Bad Kitchen Day

It's be a super long while since I posted anything on this, but tonight seemed like a night that I should. Since, it was a really bad day in the kitchen :/

What I wanted to make:

A spiced chocolate and strawberry cupcake with chocolate ganache frosting.
A lemon ginger chocolate chip cupcake with hot pink frosting
A lemon ginger cake with lemon curd for my grandma

What I ended up with:
A 9"x13" cake that tastes like a lemonish breakfast
A jar of eggy lemon curd
some boringly frosted, needs to be eaten with a utensil or a lot of napkins, chocolate cupcakes

How it went down:

Started of course with a list a trip to the grocery store. Even with the list and things I wanted on sale, I ended up forgetting something before leaving the store, and then, realize I didn't even have with me something I SWEAR I put in my cart.

Back in the kitchen. The start of the ganache frosting started out well. No problems there. Left it to the side to cool. Then mixed up the devils food cake mix, added some melted butter with coco powder for extra richness and of course a ton of cinnamon for the spiced portion. I went by taste of the batter and thought it seemed ok. In the oven the went, and out they came beautifully.

I prep up the strawberries, washing and cutting off the tops, noming on the ones that are to big to put inside a cupcake. I sprinkle on some sugar and cinnamon and set in the fridge to get all syrupy and juicy.

Started on the lemon ginger. Juiced and zest the lemons and started up the curd. Sugar and juice melted up nicely. Let that sit in the fridge to help cool faster before adding the eggs.

Move on to the second batter. Measure out the dry ingredients, add them to the kitchenaide bowl, stir it up. Go to add my butter, it starts mixing up like it seems, and then, starts looking different then I wanted. Now, it's looking like a dough. WTF? Oh shit, how much butter did I add? How much was I supposed to add? Ok, fudge. To much butter. Maybe make cookies? Well, ok I havent added any eggs yet, so now I'll add some eggs. Now it's looking like a batter?! Um, maybe I was ok with the butter. Check, oh yes! It was right. So I finish adding more eggs then the milk. Now it's like a gross batter. WTF? So, triple check the butter. Yea, I'm a complete idiot. Twice as much butter.

Well, in the name of science, I decide to throw that fucker in the oven anyhow. Grab a 9x13 pan and pop her in. Set the timer. Move back to my curd.

Fuck. To cold now. So, what do I do? Put it back on the stove to warm it up. Warmed up a bit to fast, take it off the heat and add the eggs anyhow. Huh, fudge, despite whipping as fast as I can, I see bits of cooked egg. BLARGH! Keep whipping it, hoping it'll still be fine.

Keep an eye on it until it's getting thicker, but it doesn't really improve. It tastes a little different then from the last time I made it. Umm......

On to finishing the chocolate cupcakes. Even though the ganache was cooled, it wasn't all that thick, definitely not thick enough to put in to a piping bag and make everything all pretty. So I attempt to whip it up to make it thicker. After some quizical looks at the chocolate in the bowl it eventually started getting lighter and thicker. Maybe it would work?

While it was still whipping, I cut out some holes to fit in the strawberries, tasted some of the tops and was bummed that I didn't really taste the cinnamon. Fargo.

Well, cupcakes now with strawberries in them, I checked out the ganache. For serious? Totally not piping consistency. FML. Whatever, I frosted them any how with just a spatula. Now to nom on them.



And now I've got cake crumbs on the floor and chocolate frosting on my face and fingers. So not something you can sell at a bake sale and have people eat. Unless we give them forks. Or a bowl. Or dust busters.

Wait a minute. Oh shit snacks. Who much time is left on the cake? Check the timer on the microwave. End. Oh crap.

Open oven. Eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh. Turn on oven fan. Take it out. Oops. Ummm......I wonder.



Grab fork. Dig out the unburnt part of the cake. Try it out. Ah, what? It tastes like super buttered up pancakes and eggs. For.serious. Then I taste the burnt part. Yum, crispy and sugary. So, that was a win?

Seriously though, bad kitchen day. However, I did finish all the things in queue on my Hulu list while failing in the kitchen. Success!

Almond Joy Cake

I wanted to make a birthday cake for my best

friends birthday and the only ideas she really gave me were, "chocolate, coconut, maybe almond, so maybe like an almond joy?" So of course, why not? I'm still working on the cake part, as I wasn't completely sold on the cake I did end up making.

It's covered in a coconut cream mix, chocolate and fondant.

Having another assignment of bringing cupcakes to an event, I made a cupcake version. I changed up the cake, but still wasn't sold.

Decorating tips for my birthday

My mom has a tackle box for all her cake decorating equipment. She gave me some of my own for my birthday. I heart it. Here's some things I've made in practice with them.

Marshmallow Fondant's first trails

Nearly all cake shows or programs revolving around cakes now include decorating their cakes with fondant. I had no idea what EXACTLY was fondant. I never encountered fondant in real life. Never touched it, never had it on any baked goods, and until recently didn't know you could buy it in stores.

I wanted to know what the story was with fondant and if I could make it at home. Turns out you can. If you melt a bag of marshmallows with some water and add powdered sugar, you'll get

fondant. So as simple as that is, I needed to try it out. I wanted to make some small things to top some cupcakes for a friends birthday.

Working with it and using it definitely comes with a learning curve. I'm slowing getting better :) The pieces for the cupcakes didn't use all the fondant up, so I used it to also decorated some sugar cookies.

Some of my first....

One half of the time I bake things it's for some occasion and the other half is because I want to try a recipe or there are no baked goods in the kitchen to eat. These are a few of either, that are some of the first in me baking things.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes for my cousin's baby shower.

Cake:

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1.2 c milk

1/2 reduced-fat sour cream

3/4 c unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 c sugar

1/2 c creamy peanut butter

3 large eggs

Frosting:

Peanut Butter

1/2 c creamy peanut butter

3 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 c confectioners' sugar

3 to 4 Tbsp milk

Chocolate:

2 c semisweet chocolate chips

1 c reduced-fat sour cream

Oven: 350

Wisk all dry ingredients minus the sugar in one bowl. Wisk milk and sour cream in a second. Cream butter and sugar, add peanut butter until blended. Add eggs one at a time. Alternately add dry and wet ingredients until just blended. Bake for 20 mins.

For the fillings. Beat peanut butter and butter until smooth. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar and milk until blended. Beat until fluffy. Fill cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.

Melt chocolate chips and add sour cream, beat until fluffy. Frost cupcakes and top with a piece of peanut butter cup.

(from Women's day)

Honeybee Cookies to try a recipe using honey. I used honey from a former coworkers' own bee hive. So yummy, they taste like Teddy Grams.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, hone and egg on medium speed, scraping bowl constantly, until smooth.
3. Stir in the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix until just combined.
4. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet. Bake until set and light brown around edges (surfaces of cookies will appear shiny), 7 to 9 minutes. Let stand 3 to 5 minutes before removing cookies to a wire rack to cool.

I wanted to make some Monkey Bread Muffins, but the thing was, I didn't have an premade dough that the recipe calls for. Determined to make it, I set out trying to make my own dough. I tried looking for recipes for plain biscuit dough, but most called for Bisquick or self-raising dough. Still, I had neither. So I turned to google for self-raising dough substitutes and recipes to finally get it down.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup cold butter or margarine
• 3/4 cup milk
• 
  

• 1 teaspoon apple pie spice
• 1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon water

In a bowl, combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With a fork, stir in milk until the mixture forms a ball. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead five to six times.

I was making these as a representation of cynobacteria stromatolites and wanted each ball of the monkey bread to be both blue and green, preferably layers, so I split the biscuit dough into two balls to make one green and one blue. That was split eight times for each of the muffins, then six more for each ball of the monkey bread. I took one green and one blue ball and folded them onto each other a few times to create layers. The dough was rolled into a ball and rolled in the mixture of apple pie spice and white sugar. This was repeated to fill the muffin cups. For the coating, combine the brown sugar, butter, and water in a small saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil, stirring continuously. Allow the mixture to boil until the sugar is completely dissolved, 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon the mixture over the biscuit pieces. Bake in the preheated oven until golden, and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 8 to 12 minutes.

The start of it......

....the start of my interest in baking, cake decorating and now maybe some cake design came from my mom. She used to do it as a hobby for friends or family and I remember one of the first cake's of hers being a big computers. This was back in the first days of computers and an apple was far from as flat as they come now. The keys of the keyboard were made from square caramels. Love.

I picked somethings up from her but now I get my tips and knowledge from different online sources and then practice them in my kitchen.

This blog is to show off what I'm learning, good, bad or indifferent :D