Mama's Bitchin' Kitchen

I realize that I haven't written in forever. So I started reading some of my old posts and came to an alarming conclusion: I never blog about my cooking. Those of you that know me know that I am all about cooking and baking. And if I do say so myself, I'm pretty damn good at it. Cooking and baking are basics to learn, and with time, focus, and patience (trust me, I have none); anyone can master it. Baking scares a lot of people, and that makes me sad. Baking is so much fun, and there's nothing better than showing up to an event with some freshly baked goodness and having people ooh and aah over how good they came out. Of course, I get a little offended sometimes when I feel like people doubt my abilities, which usually makes me flex my baking muscles. I was once told that lemon bars were impossible by someone who was a mediocre cook at best. So I went home that night and made two pans. They were fantastic, might I add...

Anywho, the point. I love to cook and bake. From scratch. I don't do box mixes or icing cans. And I've yet to come across a recipe that scares me. (Yes, there was that one mishap, but I've accepted it and moved on.) So I'll do my best to post more about the good eats here. 'Cause if it's one thing I've learned, food will bring people, whether it be to my house or to read my blog. Hey, maybe that's why I've been invited to more events lately?

So, Mama's whippin' up some chocolate, red-velvetish cupcakes. Not true red velvet, because it's too damn hard (and expensive) to find unprocessed dutch cocoa. And really, I just don't have the time. Maybe when I get an assistant, that should be their first assignment. A friend called and asked me to whip up some goodness for a bridal shower, and I was glad to step up. She's actually recommended me to bake, photograph, design, and probably organize other people's lives--so of course I obliged. Like I said, any opportunity to flex my muscles and whip out the Analon pans...

Without further adieu, I give you:

They are a red velvet-like (which is chocolate with lots of baking soda, really) with a cream cheese icing. The bride is having black, pink and white as her colors, so I happened to have these hot pink sugars for a topping. Yes, I am really that nerd that can't walk past anything related to baking without bringing something home. I don't often share all my recipes, but the goodness of this one? The icing. Brace yourself:

2 sticks of butter
8 oz (1 brick) cream cheese--I always use Neufchatel cheese
3-3.5 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

That's it. Beat the butter, beat in the cream cheese, toss in the vanilla, and slowly add in the powdered sugar. Now, I added more sugar to my recipe because I wanted it to be really firm--note the tips of the icing. I did this because the last time I used Cabot butter, it started to fall apart on me like a margarine would.

You're welcome.

A first: A FAIL in the kitchen.

So it's ridiculously hot here, we've only put air conditioning in the upstairs bedroom, so the kitchen is sweltering. Yet, I've felt the urge to bake something unconventional. While I was hovering around the interweb, I found a recipe that I thought would please the fam--fluffernutter cupcakes. I'm not a fan, it's the marshmallow icing. I really don't at all like marshmallows. The kidlets and Husband do, so this can't be that bad, right?

Well, I was first nervous about the recipe. Not knocking someone else's recipe writing skills, but 2 cups of brown sugar and only a teaspoon of baking powder? Oil, no butter? And so much cream of tartar? Now, first of all, it didn't tell me how many this recipe would yield, and I hate flying blind. I did seventeen cupcakes, and a 9 x 13 pan. So I've now used almost everything in my pantry.

As for how the cupcakes came out? They sucked. Forget rising, I think they receded. I know brown sugar can reduce, but this is terrible. It came out something like a lead-peanut butter brownie. And the texture was just awkward. I can't even describe it. Except for that I want to drink milk right out of the container, and I don't really like drinking milk at all.

And the frosting? I'm pretty sure I could do body work to the car with this stuff, it's consistency is something similar to Bondo. My stand mixer was even having a hard time with it. I can't even bring myself to think about how I am going to clean the bowl, I'll just let it soak overnight--like you do with the green bean casserole dish at Thanksgiving.

I'm really upset, because honestly, I don't often fail in the kitchen. Especially when I bake. I can't even think of the last time I did. And I really can't stand when it's a recipe that uses every stock item I have in the pantry (shh, don't tell the kidlets that I stole their peanut butter to make the recipe. What? I wasn't about to use my natural, organic peanut butter, would you?). On the bright side, I can actually see all the remaining items on my baking shelf now that there's significantly less marshmallows in there.

You know what this means, though, right? I'm going to have to come up with a fantastic recipe so I can continue to flex my baking muscles. And it's supposed to be just as hot tomorrow, too. Damn!

Our trip to Boston

Yesterday, in celebration of my birthday, the Husband and I took the kids into Boston. The plan was, ride the train in, ride the swan boats, and stop at a cupcake shop for cupcakes. So upon searching and mapping out our day, we were all set. We ride in on the commuter rail, which the kidlets were overly thrilled about. Where we live we can hear the train when it passes, and so they were ridiculously excited to finally get to ride one. The only down side was that the windows were so dirty on the outside that you couldn't see out of them. And the kids reminded us of this every ten minutes or so. It was a hard day, I'm not going to lie. It was in the 90s and sickeningly muggy. Also, we're not used to that much walking. Boston is a walking city, if you're not familiar. The Husband and I spent two nights in Boston before we actually lived up here, so we had some sort of a grip on things. If you're looking for a good city guide, the Not For Tourists guides are the best way to go. More on this one later. The day starts out, we get off at the wrong rail station (Ruggles) and end up hiking for like six miles to get to the Common. If you don't know me, I get really anxious when I'm lost. Which is also why the Husband and I have decided that our next vehicle will be equipped with Navigation. Anywho, after what seems like forever, we get to the common. Not without stopping at the Pru to visit the skywalk. Well, until we get to the top and discover it's going to be $40 to see a hazy view of the city. I'm sorry, but we're on a budget. We stop at Maggiano's to eat lunch. Not where we really wanted to stop, but at that point, we were STARVING and needed some nosh. Surprisingly, it cost us less than what the skywalk would have cost, and that was some Good Eats. I had half a spinach salad, the Husband ate half an order of linguine with red clam sauce, the Son had mac & cheese, the Daughter had her favorite, naked pasta with butter. It was one of the best meals we've had in a LONG time. We venture over to the Common, and the kids have a good time. I'm amazed at the wildlife and how accustomed the animals are to being close to people. This one little squirrel just stood close to us looking at it like "what? You've never seen a squirrel before?" It was really fun. We rode the swan boats, and as fun as it sounds, it was also disgustingly hot and muggy. I know I've said this before, but I just can't explain to you how gross it was. Strangely, the kids hung really well. Even the daughter had on flip flops (like me) and still did really well walking all over. When we were done, I had decided I wanted to indulge in my cupcakes. We exit the Common and start to regroup, when we learn we have somehow now lost our NFT guide. So imagine our situation, where even with the guide, we've walked for two hours around the city, lost. And now we have no guide, but an address and two cross streets. So we carry on. We've passed like five bookstores, so I figure if we walk up Newbury Street, we'll find another, we can just pop in and buy another guide, right? Yeah. Well, Urban Outfitters and Marc Jacobs don't care to tell you how to get around the city. So we walk the fourteen blocks to Mass Ave, we're hot, sticky, tired of walking, and want to just go home. But we press on to eat cupcakes at Sweet. Not to be confused with Sweet of Worcester. The kids are excited, the cupcakes are adorable, we pick out four regular cupcakes and one mini. And it's $14.75. Holy $hit, batman! That's almost half of what we spent on lunch! Now I've done my research. I love me some cupcakes. I've perfected a few recipes of my own. But I'll gladly buy yours if they're good. Sweet in Boston comes highly recommended. I gotta be honest, I really didn't like the cupcakes at Sweet. They really sucked. I had a mini of the Dark Chocolate with vanilla buttercream. It was... mehh. I had a regular size cappuccino cupcake. It really wasn't great. The cakes seemed very dry, and the frosting wasn't anything great. It was almost like pre-packaged, overly-flavored buttercream. The Husband had a Dark chocolate with chocolate icing, the son had the bubblegum, and the daughter had the pink lemonade. No one could finish their cupcakes. And the Husband and I were quite disgusted at the fact that none of us even wanted to finish them, but we paid almost $15 for them. As soon as we left, the Husband looks at me and says, "Your cupcakes are far better than those." He knew I was upset because I hate spending money on something I don't like. Now, I would have loved to be able to make the trek to KickAss Cupcakes, mostly because they serve fried cupcakes, and I have a hard time thinking of something better than that. If you're in the Worcester area, that Sweet is FANTASTIC. We compared on the way home, as that shop has the giant cupcakes, and I am pretty sure they were even cheaper than what we just had. I highly recommend them. So we got home, dead tired, gave the kids baths and decided to finish painting spots in the house that needed touch up. I'm not really sure why, but that's what we did. And I'll be making my own cupcakes that we'll eat with tomorrow for my real birthday. I feel the need to put cream cheese on top of something. If you'd like to see the photos I took yesterday, visit my photostream on flickr. I'll be uploading the daughter's photos later, as I let her carry my small camera.

I won!

It was like Christmas at my mailbox today! Well, actually, I didn't check the mail, it was on the table. But whatever. A week or so ago, I entered a contest over on SimplySweeter and I won this fabulous cupcake cookbook! Yay! I can't wait to try some out. A quick six-degrees-of-separation: I found Anne's blog through a search for Ovations for the Cure, a non-profit you should be supporting. I thought the cakes she does are great, and her writing is hysterical, so I stuck around. Come to find out, the company I work for designed the website for David Paul Salons, where she works outside of the kitchen. How funny, right? Here's where I divulge strange information. I actually don't own that many cookbooks. Crazy, right? I am a book designer, but I just don't buy cookbooks. Truth be told, over the past year, I have been given five cookbooks—and I don't know that I would have ever bought them on my own. Why? Well, let me tell you. And have your wine ready, my stories aren't like Cliff Notes. I have one cookbook that I refer to. It's the Joy of Cooking. I'm on my second copy, as my first copy was chewed on by my dog when he was a puppy and then the spine fell apart over the years. It was my first cookbook, I bought it when I first moved out of my parents' house. I love it, because it tells you the basics. How to buy potatoes and then bake them. How to filet a fish. How to purchase produce. How to make a Hollandaise sauce. How to assemble a dinner party table. Everything. Now, I don't usually follow recipes, but it's a great guide, and helped me back when I had no idea where to start and what to do. I bought it for a few friends who were struggling with the "I just moved out, now what do I eat?" delimma. And I bought one for a friend who has lived on his own for more than 18 years and couldn't cook much more than rice. (I wasn't being mean, he met a girl and wanted to know where to start to be able to cook for her.) A friend actually said hers is riddled with notes about the recipes, and I gasped because I didn't think I could bring myself to write in a book. I replaced my copy two years ago and made myself write my notes in there. It's hard for me to do it, but just the other week, I made my first note in pen (it was on the pancake recipe, which I think is too thin and boring). However, I realize I am like my mother—I live with my recipe box. My mother never had a cookbook. And she cooks All. The. Time. My mother will clip recipes and put them in her box. She still has the Nestle Toll House wrapper from the semi-sweet morsels in her box from the first time she made them. And she pulls it out every time she makes a batch. Her box isn't organized, but these clips being on all sorts of papers is how she knows what to look for. I got her a new box a few years back, but I think she still has her red plastic one somewhere. So, back to my story. I use one cookbook. I actually have the Gourmet Magazine's cookbook, but I hate it. It's not written for the everyday cook. But I keep it because I think it's designed beautifully. And, it stands opposite Joy to hold up all my copies of Everyday Food, where most of my other recipes come from. This year, I was given I'm Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown, whom I love; and Cookwise, an informative cookbook that I don't use, namely because I like Joy better. But they are books and I can't give them away. Perhaps when I have more than two readers I will do a giveaway. Because I am not even sure those two readers will read anytime soon. Wait, I lied. I do use another cookbook. The Donvier Ice Cream Cookbook. Most of the time, I wing it. But, the company I freelance for is the publisher. So a few years ago, when I was in the office, we did a reprint, and the manager ordered enough books for everyone in the office to have one. But again, I don't think I would buy it. I'd rather wing it. How do you cook? What books do you use?

Just... Can't... Stop...

Every year around this time, I start debating whether it's time to hang up the apron for the summer. It's normally hot (which it's not right now), and incredibly muggy (which it is), and usually I can't bear to be in the kitchen for that long. But then I was somewhere in the interweb and found these: They are ginormous icing tips from BakeItPretty. These babies are the size of my palm. Now I'm going to have to go ahead and buy the large cupcake pan that I've been debating on. And they are packaged so nicely and I got free gift tags, too. I'll definitely be shopping there again. I may just have to purchase a kit for a baker-friend. I also ordered some pretty polka-dot liners and a megaphone cookie cutter to make some cheerleading cookies for her team. I can't wait to whip something up. Oh, wait, it's morbidly humid in my house. The best part, it's going to be in the high 80s and morbidly humid this weekend. And I have a TON of work to do. I can hardly wait.