bridal-stravaganza dessert trio

One of my very good friends recently married.  This was not her first marriage so she decided to keep the ceremony short and sweet and very very small.  I was one of two non-family members invited.  But even though this was the second time around and she and he were already living together in a well established, well furnished household, some of my work friends and I decided to hold a bridal shower type event for her.  Initially, I was planning to bring a pasta salad (which in retrospect would have been SO much less work than what I did), but I found out there was going to be a green salad and a potato salad and probably wouldn't have been much need for a pasta salad.  So I fell back on dessert, which is where I always seem to end up with these types of things.
It did not help that the week of the shower eastern Massachusetts weather decided to be around 80-90 degrees with 70% and up humidity.  And my kitchen has almost no ventilation of any kind.  It was like baking in a sauna.  I would hurriedly sweat my tookis off and shove something in the oven and quickly retreat to the dark cool of my bedroom.  It took me the better part of two days to make three desserts this way.

First were key lime cupcakes with blackberry buttercream.  I ended up making both of these on day one and decided to assemble right before leaving for fear of melting (which I was ultimately right to fear).  Day two I made red velvet cake truffles and strawberry brown butter bettys.  The truffles sounded SO easy, but were a pain.  The bettys sounded painful, but ended up being so so simple.  Go figure.  Initially I wasn't going to make the bettys, I had the ingredients for a no-bake chocolate mint bar, but realized at the last minute that I might want to make something that wouldn't melt.

So the cake truffles.  I had SUCH high hopes for these, but they seriously left me wanting.  Maybe it was because I cheated and used canned frosting?  Who knows?  I felt ok in using box cake mix (I actually have no issues with box cake mix, though I will go from scratch 60% of the time, I have HUGE issues with canned frosting as I have mentioned before.  BLECCCHHH!!!!)  Basically all I did was bake the cake, cool the cake, crumble the cake up into a very fine crumb, mix the cake with a can of frosting so that it was moist-ish and would hold a shape, roll cake balls, chill and set cake balls for several hours in the fridge and then dip cake balls into melted chocolate.  I think my first issue was that I needed more chocolate than I had; I think it would have been easier and neater looking if I was able to completely submerge the cake ball.  My second issue was trying to cut corners and melt the chocolate in the microwave (which I find never works as well as a double boiler).  My third issue was kind of a generalized problem I have when it comes to baking (especially when making cookies) - when I have to form things by hand I get really lazy and start making things too big.  My final issue was something I should have recognized before even attempting this - my chocolate melting issue.  Any time I am in a hurry to do something my chocolate NEVER EVER EVER tempers/melts properly.    If I can take my time with it, it comes out beautifully.

So clearly bridal stravaganza is complete.  I have sufficiently celebrated them (for the time being - they are having a much larger reception/party in August).  And I'm happy for them.  I am the one, after all, who forced them to suck it up and get together in the first place because I knew they were both interested in the other and I was tired of chasing sketchy guys away from her when we would go out to the bar.  I told him to man up and get off his ass and if he wanted her to do something about it already.  And here it is almost a year later and they're married.

The man in my life of course accompanied me to the wedding and pointed out that while I am happy, I will probably not be sincerely happy for anyone getting married until I do the same.  This is probably truer than he realizes as I've lost out on the whole wedding/marriage thing once before when my ex-fiance had a mental bipolar breakdown.  And as much as I love my guy and believe that good things are headed for us down the road (we're moving in together by August 1st), I have kind of lost or given up or buried that idea of a wedding, etc.  I honestly don't care if I ever get married as long as I feel like he'll always be there and be reliable and love me and father my children someday.  I've given up the dream of the white dress and the party and everything that goes with that because last time I was that excited and happy and secure in something I lost it.  Not only did I lose that, I lost almost everything else in my life structurally speaking.  It has definitely taken me sometime to come to terms with that and accept the fact that my path will be bumpier than I anticipated.  I'm actually really scared of getting engaged this time around, even though I can picture the two of us having a strong marriage.  Almost like, once that happens I'll lose everything again.  Put it this way: I want the marriage, the strong permanent relationship and everything good and bad that goes with it.  The idea of a wedding scares me and just seems too surreal.  I mean even after I was engaged the first time, my ex basically flat out refused to discuss any tangible wedding plans with me, no date, no location, no number of guests, etc.  To the point where I had given up trying to get him to talk about it and anytime I told anyone that I was engaged I was almost more embarrassed than had I been single.  We were engaged for over a year before he ultimately broke it off.  I had actually reached the point of thinking "What's the point of being engaged if we're never actually going to get married?"  I was actually the first among all my friends to get engaged.  Now they're almost all married, and I'm not.  Very, very rarely this fact bothers me.  The vast majority of days I'm thankful I'm not married to the other guy (and bound to a lifetime of stress and trouble and his mental illness that he refused to properly address) and that I have found my current guy - someone who has told me that I am his soul mate and better half.

.i am tired.

I am tired of  alot of things.  Tired of not having enough money.  Tired of feeling like crap.  Tired of hiding things from people (and no it is nothing like an affair - suffice to say my boyfriend is one of a handful of people who knows the whole story and has supported me through it).  Tired of trying to make things in my life better and getting stonewalled at every turn.  One step forward and two steps back.  Something like that.
Now I know it is not an attractive quality to constantly engage in your own personal pity party.  And I know that there are oodles of people that have it worse than I do.  I openly acknowledge that I am not facing starvation, natural disasters, or third world death squads.  Further, I don't even have to live at home with my parents and listen to them harp on my "wonderful" life choices.  But I do know that everyone is allowed to really feel and perhaps wallow in the various burdens and stresses in their lives.  And I recently dealt with circumstances that has given me pause to really feel bad for myself and examine the various misfortunes I've either invited into my life or that have otherwise befallen me.
Don't get me wrong, I love my life and despite floundering and struggling as I have in the past three or so years, I would probably not choose another way.  My family is always there, my friends (some of whom I've met through this nontraditional path) are tremendous, and the man in my life loves me and accepts me no matter what and pretty much always will; he is a pillar of strength, love, and support.  He is my light in even my darkest hours, and trust me the hours have been pretty dark these past couple of weeks.
But here is to hoping that I am slowly pushing through to the light, and there is a new apartment, a new job, and a more serious romantic relationship waiting for me on the other side.  Because let me tell you.  I deserve something good right about now.

And I never did tell you about my cake, did I?
Check this place out for the general gist of the recipe.  Seriously so good if you like a light and sweet cake.  And non chocolate.  Also majorly labor intensive, but very impressive looking.  Definitely a celebration cake.

Letting them finally have some cake.

So, my brother's wedding has come and gone, and yesterday was my birthday, so the cake fast is officially broken.  Though there was some slight bending of the rules last weekend when I had Sunday dinner with the boy's parents.

The boy is a choc-o-holic, and firmly believes that there is pretty much no point to cake unless it is chocolate (he told me my birthday cake, which I'll get to, was a waste of cake), so I decided to rally up and make some cupcakes for Sunday dinner.

Triple Chocolate Cupcakes

-1 Box chocolate cake mix (devil's food, milk chocolate, your choice)
-3 Eggs
-1/3 cup veg oil
-1 1/4 cup chocolate milk
-1 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
-1/2 cup  heavy cream

Mix together cake mix, eggs, oil, and chocolate milk (I made mine with dark chocolate syrup) and set aside.
Melt half a cup of the chips in the microwave and then stir in 1 cup of the cake batter, transfer this batter to a ziploc bag (quart size or larger)
Place a spoonful of the regular cake batter in your paper lined cups.  Snip a corner off your ziploc bag and squeeze a layer of the extra chocolate-y batter over each of the cup cakes, top each off with more of the regular cake batter.  Bake 20-25 min (although the original recipe claims it will only take 12 minutes, no freaking way).  Let cool 10 minutes before moving onto the ganache portion of our show.

For the ganache put the heavy cream into a sauce pan and heat on very low and add in the chips until they melt, stirring continuously.  Be careful not to turn things up too high or you will burn this mixture very easily and it will not be tasty.  After it is melted, take each of the cupcakes and dip them into the chocolate & cream mixture.  And let cool (preferably in the fridge).  Definitely store these in the fridge if you're making them when it's warm out because I can see the ganache getting very melty.

The birthday cake story will follow shortly.

everyone i know is getting married and having babies. i'm just making ridiculous cookies

Oh boy.  I am totally going to have to go on a healthy [cooking] kick after this recipe.  Because this is some serious uber indulgence going on right now.  And I have to give credit where credit is due: I am totally cribbing from Peabody.  She is definitely my go to girl for seriously indulgent sweets.  And I felt like I needed/deserved a little indulgence in my life (especially after making the fat free muffins this morning - which are actually seriously good.  I have to give a plug here for Krusteaz fat free muffin mixes.  So tasty, you'd never know there was no fat in it.)  So I made cookies and cream cookies.  Now I know it seems like a waste of perfectly good cookies (double stuff oreos to be exact), but it just sounded so good and perfect.  And I like cookies and cream flavored things (like ice cream) but actually kind of hate cream filled cookies - oreos, specifically.  I think it originated from a fear regarding my appearance after eating them (hello, being thirteen with black junk stuck in your braces.    Totally embarrassing.).  But, never the less, there will be some heading over to my parents' house tomorrow night to be judged by the connoisseur of cookies, my father.

Cookies and Cream Cookies

1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
10 Double Stuff Oreos
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour

Peabody calls for a bag of Hershey's Cookies 'n' Cream drops, but my local grocery store didn't have them.  I substituted that for 3/4 of a bag of cookies 'n' cream miniatures which had both white chocolate with cookie pieces and milk chocolate with cookie pieces.  Basically the only part I didn't use was the plain milk chocolate  miniatures.  And I chopped each one into thirds.

I am fortunate enough to have access to a stand mixer, which makes life infinitely easier.  Basically the way I listed the ingredients is the way they go in.  Start with your butter at room temp, if it's not nuke it for 30 sec or so to soften it just a little.  Cream butter and sugar and vanilla until it is fluffy.  Add in Oreos and mix until they are broken down into small pieces.  I didn't necessarily believe that they would break down in the mixer, but low and behold they totally did.  Then add your eggs one at a time and allow them to mix in between.  Then toss in your dry ingredients.  Finally remove your bowl from the mixing stand and fold in your chocolate, be it drops or miniatures.  Honestly, the batter on this one is almost better than the actual cookie - it reminded me of super concentrated cookies 'n' cream ice cream flavor.  So good.

This recipe is kind of beautiful because it is a one bowl wonder.  I LOVE stuff like that.  Especially when I am the primary kitchen cleaner in my apartment.    That is pretty much my domain where cleaning comes into it.  The dining room is the female roommate's domain, their bedroom is up to them, the bathroom is shared between she and I, and for the most part the living room is all them.  So yeah, the less stuff I dirty in the kitchen, the better.  And trust me, I dirtied plenty of stuff when I made dinner.

Cake Doctoring

So I know I called a moratorium on cake eating a little while ago, at least until my birthday/my brother's wedding, but I forgot something - one of my very good friend's birthdays.  I found out last week that nobody was planning on making a cake for the party that she was having this past Wednesday.  So I felt that this was a tragedy and offered.  She requested red velvet cake and as I am pro from scratch cake I figured piece of cake (hahahaha, see what I did there?).  Until I checked my bank account.  (Yikes, that is a scary place).  And so I was going to compromise, I was going to do box mix cake and homemade frosting, because honestly I don't have too many bones with box mix cake as much as I find frosting from a can to be utterly revolting  (which considering how much I've been accused of being a sugar addict is kind of strange).  I went to the store only to discover that my particular store of choice does not carry a red velvet box mix, and I really couldn't muster the motivation (or the gas in my car) to go on a multi-store search.  So I re-evaluated.  I found a chocolate mousse cake mix.  Now there was something I could work with because there would be no canned frosting involved (!!!).  And because I felt guilty that I wasn't delivering exactly what was asked of me I compensated by also making two dozen funfetti cupcakes which did unfortunately get the canned frosting because I know some people like that junk.

So the chocolate mousse cake was pretty much your standard chocolate cake mix although I couldn't for the life of me get it to release from the pans.  I found a handy tip/trick from Bon Appetite online and totally warrants sharing.  Now this only works for metal or non stick pans (do NOT do this with glass pans unless you would like them to shatter or otherwise get ruined).  But if your cake was stuck (like mine were), you can turn a burner on your stove on (gas or electric works, but if it is electric give it a chance to heat up).  And pass the bottom of the cake pan through the flame or on the hot burner for several seconds.  Then when you flip it and shake it should finally release (though still slightly unwillingly).  So the cake gets made, the mousse mix gets made and as I'm inspecting my mousse mix and the cake mix box I realize that there is only enough mousse to go on top of and in between the cake layers.  I consider that this will probably be fine and then I consider that my cake had some stickage problems and is a little unsightly.  I want to put mousse mix on the outside edges too I decide, which means one of two things - I can run out and by another box of just chocolate mousse mix and hope that it matches in flavor and consistency to the one I already have or two I can find something else to put in between the layers, thus giving me enough mousse mix to put around the sides and hiding my cake's flaws.  I opt for door number two.  So I open the fridge and stare blankly into its portents and unearth some "fancy" jam (I call it fancy because it is a) not Smuckers and b) costs around 7 or 8 dollars a jar) which is my favorite type of jam to bake with (hello jam cookies!) because it is usually thicker and stands up to heat better than say Smuckers.  So I now have the better half of a jar of fancy red raspberry jam (I used Stonewall Kitchen jam, I love love love this stuff).  I dump the entire contents of the jam jar onto the bottom layer of the cake and spread it around with an offset spatula.  Now bear in mind this jar was not full, although I think an entire jar of jam would work well on a 9" cake, because I ultimately found myself wanting more jam when I had a piece.  Then I slapped on layer number two and slathered the whole thing with chocolate mousse et voila a chocolate raspberry chocolate mousse cake!  I grabbed a bottle of raspberry wine that was sitting around my room (which paired PERFECTLY, don't knock fruit wines until you try them) and served that up for a semi homemade cake doctored birthday dessert.  It was definitely a huge hit.

marinading

So it is currently very early.  Or late.  Either way really.  But I should have guessed that I would be awakened by my bladder at such an hour...it's what I get for consuming three cans of fresca right before bed.  The worst part is I technically need to be up in two hours to shower and get ready for work.  And I'm pretty sure I won't get back to sleep until maaaaybe a half hour before I have to get up.  Silly really.

But that is not why I'm writing.  You ever have a culinary moment where you are just like "Arrrgghh!  Why didn't I write that down?"  Last night in my post boyfriend, post work tiredness I made some chicken that was delicious.  And I have no idea how to re-create that deliciousness.  I stuck the chicken in a ziploc with some marinade that I concocted on Friday and it was so good.  All I can remember are ingredients, but the ratios, forget about it.  Oh, and the boy was indeed victim of the waffle maker and my need to feed (others).  And it was something he actually ate and seemed to enjoy.

Tasty Chicken Marinade
(amounts....who freaking knows)
-soy sauce
-white vinegar
-peanut sauce
-basil pesto mustard
-frank's buffalo wing sauce
-a very small amount of bbq sauce
-a small amount of agave nectar
-canola oil

-I do specifically remember that there was nothing dry in the marinade...no salt, pepper, garlic powder, nothing of that nature.  I do remember thinking....ok, I have my acid, my oil, some heat, some salt, and some sweet to balance it....all the major components of a marinade.  I know that this made tasty tasty chicken, so I'll probably use these things again, but in completely different amounts.  And it will still probably be tasty.  And I will still probably not write it down.  Because I almost never NEVER write down marinades, I never seek out other people's recipes for them, I just follow that basic equation (acid + oil + flavor ...and in this case I made sure my flavor was balanced between salt, heat, and sweet).  And usually as long as you keep them in relatively similar amounts (like do not have waay more acid than flavor) you should end up with something pretty tasty

.waffles and family.

Just so you don't think I've been slacking, there have been things happening in my kitchen.  Most of those things involve cleaning and running the dishwasher, but there have also been some culinary achievements.  The greatest thing I think that has happened is my on going affair with my waffle iron.  I received said waffle iron from my brother and SIL to be this past Christmas and had left it at my parents' house for a little while.  Then it made it's way over here, but I could never convince myself to break into it.  Until last week that is.  Last week we had cinnamon waffles (which needed more sugar and maybe some vanilla from my point of view, although my roommates contend that I am just sugar crazy), and yesterday I whipped up a batch of banana waffles which were delightful.  Now I have some more bananas sitting on my counter getting browner by the hour, which leaves me trying to figure out the next baked good I can shove them into.  As I recently discovered that the man in my life hates bananas (it's a textural thing for him) but loves banana baked goods.

Speaking of the man in my life I was introduced to the parentals last night.  From my perspective everything went well and they were really nice.  Reminded me alot of my own family in many ways, which though slightly unnerving was ultimately endearing.  But one thing his mom revealed/confirmed my suspicion of is that he is an INCREDIBLY picky eater.  And I thought I was bad with my aversion to raw tomatoes, goat cheese, and meatloaf.  The boy is anti veg, mostly anti fruit, anti food mixtures (like no meat in sauce, and I would guess no casseroles), anti mexican food, and anti pasta (!!! probably the most concerning of all to me).  And he is pro fast/junk food.  This does not bode well for my waistline.  Either that or I will slowly convert him to the beauty of the home cooked meal and the wonderful flavor combinations that you get from casseroles or putting sauce on things.  I suspected he was picky when I had offered numerous times to cook for him and he refused all offers.  That is an unusual occurrence in my experience.  And admittedly I was a little miffed by the rebuffs.  I love cooking for people.  The more elaborate the request the better.  For me it's like "Look at all this hard work and effort I put in just to satisfy you.  See, I can take care of you."  When he rejected my offers it was a little like rejecting my offer of love, and while I didn't really take it to heart (and there are many men/women that would be thrilled to not cook for their significant other) I now understand it so much better.

So now I really have a challenge.  How do I, the queen of sauces and casseroles and composed bites where you get a little bit of every flavor on your fork at once, either adapt my cooking style for him or try to slowly convince him to come around to my style of eating?