Bakin-n-Bacon

Butter...flies?

During my recent travels I visited the gardens of the Stan Hywet Hall in Akron. One of the exhibits in the conservatory contains hundreds of rare South American butterflies. I know this doesn't relate to cooking, but I thought these photos turned out pretty well and I wanted to share.

In other news, I did not eat the hotel dinner at the conference, but I do have to pay for it. Oh well. More on my alternate dinner in a day or two, depending on internet connectivity. I'm leaving the B&B tomorrow and don't know when I'll have access again.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Diners & Dives, but NO Guy Fieri

I've been eating out a LOT recently, since I have been away from home more than I've been home the past two weeks. First I was in Washington, DC, and ate mostly crappy hotel food for three days. Then I went to Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid_Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, and ate mostly crappy chain food. Now I'm in Sunny Philadelphia, and I'll be darned if I eat any more crappy hotel food.

Instead of staying at the conference hotel, I am staying at the Thomas Bond House Bed & Breakfast (the hotel ran out of rooms for our conference, a situation I did not lament greatly). My flight arrived early in the morning, and the conference doesn't start until about 4:00 p.m., so I had time to do a little sightseeing. But first I needed to eat breakfast since I got up at dark o'clock. I asked the B&B proprieter if there were any good lunch/brunch places. He recommended a local diner, the Snow White Restaurant. It is a typical old school diner, and such a refreshing change from hotel "eggs" and "coffee."

I ordered pancakes and bacon, and I wasn't disappointed. No matter how hard I try, I can't replicate diner pancakes at home. I think I need a griddle with years' worth of greasy buildup in order to do it. The coffee was good, too, and the waitress tired and surly, just what one would expect. I almost expected Flo to come over and tell me to "kiss my grits."

Now in an email I've been informed that I'm supposed to eat at the conference hotel anyway, to the tune of $114.00 over three days. You bet your hiney I'll be fighting that charge. I didn't bring any checks - think they'll buy that excuse? I hope so.

We had planned to find a microbrewery tonight for dinner, but I might be dining at the Hyatt instead. Keep your fingers crossed that I can get out of it! If I have to pay the money, I will eat at the hotel since I'm certainly not going to pay without receiving SOMETHING. I might tell them I'm a vegan with gluten intolerance and make them suffer for it if I can't get out of the deal. Plus I'll take pictures and have a post for the Gallery of Regrettable Foods.

I just LOVE conferences, don't you??

Parting shot of the inside of the Snow White:

Not Your Everyday Bundt

Several years ago NordicWare, the makers of the original Bundt^TM cake pans, started making new and fancy pan shapes. I succumbed to the marketing and bought one, then two, and before long had 8 different shapes, plus two pans that make mini-bundts. Since I really didn't use them that often, I gave away one of the pans to my mom and one to a friend, and refuse to buy any of the new shapes that have been made. But I still have quite a selection of shapes, so when I volunteered to make a cake for a coworker's retirement, I had plenty of choices. 

I originally planned to make a layer cake with the new square pans I recently purchased from Macy's Martha Stewart line, but summertime is so busy because of travel, gardening, motorcycle riding, and so on (plus it's my busiest time at work), that I scrapped the layer cake idea. Since I have all these lovely shapes, I thought it appropriate to use these pans and make a couple of pretty, yet easy, cakes. 

The cake above is a lemon-lavender pound cake (recipe from Martha Stewart), and it's one of my favorite pound cakes. The lavender adds an interesting flavor that many people don't recognize until it's pointed out to them. The cake is flecked with small lavender bits which some people think are poppy seeds. The pan used is the Violet shape. I have used this one a lot, even though the violets on top are very deep and often don't release well. I used a lot of Wilton Cake Release and added another layer of insurance by spraying with Baker's Joy after I brushed on the cake release.

By itself the cake is unassuming because it's hard to tell what the design is until it's outlined in icing. Well, at least for me it's difficult. I'm not great at conceptualizing and visualizing things - I hated those posters that were popular in the '90s where you had to stare at them forever for the pattern to become visible. I usually eventually got them but sometimes got a headache from staring so hard. Kind of like the blonde who got a headache staring at the orange juice carton (it said CONCENTRATE).

This shape of cake is in my photo gallery decorated differently. This time I chose a monochrome approach to the icing (which consists of butter, powdered sugar, lemon extract, lemon zest, and a dash of milk). The candied violets were the ones I blogged about a few months ago. I used all I had left on this cake, so I'm out of violets until next year.

Because my coworker really likes chocolate, I had to make a chocolate cake for her. Unfortunately I did a terrible job on the icing. I was going to glaze the cake and make it all shiny and beautiful but I couldn't get my glaze to the right consistency and got tired of heating and cooling yet still missing the small window where the glaze can be poured but doesn't immediately R-U-N-N-O-F-T (name that reference!). So at the right you can see my cake, which I would be afraid to enter in "Can You Bake Better Than a Fifth-Grader?"

The pan used for this is the Fleur-de-Lis pan - the first of the fancy shapes that I bought. My favorite shape is the Bavaria pan. It doesn't look that great on its own, but the cakes turn out fantastic. When things slow down just a bit (gardening, work, motorcycle riding, work, housecleaning, work) I'll make one and let you decide if you like it too.

The recipe for the chocolate cake is Cook's Illustrated's Sour Cream Chocolate Bundt Cake. I have made it before and thought it was good, but I was a bit disappointed this time. I think the chocolate layer cake I made from the Hershey cookbook was better! I'm not sure how well it would work in the bundt shape, but I guess I can give it a try, can't I? Sounds like a challenge - stay tuned for more.

Both cakes were well received but the lavender-lemon was the favorite. I cut the cakes myself after displaying them before the reception, because everyone is hesitant to be the first one to cut a pretty cake (not that these were that pretty). I've started doing this when I bring so no one has to feel guilty about "ruining" a cake. 

I'm off to a motorcycle show this weekend, and then off to Philadelphia for training early next week. To my friends near Philly, I won't have much, if any, free time so that's why I haven't called. I fly in, attend classes, and fly out. Hopefully I'll at least get a good meal on Monday or Wednesday nights (I am supposed to eat food provided by the hotel most of the time - yuk). 

Anyone know of a good bakery in downtown Philadelphia?

Thanks for the kindness

Thank you all for your kind words and support, some of which were posted here and some of which were sent by private email. It's been a tough week but we rest assured we did all that we could do. I've been traveling a lot and will be traveling even more through the end of August, so the diversions have helped. I will be posting soon about baking again, although my posts may be infrequent until mid- to late-August. Please bear with me!

I wish I had good news...

It is with a heavy heart that I type this post. Yesterday poor little Lazarus took a turn for the worse. He stopped eating, refused to drink, and began to have seizures. I took him to the vet, and she confirmed my worst fears. Laz would never be normal, and his long-term prospects were not good. The vet felt he could survive, but would suffer serious problems throughout his life due to the neurological damage he suffered as a kitten (perhaps even in utero). My husband and I made the difficult decision to put Laz down. I stayed with him until he died.

I suppose some people would say I shouldn't have tried to save him in the first place, but at least he was able to enjoy a short portion of life with plenty of love and attention. He purred many times during those days and that is worth it to me.

Adorable Kitten Photos

Sorry they are blurry - I took them with one hand while snapping my fingers on the other hand to get his attention.

Kitten Update

Thank you all for your inquiries on the status of Lazarus. It's been a week of progress and setback, hardly any sleep, purring and peeing. Overall, he's doing pretty well. It seems that he is not completely blind, but I wouldn't call him Eagle Eye either. He will follow movement, and takes great delight in attacking my toes when I wiggle them.

However, he still doesn't have any sense of using the litterbox, often pooing and peeing while he is sleeping, and it ends up all over him. He goes through little spurts of activity but is still very unsteady on his feet. We will continue to feed him often, pet him a lot, and try to get him as healthy as he can be. Keep your fingers crossed! (Adorable photo to come tonight - I left the camera at home!)

The Reason I'm Not Baking

This is the kitten I referenced in my last post. As he is a special needs kitty, I have to spend most of my time tending to him and don't have a lot of time left for other projects.

Lazarus, as we have decided to call him, is not out of the woods yet. He has a lot of problems - not the least of which is that he is blind. He also doesn't have control over his bowel movements and doesn't groom himself properly (typical guy). That's why there are papers scattered across the floor. What better use for the Wall Street Journal?

We are keeping our fingers crossed that the little guy will make a dramatic turnaround. Right now he just eat, sleeps, and poops. At least he is eating - the vet wasn't sure he would even be able to do that on his own, but he devours the food and cat milk we offer him. The vet said many of his problems could be due to malnutrition and might possibly reverse, even his eyesight. His problems could also be due to disease, trauma, or just genetic. We will just have to take it day by day and try to stimulate him as much as we can, so if he has any brain damage he can rewire his circuits and make improvements. Even if he doesn't make it, he will have a few weeks of pampered living with someone catering to his every whim - and isn't that what cats are all about?

Mini Cupcakes

I made these for a July 4th cookout, although that's probably obvious. I was going to decorate them with adorable little stars and stripes and get patriotic cupcake liners, but as usual I got behind schedule. I didn't even start these until the morning of the party.

I'm trying to perfect an easy, nearly foolproof cupcake recipe. This wasn't it. They were okay, but I screwed up the flavoring. I wanted to make a lemon cupcake with a cream cheese/white chocolate icing that had a hint of lemon. Even though I used lemon zest and lemon extract in the cakes, they didn't taste all that lemony. I haven't had much success with making a real lemony cupcake or layer cake, although I have had some luck with lemon pound cake. I'll need to revisit the pound cake recipe to see what might make these better.

The texture in these was awesome, however, with a smooth, even and small crumb. They were moist, too. I'd give myself a B- on these overall. They were surely better than the grocery store cakes that others brought to the cookout. I probably spent too much time on these considering the crowd that was at this party, but I did receive several compliments. Naturally a few people asked me where I got them (obviously they don't know me very well).

One aspect of these that will remain as I develop the recipe is that they use what is called the "high ratio" method. The name, although it comes from the type of shortening that is used in many commercial bakeries, actually describes the technique. Instead of creaming together the butter and sugar first to create aeration, you mix the butter with the flour and leavening agents. The photo at right shows the crumbs that develop after this step - no dry flour should remain. It looks a little like pastry dough. After that you add most of the liquid (usually eggs and milk), mixing this at high speed for 1 1/2 minutes to develop the gluten a little and provide the aeration. The rest of the liquid is added after the high speed mixing and the entire batter is whipped a little longer. Most high ratio recipes are similar, but I need to determine the reason that only part of the liquid is mixed in at first. If I can get away with it, I'd like to put it all in at once to make the recipe even easier. I guess I will have to do some side by side testing. Someone is going to be happy about that; probably my vet's office.

On a related side note, my husband and I just rescued a kitten yesterday. We weren't sure it was going to make it to the hospital - it was in very bad shape. We found it in our friend's backyard, panting and too weak to move, lying in the full sun. We estimated it didn't have much more than an hour or two left. We rushed it to the animal ER (of course this happened on a weekend), where they tested it for a few nasty diseases (all negative so far, two more tests to go) and put it on an IV drip, flea medicine and antibiotics. Today it is at our regular vet's office, resting and getting hydrated. We may be able to pick it up this evening - keep your fingers crossed! We really don't need another cat (this makes 7, all indoor cats), but we couldn't leave it there, nor could we just drop it off and have it put down if there was a decent chance it would make it. It still displays ataxia at moments, but we are hoping that's a result of malnutrition and will go away once the little bugger is properly hydrated and nourished. We named it Lazarus. Photos will appear soon if he survives, which is looking better with each passing hour.

Back to the cupcakes. When you first add the liquid to the creamed flour/butter, it looks very thin. Then a miracle happens (actually, gluten formation happens). After about a minute, the batter starts to thicken, and by the time you are done mixing it's a proper cake batter. I spooned the batter into the mini muffin tins, filling them about 2/3 to 3/4 full. I like my cupcakes to dome a little over the top of the paper which is why I fill them more than most recipes indicate. However, these didn't dome at all (note for next recipe: more baking soda and/or powder), so some of them ended up with large flat tops that wanted to stick to the pan. I trimmed a few with scissors to make them look better.

One funny thing about cakes is that the smaller the pan, the more leavening you have to use. It seems counter-intuitive, but I guess the smaller pans bake faster so you need the leavening to work faster. If I baked this as a layer cake it probably has enough leavening, but for mini-cupcakes it needs a boost.

Back to the drawing--uh--cutting(?) board.

On Your Marks, Get Set, BAKE!

I bake these modified Mrs. Field's cookies so much that I have the recipe memorized, along with my peanut butter cookie and cinnamon roll recipes. (I'd like to memorize more recipes but I think my brain is full. Now if only I could get rid of some of the detritus floating around in there to make room...)

One night when I was making these for an after-dinner treat, my husband remarked that he thought I could make my cookies faster than someone could unwrap a tube of store-bought cookies and slice them. Of course I'm not quite THAT fast, but it did start me thinking about just how quickly I could throw these puppies together, so I told my husband to time me the next time I made them. I started the timer with absolutely no prep done - no bowls or ingredients were out and the butter was cold. The timing stopped when I had the first pan of cookies in the oven with the door closed. It took me 6 minutes. This included nuking the butter to soften it and whizzing whole oats in a food processor. Of course, the kitchen was a mess when I was done, but nevertheless I was pretty happy with that time. Since most ovens won't even heat up that quickly, it means there is NO EXCUSE for using cookies in a tube or bucket, all full of trans-fats and glycerides but devoid of buttery goodness. Yep, I'm talkin' to you. You probably have all the ingredients on hand, too (except maybe for the chocolate chips, but they keep for a long time. Buy some.).

It's been hot here, and between my job and gardening I've been worn out in the evenings and haven't done much baking. I decided to make these cookies a couple of nights ago because I was going through baking withdrawal, and just for fun decided to time myself again. It was a bad idea - I didn't have any chocolate chips upstairs so I had to run to the basement and fetch up a bag. What I wouldn't give for a pantry! I do have a hall closet I use for kitchen overflow but it's so full I need a secondary storage area in the basement. Maybe I just have too much food. Nah, that's not it - I just need more space.

But I digress. Between running downstairs and being generally disorganized, my time was abysmal. It took me nearly 9 minutes before I got the first pan of cookies in the oven. I was so disappointed. Perhaps I'm too competitive, but it doesn't feel good to be so far off my game. I need to practice more, but for the next month it's going to be difficult since I'm traveling several days for work, and I'm going away for a weekend too. But I do have a 4th of July party for which I plan to make cupcakes, so I'll do those tomorrow night. Keep on me so I don't end up this "out of shape" again!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Inspired by Mrs. Field's
Makes about 24 cookies

1 stick (4 oz.) butter, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1-2 tablespoons Kahlua (optional but yummy)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup (4.5 oz.) all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups instant oats (or process whole or quick oats in a food processor until fine) (You'd think I would know the weight of this but I never remember to weigh them. I really should do that.)
6 oz. chocolate chips (or more if you like. I do.)

Preheat oven to 375. Cream together butter and sugars in a mixing bowl by hand or with an electric mixer. Add baking powder, soda, salt and egg, mix well. Add Kahlua and/or vanilla, blend until incorporated. Add flour and oats, mixing until no dry streaks remain. Stir in chocolate chips until evenly distributed.

Using a #40 disher, small scoop or your hands, shape into balls and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. You should be able to get 12 cookies on a half-sheet (13 x 18) pan.

Bake until golden brown on the edges and light brown in the center (8-10 minutes). Let cool on sheets until you just can't stand it anymore, then eat (or remove to a cooling rack). Don't overbake or they will break your teeth. It's better to under bake and have slightly chewy cookies than to have to visit the dentist.