Drop In and Decorate!

Drop In & Decorate is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Founded by food writer Lydia Walshin of The Perfect Pantry The idea behind Drop In & Decorate is simple: bake some cookies; gather a group of family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, your worship group or book group to decorate the cookies together; donate the cookies to a nonprofit agency serving basic human needs in your own community. It’s a simple idea in a complicated world, and something anyone can do. If you’d like to host your own Drop In & Decorate® event, Pillsbury and Wilton would like to help. Pillsbury has donated 50 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each, off any Pillsbury product -- including sugar cookie mix, icing and flour -- to be distributed, first come, first served, while supply lasts, to anyone who plans to host a Drop In & Decorate event (max. 5 coupons per person). And we'll include a Comfort Grip cookie cutter, donated by Wilton, while our supply lasts. Write to lydia AT ninecooks DOT com for more info on how to get your free coupons and cookie cutters. This is a fun and wonderful event.. I hope ya'll can participate! :) xoxo

Wanna Go To NYC For A Few Days?

I've been meaning to do this FOREVER and thanks to a cup of espresso with a second shot of espresso in espresso flavor, I have the wits about me this morning to let all of my 4 readers, and anyone who mistakenly happens by, that The Daring Kitchen is co-hosting a most excellent cake decorating challenge! You've got until midnight of November 9, 2009 (eastern standard time) to decorate a 9" cake in whatever Autumn means to you. You can use any shape of cake, as long as it's 9 inches. You CANNOT sculpt or add additional size cakes. You CAN slice layers and fill them to get more height. All decorations MUST BE EDIBLE. For full details check out the announcement on the Daring Kitchen. Once you've made your cake, to submit it you must go to our public forum entitled "Daring-NYCC Cake Competition" and upload a photo of your naked cake, a photo of the decorating process mid-through, and finally a photo of your finished cake with a brief description about how you went about making it. I know I've wait way too long to let readers here know, and I do apologize.. but there are still 4 more days to enter, so get decorating kids!!! :) xoxo

What's the French Word for FAILURE?

I SUCK. I am NOT a baker. I may be DARING. But screw that baker part. I'm a cook goddammit. I hate that I allowed this challenge to f*ck with my head. I over psyched myself from the beginning. I got scared. Over what??? A few egg whites, some nuts and sugar?? WHAT THE FUCK? I watched an excellent video on how to make macs about eleventy gabillion times. I read that damn forum and looked at photos for the entire month. I read and REREAD the recipe a 100 times. But nothing helped me. I was doomed from the start. The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. Ami, you know how smitten I am with you.. always have been, so please take no offense. But uhmm... Claudia? Claudia can bite my ass. I hated that recipe.. and it hated me back with a burning white heat of a 1000 suns. I didn't even take photos of it - and ya'll KNOW how much I love to embarrass myself. It was that bad. :( Yanno, this ain't my first rodeo. I made macs years ago with my Guru! The first time she came to visit. And although she did most of the work, she taught me well - she showed me the correct way to fold. She showed me how to grind the nuts and the sugar. But, that was a long time ago, and even if she hadn't done most of the work herself, if I had done it all.. I still would have been just as lost this time. It was just too long ago. But I was inspired by ya'll. Like I am every month. I knew the exact flavors I wanted to make and I was ready to DO THIS again. On the few days I was home on vacation, I woke saying "Today I make macarons!" And I knew which recipe I wanted to try next.. but then I'd find an excuse not to torture myself and I wouldn't make them. So, obviously, yesterday was my DO OR DIE day. Actually Sunday was, but I ended up taking an improptu nap. Hey, it was the last day of my vacation - DO NOT JUDGE ME. After a chat with my sister, Veronica.. who makes the dreamiest macarons, I felt like I could not only make her recipe, but end up with 48 perfect macaron shells. It was her video that I watched over and over again, her voice I listened to.. her technique I felt I could replicate. Yeah. No. Another failure, but by far, not as epic as the first try. I know exactly where I screwed up. I knew exactly when I screwed up. It's all about the f'n "magma". I overbeat this batter. Frankly, this batter had every right to report me to the authorities and take a bed at the nearest women's shelter. Seriously. My "magma" turned out more like a slightly thick version of muddy river water in like a nano-second. Oh it flowed alright.. but nothing, including several hundred bags of sand, was going to keep this stuff in place. I decided to look upon them as if they were "multi-tasking". After I piped several circles, I watched them splooge into each other. But at that point, after I wiped away a renegade tear from my cheek and then sucked down a few glugs of a bottle of Jack Daniels we keep in the house for guests.. I turned my back on my over beaten and abused macarons. I left them to splooge and "dry" at the same time. I threw up my hands and screamed "UNCLE" (but it was more like "YOU FAH-HAUL-AKIN IZEHOLES"). I fully expected to return in 40 minutes and find one giant rectangular mac, threatening to escape the sides of the jelly-roll pan it rested on. During that 40 minutes, I pondered how this could have happened. What amazes me is how many times I sucked in that video. I knew I was going to stop beating the batter at the exact right time (Magma time!) because I had watched the video so much that surely by osmosis alone, I would know when. OHMYGOD don't even get me started on the 2nd panic attack when my nuts wouldn't grind down small enough. I was so careful! I ground, I sifted, I ground some more, I sifted some more.. and I still ended up with 107 (ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN) grams of almonds that were way too chunky. Finally, I called Veron back.. "what do I do??" I said between a hiccup and another slurp of my new best friend, Jack. She suggested I grind them in small batches in my coffee grinder. Bless her. That worked. I also ground down the Canadian Vanilla Maple tea I used to hopefully get a good maple flavor in the shells. I ground down what was already miniscule pieces parts of tea and natural and/or artifical flavors into powder, for crissakes!!! And the top of my wee coffee grinder has a hole in the plastic, so I had to keep the palm of my hand slammed down on it and regardless of how long I waited for the contents to settle back down, I still inhaled a tiny poof of powdered vanilla maple tea! That stuff could have been asbestos laden - but I took one for the team so my maple flavored macs with cream cheese and BACON filling would be THE BOMB. So as I'm replaying all of these extra steps I took to make sure my macs would come out beautifully.. it all came down to one stroke. One paddle of the pud too many. Over confidence at it's finest. I left my zen place and lost my concentration and that one extra stroke of my spatula turned all of my hard work into... muddy river water. And here is what I got for my efforts.. they've got feet alright. But barely breathe on one and you'll watch it implode. The first batch wasn't baked long enough, so they ended up being a huge mass of tissue thin crackly crust and ooey gooey innards that stuck to anything they touched. I now know what to do if I can't find the super glue when I need it. No running to the store, I'll just underbake a batch of macarons! You could build a bridge with that stuff! You'll also notice that apparently, I can pipe a perfect Thresher Shark, but cannot pipe a simple circle to save my life. The 2nd batch was a bit better.. I baked them for a few minutes longer and they popped right off the paper, but they were still really thin and the tops crack really easily.. like move your finger 1/16th of an inch over them and they crack. Oh and they don't taste of maple. Not in the slightest. They are just nutty and sweet. Just like their maker! If you can compare batshit crazy and grumpy to nutty and sweet, that is. :P So I decided to flavor the cream cheese with maple syrup instead of powdered sugar. At first taste there was no maple, but after it sat in the fridge for a while, the maple finally came through - thank the baby Jebus. I added crumbled applewood smoked bacon to the mixture, leaving some out for "garnish" - cuz we all know how fancy pants I am. Some I just lightly brushed with maple syrup and sprinkled some extra bacon on top.. some I left plain.. and some I rolled the edges in bacon. Those, I think, were my favorite. At least, that's the only one I've actually tried and AT THE VERY LEAST I was RIGHT ON with the flavor combo. The filling wasn't too sweet since the cream cheese leaves you with a nice tang. And the bacon.. well.. I dunno, kids.. roll a fresh cat turd in bacon, and call me to dinner. You just can't go wrong with crispedy bacon. So there ya have it.. another long ass story of yet another catastrophe in my kitchen. But I'm semi-happy with them, if for the taste alone. And they've got feet. God bless them, they've got feet. xoxo

What the Pho?

I wonder how many blog entries will be titled that today? hehe So this morning I felt fanfarkingtastic. Tonight? Not so much. Lots of talk of flu and the cold weather setting in.. and hubbs doesn't feel good.. so I dunno if this is psychosomatic or if my wonderful husband has shared a germ with me.. but I feel like poo. So this is going to be short and sweet! :) The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. Ah-mazing. That's all I can say about this Vietnamese Beef Pho soup. I was a lil iffy with those spices.. anise and cinnamon in a savory beef soup? *shudder* But boy were my eyes opened after that first taste. I couldn't have been more surprised or more happy with the results. I went with the long version of the Beef Pho from Jaden's Steamy Kitchen because Hubbs had just made his world famous (not really) chicken noodle soup 2 days before. Jaden's quick version of Pho Ga, which is found in her brand spankin' new KICK ASS book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight's Dinner is on the menu next week while I am on VACATION! WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!! Actually quite a few of the recipes in her book are on the menu next week as I am reviewing it for this blog, so keep an eye out! :) (It will also be reviewed on The Daring Kitchen TWICE! So look for those reviews too. ;)          Anyhoo.. this month's challenge was about learning how to toast spices and how to make a KILLER stock. Both of which I'd never tackled in the kitchen before. That stock.. oh that stock.. so rich, so flavorful.. so freakin' delicious. Just the right amount of saltiness and beefiness. AND another weird ass thing was creating a bowl full of noodles, bean sprouts, thinly sliced red onions (chilies and cilantro too.. but we omitted because we didn't have any and I couldn't talk Mr. Chicken Soup Two Fakkin Days Before I'm Suppose To Cook Vietnamese Chicken Soup into running to the grocery store for me. Gah.) LIME and RAW BEEF. Seriously. I decided to use London Broil as it was on sale, and figured hell, if it's raw, it won't be tough right? I mean.. don't get me wrong.. I like my steak still mooing, but even rare is at least seared, yanno? This was raw as raw can be.. sliced thinly and laid on top of all the other ingredients.. then the broth was poured over and it "cooked" the beef. But it didn't cook it enough to make it tough as a well done London Broil will be.. nope, it was cooked just enough to take away the raw flavor but left it tender and amazingly flavorful. And the lime just added another incredible flavor layer that makes me wanna.. GAWD DAMN I WANT SOME RIGHT NOW. I'M SICK, I SHOULD HAVE SOME. SOMEONE MAKE ME SOME. PWEASE??? *sob* 'kay well I might not really be sick and wasn't I suppose to keep this short?? Jebus. Alrighty then.. this recipe got a huge THUMBS UP from both of us. I have froze the remaining stock and can't wait to use it again. I am so looking forward to the quick version and then somewhere down the road I'm going to be roasting a chicken or two and will save the carcass to make the longer traditional Pho Ga, you can betcher sweet patootie. As a matter of fact, it's been decided that no longer will we be making our soups with store bought stock when it's SO SIMPLE MR. JENKINS to make it at home. Jaden, huge huge huge thank you for the time you gave all of us at The Daring Kitchen this month. It was a pleasure seeing your smiling face in the forums and listening to you during the conference call. Thanks for so generously sharing these recipes and your new book (there's a contest.. 3 lucky winners will win a copy of Jaden's new book!) and we hope you stop by every once in a while and say HI! Oh yeah and once you've finished your 2nd book.. uhmm... we'll so test 'er out for ya again! :D Kids.. buy this book. It's filled with gorgeous photos and amazing recipes. Check out Jaden's blog for the traditional Beef Pho recipe and the traditional Chicken Pho recipe. Also, check out the The Daring Kitchen for the Quick Chicken Pho recipe.. something to tantalize you while you are waiting for your book to be delivered to your doorstep. ;) Oh and all of you Daring Cooks out there.. I'm not going to spill the beans right now.. but Jaden is going to be offering a new contest which will be announced in the private forums on Oct. 17th.. :D And before I leave this "short" post (BAHAHAHAHAHAA) I couldn't forgive myself if I didnt plug another AMAZING contest being hosted at The Daring Kitchen from Oct. 10 to Nov. 9 - It's a cake decorating competition! The good folks at The New York Cake Convention and The US Confection Connection are giving away an all expenses paid trip for 2 to the NY Cake Convention Jan. 2 to the 5, 2010! That includes airfare, hotel accomodations, tickets to the convention and SO MUCH MORE. Check out the details HERE. This contest is open to the public as well as our Daring Kitchen members. Enter! You've got nothing to lose and so much to gain! :) xoxo

Puff Schmuff

Okay.. let's just call this Oh hell I don't know what to call it. Meet my lopsided, falling over, super poofy shooting stars. Gah. I'm covered in fakking flour, I have egg wash on my pants, my lips are burning because I figured "well maybe they'll taste good" before the lil bastards cooled off, and my heart is broken. I spent two days on these vols-au-vent thingies. EEK! I forgot the important stuff during my initial ranting and raving! The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of a whisk and a spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Continue on with the craziness... Palmier? BAHAHAHAA! I stressed over the perfect fillings. I researched the perfect goat's cheese mousse. I squashed grapes for these things. And for what??? Notice the burnt "shooting star" on the right? EVEN I'M EMBARRASSED TO SHOW YOU PHOTOS! Me! The gal who thrives on making a total ass of herself on the internets for your reading pleasure! *sigh* The chicken salad is placed ON THE SIDE because there were no INSIDES of these lil fakkers. I had such high hopes. I still have one millimeter of a sliver of hope still.. but it's only like 1/8 inch high.. not "such high" as with the first batch. Everything was going so well.. SO WELL. I only had one tiny ooze of butter yesterday and that was on the first turn.. FIVE TURNS LATER and no oozing. I wanted to kiss my puff pastry dough because it was behaving SO WELL. Oh I had poofiness alright.. just not the centered properly. :P And then the oven. That dirty bastage. It was not nice to my first batch which was supposed to be filled with the best tasting chicken salad EVER. But there's NOTHING to fill people! I docked! Apparently not deep enough.. but who the hell knew?? I did forget the silpat on top.. but seriously? How unforgiving a recipe to mock you just because you forget the silpat after doing everything else correctly??? That puff pastry dough has some issues and it needs to see a therapist, tout de suite. And lemme tell you, that therapist will earn his/her money dealing with this dough. My oven needs to go too. Screw my oven. I keep her clean. I cook lovingly on top of her. There's NO NEED for this kind of behavior. It's like a star shaped accordion. :P I'm spent, kids. I'm. Spent. Will post horrible photos later.. if I can talk my camera into not shutting it's lense in horror. If you happen to read this before I put my 2nd batch in (which is sitting, all shaped and stacked and egg washed in the fridge WITH A SILPAT ON TOP ALREADY), say a prayer for me. Please? Baking Gods I rue the day you were given uhhh.. Baking Godness Powers. May the fleas of a 1000 camels infest your flour-y armpits! :P~~~~~~~~~~~ xoxo Okay well.. slightly tipsy, but look at that poof! And well.. it's not really bleeding.. that's a concord grape reduction. Ohh and I ended up not finding a goat's cheese mousse recipe that I liked, but I found an AWESOME goat's cheese custard recipe on David Lebovitz's site. Bless him. :D ***THIS JUST IN: 2nd batch is BEEE-U-TEEEFULLLLLLL!!!! it's all about the silpat. I'll be damned. Photos of these babies will definitely be added as soon as they are cool enough to fill. :D xoxox Okay so maybe I got a lil uhmm.. frustrated before finishing. Oopsie. *grin* I haven't tried the goat's cheese custard & Concord grape reduction filled v-au-v's yet, but hubbs said they are fabulous. I did try the world's best chicken salad in a v-au-v and it was amazing. Eating the shell, just to taste it was very salty.. but you couldn't tell that with the fillings, thank goodness. :) Thanks so much Steph! Even though I SPAZZED out, this was a great challenge and I'm glad I've now got puff pastry in my freezer! Yay! :) Now that ya'll have seen my trainwreck.. go check out the 1000's of Vols-au-Vents on the Daring Baker's Blogroll xoxo

Daring Cooks' September 2009 - Indian Dosas

Hey ya'll.. well talk about the last minute AGAIN. I kept putting this challenge off because of time restraints.. but come to find out, time wasn't even an issue. Every component was quick and simple to put together. To me this challenge was more about trying a cultural food I'd never had before. This wasn't much about learning a new technique in cooking. It was so simple that Hubbs joined in and between the two of us, we were done in less than an hour. I don't mean that he can only cook simple dishes, that's not true at all.. he's quite handy in the kitchen, bless his cotton reinforced toe tube socks. Actually he's a fantastic cook.. but he's an even better sous chef when I'm cooking. ;) Never having ate Dosas before.. hell, never having ate Indian food before, I have nothing to compare this dish to. The flavors were very good, I enjoyed that aspect of it. It was the texture that kind of put me off. Although my "pancakes" were thin, they were still pretty spongy in texture. They reminded me of the pancakes that come with Mu Shu.. which I tried once and ended up eating the filling and not the pancakes - for the very same reason. hehe The filling, although we decided to not puree the chickpeas and instead mashed most of it and left some whole or partially whole, it was still too smooshy beany texture-wise for me. The coconut-curry sauce was delicious, but neither of us tasted coconut and we used a brand new can of coconut milk. Oh I should also mention, we halved the recipe but we followed it exactly, except for two things. We used all purpose flour instead of spelt and we used coconut milk in the pancakes instead of almond, rice or soy milk. Both changes were because of having to buy a large quantity of the ingredient for just a few tablespoons and/or less than a cup needed. In these times, it's almost a sin to waste anything. Now with all of my negativity - we can definitely say that's just me. Hubbs loved it. He ate several Dosas and says he'll bring the rest for lunch tomorrow. And he doesn't do leftovers, so go figger. ;) He said that he'll forego the pancakes and just bring flour tortillas with him to wrap around the filling, which he'll mix with the sauce. This makes me happy. I'm glad he enjoyed them so much. This doesn't mean much, since this is only the second time I've cooked/baked Vegan.. but my eyes have definitely been opened. Again, without ever trying what I assume are traditional Indian Dosas made with animal products, the flavors in these Vegan Dosas were so enjoyable that I didn't miss butter (don't hate me, Paula!) or cow's milk. A great big Thank You to Debyi of The Healthy Vegan Kitchen for being a wonderful hostess and for turning many of us on to the pleasure of cooking Vegan. :) xoxo

Dobos Torta

Well.. I'm at a loss. This cake had promise.. I was excited about it. First thing I thought about was strawberries. I wanted a strawberry cake with dark chocolate buttercream. And after a chat with a certain French lady I happen to know, I was even more excited because she came up with the solution of how to incorporate strawberries into the cake.. by pulverizing the freeze-dried strawberries I had into a fine power and adding it instead of pureed strawberries because not only would the powder flavor the cake it would color it and not cause it to turn out gray.. works for me, the Queen of Run-On Sentences. And then I read the recipe and it all went straight to hell. BUT FIRST! A word from our sponsors... hehe The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. You see the Baking Gods weren't smiling upon me. Imagine that. I even think they are tired of laughing and pointing at me.. now they just turn their Godly backs towards me. I've bored them with my total lack of improvement in the "folding" arts. I know how to fold. I was taught IN PERSON by MY GURU. I was taught WELL. But when I am faced with a recipe that is all about fakkin folding, my palms start to sweat. My mouth goes dry. I frown. I know before the spatula touches the batter that I'm going to FAIL. Ohhh and when I read that you have to fold the wet stuff.. AND THEN fold the dry stuff well I about lost the contents of my bladder. I just can't stop folding.. it's those fakkin white whispy streaks.. I HATE THEM. They MUST BLEND IN DAMMIT. I fear they'll show up in my baked product and ewww who wants white trails through their cake? Not I, my friends. Not I. So I keep folding.. and folding.. and soon I've got a consistent color with absolutely no fluff. And I look at it, every single time amazed at what I had just done. Like I'm surprised or something. WTF? I can't stop myself. So my batter ended up being about 1/2 of what I believe I should have ended up with. I went with 3/4 cup for each layer.. and each layer turned out like.. well.. pita bread. Lavash. Rubbery and flaccid. And yet they were also dry as the Mojave. Oh and I only had enough batter for 5 droopy layers. But what the hell, the buttercream will make it all better! Right? Mmm hmm.. I went with my go-to buttercream recipe.. Jacques Torres' to be exact. Italian Meringue Buttercream. It's to die for. I've made it several times and each time it's come out perfectly. I had no worries. I knew this buttercream was going to save this cake, just like it did the infamous crepe cake of long ago.. *shudder* Yeah. No. Apparently, my eggs got too hot. I must have drizzled the sugar syrup in too quickly. I admit I wasn't concentrating on it, since I was full of so much OC (over confidence) - and I know better than that. You'll never make your shot if you've got the OC going on. I learned that in the poolhalls and bars of my younger days.. good times. Good times. Anyhoo.. so I overheated the eggs, so says My Guru. And when you overheat your eggs, your buttercream doesn't stay fluffy after you add the butter.. instead it turns into a thick glaze. Horse Pucky!! I threw it in the fridge overnight.. and THANK THE BABY JEBUS it didn't separate or deflate even more.. it turned out okay.. other than it melts the second room temperature air hits it. But that's okay, it tastes so good that I could eat it on a cake or drink it through a straw.. makes no nevermind to me. Keep in mind, I haven't had buttercream or any kind of cake for 3 months now. I could bathe in the stuff and be a happy woman. So I frosted (HAR!) my strawberry flatbread cake layers after I brushed them with strawberry syrup and called it DONE. No caramel. Oohh hells no. There just wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to f*ck with the Baking Gods a third time. Sorry, kids. Lissee knows when to scream UNCLE. The cake was excellent if you like chocolate buttercream covered crackers. There was no strawberry taste whatsoever. The texture was so far off that I really can't even call this a cake. It was more like a molded hunk of buttercream with cracker-like separators. I ended up peeling the "cake" off the buttercream and yes, I ate all of the buttercream. ALL OF IT. And my slice was sliverish (not like the hunk I cut for my horrible photos), yet I'll wager it weighed 3 pounds. You just have to appreciate the miracle of butter, sugar and chocolate. There were way too many amazed and happy Daring Bakers for me to think this was just a bad cake. No, I know it's a damn good recipe, I just blew it. Again. Gah. Many thanks to both Angela and Lorraine, they were fabulous hostesses and this was a great challenge! Not one I'll repeat, thankyouverymuch. :P But it really was a great challenge, we learned techniques and were still given enough leeway for creativity to make these cakes our own. Well done, girls! :) So do yourselves a favor and leave this blog now.. run far, far away from it and check out the Daring Baker blogroll to find hundreds of gorgeous and tasty cakes to drool over!