On the cooling rack: Cake fit for the Oscars

Yes, yes, I know it's been a while. Let's just chalk it up to "issues".

Some friends of mine in the movie-making business hold an annual Oscar-watching party akin to most people's Super Bowls. There is commentary (always a riot), yelling ("get off the stage! No one wants to listen to you!"), and a most divine spread of food. Ohhhhhh, the food. While Jeff gets his jollies with friends in front of the TV, Jana is in the kitchen making dish after dish of gourmet goodness. I asked what I could bring and this was the conversation:

Jana: Well, you could either bring syrups and cream for the Italian soda machine, or you could make a dessert. But don't go all out - it's not a big deal. Don't stress over it at all.
Me: Oh, yeah right. I know you all too well, Miss Jana. What are you making for dinner?
Jana: Just 5 different kinds of gourmet pizzas - probably around 20 of them.
Me: Uh huh, well, I'll make a dessert, of course.
Jana: Seriously, don't stress over it.
Me: Ok, I'll just make a pan of brownies from a mix. But since it's the Oscars maybe I'll make TWO pans.

I decided to bring this instead:

Did you see the stage show by Cirque du Soleil?? I need to get my fat butt to Vegas!

Crippling Weaknesses

I think one of my first ever blog posts had this same title, where I touted the many attributes of Diet Coke, Peanut M&Ms, and bacon. While I still swoon at the thought of any of those three things (though Diet Cherry Pepsi has eked out to first place in the artificially sweetened carbonated caffeinated beverage category), it's time to get a little more serious and pay tribute to things that can love me back.

Over Christmas, Ted and I tried hard to get together with the two men you see pictured below. For good reason. Jamal (name has been changed) and Adler (name has not been changed, but also goes by "Uncle Ads") became our go-to Settlers companions because they are as addicted to it as we are.

Let me back up. Settlers of Catan, particularly the Cities & Knights version, is how Ted and I got back together after a messy breakup and period of silence. Our first game we played with two other guys was quite awkward, but we all loved to just play, so we kept getting together. Then Ted and I had to sit next to each other because we were the only people laughing at each other's dumb (read: racial and/or inappropriate) jokes. Then we became good friends. Then lovers...

Wait. This isn't a Valentine's post. Sheesh.

Anyway, we played with all sorts of people, including other married people - some with kids, some without. We loved that, but one couple moved away, and then the other, but the wife of that couple didn't love it the way the rest of us did anyway. So we started placing an ad in the classifieds* for people who had a sickness and therefore had to play at the very least, once a week (hopefully more). We found them. And it turns out Uncle Ads worked with Ted and Jamal bakes incredible cookies, so it was a win-win-win-win. We had Dinner & Settlers often, sometimes twice a week. I referred to my husband and the two single awesome guys as "my boys", and cooked accordingly. We ate well, we played lots, and the nights were filled with loads of laughter and some of the best intellectual and thought-provoking conversations of my life. These guys are A-1 in my book.

Then we moved. And God found it in His infinite mercy to bless us with people here who are as addicted as we are. Don't think I don't thank Him in my prayers for that.

I flew back to CA a few months later to visit and help my mom pack up for her move. Visiting "my boys" was high on my priority list, so we cooked up a pound of bacon and had a jolly ol' time, though we missed Ted for that game.

To reprise our gaming over Christmas was its own gift. Jamal just got married last October to a fabulous girl, so I spent 90% of the game time engaged in conversation with her and was happy to feel like we all fit together well. And I still managed to win. Neener.

When Jamal was single, I loved going to his apartment because he was the ultimate bachelor. Maybe I shouldn't say "ultimate". He didn't have a "man cave" and his place was clean and hobbit-feet-smelling-free. But the reason I use the word "ultimate" is because of his kitchen, particularly his fridge. It's no secret I love my M&MS (peanut), and in this, Jamal is my soulmate. One night, while Ted and I were there, he ushered me into his kitchen, prepped me for the opening of his fridge door, and watched my reaction once my eyes beheld its contents: not just M&Ms, but Snickers and Reese's and sodas and Grasshopper cookies and chocolate chips for his awesome cookies and more and more. Then he opened his freezer: tiny cups of Haagen Dazs in all flavors and Haagen Dazs bars and more chocolate chips and Ben & Jerry's and and and and ohhhhhh. I made an audible gasp while he grinned at me and briefly considered breaking off my engagement to Ted and throwing myself at this man's feet. He is a sweets FIEND.

Naturally, while at their house over the holidays, I stole into his kitchen to look into his fridge to see if getting married had changed his ways. I saw milk. And cheese. And vegetables. And a couple containers with leftovers. And some chicken or something. What the hell? I expressed my disappointment, but then his lovely (and skinny, which I can't understand given the state of things) wife opened their cupboard and I saw THIS.

You can't see the pillar of light that was shining upon it because my flash was on, but it was certainly there. Look at that thing! A stack of Kit-Kats. Literal BAGS - a pound each - of chocolate-covered peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans. Gummi rings. Gummi worms. Yogurt raisins and pretzels. Lindt truffles. M&Ms, of course. Licorice, mints, candy bars, oh my! I had to ask his wife, "Did you marry Willy Wonka??"

There you have it. Three more crippling weaknesses. Settlers, my boys, and candy. Yes, chocolate DOES love me back. It loves me on my buns, my boobs, my thighs... It loves me all over.

*I wasn't quite that desperate, but I wouldn't put it past me.

Have your cake and eat it, two

Have you ever had an idea pop in your head that was so perfect and got you so excited that you nearly wet your pantaloons and somewhere amidst the swooning at your own cleverness you neglected to care about things that normally would alarm you, like a leaking poopie diaper or the fact that you're in your underwear while the apartment complex gardening company is outside your sliding glass door mowing your lawn whilst you stand there in raptured glee among poo fumes?

That happened to me.

The grand idea popped into my head after much deliberation and pondering upon the subject, so the moral of the story is to always ponder and you will be considered wonderful by any and all.

The subject? Upcoming baby shower for a friend.

The deliberation? I volunteered to help with the shower, so what cake to make? What flavor? Frosting or ganache? Which frosting? What decoration? Why is her favorite color blue when she's having a girl?

Further deliberation? What do I do for a gift? I've always been the practical type who gives diapers and wipes and boobie pads because EVERY MOM NEEDS THOSE and we all hate paying for them, but they're necessities of life, like Diet Coke and Peanut M&Ms. And bacon.

The pondering? I have recently become....obsessed? no. Addicted? no...Curiously engaged in pursuing acts of craftiness as long as 1) it can be perfect the first time I make it, 2) it's not something someone would throw away after looking at it and moving it around your dining room table for a week, hoping it will find its own niche in your home (sorry, papercrafters), and 3) it doesn't cost me more money to make than it would take to just buy a completed and better version of it.

Further pondering. I went through a gamut of ideas to hopefully fulfill the "what can I make to add to the diapers and boobie pads?" conundrum. Dyed and appliqued onesies? Never done them before. Freezer paper onesies? Still haven't purchased my own fabric paint and I remember the good designs being tedious. Sew a skirt? Maybe I could swing it, but there are a lot of women who could do it way better and might try, thereby making my skirt look like something a hobo would wear. Bead a few bracelets? Done that - have the materials, but want to try something different.

And that's when the almost-pantaloons-wetting and poo-fume-ignoring and Mexican-gardeners-getting-a-free-PG-13-rated-peep-show-cluelessness kicked in.

The cake would be chocolate chunk raspberry because she's had it before and couldn't stop foogasming over it (which is the basis of our friendship). That was the only given in this scenario. Everything else came together in a flurry of converging neural synapses that almost exploded my brain. The convergence went something like this:

Cream cheese frosting won't hold up as well as a buttercream so I'll do the buttercream even though I haven't made it as often OOH! and since the cake has a hint of raspberry the buttercream should too and I suppose I could decorate it with raspberries but I had such a bad experience relying on that last time because when we bought them the day of the party all the good raspberries were gone so we had to pay a dollar more per box for the last two organic boxes where half of them were already beginning to mold or mush under the weight of the others God bless pesticides screw the raspberries strawberries are looking gorgeous right now and huge so I'll use those does that mean I should try to find a strawberry extract? maybe I can if not I can soften the raspberry extract with some vanilla after all I only want a hint and I don't care if her favorite color is blue she's having a girl so she's just gonna have to get used to pink dammit we all do so the frosting will be pink which will be perfect since it's going to be raspberry buttercream anyway besides who wants a blue frosting that tastes like raspberries it's not like I'm running an Icee machine out of a 7-11 so pink it is with strawberries and OOH! there's a pattern for a crocheted slice of cake in that book Ted gave me and it's easy enough to change the frosting color from white to pink yarn but that pattern only has it as a two-layer cake and this one will most definitely be four layers with berry bits between because that's just what I do so I can't settle for a two-layer slice of cake but the rest of it looks pretty cute so maybe I can adapt it to three layers instead because if I try to do four layers it will be monstrous and this is supposed to be a little crawling baby's toy and OOH! I can put jingle bells in it so it's like a little rattle but would that be too much like a cat's toy I don't want this thing to look like it came straight out of PetSmart so OOH! I'll crochet a few strawberries to go with it since that's what's going to be on the real cake and then it'll look even more like food and I'll add bells to those too so when she opens it and shakes it around I'll say it's CAKE AND JINGLEBERRIES!

Here was the cake:

Here's the inside, which we'd already cut into before the present-opening (all part of the master plan):

And after pulling out the diapers and boobie pads, she saw this:

And she promptly freaked out. So much that I forgot to say "CAKE AND JINGLEBERRIES!" And here's the side-by-side:

PS - thank you to Ted for buying me the book that prompted the fun in enough time to have it ready for the shower and for coming up with the "two" pun in the post title. You didn't really think I was that much of a grammar idiot, did you?

On the cooling rack: Birthday "Pizookie"

I say "Pizookie" in quotes not because my version was a cheap, sub-par imitation, but because if it didn't come from BJ's Brewhouse, it's not technically one of their someone-needs-a-medal creation. But heaven help me, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference in a blind taste test.

The actual word "pizookie" is so catchy that it took me until only recently to realize that it's a combination of "pizza" and "cookie'. Duh. But it's not just a pizza cookie because it's bigger and more perfectly round than a normal cookie.... No, no, no. Some genius up there in the BJ's R&D department came up with a beauty. They cook a phenomenal tasting cookie dough at a high temperature in a 6-inch diameter deep dish pizza pan with a little butter on the bottom that makes the bottom and sides ever so delicately crispy while the inner 4-inch diameter stays gooey, but nice and hot, which instantly starts melting the LARGE scoop of vanilla ice cream they plop on top. It's a simple dessert done to perfection, and anyone who's had one will swear by it.

Ted does.

Let me start by saying that this success story didn't come easily. As an amateur baker, I like to try new treats and experiments, and of course if you live under my same roof, you're subject to the tasting and forming of opinions about them. Ted and I have now been married three years, so that's three birthdays, three V-days, three sets of the Fat Holidays, and 156 weekends, most of which have sponsored some sort of concoction-making. Gee, and I wonder why my rump is lumpy.

When I do make something, especially if it's something new, I guess my need for accolades hinders honest opinions from the man. He's not one to emote effusive compliments if they're undeserved, and even if they are deserved, they're nearly impossible to eke out of him. He just doesn't moan in epicurean bliss, whereas I do it on a pretty regular basis. So I've had to learn to take anything above "It was good" as something that really blew his socks off (I have a translator in my brain, thankfully). For instance, when I made a turkey and rice soup from scratch the other day and he said, "This tastes just like my mom's", I about fell over and thanked my lucky stars (she's a great cook and I've witnessed him get wistful every now and then about certain meals and treats of hers).

There's the background to the next chain of events. We were on a walk a few weeks ago, and Ted was pushing the stroller. We had somehow gotten onto the topic of BJ's in general or Pizookies specifically, and either topic induces a wave of nostalgia for a chocoholic version of their Pizookie that I had about a year ago when a gaggle of girls from our freshman year at college got together for a weekend. I shared a Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Pizookie made with Ghirardelli chocolate and double chocolate ice cream with a square of dark Ghirardelli chocolate on the side with a friend at that meal. Neither of us can figure out why we shared. One bite and we almost ordered another one. So when Ted mentioned the word "Pizookie", he was speaking of the original and my brain had skipped right to the too-chocolate-for-words version. I replied with something like "Well, the original is good but that choc-" when I was EMPHATICALLY interrupted by my dearly beloved. He stopped the stroller mid-push, stuck his hand out in front of me and yelled, "Stop! You can't just stand there and say, 'the original is good.' You know it's way better than 'good'. It's freaking incredible, and I will not let you take another step until you acknowledge that."

I was blown away. In our three years of marriage, 5 months of engagement, 1 month of second-time dating, 6 months of friendship, 1 year of not talking at all, and 2 months of first-time dating, I have NEVER heard him speak so highly of a single dessert in such a tone. Yes, I wish it had been about one of my desserts, but I loved the effusive outburst so much that I really didn't care.

So for his birthday last Thursday (tax day), it didn't take too much to come up with what I would make this time.

I was given the recipe for some of the BEST chocolate chip cookies I've had in my life, so instead of using store-bought tubes of pre-fabricated cookie dough, which I've known some people to do... (you know who you are), I took great care in making the best version I could. I have a 6-inch deep dish pan (what self-respecting amateur baker doesn't?), but I opted for the heart instead because despite his lack of food-induced moans, I love my birthday boy very much.

So you can use any good recipe of cookie dough you want (or cheat - it's not like I'm going to know), but preheat the oven to 425. It's not your typical 350, but this ain't your typical batch of cookies. The higher heat cooks the whole bottom, edges, and top of your pizza cookie and keeps the very middle in its highly desirable salmonella stage. Cooking times will vary with the size pan you use (I really don't recommend you go bigger than a 9-inch cake pan, but even that's pushing it. The heart pan is 7" at its widest point), so watch it. Mine cooked about 13-15 min if I remember correctly. Should look like this:

Notice it looks completely cooked (I just typed "cookied" and I'm drooling). You don't want to take it out before the top looks done like that lest you have just a raw liquid-type thing you have to drink with a straw. Wait. Hmm.. next experiment?

WHILE STILL HOT OUT OF THE OVEN, plop a hefty amount of quality vanilla ice cream on top (pictured is Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean) so the contact heat starts melting it into pure sweet cream that creates rivers of pleasure all through your little hills and valleys of dough and chocolate. Eat immediately. DO NOT let this thing cool down, DO NOT be scared to blow on your first few bites of it, and DO NOT ever reveal to your cardiologist the real reason for your skyrocketing cholesterol. Blame it on genetics.

The aftermath:

I'm embarrassed to admit that I almost needed an oven mitt to remove the pan off the table. That's how warm it still was...

Oh, what bliss. Happy Pizookie Birthday, sweetie. I hold your food orgasms in my heart.

On the cooling rack: 3.14159265...

Yes, friends, today we have pie in the kitchen. Well, not today. I made them Sunday and they were gone by Monday, but I'm blogging about them today.

We REALLY wanted to celebrate Pi Day (3/14) ON pi day, but with meetings from morning until late afternoon that Sunday, and friends having the nerve to leave town, we couldn't make it work. So we postponed it until the following Sunday and gorged ourselves on, first, a Chocolate Pear Tart (maybe not technically a pie, but it had my homemade pie crust, so I say it counted. This tart has a great flavor, aided by a little almond extract and 5 oz of grated Belgian chocolate on the bottom. I didn't have pears that were as firm as I wanted, since the tart has to bake for about half an hour, so I made do with my riper ones, but it was still good.

Then we moved on to the Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry Pie. Man, oh man. This one was the star of the night. I've tweaked it several times over the years, and I must say, I think I reached near perfection with it this time around. It. was. marvelous. The berries were juicy and red and flavorful, the sugar/cornstarch/corn syrup/whipping cream/chocolate ratios were spot on, the pie crust was flaky with a little bit of crisp, and the painted chocolate on the crust had just enough thickness to perfectly complement the glaze on the berries without the chocolate itself turning soggy. Oh heavens. I'm not usually one to totally fawn over my own concoctions (I will most often say "thank you", "glad you liked it", or even downplay its taste by revealing a mistake or two), but I save the following praise for especially incredible things, and you have to imagine it with a lot of attitude:

"I just got two words to say: DAY-AM!!"

Once the farmer's markets here kick in for the late spring/early summer, this pie will be revisited and regorged upon.

One year old today

I pulled out dessert stops for the birthday girl. We invited a few friends over to our place for chocolate chunk raspberry cake and ice cream. As planned, we stripped Tessa down to her skivvies so she could go as crazy as she wanted on her first whole piece of cake (which, mind you, was bigger than her mama's). I admit, I thought she would show a little more excitement at the sight of a fat load of chocolate than she did, but she was running on empty from lack of a nap. Still, she managed to gag it all down.

The light is bad in this next one, but it shows the goo of the cake. LOVE the goo.

Oops! Doesn't look like cake anymore...

Meh. Still edible. I used to think we were raising a bit of a foodie until I caught her one day, picking up milk curds she had regurgitated and shoving them back in her mouth. Maybe I shouldn't take her pleasure in my cake too much to heart...




I have to swipe Ted's camera so I can show the aftermath, but you get the general idea. Perhaps not piranhas on a whale carcass, but still frenzical enough for her parents' entertainment. Happy birthday, sweet puddin' pumpkin pie!

What's Cookin: Chocolates

This is what the winner received in the mail a couple weeks ago, although she reported it probably looked better on my end than it did on hers. I just happened to mail it during a not-uncommon October heatwave in Southern California. Not all of them melted, thankfully, and I believe she said she ate them all anyway. If you recall, this is the same girl who licked her knitted stocking clean after her dad lit a fire just underneath them for Christmas, not realizing there was chocolate in each one. For this story alone, Valerie, you are a bosom friend.



Here's a run-through of my first attempt at making chocolates.

Behold, the peanutty centers of the PB balls. I just love the name. I dipped these in semisweet and then milk chocolate. Next time I think I'll do just milk and reduce the powdered sugar in the filling, as they were a bit more crumbly than I'd like.



Next were the ganache truffles. I did some dark chocolate and some chocolate raspberry, but the method was pretty much the same. Melt the chocolate with warm cream, whisk until smooth, add any flavoring, then refrigerate. When cold enough, roll away. I think I let these get a little TOO cold, because the ganache broke my small Pampered Chef ice cream/cookie scoop. I'm still ticked about that one. But I guess you don't get great without a lot of mistakes, blah blah blah.



The rolling:



And the finished rough-looking balls. These are called truffles because when rolled in cocoa (which I did with just the dark chocolate), they resemble the mushroomy truffles that pigs find. The name now includes all sorts of chocolates that have a chocolate and cream base, but most are now dipped (which I did to the chocolate raspberry ones). And this particular pig is very good at finding these kinds of truffles, thank you.

These last ones were a favorite for Ted and some wonderfully obliging taste-testing neighbors, C&A. Melted caramel topped clusters of cashews and dried cranberries,

then were topped with melted milk chocolate.

Ted and I tried a similar confection after the chocolate exhibit at the Raleigh Natural Science Museum and loved them. The creator dubbed them "Bog Frogs" - a play on turtles and the fact that they contain cranberries, I imagine. We just called them scrumdiddlyumptious, and I was certainly not disappointed with my knock-off. Until next time, chocolate lovers!

We have a winner!

I didn't make any predictions about how many people would leave a comment to get some free chocolate, but because I'm curious, I compared the number of comments for the chocolate post with the number for the post about boob nicknames. Despite passionate declarations of love for the food of the gods, based on the number of comments, women are even more obsessed with their ta-tas. Go figure.

To make sure there was no bias whatsoever, all the names of the commenters were put into a pot, and I gave Ted the honor of drawing with his eyes closed. And the name on the piece of paper........

VALERIE BUNKER!!! She told me a little story about how her dad lit a fire in their fireplace one Christmas morning, then later realized there was chocolate in the stockings. Oh no! Her sisters lamented over the brown goop, but as they turned to Valerie, they noticed she was face deep in her own stocking, licking the contents right out of the fabric. I cracked up because the same thing happened to me one Christmas, and this is why we are friends.

Congratulations, Valerie! You deserve some chocolate, and hopefully this batch won't be melted when you receive it. There aren't any fires going on right now in SoCal, are there?

Stay tuned for pictures of my chocolate-making experience! And thank you all for admitting your crippling weaknesses! I feel like I have soul sisters all over the place.