I Scream, You Scream

Well, finally things are heating up here in Salem and its about that time to bust out the flip flops and the rest of the summer wardrobe. This weekend it was about 85, which I thought was a perfect kickoff to ice cream making season. I've never taken part in ice cream making season, but after I just acquired the ice cream attachment to my kitchen aid from Kyle for my birthday, its time I join the rest of the ice cream artists out there. I plan to have a different flavor of ice cream on hand from now until September. I might repeat a few flavors though if I come across one that's just really doing it for me.

I wanted to start out with something basic, as this is my first go at ice cream making. I thought that taking a recipe out of the instruction manual that came with the maker would be a good start because obviously those people know what they're doing. I opted for the plain vanilla - then I would add some fresh strawberries at the end for a nice little juicy surprise.

I wanted my ice cream to be the ultra-creamy variety, so I used a custard based recipe because I hear that's the best kind. If you were hoping for a vegan, fat free, sugar free version - this is not the recipe for you. And if you were looking for a vegan, fat free sugar free version, you have no business calling it ice cream. The recipe starts out with 8 egg yolks and a cup of sugar, blended together. Don't worry the eggs get pasteurized later, so I'm not making some kind of salmonella cream.

Here is where the eggs, sugar, heavy cream and half and half (I told you it wasn't low fat)  get heated until they are very hot but not quite boiling. As you can see, it is no where near ice cream at this point, just a bowl of liquid-y cream. This is where this ice cream becomes a two day process - because you are supposed to chill the base in the fridge for at least 8 hours and stick it in the ice cream maker the next day. However, we already know how I do things, and I decided that 3.5 hours in the fridge and an hour in the freezer was plenty long enough. It was chilled all the way through, so how much cooler was it going to get?

In the ice cream maker she goes, which had been in the freezer for a couple days, thus making up for the lack of time the base spent in the fridge. I spent a good 25 minutes mesmerized by this thing because it started turning to ice cream right before my eyes. Right around the 28 minute mark I threw in some strawberries that had been pulsed one or two times in the blender.

After 30 minutes was up I turned the mixer off. At that point the consistency was pretty thin, like soft serve that started to melt, but that it what is supposed to look like apparently. You just package it up and stick it back in the freezer for another hour or two to really firm up. That's about the time I gave in to this whole two day process thing and went to bed. When I woke up, I had ice cream for breakfast.

This wasn't bad at all for my first rodeo with ice cream. I want to try out some recipes for sure though just to see where this one really stacks up. Ice cream really is the perfect name for this stuff, I just would have liked this one to turn out a little less icy and a little more creamy.

My Rating: B - It's pretty good but I think I can find something I'm going to love even more

Roommate Rating: B - "The flavor was there but I wanted it to be a little more creamy." As did I.

Strawberry Short, Handheld, Portable Cakes

My lack of recent blogging is due partly to the fact that I haven't felt like firing up my broken computer to write a little blurb about something that didn't even turn out that good. However, it is mostly due to the fact that I haven't even made anything blog-worthy lately. My life has consisted of frozen pizzas, vegetable stir fry and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lately. I mean, I guess I could have written about Digiorno vs Freschetta, but come on, no one wants to read that, and everyone knows Digiorno is better anyway. But, we had a potluck at work yesterday which prompted me to get to cooking and in turn, get to blogging. There were about 46 different salads that people had signed up to bring so I didn't want to make #47. We needed a dessert and I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I found this recipe on...you guessed it...Pinterest for Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes. Here is the link to the original recipe. Strawberry Shortcake is my favorite dessert, so if I can make a portable, hand-held, potluck-friendly version, I'm all for it.

 

From this angle it looks like your everyday average cupcake with a strawberry stuck on top, but when you bite into it, that's when the magic happens. 

Not quite strawberry season, but close enough by my standards

 

 

You start by making a pretty regular cupcake batter, except for the large quantities of butter and flour and added baking powder. I guess its really not that regular - but its not quite a shortcake batter (dough?) either - we'll call it a mix between the two. It makes a thick batter that spoons easily into cupcake liners. Bake for 20 minutes and you're in business. Something I learned this go around: I need to invest in another cupcake tin so I don't have to wait 20 minutes, cool, wait 20 minutes, cool, wait 20 minutes until 36 cupcakes are done. 

Once the cupcakes are (finally) cooled, you hollow out the insides. because these babies are about to be stuffed. 

 

Pretty sure I shared this tip once before, but in case I haven't, an icing tip works really well for hollowing out cupcakes. Just shove it in, base side down, and start cranking it in a circle. When you pull it out, it pulls a ball of cake out with it. Then, you can take a tiny spoon, like your 1/8 teaspoon (what else do you really use that for anyway?) and scrape around the edges. You'll notice that some of my strawberries stick up a little higher than the cake but that's not a problem because it will get covered with frosting anyway. 

 The frosting recipe for these is amazing. Its a whipped cream frosting with the addition of cream cheese to make it stand up. The great part is the cream cheese doesn't weigh it down at all, so it still tastes very light and not too sweet. Oh, and another thing I learned: Disposable pastry bags are SO worth the 20 cents per bag. I will never again stand over a sink washing out a stupid pastry bag.

These actually became probably my new favorite cupcake recipe. They look simple enough and they taste like gold, only they won't chip your tooth. We won't talk about the butter and cream content, but that's what makes them so good. 

My rating: A - I will cook them for a minute or so less next time because they ended up almost dry. If they were just a tad more moist then they would be an A+

Co-worker rating: A+ - I believe the phrase "these taste like a bite of Heaven" was used.

Samoa Wannabees

It's one of my favorite times of year. Yes, I love when the flowers start to bloom and the weather warms up, and yes, I love the start of baseball and softball season. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is Girl Scout cookie season.

 

Ever since I was little, I have loved Girl Scout cookies. I don't think there is a kind I don't like. I loved them so much that I joined the Girl Scout one year during cookie season only and then quit immediately after. I wasn't interested in learning how to tie ropes or build fires or whatever else it is they learn. I was there for the cookies. Over the years my favorites have shifted from one cookie to the next. Tagalongs are good, thin mints are even better, but the Samoas are in a league of their own. So when I found a recipe for homemade Samoas you can imagine my excitement. Access to the best cookies out there from my own kitchen, any time of year. 

The recipe was simple. It's a shortbread cookie base, topped with a mixture of melted caramels and toasted coconut, and then dipped and drizzled with dark chocolate (or in my case, milk chocolate). The result was nothing to be upset about. 

The caramel/coconut mixture was spot on. The only place this cookie really differed was in the shortbread department, as real Samoas are much thinner. There is also something about a ring shaped cookie that can't be beat. My mom loved the ones I gave her and my brother had the same critique about the cookie being too thick, but thought they still tasted good. It's hard to compete with the Girl Scouts - they know their cookies. I think I'll stick to the real thing when I can, but for Samoas in October, these will surely do the trick. 

Find the recipe for this, and many other blog entries under the "Recipes" tab at the top of the page. 

Buffalo Wild Flowers

It's President's Day, which means no school, which means no work. I realized it had a been awhile since my last blog and no better day to cook and write than today. I asked for suggestions and thanks to all of my twitter followers I got staggering zero responses! So I texted my sister who has about 25 different ideas stowed away that she wants me to blog about and sure enough she got back to me instantly - requesting buffalo cauliflower bites. Being the Pinterest addict that I have become, I saw these a couple of weeks ago and thought they looked interesting. They are like little boneless buffalo wings sans the chicken.  Any guy reading this may be wondering, what is the point? After all chicken is pretty much the star of buffalo wings. But for us girls, we are intrigued by this. Its all the taste of buffalo wings (well the idea of it anyway) with half of the calories. They are seriously easy to make and taste pretty awesome too!

First thing's first, get a head of cauliflower and chop it up into little bite sized pieces. I haven't worked with cauliflower all that much so I basically just treated it like broccoli. I cut off the stems and left the heads in various chicken-nugget-like sizes.

In a separate bowl, mix 1 C flour, 1 C water and 2 t garlic powder. This is the batter that you'll dip the cauliflower into. You'll notice it uses water rather than milk, keeping the fat and calories to a minimum. I didn't get a picture of this step because the dentist office called, but you just coat the cauliflower and put it on a greased cookie sheet. I used my silpats rather than greasing them and it worked great.

Bake them for 20 minutes at 450 degrees and they will look like this. Nothing special, just battered cauliflower. Take about 3/4 C buffalo sauce and 1 Tbsp  melted butter (these are the only fat calories I swear) and mix them together in a bowl. Thoroughly coat the cauliflower with the sauce and then put them back on the cookie sheet to bake for another 5 minutes.

Serve them with celery sticks and some ranch or blue cheese (the light version of course) and you can fool just about anyone into thinking its chicken. Until they take a bite out of it. Although it doesn't taste like chicken, they really don't taste bad at all. In fact they taste pretty dang good. You still get the crispy outer shell and the spicy buffalo taste without the guilt. Give them a try, chances are you will be pleasantly surprised!

Creme Brulee Cupcakes

My little sister Isabellah's signature cupcake is the "Churro Cupcake." It's basically some kind of cinnamon and sugar concoction that tastes like heaven and everyone raves about. Among the family and friends that have been on the receiving end of our creations, Churro Cupcakes are always some of the highest rated.

Until now.

I may have found something that rivals her Churro Cupcake. Behold...the Creme Brulee Cupcake.

I can thank my hair dresser for this one. We have a fair trade system (not actually that fair at all) between us - she does my hair/and or nails, I make her whatever she wants. I obviously get the better end of the stick, but she seems to think that she gets the best deal so we'll leave it at that. This time around her request was either cupcakes or creme brulee, whichever I felt like making. Knowing that Pinterest has a recipe for virtually anything I type in the search bar, I looked up Creme Brulee Cupcakes and sure enough, there it was. The recipe I used came from here. I had a feeling these were going to be good based on the recipe reviews, but I wasn't sure how good.

Lets start with the cake, this part was easy.

Pretty regular cake ingredients, with the addition of a few tablespoons of caramel syrup. This made the cake a little dulce de leche-esque. Once it was baked it actually tasted a lot like a sugar cookie.

Next step was to hollow out the insides to make room for a ridiculously good cream filling.

Most cupcakes that have a filling usually have a small portion of the cake removed and just a bit of the filling squeezed in there. Since there wasn't going to be a frosting on top of the cupcake I didn't hold back on the size of hole I carved out.

Figuring out how to get the innards out in a clean way actually turned into somewhat of a science project. Good thing I have these giant kitchen tweezers to help me. And for anyone that needs to do this, icing tips were a huge help. If you press it (bigger end down) into the middle of the cupcake and twist it around when you pull it out the cake should stick inside of the tip and leave you with a nice hole. However, if it doesn't stick, this is where the kitchen tweezers were handy.

 

All of my cakes hollowed out and ready for the cream filling. And this is where I got frustrated. The filling is a Swiss meringue buttercream. In short, you just make a meringue with brown sugar instead of white, and then switch your mixer to the paddle attachment and add tons of butter and beat it until it turns into a frosting. Sounds easy enough. Let me tell you, it wasn't.  

First, I realized that I was out of butter. I had margarine but that wasn't going to cut it. It's called buttercream for a reason. So I ran to Safeway and grabbed some butter. Then, I made the mistake of separating all of my eggs into one big bowl. I should have done them one at a time in a smaller bowl and then poured them into the bigger bowl after each one. This is because on my fourth and final egg, the yolk broke, ruining the rest of my egg whites. I tried to salvage it but after I started whipping them in the mixer I realized it just wasn't going to work. Not much room for error when you're making a meringue. It was about this time that I realized I needed more eggs, so back to Safeway I went. This time around I didn't make the same mistake with the egg separating and I was glad about that since I ended up breaking a couple more yolks.

I got my whites prepared and pasteurized them with the sugar in the double boiler and threw them in the mixer. This time I had perfection. 

As you can see, my egg whites are light, fluffy and sticky. I was so happy that a dozen eggs later I had finally figured it out! Or so I thought...

I added the butter 2 T at a time just like the recipe said and I slowly watched my light fluffy egg whites turn into a deflated wreck. The frosting shrunk to about half the size it was and it appeared chunky and curdled. The butter was room temperature just like it called for and I could not figure out where in the world I had gone wrong. I was just about to scrap this batch and start again before I decided to watch a couple of youtube videos about how to make Swiss meringue buttercream. Yes...they have instructional videos on those kinds of things. I was so happy to hear the lady say "If it starts to look curdled, you're on the right track! Just keep beating it awhile longer and it will come back together." So I gave it a shot, and sure enough, it came back together.

Filled each cupcake to the brim with cream

Topped them with sugar and did some blow torch action

Great success!

I heard from multiple people that these were the best cupcakes they've ever had in their life. And after all the frustrations I went through to get them done I'm glad they turned out to be a crowd pleaser. The good news is, the next time I make them I'll know exactly what not to do. Also, I'm willing to take the Churro Cupcakes on head to head with these bad boys. All blind taste testers are welcome. 

Green, Eggs & Ham

While I am on this whole pie kick I decided to try out something else that I've always loved but never attempted making myself: Quiche. It was never something that intimidated me much, it was just something that I would get around to later. Besides, most people put some kind of stigma on quiche. Its like people either love it or they've never tried it...because 'real men don't eat quiche'. Kyle being one of those real men, that had never tried it but didn't hesitate to tell me how gross it was when I said that's what I was making for dinner. After informing him what I was going to put into it though, he agreed to give it a shot. I was going to go with a plain broccoli cheese quiche but then I found a good chunk of ham in the fridge that needed to be used up so I decided to chop that up and throw it in too.

Lets start with the crust:

Same recipe as last time, the only difference is that I pricked it a bunch of times with a fork and baked it and cooled it before I filled it to avoid a soggy crust. Apparently this process is called blind baking. I was supposed to use pie weights so that the crust didn't shrink, but I don't have any, and I didn't have any dried beans to use as a substitute. Some other suggestions included coins or heavy metal screws and washers...but I thought that would be weird, so I opted not to have any weights on it at all. They say that if you put enough holes in it with the fork then it won't shrink much, so I took my chances and it turned out just fine. I baked it for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees then let it cool completely before filling it.

The filling was a lot easier than I expected. 3 eggs, 3/4 C milk and 1/4 C half and half, (because that's all I had) salt and pepper. I read something that suggested pressing the grated cheese into the bottom of the crust rather than mixing it up with the filling because they say that's another way to avoid a soggy crust. It creates a little bit of a raincoat. So i pressed about 3/4 C grated sharp cheddar cheese into the bottom, emptied a bowl of chopped steamed broccoli and diced ham into the pan and then covered it with the egg mixture. Super easy.

I didn't get any pictures of this part of the process though because I was on the phone, which is also my camera.

I lowered the oven temperature to 375 and baked it for about 40 minutes. They say that the very center should be a little jiggly when you pull it out and that will carry-over cook while you let it cool. I wasn't sure just how jiggly it was supposed to be, so I erred on the side of less jiggly because no one wants to eat a runny-egged quiche, especially when I am trying to make a good first impression with it.

  

Here it is fresh out of the oven. I let it sit for about 20 minutes before slicing into it, but at this point I thought it looked pretty good. 

And here we have the finished product: green, eggs and ham. Its basically an omelet encased in a pie crust, I don't know whats not to like. Kyle even ate all of his and said it was pretty good, so there you have it, real men do eat quiche.