(no subject)
Thought I'd share some pictures of goodies I've made over the past month or so. Now that my computer's back I can share. Warning, there are a lot of pictures in this post!
Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling and Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting (turned out more like truffles then frosting, but still tasty).
The batter.
Batter prepared to go in oven.
Two of the three layers, yes one broke, but frosting fixes everything!
Bottom two layers with mousse filling.
Layer close up.
Yes I make a mess, got a problem with that?
Cake with decoration.
Close up of top of cake.
Now for my cooking adventures with Velma. Velma wanted to make some yummy holiday treats, I love yummy holiday treats, so I was down with that. She came to our place and we made what can only be described as an ungodly quantity of cookies, candies and other good things. These included: two types of sugar cookies, mint chocolate rocky-road fudge, butterscotch haystacks, peanut butter crunchies, rice krispie treats, and marshmallows (there might be some other stuff I forgot). BEHOLD!
Velma's sugar cookies, she decorated with various sprinkles.
All Velma's sugar cookies.
My sugar cookies, the one guy didn't break, I did that, cause I wanted a snack, but Velma demanded frosting first!
Butterscotch haystacks. Chow mein noodles coated with a mixture of melted butterscotch chips and peanut butter, sweet and salty. I really like. These were met with some skepticism in my lab, Velma took them to a party where they were a hit!
Rice krispie treats. Made with brown puffed rice. I fear I am a rice krispie purist. I like my rice krispie treats to have as little nutritional value as possible. I still ate them though.
Yes those are Scooby Doo sprinkles, Velma brought them. Go Mystery Mobile!
Velma's grandmother's recipe for rocky road fudge, except we substituted green mint chips for the butterscotch chips. This was a big hit in my lab, and with me!
This was chocolate coated peanut butter balls with rice krispies, sort of similar to buckeyes if you know what I'm talkin' 'bout!
The end product. Now the recipe called for us to melt some wax with chocolate chips and use that to coat the peanut butter balls. I'm not a big fan of eating wax, I know I probably do it, but I don't really like the idea of it, so I just added milk and cream to some chocolate chips until it was dipping consistency. Didn't set as hard as what you normally have, but tasty!
What do you think this is?
Brains? No. Gelatin that was bloomed in water. I thought it looked cool. This is for making marshmallows.
The marshmallow recipe (from Martha Stewart in case you care) called for a little more corn syrup than I had on hand, so I used some agave nectar for the rest. I thought it looked cool mixing together.
End product after making a sugar syrup and beating it for 15 minutes with the gelatin. Very good in hot cocoa!
The best part was decorating cookies. We made a fluffy frosting, not the hard icing usually found on cookies like these, made purple white and green, deocrated with sprinkles and Voila!
Velma proudly presides over our handiwork.
About four and half hours of work. We make a good team! We did spend a bit of time strategizing about the best way to coordinate, it worked out to give us a very productive and tiring kitchen experience.
The last thing I'll post is from Thanksgiving. I'm from the mid-west and it's not a proper holiday dinner without some sort of Jello salad. I don't know why they're called jello salads, I guess because it's a mixture of things. This name really confused my Japanese roommate in college, she didn't understand how it could be a salad without lettuce! Last year I made my grandmother's jello salad to take to Velma's for Thanksgiving. It didn't travel well, I think the train ride was too much for the layers, which slipped around a bit. So this year I made a simpler jello dish. This one I got from Matthew's grandmother. It's a staple in his family. They call it 7up salad.
Ingredients
Cooking the applesauce.
The jello added to the applesauce. Such a pretty color!
Adding the 7up makes the whole thing foam!
Setting up.
Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling and Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting (turned out more like truffles then frosting, but still tasty).
The batter.
Batter prepared to go in oven.
Two of the three layers, yes one broke, but frosting fixes everything!
Bottom two layers with mousse filling.
Layer close up.
Yes I make a mess, got a problem with that?
Cake with decoration.
Close up of top of cake.
Now for my cooking adventures with Velma. Velma wanted to make some yummy holiday treats, I love yummy holiday treats, so I was down with that. She came to our place and we made what can only be described as an ungodly quantity of cookies, candies and other good things. These included: two types of sugar cookies, mint chocolate rocky-road fudge, butterscotch haystacks, peanut butter crunchies, rice krispie treats, and marshmallows (there might be some other stuff I forgot). BEHOLD!
Velma's sugar cookies, she decorated with various sprinkles.
All Velma's sugar cookies.
My sugar cookies, the one guy didn't break, I did that, cause I wanted a snack, but Velma demanded frosting first!
Butterscotch haystacks. Chow mein noodles coated with a mixture of melted butterscotch chips and peanut butter, sweet and salty. I really like. These were met with some skepticism in my lab, Velma took them to a party where they were a hit!
Rice krispie treats. Made with brown puffed rice. I fear I am a rice krispie purist. I like my rice krispie treats to have as little nutritional value as possible. I still ate them though.
Yes those are Scooby Doo sprinkles, Velma brought them. Go Mystery Mobile!
Velma's grandmother's recipe for rocky road fudge, except we substituted green mint chips for the butterscotch chips. This was a big hit in my lab, and with me!
This was chocolate coated peanut butter balls with rice krispies, sort of similar to buckeyes if you know what I'm talkin' 'bout!
The end product. Now the recipe called for us to melt some wax with chocolate chips and use that to coat the peanut butter balls. I'm not a big fan of eating wax, I know I probably do it, but I don't really like the idea of it, so I just added milk and cream to some chocolate chips until it was dipping consistency. Didn't set as hard as what you normally have, but tasty!
What do you think this is?
Brains? No. Gelatin that was bloomed in water. I thought it looked cool. This is for making marshmallows.
The marshmallow recipe (from Martha Stewart in case you care) called for a little more corn syrup than I had on hand, so I used some agave nectar for the rest. I thought it looked cool mixing together.
End product after making a sugar syrup and beating it for 15 minutes with the gelatin. Very good in hot cocoa!
The best part was decorating cookies. We made a fluffy frosting, not the hard icing usually found on cookies like these, made purple white and green, deocrated with sprinkles and Voila!
Velma proudly presides over our handiwork.
About four and half hours of work. We make a good team! We did spend a bit of time strategizing about the best way to coordinate, it worked out to give us a very productive and tiring kitchen experience.
The last thing I'll post is from Thanksgiving. I'm from the mid-west and it's not a proper holiday dinner without some sort of Jello salad. I don't know why they're called jello salads, I guess because it's a mixture of things. This name really confused my Japanese roommate in college, she didn't understand how it could be a salad without lettuce! Last year I made my grandmother's jello salad to take to Velma's for Thanksgiving. It didn't travel well, I think the train ride was too much for the layers, which slipped around a bit. So this year I made a simpler jello dish. This one I got from Matthew's grandmother. It's a staple in his family. They call it 7up salad.
Ingredients
Cooking the applesauce.
The jello added to the applesauce. Such a pretty color!
Adding the 7up makes the whole thing foam!
Setting up.