Still no gingerbread cookies
Came home from work exhausted but napped as soon as I got in the door. Woken up by Mom coming home from the doctor (she took today off because it's her birthday tomorrow, but she took advantage of already having the day to get an appointment in) and now I have enough energy to start working on my "to do" list for today. Probably not seeing Thor: Ragnarok today, but I need to hit the gym and maybe get some Halloween decorations put away...
Speaking of baking, still haven't made gingerbread, not even with the days off I had this week and last week. But I've done a fair bit over the last couple of months...
Banana-chocolate-chip in a Halloween-themed pan that I'd just bought from Wal-Mart. Needed more chocolate chips. In the background is a ziplock bag holding the small round muffins I made using the remaining batter.
Red velvet tombstones (from a mix). Turned out well but I once again underestimated the degree to which the batter would rise as it baked and overfilled the cakelets pan. Could have had more round spillover muffins.
Applesauce cakelets from a recipe dating back to 1917. (Using applesauce to substitute for other ingredients because of war rationing.) Kind of dense and not as moist as I would have liked, but not too bad. Oh, and this was me trying out a new cakelets pan from Michael's.
First try at using my cookie cutter collection. The recipe claimed to be sugar cookies but they came out more like shortbread. I need to compare some shortbread recipes to some sugar cookie recipes and see if I can figure out where I went wrong. (Aside from some of the cookies being too thick -- note the heart that was me stuffing the last bits of this half of the dough into the heart-shaped cutter just to use it up.)
First error made was in trying to cook two things simultaneously, letting the cookie dough chill in the fridge while mixing up the strawberry cupcake batter and then forgetting the second batch of cookies in the oven while fiddling with the frosting. (Which was supposed to be injected into the center of the cupcakes and then dolloped on top. I didn't want the frosting on top because the cupcakes were going to be stored in a ziplock baggie, and the cupcakes I tried injecting exploded. I belatedly realized it was okay smeared between layers of cake and turned the little round cakes into sandwiches.)
I got myself an apron, for when I'm splattering batter and scattering flour everywhere.
Pineapple upside-down cupcakes. Which were good despite looking like eyeballs, and I bought some cupcake-sized tupperware to store them in (which turns out to be great for bringing cakelets in my lunch bag for cheap breakfast in the morning as I drive home from work).
Cakelets using up the rest of the pineapple batter. I mushed up the last few pineapple rings and added them to the batter before pouring into the cakelet and muffin pans. I needed more pineapple juice -- the recipe expected me to have a full cup of juice coming from two cans of pineapple rings (because it was written for a dozen upside-down cupcakes), and I didn't want to spring for a six-pack of pineapple juice to be absolutely sure of having enough juice for the batter despite only getting a single can of rings. So I wound up with something like three-fourths of a cup and the big cupcakes were a bit drier than they maybe should have been. (The mushed pineapple chunks added enough moisture in the little cakelets.)
This was an interesting case. I had two different recipes for pumpkin-apple cake or muffins, and I was trying to sort of combine them on the fly.
I wanted to use up the full can of pumpkin puree -- one pumpkin-apple recipe called for a full cup and the other called for half. The cinnamon-pumpkin cookie recipe I'd settled on for using up the remaining pumpkin called for a full cup and the can supposedly had very nearly two cups, so I filled a cup with pumpkin and set it aside for the cookies, and emptied the rest of the can into the cake batter.
One recipe called for a quarter-cup of applesauce and the other called for a half-cup. The single-serving tubs of applesauce were about a half-cup, so I emptied a tub into the batter.
Now. One recipe called for a full cup of pumpkin and a quarter-cup of applesauce -- and one teaspoon of baking powder. The other recipe wanted a half-cup of pumpkin, a half-cup of applesauce -- and a teaspoon apiece of baking powder and baking soda. (And a teaspoon of cinnamon, which I definitely added.) I only used baking powder, no baking soda, and when I pulled the cakelets out of the oven I was stabbing everywhere with a toothpick because I couldn't believe they were cooked properly -- they had barely risen at all. I'm thinking I had a bit too much of the heavy liquid ingredients and needed more rising agents. The cakelets tasted fine -- a smidgen chewy in the middle, especially on the tombstones -- but they were denser than I wanted.
The cinnamon-pumpkin cookies I threw together to use up the pumpkin puree were fantastic. Balls of dough rolled in cinnamon-sugar and then mushed under the base of a measuring cup. Delicious.
And here's me getting stuff together last week for a special cake...
Again using the red velvet mix. The problem I had was the instructions calling for a bundt pan, and me using the fancy rose mold I'd gotten instead, and not realizing what not having an open center was going to do to the cooking time until I'd lost count of how many times I'd opened the oven and stuck in a toothpick to check. So the cake was a little drier than I liked, possibly because after about half an hour I was opening the oven every five minutes and losing heat and extending the required cooking time. (But mixing in a serving of ice cream with every slice eaten took care of that problem.)
The white smear on the top of the cake was what came in the package with the cake mix. Meant to be squeezed out over a bundt ring, it didn't really work with the ridges of the rose shape. I could have used the can of cream cheese frosting in the pantry -- or better yet, mixed up a liquid glaze that would have drizzled properly (and hopefully next time I use the rose mold, I will).
Also, I dropped the four candle as soon as I pulled it out of the package, breaking it in two. I used a toothpick to anchor the base to the top for just long enough for photos and lighting, then trashed it afterwards. (So no recycling it for Mom's sixty-fourth birthday tomorrow.)
Ta-da!
And here's Tuesday's cooking. Another round of banana-chocolate-chip, using a different recipe (and more chocolate chips). Got it in the oven before the doorbell started ringing, and managed to get them out of the oven without burning them despite repeated interruptions.
Still a few of these cakelets left, but I'm hoping to make another batch (today, even) to use up the pair of overripe bananas on the kitchen counter.
Speaking of Tuesday, we had hordes of trick-or-treaters early in the evening -- and then a dry spell with some teenagers popping by -- and then late in the evening we started getting hordes again, which Mom said were kids being driven in from other neighborhoods. We were doing well in terms of keeping a smidgen of candy left over for ourselves without having a massive amount left to deal with -- I kept dipping into "our" stash to top up the bowl -- and then we had a really big group hit the door when there wasn't a lot in the bowl. The two boys who attacked the bowl first grabbed every piece they could fit in their hands -- ignoring me and continuing to rummage around in the bowl as I said, "There's not much left -- the bowl's almost empty...," and then the rest of the group didn't get any because of those two greedy brats. (No time to go topping up the bowl again, since when the bowl was empty the rest -- mostly little girls -- made sad noises and turned and left.) Besides, I was annoyed -- as they headed back down the front walk, I turned off the porch light and locked the door. Most of the kids had been pretty good about taking a few pieces (or just one) and saying thank you as they left -- grabbing everything when there were others waiting for their share and then leaving without a word pissed me off.
Stippling with Saran wrap, in black and in silver.
Simple accents added using French tip stickers -- the ring finger was using an entire round hole-punch-reinforcement sticker (of the office-supply kind, rather than something sold for nail art), giving me both a tip and the circle in the middle.
Another lazy mani, but glitter and a bit of contrasting color made it interesting.
Mostly simple French tip stickers and striping tape on just the accent nails. Another of those manis I can do on a lazy Tuesday when I want to just read and ignore the "to do" list.
Glitter coat on the orange. Black just for the three accent nails and orange on the rest.
Note that the candy corn nail was the only one that involved any fuss in applying the polish (and that's just a matter of freehanding the yellow end over the white base and then using French tip guides to mark off the orange midsection later). The rest of this mani was just decals over solid colors -- and I don't think any of the decals were even waterslide, aside from maybe the spider and its web. Peel-and-stick for the rest of them.
I love the ombre, and the decals were well-chosen. Unfortunately I did something or other before the final coats were entirely dry, evidently, since the tips got a little mushed, especially on the thumb and forefinger.
The peel-and-stick decals are nice and no-fuss, but sometimes they curl up at the edges after the top coats are applied. Still enjoyed this mani.
More peel-and-stick decal issues -- the cat had already lost the outer curve of its tail by the time I got this photo taken, and by the end of the week I'd lost most of that decal.
Blurry photo, but it does show the purple glitter I used as a blending agent. I liked this color scheme.
I took advantage of having an extra couple of days off before Halloween to postpone this mani till Wednesday or Thursday. I was still pretty happy with the purple-and-orange -- but more importantly, I wanted this mani to still be looking decent by Halloween itself.
And it did keep looking good right up till I was opening the door for trick-or-treaters -- just a few chips.
This week is me being lazy -- solid color with a few decals. I had been planning for a Day of the Dead theme, but I didn't polish my nails again till yesterday and it was too late to bother with skulls and a black-and-white color scheme. Hopefully I'll get fancy for Thanksgiving, but I can deal with a few weeks of not trying to maintain a theme or put in too much effort.
And, right. Another item off the "to do" list -- and my topcoat has had plenty of time to dry while I typed this. I've got stuff to do in the kitchen -- and then I need to hit the gym...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
Speaking of baking, still haven't made gingerbread, not even with the days off I had this week and last week. But I've done a fair bit over the last couple of months...
Banana-chocolate-chip in a Halloween-themed pan that I'd just bought from Wal-Mart. Needed more chocolate chips. In the background is a ziplock bag holding the small round muffins I made using the remaining batter.
Red velvet tombstones (from a mix). Turned out well but I once again underestimated the degree to which the batter would rise as it baked and overfilled the cakelets pan. Could have had more round spillover muffins.
Applesauce cakelets from a recipe dating back to 1917. (Using applesauce to substitute for other ingredients because of war rationing.) Kind of dense and not as moist as I would have liked, but not too bad. Oh, and this was me trying out a new cakelets pan from Michael's.
First try at using my cookie cutter collection. The recipe claimed to be sugar cookies but they came out more like shortbread. I need to compare some shortbread recipes to some sugar cookie recipes and see if I can figure out where I went wrong. (Aside from some of the cookies being too thick -- note the heart that was me stuffing the last bits of this half of the dough into the heart-shaped cutter just to use it up.)
First error made was in trying to cook two things simultaneously, letting the cookie dough chill in the fridge while mixing up the strawberry cupcake batter and then forgetting the second batch of cookies in the oven while fiddling with the frosting. (Which was supposed to be injected into the center of the cupcakes and then dolloped on top. I didn't want the frosting on top because the cupcakes were going to be stored in a ziplock baggie, and the cupcakes I tried injecting exploded. I belatedly realized it was okay smeared between layers of cake and turned the little round cakes into sandwiches.)
I got myself an apron, for when I'm splattering batter and scattering flour everywhere.
Pineapple upside-down cupcakes. Which were good despite looking like eyeballs, and I bought some cupcake-sized tupperware to store them in (which turns out to be great for bringing cakelets in my lunch bag for cheap breakfast in the morning as I drive home from work).
Cakelets using up the rest of the pineapple batter. I mushed up the last few pineapple rings and added them to the batter before pouring into the cakelet and muffin pans. I needed more pineapple juice -- the recipe expected me to have a full cup of juice coming from two cans of pineapple rings (because it was written for a dozen upside-down cupcakes), and I didn't want to spring for a six-pack of pineapple juice to be absolutely sure of having enough juice for the batter despite only getting a single can of rings. So I wound up with something like three-fourths of a cup and the big cupcakes were a bit drier than they maybe should have been. (The mushed pineapple chunks added enough moisture in the little cakelets.)
This was an interesting case. I had two different recipes for pumpkin-apple cake or muffins, and I was trying to sort of combine them on the fly.
I wanted to use up the full can of pumpkin puree -- one pumpkin-apple recipe called for a full cup and the other called for half. The cinnamon-pumpkin cookie recipe I'd settled on for using up the remaining pumpkin called for a full cup and the can supposedly had very nearly two cups, so I filled a cup with pumpkin and set it aside for the cookies, and emptied the rest of the can into the cake batter.
One recipe called for a quarter-cup of applesauce and the other called for a half-cup. The single-serving tubs of applesauce were about a half-cup, so I emptied a tub into the batter.
Now. One recipe called for a full cup of pumpkin and a quarter-cup of applesauce -- and one teaspoon of baking powder. The other recipe wanted a half-cup of pumpkin, a half-cup of applesauce -- and a teaspoon apiece of baking powder and baking soda. (And a teaspoon of cinnamon, which I definitely added.) I only used baking powder, no baking soda, and when I pulled the cakelets out of the oven I was stabbing everywhere with a toothpick because I couldn't believe they were cooked properly -- they had barely risen at all. I'm thinking I had a bit too much of the heavy liquid ingredients and needed more rising agents. The cakelets tasted fine -- a smidgen chewy in the middle, especially on the tombstones -- but they were denser than I wanted.
The cinnamon-pumpkin cookies I threw together to use up the pumpkin puree were fantastic. Balls of dough rolled in cinnamon-sugar and then mushed under the base of a measuring cup. Delicious.
And here's me getting stuff together last week for a special cake...
Again using the red velvet mix. The problem I had was the instructions calling for a bundt pan, and me using the fancy rose mold I'd gotten instead, and not realizing what not having an open center was going to do to the cooking time until I'd lost count of how many times I'd opened the oven and stuck in a toothpick to check. So the cake was a little drier than I liked, possibly because after about half an hour I was opening the oven every five minutes and losing heat and extending the required cooking time. (But mixing in a serving of ice cream with every slice eaten took care of that problem.)
The white smear on the top of the cake was what came in the package with the cake mix. Meant to be squeezed out over a bundt ring, it didn't really work with the ridges of the rose shape. I could have used the can of cream cheese frosting in the pantry -- or better yet, mixed up a liquid glaze that would have drizzled properly (and hopefully next time I use the rose mold, I will).
Also, I dropped the four candle as soon as I pulled it out of the package, breaking it in two. I used a toothpick to anchor the base to the top for just long enough for photos and lighting, then trashed it afterwards. (So no recycling it for Mom's sixty-fourth birthday tomorrow.)
Ta-da!
And here's Tuesday's cooking. Another round of banana-chocolate-chip, using a different recipe (and more chocolate chips). Got it in the oven before the doorbell started ringing, and managed to get them out of the oven without burning them despite repeated interruptions.
Still a few of these cakelets left, but I'm hoping to make another batch (today, even) to use up the pair of overripe bananas on the kitchen counter.
Speaking of Tuesday, we had hordes of trick-or-treaters early in the evening -- and then a dry spell with some teenagers popping by -- and then late in the evening we started getting hordes again, which Mom said were kids being driven in from other neighborhoods. We were doing well in terms of keeping a smidgen of candy left over for ourselves without having a massive amount left to deal with -- I kept dipping into "our" stash to top up the bowl -- and then we had a really big group hit the door when there wasn't a lot in the bowl. The two boys who attacked the bowl first grabbed every piece they could fit in their hands -- ignoring me and continuing to rummage around in the bowl as I said, "There's not much left -- the bowl's almost empty...," and then the rest of the group didn't get any because of those two greedy brats. (No time to go topping up the bowl again, since when the bowl was empty the rest -- mostly little girls -- made sad noises and turned and left.) Besides, I was annoyed -- as they headed back down the front walk, I turned off the porch light and locked the door. Most of the kids had been pretty good about taking a few pieces (or just one) and saying thank you as they left -- grabbing everything when there were others waiting for their share and then leaving without a word pissed me off.
Stippling with Saran wrap, in black and in silver.
Simple accents added using French tip stickers -- the ring finger was using an entire round hole-punch-reinforcement sticker (of the office-supply kind, rather than something sold for nail art), giving me both a tip and the circle in the middle.
Another lazy mani, but glitter and a bit of contrasting color made it interesting.
Mostly simple French tip stickers and striping tape on just the accent nails. Another of those manis I can do on a lazy Tuesday when I want to just read and ignore the "to do" list.
Glitter coat on the orange. Black just for the three accent nails and orange on the rest.
Note that the candy corn nail was the only one that involved any fuss in applying the polish (and that's just a matter of freehanding the yellow end over the white base and then using French tip guides to mark off the orange midsection later). The rest of this mani was just decals over solid colors -- and I don't think any of the decals were even waterslide, aside from maybe the spider and its web. Peel-and-stick for the rest of them.
I love the ombre, and the decals were well-chosen. Unfortunately I did something or other before the final coats were entirely dry, evidently, since the tips got a little mushed, especially on the thumb and forefinger.
The peel-and-stick decals are nice and no-fuss, but sometimes they curl up at the edges after the top coats are applied. Still enjoyed this mani.
More peel-and-stick decal issues -- the cat had already lost the outer curve of its tail by the time I got this photo taken, and by the end of the week I'd lost most of that decal.
Blurry photo, but it does show the purple glitter I used as a blending agent. I liked this color scheme.
I took advantage of having an extra couple of days off before Halloween to postpone this mani till Wednesday or Thursday. I was still pretty happy with the purple-and-orange -- but more importantly, I wanted this mani to still be looking decent by Halloween itself.
And it did keep looking good right up till I was opening the door for trick-or-treaters -- just a few chips.
This week is me being lazy -- solid color with a few decals. I had been planning for a Day of the Dead theme, but I didn't polish my nails again till yesterday and it was too late to bother with skulls and a black-and-white color scheme. Hopefully I'll get fancy for Thanksgiving, but I can deal with a few weeks of not trying to maintain a theme or put in too much effort.
And, right. Another item off the "to do" list -- and my topcoat has had plenty of time to dry while I typed this. I've got stuff to do in the kitchen -- and then I need to hit the gym...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.