The Antics of a Mad Baker Woman

Samoas

2010-06-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

I was recently cruising around the internet, looking for baking/food photography contests, when I came across this site. I became curious and went over to their recipe section, to see what their selection of recipe's was like to choose from. These samoa cookies instantly caught my attention, because they reminded me of the chocolate fudge pinwheel cookies I used to eat as a kid. Those were delicious. I never eat them now, because they have weird chemicals in them, and I'd rather make them myself :P

Sooo, I decided to make them!
Rolling the dough:
Toasted coconut:
Cutting the cookies:
Baked:
Finished cookies:
These were pretty fun to make. I got a little bored with the tedious work of topping each cookie with the coconut/caramel mixture, but it was still fun.
OH! I did change something about the recipe, though (don't I always?). It calls for those individually wrapped caramels you buy in the candy bins at the store. I didn't use them because I didn't have them on hand, plus they don't taste as good as homemade caramel, plus its more fun to make it myself, PLUS homemade>store-bought. I had some caramel sauce on hand that I had made a few months ago for some pecan-caramel cheesecake, so I just used that instead. I suppose it was about a cup and a half total...don't quote me on that, though.
As far as the contest goes, I'll be entering one of the shots I got of the completed cookie, but the entries are unlimited, so I might try to make something else to submit before the deadline in July. The only catch is that I can't enter more than one entry for one recipe, so I'll have to choose another recipe. Which, of course, I won't mind.

~Lacey

"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap." - Robert Fulghun

Frusteration Abounds...

2010-04-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

Um...I wrote this post like a week ago, but apparently it never got published, only saved as a draft :| How about I publish it now and you all just pretend this is a week before?

______________

You know those moments in your life when the only way to describe your mood is "GRRAGYEAYDYAWHDWHGFREWHTKEHAHWFEHWKFEFPHTHHHHHH!!!!!" ? I'm having one of those moments :|

We have a show coming up next weekend, and we are selling cookies geared towards Mother's day. We have to prepare them in a certified kitchen (stupid California laws X| ), so I called our source the other day for a kitchen. She said the day we need the kitchen, it will be full of mad caterers preparing for an event the same weekend. Meaning-we are left without a kitchen and I'm scrambling to secure one as fast as I can. So far I've called about 15 churches/schools in the surrounding area, and am waiting for phone calls back from all of them. I heard back from two churches and one school and none of their kitchens are certified.

This show is really important for our business because its one of the biggest in the area, and we have already paid for the booth space. We have a really good edge for the market we would be selling to that weekend and we have been planning the whole thing for quite awhile, so it would be a HUGE bummer if we had to skip out. Pray someone will come through at a decent enough price.....

I'm about ready to pull my hair out in frusteration :| On top of trying to pull things together for the show, I really need to get work done on a speech I'm doing

____________

Well, the draft cuts off there. I don't know why. But there. I hope you enjoyed this strange, week-old, half-post written by yours truly. I'll update again soon with a more normal post :|

~Lacey
"Chemicals, n: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made." -Author Unknown

Earth Day and Sunday night dinner

2010-04-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday on Earth Day, my mom picked me up from work and we headed downtown to the weekly farmer's market to buy some goodies.

We bought some leeks, olives, and jam. The girl we bought leeks from was really familiar, and I was pretty sure I knew who she was. Being homeschooled, we always went to a weekly play-day at a park in town, and I met her in a sandbox there when I was about 6 years old. She mentioned knowing us and then I knew it was the same girl. It was a weird coincidence cause last time I saw her must have been at least a good 6 or 7 years ago!

Last Fall I made an AMAZING!!!!!!!!! soup entitled "White Cheddar Leek Soup"...or something like that. Anyways, I've been thinking about it lately and have been wanting to make it again (don't ask me why, hot soup isn't something you normally make in the obnoxiously-hot California spring time...) Here's me picking out some leeks:

Yes, I look very serious, I know. Choosing the right leeks is a very important process, you know.
Here's some more pretty looking fresh veggies:

We tasted some homemade jams, my mom decided to buy some Red Pepper jam. Sounds weird, I know, but it was actually pretty good. The lady who made it said it goes well with cheese and crackers. I haven't tried them together yet, but it sounds good.

So tonight I'll be making the soup for dinner. I'm also making my famous garlic bread, cuz I couldn't find my recipe for Parmesan pepper bread...(I have a horrible habit of not saving first-time recipes, then kick myself in the butt later when I want them again :| )

In fact, I should probably go get started on the soup, so it can simmer properly in time for dinner.

Until next time,

~Lacey

“Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.” -Bennett Cerf

Spreading the baking phenomena to my classmates-Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

2010-04-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday, (not yesterday, the Wednesday before), I had to give my demonstration speech for my business speech class. Naturally, I chose to demonstrate baking. And the recipe I chose was non other than my own original Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins. Yeah, I've blogged about these in the past if it sounds familiar...but I took some nice photos for my demonstration so I thought I'd post about them again.

Mis en place.....
Mixing the batter...

Ready to bake!
Finished:

I would totally post the recipe for ya'll, but I'm at school and I don't have the recipe on me. If ya want the recipe, refer back to my post from October 2008-I Wrote a Recipe. Just be sure to add a tsp. of salt to the recipe, I was a birdbrain and left that out for some unknown reason (don't laugh at me!)

When I did my demonstration, I also handed out little recipe cards, which really delighted everyone. I also had mini-muffin samples and everyone went bananas. They ate them all!

That's it for now. I have an interesting rant on my other blog, Inside the Mind of a Mad Baker Woman, but be warned right now-I wrote it in a very disgruntled mood, so only read it if you're in the mood to read an upset rant.....

Have a lovely Thursday, friends!

~Lacey
"People never get tired of a muffin, but they never find inspiration in them."* -George Bernard Shaw

*I do not, in any way, endorse the meaning of this quote. In fact, I highly disagree. There's over 2,863 muffin recipes in the world today, and clearly people like me are still inspired by them.

Food from Easter and Tales from a Sick-Ridden Baker

2010-04-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

Soo...I've been sick. Late Tuesday evening, I suddenly was overcome with unbearable feelings of nausea and fever-like symptoms. I went to sleep, only to wake up around 1 AM, dreaming about food. My fever was so high, I felt like my body was on fire. And I felt as if I would throw-up in my own bed, as thoughts of the food-filled dreams crept back to me. I started drifting back to sleep, and the dreams of random images of food kept coming back more than once, so I knew I couldn't wait any longer as I rolled out of bed and headed down the hallway.

I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

And yes, I'm still sick now. Which is a huge bummer because I was supposed to go on a field trip this weekend with my art class. Not sure if that will be happening anymore.....

Know what I've found to be most annoying about being sick? It makes me want to cook and bake like mad. I've been laying here on the couch all day, dreaming of new recipes to try. I've been itching to get up and make something. Everything that comes on TV, I'll see some food and I'll want to go make it more urgently than I ever have. If only I could harness that and make myself feel that way in my lazy moments when I'm not sick...

But, before all this happened, Easter was among us!

Boiling eggs:
Cupcakes!:

Chocolate ones too! (Yes, there's A LOT!):

Hidden Easter egg:

I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to, but oh well. There ya go. And I would post the recipe(s) for the cupcakes, but currently I'm feeling like someone threw their flame torch at me then pushed me in a vat of boiling chocolate pudding, so I'll probably just go lie down now.

Until next time,

"Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there." ~ Clarence W. Hall

~lacey

"I AM getting dizzy!"-Oven Sandwiches and other goodies

2010-04-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

"Do I look like I'm getting dizzy, Auntie Lacey?"
"Yes, you look very dizzy..."
(giggling) "I think your right, I feel dizzier than I ever have befo-" CRASH!

My niece was just spinning in circles on the coffee table across the room and, being the good aunite that I am, I let her keep spinning. Even though I knew the potential for what did happen was significant, I didn't tell her to stop because I know how she feels. It was always SO annoying when an adult told me to stop doing something that was fun. Well, that was stupid of me. As insinuated from the afore-mentioned crash, she spun out of control and flew off the coffee table, hitting her knee right into her sister's doll stroller. Then she cried and asked me to kiss it.

That has nothing to do with the food I'll tell you about, though. Last night we had oven sandwiches on English muffins. I sauteed some sweet peppers, onion, garlic, kale, carrots and mushrooms. I had fun with the kale because it was the first time I've cooked with it.

I topped the muffins with a jar of sauce (I was feeling a little lazy and didn't make my own... :O )
Then I took orders...I let my nephews and nieces opt out of the veggies, and just have cheese and veggie links on theirs. (Veggie link=hot dog made outta soy.)
Finished muffins:

And, as promised, here's the peanut butter cookies we made yesterday:

I'll have more posts this weekend, with goodies for Easter. Speaking of which, my sister and I gave up chocolate for lent. I know. Ridiculous. But, I've been good so far. I just won't mentioned that m&m I accidently chomped down on a few weeks ago, or the spoon covered in Hershey's syrup I licked...without thinking last night. But hooray! There will be a chocolate feast on Sunday and I can't wait. Chocolate cupcakes here I come!

Oh, and I so can't wait to try the dark cherry mocha at Starbucks next week...anyone tried it?

And now I'm off to bestow band-aids on more owies that are sure to come. I should probably put the coffee table in a different room, too.....

A few treasures from my Thursday

2010-04-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

One of the goals I've set for myself for this summer is to pick 5 recipes that are completely new to me (never eaten, never made), research them, find an as-close-to-the-original-recipe I can find and make it, then create my own variation of the recipe. But I need suggestions! Any ideas for something awesome I should try? It doesn't have to be a sweet baked thing...any recipe works. So basically, I'm open if any one has ideas.

This morning I got up and made Orange Julius for my family for breakfast. My mom used to make it for us ALL the time when I was a kid. A few weeks ago I got a little recipe booklet full of smoothie recipes (you know, those kind you see at the check-out stand when you make an emergency run to the store for diapers for your nephew) and picked it up, so I've been on a smoothie run lately. Granted, Orange Julius wasn't in the booklet, but I wanted to make it anyways. I didn't take pictures. Still trying to get back in that habit.....

Before lunch, I gathered my nieces in the kitchen and asked if they wanted to help me make peanut butter cookies. Of course they did, they are about as obsessed with baking with me as a monkey is obsessed with eating bananas. In fact, I recently asked one of them what they wanted to be when they grow up, and she responded without hesitation, "Oh, whatever your going to be! A baker!" Hahahaha! Adorable.

So we made some, and yes, I didn't take pictures...yet. I'm hoping to get some shots later when they are chowing down on them. Here's the link to the recipe we used.

Have a happy April Fool's day!

When you can't beat 'em...

2010-03-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Many things have happened since the last time we talked, way back in September. Huge things. Life-overhauling things (for me anyway...I tend to be a bit dramatic :-P) I'll list a few of those things now for my satisfaction, and I'm sure all who's reading this have their curiosity at least somewhat peaked by now.

In October, my sister and I traveled all the way to Morro Bay, CA and back on one tank of gas. YES!
In November, the Mad Baker Women (my sister and I) took part in our third show selling our baked goodies. Not that much capitol success, I think we broke even. But we got A LOT of great promotion done and added many to our fan base (thanks fans :-D)
In December, we took part in our fourth show selling our goods (again-I think we broke even, but spread our ever-growing fan base!)
In January, I turned 20 and applied for a position at Hume Lake camp here in California-a summer job, and I began my...let's see...*counts on fingers* fourth semester at college! Sometimes, when I'm laying in bed at night all by myself and thinking about life, I wonder-Why is it that I'm in a two year program and not graduated yet?! Then I remember that I love being in school and could probably be one of the only students to extend a two-year business degree program to five or six years (not quite there yet, but I'm working on it ;-) )
In February, I...well...nothing much happened in February :| (Yes, I did sit here at the bulleted "February" and tried to think of something significant I could tell you about, but it was fruitless. Thus, the above sentence.)
In March, I got in a massive car wreck with my sister (the extent of our injuries were severe whiplash for me, mild for her. The car? Completely totaled), went through (and still am) a major overhaul of my heart (that I won't share much more, I don't even know you guys!) and decided to make some changes.

Oh, and I found out last week I did not get the job at Hume for the summer. MAJOR bummer. I so wanted to get out of here for the summer. But, I've decided to make it good. For instance, I will write here at LEAST twice a week...probably more. I'm going kinda polar-opposite from what I was last Thursday when I found out I didn't get the job. Now I'm actually looking forward to the summer so much that I wish it was here now. Part of me wants to totally rebel and be angry that I can't leave, but I won't. Why waste my time?

In addition, I've kinda gone all-out and written my own syllabus for the summer, if you will. I was checking out the summer courses at my school, and they all kinda suck. There's not really ANYTHING I want to take, and nothing that will help me get my degree faster. So I'm putting myself into school. I'm in the process of writing out very specific guidelines for things I want to achieve this summer. The major part of my syllabus is related to cooking/baking and food photography, therefore I can promise you now I WILL be here much more often! And I'll be following all of ya'lls blogs more religiously. Day and night. I will be watching you.

Just kidding. That's just creepy!

Oh, I bought a camera-something I'm TOTALLY stoked about. It's an Olympus FE-5020. I've read some crappy reviews on it, and I've read some great reviews on it. It was right in my price range, so I figured I'd give it a go. Two days after the car accident, I was sitting on my couch at home watching The Perfect Man (don't laugh at me!) and the mailman came to the door with my beloved packaged-up camera. I was so giddy to open it, it made me forget about the pain from the whiplash spreading across my shoulders and up my neck. I love it! It's got some awesome macro settings on it and some cool effects and awesome quality of photos. I can get 12 megapixel shots if I so desire.

Okay, enough bragging.

To please your eyes, here's some Dr. Seuss inspired sugar cookies Laurel and I made for a friend's baby shower recently:

They were already a few days old when I took this picture (the shower was a day before the car wreck, I forced myself to set the photo up and get some shots while I was in quite a lot of pain. See how dedicated I am?). Any trained eye can tell these are a bit old already, but I wanted to get some shots anyway.

I think that's all for now. I'm on Easter vacation all this week, so I will do my very best effort to photograph all my baking and cooking endeavors and share it here. I don't know if I'll get the chance though, I'll be pretty busy relaxing and not doing anything for a change. I'll try to fit it in my schedule!

DB Challenge: Dobos Torta

2009-09-01T09:05:00.001-07:00

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I'm serious when I say this: I think my head may pop off or explode from so many school-related things in my life.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffes of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Yes, I'm late. Don't remind me. Between falling asleep in Government to trying really (I mean really) hard not to giggle during Career Strategies (my teacher has a way of wording things hilariously that I have to avoid my sisters' gaze who is also in that class, lest we burst out in a fit of laughter yet again) to trying to figure out what the scientific balance of my glaze experiments for Ceramics class are to reading 100+ pages of text after text after text, to volunteering a weekend at a camp kitchen, feeding 400+ hungry people, to God knows what else, I barely have time to even peek at the blogging world anymroe.

This morning I'm sitting in the computer lab at school, and I think to myself, "Hey! I got an hour! I'll write my blog!" so here ya go.

Well, now I'm distracted by the Russian dude talking to one of my professors across the room. His accent is fascinating and reminds me of the old Rankin Bass Christmas Cartoon "Jack Frost".

Alright, on to the food! When I saw what the challenge was I was pretty excited. It looked delicious and I was fascinated with the whole process and how the whole thing comes together. I made it slightly earlier in the month than I normally can get to them, so that was cool too.

First I started out with the sponge cake layers. Ho hum, not much interesting to comment about them. I've made sponge cake once or twice before in the past, as well as developing my own recipe for sponge cake about a year ago, so it was fairly uneventful in itself. I used an 8 inch cake pan, lined the bottom with parchament paper, baked one layer in each pan, turned the cake upside down out of the pan, then peeled the parchament on, re-used the parchament to make the next layers, so on so forth. I ended up with about 10 layers, as the recipe called for. I made one a bit thinner than the rest, to use for the caramel layer on top.

Ah, yes, the caramel. What a disaster. After rumors flying all over the forums about how much of a beast the caramel was being, I was fairly apprehenzive, though still determined to get it right. No such luck. I boiled the hell out of my sugary syrup, I swear it must have been on the stove at least an hour. Nothing happened except a giant mass of clear bubbles spewing out everywhere in all directions, slowley but surely covering that area of the stove. I eventually lost my patience and threw the syrup over the wedges I had cut from the sponge cake, but to no avail. The cake soaked the syrup up and swam in the remaining syrup which was quite a lot. It wasn't thick like it should have been, it wasn't amber like it should have been, and its extreme lemon flavor seemed a bit akward to go with the rest of the cake even if it had turned out right. So, ah well, I moved on to the buttercream.

I was very optomistic about the buttercream. I followed the recipe almost exactly and it turned out spledidly. The only thing I would change about it is this-if your looking for a nice rich deep chocolate color, use very dark chocolate or you will end up with a tann-ish light brown color. I was hoping for a much darker color, but its all good, it tasted good anyways.

Then I assembled it.

Oh, I almost forgot. I made a simple syrup infused with hazelnut extract to brush each cake layer with before layering with the buttercream. yeP.

Once I got it all layered and covered nicely with buttercream, my mind floated again to the ruined caramel, which now lay sadly on my kitchen coutner, the little sponge wedges still trying to soak in more failed caramel to justify themselves a place on the much-coveted torta. Poor little wedges. Then I thought, "Aha! I have leftover caramel sauce cockaigne in my fridge from a cheesecake I made recently!" So I piped a border around the edges of the cake with the rest of the buttercream then poured on the caramel sauce. I topped the edges with chocolate bits and called it finished.

And the taste? Amazing. AH-MAZING! My family went nuts.

So anyways, my dobos torta journey ends here for now. I'm off to class. Have a splendid day, my lovelies.

~lacey

"Lacey. You don't know how long I've been praying for something that tastes this good."-Heathyrre Nickell

DB Challenge: Mallow Cookies

2009-07-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Dum-dee-dum-da-dum

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Yeah so I'm a bit late for posting yet again for this months challenge. Between visiting with my best friend whos in town for a few weeks, getting things in order for school coming up soon, going to physical therapy for my knee twice a week, posting the challenge usually gets pushed back to the end of my list. Poor neglected blog. *sigh*

Alright so we had a choice this month to either make mallow cookies (btw, mallows? Growing up we always called them marshmallow pinwheels) or milan cookies, or both. I wanted to make both. So I did. I started with the milans, but I was a bit distracted when I was piping out the dough for the cookies on the sheet, and I didn't think twice about how much they would spread. So basically I ended up with giant milans. Like, giant giant. I think the biggest must have been at least 6 inches wide. I was annoyed with how they looked, so I told myself I would make more later and take pics of them then, but I didn't, so I have no pictures of the milans to share with you. But I tell you, they were delicious.

Next up was the mallow cookies. I was pretty excited about these, especially after reading the success stories from the other bakers. I took a lot of pictures during the process, so here's the first one, cutting out the cookie bases...
All ready to bake...

I love this photo. The tiny cookie in the middle was made with the leftover cookie dough bits, sort of a reject cookie if you will"Alright Brian, I'm ready for my close-up!"
Dipped!
Assembly line...
And the finished product:

The only problem I had with these was the chocolate coating. It didn't set. And I should have known it wouldn't without being tempered properly, so that's what I would change next time I make these. I'll whip out my candy thermometer and get that chocoalte tempered so theres no more waiting hours and hours in agony, staring at the cookies that aren't drying, hoping beyond hope that they'll somehow magically set if I make the fan blow on the long enough.

But anyways, there were so good! My brother especially loved them. I'll totally make these again.

Strudel

2009-06-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Ok so basically, ever since I saw that episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood on PBS when I was 7, I wanted to make strudel. I was fascinated with the idea of being able to roll almost whatever you wanted up in a huge sheet of dough and baking it.
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.
Soooooooooo, I made some! I chose to make cream cheese, sundried tomato, carmelized onion, mozzerella, and olive strudel. Well, I forgot the olives. go figure. Anyway! It was fun. And delicious. Well no, the ends of it were pretty boring, but once you got to the center where all the filling is, the bleding of the flaky buttery crust with the complimentary flavors inside was spectacular.
The big black spot looks a little mysterious, I know! But if you don't know its the tomatoes, it could be sort of an adventure seeing what it tastes like, right?!

~lacey

DB Challenge: Cheesecake

2009-04-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesecaaaaaaaaaaakee!!!

I love cheesecake. I LOVE cheesecake! I LOVE CHEESECAKE!!

*ahem*

Ok so I love cheesecake. I was excited for this months challenge, because it was...uh, well, cheesecake. And like I said, I love cheesecake.
I made miniature cheesecakes for Easter. I made three variations I came up with myself, Carmel Pecan, Chocolate Orange Espresso, and Strawberry. My favorite was the caramel pecan, though I think everyone liked the espresso best.
I have to say, also, it wasn't my favorite recipe to use. It was delicious, no doubt, but it seemed to lack a little of the classic cheesecake taste to me. It was good, though, perfect springboard to try new things. You can find the recipe in the link given above.

Ta-ta!
~lacey

Cake 'n Stuff

2009-04-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

Know what I hate most about summer?

No wait, it's not even summer yet.

Ok ok, know what I hate most about the months April-October in California? 100-114+ degree weather by 11 AM, makes it kind of a *EXPLETIVE DELETE* to bake, if you will. It's not a pleasant thing to set out on one of your life's missions, only to be dredged with sweat and fill the house with swealtering heat from the oven which makes it about 10 degrees hotter than before. Sure you can always use the air conditioner, but you may as well be a millionaire too.

Ah yes, these are the months I resort myself to staying up late to bake at night, if I can manage it, when its cooled down considerably. Plus its kinda exciting, staying up late to bake. Everyone wakes up to find a magically-appearing cake or bread or whatever strikes my fancy. Its like you become a magical baked goods fairy, bringing cheer and glee to all in the form of a pastry as they sleep.

Feast your eyes on this!

I found this "Deluxe Sunday Morning Coffeecake" in my Joy of Cooking book, and there was a variation to add chocolate and coconut. Naturally I added the chocolate, but I left the coconut out for some unknown reason. It was pretty good, though as far as coffeecakes go, I still haven't had one better than what my mom made almost every Sunday growing up. Try it, though!

Coffeecake
Dry breadcrumbs
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 sticks butter
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 c. buttermilk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c. pecans, chopped
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c. chocolate chips

Grease the bottom and sides of a springform pan. Cover the bottom of the pan with breadcrumbs and set aside. In a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter. Remove 1 cup of the crumbs to a seperate bowl and set aside. Add to the mixture in the large bowl the baking powder and soda. Add the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla. Stir vigerously until batter is smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. In the 1 cup of flour crumbles that were set aside, add the pecans, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Pour batter into prepared pan, and sprinkle the struesel topping on top, and lightly press into batter. Bake in a heated 350 F degree oven for 50-65 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool.

Huh. I hope that didn't confuse you, cause it confused me a bit.

Well, I'm off to teach my 6 yr old nephew to play chess. Ta-ta!

~lacey
"My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already."
-Dave Berry

Mocha Vanilla Pie

2009-04-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

Er, did I promise some mysterious mocha eclair pie? Well sorry, all I have to offer is this:
BAM!
Mocha Vanilla Pie. Well it certainly isn't a Mocha Eclair Pie, whatever the hay that is, I honestly have no idea how I managed to write "eclair" instead of "vanilla". I was probably too giddy with the thought of being able to drive by myself after all these years, that for some reason the word eclair came out.
But, now that we're on the subject, can I just say how much I love the word "eclair"? It sounds so...sooo....irresistible. Eclair. Mmmmm. Eclair! I want some! *drools*

Er, oops, hehe, got some on my keyboard *composes self*

Alright, alright, back on subject. It has a vanilla layer on the bottom, and is covered in a rich chocolate-coffee layer, served with a chocolate ganache, caramel cockaigne, and cream. (Though, if you ask me, the cream looks a little mashed-potato-ey...I swear it ain't!)

Mocha Vanilla Pie:
Vanilla Layer:
1/2 c. AP flour
2/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. milk
2 eggs
1/2 tbs. butter
1 tsp vanilla
Chocolate Mocha Layer:
1/3 c. sugar
1/4 c. AP flour
1 1/2 c. milk
Dash o' salt
2 egg yolks
1/2 c. dark chocolate chips
2 tbs. instant coffee granules, dissolved in 2 tsp. water
1 tbs. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Baked Pie Crust
For Vanilla layer: Place sugar and milk in a saucepan and stir together. Whisk in flour. Heat until bubbling, stirring almost constantly. Cook for 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and, stirring very quickly, beat in eggs. Return to heat and cook for another 1-2 minutes, until thick. Do not boil. Remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. Pour hot filling into baked pie crust. Cover, and refrigerate while preparing next layer.
Chocolate Mocha Layer: In a saucepan, combine sugar and milk. Whisk in flour. Heat until bubbly. Remove from heat and beat in egg yolks. Return to heat and cook for 3-4 minutes, until thick. Do not boil. Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients. Pour over vanilla layer, cover and refrigerate for 3-4 hours before serving. Serve with chocolate ganache, caramel, and cream.

Adios!
~lacey

"A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there is not enough to go around."
-Edgar Watson Howe

Coconut Cream Pie

2009-04-06T11:36:00.001-07:00

There's just something about pie that makes you feel incredible. Even just looking at a pie gives one a sense of joy and liberation. Unless the pie looked like this, then I'm pretty sure you'd feel more like hiding under your bed for weeks at a time, living off nothing but the dust bunnies you encounter and befriend in your attempt to block out that image. But, I bet, if you ate a whole pie (a delicious looking one) for each meal every day for the rest of your life, you'd be able to take over the world. Er, that's not what I'm doing, of course not!
I said I'd make the coconut cream pie next, and waddya know, I did. Thankfully, it turned out nothing like that fish (was that fish?) pie above...though my picture doesn't look as appetizing as the pie really was, I'm positive it tastes far better.

Before I go any further, I must inform you that I am acutely aware that my photo appears sideways. I messed with it for awhile, but you see, I'm currently in a state of total giddyness, as I just passed my drivers test this morning and now have my license, (yeah, I should have had it years ago, but what can I say!) so I had no patience to make it turn right. I had it right, but I'm guessing it won't upload at the right angle due to something to do with the layers in photoshop I had...anyways! *shrugs* there it is!
I'm feeling generous. Here's the recipe.

Coconut Cream Pie
Crust:
1 1/4 c. AP flour
Dash o' salt
1/3 c. cold butter
4 tbs. cold water
Filling:
3 c. half & half
3 egg yolks
3/4 c. white sugar
1/3 c. AP flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 c. toasted coconut
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tbs. butter

CRUST: In a food processor, pulse together flour, salt, and butter until crumbly. Add water 1 tbs. at a time until it forms a ball when pressed together. On a floured surface, roll dough evenly out until its about 1/4" thick. Roll dough over rolling pin and place into pie pan. Trim edges and use excess to cover any holes or tears. Crimp edges as desired. Poke crust with a fork all over and cover completely with foil. Bake in a heated 450F oven for 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake until edges are golden, about 3-6 minutes.
FILLING: In a saucepan, place the half & half and sugar. Whisk in flour. Cook on medium-low heat until bubbly. Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in egg yolks. Return to heat and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in salt, 1 cup coconut, vanilla, and butter. Pour hot filling into baked pie crust, top with extra coconut and refrigerate for 3-4 hours before serving. Serve with caramel or whipped cream.

Next up: Mocha Chocolate Eclair Pie, by yours truly.
Have a lovely day friends, I'm off to drive myself around without a licensed driver in the front seat *giddy*

"When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if its not, mmmmm, boy."
-Jack Handy, American writer and cast of Saturday Night Live

Banana Cream Pie

2009-03-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

I've recently decided that I need to bake more pies. Why? Well, there's a few possible reasons. Maybe while I was sleeping some mad man with an obsession with pies hypnotized me to have an unexplainable need to make pies over and over again, until his pie army is complete and he can finally rule the world thanks to his obsession with pie and skills in hypnotism. Maybe when I was little I experienced a traumatic event involving an unjustified pie of some sort which scarred me for life and has given me the will to bake pies until that pie from my childhood can be redeemed. Maybe I'm really a robot and my programmer programmed me to have an urge to bake pies around this time until I've baked 349238403 of them.
Well, in any case, I baked one. I put together an original recipe for banana cream pie, called my sister and begged her to bring me bananas when she came home, and made it early the next day.
Now, anyone who's ever eaten a pie, baked a pie, seen a pie, or is human, will know that pies require a crust. Here is where I panicked a little. See, with every pie I've made, whether its the lemon meringue I make every Thanksgiving, or some random one I decide to make, like now, I've always managed to fail them in some way. Either they burn, they are undercooked, they fall apart, or they just taste weird, it happens each time, with every pie crust recipe I've ever made. So I thought to myself, "Eh, may as well try making my own from the oodles of information I've acquired in my brain"-ok, that did sound a little robotic, maybe I am a robot afterall!-so I did. I wrote my own recipe and it turned out beautifully. Not to brag or anything, but it was the best pie crust I've ever made.

Rolling it out!

So this concludes all about pie one. I'll make another next week...maybe coconut cream. In fact, it WILL be coconut cream! yay!

Ok, seeya!
~lacey
"Pie is delicious...and yummy...but not as good as cake"*
-Woody Henderson

*I personally disagree but...ah well!

DB Challenge: Lasagna

2009-03-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

Time for a new challenge!
The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.
Mm-mm! Fresh pasta is one of my favorite things to make, and I've always wanted to try making a different flavored one, like the spinach or maybe a tomato one, so it was cool making the spinach lasagna this time.
I used my own ragu sauce recipe, and my own bechemal recipe as well, and they were stinking awesome with the pasta (ok, it wasn't actually stinking, the smell of it was enough to make you full itself, or else just a million times more hungry.) I'm used to making lasagna the American way-lots of veggies, cheeses, and anything else I can manage to fit in there, so it was pretty cool making it the traditional way with just the sauces and a little of one type of cheese. I definitely liked it this way better, it was much simpler but the flavors were far richer than any lasagna I've made before.

I also made foccacia and a Tuscan salad to go with it, but honestly it was a an awesome dish by itself.
I'll totally be making this again. Props to the hosts for an awesome challenge, and congrats to the rest of the bakers for their work also!

~lacey
"When the lasagna content in my blood gets low, I get mean."
-Garfield the cat

Sacher Cake...yeah I'm back!

2009-03-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

Hello my fuzzy furry readers. I've made my magical reappearance, and will now proceed with kicking myself in the butt to post much more. Though, I'm not sure how successful I will be with actually kicking my own butt. I've tried it before, and it's rather awkward. Oh well, maybe I'll ask someone else to kick it. Then again, I may get angry and say angry things and end up kicking their butt too. Ok forget that, I'll just make myself write!
Today I offer you my very first Sacher Cake to feast your eyes upon. I would offer it to you to eat, but I ate it all. Hah!
A Sacher cake is an Italian chocolate cake, a torte really, which has a chocolate ganache and an apricot filling. Supposedly the original recipe back in Italy is only made and the cakes sold at one restaurant. They got in a load of legal shenanigans with another bakery which opened who claimed to have the original. I have no idea what happened with that story, I got too impatient and went to make the cake.
Well I pretty much hate all preserves and jellies except strawberry, so I didn't have any of course. So instead I used some orange marmalade which my mom bought during Christmas time from a little old lady. I liked it with the cake, but there happened to be orange peel in the preserves which was downright disturbing with the cake in my opinion. The ganache and everything else was just lovely together though.
Ta-dah!
Alright here's the recipe!

Sacher Torte
6 egg whites
5 oz semisweet or dark chocolate
1/2 c. butter
6 egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. all purpose flour
2/3 c. apricot preserves

Ganache
4 oz. semisweet chocolate
2 tbs butter
1/2 c. cream

In a large mixing bowl, allow eff whites to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch springform pan and set aside. In a heavy saucepan, melt chocolate and butter and let cool. Stir egg yolks and vanilla into the cooked chocolate mixture. Set mixture aside. Beat egg whites with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, about 1 tbs at a time, beating about 4 minutes until stiff peaks form. Fold about 1 c. of the egg white mixture into the chocoalte mixture. Fold mixture into remaining egg white mixture. Sift about one third of the flour over the chocolate-egg mixture. Gently fold in. Repeat, sifting and folding in one-third of the flour at a time. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake in a 350 F oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack. Remove sides of springform pan. Top will be slightly flaky.
Split the cake evenly in two layers and spread apricot preserves on one half, and replace the other half on top.

Ganache
Melt chocolate and butter over low heat in a small saucepan. In a seperate small saucepan, bring the cream to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate mixture.

Place cake on a wire rack over a cookie sheet, and pour ganche over to coat all sides and top.

Enjoy it guys. It's good.
Peace out!

~lacey
"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and and pumpkin pie."
-Jim Davis "Garfield"

Updates and a few recipes

2008-12-01T19:27:00.000-08:00

I've been abusing my blog, I know. I've been kinda out of it for a few weeks. First with the injured toe then just dealing with some personal stuff, plus having family over for Thanksgiving, not enough sleep, selling at another show (more aout that later), and completing an order for 360 cookies in 3 days (more about that later, too)-I lost it a bit. Me and Laurel have been in full Mad Baker Woman mode. Finally stuff is slowing down, even though it's just for a few days, haha.

Next up, buy presents for my parental units, pack a box off to Kon overseas, possibly another box to my friend Tami, make plans to take over the world, finish cleaning the house, bake more, eat more, cook more, help get Christmas stuff out, deck the halls, train seahorses to jump through a ring of fire for my school's talent show.....

Ok yeah, that last part was just to make sure you were paying attention. I'm pretty sure college doesn't have talent shows! What a ridiculous statement of me to make.

Anyways. A few weeks ago I made these.....
The original recipe was Pumpkin Butterscotch Chip Cookies, but we don't ever use butterscotch chips, so I used chocolate chips instead. They were weird cookies, foreign to me in texture and consistency. They were like...tiny cakes almost. They were full of air and so light it was like eating a meringue or something, only with a much more rich flavor. Yes I know, enough blabbing, on to the recipe:

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Cookies
2 C unbleached AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 C sugar
1/2 C canola or corn oil
1 C canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C chocolate chips (or buttersotch...or prolly really any kind of chip)

Heat the oven to 325 F. Line your baking sheets with parchament. Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides when needed. On low speed, mix in the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture. Stir in the chips. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop mounds of dough onto the prepared sheets, about 2 1/2 inchs apart. Bake eat sheet until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out dry, about 16 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes then let them cool on a wire rack completely.

AND THEN! Last Monday I also made these.....
Jumbo black-bottom macaroons. Oh jeeze, these were prolly the best cookies I've had in a looooooooong time. They were by far the best macaroons I've ever had. The natural sweetness of the coconut and the mild crunch the toasty-ness on top mixed with the chocolate is such a brilliant combination, I wish I could meet the person who invented these and hug them. The only changes I made, I didn't have almond, so I just added extra vanilla.

Jumbo Black-bottom Macaroons
2 2/3 C shredded sweet coconut
1/2 C sweetened condensed milk
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg white
pinch of cream of tartar
1 tbs sugar

9 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 tbs canola or corn oil

Heat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchament paper. In a large bowl, stir the coconut, condensed milk, salt, almond extract, and vanilla extract. Set aside. In an impeccably clean bowl, beat the egg white with the cream of tartar until the tartar is dissolved. Beat on medium-high until soft peaks form. Beat in the sugar. Fold half of the whites into the coconut mixture, then fold in the rest. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop large mounds of the batter onto prepared pan, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until the bottoms and tips of the cookies are light brown, about 17 minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack. For the chocolate coating: put the chocolate and oil in a small saucepan. Over medium-low heat, stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and let sit for about 10 minutes to let it thicken slightly. Dip bottom half of cooled cookies into the chocolate, and place on a cooling rack positioned over a cookie sheet to drip. Let the chocolate set on the cookies for 2-3 hours, or until firm.

Oh and both these recipes came from my Big Fat Cookie cookbook. Great book, btw.

That's all for now. I hope you are all doing well, and haven't suffered much without me :)

By the way, I wasn't kidding about that conquering the world thing.

~lacey
"Food is good. Food is great. I like food when it's on my plate." -Randy Ragan

Alright, alright!

2008-11-18T22:56:00.000-08:00

Who knows if any of you have noticed, but I have been out of it for close to three weeks now. I can offer my petty excuses, in hopes that you may forgive me for my absence, but I don't blame you if you cast me out forever. But if you do cast me out forever, remember this, someday you will wake up one morning and think to yourself, "What have I done?! Oh, God, what have I done?!"

Ok so maybe you won't be that dramatic about it. But here ya go.

I mentioned in posts way back, that my sister and I have been planning to sell fudge at an upcoming Christmas art show. Well, that was my first reason for my lack of postage, between school and getting things ready for the show, I had no time to cook anything else, or anything I felt like blogging about.

On Friday I was on a fudge making frenzy, as I had no school that day and the next day was the show. So I was getting the last batches of fudge made, and some other things in order. Well! I was so hyped up on sugar and the beat of the White Stripes was running through me, and as I went out to the pantry to get more cans of sweetened condensed milk, I, for some stupid reason unknown to me now, decided to try to carry about 10 cans of it in a stack in my arms back to the house. I phailed horribly. The cans fell out of my arms, down, down, down, and at least three of them landed on my second toe on my left foot. I spewed forth less than friendly words, and when I finally was able to gather the cans up and hobble inside, limping all the way, I realized one of the cans had a huge dent in it from the force of impact. Whether the dent appeared before or after it fell, or actually as it hit my toe, I do not know. I was in massive pain, that's all I knew.

To make a long story short, I ended up in the ER that night around midnight, because the pain never stopped, only intensified...I got some x-rays, which was kinda cool, (I would go into more detail, but it has nothing to do with food, so I'm trying to stay somewhat on subject of...fudge?) but they said I had no broken bones. Although, they did say I had a cautusion, which, really, is just a fancy word for bruise, but it's more impressive to call it a cautusion ;)

I became immobilized and couldn't walk for a few days, due to the severe pain of it all. Sure I may sound like a wussy, but I read somewhere that men have a higher tolerance for pain than women, with the one exception of childbirth, so I'll wait until I'm having a baby to show my real endurance :)

So...where was I going with this....oh yes. I ended up not being able to go to the show, unless I wanted to scare our customers away with grimaces and much wincing-type faces. So I opted out and let my sister handle it. She did excellent, and it was a huge hit. We made quite a nice profit, considering it was our first time selling our goods. I ended up with a wounded toe, but a pretty cool story, if I have time for details, plus the show was a success. Heck, at least 5 people told my sister our fudge tasted better than a local famous candy shop... :D

Anyways, theres my reason for my negligance to you all. I've been watching all your blogs still, and reading up on everything, just haven't made the effort to comment. I'll get back into it soon. Especially with Thanksgiving coming up.

I'm thinking of making an apple pie tomorrow...

That's all.

~lacey
"No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut."
-Channing Pollock

Oh, P.S. I recieved the Kreative Blogger award from Patsy over at Family, Friends, and Food. Thanks so much! I will pass it on as soon as I can, and when it's not 20 minutes until midnight. Sweet dreams, readers.

DB Challege: Pizza

2008-10-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

Last month I joined the Daring Bakers group, and our challenge this month was pizza's. I've made pizza numerous times, but I was up to try a new recipe. Our hostess this month also requested that we toss the dough when making it. Some years back, when I was working in the kitchen at a Christian camp for the weekend, my friends Buck and Dana and my sister April taught me how to toss. Well after I went home I never practiced again so I lost all touch with my inner pizza-tossing expertise.
I made the pizzas twice, each time making the recipe into two pizzas. We used Peter Reinhart's recipe from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”. I liked the recipe, though it was kind of alot of bother to me. I'm not much of a big planner when it comes to food. I like waiting for inspiration to hit, and making the dish as soon as possible, usually the same day if I have the ingredients. So I wasn't a big fan of waiting for it to rest in the fridge over night. But I was patient, for once, and it did turn out good.
The first time I made it, I made them into goat cheese-sun dried tomato-carmelized onion pizza. That's one of my favorite combinations to do and I liked the way it turned out with the crust. I didn't get nearly as many pics when making the first batch, but the one i made later on I got lots of snaps.
Here's the goat cheese-sun dried tomato-carmelized onion pizza
The second time I made it, I made a chicken alfredo pizza...without the chicken. I'm vegetarian so I used tofu. Tasty.
I phailed at tossing decently the first time, but the second time was better. I managed to get a photo.
I'm not sure why, but I laughed quite a bit at this picture afterward. my eye looks so bored. hahaha
Anyways. Here's the dough when it was resting
And here's some toppings, red bell, spinach, tofu, eagerly awaiting to be put on the pizza and baked to death. Oh and my big-ass chef's knife.
Here's the alfredo pizza, ready to be baked
And here's the finished alfredo pizza
So for my first challenge, things went well. I make pizza all the time, but never mind that. I probably won't use this recipe again just because I didn't like the wait...but don't take my word for it. Or do. Either way, makes no difference to me!

BASIC PIZZA DOUGH
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.
Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).
Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting
DAY ONE
Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).
2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.
NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.
3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.
4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).
NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.
5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.
NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.
6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.
7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.
NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.
DAY TWO
8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.
9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).
NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.
10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.
NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.
11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.
12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.
NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.
13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.
NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.
If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.
14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

Oh but I have to admit, I didn't fuss with making sure the ingredients were at said temperatures. Maybe I should have....but I didn't.

Seeya!

~lacey
"Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at suppertime, when pizzas on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime"
-Cheesy pizza bagel bites TV commercial from when I was a kid

Steph's Cake

2008-10-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Another story! Gather 'round!

Yesterday (Sunday) I was browsing around online, basically wasting time in the form of facebook, when my friend Steph jokingly asked me to make her a cake, (she lives in texas) so I said sure, why not. Obviously, she wouldn't get to eat it, due to the some 2,000 or so miles that lay between us, but I like to torture my friends so I would do it anyways :)

She asked for 'a big fluffy chocolate cake with fluffy caramel filling'. The first thing I thought to myself was, 'How the heck do you make caramel fluffy?!' She said I'm the mad baker woman, figure it out.

I already have an awesome chocolate cake recipe, so I went searching for a caramel filling recipe. I found this recipe, and made the caramel filling, omitting the nuts all together. I also made a chocolate ganache to put over the top, though I didn't have heavy cream so I used half & half instead and it turned out splendidly.
There now, gaze at it's beauty as I finish the story.

I ate the cake. And I told Steph about how she missed it.

The end!

~lacey
"I...wish...I...could...EAT IT!!!!!"
-Steph Ferguson

P.S. The caramel wasn't fluffy. But I called it fluffy to make her happy. And it tasted as if it shouldn't have been fluffy, but it wasn't. Oh well. If anyone knows how to make fluffy caramel, please tell me.

I wrote a recipe

2008-10-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

yeP yeP, I did. Story time, kids!

I was browsing around the other night through cookbooks and All Recipes, looking for a muffin recipe. I love muffins. And I wanted to make some. So, as I said, I was looking for a recipe. Nothing sounded that appetizing. Then I got an idea to make either A) some sort of chocolate muffin, or B) some sort of pumpkin muffin (since I had some canned pumpkin in the fridge that needed to be used anyways.) So I looked for more muffin recipes with those ingredients. But, again, everything sounded boring. I started doing some serious soul-searching, deciding what I wanted out of a muffin at that point in time. I looked deep within me, and I realized I wanted a combination of both worlds-delicious chocolatey-goodness, and hints of spicy rich pumpkin.

"But how do I get both in one place, like I'm picturing in my mind? All these recipes are smelly and no-good!"

Well, I was in a picky mood. The recipes didn't really sound all that bad, but I wanted something different.

The only solution? I would write the recipe myself, of course.

So I did. They were much too dry and the outsides were tough the first time around. Also, my family thought the pumpkin flavor wasn't strong enough. Easy enough to fix for a scientist as myself. So I did that too, the next day. And hooray! They are perfect. Exactly what I wanted for my muffin mission. I call them Chocolate Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins.

They look all chocolate, and you think it's just a double chocolate muffin or some such thing. But the pumpkin flavor is surprising and extraordinarily pleasant.

Now I suppose the only fair thing to do is share the recipe. Not to be stingy, but since I wrote it myself, if anyone makes these, I only ask you give credit where it's due and I'll keep sharing :)

Chocolate Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 c. canned pumpkin
1/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tbs pumpkin pie spice (or more if desired)
1/2 c. cocoa powder
1 c. chocolate chips
Heat oven to 400F. Stir together flour, baking powder & soda, pumpkin pie spice and cocoa. Make a well in the center of the mix. In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar, oil, eggs, pumpkin, milk and vanilla. Pour wet mixture into well and stir until just moistened. Stir in chips. Oil & flour muffin pans, or line with paper cups. Fill each about 2/3 full. Bake in heated oven for about 15 minutes. Makes approximately 18 muffins.

So that's what I've been up to. Now I'm off to ponder the differences between muffins and cupcakes, if there even is a difference....hm.

sayanora!

~lacey
"Muffins are fluffity as they are delicious."
-Randy Ragan

Lasagna soup and Bread

2008-10-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Due to popular demand (riots outside my house, people stalking me through the grocery store, constant knocks on my door, etc.) here's the lasagna soup recipe you all have been pining for. I'll write it out with all the changes my mom made when she made it. I believe the original source is from Paula Deen, on foodnetwork.

Lasagna Soup
1 lb ground beef (we're vegetarians, so we used 1 lb of TVP)
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped (we had red, so we used red!)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
32 oz chicken broth (we just used chicken seasonings, no extra liquid)
28 oz. cans of petite decided tomatoes
15 oz. tomato sauce
1 tbs. packed brown sugar (we left this out. My dad hates sweet meals)
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
2 c. broken lasagna noodles
5 oz. parmesan cheese
croutons to serve
shredded mozzarella to serve (we used cubed)

In a large dutch oven (or crockpot) combine ground beef, onion, bell pepper and garli; cook over medium-high heat, 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until beef is browned. Stir in broth, tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, Italian seasonings and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Bring a pot of water to boil. Cook lasagna noodles until done. Add to soup.
Stir in parmesan.
Preheat broiler. Ladel soup into 10 ovenproof bowls. Top with croutons; sprinkle evenly with mozzarella. Broil soups, 6 inches from heat, 3-4 minutes, or until cheese is browned and bubbly. Serve immediatly.
(Rather than go the extra mile and do the elaborate soup-broiling goodness, we served the soup in soup bowls and served immediatly with croutons and mozzarella cubes.)

And there you have it. I still don't have pictures, but oh well. I trust everyone to make it well enough to deserve their own pictures, worthy of blogging.

Also! I swiped the recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Bread from Adam's blog-Baking with Dynamite. I woke up a bit sick this morning and decided to bake so I might possibly feel better. So I did. And I do feel better. Especially after eating it.

The only thing I changed, obviously, is I put chocolate chips on top, rather than toasted coconut. It was different for me, following a recipe so much to the T. I usually end up changing it completely, but I managed to refrain this once, after seeing how good his looked. It was worth it.

So that's it. Please, stop the rioting now, and if I find one more note attached to a rock hurled at my house, begging for the soup recipe, I will have to call Moulder and Scully.

seeya.
~lacey

“Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.”
-Bennett Cerf

Tomato & Basil Bruschetta

2008-10-13T17:15:00.001-07:00

Doesn't bruschetta sound some really fancy dish you'd get at an expensive italian restaurant? Well now that I think of it, it doesn't really sound like that so much anymore...but before I made it, it did sound fancy! Basically what bruschetta is, its a topping to eat on a french bread or other country-type bread as an appetizer. I had been wanting to make some for some time, and a few weeks ago Patsyk at her blog mentioned a recipe she used, and so I really wanted to make it to. so i did!
I just made the traditional tomato-basil bruschetta. And the bread I used was a garlic bread I made, but, as you can tell, I toasted them too long. Oh well, it was tasty nonetheless.
Mom made some lasagna soup for dinner the same night. I didn't get any blog-worthy photos though, because all my family was there and they were impatient to eat. So, oh well. you'll just have to be satisfied with the fact that I'm telling you it was pretty decadent. And lasagna soup is on the menu for class on Tuesday, so I'm curious to see how different each recipe may be. Decadent is a good word, btw.

I don't have much else to say to you right now. So I'll be off to feed the dogs and my dad. Not together, of course :P

~lacey
“Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.”
-Bennett Cerf

Whole Wheat Milk Bread

2008-10-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

I made some.

see!

And it was delicious. I love making bread, and I usually use some whole wheat flour in them, but this time I did all whole wheat. We ate it with some bean soup my mom made for dinner, and they went together really good. I found the recipe in my mom's Laurel's Kitchen bread book. Well actually it was called "fresh milk bread", but I didn't have fresh milk so I'm calling it whole wheat milk bread. so there!

Fresh Milk Bread
2 c. fresh whole milk
1/4 c. honey
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1/2 c. warm water
6 c. whole wheat bread flour
2 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. more water
2 tbs. cool butter

Scald the milk and cool to lukewarm. Stir in the honey. Dissolve the yeast into the warm water. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Make a well in the center of mixture. Pour milk mixture and yeast mixture into well. Stir from the center outward, until all the flour is mixed in, making a stiff dough. Knead for about 15 minutes without adding extra flour. Use the extra water on your hands to keep dough from sticking, if necessary. Knead in the butter in bits, and work the dough until it is silky. Form the dough into a ball and let it rise four about an hour and a half. Punch the dough down, then let rise a second time for about 30 minutes. Punch down once again, divide dough into two parts and place in greased loaf pans. Let rise for another 30 minutes. Bake in a 350F oven for about 40 minutes. Cool.

I have a new layout, as I'm sure you've noticed, unless this is the first time seeing my blog, or your eyesight is failing, in which case, you should go see an optometrist right away, just make sure they are not hypnotists in disguise as eye doctors, and if that be the case, I suggest you call a detective right away, just make sure he's not a villain in disguise as well, much like the optometrist.

But I like my new layout, for now. I'm learning xml formatting, so eventually I'll build my own layout when I get more familiar with it. For now, I like this.

Oh and excuse the fact that the quote at the end makes no sense. A friend made it up. And if it takes the rest of my life pondering the deep meaning of it, I'll spend sleepless nights infinite doing just that.

~lacey
"Bread and butter, peanutgutter"
-Konstantinos Georgiadis

Something smells delicious

2008-10-06T10:53:00.001-07:00

I don't know what it is, but I'm sitting here looking at food blogs and all of a sudden i can smell a delicious scent coming from the kitchen. I think mom's making soup, which makes me immensely happy. I can't wait to eat it. Maybe i'll go bake some bread to go with it later.

I've been fooling around with creating a new blog layout. But it's different because blogger uses xml or whatever the heck they call it, instead of html. If anybody has experience in building blogs with xml...tell me, I will nag you for help.

Anyways, as you all know, me and Laurel have been experimenting with fudge recipes. Not together, mind you, or else I'd go insane. Last weekend I made pumpkin fudge. It was supposed to be made with white chocolate, but alas, all I had in my pantry was semi-sweet chocolate, which, unless you are a party cup expert, or some other profession not relating to food, or if you are simply ignorant about common types of chocolate, then you will know it is quite different from semi-sweet. For one thing, it's white, and not brown. For another thing, it tastes pretty dang different. And, an interesting thing I've learned, it's really easy for people to mistake white chocolate for just a product coming from a lab. If you don't check the ingredient list on a white chocolate bar or chips, pretty often you will find that there is no cocoa product in it at all, meaning, it's not really chocolate you are eating. BUT! If you are smart, or want to be smart, you will make sure from now on that there is some sort of cocoa in the white chocolate you buy, whether that be cocoa butter, cocoa powder, or cocoa bean.

Anyways, back to the fudge. I decided to just make it anyways and use semi-sweet. After all, pumpkin and regular chocolate do compliment each other splendidly. For the sake of a good photo, I did mis en place (getting ingredients together before starting on making the food). There it is over there, pumpkin, sugar, butter, pumpkin spice, milk, vanilla, and chocolate chips (note that they are brown and not white, since I didn't have any white, remember?) Well, if you look closely, you'll see my brother in the background just turning his head to make some face at me, attempting to mess my photo up. But I made sure he wasn't in focus.

Ok, yet again, back to the fudge. It seems I get side-tracked easily. I made the fudge, cooked it for some time on the stove while I practically burnt my hand off with the heat being so high and little ventilation in our stove-age area. It was fun cooking it, because it got all huge and bubbly, and popping noises came out of the pop, as if I were doing a science experiment. I couldn't resist videoing it. It's pretty lame, but I think it makes it oh-so-mysterious, with Jack White playing in the background to add to the creepiness.....

cool huh? I was fascinated, and always am, when my concoctions make such exciting results when being cooked.

I stirred in the chocolate and dumped the whole thing in a lined pan. It practically set within a good 20 minutes, so I was able to taste it sooner. It was delicious. The pumpkin spices didn't catch your taste buds until several moments after you start munching on it, which makes it a loverly surprise of delicious-ness. It turned out a bit dry. And I will make it again to try to fix that, as well as using white chocolate instead.

btw, I checked, and mom IS making soup. Some sort of bean soup. I'm gonna eat the whole pot.

Also, the quote below is dedicated to a few people who will probably only read this because I make them. I believe this quote to be pretty true. love you guys.

Ok that's all. sayanora.

~lacey

"I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream."
Heywood Broun

Cherry Blossom Fudge: Phail

2008-10-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been collecting fudge recipes to experiment with in preparation of the upcoming show in a few months. Here's the ones Laurel and me want to test out so far:

coffee house fudge
cherry blossom fudge
peanut butter fudge
pumpkin fudge
christmas maple fudge
no-cook, never fail fudge
vanilla fudge
christmas cranberry fudge
cookies and cream fudge
cherry eggnog fudge
holiday peppermint fudge
chocolate chip fudge
mint chocolate fudge
whoppers fudge
brown sugar fudge

Keep in mind, these are just for experimenting. We wanna try as many as we can, so we can choose the best recipes we find to sell at the show.
Anyways, I decided to try the coffee house fudge and the cherry blossom fudge this afternoon. They're both chillin out in the fridge right now, but so far the coffee house fudge i believe is gonna be awesome. The cherry one, however, I think is a major phailure. Yes, phailure. A total, complete, hopeless, desolate, catastrophic, abortive, unsuccessful, p-h-a-i-l-u-r-e. Not just failure, no, but a phailure. you get the point.
It turned out all...chunkafied. When I stirred the cherry jello mix in (actually it was raspberry...in my mom's whole drawer full of jello, and yes, she has a jello drawer, there wasn't one cherry jello box. So I used raspberry instead), it turned all chunky and grainy. Then I stirred the butter and chocolate and other ingredients in, but it didn't help. It got all runny on the edges, the rest was a mushy grainy mess. Disgusted, I spread it in the pan and shoved it as far back into the darkest corner of my fridge I could find, so I wouldn't have to look at it's ugly wretchedness next time I opened the fridge. I'll test it later, when I've done crying my eyes out and wailing in utter failure.

Goodbye for now, faithful readers and friends.

~lacey
"Life is short. Eat dessert first."
-Ernestine Ulmer

P.S. I'm not all that dramatic about fudge. I just like to write dramatically to make it more fun for you to read. I've only cried over food like...twice. Ok, thrice maybe...

Uh...bananas?

2008-09-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

I won a cookbook from the Chef Talk food forums. "Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook". As you can see, I was astonished.
Ok, I wasn't really. But a picture of me making a freaky face at a book is funner to see than a boring stock photo of the book, right?
Yesterday I went to wash dishes, and mindlessly pulled out a cookbook and picked out a bread recipe instead. So I baked it. Parmesan pepper bread. Basically, just a basic dough with lots of pepper baked into it, and then roll a ton of parmesan into it and bake it. It was delicious.
I also made an egg-parmesan fusilli dish. I don't like that picture. But oh well, now you can see it. That was delicious, too.

Oh and I made the bananananaas today. Well, I didn't make bananas, but I fried some. I spread chocolate on a pasta wrap, sealed the edges with butter, and rolled each banana half into it. Then I fried it in oil until golden bubbly brown delicious. I drained off the oil, stuck it in some chocolate and drizzled more over it and took pics. Which you are probably now drooling over. They were SO SO SO SO SO GOOD. Dang. Now I want more. I'll go make more.

I was going to show you guys the food pics that I entered in the fair and won awards for, but as stated above, I have to go make more fried bananas before I go insane. So goodnight dear readers, eat well.

~lacey
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
Groucho Marx

OOHH FUDGE

2008-09-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

*giddy*

Guess what! Our local city's Christmas fair changed their rules, and now allow vendors to sell homemade candies at their booths. They didn't allow it before, because the people who put the event on have a food booth for the affair, and wanted all the food business for themselves. But they changed their minds for some reason or another, maybe darth vadar came into their houses at night and threatened to cut their pinkie toes off if they didn't change the rules. If so, I am inviting him to come to the event and receive free fudge from our booth.

Oh, yes. My sister Laurel and me are going to sell fudge. We've no idea what kinds, or what's going on at all, but we have a few months to figure it all out. Laurel's in the kitchen experimenting with a new fudge recipe right now, in fact. And I've got some ideas too for different kinds.

We've been working on mad baker women designs/logos. Well, I mostly do so in class...but hey, we gotta work on them sometime!

I'm also going to make fried bananas. I made them once some years ago and got a champion for them at Food's Day, but I want to make them again. I'll tell you all how it went when it happens.

Oh yeah, fair results.

I got first place for the cake I decorated, but if you ask me the judging was off by far. There were other cakes in other divisions who recieved lesser awards than what they deserved. Anyways, I concluded again, as which happens every year, that the people judging the cakes have little knowledge on how much work fondant is to use on cakes vs. tip work. They are both a seperate art, but the fondant work tends to get outshined but loads of detailed tip work. oh well *shrugs*
Also, I recieved Best of Show for my garlic bread, which I wrote myself *proud*
First place for double chip meringue bars, which surprised me, because I used carob chips in place of the peanut butter chips, and carob is usually frowned on upon by people who don't eat carob. Because they look like chocolate chips, but the taste is entirely different, people usually get the wrong idea about carob. Anyways, I was happy.
Oh what else. I entered flourless chocolate cake in the All Chocolate Confections contest, and I got 2nd for that. I wish I could have known the recipe that won 1st, but they didn't have it displayed.
My brioche got 1st. The piece that was brought along with the loaf for display was almost entirely eaten, they liked it so much. haha
All my food photography got 1st place, and I got two Best of Division awards on my brioche photo and a photo I have of carrots...I'll post them next time.

That's all for now. I know the quote below has absolutely nothing to do with food, but the famous quote from a childhood movie brings back lots of memories. At least it has the word fudge in it! goodbye.

~lacey
"Only I didn't say "Fudge." I said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word! "
Ralphie from A Christmas Story

thumbs and cake

2008-09-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

I've been baking lots these past few days for teh fair time. I entered in the cake competition, a Christmas cake. These past few weeks I've been getting ideas together in my head, my weird, twisted head, on what I want for my cake. I finally got some ideas together so last weekend I got started on making fondant.
If you don't know what fondant is, it's the stuff they use on professional cakes that makes the cake look obnoxiously gorgeous. The flowers on this cake are made of fondant. You know, that stuff.
Well, turns out you can make your own. Something I discovered earlier this year. I hate the store bought crap because its really hard, extremely expensive for almost no fondant, and it tastes like a melted rubber tire that used to be on a dump truck drove by a fat man in long johns who spit on the tire every time he got in the truck. The stuff you make yourself is obviously cheaper, basically just a bag of marshmallows and a bag of powdered sugar, its really easy to work with, and it tastes scrum-diddly-umptious.
Basically, you melt miniature marshmallows with a SMALL amount of water (i made the mistake of adding too much at one point, but it turned out ok because i blamed Laurel for it :D)
and then stir in your color, and knead a bunch of powdered sugar into it until it looks like that, over there.

Ooohhh yes, and when you are starting to knead, you have to rub shortening into EVERYTHING that's going to touch it. Hands, surface, everything. It's kinda fun. As you can see, the green fondant I made looks ridiculously like nose slime of some sort before I got the sugar worked into it. I loved making the green stuff the most because my family got grossed out when they saw it. Especially when I got it on my hands! weee
After I made the fondant I made dinner that night too. Spaghetti, of course.
But in the process of slicing up onions for the sauce, I sliced up my thumb too. I'm still un-used to using a nicely sharpened knife, even though I've been sharpening regularly since January. When it happened, though, I realized it was the first time I'd cut myself with my new knives. Not that it was a goal, but I'm just saying. Anyways, I cut myself pretty deep, and it bled everywhere. (not on the onions, don't worry). So I made the rest of the meal without my left thumb. Which, I quickly discovered, is very difficult.
I missed my thumb. And all the next day, I baked for about 10 hours for the fair. Brioche, garlic bread, meringue bars, and finishing my cake. Which was alot of work. And it was all slowed down majorly by the loss of the use of my thumb. You know, you can never truly appreciate how much your thumb means to you until you can't use it and you have a million things to do in the kitchen in a certain time span. You know what's especially difficult? Cracking eggs. I had to crack a billion of them and it was so annoying when I couldn't stab my thumbs into it to pull it apart. I can't wait to have my thumb healed. I'll never take my thumb for granted again!
And so, I'd like to interrupt my cake rant to give you this, my appreciation for thumbs everywhere.

AN ODE TO THUMB
The sun was high
The day big in it's might
I looked at my hands
And saw such a sight

Not an index!
Not a pointer!
But a short, fat, opposoble mover!

My thumb
My thumb
How I love my dear sweet thumb

I curse the day
That terrible day
The knife, it slipped
It slipped in the way

My thumb!
My thumb!
Now I run and scream and yell!

My thumb!
My thumb!
Will I ever be able to chop that big green pepper bell?!

One day
One sweet, glorious day
My thumb will heal
It will heal all the way

I can strum!
I can run!
I can move my opposable thumb!

I tell you reader
Never forsake
Never forget
The importance of that finger
The importance of the thumb

So, what do you think?
I know, it was probably the most pathetic piece of poetry you've read in a long time. But I'm not emo, so I can't write this stuff. I just insist on doing so anyways for your pleasure.
Ok, back to the food.
I started assembling my cake on Monday, since it was due at the building on Tuesday. I made it with just a crappy box mix, since it isn't a taste competition, only the looks matter (funny, that sounds similar to the human race). Then I rolled out the fondant and started cutting the pieces and pasting them on the cake. It was a little awkward trying to position the strips on the cake, in order to have them align just right, but I got it sorted out eventually. (I've no idea why part of that sentence is underlined, but I don't care enough to fix it, so oh well.) Then I started the top layer, cutting the strips and applying them horizontally. Then I rolled out a red sheet for the top and fixed up all the seams and stuff. I had also rolled out
some white fondant and cut stars out with a cutter. Then I covered them with some fancy gold powder stuff I found at the store. I set them out to dry for a day or so. Then I put an extremely goofy movie on, (i like cartoons. shoosh.) got some school glue, and constructed a top piece for my cake out of the stars.
Eventually I put it all together and got this:

I rather like it.
This is one of my longest posts yet, so enjoy it. Also, I added a "Followers" gadget, so if you'd like to follow me, it's located at the bottom of my page. Sounds a little creepy. But do it!

More posts and pics later. I'm off to clean the dirt out my thumb wound.

~lacey
"A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece."
Ludwig Erhard

im tired of titles

2008-09-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

yeP, I am tired of them.

Anyways, after hanging out with some friends this morning for a few hours, I came home and decided to bake.

SO! i made cupcakes. I didn't have a good yellow cake recipe yet, so i decided to try a recipe from the joy of cooking called "1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake". Now, I've made a cake recipe before called "1-2-3 White Cake" and basically it was called that because there was something like 1 egg, 2 cups of flour, and 3 cups of sugar (of course these weren't the actual ingredients, because then the cake would probably be pretty nasty, 2 cups of flour to THREE cups of sugar?! Anyways, you get the idea of how these kind of recipes work..) But as I was inspecting the yellow cake recipe, it became very apparent to me that the writers of this recipe had no idea what they were doing when they named it "1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake". I say this because there was no sort of numerical order to the ingredients, like you would suppose there to be by the title. Just a bunch of normal sounding measurements, 1 1/2 c. flour, 1 2/3 c. sugar, a tsp. vanilla, etc etc etc. Well I'll stop boring you with details only a fellow baker would enjoy reading :P

i made the recipe anyways, despite the obvious flaws in the title writing process...they turned out pretty good. Kinda weird as cupcakes, I think it would have made a better whole cake instead of cupcakes, but nevertheless they were good. I made some basic butter and sugar white frosting and colored them and fed them to my neices and nephews. They informed me that they were glad i made two boy colors and two girl colors, orange and blue, and pink and purple. I didn't do it on purpose, but hey it was a pretty smart subconscious thing, huh?...I guess.

I also made a real quick pasta salad to go with our Labor day BBQ. I cooked some elbow macaroni (naturally i made way too much) and tossed in some diced tomatoes, olive oil, dried oregano, garlic powder, a bit of salt, tons of black pepper and a mountain of fresh chopped basil. The basil gave it a huge kick, it was delicious.

Well I put both pics because I just wanted to show off... :)

That's it for now. Next week I'll be baking a bunch more for the food competitions in the fair...so I'll have lots of results from that for you guys to read eventually. Annnd if I make anything in the meantime, I'll tell you all about it eventually, because I know how much you rely on my posts to keep your taste buds working. Well that doesn't make sense really because you cant eat this stuff...oh well.

Goodnight!

~lacey
"Life is a combination of magic and pasta."
Fellini

bread and stuff

2008-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Last week my nephews and neices came over and we made some lemon bread. I don't remember what it was called...but anyways it turned out pretty good. It was a bit dense but still had a really good texture. When you get it out of the oven you pour a lemon glaze over it, which soaks into the bread as it cools and makes it really moist and gives it a good strong citrus flavor. The kids had fun making it. I was trying to teach my 8 yr old nephew how to crack eggs...he like to try to just stick his thumbs in it and hope it cracks open right. Of course it doesn't and egg shell is all over the place...haha...but it was cool, they are learning. And my neice got angry because there were only two eggs to crack and she insisted I let her do one. But I didn't. I'm a bad auntie.

Oh and I'm baking more brioche...I got my sister to buy me some butter, so I made some more. It's in the kitchen rising right now. I'll bake it soon and eat the whole loaf. hah!

Oh btw I took pictures of the lemon bread but they turned out ugly. So I won't show you.

On the subject of school, I have a computers class and a nutrition class. I already know most everything they are teaching so I get bored. But I have to have those classes if I want the dang certificate. So I'll still do them. And the homework...which I need to do now...before Tuesday...bleh. Well Mr. Pachutto usually has some good stories, so at least that is a bit interesting. And we start lab next week in nutrition, so we'll see how that goes.....

I was going to bake again the other night, after making that lemon bread, but for one reason or another I just didn't. And I didn't sleep well that night either because of it. I suppose that's the reason why I decided to make brioche, to satisfy the fact that I didn't bake the night before. I wonder if I talked in my sleep that night, like I usually do when I don't bake when I say I will.

well shoot. This is a boring post because I don't have any pictures. I will bake more and more this week and make a blog with pictures sometime soon. I'll go bake my bread. You go....do..something. goodbye.

~lacey

"There are people in this world that are so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."
~Mahatma Ghandi

Oooooh boy

2008-08-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

There's a new kid on the block, folks. My new baby nephew, Brock Thompson Nickell, was born last Friday night at 11:51 pm ( go to http://www.thenickells.net to see pics :D) Mom and baby are doing awesome :) He is a cool little kid. My sister, Heathyrre, and my brother-in-law, Isaiah, are going to be great parents. I'm so excited for them. It's still really weird for me to know that my sister has her own baby now.....

Unfortunately, with the start up of school last week, I've been pretty busy getting papers and other boring stuff sorted out and I haven't had a whole lot of time to do much in the kitchen. I did make some chow mein a few weeks ago, which turned out pretty much mouth-watering. I have a few pics to share of that, chopping onions over there <--- and the finish product in our wok down there. The recipe I used, (I actually used one this time!) was a mock recipe for *official* panda express chow mein, but, in my opinion, it tasted better than their stuff ;) I made egg rolls too, but the pictures I took of them turned out crappy because my lighting was leaving me and I was too lazy to set the ott light up. So I'll just have to trust your imagination to conjure up an image of the best tasting egg rolls you can imagine ever eating, along with the best sweet and sour sauce you've ever eaten as well. Your probably wondering whats the deal with the Chinese food. And, unless you are an old hermit who lives in the mountains or possibly a deserted island somewhere off the coast of Bora Bora, you will probably assume it's because of the recent Olympic games that are held in China this year. Well congratulations, you are correct. Watching all those Chinese people all over the tv made me want to eat their food, so I made some myself. Smart, huh? I made some tomato-basil bread on Friday night, when I was too antsy over the current baby situation to do anything but bake. It was delicious (of course!) but I've realized my recipe needs some perfecting. The bread is a bit too dense and I need to fix that....somehow. As far as school goes, I got two classes out of three that I wanted to take. Computer concepts and Cooking for a Healthy Lifestyle. I must say, the computer class is pretty boring so far, but my teacher, Mr. Pachutto, seems cool. Plus! His name is really fun to say. Say it, Pah-chew-toe! yipee. My nutrition class is actually a bit boring so far too...I don't mean to be vain, but I already know everything being covered in the class so far. I can't wait until our lab days start though, and we get to actually cook. My sister Laurel finally got herself a culinary blog set up, ( allnaturalbakerwoman.blogspot.com ) go see it too! I added her and some other blogs and websites to some lists on the right, so you can check them out anytime you like. Ok I think that's it for now. I will write again soon, because baking competition is coming up for our county fair, which is coming up in a few weeks. Hm. I don't know why, but this link won't stop linking itself. STOP! Eeep! It's like a never-ending link that's following me, watching everything I type and think!!! RUN RUN!!!! AIIYEEEE!!!!

Oh phew. All I had to do was insert a new paragraph. That was a bit frightening.

And I'm off! *whoosh*

~lacey

"I always wondered why babies spent so much time sucking their thumbs. Then I tasted baby food."
~Robert Orben

pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce?

2008-08-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

What's the difference between pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce? It's a question I've been questioning my innermost culinary mastermind for some months now, and last night I finally decided to do something about it, since I couldn't think of anything myself that sounded legitimate enough.

The answer is this: traditional pizza sauce is made smooth, and has more spices and herbs than spaghetti sauce. The simplest sauce for pizza you could make is tomato sauce, garlic, basil, and oregano. Spaghetti sauce can be made with big chunks of tomato, or smooth, but usually has vegetables or italian sausage added to it, along with the traditional herbs and spices used in most italian cooking.

So there. With my curiosity finally satisfied, I decided to make spaghetti, food sent from heaven above, with a new recipe. When I watched the food movie No Reservations last night and saw aaron eckhart eating spaghetti, I couldn't wait any longer and I decided to make some.
Well ok, that's a lie, I went and happily slept for 9 hours, ate breakfast, did some stuff around the house, then I made it. So really I did wait much longer than I wanted, but who cares, I made it eventually.

I didn't make the spaghetti from scratch this time, because I was just focusing on the sauce itself. But! I will next time, I promise. I started out with some roughly chopped onions cooking in some olive oil in the skillet, along with some fresh Gilroy garlic. I added a can of tomato sauce, and a can of chopped cooked tomatoes and let those hang out for awhile and get to know eachother. Then I threw some otehr good stuff in, steamed chopped carrots, mushrooms, fresh basil, fresh oregano, pepper, and a few other things. I simmered it up and meanwhile cooked some whole wheat spaghetti. I threw them all together in a bowl and tossed on some fresh parmesan, and there ya go. Man it was gooooood. One of the best bowls of spaghetti I've had in my life. I wish you all could have eaten it too.

I had also been wanting to try a new bread, something other than my oh-so-good garlic bread that I love so much, so I brought out our trusty Joy of Cooking book, and picked out a bread. I decided to make brioche, which I'd never even heard of before, but the book made it sound pretty dang good. I'm not even sure, but I think it might be italian bread? Sounds like it anyways. I had actually started making the bread to go with the spaghetti, but I was stupid and once again didn't read my bread recipe all the way through to see how long it needed to rise and all that jazz. I thought it'd just be a standard 3 hr. rise in all, but no! After rising for an hour and a half, you had to let it chill out in the fridge for 4-12 hours! Well I was already half-way into making it, so I figured on having it with dinner instead. I was skeptical when I saw how sticky and wet the dough was, but the book warned to avoid the temptation of adding extra flour, so I pushed my doubts aside and stuck it in the fridge. After waiting 5 excruciating hours filled with anticipation, anxiety, and out-right constipation of thoughts reeling in my head about this bread, I was pleasently surprised to find that chilling the dough took the stickyness out of it and firmed it up quite a bit. I divided it into four balls, stuck them side-by-side in a bread pan like kids on a rollercoaster, and baked it in our oven (have I mentioned that oven is brand-spanking new and I love it?) It wasn't done when the book said it would be (how dare they!) so I baked it for 20 minutes longer. Of course my timing was perfect *wins*. I took some pics while it cooled and finally cut it open when I couldn't stand it anymore. It was amazing. SO good. It was unbelevably light, a slight sweetness on the edge, an extremely pleasent flaky crust, and filled with an overall irresistable butteryness that melted in your mouth. I had some with butter on it, but honestly, the rich butter taste to the bread was more than enough. It was truly inspiring. We ended up just eating the loaf for dinner, there's just 3 measly slices left. My brother said it was so delicious, it should be illegal. He was right. It IS illegal. Dudes, if you haven't had brioche before, I command you as your favorite mad baker woman to eat some before your day is over, even if it means baking it yourself. Ask, I WILL give you the recipe. I want everyone to have this.

I'm sorry. I know I ramble about all this, but I still have more to say, so keep going :D

*ahem*

So the first thing we made in our new oven were oven sandwiches, made with fresh tomatoes from our garden, fresh sweet basil, also from our garden, some cheddar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Oh and they were made on my mom's sandwich bread which is always delicious. We used our brand-new broiler INSIDE the oven, not under it! :D It was exciting. Hm. Now that I'm writing this I realize that I already wrote about these. Oh well, you get to see pics this time around.

I suppose I should update you all in the status of Laurel and I's bakery-opening is coming along. Laurel and I's...is that real grammer? *shrugs*

Laurel is going for her small business degree still at College of the Sequias, she's got a few semesters left still, two I think. I was planning on doing the same, but I haven't fully made up my mind yet. I might just go for a certificate in business, which would be a two-semester program (versus the four-semester program of a degree). I would have no problem going for the degree...if I were a different person. I am not a school person. I like it just fine and all, but it's really not my cup of tea. I'm grateful for it and the things I've learned, without it I'd be even more hopeless at subjects like maths...ecchh...but I really don't want to spend any extra un-needed time there. Laurel is awesome. She excells in school and revels in it. That's a good thing too, or else neither of us would have any idea what we were doing with the business aspect of owning a bakery :P

Anyways, I'm taking a few classes this fall at COS, hopefully I can still get all the ones I wanted before they fill...we'll see. I'm going to see a counselor, which is pointless if you ask me, so he can tell me the classes I need to take to get what I want. Which is dumb because I know what I want. But I can't register until I see one. Blah. So yeah that's Wednesday, which is also when I'm taking my placement test, which I'm NOT excited about. But whatev.

That's enough talk about non-food related subjects! I'm off to sleep...eventually..not yet...but soon...to have dreams of illegal brioche and whatever else my freaky mind decides to make me dream. Sleep well, whoever you are reading this, and leave me comments dudes.

~lacey

"Oh, God above, if heaven has a taste it must be an egg with butter and salt, and after the egg is there anything in the world lovelier than fresh warm bread and a mug of sweet golden tea?"
Frank McCourt-Angela's Ashes

flour-less chocolate cake

2008-08-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

I hate to start this blog out with a pathetic crappy picture of something so awesome as flour-less chocolate cake, but what can I say? I had plans to take good pictures of it before we ate it, but april had to go so she took bites out of it with her fork and ran. I could have protested until I had some good shots, but by that time the mint was already hopelessly wilted and the powdered sugar was starting to dissolve, and it was 12 am, so I didn't care much anymore. All I wanted was a slice of that cake.

Now, unless you've eaten flour-less chocolate cake yourself before, you have no idea what you are missing out on. It's probably the richest, most chocolatey-est, wonderfully sweet and pleasureful confection you can ever ever eat. The picture does it no justice. "That's pure sin on a plate, that's what that is," as my brother-in-law described it. It's just unbelievable. I want to bake each of you a flour-less chocolate cake sometime in your life. I will do it.

The newest exciting news around the house-we got a new oveeeeeeeennnnnnn!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:D See how much I looooooooove it. It's beautiful. I love it. Our old oven was a complete mess. It
served us very well while we had it, but it's time had passed a long time ago. When they delivered our new one on tuesday, me and mom spent at least 10 minutes marveling at how well the door opened and closed without a sound (our old oven only opened about halfway, and not without a tired old screech ringing throughout the house. And it never closed all the way either which made it impossible to heat up in a decent amount of time...all the while heating the kitchen up as well from the escaping hot air to about a million degrees) I'm so happy with our new oven. It has a broiler on the inside! That may seem old-hat to you guys, but our old oven had a broiler built into the bottom, which was impossible to use because no decent sized pan would fit into it, and every time it was opened it dropped tons of burnt up charcoal and turn our floor black right under it. In fact, the dude that came out to look at our oven said they don't even make ovens with broilers like that anymore. hah.

So anyways, we had oven sandwiches in it last night. Nothing fancy really, just tomatoes, cheddar, olive oil, basil, garlic. I was able to switch the oven light on and look through the window to see if they were done yet! (yeah...our old oven had no light and no window on the front... :D)

I'll be off now to bake some bread or something. I wanted to make olive bread, but we have no olives, so that won't work. I'm going to try a new recipe. I don't know what yet, but I'll find something.

goodbye.

~lacey

“A cook, when I dine, seems to me a divine being, who from the depths of his kitchen rules the human race. One considers him as a minister of heaven, because his kitchen is a temple, in which his ovens are the altar.”
~Marc Antoine Désaugiers

this and that

2008-07-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

yeP, my blog has a few new things. I created a new image thingy for that space up there ^, whatever you want to call it. Now you can see my chef's knife, whisk, wooden spoon, and BASS (big ass silver spoon). I'm working on a few other things I may put in my layout, but for now this is it.

Last tuesday I made those pizzas I mentioned. They were pretty good. And I took pics, but they turned out kinda crappy, so I won't show you. One of the pizzas had artichoke hearts, parmesan, cheddar cheese, and thyme. The other had mushrooms and mozzarella. I mad a tomato sauce for both of them too, and the crust was a recipe I made up myself awhile back.

On saturday I made a bunch of stuff. After getting requests from family to bake more blueberry muffins and ship them their way, I made another batch and a half. I filled them up much fuller this time and they got nice and big. They don't look nearly as good in the pic as they do in rl...guess that's the price you must pay for reading my blog. Poor you. They taste excellent, too. My dad got one that was almost all blueberry, while, naturally, the one I ate had like one in it >:|

Oh yes, then I baked some peanut butter peanut chocolate chip cookies. They are like a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie with peanuts in them. Obviously, from the title you know that. Unless your slow, in which case I'll say it again, the cookies I made were peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips and peanuts in them. I hate 4, so I won't say it again. I made the cookies huge man-sized cookies, or at least I thought they would be, but they didn't spread out as much as I thought they would, so they were more like skinny-man cookies. hm. I don't like skinny men. But the cookies were awesome.

Also for dinner I made baked ziti, which is an italian dish. Basically just ziti noodles baked with mushrooms, tomato sauce, cheese, and some other stuff. I wish I had baked garlic in with it, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. But it was good anyways. Not so great as some people said it would've been, but it was good.

oh and I made garlic bread again to go with it. Only this time I added some sharp cheddar in with the dough, which ended up melting and blending with the dough so you couldn't really tell anyways. But it made it a whole lot more moist, verging on dense. And I noticed having cheese in the dough makes it break a whole lot easier. I baked it with cheese on the top too which was excellent. I've noticed each time I make this bread I tend to put more and more garlic each time. Which is great, because I love garlic. Theres a garlic plant in a town nearby, and every time we'd drive by when I was a kid I'd inhale it as much as I could, while my siblings all stared at me like I was a weirdo. hah! I know, the pic is crappy, but it was getting late in the day and all my natural light was leaving me. *grumbles*

I just made some truffles too, by the way. They are chillin in the fridge right now before I roll them into balls and coat em in cocoa. Someone gave the recipe out on the cheftalk forums, so I thought I'd try it because they said they were easy chocolate truffles that everyone loved. It only took three ingredients. Chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. We don't have any sweetened condensed milk at the moment, so I made some myself (isin't that always the easiest fix? for me anyways :D) So yeP, next time I'll tell how they turned out.

OH! I just remembered. I'm sure I've mentioned how stupid our oven is...if not, I'll just say it's pretty bad. You can't open or close the door all the way, and because of that it takes a million hours to heat up, and the handles for the stove are so worn down you can't touch them unless you burn your hand off. So we've got the dude coming to fix it tomorrow. But heres the thing, if he can't fix it (pray he cant) we get a brand new stove free. I'm tempted to go bang it up somehow so that he really can't fix it for sure. I really hope he can't. That'd be so cool to get a new oven! *giddy*

That's it for now. I'm tired of sitting here. I'll go check on the truffles and think of something else to make.

~lacey

"A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand"
-Unknown

pie crusts suck!

2008-07-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

So like, last Saturday I cooked some more. I made all-day macaroni and cheese in my mom's crock pot, I made my garlic bread, and I made a butterscotch pie. I'd never made macaroni and cheese from anything but the box, but it's something I had wanted to try for a long time. Well my mom had found a recipe a few weeks before and was going to make it herself, but she had to go out of town to help my sister, so I made it instead. I was only supposed to put 2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese in it, but I added a bunch of velveeta cheese, which I really really hate, but added it anyways. Then of course I added much more than 2 cups of sharp cheddar, just to make it so much more cheesy. I added a can of milk and turned the heat up and let it go to town for several hours. It turned out great, and tasted pretty much like the most amazing macaroni I've ever eaten. No, I didn't take a picture of it. I was too hungry to take the time out to do so :D

So yeah, then I also made my garlic bread. It made me angry. First off, I dumped too much dried parsley in it so it turned the dough a slight green color. Then I let it rise much too long, and I killed the yeast in the process. So when I baked it, it got very ugly and flat and was stupid. It tasted pretty good, but I hated the way it looked. Oh well, when it comes down to it, the taste is the only part that really matters, right?

I made a butterscotch pie. I decided to make a butterscotch pie because my dad claims to hate chocolate, and the desserts we make usually have some sort of chocolate in them, so I decided to make something he'd really love. (my posts make my Dad sound like a really picky eater...well, he is :P)

Now, I've always had horrible luck with pie crusts. I can't ever figure out how to get the whole crust baked, including the center part, without the edges turning way too dark. Last year, I think during Thanksgiving, I made the perfect pie crust, and I was really excited for it. But I got lazy, and I lost the recipe. So I'm back on the hunt for a good pie crust recipe. The dough was pretty cool, the consistency was really nice and it formed a really good crust. However, I still ended up burning the edges before the center would bake, and after eating it later I realized with horror there was far too much salt in the crust. So, other than the edges and the taste...it was an awesome crust. Though that doesn't say much. Hahahaha.

The filling was pretty dang good, though. I've made a few butterscotch recipes in my lifetime, but this was one of the best. I cooked brown sugar, butter, cream of tartar, and a few other ingredients over the stove, poured it into the pie shell, then made a meringue topping for it. I'd never heard of putting a meringue on anything but a lemon meringue pie, but the few butterscotch pie recipes I researched all called for a meringue...so I made one. Lemon meringue pies are a specialty of mine at Thanksgiving, so I already have the whole meringue thing down pat. I baked it for a bit, until the meringue was a loverly golden brown color, then let it chill in the fridge for a few hours. Besides the ugly crust...and the saltiness of it...the pie was pretty dang good. I liked it.

Oh, also, I made those muffins I mentioned in my last post. I researched muffin recipes for a good hour or two, gathering general muffin information and such, and scribbled out an experiment to try. I was up until 1 am baking, and the outcome was a delicious blueberry-buttermilk-oatmeal giant muffin. The only thing I didn't like about them was that they didn't rise like I wanted them to. I want muffins that come up and out of the pans, like the kind you buy in a professional bakery. So I made them again the next night, reducing the liquid and adding more baking powder, but it didn't do much but make the muffin more dense. So I'm sticking with my original recipe, and next time I'm going to fill the cups up more and see how that works. Yeah, I took pics, but they all turned out crappy and we ate them all before I took anymore :)

For my next project, I have in mind something like a cupcake tower, but that's all I'm telling you for now. Oh, also, tomorrow after working at my church's v.b.s. program, I'm stopping by the market to get some fresh mushrooms and mozzarella, as well as maybe some artichoke hearts, depending on how far I can make my money go, and I'm going to make some pizzas tomorrow. Pizzas are one of my favorites. I'm excited.

Happy eating, foodies.

~lacey

"Life is a combination of magic and pasta."
Fellini

the tragic tale of steak...and other stuff while i'm at it

2008-07-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Ok dudes, I made the steak-shaped cake on saturday. I was trying to decide what kind of cake to make it, and I decided on a white cake. I hadn't perfected a white cake recipe yet, so I called my sister because she had made one recently in the shape of a toilet for her boss (she cleans stuff for the summer..toilets among them) and she had used a white cake recipe. Anyways, she said it was the best white cake she'd ever tasted, so I hunted down the same recipe she used and made it for the steak. It was great. Perfect. Awesome.

So next I made the frosting, which was just a basic white frosting. Then I had to dye it red, which, unless you are a baker or pastry chef like me, you have no idea how hard it is to dye a frosting red. You have to practically dump a hole thing of red dye into it before it turns remotely close to red and not pink. And if you don't get the right kind of red dye, it'll leave a bitter taste to the frosting after awhile. Naturally I didn't have the right kind of dye and after stirring in all the red dye in my house I could find, it still wasn't the right color. Soooooooooooo I added a teeeeeny tiny itsy bit of black dye to it, to help darken the color. I'd read somewhere that black helps. It didn't. It looked more purpley-red-bloody than anything. Bloody would have been ok, since it was for a steak, but the purpley-ness threw it off. So my last option was to let it sit in the fridge because supposedly that will darken the red color as well. I came back an hour or so later and surprisingly the color was dead-on. Just like raw meat! It was great. Perfect. Awesome.

So yeah, I cut the cake out to a steak shape and frosted it up. I started laughing as I frosted because it looked so hilarious. If you kind of stood at a distance and blurred your vision, it actually looked like a giant slab of raw meat. To finish it off, I stuck a butcher knife in it to make it more comical. I showed my mom and the look on her face was priceless. She looked so disgusted, it was awesome. I took some pics, and set it out for everyone to gaze at it's beauty until after dinner. It tasted great too. Definitely the best white cake I've made so far. The whole thing was great. Perfect! Awesomeeeee!

But then...!

I happened into my kitchen later that night just before going to bed, and I discovered in horror that our dog had gotten on the table and eaten 90% of the cake that was left. I was shocked. Disgusted. Horrified. Anguished. Sorrowed. Angered. And uh...everything else you could possibly imagine me feeling at this point. You can only imagine how horrible of an experience it was. It was like a painter having his masterpiece ripped to shreds by some crazed maniac! It was like a gardener discovering a gopher had eaten all its pansies! It was like a weatherman getting fired just when a big storm was blowing in! It was like Donald Trump losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a crook in a business deal! It was like a weightlifter discovering a psychopath had melted his bar down and crushed his weights with a bulldozer! It was like an ice cream shop vendor messing up on her typing skills and having the words ice cream form a whole new meaning to be used by her friends in ways to make fun of her and have a secret meaning behind such an innocent thing as ice cream!

I couldn't sleep at all that night. And when I did I had nightmares that everyone I knew turned emo. *shudders*

And so ends the tragic tale of the steak cake. Maybe at some point I'll attempt to make another, or perhaps one shaped like a chicken instead. Maybe.

Now I'm on to greener pastures. I decided tonight I'm going to write a muffin recipe. I wasn't inspired by anything. I didn't see or read anything to make me want to do this. I just am going to. I'll finish the recipe tonight and if I don't bake them tonight I'll do it tomorrow and write again soon, so you can all be tortured by seeing the pics of my creations and reading about them. That's my favorite part!

Auf weidesehen!
~lacey

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star"
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

here fishie fishie fishie

2008-07-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

I made the fish. According to my Mom and Dad and brother, it turned out awesome. See it below with the roasted red potatoes and the rice.

I made a cornmeal-cayenne-paprika breading for it and pan fried it in olive oil and browned garlic. I'd never cooked fish before, so I had no idea how to tell if it was finished or not. I started making up stories in my head of my family eating half-cooked fish and getting salmonella and dying because of me. Wouldn't that just suck?

So anyways I finally decided it was cooked and I served it up with the roasted red potatoes and rice. For the potatoes I roasted them with carrots, onions, garlic, olive oil, sage, rosemary, and some other herbs and spices. They turned out so great. I never did a potato dish that turned out as good as this was.

The rice was awesome too. It was brown rice cooked with chicken bullion seasonings, just really simple.

So I threw them all together and called it a meal. My Dad, who I mentioned in my last post as not being a big fish fan, was raving over the catfish. I loved the potatoes. My brother took a second helping of rice. yeP, it was a good meal.

And the day before yesterday I made these chocolate truffles.

I made the truffle centers a few days before and let them set up in the fridge. Meanwhile I experimented with tempering chocolate. I'd never done it successfully before, and I was really happy when the cooled chocolate hardened in the bowl. I was lucky to do it the way I did, though, because my candy thermometer doesn't read below 100 degrees, so I had to guess at what point 88 degrees would be when I was bringing the temperature back up. But hey, it worked! I'm happy.

If you don't know what tempering chocolate is, chef David Lebovitz gives a good explanation to the process on his blog-www.DavidLebovitz.com. So read that, because I don't feel like explaining it myself :)

I'm planning a cake to do soon. It's going to be a steak-shaped cake. Yes, I know, it's weird. But after watching Charm City Cakes' show on FoodNetwork, Ace of Cakes, and seeing Duff Goldman and his team making the weirdest cakes, like a foot-shaped cake I saw once, I wanted to make a steak shaped cake. I got the idea to make it months and months ago, and I soon forgot as I got distracted with different projects. I'm not sure, I may have seen them make one on the show before, but I can't remember. Maybe it came to me in a dream, like some crazy scientist you see in a movie.

This month I visited a friend I hadn't seen in about a year. She and her team (she works in a kitchen) made a steak-shaped cake for some friends on the maintenance team, so this reminded me of my inspiration to make a steak cake or something weird like that a few months before.

So! I'm going to make one. This week. Or weekend. You won't know when or where it came from. Much like the green stuff growing on the old cake I found in my oven yesterday. THAT was scary.

Oh and I watched the three Terminator movies this week. My cousin kicks buttttttt.

Hastalavista, babies!

~lacey

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity"
~Voltaire

brand new

2008-06-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

Alright guys, this is my first *official* post in this blog. I'm excited to have this blog so I can publicly record everything I do and have done with food. I appreciate any and all feedback, so give it! If you haven't already, read my first post so you'll have a better understanding of what I'm all about.

Sooo, I decided to cook fish. I know, I'm a vegetarian. But if you know me you know my reasons for being vegetarian, so me cooking fish isn't as shocking as you would think. I'm not going to eat it myself, because I want the first meat I eat to be caught by me and cleaned and everything. I want the whole experience before I eat meat. I think anyone who eats meat needs to be able to do that.

Anyways, my parents have graciously volunteered to eat the fish themselves. I know my dad doesn't care too much for fish, but I turned him, a former pasta hater, into a self-proclaimed spaghetti lover...if I'm the one making it of course.

I got one pound of catfish for five bucks at our local grocery store. I had my Mom help me pick it out, because I have no idea what good fish looks like. We picked two fillets and the guy wrapped it up and handed it over. I brought it home and stuck it in the freezer, because I had my sister's baby shower to help make a cake for the next day, and I knew I wouldn't get at cooking the fish until today.

I researched allrecipes.com and found some ideas for cooking fish that I liked. I'll hopefully be cooking it up tonight if I get some of my work done, if not, tomorrow for sure. I plan on making either a rice dish for the side or some sort of roasted potatoes. We have some pretty awesome looking red potatoes right now that would make a great roasted potato dish.

Pictures will come! I love to photograph all my food, so along with reading about everything I'm making, readers, you can also enjoy drooling over pictures of the dishes as well!

That's all for now. I'm off to dream up new ideas for my fish dish soon.

~lacey

"Fish is the only food that is considered spoiled once it smells like what it is."
P.J. O'Rourke

a small summary

2008-06-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

I am the youngest of 6 kids, born and raised in California, where I live still. I, along with all my siblings, were raised with a vegetarian lifestyle, and my parents let us choose when we each got older if we wanted to continue with it or not. I believe God gave us animals to eat as we please, but He also taught us to love and care for them. I see nothing wrong with people eating meat. However, I completely disagree with the way those animals are treated just to sell more and more. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some tree-hugging animal-rights activist, I'm far from it. I believe God gave us power and authority over animals but not to treat them like we do.

So I chose to stay with the vegetarian lifestyle, for now at least. I plan to eat meat some day, and some day soon.

Me and my sister, Laurel, are both bakers and chefs, and we dream of owning our own bakery someday here in California. We're both going for our small business degrees, then we plan on opening our bakery as soon as possible, hopefully within the next 4-5 years. We've both been cooking for years, ever since I can remember. Our Mom is an awesome chef and she is the one who got both of us started in the kitchen. I firmly believe that if it weren't for her always cooking and baking new things, I would not be doing what I do now.

I love food. The past 5 yrs or so I have been developing my love for food and my desire to cook for those I love. It's my passion. I love seeing people happy because of what I do. Food is one of the greatest joys in life, and I thank God for it everyday, and for giving me the knack for all things food-related that He's given me.

So that about sums up what I want to say for now. I'll probably be editing this particular post over time, so you can get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

But, roughly, this is me!

~lacey

"I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation."
Madam Benoit