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I Fall for Autumn

Hello everyone! So again I'm kind of failing at this baking and blogging stuff. It'd be soooooooo much easier if I had my own place. I could bake every single day if I wanted to. And I would bake a lot more.

My last baking venture was a joint effort with my friend Celia! We decided to make something Autumn-themed because it seemed appropriate. We tried our hand at Maple Cream Cheesecake Bars! I'm going to steal the recipe from her website (www.celiaperry.com) because A) she found the recipe to begin with, and B) we made the same thing so no need to try and find the original website myself. Let's see...hmmm. It's been so long since we've done it that I've kind of forgotten about the details. The recipe comes from the Wolcott Maple Products website.

Crust:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup Pure Maple Syrup

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 cups Flour

1/2 tsp Salt

Cheesecake

(2) 8 oz packages of Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cup Sour Cream

2 Eggs

3/4 cup Pure Maple Syrup

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Lemon Juice

2 cups Chocolate Chips, melted

8 oz jar Pure Maple Cream

First cream the butter, then fold in the maple syrup and vanilla. Add the flour and salt and blend. Press into 9″ x 13″ pan. When Celia and I did this, we decided to break the dough apart and press the crust down bit by bit. 

Next, pour the melted chocolate over crust. We used a double-boiler to melt the chocolate chips. Spread about 3/4 of the maple cream on top of the chocolate and set aside. Beat the cream cheese until light and completely smooth. Beat in sour cream, then eggs (one at a time). Gradually beat in maple syrup followed by vanilla and lemon juice. Pour over the chocolate and maple cream. 

Bake for 15 minutes at 400° F, then reduce heat to 350° and bake for another 30 minutes. Apparently the website recommends chilling the bars before drizzling the chocolate and remaining maple cream on top, we couldn't wait for more than 15 minutes.

We had a bit o' trouble getting the chocolate to drizzle so we dipped forks into the melted chocolate and just kind of...splattered the chocolate on the cheesecake by moving the fork back and forth quickly. Then we ate spoonfuls of the melted chocolate. 

As always, there is a learning experience to every baking endeavor. We couldn't find maple cream nor did we have any idea what maple cream was so we went without. We probably should've found some kind of maple cream because the bars were not very maple-flavored...but they still tasted delicious. You couldn't taste the maple but there is nothing wrong with chocolate cheesecake. :) Until next time...

Fire Away!

PICTURES!

Celia! 

Keeping It Up!

Hello my fellow reader(s). I'm trying really hard to keep up with this blog now that I'm actually kind of baking and plan on baking a little more. I seriously need to get to Michael's or somewhere and get some cool little baking tools...maybe some real pastry bags so I don't have to use my mom's ziploc bags. I'm sure she'd appreciate that too. "Ziplocs don't grow on trees, ya know!" Ok, so she didn't actually say that, but she's the kind of person that would.

My parentals are out of town this weekend so I might try and bake something. I haven't quite decided yet. I may want to use that alone time to revel in my alone-ness and get in some quality "me" time. Plus I've been blessed with a nasty little cold and I'm not sure people will want to eat my goodies. I don't know if I'd want to eat goodies baked by a sick person. My goodies, my goodies, my goodies, not my goodies. I also believe cold medicine makes you weird and messes with your mind. Forget heavy machinery, I shouldn't use mixers or ovens while on cold medicine.

Anyway, I saw the Lion King 3D this weekend. I love the Lion King but don't see the point in making movies 3D. Didn't really see a difference and it cost 3 dollars more than just a 2D movie. 3D is stupid.

What a Shock!

I have news. I actually baked cupcakes! After I realized that this blog was failing, I decided I'd better start baking. I didn't make tropical cupcakes as my previous post implied...I made chocolate cupcakes instead! Let me tell you...these cupcakes were a hit! Everybody at work (plus the Boy) seemed to really like them! Not to brag but one of my managers said they should be illegal. I'm thinking she was exaggerating a bit but I'm still going to feel good about myself. Haha.

The cupcakes that went over sooo well were a chocolate cupcake with an orange cream cheese frosting, topped with a piece of of Lindt Dark Chocolate Intense Orange chocolate. I made the cake part of the cupcakes from scratch (the chocolate part!) and I found a super easy recipe online. Not only was it super easy, it was super delicious! I'm thinking anytime I make chocolate cupcakes, it will be my go-to recipe. I'll never make chocolate cupcakes from a box mix again! Not that I made many cupcakes before but you catch my drift.

The great part about the recipe I found is that there is no eggs or butter. I know it sounds weird to not have butter or eggs but the recipe is so delicious you don't even notice.

The chocolate cupcake recipe:

2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder)
3/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cups water (I substituted one cup of chocolate milk for one cup of water...so it was 1/2 cup of water, 1 cup chocolate milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons vinegar (sounds weird but you can't even taste it) plus when it touched the baking soda, it fizzed in the bowl! :)

Mix all the ingredients together until moist and well-blended. Put cupcake liners in a cupcake tin and fill 1/2 - 3/4 full of batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Ta-da! all done with that! Now it's just time to let the cupcakes cool.

The frosting was cream cheese frosting from a can. I used Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Cream Cheese frosting and added orange extract to make it..well, orange-flavored. I spooned out all the frosting from the can and put it in a bowl and then added the orange extract and mixed it all together. I just put in 1/2 teaspoon at a time and kept tasting it until it got to an orange-factor that I deemed delicious. I then tried to be a little fancy and scooped the frosting in a make-shift pastry bag (ziploc bag with the corner cut out..lol) and frosted the cupcakes that way. Learning experience: Frosting the cupcakes fancy-like uses a ton of frosting. I ran out of frosting and had to frost the last few normally. Now I know. I was in a little bit of a rush (it being a work night and all), and so I put some of the cupcakes in the fridge so they'd cool faster and it worked very well, I must say. I knew better than to try and frost cupcakes while they were still warm.

Last, I broke the Lindt chocolate bars into the pre-determined squares and just squished the pieces into the cupcakes (one square per cupcake) so they would stay put. I put the bars in the fridge so they would break easier and wouldn't melt. It was 80-90 degrees outside, after all.

The yield for this cupcake recipe was supposed to be 24...however I only got 22 out it. Not a big deal to me because it wasn't for any event in particular. Just felt like baking.

Well, there it is. My second baking attempt, first successful one. Now that I know I'm not a complete baking failure, I have a feeling I'll be doing more baking :) Until next time...

Fire away!

Pictures for you! FINALLY.

I need to hop to it!

Wow, this blog has been a large failure. I'm really hoping that I'll get back on track and that this blog won't just sit and take up space.

Imagine my surprise when I signed on for the first time in over a month and saw that I had TWO whole followers! :) I'm not even being sarcastic! Now I have two people that I can't let down. The pressure is mounting.

I think the reason I haven't done any baking is that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to bake. The cake balls were disheartening, to say the least. And seeing that it's already September, the holidays will be upon us sooner than we know it and the holiday season is the perfect time to bake and I'd like to come up with some holiday treats. BUT FIRST! I need trial runs for my baked goods (apparently).

I think I might try something simple now like...cupcakes. Maybe some kind of tropical cupcake? I think I'm on to something there...my brain is starting to envision it...

On a side note, I'm pretty sure Bloody Mary's are going to turn me into an alcoholic. I'm going to start trying to create the best Bloody Mary and if I do, I will most definitely share the recipe. :)

Fire away!

Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting (or Baking)

Well, well, well. I finally got around to making the dreamsicle cake balls. First off, I would just like to say that in a way, it's a good thing I have no life because these babies take up a lot of time. I actually started the process Saturday night by baking the cake mix (Betty Crocker Super Moist Golden Vanilla). I knew that the process for cake balls would be a little more time intensive than normal cake baking so I just used packaged ingredients to begin my baking journey. I just followed the directions on the box except I added in 1 teaspoon of pure orange extract to the mix before baking it. It tasted delicious. I let the cake cool for about 45 minutes before crumbling the entire cake into a bowl. I just cut the cake into large pieces and crumbled the cake in my hands until the entire cake was crumbs. Also, i'm not sure if it's the cake ball process or just special me, but cake balls are messy. Extremely messy.

Anyway, since the bowl was too small to mix the frosting with the cake, I just put half the cake into another bowl and then split the frosting up between the bowls. I tried mixing it together with a spatula but it was so sticky that I just had to dig right in with my hands. Needless to say, this is a very hands-on process (Get it? because you use your hands for everything?) Anyway! I just mixed the frosting and cake together until it was a dough-like consistency. If I do cake balls again, I probably wouldn't use the entire can of frosting. Between the super moist cake and entire can of frosting it was seriously sticky. A little TOO sticky.

Next up, I actually rolled the cake/frosting mixture into balls. It took until about the 15th ball to really get a grasp on the rolling technique. They are rather large balls but I still managed to get about 45 balls out of the mixture. Unless you're making them for a party or large get-together, I really don't see why you would need many more than that.

I then stuck them in the refrigerator overnight to help set in the ball shape and it was also 10:30 at night and was tired because I'm lame. I mean, I'm really cool and was up until about 3 in the morning the night before (I actually was) so yeah, I was really tired.

It was time to coat the cake balls the next day and I had decided to use vanilla-flavored almond bark. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Almond bark is more temperamental than a teenage girl. I would know. I was stupid and didn't read the directions on almond bark before starting this process. I had melted about 4 squares of almond bark (using a double boiler) and then I added a teaspoon of orange extract (STUPID). I didn't realize that you can't add any liquid to almond bark or it solidifies and pretty much curdles and gets kind of dry and chunky. so I tried melting a few more squares to just kind of overpower the liquid and that seemed to work for a bit but the almond bark just didnt' want to stay melted. Then it started to scorch and burn and then it turned into what looked like vomit.

Well, the whole point of this baking and blogging is to learn. I have obviously learned my lesson about almond bark and also about how to read directions first.

I haven't decided what my next treat is going to be yet but hopefully I'll have that figured out soon and hopefully it goes a lot better than the cake balls.

Also, I know most of you have no idea what I will be saying, but I find it horribly ironic that my dreamsicle cake balls were disappointing and did not go the way I expected. Just like the inspiration for them. Ah, Life. You and your sick, twisted sense of humor.

Until next time...Fire Away!

I Fail At Life

Ok, so I still have not made the cake balls and it's now July 15th. The title of this post says it all.

I was fully planning on doing the cake balls over Fourth of July weekend but was going through some personal issues. We put our almost-15-year-old dog down on July 3rd and I just wasn't in any mood to do anything, including baking. Personally it's been a rough month, but it's time to be done wallowing in self-pity. Next pity party I throw myself will include some freaking dreamsicle cake balls!

I WILL make the cake balls this weekend. I even told a couple co-workers I was going to bring some in next week so now I can't let anybody down. Not tonight though. Plans to go out and drink some diet coke! First is the gym, then diet coke and super fattening, amazing, delicious waffle fries and seasoned sour cream. I could eat that sour cream with a spoon.

Anyway, rest assured # 1 Fan...my next post will be about my cake ball experience. You WILL get your cake balls and eat them too.

Fire away!