MMMMMMM....Brown Butter

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I've been following Elissa's blog for a year or so now and she is one of the most impressive teenagers you'll ever meet. Her writing, her work ethic, her photography and her baking are all way beyond her years. She just headed across the country for college so I'm sure the posts will be even more touching and entertaining...not to mention full of delicious recipes.

I chose to make the Ice Cream Petit Fours because I've made Baked Alaska before and I wanted to try something new. I was very happy with the way they turned out and I especially loved the Brown Butter Pound Cake. I chose to fill my petit fours with coffee flavored ice cream. Yum! Yum!

This was a very simple challenge but I really like it because it introduced me to a new flavor: brown butter. Of course I've browned butter before...usually accidently, but I didn't realize how much flavor it can add to a recipe. It really gave the pound cake a nutty, caramelly flavor that was really, really delicious.

If you'd like to try making Ice Cream Petit Fours with Brown Butter Pound cake you can find the recipe on the Daring Baker's website.

Holy Swiss Roll Batman!

Thanks to my friend Steph for the title of this post. Of course it refers to the Daring Baker's July Challenge, Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake. The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

I've never tried to roll any kind of cake before so this was all new to me. I made a chocolate cake, rolled a vanilla whipped cream filling in to the middle of it, sliced it, lined a bowl with the slices, then filled the bowl with layers of vanilla ice cream, fudge sauce and chocolate ice cream.

Voila! A bomb! (Term for a round, frozen ice cream and cake layered dessert.)

Please excuse the pitiful photography. It really was a delicious dessert but I didn't have time to set up beautiful shots of it....because ice cream melts, very quickly in 100 degree heat!

If you'd like to try making one of these babies on your own (which I highly recommend) you can find the recipes and directions here. Happy Baking!

Four Years and Counting

Four years ago today Kinley was born...after 17 minutes of labor, without a doctor present, in a hospital with no air conditioning...and we couldn't have been happier. Since then it's been one smile after another as we watch our sweet baby girl learn and grow. It's hard to believe that she is already four years old and getting ready to go to preschool.

This year we had two birthday parties again, and she shared both of those with her brother (and one with her cousin). For her portion of the party I decided to do a Hello Kitty theme. Little did I know that while Hello Kitty is popular in clothing design and stationary sets it is not popular in the cake and cookie world. I couldn't find a HK cookie cutter anywhere...not even to order online. We don't eat much cake around here so I usually try to avoid birthday cakes and do some other kind of treat instead. I finally saw an idea online for how to piece together a HK cake and decided to do that.
It was simple to make two round cakes (two layers each), cutting one in half to make two semi-circles and cutting the other on in to strips, one to go between the semi-circles to form an oval and the other two to be cut into triangles for the ears. I covered the whole thing with a crumb coat of thin buttercream icing.

I then decided to try making marshmallow fondant for the first time ever. It was super easy and looked great. I just mixed one large jar of marshmallow creme with 2 pounds of powdered sugar...and then kneaded it until it was dry enough to roll out and cover the cake. I colored portions of it for the eyes, nose, bow and whiskers and added those at the end. It turned out cuter than I even imagined.

There was no way I wanted to have two half eaten cakes laying around my house so I was determined to make cookies for the second party. I finally cut out a picture of HK from an activity book and traced around it over and over again on the cookie dough. It worked well and I decorated the cookies with the same icing I used for Cainan's Star Wars cookies.

Overall we had two great parties with yummy treats and lots of presents. Happy Birthday Kinley!

Seven Years and Counting

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy! Seven years ago today I was trying to politely keep my eyes open (with little success) as people came to visit you. I was slightly exhausted from the events of the prior evening.

I went in for a routine appointment and (as with all 3 of my kids) he told me to stay and be induced because I was ready and he didn't have much going on. Well, all that changed about 6 pm when he got stuck in a difficult and high risk caesarean and called to tell the nurses to stop my labor until he could get there. So they shut off all the drugs (except the epidural, thank goodness) and we sat there for 5 hours until Dr. Houck could finish up the surgery, go home and eat supper and come back for the 20 minutes it took to deliver you.

Needless to say by the time it was all over with and I was snuggled down in my bed for the night it was close to 3 am. So those 8 am visitors had to deal with a very sleepy mommy. Somehow I don't think they cared.

So happy birthday to my boy who still wants to snuggle in bed with me and sit on my lap during prayer time. To the Star Wars fan and SpongeBob watcher. To the baseball player and shoe straightener. To the instigator and the helper. We love you!

Now...the party!!

By now you should all know that we rarely do the traditional birthday cake. This year I decided to to cookies. Mainly because I found some that were so cute I just couldn't resist making them.

While cruising around on my favorite cookie decorators blog I found these adorable cookie cutters. I had to have them. So I zipped over to Williams Sonoma and ordered them on the spot. They are the best cookie cutters ever! They cut out the cookie, emboss it with the lines for decorating and push it out of the mold all in one simple push of the button. Not to mention the fact that they are perfect for my family of Star Wars enthusiasts.

For the Darth Vader cookies I made Bridget's chocolate cookies and used this recipe for the black decorator icing. For the Storm Troopers I used Bridget's favorite sugar cookie recipe, the decorator icing again and my own icing recipe to cover the bulk of the cookie.

My Favorite Sugar Cookie Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

1 egg white

1/8 tsp. cream of tartar

Mix it all up. It will be runny. Just dip the cookie in, let the excess drip off and lay flat to dry. It will dry hard. It needs to dry completely before adding the decorator icing on top or you may get some bleeding of the colors (like I did on the storm troopers).

Of course there were lots of presents, some Slip-n-Slide action, a couple of baseball games and time with family to enjoy too. Overall it was another great year celebrated with two fun birthday parties.

Happy Birthday Cainan, we love you!

Daring Baker's June Challenge

The June 2010 Daring Bakers' challene was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

The challenge consisted of making chocolate meringues, chocolate mascarpone mousse and a mascarpone/creme anglais cream for drizzling over the top. The final result was VERY tasty but not very visually appealing.

It almost looks like a cheeseburger without the top bun.....or something worse. This is one of those desserts you have to judge with your taste buds and not your eyes. I was supposed to use a piping bag and pipe out perfect meringues and mousse but I chose to just dollop it on....hence the 'pile of poo' look.

However, despite it's somewhat revolting appearance these chocolate pavlovas are super rich and delicious. I could barely eat a whole one. I used very dark, bitter chocolate but the marscarpone cream on top helps to tame the chocolate with a sweet, very vanilla-y flavor.

The recipe was easy and fun and if I ever make it again I think I will follow the directions and use my piping bag. You can go here for the directions on how to make your very own Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse.

Good Luck?

Well, Jon Acuff has done it again. He cracked me up this time with his blog about Chrisitans that say "Good Luck" and then feel guilty about it. Here is what Jon said:

“Good luck with the 10K this weekend!” Well, I mean, I don’t personally believe in luck, but you might. I believe that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. But how am I supposed to say that to you, my colleague from work, in the break room?

“I hope God works all things for the good of those who love him this weekend at your 10K race!” That’s a mouthful, but seriously, I probably shouldn’t be saying “good luck.” Some Christians don’t even say “Pot Lucks.” They call them “Pot Blessings” which kind of sounds like the headline from an issue of the marijuana magazine “High Times” but I’m only digging myself into a deeper hole of awkwardness at this point.

Would it be weird if I told you “Have a blessed 10K?” Does that make me sound like I’m the kind of person that would throw holy water on you during the race or hand you communion wine at one of those drink stands along the course instead of Gatorade? And do I have to over pronounce the “ed” at the end of that word like some people do? Do I say “blessed” like I would say “messed” or do I need to pronounce it “bless-ed.” I always feel like some random guy named Ed is getting hooked up when people do that.

This is getting so complicated. From here on out, I’m dropping luck, I’m dropping
bless-ed and am just going to say “Yay running!” and throw both hands into the air with spirit fingers. Wait, are spirit fingers related to the Holy Spirit or are those bad too? Ohhh, slippery slope, slippery slope indeed. I’ll go with jazz hands then, definitely jazz hands.

While funny in itself some of his commenters were equally hilarious. One guy suggested "Godspeed" as an appropriate encouragement for a race and several others agreed with him. I happen to like the suggestions that this guy made:

a simple "have a good race tomorrow!" might work well too.

other options could be:"ill pray that the lactic acid production is supernaturally
suspended... speaking of suspension, did youknow that jesus was suspended on
a cross for your sins.."

or."i'll pray that your loins are girded and that you are endowed with the
endurance of Elijah... who outran a team of horses... by the way have you read
that story in the Bible?? you know God's love letter to humanity?.... ... "

or. "May you run your race like it is to be won.. and not disqualified along
the way. You know, like Paul (Jesus's super duper post-mordem-assention marketer of ancient days)...."

so many options... all of which i'm sure would be recieved with thanks and no
discomfort.

As entertaining as that is, it does make me think. I had dozens of people (church people) wish me good luck before my half-marathon. I say "good luck" to people and never give it a second thought. I don't believe in luck so I guess for me it's just an expression, but I guess the same argument could be made for taking God's name in vain.

I don't believe in luck but I also don't necessarily believe in praying for every little hangnail extraction and close parking space. It's not that I don't think God cares I just think that I can be a happy, positive witness for Christ whether I have to walk 100 yards to the mall entrance or 10 so what difference does it make.

What do you think? Should Christians ever utter the word 'luck'? Have you ever eaten a "Pot Blessing"? Do Christians get too hung up on semantics and miss opportunities for authentic relationships?

The May Daring Baker's Challenge

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I was very intimidated when I first read what the challenge would be. I mean these things are huge and complicated. Besides that they just made one in a challenge on TopChef Masters. I mean if an award winning chef is making Croquembouche for a nationally televised cooking competition then it is not the PB&J of french desserts.

However, I will say that this was probalby the EASIEST challenge I have done to date. I did it all on one evening using only ingredients I already had in my house. And to top it all off it was sooooo delicious! Now granted, my piece montee wasn't extremely high, or symmetrical or even visually pleasing, but it was indeed a series of filled creme puffs stacked up and drizzled with caramel, which is exactly what a Croquembouche is.

So without further ado.........

There are three main components to this dessert. First I make the pastry cream to fill the cream puffs. I chose to make a coffee flavored filling. (And boy was it good!)

Crème Patissiere du Cafe

1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1 T. instant coffee granules

3 T. boiling water

Dissolve coffee in water. Set aside. Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

While the creme is chilling go ahead and make the cream puff dough.

Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)

¾ cup (175 ml.) water

6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter

¼ Tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly. Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny. As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes. It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Filling:When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your piece montée.

Hard Caramel Glaze:

1 cup (225 g.) sugar

½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

Assembly of your Piece Montée:

You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up. (You may want to use toothpicks to hold them in place – see video #4 below).

When you have finished the design of your piece montée, you may drizzle with remaining glaze or use ribbons, sugar cookie cut-outs, almonds, flowers, etc. to decorate. Have fun and enjoy! Bon appétit!

Skiing and Sledding

I just can't help but share two more of Cainan's writing assignments. They crack me up.

This one was obviously about skiing:

"Once I was afraid to skie. I holdid on too my dads puls. He let go. I lookd at hem an then I had a wipoute. I like to skie. I learnd a lesen. Woch were I am going."

Not sure exactly what the theme of this one is. It appears to be very stream of conciousness:

"Once I was sleding and my brother was in frunt of me but I steard the sled but then I hit a tree. I was born in Elanoy greenvill. Then I was a baby I liked to choo on stuf. I loved to colr. When I grow up I want to be a artist."

Manic Monday

Illinois Half

The other big thing that recently occurred in my life that I haven't taken the time to write about is...

I completed a half marathon (13.1 miles)!!

A friend and I ran the Illinois Marathon in Champaign on May 1st. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but not too hot and the course ran through a lot of nice neighborhoods around Champaign and Urbana. We actually finished on the 50 yard line of the Illini Football Stadium!

I started training right around the middle of January for the race. I trained alone, in the snow, sleet, rain and mud for the first 10 weeks but as the weather improved my friends Linda and Chrisy started training with me. We spent our Saturday mornings running 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 mile routes around Greenville. It was such a relief to share the drudgery with others. It really made it enjoyable.


Chrisy was training for the half in Indy on May 8th so Linda and I were the only ones headed to Champaign....well, us and 14,000 other people!! Yeah, it was incredible. Once they said "Go!" it took us 9 minutes just to walk to the start line and begin our race!! (Times are determined by a GPS chip attached to each runner's shoe. The chips aren't activated until the runner crosses the start line. This makes the staggered starts fair.) It was wall to wall runners for the first mile or two and then it spaced itself out a little bit. We ran 11 minute miles for the first 3 miles and then decided we wouldn't be able to maintain that pace for 10 more miles and slowed down.

At the 3.5 mile mark Linda's knee really started bothering her. (She had been fighting an IT band problem for several weeks prior to the race.) So I stopped and stretched with her every mile through miles 4, 5, and 6. Eventually at mile 7 she had to give up running because of the pain. She decided to try to walk the rest of the race. At that point we parted ways and I took off.

My goal all along was to finish the race in under 3 hours. I was worried that I wouldn't make it, so I really kicked it in for miles 7, 8 and 9. Then at mile 10 my ankle really started to hurt. I had strained it the week prior during my 10 mile training run (well, actually during a slide down a muddy hill while trying to find the trail for my 10 mile run....long story). The last 3 miles were pretty painful. It was hard to stay motivated being all alone in a sea of runners.


I took water and Gatorade every time it was offered and I tried to stay in a good rhythm. I also grabbed a pack of GU Carbohydrate Gel at one aid station but I chickened out of actually eating it. It was espresso flavor and just didn't sound that appetizing at that point. The one thing that probably helped me the most was the little Dixie cup of M & Ms that a church was handing out along the way. It really gave me a little boost that I needed.


It also helped to see all of the people standing in their yards or driveways cheering for us and providing entertainment. There were elderly men sitting and playing the guitar, little boys playing the violin, a group of PeeWee cheerleaders doing cheers, a Jr. High aged girl playing her keyboard. There were plenty of kids handing out homemade lemonade and even one house offering fresh strawberries. At one point we had to run through a park. In one of the picnic shelters there was a rock band playing the theme from Chariots of Fire! I almost couldn't run for laughing so hard.


As I entered the stadium after 13 long miles I could hear the man on the loudspeaker say, "72 seconds left to make it under 3 hours!" At that point I just started sprinting as hard as I could across the AstroTurf (which I must say felt SO good under my feet after 13 miles of pavement). I ran under the clock just as it said 2:59. Phew! I made my goal by 1 minute. The thing I failed to remember was that the was the time from the moment the word "Go!" was shouted at the start line. My time wasn't based on that. It was based on the time I actually crossed the start line. So.....I actually made it in 2 hours and 50 minutes!!

It was a great feeling. I was frantically scanning the crowd to find Brian and the kids. I thought it would take me forever to spot them in that huge stadium. But I saw them almost immediately. They were jumping up and down and cheering. I just started crying. I couldn't believe I made it. I also couldn't believe I would have to walk up 10 flights of stairs to reach my family in the stands! My ankle was killing me and my legs were so weak I didn't think I could make it, but I did. Once I had caught my breath and hugged my family I set off to find the post race food (I was starving) and wait for Linda.


We both had a good cry when Linda made it into the stadium half and hour later. Our 15 week journey was over! The race hadn't gone exactly the way either one of us wanted it to but we made it and we are planning to redeem ourselves next year. Overall it was an awesome experience that I really enjoyed. There were times when it was painful and boring and long and tiring but mostly it was so gratifying to run further than I ever imagined I could. I don't think I'll ever run a Full Marathon but I can see myself walking one (or walking and running one) and another Half Marathon is definitely in my future.

Prior to training for this race I had never run further than 2 miles in my entire life. I started slow and finished slow but I ran the whole way. It is possible. When you get right down to it it really is mostly mental. The body is amazingly able to do much more than the mind imagines. I'm so glad I didn't let the thought of 13 miles stop me from running those first 3 or 4.