Tag: bi-weekly baking bonanza

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.

Baking

My Bi-Weekly Baking Bonanzas

Emerald Thunder

With the semester and all of the work that goes with it looming on the horizon, I’ve been reading baking blogs like crazy and stockpiling countless recipes for future use. I’ve also been searching for the perfect cake recipe to bake up for my 21st birthday next month. I’m never content to just have a couple of options. I always need to have too many options to count, which ultimately poses a problem when it comes to finally narrowing things down and making a decision. In the last day alone I have found so many things I want to try out, and I just don’t know when I would be able to find the time to tackle even half of them; which brings me to the topic of this post. Inspired by Yarn Harlot’s own Self-Imposed Sock of the Month Club, I will be doing the same with my baking, except I will make something every other week, since doing it weekly would be insane, given my schedule. I think the hardest part of this entire endeavor will be to actually narrow down all of my options to about 7 or 8 must-make recipes–just enough to last the semester, since I don’t know what my summer plans will be or if they will include a kitchen. They need to be things whose ingredients I won’t lose interest in if they’re not chosen until weeks from now–ideally classic recipes, but with a twist. There always needs to be a twist. It’s the twist that differentiates one recipe from another and makes it extra special. I want the twist to be included in the recipe, because it will also be a test of my ability to follow what’s written and to check that I actually have everything I need before I start.

With that in mind, during these blog explorations, I think I found my birthday cake. It fits me perfectly, in that the woman that posted about it wrote “There are just quite a few components to this cake, so it takes some time. Be sure to read through everything before you start this project.” It seems like it was written to me, because I’m notorious for not checking for ingredients and just diving in based on my own assumptions of what I have. Beantown Baker’s Chocolate Overdose Cake greatly resembles a cake my school serves at its Sunday brunch. I haven’t had it since the end of my freshman year because I haven’t had a meal plan since then, so I’m itching to make it, but I must wait. I know I said I didn’t want to alter recipes, but I want to make it resemble the dining hall cake even more by adding a crunched up Oreo cookie layer on the bottom. I hope I can get that to work, because I think it would be amazing!

Edit:

Well, that was a lot easier than I thought. It only took me a few minutes to pick and choose, and here is what I will be making as part of my “Bi-Weekly Baking Bonanzas”. I really need to get a better title for this, too, because this one is just too gosh darn long.

1-30 (actually 1-28) Homemade Oatmeal Cream Pies — Beantown Baker

2-13 Pomegranate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies — Two Peas and Their Pod I think this one will be one to make around Valentine’s Day, simply because the colors coordinate.

2-27 Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting — Beantown Baker EDIT 2/20: I’ve decided to change this one for a couple of reasons. 1.) Two of my main treat eaters can’t eat bacon. 2.) I want a chocolate break after eating that INSANE birthday cake. No more heavy heavy desserts for a while, in order to prepare myself for the chocolate extravaganza that will ensue shortly after this. I’m replacing it with Oreo Cupcakes — Beantown Baker. It’s one of her most popular recipes, so why not give it a try.

3-13 Irish Car Bomb Cupcake — Beantown Baker This one will have to wait at least a few weeks, so that I can legally obtain the copious amounts of alcohol required.

3-27 Homemade Hobnobs — Cookie Madness

4-10 Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake — Baking Bites

4-24 Deep-Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes — Grace’s Sweet Life

5-08 Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes — Big Black Dog This one will definitely brighten up a cold winter’s day (or rather a sad stressful finals weekend with two papers due that week) with thoughts of spring/summer and freedom.

I think I’m going to take a pass at making something this coming week because I’ve just been baking so much lately. I will at the beginning of February with the Oatmeal Cream pies, which will help me to not be overloaded with all the chocolate I will be consuming with my birthday cake I’ll be making that next week. Then it will be the Pomegranate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies the week after. After that is up in the air at this point, but at least I have my options narrowed down to a select few sure-to-please recipes.

There’s also something of my own creation that I’m dying to make come St. Patrick’s Day. I recently bought a shamrock cookie cutter, and I was thinking that I will bake up a single layer, thin-ish chocolate cake, frost it with green frosting, and then cut out little shamrock cakes. I think the final product will be adorable, and I’m only posting about it right now so that I don’t forget, because I know I’m going to if I’m not making it for a while.