Marble Bundt Cake: Fancy Shapes Eh

I learned a few things about bundt pans through this little project. One, when they say grease well, they really really mean grease well. Oh, PAM will probably be ok you think? Nope, its gonna have to be like a quarter to half a stick of butter next time. Two, all those nooks and crannies make a beautiful cake, but cleaning that? Why have they not invented disposable bundt pans?



I'm not entirely sure if I'm jesting about all of the above. The little motivated part of me is inclined to bake this cake again sucessfully, but the other part of me that hates dishes is more....meh. I do like that frosting is optional for bundt cakes given its shape. Unfortunately, the beautiful shape is kinda defeated when you fail to grease and flour your pan enough so that when you try to pry it out, only half plops out, and the remaining bits kinda crumble into a misfitting puzzle.

Being the go-getter that I am, it wasn't enough to attempt to make just a single flavored bundt cake apparently. No, I had to make a marbled bundt cake with pretty swirls of vanille and chocolate instead. This of course led to a little adventure in learning about cocoa powder and spending a solid 10 minutes starting at the baking aisle. Given that I'll probably be in CT for only one more year, it seems excessive to buy both dutch processed powder and normal cocoa powder. However, after reading several pages about cocoa power from David Lebovitz and Joy the Baker, it seems clear that many baking blogs that call for "cocoa powder" without really specifying, may actually mean dutch processed in their recipe.

I ended up going with normal cocoa powder, though I get a feeling the semi-insane part of me will end up forcing me to also buy dutch processed just to try it out (unclear why I've decided to describe my personality as separate entities in this post). If anyone is too lazy to read the links I've posted, basically dutch processed powder neutralizes the acidity found in cocoa powder, which can change affect your cake's final texture and rise depending on if you are correctly using baking powder or baking soda. The mnemonic that someone mentioned in a comment was "dutch-processed = baking powder."

Doing all of this googling also came to highlight, yet again, the lack of basic science education in our society. Several Yahoo! Answers questions popped up where frantic people asked if "chocolate processed with alkali" was bad for you or had toxins. And unfortunately, people again fell to the fallacy that processed equals evil big agro/unhealthy and unprocessed equals more "natural" and better for you. And the classic, "if you can't pronounce it, its probably bad for you!" trope. Maybe even worse, or as a result, several of the super fancy cocoa powders I was examining at the grocery store used this as an advertisement point (ie our powder is ~natural~ and 100% unprocessed for full on maximal chocolate without the chemicals!)

Sorry if that bitterness is a turn off. I just had my hair cut by a nice woman who also seemed to believe that people who touch certain parts of their heads or lose hair at specific random spots are somehow activating different parts of their brain for personality traits like motivation or confidence. Just. Whyyyyy.
Well, while my mood is now a bit sour, this cake certainly was not bitter. Despite the problems getting it out the pan, the bundt shape also meant it had a nice crust that I personally enjoyed. The chocolate and vanilla swirling could have probably been more distributed, but that is likely again my fault for not alternating the different batters well. Additionally, I found my baking time was a bit less than what was called for in the recipe. I image that this and a combination of how it took to get the cake out of the pan resulted in the cake's slight dryness. I'm not entirely sure if this a pound cake, but my cake definitely seemed a bit too dry and not buttery enough to truly be ~pound cake~.

Recipe from Sailus Food.
TL;DR:

• Bundt Pans need to be very very well greased
• Dutch processed cocoa = baked goods with baking powder as the main leavener
• Processed dos not equal "bad for you"

Drunken Noodles: Or Drunkard Noodles?

A quick wiki search answers the question I know that we're all thinking (if you're thinking about like your cat instead or something, we're wondering here why the flip its called drunken noodles). And sadly the answer is rather unclear. Given that no wine is actually used in the original dish, I'd have to say I'm pro-the theory that the dish was first made by a drunk fool late one night who didn't have access to pizza. At least the name "drunken" appears to also be in the original thai name, so it's not some random Americanization of the dish. Or some random American invention (looking really judgmentally at you fortune cookies).

It took me a very long time between bookmarking this recipe in my little Cooking For Two book to actually making this. I had a surprisingly hard time finding wide rice noodles. I ended up just settling for some medium-sized rice noodles after my third trip to the Asian market here. That's another thing, I don't know why, but going to Asian markets alone always makes me a bit anxious. Probably the whole embarrassment of not really knowing Chinese or the culture. You know, all that stuff with being offspring of immigrants.

 Anyways, aside from the fact that I managed to load quite a bit of vegetables into this dish (hurray!), the only thing I really have to say is that this is probably the first and only time so far that I've taken semi-decent pictures of food on these ~Christmas~ themed plate. Not that I really had a high bar to pass given the many problems in my oh-so-professional non-existent photo studio. Sorry, was that too many modifiers? Oh well.

Drunken Noodles recipe from The Complete Cooking For Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen. I got this book as a graduation gift to help with my single-dome cooking because no one likes leftovers for an entire week. The book has some very helpful tips about how to store things to prevent mold and decay, but some of the recipes do seem to require a number of special tools that I'm just not into buying.

Lavender Lemon Sugar Cookies: Soap or Space?

I'm very good at impulse buys when it comes to strange, vague-ly fancy food related items. You gotta hand it to etsy for making it so easy to buy the most adorable, hipster, cutesy, nerdy things. I could easily bookmark half the webpage and just cry about all the things I couldn't buy. But this is the first time I've bought any food-item from etsy, but for dried lavender it was necessary. Amazon sells 1/2 lbs - 1lbs bags of dried lavender, which no one could possibly finish in their lifetime unless they were running a bakery or restaurant. And I don't live in France where I can just frolick through fields of lavender all day.

 I initially bought the dried lavender to make lavender ice cream (eventually, when I get my ice cream maker back). Lavender flavored things sound seriously pretentious and may initially give the impression that people have gone made and enjoy the taste of soap. I first had lavender while in Ojai during a high school summer science program where I spent many mildly sleep deprived nights with some of the smartest people programming and trying to learn astronomy. So to me, lavender isn't so much about fancy soap than it is about the weird silly things we did alongside all the astronomy and science, like lavender festivals, getting a stress test from the Church of Scientology, and creating a 3-level headphone split. You get the idea- summer nostalgia and all that jazz.



If you're feeling a bit of trepidation about investing in a full-on lavender recipe, these lavender lemon sugar cookies are a good way to dip your toes in. The lemon comes off as the main flavor in these cookies, while the lavender come in as key supporting characters that make these cookies, well, better than lemon sugar cookies. 

I ultimately copied the recipe for Lemon Sugar Cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod, but made some modifications to incorporate the lavender. I'll reproduce the recipe below, but I still don't have a fancy recipe widget since 90% of my posts I just follow the recipes from other people. 

Dried lavender purchased from LLFarm on etsy. 1 oz. is the smallest quantity I have found online for a reasonable price, and this will still likely last you for several rounds of lavender baking/cooking. Williams Sonoma or one of those fancy food stores also sells a 1/2 oz amount, but its priced much higher than what I saw on etsy.

Lavender Lemon Sugar Cookies
Lemon Sugar Cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod. Reproduced below with * indicating modifications.
Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup sugar
1 TBSP dried lavender buds*
1 cup butter

1 egg
1 lemon- zest*
2 TBSP lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup walnuts*
1/2 cup sugar for rolling
1/2 tsp-1 tsp dried lavender buds for rolling*

Steps:
1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2-Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Mix and set aside.
3-In a food processor and blend together sugar and lavender until lavender is chopped up. You can add in all the sugar or just some of it depending on how large your food processor is.*
4-In a clean bowl or mixer, beat together butter, lavender, and sugar until smooth and creamy.
5-Add lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla and egg and mix till combined. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix till just combined.
7-Set aside dough. Chop up walnuts in food processor or by hand until you have fine pieces. Add to dough, leaving aside 1-2 TBSP if you want to use walnuts in your rolling mixture.*
8-Using a food processor, blend together sugar, lavender, and walnuts to create rolling mixture.*
9-Roll dough into ~1 tsp-1 TBSP balls (your preference for size) and roll into sugar-lavender-walnut mixture before placing on baking sheets, about 1-1/2 inches apart.
10-Bake for 8-10 minutes until slightly brown and edges are set. Remove, let rest on sheets for 2 mins before transferring to cooling rack.

Pesto Braided Bread: Where Is the Rise

It always confused me how it was possible for some food bloggers to take "step by step" photos of baking projects. My hands are always covered in a fine layer of grease or powdered stuff, making my constant swipes at my laptop to check the recipes, rather dangerous. Add a really fancy camera with tiny knobs and adjustments, I may as well dunk my camera into a bag of flour.

After my little adventure in attempting to overcome my fear of yeast and get rid of some left over arugula pesto, I've had to come to the straight up conclusion that these bloggers have someone taking pictures of them while they are working. I even have evidence-- in one picture, you can clearly see two hands being held aloft in the background of the perfectly braided raw dough. Unless you have Mrs. Weasley-like magical abilities, you-dear blogger-have a friend in yo kitchen. Since I don't have that sort of life-partner or whatever who will take pictures of me while I attempt to figure out how to braid sticky dough, you'll have to deal with subpar "final" pictures since my iPhone/super fancy camera cannot be sacrificed for a casual baking/rambling blog.



Now, in huge bold letters, let me just say, this is a work in progress. I have yet to attain satisfactory bread from yeast. So technically my fear of yeast continues, but in different ways. I'm no longer scared of killing it, but rather figuring out how to let it rise and attain optimal fluff in bread. I'm unfortunately a stickler for using at least some whole wheat flour in any bread recipes (thanks mom and your whole wheat banana bread), so that makes my life slightly more difficult.

an extra artsy shot just for kicks

It turns out that proofing yeast before adding it to the flour mixture reduces a lot of my initial anxieties about yeast. It gives you solid evidence that your yeast is in fact alive and bubbling, and honestly, it smells amazing and looks awesome. Yeast is actually not as unforgiving as I though it would be. I used the old house-wifey-stick-your-wrist-under-the-spout method of testing the water's warmth, and while I have no idea how warm a baby bottle should be, my yeast did not die. I guess that means I can keep a baby alive! Not.

I ended up trying two recipes for this, one from Baked By Rachel, and the other from A Bread A Day. Since I made both on different days that ended up being very different temperatures, I think that also played a role in the results I got.

Version: Baked By Rachel

Day 1: Baked By Rachel

• Cooler day. Not much sun. Bread had a strugglebus attempting to rise.
• Dough was too sticky and I failed to add more dough till the 2nd rise, which may or may not be kosher.
• Failed to understand what kneading meant. Ended up pulling and breaking the dough while kneading, which it turns out is a big no no.
• Sticky dough meant very serious struggles rolling and braiding bread.
• In the end, dense, but successful swirls!

Version: A Bread A Day

Day 2: A Bread A Day

• Warmer day. Lots of sun. SO MUCH RISE. But I left for ice cream towards the end of the 2nd rise, and apparently there is such thing as letting your dough rise for too long because when I came back, the dough looked sad. The final result out of the oven confirmed the sad dense state. 
• Dough was less sticky! Must easier to successfully knead, and it actually felt like the gluten was doing things!
• The braiding technique for this recipe was more complicated. Ended up pulling the dough quite a bit as I tried to braid, but it turned out OK.
• Overall rise slightly higher than yesterday, but still dense.
• Successful swirls. 

At the end of the day, as several bread baking websites and my roommate assured, bread, no matter how dense or off, is still bread, which makes it delicious.
Recipes from Baked By Rachel, and A Bread A Day

TL;DR

• Proofing yeast= SO MUCH FUN
• Making fluffy bread= still a struggle
• Read lots of bread making websites like, The Fresh Loaf
• Apparently dough can rise for too long, and then it makes you very sad.
• Bread is still delicious

Bloomin' Onion Bread: Too Much Cheese? As If!

When my friend and I were making this bread, we were a little unsure how much cheese to put in the bread. How much exactly was 12 oz of cheese? We didn't know, so we decided, hey, it's not like there's such thing as too much cheese. So we started stuffing. But then we remembered there was that little thing called net wt on commercial packages of shredded cheese. Not that it matters, but 12 oz of cheese is a little less than 1 package of normal grocery store packaged shredded cheese. So that basically means you get to round up to the next integer value of a bag of shredded cheese for your bread!

Sorry. I need to work on my iPhone picture taking skills when it comes to blur still.

My family used to go to Outback Steakhouse quite a bit when I was younger. It was our "fancy celebration meal" go to place, next to Chili's before my parents got too hip for middle tier family sit-down restaurants. We never ordered an actual Bloomin' Onion, but I do remember my Mom telling us that the rye bread they give you at Outback was chocolate bread. Should have known better. Still, it's pretty delicious bread. Like the sourdough here.

Given my fear of yeast, I did not make a homemade loaf of sourdough. And, when you're focused on cheesy, onion-y goodness, who has time to feed microorganisms too? Well, we were certainly well fed. Add the last bottle of Fire and Blood Ommegang Game of Thrones beer, and I'd call this a pretty successful dinner. Oh to be in your twenties and call bread, cheese, and beer your dinner. Actually, that sounds like you're role-playing some medieval fantasy. Oh wait.

Recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything. I added in some caramelized white onions in addition to the green onions in the original recipe, but the fun thing about cooking (unlike baking) is that you can kinda wing it with easy stuff like this. I will say that cutting bread into squares/a matrix is rather difficult if you're trying to maintain picturesque pockets of cheese. If not, hackaway in whatever 4-edged shapes you want.
Also, bonus points if you get the Clueless reference. If you're looking for some more modern adaptations of Emma, check out Emma Approved yo.

American Crepe Cake: Waiting For The Right Partner

The subtitle doesn't actually mean anything. I was trying to think of a relevant Captain America quote. For all the "pure good" and lack of redemption arc in Captain America's personality, I love Captain America. It's probably more of the anachronisms that I love. But you know, Chris Evans isn't exactly hard to look at or anything. And even though he has that whole moral righteousness thing going, he also has that David and Goliath thing too. Though, unlike David, Steve Rogers got super muscles that helped him defeat the bad guys. So maybe not David and Goliath. Sorry.

Anyhoo, I still don't have this blogging thing down, as evident by this one week late post. Though, *technically* I did make this over the 4th of July weekend, so in realtime, it was seasonally appropriate. Just not in blogtime. Though some might frown at the idea of a crepe cake as a patriotic dessert. But I would argue that it is 100% American to take the thin delicate dessert of the French and make it into a big, colorful, mega frosting-filled cake and call it our own. Sounds about right.

As second attempts at crepe cakes goes, this cake was certainly better than my first crepe cake, though we still have quite a long way to go before I reach Lady M's status. Decoration wise, its pretty clear that my american flag proportions were a bit off, and my frosting skills need some work. Perhaps I'll try a frosting transfer next time? I tried out a different crepe batter recipe (linked at end) from Smitten Kitchen who got from a NYT article for this cake compared to my first. This one required a bit more work--needing browned butter and steamed milk, plus time to cool, but I think I do like this one better.

 Unfortunately, I had to give in and buy grocery store frosting (oh the shame for a food blog!). As a recent real-adult without a handmixer, cornstarch, or a strainer, a vanilla pastry creme was not particularly feasible. Especially since I'm supposed to be working on a little thing called medical school applications. But hey, they would totally understand if I submit my applications late. After all, I was making a crepe cake for AMERICA. Regardless, at least it was store-bought cream cheese frosting so the weird aftertaste you tend to find in canned frosting was not as strong.



Crepe recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Flag inspiration from Betty Crocker 1000 other food bloggers who love the food dye.

New York Food Trip: Festivals and Doctors

I'm not one for restaurant or location posts, but sometimes its good to experiment. And given that it is 4th of July and that I have nothing red, white, and blue to show for it, I figure I'd go for the next closest America-related post I have--the great American city of New York. A few weeks ago I went on a day trip to NYC with one of my friends here for essentially the purpose of eating as much delicious food as possible. Thank goodness that New York involves so much walking or we would have been much too stuffed to get through the entire day.

Around lunch time, we went to a food festival that is going on near Broadway by Macy's during the entire summer. It's called Broadway Bites, and as the pictures I've taken suggest, it's everything you want a cutesy pop-up food festival to be. There were foods ranging from meatball sandwiches to bimimbap to beer ice cream to several stands selling exotic lemonade flavors.

We ended up all sharing a Margherita pizza from a stand that was baked the pizzas a wood-fire oven as seen below. The pizza while fun to watch cook was probably average at best. Then again, I'm the type of person who loves an abundance of oozing cheese and overflowing toppings on my pizza.

Afterwards, we headed up towards Central Park to go to the plaza and try some of Lady M's mille crepes cakes. Lets just say that after trying an ~authentic~ crepe cake, that I am whole-heartedly embarrassed to have even posted my biscoff crepe cake, let alone think that my crepes were good or that my cake was photo-worthy. Maybe my crepes could have passed an unsuspecting taster when served alone and stuffed with whipped cream, but in a cake, my crepes were so much fatter and rubbery than Lady M's. My crepes were like an oversized bumbling hippo in a swamp of ganache while Lady M's were like a water strider skipping across a delicate glass of champagne. That being said, I clearly have a lot of work cut out for me in the future even if I never attain Lady M's levels of perfection. Though I will say that towards the last 5 bites, the sugar was really starting to get to me.

We then took a walking break to meander some shops and walk off our sugar highs before taking the subway down to Brooklyn. Our main goal was to visit a Doctor Who bar, which I'll mention below, but we also stopped by a korean taco shop afterwards called Kimchi Grill for dinner. My picture is a bit blurry, but I got a Korean BBQ Beef Short Rib, Korean Fried Chicken, and Pomegranate and Roasted Veggie taco. All were excellent and out of this world in flavor, crunch, and spice (in a good way). I'm already trying to figure out a way for me to have these tacos again.

Finally, some pictures of the Waystation, the Doctor Who themed bar we visited. Yes, we went to Brooklyn just to visit a Doctor Who theme bar. But when a bar has a bathroom shaped like a phone booth slash time and space machine, how can you say no? Heck, I couldn't even say no to posting this awesome but blurry picture of the bathroom from the exterior.

Also, this is and airports with novelty toilets are probably the only instances I would ever take pictures inside a bathroom. You can ask me about that one time I took a picture of a toilet in Chicago O'Hare if you want. Or actually, I'll just tell you so your mind doesn't wander. It was the first time I saw the toilets that have that ring of plastic around the seat that automatically rotates so you have a "clean" seat everytime. Even though the amount of bacteria on a toilet seat is relatively minimal compared to like the door handle of a bathroom and even your kitchen counter. Gross right?

Extra cool points if you understand any of the above Doctor Who references. If not, Happy 4th of July everyone! May your day be filled with lots of red, white, and blue themed foods.