Category: Baking

Baking

Peter and the Piecatcher

Emerald Thunder

After watching the Tony Awards, I found myself with a desire to go to  a show and a Broadway Buddy to go with. My friend had been dying to see Christian Borle in Peter and the Starcatcher, so she suggested we try entering the lottery for tickets. We got to the theater a bit before the lottery began, entered our names, and watched as more and more people came during the half hour that sign-ups were open. I wasn’t sure how much of a chance we stood with so many entries, but we remained optimistic and didn’t even think about what we would do if we didn’t get tickets. I definitely need to keep in that mindset whenever I enter these drawings, because it seems to be working. I won tickets for Wicked last summer, and then my friend’s name got called for Peter and the Starcatcher!

Tickets in hand, we had some time to kill before the show started. We headed over to Pie Face to grab some food to go. Pie Face is an Australian chain, and their NYC location is currently the only one in the US. After this first time, I absolutely want to go back and try more of their delicious pies. Aussies certainly know how to sell pies, don’t you think? Doesn’t it just scream adorable? And it’s all so delicious, too!

I got the chunky steak pie and the mini lemon pie, and the two were the perfect amount to keep me full for the rest of the night. It’s a good thing, too, because the two together set me back about $10. Despite the price, the taste has ensured that I won’t hesitate to open my wallet for them again. I didn’t snap a picture of my steak pie because I somehow managed to get the one pie with a gigantic bubble on it, which marred the look of the pie. However, isn’t the packaging cute?

Oh my goodness, the mini lemon pie was to die for! It was a perfect blend of tart and sweet, with a bit more tart than sweet. The lemon filling towered over the little cup crust, and I was in heaven with every single bite. If only I could get the recipe to replicate at home, I would be one happy camper.

After dinner we headed back to the theater. The play was wonderfully hilarious, and Christian Borle was fantastic as the pirate  Black Stash. I think the beginning of the second act sealed the deal for my love of the show, but I won’t spoil it for anyone that wants to see it. Once the show was over, the two of us dashed over to the stage door and lined up to meet the cast and get autographs/pictures. My friend succeeded in meeting and getting a photo with Christian Borle, so her night was made. She was hyped up and going a mile a minute once we parted ways at the end of the night.

With school over, I hope I can finally get to more shows in the future. I keep forgetting how much I enjoy the whole experience. Seeing shows may or may not also serve as an excuse to hit up Pie Face again. The lemon pie is calling my name, as are the cherry and chocolate ones!

Baking

Snickers Cupcakes

Emerald Thunder

Before this year, I had never actually sat down to watch the Tony Awards. I never really had a reason to watch the actual ceremony. I mean, I like Broadway and all, but I’ve never been truly invested in it. However, I was invited to my friend’s Tonys party this year, so I thought I’d give it a chance. It was a blast! Friends, good food, good sangria, a Playbill puzzle (!), and the Tonys. It was a potluck affair, so of course I offered to bring dessert! I keep looking for reasons to bake and try out new things for an audience, so this was a fun opportunity.

At first I was really excited to bake up some lemon cupcakes, but then I texted my friend and horror of horrors, she’s not a big fan of lemon! I was a bit crushed, but I quickly bounced back and found a different recipe that would hopefully please everyone.

Enter these Snickers Cupcakes from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures! So sinfully rich. The cupcake base is especially delicious, with a deep chocolate flavor and a tender crumb. And such lovely little domes! I broke up the process and made the caramel sauce the day before and then the cupcakes and frosting the day of.

I waited to assemble everything until I got to my friend’s apartment, because I knew it would be a disaster on the subway if I did otherwise. Once I got there, I gave the frosting a good whipping  and then put together the surviving cupcakes. Despite my care, there were still a few casualties, but we’ll get to those next.

Since there were a fair few crushed cupcakes, I had filling and frosting left over. A couple of the girls at the party solved that little problem by just eating the two straight! Can’t say I blame them, though, as I was tempted to do the same.

I didn’t want to just eat the cupcake crumbs alone, so I combined them with the remaining frosting, and make cake balls with a chocolate coating. Such a good idea!

Baking

Le Pain Quotidien

Emerald Thunder

From time to time my dorm actually has events I want to participate in, especially when they involve baking. I signed up to go to Le Pain Quotidien to learn how they make their dough. Playing on the dough pun, this outing was also an educational event about how to negotiate your future contract and salary. I learned a lot of good things from the faculty-in-residence who led the event, and I think I’m definitely going to be in contact with him when it’s my turn to do this.

We got to the restaurant and sat down at a long wooden table while we waited for our turn in the baking class room. While we waited we  sipped hot drinks and went over the educational portion of the trip. I tried my first latte ever, and I have to say it wasn’t half bad.

Once we got in the room, we donned our aprons and hats and gathered around another giant work table. The woman teaching us went over the ingredients we would be using and demonstrated the proper techniques to make the dough. They actually use the same dough for their sweet and savory things, so we only needed to learn to make one dough for both the chocolate-filled rolls and the pizzas.

It was a very sticky process, with dough sticking to everyone and everything with every touch. I got the hang of it quickly enough, so I wasn’t quite as dough-y as others who have had less experience. Give them time and they’ll learn too. We didn’t end up using the dough we made for our pizzas because they had to rest and rise, so we got to take it home to make more things. Also, isn’t this oven great! It’s HUGE!

We had a choice of toppings for our pizza, and I went with mozzarella, parmesan, and bacon(!!). Their sauce is pretty much just crushed tomatoes, and they don’t even cook it at all. I LOVE this sauce. It’s perfection, with no onion bits that I can’t stand for me to pick out.

The chocolate and butter rolls were also really good. I took a couple home to share with my suitemates, and they approve of them as well.

I baked my little ball of dough and covered it in butter, cinnamon, sugar, and powdered sugar. I really love this combination. It brings me back to fried dough at the lake and the beach when I was younger.

Baking

The Infamous Birthday Ice Cream Bomb

Emerald Thunder

My suitemate has a very soft spot for ice cream. We were talking about what type of birthday cake she wanted, and she asked if I could make an ice cream cake. Of course, I replied, do you want something like Carvel’s? What’s Carvel’s, she asked. Oh dear. My heart stopped at that response and I had no idea what to say. How could she have never heard of a Carvel ice cream cake? Fudgie the Whale? I guess it’s not as prominent on the West Coast.

After this complete shock, I asked if she might like an ice cream bomb. I wasn’t as shocked that she’d never heard of this, so I tried to explain the concept. You layer ice cream and cake and anything you want in a bowl, and then you turn the giant frozen mound out onto a plate. This description resulted in her mouth hanging open in amazement because this proposed bomb was the perfect dessert for her. In the days leading up to its creation, she still didn’t completely understand what I was going to make, but she didn’t care as long as it had ice cream. I thought about what flavors to use, and settled on Half Baked, Starbuck’s Signature Hot Chocolate, and Trader Joe’s Mint Chocolate Chip. I also included a brownie base and fudge sauce between each layer of ice cream. It was going to be epic!

Building the bomb went fine, but freezing it was another matter entirely. My other suitemate and I had gone to Trader Joe’s earlier in the day, and because she and my roommate don’t really cook, the freezer was full to capacity. So much so that we had a hard time keeping the door closed because it would always pop open when we closed the fridge. I thought we had shifted things around well enough to get the bomb to fit, but at the unveiling I realized I was wrong. Evidently the door was left popped open, so the bomb had been slowly melting all day, but I didn’t find out until I tried to turn it out onto the plate. Complete disaster. It was fine for a second, but then I swear time slowed down as we just watched it collapse into itself. Cue four freaking out girls and a rush to throw everything out of the freezer to shove the exploded bomb back in.

In the brief time is was out of the freezer and then on the plate, it had melted all over the place and lost any shape it may have had. We were scared to open the freezer to check on it, in case it had spilled over even more. We had another problem because we had a ton of frozen items just sitting on our couch. Thankfully our RAs are fantastic and one of them let us put our things in her freezer.

We let the bomb stay in the freezer for the rest of the night and vowed to try again the next day. I managed to coerce it back into the bowl and into a semi-dome shape, but by then the different ice cream flavors had sort of mixed, so the layer effect was lost. We sang Happy Birthday and got ready to eat, but we found that the brownie had also frozen rock hard, so I could barely cut through it. Not to be deterred, the four of us cast aside our bowls and dug right in with our spoons. It was delicious!

We also made a birthday dinner, which consisted of: Butternut Squash Ravioli, Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli, Parmesan and Arugula Ravioli, a vegetable mix, artichoke hearts, and my creamy garlic bread. Despite how good dinner was, dessert definitely out shined it. You just can’t compete with five pints of ice cream and a giant brownie!

Baking

Irish Soda Bread

Emerald Thunder

I guess it’s about time I post about the Irish Soda Bread I made a while back. Leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, I searched and searched for the perfect recipe, and I found one that looked rather promising. However, just before I was going to make it, I got a different recipe from a friend, who said it was amazing. So my plans changed because I just had to make this other one. However, I have no idea where the recipe comes from because I only got a picture of the ingredients and steps from the cookbook it’s in.

This bread came together pretty easily, albeit extremely messily. My hands were absolutely covered in dough despite liberal flouring, and the counters and floor looked a bit worse for wear afterwards, too.

Mine was definitely a more rustic-looking soda bread, because I might have taken the “don’t knead it until it’s smooth” bit a tad too far. Oh well. The interior was super fluffy and moist, so I’ll sacrifice aesthetics for taste for the moment.

Hot out of the oven the bread looked delicious, and it was painful to have to take pictures before digging in.

I think I’ll definitely break out the soda bread every now and then, since it’s a bread I know I can make without messing up. I’m still not BFFs with yeast yet, but I think we’re slowly becoming more fond of one another, as evidenced by the light and fluffy pizza I made on Sunday. Baby steps, people, baby steps.