http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post – Page 10

In Poetry Class…

-W.H. Auden

The Great Cookie Project; an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

(You can skip to the bottom if you are just curious what the IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT is 🙂
)

Something is amiss in the kitchen. Dishes, piled high in the sink, from two days ago–the dishwasher whirs and grumbles from its abuse– dried drips of chocolate, and, is that powdered sugar on the refrigerator door?

Powdered sugar on the refrigerator door.

Yep. And on the freezer door, too. I’m pretty sure the next time I sneeze, I will expel powdered sugar.

Let me explain. Every December, my Aunt Annie sends us all (that’s six plus families, all in various parts of the country) massive tins of cookies. Chocolate, butterscotch, raspberry, more chocolate, some peanut butter, and of course, more chocolate. They often arrive in a state of crumb like consistency, of which my sister and I justify our eating them–we’re not really eating ten cookies, just a lot of random cookie crumbs!!
But this year Annie, to my giddiness, I admit, enlisted me to help her out a bit.

Well, three pounds of butter later, I’m not sure this was the best idea.

Don’t get me wrong; I love cookies, especially around Christmas time. But living at home has forced me for the past several months to get it through my head that I am not the only one in the house, and yes, four other people use the kitchen too!!!

Oh, maaaan! Why can’t I just bake in PEACE? Well, because this isn’t my house. One can dream, though, and believe me I do. In my head I see a daintily decorated spacious kitchen with enough counter space to sleep on. I picture an art deco pale green on the walls, five wide gas burners, a white tea kettle nestled snugly in the background, and a large window inviting me outside into this:

But I digress.

In the midst of so much internal chaos, anxiously awaiting my final college letter, and writing pro and con lists (seriously), I spent the last seven days in a sugary haze, reteaching myself how to breathe. But what to do when baking becomes the source of anxieties??? Oh, Lord, help me.

By the way, I think I have made a decision. The cookies are boxed up, my regretful impulsively bought boots are ready to be returned, and my pro and con lists, mathematical figures, packing lists, and to do lists are being scribbled down, scratched off, and continuously attended to. This is good. This is very, very good.

Happy Baking.

-MEL

**At the risk of shamefully self-indulging, I have entered a short fiction contest sponsored by Seventeen magazine; the winner gets a cash prize that I am salivating over for my incredibly expensive yet ironically vital college education. So, please, PLEASE, head over to Figment.com and click the Heart button underneath my story. You don’t have to like it. Just pretend. God bless you!

Why I Love Blogging- A Trip to New Jersey

Cake Therapy

Someday, when I open my own bakery in New York City and wear fur and am a very important person, I will call said bakery Cake Therapy. I think the title is self-explanatory. I have also decided that I need more cake in my life. I mean, I need more cake baking in my life.

I also need more chocolate. Chocolate is good. Chocolate cake is even better.
My intention was to make red velvet cake, but I once heard that artificial dyes contribute to ADHD, and frankly, I can’t afford to take any chances.
So then I thought, Devil’s Food Cake, but I had my heart set on cream cheese frosting, and the thought of combining the two made me a bit sick to my stomach.
So, since I have very little experience making layer cakes, I thought I’d start simply: chocolate.
Somewhere during my project I remembered something: I think chocolate cake is weird. It’s not a brownie, so it’s not fudgey, and it’s not chocolate candy, so it’s not…chocolate! So maybe this chocolate cake didn’t turn out like a brownie, but the texture was nice and fluffy (thanks to separating the eggs and folding in the beaten whites at the last minute), didn’t crumble, and most importantly, held its frosting poi-fectly. I think the frosting is the best part, anyway. And that’s why I made two kinds:

Coffee Cream Frosting- This tastes like coffee ice cream in the best way possible.
4 ounces softened cream cheese
2 ounces softened butter
One teaspoon vanilla extract
Two cups powdered sugar, divided
One third cup extra strong coffee, cooled

Beat together the butter and cream cheese. Add the vanilla and the powdered sugar, one half cup at a time. At one cup, add the coffee, beat, and add the rest of the sugar. Let sit in the refrigerator while your cakes cool. Frosts one eight inch cake.

Peanut Butter Frosting- Super sweet, but nice for nutty people.
2 ounces softened butter
1/8 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 teaspoons milk
One and a half cups powdered sugar

Cream together the butter and peanut butter; add the vanilla. Alternately add the powdered sugar, one half cup at a time, with the milk, and beat until smooth. Refrigerate for at least thirty minutes, then frost your eight inch cake.

The thing that is so great to me about baking, and all cooking for that matter, is that it is so easy to make someone smile and teach myself something new in the process. With that it mind, I am going to try to make more cakes, for which there are infinite possibilities and always reasons. At least something in my life makes sense.