Deep Dark Chocolate Sorbet

Hello. So much for frequent blogging.

I have finally returned from our annual "Family Vacation" with my husband's family. We left the unusually nice and cool summer up here in rural Ohio and headed for Hilton Head Island. There was a lot of golf, swimming in the ocean and the pool, happy kids running around, some wine, and general family enjoyment. Other than a minor jelly fish sting on my foot, and leaving my purse in a dive restaurant in West Virginia it was a really pleasant week. (The foot was just fine by the next day and we recovered the purse about 3 hours later after driving through West Virginia again to get it. Nothing was stolen and my credit cards were untouched. Whew!)

But now that we're back home, we've made the unhappy discovery that the lovely cool summer we were enjoying blossomed into a sweltering hot one. This is not fun. There's no ocean in rural Ohio. And we don't have a pool. I could drink wine, but that would be counterproductive. It's so hot that I've been cooking without turning on the heat in the house. Yeah for the grill! But before I get to any of those recipes (and really the camera needs new batteries so who knows how long that will take me!) let's enjoy a scoop of this rich, chocolaty sorbet. It's easy, delicious, and totally refreshing.

Deep Dark Chocolate Sorbet

from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

2 cups water

1 cup sugar

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Combine the water and sugar in a heavy saucepan and place over medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the cocoa and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Stir the cool mixture and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Daring Bakers Blackwell Tart

So, yes, it's posting day for the Daring Bakers and after I spent the whole day with the Brain and made a super yummy dinner which I'll be posting on later, I decided I better get to it and make the Blackwell Tart. The hesitation comes in because the base of the tart is pie crust. They can make it sound all fancy and call it a shortcrust pastry and put egg yolks and sugar in it, but it's still a pie crust. And frankly, pie crust makes me nervous. So does the price of almond meal. But I really don't have a good excuse for missing the challenge and I already had some of this yummy plum-ginger jam in the pantry, so I rolled up my sleeves (or really changed into a tank top- turning on the oven in the summer turns our cozy little house into a sauna) and got down to it.

This was not a difficult challenge. I did have to grind up some almonds, but that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I have been reminded of how yummy my jam is. I also made an emergency substitution of vanilla extract for almond extract. The almond extract seems to be on vacation from my pantry. Grating frozen butter into a flour mixture in a really warm kitchen was a bit trying. Unfortunately, I blindly followed the instructions for the baking portion. The recipe says to pop it in the oven for 30 minutes and to add 5 minutes if you ground your own nuts. So that's what I did. And as you can see, my tart is a little teeny bit on the well done side of life.

So what's the verdict? This tart is delicious! And I'm totally going to make it again!

Here's the fine print! The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart.. er.. pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers. If you haven't already.

Daring Bakers do Strudel!

I gotta tell you I loved this month's challenge. Surprising as that might be for a person who doesn't like fruit or pie. And the whole time I was making it I imagined various grandmothers and great grandmothers in my family making it exactly the same way. But let's get the fine print out of the way...

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.

This strudel was really not hard to make. I cut the recipe in half and it went together as easily as some people throw together a pie. And I have to tell you. The walnuts make the apple filling just that much better. I think they were my favorite part! Although I think the pastry was lovely and flaky and I really enjoyed the Cinnamon and sugar and rum traditional apple raisin filling too!

Thanks Courtney and Linda for such a fun challenge!
Please check out the rest of the Daring Bakers.

Pumpkin Rice Pudding

Inspired by those Tuesdays with Dorrie girls who have inundated the Internet with their chocolate and vanilla rice puddings, I have made some Pumpkin Rice Pudding. It's really good. Comforting and homey. It makes the snow that nailed us again last night seem not too bad. This rice pudding also isn't nutritionally defunct. There's pumpkin and that adds some really good vitamins. It is a vegetable after all. I made it with 1% milk instead of whole milk and there's no butter in it. I'm not sure if there's usually butter in rice pudding, but anytime I don't cook with butter it could be seen as a lighter meal.

And now there's some leftover pumpkin puree in the fridge. Which will always remind me of the time my sister M. came home after work and reached for the pumpkin in the fridge thinking it was leftover sweet potatoes. The next morning she told us that the sweet potatoes we made for dinner were really bland. We laughed pretty hard once we figured out what she was talking about. We had baked sweet potatoes with dinner. So now every time I put pumpkin in a container in the fridge I giggle and think of M.

Pumpkin Rice Pudding

loosely adapted from Pumpkin A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year

5 cups 1% milk

1/2 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin

1/3 cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Heat the milk, rice, pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon stick, and salt in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pan and steam rises.

Reduce heat to low and gently cook, uncovered, for about an hour and rice is tender and pudding is thick. Stir frequently (with a wooden spoon with a flat bottom if you have one.)

Beat the egg with a fork in a small bowl. Spoon some of the pudding into the egg. Slowly add this egg mixture to the pudding, stirring constantly and keeping the heat low. Cook for 1 to 2 more minutes, or until the pudding thickens some more.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Cool slightly before chilling completely.

Cranberry Merlot Sorbet

By now, you are probably a little bit tired of reading the number of things I'm grateful for. So I won't dwell on telling you why I'm grateful that in order to go to Target, or Meijer's, or Starbucks in the "big" city in the county north of me I have to pass farmland, one herd of sheep, and two herds of cows. I just am. It makes me happy.

What I will elaborate on is that I was reading an article a couple days ago about stress and gratitude. I can't seem to find the article anymore so I may have read it in the line at the grocery or in the doctor's office. But the point is that it is apparently impossible to be both stressed out and grateful at the same time. I thought it was an interesting idea and I'm thinking it's been working in my life. But don't worry, I won't keep posting what I'm grateful about. That could be a bit much. I did manage to find a similar article on the web, it's a little old, but interesting none the less. Check it out here.


Another reason to be grateful is that Trader Joe's sells a pretty cheap, ($3 if you want to travel all the way to Cleveland), but drinkable wine called Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck for those in the know). This wine, in the Merlot variety, really sent my cranberry sorbet over the moon! Somehow a Dinner of Giving Thanks doesn't seem right without the cranberry in it somewhere. I admit it. I love the jellied cranberry stuff that comes out in the shape of the can. But I just didn't feel like eating the leftovers of it. Besides I tried the cranberry sorbet out of The Ultimate Ice Cream Book for a Christmas dessert a while back and while it was tasty I wanted to take it up a notch. So I followed Bruce Weinstein's instructions for the Spiced Cranberry Sorbet and then added my good buddy Chuck to give it a zing. Wheeee! Yummy this is good. It's something to be grateful for.

Cranberry Merlot Sorbet
adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

1/2 pound fresh cranberries (about 2 cups)
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups Merlot
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
zest of 1 lemon

Place all ingredients in a large heavy saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture comes to a simmer. Continue to cook for 2 minutes or until the cranberries pop and begin to soften. Remove from the heat and allow the cranberry mixture to cool slightly.

Puree in a blender. If necessary, do this in 2 batches. Pass the puree through a sieve to remove the skins. The puree will be thick and may need to be pushed through using a wooden spoon. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Stir the chilled mixture and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Apple Pie

It's fall! I happen to really really like fall. But every fall, I start to feel bad. Because there's the one project that up until now has eluded me. My greatest downfall as a housewife. Well that and vacuuming. Man I hate vacuuming. But doesn't my front door look pretty? My greatest downfall has been pie making. I suck at it.

Well I did until now. I went grocery shopping and decided I would do something nice for the Brain. He loves pie. I don't. So there's lots for him when I make it and usually he forces it down. There have been some really bad pies that have come out of my oven. Burnt ones. Soggy ones. Fairly transparent ones. I've even screwed up using the already made roll out crust.

But I've been looking at all the apples in the store and I decided to give it one last go. The Joy of Cooking recipes for pies haven't turned out so well for me before though so I knew I didn't want to retry them. Finally I remembered that in the midst of all my fancy cookbooks, I had a big red Betty Crocker cookbook. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that everyone's mom has. I think my mom gave me hers actually. I figured you can't go wrong with Betty Crocker. I was right!

For the first time ever, I created a pie that was beautiful. And the Brain kept saying from the living room. "This is a good pie! A DAMN good pie!" I almost made another one on the spot. Except I didn't have any more of the roll out pie dough and I wasn't about to learn how to master crust the same day that I finally make a good pie.

Apple Pie

from the Betty Crocker's Cookbook

Pastry for 9-inch two crust pie

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

dash of salt

6 cups thinly sliced, peeled apples (I used a combination of Gala and Granny Smith)

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line pie plate with one half of the pastry. Mix sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in apples. Mound apple mixture into pie plate. Dot with butter. Cover with top crust, poke with fork and cut a steam hole in the center. Cover edges with 3-inch strips of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil during last 15 minutes of baking. Bake until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slit in crust, about 45 minutes.

Le Glorieux

Yesterday would have been the 96th birthday of Julia Child. To celebrate I made a cake from her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 2, called Le Glorieux. Its a light and delicious chocolate cake flavored with a hint of orange. The filling is a decadent chocolate orange ganache. I then frosted the whole thing with an Italian Buttercream. It was super delicious. I served it on Super G's birthday because Super G is also great cook and is over 6 foot tall. The cake wasn't very hard although I did feel like I was doing a rogue Daring Bakers exercise.

So if I prepared ahead, and made this fabulous cake, why didn't I post yesterday in honor of Julia's birthday? Well, see, the Brain and I decided to go for my first bike ride post Wilma. And because I'm me. Something similar to this happened.

How? I have clipless pedals. That means my special bike shoes snap in to these little knobs instead of pedals. SO in order to stop I have to unhook a foot to be able to set it down. This only gets to be a problem if you unhook you right foot, for example, and lean left. That left foot would still be hooked to the bike and over you go. This in itself isn't too bad, although it's how I sprained my wrist. It gets a little more fun if your husband happens to be following along behind you when you go over.

The Brain is a terrific husband because although he wasn't going fast enough to swerve around me, and wasn't going slow enough to stop, he ran me over in the least damaging way possible. He's terrific because he managed to miss me with the wheel, so there's no tire tracks on my head. And he managed to get his foot up so he didn't literally kick me when I was down. Unfortunately his pedal whacked me smack in the back and I now have a strained dorsal (that's what the ER discharge papers say). I also have a nice pedal imprint going on.

I think that's a good reason for not posting. This cake is delicious. Please make and enjoy. And don't worry, we're putting my racing bike, with the clipless pedals and aerodynamic posture, away for a while. I will now try to ride, without further injury, the Brain's hybrid bike. It's like trading in a Ferarri for a family sedan.

Oh yeah, and I'm submitting this as my entry to the Layers of Cake Event over at Quirky Cupcake.

Le Glorieux

verbatim from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 2

1) Preliminaries:

7 ounces semisweet baking chocolate

2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate

1/4 cup orange liqueur

The grated rind of 1 orange

2 four cup cake pans (such as round ones 8 by 1 1/2 inches), bottom lined with waxed paper, pans buttered and floured

2 sticks butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in middle level. Break up chocolate and melt with orange liqueur and orange rind over hot water; it must be perfectly smooth and creamy. Cut the butter into 1/4-inch slices and beat piece by piece into the chocolate, again making sure mixture is perfectly smooth and creamy. (A hand-held electric mixer is useful here.) If consistency is too liquid- it should be like a heavy mayonnaise- beat over iced water. Set aside.

2) The cake batter

5 "large" eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

An electric mixer and 3- to 4- quart bowl (be sure mixer blades and bowl are clean and dry)

1 cup (4 ounces) cornstarch measured by scooping dry-measure cup into starch and leveling off

A sieve or sifter set over waxed paper

The chocolate-butter mixture

A rubber spatula

Beat the eggs and sugar for a moment at low speed to blend, then increase speed to high, add vanilla, and beat several minutes (7 to 8 with a hand-held machine) until mixture is pale, fluffy, doubled in volume, and holds soft peaks.

Just as you are ready to blend the various batter elements together, sift the cornstarch onto the paper, check on the chocolate-butter to be sure it is a smooth, thick cream, and give the eggs and sugar a few turns of the beater if they have lost their body.

At slow mixing speed, gradually sprinkle the cornstarch into the egg mixture, taking 15 to 20 seconds to incorporate it but not trying for a perfect blend; you must not deflate the beaten eggs. Remove bowl from stand, if you have that kind of mixer. Fold a large gob of egg mixture into chocolate-butter to lighten it. Then, a large gob at a time, start folding chocolate-butter into eggs, rapidly cutting down through batter and out to side with rubber spatula, rotating bowl, and repeating movement 2 or 3 times. When almost incorporated, add another gob, and continue until all is used. Immediately turn the batter into the prepared pans. Rapidly push batter up sides of pans all around and bang lightly on table to deflate possible bubbles. Pans should be about 2/3 filled. Place at once in middle level of preheated oven, leaving at least 2 inches of space between pans as well as walls and door of oven.

3) Baking, filling, and frosting

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Cakes should remain slightly moist, in the French manner, and are done when a skewer or toothpick plunged into center comes out looking oily, with a few speckles of chocolate clinging to it. Cake will usually rise 1/4 to 1/2 inch above rim of pans. Cool for 10 minutes. Top of cakes will crack and flake slightly, which is normal. Make the following filling while cakes are cooling.

the chocolate filling:

3 ounces semisweet baking chocolate

1/2 ounce unsweetened baking chocolate

3 Tbsp orange liqueur

4 to 5 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch slices

Melt the chocolate in the liqueur over hot water. When perfectly smooth and creamy, beat in the butter piece by piece. If mixture is too soft for easy spreading, beat over iced water until the consistency of mayonnaise.

filling the cake:

A cake rack

A cookie sheet

When cakes have cooled for 10 minutes, ran a knife around edge of one to loosen it from the pan and unmold onto cake rack. Peel off waxed paper.

Spread top with filling. Immediately unmold second cake onto one end of cookie sheet. Line up cake on sheet exactly with cake on rack, then slide the one upon the other. Peel paper off top of second cake. If sides are uneven, trim with a knife.

(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: If not to be iced or served immediately, cover airtight as soon as cake is cool or it will dry out. Cake may be frozen at this point; thaw for several hours at room temperature.

4) Frosting and serving

WHIPPED CREAM. To serve the cake as a dessert or with tea, spread lightly whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla or orange liqueur, around and over the cake. Decor ate with shaved or grated chocolate.

MERINGUE ICING. Or use the plain Italian meringue (hot sugar syrup whipped into stiffly beaten egg whites, Volume 2, page 426) or the meringue butter cream in Volume 2, on page 489. (I'll be posting this next time.)

CHOCOLATE ICING. Or while the cake is still warm, spread on the same chocolate and butter mixture that you used for the filling, or use one of the chocolate butter creams listed in Volume 1, pages 680-4.

Triple Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I'm sure I'm not alone on this, but I have a glut of zucchini going on. For example, before I went on vacation I had 9, yes nine, zucchini to do something with. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving them and having them go bad. I made some zucchini bread that was a combination of my mom's and my stepmother's recipes. I grated a bunch and put them in 2 cup packages in the freezer. I grilled and sauteed a bunch. And I made cake. Yep, when life hands you zucchini, make cake.

The zucchini really isn't noticeable in this cake. It's dark. It's rich. It's chocolaty. It doesn't scream, "Eat me! I'm a healthy vegetable!" Oh but they're in there. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the inside because I took it on family vacation and simply forgot. I did have three pieces and numerous opportunities, but by the time I remembered, the cake had gone moldy. Take this lesson away with you. Zucchini cake left on the counter and not eaten will go moldy. In about 5 days. The irony here is that after my third piece, I decided that I better slow down so that other people could have some when they wanted it.

Triple Chocolate Zucchini Cake

adapted from Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman

2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

3/4 cups dark chocolate cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 cups lightly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 large eggs

3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup coffee

3 cups grated zucchini

1 cup chocolate chips

powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10 inch fluted bundt pan.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into a medium bowl.

Beat together the brown sugar and butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the melted chocolate and vanilla. Add the flour mixture, alternating with the coffee, and beat until smooth. Fold in the zucchini. Fold in the chocolate chips. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cool the entire cake in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Invert the cake, remove the pan, and let cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar right before serving.

Grilled Jerk Pineapple

I hate fruit. Yes fruit. My nemesis. Well not actually my nemesis, but I'd pretty much eat most other food groups before fruit. But I'm trying to be healthier so I will make myself eat some fruit pretty much daily. But the real breakthrough is that I LIKED this fruit. Really, what's not to like about this fruit? It's grilled and marinaded and topped with ice cream. Yummy.

See while I was in Meijer's last week picking up an assortment of vegetables, they had a big pile of pineapples. This happens to me fairly frequently that I think a fruit is pretty and I pick it up and then I have no idea what to do with it. I actually had a pommelo go bad in my fruit bowl because I simply was clueless about it. So after about 5 days when the pineapple was starting to get really fragrant I knew my time was limited. Fortunately a helpful gentleman last year taught me how to pick a good, almost ripe pineapple. So I got on the trusty Internet and found this fabulous recipe from Health magazine on My Recipes.

It's spicy. It's a little boozy. It's tart. And it's creamy. I did manage to refrain from licking the plate this time, but I definitely thought about it. I've never had grilled fruit before so that was a new experience for me. The Brain even jumped in and grilled it for me. I varied from the recipe at one point because I had lots of marinade left over and so I reduced it in a small saucepan for a little bit. Overall it was a delicious, healthy, fairly elegant, and super easy dessert. I might pick up a pineapple again next week...

Grilled Jerk Pineapple

adapted from Health magazine

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup dark rum

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

1/8 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves

8 (3/4 inch thick) slices fresh pineapple

Cooking spray

1 1/3 cups low fat ice cream*

1. Prepare grill.

2. Combine sugar, rum, thyme, cinnamon, salt, red pepper, ginger, allspice, and cloves in a large Ziploc bag. Add pineapple, and chill 1 hour, turning occasionally.

3. Remove pineapple from bag, reserving marinade. Place pineapple on a grill rack coated with cooking spray, and grill 4 minutes on each side or until thoroughly heated, brushing with reserved marinade.

4. Reduce marinade in small saucepan until thick and hot.

5. Arrange 2 slices on each of 4 dessert plates; top each with 1/3 cup of ice cream. Drizzle marinade over ice cream.

*Yeah, I had some Haagen Daz in the freezer. I'm not so big on low fat ice cream. If you're going to have ice cream then have the good stuff. The Brain had his without ice cream and proclaimed it some "Damn good pineapple".

Cheesecake on a Stick!

It's Daring Baker Challenge time again! This month it was Cheesecake Pops from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor. Now I happen to love cheesecake, but the Brain and a significant portion of his family are lactose intolerant so I knew that I needed to find a place to give these babies away or I would really become Jaba the Butt. As it so happens, last Wednesday I was cleared by the physical therapist to be able to drive up to Michigan to go to the opera. My best friend T. and I have season tickets and La Rondine by Puccini was playing and it hasn't been performed in 37 years. It was I think my favorite opera so far and the people at the Michigan Opera Theater were really great about moving my balcony seat to a box seat and letting us have a primo parking space. They were really terrific about the challenges I faced on crutches.

Conveniently my friend T's son, my godson, is turning 2 on Tuesday (yes, this is an old photo) and he had a big birthday party yesterday. So I merely transported these babies up to her (and about 10 to my family) and minimized the risk of me eating the entire batch of cheesecake pops by myself. And trust me it was a real danger. They were delicious! And my track record for sampling as I was making them was pretty sad.

The batter went together super easy. Although I sort of shuddered at the 5 8oz packages of cream cheese, I figured that there's no butter in it and if you only eat one pop it wouldn't be so bad for you. That's one pop. Not 4 pops that you run out of chocolate coating for. I licked the beater so I knew the cheesecake was going to be good, the batter is good. And for the first time I actually put the cheesecake in the water bath. My cheesecake baked in about 55 minutes and was nice and solid.

The recipe says to scoop the cheesecake into 2oz balls. So I got out my little scooper. I'm sure it has a fancy name, its a little ice cream scoop that I use for portioning out cookie dough or frosting. Anyhow, I was scooping away and eating the scraps of cheesecake, which turned out about as yummy as I imagined, when I decided to stick one of the little buggers on a scale. It was 3/8 oz. Crap. They looked good though. Just a nice bite. But I am a direction follower so I got out the big ice cream scooper that I use for portioning out cupcakes. And I scooped one and weighed it. It was 1 1/4 oz and they looked pretty big. I started thinking that 2 oz was about the size of a softball and the cheesecake was far to rich for that.

So once I had all my little 3/8 oz balls rolled and scooped out and my tummy was seriously hurting from eating too much cheesecake ("What did you have for dinner?" "cheesecake"). And I somehow managed to rearrange my freezer to be able to have all these cute little balls on sticks fit, I froze them. I should mention here that lollipop sticks can be found at Walmart. I just happened to conveniently have some bright orange candy melts in my pantry. Don't laugh, my sister Super G discovered she had a can of Jamaican sardines in her cupboard this week. It happens. So I melted those up and coated my little cheesecake lollipops. And it was a kitchen of orange. I have an orange Kitchenaid and orange plastic mixing bowls and my favorite spatula is orange. And somehow these candy melts were the exact color of orange. Which thrilled me. I am easily thrilled. Even when my stomach is hurting from eating far too much cheesecake.

I did have a little trouble getting them to stay on the stick when they were thawed out so I did have to keep sticking them in the freezer. My sister M when she tried hers at home fell of the stick too. I think they'd be almost as fun just without the stick. As like tiny little bon bons. This was definitely a challenge for me. I'm not sure if it was just complicated for me to scoop them out and roll them into a ball and then dip them in chocolate or if I was just at the point in the day where standing becomes uncomfortable and I'm pretty much done. I don't think I'd make this again for a weekend dessert or a casual birthday party, but probably if I was going to a bridal shower or baby shower I would. They're a lot of work, but they're really impressive.

Thanks to the wonderful Deborah at Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms for picking a recipe that I probably wouldn't have picked myself. It was a good challenge. Also make sure to check out all the other talented Daring Bakers. And if you'd like the recipe, you can either buy the book, or check out Deborah's blog. And I'm headed back to the couch.

Happy Pi Day! Have some Bourbon.

Yes I am a geek. I'll say it proudly. I have a bachelors in statistics and I know that Pi, π, commonly known as 3.14 is merely an approximation for a never ending, never repeating number. It is also one of the most important mathematical constants. It represents the ratio of any circle's circumference to it's diameter. It is also the ratio of a circle's area to the square of it's radius. It's where the pie are squared formula comes from. HAHAHAHAHAHA! math humor. You gotta love it.

So it's Pi Day. Get it? 3.14? March 14? Math geeks get ridiculously excited about silliness like this. Just like October 23rd is Mole Day. OK this one might be a little harder, but if you think of Avogadro and his constant, another of the most important mathematical constants, you should be able to get it.

So yeah. I'm a geek. And I tried to think what kind of pie geeks would eat. And I came up with a few ideas. The Statistics and Math geeks I hung out with in college tended to drink a lot, party hard, and stay up the entire night before an exam eating pizza, drinking beer and learning the concepts of multi-variable calculus from the smartest girl in class who happened to be stoned at the time. She's now a very good math professor, but I'm not telling where.
Geeks like to drink. My friend S has an aeronautical engineering degree and works on tertiary Internet systems. I don't even understand what that means, and she's explained it to me numerous times. She is the Queen Geek. And in the days were both single we could get plowed on some very nice wine or good quality beer.

My whole family seems to be engineers and they all like to drink. Seriously, Mom, Dad, Step dad, Uncle J., Uncle J., Uncle T., Grandpa, Papa, Great Uncle Bernard. These are a bunch of engineers who all like their booze. Heck some of them were deans of engineering at very good schools. I should point out here before Mom gets annoyed that to say they like their booze does NOT mean that they are all alcoholics.

My sister Super G is also a major geek. She actually graduated from college in 4 years (it took me 10- my geekdom didn't come easy) and she has a combined math and Spanish literature bachelors degree, and a master's degree in education. She teaches high schoolers in Brooklyn mathematical concepts like spacial geometry through quilting. She also likes her booze.

And the Brain. Yeah, he's a lawyer. But did you know he was a mechanical engineer before he became a lawyer? It's really funny coming from a family of engineers, because I can recognize that he THINKS like an engineer. He approaches problems logically and in a step by step fashion. Analyzing away. He, the love of my life, is a big geek. He also really likes his bourbon.
So today for Pi Day, I made a Bourbon Pie. Yes, you read that right. I didn't know it existed either. I happened to be leafing through the Joy of Cooking last night, wishing I was more prepared because a pot pie cannot be eaten on a Friday in Lent. And although I found a Fish Pie recipe, I wasn't quite that brave. So Bourbon it is.

The decision was cemented when I went to the doctor today and he surpassed my worst case scenario. My surgery is set for March 25th. The best case would be a little teeny surgery. But they measured me for a brace while I was in the office. And given what the doctor implied, most likely I'm looking at months on crutches.

Bourbon it is.

Bourbon Chocolate Pie
sort of from The Joy of Cooking

One 9 inch prebaked pie shell in pan.*

4 large eggs
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup honey
5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp bourbon
2 oz. dark chocolate chips
2 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
2 oz. white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, corn syrup, honey, butter, salt and bourbon. Mix in all of the chocolate. Pour into prepared pie shell. Bake for 35 minutes until the pie is set. Cool the pie until firmed. Slice and serve.

I topped mine with Black Walnut Ice Cream.

* I purchased my pie shell, so I'm not eligible for the Pi Day Pie Roundup at Kitchen Parade. Go check it out though. There are some really yummy pies listed.

Oh Yeah They're FIERCE!

CB over at I heart Cuppycakes and Andrea over at Born to Entertain are hosting a "fierce" cupcake challenge. See it's inspired by this designer on Project Runway who reminds me of a gay little boy version of Paris Hilton. Fairly amusing. Fairly annoying. But as I've been feeling a little on the fierce side of life myself as of late I decided this was one I was going to get in the spirit with.

So here they are. My super fierce, oh yeah, oh no I didn't cupcakes. These luscious and yet kicky treats aren't taking crap from anyone. They aren't too sweet and have one heck of a bite. What's more, they get on with their fierce selves in full makeup and the utmost in fashion footwear. They're also fierce 'cause they aren't afraid to speak their minds. Good luck getting to shut them up in fact. There were 4 of them, but Roxanne plunged to her death in the hot oven rather than be objectified by the masses. She's still haunting me to this day.


Lola

Sophia

and Veronica

And really it's a good thing there were originally only 4 of them. If there were say 18 or 20 I might just have to eat them all myself. They were so very delicious. And yet kicky. (This is actually the first thing I've made out of this cookbook and it worked out really well!) And this was what getting their picture taken was like...



Really Fudgy Fierce Cupcakes
adapted loosely from Small Batch Baking

4 Tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 ounce semisweet chocolate chips
1 Tbsp yogurt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
yolks of 2 medium eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp Hershey Special Dark cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. and prepare 4 muffin cups.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave just until melted and set aside until cool, but still soft.
Whisk together the yogurt, egg yolks, buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl.
Place the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, cayenne, and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl. Add the butter and half the yogurt mixture. Beat with a hand mixer until combined. Pour in the melted chocolate and the remaining yogurt mixture and beat for about 1 1/2 minutes until well blended.
Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake the cupcakes until a tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. About 20 minutes.

Fierce Chocolate Ganache

1/4 cup chocolate chips
2 Tbsp heavy cream
2 pinches cayenne pepper

Place the chocolate chips in a little bowl. Add the 2 pinches of cayenne to the heavy cream and heat in the microwave until hot, but not bubbling. Pour the cream mixture into the little bowl and let sit for a little bit to let the chocolate melt. Stir to combine.

To assemble:

The cupcakes will have developed a divot in the center of each cupcake. Pour the chocolate ganache into the indents to create the open mouth of the screaming cupcakes. Wait until the chocolate has set. This is the hard part. Once the chocolate has set use decorating icing to create a mouth, eyes, lips, and teeth. Further embellish with sprinkles and jimmies.

Chocolate Sandwiches

I came home tonight alone. The Brain is working late and has already eaten. It's a Friday in Lent and being a Catholic, there was to be no meat eating for me. Not that I really think it brings me closer to God because we eat beef so rarely. But we're Catholic, so it's what we do.

To top it off, I didn't really feel like cooking tonight, maybe I'm coming down with something. So I made a tuna sandwich and munched on some potato chips. Oh the glamour that is my life. I was sitting there, quite contented really, watching 2 1/2 Men which has to be my favorite show with the possible exception of Iron Chef America, when my sweet tooth hit in a big way. There I was, wanting, no needing dessert. And we don't seem to have any regular flour in the house.

Thus baking was out of the question. Because I just didn't feel like going to the grocery store. I mean I have to go tomorrow anyway and if I go tonight I might just buy some really bad, but delicious food that I like to stay away from. Processed food. BAD food. Like pizza rolls. So I raided the cupboards. I don't have any stale "hearth style" bread so Butterscotch Bread Pudding from Small Batch Baking was out. Regular, non-bread Pudding takes 2 hours to chill and I don't have that kind of time before I have to go back to the other house to play with the doggies. I mean house sit.

What I did find when I went through the cupboards and the pantry was part of my loaf of cocktail bread that I made these delicious sandwiches out of, about half a bag of chocolate chips, half a bag of white chocolate chips, Nutella, some walnuts, and peanut butter. I decided to make some sweet sweet sandwiches. Mmmmmmm sandwiches. Through some delicious trial and error I came up with 3 separate sandwiches that I suggest with a cold glass of milk. White chocolate walnut, chocolate peanut butter, and Nutella. There is no real recipe, it's more like playing when you were a kid in the kitchen.

White Chocolate Walnut

Basically butter one side of two pieces of bread, place one slice of bread butter side down in a hot little skillet, then put some white chocolate chips on top of the bread. Sprinkle the bread with chopped walnuts and place another piece of bread on top buttered side up. Cook over medium heat until the chips are a little melty and the bread is a little browned on the bottom. Flip over and cook until the other piece of bread is browned and the chips are melted.

Nutella

Again, butter one side of two pieces of bread and place one slice of bread butter side down in the pan. Spread the bread carefully with Nutella. Place the second piece of bread butter side up and cook until both sides of the sandwich are browned (flipping halfway through cooking) and the Nutella is all melty.

Chocolate Peanut Butter

And again butter one side of two pieces of bread and place one slice of bread butter side down in the pan. Spread the bread carefully with peanut butter and then place as many chocolate chips on the peanut butter as you can. Place the second piece of bread butter side up and cook the same as the white chocolate walnut sandwich.

Tomorrow is another Chardonnay

So this month the lovely Laurie at Quirky Cupcake and her lovely cohost Tempered Woman are hosting Cupcake Hero Liquor. I believe I've mentioned this already. Yes, yes, I've already entered the oh so delicious Blackberry Cabernet Cupcakes. And although massive butt-kissing can't possibly hurt my chances of being declared the next cupcake hero, I really have more humanitarian motives. Although Quirky Cupcake and Tempered Woman are really great blogs and you, yes I'm talking to YOU there, should go check them out.

It occured to me last weekend at a family gathering where my one sister in law sat there drinking her white wine while the rest of the women drank red. Some women do not like red wine. Some women actually prefer a WHITE wine. This got me to thinking. It became clear that I would just have to buckle down and make a Chardonnay cupcake. I had a 4 pack of Chardonnay at home. But what goes with Chardonnay. Besides fish. and chicken.

It took me a long time to think of it, but finally I persevered. I decided I would have to do a fruit and most of the fruits that I thought of would fall under the "yucky fruit" list: mangoes, kiwi, strawberries. Finally I decided on pear. pear falls decidedly below apples and blackberries, just above oranges, and is way way better than kiwi. I would make Pear Chardonnay Cupcakes!

They turned out delicious! The wine taste mingled with the pear taste and the resulting cupcakes turned out lightly fruity. In a good way. When I gave them to testers, they spent some time trying to figure out what the flavor was exactly. They were also impressed that I could make a tasty cupcake out of a fruit I don't really like, and a wine I don't drink often. Interesting enough I have a mostly full jar of pear juice that the Brain isn't terribly fond of either if anyone wants it, or can suggest a good use for it.

Today is also my mom's birthday. She's 65 and a lot of fun. She has 7 kids and 5 grandkids. She's working on 3 different quilts right now. In fact, she's in the other room quilting away. She's a really intelligent great lady, so this batch of cupcakes went to her instead of birthday cake. She really likes them. OH yeah and check out her blog over here. It's pretty funny and very short. Happy Birthday Mom!

Pear Chardonnay Cupcakes

Cupcakes:
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup Chardonnay
1/2 bosc pear, peeled and chopped small

Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, mix butter sugar and eggs until smooth and creamy; add the vanilla and mix well.
In a small bowl, mix baking powder and flour; add to creamed mixture.
Add white wine and mix well, but be carefull not to overmix. Add chopped pears.
Scoop batter into prepared muffin tins and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool completely on wire racks

Frosting:
1/2 cup pear juice
1/4 cup Chardonnay
1 Tbsp dark brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
3 oz. cream cheese
4 c. powdered sugar

Mix the pear juice, Chardonnay, and dark brown sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer uncovered until mixture is reduced to 1/4 cup and is thick and syruppy. Set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl cream together butter and cream cheese. Add powdered sugar carefully and beat well. Pour thickened pear Chardonnay syrup into mixing bowl and beat until well combined. Frost cupcakes and enjoy.

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies

Do you remember that stupid sappy movie from the '70s "Love Story" where Ali McGraw tells Ryan O'Neal that "Love means never having to say you're sorry"? Well she was wrong. Duh. But love means constantly saying your sorry.

For example you may find yourself one evening reading a book, like We Need to Talk About Kevin, and then you suddenly find yourself saying things like "I'm so sorry my darling husband who never used up a box of bandaids before meeting me, that my streak of athletic ineptness and general accident prone-ness has rubbed off on you. I'm sorry that I pushed you to find outlets for your frustration with starting your own business, and that I encouraged you to go and play raquetball." This sort of thing will then continue as you say, "I'm sorry I can't avoid all the potholes on the 2 mile journey to the ER and I really don't mean to make this such a bumpy drive." And on into the night as you helplessly say, "I'm sorry I don't know how to make you more comfortable, I have experience with all kinds of injuries, but when it comes to shoulders I know squat."

So yes, love means having to say you're sorry. A lot. After a mostly sleepless night, the only good thing was I finished my book. I recommend it. And the Brain is finally just now starting to dose on and off. It was necessary for me to throw my lenten resolution of not eating sweets right out the window. Whoo. I made it almost one whole day. Usually I'm way better at this giving things up for lent thing.

I made these luciously rich and tasty Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies. They're a decadent dark chocolate cookie with just a hint of peanut butter that are studded with semi-sweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. The inspiration came after reading Peabody's blog about Peanut Butter World Peace Cookies, but I wanted something chewier. The first time I made them, the next morning I had 7 for breakfast and promptly packed them up and took them over to my friends at Catholic Charities. The lovely ladies at Catholic Charities have become my dumping ground for baked goods. They don't seem to mind. Although rumor has it there was a skirmish when it came to the last cookie in the bag. Fortunately about half of these cookies will go to another friend of the Brain and I who just had his knee replaced. So we'll only have to contend with half of these oh so delicious little addictive morsels. Perhaps they should be called crack cookies...

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies

an original recipe

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cups Hershey Special Dark Cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter

1/4 cup peanut butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 bag peanut butter chips

1/2 bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Stir together flour, cocoa, soda and salt in medium mixing bowl. Beat butter, peanut butter, and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfull (or small cookie scoop) onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 8 to 9 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies will be sort. They puff while baking and flatten upon cooling. Cool slightly then remove from cookie sheet to cool completely on wire rack.

Tradition, Quilts, and Flaming Desserts

Christmas this year was a big occasion. Christmas every year is big. When you have 3 brothers, 2 sisters, 3 stepbrothers, and 1 stepsister, every occasion is a big occasion. Christmas fortunately is split into 2 days for my side of the family. My dad and my stepmom always have the Brain and I over to celebrate Christmas and my stepbrothers and their wives are terrific people and we all get along great. This year was a little different than usual and I'll post on that later.

Christmas at my mom and my stepdad's house happens every Christmas Eve. My mom is big on tradition, and just like when I was a little girl at my grandmother's house, we celebrate with a big fancy dinner on Christmas Eve. We have pickled herring as a starter and it is always my job to cut the pickled herring into bite sized pieces. I LOVE pickled herring and frequently feast on it while cutting it into pieces. Then we have a delicious meal with green bean casserole and twice baked potatoes. Last year we had a crown roast of pork. This year we had chicken cordon blue. My stepdad is a really really good cook.

After we've eaten dinner on the fine china and we are all stuffed to the gills, the adults all help clean up all the dishes, put away one of the extra dinner tables (12 adults and 4 children need two tables), and get things ready. One adult gets the job of working the DVD player and keeping the kids occupied with a Christmas video and somehow Santa always comes to our house first on Christmas Eve. After the dishes are done and the adults are finished cleaning up from dinner, Santa yells "HO HO HO!" and slams the front door. By the time the kids get to the door he's all gone, but he's left a mammoth pile of presents under the tree. It's really cute.

Then we draw presents from youngest to oldest where you can't pick a present for yourself, it has to be for someone else. This way we all get to see what everyone else got. Opening presents can get a little tedious and has lasted well into the wee hours of the night. Not so much now that the adults all draw names so we have far less presents under the tree.

This year, my favorite present is a quilt my mom made the Brain and I. It is a quilt that I started with her and I put 4 squares together. Now that I have a sewing machine and I have successfully put together my apron I was ready to finally come up to Michigan and collect the quilt pieces and do it myself and maybe sometime this century I'd have it finished. Apparently when Mom made our wedding quilt, we had asked for king sized, she felt bad because it is much bigger than our bed. So over the summer she finished the melon ball quilt I had started. Quilts are really hard work and I was teasing my sisters that Mom likes me best because I got 2 quilts in one year. The wedding quilt is the picture here and the Christmas quilt is the one above this paragraph.

After all the presents were unwrapped, we had dessert. Dessert, as tradition dictates, is Rice Bavarian. Rice Bavarian is a delicious dessert of whipped cream and rice and gelatin. it's really really tasty. Then on top we pour brandied cherries and light them on fire. My grandpa would always put loads of brandy in it so it would really flame high. Grandpa was quite the character. As our family has grown bigger we now also accommodate the vegan and lactose intolerant members of our family with a pineapple upside down cake made without milk or eggs. But really it's all about the flaming Rice Bavarian.

Rice Bavarian
Dorothy Hunter

1 1/2 pints whole milk
lemon peel*
1/2 cup rice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 oz granulated (unflavored) gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup heavy cream whipped

Put milk and lemon peel in double boiler, when hot, stir in well washed rice and salt. Cook until rice is perfectly tender. Add to hot cooked rice; flavoring, sugar, and gelatin which has been dissolved in water. Mix carefully.
When mixture is beginning to set, fold in cream, whipped stiff. Pour into mold and chill.

"Grandma like to use canned cherries mixed with Cherry Kiafa and set aflame."

* What can I say, it's another family recipe. I asked my mom how much lemon peel and she pulled out of jar and added a couple shakes.

Cherry Kiafa is some kind of cherry liquor. Something with a high proof burns the best.

My Log

So I joined this super group of Daring Bakers. The whole reason I started a blog was because I wanted to join this really cool group of bakers who stretch themselves with exciting and difficult pursuits. They have secret rituals too. And a really cool logo. Its like a cross between two of my favorite things. Baking and James Bond. It is entirely possible that I may have been humming dum da da dum da da da dum da da dum, (the James Bond theme song) while I read our super secret instructions. To make a Yule Log.

Of course making a yule log has never been high on my list of things to do while trying to get everything else done before Christmas. I mean, really, I make a ton of Christmas cookies to send to my friends, and now apparently to the Brain's good referral sources, and then I try to make a gingerbread house. And we can't forget the sauerkraut balls. And frankly, rolling up a cake sort of scared me. After watching Tyler Florence screw up rolling a cake on Iron Chef America (love that show) I was more than nervous that the cake would crack up and die.

So I soaked it brandy. OK maybe soaking isn't right. I brushed the outside of the cake with brandy and then I flipped it over and brushed the other side. Then I rolled it up around a dishtowel on one side and parchment paper on the other and left it for the night because I completely forgot to take the butter out of the fridge and let it get super soft and squishy so the frosting/filling would turn out OK. Cold butter = ruined frosting. There's a lot of Daring Bakers who could tell you that. The next day, the butter was soft, the frosting came together beautifully. The cake unrolled and rolled back up again. I was SO relieved!

Then came the hard part. The meringue mushrooms. Perhaps I've mentioned the effects of humidity in my cozy little house. It makes things squishy. Meringue mushrooms are not supposed to be squishy. I made the tops and the bottoms and they were great. I put a couple together with melted chocolate and satisfied everything would be OK, I went to bed. The next morning I went to take a shower and brushed my robe against the tray of mushroom bottoms and realized I had half a dozen mushroom parts stuck to my robe. They were tasty, but they were squishy. I reread the recipe and realized I was supposed to store them in an airtight container. So I stuck them back in the oven for a while and then popped them into a Ziploc. Problem solved.

I happily decorated the log with snowflake sprinkles and some cacoa nibs (like little wood chips) and my meringue mushrooms. I like to think its like a log in winter.

And now came the SUPER challenge. Today was my grandmother's 90th birthday party. In Michigan. We live in Ohio. 2 hours away. (well the way we drive). So now I had to transport this log. And not kill it. I stuck toothpicks in it so the cling wrap wouldn't mess up the frosting. I packed spare mushroom parts and the leftover frosting.

I held it carefully in my lap the whole drive up. I may be stretching the truth here, I did fall asleep after Toledo for a couple of snores. Once here I unwrapped, fixed a couple mushrooms and tidied it up. After cracking several jokes with my sister G about wanting to see my log, we declared it done. I'm pretty darn pleased with myself. I thought that there was the distinct possibility that I would completely bomb this challenge. Whew!

You can get the recipe for the Yule log here. The only changes I made is that I stuck the mushroom parts together with chocolate and later frosting, and I added 2 oz. of melted bittersweet 62% chocolate to the buttercream because my sister M was annoyed at the lack of chocolate in the yule log.

Check out the rest of the Daring Bakers here. There's something like 300 people posting about Yule Logs between today and tomorrow.