution.

Beef... It's what's for dinner.

So here's what's happening in the photo above: Loaf of bread with the center dug out, a steak, a mushroom/garlic/onion sautee, another steak, pesto, and the top of the bread.


I know. It's amazing.

Peanut butter cup brownies

Confession.. I made these at the beginning of April. It's now the middle of May and I'm only now getting around to posting. Oops.

They are brownies baked in mini muffin tins with peanut butter and chocolate chips spooned into the middle. They are the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter. They are bite size. They are adorable.

Laptop bag

Whew! This one was a long time in the making. I got the materials for the laptop bag probably a year ago (around the same time I got the materials for a still-unfinished dress. Heh.). In that time I've switched both my work laptop and personal laptop. Luckily I bought extra fabric so it was all good.

Map envelope

Ready to go :)

Cute idea I got from here

Sadly, there's no actual envelope generator--just the concept (as far as I know--someone correct me if I'm wrong!). My sister made one to welcome her boyfriend home, which was cute and inspired me to make one of my own.

I MADE A DRESS

Yes, this post deserves an all-caps headline.

I actually made two dresses from the same pattern. The second dress went much quicker since I had all the measurements from the first dress so I didn't have to keep trying it on and pinning.

Jewelry organization (pt 2)

Boards!

Taking the advice of my sister, I used nails and hooks for the necklace board instead of pushpins.

I didn't have a drill for to make pilot holes for the hooks, so I found the widest nail I could, hammered it in, and twisted the hook into the hole. Worked just perfectly :) I don't have enough necklaces for both the top and bottom hangers, but I figured I should just get the whole board ready in anticipation for more necklaces.

Jewelry organization

Top row: hanging earrings with hooks.
Second row: stabbing traditional backings into cork board.

Happy St Patrick's Day! (Irish car bomb cupcakes)

I meant to post this about three weeks ago.. Sorry :)

Upside Down Toffee Apple Cake

After a January with 6 baking projects, I slowed way the heck down. I did bake twice in February, but I'm only now getting around to posting about the second one, upside apple toffee cake. It looks like I won't have time to bake anything in March--we're almost halfway through!--but we'll see. Suddenly in the middle of February my free time decreased drastically. Strange.

Almond Chocolate Chip cookies

I saw a story a couple weeks ago on NPR about gluten free baking. I don't particularly enjoy doing it--I feel like I have less flexibility to modify recipes because I don't know how they work, whether it's gluten, egg, dairy, soy, etc, free. Years of baking and recipes have given me some idea of how ingredients work together in cookies, breads and the like. But with GF recipes, all that goes out the window. I made some GF chocolate chip cookies a week ago that turned out incredibly flat and crispy and looked kind of.. holey. No idea why, because I don't know how the GF flour mix worked with the dairy free shortening and egg free substitute. The cookies were still delicious though, so that was a plus.

Mini chicken pot pies

Pot pies are great. Like I mentioned in the post below, I like the idea of warm, hearty meals. They're gooey, can be eaten in a bowl and topped with a flaky dough. But there's always the issue of transport. If you don't have 20 individual ramekins, it's difficult to do a satisfying pot pie.

Chili verde

There's a place in Seattle called Slim's Last Chance. It was featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, and my date on Saturday was telling me how good their chili is. I admitted to him what I had never said out loud before--I don't love chili.

Chocolate Crinkles part 2

I used my zester again.

Of course.

Chocolate orange crinkles

This weekend, the ladies at my house hosted a winter chocolate tea party. There were chocolate cookies, sugar cookies dipped in chocolate, chocolate truffles.. the list goes on. I looked up a recipe for chocolate cookies on Friday night and meant to bake them that night, but I ended up hanging out with a friend instead. Also, it was warm under my blanket. I love the kitchen, but it doesn't have a cuddly fleece blanket to wrap me in.

Saturday morning, I woke up, got out the recipe, got started with the dough.. And then realized it needs to chill for 3 hours before being balled up, sugared and baked. Whoops. I finished the dough anyway and set aside the dough for another occasion. Like most cookie dough recipes, this is a great make-ahead dough.

The dough has lots of eggs, giving it a lovely melt-in-your-mouth texture. The original recipe called for rolling the dough in powdered sugar; I chose to make orange-scented sugar instead. I also replaced a teaspoon of the vanilla with orange to give the cookie more depth. And fine, maybe I wanted to use my zester again. It definitely needs the chill time--since there's no butter in the recipe, the melted chocolate is the only thing that solidifies to give the cookie enough heft to roll into a ball. The last modification I made was using 3 oz semi sweet baking chocolate and 1 oz non sweetened chocolate. Next time, I'll probably split it evenly between semi/unsweetened chocolate.

I made another version of cracked chocolate cookies over Christmas, but I liked this dough better because it was so much easier to work with. The other one (found at Fine Cooking) was delicious, had a more solid final texture, and didn't requite chill time, but the dough was so thick I thought my mixer was going to break.

Go ahead and melt, darlings. I'll be with you shortly.

My friend asked me who gave me the zester for Christmas. I told her, and she responded "I have to write her a thank you card, because these are amazing"

The orange sugar, it glitters!!

Everyone in the pool!

Everyone out of the pool!!!

Nom nom nom...

Chocolate crinkles

Adapted from Betty Crocker

*this dough needs to chill for at least 3 hours*

½ cup vegetable oil
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted, cooled
3 oz semi sweet baking chocolate, melted, cooled
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange extract
4 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup granulated sugar
Zest of one orange

In large bowl, mix oil, chocolate, granulated sugar and vanilla. Stir in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover; refrigerate at least 3 hours.

While dough is chilling, mix together the sugar and orange zest, making sure to fully incorporate the zest until all the sugar is tinted orange.

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease cookie sheet with shortening or cooking spray.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls into orange sugar; roll around to coat and shape into balls. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched lightly in center. Immediately remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.

I'm just throwing in this photo for fun, because I frakking love Seattle AND the Columbia Tower (bottom of the photo). This was taken on Saturday before the tea party, as my friend and I walked around downtown. Love love love.

Update on New Year's Resolutions

1. Read at least one book a month <-- read three Harry Potter books, currently making my way through a Steven King novel and the Scarlet Letter
2. Bake at least two times a month (related to #3) <--Well, you read this blog. Five times in January and there's still a whole week left!
3. Make everything in Joy the Baker's cookbook <--awaiting its release
4. Fold my laundry right away instead of putting it off for weeks <--...two out of three possible isn't too bad, right?

Lemon scented pull apart bread

My final entry (for this week, anyway) in my zesting endeavors--lemon pull apart bread. I've made the cinnamon version (you can find photos in my food album on Facebook) but held off on the lemon version because it requires so much zest. However, large quantities of zest, as you are now very well aware, is no longer an issue for me.

Still zesting

A lovely friend of mine was having a birthday party for her darling one-year old daughter and I wanted to contribute a yummy baked good. Rolling along the zesting train, I came back to the lime white chocolate pound cake. (I know what I said about buttermilk and I still hold to that, but my roommate had extra buttermilk for me to use!).

Given the success of the lime white chocolate chip cookies, I had high hopes for the pound cake. The lime seemed to be a perfect way to lighten up the sweetness of the pound cake and white chocolate. Sadly, the cake didn't turn out.

The flavor of it was exactly what I hoped for, but I could. not. get. it. out. I ended up half loaves due to the bottom half of the loaf remaining in the pan. At least they looked normal when flipped over (albeit a bit short). I greased all the pans sufficiently, so I'm not sure what happened. From the holes in the pound cake, my suspicion is that the white chocolate chips couldn't withstand the sustained heat and melted, creating a sticky browned sugar/fat/cake situation on the bottom of the pan. I really liked the flavor, though, so I'm going to try this one again with modifications.

Currently with my zesting projects, I'm one for three--the lemon berry muffins were eh and these were stuck fast to the pan.

Piles of lime zest

It was my first time baking with my Kindle! It was so useful to not have to bring my laptop into the kitchen with me. All I had to do was send the recipe to my Kindle address (either as a Word doc or a pdf) and it downloaded wirelessly.

They looked fine when they came out, but as you can see, the bottoms didn't fare so well. Totally normal looking when flipped back over though.

Lime White Chocolate Pound Cake

from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody
3 cups cake flour (I used 3 cups all purpose minus 6 tbsp)
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup buttermilk
3 TBSP fresh lime juice
Zest of one lime
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup white chocolate chips coated with 2 TBSP flour

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease a 10-4 inch bundt pan or a long loaf pan (I used 4 mini loaf pans and still had enough leftover to fill 6 muffin cups) using baking spray (next time I'll grease and flour), set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the lime juice and zest, and beat for one minute on medium-high speed.

Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

Starting and ending with the flour, alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture. Mix until fully combined after each addition--five additions total (1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 flour). Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Bake for 60-65 minutes, or until a wooden skewer tester or knife comes out clean.

Zesting MACHINE

I did a significant amount of baking in the last week, so be prepared for an onslaught of entries.

I had a free weeknight last week and clients coming into the office the next day, so I decided to put my zester to use again. I've had my eye on a lime-white chocolate pound cake for a while but upon looking at the ingredient list, didn't want to deal with buttermilk. I'm a big fan of making things that use ingredients I'll use again--buttermilk is not one of those things.

Since I was still on a citrus kick, I settled on a cookie version of the flavors. The resulting cookies were flat and chewy, but with crispy edges. I'm on the hunt for a puffy cookie recipe, but mostly because the puffy ones are prettier to photograph ;)

Lime White Chocolate Chip Cookies

From The Fresh Loaf

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lime juice
1 tablespoon lime zest
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 - 12 oz bag white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two sheet pans with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, sugar and butter until combined but not fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, then add vanilla, lime juice and lime zest. Mix to combine.

Whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix into creamed mixture until just combined. Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Shape the dough into 1″ balls, and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the edges are golden and the centers just set.

Allow to sit on the pan for three minutes before moving to wire racks.

All the lemons and limes you have (lemon berry muffins)

You may have thought you heard me say I wanted a lot of lemons and limes, but what I said was: Give me all the lemons and limes you have.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to bake at least twice a month. I got a Microplane zester for Christmas, so it only seemed right that the first thing I bake would be something involved zesting all the citrus I could find.

I was originally going to make the lemon raspberry rolls from Joy the Baker, but didn't want to go on a scavenger hunt through the boys' place for the parts to a stand mixer. Instead, inspired by the yeasty goodness of the rolls, I combined cinnamon roll muffins with lemon raspberry rolls.

Because of the quick rise method, there was a lot of yeast in the dough and the zest/sugar swirled in wasn't enough to overcome the taste. For comparison: this recipe had 4 tsp yeast for 1 1/2 c flour. Another yeasted dough recipe (look for the post later this week) that had two rises only had 2 1/4 tsp yeast for 2 3/4 c flour. The amount of yeast isn't a bad thing, but it does have a noticeable effect on taste. So things I would change:

• Using browned butter instead of oil as the fat
• Mix zest directly into batter
• Toss sugar with berries and layer into batter

Onto the photos!

Lemon Berry Muffins
Adapted from Joy the Baker's Cinnamon Roll Muffins and Lemon Raspberry Breakfast Rolls

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 tsp active dry or rapid rise yeast
2/3 cup warm milk (100-110F; low fat is fine)
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg

Filling/Topping
1 heaping cup fresh berries (if using frozen, do not thaw)
1/3 cup sugar plus 1/2 cup sugar for dusting
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, browned and slightly cooled

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt. Dissolve the yeast in a measuring cup filled with the warmed milk, then stir milk mixture, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and egg into the flour mixture. Mix well, until very smooth. Pour into prepared pan and let rest for 15 minutes.

While the dough rests, mix together the berries, sugar, zest, cornstarch and butter, until all the butter has been incorporated into the sugar and mixture is crumbly. Divide half the batter between 12 greased and floured muffin cups. Sprinkle evenly on top of rested dough and press the mixture down into the dough with your fingertips (or swirl in with a spatula. Top with rest of batter.

Place pan into a cold oven, then set the oven temperature to 350F.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until bread is lightly browned at the edges and the center of the bread springs back when lightly pressed. Some of the sugar mixture on top may still be bubbling.

Serve warm. Leftovers can be reheated in the microwave.

Purse!

I meant to post this back in, oh, September. Better late than never, I suppose.

Every so often, I'll find myself at JoAnn Fabrics. I usually go for a specific purpose (e.g. quilt materials for a baby blanket) but almost always stumble out an hour later with $50 of craft/sewing supplies and wonder, "What just happened?!"

Recently, I managed to make it out without buying anything extra, but something far more dangerous happened: inspiration. So many pretty fabrics! So many pretty colors and patterns! So many embellishments! Next stop: Google.

I found a cute purse pattern (here:http://machenmachen.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/machen-machen-wasp-bag.pdf) that looked simple enough. I'd been needing a new purse for a while anyway. I kept trying out new bags and purses, but there was always something a little off about each one--too little, too big, handles too short, doesn't close. I figured, what better way to get a purse that fit my needs than to make it myself?

As it turns out, making a purse is much harder than quilting. With a quilt, it's all straight lines. The hardest part is cutting all the squares the same size and keeping seam allowances consistent. With a purse (or the pattern I made, anyway), there were curves and pleating and darting and buttons and pockets and handles to line up and oh gosh, did I sew the wrong sides together???

I ended up with this:

I love it. The snap was taken off an old purse that I don't use anymore (+1 for recycling!). I had to redo the pocket 3 or 4 times because I could not get it to flip out right. I learned some very crucial things:

• Basting is my friend, way more than pins.
• Washable pens are key
• Darts aren't scary! Neither are pleats
• Baste, baste, baste.

And of course, I couldn't have done it without my dear friend, who assured me that darts are not, in fact, unattainable by a novice sewer.

Unfortunately, my success with the purse convinced me I was an unstoppable sewing/crafting machine. A little less than a week later, I stumbled out of JoAnn's again, this time with supplies for a laptop bag. Dun dun DUNNNN. Yes. We'll see how THAT goes...

New Year's Resolutions

1. Read at least one book a month
2. Bake at least two times a month (related to #3)
3. Make everything in Joy the Baker's cookbook
4. Fold my laundry right away instead of putting it off for weeks