When you think of those words, "light and fluffy" airy cute things come to mind. Like clouds. Sheep. Pillows. Not, of all things, peanut butter.
But that's what this recipe called for. Mom and I decided to make Reese's inspired cupcakes for cake class tonight and she and my sister just left to get supper. So I was left to make the simple filling myself. That sounds easy enough, so I spooned a cup of peanut butter, 3 tbsp unsalted butter, and 2/3 cup powdered sugar into our transport tupperware. The next instructions have caused unforseen frustration and pain. Beat until light and fluffy.
Light and fluffy my butt! How is peanut butter supposed to get light and fluffy? Peanut butter has informed me that it will stay thick and creamy no matter what you do to it! Believe me, I tried. My elbows hurt from the effort! That was a lot of beating going on, and it hasn't changed much in its consistency.
I give up. It can stay thick and creamy and my friends can just deal with having a thick and creamy filling. I mean, they don't know that it should be light and fluffy, right? They should be thankful that I even thought to bring them cupcakes. Sheesh. Light and fluffy.
Stepping back from this rant, I'm wondering how many times I've been told to do something seemingly impossible with the 'ingredients' i have. Like, pull a winning resume out of a pretty average college experience. I did an internship, I took classes, I had a job, I was involved in student government. I studied abroad. Plenty of people have done those same things. ANd plenty more have done bigger and better things. How am I supposed to transform my resume into "light and fluffy" when it is a seemingly impossible task? Or do I just leave it "thick and creamy" and try and sell that.
Here's my current plan: Do a great internship, make all kinds of good connections, and then use those to find a job. That way my "thick and creamy" resume comes with a five star recommendation and I get the job in spite of it all.
Take that light and fluffy.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Royal Icing Roses (and the smaller bouquets of our lives)
Today is Tuesday, which means cake class day for mom and I. This particular Tuesday is the day we will learn drop flowers, star flowers, and leaves. I'm excited, though last night baking the cupcakes I had a chance to practise a bit. Mom and I made amazing chocolate cupcakes from scratch. We plan on filling them (in class) with a peanut butter concoction, making Reeses (r) inspired treats. Then we will decorate with not-so-inspired flowers.
Anyway. After the cupcakes were finished cooling and we were beginning to put them away, I decided to ice the mini cupcakes we had baked with the extra dough. I pulled out the practise page for roses and decided to take a stab at it. Roses were one of my primary motivations for taking the class, after all. They look so elegant and impressive sitting on top of a cake, especially a wedding cake. I wanted my cakes to look professional like that. (By the way, it turns out we won't be learning roses until Classes 2 and 3, so I may as well practise now, right?) To start your rose, you first need tip 6 (I think, I can't remember right now. It is the larger round hole, about 1 1/2 centimeters in diameter) to make a blob in the center of a flower stick. I used my small cupcakes as the flower stem. Then you start at the center of the blob making circles with tip 2D. The rounds turn out to be petals and after several rounds of ribbon-like icing, you start to see the bigger picture. Even with my amateur hand, the roses still looked pretty darn good.
It was after this experience (and after looking through Martha Stewart's cupcake book) that I proposed to Mom a home business idea. Why not try making all different kinds of cupcakes, different flavors, fillings, and icings? Once we have our favorites (and have perfected our technique), we can post pictures and descriptions of the cupcakes up on Ebay and sell our bakery/catering services online for local delivery. That way if it is unsuccessful we haven't invested all that much and we can go on with our lives. But if it is successful, we earn some money, gain experience, and hopefully can open our own little bakery with confidence. We would do artisan breads, muffins, cupcakes, cakes, pastries, and maybe even add a cafe with warm beverages.
Opening a bakery has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time, and now my mom has started getting enthusiastic about it as well. Though, as usual, she's a bit hesitant because her humility has her convinced that she is never going to improve to professional status. I beg to differ.
The life lesson I take from these Royal Icing Roses is this: never let reality douse your creativity. Though I am outwardly confidant and excited about this idea, I have a nagging doubt that any of this will come to fruition. Too much will get in the way, and I might get a job yet. But none of that is going to stop me from learning all these techniques and attempting to achieve professional results in my cakes/cupcakes/desserts with the hope that one day I will be able to own my own bakery.
Anyway. After the cupcakes were finished cooling and we were beginning to put them away, I decided to ice the mini cupcakes we had baked with the extra dough. I pulled out the practise page for roses and decided to take a stab at it. Roses were one of my primary motivations for taking the class, after all. They look so elegant and impressive sitting on top of a cake, especially a wedding cake. I wanted my cakes to look professional like that. (By the way, it turns out we won't be learning roses until Classes 2 and 3, so I may as well practise now, right?) To start your rose, you first need tip 6 (I think, I can't remember right now. It is the larger round hole, about 1 1/2 centimeters in diameter) to make a blob in the center of a flower stick. I used my small cupcakes as the flower stem. Then you start at the center of the blob making circles with tip 2D. The rounds turn out to be petals and after several rounds of ribbon-like icing, you start to see the bigger picture. Even with my amateur hand, the roses still looked pretty darn good.
It was after this experience (and after looking through Martha Stewart's cupcake book) that I proposed to Mom a home business idea. Why not try making all different kinds of cupcakes, different flavors, fillings, and icings? Once we have our favorites (and have perfected our technique), we can post pictures and descriptions of the cupcakes up on Ebay and sell our bakery/catering services online for local delivery. That way if it is unsuccessful we haven't invested all that much and we can go on with our lives. But if it is successful, we earn some money, gain experience, and hopefully can open our own little bakery with confidence. We would do artisan breads, muffins, cupcakes, cakes, pastries, and maybe even add a cafe with warm beverages.
Opening a bakery has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time, and now my mom has started getting enthusiastic about it as well. Though, as usual, she's a bit hesitant because her humility has her convinced that she is never going to improve to professional status. I beg to differ.
The life lesson I take from these Royal Icing Roses is this: never let reality douse your creativity. Though I am outwardly confidant and excited about this idea, I have a nagging doubt that any of this will come to fruition. Too much will get in the way, and I might get a job yet. But none of that is going to stop me from learning all these techniques and attempting to achieve professional results in my cakes/cupcakes/desserts with the hope that one day I will be able to own my own bakery.
The Ball in the Bowl
Our littlest dog eats too fast. He runs in at dinner time and scarfs down his little kibbles so fast that he sometimes chokes because he neglects to chew. My sister, a pre-vet student at Kansas State University, informed us that there are several solutions to this dilemma.
Did you know they make special bowls for dogs like Indy with eating disorders? (http://brake-fast.net/index.htm) Eating too fast causes bloating (Gastric Dilatation/Volvulus is the technical term), vomiting, and other nasty symptoms.
According to the pre-vet student it can make a poor doggie's stomach swell due to the extra air ingested (called distending) and causes irregularity. The website for the doggie bowls says that when that happens the stomach can volvulus, which means that the stomach can twist. If you saw Marley and Me you'll know that in older dogs, volvulus can be a life-threatening condition. (If you haven't seen the movie I recommend it...great performance all around).
A second solution (and less expensive than the special bowl) is to place a ball in the bowl of the aggressive eater. So Indy now has a racketball in his bowl. He seems to manage eating around it, still pretty quickly but much slower than before, and as an added bonus our other older dog Norman no longer licks the bowl after Indy is through.
Another added bonus, according to the pre-vet student, is that their puny little minds are stimulated while consuming their food. They have to scrounge around the ball to get at their kibble.
Thinking about this situation broadly I come to some interesting connections between humans and man's best friend. How many people just mindlessly scarf their food in front of the television? Whether snacking after school and watching the tube, eating a TV dinner and sipping soda, or munching popcorn at the movies, a lot of what Americans do is mindless eating. We don't even think about it. I mean, what are the movies without popcorn?
Our oral fixation is a little ridiculous. I think the reason we continue to battle obesity in this country is directly related to technology use. Technology seems to keep us in the same place all the time (or much of the time).
Did you know they make special bowls for dogs like Indy with eating disorders? (http://brake-fast.net/index.htm) Eating too fast causes bloating (Gastric Dilatation/Volvulus is the technical term), vomiting, and other nasty symptoms.
According to the pre-vet student it can make a poor doggie's stomach swell due to the extra air ingested (called distending) and causes irregularity. The website for the doggie bowls says that when that happens the stomach can volvulus, which means that the stomach can twist. If you saw Marley and Me you'll know that in older dogs, volvulus can be a life-threatening condition. (If you haven't seen the movie I recommend it...great performance all around).
A second solution (and less expensive than the special bowl) is to place a ball in the bowl of the aggressive eater. So Indy now has a racketball in his bowl. He seems to manage eating around it, still pretty quickly but much slower than before, and as an added bonus our other older dog Norman no longer licks the bowl after Indy is through.
Another added bonus, according to the pre-vet student, is that their puny little minds are stimulated while consuming their food. They have to scrounge around the ball to get at their kibble.
Thinking about this situation broadly I come to some interesting connections between humans and man's best friend. How many people just mindlessly scarf their food in front of the television? Whether snacking after school and watching the tube, eating a TV dinner and sipping soda, or munching popcorn at the movies, a lot of what Americans do is mindless eating. We don't even think about it. I mean, what are the movies without popcorn?
Our oral fixation is a little ridiculous. I think the reason we continue to battle obesity in this country is directly related to technology use. Technology seems to keep us in the same place all the time (or much of the time).
Monday, August 2, 2010
Chocolate Molten Lava Cake
In accordance to my mission statement for this blog, this entry will fall into my pursuit for the perfect chocolate goodness and curiosities about baking/food preparation.
A few evenings ago my mom and I decided to experiment in the kitchen. She wanted something chocolate and I wanted to bake. So I found a recipe for Chocolate Molten Lava Cake on the internet (epicurious.com in case you were wondering) and we decided to try it out. Fortunately, it had few enough ingredients (and we maintain such a well stocked kitchen) that we had everything we needed. It was a blissfully simple recipe and yielded very good results. A little too eggy for me, I would like to tinker with the recipe and see if I can improve it. But over all, a very good dessert. Herein follows the recipe:
Five ounces of bittersweet (we used semisweet) chocolate, chopped
Ten tablespoons unsalted butter
Three large eggs
Three large egg yolks
One and one half cups powdered sugar
One half cup all purpose flour
Essentially, what must be done is melt the chocolate and butter together then add it to a whisked combination of eggs and sugar. Then you add the flour and pour the batter into buttered custard cups. The cakes are baked until the sides are set but the center is soft and runny (give or take 10 minutes. Ours took 13.) When you're done, you run a sharp knife around the cakes in the cups and placing a plate on top, carefully flip them over. That was the difficult part for us. Ours stuck to the bottom of the custard cups and so we had to shake them loose, causing the "molten" part to ooze everywhere. They weren't the prettiest of things, but they sure were delicious.
Improvements I might make would include experimenting with adding raw sugar to the batter. It would stiffen it a little, maybe give it less of an egg-foam texture (it was slight, but it was definitely there for me). Perhaps even using one less egg and substituting oil and a little water, see how that does. It would make it a bit more fudgey, which I think would be spectacular.
That's all for now...gotta run and help mom make Chicken Broccoli Braid....mmmmmmm!
~Samantha
A few evenings ago my mom and I decided to experiment in the kitchen. She wanted something chocolate and I wanted to bake. So I found a recipe for Chocolate Molten Lava Cake on the internet (epicurious.com in case you were wondering) and we decided to try it out. Fortunately, it had few enough ingredients (and we maintain such a well stocked kitchen) that we had everything we needed. It was a blissfully simple recipe and yielded very good results. A little too eggy for me, I would like to tinker with the recipe and see if I can improve it. But over all, a very good dessert. Herein follows the recipe:
Five ounces of bittersweet (we used semisweet) chocolate, chopped
Ten tablespoons unsalted butter
Three large eggs
Three large egg yolks
One and one half cups powdered sugar
One half cup all purpose flour
Essentially, what must be done is melt the chocolate and butter together then add it to a whisked combination of eggs and sugar. Then you add the flour and pour the batter into buttered custard cups. The cakes are baked until the sides are set but the center is soft and runny (give or take 10 minutes. Ours took 13.) When you're done, you run a sharp knife around the cakes in the cups and placing a plate on top, carefully flip them over. That was the difficult part for us. Ours stuck to the bottom of the custard cups and so we had to shake them loose, causing the "molten" part to ooze everywhere. They weren't the prettiest of things, but they sure were delicious.
Improvements I might make would include experimenting with adding raw sugar to the batter. It would stiffen it a little, maybe give it less of an egg-foam texture (it was slight, but it was definitely there for me). Perhaps even using one less egg and substituting oil and a little water, see how that does. It would make it a bit more fudgey, which I think would be spectacular.
That's all for now...gotta run and help mom make Chicken Broccoli Braid....mmmmmmm!
~Samantha
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