Cakes

Last month, my good friend and fellow FTC member and I took a Cake Decorating 101 (or, Wilton's Cake Decorating Class, Level 1) through UVU's Community Education program.

We were fairly excited about the prospect of discovering some amazing, untapped, innate skill that when put to use would make us millions of dollars when we opened our own bakery. Then, we tried to frost our cakes. Even the crumb coat was a pain in the butt, and over four weeks, we decided that this was maybe not our calling.

We did have fun. In fact, I think the class voted us as those that had the most fun. (Although, that is probably more because we sat removed from the rest of our class mocking them instead of joining their very friendly, very strange all-inclusive group.) And while they didn't know that we were often laughing at them, they heard a lot of snickering and giggling and assumed we were having a good time.

The first cake, we showed everyone up with ability to do cute designs and excellent borders. Our cakes were round. And we even sliced them apart and put in a very sugary filling. Most people who ate the cake were not so impressed with the frosting (Wilton frosting is disgusting) and the filling made the cake extra sugary.

The next week, we practiced on cupcakes, and got bored.... or.... something, and they turned out like this:

But the last class was a disaster. The cakes cooked too hot (my conjecture) and didn't come out of the pan. We tried to glue all the pieces together, but we were using frosting that was much too heavy. We didn't quite have enough frosting, so we made do. In the end, we had lopsided, non-circle cakes. Both of us were in bad moods.

We learned how to make roses and do writing in our last class. By the end, all the other ladies were working hard on their cakes to make them look presentable and classy. Meghan and I had given up from the beginning. They ended up looking something like this:

Pure magic. One of the tricks that I learned in this class was to use a Hersey kiss as the center of the roses. I couldn't believe how much EASIER it made making those blasted flowers.

In the end, Meghan and I learned that we weren't really cut out for the grunt work of cake decorating, i.e., the crumb coat and frosting of the cake; we weren't cut out for the real creativity of the whole thing; and we definitely weren't really cut out for the detail work.

Don't hold your breath for a Pottsie Bakery to turn up any time soon.

Who Burnt the Popcorn!?

A few weeks ago, I was racking my brain for a treat to take to ward prayer and since in was Sunday, I had to figure out something with the ingredients I had on hand. Luckily, I remembered that I had been in the habit a few years ago to break out my air popper (a birthday present from my awesome roommates) and mix some concoction of brown sugar and marshmallows and pour it over the popcorn, and it was sugary goodness that was extremely addicting.

In true Shelli fashion, I waited until I had about 20 minutes to begin making my popcorn mix; I traded the marshmallows for Fluff (marshmallow creme) and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, my air popper overheated or gave out on me, and I was left with only 10 minutes, and little hope. Still, I persevered. I got out my big stock pot and successfully popped the popcorn. (The mixture was not the best, but I made do and that's a different story, anyway.)

Another Sunday, another need for treats; this time it was for myself. I find myself limited with ingredients and happily turn to the idea of air popped popcorn. I knew that it worked well last time, and so this time I didn't measure or anything and just went for it.

The next thing I know, smoke is billowing out of my pot, and it smells. Bad. I inhaled too much of the smoke, which from the smell alone, I can tell is pure carcinogenicity. I begin coughing and run to put the pot outside. I open the windows and turn on the oven fan. It's a disaster! My nearly new stock pot has a layer of black scorch marks and the whole apartment smells like burnt popcorn...

...mixed with pine trees.

Because yesterday, I bought pine smell for our front room, to make it smell more Christmasy.

I can't tell you how bad the combination is. And I can't tell you how sorry I am that I didn't have a gas mask and rubber gloves to take care of the problem. Not only does my apartment smell like the death-smoke, but my hands (despite numerous washing) still wreak of the toxicity.

I resigned myself to trail mix for a snack.

Saturday Dinner

I pulled out everything that I bought last week when I went grocery shopping to take inventory of what had spoiled and what could still be used. Since it was my birth week, I ate out or ate leftovers all week long and didn't touch the stuff that I actually bought. Luckily, nothing is spoiled, yet. Unluckily, it is only a matter of time.

Anyway, tonight's dinner was made trying to use as many of the perishables as possible, without having to go to the store and get more ingredients. That, my friends, is the very definition of Hobo Food.

I couldn't decide if I wanted a baked potato with peppers or some sort of breakfast burrito, so I turned it in to a combination.

I shredded the potato into a pan to make hash browns and decided to add zucchini, cilantro, onion flakes and lime juice and then, on a whim, fresh jalapeno and some white pepper. I made some over-easy eggs and put it on top of the mixture and...

Success!

It was really delicious, if just a little bland. Even with the heat of the jalapeno it needed a little something else, and I'm thinking a fun type of salsa would have been just the trick. Or maybe some extra cilantro. Either way, I think I will make it again.

That is, if I have the same ingredients on hand ever again. Now I just have to clean it all up. Oh, and even though I thought this might be a completely original idea, I just Googled zucchini hash browns and there are several recipes that pop up... So I guess not.

Weekend Update

Friday, Melissa had some friends over and we sat around and talked for a little while, but then they left to attend a concert. Melissa and I were trying to come up with something to do, but both of us were fairly exhausted. We didn't want to be lame by going to bed at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night, so we read from A Compendium of Kisses. Really, Melissa was sleeping and I was cracking up over my inability to read out loud. Butchering words led to more laughter, which led to Melissa waking up long enough to see tears running down my face and her gasping and me wheezing... and finally we decided that we had enough and it was time for bed.

Saturday I woke up for a RS breakfast. We had French toast, which I sort of have a weakness for. And then I didn't do much until I headed up to South Jordan to meet up with Lauren. We went to an improv comedy show. I like improv, and I respect people who are able to be funny on the spot. That's not an easy thing to do. Provo has Comedy Sports, which is big on BYU/LDS culture and has a very defined theme and set up. It has its own venue. Push My Button is not as organized. They perform in a small coffee shop. They rely a little too much on audience participation, which led to some pretty strange and too elaborate prompts. There were some really funny parts, but for the most part, it wasn't that entertaining. They roped me in to "playing a game for prizes", and I won the Halloween trivia (answering 5 out of the 6 questions quicker than my opponent). Only... they gave the runner up a gift card to Applebees, and the winner got two free tickets to their next show.

...Ok.

Anybody want two free tickets to see Push My Button next month? Let me know.

Utah roads are an absolute mess right now. And on my way home from South Jordan, I had to navigate my way through all the detours and orange barrels. It was confusing and frustrating. They had closed the on-ramp to I-15, so I had to go up and around on a road that wasn't clearly marked as the detour, and I was only guessing where I needed to turn. Luckily, I guessed correctly. When I made it to Utah County, they had closed down the highway to one lane, and all I saw was red brake lights, so I decided to get off at American Fork and go down State Street. Unfortunately, I think I picked the worst exit to get off. There were two detours to take you to 500 East and back to the freeway. Then, because of the Haunted Forest, there were hundreds of cars wherever there weren't orange barrels. I got temporarily lost, guessed my way to State Street, and headed home... of course, that took a bit of time because State Street is down to one lane as well. Sigh.

Sunday we had stake conference. Both Melissa and I dragged ourselves there. The first meeting was fairly unremarkable, except, one of the speakers (the wife of one of the high councilmen that serve in our stake, approximately 45-years old) decided to talk to just the girls; she said that she was sad that the guys seem to get ripped in to every general conference, and that they were all great and wonderful and stuff like that. The girls needed a little constructive criticism; according to her, we need to "be less picky and more submissive". She didn't explain enough to know if that is what she actually meant -- if she actually wanted us to go back 200 years before women had rights and were imprisoned in insane asylums for speaking against their husband's ideals (I'm reading a book on one such case right now) or if she just wanted us to.... what? I don't know.

The usher didn't have a hunchback, or a droopy eyelid.

 

 

 

 

The second session was better in way of speakers, but worse in the fact that there were a whole lot more distractions. The first meeting met in an auditorium. The second in a double chapel with hard folding chairs and an overheated gym. There was an usher who reminded me of Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame...he had really crazy, buggy eyes. And he just walked up and down the gym floor, hunting anyone down who wasn't in a seat and making sure we were packed in there like sardines. We had sad next to a bigger guy from our ward, and spaced the chairs perfectly, and along comes Quasi, and he makes us move down, making everyone uncomfortable and then continued to patrol the area so that we were afraid to move again. We did, though, during the intermediate hymn, finding our original places much more comfortable. He was so distracting, though. And every time he walked by, we wanted to punch him.

The speakers were better this time around. I really do like our stake presidency. They are good men. One of them is actually my mom's old seminary teacher from high school! Crazy, right? He's my favorite. And our stake president is Canadian, and really funny. He stands up and tells us how grateful he is to have his "first wife" in the audience. Then, he had to clarify that she is his only wife. He told us about this weird, old many that used to live in his ward boundaries that they used to make fun of. "We all have trials," he said, "some of us are heavy and weird and that's our trial." He then went on to say that this man moved to be close to the temple in Cardston, Canada, and did some 200,000 ordinances before he died in his early 80s. President Hatch talked about how this man, who didn't have a lot of friends and family on his earthly life, was probably heralded in to heaven by the 200,000 souls he did temple work for. The amount of awe and respect in President Hatch's voice was enough to know that he regretted having made fun of this strange individual, who obviously amounted to much more.

President Hatch also talked about the people that go in to talk to him before they get married, or as individuals, and express fears about the future. I guess it isn't surprising that my peers are all worried about what the world has to offer them. They are afraid to have children because the moral standard of the world continues to decline; the economy is never stable; divorce rates continue to rise; etc. etc. etc. He told us, "You have the brightest of futures of anyone on the history of this earth. You have more good and more joy to look forward to. Yes, there will be trials. But, miracles are born out of trails and sacrifice."

The whole time I was listening to his talk, though, I was thinking that I'm not scared to get married. I'm not scared to have children. I am not worried about how I would support a family -- I know that God sustains us. I am scared about the future, though. Because I'm scared of having a future where I am alone. For some reason, a lonely future sounds neither bright or joyful.

After conference, I went home and made pumpkin pies. They turned out delicious. I know, because I had some for breakfast. I'm pretty pleased with the crust, which we all know is one of the hardest things to pull off, and I didn't over or under bake them. Now, I just have to decide if I am going to share, or if I am going to devour them all up myself.

Baby Poop

I was hoping to be writing about a new recipe I just discovered and how awesome and easy it was to make and how delicious it tasted and how I was going to go broke buying avocados in order to eat it....

Unfortunately, I spent the better part of my evening shopping and creating a not so "healthy" dinner, that I literally had to suffer through eating. I guess that's one way to control your portion sizes!

Since it is officially soup season (YAY!) I decided to look up a few new recipes to try. I had an avocado that was on the verge of expiration, and so when I saw "AVOCADO SOUP" I thought that it accomplished both my goals. Little did I realize what I was getting myself in to.

It started out OK. You can't go wrong with sauteed onion, garlic and corn on the cob. It smells delicious and I knew I was in for a treat. But then I opened the box of vegetable stock, and I got a little worried. As I should have been. Once I had followed the direction to blend the simmered soup in the blender, I realized that I had made a terrible mistake.

Ok. So, yes. I deviated from the recipe slightly. I added some collard greens, and just a few pieces of celery (I'm was trying to get rid of the celery I bought -- don't worry, it is in the trash now, and can no longer harm me!). I figured that once it was all blended up, I wouldn't even notice they were in there. And it's supposed to be healthy for you!

The baby poop/food that I had created didn't smell bad, but it certainly did not look appetizing. I didn't know what to do with it. I tasted it. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't as bad as I thought. And then I thought that if I had to eat more than a taste -- if I attempted to eat even a full spoonful -- I would probably throw up. Not to mention, the instructions say that it is meant to be served chilled. So I took to pouring out some portions for Melissa and me, and ended up splattering it everywhere. It seriously looked like a baby had had a huge blowout all over my kitchen! This stuff is a disaster!

But I had spent all that time, money and effort to making this a healthy meal! What to do? Luckily, we have a neighbor who has attended/is currently attending culinary school. I decided to turn over the concoction to him. With just a dash -- Ok, a cup -- of salt, and a bunch of lemon juice, add just a bit of sour cream.... The baby poop was palatable.

I think I made it about halfway through my 1-cup serving.

I guess that is one recipe I will not be recommending. I do, however, recommend you make some contacts with a culinary artist/student. They come in pretty handy.

Butterbeer Cupcakes

Butterbeer Cupcakes

I have admittedly been super-lax about baking and cooking these days. But every once and a while, I stumble upon some amazing recipes that I want to try, but I'm too lazy to make. Such is the case with the Butterbeer (yes, that's Harry Potter Butterbeer) cupcakes. When I stumbled upon it on pinterest.com, I just passed along the recipe to my friend Megan, and asked her to make me some.

Fortunately for me, she was excited to try them. And happened to have all the ingredients necessary! So today, she came over to my house and made me cupcakes.

As promised, these cupcakes are divine! They are seriously the best cupcakes I have ever tried. And it might have a lot to do with the fact that they are butterscotch flavoured....which I absolutely love. Luckily, Megan took her share away and I shared half of mine with some guys in the ward -- because I know I was tempted to eat them all.

I do not think that it is over the top to think that I will be dreaming of these things tonight!!

Butterbeer Cupcakes - from the Pastry Affair
Adapted from Amy Bites

Yields 18 cupcakes

Butterbeer Cupcakes
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon butter flavoring
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup cream soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a cupcake tin with baking cups.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and butter flavoring.

Fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture, then the buttermilk, 1/3 of the flour mixture, cream soda, and then the remaining flour. Folding in these ingredients will prevent over-mixing and will result in a fluffier, less dense cupcake. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the cupcakes are golden and spring back when touched. Cool completely before frosting.

Butterscotch Ganache
11 ounces (1 package) butterscotch chips
1 cup heavy cream

In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt the butterscotch chips into the heavy cream, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before using.

Butterscotch Buttercream
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup butterscotch ganache (recipe above)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon butter flavoring
Pinch of salt
3-3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Splash of heavy cream (as needed)

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the butterscotch ganache, vanilla, butter flavoring, and salt. Beat in the powdered sugar for 2-3 minutes, starting with 3 cups and adding more only if necessary. Add the cream a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved (I only needed 1 tablespoon).

To Assemble
Pour butterscotch ganache into a plastic squeeze bottle. Stab the tip of the bottle into cupcake and fill each cupcake with butterscotch ganache until it starts to overflow.

Fill a pastry bag with butterscotch buttercream and pipe onto the top of each cupcake. Drizzle on the butterscotch ganache. Lick your fingers clean if you just so happen to get extra butterscotch on them. If you have any leftover butterscotch ganache, it can be used as ice cream topping.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature (that is, if they don't get devoured immediately).

Neopologize Cupcakes

Sometimes things don't go as planned and a big "THANK YOU!" and an "I really need to apologize" opportunity presents itself.

Of course, you want to place all the blame on a certain someone, but that isn't entirely fair. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I guess there are some things that I should have done, and should have thought of... but I didn't, and so things moved forward and several people were put on the spot to make something happen.

In order to, erhm... clear my name, as well as -- and most importantly -- thank and say mea culpa to these people, I decided to make cupcakes. So around 8:30 p.m., I went shopping for all the ingredients. I don't know what it is about cupcakes, though, I think I am going to blame the millions of cupcake shows on TV (I watched TV-TV for the first time tonight in over a month, so I doubt that's the real reason), but whenever I make cupcakes, I feel like I have to make it a big production.

An example of this would be the Cardiac Partiac. Where we made close to nine boxes of cupcakes in GIANT muffin pans...

Anyway, I started baking my Neapolitan cupcakes (stolen from an idea I found on Pinterest.com) making the three different kinds of batter at 9:00 p.m.; I had to stop and run to get more eggs at the store; and then continued to bake until who knows? Making 24 cupcakes at a time for 15-18 minutes, times three separate batters (vanilla, chocolate and strawberry) equals somewhere just past midnight to finish baking.

Of course, by then, I was tired, but I wanted to get everything done. So I started frosting. Only, I couldn't find my cake tips (!) and so I just had to use a regular bag.... and then I remembered I had bought coconut to put on top, so I had to toast the coconut.

Around 1:30 a.m., I realized what I was making: Neopologizing (Nee-o-pologizing.... as in "Nee(d) (t)o (be) (a)pologizing...) cupcakes!

HILARIOUS!

In order to make sure everyone understood what they were, I decided to make these cute little flags that I have seen on other baking websites. So up to my computer to print the label, find the glue-sticks and get to creating!

By 2:30 a.m., I had the majority of my little flags created, so downstairs I went and inserted them in ALL the cupcakes.

And then, I was really tired... so I had to make sure the cupcakes were kept covered, so they didn't dry out. Out came the plastic wrap.

For the record: I HATE plastic wrap. Such a pain.

By 4:00 a.m. (see, plastic wrap.... wretched), I was ready to go to bed. I tried to clean up a little bit, but I couldn't focus.

By 5:00 a.m., I was in bed, hoping beyond hope that 3.5 hours is enough sleep to last the day. It's already midnight again, and I feel like I've done really well today, considering!

I hope that the cupcakes did their job, and that with the thank you cards I attached to them, they understood that I was grateful they were there to take over and do what needed to be done at the time. I still feel pretty bad -- and let's face it, angry -- about the whole situation.

So, again, mea culpa and I'm done Neopologizing!

Trying to be Obedient

Over the last few months, our ward (now the Provo Utah Young Single Adult Ward #142... I think), has been talking about dating and marriage. I have been rather critical of some of the advice that we have been given... mostly because I don't consider those that are delivering the advice as being credible sources for dating tips.

(Sorry, anyone who met their significant other in junior high or high school did not have the same experience that a ward with an average age of 25-26 is currently experiencing in dating. In fact, I would venture to say that they really have no clue as to what we are going through.)

Anyway, one of the things that we were told in the dating panel - and subsequently since then - is that we should make cookes or baked goods to the guys that we like!

Melissa and I had a hard time figuring out what guys we actually wanted to deliver our baked goods to, but once we decided we set off. We walked because it was SUCH a beautiful day today. We walked and walked and realized that being on foot is a much different perspective than being in the car, so we turned around (because we had missed the street we needed by two blocks) and headed to the house we wanted.

We could see one of the guys laying on the couch. We could also hear him: snoring. He didn't seem to hear our knock. There was rustling in the bushes, and we were worried about leaving treats on the doorstep to the critters, but we wanted to leave it behind, so we left it on the window sill and headed home. We had struck out.

I wish we could have seen their faces. The cards that we had made were gems. GEMS, I TELL YOU! Fluorescent paper, stick people with torn paper pants... and a lovely little note. I ended up leaving a Facebook note to one of the guys to let him know where to find the treats, and then...that was the end.

We tried to deliver the other plate to another apartment, but no one answered. We tried again a few hours later, and no one answered. We tried a third time to text and see if they were home: no one answered.

So.... we struck out again.

I guess delivering baked goods is harder to do than I thought. Maybe the ultimate goal only comes if you are successful in delivering it and adding a little flirty banter to the delivery; but, this time I highly doubt that anything will come out of delivering baked goods to boys.

Probably because it only works in high school.

In which she proves that she is not nearly as talented as her mother...

My mom is very talented - or as I was thinking in a Scottish accent just now, "verra talented" - when it comes to lots of things, but right now I am discussing cakes. My recent adventures with decorating cupcakes made me want to make more and to have fun experimenting with different tips and different things my mom has attempted to teach me over the years.

I'm not even close.

For some reason, I can't ever get the frosting consistency anywhere near to where it is supposed to be. It's usually so runny that the Crisco and the water start separating. This is not good for any sort of decorating purposes. Even when I think I have it close... I don't.

I can never get the cake out of the pan. So my cake usually looks like this:

Yup. That's yummy looking.

And by the end of it all, I get frustrated that my roses won't turn out (have I ever been able to make a rose? No. Does that keep me from trying? No.) And then I just get bored, because everything I want to do, I can't actually execute.

So then my cake looks like this:

The important thing is that in the end, it usually tastes fine. Good even. My mom did teach me how to bake a cake properly (one box + good timing = deliciously moist cake ((p.s. if you can come up with a better word than moist to describe a perfectly cooked cake that isn't dry, I'll give you bonus points))) and the frosting's flavor is never really off. It has been, but this time it wasn't.

In the end, I'm always looking something along the lines of this:

Wondering why I even bothered to decorate the cake in the first place. Next time, I should just buy the frosting with the rainbow chips. I feel sorry for my children.... they are going to have ugly birthday cakes.

Sunday Dinner and Baking

It is fairly known that I've given up baking and cooking since moving into my new apartment. I want to blame the fact that it is because of a messy kitchen, but since two of my roommates have moved out, it hasn't been as bad as it was. And I want to blame that I haven't been grocery shopping for over two months, but I actually did go and pick some things up yesterday. So... I guess it's time to pick it up again.

I kicked off my new cooking/baking practices today with Colin. He has been introduced to my mom's chicken enchiladas before, but we were totally able to top what I made last time into something even more delicious. You see, at home, there is little we can eat by way of flavor: no onions, no peppers, no spices, etc. Not because of my mom, oh no, but because of the pickier eaters living under the roof. (Imagine what my life was like five years ago when I discovered green peppers and spices and herbs! A bloody miracle, that's what.) But it doesn't matter - my mom is a GREAT cook. And her food, even if it could be considered bland, is DELICIOUS.

But...that doesn't stop me from making my own tweaks when I make those familiar meals for myself. So I took her regular chicken enchiladas: tortillas covered in cream of chicken soup with chicken and cheese in the middle and more cheese on the top, and I added black beans, green peppers and tomatoes on a fresh flour tortilla. Instant culinary masterpiece! They were seriously the best enchiladas I have ever made.

Afterward, Colin and I took our skills to baking and made some cherry chip cupcakes. While making Mom's dinners with a little more pizazz seems to work out for me, for the LIFE I can't get her frosting right. Mom, what does it mean when the color and everything starts to separate? I always make the frosting just a little too runny. Sigh. It doesn't matter.... Colin and I had fun decorating the cupcakes and in the end, when I tasted them, they were so rich and moist and delicious that it didn't matter that the frosting had been too soft. * shrugs shoulders* I guess I'll figure it out eventually. The truth is, I'll never have the patience to be as amazing as my mom, so I don't know why I even bother.

The worst part about doing all this in the kitchen is the clean up. It's an absolute wreck out there, and I really do not want to go and clean up. In fact, I'm feeling the need to go to bed on time tonight...which means getting ready in eight minutes.

Sigh.