Valentine's Meal for My Valentine

Today was a whirlwind adventure of cooking and baking for me.

I've been planning to do something nice for Tene (due to it being Valentine's Day) for a week now. You'd think, having plenty of time to prepare, that I would have everything in the kitchen, just ready and waiting. But I didn't. We lacked a few things called for in the recipes I chose (lemon juice, paprika, chicken bullion, strawberries, and chocolate chips). So in the early afternoon Tene and I went shopping to get the missing ingredients - and a few other things (I was baking a cake, and needed two round cakepans - 9", and they barely fit in the oven together. Have I mentioned my oven/stove is tiny? Because it is). Then we came home, and the cooking began.

For our one meal of the day (bruchinner? We don't eat much around these parts) I made Chicken Piccata, which was very tasty, used too much butter. Like way too much butter. Maybe because I only made one breast (cut in half) instead of four? But still ... It was swimming in the butter. It was tasty though, and the chicken was nice and tender. I also made, as a sort of warm salad, some Garlic Bok Choy (I left out the ginger [which neither Tene nor I are huge fans of], oyster sauce [again: we're not really fans], and the red pepper flakes. and I put in an extra tablespoon of the soy sauce to make up for the missing oyster sauce. I also wasn't precise in measuring the brown sugar), which was also quite good. I found I prefer the taste of the leafy bits of the bok choy, which is good to know for future reference. I added a few strawberries as garnish and there it was! A healthy, delicious meal!

Tene didn't like how oily the chicken was, so I also heated up some leftover rice and mixed in some garlic power and salt, it worked well.

Then came desert. I had two deserts planned - one Tene knew about (a chocolate cake) and one he didn't (chocolate covered strawberries). The strawberries came from a conversation earlier in the week, when I asked Tene what he would enjoy as a desert. He didn't know, and said that what he likes from deserts is a mixture of sweetness and tartness - which I knew, but it was nice to be reminded. I thought about it for a while and it dawned on me - chocolate covered strawberries are absolutely perfect for those requirements. And so I decided to make them.

First was the cake. I've never really made a cake before, let alone a two-tiered one, but this one was pretty easy. Everything was just mixed together in one bowl - the dry ingredients first, then the wet ingredients, and then some boiling hot water. It made a relatively thin batter, which was easy to just pour into my new, well greased, cake pans. Then into the oven it went.

Then I went on to make the frosting. I didn't want to use buttercream (the only other frosting I've ever made), so I decided to try out a chocolate ganache. I found one that was really easy - two cups of heavy cream, warmed, and 16 oz of baker's chocolate. I used some really-dark-chocolate-chips, because there was no baker's chocolate left at the grocery store we went to. Brought the heavy cream to almost boiling, poured it over the chocolate chips, waiting for a few minutes (I covered the bowl the mixture was in to help trap some of the heat) and then stir until mixed! Then I just had to wait for the cakes to be done and the ganache to cool to a spreadable consistency.

So I worked on my strawberries! Really easy - I melted a decent amount of chocolate chips on the stove over a very low heat, Tene stirred it all the while. I added some milk (ended up being too much, but at least I know for next time) to make it a little smoother. Then I dipped the strawberries and set them out to harden on a cookie sheet.

Time passed, I took out the cakes to cool, flipped their pans over and had them slide out perfectly. More time passed, Tene and I ate the strawberries (I didn't get a picture of them). More time passed and I finally got around to frosting the cake.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but the ganache spread very smoothly. I wish I had leveled the sides of the cakes, but now I know what to do next time. Once the cake was nice and covered in a decent layer of frosting I decided to decorate. At first I considered sprinkles, since Tene and I got a little bottle of them at the store. But then I remembered my strawberries, and so I put 8 strawberries all around the edge of the cake.

Finally I cut two slices - one for me and one for Tene - and brought them up to him so we could eat them together.

It was delicious. The cake was rich and moist and chocolaty - but not overly sweet, and the frosting was a very appetizing bittersweet. I was only able to eat half of my slice (the other half is in the fridge, I will finish it off tomorrow).

All in all, I'm quite pleased with my Valentine's day meal. I hope to do more cooking, and baking, in the near future.

Finally .... Success!

 Finally I've made a cupcake that is tasty and looks cute!

See!? Look how cute they are!

There is a bit of orange batter in there, right next to the yellow, but I didn't add enough red coloring to the batter, so it looks like there's just a big blob of yellow in the middle.

The cupcakes themselves aren't overly sweet, which is a nice constrast to the very sweet buttercream frosting. Tene put the mini chocolate chips on two of the cupcakes - and it's actually pretty tasty.

Thanks to Melika for my new whisk :D

Cupcakes Hate Me

A couple of days ago, I tried making cupcakes again. This time, I tried to make these Chocolate Chip Cupcakes from Bake or Break. They ended up .... bad.

First off, they taste weird. I think they are a bit too strong on the vanilla front, where Tene claims that they're overloaded with waaaaay too much butter. Which I can certainly understand, since I'm pretty sure there's too much butter too.

Second, they cooked weird. My cupcake pans are covered in the topping.

Finally, they were greasy. Like, dripping with grease. Was really gross.

No idea what went wrong with them, and I may try them again sometime, but for now .. these are in my "not good cupcakes" box.

Volcano Cakes

So here's a silly and exciting cooking adventure, since there's nothing else here.

I had a get-together with a lot of my friends back in May, and decided I wanted to have cupcakes there. Stephen and I went and bought the ingredients that were needed to make a recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream. It was the first time I had made cupcakes, and I was trying to do my best to follow the directions. However, the cupcakes ended in disaster, becoming instead "Volcano Cakes." A messy version of the tasty cupcakes.

The first problem that I can point to as potentially being a problem were the baking cups used, which were foil and didn't require a baking pan (but needed a cookie sheet underneath them). They probably weren't the problem at all, but it was something that I wasn't used to (I've only ever seen paper baking cups used), and so thought could be a potential problem.

Another problem which likely effected the taste of the cupcakes (I didn't actually eat them when they were completed, as they appeared to be very burnt) was that we used a sweetened cocoa powder rather than an unsweetened cocoa powder. Of course this would have only made them sweeter - and wouldn't have necessarily been a problem.

However, I know I tried my best to get the recipe as close to correct as I could, and followed the directions implicitly. Still, while cooking the cupcakes, I realized something was going wrong when they weren't raising like they were supposed to. They also seemed to be taking far too long to cook - which is why they ended up burnt, I think.

The second thing that went wrong happened when making the frosting for the cupcakes. Both Stephen and I overlooked the fact that the frosting (as any frosting would) called for Confectioners sugar. We instead used regular sugar. The result was very crunchy frosting-like stuff.

All in all, it was an exciting adventure, and one I hope to never, ever, repeat.

Delicious Cookies

I found the recipe for these cookies over at Bake or Break. To break in the new stove, I decided to make the recipe for "My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies." Now, these are also the first cookies I've made in ... well ... years. I think they turned out quite well.

:pic:

I modified the recipe slightly, but tried to keep with the original as much as I could. Here's a reprint of the recipe, with my modifications.

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2½ cups uncooked regular oats
• 1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 ounces milk chocolate candy bar, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Beat butter at medium speed in a heavy-duty mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugars and beat well. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture and beat well.
4. Process oats in a food processor until finely ground. Add to butter mixture and beat well. Stir in chocolates and pecans.
5. Drop cookies by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly on baking sheets. Then, remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

In my version, I left out the pecans, and replaced the candy bar with extra chocolate chips (I ended up adding about an extra ½ cup). I also made a huge mistake - I left out the salt. The cookies were delicious anyway, which means they'll be even better next time I make them (when I can add salt). I'm glad about this, but I do feel a little silly for having left the salt out (I remember reading and rereading my printed out recipe, thinking - and saying - "It's so weird there's no salt in these!" I guess that's a recipe reading fail on my part.)
Regardless, these were some delicious cookies. I hope to make them again.