You Say It's Your Birthday

This post is a little overdue. Brian and I both had our birthdays last May (4 days apart from each other) and we decided to have a big gathering with our friends, over at The Griffin. For the occasion, I decided to make a cake.

Personally, I'm more of a white/vanilla cake type person, but Mr. B loves the chocolate.

Since he got to choose the cake, I got to choose the filling.

My favorite way to eat chocolate cake is when it's filled with bananas and cream.

Uhhh, huhhh. Then another layer of chocolate cake. Did I mention this is triple chocolate cake? Chocolate cake, with chocolate pudding, and chocolate chips...

... oh yea, and tons of chocolate frosting.

What's this you ask?

Well, it's chocolate frosting with lots of food dye. I spread a thin, even layer of the frosting on some parchment and let it freeze for a bit. In the meantime, I also
melted some white chocolate with red food dye, placed it in this yogurt lid, and let it refrigerate until hard.

What's the point of all of this? Well... after the black frosting was good and stiff,
I peeled away the top layer of parchment and cut it into a nice circle.

I did the same with the red chocolate, making a smaller circle within the big red circle.

And what does this all make?

A cake for two record nerds like Brian and myself. I couldn't find my piping bag anywhere, so I made one out of a ziplock bag and messily piped a Happy Birthday.

The record portion of the cake was a bit frozen and stiff at first, but once it was out for a while, it started to just fit perfectly onto the cake.

Of course, when we got to the bar, I totally forgot to take utensils or plates... but that didn't stop anyone from eating the cake! Bar napkins, hands and mouths were all covered in birthday cake goodness. It was a very memorable night!

Baklava Ice Cream

I can't take all the credit for this one. My lovely, talented baker of a mom made some homemade Baklava, and let me tell you, it's some of the best Baklava in the world. So sweet and rich, it just melts in your mouth. She sent me home with a big bag, which would be way too easy for me to eat in one sitting, so I decided to make a little ice cream out of it!

I gotta say, crushing the Baklava was really hard. It hurt to hit something that tasty!

I used my old faithful vanilla bean ice cream base.

And so it churns...

Who knew this ice cream would come out so attractive?

I saved a little of the crushed Baklava as garnish, which would probably also double as a great topping on plain vanilla ice cream too!

Okay, last one! This ice cream was just too photogenic... and tasty!

Amish Friendship Bread

How cool is this? A chain starter for bread! Genius! I was pretty excited when a friend from work offered me a starter, I hadn't even heard of Amish Friendship Bread before, but after she told me what it was all about, I couldn't refuse! Who knows how long this starter has been passed around? I just love the concept!
It all starts with a bag.

Mush the bag one day. Add ingredients the next day. Another mush here, another mush there, and after ten days, my starter was ready for some baking.

It was started to smell kind of good, which was weird, since it was still in a doughy state, but yes, this dough smelled amazing. And there's not much better than a pan lined with cinnamon and sugar....

Well, okay, this is much better. Freshly baked Amish Friendship Bread.

Oh, I love this.

And this. Look at that sugar!

This bread is definitely dangerous. It tasted like cinnamon donuts. Light, fluffy ones.

It was so moist and wonderful... and gone in 2 days.

I swear, it wasn't all me... there were friends and coworkers and boyfriends all sharing the friendship bread. Though, it wouldn't be difficult to finish these loaves on my own in two days either. The next time someone offers you Amish Friendship Bread starter, I say TAKE ONE. As for me, I can never take one again, because I will eat the entire thing in one sitting, guaranteed. It's just that tasty. It really, really is.

Out Of Hibernation

I am back! Oh dear friends, the past two-three months have been a whirlwind of activity and I am tired. What have I been up to? Well, I finally graduated! Just about one year ago today, I started my first day of school, and here I am today... a little bit smarter and a whole lot more exhausted. Oh yea, and I have a new quilt! Remember that little scrappy library school quilt I started when I began my library school courses? Well, that's done now!


Some of the detail...


And the back...

I left a yellow polka dot border on the back, so that I may eventually embroider over. Not today, but eventually. Like I said, I'm still pretty exhausted and am slowly coming out of my hibernation period. Yet, I have a lot to update you all on, and I can assure you it won't take 3 months next time!

Homemade Chicken Soup

I know it's too hot for soup now. Well, at least in LA it is. In my apartment it is. But I made this soup, long ago, in February. The weather was chilly, the classes weren't as demanding, and I had a sick Brian on my hands, who had never ever had homemade chicken soup. Ever. This made me sad. Everyone should experience homemade chicken soup! But of course, I had never made homemade chicken soup. A little blog here, some google there, and a few calls to mom later, I came up with something pretty good.

Nothing to it! A turnip, some parsnips, carrots, celary, onion, and some parsley made up the base of the broth - along with some chicken, of course.

I let this boil for a few hours, and eventually got this...

Once the chicken was cooked, I removed it, along with all of the vegetables. At this point, the veggies are good to go, becuase the flavor is pretty much gone into the broth. So, I shred the chicken, added some egg noodles, and some freshly chopped celery and carrots and let that boil until the noodles were ready.

It was pretty delicious. And, I do think it made Brian feel better!

My only regret is that I wish I made more in a bigger pan, because for all the hours
it took to make, it was gone in minutes.

Easter Macarons

Today, I blog about Macarons, but around this time next year, I hope to be eating them during my honeymoon in Paris! I've been a little quiet on this little blog, but I think Mr. B said it cutest, "Your like a little kitty in a tree... hang in there kitty!" This is referring to the fact that I have 6 weeks left to graduate and all I am stuck doing is writing papers and presentations, non-stop. Oh yea, and we are planning a wedding! Luckily, my sister-in-law has graciously offered her wedding planning services, so she has booked just about everything Brian and I wanted. I feel so relieved. And now it's time to start thinking about the details. One detail I know I'd like to somehow include throughout the wedding festivities are lovely French Macarons.

I really have my heart set on making the all the Macarons myself, but people tell me I must be crazy to make Macarons for a wedding for about 200+ people. You know that just makes me want to do it more, right? So, I decided to start practicing now. And the timing was perfect, I made these for Easter.

After making the batter, I piped the Macarons into petite circles onto parchment, raped the baking sheet, and let the batter set for about 15 minutes, until I noticed a sort of skin form.

Make sure the oven is super hot. It may take some experimentation with your oven, but my oven worked perfectly at 375 degrees. Why is this so important? One word: Feet. Yes, feet.

See the little ruffles at the bottom of that cookie? Those are your Macaron's feet! And they make all the difference! Once the pan cools, gently peel the Macarons off the parchment paper and start to match them up by size. I line the table with foil or parchment for this step.

But, before filling the Macarons, I make the filling. I made 4 types of Macarons and 4 types of fillings. First, I made Milk Chocolate Ganache to go with my Banana Macarons:

Then, I made a White Choclate Ganache and seperated it between three cups. From the left to right, the cups contained honey, Green Tea Matcha powder, and Rose water.

Did I mention I made quite a bit of them?

I think there must have been around 120 Macarons or so. A lot.

So, all in all, the flavors are:
Yellow = Banana with milk chocolate ganache
Green = Green tea with white chocolate green tea ganache
Pink = Rose with white choclate and rose ganache
Lavender = Lavender with white chocolate and honey ganache

It's really hard to pick my favorite - they were all so different and so good. Everyone had a different favorite, but I think majority ruled on Banana-Chocolate.

My recipe was pretty basic...
190 g. almond powder
310 g. confectioners sugar
150 g. aged egg whites
95 g. fine sugar
*flavorings, powder food coloring

Whisk together the confectioners sugar and almond powder and set aside. Beat the egg whites, then slowly add in the sugar, food coloring and flavoring. Beat until you get peaks - slightly less than firm, but almost firm. Basically you want thick lava texture (cause, we all know what lava feels like, right?) Then, fold the dry ingredients in, just until they are blended. Pipe using a pastry bag. Rap the baking sheet. Let rest until a skin is formed. The baking part is really tricky - on my oven, I bake for 375 degrees, then slightly open the oven door after about 5-7 minutes or so later. Then bake until slightly browned. It's tricky. If the oven is too cold, you'll get cracked Macarons and no feet. Not good.

I think I could definitely see myself doing some baking a few days before the wedding... maybe not 4 flavors, but definitely 1 or 2.

Let Them Eat Cake!

I sure do deserve a piece of cake right now! It's not quite my birthday yet.. but it feels a bit like Christmas! Why? Well, I just finished writing my graduate portfolio! What's that you say? It's 143 pages of photograph preserving librarianship all done and ready to go! I can't believe it. In 10 weeks, I will be done with school and back to blogging on a regular basis! Somehow, I have managed to craft during all my school-madness, so I have a lot to catch the blog up on. Since I'm celebrating over here, I thought the first piece of business to get to is this cake! I made it about 2 weeks ago, for Mr. B's mom's birthday.

I made a chocolate cake, loosely based on this recipe. Anyone notice my new toy in this picture? Uh huh... I got a brand new Kitchenaid! I had been holding out for years, because I couldn't decide what color I wanted - but when I saw Martha Stewart blue, I knew it was meant to be. We're so very happy together.

With my batter, I made 2 cake rounds. I then took little Kitchenaid for another spin to make some cream cheese frosting. With a quick, thick layer of frosting in the middle, I sandwiched my two cake layers.

I gave the cake a crumb coat and let it set for about an hour in the refrigerator.

Once set, I slopped on the rest of the frosting, all nice and textured.


I have to say, a cake like this would normally take a lot of out me to bake - but with the help of my new Kitchenaid, it was really quick and simple! And, I do believe everyone thought it was tasty too!