Halloween Pumpkin Spice Cake

So the theme of recent posts is apparently being hungover and making bad decisions? Last Sunday, after a night out with rowers, I woke up and thought I needed to bake a cake. My brother and his friend had stayed with me Saturday night so while we were all waking up and drinking our coffee I reasoned that I needed to bake a cake because Halloween was Monday and I could bring the cake to my parents' house during trick or treating. Uhm, nope, Halloween is tomorrow and last week I was out of town for two days for work. Whoops.

I made half a dozen cupcakes and two layers of cake and sent the cupcakes back on the road with Alex and his friend. The recipe was a pumpkin spice cake that i came across on Bon Appetit's site. It has a lot of spices and orange rind for flavoring. I halved the oil and replaced the rest with applesauce to make it "slightly healthier". Once the cakes were cool, I wrapped them and stuck them in the freezer.


Friday night I took the cakes out to defrost, and Saturday got down with the powdered sugar and made a cream cheese frosting. It's orange so I could decorate the cake like a jack o lantern (I got chocolate jimmies to decorate with). I got out a piping bag and tips to decorate, but I guess I haven't done this in a while, because for some reason I put the tip outside instead of inside the bag to pipe, yeah oops. Minus all of the disasters here, the cake turned out awesome. Really moist and flavorful, good texture, and the creamcheese frosting, with a little rum for flavoring was a great complement.

We had a Halloween party and people came out despite the snow to drink and eat cake. My favorite costume modification was when Joanna was turned into a tipsy cupcake. My hpv vaccine/zombie Michelle Bachman plan was scrapped because I was a little under the weather and didn't feel like putting on zombie makeup, so that kind of sucked (I still managed to stay up till 3 though?).

Island Creek Oyster Bar with the Boston Brunchers

I usually blog about food that I make, so reviewing meals is new to me. Here goes.....

I've been pretty active on twitter since moving back to Boston (this also coincides with getting a smartphone) and am following Renee and some of the other Boston Brunchers. When I saw that (1) the anniversary brunch was at Island Creek Oyster Bar (and I follow them on twitter too...) and that (2) Renee was giving away some tickets to non-brunchers I was psyched. Definitely a challenge to myself to win one - and I did, from Sue at Public Radio Kitchen, who I ended up sitting with during brunch in fact (but I was a little hungover and it took us a while to put this together).

We had gone to Somerville Local First's Harvestfest the night before, so I was desperately in need of some coffee when we showed up. Fun fact: Island Creek brews coffee from Jim's Organic Coffee. I met their New England sales rep the following weekend at Head of the Charles, and Mike was awesome enough to give me a bag of coffee to try. They are a local, green company so it's cool to see restaurants using quality local products!

It was great to eat with other local bloggers too (Eating Places, The Economical Eater, Doves and Figs, The Passionate Foodie, and Baking Me Hungry).

First up, we ordered drinks. I went for the bloody mary, sort of a hair of the dog thing. It was definitely good and with the spiciness helped bring me out of my fog.


We also had an amazing pastry basket in front of us. I could have eaten them all, but went for the sticky bun. It was not too sweet which was wonderful, and had good texture, not like a sticky ball of dough at all.


There were 4 choices for brunch, but our table went with either the lobster roll or the french toast with sautéed apples. I went with the lobster roll to get the savory after the pastry basket, but the French toast looked and smelled amazing.


The lobster roll was awesome. It's always a good problem when you can't determine the best way to eat something. I did the slice in half and eat with hands. The rosemary bun on this lobster roll is not to be missed.

The other fantastic part of brunch was our ridiculous goodie bags from the brunch sponsors (below). Renee did a fabulous job getting sponsors, and my mom and husband were super impressed with what I brought home.

America's Test Kitchen
Barefoot Wine
Biba
Biltmore Bar and Grill
Boston Ballet
Boston Center for Adult Education
Boston Food Finds
Cow and Crumb
Cumberland Farms
Dorado Tacos & Cemitas
Dore Creperie
Doves and Figs Kitchen
Eversave Boston
Foodies of New England
The Four Seasons Boston
Haircuttery
Harvard Common Press
iParty
Klout
KO Catering & Pies
Langham Hotel Boston
Phillips Candy House
Pinkberry
Pretzel Crisps
Popchips
Stages of Beauty
Stonyfield
USA Pears

Brunch was gratis, but my opinions are my own.

Almost one bowl brownies

I'm running a 10k tomorrow (and pretty happy I *didn't* run the BAA half with this hot weather) and after a morning of cleaning and a fun afternoon with the man - we watched the Pats game in 3 different bars, in 2 different cities - and a surprisingly yummy dinner at Foundry, it's time for some sweets.

First, can I tell you about dinner? We shared a flatbread and then the Parisian Gnocchi at Foundry. I didn't snap a photo, but here's the description: sauteed pate a choux dumplings, butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, brown sugar-roasted acorn squash. This was served in half of a roasted acorn squash. Yumyum.



Now, brownies! I don't even know why I decided I should make brownies, but the recipe I have is a pretty simple, quick recipe that leaves you with a pan of gooey fudgy brownies in minutes.

Well, almost minutes. There is some butter melting, measuring, stirring, egg cracking. But everything mixes in a pot on the stove, and often I don't even use a second bowl for anything.
The bowl in the picture however I sifted my cocoa powder into and then tossed all of the dirty utensils in.


And, kids - this is why you need to pay attention in math class:


I halved the recipe since I knew we wouldn't (shouldn't?) have a whole pan of brownies on hand. I used the same pan dimensions though, and knew that the brownies would be very thin - so I cut the baking time to only 15 minutes.
Success!

Brownies don't photograph well, but trust me, they were delicious.

Other stuff that happened this week:
I doctored some TJ's coffee cake mix into muffins, made with applesauce. OK, these don't look pretty either, but they made a nice breakfast treat.


I made the NYT Recipes for Health chocolate pecan bars.


These, I don't recommend. I'm sorry, but it was a disaster - the egg/honey mixture on top ended up soaking into the crust and making an almost frittata-like texture of the recipe.

I was rowing (for the first time since surgery in 2008).

In the Sunday Night Kitchen

For the past many weeks I've been baking every Sunday night.
Things I've made recently:

• Peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips
• Chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Toffee chocolate chip cookies

I also made things that are not cookies:

• Blueberry muffins
• Lemon blueberry bread (with a lemon/powdered sugar glaze ftw)
• Mark Bittman's beer bread
  
• Mark Bittman's beer bread with cheese
• Plum cake cockaigne
  

And tonight...

Banana Bread from Joanne Chang's FLOUR Cookbook!

If you're reading this (is anyone?) and you're not in the Boston area, Flour is a phenomenal bakery located in Central Square, the South End, and Fort Point. The style of baked goodies is so in line with what I like to bake and I was super excited that my brother bought me the cookbook and had it signed as a Christmas present this year.

Back to the banana bread:
As recipes go, quickbreads are fairly easy - mix the wet, mix the dry, mix them together, and bake. This one is slightly more bowl intensive and actually requires the use of my baby (aka trusty kitchenaid!) to beat the sugar and eggs together for 5 mins.
(As an aside, our fridge runs cold up top, and my eggs keep freezing! I'm not sure how to remedy this - maybe remember to put the eggs not in their eggslot on the door?)
I attempt to pan-toast walnuts to throw into this bread, but instead I pan-burned them. I also had dinner in the oven, so maybe I was too distracted by the glorious smell of melting cheese to smell the nuts toasting. So I just used chocolate chips in stead, darn.

Anyway, I wont bore you, here are some photos:

I'm back, birches!

Uhm, so you may not have noticed my extended holiday from blogging. Now that I'm back, I intend to mix the cooking with complaining about wedding planning. First up - things I don't have pictures of!!

(1) I've actually been doing more cooking these days. I found a solid recipe for roasted vegetables from my mom's cousin's cookbook. This made an appearance again for Thanksgiving (round two). I also made some recipes that involve lentils and I'm working around to making soup.
(2) We joined a CSA! CSA pick up starts this Wednesday! Hopefully some of the random root vegetables we get will become soup. Yes, there will be a food processor on the wedding registry.
(3) I made a yummy applesauce cake courtesy of Smitten Kitchen (http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/10/spiced-applesauce-cake). I highly recommend giving it a shot. I made some minor modifications - adding cardamom and using vanilla syrup intended for coffee instead of vanilla extract. Oops, just didn't have any on hand!
(4) Chocolate chip cookies, courtesy King Arthur Flour Cookbook. The best part about these? I planned ahead and stuck some pre-formed cookies in the freezer. Hot fresh homemade cookies in minutes? I love it!

I have pictures of Thanksgiving baking for you, and I plan on experimenting with some yeast breads (and bagels) this week!

*Birches? Yes, that's an android auto-correct, and we're embracing it.

Happy Birthday!

You may have seen birthday cake photos up here before. This is one skill that I kind of have, so I rock it whenever necessary. The basic recipe is brownies & ice cream. I add a few special touches. This year I went with Dublin Mudslide and Mud Pie. Because there was only one container of mint chocolate cookie and only one of Dublin Mudslide! Seriously, Safeway??? Also, I couldn't find my brownie recipe that is specific to ice cream cake, so I used the regular one. Verdict: DAMN that is hard to slice.

Below is the setup:
JV let me borrow a spring form, so I put one layer of frozen brownies in there, filled the cake pans with ice cream, and waited to bring it all together. You're probably also thinking that my kitchen is a cluttered mess. Well, the morning that I made this cake I just happened to wake up to puddles on the bathroom floor and kitchen counter (and later discovered, in the linen closet - thankfully the towels soaked it up). So I put all of those utensils through the dishwasher and did not put them back in their regular spot.



This is up close and personal on the Dublin Mudslide, now nestled atop the first brownie layer.


Here is my layer of crushed oreos... And that's the last of the construction pictures, as I discovered that Mud Pie was wicked melty. Back in the freezer, quick!


And now....... Drumroll please......

My boyfriend lighting his own candles (you can maybe make out the m&m S in the middle):


TA DA. How do you like dem apples?


(Or the Crispix, favorite cereal right there.)

Valentine's Cooking, Part 2

Thank goodness for Trader Joe's, they make life so easy... Especially after a nearly hour long trip to whole foods for beer and these guys:

Pizza for dinner. Clearly I made the crust in the shape of a heart.

And used the roasted garlic sauce:

And goat mozzarella:

(Goat mozzarella? Yes... Tastes like a cross between mozz and goat cheese. Yummy.)
The final product:

Total cost on the pizza, probably $6? Time to make, 12 to cook, 5 to put together, however long it takes the oven to preheat... And about 50 times better than Jerry's $5 Monday night pizza.