Blackberry Bottoms

Okay, so I tweeted that I was going to attempt these cupcakes a couple days ago. I did, and here they are for your inspection.

I had purchased some gorgeous fat blackberries from the farmers market last weekend, and I knew I wanted to use them in a dessert. I chickened out on a pie. Plus, I don't like pie. Instead, I went with cupcakes. I intended for these to be buttermilk vanilla cupcakes with blackberry centers/filling. Instead what happened is the berries were too heavy and fell through the batter as they baked, ending up on the bottom of each cupcake. So I rechristened them Blackberry Bottoms.

That's the bad news. Construction, fail.

The good news? They still tasted real delicious. Kind of muffin-esque. And all that means is that I can convincingly eat them as a breakfast food. Oh. Yes.


Plus, you can't tell there's anything awry at all... very innocent and proper looking...


Until... chomp chomp. The blackberries have been located.

Cupcakes Two Ways

Yesterday I had fun experimenting with two new frostings for cupcakes, and got some lovely results!

First up was strawberry buttercream, made with some fresh strawberries. I cut off the very edges of the berries to get rid of the seed thingies, and then smashed them up and blended them in with some vanilla buttercream. I piped that onto the dark chocolate fudge cupcakes and great googly moogly, did they turn out beautifully!


Next I made some chocolate buttercream with half semi-sweet and half dark chocolate. I figured that would cut nicely the sweetness of the sugar in the frosting. I crushed some cocoa-roasted almonds (such as these) and dusted the tops of the cupcakes to finish. YUMMY.


One of the perils of piping with buttercream frosting is that it is suceptible to heat. Since it is made with butter, it can get melty sitting at room temperature or go soft from the heat of your hand in the piping bag. But I can't bear to make frosting with shortening, which gives it this greasy sort of taste, so I just tried to keep the frosting cool at the various stages of decorating, and it seemed to work out okay. The chocolate, in fact, gave me some trouble because it wasn't very pliable after I stuck the piping bag in the fridge for a few minutes. I had to knead it around a bit to get it working. But to me the taste of real butter in the frosting is totally worth it.

Next I think I am going to make my first attempt at some sort of cake or cupcake with a filling... stay tuned!

Bread Maker, RIP

Last time I was home I snagged my parents' old school bread machine. I had visions in my mind of my childhood days, when the smell of fresh baked bread wafting through the house was practically a daily treat. Since my parents carbed-down their diets, the machine had been sitting unused and unloved in my parents' basement.

So I brought it back to Nashville with me, and oh! Was I ever excited! I would be the bread queen, whipping up loaves of bread for gifts, kneading fresh pizza dough for dinner, experimenting with recipes and running 'round my kitchen in an adorable apron covered in flour.

Never mind that the machine was probably - and this is a conservative guess - ten years old. Never mind that it last functioned as a life-size stand-in for R2-D2. Together, we would still make beautiful bread.

And we did! I started with a beloved classic, some white Italian bread. Crusty on the outside, tender on the inside. Toasted and slathered with butter, it filled my breakfasts with its simple grained goodness.

I made another loaf of that. It was just as good.

Then I got crazy. I decided it was time for pizza dough. I bought sauce. I bought turkey pepperoni. I bought mozzarella. I was Miss Suzy Breakmaker. I was unstoppable!

The bread machine, alas, was not.

Halfway through the dough cycle, it abandoned its adorable side-to-side shuffle movement with gentle whirring, and began rocking wildly about while making a painful growling grinding sound. No amount of stopping and starting would aid its suffering.

Ben came home and gave a listen. The diagnosis was not good. A couple weeks later, he and my dad took it apart on the garage floor to scavenge for salvageable parts. Time of death, 11:42 am.

So rest-in-peace, my sweet old gal. Someday I might invest in a modern bread machine, but I'll always remember the good times we had. Specifically the cheddar cheese bread times.

Magical Mystery Cake

YOU GUYS. We need to talk. I baked a cake this week. A very special cake. Oh sure, at first glance it is just a delicious chocolatey concoction. See?


But I have to tell you how triumphant I feel that inside this cake is a secret ingredient. A secret HEALTHY ingredient. And just eating this cake you would be none the wiser. You would never know unless I tell you. Which I am going to. Right now.

Baked inside this cake is... BEETS. Yes, that's right, these:


I'll wait until you stop gagging. There, better?

Now let me start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). We are participating in a CSA program this year. This stands for "community supported agriculture" or some people also call it a co-op. Basically we bought a share in a local farm (Beaverdam Creek Farm) and so from now through September we will get a basket of fresh local grown fruits and veggies every week. The biggest catch is that you don't control what you get; you just have to find a way to make it work. So if you get, say, a bunch of beets, and you've been told (having never tasted them yourself due to lifelong pickiness) that beets are exceedingly gross, well tough for you. You've got these beets and you better find a way to use them.

I determined right away not to rest until I had found a way to disguise the beets in some baked goods. You can do it with other veggies like zuchinni and carrots and what not. So I ask you, why not beets?!! And lo and behold, I came across this recipe. The reviews looked extremely encouraging, and aside from the beets all the ingredients were simple and things I had on hand.

So, without further ado, I present, in pictures, my journey in baking a beet cake.

First step. Boil the beets until they are tender, and then puree them in the blender. While baking, the beets mostly smelled like a very strong earthy potato smell. Nothing too terrible. And the color is really quite beautiful, like a rich rasberry purple. But I'll admit beets in a blender can look kind of gruesome.


Here's all the other ingredients you will need. Really a very simple list!


Next you start the batter. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, etc.


Now the chocolate... mmm... chocolate...


Blend in the chocolate along w/ the beets. Let me interject the only change to the recipe I made. When I pureed the beets (I had four medium sized ones) I didn't end up w/ quite the two cups that was called for. I made up the difference w/ canned pumpkin. So that worked well if you run into the same problem. The batter turns into this really cool purpley brown.


Grease and flour your bundt pan - for most chocolate cakes, here's a fun hint. Instead of flouring the pan w/ flour, use cocoa powder. It will taste yummy and also look prettier on your finished cake. Pour in the batter... looks cool huh?! Into the oven it goes.


Now is a good time to clean up your kitchen. Get rid of the beet evidence.


Ding! Time for cake! Oh, look at you, delicious and normal looking cake. What beets? Beets in this cake? You must be crazy... (laugh and distract).


The recipe doesn't call for it but just in case I made a chocolate glaze frosting to drizzle heavily over the cake. You know, just to be sure. And it makes it look extra pretty!


Now you have a splendid cake, very lovely, and YOU know there are beets in it and I know there are beets in it but NOBODY ELSE HAS TO KNOW. Your secret is safe with me.

So what are you waiting for? Make your own magical mystery cake today!

Thirty Thousand Pounds of Banana (Bread)

I know I said this would be posted last night... so even though I am typing this on the afternoon of the 5th, I am changing the post date to May 4 at 11:59 pm. That's the kind of POWER I have! Mwahahahahaha!

Ahem. Sorry.

So the title of this post is after a weird/funny Harry Chapin folk song from the 70s. Why is that what popped into my head when I was making this banana bread? Your guess is as good as mine.

Now here's the thing. I really hate bananas. I don't even like banana flavored things because, as I like to think of it, banana is a "bossy" flavor that usually overpowers any other flavor in it's vicinity. BUT for some reason, I like this banana bread. Really! Truly! I don't know if the nuttiness of it tempers the banana flavor or what but this is one banana-y baked good I can get behind.

Anyhoo, let's make this bread! Get your ingredients together... mixing bowl, loaf pan (grease it), flour, sugar, shortening, eggs, some smushy old bananas, salt, baking powder and baking soda, and some pecans. Well, that's my favorite nut, but if you'd prefer something else, knock yourself out. (This is my current overused catchphrase of choice. Knock yourself out. I can't stop saying it.)

Go ahead and measure out the flour, soda, powder, and salt and stir together. Then in a seperate bowl, cream your shortening and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and blend well. Look at that sunny little egg all ready to give itself up to the good of the recipe.


Now chop up the nuts and stir them in:


I didn't take pictures of the next two steps because, to be honest, they were kind of gross looking. Nothing pretty about pulverized overripe bananas, folks.

Speaking of, keep in mind that for this recipe, the couple-days-past-ripe bananas are best. So long as they aren't rotten, it's okay if the peels are turning brown and the banana inside is kinda squishy. This just makes the flavor a little better and also makes them easier to mash up. So just get your bananas, peel em, and smush em up real good. Nice and smooth.

What you want to do at this point is alternate between adding the flour mixture and the smushed banana to the creamed butter/sugar/eggs bowl. Blend well after each addition. At the end you'll have a nice batter that isn't too runny.

Pour that into your pre-greased loaf pan:

Now bake! 350 degrees for about 55 minutes. The finished bread should (a) smell divine and (b) be a wonderful brown color that is probably cracked in a few places. Such as:


I cooled it in the pan for just a few minutes and then popped it out and let it cool on a wire rack. Make sure it is completely cooled before you wrap it up or else the moisture will make it soggy!


When it is all cool, wrap in wax paper or a large ziplock to store. Or, you know, just slice it open right then and try a piece. Or two. Who could resist this?


Recipe Ingredients & Amounts:
1 ¾ cup sifted flour
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon soda
¾ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
½ cup chopped nuts
1 cup banana pulp (2-3 ripe bananas)

Happy baking!

Blogging Fail

Sorry it has been far too long since I have blogged about anything, and a really long time since I blogged about baking. Just, you know, life happened. More specifically GMA Music Week and the Dove Awards, our two biggest events at work, happened and I was there from beginning to end! I want to blog about that, I have two baking blogs to post (including my experience with my new/old breadmachine), I have pictures from home and scrapbooking stuff and I joined a gym - all sorts of good blogging material and just no time to post!

Actually, that's not entirely true. I've had a little time to post. But every time I sit down I only want to post about one thing: baseball.

Call it my own version of spring fever, but I've got baseball on the brain. You probably thought my last post got it out of my system, but no! My team keeps winning, my favorite players keep being awesome, and ESPN keeps running Baseball Tonight. I even went on Comcast's website to figure out if there was any way I could order just Fox Sports Midwest (answer: no) so I could watch all the Cardinals games.

"I love baseball this much!"

In fact, I have another baseball blog in the works right now. For those of you who could give a rat's fanny about baseball and my drooling over it, don't worry. I'm throwing you a bone with an entry on Banana Nut Bread. Just have to add the recipe and I will try and post tonight!

Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

Now that I've got that Eurythmics song stuck in your head, I'm free to share with you the latest in my series on yummy things I've been baking.

This is one of my all time favorites, and a family classic. Here's what we're cooking: Italian Creme Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. It makes a spectacularly beautiful triple layer cake but I wanted to send some to Ben's office and some to mine so I made it cupcake style.

So get your gear together... really basic ingredients. The only things you might not have on hand (unless you're a baker too) are buttermilk and pecans. Every thing else is common-found kitchen stuff.


This cake, like many others, asks you to separate the egg yolks and whites for two different steps in the recipe. You always want to do this first because the egg whites do best when they are allowed to get near room temperature. I always learned it was best to put them in a metal bowl, too. So here you go:


Now (and again this is the common first step in baking) cream the butter, shortening, and sugar together. I liked this action shot:


Then add the eggs and beat that together. Next you alternately add the buttermilk/vanilla and the flour/baking soda/salt mixture. You'll end up with a very pretty thick cake batter. Mmmm.


Now for the finishing touches on the batter. Time to chop those pecans. I use my sweet hand mixer attachment but a food processor would work too, or I suppose you could chop them by hand if you're feeling crazy. I mean ambitious. I like to get them into very fine pieces. Now you see them:


Now you don't!


Now stir those into the batter by hand. Next, time to beat the snot out of those egg whites. If you sort of tilt the bowl and hold it then use a hand mixer and just kind of beat them against the side of the bowl, it works well. Beat until very stiff, so that when you pull the beaters out they leave little peaks. I also think a good sign is if you sort of tilt the bowl and the whole mess moves as one blob that you could slide out in one piece. Such as:


Now gingerly fold the egg whites into the batter. I would recommend using a soft spatula. You really want to preserve the fluffiness of the egg whites as you stir it into the batter. It might take a few minutes to do it properly, but it will be worth it. It should feel like the amount of batter has increased and changed consistency to be a little lighter and fluffier and thinner. But not runny!

Off to the cupcake pan with you! Do NOT overfill the cups; this cake expands a lot and then sinks down once out of the oven, so if it spills over the edges you'll be in trouble. It will still taste good, but won't be as pretty.


They bake up to be a lovely toasted brown color, and as I mentioned they will sink a little in the middle as they cool. Fear not, we're going to cover that with frosting. Little naked cupcakes prepare for their coats:


Whip up a little cream cheese frosting, give them a healthy dose, and voila. Done. Maybe garnish with a pecan or some pecan crumbs if you feel so inclined. Look how keeeeeyoooooote!


I defy you not to like this cake. People who don't like nuts like it. People who don't like cream cheese (me) like it. People who don't like people like it. I don't know what it is about the combination of flavors but yum! Recommended for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I don't have the recipe on hand as I'm typing this up at Ben's office, but I will post it when I get home or you can always message me and I'll share it. Happy baking!

They Were Scones!

That title is a play off of the "they were cones" line from Wedding Singer, thank you very much.

So this weekend I had a Pride & Prejudice Scrapbooking Slumber Party with some friends. Which is exactly what it sounds like: we sat around my living room all scrapping while we watched the complete six hour BBC miniseries version of Pride & Prejudice, broke to sleep for a few hours, then woke up and finished the movie. To make it thoroughly British, we made tea and scones for breakfast. This was my first scones making experience, and I decided to take some pictures while Jenny and I baked. Please keep in mind, the scone-making process is more legitimate if you do it with a very proper English accent.

My friend Jenny was already started by the time I woke up, so this picks up as we're mixing up the last step of the dough. The scones recipe we used can be found here.

Did I mention these were chocolate chip scones? Mmmm. See the dough?


Don't overmix! This seems to be a cardinal rule for many pastries. This dough should just barely come together, so don't overdo it on the buttermilk. Once you have your dough done, plop it on a well-floured countertop.

Now you're going to roll it into a fat round shape, and then cut it into eighths. We used a pizza cutter, which worked awesome for the process!



Once you have them placed on the parchment paper on the cookie sheet, brush w/ the egg and milk mixture. I have the coolest little silicone basting brush. Look how fun and green it is!


Sprinkle with a little cinnimon and sugar. Now off they go to the oven!

Once they have baked, it is time for the finishing touch. Dust with powdered sugar...


Then broil very briefly to melt and brown the tops. Jenny demonstrates the quick speed needed for the broiling step - just keep the oven door open and turn them quickly. A few seconds is just about all you'll need.


Now, step back and admire their beauty. Ooooooh.


Aaaaaaah.


Now consume with a cup of tea and a side of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. A delicious breakfast indeed.

It's Brookie Time

I have to start this post with a disclaimer. I did not invent the concept of the Brookie. I'm not sure who first decided, "Hey, let's see what happens if we make a half-brownie half-cookie cupcake," although I'd like to find that person and shake them warmly by the hand. I do know where I first experienced them, and that was in Estes Park, Colorado on my 25th birthday last year. My parents found the Brookies at the cute Estes Park Pie Shop & Bakery... you have to love a place where their slogan is "You Need Pie!" Perhaps they invented the Brookie idea there, or perhaps they merely invented the name. Whatever the case may be, I mean, hello. It was just crying out for me to try my own hand at it.

I actually made a batch right away when we got back to Nashville, but I didn't document them, and they were quickly and violently consumed. So last night when I felt like baking but was a little cupcaked-out, I decided... it's Brookie time!

Now, a more purist baker than I (and one who doesn't start at 11:00 pm) might decide to make both brownie batter and chocolate chip cookie batter from scratch for this project. Good news for the rest of us: I am not that girl. So this is REAL simple. Here is what you will need:

Brownie mix (and eggs/oil/water to make batter) and break-and-bake cookie dough. I got both items that said to bake at 350 degrees. Ta-da, ingredients, CHECK.


Oh, and one cupcake pan, greased and ready to go.


Pay attention, here's where it gets tricky. (I lied just then. None of this is remotely tricky.) Make the brownie batter.


Ummmmmmmmmmmmmy. Eat as much of the batter as you see fit. No one is watching. No one is judging.

Now scoop it into the cupcake pan, filling each cup about 1/2 full. I used my handy dandy scooper thing. You have no idea the contortionistic way in which I took this picture. I think I pressed the shutter button with my chin.


Now bake the brownie batter for... I'd say 7-9 minutes. Remove from oven but keep oven on b/c they're going right back in just a sec.

Okay, time to introduce the cookie into the mix! I smooshed off some dough - maybe like a smidge less than the actual full break-off chunk - and then just pushed it right down as far as it would go into the middle of the half-cooked brownie cup. It will probably make some of the uncooked brownie goo ooze up around the cookie. This is fine.


A note: the original brookies we bought and the first set I made where side-by-side, a ying-yang of brownie to cookie. This is yummy but I found it difficult for baking times and also the cookie and brownie halves tended to want to split apart down the middle after they had cooled from baking. Thus this time I improvised with the push-it-in-the-middle method and I found it to work much better.

Okay, back in the oven with you, brookies! Now this time cook for 9-10 more minutes. Maybe one or two more, depending on if they look done.


Well hello lovahs!

I gave 'em a minute or two and then pried them out of the pan w/ a fork. This was probably not the best idea because they were still very soft and wanted to smoosh in on the softer center and I nearly ruined a few of them. I would recommend waiting a little longer til they've cooled a touch more. Then they might come out easier.

Aren't they cute? Being all brookielicious.


A whole batch of Brookies just for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I mean, to share. Yes. Sharing is good.


Here's what one looks like cut down the center. That's what I call a winning combination.


And that is how you make a brookie. Let me know if anyone else tries these out and how it goes for you. Happy Baking!