Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

To christen my new apartment, I'm having a few people over tonight. As ridiculous and backwards as it may sound, I just don't feel like an apartment is real until I've had people over. Of course, it also never hurts to break up the winter weather with a night of mulled wine and good company. There will be no shortage of savory finger foods, but I had to make at least one dessert. That dessert, in this case, is vanilla chai mini-cupcakes with cream cheese icing. People will never pick up a normal sized dessert at a party, but if you put out smaller versions of the same, you will soon have an empty plate on your hands.

I only made a half recipe this time because I don't need 24 full sized cupcakes. Also, I didn't feel like buying a huge thing of vanilla soy milk and wasting most of it (and the small ones weren't in the store), so I used regular milk and tossed some sugar and vanilla in with it. Turns out essentially the same. Mmmmmmmmmm. Susan (nanny) used to make me vanilla milk sometimes when I was a kid... magical stuff.

On to cupcakes!

Ice Cream for Breakfast

This is the story of how I ended up having bacon and ice cream for breakfast on a Sunday morning.

I moved into a new apartment a couple of weeks back, then, after unpacking the kitchen, I discovered (while trying to make a meatloaf) that the oven was broken (toaster oven to the rescue!). It was fixed shortly thereafter (I have a good landlady), and I was ready to delve back into the wonderful world of food. So, I invited some friends over and got ready to make a pointlessly fancy dinner. Since I happen to know that these two particular girls are very fond of their ice cream, I decided to make a fancy blueberry sour cream ice cream that I've seen in the little ice cream maker my little sister gave me for Christmas. So far, so good.

Then my plumbing decides not to function anymore. Ok, no problem, I'll call the plumber. Plumber comes over, can't fix it, guess we're waiting until tomorrow. Dinner party cancelled, evacuation to my friend's house for the night. 8AM rolls around and my landlady informs me that the plumber has decided not to return, so she's finding a new one. 8:30, the new one calls, says they'll be by in an hour. I drag myself out of bed (I am not a morning person) and head home to wait. I'm waiting... waiting... waiting. Sigh. Hunger.

Hrm, well, I had started to make the ice cream last night in my dinner prep process, but it hadn't solidified properly so I just stuck it in the freezer when I left. Let's see what it's like now. Oh hey, it's frozen... Let's let it thaw out just a touch and churn it some to make it a nice, even consistency, and see how that goes. It worked! Victory is mine.

Now that I have the ice cream, I want to eat it, obviously. Still, I'm not traditionally a sweets-in-the-morning kind of a girl, so I'm going to have to balance it out. What is this? Ah ha! Bacon left over from my most recent chowder. Perfect. Into the toaster oven you go to broil.

The end result? Well, it's a little weird and I'd trade it for an extra several hours of sleep in a heartbeat, but it definitely hits the spot.

Hopefully my plumber will get here soon and there will be a happy ending to this, my tale of woe.

4 Layer Spice Cake with Citrus Filling

I. Love. Cake. Over the years, as I have aged (woe is me, hear the cracking of my bones), my sweet tooth has waned considerably. If I crave something, it's invariably savory. From time to time, however, I am presented with the option of cake, and those are good times. I am a grown woman and I still want the icing-drenched corner piece of store-bought birthday cake.

I love cake so much that I have rules for it: I'm not allowed to bake it in my home, only other people's (fortunately, my parents do, in fact, have a kitchen), I may not ever buy one, and above all, I can never be trusted to cut my own piece. [Edit: My friend Josh had this to say about my rules "That looks awesome. Your rules for cake, though, frankly suck. First rule of cake: there are no rules. omnomnom"]

You can imagine how I felt when this little gem showed up in my mailbox:



Obviously. I made the cake.

The only thing I would change is the icing. I think that a light cream cheese icing would cut down on the intense sweetness of this cake, which would make it pretty much perfect.

Apple Tart (in 5 ingredients)

Do you have a knife and an oven? Yes? Well then you can make this. In fact, if it weren't for all of the chopping with sharp objects and potential dismemberment issues, I would say you could make it blindfolded.

I adore fall, everything about it really. I love the way the air smells and how great that first breath in the chill feels. The trees are vibrant and beautiful, and even their fallen leaves (pain though they may be to rake) make a lovely sound scattering across the pavement. And while fall does not always go *well* in my life, I still find it comforting and peaceful.

Oh, and I look great in fall colors... but that's neither here nor there.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that fall food is fantastic. I can go a little overboard with the butternut squash, apples, and pumpkin. The pumpkin shortage last year devastated me; I was that weird girl in the Trader Joe's asking every three days if they had any pumpkin yet and then buying a bomb-shelter-sized stash when they finally did. I could write an ode to Thanksgiving food (especially stuffing) and who doesn't love mulled wine or a tangy cider?

Let us begin our journey into my fall repertoire with a simple dessert: an apple tart that requires no thought and, if you're brave, no measuring.

Sweet Potato & Pecan Upside-Down Cake

I adore sweet potatoes. I do not know at what point in my life I developed my uncommonly strong attachment to them, but good lord they are delightful. You can fry them, bake them, put them in a souffle or biscuits... and you can make a cake with them. Before I went to Atlanta for Dad's birthday, I was perusing the September issue of Southern Living for ideas and I happened upon a title that not only had "sweet potato" in it (for me), but also "pecan" (a great love of my father's). Clearly it was going to end up on the menu.

I was a little hesitant because there was no picture included with the recipe, but I have since discovered why: no picture can do this cake justice. Sure, it looks ordinary and maybe reminds you a little too much of that sweet potato souffle you had last Thanksgiving, but let me assure you that it is far from plain. This cake is uncommonly moist and the semi-candied pecan topping will melt any heart.

My Dad called me the other day just to remind me how tasty it is. It will, in all likelihood, become a staple of the holiday season at my parents' house. It's that good.

Because this is baking, not cooking, I have not changed the original recipe at all. As per usual, I'm sure that I was a little dicey with some of my measurements when I made it, but not terribly so, so there shouldn't be any substantial difference. Might I suggest, however, that you consider adding some amaretto or other similar liqueur (just a tablespoon or so) to vary the flavor a bit? You can replace some of the vanilla with it or just add it on top. I'm sure it will work out just fine. It would also probably go well in the topping, but it is so fantastic already that I hesitate to mess with it.

Bomboloni- Italian for Fried Dough

This has been a big week for me. Huffington Post made me a legitimate blogger and my first articles went live, the ACC (lawyers, not sports) picked up my antitrust primer, and even AboveTheLaw, comment trolls and all, noticed me. While I'm at it, there's a book here.

Crazy stuff.

Anyway, I decided to celebrate by making something extremely delicious and extremely unhealthy. Not to mention that anyone who says that they don't like fried dough is either lying or selling something. But... well... why stop at frying things? Why not also stuff them with dark chocolate? Oh yes, I went there.

I did, in a sudden burst of generosity/realization that I would eat them if they stayed in my house, take the batch in to the contract job I've been working this week. My coworkers were kind enough to demolish the pile in short order.

Behold.

Macaroons

Ooof. I have been slow on the update. Many apologies. Whilst away, I can assure you that I have still been cooking, though decidedly less frequently since I've been on a short contract project. Yesterday, however, I woke up with the all consuming urge to bake, so I perused the internet, various cookbooks, and my head until something struck my fancy. What was it, you ask?

Chocolate dipped coconut macaroons.

I can actually hear my dad make yummy noises upon reading that. I have never before made macaroons, however, as it turns out, not having the foggiest clue what I'm doing no longer stops me. So, off to the store I went to pick up some shredded coconut and melt-worthy chocolate. Of course, upon arriving at the store, I completely forgot whether I was supposed to be using sweetened or unsweetened coconut... and ended up with both, just to be safe. Also, since I was supposed to have 8oz of coconut and the bags are in multiples of 7oz (Why? Why would you use 7? It makes no sense, you never need anything in multiples of 7!), I ended up throwing in a handful of the unsweetened anyway. Mine turned out well, but in the future I would actually scale back the coconut to egg white ratio, so the recipe I'm giving you is tweaked to reflect that. Also, it allows you to purchase just one bag of blasted coconut and not have to worry about measuring. Tada.

On to the tastiness!

Risotto for Dessert

Sometimes, against your better judgment and respect for your waistline, you have to do something obscenely indulgent. Well, next time you get that urge... might I make a suggestion? Perhaps you should consider a white chocolate risotto. Yes. You should. And, no, I don't even really love white chocolate, I'm an all dark kind of a chocolate girl. It does not matter. I mean, just look at this:



Those are dark chocolate shavings on top, just in case it wasn't decadent enough before. It takes a little bit of time, but a lot less than I expected from a risotto. The real key is that you have to serve it immediately. If you wait it gets a little hardened again and far less magically delicious.

Trust me, it's worth a look.

Caramel Cake

Let us take a moment to discuss one of the most perfect cakes in existence (I say "one of" because I've developed a weakness for coconut cream cakes): the caramel cake. It's a bit of a misnomer because the cake itself can be just about anything, the icing is the key. The traditional combination is with a pound cake, but even I can only eat a tiny bit of that at a time, so I tend to pair it with a lighter, mildly vanilla cake.

When I was a child, my grandmother would always bring a four layer caramel cake made by, I can only assume, the gods themselves when she came to visit and it was an act of extreme fatherly devotion and restraint that I ever managed to get a piece. My aunt, who doesn't even eat sweets, always managed to appear at our house 15 minutes after the cake did. Unfortunately, the woman responsible for this magical confection retired and I've been trying to find an acceptable substitute ever since. Well, today I have. As a warning: I do not recommend making this icing if you live alone and are not planning on taking it to a party immediately... you will eat the whole cake.

I present to you caramel icing that does not require a candy thermometer!