Christmas Baking Madness

I've been pretty busy over the past week or so, and most of my business has involved BAKING, so I figured I'd write about it! Of course we're all busy around this time, trying to find time for holiday cards, gift shopping, seeing your friends and family, etc. On top of this, throw in baking five different kinds of holiday treats, fighting with your dishwasher, breaking your only large microwave-safe mixing bowl, recital time kicking in, and you've got my week. Oh, did I mention the disco ball cake? That's another post. . .

Let me fill you in on the baking because that's probably the most exciting of the above list. Several years ago, Scott and I journeyed to the White Mountains' annual Inn to Inn Christmas Cookie Tour (yes, I said COOKIE TOUR!) We checked in to whichever Inn we were staying at for the weekend, and they gave us a map of all of the other Inns. We went around to each, via car, and it was really fantastic. They were all decked out for the holidays (haha, pun intended). There were Christmas trees, wreaths, Nutcrackers, and of course they also had two or three different signature COOKIES to sample! So my point is, a few of the cookies I've made for the holidays since this memorable trip have been from the little cook book that they give you at the Cookie Tour for FREE. It's nothing fancy on the outside, but it's really all about the little treasures inside. This year I'm making the Peppermint Crunch Cookies (thanks to the Tamworth Inn), Inn at Crystal Lake's Crystal Lake Everythings, and Lavender Flower Inn's Pecan Balls. My own personal additions will include sugar cookies, Jenni's two-bite brownies with my mom's brownie recipe, and my own simple creation of white chocolate bark with sliced almonds and dried cranberries. I'll take a picture once I have a Christmas tin of these assembled for your viewing pleasure! Happy two weeks before Christmas!

The day I met Ina Garten

As most of you know (haha, all three of you who read this!) I love Ina Garten! Sure, she's pompous and probably thinks quite fondly of herself (and her good quality vanilla extract), but damn is she good at what she does. She's just so smart when it comes to everything in the kitchen. When you watch her show (The Barefoot Contessa) you know that SHE really knows what she's talking about. She does cook a lot of meat (especially chicken) but her vegetarian recipes are all totally delicious. Her pastries are also incredible.

Today she had a signing for her new cookbook, Back to Basics, at the Natick Collection from 12-2. I really had no idea what time to get there, but I knew that getting there before 12 would be ideal. I didn't have to be at work until 2:45, so the timing was going to work out pretty well for me. Before jetting out of the house, I checked the Natick Collection web site to see if it had any important information for me (like if the time changed or if I had the wrong DAY. . . ) and I found out that I had to buy the book there, she was only signing the new book, and there would be no photographs permitted. SERIOUSLY?! For starters, I bought the book the day it came out (for $22, thanks to the Borders Rewards program) and a picture would've been nice. I didn't want to get in trouble though, or even worse NOT be able to meet her, so I figured I should follow the rules.

I got to the mall around 11:45. I speed walked my way to the new, fancy section of the mall, where Williams Sonoma was. When I got there, there were TONS of people. I mean, TONS. They were all in that open area you pass through on your way to the spiffy shops. I managed to find my way to the actual WS to buy the book. . . again. This time I had to pay the full price of $35. They associate who rang me up stuck the receipt inside the book and told me to hold onto it for verification. They were serious. At this point, Ina was in the store, starting to sign some books, so I felt it was worth it to get a little sneak peak!

I found my way to the END of the line, flipped open my newer new book, and started reading. At this point it was maybe 11:55. I asked a WS associate if Ina was going to stay to sign everyone's books, and he said as long as you get in line before 1pm (I think?) that you would be okay. So whatever the cutoff time was, I was okay. At about 1:30 I'm starving, and I start panicking about what might happen if I don't actually get to work on time. A plan B had to be in order. I started texting my boss to see if she could cover for me. I also texted Scott and Jenni, just to give them updates of my fabulous Ina day. I then texted one more person I work with to see if she could cover for me, knowing that she's usually free on Mondays. I go to press "send" and my phone died! Oh no, it wasn't the battery. It was all charged up. My phone went all computer on me and actually FROZE. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even shut it off. I tried to open the battery cover in the back but was not having any luck. So now I really start to panic. I can't get in touch with anyone, I might be making myself late for work, I don't have anyone's phone numbers because they're programmed in my phone, and I have NO IDEA WHAT TIME IT IS.

Luckily I made some friends in line who were able to tell me the time. So I wait. . . and wait. . . in a line that IS moving, but still very long. And then a woman not too far in front of me passes out. Yeah. People were yelling for someone to call mall security. . . and 911. . . and yeah. Madness! She was able to sit up after a little while, and then people came to help her, and I guess she was okay. I keep checking my phone to see if it has decided to unfreeze itself yet. No such luck. I keep waiting.

I get toward the front, and there's a WS associate every twenty feet or so. It's like the finish line to a marathon. You can do it! Only a little while longer! One of them told me that if anyone tried to cut in front of me to let her know. That was a little weird, but I guess there have been such incidents.

I'm finally in front of the actual store, and I asked my new friend what time it was. It was 1:40. I was going to be alright, I think. We get inside the store, and now my heart is in my throat. I am so pathetic. I was thinking of things to say while waiting in line, but they all seemed so dumb. I was a little more concerned about my phone, not being able to get in touch with anyone, and being late for work though to be honest. Okay, maybe not MORE concerned, but it was up there. I was really close now. I hand my book to Important Person A. There's now just one person in front of me. Important Person A however is telling me how there are always SO many people at the Boston signings and how great it is. I'm not listening. Ina Garten is RIGHT in front of me. She then hands my book to Important Person B, who's sitting right next to Ina. I'm all smiles at this point. I'm likely red in the face as well. Now Ina has my book in her hand. I said, "Hi Ina! It's SO great to meet you." And she said, "It's nice to meet you too. Thank you for coming." And I said, "Thank you!" And I think she said Thank You as well. It was short and sweet. I felt like a moron.

As soon as I got out of the line, a couple of WS associates told me that there was a mini buffet of Thanksgiving dinner samplings in the back of the store if I wanted to help myself. BUT I'M GOING TO BE LATE FOR WORK, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS, AND I CAN'T CALL ANYONE! On my way out, I heard someone say it was 2:00. NO!!! I speed walked my way again through the mall, though a little faster this time. I was relieved when I got into the car that it was only 1:53. Phew! I sped off to work, and got there with ten minutes to spare. My boss was already there, ready to cover my first class. I didn't know she was available of course because how was she going to get in touch with me?! So all was well in the end. In regards to my brief Ina encounter, I wish I had handled everything a little differently, but what can you do. I'm sure someone like Ina Garten doesn't really remember any of the people she meets at her signings. I'm sure she could care less that I'm vegetarian and still love her. But I went, and I'm happy. I don't have a picture to prove it, but perhaps my memory is good enough.

Anyone want a copy of Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics?!

The Tofu Chronicles, Part II -- Boston!

1:46pm - I'm waiting for my rice to come to a boil. My oil is heating up in the wok. Must run!

1:50pm - I'm cooking up the green curry paste and it smells amazing! I added the coconut milk (the rest of the can that I didn't use IN the paste) and then realized if it ends up too spicy I'm out of luck. . . no more coconut milk to cool it down! Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Oh, and I used two chilli peppers of the optional one to three.

1:54pm - I have ten minutes now, phew! The rice is cooking away. The tofu is cooking with the curry paste, coconut milk, and a medium pinch of shredded kaffir lime leaves. . . ?

2:01pm - I'm starving.

2:15 - I must rescue my frozen broccoli from the microwave and check on the already cooking yam, red bell pepper, carrots, and cauliflower!

2:19pm - Added the snow peas.

2:22pm - Pouring a glass of wine that's left over from Jenni's Chocolate and Red Wine Cupcake recipe that I whipped up this morning for a friend's party tonight. Adding the broccoli.

2:27pm - I tried the sauce and luckily it's not too spicy! I did add a little more soy sauce though because it was lacking saltiness -- just a bit.

2:59pm - I'm ready to eat when you are, Jenni!

3:18pm - Eating! Oh my. This is really quite delicious! I think it's still lacking in the saltiness department, but it's okay because it's so flavorful. I'm going to take my plate into the TV room and devour this yumminess while watching yesterday's Barefoot Contessa. More on her tomorrow. . . she's doing a book signing in Natick that I'm going to! :o

The Tofu Chronicles, Part II - Texas.

All times reported herein are in Central Standard Time!

12:02pm - I've begun draining the tofu, it's weird.  I've got it on some paper towels and sandwiched between two cutting boards with some cook books on top.  There is so much water coming out.  Is this what's supposed to happen?!  I might be ruining this before I even really begin.

12:08pm - mmm, lemongrass!  This is also my first experience with this, and wow - it smells amazing.  Almost as good as lemon pledge.  Who knew.  I'm sans food processor, so I've begun putting all my paste in

gredients into a bowl, and will cycle it through the hand-held chopper I

 do have.  

12:18pm - thanks to the gloves I "borrowed" from the whole foods spice section, I will not be having jalepeno hands!  In go the chillies (or chilli!)

12:20pm - "one small onion", mine was large.  I wanted to use only half, but even that seemed like too much.  I didn't use the whole half.  We'll see.

12:36pm  - so many firsts.  I've never used ginger either.  But lemongrass and ginger may be my two new favorite ingredients.  This smells good, and all I've done is chop so far.

12:37pm - my one loose cup of coriander leaves and stems is in, and it's what I call cilantro.

  The last thing to go in the paste...my interpretation of "kaffir lime leaves", which will include some zest and some juice from a kaffir lime.

12:53pm - the gre

en curry paste is made.  I managed to cycle it all through the hand chopper, and then get it all back in at one time for a final spin!  smells good.  I must pause now to run and get some rice (oops!) and make a few other arrangements for the study session happening promptly at 3pm.

1:18pm - we're back.  Rice is on.  Frying pan is heating up.  I am also sans wok, so I'll be using a large frying pan.  I guess this is the Green Curry Tofu without all appropriate kitchen appliances version!!

1:32pm - I'm impressed really, it's an hour and a half (holy god) after I started and I am just not suffering my first cooking induced injury.  I mean, I've used so many knives, gloves, juggled bottles - this is a miracle.  When adding my "kaffir lime leaves" (aka, more zest and juice) to the frying pan I dropped the lime and grated my knuckle.  awesome!  

1:39pm - I heeded Mel's advice, and I stirred completely the paste and coconut milk before adding the tofu (so as 

not to have to stir it too much).  also, I cut my tofu a bit larger than bit sized, in case it began to fall apart it would still be big enough.  We'll see.  ten minutes on.

1:50pm - I've officially added too much stuff already.  I put in my red bell pepper (or one and a half, they were small) and I used eggplant instead of yams.  The frying pan is getting full.  I still have broccoli, snow peas, cauliflower, and baby corn to add.  Maybe I'll remove some of the larger eggplants chunks.  Ten more minutes!

2:01pm - broccoli (is for lovers), cauliflower, snow peas and baby corn added to the mix!  4 or so more minutes...

2:06pm - ten minutes until taste test!

2:18pm - Mmmmm!  This is pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

Happy 50th Birthday!

Here's a 50th birthday cake I made for one of the directors at work. The cake, filling, and frosting were the same that I used for Rachel's graduation cake. It luckily all came together in time for the party, but of course there had to be a little drama -- nothing too bad, just a little typical madness on my part.

I first had four flowers on the top of the cake. There were the three red ones you see, but they were separated more and I put them in the cake at a bit of an angle. In the middle, I had a white flower of the same variety. Well it was really obvious to me that the flower display wasn't all centered. . . BIG problem, right? It was also just awkward and empty-looking. I had time to fix it, so I thought about my options. Option 1: going to get more (smaller) flowers to fill in the gaps. Option 2: not using flowers at all. Option 3: taking the flowers out and putting them back in. While it was risky, I chose option three. I had more frosting in the fridge so I could fix the top, and I had time, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I had the flowers in these little white cones inside the cake (so the flowers go into the cake more easily and can sit in a little water). They were a pain in the BUTT to take out. They were in there really good (nice, Mel) and were now slippery from the frosting (the cones AND my fingers that is). I somehow managed to do it, but certainly not neatly. The whole top of the cake cracked all the way across, cake itself came out through the holes the flowers were in, and it was just a big old mess. This made me a little nervous. . . I was able to fix all of it with more frosting, but that's not to say I didn't have a minor heart attack. I decided this time instead of putting the flowers in the cake at an angle that they would look better if the stem went straight down into the cake and the flowers sat more flat-ish on top. I thought that just three flowers would work and fit better than the four, so that's what I did. And then it was done. And it tasted yummy. And that was all. Happy Birthday.

50th Wedding Anniversary Cakes

Some of you already received the album of these pictures, but I figured I'd make it "official" and put a couple of pictures up on here too.

Apparently the word is starting to spread at my work place about my cake making. . . so someone asked me, a few months back I think, about making two cakes for a joint 50th Wedding Anniversary Party. So of course I was excited. I just needed to know all of the details. I found out it was going to be for about seventy people, and they wanted two cakes, each with two tiers. After consulting many times with Jenni, Cake Art, and the internet, I figured out how big each tier should be, what I should be charging for the cakes, how to support them, what kind of icing to use, how to decorate them, etc.

Each two-tier cake had a white cake and a chocolate chocolate cake. I filled the chocolate cakes with chocolate mousse (yes, Jenni, the recipe from our cake decorating class!) and the white cake with a strawberry swiss meringue buttercream -- I just mixed some strawberry jam into the swiss meringue buttercream that I used on the outside of the cakes to frost them.

The border you see was suppose to be gold instead of purple. I tried REALLY hard to make gold, but it just wasn't working. I couldn't find any Wilton dye in gold. The closest thing I could find was copper, so I bought that. Well, it was very. . . copper-y. It was actually pretty gross. I then noticed that I had "golden yellow," so I tried mixing some of that in with the copper. That didn't work either. I tried it the other way around, starting with the golden yellow, and adding some copper. Nope. I did also have a back-up plan though. . . this gold dust powder stuff. I think it's usually used to "paint" decorations, but something more solid, like fondant or modeling chocolate. It wasn't working so well with the frosting. I mean, it was okay, but not super fabulous enough for a 50th wedding anniversary. So purple it was.

What else is there to say? It was a stressful week, from baking the cakes, freezing them, making batch after batch of frosting, going through more butter than I ever have EVER, figuring out the flowers to go on top, etc. . . and I was working every day! But all in all, I think they came out pretty well. The family kind of raved about them (and luckily didn't care that the border wasn't gold) and I gained more experience from doing it. And that's my story.

Holy Cakes!

I'm having some layout issues, so I apologize if this looks really, really bad.

A while back, I was asked to make a First Holy Communion cake for one of the kids I babysit for. When we got closer to the date, and I was asking the mom what kind of cake and for how many people, another mom over-heard us. She offered up her cross cake pan for me to use (because she made a cross-shaped cake for her daughter two years ago for HER First Holy Communion), and I thought, Hey, that's great! One less pan for me to buy is always a good thing, right? It was then decided that there should be one chocolate cake and one yellow cake, to please everyone who would be attending -- around thirty guests total. Once I saw the cake pan however, I thought two cross cakes would be JUST enough. . . so after consulting with the family, I decided to make an extra chocolate round cake. Who doesn't love chocolate?! I figured if there were left-overs that it wouldn't be a terrible thing at all.

So I took the cross cake pan home, and couldn't help but laugh. . . because I'm way mature like that. I'm about to make a cake. . . in the shape of a cross. . . and someone's going to cut into it. . . and eat it. It was all a little weird. Then Diane came over. She saw the cross cake pan, and proceeded to make the sign of the cross and recite the Lord's Prayer, to the pan. Of course there were margaritas involved, but that's a different show. Oh, and then Nichole came over, saw the unfrosted chocolate cross cake sitting on my porch, and thought it was a little strange too. So maybe I'm not the only crazy one here. (I did the cross on the round cake free-hand. . . not too bad, huh?! I think it's even centered! That was pure luck.)

Cupcake Madness

Cupcake Madness happened two weeks ago, right before my dance recital. I decided to give one of these cupcake boxes to each of my eleven student assistants.

The boxes (how cute are they?) are from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macy's. There were matching cupcake papers and labels too, but I thought that was WAY too matchy, so I just opted for a combination of pastel and silver papers.

The cupcakes, from the top left are chocolate with chocolate buttercream, white with traditional buttercream, chocolate with peanut butter frosting, and white with strawberry butter cream cheese frosting. Yum-o, no?

The more unusual frostings were a little experimental. The peanut butter frosting came from a super cute and informative book that Leah got me for my birthday called Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse. It was experimental in that I had never made it before. It was good though, so I will post that recipe when it's not nearly 1:30am. . . the strawberry butter cream cheese evolved from one of my favorite recipes for just plain butter cream cheese. I thought, hey, what would happen if I made that and then stirred in some strawberry jelly? Well what happened was this: Scott's favorite frosting ever was born.

So there you go, my cupcakes. Just add some sprinkles, and BAM -- they're ready for gift-giving.

I was that person at Shaws today.

I stopped at Shaws on my way home from dance tonight, knowing that if I waited until AFTER I got home and ate dinner that I just wouldn't want to go. I stocked up on the usual: pasta sauce, linguini, milk, eggs, organic apples, frozen broccoli, eight boxes of sugar, and four pounds of butter (I'd tell you why, but some of my assistants might be reading this, and they won't know why until TOMORROW). Well it all added up, as I'm parading the isles trying to find everything I need, so I don't have to go back out tonight. I got to the checkout, and it's pretty busy. I found a good spot to wait in line where there was only one person in front of me. Great. Soon enough, it's time for me to start unloading my carriage onto the conveyor belt. I quickly finish, and put the thing at the end of my groceries that separates your goods from your neighbor's. I then waited for the person in front of me to finish up bagging, and while doing so, notice not one, not two, but really SEVERAL people glance in my direction. You know, they're the people scouting out the checkout lines, trying to figure out which line to choose so they can get the hell out of there. NO ONE wanted to get in line behind me. You know those people. You've been one of those people. I didn't even have that much. Was it all the sugar? Or other from-scratch baking supplies? I will never know.