Tag: dessert

Baking

Bonanza #1 — Oatmeal Cream Pies

Emerald Thunder

After the past few days, I have needed to bake like nobody’s business, so I started my Bi-Weekly Baking Bonanza a bit early. I wasn’t able to make my brownies Thursday night because I wrongly assumed that my suitemates would be clearing out of the common room. That’s what you get when you assume things. . . .

For my first entry in my Bi-Weekly Baking Bonanza, I wanted to make the Homemade Oatmeal Cream Pies that I found on Beantown Baker’s blog, which she found on How to Eat a Cupcake. I thought I was so prepared, and I went to the store with a list of ingredients I needed (gelatin, light corn syrup, baking powder). I got those, and it turns out that I only had half of the amount of the most important ingredient! Silly, assuming me thought that I had more than enough quick-cooking rolled oats, but once again, I thought wrong, and therefore this time around I failed part of the bonanza.

This baking is not only supposed to get me to try out new recipes and techniques, but to also teach me to be patient and take the time to run down all the ingredients required and physically check to make sure I have the necessary amounts. In the end I decided to substitute in the other half of the rolled oats with steel-cut oats. I was a bit hesitant to do that, but in the end it worked out fine. I never ever want to have to do that again though, so the first thing I’m putting on my next shopping list is ROLLED OATS (and all-purpose flour, because I’m now running *really* low). I still can’t believe I didn’t have enough; usually I have rolled oats coming out my eyeballs! I guess it’s punishment for not checking before I had EVERYTHING all mixed up and ready to go into the oven.

The first thing I want to note about this dough was that it was extraordinary thick and hard to manipulate. I had a heck of a time mixing in the oats at the end. I think I must have done something wrong, but I really don’t think I mixed the flour too much and developed too much gluten. I didn’t see anything on Beantown Baker’s blog about this issue, so it must have been something on my end, I just don’t know what.

The overwhelming stiffness of the dough resulted in a VERY puffy first batch of cookies. I think maybe the baking soda and water mixture didn’t get sufficiently mixed into the dough, so there was nothing to counteract the baking powder that was sifted in with the flour. The cookies did not spread out at all like in the pictures on those other blogs, which rather disappointed me. For the second batch I only put three on the pan and I flattened them down myself before I put them in. Those ones came out much better, but they still didn’t look like the other bloggers’. So for the next batch I turned the temperature down to 400 degrees, put two tablespoons of dough together and patted them down into thinner disk shapes. I was very pleased with those results, and they were finally starting to look like everyone else’s–still a little on the thick side, but much improved.

Those other batches didn’t go to waste though, because the cookie itself is delicious both by itself AND with an added spread of peanut butter–they just weren’t suitable to be turned into the “ideal” oatmeal cream pie that I was going for.

It’s a good thing I wrote this first half of the entry before I started making the filling, because I would not have been nearly as happy after the fact. That darn filling nearly killed me and my little mixer (it did actually kill my shirt though, because I got so much stuff all over it). I should have known that this baking attempt was not going to be entirely pleasant just from how stiff the dough was and how dissatisfied I was with the initial cookie outcomes. Before I even started heating the ingredients for the filling I failed another aspect of the “Bi-Weekly Baking Bonanza” by not reading the ingredient amounts properly. Rather than mix 4 teaspoons of gelatin with 1/3 cup of cold water, I mixed the gelatin in 3/4 cup cold water; I accidentally read the 3/4 of a cup as water, rather than as sugar. Because of that mistake, I wasted nearly two packets of gelatin, and no, that stuff is not terribly cheap. Thank goodness I bought the four-pack.

Once I got it mixed with the correct amount of water, I heated up the sugar, corn syrup, and water. That went fine, as did mixing in the gelatin/water mixture. The trouble came after I was beating all of that up to make it marshmallow-y. As I was adding the powdered sugar, it was getting so thick that my little hand mixer couldn’t handle it. The filling was going up the beaters and toward the motor, greatly slowing it down. In the end I mixed it a bit with a knife, but I had to torture my poor mixer one more time when I added in the shortening. I didn’t plunge it all the way down to the bottom, so I had to go back and mix it some more by hand to make sure the shortening was well-incorporated.

I set up filling shop on the two tables in the common room and proceeded to use a rubber spatula to glob piles of filling onto the cookies. I think that must have been the easiest process of the entire afternoon. I ended up with 9 acceptable sandwiches and some open-faced ones of various sizes. Not quite the 24 sandwiches the recipe said it yielded. I did, however, use twice the amount of dough to make each acceptable cookie since they wouldn’t spread, so that explains the shortage.

After sitting overnight in my microwave and wrapped in plastic wrap, they’re not quite the soft cookies that I was told they’d be. They’re a bit on the crunchy side, but they’re still really good. The filling isn’t quite how I remember the packaged pies to be, but that might just be because I haven’t had one of those in YEARS. All in all it’s a good treat, but unless I can learn from my mistakes this time around (and can get a stand mixer), I probably won’t be attempting these again anytime soon. It was just too much work, which resulted in a mess of epic proportions and a very filled sink.

One thing I definitely learned from this experience is that I really want to take pictures of the ENTIRE process and not just the finished product. I generally like posts in other blogs better when there are a lot of photos, so why wouldn’t I post the same way? I also love photo-by-photo instructions, so why not give it a go myself. If only I had better lighting in the kitchen, but I’m still going to attempt this. In fact, I’ll add it to my list of goals with these baking challenges.

GOALS OF THE BAKING BONANZAS:

1. Read through the ingredient list and physically check that I have EVERYTHING in the proper amounts.

2. Read through the instructions at least once before taking anything out.

3. Pre-measure ingredients.

4. DON’T MAKE SUCH A HUGE MESS! (This one’s really important.)

5. Take LOTS of photos of the ENTIRE process, from start to finish.

6. SLOW DOWN and ENJOY the baking process.

Baking

The Triumphant Return of Miss Homemade!

Emerald Thunder

When I’m bored or stressed, I bake. It’s not just that I decide “Hey, I’m not doing anything and that sure looks like a good recipe.” No, it’s more like “OMG, I’m SO BORED/STRESSED! MUST! BAKE! YUMMY! TREATS!” I get something in my head to bake, and I can’t get rid of the need until I make it. Like during this winter break, I’ve been doing absolutely nothing, and so I want nothing more than to be able to make something, even though I already made SO much stuff last week and nothing else is needed because I’m still not off that sugar high. But the nagging feeling persists and I can’t get rid of it until I make something. For instance, last night I wanted to make pudding/mousse, but I had no heavy cream or butter, so I couldn’t. I was devastated. Well, maybe not devastated, but I was super annoyed and rather sad. So today that feeling persisted, and while I was reading one of the many baking blogs I frequent, I came upon something so simple that my parents couldn’t possibly refuse it. It was just enough like baking that it would suffice and satisfy my craving for *something*. I thought I had all the ingredients already, so I didn’t check before I started, but it turns out I didn’t. I didn’t have the most crucial thing at the most crucial time, and I thought all was lost.

This simplest of simple things I wanted to make was the No Bake Cheesecake recipe I found on Grace’s Sweet Life. I thought it couldn’t get any simpler, because I wouldn’t have to deal with baking and letting the cheesecake sit and hope it wouldn’t crack and disappoint me. I halved the recipe because I only had one package of cream cheese, and I’m glad I did because we wouldn’t have been able to finish them all if I made twelve cupcake-size ones or a whole cheesecake, so I made six cupcake-size ones, and they’re just the perfect little portions and so will be gone tomorrow.

When I got to the part that says to add the Cool Whip to the cream cheese and powdered sugar mixture, I thought all was going to be fine and dandy because I thought my father didn’t take the Cool Whip with him to my aunt’s New Year’s Eve party the night before, because who puts Cool Whip on pecan pie (which I made yesterday with a crust from scratch, but I forgot to take pictures)? But NO, he DID take it, and so I was Cool Whip-less. I somehow got my mother to go to the store for me and get it, but don’t ask me how the heck that happened, because I’m not even too sure why she agreed when I figured this would be something she wouldn’t eat, because of the Cool Whip contents. I’m not going to question it though, because she went, and I was able to finish my cheesecakes. I did have to add some cocoa powder to her’s though, because she doesn’t like plain cheesecake. I must say though, the cocoa powder addition made it pretty tasty, and slightly less tart (yes, I ate the remainder out of the little bowl I mixed her’s in).

I also made a little chocolate sauce to spoon on top of the cheesecakes, and I even stirred some into a little bit of the remaining Cool Whip for a chocolate-y addition. Yum. I just wish I had my sifter here so that I could have strained the cocoa powder and chocolate chip chunks out of the sauce so that it would have been velvety smooth.

Waiting for these minis to set in the fridge was very painful. All the while when I was playing Wii Bowling with my parents I just wanted to dive in and eat one. But the wait was well worth it. Tada!

Yeah, yeah, I know I still need to work on my presentation. Oh well. At least it looked and tasted yummy.

Baking

A Forced “Little Miss Semi-Homemade” Holiday

Emerald Thunder

Those last few days of school nearly killed me. I can’t believe I survived, but I didn’t get through it entirely unscathed. I was dying with my lack of food supplies, and so I couldn’t relieve my building stress through baking. Note to self for next semester: NEVER run out of eggs or milk during finals–it only results in frustration and sadness. I couldn’t make ANYTHING I wanted to make, and so my stress levels just built up and I eventually just shut down and avoided the looming papers and exams for a while.

But now I’m back home and there’s a blizzard outside. . . . Oh yeah, snow just make everything better *sarcasm*. At least I got to avoid snow for the first few days back. One of the first things that greeted me when I stepped in the door was my list of desserts my father was *letting* me make for our Christmas parties. Yes, that’s right, the desserts he was *letting* me make. Needless to say, I was not thrilled with that. I was even less thrilled when my mother then said that I has to be “Little Miss Semi-Homemade” this year. I was even less happy with that restriction.

So on my list of “approved desserts” I had chocolate chip cookies, a Jell-o cake, and a chocolate pudding pie. I had nothing against the cookies, but the cake was from a box and the pie was with a store-bought graham cracker crust and instant pudding mix. Again, I have nothing against people who use these, but I don’t enjoy using them anymore. Now that I have the resources and ability to make things entirely from scratch, I want to keep exploring and seeing what else I’m capable of baking well. Doing it my way does not take much longer, nor is it much messier, than making things from a box, but my parents just don’t understand that. They’re fully content with suppressing my creativity and encouraging a manner of baking that no longer gives me any enjoyment whatsoever. If anything, being told what to make and how to make it just irritates me beyond belief and makes me not want to do it. Is this my teenage rebellion belatedly manifesting itself in my baking?

In any event, I made their desserts and still got yelled by my mother for making a mess. I just can’t win with her. I made her desserts as directed and still got yelled at.

For some reason no one even touched the pudding pie. Not even my mother, the person I made it FOR. I could have made it a mousse pie. Thanks a lot, mom.

At least I got to make whipped cream, even if no one but me enjoyed it. They were certainly missing out by not eating it, though.

While my parents were out at the store in the afternoon, I managed to sneak in one scratch yellow cupcake batch with chocolate buttercream frosting. I had to put my foot down on the frosting front, even though my parents got home before the cupcakes were done or frosted, and so I made the buttercream right under their noses. Look how well they went over. I started the events with twelve cupcakes and two bundts, and all that remained was one cupcake and one bundt. Homemade for the win!

Even as I was baking, my father didn’t think there would be enough, so he wanted to add a pecan pie and another chocolate pudding pie (which would have thankfully been from scratch). I was going to make the pecan pie during the break between our two family parties, but that never happened, and it wasn’t even needed. My father’s side of the family is large-ish, and so there were about 18 people here (and 4 people were actually missing), and my father expected there to not be nearly enough food or dessert, but he was definitely wrong about that. There were meatballs, kielbasa in this strange grape jelly/chili sauce sauce, Velveeta mac and cheese, a spiral ham, shrimp, chips and veggies and dip, my aunt’s beans, another aunt’s “crabbies” and her yummy mini chicken salad sandwiches, another aunt’s teryaki chicken wings and such, scallops wrapped in bacon, a quiche, and probably something else I’m forgetting. Then there were a few of my remaining cupcakes and cookies, my pudding pie, my Jell-o cake, and some store-bought cupcakes my cousin brought because he didn’t know what to bring.

There was just so much food on Christmas Eve because in the afternoon we had hosted my mother’s side of the family (just 9 of us total). So much food, so much sugar, way too much family, and entirely too many leftovers. A cupcake and a mini Bundt, more than half the Jell-o cake, the entire pudding pie and it’s accompanying whipped cream, and more than half my cousin’s cupcakes remained after everyone left. Needless to say, the eating will continue for a few more days than expected.

In other news, I think Fishy rather enjoyed his first Christmas and his first Christmas present.

Baking

Thanksgiving Baking

Emerald Thunder

So basically I dropped off the face of the blogging earth for a while. I’ve been completely overwhelmed with school work, work, and thinking about all my final assignments these past couple of weeks that I just haven’t had the energy or will to post anything. Here’s a recap of my Thanksgiving creations.

Originally I wanted to make something really elaborate over break, but unfortunately my parents shot me down about that, and what would have been the point in making something wonderful if no one was going to eat/appreciate it. Instead they just wanted plain old boring chocolate chip cookies and a yellow cake–from a BOX . . . I guess they didn’t get the memo about my new-found hatred of boxed, chemical-laden, artificial box mixes. Now I know they work for those who don’t have the time/patience/ability/ingredients/whatever to make a cake from scratch–and I don’t think any less of those people for using this option–but now that I’ve been exploring the baking world more thoroughly, I never want to have to resort to boxes again because I’ve found such delicious and simple from-scratch recipes. I love trying out new ones, adding different flavors/more chocolate to them, and seeing how they turn out. Not all of them are rave successes, but it’s those slight flops that help me to learn what I want out of a recipe.

In any event, I–with the excuse of not having enough vegetable oil for both cookies AND a cake–managed to make a simple batch of yellow cupcakes for my father’s birthday. This attempt falls under the slight flop category, because I didn’t have the cake flour the recipe called for, and as a result, it was a very crumby cupcake (I know, bad pun). I think that if I had used the cake flour, the crumbs would have been much smaller and the cupcakes would not have fallen apart so easily (and I think having liners for the tin would have helped in that department as well, because they stuck like CRAZY and were difficult to get out).

Unfortunately, I also didn’t have nearly enough powdered sugar to make a fluffy buttercream frosting, so I had to used a tub of dense chocolate frosting instead *shudders at the memory*. It was such a light cupcake, and the heavy frosting just overwhelmed the poor dears, not to mention the chemical/artificial taste from it that I could not get out of my mouth. Again, no disrespect to those who use store-bought frosting, but I just don’t like the stuff anymore now that I try to do things from scratch as often as possible.

Overall they were good cupcakes, but I just need to institute a couple of changes, and they’ll be GREAT cupcakes. (My mother also shot down putting sprinkles on top because she hates them *sigh*.)

Before the cupcakes, I attempted a version of peanut butter/caramel/chocolate/shortbread bars (yes, like the candy bar, but with peanut butter). Again, a good attempt, but rather flawed in execution. The shortbread crust was nice and golden brown, but it wouldn’t come out of the pan; the caramel was slightly overcooked; and I destroyed the ganache topping by accident. I just don’t think I was meant to make these at this time. I ended up just taking everything else out of the pan and leaving the crust behind, resulting in hunks of thick chocolate and oozy caramel, with a thin layer of peanut butter on top.

Yeah, not exactly the prettiest thing I’ve ever attempted.

Finally, came my cookies. Finally, something turned out well. Thank goodness. I must say, this was probably the best-looking batch I’ve made in a while. They were soft and chewy, but not too much so. The perfect combination of soft and crunchy in all the right places.

A post about my creations from today will be coming up next. I’m sure I’ll need to procrastinate again really soon.

Baking

It Had to Happen Eventually

Emerald Thunder

It was only a matter of time. I failed. That’s the only way to put it. I tried making apple turnovers, and I failed. Miserably. I should have known something bad would happen when the filling was running all over the puff pastry and also when the pastry wouldn’t stick together without LOTS of squeezing and manipulating from turnovers to purses. All I can say is thank goodness I didn’t leave the kitchen after I put them in to bake, or the aftermath would have been much worse than a few filling dribbles in the oven. I was so looking forward to breakfast pastries for the next couple of days, but it looks like that’s not going to be happening and I’ll have to find something else for breakfast tomorrow and Monday. I don’t even know if I want to photograph that poor baking sheet and the sad things upon it.

OH. I just had an idea. Maybe I can still salvage this by transferring everything to one of my glass dishes and baking it that way. Instead it’ll be a sticky, caramelly, appley, desserty thing, rather than a nice clean morning apple turnover. I’m going to see what can be made of the situation.

So, it looks like I’m going to need to clean the oven a bit, because I smell burning sugar. Wonderful.

AH SUCCESS! I can’t believe I salvaged that huge mess. It smells so yummy and I can’t wait to dig in.

Yay!

Edit: Oh, wow, I’m REALLY glad I didn’t toss these after the first attempt mishap. SO GOOD! I don’t want to stop eating them now that I’ve already had one. They’re the new Lay’s potato chip in my life.