Sugar Nerd Lives! (or how Catholic guilt will eventually get you)

I've had a recurring nightmare ever since my last post in June.  In it, I am in a church waiting to go to confession.  I have the same sweaty palms, nausea, and panic I had when going to confession when I was a little girl.  I enter the confessional timidly.  This isn't the modern face-to-face confession where you get to look the priest in the eye while you tell him all the stupid things you've done lately. This is the old-school, kneel-behind-the-screen confession where you hear the swish of the divider being lifted and you can see a shadowy spectre of someone...is it Father Murray or is it....the Big Man?  In this case it is the Blog gods, and the conversation goes something like this:

SUGAR NERD:  Forgive me Blogosphere, for I have sinned.  It has been 8 months since my last post.

BLOG GODS:  Tell us your sins, child.

SUGAR NERD:  Well, I have neglected my Sugar Nerd readers - all 17 of them.  You see, I finally got a job and I have been very busy working and being tired from working.  And then, the video game Skyrim came out.  I had to keep leveling up so I could buy a house to store my Gauntlet of Major Axe Wielding, Circlet of Extreme Alchemy and Petty Soul Gems. You do get to cook in this game, so I felt like I was doing something culinary, even if it was boiling charred Skeever tail and Giant's toe.  I have also been trying to make a good vegan dessert, which seems impossible.  And I used the Lord's name in vain.  A lot.

BLOG GODS: You have gone astray.  We hereby absolve you from your sins.  For your penance, you must make that Nancy Silverton almond apple strudel you read about in the newspaper, and those Thomas Keller brownies you've been seeing all over Pinterest.  Also, you must get back to the blog!  Those 17 people vaguely miss you, and your Mother is mad she hasn't had anything to forward to her friends in a long time.   Also, stop cursing.  It is possible to make a delicious vegan dessert, you'll figure it out. Now go in peace to bake and serve the blog.  Amen.

I exit the confessional with that strangely cleansing and euphoric feeling one experiences after confession, which is probably similar to what someone feels when they beat death or find a designer dress in their size at a Barney's sale.  Before the dream ends, I recall wishing I was Jewish where there is no confession and you get to eat a lot of pastry.

Believe me, I have been very happy to have a job again.  I do miss those days, though, where I could spontaneously bake the day away, dancing around the kitchen in my useless but oh-so-cute vintage apron and nerding out over the sheen of a good dark chocolate or my new rose-cinnamon spice.   I haven't stopped baking, though, just dialed it back a bit.  Before I dive back into more regular Sugar Nerd posts, here are a few of the happy confections (some not as happy) that I busted out in the past several months:

HALLOWEEN EYEBALLS

I made these for a Halloween party at my friend, Kelli's house.  I had seen something similar in a magazine and wanted to see if I could replicate them.  I made cake balls, using one of those cake pop making machines - it looks like a little waffle maker and has little indented ball shapes that you put the batter into, shut the lid and - voila! -  4 minutes later you have a bunch of tasty little cake nuggets.  I coated them with white chocolate, added upside down M&M's with black food color pen dots for the pupils and then drew scary red veins on the eyes with a red food color marker.  I really liked the way they turned out.  They were a big hit at the party, but I never tried one.  I guess they scared me.  At least  I'm not hoarding any in my freezer. 

Scary Cake Eyeballs for Halloween

CUPCAKE DECORATING CLASS

A few girlfriends and I took a cupcake decorating class.  The class was held at a bakery in West Hollywood known for its...er, ahem...erotic cakes.  Our instructor was a young kid who looked and  smelled like he was still soaking in a boozy all-nighter, and he didn't instruct much.  He was mostly concerned with the volume of the house music on the stereo.  The one thing I did learn was how to make frosting roses, which is a tricky maneuver where you pipe frosting onto a large flat headed pin, twirling the pin as you arch your pastry bag while making quick little squirts.  Would a frosting rose by any other name taste as sweet?  Methinks not!  

Don't forget to eat the roses

THANKSGIVING DESSERTS

I was very excited about Thanksgiving.  Aaron and I usually went to a friends house where there is always a dazzling display of magazine-worthy food.  This year we were going to stay home and cook for Aaron's brothers Pete and Dylan, and Dylan's girlfriend, who happens to not eat meat, gluten or dairy (which could be a whole blog in itself).   I was really excited about my desserts, though.  All my life I had been a pumpkin pie hater, I am more of a fruit pie gal.  But I was in New York a few months ago and tasted a slice of pumpkin pie with a pecan brittle topping and I was completely won over.  I was going to make this pie for Thanksgiving and I was going to love eating it.  I also made a plain pumpkin pie, in case we had some dessert drop-bys and then I also wanted to make sure Dylan's gal had something yummy for dessert so I decided to make a dairy-free, gluten-free apple berry crisp.  I used Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flour and Earth Balance, which is a very good butter substitute.  I was very proud of it.  She didn't eat any, though.  I guess she was full from my gluten-free, dairy-free dinner.  The boys liked it, but it was hard to tell if they were just being kind.  I took a bite and thought it tasted like berry glue.  No wonder vegans are so skinny.

Plain Pumpkin Pie on the left, Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Brittle in the middle and the sorry-ass vegan dessert on the right.  

VEGAN CHOCOLATE ORANGE CAKE

I work out of my boss, Travis' house.  I definitely feel like I have become part of his family.  His wife is a personal trainer and wellness coach, so the food they eat is always super healthy.  Also, his kids are allergic to dairy and gluten.  They invited Aaron and me over for a holiday dinner and, of course, I wanted to bring dessert.  Normally I would try to bust out something really impressive that the kids would like.  Since it had to be dairy and gluten free, I was just hoping it would taste good.  After pouring through several vegan cookbooks, I found a recipe for a chocolate orange cake that sounded pretty swell.  I used a combination of coconut flour and gluten-free flour and Earth Balance instead of butter.  The cake was as heavy as a small child, but it smelled very chocolatey and orangey so my hopes were high.  Unfortunately it tasted like a chocolatey and orangey, um, vegan cake - crazy dense and without that yummy rich buttery taste that good cake should have.  Everyone was very polite.  I went home, threw it in the trash and scarfed a stale king size Butterfingers bar that I had been hoarding.  Back to the vegan drawing board.

Even the photo of this cake doesn't look appetizing.  Due to its incredible heft, it could be used to kill someone in a pinch, though.  So, there's that.  

BLACKBERRY BUTTERMILK CAKE

Aaron and I are not often invited over to friend's houses for dinner.  Sometimes I think it's because we cook so much that they feel weird about cooking for us, and sometimes I think it's because everyone is so busy they would just rather meet at a restaurant.  I understand this because when we have someone over for dinner, it's usually a 3 day affair between shopping and cooking.  Sometimes we both fantasize about someone else cooking - no trips to 3 different markets, no furtive cleaning an hour before guests arrive and, best of all, no staying up until the wee hours doing dishes (alas, we live in an old house and don't have a dishwasher).  It was so exciting when our friends Tom and Laura invited us over for dinner!  I still have to bring something, so I volunteered dessert.  I toyed with the idea of making cake pops since they have a young son, but then I was back to at least a 2 day commitment so I finally decided on something that was so simple, I was worried it would disappoint.  I made a blackberry buttermilk cake.  It had no fancy frosting, did not require any special tools and I was able to work out,  read my book, take a nap, and putter around the house and still get this cake made before having to leave the house.  But even in its minimalist glory, it was a hit.  Tom and Laura not only had seconds, but asked if they could keep extra cake for company they were having the next day.  I was more than happy to leave the rest of the cake with them...and the dinner dishes as well.

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake with vanilla bean ice cream

I do declare we are now officially caught up.  I have some other Sugar Nerd adventures to share with you that deserve their own posts, and will get those out to all 17 of you shortly.  I will also try to figure out this whole work/blog time management thing.  Lord help me, I will try.  

Penance done, I go back into the blogosphere with nary a sin against me.  Goddamn, that feels good.  Oops. Lord's name. In vain.  Might as well keep baking until I bring the wrath of all that is holy down upon me.  Hmmm, maybe locusts would taste really good covered in 70% cacao bittersweet single origin, fair trade chocolate.  I just hope the devil isn't vegan.  

Confessions of a Sugar Nerd

The living moment is everything -  D. H. Lawrence

I realized I was different from other kids when I was about 7.  I started noticing that the day after Halloween, most kids would be virtual Sugar Zombies - wild-eyed from lack of sleep and too many Pixie Stix - clutching their stomachs in pain. I, on the other hand, was well rested with a tummy full of some sensible cereal and a banana.  While other kids scarfed their candy like the walking dead gorging brains, I ate about 4 well chosen pieces and put the rest neatly in my closet - a time capsule of Dum Dum pops, Lik-M-Aid, Double Bubble and the occasional full sized Snickers bar- all resting comfortably in an old pillowcase.  I would often retrieve the pillow case, open it up and take a deep whiff of that distinctive scent of all the candies in the world mixed together, and I would know nirvana.  On Easter, I would get another huge stash of candy.  This would replace my barely touched Halloween candy, which was, by now, stale and hard and would have to be thrown away.  Every year I would endeavor to do better by my candy, but the cycle would invariably repeat.  And so began my sordid life as a hoarder.

I am not like the hoarders featured on those horrible TV shows where people are buried in their stuff.  My house is very tidy and clutter-free.  I don't save empty soup cans or stockpile newspapers.  I am more of an experience hoarder.  I simply save things I really enjoy for the perfect moment that usually never comes. Sometimes it's clothing.  I have purchased dresses that were so swoon-worthy, I wanted to wait until the absolute BEST museum day or romantic dinner or fancy party to wear them, which usually meant that it languished in my closet for a year until it was shamefully out of style.  I put off reading my favorite magazines for the perfect sit-outside-with-a-glass-of-wine reading weather only to notice that my coveted Thanksgiving issue of Food & Wine was now irrelevant in February.  One time, my friend Kirsten and I spent hundreds of dollars on an order of fancy chocolates shipped from London.  She ate her allotment in a matter of days, gushing to me about how delicious they were, while mine sat in the freezer for 8 years until I moved and finally threw them out.

Christmas morning was always a weird scene in my house.  My sister, brother and I would get up at the crack of dawn and had to wait, in our matching pajamas, for our parents to set the stage.  Christmas music on, tree lights turned on, coffee going, and video camera readied.  When given the OK by Dad, we would run to our respective piles on the couch.  The moment I first spied my pile was the best part of Christmas for me - all the glory was before me.  My brother and sister would savagely tear through their presents in a matter of minutes, while I slowly savored each shiny wrapped package, careful not to tear the paper as I unwrapped it. I would examine all angles of each present, reading liner notes on record albums, the washing instructions of my new Sasson sweater or the dust jacket of the new Judy Blume book, before moving onto the next one.  I would be in a sort of gift rapture, extending the moment of each surprise for as long as possible, until I realized my whole family had been done for quite some time and they were all staring at me like I was a freak.

Wine is a great obsession for me because you are supposed to hoard it. Subsequently, I have about 300 bottles stashed in every closet in the house and spilling out of the guest bedroom.  If there is ever a natural disaster, come to my house - there will be a Bacchanalian extravaganza!

People often ask me how I don't gain a lot of weight with all the baking I do.  The answer is simple.  I don't eat it.  I taste it and then give it all away or stash it somewhere until it goes bad.  There have been plenty of times where I spent laborious hours, even days making some complicated confection and displayed it proudly on a vintage domed cake stand where it shimmered expectantly and full of promise. Soon, I would be overcome with guilt upon entering the kitchen.  Then I would start  avoiding the kitchen altogether.  A week later, my sweet would be droopy and misshapen and sad and I would have to put it out of its misery.  I feel terrible when this happens, like I have neglected my child.  I hear the echo of Sister Mary Lauren's voice whispering in my ear about the starving children too.

I like to imagine magical scenarios, where my baking does not go to waste.  One would go something like this:  after putting the finishing touches on a lemon chiffon cake with whipped cream icing and preserved lemon dust, someone just happens to drop by and I nonchalantly make some rose petal tea while cutting them a slice of cake.  They gasp in delight.  I do that "oh it's nothing" motion with my hand.  The Amelie soundtrack is playing in the background and I am wearing my favorite old apron with the polka dots.  We retire to the living room and have a grand old chat.  Cartoon hummingbirds flutter outside the window and the clink of Aunt Fran's vintage tea cups against the saucers is delightfully comforting. I go deeper into the fantasy...it was Gwyneth Paltrow who stopped by to invite me to a party and wants me to bring this cake.  I will wear that dress I have been saving for 7 months!  And, could I bring some wine?  I have a few bottles that would go great with your macrobiotic menu, Gwynnie!

Oprah has probably done a show about people like me - or worse yet, maybe Maury has.  While I work on mastering the 12 steps of instant gratification, I thought I would share some of my recent hoarding...um...baking projects.

BROWNIE BITES

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I made these back in November.  They are still resting comfortably within the deep recesses of  the freezer.

STRAWBERRY POP TARTS

These were incredibly time consuming and one recipe only made 9 tarts!   Because there were so few, I felt really precious about them.  Aaron eventually ate all 9.



RASPBERRY CHAMBORD BROWNIES

These were made for Valentine's Day tea.  There were so many left over.  Even full of booze, I didn't eat them.   They eventually had a romantic rendezvous with the trash can.

COCONUT LAYER CAKE

I made this for my friend Matt who I hadn't seen in a long time.  I didn't know he was vegan.  Oh sweet dairy, how I love thee!  This cake was amazing.   I kept waiting to eat some with Aaron, but he was working crazy hours.  After an extended holiday in the fridge, it got hard and the frosting oozed off.  A waste of excellent cream cheese goodness! 

APPLE PIE WITH CARAMEL FLEUR DE SEL ICE CREAM

I made this pie to bring to a dinner party.  It took me two days to make along with the ice cream.  Half of it came back home with us.  I should have known better.  I kept waiting for the perfect "apple pie" moment and the crust got too soggy.  

I actually did not hoard this ice cream.  It was the best ice cream I ever made.  In the past, I've made plenty of ice cream that sat in the freezer "waiting for company" until it resembled radiator fluid.

I know to appreciate something fully, you have to enjoy it, wear it, drink it, eat it.  I am trying to be better at that.  Just the other day, I took a lavender soda out of the fridge that I had been saving for over a year.  The stars were not aligned, the morning dew didn't glisten just so on the grass that morning.  I just decided "what the hell."  The soda happened to be dead flat and syrupy but the point is, it felt OK to be drinking a fancy beverage on a normal day.  Oh, and last week I bought a new outfit and wore it the next day!  I just remembered I have a box of See's candy that is only a month old.  I think I'll go gorge myself.  As if I were eating brains.  

How Many Bites Does It Take To Get To The Center Of A Cake Pop?

I am not the kind of person who is good at being trendy.  I think it goes back to when I was 12 and my Mom would not buy me a pair of Guess jeans.  It was a time when the right jeans could actually advance you into the next social sphere and I wanted them, like, really bad. They were just too expensive, too tight fitting, too un-Catholic and a million other reasons my Mom would invent every time I asked. Instead, she bought me a pair of jeans called No Name.  She thought that was hilarious.  I felt sick.

I was pretty sure Jesus wanted me to have fancy jeans and all the glory they would bring.  I remember once at a slumber party, we went around the room telling each other what other people said behind their backs.  I was told I had ugly clothes and shoes.  I learned how to make it work for me, though.  While friends shopped at the mall, cute and fashionable in their Camp Beverly Hills t-shirts and brand name jeans, I shopped in thrift stores and wore old men's clothes and combat boots.  I thought it was hilarious.  My Mom felt sick.

You can't read Martha Stewart Living, go to a kid's party or even run into a Starbucks these days without seeing cake pops.  They are omnipresent and really trendy.  Like Snooki or that Old Spice guy.  I was smug in my outward distain of them.  I am not normally so snobbish toward any dessert.  I can really get behind a frozen Ding Dong or one of those scorching McDonald's apple pies and I have been known to put my whole face into a bowl of cotton candy.  If it tastes good, I'll eat it (if it looks like a delicious, pink pillow, I'll put my face in it). But something about the cake pop rubbed me the wrong way.  They are so in your face with their diminutive cuteness.  They are so delightfully compact.  They are what unicorns and fairies eat.  They somehow make me feel old. They also make me want to punch someone in the face.

I have been on fire with my baking the past several months.  People call me and jokingly ask me what I'm baking that day and I usually have an answer for them. I've stockpiled so many ingredients that I have candy melts and sprinkles of all sorts in my bedroom closet.  I baked my way through cakes, pies, cupcakes, brownies (oh the brownies!), tarts, cookies and the list goes on.  I couldn't believe it, but I was actually getting tired of the usual suspects.  Even my friends would protest that they didn't need another loaf of banana bread.  I was becoming a baking drag.  I was troubled by this.  I really needed to find some new recipes or, gasp, get a job.  Since the latter was still not materializing no matter how hard I tried, I decided I needed to think outside the bundt and find me a new muse.

I was online one day reading one of my food blogs and saw photos of some really pretty cake pops.  I was wondering how you make them. I mean, they are little balls of cake.  How do they hold together?  How do you get them so round and plump? So I clicked on the recipe and was intrigued by the answer - you mix the frosting and the cake together and roll them into balls!  I was slightly repulsed and yet it was kind of genius.  I needed to try it for myself and see if it was delicious, or if it was some weird, edible arts & crafts project that you might do in Kindergarten. Either way, the spark was back!

sifting cocoa powder

First, to bake a cake.  I read lots of recipes for cake pops - some called for a box of cake mix and pre-made frosting, others for a rich red velvet cake from scratch and a fancy boiled buttercream.  The cool thing about these pops is that you can use virtually any cake and frosting recipe. I didn't think this experiment warranted a whole bottle of red food coloring, and making a complicated frosting seemed silly for such a whimsical little treat, so I went with a super dark chocolate cake recipe and a vanilla cream cheese frosting.  You don't need to bake the cake in cake pans because, wait for it, you cool it and then grind it up in a food processor!  This was definitely more on the Kindergarten side of the spectrum, but I was game.  And if it didn't work out, I'd just eat some paste and call it a day.

chocolate goodness

This was a HUGE cake!  It was kind of agonizing waiting 3 hours for it to cool completely.  Then I cut off all the dry edges so all that was left was the decadent cake belly.  The cut off edges went promptly into my mouth and I'll be damned if it wasn't a super tasty cake.  Then I cut the cake into chunks, put them in the food processor and pulsed until it looked like chocolate bread crumbs.  It was definitely weird putting a cake in the food processor.  I thought it might turn into a big ball of goo, but it turned into nice, uniform crumbs.

mixing cake crumbs and frosting

My favorite cake combination is the super chocolatey devil's food (whose name comes from its super dark color, although I tend to think it's because only the devil could make something so delicious that I will eat it until I'm disgusted and very repentant) and vanilla frosting.  I will definitely eat the hallowed chocolate cake/chocolate frosting double whammy with reckless abandon, but the vanilla and cream cheese cuts what can sometimes be an overwhelmingly rich chocolate-on-chocolate extravaganza.  There is a sort of appealing restraint in not going double chocolate.  Another hot tip:  choose the appealing restraint of NOT putting your face in a bowl of cotton candy when given the option.

When mixing the choco-crumbs and the frosting, it seemed like it was just going to be a globby mess, and it was, but it tasted good and the frosting incorporated well.  It seemed like the white frosting might turn the dark chocolate cake to an unappetizing gray color, but the mixture was super dark.  I liked sneaking the frosting into the cake so that it was the full cake experience.  I used a cookie scoop, which looks like a baby ice cream scoop, to make sure my cake pops were all the same size.  Then, with clean hands, I rolled them into balls and placed them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment.  I was kind of grossed out by having to manhandle each cake pop.  I was hoping the people who ate them didn't think too hard about how they got so round.  Sort of like, as a vegetarian, I try not to think about how they are probably cooking my veggie burger on the same cooktop that was used to cook a big juicy hamburger.  I was able to make 75 cake pops from one recipe!  Into the freezer with my little balls for a half hour until they had firmed up enough to withstand the sticks and the dip into melted chocolate.

live nude cake pops!

While the cake pops were chillin', I melted some semi-sweet chocolate over a double boiler and cooled it slightly.  Once the pops were frozen, I gently inserted 4" lollipop sticks, which I got at Michael's.

sprinkles!

I was a little nervous that the cake balls would fall off the sticks as I dipped them in the chocolate but they didn't.  I dipped those suckers, all 75 of them, in chocolate and rolled them into a dazzling array of different sprinkles and then froze them again for about 15 minutes so that the chocolate set. Voila!  Cake pops!  And they were gorgeous!  They looked very fancy and professional.  I was pretty proud of myself.  I tried one and it was really good.  Very chocolatey, nice crunch of chocolate and sprinkles and the hint of cream cheese frosting made it taste mysterious and complex.  When Aaron came home, I presented my cake pop spectacle with much pageantry.  He wasn't buying it.  He wanted to know if I touched each one and why they were so dense.  I guilted him into trying one with my trusty boo boo lip routine, and he said they tasted good, but it was definitely not his favorite of my baking oeuvre.

The good news is that everyone else loved them.  Since I made so many, I gave them to all my friends, my friend's kids, the gardeners, the mailman, my doctor, my dental hygienist and I took them to several parties.  Also good news, they freeze really well and defrost perfectly in about 10 minutes.  I've gotten more squeals, more big smiles and more compliments on these darn pops than on almost anything else I've made, so even though they may not be husband-approved, I declare my experiment a success.  For my birthday, my friend Kirsten even got me a professional "cake pop" maker, so I guess that is a hint that I should keep making them.  You don't have to touch those, so maybe Aaron will even come around.  I still have never bought a pair of Guess jeans, but these cake pops are one trend I think I can get behind.

Oh, and by the way, it takes one bite to get to the center of a cake pop or, "A One," as the owl in the old Tootsie Pop commercial would say.

The Cake Is Not A Lie

This was triumph

I'm making a note here:  HUGE SUCCESS

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction

- from "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton (theme song to the video game, Portal)

It's no secret.  My husband is obsessed with video games.  And I, by default, am a gamer too.  While other people our age are out at bars with a pack of friends or taking their kids to playdates, we are in our pajamas on the couch tearing through another twitchy masterpiece such as Bioshock or Heavy Rain.  On a typical night, we usually make a good dinner (think cracked crab with blue cheese and hazelnut mashed potatoes and some New Zealand sauvignon blanc) and fast forward through a few episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and when the plates are cleared...well, let the games begin!   

The games we play together are mostly the survival horror genre.  They have a creepy atmosphere and a really complex story line, usually involving a deranged killer on the loose or something undead.  And when I say "play together," I mean that Aaron plays while I snuggle with our dog and tell him what to do.  Now Aaron does not need some gal from the valley telling him how to play a video game.  He's been playing them his whole life, but my experience with video games was really limited to a few from Atari in the early 80's.  That is, until I met Aaron.  He would play games 24 hours a day if he didn't need to eat, sleep or pay bills.  That sounds like an exaggeration, but I assure you it is not.  Luckily, Aaron also likes to do civilized things such as see movies, cook, and play piano.  But if given the choice, he will always choose to play games.  "If you can't beat em, join em" goes the saying.  I am also not exaggerating when I say Aaron has a rad wife.  

Aaron's favorite game is called Portal.  This is a puzzle-solving game where the player is enticed by a computer voice called GLaDOS to complete puzzles.  GLaDOS sweetens the stakes by promising a delicious cake when all the puzzles are completed.  Not money, not dancing girls, but cake.  The person who designed this game has her priorities straight!  Of course at the end, the cake was a lie and the whole time GLaDOS has been trying to kill you.  My husband, who normally only wears solid color clothing, has 2 Portal t-shirts, likes to say "the cake is a lie" whenever he is disappointed, and the game's theme song is on constant rotation on his iPod.  For Valentines Day, I thought I would surprise him by making him a cake that looked like the Companion Cube, which is a beloved icon from the game.

The Companion Cube from Portal

I have never made a fancy cake.  I am intimidated by the effort and the artistry involved.  My cakes are simple and fairly uncomplicated.  I have dream about making a 3-tiered extravaganza, filled with guava curd and decorated with the most delicate sugar blossoms, but it seems like such a pain in the ass.  I look longingly at the cake section of Michael's and wonder what all those tips and couplers are about.  The most complicated decorating I've done is pipe some rudimentary doo-dahs around the edge of a cake by putting frosting in a ziplock bag and snipping off the corner.  It's enough to elicit the desired effect from guests, but not enough so that I screw it all up and end up having to go buy a Sarah Lee cheesecake at the last minute.  

Full disclosure:  I did not bake the Companion Cube cake from scratch.  I was nervous that I would not be able to replicate the look of the Cube so I wanted to have as much time as possible to work on it.  Plus, I didn't think we'd even eat it (we did not).  This was a showpiece; a symbol of my solidarity (or at least compliance) with Aaron's obsession.  This was not dessert.  I baked a white cake from a box in two round cake pans and, once cooled, cut each round into a square. Since doing all this kamikaze baking the past several months, it was really weird to smell a boxed cake.  It was a familiar scent, but it didn't smell like cake at all.  It was nice to be able to tell the difference and it made me feel like a real baker. 

cake scraps!

Disclosure #2:  I am not patient nor am I precise.  I always eyeball it when I hang pictures, and I don't enjoy crossword puzzles.  If something says "assembly required," I feel the twinges of a panic attack coming on.  That Sven bookcase at Ikea, though handsome and affordable, is out of the question.  I considered my bag of fondant with trepidation.  Fondant is a paste made from sugar syrup that can be rolled out and cut into shapes or draped over cakes and other goodies.  When you see a cake that is perfectly smooth, it is covered in fondant.  I have never worked with fondant before, and it was giving me stress to think about adding coloring, rolling it out and cutting all those angles and shapes.  It was actually really easy and fun to work with.  It was like Play-doh for grown ups.  I didn't feel very grown up making a cake that looks like a video game icon, but I am often in danger of being revealed as a nerdy kid masquerading as an adult, so at least the feeling is familiar.   

Thank goodness I had a small heart-shaped cookie cutter.  Hearts done!  I used the top of a drinking glass to make the circles.  The other components were a little more challenging.  I had to scale them way down to fit on the cake.  I didn't have a ruler in the house so I made a little template out of some thick paper.  It was time-consuming to cut out the 20 pieces that go on each corner plus the squares that went on the top, and I was less than precise in my execution.  I would get the smackdown on Cake Wars, that is for sure.  Once I had all the fondant cut out, I made a buttercream frosting and mixed red and blue food coloring to get that grayish tone.  

Now I had to assemble the cake!  I was nervous.  First, I frosted the backs of the hearts to attach them to the white circles.  This made them pretty heavy and I thought they might slide down the sides of the cake.  And the pieces that go on the corners had to be facing the correct direction, so I had to pay attention.  Why couldn't Aaron love Pac-Man?  Pac-Man cookies would have been so easy!  

I frosted the cake, dipping the off-set spatula in warm water to try to get the texture as smooth as possible.  A little rustic, but it looked like a cube!  I added the corner pieces, making sure they were all right side up.  Looking pretty cool.  I held my breath as I added the hearts, sure that they would fall off.  But they didn't.  I was getting pretty excited imagining Aaron's face when he saw his Companion Cube cake.  He was going to be so into me!  

To accompany the cake, I had enlisted my friend Kirsten to help me re-record the Portal theme song with special lyrics I wrote.  She is a great piano player and an amazing singer and knows how to record music on the computer.  She imitated the voice on the original song perfectly.  I couldn't wait to give it to Aaron.  The original song is a nerd-core masterpiece. You can listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RthZgszykLs

With the cake and the gift ready, all I could do was wait for Aaron to come home. He was working a long day on a commercial downtown and not feeling very well, so I made him his favorite soup; french lentil and barley with swiss chard.  It was our first Valentine's Day as a married couple and even though we'd been together almost 9 years, I had butterflies in my tummy as I waited for him.  

I loved making this cake.  It took me out of my comfort zone as a baker.  It wasn't that it was difficult, just something I had never done before and something that was done purely for the joy of someone else. When Aaron got home, he didn't see the cake right away and when he did, he just looked at me and said, "no way."  He went over to it and basically freaked out.  It was unbelievably satisfying.  And don't tell him, but he may have gotten choked up when he listened to my song.  "It was a triumph," the song says, and it was.  Neither the song nor the cake was a lie.  After Aaron celebrated my majesty for an appropriate amount of time, we got some soup and went in the living room and spent the rest of the evening killing zombies. It was the most romantic Valentine's Day ever.  

Aaron, Owen and the Companion Cube!

(Don't Fear) The Pie Crust

I have a confession to make.  I am afraid of pie crust.  There, I said it.  I have made french macaroons with buttercream filling, rose flavored gum drops tumbled in superfine pink sugar, and meticulously decorated lavender sugar cookies in the shapes of snowflakes that took 3 days...but I have not attempted the dreaded pie crust.  Not ever.  I've made plenty of pies over the years, but the Pillsbury Dough Boy always made the crust.  It's the same feeling I had when I was an English major in college - 4 years of classes, but somehow I avoided taking even one writing class. I was afraid I was a terrible writer.  It is the same with pie crust.  If I failed, how could I call myself a baker? At least I've never called myself a writer.  But baking without mastering the art of pie crust is like being a chef without being able to make an omelette - downright shameful.  One of the reasons I started this blog was to prove to myself I can link sentences.  And I will make a grand pie crust to prove to myself that I am a baker.

I remember realizing early on that I could request pies for my birthday instead of cake.  The thing about pie was that my Mom would get more than one and I liked that idea alot.  Plus, there are so many to choose from; fruit pies, cream pies, custard pies, nutty pies, chocolate pies.  But my favorite pie is peach.  Not fresh peach, which is just a bunch of uncooked peaches drizzled with some suspect jellied substance, but double-crust baked peach pie.  Just thinking about it makes me swoony.  Aaron and I had pie, not cake, at our wedding.  My lovely, unstoppable in-laws drove 25 lbs of peaches from Philadelphia to an island off the coast of Maine so that I could have peach pie at our wedding.  We also had apple, coconut cream, and fresh Maine blueberry pie made by the most talented bakers I had ever met.  It was pie heaven.

pies at my wedding - the bottom one is peach!

Pie seems to be the new cupcake.  This irks me some because many years ago I wanted to open a pie shop.  Of course my secret fear that I couldn't make pie crust was a problem.  My friend Bryan would encourage me and scout locations.  I even had the perfect name...Pie Hole.  Bryan and I would talk for hours about the shop. I would serve just pie and coffee.  No cappuccinos, no frothy faux mocha beverages, just pie and joe.  I had a logo and the whole concept mapped out, but fear, again, kept me at my desk job.  A while later, Bryan wrote the TV show Pushing Daisies about a guy who owns a pie shop called The Pie Hole.  At least, on some level, my pie shop existed.

In the recipe book my Mom made for me, which contains all our family recipes, she included a recipe for pie crust.  It came from a friend of hers whose pie crust she loved.  When I went to read over the recipe, there was an asterisk with a note that said, "I had to beg C for this - and she gave it to me when she moved.  When I made it - it wasn't as good.  Maybe she changed something.  C did not like to share her recipes."  Classic Mom.  I couldn't risk my first attempt at pie crust failing because of a recipe feud from 1979 so I thought I had better find a different recipe. The next place I looked was in The Pie And Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  She writes that her pie crust recipe was tested over 50 times...much more promising than my Mom's endorsement.  This recipe called for cream cheese, however, and as delicious as it sounded, I wanted a simple recipe and cream cheese crust seems to be one you try after you perfected something more basic.  I turned to my trusty Cook's Illustrated.  They did have a recipe with a 2-page dissertation of how they came to this definitive and flaky model of pie crust perfection.  Their secret ingredient?  Vodka!  They claim the reason pie crust is so difficult to roll out is because the water evaporates and the dough is too dry.  Vodka provides moisture, but the alcohol prevents the liquid from drying out the dough.  Interesting.  They also claim it imparts absolutely no boozy flavor to the crust.  I was torn because I wanted the quintessential basic crust recipe, but the idea that this one was a sure thing was very enticing.  In the end, the Cook's Illustrated recipe won out - maybe because vodka was close at hand if things got ugly.

I was kind of sweaty assembling all the ingredients.  We were going to dinner at our friends Michael and Margie's house and I had volunteered to make an apple pie (peaches aren't in season) so that I had no excuses.  I took a little comfort in knowing there was a Marie Callender's on the way to their house, just in case. Flour - check!  Cold butter - check!  Vodka - check!  Everything went in the food processor....the consistency was good, now into the fridge to chill for an hour. What a long hour!  I paced.  I called my friend, Kirsten, who loves to talk.  I spoke to Aaron with an Oscar-worthy nonchalance...and then the timer rang.  Panic seized me as I casually took the ball of dough out of the fridge and set out my pastry board and rolling pin.  I called upon the spirit of Betty Crocker, I called upon the baby Jesus and I called upon four and twenty blackbirds....please let this roll out nice.  I sprinkled some flour over it and my rolling pin made contact.  It was cold, but pliable.  It was rolling out like the finest, gourmet Play-doh - no cracks and a beautifully smooth surface.  I did it.  And it was easy!  I felt what must have been pie crust rapture as I laid the crust into the pie plate.

Apples in, top crust on, steam vents cut - voila!  I had myself a real live homemade pie!  It is always a really satisfying feeling to put something into the oven to bake. Into my ancient pink oven my pie went.  My apple baby.  My flaky, buttery triumph.  It is a truly loving gesture to assemble ingredients and release them into the oven to become something better than the sum of their parts.  I am sure this is what it must feel like when parents send their kids to college. "Become a great pie," I whispered.  "I'm so proud of you.  Release your juices.  Don't forget to call.  And go easy on the vodka."

FOOLPROOF PIE DOUGH (from Cook's Illustrated Magazine)

- for one 9-inch double-crust pie -

2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter

1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces

1/4 cup vodka

1/4 cup cold water

1.  Process 1/1/2 cups flour, salt and sugar in food processor until combined, about two 1 second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds.  Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade.  Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses.  Empty mixture into medium bowl.

2.  Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture.  With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together.  Divide dough into 2 even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk.  Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.  

A Peach Of A Cake

I have very distinct and special memories about my Mom baking in our little house in the west valley while growing up.  She had a respectable repertoire that included chocolate chip cookies, cream cheese brownies, and peach upside down cake.  On lucky days, there were chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven when we got home from school, and the cream cheese brownies always made an appearance when we went camping, but it was the peach upside-down cake - gooey and rich with melted butter and brown sugar - that really got me swooning.  

I grew up in the 70's - a time when microwave ovens were as big as TV sets and processed food was lauded as the greatest invention since cigarettes.  Despite all these "advancements," my Mom could cook.  I mean really cook.  I didn't really appreciate this until I started having dinner at my friend's houses and my young foodie sensibilities would twitch with distaste when the ubiquitous Hamburger Helper was put on the table or some room temperature fruit cocktail was being passed off as dessert. I was pretty smug about my Mom's cooking and how she made everything from scratch.  In retrospect I know that wasn't true - she took the same shortcuts as other Mom's did.  She was an equal opportunity user of Ragu pasta sauce and boxed cake mix but when she wanted to bust a move in kitchen, she was fierce.  I remember being pretty shocked as an adult, however, to realize that my glorious peach upside-down cake, the Barbie Dream House of my childhood desserts, was (gasp!) made with Bisquick and canned peaches (cling!  In heavy syrup!).  Just thinking about this combination, even knowing how good it tastes, makes my head hang low with inferior-ingredient shame.  

I first learned of this when I joined a recipe club at work.  I was just out of college and working at a mail order catalog.  I was interested in cooking but didn't have any real experience in the kitchen.  I wanted to impress my co-workers with a recipe that would make them celebrate my majesty for years to come. I was sure the peach upside-down cake was going to make me a superstar.   

My friend at work, Kevin, saw the foodie spark in me and encouraged it.  He was always giving me cooking tips.  He patiently wrote down directions for roasting peppers using a paper bag, he gave me cookbooks for my birthday, he made non-ironic references to pousse-cafe and he used fresh garlic, which was something I had never seen in my house.  Kev talked so lovingly of the dinners he made. He actually went to the store on his way from home each night to buy ingredients and snipped fresh herbs from his garden.  He even cooked while drinking red wine. Kevin made cooking sound so luxurious and fancy and adult.  I wanted to live like that!  This peach upside-down cake was going to be my gateway to exotic adult cooking!

Here is the recipe as I submitted it for the recipe club.  I made a fancy border and even used a rubber stamp with my name...clearly this was a serious recipe - especially for people who liked flowery borders and rubber stamps. Other people submitted recipes like 40 Clove Garlic Chicken and Shrimp & Feta Rigate A La Greco (submitted by Kevin, and a recipe I still make today) and Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Sauce.  It was clear I was not in the same league.  I remember that realization hitting me and feeling very uncool.  In one of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail, Greg Kinnear's character asks Meg Ryan's character if there was someone else.  She said no, but that there was the dream of someone else.  I always loved that line.  I was not a great cook, but I had the dream of being one.   

 

Even thought my beloved peach upside-down cake is no prize winner, I still like it.  It is comforting and pretty and reminds me of my Mom.  It is also shockingly tasty.  Those canned peaches are always pleasantly uniform in color and the combination of their tartness against the sweet richness of the butter and brown sugar is delicious. And the cake is surprisingly good.  Even though it is simply a vessel to hold the upside-down goodness, I have to say it is quite velvety.  Every time I tell my Mom I made the cake, without fail she says "I always use extra butter and brown sugar."  I always say, "I know, Mom."  She is as dependable as Bisquick.  

Last week, my friends Mika and Kirsten were coming over for tea.  I'm still job hunting, which takes up an unimaginable amount of time, so I was just going to serve some store bought cookies.  Two hours before they were supposed to arrive, I felt suddenly embarrassed that the Sugar Nerd did not have something homemade to offer.  I frantically searched my cupboards for something I could throw together and was pleased to see I had the ingredients on hand to make the notorious peach upside-down cake.  Mika is a professional pastry chef, so I knew I'd be taking a risk making a dessert with canned peaches and fortified flour, but she is also a lovely gal, and would probably appreciate the kitsch of it.  I got busy on the velvet crumb cake and was sure to use extra butter and brown sugar for the topping.  Unfortunately the pan I chose to use was a bit too big and instead of the cake coming out golden-topped with little peach half moons snuggling together in a carmelized blanket of deliciousness, there were big bald spots where the topping didn't adhere and the cake showed through.  I was mortified!  Epic fail! 

yellow cling in heavy syrup!

The girls showed up and I cleverly distracted them with my pretty tableau of vintage tea cups, champagne and flowers.  Billie Holiday sang the blues in the background, backing me up with tales of her own failures. But my friends didn't smirk or look knowingly at each other, instead they remarked on how great the cake smelled.  They oohed and aahed over the table.  They asked me how on earth I found a cake plate that was the exact size of the cake.  They giggled over the prospect of afternoon champagne.  And they didn't say one thing about my sad looking cake.  Of course I had to point it out - to me it was the huge elephant in the room.  But they laughed and said it was going to taste great.  And it did.  Everyone had two pieces.  We had a spectacular afternoon laughing, drinking and eating.  I forgot about the cake disaster and had a wonderful time with my friends.  We were having so much fun, we were still chatting into the night.  Mika's husband and son came over and Aaron ordered pizzas.  We drank wine and hung out until my dog and Mika's son were sound asleep.  Epic success!

It was a good lesson in being easier on myself.  It was good to know a can of peaches could lead to a triumphant and delightful afternoon.  And it is always good to use extra sugar and butter.

I'm still not a great cook, but I have the dream of being one.

A Christmas Cookie

My Grandma Bernadette made the best Christmas cookies.  They arrived every December without fail, just like Santa, and I looked forward to them as much as I looked forward to Christmas morning.  She made only one kind, rolled sugar cookies, and she made zillions of them.  She stored them with great care between layers of wax paper in every Tupperware container and every soup pot she had.  It was an amazing sight to behold, that tiny kitchen overflowing with these lovely, sparkly cookies.  The most remarkable thing about them was that they were gorgeously thin and crisp.  Even as a child, I remember wondering how she got them so thin.  Every year, my Mom and I discuss this feat of cookie engineering, trying to figure out how she did it.  I was so intimidated by her skills at cookie rolling, that I have never tried to make them myself.  These cookies had to be the thickness of dollar bills.  They had to live up to my memory of them and my memory of her.  Oh, the pressure!  But I wanted to try.  I got out the recipe that my Mom wrote out for me many years ago.  The title said, "Grandma Bernadette's Famous, Thin Sugar Cookies."  She underlined "thin!" Already I was re-thinking this.  At the bottom of the recipe, my Mom put a big asterisk and wrote, "I think only Grandma can make these.  I try but it's so hard.  She was known for her beautiful handwriting and unusually wonderful, thin, thin sugar cookies!"  She wrote "thin" twice!  Also, I will tell you right now, my handwriting is not very good.  

My Grandma made cookies like she did everything in her life; deliberately, carefully and with precision.  I, on the other hand, do things with more of a reckless enthusiasm.  She worked for the school principal, I got called to the principal.  She was very quiet and conservative and I'm...well...not.  We did have one thing in common, we both liked baking.  Reading through the recipe, I was surprised to see that it called for shortening.  I haven't used shortening for years. Seemed strange, but I wanted to try and re-create her cookies, so I used it. Another crazy thing was the baking temperature for this recipe was 425 degrees.  I thought for sure this was a mistake - I cook my pizza at that temperature but never my cookies.  And the baking time was 4-5 minutes.  That couldn't be right, either. Most of the cookies I make bake for 12-15 minutes - at least.  I immediately called my Mom to see if she made a mistake when writing down the recipe.  Recipe confirmed.  I was really curious to see how this was going to go.

As far as decoration, my Grandma would put some sugar in several glass ramekins and put a drop of different food coloring in each one and stir it with a fork until it turned the sugar the desired color.  The sugar on the final cookies were always so pale, you could barely tell they were different colors, but I  always loved the way they looked - very delicate and fragile.  The only way you knew they were Christmas cookies was because they were rolled into holiday shapes.  There were no bright reds and greens, no royal icing. I resisted the urge to use more fancy decorations.  When I called my Mom about the oven temp, she had said, "Are you making the colored sugar?"  My sister Kim asked the same when I told her I was making the cookies.  It was clear tradition meant as much to them as it did to me and that the cookies were more than just holiday treats.  Baking these cookies brought them close to my Grandma's memory too.

I cut out my cookies using only the cookie cutters that had belonged to my Grandma.  I listened to Andy Williams and Gene Autry and Nat King Cole sing Christmas songs as I rolled those suckers out so thin  that I could see the recipe for pie crust printed on my pastry board underneath.  I was in the groove.  I sprinkled my pastel sugar on the cookies and in that crazy-hot oven they went.  Exactly 5 minutes later they emerged slightly brown around the edges, and triumphantly crisp.  So far, so good.  The smell of the kitchen was exactly as I remember - buttery, sugary and very much like Christmas.  I hadn't had these cookies since she passed away over 20 years ago.  I was nervous to taste them but they were perfect. Buttery, but the shortening gave them a sort of pie crust taste and texture.  They were ultra crisp and the sugar gave them a gentle crunch.  I packed them in Tupperware containers and in my soup pot between layers of wax paper.  I felt silly that I waited all these years to make them. I was happy to feel a connection to my Grandma, and glad that my Mom and sister could share in it too.  Between bites of cookie, I'm sure my Grandma would have told me that I did a good job, but that I need to keep working on my handwriting,