**also to be referred to as "Don't trust your oven" and "A nifty lesson in not wasting food"

Yearly, our family has a special celebration to commemorate the anniversary of our family business. During the celebration, we invite Buddhist monks to come chant and perform a blessing. Part of this blessing ritual naturally involves food. So everyone usually helps out and cooks for it. It's pretty much your basic Thai spread of goodies, papaya salad, barbecue chicken, sticky rice, laab and some other things, included in that are of course Thai desserts. I decided that this year I wanted to do something different. I was going to make bread and cake. The bread I pulled off rather quickly. I made quick whole wheat and molasses bread that my current baking partner in crime sent me in exchange for the no knead bread virius I infected her with. If you haven't already tried it, it's damn good and worth a trip to the store to get whole wheat flour (btw, one bag of whole wheat flour will give you 5 loaves of bread -- I bought the flour less than a week ago and I've already used it up. Made a loaf for myself, one for B's family, one for each of my aunts and one for the blessing. I didn't eat it all up myself!). And the cake I decided on was the Red Velvet cake again from "More from Magnolia."

I started becoming more serious with my baking ever since the great Christmas gift of 2006, the pistachio green KitchenAid mixer. I've been reading around a bit and also experimenting. One of the things I've learned is that your oven may be lying to you. Not only do I have a hot spot in the back left of my oven, but my oven isn't always as hot as it says it is. So I purchased an oven thermometer to keep it in check. And adjusting the oven temperature as necessarily. The oven is nice and consistent with cupcakes, given that I only bake one pan at a time, but at this point I'm not so sure about cakes.

I decided to bake the cakes the night before and frost them in the morning. When I put the cakes in, the oven was at 350. Popped all three pans in and shut the door. I was pretty quick about it as not so the oven wouldn't loose too much heat. Five minutes later I checked and the oven was at 300. I freaked out so I upped the temp to 400 just to get the heat back up again. Another five minutes passed and the temp was at 450, holy charred cupcakes! So I knocked the temp down to 300 and opened the oven door for a while to let some of the heat escape. Another 5 minutes went by and could already smell a slight burnt odor. Peaking into the oven, I see that the cake in the back left is looking very lopsided, really flat at where the corner is. So I spin it around and then wait 5 more minutes befoore rotating the pans. Things aren't looking too good at this point as the other cakes are also showing signs of being charred. The cakes finally come out and I already know that I'll have to start over. Not only were lots of the edges burnt, but they were charred.

The next morning I woke up early to get to the store to pick up more cake flour. I proceeded as I did the night before except that I preheated the oven to 375, put in the cakes and then dropped the temp to 350. Everything went much more smoothly this time. I baby sat the oven but the temp ended up staying consistent. The cakes looked awesome and no burning smell was detected. The only thing wrong with the cakes were that they weren't very level.

I decided not to even out the layers by slicing the tops off. I didn't want a short cake, nor did I want to mess up. So I decided to handle it by strategically placing the layers on so that the cake evened itself out.

When I was icing the cakes, I noticed that one of the layers was a lot smaller in diameter than the others, and also that when I pulled it out of the pan, it had pulled away from the sides and had more browned edges. One of my pans is lying to me (I guess that's what happens when you have 3-9" pans purchased at different times). Anyways, I tried to hide that by putting that layer at the bottom. I'm not so sure that it was the smartest thing to do as I had a hard time icing the sides. Frosting cakes isn't as easy as I thought it would be. The filling and top is easy, but the sides were my downfall. I was trying to be as even as I could, making everything as smooth as possible. As hard as I tried, I couldn't hide the ridge of the second layer, but I blame that on the shrunken bottom later. Now that I look back on it, I probably should have went for the fluffy, highly "wavey" frosting style that they showed in photo. It probably would have hidden that ridge a lot beter. Oh well. For my first attempt at baking a cake from scratch from start to finish, including the frosting, I don't think I did too bad.

The verdict from the masses? We shall see. The cake didn't get done in time for the blessing but I dropped it off last night and they should be cutting into it today. I've used this recipe to make cupcakes and they turned out great. So I'm hoping it goes over well with them. I think they might be put off by it since it's a red cake and not strawberry.

Once the cake was done, I still had 3 layers left from the second attempt. I didn't want to just throw it out since only the edges were burnt and the middles were perfectly fine. I had a lightbulb moment and decided to make a mini-cake with it by cutting off the burnt edges.

The first thing I did was find a round object I could use as a cookie cutter. I found a tuperware that was the perfect size, centered it over the cake and pressed down until I cut through the entire layer.

It worked fine, but as I was pressing down on it, it dawned on me that tuperware isn't the accurate cutting tool since it's got a pretty blunt edge. As a result, the edges weren't very clean.

For the next two layers I used the tuperware only to mark a circle and used a serrated knife to do the cutting. Much better.

All three layers are done and I'm now left with some rings to snack on (the non-burnt parts of it at least).

I had a feeling that I wasn't going to have enough frosting to cover the entire mini-cake. At the very least, I wanted enough for the filling and the top layer. If Miette can get away with selling a partially frosted cake, referred to as a tomboy, why can't I?

I present to you yaiAnn's Red Velvet tomboy.

And it's mine, aaaall mine. mamaFasu would be proud, don't you think? (and I actally think it looks better than the regular cake -- click for size comparison.)

After my first babycake experience with the red velvet cake, I fell in love with it. I was inspired by Miette's tomboy. It's a no fuss way to frost a cake that also offers a visual variety from your traditionally frosted cakes. I had another opportunity to bake another cake last weekend as it was someone's birthday. I decided to make the Devil's Food Cake with Seven Minute Icing, again from More from Magnolia. The cake is a simple straight forward recipe. The frosting, however was similar to a meringue and took me a bit more than seven minutes to make. Frosted and ready to go, I put the cake in my trusty carrier and away I went. The cake, however, wasn't destined for local delivery. The cake was for one of my triathlon club's coaches and was to be presented at our annual training weekend, 200 miles away from San Francisco. My car was packed to capacity and I made sure the carrier was well lodged between items so that it wouldn't slide around in transport. The one thing I hadn't accounted for was the temperature and oh, also maybe one slightly steep grade that probably had a part to play in this..

Ack! Yes, I was very very sad. The top two layers slid off the bottom layer and rested against the side of the carrier. We were able to remove the top of the carrier and put the layers back on, but nothing could be done about the icing that oozed and got squeezed off of the cake. All I could do was present it to him with the "nice" side showing and hope that they thought the process of cutting the cake squeezed out the frosting. Despite the slide the cake made, it got two thumbs up!

This weekend's baking adventure took me away from cakes over to cookies. I'm not a huge fan of Rachel Ray. In fact, I can't really stand her and find her down right annoying. However, her magazine actually surprised me. The Every Day Challenge in the April 2007 issue is "Cookie Jar" and today, I decided to bake ALL three recipes. What I love about these recipes, is that I didn't have to go out and buy a thing. The premise to this feature in the magazine is that they are made only with ingredients from the "Every Day essentials list" -- not sure what this is yet, as I've only purchased of her magazines, but I'm assuming it refers to pantry items. Pretty good concept if you ask me. So without further adieu, I present to you my April 2007 Every Day Challege, yaiAnn's Cookie Jar.

L-R from back: Jumbo Chocolate Chip Cookies, Brown Sugar Shortbread, and Lemon Cookies

Jumbo Chocolate Chip cookies, 8 ingredients, but no vanilla. I thought this was odd, but proceeded anyways. It's a very quick recipe, except that my cookies weren't quite "jumbo." The recipe is supposed to yield 12 cookies and ended up with 12. I did find the culprit though. The recipe reads, "Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough." I don't know about you but I read that as a one heaping tablespoon, which probalby came out to close to 2 tablespoons full of dough. Is "tablespoonfuls" a word? Should it say "tablespoonsful"? either way, I think it would have been a little more helpful to give an approximation of how much dough a heaping "tablespoonfuls" is. So if you plan to drop 1 heaping tablespoon of dough, the cookies should be done in about 15 minutes, instead of the 20 minutes as written. Because of my measurement misinterpretation, my cookies didn't quite come out like the photo. The cookies they show in the photo are quite thin and I prefer mine to be a little thicker, being crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle. I had one pan that came out pretty thin and thought it would be just burnt, but they're actually pretty good. They remind me of a lacey cookie. And the absence of vanilla? Didn't notice it. Overall the cookies were pretty good. Not the best I ever had, but I would definitely make them again -- and also with the correct amount of tablespoonfuls.

Brown Sugar Shortbread, 3 ingredients (butter, flour and brown sugar) and REALLY simple to make. However, I was NOT jazzed by this recipe at all. I've never had homemade shortbread so this isn't a fair comparison, but the consistency wasn't what I imagined. It was very soft and pliable. I'm not sure if it needs to dry out overnight, but if it does, it wasn't stated in the recipe. Flavorwise, I wasn't impressed. It reminded me of just eating a "crumble" topping, but it didn't feel like the ingredients even blended together. It was kind of like eating.. sandy butter. Does that make sense? Is this worth trying one more time just to see if it comes out different? Eh, I'd rather save my butter, brown sugar and flour for something else.

Lemon Cookies, 7 ingredients, and smells so yummy while it's mixing I had to stop myself from wanting to eat the batter raw (And I'm not a fan of eating cookie dough at all). These cookies are the most labor intensive out of the three, but they look so pretty and smell so good while you're mixing it up, they're worth it.

The flavor is lemony and not too sweet. It's a light, refreshing cookie. It's firm but not chewy in the middle, but also not crispy. It's definitely got some snap, but if you undercook it a bit, you may get that chewy texture. Would I make these again? Yes! Just the perfect thing if you've got extra lemons. My favorite part about these cookies is that you roll them in sugar before you bake them so they've got that sugar sparkle.

One of the lessons I've learned in my cookie adventure this weekend is to take the cookies out JUST before you think they're ready. For both the chocolate chip cookies and the lemon cookies, the recipe instructs you to take them out when the edges turn golden. I think the time period from "golden" to "more than golden" is a short window, so if you wait too long, you'll get really hard bottomed cookies. This is what more than golden looked like for me. For the lemon ones, these aren't ideal. It changes the flavor dramatically. They're not burnt, but it makes a significant difference in the flavor.

Two bars of premium baking chocolate, inspiration from a cooking magazine, and an invitation to dinner gave me a good reason to make some special cupcakes. After flipping through the latest issue of Everyday Food, I was inspired by their "nostalgic desserts" spread to one up their "hostess" cupcake recipe. Their recipe was for an unfrosted chocolate cupcake made with cocoa powder and filled with some jazzed up store-bought marshmallow creme. With some very yummy chocolate in the pantry and some of my favorite recipes, I set out to bake my version of the cupcakes.

Don't you feel like a kid again?

And yes, they're filled!

This whole food blogging and posting recipes thing is still all new to me. I know the copyright limits and such for knitting, but this food/recipe thing is whole different story. Since I didn't change or alter any recipes while making these cupcakes, I don't feel comfortable writing out any of the recipes I've used. So what you'll get is my "formula" for putting these together in which you can either look up the recipes I've used or use your own personal favorites.

Chocolate Fauxstess Cupcakes

cupcake: Chocolate cupcakes, "More from Magnolia"
filling and "squiggle": Seven Minute Icing, "More from Magnolia"
frosting: Chocolate glaze, "Cupcakes!"

Bake cupcakes as directed except do not use liners. Pour the batter directly into the pan, making sure to spray the muffin pan with vegetable spray to prevent sticking. While the cupcakes are baking, prepare your frosting and let cool. I found out that the chocolate glaze recipe that I used is basically a ganache recipe. If you are using a different recipe, I would select either a ganache or something that is fairly easy to spread and will set a bit to give it the most authentic look possible. Once the cupcakes have cooled, use a melon baller to scoop out the middle of the cupcakes from the top.

Fill me!

Next make the filling. The Seven Minute Icing recipe I used instructs you to use it immediately once it has been made, which is why I scooped middles out first. If you choose a different recipe that does not require immediate use, you can prepare it ahead of time. Fill a pastry bag or a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off with the filling and fill the cupcakes.

Replace the tops on the cupcakes, making sure to slice off the bottom half (otherwise it won't fit flush). Brush any crumbs off the tops of the cupcakes and frost. Fit the pastry bag with the filling with a writing tip or use another ziploc bag with a smaller piece of corner cut off and have fun making squiggles across the top of the cupcakes. Once you're done, admire and enjoy!

Now where's the milk?

Some random and not so random notes:
I made these cupcakes without liners because I wanted them to look like their original counterparts. Keep in mind that the cupcakes will dry out faster without liners. So if you choose to make them without liners, you should serve them immediately as they taste best the day they are made. Even if you put them in a airtight container overnight, they will still dry out a bit.

It's funny how some recipes dome more than others. The Magnolia chocolate cupcake recipe, in particular, domes a LOT. I've found that prefer flatter cupcakes as they're easier to frost.

I'm not quite recovered from the first of the season's glutonous holidays yet. Are you? It went by so fast, it was kind of a blur. The cooking part went pretty well and the eating part, of course, happened without a hitch. To sum it up, lots of good food was cooked and eaten. The superstar of my Thanksgiving dishes were the desserts.

Can you think of a better way to fight the Monday blues than with a yummy lucious dessert? I can't. But before I get into the details of Sweet Monday, let me start with Sock Monday.

So you remember Mr. Houndstoothy, the should I or shouldn't I dilemma? Well I took all your suggestions into consideration and Mr. Houndstoothy looks like this

He's been blocked. And he's also been color redominated. The portion closest to the cuff is khaki dominant and the other half is brown dominant. So what was the verdict? Well in my scheming ways, I was secretly hoping that the friend I was knitting this sock for would comment and give her two cents, and she did! So in my assessment of her comment, I wasn't totally convinced that she loved the pattern. Why knit a sock for your friend that she wouldn't absolutely LOVE, right? So I racked my brain, went through my stash and fellow foodie craftster Nova received the awesome sock. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to snap a shot before I sent it off. But of course she has. You can see it here. You just have to scroll past the chocolately goodness first. No drool on the sock please. Love, much? Yes, looooove. It's Sundara sock yarn and the Uptown Boot pattern.

And what did I get in return, why a sock of course! Miss Brenda designed a fab pattern for me in some yummy blue yarn. I need more cool colors on my feet and these are just perfect!

These are knit in Fearless Fibers Superwash Merino in the Prosperity colorway and they fit like a glove! I know how nerve racking it is to knit for others with different size feet that yourself because I get the same way. But they fit perfectly! And whats best, the cabley goodness! I can't wait to get started on the second sock.

Now that I've lured you in with socks, you can definitely stay for the sweet! So what's this Sweet Monday business? It's actually part of a larger foodie project called Defiantly Domestic. Leah and Yahaira had a vision for a cook-along of sorts where they would make the same recipe and share notes, a learning circle you could say. They asked me to join them, and honestly, how could I say no? Three time's a charm, right? One recipe + three cooks = yummy fantastic food, at least that's the hope. But if not, the end result will be many lessons learned through our three separate processes.

First up is the Goat Cheese and Lemon Cheesecake with Hazelnut Crust from Cooks Illustrated.

Summary: This was my first attempt at cheesecake and second attempt at making lemon curd. End results were yummy fantastic cheesecake. I was concerned about the goat cheese dominating the flavor, but the balance of the goat cheese, cream cheese and lemon curd were perfect. I had two major technique issues, using a mini-food processor to prepare the curst and wrapping the pan in preparation for the water bath, none of which affected the overall taste of the dessert. And on a process/timing note, if you're planning to make cheesecake for a dinner party, start first thing in the morning. Otherwise, you won't be able to eat your cheesecake until the next day.

The in-depth process notes and details are over at Defiantly Domestic, as well as Leah and Yahaira's cheesecakes. Come and get some before it's all gone.

Only two more working days left until the baby gifts are due. As of tonight, the bloomers for the jumpers still remain elasticless. One of the jumpers is actually a dress and the other one is more of a top. The dress version would be fine without bloomers, but would it be bad to gift the top version without them? I'm not sure if I have time between now and Saturday to head to a store to measure waistbands and thighs, and I'm not so sure that stores will have bloomers in stock right now. It's the middle of winter! Are spring clothes out already?

As far as the quilt goes, the top is done and the sandwich is complete. Want to see something neat-o? Check out the seam allowances..

Is that cool looking or is that cool looking? I still need to decide on a final quilting pattern before I get down to it. That needs to get done tomorrow and binding needs to be finished by Friday night. Then I can breathe and hope that the parents squeal in joy when they see this quilt. Okay, maybe not squeal in joy, but at least be as stoked about the quilt as I am. If not, I'm taking it back and then vowing never to craft for others again. Maybe not NEVER, but definitely be more selective. But reading this today really made me mad. I deliberately picked fabrics and colors that suit my friends and what I think they'd like little Ami to have. And I'm pretty sure I'm dead on. If not, and I'm wrong, I'll be majorly embarrassed in front of 50+ people (yes, this is a very popular couple). If that's the case, I'll just hope that people will remember that I'm the woman that brought the kick ass cupcakes and not the one who made the lame ass quilt.

But on a happier note, I made my first pie last week! In honor of Nova's Piehole Wednesday, I proudly present to you my first pie ever!

Filling: Deep Dish Apple Pie, Cooks Illustrated
Crust: Fool Proof Pie Crust, Cooks Illustrated

Notes: It's not the most perfect looking pie or the best pie I ever tasted, but for a first try, I didn't do a bad job. Despite the fact that I misread one part the crust instructions, it still came out really buttery and flakey. I used half Granny Smith and half Pink Lady apples. The texture of the apples was great, soft with a slight crunch, but not mushy. But the filling was a bit dry for my taste. I took this to my BFF's holiday dinner and everyone loved it. My BFF actually really liked the filling the way it was. I think I just prefer it with a little more "juice." The CI recipe is for a filling that doesn't sog out the bottom crust or shrink away from the top crust. This filling did that exactly, except that in the process, you end up draining all the juices. I'll definitely keep making this crust but I want to play with the filling a bit.

There comes a time in every crafter's life where you start to ponder your stash.

There's the yarn stash,

It's Yarn Pirate, in case you're wondering

the fabric stash,

and the button stash.

There's about another sandwich-sized ziploc bag full of these.

Let's not even get me started on my pattern and book stash. So as I started going through all my stash as I started to reorganize and declutter over the holidays, I had a realization. There's good stash and there's bad stash.

DISCLAIMER: Every crafter is different, has different needs and knows his/her own crafting habits best. Therefore, what follows only applies to me and only me (I had to make this statement before you start jumping all over me for what I'm about to say).

Yarn stash is bad stash. Fabric stash is good stash.

*waiting for tomatoes, a riot to ensue and a gang of lynchers to start beating down my door*

Okay, now time to explain. I've been actively crafting for over 4 years now, most of which I've spent knitting. And over these four years, I've accumulated a lot of stash, proceeded to decrease the stash, and then have realized a bit more of stash accumulation. I've tried to become a responsible stasher by only buying yarn with a specific project in mind or only buying yarn for projects I will start within a month. But really, none of this works out. Why? Because #1, most yarns I've purchased with a designated project more often than not, does not become it's intended project. Take for example my Rams Horn Jacket. I purchased that yarn at Stitches two years ago. It was supposed to be Rogue. Number 2, I'm a helluva busy person! I'd like to think that I can accomplish a lot crafting given all that I do outside of work. But I can't. And the likelihood of starting multiple knitting projects within a month of yarn purchase, considering that I have a new passion for sewing, is really low.

Now this doesn't mean knitting is going out the door. I'm just taking a new approach to stashing. And that new approach is not to stash. I've decided to buy yarn on a project by project basis now. When I want to knit something, I'll buy yarn for it and knit it. Simple as that. No more buying yarn in hopes of knitting something. I buy and I knit. And that's that. I need to start making room and clearing space and yarn stash just takes up space and money that could be better spent (or saved) in the meantime.

So why is fabric stash good? I've found that in sewing, more often than not, I'll come across a pattern and usually will have something appropriate in my stash for it, given that I have enough yardage. There are no gauge considerations. Fabric stash in my eyes is more versatile.

So is this my declaration that I will only buy fabric from now on? Uh, no. There is also a time in every person's life when they realize they have to start saving some dough! And for me, this is that time. So along the lines of stash management, I've given myself a craft allowance. Eh? Yes, a craft allowance, $30 a month.. to purchase whatever items I need, be it fabric, yarn, notions, patterns, etc. Rollovers are allowed.. so if there's something I really want, I've gotta save.. or find stash.. or be creative.

Ambitious, yes (especially given the fact that I can easily spend $40 at Joanns), but it will give me a good lesson in exercising self-control and patience. What's cute and pretty now, may really not be that cute and pretty if I've forgotten about it in a matter of days and hours. So really, if that's the case, I don't think it was really that cute and pretty in the first place. Ya' feel me? I hope so.

So now onto something more fun than stash self-control.. because I've had enough of this serious talk. It's time for pie!

This was just not my weekend, folks. What I was anticipating as a nice, wonderful, relaxing weekend just never really unfolded. I'm not going to go into details of the stress ball that's become my life. I'll spare you that pain, but will go into what's relevant for the blog. Some unfortunate news came to my BFF's family this weekend. When I heard on Saturday evening, I decided to do what I do best and bake some sweets to take over to her to cheer her and her family up. She requested red velvet but I was short a couple ingredients and decided to make the yellow cake with dark chocolate buttercream from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook instead. It's a pretty simple cake, but always a crowd pleaser, according to the book.

First thing's first, making the cake: I baked the cake and the batter wasn't so yellow, and neither was the finished cake. I did substitute one stick of the butter with a stick of margarine, earth balance, but I didn't think it would affect it that much.

Yellow? Not so much.

Second thing's second, making the frosting: As I was waiting for my Scharfenberger chocolate to melt in the double boiler, I mixed the 6 tablespoons of cocoa powder with 6 tablespoons of boiling water per the recipe, which should have dissolved the powder. It didn't. I added a bit more water.. but nothing, just a clumpy paste. So I chucked it, reboiled the water, and tried again. No bueno. Instead of using dutch processed, I used regular cocoa powder but didn't think that would have made a difference.

I decided to just keep the paste and hope for the best when I added it as the last ingredient. So now that the melted chocolate was cool enough, I was supposed to take three sticks of butter (two butter and one earth balance in my case) and beat it with caster sugar until it was light and fluffy. There's no photographic evidence of this step, but instead of becoming light and fluffy, the mixture came out smooth and creamy. It seemed like the sugar just disappeared into the butter! Okay not cool, but what do I do? I pressed on and added the melted chocolate hoping for the best. And perfection, the frosting was actually looking good. I stopped the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and started it back up again. So as the mixer got going again, all I could see was clumps forming... more, and more, and more.. I was about to die. I stopped the mixer to dislodge the huge clump of frosting stuck to the paddle and it would barely budge when I pushed it with my spatula. What in the world was going on? I finally dislodged it, started the mixer up again and the clumps would NOT go away. I was about to cry. I tried slow and fast. Nothing. The frosting seemed to just stiffen up the more I beat it. And all I had left was a clump of craptastic (no pun intended) inedible chocolate frosting.

Make the clumps go away!

I wasted my last block of Scharfenberger on the frosting and had no more chocolate to start over. I debated on whether or not to make the Swiss buttercream, my first attempt, but decided not to. What if I flubbed that, too? I only had enough butter for one more batch of frosting. So what's left? I went to the Magnolia standby, the "lots'o'butter and lots'o'powdered sugar" vanilla buttercream. I added some yellow food color and that was that.

Cake Recipe: Yellow Cake, Martha Stewart Baking Handbook
Frosting Recipe: Vanilla Buttercream, More from Magnolia

Notes:
Martha, you do not know how bad I wanted to throw your cookbook out the window! I was so so so so frustrated with this cake attempt. I felt especially under pressure because I wanted it to be so good that it would make my BFF and her family temporarily forget about their current situation and be propelled into a sweet bliss. Now the cake wasn't bad at all, it just wasn't what I was originally intending (It also reconfirmed for me that the Magnolia frosting recipe is just way to sweet -- I think it's fine on a cupcake given that there's only one layer. But on a cake you've got much more surface area to cover). The process was just mentally draining for me. I'm not going to fully discount the recipe yet. I still want to give it another try with all the right ingredients, just not right now.

Martha, you're safe for the moment.

Despite the fact that I've been severely lacking in the productivity arena the past year or so, it seems that I still manage to inspire and make people's day. I've been awarded the "You Make My Day" Award by three very cool people who all deserve the award themselves as well,

The abuser, herself, Kim
Definitely not stupid, but extremely clever Leah
The oh so chic Veronique

Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.

In no particular order, my ten YMMD awards go to

1. Craftoholic
2. Miss Celie's Pants
3. Elliphantom
4. Mari
5. Lori
6. Adrienne
7. Andrea
8. Nova
9. Christina
10. Pam

Now go on and spread some cheer. But before you actually leave, you do have time to stay for some pie, right?

papaFasu celebrated another year on Tuesday and being the good daughter that I am, I baked his celebratory dessert. Of course he didn't suggest a thing when I asked him what kind of dessert he wanted. And of course mamaFasu knew just what would please his palette, a fruit tart.

Recipe: Franken-tart, see Notes below

Notes: I originally selected the Classic Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream from Cooks Illustrated. I ran into a bit of a snafu when I started the tart pastry. I was apparently out of powdered sugar and didn't realize it until after I finished the pastry cream and was measuring out ingredients for the pastry. Big fat whoops. This would have been my first attempt at pate sucree so I guess I'll have to wait for another day. After digging through some other books, I finally found something that would work with what I had on hand, the cream cheese tart dough from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook.

I need to remember to read directions carefully as I always manage to forget to flour my parchment sheets when I roll out the dough. Peeling sticky dough off parchment is not fun. I also need to remember to buy another pack of pie weights because one pack is certainly not enough. I had major shell shrinkage.

The pastry cream turned out great! After I had made it, I thought it tasted egg-ie. But after chilling in the fridge, it tasted absolutely fine. I had fun arranging the fruit on top. I basically started outward and worked my way in. I started with a ring of sliced strawberries and dotted blueberries in between. Then I followed with a ring of blackberries and then placed a ring of raspberries just outside of the blackberries on top of the strawberries. Then I just piled the rest of the blueberries in the middle. My glazing technique could use a little work (see the globs of glaze in the middle?). A note on glazing, if you're fruit isn't in contact with the pastry cream, be prepared to start chasing fruit down. I kept knocking over those raspberries with my pastry brush and having to put them back (no worries, though.. they all stayed on the tart).

Remind me not to make a fresh fruit tart over winter, especially if its berries! I felt really bad for buying berries off season. But all they had at the farmers market were apples, oranges and grapefruits. But for papaFasu, I went to the fancy grocery store and spent a good chunk of change on berries. It is his birthday after all. Now that's love.

Oh and lastly, I found this gem at the PCC flea market in LA, but it did not come home with me. Martha, consider this payback for the chocolate buttercream incident. More PCC flea market finds coming soon.

I have no major crafty updates for you today. But I will let you know that I got some really good ideas for the sleeve cuff treatment. Thanks for everyone who responded! I'll be testing them out this week and into the weekend. The one thing I do know is that I'm going to modify the sleeve length. In between the time my post went up and I received your comments, I worked on the second sleeve with just a plain seed stitch cuff. I thought the sleeve as written didn't look so puffy on me and also looked a tad long, so I eliminated the even rows on the sleeve and went straight to the decreases. This didn't increase the puffiness, but I do like it better. My next steps are to fix the length on the first sleeve and then test out the different cuffs.

So now that the crafts are out of the way, let's talk pie. Why? Because it's Wednesday, it's hump day and we need a little push to get us to the long weekend ahead.

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Pie, Gourmet January 2008

Notes:
I've never had lemon meringue pie or any kind of meringue pie for that matter, so this was a first for me on many levels. The pie itself tasted great. But I'm not positive on my execution of the pie. The I expected the filling to be more solid than it was. So I'm not sure if was supposed to cook the filling longer so it would be more set. It had the consistency of lemon curd when I stopped cooking and I cooked it for at least 10 more minutes than indicated in the recipe. The pie had also cooled for a bit over 3 hours to just about room temperature. When I sliced it up, the filling didn't run, but it just wasn't as solid as I was expecting.

Does this look right?

The meringue was also more delicate than I thought. For some reason, and again this is my meringue pie naivete speaking, I thought the meringue would solidify a bit. The photo above shows "air bubbles". I'm assuming it "self steams" itself. The other thing I also learned during my first meringue experience is that it shrinks as it cooks. I spent a good amount of time smoothing it out to the crust to make it nice, and it shrunk back, leaving tracks. Boo!

Before: Pretty meringue edges flush with the crust

After: Meringue tracks, boo!

Now let me talk crust. This is the flakiest crust I've made so far and B even commented on it (photo below). According to the recipe, this crust will have people begging for more. Texture wise, I think I'd agree that this is the flakiest, but not the tastiest. To date, I've tried three crust recipes, Martha's Pate Brisee, CI's Foolproof Pie Dough, and Gourmet's Pastry Dough from the 1/08 issue. The difference between the three is that Gourmet's calls for vegetable shortening which I think is the x-factor for flakiness. I'm feeling a "pie crust-off" in the works. I've got a few more pie crust recipes laying around and I think it's time to test them out. Unfortunately, the one I really want to try, Alton Brown's, calls for lard. That's not too cool for me. Have any of you had success or experience substituting vegetable shortening for lard? What did you do for flavor?

Now onto pie #2. I did tell you I made two pies, right? Not only did I make two recipes of the Gourmet pastry dough, we had a bunch of brown bananas. You know what I'm going to say right? Banana cream pie beats banana bread any day of the week!

Gimme bananas!

Remember that thing I said the first time around about the filling and cream recipe being enough for two pies? Well forget I said that if you're using a deep dish. O.M.G. Heaven!!

And lastly, photo evidence of the flakiest crust.

No go forth and conquer the rest of the week!

First some crafty updates.. Puff-sleeved cardi is coming along well. I've decided on a sleeve treatment and I'm almost done with the peplum.. peplum, peplum, peplum (that random peplum outburst goes out to Nova)! All that's left is the bottom seed stitch border, button bands, buttons and blocking. Might we have a knitted FO by the end of the month? It certainly is looking that way.

Brazil SWAP action has been going slow, mainly because I'm still waiting for more pattern inspiration and because I'm doing a lot of color contemplation. I'm thinking of going for jewel tones and I also want to do a print or two, but I have to really figure out how to execute all of it and really make sure everything is mix and match. This SWAP stuff is really complicated business. Any of you have tips for color selection?

Now onto the sweetness. Last week was really taxing on my self control. If you haven't figured, I have a weakness for baked goods, or just food in general.. but let's not get into that part of it right now. One of the ways I've gotten myself to lay off baked goods in general is to avoid anything store bought. This is how I practice laying off of meeting leftovers at work or buying baked sweets. If I want something I either have to make it myself or it has to result from the labor of someone I know. So yes, this is the part of the reason for the proliferation of baked goods posts on the blog. The other part is all Nova's fault. She infected me with her pie obsession.

So being home can be a dangerous place with all these lovely home baked goods. But to control myself (because I have been known to devour 4 cupcakes in one sitting), I made it a rule to give away 3/4 of everything I bake, except if they're items mama- and papaFasu particularly enjoy. They'll either go to my aunts or come to work with me. And I find that it's a pretty good solution, if they make it to the end of the weekend. Part one of this weekend's baking adventures were sadly, mostly consumed by me.

Recipe: Chocolate Oatmeal Drop Cookies, "Baking From My Home to Yours" - Dorie Greenspan

Notes: So I console myself in the fact that these cookies are partially good for you since they've got whole grains in them. But I blame the recipe in not being 100% clear that each cookie should be formed by dropping one level tablespoon of dough. This recipe was supposed to yield 50 cookies. I made just over two dozen by dropping rounded tablespoons. Whoops. So if I actually had more cookies to give away, I wouldn't have eaten most of them myself. Do I really need to go into how good these cookies were? Just as the recipe states, these things are like a cross between a brownie and a cookie. It's got a nice crisp texture on the outside and a cakey-ness on the inside. But be very careful when you transfer them to the rack to cool. They're really delicate and will split in half if you're not careful.

Part two of this weekend's baking adventure was an adventure in itself. It was someone's birthday last week and I decided to bake her a cake. I decided on going for something really simple and made the Caramel Cake from the January issue of Gourmet. And really simple it was, I just didn't realize how violent caramel could get!

Recipe: Caramel Cake, Gourmet, January 2008

Notes: A really simple, really delicious cake. Sometimes you're just in the mood for something uncomplicated, yet really good. This is it. If you're not someone who likes really sweet desserts, this isn't for you. The caramel is gives the cake it's sweet edge so you can scale back on the amount of glaze you pour. My version of the cake is rather flat because I used a 9-inch pan instead of an 8-inch. And in regards to the caramel being violent, have a splatter screen handy, because it will sputter and splatter as it cooks!

I'd definitely offer you a slice, but luckily Stephanie took the rest of it home with her. My muffin top thanks her (though I do wish I cut off a slice before she packed it away)!

In some ways I like that Daylight Savings came so early, and in other ways I don't. More sunlight, good! Dark at 7am, bad! I still can't seem to wake up and we're already over a week into it. Daylight savings makes you think like you have more time, but really, you don't. It's the same number of hours, there's just more access to sunshine. And at the end of the day, I'm still scrambling to try to get things done. It really doesn't do anything for my cause, especially as I'm sitting here thinking about the eleven, ELEVEN, garments I want to sew in less than two months time on top of all the other activities I'm currently committed to. Progress to date on the SWAP, still nil. I may have to seriously restrategize. But what is progressing is my puff-sleeved cardigan.

It's blocked and ready for buttons. Then it's photo shoot time.

Since time my time is running a bit short, it's Wednesday and of course I'll leave you with something sweet.

Recipe: Pear Crisp, Cooks Illustrated September 2007

Just the thing a really ripe bag of pears wants to be, or Nova's drool worthy pear pie. But a word of caution, don't use really ripe pears. The recipe calls for "firm ripe" pears, so try to stick to that. My pears were good, but on the mushy side because they were too ripe. The crisp still came out great, especially with ice cream, but the texture of the pears would have been better if they were firmer.

I've been back for almost two weeks and I'm trying to find my crafting groove again. This is the most I've been able to crank out..

mamaFasu's Birthday dessert

Celebration cupcakes for some friends

I helped a friend make a costume yesterday and that actually got my craft genes going yesterday. It felt good to feel the hum of my sewing machine. I should get on fixing those garments for Brazil so I have something to show you.

You know what else I did yesterday? Knit! I tried to start a sock, but of course, the yarn starting pooling and chucked it into the WIP basket. I will try again later.

But more importantly, since I have no more events to train for (well actually one more, but it's pretty mellow) and I'm coming off a vacation where I've been a totally gluton and worked out all of ONE time in the two weeks I've been home..I need to devise a new workout plan.

Details on the yummy goods to come.

On July 2nd, I received an email about B's sister's annual birthday party/4th of July bbq extravaganza with menu details. I had been planning to make a pie for the party, but according to the email, his sister was going to be buying pies in lieu of her birthday cake. I responded with the following:

... I guess that means I should scrap my pie baking plans for the party, huh?

She replied:

hmmm....what kind of pie, lady?

I replied:

I'm not sure yet.. I was thinking maybe just a classic apple pie or blueberry if I could find them and maybe a chocolate cream pie. What kind of pie do YOU want?

She replied:

I was going to pick up a pumpkin & chocolate cream pie @ chow's in lafayette. Apple or blueberry both sound real yummy!

Surely I couldn't let her BUY a pie for her own birthday. I wanted to put my pie making skills to use.

I replied:

...I'll see what I can do.. I make a slammin' pumpkin and choco cream too. Just let me know your preferences.

Yes, I said "slammin'" Can you feel the trouble coming? She decided on chocolate cream pie, what I was secretly hoping she'd pick because I'd been meaning to try Martha's chocolate cream pie recipe.

So fast forward to the 4th of July. Here's the final dessert spread. Mouth watering, isn't it? But little does this photo show how much agony I went through to produce, not one but two desserts. I made that lemon tart, too. Let's rewind one day.

7pm, Thursday:
Head to the store to pick up some butter and missing ingredients.

8pm:
Mix up a batch of Tartine's pie crust recipe and decide to mix up a few different recipes to finally do that pie crust off.

8:30pm:
Pull one disc of the Tartine dough out and start rolling it out.. it starts to crumble. It's not sticking together.. what in the WORLD is going on. Pull out the second disk and the SAME thing happens. This is not going to work. Toss the dough.

9pm:
Mix up a batch of Martha's pie crust AND Dorie Greenspan's crust recipe.

9:30pm:
Start to roll out Martha's.. This one is also not sticking together and is crumbling. Okay something really fishy is going on. Pull out Dorie's and the EXACT same thing is happening. Okay really, what is happening? Yes, I'm starting to freak out.

10pm:
Mix a batch of Cook's Illustrated's Foolproof Pie Crust, yes, the recipe with vodka. The dough looks slightly wetter than normal, but I'm hoping for the best. I've already gone through 6 sticks of butter. This is the point where I start kicking myself for insisting that I make such great pies.

10:30pm:
Roll out the dough, and it's looking promising..

11pm:
Crust goes into the oven. I start the chocolate filling.

11:30pm:
Crust is done. Filling is done. I've made the banana cream pie variation of this filling. before. But the instructions for the chocolate version differs slightly from the banana version. The finished product seems a little loose, but I was hoping it will firm up as it cools.

2am:
Fill the crust. The filling is still seeming pretty loose but I shove it into the fridge and hope again that it will firm up by the next day. I had planned to make the whipped cream at B's sisters house and finish it there. My baking was done for the day, so I thought.

2:30am:
Instead of going straight to bed, I get sucked into the internet for a while..

3:30am:
A little while turned into a lotta while and at this point, I've started to obsess about that chocolate filling, a lot. As I go through the steps that Martha took me through to make the filling, I start to freak out. For the chocolate filling, Martha has you heat a milk mixture and then temper eggs into it. Then instead of returning the entire mixture back to the stove for a few more minutes on heat (as in the banana and coconut versions), she has you mix in the chocolate and then immediately cool the mixture. At this point, maybe you can blame delirium, I was afraid that there might have been a typo in the recipe. Maybe you were supposed to put the chocolate mixture back on heat. Maybe that's why the filling was so loose. The mixture didn't get more time on heat to allow the addition of eggs to thicken it up. THEN I started freaking out even more thinking that my undercooked eggs would get folks sick. Totally NOT cool for something that was supposed to be slammin'.

4am:
Carefully spoon the filling out of the crust and back into the a saucepan. Put the filling back on heat and start whisking, hoping that it would thicken back up.

4:30am:
I'm so screwed. I've basically got thick hot chocolate in my saucepan. Pour out the filling and return to the internet for help.

5am:
Epicurious to the rescue! I find a substitute filling recipe and decide to get a little bit of sleep before I head back to the kitchen.

6am:
B calls and proclaims I'm absolutely crazy for staying up all night over pie. I don't think he quite understood how much pressure I felt in having someone's birthday dessert hinge on my baking skills or lack thereof.

6:30am:
I'm on my way to filling bliss as this recipe looks and TASTES so much more promising.

7am:
The filling is cooling and I decided to see what else I can make with my second disc of pie dough, just for insurance. Enter Epicurious again.. here comes the makings of a lemon brulee tart.

9am:
The pie has been filled and is chilling in the fridge. The lemon tart is done and is cooling. Looks like I am off the hook for now. Judgement doesn't happen until almost 12 hours later.

Recipe: Lemon Brulee Tart

Notes:
This was a big hit among the older crowd at the party. It was really good and really refreshing. As described in the recipe, it's the perfect dessert to accompany a heavy meal. I'd qualify bbq as heavy fare. I followed the recipe exactly except I used the Cooks Illustrated pie crust instead and used a bit of lime juice because I was just shy of 1/2 of lemon juice. Overall the recipe is super easy, especially if you're already familiar with making pie/pastry dough. The filling comes together in seconds. The brulee part was the hardest. It took a lot longer than I thought to caramelize the sugar. I initially thought that it was because there might not have been enough sugar. But in retrospect, I think it was because I kept the tart wrapped and moisture developed on the top.

Recipe: Chocolate Cream Pie

Notes:
Obviously, I, again, used my own crust, deviating from the chocolate crust in the recipe. I also used Martha's recipe for whipped cream (1 cup of heavy cream and 1/4 powdered sugar). If you decide to use regular pie crust, I'd recommend using Martha's technique for keeping the crust crisp, by adding a thin layer of melted semisweet chocolate to the bottom and sides of the crust and allowing it to harden in the freezer for 10 minutes before putting in the filling.

And the verdict? SLAMMIN'! I got so many compliments that I a bit was overwhelmed (and of course I was beaming inside). Everyone said that it was better than Chow's. It's all in the filling. That recipe is a definite winner!

So was it worth it to stay up all night? Hell yeah! I live for making people smile and their stomach's happy!

Have a look at this scrumptious pie as I continue to distract you with all things non-crafty. I went on a weekday baking spree last week spurred by an intensive work meeting I helped plan. We figured we could liven it up with home baked treats so obviously I volunteered. And of course it's always a bonus when you can expense your grocery bill (of course I only expensed the ingredients).

Yes, that's a super fancy, hi-tech Bounty paper towel backdrop.

Recipe: Blueberry pie with cornmeal crust

I have only three words to describe this. MAKE. THIS. PIE.

My coworker made this for the 4th and got resounding compliments all around. She made it without the lemon cream so I followed suit. Besides, I was planning on baking TWO things for the meeting, I didn't want to bother with lemon cream. So really, the crust was amazing. The cornmeal and the turbinado sugar really helps add another dimension to the flavor. And the filling, perfectly sweetened. It could very well be the blueberries, but I didn't bother tasting them beforehand so I can't really say. But really, when you're watching the darn thing burst and bubble from the other side of the oven.. the only other place you wanna be is eating it all up.. with ice cream. Yuuuum. Really, do you need make lemon cream if all that it trully begs for is the simplest of pleasures? Some really good vanilla ice cream? Doubt it.

I realize I say this a lot, especially given that I say this a lot about food I've never made or even ate, but I think this is going to be my blueberry pie recipe of choice. And the coworkers, yes I think they enjoyed it, a lot. I'm hoping that this very last piece of pie that was left at the end of the meeting was because people were shy and didn't want to be that person.. you know, the one that ate the very last piece of pie. But a latecomer snatched it up. She said it was calling her name.. but really, I think it might have been calling mine.

Eat me!

And and for the grand finale, chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream. I was finally able to conquer the Martha Stewart Swiss Buttercream recipe. I had attempted her swiss meringue buttercream recipe a few months ago and failed miserably! This time around I had already executed one successful buttercream recipe from the King Arthur's Whole Grain cookbook (unblogged) and was convinced I could do it again.

Recipe: One bowl chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream, Marthat Stewart's Baking Handbook

The chocolate cupcakes were pretty good. What I've noticed to date is that chocolate cupcakes made with oil rather than a butter are a lot moister but lack a lot of structure. The cake pulls apart easily which isn't a bad thing, but for certain recipes, it's also not a good thing (hi-hats for example -- what's a hi-hat you ask, good question. You will find out soon).

Now the buttercream.. OH, the buttercream. It was creamy, milky and sweet, reminiscent of the frosting that accompanies the Magnolia Red Velvet cake (another one of my favorite frostings). The first buttercream recipe I made tasted like the buttercream of my childhood that I really didn't like. The kind that came on birthday cakes that really didn't taste like anything. Really, now that I think about it, it tastes like butter. This one does not taste like butter. Is it a far stretch for me to say it tastes like heaven? It tastes like heaven.. in a frosting.

So where did my first attempt at this recipe breakdown? Impatience and also naivete. I didn't allow the sugar and egg white mixture too cool down enough before adding the butter. The mixer bowl needs to be almost room temperature, mine was a little warmer, but it definitely can't be hot. Thanks to an episode of Good Eats, I was properly schooled on this (you gotta love Alton Brown). Even with one successful recipe under my belt, I was a bit skeptical as I was making this, you know, with all the Martha recipe failures I've been having as of late. But you really do have to be patient. I added the butter in one tablespoon at a time and waited until each was fully incorporated til I added the next. The buttercream really didn't start coming together until I had only a few tablespoons left. Then you hear the magic. The sound of the mixture all of a suddent starts to change and before you know it.. you've got silky smooth buttercream.

Great, now I'm craving a cupcake.