My Fair Lady

Check out the recipe for my Sugar Cookies, and the recipe for my Chocolate Chip Cookies!

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I’ve been going to the Ohio State Fair every year for most of my life. I think it’s mainly because I’m a sucker for fair food. Deep fried junk? Yes please. Something on a stick? All the easier to walk with it to the next food place. Deep fried food on a stick? Now you’re totally speaking my language. Every 5 feet there’s another heart attack tempting you with its promise of overindulgent goodness. I can almost feel my arteries clogging at the thought of a deep fried Twinkie, but at least I’d die happy. There’s deep fried everything if you look hard enough: Twinkies, candy bars, Oreos, Cheesecake, Strawberry Shortcake, pickles, corn dogs, even macaroni and cheese, although I’m not sure how that works. The newest deep fried tasty treat? Deep fried Buckeyes; chocolate and peanut butter coated in a funnel cake-like batter and fried to a golden, melty goodness. Mmm. A total mess, but totally worth it. And even though I’ve been coming to the fair for 20-something years, I’ve never once thought of actually participating in it, other than the whole eating my way through it thing. Competing in the fair was something farmers did with cows, sheep, and chickens. I don’t have livestock. What did I know about being in the fair? It wasn’t until I walked through the Creative Arts building last year and actually looked at the entries in the baking competitions that I really thought anything about it. It wasn’t just pies and canned vegetables. There were cookies and cakes, muffins and brownies--all things I felt I could do. Okay, so maybe I might know a little something about this fair stuff. Maybe I could enter in the fair. Maybe even win something. Ah who am I kidding; I’d probably just forget about it until I was back at the fair next year.


Well I didn’t really forget. It was always in the back of my mind, just floating around. But I don’t really do things like that. I’d never competed in anything before, much less a baking competition. There’s no way I would win. These people that enter the fair, they know what they’re doing. I’m just fumbling around. It wasn’t until Cupcake Camp that I really got into the competitive spirit. I convinced myself that if I was going to compete in something, I wasn’t going to take the safe route. I was going to go all out and push my own boundaries. And it paid off. I won the category I entered even though I doubted that I would stand a chance. But no matter if I had won or lost, I was bitten by the competition bug at Cupcake Camp. I needed to enter more! That’s the thing about me. I have a terrible competitive streak. I have to win. Or I have to at least try my hardest to win, even if I don’t end up actually winning. I’m competitive with people who don’t even realize they’re competing. In things that shouldn’t even be a competition. I always have been that way. And once I got the taste for baking competitions, well there’s no turning back now. I’m a competition junkie. Competing in the fair? Sign me up. For the State Fair. There is no county level when you’re living by “go big or go home.”

I knew right away I wanted to enter my beloved sugar cookies into the decorated cookie category. Looking last year at the winners in the category, I immediately thought (in a totally not I’m-better-than-you mean kind of way), “I can do better than that.” So I set out to make the best, cutest sugar cookies I had ever made. These were going to be absolutely perfect! Well. Maybe not absolutely perfect, but I hopefully could at least find 6 really good ones of the bunch to take to judging! I decided on a Princess Birthday theme since I had bought cutters in the shapes of a cake, a present, and a tiara, and I was dying to find a reason to use them. I even had my design ideas all sketched out. 2 and a half days, 30 cookies, 3 colors, and some luster dust later, I had some pretty cute cookies I was feeling fairly good about. There were some in the bunch that weren’t so fantastic though. I tried to rush along the drying of my icing by putting them into an oven at 175F, and some of my white turned a bit yellowish at the edges, but oh well. Those just wouldn’t come along for the ride. And I’ll remember that for next time.

I decided as I was registering my entries online that I would make chocolate chip cookies as well. I love my chocolate chip recipe, so I decided what the heck. I’ll give it a shot. The ones I actually took with me were thrown together at literally the last minute after a not so successful first batch (more on that later), but somehow the 2nd batch, the one I took to be judged, came out almost perfect. With only an hour left to get my cookies turned in, I was running around like crazy getting everything ready, and of course snapping a bunch of pictures. I managed to get them in on time, thankfully, and now there was nothing to do but sit and wait until I could go to the fair and find out how I did.

I finally got my chance on Thursday night to go with Boyfriend and Kelli. After a not-so-quick stop for some Deep Fried Buckeyes (those things were molten hot, and it was almost impossible to eat without a fork, which they didn’t give us..), we were off to the Creative Arts building to see the results. Walking down the immense glass cases towards the cookies, I spotted my sugar cookies at the very bottom.


Check it out!! 2nd place!!! Not bad at all! I got excited and started squealing and jumping up and down when Boyfriend was like, “Hey. Hey look!” and pointed a little further up in the case.


HOLY CRAP! FIRST PLACE!! I WON!!!! I WON AT THE STATE FAIR!! And for chocolate chip cookies! The category I thought everyone would enter because it’s the easiest. The category I almost didn’t enter myself. The category that had to be thrown together at the last minute and almost didn’t make it here! A blue ribbon! HELL YEAH!

All my squealing and jumping up and down attracted a bit of attention… The director of the entire Creative Arts competition came over to talk and to take my picture with my cookies! (Which I’m sure looked fantastic since I wasn’t even wearing makeup and I had expected it to rain at some point, so I didn’t bother with my hair at all…) I still can’t believe I placed in both categories I entered in, my first time competing! Yay!! All night long I would randomly just let out a squeal of excitement whenever I thought about it again. I’m pretty close to letting out a crazy squeal right now! I’m definitely competing again next year, and in more than just 2 categories. Looking online at past winners, and seeing all their names again this year in so many different categories, I realized it’s time for some fresh blood. Whether they realize it or not, the gauntlet has been thrown by those same 6-8 people that win in 15 different categories year after year. My competitive spirit won’t let it stand without a challenge. So to any Ohio bakers out there; this is your call to arms. I’m ready to take them down, now who’s with me? Their tyrannous rein will come to-- oops. Sorry. I got a little carried away again. *Deep breath* Let’s just move on to some pictures of fun fair stuff while I calm down a bit.


Okay I’m better now. I had a great time at the fair, and can’t wait until next year! And don't forget to check out the recipe of my BLUE RIBBON WINNING Chocolate Chip Cookies!!

And just because they're so pretty. Here's some more of my 2nd place Sugar Cookies to look at!

Cookies and Cream Mini Cheesecakes

Cookies and Cream Mini Cheesecakes
From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
Makes 30

42 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 275F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle eggs, at bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie filled cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate (in tins) at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

Note: I topped my mini cheesecakes with a swirl of whipped cream and a mini Oreo cookie. You could also crumble up a couple regular sized cookies and sprinkle the crumbs on top of the whipped cream as well.

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Do you ever wish you could go back in time to a younger age? A time with less responsibilities and stress? Even if only for a weekend? I know I do. All the time. This past week, I got my wish. For three days, I was 17 again. My best friend, Dani (she's the one on the left), came back to visit for a few days after moving to Texas over a year ago. It was a weekend full of sleepovers, movies, junk food, and of course baked goods. The first thing she said to me after she booked her flight was, "So you're making cheesecake, right?" How could I say no?

I've known Dani since elementary school, and we, along with our other best friend, Kelli (in the middle above), were inseparable from high school on. We've done everything together: from concerts to camping trips, road trips, and vacations. We spent 16 terrifying hours together on a Greyhound bus to Virginia Beach, and got robbed in the parking lot of a casino in Mississippi. We've been to auditions for American Idol in both Cleveland and Memphis, (Dani auditioned. I was moral support.) and let me tell you--sleeping in the Browns Stadium overnight is not the most pleasant thing in the world. But it was one hell of an experience. The three of us, we're practically family. I call their parents Mom and Dad, and I feel more at home in their houses than I do in mine half the time. We don't even hesitate to just walk in to each others homes and head straight for the fridge for a snack. And our Christmas/New Year's celebration tradition? We put Santa to shame with our gift giving. It takes hours to open all our gifts. Seriously. I spend more on them than anyone in my family. And it's a tradition reserved only for us. No one else is allowed to partake. No boyfriends, no family. No one. And none of us see anything wrong with that. Through the years, there have been good times and bad, but no matter what, there's always been us.

With Dani coming to visit, and specifically requesting cheesecake, I finally had the perfect reason to try the Cookies and Cream Mini Cheesecakes from the Martha Stewart Cupcake book. I had toyed with the idea of making these a couple weeks ago, but that plan fell through when I accidentally ate most of the package of Oreos before I even bought the rest of the ingredients. Not sure how that happened.... I swear I only took like 1 or 2, and suddenly, the package was empty. But I wouldn't let myself do it this time! This package was to bake with! Okay, maybe I cheated a little and had 1 or 2, but that's all!

The recipe was so easy to put together. I made them on Saturday so they would be ready when the girls came over on Sunday. The actual making of the cheesecake took under an hour from start to finish, but then they had to cool overnight, so I didn't get to test them out right away. That's the only thing I don't like about cheesecake. There's no instant gratification with it. But the rest I'm perfectly okay with. We had these as dessert after dinner--our usual pasta, while we watched movies (the very appropriate 13 Going On 30, about a 30 year old that still thinks she's 13) and attempted to play board games. The girls seemed to like them (they had seconds, and maybe even thirds), and I sent an entire cupcake tray back to Kelli's with them the next afternoon. By the time I rejoined the party after work that night, the whole thing was gone, so I guess they were a hit with everyone!

We spent the rest of the weekend doing exactly what we would have been doing 10 years ago--sleeping over at Kelli's, stuffing ourselves full of junk food, staying up all night, and watching hours and hours of Backstreet Boys videos. Seriously. We watched like 5 hours of BSB on Tuesday night alone. And we still had more to watch, but it was already 5 o'clock in the morning, and we had to take Dani back to the airport by noon! So much may have changed in our lives, but for those 3 nights, we forgot all about the stress of our lives, and we were 17 again.

Cookbook Review: 125 Best Cupcake Recipes

125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson
Published in 2005 by Robert Rose Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-7788-0112-2
List Price: $19.95
189pp

Rating	(1 = Worst,	5 = Best)
Presentation		Illustrations
Depth of Information		Practicality
Value		Permanent Library
Gift Giving		Level of Difficulty	Beginner to Average
Overall

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Boasting 125 recipes, how could you possibly go wrong with this book? The odds of finding at least one that appeals to you are pretty high! I first picked up this book from the library for its French Toast Cupcake recipe to use as the base of my Bacon Cupcakes. I fell in love with it, as well as the Maple Buttercream Frosting recipe it featured. It’s the first buttercream I’ve ever liked! It’s the first I didn’t scrape off before eating because it was too sickening sweet, or because I felt like I was eating a stick of butter! It was even the winning combination for the Best Use of Bacon category at Cupcake Camp! With recipes this good, I had to take a look at the rest of the book while I had it!

Flipping through, I noticed there are not a lot of pictures, just a whole lot of recipes. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I like to see what I’m making! But if the rest of the recipes live up to the French Toast standards, then I can overlook the picture issue. The thing I like the most about this book? Almost every recipe has a side note about variations to the recipe. That means there’s WAY more than just 125 recipes here! If you made just one batch of cupcakes each week from this book, between the original recipes and their variations, you’d be baking for roughly a little over 3 and a half years! Mix and match the frosting combinations, and you’re well over 4. I’d say that’s well worth the $19.95 you’d pay for the book.

The recipes are written clearly and are simple enough for the causal weekend baker to master. I didn’t even have to use my mixer for some of the recipes! A lot are even easy enough to bake with kids! (Some aren’t so kid-friendly to eat though. There’s a whole “Adults Only” chapter.) But fear not average to semi-serious bakers! There’s more than just vanilla and chocolate to keep you baking creative and tasty treats. It may even get your creative juices flowing enough to come up with your own variations for even more fun!

I've made a few things out of this book so far. The French Toast Cupcakes were by far my favorite. I've also made the Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes that I thought came out really well (and everyone at work liked them!), as well as the Pink Lemonade Cupcakes, which I made as a Raspberry Lemonade variation, as well as the Lemon Yogurt Cupcakes, also turned into Raspberry Lemon. Both of these variations on the actual recipes didn't turn out all that great for me. They were just alright, but nothing spectacular. That could have just been my choice of variation though, so don't hold those against the book!

I liked this book, and recommend it to anyone looking for a go-to guide for simple yet creative recipes for anything from a birthday party to a bake sale, and even a dinner party! It may lack in pictures, but it more than makes up for it in content. It might not be the book that will transform you into a professional baker, but it’s got enough variety in it to keep you from getting bored! I’ve already renewed this book at the library once, and it’s due back again as we speak—I just don’t want to give it up! It’ll be one I eventually buy for myself, and maybe others too!

Stand-Out Recipes

• Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
• Lemon Yogurt Cupcakes
• Kahlua Cupcakes
• Cappuccino Cupcakes
• Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcakes
• Pink Lemonade Cupcakes
• Anise Cupcakes
• French Toast Cupcakes

Triple Chocolate Cake Truffles

Triple Chocolate Cake Truffles
Inspired by Bakerella
Makes about 65 truffles

3 dozen hideously ugly chocolate cupcakes
1 16-ounce tub of store-bought chocolate frosting
1 1/2 lbs chocolate bark candy coating
Chocolate sprinkles for decorating

1. Ruin a perfectly good batch of chocolate cupcakes. Make sure they're humpbacked, missing chunks, and overall just really, really ugly.

2. Rip those ugly cupcakes to shreds. Seriously. Tear them all apart until they're nothing but crumbs.

3. Dump an entire tub of frosting into the bowl of crumbs and mix with a spatula or wooden spoon until all the crumbs are moist and hold together.

4. Using a 1-inch cookie scoop, scoop out crumb mixture and roll into balls in your hand. Place on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Repeat until all crumb mixture is used. Freeze cookie sheets for an hour.

5. Melt chocolate bark in a small, but deep heatproof bowl or coffee mug in microwave, 30 seconds at a time, stirring the chocolate until it is all melted and smooth.

6. Removing only a few balls from the freezer at a time, spear one with a toothpick and dip into chocolate until it is completely coated. You may have to use a spoon to dump some chocolate along the top to cover completely. Lifting the ball out of the chocolate, rotate slowly above the bowl, letting the excess drip off back into the rest of the chocolate.

7. Place coated ball on a new cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. Pull toothpick from top, and coat hole with a tiny bit of melted chocolate to hide the gash. Top with chocolate sprinkles for decoration. Repeat with remaining balls. Reheat bowl of chocolate when it starts to thicken.

8. Once all balls have been coated, return to the freezer for about 15 minutes to set. Remove and let come to room temperature before serving.

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After my disastrous first batch of chocolate cupcakes for my "Decorate a Cupcake" event, I was left wondering what on Earth I was going to do with 36 hideously ugly cupcakes. They all had weird hump things in the center of the cupcakes, and a good portion were torn from trying to remove them from the pan. Taste wise, they were fine, so it seemed like a waste of time and materials to just throw them in the trash. I could try topping them with frosting to try to hide the deformities, but what about those that had just fallen apart? There had to be some way to salvage those as well. How about ripping them all apart and putting them back together, even better than before? How about taking a page out of Bakerella's book and creating tasty Cake Truffles!


If you've never made cake truffles or cake pops (cake truffles on a stick), you should totally try it. Just the act of ripping apart the cake is worth it. It's so much fun tearing them into nothing but tiny crumbs! It definitely took out some of the frustration I had in making my chocolate cupcakes to begin with. Plus, what's more fun than a bite of cake already mixed with frosting and coated in chocolate? It's a little bite of heaven. Or a lot of little bites of heaven, cause if you're anything like me, you can't stop eating them. They're so tasty!

In the era of reusing, recycling, and repurposing practically everything, these are the perfect way to make use of something that maybe isn't so great. Did your cake stick to the pan? Break when you were removing it? Do you have sunken or humpbacked cupcakes? Got half a birthday cake sitting around after the party that no one wants to eat anymore? Don't throw them away. Tear them apart and dip them in chocolate. Trust me. One bite of these treats, and no one will know or even care how ugly your cake was! They'll be too busy shoveling cake truffles in their mouths!

Making them couldn't be more simple. Take your ugly or leftover cake and turn it into a bowl full of crumbs. Mix with a tub of frosting and roll into 1-inch sized balls. Freeze on a cookie sheet until firm. Taking out a few at a time (they soften up really quickly), dip them in melted chocolate and refreeze. Ta-da! Perfect little bite sized treats! So what are you waiting for? Go mess up a perfectly good cake! Cause really--if you could go from totally ugly to completely glorious, why wouldn't you?

Chocolate Cupcake Drama

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes
From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
Makes 18 (I doubled this recipe and got 36+)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup warm water

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Reduce speed to low. Add eggs, buttermilk, oil, extract, and the water; beat until smooth and combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

2. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

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When it came to picking my 2 flavors for the "Decorate a Cupcake" event at work, I knew I had to do chocolate. What's more classic than a simple chocolate cupcake? It would be my easy choice that left me open to figure out a not so classic flavor. Apparently I learned nothing from my Cupcake Camp drama. I should have known that my easy choice would be the one that gave me so much trouble. And I realized, surprisingly, I don't think I've ever actually made just a simple chocolate cupcake, so I had no go-to recipe. But seriously. How hard could a chocolate cupcake be? Apparently a lot harder than I gave it credit for.


As I usually do when looking for a recipe, I went straight for Martha. Her One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake in her new cupcake book seemed easy enough, so I thought I'd whip it up quickly before work. It called for buttermilk, which luckily I had bought the night before. Actually, I decided I was done with messing around with my usual buttermilk drama, and picked up a container of powdered buttermilk instead to keep on hand. That would keep me from running to the grocery store every time I decided to make something that called for buttermilk, and then throwing out half a carton each time when I didn't use it all before it went bad. I was excited for the chance to see how it compared to real buttermilk and other buttermilk substitutes. The powdered buttermilk instructions call for a certain number of tablespoons of powder to be added with the dry ingredients of your recipe, and a certain amount of water to be added at the regular buttermilk stage. Well Martha's recipe calls for an equal amount both warm water and regular buttermilk, so by the time I was done measuring out my water for both parts of the doubled recipe, I had 3 cups of liquid. 3 CUPS! My batter was pure liquid. Normally I scoop my batter out into liners with a cookie scoop. This batter I just poured straight in. I ended up with enough batter for my 36 liners, and quite a few more that I didn't have pans for. Somehow I knew this wouldn't end well, but I threw them in the oven anyway.

Taking them out after 20 minutes, my suspicions were confirmed. They looked horrible. Most of them had these big hump looking things that had erupted up through the center of the cupcake. Those that didn't, had spread outward across the pan so much that they ripped as soon as I tried to remove them. They were all really moist and squishy, to the point of falling apart, and the tops were totally sticky and ripping chunks out if they got stuck to anything. It was a disaster. There was no way I could take these monstrosities to work with me to pass out to others. Maybe if I had been able to frost them myself to hide the hideous growths, but the whole point of a "Decorate a Cupcake" event was decorating your own cupcake, so these were no good. With no time left to make another batch before work, it looked like I would be baking well into the night (since we don't close until 11pm and I don't get home until at least 11:30) to have them ready by the next morning to take with me.


Not sure if the powdered buttermilk was the issue, or if it was the recipe itself, I decided to try a recipe that didn't require buttermilk. I picked another Martha recipe, again her One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, but from the Baking Handbook this time, which was a little bit different, requiring regular milk, and less liquid overall. The batter, while not as runny as the first, was still pretty liquidy. I ended up only filling up my liners about halfway rather than my usual two-thirds, and they rose up to the top without spilling over or having their weird hump in the middle, so it was sort of a success. I could at least take those to work with me. They were still a little too moist and squishy, and a bit sticky too, but at least they looked presentable.

What I thought would be simple turned into a great big mess, and has challenged me to find the perfect recipe for the next "Decorate a Cupcake" event at Halloween and beyond. I'm determined to find a great chocolate cupcake recipe that I can call my go-to recipe from now on, and not have to worry about runny, humpbacked cupcakes ever again. I'll be searching far and wide for the very best, and I'll definitely need some help. So here's your mission, should you choose to accept it: Send me your go-to chocolate cupcake recipes so I can try them out! Email them to me at the.mistress [at] bustybaker [dot] com !

BTW--A few more questions for you:

1. Does anyone else use powdered buttermilk in their baking? How does it compare to regular buttermilk in the same recipes? Do they come out pretty much the same, or are there differences in texture or taste?

2. Has anyone had a really good success with the Martha One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes in either the Baking Handbook or the Cupcake book? Am I doing something wrong? And is it really necessary to have both liquids in the amounts that they're suggested? I assume the warm water is meant to be used to dissolve the cocoa powder, but the amount of liquids seem excessive to me.

3. Are you wondering what I did with all those broken, ugly, humpbacked cupcakes? Since they tasted fine, it would seem like a waste to throw them away just because they were ugly... Stick around for my next post to find out how they turned into something totally tasty!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, also featured on Martha's website

I'm at Boyfriend's stealing his internet (and some of his food*) while he's at work since my laptop is dead, but of course, stupid me left my cookbook at home, so the recipe is still to come! It is also featured on Martha's website, so if you're dying to try it RIGHT NOW, check it out there. I'm not completely sure it's the exact same as the recipe I used, so I'm going to wait to post it here until I have my book with me. Sorry! It should be up soon!

*I tried stealing some cereal, but who the hell buys only Crunchy Raisin Bran**? Really? Where's the good stuff?? Guess I'm going to have to actually put some effort into breakfast and make myself french toast instead.. I hope his half a bottle of syrup is going to be enough. I like my food to float.
**Apparently he ate all the good stuff first.

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What's more fun than a fresh, delicious cupcake? Decorating your own fresh delicious cupcake! Last weekend, the store I work at hosted a "Decorate a Cupcake" event for the 4th of July, with loads of cupcakes and decorations for kids of all ages to create their own masterpieces! It was the third event of its kind, and the brainchild of Kiesha of 52 Weeks of Baking. She's hosted a Valentine's and Easter event, but the 4th of July is the first I was able to help with! I was so excited! Getting paid to play with cupcakes? Best. Day. Ever.

Kiesha was baking Red Velvet and Vanilla cupcakes, which left me slightly struggling to decide what kind I wanted to make. Chocolate was a must, so one flavor down, but what other flavor would be fun, festive, and kid-friendly?

My original idea was a Confetti Vanilla cupcake, with festive red, white, and blue sprinkles melted into the batter. But the sprinkles I was 100% sure I bought were nowhere to be found. (Probably because I'm now 100% sure I never actually bought them.) So time for Plan B-- Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. What kid doesn't like chocolate chips!

As I do with any baking question or recipe, I consulted Martha first, and sure enough, right there at the beginning of the Cupcakes book was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cupcakes! It's really just a vanilla cupcake with chocolate chips thrown in, so if you've already got a recipe you love, just toss some chocolate chips in a little bit of flour to coat, and fold them into your batter.

They turned out really good! Much better than my chocolate cupcakes, but that's a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother post. The only thing I would do differently is to add a lot more chocolate chips than I did. I used mini's and put in about a cup, but they definitely could have used a bit more. I don't feel they were really chocolate chip-y enough.

I had to hide them at work until it was time for the event, because my coworkers are ravenous when it comes to baked goods. I've seen entire batches of cookies and cupcakes disappear in less than an hour. (Kiesha left threatening notes on hers.) Between the 2 of us we had about 100 cupcakes for decorating, and by the end, about 2 hours later, we had gone through almost all of them! We had tons of kids stop by! (As well as coworkers, Boyfriend, and even my mom!) It was a great turnout, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun! It was so cute watching the looks of intense concentration on the kids' faces as they created the perfect cupcake.

This was Boyfriend's creation

I had a great time and can't wait for the next one! With Kiesha moving to New York very soon, the reins and responsibility of the Halloween event have been turned over to me. Ahh! Time to start planning already! I'm really excited about the amount of candy I'll have to choose from! Now I just have to come up with great flavors! Any ideas of some kid-friendly Halloween flavor ideas?

P.S: Sorry for the lack of pictures on this one. I was not having the greatest time baking, as you'll find out if you stay tuned for my Chocolate Cupcake disaster. And sorry for the very mediocre post in general. I feel completely lost without my laptop, and everything (and everyone) is suffering because of it. Hopefully there will be a new one in the near future, because I don't think I can handle this for much longer! I'm going insane!

Guest Cookbook Review: More From Magnolia by Allysa Torey, Review by Kiesha

More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen by Allysa Torey
Published in 2004 by Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743246613
List Price: $27.00
160pp

Rating	(1 = Worst,	5 = Best)
Presentation		Illustrations
Depth of Information		Practicality
Value		Permanent Library
Gift Giving		Level of Difficulty	Beginning to Average

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When I put up my first post about doing cookbook reviews, I asked if anyone had any suggestions of books they wanted to see. Kiesha of 52 Weeks of Baking jumped on it immediately, suggesting her favorite book, More From Magnolia. She loves this book as much as I love Martha! (And that's a whole lot.) I knew the book had some great stuff in it, cause I've tasted most of the stuff Kiesha's brought into work, and they've all been great! (I'm still mad I had food poisoning and called in sick the day she brought in her creation for her very first blog post--Red Velvet Cake! I really wanted to try that one.) So I picked it up at the library with every intention of writing a really great review. But the more I looked through it, the more I felt I couldn't do it justice. It's best to leave it to the experts. So I asked Kiesha if she would like to write a review of it for me. She agreed, so here she is! And check out her blog after you're done for more Magnolia goodies! (And non-Magnolia goodies too! Seriously. You won't be disappointed. She's the reason I got into this whole blogging thing in the first place!)

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When I was a kid, the most horrifying thing I could imagine was doing anything my mother or grandmother did. Bake cookies? Um, no thanks. Crochet a scarf? Yeah, right. Why would I need to learn how to do these things (or worse, enjoy doing them), when I could just buy them? Why would I want to waste my time on these homemaker-y things? I was a modern girl and baking was sooo 1950's.

And then I went to Magnolia Bakery.


For those who don't bake, or who aren't obsessed with all things cupcake, or who didn't get "Lazy Sunday" e-mailed to them, Magnolia Bakery is one of the premier bakeries in New York City. Nestled on a corner of Bleecker Street in downtown New York, it's an unassuming little storefront that conceals the most ahhhh-mazing cupcakes you'll ever eat. I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. They're life-changing.

After I got home from that particular trip to New York, I found the "More From Magnolia" cookbook somewhere. And I bought it immediately. I'd tried baking some stuff before, but more often than not, my cakes didn't rise correctly, or my cookies would burn, or my cupcakes would be dry. "More From Magnolia" turned me into a baker.

I'm pretty sure I'd always skipped reading introductions to cookbooks previously, because I thought I knew everything. But with "More From Magnolia", I wanted to read every word, soak up every thought that led to the creation of these magnificent cupcakes. And by doing that, I learned that it's important that your butter and eggs be at room temperature, that you should precisely measure your flour, that a sifter is a good tool to have hanging around the kitchen. Now that I've read some other cookbook introductions, I see that this one is not revolutionary, but the style is written in a fun, non-intimidating way that teaches you what you need to know.

The book is divided into eight sections (Coffee Cakes/Quick Breads/Breakfast Buns, Cookies, Brownies/Bar Cookies, Pies/Tarts, Cheese Pies/Cheesecakes, Cupcakes/Layer Cakes, Ice Creams/Icebox Desserts and Icings/Frostings/Sauces). None of the recipes are the least bit daunting, and they all feature ingredients that are readily available at most grocery stores.

My only complaint with the book is the lack of photos. The design is lovely and quite homey, with green and black print on white pages, and cute black and white photos of desserts or flowers or aprons leading off each chapter. But each recipe does not have a photo of its own, and there are only eight pages of color photos, featuring roughly 20 of the baked goods (although some are hidden in jars in the back of the photo, so they're not easily seen). I'd love to see how closely my results have matched up with the author's.

Don't worry, though, that cover photo of rows upon rows of cupcakes will have you drooling in the aisles of your local bookstore.

At $27.00, it's a little pricey, but I've personally found it worth it's weight in gold. I've made about 15 things out of this book and not a single one of them failed. To me, that's the sign of a well-written and well-researched cookbook. And it inspired me to expand my horizons, and try out things that were a little harder. This would make an excellent gift for someone itching for a chance to progress beyond boxed baked goods.

Stand Out Recipes:

• Magnolia's Vanilla Cupcakes
• Iced Ginger Cookies
• Pear Streusel Breakfast Buns
• Red Velvet Cake with Creamy Vanilla Frosting
• Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust

Kiesha Jenkins-Duffy bakes up an assortment of goodies at http://www.52weeksofbaking.com. An Ohio native, she'll be moving with her husband to Brooklyn in August, where she plans to eat her way through all the bakeries of New York City.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

Brown Sugar Pound Cake
From Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
Makes two 8 1/2-by-4 1/2 inch loaves (I halved the recipe to make 1 loaf)

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
3 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Butter two 8 1/2-by-4 1/2 inch loaf pans; set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add eggs one at a time beating until combined.

3. Add the reserved flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, and smooth with an offset spatula.

4. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until cakes are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the centers come out clean, about 1 hour. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cakes onto the rack to cool completely. Cakes can be kept at room temperature, wrapped well in plastic, for up to 3 days.

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Happy Kind-of Belated Birthday America! (Hey, it's still technically the birthday weekend so it's not totally belated yet.) This weekend, from coast to coast, and sea to shining sea, we collectively fired up our grills to do some outdoor dining. We stuffed ourselves full of hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans and potato salad. But what about dessert? Apple Pie is an All-American classic, but what about when we gather, at dusk, on blankets to watch the skies light up in a rainbow of colors? Pie doesn't travel quite so well. I need something sturdy enough to take on a picnic, but great enough to be the star of the afternoon cookout too. I need Pound Cake.

I've been feeling a bit uninspired lately. I'm currently without a computer, (let's just say the cat made his feelings known about how much time I was spending online...) and my lack of internet access means a lack of blog browsing for inspiration. With the holidays approaching, I knew I wanted to make something sort of festive, but I had no idea what. Usually, that's when I turn to you guys and your amazing blogs for ideas, but without them, I was stuck with only cookbooks. I didn't feel up to my sugar cookies (I'll have enough of that at the end of this month... you'll see!), and with 2 cupcake recipes to make for an event at work over the weekend (more on this later too!), I didn't really want to make cupcakes either. I was down to the last bit of time to bake before the weekend, and I was running dangerously low on options. Finally, flipping through my Martha Baking Handbook, I came across a recipe for Brown Sugar Pound Cake. With only a little more than a handful of ingredients and a bit of time, it was simple and absolutely perfect for my uninspired mind.

Not overly sweet, the pound cake is perfect to serve at a backyard barbecue, sliced up and topped with whipped cream and some fresh summer berries. Leave it plain and wrap it up, and you've got a perfect portable sweet treat for a picnic! I sliced mine into thick pieces and packed it in my bag to take with me downtown to the annual Red, White, and Boom fireworks on Friday night. We got there early to stake out our spot, and had about 3 hours to kill before it got dark. Unfortunately, I was so full of free hot dogs and funnel cakes that I didn't really get to eat much else while we waited. (The 2nd funnel cake was a bit more than I could handle, but who could turn down a free funnel cake? Certainly not me. Gotta love knowing people that work in the food booths!) I guess it's a good thing I had about 2 pieces of cake before we left! (Hey. It was good. Don't judge my overindulgence.) The fireworks were great! The waiting 40 minutes in the parking garage to go home wasn't. But I had fun anyway!

Pound cake is the perfect dessert for the perfect summer day, so try it out next time you're headed to the park or the lake (or the ocean for some of you lucky people). Go ahead and unwrap a slice for a quick bite while you're hiking. Who needs that boring trail mix or granola bar when you can have cake! You'll probably have to wait until next year to enjoy it under fireworks, but there's still plenty of time to have a midnight snack under the stars! So what are you waiting for?

Cookbook Review: CakeLove by Warren Brown

CakeLove by Warren Brown
Published in 2008 by Stewart, Tabori, and Chang
ISBN: 978-1-58479-662-6
List Price: $27.50
223pp

Rating	(1 = Worst,	5 = Best)
Presentation		Illustrations
Depth of Information		Practicality
Value		Permanent Library
Gift Giving		Level of Difficulty	Average
Overall

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I picked this book up on a whim at the library the other day. The title, Cakelove, just jumped out at me. Who doesn’t love cake? I’d seen it around a few times, but never had the chance to take a look at it. Since I brought it home, I’ve read through it several times, yet I’m still at a bit of a loss for what to say about it. It’s one of those books that I have mixed feelings about. There are things I really like about the book, yet the same things also turn me off from it. Could that possibly make any sense?

I almost skipped over the introduction, thinking it would probably be more of the usual, “this is a spatula. This is chocolate.” I’m glad I didn’t, because it’s the first introduction to a cookbook I’ve read that I felt like I actually learned something from. Finally! A book with a bit of science behind it! So many books merely list ingredients and tools, never telling you why you’re using certain ingredients or why you’re doing certain steps. As a bit of a science nerd, I appreciate that Cakelove goes into details about ingredients and their role in baking, such as the different kinds of flour, their gluten content, and the effect that they have on your cakes. It’s the first time I’ve read an introduction all the way through and actually enjoyed it.

This is about where my admiration for the book and its science textbook feel comes to an end though. I do like that the instructions in each recipe include both conventional and convection oven temperatures and times, that there are adjustments for high altitude baking, there are both mass and volume measurements, and variations for alcohol-free recipes. But it’s some of the directions themselves that bother me. One step in the directions for each recipe reads, “Mix on medium speed for 15 to 20 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.” There’s just something about that statement that grates on me. Yeah, it's telling me why I'm doing certain things, but really? Develop the batter's structure? I could have done without that explanation. There are other little comments here and there throughout the book that just strike me funny, and make me feel like it’s gone past the point of knowledgeable, and bordering very closely on pretentious. If only the textbook feel had stayed within the confines of the introduction, and not spilled over into the recipes themselves.

I’m also a bit perturbed that every single recipe in the book calls for potato starch (his secret ingredient). What’s the point of buying an entire thing of potato starch that I’ll use 2 tablespoons of and never touch again? It would be fine if I was planning on baking my way through the whole book, and using a good amount of it, but I’m not. So I'm not going to waste my money... And it’s funny that for all the effort put in to provide substitutions, variations, and adjustments on the recipes, a replacement for potato starch is conspicuously missing.

Looking past my hypocritical irritation, the rest of the book is decent. The pictures of the recipes are very good, although I’m not a huge fan of the presentation of the recipes themselves. They have more of a “rustic” feel, with the frosting being just slathered on, or heaped on between layers, and never actually spread, which I’m not too fond of. I’m more of a “perfect presentation” kind of person, but that’s just me. And for all its depth of information about baking, it doesn’t seem like there’s much depth in the actual practice. Reading through the recipes, they all pretty much sounded like the same thing over and over again. Oh look, another Bundt Cake. It seems like there’s at least 20 of them. (Well I was close. There’s actually 18.) And something about the “Crunchy Feet” just bugs the hell out of me. (They’re just glorified cupcakes baked in a brioche pan, but they annoy me for some reason.) Maybe it’s just me hating on the book now, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of variety here. And definitely not enough to keep me coming back for more.

I don’t know. Something about this book rubbed me the wrong way, and I think it’s blocking me from appreciating it the way it probably should be. I probably won’t own this book ever, but that shouldn’t stop you from checking it out and forming your own opinions about it. Especially if you’re a science nerd, or know someone who is. Who knows. It could be just the book you're looking for.

Stand Out Recipes:

• Chocolate Pound Cake
• Chocolate Cherry Chip Cupcakes
• Tres Leches Butter Cake
• Cinnamon and Cream Layer Cake
• Black Forest Cake