Alton Brown's Redemption

These cookies. Oh man.

This is the best recipe I've found for cookies. It more than makes up for the funnel cake puke-fest. I knew Alton Brown wouldn't fail me again.

I ate...an extremely embarrassing amount of these cookies. Extremely. I'm not one to care about eating too much, but seriously...I ate way too many of these cookies. I wouldn't be surprised if I gained about 10 pounds just from the cookies I ate. But that's more because I'm a pig. Not that they weren't amazing, they were. I just have a lack of self-control, thus why I have decided that I'm only allowed to make things for events. Because SERIOUSLY. You have no idea. I ate so many cookies. So many.

The recipe is for plain chocolate chip cookies, but I wanted white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, so I substituted. I got around 2 dozen cookies from the recipe.

Ingredients.

Cookie dough. mmm.

Cookie family.

"The Chewy" Chocolate Chip Cookies from Good Eats
2 sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
3. Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

The Great Funnel Cake Adventure

AKA, The Great Waste of About Fifty Gallons of Vegetable Oil.
AKA, Let's See How Bad I Can Make the House Smell.

A few months ago, I was watching Good Eats at about 2 o'clock in the morning (any time is a good time to watch Good Eats). On this particular show, Alton Brown made pate a choux, and he said that you can make funnel cakes with the recipe. I then had a burning desire to make funnel cakes.

I gathered the ingredients and all of the vegetable oil (I think we had a little at the house, so we went out and got a thing of it, and I used the whole container). I even bought a cool little flipper/drainer thing! After about 2 weeks, the oil heated to the right temperature. I squeezed the batter into the pan with a piping bag (that part was very fun). I let them dry off. I tasted one.

Ew. It tasted like eggs. I think I accidentally cooked the eggs somewhere in the process. It was fun, but a complete waste of the afternoon. And the house smelled all fried for the rest of the day. Gross.

I know it wasn't Alton Brown's fault, so I continue to have an abnormal amount of love for him.

frying pan with nifty thermometer and candy corn on the microwave.

gross funnel cakes.

Poop cakes.

I baked these cupcakes last night. They did not taste like poop, but the frosting looked like it. I wanted to try this method of piping, so I had to forget about what it would like it. I decided to spread the frosting out on a few of them, but my brother told me that it looked like poop that had been stepped on. Note to future self, always use swirly tip for chocolate frosting. If someone thinks that looks like poop...something must be wrong with them.

I used Amy Sedaris's vanilla cupcake recipe, after seeing it on How to Eat a Cupcake. My mom has simple taste, and although she eats my peanut butter, lemon, and oreo cupcakes, she really likes plain old vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The other day she informed me that cake from cake mixes is the best. I am trying to prove her wrong. I will admit, most of my cupcakes haven't turned out very good, but I still think that the fact that they're homemade and don't have all sorts of weird ingredients in them make them taste better.

So, these cupcakes were awesome. I think they're the best I've made, my mom still didn't think they were better than a mix. *shakes fist at my mother.*

I used Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" frosting. I should have put more milk in it, because it was very thick and when I ate a cupcake this morning, I could pick up the whole swirl of frosting and it stayed intact (and laying the frosting on the table made it look even more like a pile of poop). It was good, but it tasted like cocoa powder to me and not chocolate. I guess I'll have to use actual chocolate next time.

I will stop saying poop now.

Since this post is pretty boring, I'll include my latest embroidery project, a cupcake!



AND. We found this baby turtle on the road this morning, so we moved him to the other side of road, but before that we had to have a photoshoot, of course.

Vanilla Cupcakes from Amy Sedaris
makes 12 cupcakes

3/4 stick (6 tbsp) unsalted butter
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons milk

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
3. Beat in eggs, vanilla, salt and baking powder.
4. Add flour in 3 batches, alternating with milk.
5. Mix until batter is smooth with no lumps. Do not overbeat.
6. Divide batter evenly among cups. Bake for 16 to 20 minutes or until tops are pale gold and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

7. Cool on wire rack for 45 minutes or until at room temperature.

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Wah wah waaaaaah.

I had such high hopes for this one. It's all I've been thinking about for 3 days. I'm pretty sure I had dreams about them, too (I was at least thinking about them in that world between awake and asleep that occurs in the morning hours).

I found a recipe for honey madeleines on Williams-Sonoma's website. I don't have a madeleine pan, so I couldn't make madeleines, but I got the genius idea to make cupcakes with the recipe. I was especially excited because I've been wanting to make honey cupcakes for about, forever, and no one has ever made honey cupcakes, according to internet searches.

So I finally made them today. I left them in a little too long, so they were a bit dry. They didn't even taste like honey! I injected some honey into them, but it's hard to inject honey. Honey is sticky and I DON'T LIKE STICKY. I avoid sticky at all costs.

Of course, I also didn't follow the recipe exactly, so I'm sure that has something to do with the failure.

I'm sure this recipe would make wonderful madeleines, but as cupcakes they're just okay. I was disappointed, but I will make honey cupcakes someday.

I know I've only posted about cupcakes thus far, but really, I make more cookies than anything. Part of the reason why is that my family doesn't eat cakes or cupcakes very much. I mean, they like cake, they just don't eat much of it, so it ends up getting thrown away.
But cookies. That is an another story. They usually end up being eaten within a day or two. Except when I made those butterscotch graham cracker crumb cookies...those were weird. But they still got eaten.

Anyway. Another cupcake post!

A few weeks ago I made lemon cupcakes with vanilla cream frosting from Julie Hasson's 125 Best Cupcake Recipes. They were very good, but I wasn't a huge fan of the lemon. I guess real lemon isn't the same as that lemon cake from Wal-Mart with about a gallon of yellow food coloring in it that screams LEMON CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh well.

ingredients.

Dishes for my mom to clean up. muhahaha.

Naked and cooling.

Frosted. (Aren't those balloon liners classy? Very sophisticated, I think).

Cupcake and his family, lurking in the background.

Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temp.
• 2 egg whites
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp lemon oil or extract
• 1/3 cup buttermilk [I used 2% milk because that's all I had. The world didn't explode, so I figure that was okay.]
  
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a pan with cupcake liners.
2. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a bowl, with an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add egg whites, one at a time, beating until well combined. Add lemon zest and lemon oil, beating well. Alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, beating until smooth. Add lemon Juice, beating until just smooth.
4. Scoop batter into pan and bake 20-25 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in pan on rack 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

Vanilla Cream Frosting
Makes 1 1/2 cups, enough to frost 12 or more cupcakes

• 1 1/3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• A pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla

1. In a small bowl, using an electric mixer on low speed, beat together sugar, butter and salt until creamy. Increase speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. Add cream and vanilla paste, beating until frosting is smooth.
2. Spread icing on cooled cupcakes with a knife or transfer to a pastry bag and pipe decoratively over cupcakes.

rainbow!

Over at bakebakebake, these rainbow cupcakes are very popular. Because I like to follow the crowd, I decided to give them a try.

I didn't do frosting because...I didn't want to. I used to think that it hated me, but the truth is that I don't have a stand mixer and I'm too lazy to mix it as long as it needs to be mixed. Also, it was about 10:30 at night when I made them and I don't like using the mixer at night. It's too loud.

I'm just a tiny bit crazy.


I used Julie Hasson's recipe for white cupcakes in 125 Best Cupcake Recipes. They were pretty good, not "make this every time I need vanilla cupcakes" good, but my brother ate about 3 of them the night I made them, if that means anything. I think boys will eat anything that's put in front of them.



mmm.

This is my latest baking adventure, peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting!

I used this recipe, from How to Eat a Cupcake. They were alright, they weren't really cake-like, and they were a little bland, and dry, maybe? I bet I messed it up somewhere, oh well.

For the frosting, I used 3/4 cup of whipping cream and 1 1/3 cups of milk chocolate chips. I didn't know if it'd work out okay, since I was a rebel and didn't use semi-sweet or unsweetened chocolate, but it was goooood. And I got to pipe it all pretty! That's all that matters, right? It can taste like I pooped in the batter as long IT'S PRETTY, RIGHT?!

Ew.