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Food Popular

People Eating Stuff

April 1, 2012 – 10:22 PM

I know that I should try to be nonchalant about this but I JUST HAVE TO TALK ABOUT MY RECENT CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS! I am totally giddy and honored that Bakerella and Marian from Sweetopia visited a recent post. You’ve already heard me go on about Bakerella so let me tell you a bit about Marian. First of all, go visit her site. Go now, I’ll wait. See the header? The one with a village made out of baked goods? I think she lives there. I think that’s Sweetopia. And her house must be the one in the middle, between the candy cane and the lollipop. You see, in Sweetopia, everything is brown and pink, and you can eat all the frosting you want and still be skinny with perfect hair because that is what Marian does.

Marian has these really detailed posts and uh-may-zing videos. What’s great about her videos is that she narrates them in her soothing, omniscient voice, as if to say, “I know the last dessert you made looked like a severed body part, but let me calmly show you how to make cookies into sheep with 3-D fur.” (Is it fur that sheep have? Or are you supposed to say wool?) She also very considerately puts some of the more tedious parts of decorating in time-lapse video, so you get a quick feel for how shes finishes the job and come away thinking, “Ok. I can do this.” Even if you can’t.

In celebration of these two ladies, I thought I would share pictures of people eating what they’ve inspired me to make.  Some of these eaters are missing their front teeth.

Eating is more fun when you have friends over.

But don’t try to bite into a cake pop with your gums. It will just make you sad.

If you happen to have teeth though, you can do this:

Otherwise, try this:

Sometimes, you might have a tea party…

…and serve some cookies that were photographed in poor lighting…

…with real table linens…

…and friends whose hair has more volume than yours.

Some friends said didn’t know they could subscribe to posts. You can do that by scrolling up to the top of the page and looking on the right hand side, where all the pretty buttons are. Anyone who subscribes is automatically my friend (that is not meant to be a deterrent).

Thanks for stopping by, and may the eats be ever in your favor.

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Baking Food Popular

Epic Baking Day

March 22, 2012 – 9:22 PM

Cake pop, bitten

Eeeeeeeeek! It happened. No, not that Nobel Prize thing. The Epic Baking Day that I’ve been eagerly anticipating ever since Bakerella got me popstruck and changed my life forever.

For months, friends have been asking me when I would make cake pops. Soon, I’d say slyly, soon. It was like that time in third grade when I told everyone that I was going to jump off the high dive at the pool and then when I got up there I looked down and thought, Hm, maybe I shouldn’t have told quite so many people that I’d jump off quite so high a diving board, because I’m probably allergic to this kind of thing and I might have a heart attack.

I was nervous about the cake pops, but luckily my friend Danielle from Cozycakes Cottage agreed to help me out (and by help me out, I mean buy everything, bring the book, and make me drinks while telling me what to do). This was a happy day because though Danielle and I have been friends for years, I hadn’t really seen her in a long time. Danielle is double-jointed just like me, so you should really check out her blog. Though I am trying to convince her to merge our blogs into All the Cozy Cottages are Taken.

Danielle unpacked this first so it must have been obvious that I needed it:

Sustenance

And then we thought we should take a picture of us, to document the momentous day (even if the momentous part hadn’t happened yet):

Me and Danielle

If we look a little strained in that picture it’s because we’re squatting. There was no one around to take the picture so we had to use my cheap, short tripod. That’s why I look like I’m in a huddle about to say “hut”.

Danielle also bought a bunch of other stuff, since we had big plans to make tartes and popovers. We never got to those.

Before we knew it we only had a couple of hours left, so we got down to business.  The objective: make baby chicks.

The night before, I made the cake balls. Following Bakerella’s advice, I used Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix and canned cream cheese frosting (about 3/4 of a container). They looked like meat balls. They chilled in the fridge overnight.

Cake balls

We started by punching out little stars and shaping beaks out of fondant, which as far as I can tell lasts forever, since I haven’t made it since this post. I used a handy punching tool that my friend Sandra sent me from Japan.

Punching tool

Then Danielle put the candy coating in a bowl and heated it up:

Candy melts in bowl

Doesn’t she have nice hair? I got that apron for Christmas from my husband.

Aren’t these sticks pretty too?

Sticks

Our first dip:

Dipped cake ball

…and our first baby chick!

Baby chick

Typical firstborn — we took tons of pictures of him. Yes, that’s dish washing liquid in the background.

Baby chick

Awwww, love you baby chick! We had to eat some of the really deformed ones in the back to put them out of their misery.

Here he is with some friends:

Baby chick with friends

…and at his school play:

School play

Maybe not such a flattering angle of him, that one.

Then I cried because Danielle had to go. The chicks were separated, and we hadn’t made that many. Danielle left us lots of candy coating and other supplies.

My kids decided to get in on the action:

Pidge

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-WxlSGdAZG4w/T2o6OoPBYVI/AAAAAAAAG6w/4EuYJ0szVEM/s640/DSC_0014-1.JPG

They made Rocker Chick:

Rocker Chick

…and her band:

The band

Then, abruptly, we had to stop! We had friends coming over. We cleaned up. So we didn’t get to the eating part yet…and actually we still have many more pops to make, so…more to come.

But for now, thank you Bakerella for making cake pops such an important part of my life. Instructions here for how to make the cake balls, and of course her site is full of amazing ideas for pops. Thank you Danielle for hand-holding me through it. And thank you friends for pushing me so far beyond my inability to make frosting.

What should we make next?

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Baking Cooking Food Popular

Double-Maple Cupcakes (and Cupcake Barf)

January 13, 2012 – 2:10 PM

So I’ve basically lost my voice from screaming because Bakerella — THE BAKERELLA — commented on my blog.  As if I couldn’t love her more, she actually read my post and…her favorite color is turquoise.

Now that Danielle and I are all Hollywood and are basically just waiting for an invitation to bake with her, I decided to take a baby step toward cake pops and to bake some cupcakes on my own. If you’re training for a marathon, you build up to it.  Are you in fifth grade and would you like to read about baking? If so, this is the site for you!

The challenge: Double-Maple Cupcakes from Cooking Light. Except that I made them single-maple because I wanted to use buttercream frosting. I was first introduced to these cupcakes by my friend Christine, who is appropriately Canadian, and who baked them and brought them to work. They were the most fabulous cupcakes I had ever tasted, and I wanted to eat all 18 of them but had to just smile politely as co-workers passed them around and helped themselves to what could have been added to my portion.

Here is what I learned from this baking experience:

1. If you put a several cups of flour in the bowl of your KitchenAid mixer that you have used twice since you purchased it, and then turn the dial to High, you will distribute flour all over yourself and the kitchen. I also used a dough paddle which may have been wrong.

This would be an inappropriate picture for a food blog.

2. After you have done 1, you may no longer have the correct proportions of ingredients in your batter, and sometimes when this happens, your cupcake may actually throw up.

Cupcake barf. Unretouched photo.

Overall, though, most of the cupcakes that were not unwell turned out pretty normal looking.

Normal looking cupcakes
The ones that didn't throw up.

And they frosted up nicely.

Frosted cupcakes
I know there are gaps in the frosting. Don't judge me.

So if you want to try this at home, here are the recipes (with instructions on how to make barfing cupcakes above):

DOUBLE-MAPLE CUPCAKES from Cooking Light:
Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 5 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, softened
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon imitation maple flavoring
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup 1% low-fat milk
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • Frosting:
  • 3 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, softened
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon imitation maple flavoring
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare cupcakes, beat first 4 ingredients at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended (about 5 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Combine milk and 1/4 cup maple syrup. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix after each addition.

Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups lined with paper liners. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Ingredients
  • 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
  • 3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
  • 1/4 teaspoon table salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
Preparation
  1. Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.

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Baking Food Popular

Popstruck

January 5, 2012 – 11:08 PM

With all this talk recently about Santorum and the presidential election, there’s only one thing on my mind: CAKE POPS. Take a look at the Kermits below (by the amazing Bakerella). They are MADE OF CAKE. On a stick. That is what a cake pop is: cake on a stick, and apparently, incredibly, magically manipulated to look like Muppets.

Image courtesy of Bakerella

I know, I know, I’m a little slow on the uptake. It’s just like years after Brad Pitt was named one of People Magazine’s Sexiest People and I finally saw A River Runs Through It and started telling people, Hey, that Brad Pitt, he’s kind of cute!

This all started a few weeks ago when I was at a baby shower. Melissa V decorated the shower with Very Hungry Caterpillarstuff like little trees with caterpillars in them made of pom poms and other stuff I would never think to do (she also makes full-size nativity sets for plays and has a lot of children, which I would never do either), including:

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake Pops
Some cake pops I did not make.

Yes, cake pops. The picture is blurry because I was high on sugar and shaking from all the cake pops I had. I would never have given them a second thought except that they were DELICIOUS. I kept eating them. I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

A late night Google search on cake pops invariably led to a visit to Bakerella, and hours ogling her photos (she takes gorgeous photos, which means she is doing with one hand what I cannot do with two. I am a bad baker. I’m an excellent eater, and I like my own cooking, but there is something about baking that compromises my ability to function. A few weeks ago I made some dipped truffles I was going to gift, and my husband said, “Uh, you can’t give those to your boss.” I would have been mad except that they did look like sad, decapitated snowmen after a nuclear war.). I had a full-on night of dreams about cake pops (mostly about how I made them for one of my kids’ birthdays, and when they were unveiled there would be gasps and some people would actually pass out from the awesomeness and a spotlight would shine on me, suddenly cueing R Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly). Then I had to post about her on Facebook.  And that’s when I found out that my friend Danielle is obsessed with her too. Danielle can actually bake and has even made cake pops. And ebliskiver, but that’s a topic for another time. Anyway, this is what went down:

ME: So I was reading her FAQs and she’d like you to ask for permission to use her pictures SO I EMAILED HER!  What if she writes back!!!  Do you want me to ask her what her favorite color is???

DANIELLE: WHAT IF SHE DOES WRITE BACK!?!?!?  PLEASE forward it to me so I can be starstruck!!!!  It’ll be like you are famous along with her.  Ask her what her favorite NON-baked good food is.  Like does she eat steak?  Or stuffed mushrooms?  Or….Nachos?

ME: SHE WROTE BACK!!!!!  She actually typed letters back to me that were addressed to my email address!!!!  Here it is. Don’t faint.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Bakerella wrote:
Sure. Thanks for asking.

Bakerella

DANIELLE:  Ok, so basically you’re famous. Seriously though.  My heart is kind of beating a little faster than normal bc of her email to you. Did yours, too, when you saw her email in your inbox???????  Who else can we have you email?  WHO ELSE?!

ME: Selena Gomez?!? E.T.???

Then it basically degenerated into a conversation about feelings regarding Justin Bieber (who I happen to love).  But THEN Danielle went to the store and BOUGHT US CAKE POP DECORATING STUFF! YES, we are going to make cake pops!!! This is important because I cannot do this alone.  This is not going to happen for a couple of weeks, but be prepared. It is going to be EPIC.  Like we are optioning movie rights now.

Maybe Bakerella could link to me when she needs to show what could go wrong if you screwed up her recipes. In case you thought I was joking about being a bad baker, let me share this photo with you. I even took it with a fancy camera and a pensive angle, but these are carrot muffins and, like snowflakes, no two look exactly alike. In fact, they’re not even near the same size or shape.

Carrot Muffins
Nothing says "professional" like muffins that are baked from containers of the same size but come out totally different

So Bakerella, thanks for letting me use your pictures. They will make this site a happier place. Oh, and she has a bookout too — we’re going to be using it as the basis for our epic baking endeavor.

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Fashion Food Popular

Louis Vuitton Tivoli PM and No I Don’t Have a Brain Tumor

October 14, 2009 – 9:23 PM

To your right is the Louis Vuitton Tivoli PM bag. It will be the next handbag I purchase, especially since I apparently missed the boat already on the Kooba bag that was specially designed for an HSN segment co-promoted by Lucky magazine. The TV event starts on Friday but it looks like it’s already sold out online…(sigh) if only everyone else had bad taste.

Speaking of bad taste, I noticed today that everything I ate today left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth (Cheerios — bitter. Strawberries — bitter.). I was getting worried since I recall hearing (from a marketing person, not a doctor) that one sign of brain tumor is altered taste perception (although I think she said something like you could taste colors, or maybe she was talking about a different experience altogether). Anyway, I went to my Primary Care Physician (the Internet), and found a forum where people posted about the same symptom — and they had all eaten large quantities of pine nuts! Flashback to Monday night — my daughter and I chowed down on a bag of Costco brand pine nuts after dinner, squirrel-style. Apparently this can last for days — like possibly five or so days.

Back to the Tivoli. I actually went to the LV store to try it on, and I LOVE it (especially after my friends were selling me on how practical it is — “I spilled a Tall Latte on it and it wiped right off” or “Your kids can drop an ice cream cone on it and it comes right off”) except that you can’t put it over your shoulder. Well, here’s the screwy part: I LOVE how bags look when you can’t put them over your shoulder, because I like the look of satchels, but I always try to put a bag over my shoulder (two kids), so I fear its impracticality. However, I tried on the GM version which you can put over the shoulder, and it’s not quite as cute and is a tiny bit too ginormous for me. This is why I don’t yet own a Tivoli. Or do I need both?

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Crafts Popular

Cable Knit Pom Pom Hat

March 20, 2009 – 10:15 PM

This entry is going to be about knitting. If you don’t care about knitting, stop reading. If you don’t care about knitting but do want to learn about how to make pom poms, you can keep reading, but I’m just going to redirect you someone who can explain it better than I can.

My job’s been a little demanding lately, so I’ve been trying to unwind before going to bed by knitting a few rows every night. I started off doing pretty basic things, like 2×2 rib hats on straight needles, but eventually became obsessed with questions like “What if I don’t want any seams on my hats?” and “How do you make those twisty designs?”, and before I knew it I was knitting bad hats using 4-5 needles concurrently, cursing myself all the way. I am pretty sure that if I stayed at home full time I would be equally capable of finding things that would stress me out. Needless to say, this idea of unwinding using knitting only resulted in me staying up later than planned, determined to be able to do what seems to be somehow innate for little old ladies.

The good news is that I’ve been making progress. The hat to the right is the first one that I’ve knitted that is of my own design, without using a pattern. Except that this was supposed to be an adult hat, and as you can tell by the picture, it is being worn by a doll that is roughly 10% the size of an average adult. So I present to you: Cable Knit Pom Pom Hat for Toddlers! Nevermind the fact that my children are no longer toddlers…um, yeah, I meant to knit a hat for this knitted doll (which by the way was actually knitted by someone in England whose knitting skills are vastly superior to mine). Here’s how to make this hat:

I used:
Valley Yarns Berkshire (85% Wool, 15% Alpaca); wt 100 grams, in Lt. Blue

US Size 10 double-pointed needles (set of 4)

Cable needle (I just used a dpn from another set as the cable needle, with a rubber stopper on one end)

CO 60

Rows 1-6: *k1, p1, rep from * to end

Rows 7-9: *p4, k6, rep from * to end

Rows 10: *p4, CF6, rep from *to end

Rows 11-13: knit the knits and purl the purls

Repeat Rows 7-13 until total rows = 26

Shape crown:

Row 1:
X= if the next stitch is a knit, use K2tog; if it is a purl, use SSK
Y= if the next stitch is a knit, k; if it is a purl, p

*X, Y2 rep from * to end

Row 2: X, Y

Row 3: *k1, p1; rep from * to end

Row 4: *k1; rep from * to end

Row 5-6: *k2tog; rep from * to end

Break off yarn, thread through yarn needle and through live sts, drawing tight and sliding off knitting needle. Secure and weave off.

Making the pom pom:

Do it the cheap way:
http://www.kid-craft-central.com/pom-poms.html

Or do what I did if you’re too lazy to cut your own template — buy one:
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat2874&PRODID;=prd31838

Sew securely to the hat, and voila! Now find someone who’s willing to wear it, preferably aged 1-2.

Copyright
This is pattern is free for personal, non-commercial use. Further use requires permission from the designer (me). You may not sell or distribute the pattern in any form. You may not sell the any item or items made from this pattern without my permission. You may not use this pattern or items from the pattern for commercial use.

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Fashion Popular

When you know, you know

July 3, 2008 – 6:17 PM

Remember when people would tell you that you’d know when you found The One? It happened to me last month. Suddenly, with no warning, I fell fast and hard for Botkier handbags — until the pure supple lambskin-y, design-y perfection of them was too much for me to handle.

I first saw them online during a sale. On sale they were about $475, so I hemmed and hawed about the Botkier Bianca until they were sold out. I then proceeded to kick myself for missing out, for the Biancas are nowhere to be found on the primary market, and I began scouring eBay for them, losing several auctions in the last 5 seconds because apparently other Botkier obsessed are faster typers than I am. Determined not to be defeated yet again, I actioned on a Buy It Now for the Sophie bag in Raisin (pictured), which is now in my possession. It arrived at my door during a particularly bad my-career-is-in-the-toilet-now-that-I-have-kids kind of day, and as my friend Jenny so aptly pointed out, it would match perfectly with the bottle of vodka I’d be carrying.

Still outbid though on the Botkier Bianca (I wanted it in nude snakeskin), I desperately settled and pulled another Buy It Now on a Cherry colored one. That one is coming on Tuesday, the day before I leave town (it also involved begging the seller to expedite the bag so I’d get it before I left). I then set an auto-search on eBay to show me daily all the new Botkiers that were on the market. This has resulted in two additional bids for Botkiers, as well as a membership in The Purse Forum.

And I can’t stop talking about them. I dragged a gay co-worker into critiquing a few I was considering. I email my friend Alice (who just gave birth two days ago) updates and opinion requests. It is truly an illness. Weirdest part is that I was never that into bags.

But then I made a startling discovery: there seem to be a bunch of purse addicts out there, who buy new purses, carry them for a couple of weeks, and then stow them in their original dust covers with their authentication tags, and resell them on eBay once they’re back in season again. Brilliant! I felt enabled. Like I had an excuse to buy more bags.

Continuing to troll the net for Botkiers, I stumbled upon the Chloes. Whoa. If Botkiers were my Ivana Trump, Chloes are my Marla Maples. So I’m just waiting for those Koobas to hit me over the head…

 

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Food Popular Travel

All food, all the time

April 30, 2008 – 5:36 PM

I just got back from a business trip to Colombia. You will be pleased to know that because of the constant attention of four bodyguards, a bullet-proof car, and an approximate net worth of $50, I was not kidnapped. I was, however, fed, gargantuan proportions of food, approximately six times a day, with an average of four desserts per sitting (I do not exaggerate). To the right you can see a photo of what was an appetizer…that came before the appetizer that came before the main courses followed by the four desserts. By the end of the trip, I was simply too fat to be kidnapped — no kidnapper could possibly afford to keep me alive given my new nutritional requirements. One of my most enjoyable experiences included shopping for handbags at a mall while accompanied by bodyguards. I believe the appropriate word for that is “weird”.

While we were there we had lots of delicious local fruits and vegetables, which were purportedly pesticide-free. They also appeared not to be genetic mutants, which was a nice change. When I got back a few friends and I got together, and the Oprah-watchers among us brought up a recipe for a pesticide cleanser. See here for the recipe. Apparently this is for people who don’t want to be slowly killed by pesticides, yet are also unwilling to pay for organic fruit (I sometimes fall into this camp). I was concerned that the vinegar would make the fruit taste disgusting, but a friend of mine tested it and said it was just fine…the only downer was that she had to plan 10 minutes ahead before serving fruit.
So, spray away! I plan to make the concoction sometime in the near future (you can get the grapefruit seed extract from health food stores and the usual suspects). If you make it, let me know how it goes! Then again, do you really want to live into your hundreds?

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