Chocolate Cupcakes and Risk

For one of my classes, I had to design a survey about anything I wanted and administer it to at least twenty people. So I decided to ask people about cupcakes. The incentive was that I would make the winning cupcake and bring it to class. Part of the homework was to make a powerpoint about our survey and be prepared to present it. Really, I just had an itch to make something, so this become my excuse.


Though I was not chosen to present, I did make cupcakes for the class. Here's the takeaway: people have really boring cupcake preferences. My survey split up cake preferences and frosting preferences, which dilutes the power of the whole cupcake. Having frosting and cake split like that makes it difficult to convince people of the deliciousness of more unusual cupcakes. Thus, my colleagues chose chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. I dutifully made them, wishing that the mint julep cupcake had won instead.


What I've derived from this assignment is that creativity probably can't be managed by democracy. Whether it's cake, cookies, or art, I suspect that people are open to new things, but only when they are completed. The audience needs to be convinced. If your product is conventional, this process is pretty easy. But if your product is beyond the norm (avant-garde art or sazerac cupcakes), the audience needs to be sold. If I had asked people if they were interested in a mint julep cupcake, I may have gotten more positive responses that I did by asking if people were interested in bourbon cake and mint frosting. My my audience isn't as risk-averse as my survey indicates.


So how do creative people get funding for their work when there's this conventional, risk-averse bias? After all, conventional wisdom is often wrong. Having a whole vision and being able to communicate it definitely helps. Crowd funders like Kickstarter can also funnel cash towards artists whose work wouldn't get funding from traditional sources. But there are artists out there who are doing visionary work, and the crowd's lack of interest doesn't make the work any less great. How can they get support? Will the starving visionary always be with us? How can an artist convince the market to take a risk, especially in our fractured culture?


I don't know. But in the meantime, I can make the best chocolate chocolate cupcake possible. I will save my boozy adventure cupcakes for another day. My recipe follows. The cake is from Orangette, the frosting is the recipe is adapted from inside the Baker's Chocolate box.


Cake Ingredients:


3 oz semisweet chocolate
1 ½ cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
1 ¼ tsp salt
3 large eggs
¾ cup canola oil
1 ½ cups buttermilk
¾ tsp pure vanilla extract

Cake Directions:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.

Pour the hot coffee over the chocolate and stir until melted. Beat the eggs for 3 minutes or so, until they are lemon colored and a little foamy. Slowly add the oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate to the eggs and beat until completely combined. Add all the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder), and beat until smooth. The batter will be quite liquidy.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely. Recipe makes 36-40 cupcakes. These came out quite flat on top, and very moist. If you want a more domed cupcake, I would consider raising the oven temperature and cooking for less time.

Frosting Ingredients:

4 oz unsweetened chocolate

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

1/2 to 1 lb powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 t vanilla

Frosting Directions:

Melt the chocolate in a large saucepan on the stove. Let it cool for 5 minutes, then beat in the butter, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer. You need at least half a pound of sugar. If you want sweeter frosting, use more. The more sugar you use, the more frosting you will get. Beat in the milk bit by bit, until you get the desired consistency, which should be smooth and a light brown color. The amount of milk will vary by the amount of sugar.

Cheater's Frosting Directions: 

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a saucepan over low heat on the stove. Whisk in the vanilla and sugar, adding milk to thin it out to the right color and smoothness. I like this method because less gets dirty.

Using a knife or a spatula, frost cupcakes. With the half pound version, there will be enough for each cupcake to get nice layer. If you like loads of frosting (I don't), you'll have to make the sweeter version, or more of the semi-sweet version.

And my powerpoint, should you be interested:

Cupcakes

King Cake and Homesickness

It is no longer king cake season. King cakes may only be eaten between January 6 (the epiphany) and Mardi Gras day. Let me get that out of the way. With that disclaimer, let's get down to it.



I lived in New Orleans for 6.5 years of my adult life. I've lived lots of places over the years, but New Orleans feels like home for me. It felt that way my first day, and again when I went back for Mardi Gras this past week.

What amazed me this time is how my experience of the city has changed. I went to Tulane for undergrad, and for at least 3 of those years, my experience of New Orleans was fairly superficial. I went out, but I wasn't a local, or even really a legitimate resident. A big part of that is the nature of college. The whole point of the college experience is to separate young people from their families and home culture for a time while they learn (hopefully) to grow up. Which isn't conducive to embedding yourself in a place. That happens after.

Katrina hit when I was 21. It still reverberates through my life, and the lessons I learned during that time have guided my choices, for better and for worse. I moved back for two years when I was 25. My second stint in New Orleans was in many ways richer than my first. Most of the people I had known were gone, and I made an entirely new set of friends. I didn't work regularly during those two years; the job market isn't that great, and I had no idea what to do with myself. Instead I spent my time working temp jobs and restaurant jobs while I figured myself out. Everyone should do that, preferably when they're young and being broke doesn't hurt as much.

Moving to Boston has been great in many ways. The Gentleman in Question lives nearby, I have some awesome friends, school is going reasonably well, and I'm on a roller derby team. But it doesn't feel like home yet. I made myself a king cake for carnival season, because homesickness required one, but the budget wouldn't allow shipping one. It costs somewhere around $40 to ship a king cake, and they're not very good when stale. Better to make my own. So here's John Besh's recipe, to keep in your back pocket for next carnival season.

Cake Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dry yeast (I used two packets)
3 3/4 cup flour
1 cup melted butter
5 egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 teaspoons cinnamon
grated nutmeg ( as much as you want)

Icing Ingredients:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
milk
purple, green, and yellow sugar (Purple is hard to find. Use food coloring to make it)
plastic baby, or a bean if going out is too much bother
 
Directions:
Whisk together the water, sugar, yeast, and a tablespoon of the flour. Wait for it to get foamy (only a few minutes), then whisk in butter, eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest. Fold in the flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Once the dough comes together, take it out of the bowl and knead it for 15 minutes on a flat surface. The dough will feel very oily because of all the butter. Embrace your inner Paula Dean.

Put the dough back in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise for 1-2 hours, until it's about double in size. Punch it down, then remove it from the bowl and roll it out to a large rectangle. You have options here. You can spread some filling on top (popular versions are cream cheese, cherry, and pecan. I used homemade jam), and roll it up like a cinnamon roll, only instead of slicing mash the two ends together. Alternatively, you can do what Besh suggests and cut the rectangle into three strips and braid them together, mashing the ends together. Either way, the goal is to form the dough into a ring.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and let your ring rise for 30 minutes. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Besh suggests 30, but mine was done between 15 and 20. Cool the cake completely.

Make the icing by combining the sugar, lemon juice and milk. The icing should be quite thick, so add the milk a tablespoon at a time until you get the texture you want. Insert the baby in the bottom of the cake, then smear the icing all over the cake (which if you're smart you've put on a lined platter/cookie sheet). Top with colored sugars.

Ta Da! Also, fair warning, this cake is ENORMOUS. It takes up one full sized cookie sheet. I tried to halve the recipe, and it wasn't as good. It's hard to figure out how to halve an odd number of egg yolks. So embrace the epic amount of king cake, and make your friends help you eat it. That's the point of it, to share good times with people you like, or at the very least civilly tolerate.

Gumbo Methodology

Now that I live in the frozen, yet unsnowy north, I have to make gumbo if I want it. I learned this lesson in New Jersey, where I would see gumbo on the menu and foolishly order it. People seem to think it's the same thing as soup. And while soup is good, it serves a different purpose than gumbo. I've been making versions of this since late 2006, and I like my way because it's more of a method than a recipe. I use it to clear out the fridge of vegetables on the edge.

Traditionalists would be appalled, but I don't much care. To my thinking, gumbo really only requires a few elements to be legitimate: roux, either okra or file, and the trinity of celery, onion, and green pepper. Everything else is negotiable. I also use an unconventional method to make roux, stolen from Alton Brown. He makes it in the oven to prevent burning, which I think is genius. It takes longer, but is foolproof.

The gumbo method is: make roux, cook vegetables in roux, add liquid, add meat, finish with a secondary thickener. There are many varieties, including a tomato based version, and versions without meat. There's a lot of room to play around. Just remember, if someone serves you a gumbo that isn't thickened, then they're cheating.

Ingredients:

Roux:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup fat (oil or melted butter, your choice)

Vegetables:
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
Other random vegetables (greens are an excellent choice, but you can use anything)
Creole seasoning
Thyme
1 quart chicken stock

Meat (any or all, or none, as you prefer):
1 chopped chicken breast
2 links andouille
1 lb shrimp

Secondary Thickener:
1/2 lb sliced okra OR 1 tablespoon file powder (never both)

Directions:

To make the roux, whisk together the flour and fat in an oven safe pot. Bake in an oven at 350 for 1 to 1.5 hours, stirring once every 30 minutes. Color is the most important thing here, it should have a walnuty color or darker. You may need longer to achieve it.

Once the roux is done, move the pot to the stove on medium heat. Add your vegetables and stir them. Stir in creole seasoning and thyme to taste. It shouldn't be very spicy, but have a lot of flavor. Cook vegetables and seasoning for a few minutes, until the onions are soft. Add the chicken stock and stir. Once it boils, reduce heat to a simmer.

If you're using chicken or sausage, brown those meats in a separate pan and add them to the pot. That keeps the gumbo from getting greasy. If you're using shrimp, add them 15-20 minutes before you plan to serve your gumbo.

If using okra, add it now. You'll need to cook your gumbo for at least an hour after this, until the okra is no longer slimy.

If using file, stir in 1 tablespoon 15 minutes before serving.

Serve over rice, with hot sauce on the side. Crystal is best, but Tabasco is usually all that's available. The texture should be somewhere between soup and gravy.

Bourbon Bacon Jam

I'm still on break, so I've been doing some fairly ridiculous and/or hardcore things. Roller derby for one. I joined NH Roller Derby. I get drafted onto a team at the end of the month, which is super exciting! I've also taken the opportunity to spend more time with the Gentleman in Question.

Thursday, he presented me with a truly ridiculous idea: spreadable bacon. He'd eaten it over Thanksgiving at a friend's house, and even had a recipe. So obviously we had to try it. I've made a few traditional jams before (I'll tell you about the Strawberry Thyme Balsamic jam soon, and maybe the Blueberry Ginger Orange), but the concept of meat jam seemed odd to me. It was the bourbon that convinced me. Last night, we put it together, which was a nice distraction from the Saints loss. Then the Gentleman convinced me to watch The A-Team, cementing the ridiculous trend.

We used this recipe from Serious Eats, with a modification. The Gentleman is partial to shallots, so we substituted a bunch of them for one of the onions. I admit that we didn't really measure that, and eyeballed it instead. Otherwise, we followed the recipe exactly. I have to say, it's delicious. It's savory, and sweet. It'd be good with fried eggs.


Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds bacon (nothing fancy, just ordinary bacon)
1 medium onion, diced
4-5 large shallots (equal approximately to the size of the onion), diced
3 medium cloves garlic, diced
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup (use grade B for a strong maple flavor)
6 tablespoons coffee
6 tablespoons bourbon
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

Directions:


Chop the bacon into 1 inch pieces, and cook in a skillet until just crisp. You will probably need two skillets, or have to do this step in batches. Unless you have a giant cast iron skillet of doom, like the Gentleman.

Remove the bacon and drain it on a paper towel (which you've smartly layered on top of some tin foil to keep your counters from getting greasy). Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat. Sauté the onion, shallot, and garlic in the bacon fat until the onion is soft. 5-10ish minutes should do it.

Pour in the vinegar, syrup, coffee, bourbon, and sugar. Stir vigorously, and scrape up any bits that are stuck to the pan. Bring it to a boil (shouldn't take long), then boil it for 2 minutes. Add the bacon back in and give it a nice stir.

Move the whole mix to a crockpot, and cook on high uncovered for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Ours only took 3 1/2. You can cook it less if you want a more jammy texture, or put the cover on.





Move the whole mix again to a food processor, or a blender, or a chintzy supermarket chopper, and pulse a few times until the mix is chopped into a paste. Put your bacon spread into clean canning jars and store in the fridge. We got about 16oz of spread.

And 8 oz of bacon grease.

Short Term Wins

Clearly business school ate my life. The end of my first semester was a scramble to get everything done, with a nice healthy dose of misplaced self doubt. I did make things, I swear, but nothing all that spectacular, nothing worth putting down the accounting and fundraising projects to write about.

My creative mojo is starting to return however. School prevented me from engaging in another Christmas cookie extravaganza, and the disappointment about that seems to have jump started me. But there is an obstacle: the unfinished objects. There are bins in my room of yarn and knitting projects that were started and abandoned. Several are at least three years old, dating to my time in New Jersey.

And then there is the sweater. It looms. It sulks. It nags like a mom who doesn't like your boyfriend. I started the damn thing well over a year ago. And while I lived in New Orleans, I had the excuse of it being too hot to work with thick, shed-prone wool. Not so in Boston, and the truth is, I have made progress. The sleeves are almost done. But it lags. I knit and knit, and yet feel no closer to the finish line.

What I need is a short term win. The concept came up in my organizational behavior class last semester. The basic idea (as I remember it, which is to say that I could be completely wrong, but I don't care) is that early success in an endeavor keeps people energized to continue to work towards their long term goals. There needs to be a small, tangible reward at the beginning to serve as motivation, and as reinforcement. It seemed incredibly intuitive to me, and I'd figured out a version of the sentiment when I was teaching knitting during my time at Down Cellar.

Learning to knit is definitely a long term project. For many new knitters, it can take a few projects to really get the hang of it. In my personal experience, the first object or two that you make will be terrible. That's just the nature of learning something new. At the time, I figured that it was best for beginners to make things that were cheap and quick, to bolster their confidence. The Yarn Harlot said it first, as she believes that the ideal first project is a hat, rather than the traditional scarf, precisely because they don't take long to make, and the joy of finishing something can spur you to start another project.

 Her suggestion has stuck with me after all these years. I find myself stuck on the Icelandic sweater. My confidence and desire to work on it is lagging. What I need is a booster. A reminder that I am a proficient former professional knitter. No sweater will hold me down, dammit! So I took the Yarn Harlot's advice, and knit a hat. It took three days, and is made from the abandoned roller derby helmet panty I started for Running of the Bulls, back in July. I will make a pair of fingerless gloves to go with it, and then redouble my efforts on the sweater.

My Devious Plan to get a New Oven

Well. It's been a while, I see. Whoops. So. How to sum up the past few months before we move onto the important thing, namely cake and new ovens? The best way to describe my summer is that involved a lot of pizza and a lot of roller derby, as I worked in two different pizza joints and worked hard on my skating. Big Easy Rollergirls taught me everything I know about skating and made my last year in New Orleans amazing! I spent a lot time with my friends, especially my wolf pack, and became a regular at Twelve Mile Limit, the best snobby cocktail bar I've come across. But, come August, it was time to move again.

I moved to Boston to start my non-profit management MBA at the Heller School. It's a huge change in identity, and so far it's great! My roommate also lived in New Orleans, and her sister is a friend of mine (before we settled on that, I interviewed some truly weird potential roommates. Maybe I'll tell you about it someday). Going back to school does leave less room for creative pursuits, but I've managed somehow. Soon I'll tell you about the beer brewing in recon room of my apartment, but for now, I'll restrict my comments to the oven situation.

The apartment is lovely, but the kitchen is best described as...dated. The oven and fridge are avocado green, the floor and backsplash tiles are brown. It's 70s-tastic. The oven never worked very well, as the door would only open with a fight, and fell off every so often. The fridge is the antithesis of energy efficient. So really, using the kitchen could be an exercise in slapstick comedy. It all came to a head Thursday night. The Gentleman in Question has a nice round birthday in a few days, and I had promised him cake. After some effort, I had the batter in the pans ready to go, so I opened the oven door. Big mistake. The door came flying off, crazy hot, and crashed to the floor. I couldn't get it back on. The landlord came over, and we discovered the hinges were warped. His wife kindly baked the cake for me, and our oven door is leaning against the door to the porch. As of Thursday night, there was talk of getting a new oven. My roommate is quite pleased with that turn of events, and the Gentleman is scheming a way to get me a new refrigerator.

The cake was totally worth it. The Gentleman requested some combination of chocolate and raspberry, and being an overachiever, I decided to do a checkerboard with those flavors. To get the checkerboard effect, you need a plastic insert. It comes in a kit. There are many options, so investigate. The pans in the kit I linked to are pretty nice. Once you have that essential piece of equipment, the rest is fairly simple. Finding recipes can be tricky, because the two cake flavors need to have similar textures, and bake at the same temperature for the same amount of time. Raspberry cake was an additional challenge. Every recipe involved jello. Which is creepy. Until Smitten Kitchen saved the day, with her adapted Pink Lady Cake recipe. I changed it further, cutting it in half and subbing in raspberries. For the chocolate, I went with this recipe from Joy of Baking, also cut in half. The raspberry flavor shines through, and the chocolate is rich without being too sweet. My cake came out extra dense and not as checkerboardy because of the baking drama, but yours will turn out light and delightful. You'll get three bowls dirty making these cakes, so the mess isn't too bad.

Mardi Gras

It ate my life. It does that. So one of the great things about Mardi Gras is that in celebrating it, you make new friends and cement old friendships. There is a camaraderie on the parade route. With cheap beer as a social lubricant, and a friendly smile, you can accomplish most things during Carnival. Except driving and parking downtown. As I relearned, that is a fool's errand.

But you develop your own personal krewe during the two week slog of day drinking. These are the people that you call and text every morning to decide on what you're going to do that day. Plans vaguely alluded to the night before come together. Mardi Gras mostly happens on the weekends, but, the Thursday before, it becomes an every day, all day adventure.

Some parade goers get really angry and shouty. Thus, for Endymion, my krewe had to search pretty hard for a spot to stand. By contrast, for Proteus and Orpheus, our neighbors were friendly. And that's generally the theme during Mardi Gras. I always meet new people, usually out of town friends visiting my people, or the kindly souls who live near the parade route and open their houses (and their bathrooms) to me, as a friend of a friend.

I'm a Mardi Gras veteran. Some years I'm more into it than others. Last year was particularly intense, seeing as it was Lombardi Gras. This year was a middle of the road year for me. But the new aspect was that for the first time, I was in a parade! Two in fact. As a rollergirl, I had the opportunity to skate in Pontchartrain and walk in Muses. Being in the parade is a completely different experience. Instead of trying to catch cheap beads, I was throwing them. But I decided to mix it up. I threw skate wheels! I painted them black and gold.

Unfortunately, I almost broke my friend's nose and busted all the liquor in the process. I was aiming a wheel at my roommate, and flung it pretty hard at his face, because I wanted to and I knew he'd catch it in time. But I failed to factor in my forward momentum as I skated along. So I missed and it went straight at my other friend's nose. He was holding the cooler of cheap beer and cheaper liquor, and was completely helpless. I saw the look of terror pass over his face as my roommate reached out and ninja grabbed the wheel, saving the booze.

Just one of my many adventures of the past two weeks.

Windowpane Cookies

Again, with the apologies. I'm sorry! I've been traveling and applying to graduate school, and thus not blogging. I also didn't have my camera on my travels, so the crafty things I did went unrecorded. Today, I offer up the last of my December cookie project. In coming days, I'll show you a bit of New Orleans, since the Henz will be in town.

But on to the cookies. These are a combination of recipes and concepts. I started with this recipe, but found that I was defeated by the sticky impossible dough. So I tried this one, but kept the candy concept. The dough itself is a dream. Not too sticky, and it results in a nice tender cookie.


Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature for an hour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 ounces cream cheese (1/4 of a standard cream cheese package)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Jolly Ranchers, unwrapped and crushed

Directions:

Cream together the butter and sugar, then add in the egg and mix until everything is pretty smooth. Add in the cream cheese and vanilla, mixing thoroughly. Then mix in the next three ingredients. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour, until ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 350, and roll out the dough to 1/8" to 1/4" thickness and cut out cookies. To make the windowpane cookies, use two cutters of the same shape but different sizes. Cut out with the larger one first, then cut out the center of the resulting cookie with the smaller one. Place resulting cookie on lined cookie sheet, then carefully fill the center with the crushed jolly rancher. You don't want the rancher dust to get on the cookie, since it will stain.

Bake cookies for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on thickness, and let cool completely on the cookie sheet. The jolly rancher may look bubbly and weird out of the oven, but don't worry, as it cools it will solidify and smooth out.

Red Velvet Moon Pies

 Last night was a total Lunar eclipse. It was also the Winter Solstice, a day I look forward to mainly because from now on the days will get longer. My plan for the evening was to go to the Tulane parking deck to watch it. Even though it's brightly lit, the sky was still decently visible. Plus, I love the view up there. You can see clear to downtown, with the lights on the Crescent City Connection and the soft glow of the Superdome. My companions decided to stay in, but it was nice anyway. Very peaceful, at least. Just me, New Orleans, and the red Moon. It was even kind of warm.

But you see, I'd make these cookies in honor of the occasion, and now I had no one to share them with. There are few things better than sharing cookies, so I hightailed it out of there and headed to karaoke at Le Bon Temps (every Monday, if you live in New Orleans, you should go). My friend brought his telescope and set it up outside the bar. So I stood outside with him, his delightful girlfriend, and a bunch of drunks and watched the moon turn a watery red. The cookies were perfect. So was New Orleans, at least for a little bit.

These are easy to make. The batter is pretty liquidy; it resembles cake batter rather than cookie dough. Don't doubt, just roll with it. (Edited to add that I got the recipe here, and only really tweaked the frosting.)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons buttermilk (Or you can cheat and use plain milk and a splash of vinegar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon red food coloring
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Cream together the butter and sugar, then add in the eggs. Once it's all creamed nicely, add in the buttermilk, extract, and food coloring. Mix in the dry ingredients in batches, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Drop the batter by tablespoonfuls onto your cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the centers look set. Let cool on the sheets for a minute or two, then move to a rack. They might stick a bit; mine did.

While your cookies are cooling, you should make the filling. It's cream cheese frosting. My approach is rather free-form. I'll adjust amounts until I get the right consistency, which in this case is slightly runny. Once you've made the frosting, smear 1 tablespoon (or enough to get a nice layer without it squelching out when you bite into it) of it on a cookie and then slap on another cookie. Sandwich made!

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2ish teaspoons of milk
3 cups powdered sugar

Directions:
Beat together cream cheese and butter, then mix in vanilla. Start adding the powdered sugar bit by bit. Add in milk as needed to keep the frosting smooth. You can add more or less sugar as needed to get the right texture. I don't like really sweet frosting, so I play with the milk content instead. You're going to have a ton extra.

Makes 13ish sandwiches.

Linzer Cookies

I bake to relieve stress. This is almost certainly why I gained weight in grad school, but everyone else enjoyed the fruits of my labor, so it was worth it. I bring this up because today was not a good day. My Christmas/New Year's plans were dealt a setback by the Gentleman in Question's company. We've had to change a significant part of our trip to DC, and it was unclear for a bit how this would affect my flights. Several phone calls to the travel website later, and at least one crying fit (sometimes I regress to being a whiny teenager, deal with it), we got it worked out, hopefully for real.

So to deal with the frustration of dealing with online travel companies, I made Linzer Cookies. They are delicious and pretty! The darker ones got a bit overcooked because I was arguing with a travel man on the phone. You should make them. And hopefully while not arguing with customer service representatives.


Ingredients:
2  cups  all-purpose flour (about 9 ounces)
1/2  teaspoon  baking soda
1/4  teaspoon  salt
1/4  teaspoon  ground cinnamon
3/4  cup  granulated sugar
1/2  cup  butter, softened
1/4  cup  egg substitute
1/4  cup  seedless raspberry jam

Directions:
Cream together the butter and sugar. Mix in the egg substitute. Blend in the dry ingredients, adding them slowly. Divide the dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap, flattening it into a disk. Chill at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 and roll the dough out to 1/8-1/4" thickness. Using a jar or a pint glass, cut out round shapes. Using a smaller cookie cutter, cut out center shapes in half the disks. Re-roll scraps and cut more shapes, until there's none left. Bake for 10 minutes and let cool completely. Spread 1/2 teaspoon of jam on the whole cookies, and place the holey cookies on top, smushing together. Chill in the fridge and eat!

I got 12, but you could get more if you used smaller cutters.

The Sweater Curse

 All female knitters are told early in their learning process that they should never, ever, knit their boyfriend a sweater. Because if a female knitter were to make that mistake, said boyfriend would break up with her.

There are a multitude of theories regarding this phenomenon. All assume that the man in question does not like knitting. Or commitment. The most common, contemporary theory, argues that a handknit sweater is a symbol of love and devotion, given that it takes quite a while to make such an item. This potent symbol of regard and affection thus scares off the fickle man, who apparently wants a woman who's not that in to him. He never wears it, and it languishes in the closet as the woman stews over his ingratitude. He dumps her for her clingyness and moves on to a hipper girl.

Poppycock. Balderdash, I say! Why do we give men so little credit? Male knitters aren't told anything like this; there's no reverse sweater curse where your girlfriend leaves you crying over a pile of wool. Moreover, while obviously there are men who are afraid of lasting ties, there are just as many who would love to be with someone who loves them enough to wrangle with the wool.

No, I think there's more going on with the sweater curse phenomenon, and I have my own theory, developed during my year working in the yarn store. One of the most common customer complaints was that the recipients of these beautiful, lovingly crafted pieces, were completely ungrateful. I heard countless stories of daughters and daughters-in-law holding up the delicate white baby sweater and saying, "Oh, that's nice." Or the teen son looking at the new sweater his mother made with a sneer. Such an item could never be cool! What many of these knitters failed to account for was the personal taste of the recipient. Just as you don't buy a vegan a box of dry aged beef, you don't knit a lacy pink sweater for a baby girl whose mom is into death metal. In short, know your audience.

The fact of the matter is this: for many knitters, the effort that goes into a sweater is immense. You stretch your boundaries, try something new. You make mistakes and have to rip back. There's drama and personal growth! But no matter how much love you put in this sweater, it will never mean as much to the recipient as it means to you. If you are not prepared to accept that fact, then you should only knit for yourself.

He bought the yarn himself in Iceland.

However, if you are willing to forgo the surprise element, and knit something that you personally may not like, there is a way to knit successfully for others. The solution to this problem is to ask your intended recipient, no matter how close the relation, if they would like you to make something. And you must commit to not being offended if your intended recipient says no. Then, you make the recipient pick the yarn (or at least colors) and the pattern. The object becomes a collaboration, with a greater chance for success.

All of this to explain that I'm knitting the Gentleman in Question a sweater.

Peanut and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here I present cookie #2 in my December cookie project. I realize they look a lot like cookie #1, but I assure you, they taste completely different. I gave half to Diana, and her response was to offer me anything I wanted in exchange for making her several batches...

They're easy to make. I used this recipe, with no alterations. The only thing I'd do differently is add more chocolate. Also, toasting the peanuts is completely essential. Mine were lightly salted; I'm not sure there are unsalted peanuts in stores anymore.


Ingredients:

1/4  cup  unsalted butter, softened
1/2  cup  granulated sugar
1/2  cup  packed brown sugar
1  teaspoon  vanilla extract
1  large egg
1  cup  all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 ounces)
1/2  teaspoon  baking powder
1/4  teaspoon  baking soda
1/3  cup  semisweet chocolate chips
1/3  cup  coarsely chopped unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts
1/2  teaspoon  coarse sea salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350, and toast the peanuts on a cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Cream together the butter and sugars, then add the vanilla and egg. Mix thoroughly, then add in the dry ingredients. Once it's all together, stir in the peanuts, chocolate, and extra salt. Drop by spoonfuls on the cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and try not to eat them all. Makes 24 cookies.

Cranberry Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Another long pause, I know. I've been traveling a lot. However, I don't want this to turn into a blog about how I don't blog, so instead I'd like to tell you about my project for December: Christmas Cookies. I announced it on Facebook and got some excellent suggestions. A frenzy of googling followed. I found this recipe from Cooking Light and decided to make it, with some changes. These were made December 1st, and turned out pretty well. My friend ate the four I gave her in under a minute. 

A few notes: you should consider upping the cranberry content. They're delightful. The chocolate amount given is somewhat negligible. I'll leave it out next time, since we hardly noticed it.


Ingredients:
5 tablespoons  butter, softened
3/4 cup  packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons  honey
3/4 teaspoon  vanilla extract
2 eggs 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup  regular oats
1/2 teaspoon  baking powder
1/4 teaspoon  baking soda
1/4 teaspoon  salt
1/4 cup  dried cranberries
2 1/2 tablespoons  finely chopped walnuts
2 1/2 tablespoons  semisweet chocolate minichips

Directions:
Cream together the butter and sugar. Once it's mixed, add honey, vanilla, and eggs. Mix thoroughly. Add in the rest of the ingredients, mixing well after each addition. (Yes, I know you're supposed to mix the dry stuff together first, and then beat into the butter stuff, but I don't have a dishwasher, and I had enough to wash as it was.) Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rest in the refrigerator overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drop the dough onto the cookie sheet by tablespoon (you should get 36 smallish cookies), and bake for 10 minutes. Let them cool, and try not to eat them all at once.

Chore Wars!

So about a month ago, I finally moved into the new place. The unpacking has been slow, for many reasons. Turns out, I have a lot of stuff and not a lot of motivation. Which is why Dr. Funk brought up the delightful website/game of Chore Wars. The premise of the game is Dungeons and Dragons for your chores. Dr. Funk and I are in a party together; I'm a cleric, he's a barbarian. Our household chores are tasks and quests within the game, and they have a set experience point value and in-game currency value. And thus, Dr. Funk and I are now in direct competition with each other to get the most points and money. The side effect is that our house gets clean. It's been awesome!

New Hampshire Socks

I recently returned from a two week jaunt to visit the Gentleman in Question. It was an excellent time, including a weekend trip to Maine for whitewater rafting to celebrate our one year anniversary! That trip will get its own post in due time (waiting for the waterproof cheapo cameras to get developed). Today, I want to talk to you about socks.

This sock is made from Socks That Rock, in the color "Deck the Halls." I bought it at Webs, in Springfield, MA, while on my summer roadtrip. It languished in my ever growing and slightly embarrassing stash, and I threw it in my suitcase on a whim.

One of the less exciting parts of visiting the Gentleman in Question is that his job has a habit of eating souls, so I had the days to myself. I filled my days with job apps, Doctor Who, visiting grad schools, and knitting this sock. I decided that the multi color nature of the yarn required a more interesting sock, so I went with Outside In, a slightly unusual construction. In general, variegated yarns look more interesting on the purl side, otherwise known as the wrong side. The visual interest of the bumps breaks up any unwanted pooling or stripes.

I like this sock quite a bit. I made the medium size and it's a touch too big, but the small would be way too tight. And since I don't suffer from second sock syndrome, the partner to this one is on its way.

Heavenly Hash

I first heard about this cake from a coworker, and it sounded so good that I decided to make it to bring in to the office. I work for the census, and last Friday was the last day for a lot people, though not for me, and I wanted to do something special for it.

There were things to consider however. As described, the cake was a full sheet cake, and other cake eating instances in the office had shown me that cutting and serving cake could be difficult. In an office without a proper kitchen, the lack of real knives was definitely an obstacle. There was also the plate and fork issue. It seemed simplest to adapt the recipe to cupcakes, which would solve all of these problems in their single serving nature.

And so, I made cake. Heavenly Hash is chocolate cake, a layer of marshmallow, and a layer of dense frosting. While you can cheat and use cake mix for the cake, you can't cheat on the frosting. Canned frosting is only vaguely related to the real thing, and the real thing makes all the difference.

Ingredients:
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 1/3 cup coffee
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
48 jumbo marshmallows
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
3 cups powdered sugar
1 stick butter
milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Mix together the cake mix, coffee, oil, and eggs and beat until smooth. Put 1 to 2 tablespoons batter into the cupcake wells, or until they look about a third full. You want to leave room for the marshmallow and the frosting. Bake the cupcakes for 15-20 minutes. It's ok if they're a little underdone.

Remove the cupcakes from the oven, place marshmallow on each one, and put the tin back in the oven for 2 minutes. Remove again, and with a spoon, squish your marshmallows until they cover the cupcakes completely.

Mix up your frosting. Melt the chocolate and the butter together, then beat in the sugar, adding the milk as needed to smooth out the consistency. Top the cupcakes with the frosting, covering them as much as possible.


Note: Sorry about the blurry picture. My camera isn't that great and I'm thinking of getting a new one. Suggestions?

Pickles!

Pickles are a polarizing food. Lucky for me every eater currently in my life hates them. I love pickles unabashedly. I always have, ever since I was little. This is something that I share with my dad. I remember him making this sharp smelling concoction of white vinegar, onions, and radishes. He still makes it, though not as often as he did when I was little. I never ate it, since radishes frightened me. I still don't like them. But cucumber pickles, those I loved, in all their forms. Kosher, dill, bread and butter, spears, whole, chips, it doesn't matter. I will eat them.




Another pickle memory: my mom made my lunch for nearly all of my school years, and my lunch usually contained a double bagged dill spear. In high school I played volleyball, and I would come home from practice craving pickles. I'd eat a whole jar in a matter of minutes.

My ex-boyfriend's mother taught me how to make pickles one Easter season. The memory is vague, but I recall us using whole cucumbers packed into large mason jars. We boiled the vinegar, water, salt, and spices, including alum, then poured it over the cucumbers and popped on the jar tops. I don't remember processing them in any way; we just left them on the counter. It was a fun thing to do together. She also taught me how to drive a standard transmission, taking the ex and me out on the Arkansas back roads in an old Jeep Wrangler. I didn't stall out once.

It's a hazy web of memories and feelings, all brought on by pickles. I guess people get this way about things like cake, or cookies, or their grandmother's pot roast. And I love all those things too. But really good pickles make me feel like I'm small again sharing some with my dad.

This recipe makes two batches of pickles, each with its own flavor. The first is a white vinegar base, with a traditional dill seasoning. The second uses cider vinegar and sate seasoning because I was curious.

Ingredients:

2 English cucumbers, sliced and divided
5 whole cloves garlic
1 large shallot, sliced
2 fresh jalapenos, sliced
fresh dill
5 whole cloves garlic

Brine 1:
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
1 Tbs kosher salt, divided
1 Tbs pickle seasoning
1 Tbs dill seed

Brine 2:
2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups water
1 Tbs kosher salt
1 Tbs sate seasoning

Directions:

In a large saucepan, bring  white vinegar, cups water, and  salt to boil. Add pickling spices and dill.

Arrange the slices of one cucumber, 1 jalapeno, and 1 shallot in a glass bowl or your final container. Pour the boiling brine over the cucumber mix and let cool for one hour.


Repeat recipe with cider vinegar,  water, salt, and sate seasoning. Pour over the other cucumber slices. I added jalapeno to this batch too, removing the seeds to tame the heat a bit.

Taste your brine after it's cooled. If it's too salty, add cold water. The pickles will last about 10 days in the fridge.

Where I've Been, Part 2

When we last were recounting the events of last month, your heroines were in the pretty part of New Jersey. Alas, the Garden State was merely a way station, and on Saturday we left for the DC area. Elli and Dan graciously agreed to host us for the evening. I have done this drive many times. It's 3.5 to 4 hours. But not on Saturday. No, on Saturday Katie and I got to experience the aggravation of stupid Jersey drivers. After crawling along the Turnpike from exit 9 to 7, we discovered that the source of the backup was a lane shutdown. But only one lane, and only for 30 feet. 30 less feet of lane equals a 20 mile backup in New Jersey. By which point, we needed breaks, and rest. So the drive took more like 6 hours.

Somehow after arrival, there was the suggestion of going swimming in the apartment complex's pool. This was an excellent idea. We made a delicious stir fry (ok, Dan and Elli made it) and the Henz attended. Which was perfect, because I was able to unfurl MysteryProject, which shall hereafter by known as the Apron of Ridiculosity! It's awesome enough to get its own post. But not awesome enough for the overworked Henz to notice it. I laid it out on a chair which he was showering (the man was quite sweaty), and he spent a good 15 minutes ignoring it, much to mine and Dan's amusement.

The next day began the epic drive portion of the trip. The original plan was to drive to Cincinnati, where one of Katie's best friends lives. It was going to be an 8 hour trip. We set out, and I was reminded that Western Maryland is very pretty. Having never been to West Virginia before, I wasn't sure what to expect. Katie saw a road sign for a winery, and that was it. We got off the highway and drove the winding local roads to a vineyard on the slopes of a green and rolling valley. The parking was well below the winery itself, and there was some debate as to whether the fully loaded Mini could make it back up the steep incline. I'm glad we risked it. The Forks of Cheat Winery had an impressive selection of wines, all created on site. We tasted many, and talked to the general manager about their process. Katie bought 6 bottles, I bought one. Mine was pomegranate, and I'm extremely excited about it. The wine was sweet, a desert wine really, and honestly fruity. Apparently, it's one of the few pomegranate wines produced on the east coast, which convinced me to buy it. I have plans for the wine, and they involve some boiling into syrup.

Much driving later, we arrived in Cincinnati, only to discover that our host was delayed in another state. So we drove further to Katie's parent's house in Kentucky. The gps did not know of their street. Neither did Google, which is saying quite a lot considering Google knows all. It was 12:30 am, and we were close to our destination, when the gps decided that what we really needed was more horror in our lives. It suggested we turn left on a residential road. We did so, and the road quickly turned to gravel. In itself, that's not suggestive. Lots of rural places have gravel roads. Another block, and the road began to narrow. Then it curved off to the right, narrowing all the while. The grass and weeds grew higher, reaching over the poor Mini. As we rounded the next curve, we saw grass growing through the gravel shining in the headlights. I know we were both thinking it, but Katie was the first to say that the gps might be leading us into a horror movie. A three point turn and a phone call later, we were back on the non zombie apocalypse path.

And on the next day, there was bourbon. Four Roses, Heaven Hill, Maker's Mark. The tour at Maker's was my favorite. We tasted both the regular and their Mint Julep product (a bit too sweet). Four Roses was interesting, though their bourbon was much more sharp. They had three we could taste. The oldest was by far the smoothest, though still not my favorite. Heaven Hill was kind of a wash. We missed the short tour, the long tour was too long, and the trolley tour, which we took, wasn't very exciting.

After dinner at the Eastland Cafe in Nashville, I flew home to New Orleans to begin phase two of my time off: moving into a new house. Which isn't the least bit interesting, so I'll just say that it got done without too much drama.

I have not died.

You may be wondering where I've been. Or maybe not, my posting here has been pretty…irregular. The truth is that I haven't written because I haven't really made anything in the past month. Which isn't to say that I didn't do anything. The first, and perhaps most interesting thing I've done recently is that I went on a short roadtrip! But I didn't take my camera, so no photos for you!

My college roommate needed to drive from Boston to San Antonio, and definitely didn't want to do it herself. Her husband moved there in January for a job, and she was finally able to sell their place and join him. So I tagged along as entertainment. I could only take a week off of work, so my end point was Kentucky. She drives the cutest mini cooper!  And while I can drive a manual transmission, I'm certainly not good enough at it to even suggest driving her car. So my job was to navigate.

I arrived in Boston last Thursday morning and promptly took the bus to Framingham.  Katie had some last minute things to finish up with at work, so I walked to a bar across from the bus station and got a beer and watched some World Cup. It was pretty nice, I'm not going to lie. Katie arrived, and we left immediately for WEBS.

For the non-crafty types, WEBS is a yarn store. But not just any yarn store. It has among the widest selection I've ever seen! In addition to the major brands, they had a lot of smaller labels, spinning and weaving supplies, and a great atmosphere. But what really stands out is the warehouse. Behind the store, there is a medium size warehouse full of yarn. Full of it, all in bags! They provide shopping carts! You can just wander the aisles and rip the bags open when something strikes you. I admit, I was a little overwhelmed by all the choice, but I walked away with a skein of sock yarn.

The next day, we set out for New Jersey. First, we stopped at Down Cellar, where I worked for a year. They recently moved to an excellent location. They have a cute little house just up the street from the old shop. It has a lot more room, and the storage is fantastic. They even offer sewing instruction now! My craft senses were tingling. Tingling I tell you! It was great to see Kathy, Lureen, and Keri again. I miss the store and everyone there a lot. It's sad, but I haven't found that kind of craft community here in New Orleans yet. We spent the night with a friend of mine from grad school and had drinks with the Rutgers Art History crowd. The weather was nice, and it was a good night for beer.

Minestrone

Or as the roommate dubs it, Italian Trash Soup. The Funk noted that it could also be known as Jersey Shore soup. I think it's soup of people who are marginally employed, yet rich in the realm of frozen vegetables.

It's not the best minestrone I've ever had; that distinction belongs to my dad's college roommate, whose minestrone is a labor of love, taking hours, with carefully balanced proportions of vegetables.

But mine is ready in 30 minutes. So I win?







Ingredients:
4 cups stock
2 cups water
1 14 oz can tomato sauce
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
10 oz sliced andouille sausage
1 lb dried black beans, soaked
garlic salt
black pepper
Italian seasoning
thyme
paprika
sage
tarragon
coriander
fennel seeds
1 onion, chopped
1 lb frozen peas
1/2 lb frozen corn
1/2 lb frozen green beans
1/2 lb frozen lima beans
1/2 lb short pasta

Directions:
Mix stock, water, tomato products, sausage, and onion together and bring to a boil. Add your spices to taste. Throw in the pasta and cook until just al dente. Then add in your frozen vegetables, and cook until they're ready.

Eat, enjoy, and avoid our mistake of drinking hobo wine at the same time. Which is a story for a different day. Suffice it to say, The Funk is no longer allowed to drink Mad Dog, Steel Reserve, or anything of that ilk in our house.