Tag: baking

Baking, Celtic Thunder

Such a Spooky Halloween . . . BOO!!

Emerald Thunder

Where is my Halloween Spirit this year? Oh, I know, it got replaced with Christmas Spirit, thanks to the CT Christmas album that I’ve been listening to in rotation with Ryan’s. Needless to say, I haven’t made any cute Halloween decorations, bought any candy, or watched the 13 Nights of Halloween. Alas. But I did make a spooky ghost cake tonight, since it’ll be my only time with the kitchen for the next couple of days. Oh the joys of living with four other people and their social lives. . . .

I tried out a new recipe for this cake. The title led me to believe dark chocolate would be involved, but it only called for cocoa powder for some reason, and no melted chocolate at all, dark or otherwise. I baked it up in a 9×13 pan and then I attempted to cut it into a cute little ghost shape. It’s somewhat wonky, but cute nonetheless. I just wish I hadn’t accidentally added too much milk to the buttercream–it’s not nearly fluffy or set up enough for my taste; it ran right off the sides and down into the pan. If only I hadn’t run out of powdered sugar. I knew I should have bought more at Trader Joe’s when I went two weeks ago. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about that now.

Isn’t it a spooky little ghosty?

2:30AM EDIT: Oh yeah, gotta love the joys of living with suitemates with too active and rather disrespectful/unreasonable social lives. At least I already decided I was going to stay up late . . . because it looks like I’m not going to be able to sleep anytime in the near future. . . . It’s not like I was at work from 8am-7pm or anything and wanted to sleep by 3am. . . .

Baking

Baking Go Leor

Emerald Thunder

It seems I’ve been remiss in posting about what I bake. Classes, exams, and utter exhaustion haven’t completely kept me from baking, but for some reason it’s kept me from posting.

Let’s see if I can remember everything. . . .

I made something called a “French Breakfast Puff”, which is basically a baked doughnut hole. I didn’t follow the recipe and presentation suggestions exactly, but I thought they were still very yummy. They must have been, since they were all gone within a couple of days.

There have also been brownies. LOTS AND LOTS of brownies. But somehow I only managed to take a photo of one of the batches. These ones were good. They could have been better if I had taken them out of the oven a couple minutes sooner, but I made the glaze that the recipe suggested, and it really helped to moisten them up.

The second batch of brownies I made were AMAZING. They got the approval of a friend who very much prefers boxed brownie mixes. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of them. I had kept meaning to, but they just kind of disappeared before I got the chance.

I also tried my hand at a baked mac and cheese recently. It was a good start, but for future mac and cheese endeavors, I need MORE CHEESE. You would think that cheddar, Parmesan, cottage, and  mozzarella cheese would be enough, but I think I need to up the cheddar cheese because it wasn’t quite gooey enough. I’ll try again sooner rather than later, seeing as how I still have cheese left and I don’t want it to spoil. Note to self: buy ricotta cheese, too.

The other day while I was procrastinating in my mid-term studying, I made “granola bars”. I put them in quotes because they’re not really granola bars, but more like a granola cake of sorts. They still taste really good, but I need to have something to drink with them because, while they’re not dry, they make me really thirsty. I added chopped up chocolate chunks, raisins, and peanut butter to them, even though the recipe only called for mini chocolate chips. I had been craving a raisin-y something, so I figured why not, and hey, peanut butter goes GREAT with both of those things. I only have a few left, so I really should get on that whole picture-taking thing soon.

 

Baking

It’s a Lemon and Pancake Party!

Emerald Thunder

I can’t even begin to express the sadness I felt as I ate the last piece of this lemon blueberry loaf with a lemon glaze last Friday morning. While the lemon flavor was slightly over-powering, I think it was a fantastic first attempt at this recipe. For future baking endeavors, though, I think I’m going to cut down on the lemon and sugar so that it has a more subtle flavor, rather than a BAM *sour face* one (even though that was thoroughly enjoyable and made me think of Damo and his lemon love each morning). I’m not sure if I want to make this same loaf again Sunday morning, or if I want to try something else for next week. I’m going to have to have a look around the All Recipes site to see if anything new will jump out at me. Whatever I end up baking, though, I hope it will be just as enjoyable as last week’s breakfast was, especially to make up for my lack of breakfast this week (big mistake, because I realized I NEED to eat breakfast every morning).

In other lemony news, I tried my hand at making lemon squares a couple of weeks ago. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing out on. The recipes was SUPER easy, and the results were SUPER yummy. The little squares were “suitemate-approved”, and so now I know what I can make when I want to make a dessert for my suite, since one girl doesn’t like chocolate (I’m going with it, even though I can’t quite wrap my head around hating chocolate. Oh well, to each her own.).

In non-lemon news, I made pancakes. They were also yummy. It was a tried and true recipe, so I wouldn’t have expected anything less than perfection.

Baking, Celtic Thunder

New Home!! . . . And an Increasingly Depressing Post. . . .

Emerald Thunder

I finally had enough with not being able to post pictures on LiveJournal, so I decided to change it up a bit and join WordPress. With this site, I was able to import all of my old LJ posts, so nothing is lost and forgotten. I don’t even know where to begin in posting about everything I’ve been unable to post about, so I guess I’ll start with the most recent. I made my second batch of chocolate chip cookies of the semester, and I must say, they are better by leaps and bounds than my first batch. I think I finally have the correct timing for keeping them in the oven, as all three trays were perfect, and the remaining cookies are still super soft and wonderful.

Edit: Soon after posting, I found Keith’s new Twitter photo, and boy was I not expecting THAT. I knew he got a haircut and it looked really different, but I wasn’t fully prepared for the reality of seeing it, even though I was actively searching for an elusive picture of him but a few hours ago. I just keep looking at it and thinking “This isn’t Keith, at least not MY Keith.” And I also can’t help but think he got his teeth fixed, because he doesn’t seem to have that adorable crooked front tooth anymore. . . . 😦 So many things are changing that I’m starting to lose count.

Edit #2: Dear God this night keeps getting worse and worse. My sound won’t play on my Celtic Thunder: The Show file, I remembered Neil shaved his goatee, AND I missed Sephira performing like EIGHT times in Grand Central Station over the past few days *goes to a corner to sob*. And here I thought September was my GOOD month. What’s happening to it? Ever since yesterday it’s been going down, down, down hill VERY quickly. Okay, I’m ready for October to start, like, NOW, please.

Uncategorized

Come on LiveJournal

Emerald Thunder

It’s becoming increasingly irritating that I can’t upload any photos to my entries, because what’s the point of the entry if I can’t show off what it’s about? I want to know what’s wrong with this feature and when it’s going to be up and running again, because I actually have stuff I want to post about, but can’t at the moment. How else am I supposed to legitimately put off all of the reading I have to do, even if it’s just for a short time? At the moment, I’m waiting to post about 1 updated Keroppi, 1 dessert, 1 breakfast, and 1 super sad CT fan that can’t go to the show taping this Friday night even though it’s less than two hours away by Metro-North. *sigh*, Such is the life of a broke college student. If only I could find a decent way to survive without needing to buy groceries or spend money on food, then I would be able to afford the ticket and I wouldn’t care about having to stay in Poughkeepsie until 4:40am when the train would arrive to take me home. I could have sworn that I said to myself that I was going to the next taping, no matter what, but I guess things changed a bit since last October. I guess I’ll just have to wait two and a half weeks for the first of three shows I’m going to. At least nothing’s stopping me from hanging around Radio City alllllllll day long that Friday. If I manage to snag some face time with Keith and Damo to speak some Irish with them, I guess I’ll be okay. Haha.