Get The Sensation

Everything you love about York Peppermint Patties AND everything you love about ice cream treats, all in one yummy package.

Easter Sundae

Nothing says Happy Easter like a little ice cream, hot fudge, walnuts, and whipped cream, amirite?

Too Much Of A Good Thing

Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and semi-sweet morsels. 

It's been cold outside so I got my bake on.  One problem: I don't just have cupcakes, Gentle Readers, I have a situation.

A Delightful Surprise

The Foodie called me on Tuesday to ask if I might be free around teatime to sample the Laduree macarons and Angelina hot chocolate mix that had recently arrived from Paris.

Might I be free?  Why yes.  Yes, I was.

I decided to fancy up the table as much as I could at short notice with an embroidered table runner and napkins.  The Foodie didn't mind waiting to have our treats until pictures were taken.  In fact, he helped to style the photo shoot.  I think the pictures look better than usual, and that's all him.

Even the packaging is elegant and pretty.  I've got to hand it to the French: they know how to make a simple box of cookies just a bit more elegant.  You know there is something special inside.

And there is: eight impossibly perfect and pretty macaron cookies.  My favorite was the pistachio cookie in the upper-left-hand corner.  It had a delicious marshmallow filling that resisted just a little when I bit into it.

The hot chocolate from Angelina perfectly complemented the macarons because it's slightly bitter and has a savory quality.  We made it with lowfat milk and felt very virtuous about that.

It was a lovely treat at the end of the day -- not just the delectable sweets, but spending some time with The Foodie who has been busy with career-minded things of late.  I hadn't seen him in a while, and it was nice to chat and catch up.  But even if we don't get together as often as we'd like, we'll always have Paris.

Culinary Quote: Me

Happy New Year!

Confetti Party Cake

Happy New Year, Gentle Readers!  I bring you Betty Crocker's "easy and delicious stacked cupcake extravaganza" just in time for your New Year's Eve party.  As I'm sure Betty herself would ask, why just have dessert when you could have an extravaganza?  

You can find the recipe here.

Cookie Sunday Highlights

Time my alarm went off: 6 a.m.

Time kids started arriving: 9 a.m.

Number of cups of tea ingested between 6 and 9: 4

Cookies baked between Saturday and Sunday:
          Snickerdoodles: 2 batches
          Sugar cookies: 2 batches
          Moravian Spice Crisps: 2 batches
          Peanut Butter Swirl Bars: 3 batches
          "Best Ever" Chocolate Chips: 2 batches
          Red Velvet Cookies: 3 batches

Funniest thing that kept happening all day: People would sneak red velvet cookies and then deny it when asked.  They were lying through lips that were stained red.

Reason we made 3 batches of  Red Velvets: See above.

Number of injuries: 3
          1. A burn on my right bicep.  My giant guns have a tendencey to get in the way.
          2 & 3. Army Dude cut left thumb (copycat) and and burned right hand.  Demanded Purple Heart paperwork be submitted through command channels ASAP.

Cutest thing I didn't find until the next day: A poem written by my great-niece Elizabeth.

Number of hours I slept on Sunday night: 10

     

Countdown

Sunday is Cookie Baking Day 2011, so I'm spending today preparing for the big event by napping and carb-loading.  What differentiates this from any other day of napping and carb-loading is that today I have an excuse.

Cookie R&D Phase 2

I meant to keep you all abreast of the latest cookie-prep news, but I've been busy Santa's elfing it in my workshop for most of the week.  But fear not, Gentle Readers, cookie prep is in full swing.  A maiden aunt does not shirk her baking responsibilities.

To catch you up, last weekend I made and froze a couple of batches of my special chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough.  I also tested a new cookie: Moravian Spice Crisps.  They came out great -- the same sort of spicy goodness you get in gingerbread cookies, but without all the hassle of gingerbread dough.  (Gingerbread cookie dough is, of course, the stickiest and most difficult-to-work-with dough there is.  But you knew that, right?)

Yesterday I decked myself out in the awesome apron given to me by ny niece and great-niece, and made and froze snickerdoodle and sugar cookie dough.  This completes the make-ahead portion of the operation.

Cookie R&D

I tried out a recipe from the cookbook I got last year for Christmas from my niece Katie.  Then I carefully constructed a Cookie Testing Focus Group based on who I saw over the next couple of days.  I am, as you can see, a woman of science.

The Focus Group included my mom, the Army Dude and an army dude buddy with whom he was headed to one of our country's military bases to do Army stuff (I imagine this consists of camping out, toasting marshmallows, and singing Boy Scout songs), the guy who cuts the lawn, and my friends IT Guy and the Rock&Roll Drummer.

Rock&Roll Drummer shared his cookies with a friend of his that I don't have an online nickname for yet, who would not eat the cookie in front of me in case he didn't like it.  Which has made me completely neurotic, by the way, so the friend without an online nickname should watch it.  I am as good at picking out mean nicknames as I am nice ones.  Just ask my friends about the Evil Snowman of the Apocalypse.

Breakfast of Champions

Saturday Morning Breakfast*

Aaaahhhh, the best part of Thanksgiving: leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast.  Of course I had whipped cream on it because dairy is a very important food group.  I'm all about good nutrition.

*Note: whipped cream topping not to scale.

Humble Pie

The pie crust recipe I have came from my mom with about a hundred disclaimers about how difficult it is and that she rarely gets it just right and not to blame her if I end up eating custard on a brick on Thanksgiving instead of pumpkin pie.  I was certain, however, that I could create the perfect, flaky crust without much ado.  Maiden aunts are born to bake, I told myself.  It's what we do.  It's how we bribe people to be our friends. 

But by the time rolling attempt #3 resulted in a hockey puck, my confidence began to waver.  I abandoned that batch of dough and mixed up a fresh one.  I was beginning to get a feel for the texture, and for how much water I needed to add at the end to bring it all together.  I decided that my mom forgot to mention when she gave me the recipe that it makes two crusts if you know what you're doing. 

After it rested for a while in the fridge, I rolled the whole ball of dough out into a big circle, transferred it to the pie plate, hacked off what I didn't need, and crimped the edges.  Some filling and an hour in the oven later, I had a pie.  Fear not, Gentle Readers.  I did not throw away all that extra dough; I made pinwheels.  Melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon can solve a lot of problems.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Say Cheese

Ladies, have you ever noticed that men have a listening problem?  It doesn't matter if he's a co-worker, husband, friend, boyfriend, or whatever, a man listens selectively.  The Army Dude is no exception to this rule.

It's like this:

What I say: "A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement."

What he hears: "Blah, blah, blah, blah..."

But there is a foolproof way to capture his attention.  Like this:

What I say: "I've been thinking we might want a snack while our Thanksgiving dinner is cooking."

What he hears: "SNACK. THANKSGIVING DINNER."

Army Dude: "Snack?  Like what?"

What I say: "Maybe some port wine cheese on crackers..."

What he hears: "DELICIOUS PROCESSED CHEESE PRODUCT."

Army Dude: "Good idea!"

I've decided to start referencing snack foods and baked goods in everything I say now.  Just to mess with him.




(The physics quote comes from BrainyQuote.com.  I have no idea what it means.)




 

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

It's mobilization weekend here at Old Maid HQ.  Cranberries are steeping in apple cider vinegar and will be a ready-to-drink shrub by Wednesday.  I've spent some time planning both Thanksgiving and Christmas baking so that grocery shopping can be done strategically and with the smallest loss of marbles possible.  I am, after all, an auntie who hates crowds.  And noise.  And obnoxious Christmas songs.  And who doesn't have a whole lot of marbles to spare.

My niece Katie gave me a new cookie cookbook last year, so I spent some time this morning browsing through it.  I like to try at least one new recipe each Christmas, but it's always tricky with a new cookbook because I never know if the finished product wil be what I expect.  This is where some R&D will come in over the next couple of weeks.  Fortunately, it's never difficult to find people willing to taste-test cookies.

Happy Halloween

I recently heard someone say that candy corn tastes like diabetes and chalk.  I would only argue with one point: it tastes like delicious diabetes and chalk.

Indulge.  You've got the rest of the year to be good.

The Devil's Workshop

Forget about idle hands -- it's a bag of peanut M&M's in cute Easter colors.

Sometimes A Girl's Just Gotta Bake

You know how some days you wake up and feel like baking? No? Well it happens to me. After perusing my cookbooks, I decided to make Chocolate-Dipped Melting Moments, a cookie that requires shaping, two trips through the powdered sugar, and then dipping in melted chocolate. I felt like getting my hands a little dirty, know what I mean?


They came out great. Of course, there are four and a half dozen of them, but I find that freshly baked cookies are really easy to get rid of because people are always willing to take them off your hands.

Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce

Yesterday I related a sad tale in which our heroine, age 5, learns an important lesson about biology but stops enjoying the taste of caramel anyway.


But fear not, gentle readers. This story ends on a happy note. Last Saturday night, after dinner at Salvation Cafe, I tried their chocolate cake with caramel sauce. I figured I was safe because I was sharing it and if my caramel aversion reared its ugly head, my friend would leap into the breach and finish the dessert. He's a giver like that.


It turns out that salted caramel is the nectar of the gods. Who knew that the addition of a little salt would take caramel from something I didn't really like to something I could eat a five-gallon bucket of, if one were available?

A Sad Tale

I haven't been a fan of caramel ever since I came down with a stomach bug shortly after licking some caramel frosting out of the bowl when my mother was making a cake. My mother, being a former nursing student and a woman of science, tried to explain to me that the illness had been caused by a virus and not the frosting. I think she was afraid I'd turn out like my father, who hasn't eaten chicken since he got an undercooked piece when he was in the army back in the 1950s.

I was five years old. My mother's scientific explanation, while correct, did not make me feel any better. Maybe the dizziness and pounding headache were to blame. Maybe I was just the tiniest bit of a drama queen.

Since that day I've never really enjoyed caramel's cloying sweetness. I'll eat something with a small amount of caramel (like a Snickers bar) but in general, caramel and I have never really gotten along. Until the other night.

Tune in tomorrow for the happy ending.

Tasty Winter Treat

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that I have time to bake muffins on a random Monday afternoon, simply because I have a craving.


After checking my cookbooks and coming up empty, I searched online and found a recipe by Alton Brown which involves shredded fresh pumpkin. (Seriously, Alton? The stuff in the can isn't good enough for you? If I wanted that kind of needless complication, I'd check Martha Stewart's website.) I was not going there.


Then I found a recipe for Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread on Allrecipes.com. The muffins came out great, but I put too much batter in the loaf pan. Next time I'll either use enough muffin tins to make 24 muffins plus the loaf pan, or make 12 muffins plus a 13x9 baking dish. In case you want to try this at home, the muffins were done perfectly in 40 minutes.