Hostest with the.... well, something...

This past weekend, Biscuit and I decided to entertain his parents for dinner. They took us on a trip to Telluride, Colorado and we wanted to do our part to thank them. That means Biscuit hit the floors to gather up the dust bunnies, and it means I made a mess in the kitchen. Baking could not commence until I had properly organized my baking cabinet.

In order to spruce things up, Biscuit and I bought some new place mats and napkins to make the house look a little more spring. Speaking of spring, I also found a great deal on some new springform pans, so of course I had to indulge in purchasing those. Saturday night required us to develop our menu and then shop for all the things we needed to make the night a success. Once the shopping was all over, I needed to settle into an evening of baking. Biscuit watched several episodes of Kitchen Nightmares and had a brew or two, while I slipped into something a little more comfortable and began to preheat the oven.

My first indulgence was a recipe from a book called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey from my sister. This book is designed for the chocoholic in all of us! I settled on a blondie brownie recipe. Never having been a big fan of baking brownies from scratch, this recipe did nothing to sway me in a new direction. These things were tasty and loaded to the gills with toffee, white and semi-sweet chocolate, coconut flakes, and butterscotch, but they still required more than 30 minutes in length than the recommended baking time. That, of course, leaves the edges slightly scorched and crunchy, while part of the brownie itself remains just barely cooked. When they were still warm, they were less than impressive... however, once they cooled, boy, were they ever tasty. The interesting thing that Biscuit and I both discovered was that, despite the amount of nutty, morsely goodness that I packed into these brownies, they never felt heavy or dense. The batter kept them moist and light. They were quite delicious. They looked even better once they were cooled, cut up, and stacked onto a plate.

I did not sleep very well Saturday night in anticipation of Sunday so I got up pretty early, despite Daylight Saving Times, and began cleaning and baking. The night before I had peeled and grated over a pound of carrots to make my first ever carrot cake. Charlie loves carrot cake, and I had recently saw it on a dessert menu somewhere but did not order it. I decided to give it a whirl. This was a modification of Martha Stewart's Carrot Ginger cupcakes which can be found here. The carrots were very moist and yielded a similarly moist batter that divided perfectly into two 9" pans. Just like the blondie brownies, it seemed to take much longer than the recommended time to bake, causing me to ponder whether purchasing an internal oven thermometer might be a good idea. The good news is that the cake turned out springy to the touch. For the first time ever, I actually let my cake cool to real coolness before trying to work with it. I removed the cakes from the cake pans and let the cakes sit on a cooling rack for almost 4 hours. When I finally went to cut the cake with a serrated blade and was able to taste the scraps, I was pretty impressed with my own handiwork. The cake was beyond moist and very flavorful. I whipped up a simple cream cheese frosting (realizing that in order to do this correctly, it must be FULL FAT cream cheese, none of this 1/3 less fat baloney!). Having read the Baking Handbook, I found out that one step to a flawless cake is to apply a crumb coating of frosting to the cake, then allowing it to chill for at least thirty minutes. This locks in any of the crumbly bits that might taint an otherwise beautiful frosting job.

I left this bad boy to chill in the fridge and lock in those crumbs, and realized that I needed to feed my Biscuit some breakfast. He was quietly snoozing away as I was running a few last minute errands, but the love of my life deserved something sweet for breakfast. He noticed a recipe in one of my books for sticky buns. These differed from the yeast-based dough I used when I made sticky buns over the summer. The recipe this weekend actually called for buttermilk biscuits, which I made from scratch. These came out really well, and though the recipe states that they are best served warm and fresh the day they are made, these actually tasted even better the second day - ask Mom and Charlie, and Biscuit's parents who each got to indulge in some of these!

After a sugar-powered breakfast it was back to baking for me. Biscuit continued to spruce up the house - helping to make the dining room look this good. The weather certainly helped, too. I opened all the windows to let some fresh air in. We got some plants and flowers to put around the house, too, trying to ignore the fact we knew that snow was coming. We wanted to make the day as perfect as possible, even right down to the little finishing touches. These picutres of the plants were all taken before Elaine decided to nibble on them.



My next job was to start the planned dessert for the evening. I was going to try my hand at a chocolate souffe cake. As my dedicated blog readers know, I do not have much experience in working with egg whites. I always get nervous. And this was a big one. This souffle require a pound of chocolate and 8, count them, e-i-g-h-t, eggs. Yikes. I barely had a bowl big enough to whip these things together. I was even nervous about what stiff peaks really look like. I didn't want to overbeat anything. The success of this evening hung in the balance of my ability to make a really great dessert - well, not really... but sort of! Stiff peaks formed, as you can see. The next challenge was melting the chocolate with the butter until it was just right. That came out looking something like this. I used bittersweet chocolate for the cake. Since the recipe called for a little bourbon, I feared using semi-sweet chocolate, in order to not make it overwhelmingly sweet. I think it was the right decision.

I had a lot of fun trying to get the airy 8 egg whites mixed with the yolks and pounds of butter and chocolate. As I was incorporating them, it did start to look quite beautiful. It baked FOREVER, partially because I used a 9" springform pan instead of the recommended 10". Yeah, remember how I said that I bought new springform pans? I bought an 8", a 9", and an 11". They had every size but the 10". In retrospect, I realize I should have probably baked the cake in the 11" and had the batter spread around a bit more, but it all worked out in the end. The sides did cave in a little, but it was nothing that some ice cream and strawberries couldn't help!

And as for the carrot cake you ask? Well, it looked as great as it tasted! Before Biscuit's parents rolled in, I was doing my final finishing touches on the carrot cake. I frosted it with absolutely the most dreamiest of all dreamy cream cheese frostings. I also took Martha Stewart's advice and made some lovely marzipan carrots. I colored a piece of maripan with orange gel food coloring, using just the tipity tip of a tooth pick. I rolled the marzipan into the shape of a carrot and scored the carrot with the toothpick, making the impressions and indents typical of a farm-grown carrot. Then I rolled the candy carrot in some crushed Oreo crumbs to resemble dirt. The cake ended up looking awesome. I used fresh dill to replicate the carrot greens. I have since read that you can also use candied lime peel, which would probably compliment the sweet taste of the cake better than the dill would, especially if you ended up with an accidental mouthful of the green stuff!

Biscuit's mom, after a rousing round of Guitar Hero, inquired as to whether there was a bake sale going on in the dining room that she didn't know about. Here is the spread of offerings. To the left is the finished souffle, the center is obviously the carrot cake, and to the right are the blondie brownies. Most of the food remained untouched, including the carrot cake. Knowing that a beautiful carrot cake would not go to waste, I packaged it up and planned on bringing it over to Charlie on Monday. To me that was the crown jewel of the evening and the baking accomplishment that to date I am most proud of.

Now to a less than marvelous baking accomplishment. I am a frequent reader of the Rachael Ray magazine. I think it is quirky and cute, and really love the dessert ideas that editor Silvana Nardone comes up with (because we all know Rachael does not bake!). This month it was PB&B Cloud Cookies. Holy yum! These were inspired by "The Elvis," the sandwich Elvis used to eat that was peanut butter and bananas on bread, then deep-fried. This was actually a peanut butter meringue cookie recipe that was iced with a light, fluffy banana frosting.

No one I talked to seemed to mind the idea of the peanut butter meringues, though no one seemed to like the notion of banana frosting. The cookie recipe was uber simple - 4 egg whites beaten to stiff peaks with 1/4 tsp of salt. Once stiff, add 1.5 cups of confectioner's sugar that has been sifted. Continue to beat until glossy, thick, and well-mixed. After that, fold in a cup of peanut butter. Bake these kittens at 350 degrees for twenty minutes, rotating halfway through baking. I must admit the best tasting cookies were the ones that baked slightly less than twenty minutes. They had the texture that most closely resembled the traditional meringue cookie. I frosted the cookies with a very light coating of the banana frosting - a mere 2 tbs. of softened butter, 1.5 cups of confectioner's sugar, 1/2 tsp. of lemon juice, and 3 tbs. of mashed banana (which is the equivalent of one whole large banana squished with a potato masher). As always, I added just a teensy drop of vanilla extract.
I smeared this stuff on the cookies after they cooled and topped them with chopped salted peanuts. Personally, I ate these cookies until I nearly made myself ill. I loved them that much. The combination of salty and sweet was just enough to do it for me. Biscuit, on the other hand, could not finish an entire cookie. Knowing his texture issues and all, I wasn't too surprised. However, I did not want to impose my bizarre taste experience on anyone who was not willing. I kept these to myself instead of bringing them to work or sharing them with people who may not like them. Phooey to those who think peanut butter cookies would not be enhanced by banana frosting!

There will be more to post later on this weekend. I have to come up with something creative to bake for a St. Patrick's Day dinner on Saturday, and I have cake decorating class again on Monday. Mom and I will each have to prepare a cake and frost it to bring into class on Monday. We will then be adding decorations to the cake in class Monday night. I simply cannot wait! Any night when I am surrounded by pounds of cake and frosting cannot be a bad thing!