Oreo Truffles

I have no good words today. I just don't feel it. Sorry. So, this is an Oreo Truffle. I liked it. EC liked it. My co-workers liked it. So chances are if you try it, you would probably like it too. And they only have three ingredients.

Oreo Truffles
From Bakerella

1 pkg. Double Stuf Oreos - (1 lb. , 1 oz. pkg.) use 22 cookies with cream centers included• use 10 cookies with cream centers discarded
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
chocolate bark or candy coating

Finely crush the cookies in a food processor or a ziploc bag with a rolling pin.
Stir in softened cream cheese. Use the back of a large spoon to help mash the two together completely.
Roll the mixture into 1" balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet.
Place covered in freezer or refrigerator for a few minutes to help retain shape when dipping in melted chocolate.
Melt chocolate as directed on the package and then dip balls into chocolate, tap off extra and set aside on wax paper covered cookie sheet to dry.
Refrigerate and enjoy!

Strawberry Tuxedos

Hooray for February! One of the special treats I made for EC for V-Day were these little guys. However, I think they may have been more for me than for him, since I have been dying to try them out ever since I saw them here. Something happened to the stems during dipping and they got all dried out and weird, but they were sure tasty. But then again, it is chocolate and strawberries, it is really hard to go wrong with just two ingredients.

Strawberry Tuxedo

As seen on Cafe Fernando

Ingredients:
15 strawberries
3 ounces bitter chocolate
3 ounces white chocolate
Method
Chop chocolates and place in separate bowls. Place these bowls over a pot of barely simmering water and let stand until melted. Stir until smooth and let cool a little bit. Dip one side of the strawberries in white chocolate and place on a baking sheet. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Dip sides of the strawberries in bitter chocolate. Back to the refrigerator for 10 more minute. Dip a thin paint brush in bitter chocolate and draw the bow tie and buttons.

Penne Gorgonzola Chicken

EC and I decided that we wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day on the Friday the 13th this year instead of the 14th, so we did. We had good food, lots of it, but what I really want to say is what happened on Valentine's Day.
EC's computer has been slowly dying, which is not a good thing for someone who is in Law School. So we decided to get him a new one, and since Office Depot was having a President's Sale, it was perfect timing. So, we scoped out the laptops, did our research, and decided on one. When we got there, the salesman informed us that they were out of those particular laptops but that we should get this other brand, same "Specs" but cheaper, since it was an HP and not a Sony. So we agreed. He went to grab it for us, and came back empty handed, stating that they actually did not have those. Way to sell us on something you don't actually have, salesguy.
So we drove home. We called the next closest Office Depot and they did not have it either, but were slightly more helpful and mentioned that the computer was showing one left at another store in the same city. So we called that store. After much talk and much waiting on hold, they said they would hold the laptop for us. So we got in the car again to make the hour and forty five minute trek to the next nearest Office Depot (it was a really good sale).
We got off the freeway at the right exit, but I was in the third left hand lane, and needed to turn right, so of course, a normal person would assume they need to get over two lanes, right? No, you would be wrong. I went to change lanes and all of the sudden there was a KUTHUNK and we were going over a barrier, in the middle of the road, on a one way street.
After much screaming (by me) and an interesting mix of nonswear words, I managed to get the tire back over the barrier. Turns out that intersection is the stupidest one in the world and there is a RIGHT turn arrow for the THIRD lane at the LIGHT.
I'm ok, EC is ok, and luckily the car is ok. Apparently studded snow tires are good for more than just driving on ice. They also help you climb cement barriers.

Penne Gorgonzola Chicken

From My Kitchen Cafe

3 chicken breasts

1 lb. penne pasta

½ C. butter

1 pt. heavy cream

4 oz. gorgonzola, crumbled

¼ C. shredded parmesan

½ tsp. nutmeg

Season chicken with salt and pepper and grill (I used my indoor grill pan). Slice into thin strips. Bring water to a boil and add pasta. While pasta is cooking, make the sauce. Melt butter in saucepan, heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Simmer 1 minute being careful not to let the butter burn! Slowly add cream and heat to a low boil to reduce, stirring constantly. Boil for 3 minutes. Reduce heat, add gorgonzola, parmesan, and nutmeg. Stir until melted. Serve sauce over noodles and top with chicken.

Wedding Cake, Teddy Bear Edition

This week's wedding cake practice came in the form of a Carmel Cake with a Carmel Whipped Cream Frosting. Obviously this would not actually be practical for a REAL wedding cake because of the Whipped Cream Frosting but I didn't want to make two white cakes in one week. And can I tell you, this cake was superb. The flavor of the caramel was subtle but having the cool, light taste of the whipped cream made it great. As my boss said "You need to find a way to make the frosting firmer, but if you make this for the wedding, you will have a reputation." She didn't mention what kind of reputation and I didn't ask.

I also had a leftover teddy bear from my learning-how-to-sculpt-teddy-bears-that-don't-collapse-on-themselves night, so I put it on top of the cake as a sort of Valentine's Decoration, I guess, because what is more cliche than a teddy bear with red hearts for V-Day? I also had a little too much batter, so I made cupcakes to give to my favorite food critics. Happy upcoming V-Day everyone!

Caramel Cake
From Shuna Fish Lydon

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Ingredients:
10 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/3 c. Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 eggs, at room temperature
Splash vanilla extract
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 c. milk, at room temperature

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Preheat oven to 350F. Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.
Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.
Sift flour and baking powder. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}
Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.
Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it. Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

*As a random side note, learning how to sculpt things is a good idea - it helped me at a recent retreat when we played Pictionary with clay. My team didn't win, but I did get someone to guess "light" by sculpting a light bulb.

I recently checked out some books from the library about how to mold things with clay. As I mentioned earlier, I have decided to try my hand at making figurines out of fondant. But that was my first problem, was trying to make them out of fondant. My elephant and mouse took forever to dry out, so after some quick research on the Internet I learned that I needed to use gumpaste, which sets up quicker. So with my 50% off coupon in hand, I trekked to Michaels to buy some gumpaste.My first animal attempt was a bear. The first bear was great, he looked all bear-y and cute and wonderful. Unfortunately, since I was new at the process, I didn't wait long enough for the gumpaste to harden before I put his heavy head on him, so he began to slowly slouch, until it got to the point that is was less painful for me to squish him and retry. This is bear #3. Bear #2 looked good as well, I made #2 and #3 at the same time, but #3 was smaller and had more character. Just like with the bear, my first monkey didn't turn out so well. I did wait for the body to stiffen a little before I put the head on, but not long enough, so he looked more like a slouched, old monkey. This monkey on the other hand, turned out much better. Although I think I will call him Spot, because he has a watermark spot under his eye, poor guy.The giraffe is EC's favorite and was the only giraffe I had to make because luckily he turned out. He did have a few minor incidents, such as his neck having a hard time supporting his head, but with a little more gumpaste and gumpaste glue I fixed him up so you can't even tell.

The cakes on the other hand were much more dramatic. This is only the second time I have EVER worked with square cakes, and as you can see, these cakes are not quite as cubical as one would hope. But, out of the four that I made, these are the better of the two. The cake is a white cake with a Raspberry filling. The cake recipe is from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, which I definitely recommend reading. The filling is a Raspberry filling, which turned out slightly too sweet in my opinion, but I am still waiting to see what feedback my friend has for the finished product.

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Raspberry Filling

From Good Things Catered

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2 c. powdered sugar

minuscule pinch of salt

1/2 c. shortening

1 1/2 tsp natural raspberry extract

1/2 tsp butter flavor

4 oz. fresh raspberries

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In the bowl of stand mixer, combine shortening and extracts and stir on low until relatively combined. In a separate bowl, combine sugar and salt, then add to mixer while still on. Stir, scraping down sides of bowl, until thoroughly combined. Add raspberries and stir to combine.(Add water if needed to reach desired texture.)

Oreo, Oh Yum!

One of my coworkers got engaged recently, and since we are friends, I made her these Oreo cupcakes to celebrate her engagement. I can't think of a better way to celebrate an engagement than Oreo cupcakes. Unfortunately, I did not bring enough for the entire office, so even though I gave her about a half dozen, most were consumed by my other co-workers, which leads to the moral of today's story: if you are going to bring cupcakes to work, you should probably bring enough for everyone. Either that or hide them so other people don't know there are cupcakes in the office.
I didn't use the chocolate cake recipe posted below, I used my old reliable. but the recipe looks like a good one, maybe I will give it a try the next time I make chocolate cake, although I have heard it is rather dense, and I do like my cake to be light and fluffy. But the frosting was amazing - who wouldn't love Oreo combined with whipped cream? Oreo Cupcakes

From Anne's Eats

Ingredients:

For the cake:

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

12 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature

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For the frosting:

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp. whipping cream

3 tbsp. powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

6 tbsp. Oreo cookie crumbs

For garnish:

24 Oreo cookie halves

Directions:To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the brown sugar and continue beating until fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated, being careful not to overmix.
Divide the batter between the prepared cupcake liners. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature.
To prepare the frosting, in the clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium-high speed until the whipped cream holds stiff peaks. Gently fold in the cookie crumbs with a spatula.
Scoop the mixture into a pastry bag and pipe frosting decoratively on top of the cupcakes. Garnish with Oreo cookie halves.

For The Last Time, We Did Not Order A Giant Trampoline...

...or a disproportionate elephant and mouse cake.

So, here's the story. Someone close to me has commissioned me to make their wedding cake for this upcoming summer. Why, you may ask? Because they are poor and I will do it for free, although after seeing my work they may decide to spring for a professional cake, but anyway, I digress. So this is try 2-ish (I refuse to talk about try 1, try 1-ish went pretty well though). So, they sent me a picture of the basic idea, and my idea is to try making a cake a week as practice. This cake is a Luscious Lemon Cake with Lemon Frosting and a Lemon Pie Filling for the filling, which is WAY off base from the white cake with raspberry or strawberry filling that they requested, but I made that last week and I tend to get bored. So, I tried something new.
Speaking of trying new things, I decided that I was going to try to mold fondant, hence the funny looking elephant and mouse cake toppers. Yes, I molded them myself, try not to seem so surprised. Any feedback on the cake would be most appreciated. I have already decided that each tier needs to have three layers, either that or WAY more frosting filling, because it is looking a little short and squat. Also, I need to leave the cake in the fridge longer before putting on the fondant, and hopefully that will help it have crisper edges. Other input is appreciated!

Luscious Lemon Cake
From Good Things Catered

Ingredients:
Cake -
2 1/2 c. cake flour
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 extra large organic lemons, washed thoroughly then zested and juiced separately
2/3 c. milk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
3 egg whites, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Icing -
4 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder
tiny pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. shortening
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 extra large lemon, juiced

Additional lemon for decorating

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two cake pans.
-In bowl of electric mixer sift and add flour, sugar, baking powder, meringue powder, salt, and zest of one lemon.
-Stir with mixer to combine, about 30 seconds.
-Add milk, oil, juice from two lemons, beaten egg whites and extract.
-Beat on medium to combine thoroughly, about 1 1/2 - 2 minutes.
-Remove from mixer and stir with silicone spatula to thoroughly combine (making sure there is no flour mixture left unincorporated at the bottom of the bowl.
-Fill prepared pans 2/3 of the way full and bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean (about 25-28 mins for 8 inch pans)
-Remove from oven, let cool 15 minutes in pan and then turn onto wire racks to cool completely.
-Meanwhile, in the bowl of stand mixer, combine shortening, butter, and half of extract and lemon juice, stiring on low until relatively combined.
-In a separate bowl, combine sugar, meringue powder and salt, then add to mixer while still on.
-Stir, scraping down sides of bowl, until thoroughly combined, adding more lemon juice as needed.
(Add water if needed to reach desired texture.)
-Once cakes are completely cool, even out tops of cakes if needed.
-On cut side of one cake, spread generous amount of icing.
-Place cut side of other cake down onto filling and finish icing cake.
-Decorate with additional lemon and icing as desired.