Category: Celtic Thunder

Baking, Celtic Thunder

Wow, What a Back-Log of Baked Goods

Emerald Thunder

I have been remiss in posting about my baking exploits as of late, so now it’s time to catch up. I’m going back to my roots and blogging instead of writing 2 papers and 2 essays, doing a pile of reading, or putting laundry away.

To start it off, a no-bake item: chocolate-covered Ritz peanut butter sandwiches from kevinandamanda.com. I stumbled upon this idea one day and I can’t believe I never thought to do this. I love chocolate, and I love Ritz and peanut butter, so why not love the two together? I altered it a tad and used whole wheat crackers and semi-sweet chips and some shortening instead of white chocolate bark, but I’m itching to try the white chocolate version. I made these on a whim one night when I had the kitchen to myself, and it was a really quick process.

1.) Make peanut butter sandwiches.

2.) Melt chocolate and shortening together in the microwave.

3.) Dip in melted chocolate/shortening mixture.

4.) Refrigerate until hardened.

5.) ENJOY! These go quite nicely with  “The Story of the Grail” by Chretien de Troyes, if I do say so myself.

Next up is a Buttermilk Banana Bread from Two Peas and Their Pod. I still had some leftover buttermilk from my birthday cake, and it was getting near its expiration date, so how could I not make this. In addition to going into the bread, before I made it I actually froze the remaining buttermilk in ice cube trays and then put all the cubes into a freezer bag. No wasted buttermilk for me. I’ve read that it doesn’t taste quite the same when you drink it after freezing, but it works just fine for baking. Who am I kidding anyway? I’m not drinking buttermilk, so freeze away I did.

Now, I admit, while I was able to take some pictures of the process, I forgot to do something important. We’ll get to that.

Butter and sugar. I wanted to use some brown sugar in addition to the white, but my remaining brown sugar was rock hard and I didn’t want to deal with softening it up. I’m already bad enough at having room temperature butter and eggs. I can’t deal with hard brown sugar too, especially when I had to make this quickly. I should include the microwave as a material needed because just about every time I bake, I have to soften the butter/cream cheese/whatever first. It works wonders . . . especially if the butter is coming directly from the freezer. . . .

Some serious elbow grease went into creaming the butter and sugar, but it was nice and light and fluffy in the end.Now for the addition of two (just out of the fridge) eggs. Whoops.

And mashed up bananas. I just used two giant ones that I had, but I think I would have liked just a little more banana taste to the final bread. Oh well, next time.

And now we get to my idiot moment of this process. I defrosted my frozen buttermilk cubes (again, in the microwave). I then proceeded to happily pour nearly the entire bowl into the batter. . . . As I was pouring, it hit me that I hadn’t MEASURED IT! I only needed four tablespoons, and I don’t know how much actually ended up in there. I added a pinch more flour after to compensate for the possible extra liquid.

The buttermilk was interacting with everything else, and as a result the batter looked a little suspect at this point, but it was just all the acidity.

FLOUR and other dry ingredients. I used half all-purpose and half whole wheat.You can see the darker whole wheat in the back of the bowl.

Mix, mix, mix. But not too much.

Into the prepared pan you go, delicious, if buttermilk-y, banana bread batter.

With a sprinkle of cinnamon. I LOVE cinnamon!

And out of the oven!

I think I slightly over-baked it because it was a tad bit dry. It was still really good, though.

I’ll get it right next time, along with actually measuring the buttermilk before I go pouring it all willy-nilly into the batter.

It was my breakfast this week, and I still have one yummy piece left. I took to putting a slice on top of the toaster for a minute and then spreading the warm bread with some peanut butter. SO GOOD.

I also did my third Baking Bonanza on Monday. More buttermilk was involved, but this time in the form of milk and vinegar. That was me following the directions ;D. But wait, where is my second bonanza? I did it, but I’m waiting to re-do it so I can get some proper pictures this time.

I’m going to make a separate post for this, so this is all you get right now.

For my final back-logged creation, I give you: the most wonderful homemade garlic bread I’ve EVER had.

I came across this on Buns in my Oven, and it is absolutely heavenly.

Granted, it’s heavenly even with my alterations, namely: a ciabatta loaf from Trader Joe’s (LOVE those. I’ve also been making croutons out of it.), no Parmesan (I didn’t have any.), added ricotta, no onions or herbs (I didn’t have those either.), some pepper, and a liberal coating of mozzarella cheese before going into the oven. So maybe I should amend my statement to say that the premise is heavenly.

I can’t wait to make this again. Perhaps tomorrow? I still have bread and just enough cream cheese for one more half batch.

And in Celtic Thunder news, I purchased my first concert ticket for this fall’s tour! At 7:45am, no less. Yes, I was up that early on a Saturday. In fact, I was up a bit before 7. What is wrong with me? Perhaps it was because I fell asleep almost immediately after coming home from work yesterday and slept though the entire afternoon and night, save for about an hour to eat dinner (salad and the last of my garlic bread, yum!).

EDIT: I knew I was forgetting about something. I also made a pizza earlier in the week. I used Trader Joe’s pizza dough and pressed the bottom with cornmeal, then I topped it with marinara sauce, chicken, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, and a sprinkling of salt/pepper/garlic powder. It was so good, and I just finished up the last bit of it for lunch today. Even though it was in my fridge for a few days, I somehow managed to not take any pictures at all. Next time. Wow, that really should be my mantra. Next time I’ll do this, next time I’ll do that, it’ll be better next time, I’ll actually measure ingredients next time :).

Celtic Thunder

“Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Like He-ri-tage!”

Emerald Thunder

After months of painful waiting, I finally received my copies of the “Heritage” CD and DVD on Tuesday. If anything, those last few hours waiting for my package to arrive from Amazon were the worst hours since this show’s announcement. Never mind the fact that I had been fortunate enough to see the show twice last fall–I still wanted the CD and DVD SO badly, and I knew how amazing what I was waiting for would be. Knowing might actually have made the wait worse, now that I think about it. Knowing that Damian would soon be soothing me with a gorgeous rendition of “Buachaill ón Éirne“ or that I would soon be squeeing over Keith and Neil performing “Whiskey in the Jar” and rocking out on their matching guitars. There was so much to look forward to reliving on the DVD alone, and so much more to hear for the first time on the CD.

I won’t go through every song on the DVD, but rather pick and choose a few.

“Heartland”. A classic. It never gets old. And. DECLAN! Oh, how I love you and your drums. I WILL get my Deco hug this year. I WILL. And a new picture with you, not that I don’t love the one I already.

Or not. TheThunderTube took down “Heartland,” BUT IT WAS REPLACED WITH “THE DUTCHMAN”!! Go watch that instead, before it gets taken down and replaced with a different song.

EDIT: Yeah, they keep changing the videos and I can’t keep up with it. Just go to their YouTube channel. It won’t disappoint (except if you’re looking for all the Heritage videos right now). You have my solemn vow.

(From TheThunderTube)

No words can properly express how I was feeling as I watched “Buachaill ón Éirne” for the first time since last October. There may or may not have been a tear or two trickling down my cheek at the end of the song. That lad has a voice. Pure and simple as that. I wish to reiterate my desire for an entire album filled with soothing songs that best highlight his amazingly smooth and deep voice. “As Gaeilge” (“in Irish”) would be a plus ;).

“The Dutchman”. Oh, “The Dutchman”. Oh, Keith. Sweet, sweet Keith. I love you more and more with each new song you sing. And I love you more and more with your surfer-dude hair. Thank goodness “Heritage” was filmed pre-“Heart-Attack Inducing Hair Cut”. Please don’t do that to me again. I love your “bushy, bushy blond hair-do”. Besides, your “Surfer Medley” just doesn’t work without it. I know it’s your hair and you don’t care what us Thunderheads think about it (you’ve certainly expressed that sentiment, to me even *embarrassed at the memory*), but just please throw us a bone and don’t cut your hair again during touring season . . . at least not drastically like last time. Okay, hair begging over, back to “Heritage”.

“Noreen”. Neil. LOVE. It’s such a beautiful song, made all the more sad because of its history. Phil Counter composed the music for it years ago as a gift for his friend Liam Neeson (yes, that Liam Neeson) and his new wife Natasha Richardson. It was called “An Cailín Fionn”/”Natasha”. Now, a couple of years after her tragic passing, Phil put words to the music and it transformed into “Noreen”. The emotion behind Neil’s performance is just heartbreaking–his eyes even becoming glassy by the end. I couldn’t think of a better person to sing this song. I love every single second of its performance and I can’t wait until the fall to hear it live again.

“Whiskey in the Jar”. One word: *SQUEE!!*. That about sums it up. Well, maybe four more words: Keith’s partly unbuttoned shirt. *Fans self*. Wait, a few more words: running and kilt bouncing up and down. Yup, that sums it up. Oh, to be Keith’s guitar pick in that song. Or to be the lucky person who caught it as he threw it into the audience at the end.

Oh, that shirt. *love*

(From Beth O in the Keith Harkin Fan Forum)

“Place in the Choir”. These photos sum it up quite nicely. So do the words “Damian can’t dance his way out of a paper bag”. It was adorable watching him try to line-dance. Try, being the operative word. Don’t worry, we all still love you.

(From Beth O in the Keith Harking Fan Forum)

(From Amazon, go buy it! It’s only $9.99 right now!)

No, I wasn’t biased *at all* in my song selections. They were all amazing. Just watch it and see.

Now on to the CD!

The “Heritage” CD was my first introduction to Emmet Cahill (Cah-hill) as a full-fledged member of Celtic Thunder. I had listened to the songs on his website, but those were geared more towards his classical training. I was eager to hear him singing with the other lads–would he blend well with them? Would he fit the sound? I wasn’t disappointed. At all. He’s already getting along with the lads on Twitter, and that camaraderie has most certainly translated to the music. I’m very much looking forward to seeing YouTube videos of his PBS studio visits with Keith in a couple of weeks. This is one time I wish I was on the West Coast, so I could watch for myself without having to simply hope that videos will be posted afterward. I’m counting down the days until the Beacon Theatre show on September 24th (EEEPPP!!!) so I can hear and see him live.

(From Emmet Cahill Official Music)

Oh yes, I think he will fit in with CT very well if I do say so myself. Not only is *he* gorgeous, but “Kindred Spirits” is absolutely beautiful. He is one lucky lad to have Phil Coulter write a song especially for him to perform.

My favorite song on this CD, hands down, is “The Galway Girl”. It’s such a fun song that I can’t listen to it without having a goofy grin plastered on my face the entire time. When I first heard it in its entirety, there was a gigantic gasp as I heard Emmet start it off. Oh boy. Keith, you have some intense competition now. Now, Emmet, if you’re at least 6 foot, you might need to watch yourself while you’re here in the city. I might need to kidnap you and hold you hostage in my dorm room. I’m giving you fair warning, boy, so you might want to do some shrinking before the fall tour starts ;).

Baking, Celtic Thunder

A Very, Very Happy “Chocolate Overdose Cake” Birthday to Me

Emerald Thunder

Yesterday was my 21st birthday, and I celebrated by going to class all day, coming home and napping, doing homework, and watching the first disc of The Tenth Kingdom. I fell asleep before 1am and didn’t even consume my first legal drink. I know, I’m SUCH a party animal. My birthday wasn’t all boring though, because the night before I went to the Hellogoodbye concert with one of my friends, and it was AMAZING.

Yes, we were on the side, but it was still great, nonetheless.

Because my week has been so hectic and short on free-time, and because I knew back in January that it would be like that, when I first went back to work I told my teacher that I would not be coming in on this date. I chose to designate this day as my “Epic 21st Birthday Cake Baking Extravaganza” day (I just named it that today). This way I could relax and actually enjoy the process, even though I didn’t know what I would be making at the time.

Enter the Chocolate Overdose Cake I found on Beantown Baker’s blog.

This cake has been by no means inexpensive for me to bake. I would not have been so bad if I already had a springform pan, but at least I have one now (although I would have liked for it to be deeper, oh well). I think I’ve spent nearly $30 on supplies for this, but I already know it will be worth every single penny.

I started this process by taping all of my ingredients/instructions/timings to the cabinet doors to keep them in sight, but out of the way. Then I cleared off the counter and moved everything to the tables. There’s so little counter space here that it just wouldn’t have been possible to make the cake with everything still out.

With my iPod playing my Damian and Keith playlist, the extravaganza began.

I started with the brownie layer, so I put some water on to simmer and sifted together the dry ingredients while waiting.

Note the green highlighter I’m using to cross out ingredients and steps on my printed out recipe. I’m so prepared.

Then I chopped up the unsweetened chocolate until it was rather fine. When they say unsweetened, they really mean unsweetened, because I got some on my fingers and tried it. No thank you. I won’t be doing that again.

Then I put the butter and chocolate into a bowl to put over the simmering water in order to melt it down and make it super smooth.

Then I added the sugar and mixed it all together. Then I prepared the springform pan to let the chocolate cool for a bit before I added the eggs.

Next came the dry ingredients.

Bit by bit I mixed it all together.

Until it looked like this and was ready for the pan.

Then it went into the oven for about 30 minutes and I commenced washing my bowls and utensils so I’d be ready to make the cake part. When I stuck a fork in them to see if they were done, I did as any normal person would do, and ate the moist brownie crumbs that came out with the fork. Oh My God. It was absolutely HEAVENLY. I cannot wait to dig into that layer of my cake. I’ll probably have to make these brownies just by themselves sometime.

I started prepping ingredients for the next part while the brownies were still in the oven.

I chopped more unsweetened chocolate.

This time into large-ish chunks.

I didn’t actually chop on top of the simmering water. This position just had better lighting and was less blurry.

Then there was more dry ingredient sifting.

Now the chocolate, cocoa and water melting/mixing could begin.

Once I added the sugar it looked much better and mixed much easier.

Then I mixed the buttermilk and vanilla and set it aside.

Out came the hand mixer so I could mix the eggs and sugar until it was all nice and fluffy.

I was amazed when I took a couple of pictures with the flash on as I was mixing because I swear the mixer is on in both of them. It doesn’t even look like the beaters are moving in the second picture. Aren’t I easily amused.

For some reason I failed to take pictures of mixing everything together, but it really just wasn’t that interesting. I added the chocolate to the eggs and sugar and alternated adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk/vanilla mixture.

Then everything went into the prepared cake pan to bake for nearly 40 minutes. The recipe said 30 minutes, but I guess my oven is colder so it took longer than expected.

After the cake was out and the dishes were washed again, it was time for a break to let everything completely cool before I started on the mousse. At this time I also put a bowl, my whisk, and the beaters in the freezer because they’re supposed to be “well-chilled.” I figured about 2 hours would be enough time in the freezer.

I had a slight mishap while making the mousse. I didn’t look at the recipe and so I poured both pints of heavy cream into my bowl. As I was whipping it, I kept thinking “This is so much mousse for the middle of the cake.” And then I remembered that I only needed ONE pint of it. *sigh*. At least I remembered before it got completely whipped and the chocolate was added. I just took out half and put it in a bowl so I could use it for the ganache later. I also failed to photograph the mousse-making process, but it was just melting chocolate, whipping cream and adding them together.

The I assembled the cake in the springform pan, covered it in plastic wrap, and let it chill in the fridge for an hour.

The ganache came together very nicely, even given the slightly whipped consistency of the cream. Most of the air came out of it after it was brought to a boil and then taken off the heat, so thank goodness my lack of attention to detail did not have any ill effects.

I have never used to much chocolate in one day. Let’s tally it all up: 5 1-ounce Baker’s unsweetened chocolate squares, 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and 6 4-ounce bars of Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate. That’s about 30 ounces of chocolate, which is nearly 2 POUNDS! Paired with the sugar in this cake, it’s sure to be a rich chocolate coma and sweet sugar rush to remember.

Doesn’t that look SO good already? I wanted to eat it then and there, even without the ganache.

Dripping and oozing down.

Boy did I make a big mess.

I let it chill in the fridge for about an hour and a half to set up and for the ganache to harden a bit.

STRAWBERRY TIME!

I am happy with my ganache-ing skills and especially pleased that the cake is nice and flat and as straight as I could ask for. I’ll be sure to make another post detailing the demolition of this delicious-looking (and hopefully wonderful tasting) cake.

Now it’s all wrapped up to chill in the fridge until tomorrow afternoon when I can finally dig in with some friends. It’s going to be a long, long night. . . .

At this point–and before having even tasted the final product–I think I can honestly say that this is one of the creations I’m most proud of making. It may have taken me from 10am to 7:30pm, but I would happily make this again and again, as long as I do not have to rush the process. This was the best birthday-cake-making day I could have asked for.

Baking, Celtic Thunder

Chaos and Insanity

Emerald Thunder

My first week of the semester wasn’t quite what I expected. For starters, I didn’t think it would only entail two days of classes. You have to hand it to Mother Nature for making my school close down on the day I have three classes. Kudos to her, but missing classes means the course work has to be made up somehow, which brings me to my main complaint. I just had to rework the days that I would hand in assignments in one class, and it did not make me happy one bit, especially the fact that a paper due date was moved to the same day as for another paper. This semester is going to test my abilities to stay on task more than ever before, which means I need to learn how to NOT PROCRASTINATE. I have so many assignments in all of my classes that there is absolutely no wiggle room whatsoever. If I don’t stay on top of everything, it’s going to be disastrous, and I wish that was just an exaggeration.

In preparation of this week, I decided to not honor my decision to avoid baking for a little while and made some blueberry muffins to eat for breakfast as I’m going out the door in the morning. I made the To Die For Blueberry Muffins on Allrecipes.com, and I must say that they really are “to die for.” This also marked the inaugural use of my new muffin tin.

I made some of my own alterations to the recipe, and they turned out wonderfully. I did not use the cinnamon/sugar/butter topping the recipe suggested, but I did sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar on top before I put them in the oven. I also subbed in a half cup of whole wheat flour, and I couldn’t even notice that I did that. Next time around I will probably use half all purpose flour and half whole wheat flour, just to make them a bit healthier and more filling. I didn’t have it at the time, but I’ll also use applesauce in place of the vegetable oil, just because.

Unfortunately, the recipe only yielded 11 muffins, probably because I tried to fill the cups too high. I also wish they could have had a more golden coloring, but I didn’t want to leave them in the oven, for fear of drying out. I’m not sure how long I left them in, but any longer and I would not have been happy because they would have been dried out. I took them out at the perfect time to obtain maximum moisture, so in the end the coloring is just an aesthetic thing.

This snow day also yielded additional unfortunate news, beyond the changing due dates. I went to check on Fishy this afternoon to find him floating immobile on his side. He had a good long life, for a little fish, but I will miss him swimming around in his bowl on my desk, blowing bubbles up at the surface along the sides and then popping them. RIP Fishy, May 2010-January 2011.

After today, I really want nothing more than to listen to some Celtic Thunder and bake up some Best Cocoa Brownies, which I think I’ll do as soon as my suitemates clear out.

Celtic Thunder

A Coincidence? Three Times? I Think Not.

Emerald Thunder

How far in advance do the songs for each episode of Glee get chosen? Certainly not a year and a half in advance. With that assumption, I believe we have ourselves a Celtic Thunder fan in a high and powerful position (at least in the tv world). It has to be. This is the third time a song that Celtic Thunder has covered has been later sung on Glee (with PLENTY of time having passed since CT released their versions). First “Hello Again” in the season one back nine premiere (George in CT, Schue in Glee), then “Baby It’s Cold Outside” on the Christmas CD (Ryan/Charley Bird, Kurt/Blaine), and now “Sway” will be in the eighth episode this season (Paul, Schue again). These aren’t exactly the most mainstream of all songs that have been done on Glee or that CT has performed, so there’s no doubt about it. Murphy’s TOTALLY a Thunderhead! However, he’s truly testing my loyalties with these songs, because while I absolutely LOVE CT’s versions of them and the lads who sing them, Murphy’s totally playing dirty with his choice of performers and placement within the show (at least for “Home Again”‘s context, which is all I’ve seen so far). All I know is there’s no possible way Schue can top my swanky tenor’s live “Sway” performances. No. Way. So he shouldn’t even try. It’s not gonna happen.