Birthday Baking Fortnight

For the next two weeks someone I know has a birthday. Every. Day. Plus throw Easter and Passover in there and I got A LOT of baking to do.

My schedule is as follows:

Friday: Make cake batter truffles for my roomies bday part, refrigerate till party on Saturday.

Saturday: Make chocolate chip cookies and olive tapenade for party. Be sure not to mix up the two.

Sunday: Bake Guinness cupcakes for friend Danny's birthday to deliver Monday.

Tuesday: Bake TBD cupcakes for friend Anthony's birthday (thinking carrot cake...)

Wednesday: Bake chocolate caramel cupcakes for office bday party celebrating all April birthdays.

Thursday: Bake flourless chocolate cookies for Passover.

Saturday: Bake candy corn cookies with Easter colored candy corn.

Following week: Bake thank you still-to-be-requested treats for my landlord, try lemon egg cake thing, help mom with Baklava and Easter Bread for Greek Easter, search for chocolate dipped macaroon recipes per request... possibly bake said macaroons, probably not till the following week though.


Phew. Here we go!

The World's Best Chocolate Chip Cookie

First off, thank you everybody for all the wonderful emails I've been receiving regarding my blog. Good to know you're all reading and enjoying my adventures. Thank you thank you! :)

I see a lot of recipes out there titled "Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever". Oh really now? How are all these different cookies and recipes all the best? I guess I'll just have to take one for the team and start researching. I bring you The-Worlds-Best-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie Research project.

Cookie #1:  This recipe included a story about how these cookies were so awesome that they would induce a marriage proposal, so naturally I was intrigued to start here.

Nothing smells better than brown sugar

I just lied to you. Nothing smells better than brown sugar in melting butter...

Basically these cookies were pretty fantastic and despite burning the first batch I was able to get the perfect timing on the last one (11 min = cookie perfection).

Summary: While there is still no diamond ring on my left hand, it's hard to imagine a more perfect chocolate chip cookie. They're good both hot and cold, excellent texture (not too soft, not to crispy) and just all around yummy. I think my test subjects around the office agree and my roommate has dubbed them the best thing I've ever baked. But, there are others out there claiming they are better so we'll have to do our due diligence and keep trucking.

To be continued...

Holidays

I. Love. Holidays. Obsessed even. I also love baking. So despite not having a reason to, I had to bake for St. Pattys day. With holiday season* coming to an end I couldn't just take it for granted.

Because my number one cupcake consumer is a vanilla lover and a chocolate hater, I haven't dabbled much in chocolate cupcakes. But since I've gotten the perfect vanilla recipe down, I thought it's about time I take a stab at mastering the coco.

Now I know most cooking blogs share their recipes but if there is one thing I've learned from my mom in cooking, it's not to share your recipes or no one will come visit you anymore. So I'll just be chronicling my adventures, what I learned and maybe some useful tips... sorry?

The best part about being a "baker" now is opening up my baking cabinet (yes my new apartment is big enough where I have an entire cabinet dedicated to baking materials, pans, molds, cupcake liners and sprinkles!!) is having everything I need to whip up a batch of cupcakes without running to the market for anything, so prepared!

baking from scratch = baking with love

Tip of the trade, use an adorable ice cream scoop to fill your liners. This batter was a little runnier than most and caused for drips, but two scoops make the perfect cupcake size. (If you want cupcakes that raise above the liner you'll need to add a little more)

Chocolate cupcakes are dangerous when cooling because they smell soooooo good and you're tempted to eat them all before you can frost them.

Now for the real adventure. I decided I was going to make whipped cream for my fresh whipped cream frosting (and filling!) Let me tell you, making fresh whipped cream is as hard as it sounds... well maybe not hard, all you do is whip cream but it takes foooooooorrrrreeeeeeeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr. I was ready to give up on the liquid-y cream when POOF! it turned itself into ready to frost and fill cupcakes whipped cream. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty stoked and pleased with myself.

I used my cupcake corer (duh, of course I have one of those) to take out the center and fill them with cream Ding Dong style and added some green sprinkles to make these holiday appropriate.

Homemade whipped cream filled chocolate cupcakes mission complete. Bam!

^Look at those cream whipping muscles^

Anyway, since everyone in our office but four of us are off on various business trips I have a feeling my fridge will look like this for a while...

For the record, the cupcakes were very yummy and loved by chocolate lovers. I, however, while I love chocolate have never been a chocolate cupcake fan (I prefer my chocolate in brownie form) and continue not to be, but these were pretty close to changing my tune. The whipped cream was soooo delish though. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

*Holiday season starts with Labor Day (which makes this holiday one of my faves! All white chic + summer food + THE START TO HOLIDAY SEASON! YESSSSSSS) and ends with Easter (at least we get cute pastel bunnies to send us off into the dreary holiday-less months, and the Fourth of July is a fantastic pick me up in the middle of it all)