Ah my bready foe
As Adora and I traipsed through San Francisco we wandered from the cable car down through Fisherman’s Wharf, home to the famous Boudin Bakery. Alligator shaped sourdough bread has to be the pinnacle of baked treats and it was worth the walk to bring this beast back into captivity.
(Adora made me an adorable crochet alligator friend that survived the party a lot better than my sourdough buddy)
Wish fulfillment
My boysenberry kitchen aid mixer is a reality! It was more than I could have hoped for on my birthday. Not to get all mushy or anything, but my boyfriend is one of the most supportive and sweetest guys on the planet. Either that or he got really tired of me constantly saying, “Oh I could make that if I had a stand mixer!” er maybe it’s a bit of both.
I broke in my berry beauty with Pioneer Woman’s best chocolate cupcakes and best frosting ever.
I served the cupcakes at a big shared birthday party (10 friends in my group all have birthdays in March!) to rave reviews. Pioneer Woman does not over exaggerate.
eeeeee stand mixer!!!
Avatar Cookies
I was supposed to go to an Oscar party, but sadly got sick. Here were the cookies I meant to take with me inspired by James Cameron’s Avatar. Or as my friend described it, “Avatar is Dances with Smurfs on acid with a political grudge. Come for the special effects, stay for the special effects.” He wasn’t too off, I mean look at the pretty!
It was time to bust out my Wilton Cookie Pro and make some spritz cookies! AND ACTION!
The spritz cookies I always had as a kid were basically butter cookies, but the cream cheese in this recipe makes them wonderfully soft with a slight tang.
2 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
3 oz cream cheese (you’ll probably have left overs, go ahead and make another batch)
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp almond extract
There are really no wrong ways to mix the ingredients. Standard rules apply: wet and dry combined separately and then mixed together.
Bake at 350 for 10-12 min
To get a Na’avi look I separated the batter and mixed up gel colors in 3 shades of blue. I used the cherry blossom disc on the cookie pro. My original idea was to paint little dots of silver on the cookies using edible glitter dust to achieve the Na’avi facial patterns. Silver glitter dust is literally dust however. It would have taken a ton of dust to make it into a thick enough paste for bio-luminescent specks that would stand out.
In the end I sprinkled the dust on top. They were still pretty and sparkled enough for my taste.
That’s a wrap!
The return of tiramisu
R’s favorite dessert of all time is tiramisu, so it was the obvious choice to make for Valentine’s day. I had tried once before and it was decent, but there was something too chewy with the lady fingers and it lacked proper coffee flavor.
Here is the recipe I used on All Recipes. As always the comments are invaluable.
I played it super safe this time and bought 2 types of lady fingers, Vicenzovo and Savoiradi. I don’t have an espresso machine, so I brewed a really strong cup of coffee and used kahlua as my alcohol to up the flavor.
I alternated layers of the two types of lady fingers, but honestly they ended up tasting exactly the same. yum whipped cream and custard!
TA-DA! A night in the fridge to let the flavors mix, a dusting of cocoa and the cast of Futurama to round it out. Bender loves tiramisu (probably cause it contains booze)!
Things I learned this time:
1. The stronger the coffee and alcohol the better. The lady fingers will soak it up quickly and the custard and whipped cream are mild and need it. Just my opinion.
2. Don’t substitute cheap lady finger type cookies. The two Italian ones weren’t that expensive ($3.50-$4 each) and so much better than my first time.
The best part was that R loved it!
Chomp chomp!
I’ve been bookmarking royal icing cookie decorating tips for weeks now, but I kept putting it off. I was nervous. I could never make such beautiful cookies as other people. Then I saw this alligator cutter at Fancy Flours and you better believe it was go time!
I used this sugar cookie recipe from Bake at 350 since I’m fond of almond. It rolled out easily between parchment paper and baked without much added expansion or puffiness. This cookie cutter is highly detailed, so the chopstick in the picture above was instrumental in getting the shape out in one piece.
I used Martha Stewart’s royal icing recipe and it worked like a dream. A few practice lines and I was all set. This was actually fun and not the intense pain I thought it would be!
After waiting an hour I used the flooding technique of adding a tiny amount of water to the icing to help fill in the outline. I used a #2 tip on the outline, but switched to a squeeze tube for the fill. The toothpick is definitely necessary not only to fill in corners, but to pop air bubbles and get the smoothest finish possible.
After another hour I added a few details in black and white. You can see on Kermit the Alligator that the the flood icing didn’t have enough water and ended up being bumpy, Stripey above him is a little better and finally the mix was right for Two-eyes.
I’m still far from matching the likes of the many gorgeous decorated cookies out there, but I’m thrilled with initial results and excited to do this again!
Oh yeah and there were fish…
Kitchen Lust
The dream
Fine fine, out of work with no incoming money doesn’t make buying a $300 stand mixer a great idea, but, but, but… With the move I haven’t been able to bake in awhile and the urge is fierce. Yes I can do with a hand mixer, but a boysenberry Kitchen Aid makes me swoon. Like pass out on a fainting couch because Colin Firth just proposed to me swoon.
We all need a bit of pure sexy in our kitchens.
Things I don't understand about guys #547
My boyfriend and I were packing up his place last week. We had a limited amount of time and everything was still a mess. In the middle of all this he pulls out a gigantic box of tangled cables for tvs, game systems, computers, and who knows what! He would hand them to me after de-tangling to be carefully rolled and taped.
Me: Shouldn’t we just pack things and worry about cable organization later?
R: It’s better to be organized before moving! Oooo this is a nice cable! This is a $50 cable!
Me: You have cables for products that don’t even exist any more!
R: <talking to himself> Oh! I forgot I had this one!
The next day I’m joking around with my friends about R’s cable obsession when the guys chime in with their support.
“Oh yeah I have TWO boxes of miscellaneous cables at home.”
The guys are actually trying to out cable each other!
“Hmmm I’ll have to check our your boyfriend’s cables! Sounds like he has a nice collection!”
Yesterday a box from Amazon arrived and R grabbed at it excitedly. I’m not even kidding, it was a new cable.
Elementary School as weight loss solution
Recess at Takada Elementary
While I was teaching elementary school in Japan with little effort on my part I dropped about 50lbs over 2 years. Was it the amazing fish and rice diet? No way! Japanese food is rife with delicious fatty fried things. Was it not having a car? That helped, but it wasn’t the big factor. No the greatest thing for losing weight was the children. I literally ran part of my ass off and budded collar bones due to dodge ball, tag, and dancing around a classroom in order to keep the attention of 28 fidgety 3rd graders.
There are a lot of reasons why I gained back most of that weight (cry more! sob) since returning to the US, but I think the biggest killer has been my desk job. I spend almost 8 hours a day crunching spreadsheets into bite sized bits. I’m looking forward to getting back into the classroom and working off excess energy and pounds. While I spend the next few months unemployed and working on my credentials my plan is to live like I was teaching. Running, jumping, playing, and all around active. Anybody have any mobile quick toddlers they want me to watch?
I’m going to get a Seinfield calendar for activity (exercise? why does that word seem more daunting and evil?). I’ll aim for at least 30 min a day spent living like the hyper elementary school teacher I used to be.
The Cheerful Novice 