Traditional English "Pudding" and an Announcement

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet. Thank God we were allowed to wimp out and use butter if we couldn't find suet and/or couldn't stomach it. I think I would have been okay with it, had I decided on making a savory pudding, but I've had this horrible gnawing chocolate craving lately that I just couldn't deny a minute longer. So I went with the Very Chocolate Pudding that lots of other members were going crazy over, and it used butter instead of suet. I'm torn. I absolutely LOVED learning how to steam cake.. something I'd never even thought of doing before. I would love to do this again since the only dishes I dirtied were the Kitchenaid bowl, a spatula and 4 ramekins. I didn't even bother with measuring cups since the recipe was in grams, I just measured everything on a styrofoam plate on top of my scale, then and dumped it all in. Other than for my photos, I'm not even going to have to dirty a plate, as we'll just dig right into the ramekins. Nice. So why am I torn? The flavor was great.. but I over steamed. I figured for the large single pudding directions in the recipe, quartered into the ramekins, that my steam time would drop by 45 minutes. Well.. they were probably done in 30 minutes. They weren't completely dry, but they were definitely on the side of a "cakey brownie" which I don't like. I like fudgey brownies and airy cake.. so the texture didn't thrill me. But that's my fault, I should have checked them in 30 minutes. Since I don't make cake often (Lord knows I'd like to) I'm not sure the next one will be steamed or traditionally baked.. although I've seen some flavor combos and photos in the private DB forums that have absolutely made my heart flutter in envy (check out the photos in the slider!). Regardless though, I truly am thankful for a great lesson in steaming something other than broccoli. :D Thanks so much, Esther!!! xoxo I don't know why I feel the need to even announce this as most of the readers of this blog have figured it out by now, but food blogging is no longer a passion of mine. I still love LOVE LOVE to cook and occasionally bake.. but to go through the motions of taking horribly lit and out of focus photos, and then trying to come up with a witty post, when frankly, most times in ,my kitchen don't merit a giggle. A lot of my time is taken working on The Daring Kitchen website and working with all the wonderful people who have helped to make it the success that it is. And kids? It's fakkin exhausting to work that hard on one project and find the inspiration to work on another project that just doesn't trip your trigger any more, yanno? So I've decided to kinda cut some stress and concentrate on the DK and finally stop stressing over not updating this blog much anymore. You'll find an occasional post regarding a DB or DC challenge here (I've already completed my May DC challenge so it'll be up in a couple weeks), but truthfully, I'm not even really participating all that much anymore. I've decided to focus on the "behind the scenes" duties of the website, hoping to keep present and future members happy and interested in learning how to cook and bake better. One day the passion to create new recipes to share with ya'll might come back.. who knows.. but for now.. my mojo has pretty much dried up. ;) I am happy to say that I've not lost the passion to make a total ass of myself on the internet and have started a new non-foodie blog where I can just update whenever I want and talk about whatever I want.. once I'm comfortable with the direction it's going, I'll post a link and maybe ya'll can check it out for a giggle or two. Hugs! xoxoxo

Tiramisu!

Hey kids.. sorry, but you probably won't be seeing a post on my Daring Baker challenge this weekend. Unfortunately what I thought was a simple cold has gotten worse and it's about kicked my arse. Combine that with work and my procrastination issues and well.. no Tiramisu in my kitchen this month. :( I did buy all the ingredients, so I'm ready to go in that respect.. just need my nose to dry the freeg up and then figure out a way to assassinate the lil fuckers in my head who are pounding the backs of my eyeballs with sledgehammers. Gah. So we'll see.. In the meantime, check out the Daring Bakers blogroll for 1000's of creative and beautiful Tiramisu participants.. everyone did (as usual!!) an amazing job with the challenge! Huge hugs to both Deeba and Aparna for being wonderful hostesses this month.. they picked an awesome challenge of making homemade mascarpone and lady finger cookies! From what I've read in our private forums, both of the recipes are delicious! I REALLY want to find out for myself! xoxo

I Baked For Shaun White!

Okay not really.. but he's the only winter Olympian that I know of. And frankly, I'm not even sure he's in the Olympics this year.. is he? What I do know is I like his long wavy red hair. But I probably shouldn't say that out loud as I'm most likely old enough to be his Aunt. *cough* Anyhoo.. as per usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short. And once again I feel foolish because of it. This month's Daring Baker challenge was a breeze and the results were muy deliciouso! Wait, that's Spanish.. what would the Canadians say? Uhmm.. 'kay.. well.. the results were KICK ASS! (that's more of what I'd say because I don't know what a Canuck would say. Canuck.. is that PC?) The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca. Lauren is from Canada and these Nanaimo bars are her tribute to the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, Canada. Here's a funny.. and he's probably going to kill me.. but I received an email this morning from my friend John who had to tell me that while he was making his dough for the graham crackers he noticed that it smelled like graham crackers. And then he said, "Really?? You think??." Yes Gorgeous, the dough DOES smell like graham crackers and after baked, they taste better than any graham cracker I've ever had. Addicting is the word. More like Graham Crack. I kept hearing, er, reading in the forums that other members couldn't stop eating the graham crackers and my friend Michele said the same thing - but I had NO. IDEA. HOW. GOOD. they really are. I was almost sad to have to crumble a bunch of them for the Nanaimo bars. Seriously. But I did.. and then I kinda veered off the traditional route and went down my own road. I've made Nanaimo bars before and they were delish, you'll get no argument from me there. But they were a leeetle sweet so this time I wanted to make all of the components but in different flavors - specifically flavors that aren't as sweet. I started with the graham cracker crust, and omitted the nuts as we can't eat them. I also ground the coconut to almost a powder because I had to hide it as Hubbs hates coconut with a passion. He'll eat stuff flavored with coconut but hates real coconut. Go figger. And I added a generous peench of cinnamon. What I didn't do was add the cocoa. This was entirely an accident. I was so intent on grinding down that coconut and getting it into the crust before he came back into the kitchen that I completely forgot the damn cocoa. I really did want a chocolate crust. Then I moved on to the filling, which is what I found too sweet in the traditional bars. I decided I wanted a blast of coffee with the tang of cheese. Ideally I was going to do mascarpone/butter cream frosting flavored with espresso powder. But I never got the chance to get the mascarpone, so I had to do with cream cheese. Basically I made cream cheese frosting sans most of the sugar - I probably used 1/3 of what a basic cream cheese frosting would call for, then thinned it a bit with a boat load of espresso powder stirred into a small amount of hot heavy whipping cream. I can't find the words to express how fakking good it turned out and I really can't wait to use it on a cake! For the topping, ya'll know me, right? I don't say no to any kind of chocolate unless it's white - which is not chocolate anyways. BUT just a few weeks ago, I made a pan of what is essentially buckeyes (the lil round gobs of delicious sweetened peanut butter dipped in chocolate), but instead of rolling out the peanut butter into balls, because I'm a lazy mofo, I just spread it into an 8 x 8 pan and poured the chocolate over it. After refrigerating the chocolate became hard (duh) and well.. after forcing myself to eat 3/4 of the pan myself, I was kinda over hard chocolate with something mooshey underneath. :P So I went with a basic ganache over the top of my coffee/cream cheese filling. As you can see in this picture, there is a bite taken. That is the one and only taste of these that I've had (so far) and it took every fiber of restraint in this chubby body of mine to stop there to rush into my office to write this post a day late. And keep in mind, I don't own very many restraint fibers. :P Holy mother of a chinless baboon, these bars are FANFARKINGTASTIC. They aren't nearly as sweet as the traditional Nanaimo bars, but they are definitely rich, and I'm confident that I can get over that. :P The cinnamon & coconut in the crust paired with the coffee and chocolate and the tang of the cream cheese is nothing if not heavenly. Lauren, thank you so much for choosing these recipes and for allowing us the creativity to choose different flavors. I just hope I can restrain myself until Saturday evening as I've promised these bars as dessert for friends who are coming over.. but then again if I just whip up another batch, who will be the wiser? ;) Pop on over HERE for the recipes for the grahams (gluten free and made with wheat flour versions) and the traditional Nanaimo bar recipes! xoxo

'Tis The Season

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes. I don't even know how to start. First I should make it clear that the following post is not meant to offend Anna or Y, our lovely hostesses this month. They had a great idea and lots of members really enjoyed themselves.. and that's terrific!! But let's face some facts here, shall we? The baking Gods already hate me with a white hot passion. I can barely dress myself, open an envelope without getting cut, or walk & chew gum at the same time. And I'm asked to erect a building made of cookie dough? The baking Gods already hate me with a white hot passion. I went into this challenge with a positive attitude despite the obvious roadblocks in my way. I was kind of excited to decorate it.. went shopping and bought all kinds of neat candies and edible items to use. I even thought I would erect a split wood fence with pretzel sticks. Cute, huh? Mmm hmm.. The first bad omen was my thumb is still pretty useless. So kneading the dough would be out of the question (and no, I can't knead with one hand - TRUST ME I need both hands to do just about anything :P ). When this happens, I call in my favorite Sous Chef, Hubbs. That morning before work, I left out all the ingredients for Y's dough recipe - with instructions for him to make the dough. When I got home that evening I opened the fridge to check the dough out and it was uhmm.. very very brown. Almost black. (bad omen No. 2) So I asked my Sous if he had run into any problems during the dough making. "Nope." was his reply. Okay, well I have only ever made ginger cookies in the past, never ginger "bread" so I thought maybe this is what it was suppose to look like.. maybe it'd lighten up after resting over night. I didn't have time to worry about it because we had grocery shopping to do. Next morning... Nope that dough stayed black and turned rock hard. I took it out to come to room temp about 10 hours before I was going to roll it out - yeah yeah, I know. I wasn't thinking clearly. I had just woken up BEFORE the crack of dawn and the habit is for me to take what I'm going to need for dinner out of the freezer each morning before work. I was awake enough to realize it was Saturday and didn't need to take anything out, but not awake enough to realize that 10 hours was probably a lil too much for dough to come to room temp. But 3 hours and two cups of coffee later when I remembered I had taken it out way too early, it was still ROCK HARD. I used a chef's knife to stab it and then pull a chunk off - and I swear to the baby Jebus, the fakkin dough had age rings inside. You know, like a tree?? Like a petrified tree of gingerbread dough?? OHMYGOD. So I brought my slab of petrified gingerbread over to my husband and presented it to him. "Are you sure nothing went wrong yesterday?" "Nope." Now something obviously went wrong - but we'll never know what. "Well f*ck" I said to myself. "I've got 3 women and 1 tween coming over in a few short hours to make gingerbread houses (plural), what the f*ck am I suppose to do now?" (bad omen no. 3) Luckily, Recipezaar came to my rescue. I needed a dough that I could make tout de suite that didn't need refrigerating. I actually found one! And it didn't sound half bad. So I immediately ran into the kitchen to get started on making the new dough felt relieved and decided it was time for a nap. DO NOT JUDGE. I'm very sleepy on Saturday mornings.. it's unfair that I get up while it's still dark outside on the weekends too. So I relish being able to go back to bed right around the time I'd normally be jumpin in the shower to go to the dungeon. It gives me pleasure. DO NOT DENY ME THAT! *crickets* Anyhoo.. yes, I went back to bed. (omen no. 4? or is this 5?) Normally my lil weekend naps last all of 2 hours.. rarely longer. Unless, of course, I'm expecting 3 women and 1 tween over to make 4 gingerbread houses + make them dinner. No, on those occasions I end up sleeping FIVE hours - after I woke up and looked at my clock, I shot outta the bed so fakkin fast that I forgot to throw the covers off first, which got tangled with my legs.. forcing me head first into the wall beside my bed. GAH. (bad omen no. fakk it, I'M DOOMED) So, 'kay.. do the math here kids. I took the original dough out 10 hours before I needed it. I checked it after 3 hours and realized it was petrified shite. I then slept for 5 hours. That equals 8 hours. Ten minus 8 equals HOLY FAH-REEG!! I'VE GOT 2 HOURS TO MAKE AND BAKE ENOUGH GINGERBREAD HOUSE PANELS FOR 4 HOUSES PLUS DINNER FOR 5 PEOPLE. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! Okay I'll spare you the cursing and then slamming things when I found out that my Sous Chef used ALL OF THE GINGER in his petrified dough and didn't feel the need to tell me WHILE WE WERE GROCERY SHOPPING. Fast forward to 5 pm'ish when the gals arrived. I had JUST finished prepping dinner and I had managed to only make enough dough for ONE house. I figured I'd make more dough while we were eating dinner, but the gals all decided that one house would be plenty. Bless their cotton socks. After dinner we immediately started to erect our house. Keep in mind, there were 4 adult women working on this - and at one point, Hubbs joined in. We started with a side panel and the front panel and lots of royal icing. My panels had turned out wonkey after they baked, but that's what the icing was for, right? The first two panels seemed to stay together pretty well.. and then we moved on to the 3rd panel.. so this one wasn't as cooperative as the first two. No big deal. We'll just use some of the frosted mini-wheats that were for our roof shingles to prop up the inside of the walls. We got it under control. We're women. Hear us roar. Jebus. While we did get all for sides of the house to stand straight up, when we put the roof on (already covered in shingles and 20 pounds of royal icing) it: 1- Made the walls start to cave in a wee bit. 2- Kept sliding off because they were too heavy. So what do 4 intelligent women do in this kind of a situation? Why, they go get the blow dryer, of course! "We need to dry this icing out so the pieces parts will stay!" someone said. Yes, we made the Beavette stand there with the blow drier until the icing set up and stuck. Unfortunately, that never happened. Someone else said, "Dudes, the 14 layers of icing below the layer we're trying to dry has to dry first." And that was it for us. We'd been working on it for about 4 hours - not one decoration on it - and we gave up. We put a box over it and then stood their and discussed who was going to decorate it. They tried to put it all on me but I wouldn't have any of that shite. They started this with me, it was their rightful duty to accompany me on this gingerbread from hell journey. June and The Beavette said they'd be back the next day to decorate.. but something came up so it was cancelled. Next day, same thing - cancelled. Finally we managed to keep Thursday open and spent 2 fun hours (no really, I had fun!) decorating the house. I got one side, June got another, and The Beavette decorated the rest. I think it turned out really cute. But I still couldn't wait for it to be out of my house. So when we were done, I packed up the remaining 90 pounds of candy for The Beavette, found a box for the house and didn't give them a choice but to take it all with them. *grin* Many many thanks to my girls: Blimey, June, The Beavette, and Amy (we need a name for Amy!) for another fun filled night together.. can't wait for the next one - but NEVER AGAIN with the gingerbread. heheee! xoxo

Holy Cannoli! It's Reveal Day!!!

Zoinks. I haven't moved much today. Tripto-whatever is still kickin' it in my blood stream. Completely forgot it was reveal day. And then I remembered because I had to get the recipe up on the Daring Kitchen website.. and then I forgot about it again.. or more specifically, that I ALSO had to post on my own lil blog. DOH. The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book It's now 11:30 at night.. Neither of us, or the kids, have moved much from the sofa and love-seat today. I have drank what I believe to be 1/4th of Lake Erie since awakening this morning at 6:30 (I slept in! WOOOOO HOOO!). Unfakkinbelievably dry pipes today kids. WTF? If you've friended me on Facebook, you might have noticed how proud I was yesterday when I managed to cook 99.9% (my mom still makes the bird, bless her heart) of our Thanksgiving meal, INCLUDING the Daring Baker challenge, with 1 whole hour to spare before the family arrived. Keep in mind that I even whacked a few mobsters, planted a field of grapes, fed and then sold 1000's of fishes, and cooked two dishes eleventy billion times for my virtual cafe as well. Oh yes, yesterday was a BUSY day. Also? My Name is Lisa and I'm an FB games addict. *sigh* Here's what I DIDN'T DO - I didn't photograph my cutsie lil mini cannoli. Basically because as soon as they were filled, the vultures zoomed in and they were all GONE. I got ONE. I filled TWENTY. But fear not, you lovers of horrible photography! I saved 6 shells for W and I because I knew we'd want some today. :D But.. then.. I was wrong. We didn't want them today. When I brought them up to him, he went kinda green around the gills. Frankly, when I mentioned them, I got a lil nauseous myself. No! NO! Not because they were horrible - they were DELICIOUS - everyone declared they were the best cannoli they'd ever had. Seriously. It's just that we gorged so much yesterday that the thought of most food made us queasy today. I ate a handful of chips around noonish (washed 'em down with a gallon of water).. he had toast just before that.. and then I managed to make spaghetti tonight.. and I think we both ate maybe 8 strands before we fluffed up the pillows and sank down into our respective sofas again. I just came into my office to reply to a few emails and realized.. oh shit. I never posted. I blame that f'n bird, folks. I don't ever want to see another turkey for AT LEAST 11 months. :P Anyhoo.. nothing exciting (or chaos related) to say about this challenge.. pretty simple, except for the rolling of the dough - or should I call it, elasto-dough? I tried as much as I could with my puny muscles (which are being suffocated under all my fat) and the brace I am sporting on my right hand for the next two weeks! Are ya'll ready for this? Leave it to me. I swear to the baby Jebus, I am the only person I know who physically hurts herself IN HER SLEEP. My doc figures that's how I did it.. she says I must be gripping my hands in my sleep. Like a death grip on the blankets or something. I managed to cause scarring to the sheath that wraps around the tendons in my right palm and between the thumb and index finger. She called it "trigger finger". I guess this happens mostly to the index finger and not the thumb? Anyhoo.. the scarring on the sheath causes the tendon to stick when it's moved.. so when I bend my thumb at the first joint, it sticks and HURTS LIKE HELL. Gawd and there's this awful clicking sound when it finally releases and my thumb goes back to it's natural position. Squick! So yep.. rolling that dough was not going to happen by myself. So W stepped in, bless his cotton, reinforced toe, socks. The first few were too thick, so they were binned after frying.. but the rest were paper thin and blistered up nicely. I added a lil extra cinnamon to the dough and filled with a pumpkin/cream cheese filling that was divine. Frying was a cinch, since I'm the Frying Queen of NE Ohio. Oh and the only thing I did differently for me is that instead of makin' big honkin cannoli, I made minis because I figured no one would eat big ones since no one attending our Thanksgiving was really a fan of them (except me.. and I still only got ONE). Lis.. you did an amazing job as hostess.. and your recipe is THE cannoli recipe I will use from now on. I also loved the idea of cannopolitans and plan on making those in the future as well. Love ya, chickie! :) Photos will be added tomorrow.. it's now midnight and I must hit the sack, because God knows, I didn't get enough rest today. :P xoxo

What's the French Word for FAILURE?

I SUCK. I am NOT a baker. I may be DARING. But screw that baker part. I'm a cook goddammit. I hate that I allowed this challenge to f*ck with my head. I over psyched myself from the beginning. I got scared. Over what??? A few egg whites, some nuts and sugar?? WHAT THE FUCK? I watched an excellent video on how to make macs about eleventy gabillion times. I read that damn forum and looked at photos for the entire month. I read and REREAD the recipe a 100 times. But nothing helped me. I was doomed from the start. The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. Ami, you know how smitten I am with you.. always have been, so please take no offense. But uhmm... Claudia? Claudia can bite my ass. I hated that recipe.. and it hated me back with a burning white heat of a 1000 suns. I didn't even take photos of it - and ya'll KNOW how much I love to embarrass myself. It was that bad. :( Yanno, this ain't my first rodeo. I made macs years ago with my Guru! The first time she came to visit. And although she did most of the work, she taught me well - she showed me the correct way to fold. She showed me how to grind the nuts and the sugar. But, that was a long time ago, and even if she hadn't done most of the work herself, if I had done it all.. I still would have been just as lost this time. It was just too long ago. But I was inspired by ya'll. Like I am every month. I knew the exact flavors I wanted to make and I was ready to DO THIS again. On the few days I was home on vacation, I woke saying "Today I make macarons!" And I knew which recipe I wanted to try next.. but then I'd find an excuse not to torture myself and I wouldn't make them. So, obviously, yesterday was my DO OR DIE day. Actually Sunday was, but I ended up taking an improptu nap. Hey, it was the last day of my vacation - DO NOT JUDGE ME. After a chat with my sister, Veronica.. who makes the dreamiest macarons, I felt like I could not only make her recipe, but end up with 48 perfect macaron shells. It was her video that I watched over and over again, her voice I listened to.. her technique I felt I could replicate. Yeah. No. Another failure, but by far, not as epic as the first try. I know exactly where I screwed up. I knew exactly when I screwed up. It's all about the f'n "magma". I overbeat this batter. Frankly, this batter had every right to report me to the authorities and take a bed at the nearest women's shelter. Seriously. My "magma" turned out more like a slightly thick version of muddy river water in like a nano-second. Oh it flowed alright.. but nothing, including several hundred bags of sand, was going to keep this stuff in place. I decided to look upon them as if they were "multi-tasking". After I piped several circles, I watched them splooge into each other. But at that point, after I wiped away a renegade tear from my cheek and then sucked down a few glugs of a bottle of Jack Daniels we keep in the house for guests.. I turned my back on my over beaten and abused macarons. I left them to splooge and "dry" at the same time. I threw up my hands and screamed "UNCLE" (but it was more like "YOU FAH-HAUL-AKIN IZEHOLES"). I fully expected to return in 40 minutes and find one giant rectangular mac, threatening to escape the sides of the jelly-roll pan it rested on. During that 40 minutes, I pondered how this could have happened. What amazes me is how many times I sucked in that video. I knew I was going to stop beating the batter at the exact right time (Magma time!) because I had watched the video so much that surely by osmosis alone, I would know when. OHMYGOD don't even get me started on the 2nd panic attack when my nuts wouldn't grind down small enough. I was so careful! I ground, I sifted, I ground some more, I sifted some more.. and I still ended up with 107 (ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN) grams of almonds that were way too chunky. Finally, I called Veron back.. "what do I do??" I said between a hiccup and another slurp of my new best friend, Jack. She suggested I grind them in small batches in my coffee grinder. Bless her. That worked. I also ground down the Canadian Vanilla Maple tea I used to hopefully get a good maple flavor in the shells. I ground down what was already miniscule pieces parts of tea and natural and/or artifical flavors into powder, for crissakes!!! And the top of my wee coffee grinder has a hole in the plastic, so I had to keep the palm of my hand slammed down on it and regardless of how long I waited for the contents to settle back down, I still inhaled a tiny poof of powdered vanilla maple tea! That stuff could have been asbestos laden - but I took one for the team so my maple flavored macs with cream cheese and BACON filling would be THE BOMB. So as I'm replaying all of these extra steps I took to make sure my macs would come out beautifully.. it all came down to one stroke. One paddle of the pud too many. Over confidence at it's finest. I left my zen place and lost my concentration and that one extra stroke of my spatula turned all of my hard work into... muddy river water. And here is what I got for my efforts.. they've got feet alright. But barely breathe on one and you'll watch it implode. The first batch wasn't baked long enough, so they ended up being a huge mass of tissue thin crackly crust and ooey gooey innards that stuck to anything they touched. I now know what to do if I can't find the super glue when I need it. No running to the store, I'll just underbake a batch of macarons! You could build a bridge with that stuff! You'll also notice that apparently, I can pipe a perfect Thresher Shark, but cannot pipe a simple circle to save my life. The 2nd batch was a bit better.. I baked them for a few minutes longer and they popped right off the paper, but they were still really thin and the tops crack really easily.. like move your finger 1/16th of an inch over them and they crack. Oh and they don't taste of maple. Not in the slightest. They are just nutty and sweet. Just like their maker! If you can compare batshit crazy and grumpy to nutty and sweet, that is. :P So I decided to flavor the cream cheese with maple syrup instead of powdered sugar. At first taste there was no maple, but after it sat in the fridge for a while, the maple finally came through - thank the baby Jebus. I added crumbled applewood smoked bacon to the mixture, leaving some out for "garnish" - cuz we all know how fancy pants I am. Some I just lightly brushed with maple syrup and sprinkled some extra bacon on top.. some I left plain.. and some I rolled the edges in bacon. Those, I think, were my favorite. At least, that's the only one I've actually tried and AT THE VERY LEAST I was RIGHT ON with the flavor combo. The filling wasn't too sweet since the cream cheese leaves you with a nice tang. And the bacon.. well.. I dunno, kids.. roll a fresh cat turd in bacon, and call me to dinner. You just can't go wrong with crispedy bacon. So there ya have it.. another long ass story of yet another catastrophe in my kitchen. But I'm semi-happy with them, if for the taste alone. And they've got feet. God bless them, they've got feet. xoxo

Puff Schmuff

Okay.. let's just call this Oh hell I don't know what to call it. Meet my lopsided, falling over, super poofy shooting stars. Gah. I'm covered in fakking flour, I have egg wash on my pants, my lips are burning because I figured "well maybe they'll taste good" before the lil bastards cooled off, and my heart is broken. I spent two days on these vols-au-vent thingies. EEK! I forgot the important stuff during my initial ranting and raving! The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of a whisk and a spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Continue on with the craziness... Palmier? BAHAHAHAA! I stressed over the perfect fillings. I researched the perfect goat's cheese mousse. I squashed grapes for these things. And for what??? Notice the burnt "shooting star" on the right? EVEN I'M EMBARRASSED TO SHOW YOU PHOTOS! Me! The gal who thrives on making a total ass of herself on the internets for your reading pleasure! *sigh* The chicken salad is placed ON THE SIDE because there were no INSIDES of these lil fakkers. I had such high hopes. I still have one millimeter of a sliver of hope still.. but it's only like 1/8 inch high.. not "such high" as with the first batch. Everything was going so well.. SO WELL. I only had one tiny ooze of butter yesterday and that was on the first turn.. FIVE TURNS LATER and no oozing. I wanted to kiss my puff pastry dough because it was behaving SO WELL. Oh I had poofiness alright.. just not the centered properly. :P And then the oven. That dirty bastage. It was not nice to my first batch which was supposed to be filled with the best tasting chicken salad EVER. But there's NOTHING to fill people! I docked! Apparently not deep enough.. but who the hell knew?? I did forget the silpat on top.. but seriously? How unforgiving a recipe to mock you just because you forget the silpat after doing everything else correctly??? That puff pastry dough has some issues and it needs to see a therapist, tout de suite. And lemme tell you, that therapist will earn his/her money dealing with this dough. My oven needs to go too. Screw my oven. I keep her clean. I cook lovingly on top of her. There's NO NEED for this kind of behavior. It's like a star shaped accordion. :P I'm spent, kids. I'm. Spent. Will post horrible photos later.. if I can talk my camera into not shutting it's lense in horror. If you happen to read this before I put my 2nd batch in (which is sitting, all shaped and stacked and egg washed in the fridge WITH A SILPAT ON TOP ALREADY), say a prayer for me. Please? Baking Gods I rue the day you were given uhhh.. Baking Godness Powers. May the fleas of a 1000 camels infest your flour-y armpits! :P~~~~~~~~~~~ xoxo Okay well.. slightly tipsy, but look at that poof! And well.. it's not really bleeding.. that's a concord grape reduction. Ohh and I ended up not finding a goat's cheese mousse recipe that I liked, but I found an AWESOME goat's cheese custard recipe on David Lebovitz's site. Bless him. :D ***THIS JUST IN: 2nd batch is BEEE-U-TEEEFULLLLLLL!!!! it's all about the silpat. I'll be damned. Photos of these babies will definitely be added as soon as they are cool enough to fill. :D xoxox Okay so maybe I got a lil uhmm.. frustrated before finishing. Oopsie. *grin* I haven't tried the goat's cheese custard & Concord grape reduction filled v-au-v's yet, but hubbs said they are fabulous. I did try the world's best chicken salad in a v-au-v and it was amazing. Eating the shell, just to taste it was very salty.. but you couldn't tell that with the fillings, thank goodness. :) Thanks so much Steph! Even though I SPAZZED out, this was a great challenge and I'm glad I've now got puff pastry in my freezer! Yay! :) Now that ya'll have seen my trainwreck.. go check out the 1000's of Vols-au-Vents on the Daring Baker's Blogroll xoxo

Dobos Torta

Well.. I'm at a loss. This cake had promise.. I was excited about it. First thing I thought about was strawberries. I wanted a strawberry cake with dark chocolate buttercream. And after a chat with a certain French lady I happen to know, I was even more excited because she came up with the solution of how to incorporate strawberries into the cake.. by pulverizing the freeze-dried strawberries I had into a fine power and adding it instead of pureed strawberries because not only would the powder flavor the cake it would color it and not cause it to turn out gray.. works for me, the Queen of Run-On Sentences. And then I read the recipe and it all went straight to hell. BUT FIRST! A word from our sponsors... hehe The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. You see the Baking Gods weren't smiling upon me. Imagine that. I even think they are tired of laughing and pointing at me.. now they just turn their Godly backs towards me. I've bored them with my total lack of improvement in the "folding" arts. I know how to fold. I was taught IN PERSON by MY GURU. I was taught WELL. But when I am faced with a recipe that is all about fakkin folding, my palms start to sweat. My mouth goes dry. I frown. I know before the spatula touches the batter that I'm going to FAIL. Ohhh and when I read that you have to fold the wet stuff.. AND THEN fold the dry stuff well I about lost the contents of my bladder. I just can't stop folding.. it's those fakkin white whispy streaks.. I HATE THEM. They MUST BLEND IN DAMMIT. I fear they'll show up in my baked product and ewww who wants white trails through their cake? Not I, my friends. Not I. So I keep folding.. and folding.. and soon I've got a consistent color with absolutely no fluff. And I look at it, every single time amazed at what I had just done. Like I'm surprised or something. WTF? I can't stop myself. So my batter ended up being about 1/2 of what I believe I should have ended up with. I went with 3/4 cup for each layer.. and each layer turned out like.. well.. pita bread. Lavash. Rubbery and flaccid. And yet they were also dry as the Mojave. Oh and I only had enough batter for 5 droopy layers. But what the hell, the buttercream will make it all better! Right? Mmm hmm.. I went with my go-to buttercream recipe.. Jacques Torres' to be exact. Italian Meringue Buttercream. It's to die for. I've made it several times and each time it's come out perfectly. I had no worries. I knew this buttercream was going to save this cake, just like it did the infamous crepe cake of long ago.. *shudder* Yeah. No. Apparently, my eggs got too hot. I must have drizzled the sugar syrup in too quickly. I admit I wasn't concentrating on it, since I was full of so much OC (over confidence) - and I know better than that. You'll never make your shot if you've got the OC going on. I learned that in the poolhalls and bars of my younger days.. good times. Good times. Anyhoo.. so I overheated the eggs, so says My Guru. And when you overheat your eggs, your buttercream doesn't stay fluffy after you add the butter.. instead it turns into a thick glaze. Horse Pucky!! I threw it in the fridge overnight.. and THANK THE BABY JEBUS it didn't separate or deflate even more.. it turned out okay.. other than it melts the second room temperature air hits it. But that's okay, it tastes so good that I could eat it on a cake or drink it through a straw.. makes no nevermind to me. Keep in mind, I haven't had buttercream or any kind of cake for 3 months now. I could bathe in the stuff and be a happy woman. So I frosted (HAR!) my strawberry flatbread cake layers after I brushed them with strawberry syrup and called it DONE. No caramel. Oohh hells no. There just wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to f*ck with the Baking Gods a third time. Sorry, kids. Lissee knows when to scream UNCLE. The cake was excellent if you like chocolate buttercream covered crackers. There was no strawberry taste whatsoever. The texture was so far off that I really can't even call this a cake. It was more like a molded hunk of buttercream with cracker-like separators. I ended up peeling the "cake" off the buttercream and yes, I ate all of the buttercream. ALL OF IT. And my slice was sliverish (not like the hunk I cut for my horrible photos), yet I'll wager it weighed 3 pounds. You just have to appreciate the miracle of butter, sugar and chocolate. There were way too many amazed and happy Daring Bakers for me to think this was just a bad cake. No, I know it's a damn good recipe, I just blew it. Again. Gah. Many thanks to both Angela and Lorraine, they were fabulous hostesses and this was a great challenge! Not one I'll repeat, thankyouverymuch. :P But it really was a great challenge, we learned techniques and were still given enough leeway for creativity to make these cakes our own. Well done, girls! :) So do yourselves a favor and leave this blog now.. run far, far away from it and check out the Daring Baker blogroll to find hundreds of gorgeous and tasty cakes to drool over!

Woe is a Fluffy Marshmallow...

Of which the pan I can no longer eat in one sitting... Well by now, most of you are probably sick and tired of looking at marshmallow cookies and Milan(o) cookies. Or you could be like me - not exactly sick of looking at them, but getting to the point that the photos are driving you f'n crazy and soon will cause you to say "Fakkk the diet" as you dive into the freezer head first, in search of the box of cookies you made last week. Gah. Now I'm not blaming anyone here but myself. I made my bed by abusing my body for 40 some years. So this is entirely my fault. But DAMN people. Couldn't the Daring Bakers hostess picked baked carrot sticks?? Sugar-free Jello Trifle?? Dog biscuits? ANYTHING but crispy and delicate lemon scented cookies stuffed with chocolate or melt in your mouth fluffy marshmallow dipped in chocolate?? c'mon! Speaking of hostesses... The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network. Incredibly, I didn't have many problems this month. I KNOW! That's rare for me! :P I started with the Milan(o)s - the batter was so easy to put together I was kinda shocked once it was done and reread the recipe to make sure I didn't forget an ingredient or step. I decided to not pipe them out because seriously, my piping skillz are about equal to my mad frosting skillz. I really need to make another cake so I have something else to reference to. hahahaa! Anyhoo.. instead of piping, I decided to make a template. Problem was, I didn't have anything thin enough to cut the shape of a milan(o) cookie out of. It was getting close to lunch time, so I decided to think about what to use while perusing the fridge and pantry for something to munch on when I happened upon an old box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Even though this box of tiny elbow macaroni and package of orange dyed salt is a comfort food to me, I didn't think about eating it.. I thought about sacrificing it to the Baking Gods. So I poured the contents out, cut the box so it would lay flat and proceeded to draw a 3" x 1" template of my cookies. Worked like a charm! Course after they baked they didn't exactly stay in the perfect shape I had worked so hard on, but they weren't too bad and I liked the "rustic" look of them. Now when it came to the chocolate.. well.. that's where I had a problem. I didn't melt the chocolate over a double boiler, because the last couple times I've done that, my chocolate broke. Some steam had caused it and I didn't want to take that chance this time. So I nuked the chocolate & cream.. at first it came out great but soon it got clumpy and greasy looking. I have no fakking idea how or why this happened unless there was a water molecule on the spoon I used to stir it? Fakk me. Of course I didn't care toooooo much as I figured it was going to be sandwiched and the look of the chocolate didn't matter as much as the taste. So I filled up ohhh eleventy billion cookies. Uhh Gale? You don't know how to count. This recipe made quadrupal the amount of what your recipe said it would. I ended up with lots of cookies left over without filling, but that was okay because Hubbs had cookies to munch on while driving to work and didn't have to worry about getting chocolate all over his truck. ;) As I'm sure you've guessed, I did sample a cookie or two. Please, I have next to zero willpower when it comes to chocolate anything. They were good - I actually prefered the cookie plain for munching. But they weren't Milanos. A Milano isn't lemon flavored. And I didn't particularly like the vanilla/lemon flavors. I wish I had cut down on the vanilla.. but you'll have that. Will I make these cookies again? Nah.. but it was really fun going through the process. :) Now the chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (Mallows) - they were delicious. I couldn't get over how easy making marshmallow was. And to think, I've made that frosting a 1000 times and didn't realize that by just adding some gelatin, I could have had homemade marshmallows years ago. Doh. The cookie base was also as easy as the Milan(o)s. Instead of shaping into a disk and refrigerating, I decided to take a tip from one of our wonderful Daring Baker members and cut the dough in half, rolled each half into a log and I froze it for a couple hours to make cutting easier. That also worked like a charm and I got some nice round 1.5" - 2" cookies in the end. I went bigger than what the recipe called for because by now, I'd already invested like 3 hours into the Milan(o)s and didn't want to be up til midnight with the Mallows. I'm glad I did.. they make an impressive larger cookie! Originally, I wanted my marshmallow to be swirled. Like this one. I was going to make two flavors.. strawberry swirled and mocha swirled. I was also going to spread homemade strawberry preserves, that were given to us last week, over the cookie before I piped the strawberry marshmallow and this wonderful super thick hot fudge over the cookie before I piped the mocha marshmallow. But again, I'd been at this baking without eating 1/2 the end product before I was done thing for many hours and I just couldn't be bothered. So I went with mocha only, no fudge. Unforch, my folding skillz leave much to be desired.. so by the time I stopped folding, my mocha mix (2 TBS. water, 1 tsp. instant espresso powder & 1 tsp. Starbucks' Mocha Mix) was completely incorporated into the marshmallow - no swirls. Boo. Didn't matter though - the mocha flavored marshmallow was fakking heavenly. OHMYGOD. It's a wonder I had enough to top 1/2 a batch of the cookies (still have a log in the freezer.. wtf am I going to do with it??).. yeah, my diet went straight to hell once I tasted that marshmallow. Gah. I let them set over night and dipped them the next morning.. they started to set up immediately and that happened because I went with Crisco instead of cocoa butter or oil. I was very, VERY pleased especially since I'd read about so many members' cookies not setting up for them. I've just always used Crisco in my Buckeyes candies, so it wasn't even a conscious decision to do so with these cookies. Right now, I've got about 20 cookies in my fridge that I still haven't had a chance (or good lighting) to take a photo of, but will upload them as soon as I do. Once they are photographed they are also going into the deep freeze and along with the Milan(o)s, will be a gift to my girlie-friends who are coming for a slumber party this weekend. Thanks, Nicole! Even though I cheated some this past weekend.. it was worth it to know I can make marshmallows now! I can't wait for winter and Christmas present making! :) Check out the blogroll for BILLIONS of other amazing cookies! PS - Mom is doing well.. a few problems with leg cramping (from the Lasix) and exhaustion from being poked and prodded.. but I am confident she'll be like brand new once they are done draining the excess fluid. Thanks for the many concerned emails.. ya'll have no idea how uplifting they were. Hugs! xoxo

Daring Bakers' June Challenge - Bakewell Tarts

I can't take credit for this month.. as ya'll know, I was pretty busy being poked, prodded and injected with radioactive materials and was afraid I'd run out of time again to finish my challenge. So my Hubbs, bless him, offered to step in and become an "unofficial" Daring Baker for the month! You just have to love him. ;) As always.. business first! 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. Hubbs said it was pretty easy and he had no problems, other than not being able to find the almond meal (that I had left on the counter for him that morning) in the freezer. hee! Neither of us were exactly excited about this dessert from the get-go. Aside from cherry, almond flavoring is my least favorite. He's not a fan either. But we never figured we'd be keeping this in the house anyway, so that wasn't a big deal. Unfortunately, after we each took a bite from the slice I had photographed, we were sadly disappointed. The almond flavor was too overpowering for us (we even left out almond extract and used vanilla). We both liked the shortcrust but it wasn't cooked the whole way through. After re-reading the recipe together, to make sure he didn't underbake the tart, we realized that there was just too much filling and that the crust should have been blind baked before adding the red raspberry preserves and the Frangipane. That slice was pitched and the rest was taken to work the next day. There must not be any almond lovers in the group, as only one small slice was taken. The rest of the tart was pitched at the end of the week. :( My only thoughts on this challenge was that if you are not an almond lover, you won't like this dessert, obviously. Again, we liked the crust and the idea of the jam layered under the Frangipane, so the next time I feel like making a tart, I think I'll use that shortcrust recipe, blind bake it, then freeze it and layer on preserves under maybe chocolate mousse or lemon curd... You can find the recipe on both Anne-Marie's and Jasmine's blogs or on The Daring Kitchen website. Please hit the "still temporary" Daring Bakers' blogroll to see how creative our members are! You'll be amazed! :) xoxo

Daring Bakers May 2009 Challenge - Strudel!

Hey cute people :) This is going to be short and sweet.. Unfortunately I had another lil hiccup with my health and spent a few days in the hospital this month. I hadn't made my strudel before I went in and now that I'm home again, strudel just isn't in the cards for me.. I'm now on a fat free, low-carb, no salt diet.. so I am really enjoying sugar-free pudding and tomatoes. :P I suppose after abusing my body for 40 some years, it had to catch up with me, eh? I'm going to get better though.. and will conquer another DB challenge in the future, but ya'll have to forgive me this month. 'kay? :) Please make sure to check out the blogroll at The Daring Kitchen and go give Linda of make life sweeter and Courtney of Coco Cooks a lil extra loving for picking such a kick-ass challenge! They were both wonderful hostesses this month and we are forever grateful!! Bake on Gorgeous Daring Baker Type People! :) xoxo

An Infamous Cheesecake Indeed...

***I wrote this last night and figured I'd post today once I took some photos of the the 2 new varieties I made yesterday, but with the way my day is already started, who the heck knows when I'll get home to take photos - so I'm posting right now and ya'll just have to come back again to see the CAKE FROM HELL and the 2 new varieties. MUAHAHAHAHAA!*** Yesterday, I made a cheesecake. It was going to be a GLORIOUS cheesecake. One to be envied from every inhabitant of Cheesecake Land. I thought about this cake for a MONTH before even shopping for ingredients. I made LISTS people. I might have even sketched the cake it all of its MAGNIFICENCE. What a true beauty she would be. I was so proud of what I hadn't even started yet. I was PSYCHED. I was watching what the other members were showing off on our private forums and I was left breathless each time.. the creativity of their cakes was AWESOME. But still.. I kinda chuckled to myself thinking "Wait until they see MINE. They're gonna CRAP." Oh yeah, full to the gills with cockiness I was. MUAHAHAHAA! And in true Lisa form.. Allow me to present to you - the first Official Kitchen Disaster of 2009. *sigh* Oops.. first.. gotta take care of bidnezz. ;) The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Okay disaster or not - this is now my go-to cheesecake recipe. I've never had such a creamy cheesecake.. to die for, kids.. simply to die for. I said this before and I'll say it again.. HUGE pat on the back for Abbey for tweaking this recipe until she found cheesecake perfection.. and an equally HUGE hug for Jenny for bringing us this recipe. Bless both of yas cotton socks. ;) So there.. there you go - now it's documented, stamped, triplicated and carved in granite - LISA screwed this recipe up. LISA managed to take the perfect cheesecake recipe and totally noobed it right into the circular file cabinet. LISA is a cheesecake MURDERER. My favorite commercially made ice cream is Haagen Dazs Caramel Cone. You've got your sinfully rich caramel ice cream.. you've got a salty caramel ribbon running through it.. you've got chocolate covered sugar cone pieces throughout.. it's so good I could just BATHE in it. As a matter of fact, when the day comes that I stop breathing.. I'd like to be buried, completely submerged, in Caramel Cone ice cream. HEY YOU PEOPLE THAT LIVE IN MY NECK OF THE WOODS.. DON'T YOU DARE! GO BUY THIS ICE CREAM. IF I GO TO BUY IT AND IT'S SOLD OUT I WILL HUNT! YOU! DOWN! AND! BEAT! YOU! ABOUT! THE! HEAD! AND! SHOULDERS! WITH! MY! HUSBAND'S! DIRTY! TUBE! SOCKS! ***crickets*** So yeah.. what was I saying? RIGHT! I wanted to recreate my favorite ice cream flavor into a cheesecake. Caramel cheesecake, with a salted caramel ribbon running through it.. but instead of the chocolate covered sugar cones throughout, I thought they'd make a smashing presentation by crushing them up to wee lil pieces and then sticking them to the outside of the entire cake. Maybe even bring it up as a ring around the very top of the cake to use as a "dam" for a salted caramel "pool" on top. ARE YOU FUCKING DYING WITH THE ENVY YET??? Are ya'll writing this down?? Can you even imagine a more STUPENDOUS cheesecake EVER?? OHMYGOD. Figuring out how to make a caramel cheesecake was easy.. sub brown sugar for the white sugar the recipe called for. Easy. But if you're LISA you can't settle for easy so you start the Googling. And you read 1 (ONE) recipe that used DARK brown sugar and the author of the recipe said it was even more caramel-y than using light brown sugar so you are like.. OHYES! I WILL use DARK brown sugar for a more caramel-y cheesecake flavor! SQUEEEEEE! And you even tell a friend what you are going to and the friend will write back in a very supportive and just as excited way and say that the cheesecake will taste like "salted molasses" and she even DROOLED. And all I comprehended was the DROOL and how excited she was for my soon-to-be TRIUMPHANT cheesecake!!!! Salted molasses? One word. Eww. Unfortch for me, that I didn't figure out that lil gem until after my cake was baked. But even before that!! I had to make a caramel ribbon, right?? I had tried once before a long time ago, by using a very thick caramel sauce - but it baked into the cake and gave it a nice caramel flavor, but didn't give me the liquidy/fluidy ribbon I was hoping for. So my lovely friend suggested maybe making a batch of soft caramel.. rolling it into a rope and then arranging it over half the batter, topping with the rest of the batter and then another rope on top of that.. surely the caramel will cook and get melty and form a ribbon. And I'm sure she is right, but this batter is extremely thin, so there's no way it would have held the weight of the caramel rope, they just would have sank to the bottom. :( I got to Googling again.. and my search parameters brought up a commercial cheesecake store in Wyoming (I think?) who had described one of their cheesecakes with a caramel ribbon running through it.. but when I realized it was a site to BUY their cakes and not a site for recipes, I back buttoned to see what else the Googling brought to me.. it was slim fuckin' pickins, lemme tell ya. So in my DESPERATION, I went back to the cheesecake sellin' site and found their contact page and PLEADED with them to tell me the secret to getting a ribbon of caramel throughout a cheesecake. I PLEADED. I'm sure when they read it they thought I had gone batshit crazy to be asking them instead of PLACING AN ORDER like every SANE person would be doing with that contact form. (they never did write me back.. imagine.) I said screw it. We don't need no stinkin caramel ribbon. Instead I will make a rich, luxurious, salted caramel sauce. And I shall spoon that sweet/salty nectar over the crust of my cheesecake and then I will put that pool of pure heaven on the top of my cake and I will still get the flavors of my beloved ice cream. (Do you think I chucked this idea after I made the caramel sauce using golden syrup (following the recipe from November's Golden Caramels) that might have been bad because the caramel sauce had a chemically ass-like taste to it? Read on, naive people.. read on...) Well OF COURSE the caramel sauce baked into the crust!! OF COURSE IT DID. Because that's what fakkin happens. It's SENSIBLE. LOGICAL. RESPONSIBLE. PRACTICAL. And the baking Gods wouldn't be JOYFULLY. PLAYFULLY. WATCHING ME. Nor would they be laughing and pointing at me. Fuckers. And finally.. my genius idea of the chocolate covered sugar cone bits hugging my DELICIOUS cheesecake did not work out either. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I thought I was making a wise decision by going to a very popular chain ice cream store and purchasing their chocolate covered wafer cones. They were cheap, and it would be more convenient than buying a box of regular sugar cones and dipping them in chocolate myself, right? Wrong. Wafer cones, apparently, are way different from sugar cones. And anyone with ONE eye would know this. They obviously don't even look the same. But this did not stop Lisa. Oh hells no. I bought several of those wafer cones and didn't even taste one until after the cake was ready for them.. They were hideous. Gaggable. They were wrong. First the cone was so fake vanilla tasting that I did gag. I really am not a vanilla fan.. lil vanilla here and there I'm okay with.. permeated through whatever a wafer cone is made of is just wrong. And the chocolate the cone is dipped in? Not chocolate, my friends. Oh noooo.. it's that chocolate flavored substance that leaves a waxy mouth feel if you eat it. My guess is they also use this substance as some kind of water-proofing mastic for basements and rooftops. Shame on you Popular Ice Cream Chain! Shame on you for cutting corners on your wafer cones! I have never ate your ice cream and I will NEVER eat your ice cream now. SHAME ON YOU! And also, I'd like my $4.35 back please. So said wafer cones hit the garbage can tout de suite. But I still needed something for the "dam" damnit. After checking out cupboards and pantries.. nothing jumped out at me, so I grabbed more graham crackers.. crushed 'em up and made a ring around the top of the cake, then half-assed spreading them on the outside edges just because I had so much left. I then poured the noxious caramel sauce on top. And then I watched the noxious caramel sauce break through the graham cracker dam and slide down the side of the cake, over the edge of the plate an onto my counter top. I just about imploded at that point. I picked up the plate, used my finger to wipe off as much of the sauce as I could, then just FLINGING it in the direction of my sink because I DIDN'T CARE ANYMORE and threw the fuckin' thing in the fridge. Even after all of this, I had hoped that the flavors would meld and mellow out after a long chill. Yeah no.. that didn't happen either. The one and only TRUE THING that I did WRONG with this cake is to NOT look at it and scream "YOU ARE NOT A MILLION DOLLARS" because for everything I thought was right about the cake, was so pitifully wrong that SURELY had I screamed those words it would have magically turned into a huge fucking pile of $100 bills. GOOD DAY PEOPLE. GOOD DAY. xoxo I made a boatload of mini's.. the first one is for Hubbs.. plain with a simple blueberry & orange compote on top (fakker wouldn't thicken for me like it usually does) And for moi! Orange cheesecake with a seriously thick layer of semi-sweet chocolate poured over it. *slurp* xoxo

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

So many new discoveries this month.. let's count! 1- I CAN post more than once a month! I can! 2- Someone's bad karma CAN bite them in the ass eventually! (No, not me :P) 3- I can live on Totino's Pizza Rolls when I absolutely have to! 4- I'm the ONLY Daring Baker who couldn't wait for her lasagne to set up before slicing! 5- Who knew Hubbs would put the kibosh on green noodles?? 6- Indoor plumbing is VERY! IMPORTANT! Okay I'll stop on that last one.. yes, major plumbing issues this month.. and a husband who REFUSED to call a plumber because "I CAN FIX THIS". Two 100 foot plumbers' snake rentals, 3 wax rings and about eleventy billion loads of sopping wet towels later - we have working drains and faucets and toilets and showers and we didn't have to call a plumber. Now ask me if I've started to hit the bottle around mid-morning snack time. :P Cooking dinner without working plumbing isn't easy either.. and this is how I found out I could eat pizza rolls 3 nights in a row, where previously they would make me gag. Maybe I didn't gag because the only energy I had left at pizza roll eating time was swallowing. So needless to say, the Daring Bakers challenge was put off, yet again, until the last week of the month. We were supposed to make it last weekend, but Super Plumber reckoned he deserved a weekend off to play with his brother, and Ivonne and I decided it was high time to get some unfinished The Daring Kitchen website business taken care of. So that left no room for lasagne as planned. But, we figured, this wouldn't be a big deal as there are two of us and only 1 lasagne to make. Should be a piece of cake! Mmmm hmmm.... First off, let me insert the information for this month's challenge: The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge. Our lovely hostesses only had one thing to say.. we must make our own pasta sheets from scratch! HAR! Dough! Me! *thud* To say I was a little nervous going into this is truly an understatement. Dough hates me. Seriously, I could screw up a simple pizza dough, believe me. And they want me to make pasta dough? Flavored pasta dough? The kind you have to roll out MANUALLY?? *eek* Oh yeah, Hubbs didn't have a chance of getting outta this one. Even if we had made it over the weekend with all the time in the world, he still didn't have a chance. Okay well, back to two of us and only 1 lasagne. We figured we'd make the pasta dough and the ragu on Monday night and then make the bechamel and assemble, bake and eat the lasagne on Tuesday night. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Here's what happened.. Monday it rained, and Hubbs didn't have to work - so I asked if he'd mind making the ragu because that would save us so much time once I got home. We'd only have to make the pasta. Easy Peasy! He agreed.. and he made a mighty fine ragu in my opinion. His opinion.. slightly different.. he didn't feel that it was worth the 3 hours he put into it. When I got home from my 8 in the dungeon, we were to make the pasta dough - BUT - he had decided to surprise me! He made the dough while the ragu was simmering on the stove, bless his reinforced toe tube socks! Problem was.. and I tried not to giggle, point and stare.. honest. I tried. But his "ball of dough" laying on the counter resembled something that most likely died of a really bad case of the shingles. The thing had scales. And lumps. It was kind of the shape of a ball.. like maybe a rubber ball that's sat in the sun for years and was just flaking apart when the wind hit it just right? I should mention, we did NOT make the spinach flavored dough as requested by our lovely hostesses. No, I'm sorry, but he will not eat spinach pasta. HATES IT. And since I'm not the biggest lasagne fan - I love it! But it's just too rich of a dish for me.. we eat it maybe twice a year, maybe - I really wanted to make a lasagne that he'd eat. So in discussing it the week prior, we decided that we'd take the unbelievably delicious slow roasted tomatoes made from the last of our tomatoes at the end of summer last year, thaw 'em out, puree them and use that in lieu of the spinach. Since the recipe called for 10 oz. of spinach and since spinach is so light, we figured 5 oz. of the pureed tomatoes would work. Apparently not. :) Not enough liquid to keep that dough ball baby alive. Jebus, it's death must have been painful.. poor guy. So I made the pasta dough this time.. and I upped the amount of slow roasted tomato puree to about 8 oz. and threw in 2 tablespoons of EVOO. Perfection! OHMYGOD I MADE PASTA DOUGH and it didn't give me the big F!U! in return for my efforts! I'm grinning from ear to ear right now, and this happened several days ago! teeeee! So I started kneading.. and kneading.. when I realized I should be taking photos! Yes Photos! I'm a blogger after all! This is for my blog! "Ohhhh honeyyyy.. can you take over the kneading so I can photograph it??" Muahahahahaahaha And that he did: We decided to let the dough rest until after we'd had dinner - I think he had micro-waveable creamed beef on toast and I had a hot dog? Something.. might have been cereal.. no wait.. yeah, it was pizza rolls. *sigh* And after our nutritious and very low sodium dinners, we said screw the pasta and watched Two and a Half Men. The next day after work, we came home and rolled the pasta. No wait.. when I say "we" I really mean "he" - I had to be super photographer again, doncha know? It took him approximately 2.5 hours to roll that dough out to what we thought was paper thin. He went in sections.. very small sections.. and my job was to take pretty pictures and to hang the sheets (I use that term loosely) over our kitchen table chairs. Here, look for yourselves:    BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! All I could do that night was think about Silence of the Lambs.. remember how the serial killer would take pieces parts of his victims' skin and sew them together to form a mask? Holy cow he would have peed himself had he waltzed into our kitchen! Look at this one! It's got the eyes and mouth hole already built in!! By the time rolling was done, we looked at each other and again said, "screw it". He ate the pizza rolls and I had cereal that night. I think I watched a few Ellen shows I had tivo'd. Now we're on day THREE. And come hell or high water, we were going to eat this bitch TONIGHT. We were DONE dammit. So I started the bechamel (which neither of us wanted, but I had already cheated with the tomato flavored dough so I couldn't make any other changes without the possibility of the Daring Lynch Mob coming after me), and he put the water on to boil and heated the ragu. 20 minutes into it, we realized that our noodles WEREN'T paper thin and wow.. they were kinda thicker than we thought. So imagine the two of us standing in the middle of our kitchen holding up steamy fakkin hot strips o'noodles debating on whether or not we could see each other through them. "I can see you plain as day! Quit moving", "I didn't move". "oh.. maybe I'm looking at Chloe then?" "Well I can see you!", "Yeah, well I don't doubt it as you've got both eyes open and I'm about 140 times wider than that strip of pasta." Ahhh.. newlywed love. Can you feel it? ANYHOO.. we assembled the lasagne and gently covered the pan with foil.. slid her into the hot oven and listened to our stomachs growl for about an hour. At this time, the lasagne was finished and looking wonderful - smelling even better. I should have waited a while for it to cool down a bit and set up, but I truly thought I'd be signing divorce papers had I not cut that baby tout de suite. I mean the man was standing over me with a fork in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. ;) So I cut.. and it oozed a lil.. and then I slid my favorite fish flippin' spatula underneath and slowly lifted a piece of what smelled like heaven.. and then.. *sploooooge* It totally slid apart and I barely got it on the plate: This did not deter us from eating it right then and there. And let me tell ya'll.. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO happy we didn't fall from the recipe a second time - the bechamel was divine with the lasagne. OMG SO GOOD. The ragu was delish, the pasta had a lovely texture, although we couldn't really taste it's flavor with it being buried under all that other stuff.. but all in all, the judges gave this lasagne a 10. No longer will I ever make the heavy lasagne I grew up on.. this will now be my go-to lasagne with maybe just a few small alterations here and there to cut some time.. but nothing major because I wouldn't want to lose that flavor and lightness it had. Thanks so much for a great experience and a new go-to recipe, Mary, Enza & Melinda!! xoxo