salient nutrients

twenty minutes flat… bread

whee, rosemary flatbread. it was tremendously delicious, and tasted just like a restaurant! will be making this again at some point.

cupcaaaaaaaakes.

cupcakes are, essentially, my favourite things ever. I can’t eat too many of them in one sitting, but I do really crave cupcakes now and again.

probably won’t be trying this again any time soon, not because it took THAT long or it tasted bad, it was just… dunno. a lot of work, I suppose, and I Hate creaming butter. this is because I suck at it, but shh.

I made a variant of three (3!) recipes, because alone one recipe didn’t satisfy my need. also, I really played around with the measurements. 

without further ado, here’s the recipe (sauce from smittenkitchen, cupcake from joy of baking, frosting from Confections of a Foodie Bride):

Vanilla Cupcakes:

½ cup (113 grams) unsaltedbutter, room temperature

2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated whitesugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon purevanillaextract

1 ½ cups (195 grams) all purposeflour

1 ½ teaspoonsbaking powder

¼ cup (60 ml) milk

Vanilla Cupcakes:Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.  

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest. 

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 17 -20 minutesor just until set and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. (Do not over bake or the cupcakes will be dry.) Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing. If you want flat topped cupcakes then slice off the dome of each cupcake, with a sharp knife, before frosting. If you want to pipe the frosting, I like to use a large Wilton 1M star decorating tip. Cupcakes are best eaten the same day they are made, but they can be covered and stored for a few days.

Sauce:

1 ½ cup blackberries

2 tbsp sugar

¼ cup water (more depending on consistency)

Puree in processor, and strain out seeds. 

Blackberry Buttercream Frosting
:

½ cup butter unsalted butter, softened
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
1/8 cup blackberry puree

Cream butter and extracts until smooth. Mix in confectioner’s sugar. Add blackberry puree and beat for an additional minute.

adventures

did I mention my cooking exploits so far?

no? oops.

in any case, so far I’ve been making banana + irish cream blondies, cheddar biscuits, and ‘krumkake’ (but really just slightly crispy crepes) for school.

yeah. anyway. today hopefully I’m making lemon bars and the traditional scallion pancakes. woo!

french onion soup

such hearty goodness… *swoons*

yeah. i made the french onion soup - my god was it good! the portions turned out JUST right, and… mmmmmmmmmm… heavenly.

beef stewing for beef stock/broth

pretty simple to made, pretty cheap, little ingredients… yum.

onions caramelizing. ooh.

only thing was the total cooking time (~2 hours), but it was worth it! definitely.

had the aforementioned bread + brie too.

let it brie, oh let it brie

and… ta-da!

ooh la la.

italian bread, mmm.

italian bread chillin’ on the deck rail. (see what I did there)

this is what I made yesterday. it was grueling. I made the biga on friday. I woke at 5 am yesterday (saturday) to cut up the pieces and let it warm to room temperature. Iwoke again an hour later to made the bread dough. I woke one last time two hours later to make the bâtards. finally, I let it sit and BAKED IT. 

thank god it turned out delicious.

so delicious, in fact, that over the past day or so, I’ve been stuffing myself with gluten and butter and brie. 

yay, spongey goodness!

only an inch-thick end piece of one loaf is left. egad! it’s all I’ve been eating these days. lunch tomorrow? yes please.

on a side note, I was THIS close to making french onion soup today.

the only thing missing? onions.

forsooth! I looked into the sad ‘fridgerator and thought I saw onions, when in fact I just saw onion skins and a potato. how unfortunate.

until then, I snack on bread.

UPDATE 4PM: Never mind. Onions are to be bought, olive oil as well for dipping. <3

to make

mmm. i want these crêpes.

• crêpes
• french onion soup
• popovers

marshmallows

the marshmallows I bought and didn’t make. “just a little taste of marshmallow” from haveitconfections on etsy.

it all started with these fluffy marshmallows on etsy,

which I then proceeded to purchase.

unfortunately that wasn’t enough.

I had to find out how to make these delights on my own. 

google searching brought me to the wonder that is smitten kitchen,

and I was gone.

so far, I’ve made:

• pizza: dough wasn’t cooked, but toppings were delicious.
• spaghetti (tomato sauce, tomato sauce + pesto): yum.
• home fries: mouth-watering good.
• apple pancakes: eh. pancakes aren’t my thing.
• italian bread: so delicious I can’t believe I made it.

undoughey pizza

looks are deceiving.

I made this pizza. It looked delicious, but the dough hadn’t cooked, even though (dough. though. ha.) I’d left it for two hours when the recipe only called for one hour!

I think it was a result of me not kneading the thing enough. forgive me, it was my first time doing it, or maybe putting too much flour or too little yeast? Anyway, it ended up on the small side. I proceeded to cook it, and it looked beautiful but… blegh. the dough was totally undercooked. 

sigh. a waste of perfectly yummy toppings.

oh well, hope the next go turns out better. or, should I say, the next dough.

ha. ha. ha.