Baby Shower Cookies

Look how cute! They are ALMOST as cute as the mom-to-be :-)

Our girl, Genelle, is preggo. A few of us took on different roles to help throw her baby shower this past weekend, and of course I volunteered to do cookie duty! I wrapped them in individual baggies so guests could take them home as the favors. Since they don't want to know if it's a boy or girl yet, I went with some gender neutral baby shower themed sugar cookies. I am VERY happy with how cute they turned out. With some tweaking and practice, I can totally rock making decorated sugar cookies in the future.

I made sugar cookies with royal icing for a Daring Bakers challenge, but I used entirely different recipes this time around. I'm still tweaking them, so I'm just pictures to post at the moment.

Instead of royal icing, I used glacee icing. It's MUCH better tasting than royal icing and dries to a nice sheen so you can still stack cookies later.

Piping takes patience and practice. I'm still pretty new to it, but I doubt this'll be the last time I do it.

Can't wait to find out if they're having a boy or girl!

REEdiculous: shrimp caprese pasta

I spent Valentine's day with my bestest friend and we each decided to make something off our 2011 Hit List. It was my turn to do the main course, thus I recreated my favorite Olive Garden meal: Shrimp Caprese Pasta. Think cheesy cream sauce, tomatoes, basil, garlic, cheese, spaghetti, shrimp, and more cheese. It was absurd! Like you should probably only eat salad and fruit on the day you consume this to average it out :-)

Definitely calling this one a success. Unlike Olive Garden, my pasta wasn't overcooked, hehe. Salad would have gone nicely with this, but didn't want to distract from the cheese, lol. Mmmm cheeeeese.... That's a whole lot of melted mozz on top. Yep, I put the before picture after. Deal. :)

Shrimp Caprese Pasta

adapted from whatscookingamerica

1 lb roma tomatoes, cored and cut into 1" pieces
15 basil leaves, torn into 1" pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp italian seasoning
1 large pinch salt
2/3 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 box thin spaghetti
2 tbsp butter
1/2 C white wine
1 C heavy cream
1/2 C milk (I used 1%)
1 C freshly grated parmesan
1 C freshly grated mozzarella

Combine tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, italian seasoning, and salt and mix well. Cover and allow to marinate for 1 hour.

Cook pasta according to the directions. Drain and put back in pot and cover while you make the sauce.

Preheat oven to 450. Melt butter over medium heat in a large nonstick skillet. Add wine and simmer for 1 minute. Add cream, milk, and cheese. Bring to a simmer, and cook, stirring reguarly, until it reduces to the thickness you want. (I should now note that while I made half the pasta from the original recipe, I made the regular amount of sauce and reduced it down about 1/3-1/2 so it was a thick cheesy sauce.) Remove from heat. Add spaghetti and tomato mix. Combine well so pasta is evenly coated. Transfer to an oven safe dish (I used a pie plate).

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and drizzle with a little olive oil. Spread the shrimp in an even layer. Roast about 3-5 minutes or until shrimp are pink and just slightly curled.

Turn oven to broil. Sprinkle mozzarella over the pasta. Broil until cheese is melted. Take out of oven and top with shrimp.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Heart Day!

After my awesome macaron fail the other week, I was deterimined to try again. I did, and succeeded, just in time for Valentine's Day. Macarons are quite the labor of love - they require patience in aging the eggs and beating the meringue until just right, tenderness while mixing the sugar/almonds into the meringue, of course some sweetness, and definitely hope that they'll turn out well, lol! And a sense of humor to shape them like little hearts!

This is the 1st (successful) time I've flavored the macarons - these are chai macarons with pink honey vanilla buttercream. This time around, I did everything I didn't before - aged the eggs, measured by weight, didn't overbeat or overmix anything. And look how cute! These are definitely a sweet treat for Valentine's day.

I Heart Chai Macarons

90g aged egg whites
2 tbsp white sugar
110g blanched almonds
200g powdered sugar
2 chai spice tea bags

Combine almonds, sugar, and the contents of the 2 teabags in a food processor and process until fine. Sift the contents into a big bowl, and then regrind the big bits and then sift again. Repeat until it's all fine.

In a stand mixer, beat the egg whites on medium until foamy like bubble bath. Turn the mixer up to high and add white sugar a little at a time and beat until you get stiff peaks. Remove from stand mixer.

Add 1/2 of the almond mixture to the bowl and use a spatula to fold in. Add the rest of the almond mix and continue folding until the batter is evenly incorporated. You want to fold until you get a consistency where you cut the spatula across and the batter sinks back into itself after 10 seconds. The whole process shouldn't take more than 50 strokes.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop batter into a disposable piping bag. Snip off a 1/2" opening. To make hearts, pipe Vs onto the baking sheets. Otherwise, pipe quarter sized rounds. Make sure to leave at least 1" between them as the batter will spread. Allow to sit for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheets.

Per the usual, recipe adapted from Tartelette :)

Pink Honey Vanilla Buttercream
1 stick butter
3/4 C confectioners sugar
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
red food coloring (optional)

Beat all together. Scoop into a piping bag. Fill macaron shells.

say it with cupcakes

Valentines Day is upon us, and I can't be happier. Nope, no love of my life to shower me with flowers and shiny things, lol. BUT, I am surrounded by love in my family and friends (and hell, even some kind strangers, lol) and I count myself quite blessed for it. And, since sweets are my way of showing love, I decided to make some cupcakes for my family. I LOVE vanilla chai and was looking for a chance to make them into something edible, so here we are.
Vanilla Chai Latte Cupcakes
adapted from princesscarissa on Bake Space

1 1/4 C Silk vanilla soy milk
3 bags of your favorite vanilla chai tea
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 3/4 C sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 C cake flour
1 C all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375. Line 24 cupcake cups.

Heat soy milk in a small sauce pan or in the microwave until hot, but not scalded. Steep the tea bags in there for 10-15 minutes. In the mean time, sift together the flours.

When the tea is done steeping, take out the bags and squeeze the milk out of them. Make sure it still makes 1 1/4 C soymilk. If you're short, add a bit more milk to make 1 1/4 C.

In a stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in the vanilla, salt, and baking powder. On low speed, add in 1/3 of the milk, then 1/3 of the flours and mix until incorporated. Repeat 2 more times. Mix on low until everything's incorporated and smooth.

Dish out the batter evenly among the 24 cups. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Bacon EXPLOSION!

Pigskin for Superbowl? Pshaw... how about pig flesh! Bacon inside of pork sausage inside of bacon. Three layers of pork, rolled, mmmm. That's right, I'm talking about the BACON EXPLOSION! 

 

I feel like there should be an echo... the BACON ex-PLOOOO-ZHUNNNN... ZHUNnnnn... Shun...shunnnnn.....

I first heard about this bad boy when my girl Jen (hi Jen!) made it for some event and got 2nd place in an appetizer contest  (when really she shoulda won since 1st place was really an entree, right!). Oh, and apparently the NYT did an article about it in 2009. I've wanted to make it since, but could never really bring myself to. As my boss said the other day when I showed him the recipe, "it's like the inside of a cannibal's intestines!" Gross. But apt. But I didn't care, lol. If you're gonna make something for Superbowl, may as well go all out, right!

I so rarely do progress pics, but this is so awesome I just HAVE to :-)

BACON EXPLOSION!!!!
introduced by Jen, apparently in the NYT, and here's a link to the 1st search result from google

2 lbs thick cut bacon
1.5 to 2 lbs Italian sausage, casings removed
3 Tbsp BBQ rub
2/3 C BBQ sauce
Prep a sheet pan with a layer of aluminum foil topped. It just makes this a bit neater start to finish.

Take 10 strips of bacon and create a tight 5x5 basket weave. (What's a basket weave you ask? the NYT recipe describes it, and the BBQ addicts show it.) I should note that I had thinner strips so I eventually did 6x6 (don't mind the pic, I took 1 strip away eventualy).

Spread all of the sausage over the basket weave of bacon. All the way to the edges in an even layer.
Preheat oven to 225. (Or you can smoke it, but I don't have a smoker, so we'll be baking.)

Snip the remaining bacon into 1-2" pieces. Fry to your desired doneness- when they're about halfway there sprinkle in about 1T of BBQ rub and keep cooking. Cool. Spread the cooled bbq bacon bits over the sausage in an even layer.

Drizzle with 1/2 C BBQ sauce and sprinkle with 1 T BBQ rub.

Carefully roll the SAUSAGE and COOKED BACON into a log -- you'll need to separate it from the bacon weave. Press it so there are no air pockets, and pinch the seam and the ends shut to seal in the crumbled bacon. Roll the log again with the bacon weave until completely wrapped. Turn it seam side down. Sprinkle with 1 T BBQ rub.

Bake until internal temperature reaches 165. It's approximately 1 hour for every inch of thickness. Glaze with BBQ sauce.

Cut into 1/4" too 1/2" rounds and serve.